Reflections on a Year Ago :: Marriage

Photo credit: Sarah Mesa Photography

A year ago yesterday Daniel and I got married. It’s crazy to think it’s been a year since we committed our lives to each other and I traded my name for his, but, then again, so much has happened that it's also not that unbelievable.

Our first year of marriage was, in a word, grace-filled (or is that two words?). The Lord has been so incredibly generous to pour so much grace and love into our marriage. Sometimes I wonder if there is something wrong with us as a couple because we rarely disagree. It could be our temperaments. It could be our desire to please the other. But I really believe it’s the Lord. He alone can create the peace and grace we’ve experienced in our relationship to date.

Though, don’t get me wrong, we have had our share of apologizing and compromising and forgiving. We have had miscommunications and conflicting desires. We have sinned against each other. But these have been, with God’s help, easily and quickly worked through, and we have been growing in communication through them (me especially).

One of the things I expected in marriage was that God would use it as a means of sanctification in each of our lives. By living in such a intimate relationship, our selfishness and pride has many opportunities to express itself. What I did not expect, however, was how the Lord would use Daniel in my life to expose, in greater depths, my desire to please others (especially him) and my desire to appear as though I have it all together (which is hard to do when you're having an almost weekly emotional meltdown due to all the stressers in life).

Photo credit: Sarah Mesa Photography

Not only was I still grieving the loss of my dad and still reeling from all the changes, but – and this is what I didn’t expect – I saw how much I fell short every day. You see, before I got married I would have considered myself a pretty competent person. But then I married my husband, who is extremely competent and does almost everything well (now I know he’s not perfect, but sometimes he comes pretty close!). All of a sudden, I saw how incompetent I was. It seemed like I was always making mistakes or getting my facts mixed up. It was very humbling – very pride-killing. Daniel never pointed out my flaws or really even noticed, but I did. I felt in a new way the weight of Romans 3:23. If I can’t even measure up to my own standards or to the standard my husband sets by his own competence and ability, then how on earth could I measure up to God’s? I can’t. The Bible tells me that. I knew it mentally. But now I felt it.

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Romans 3:23

This was one thing I did not expect marriage to sharpen for me, but it did. God knew I needed it. He knew I needed to feel my utter dependency and need for Him. He needed to kill my self-sufficiency and self-determination. And I think that the emotional stress and chaotic circumstances along with this drove me to God in a new and deeper way. I couldn’t be the wife God called me to be without Him. I couldn’t work with special needs children without Him. I couldn’t be the church member, friend, sister, daughter – you name it – without Him. I need Jesus desperately every single day.

Photo credit: Sarah Mesa Photography

On the heels of this, though, was another lesson filled with beauty. Any time I messed up, Daniel was always willing and ready to lavish me with grace – to help me and forgive me. He never thought twice about it. He didn’t see me as a mess up. In fact, he probably couldn’t recall the things I did or said wrong. He sees me much differently than I see myself. Isn’t that a picture of Jesus? He is always willing and ready to forgive us when we come to Him and He wants to help us grow. He doesn’t recall the sin He forgives - the sin which He paid for. God doesn’t see us for the mess we really are because the perfection of Jesus covers us. He sees us much differently than we see ourselves. When we look in the mirror, we see our mistakes, imperfections, what could have been; but when Jesus looks at us, He sees us as perfect.

So although marriage has exposed my imperfections and my sinful desires, it has also revealed Jesus to me in a deeper, fuller way. I understand and experience and visibly see His love better than I ever have before. My husband loves me a lot. He tells me so and shows me so every day. But Christ loves me infinitely more. There is so much more to learn about His great love (see the Ephesians passage below), but I am thankful for this first year of marriage that has taken me deeper into it already.

Daniel, thank you for showing Jesus to me. I love you.

No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us. 1 John 4:12

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Ephesians 3:14-19

Surrender

“God always gives his best to those who leave the choice with Him.”
― Jim Elliot

Back in February, the Lord began dealing with me on the topic of surrender. He brought to my attention several areas of my life that I was trying to control or wanting to control instead of entrusting them to Him. These areas were causing me much anxiety. I was worried about my mom and my sister and that my future wouldn’t turn out the way that I wanted. So the Lord began bringing this lack of trust, these anxious thoughts, and the things I needed to surrender to my attention. And I didn’t like it. Surrendering is not easy. It does not come naturally. And it took months of reading the Bible and listening to messages and reading other Christian books and talking to other believers to move my stubborn heart in the direction of even wanting to release my cares and dreams to God.

I began reading a trilogy by Nancy Leigh DeMoss that covered three topics: brokenness, surrender, and holiness. I resonated with the first part (Brokenness) as I could see the work of the Lord over the past several years to break me of my self-sufficient and prideful spirit. Yes, I could relate to what DeMoss was saying, the stories she recounted, and the Scripture promises she wove throughout that section. In fact, it was really encouraging to think about all the good purposes God had in mind in the pruning work He had been doing.

But then the next section came: Surrender. Suddenly, I wasn’t so encouraged; I was challenged. Surrender follows brokenness. God was indeed chipping away the areas of my life that were not pleasing to Him, like the grand Master Sculptor and Architect He is, but I had a part to play as well. There were some things I needed to let go of and entrust to His sovereign care and plan. I needed to surrender my will regarding the location and type of my/our future ministry. I needed to surrender how I wanted to be used by God. I needed to surrender to God’s will for our future family (i.e. what it will look like, motherhood, etc.). The brokenness God had been doing in my life was bringing me to a place of total surrender to God’s will – no matter what that might mean.

And it was hard. Hard to let go of my dreams. Hard to let go of my ambition. How to let go to my self-determination. Hard to let go of my fears. Hard to let go of what I wanted out of life. I desire so much for my life to count for Christ and His Kingdom, but I wanted it to count in the manner I wanted it to. And that was the problem. That was what I needed to surrender. And Jesus, who was completely surrendered to do God’s will, is my example:

And going a little farther, [Jesus] fell on the ground and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him. And he said, “Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup [of God’s wrath for the sins of the world] from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.” Mark 14:35-36

That is the heart of surrender: a heart that is completely and utterly yielded to God and His will. I have been asking God to cultivate in me such a heart. And, slowly (and very imperfectly), I have been relinquishing these things, entrusting them to my Perfect and Good Heavenly Father.

And what I’m learning, together with the last post, is that surrender and sacrifice go together. These are the questions I face in the prospect of surrendering my will and my plans…in surrendering my very self. Will I sacrifice my body, my time, my dreams, my expectations, etc. to what God has in store for me? Will I allow Him to have His way with me? Isn’t that the calling of marriage and motherhood and the totality of the Christian life – laying myself down for the sake of God and others? Even if that means staying in the States (!), even if that means my ministry will look different than I envisioned, even if that means serving God in a more well-developed, Western nation, even if that means laying down ministry ambitions for the more quieter ministry of motherhood (and I’m not pregnant, so stand down :). Yes; even if it means all of these things. God knows what is best. He created me and He knows what my life is for and how to use it to maximize His glory and my joy. So, with His help, I am choosing to bow to His will – whatever that may be and whatever it may entail. That is what Jesus did. He joyfully sacrificed His life and joyfully submitted to the will of the Father to the point of death, even death on a cross (Philippians 2:5-11). He did this for the good of the world (John 3:16) and the joy of His people and for His own eternal joy (Hebrews 12:1-3).

Lord, have Your way with me.

 

A Season of Thanksgiving

Monroeville Community Park, Pittsburgh, PA

I can't believe it's already late into November. It seemed like the leaves were brilliant with color on the trees one day and then all dried up on the ground the next. Now winter is intruding into autumn as flurries fill the frigid air.

Still, I think November is a great month for many reasons. First of all, it contains my favorite holiday: Thanksgiving. It is also the month I met my husband (24th). Finally, both mine (22nd) and Daniel's birthdays (13th) are this month. We have much to celebrate and much to be thankful for.

In this country, November also marks the "season of thanksgiving." And, as Jesus would have it, this has been a season in my own life of learning what it means to be thankful. Indeed, the Bible is explicit that God's people should be a thankful people (i.e. Ephesians 5:20). It is an expectation and command. And what other response should overflow from a people chosen by God, saved by His grace, and given every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places (Romans 8:28-30; Ephesians 1:3). Thanksgiving should be our natural, spontaneous response to the lavish love and grace of God displayed to us through Jesus Christ.

But like I said, I am learning this right now, which means I have not been overflowing with thankfulness. In fact, I have been doing quite the opposite: grumbling about my circumstances and allowing roots of bitterness to spring forth. I have been focusing on the negative circumstances in my life and blind to the many gifts God gives me each day. The busyness of the many changes in my life, the continuing grief, spiritual warfare, and unanswered prayers have seemed to sideline me, to knock me off track. I just finished a book called One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp, which God used to awaken me to the clench-fist grip I have on my life and to the many ways He specifically and carefully and masterfully shows His continual love and care for me each day. Since reading that book, I have starting counting some of the sweet gifts that God gives me each day and taking the time to thank Him for them, instead of just barely giving them a nod and moving on.

But the root of this is much deeper than a failure to acknowledge God’s goodness and provision. It stems from a lack of trust in God Himself. God has been beckoning me to notice the good things He showers me with each day to be sure, but, more than that, He is calling me to trust Him with abandon. This I have not been doing. Despite the many ways He has provided and cared and blessed me, I have been short-sighted and forgetful. I have doubted His intentions and heart toward me. This is sin. I have been sinfully blind to all that God is for me and has done for me in Jesus Christ, and have been resistant to entrust my family and future plans into His sovereign, good, and all-wise care (as if I could do a better job than Him). I have been struggling in my faith and I am unsure how to get back to where I once was. But this I know and believe: God always completes what He starts (Philippians 1:6) and feeling like I am at the end of myself is always a good place to be (2 Corinthians 1:8-10). Because when I am weak, He is very, very strong (2 Corinthians 12:8-10).

But I will sing of Your strength;
I will sing aloud of Your steadfast love in the morning.
For You have been to me a fortress
and a refuge in the day of my distress.
O my Strength, I will sing praises to You,
for You, O God, are my fortress,
the God who shows me steadfast love. Psalm 59:16-17

The Performer

The Lord has been slowly exposing some deep-rooted sins over the past few months. Trials seem to bring those kinds of things to the surface.

The Father first starting bringing this particular sin to light in late August as I was listening to a Meadow Heights sermon about emotional baggage. The sermon focused on three types of people: The Poser, The Performer, and The Clinger. Each type believed specific lies that fueled them to basically act how their titles described.

I immediately knew which one I was: The Performer. I resonate with the feeling that I am not good enough. Almost every day I feel that I don’t measure up, that I constantly fall short. And, in truth, we all fall short. The Bible is clear that every single person does not and cannot measure up to God’s perfect standard. We repeatedly fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). But if you don’t look to the gospel when you realize/notice/feel like you’ve fallen short, you have no hope and you, therefore, begin placing hope in other things and/or people. And hope that is built on anything other than Christ will always disappoint, will always fail.

In saying I am a performer, I do not mean that I am not genuine or that I’m not the same person at church as I am at home or work or elsewhere. I think, or at least hope, that I am. But it is to say that I sometimes hide my feelings and pretend I have it all together. You may never know that I feel that I don't measure up, but I do. I feel this incredible pressure to be the perfect wife (a pressure that I put on myself and that has by no means been projected onto me by my husband in any way), even though I know there is no such thing. I feel pressure to know the answers to whatever questions may be asked of me. I feel pressure to hold it together; to be strong; to save face – which means that I mask my pain and sorrow and grief and put on a smile and pretend everything is okay. Where this pressure, these lies, come from, I am not completely sure, but they are probably some mix of lies from the past, lies from the enemy, and my own prideful standards. But the source(s) really don't matter as much as the Remedy that eradicates them.

Historic Old Stone Church, Pittsburgh, PA

So all of this has been slowly coming to a head, and it did just that the Sunday before last. We are going through the book of Philippians at Renaissance Church, and that Sunday, the sermon was on 3:1-11. In it, Pastor Rob talked about how Jesus saves us from both our bad works and our good works. The former is what we think about – all the bad things we do, say, and think that cause us to fall short of God’s standard for us. The latter things, the good things, are what we generally rely on to assert our goodness, as if to give us some kind of bargaining chip with God, treating Him like He’s this Great Cosmic Santa who is making His list and checking it twice. But the truth is that the Bible says that our good works, our very best deeds, are filthy, disgusting, soiled rags in the presence of an all-wise, all-good, completely holy and sovereign God (Isaiah 64:6). None of it matters - the good, the bad - only knowing Jesus matters. And even though I know all this, I needed to be reminded of it, which God knew. Pastor Rob reminded us that in Christ we do measure up. In Christ, I measure up. God is not disappointed with me. He is not calculating the minutes I spend in prayer and Bible reading. He doesn’t have a balance in which He keeps my worldly thoughts/actions on one side and more Christ-centered thoughts/actions on the other. He wants me to become more like Christ, yes, but He knows me better than I know myself and He knows that He must help me grow to become like Christ. He is pleased with me because I am in Christ and He is pleased with Christ. He’s not concerned with outward actions mainly, but inward dispositions. He wants me to know Him. I want that too. I need that. Desperately.

So as I was listening to the sermon, God reminded me of Romans 8:1:

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

And that’s when I realized – for weeks I have been believing accusations from the enemy. He has been condemning me every day and I hardly realized it. I just accepted the accusations as truth. I have been believing his lies instead of dwelling on God’s promises. Like the promise of Romans 8:1. But it gets better. Romans 8 goes on to say that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared to the glory that awaits us (v. 18). A verse that I have often quoted to others, but not to myself. But it gets even better still. Who can separate us from this love of Christ? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Not illness or persecution or trials or spiritual forces or death or even my own made-up standards. Nothing in all creation can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord (v. 31-39).

There is freedom and healing in these truths. I do not have it all together. I need Christ and I need His Church. Christ is everything I need to be.  I measure up because of Christ. He fills in all the areas I fall short. I am not condemned because of Christ. Better things await me because of Christ. God loves me with an unending, never-changing, better-than-I-can-imagine kind of love because of Christ. And these are truths that I need to be reminded of constantly because I seem to forget them constantly. Thank God for His reminders and for His people that help me remember.

My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness;
I dare not trust the sweetest frame,
But wholly lean on Jesus’ name.
Refrain:
On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand;
All other ground is sinking sand,
All other ground is sinking sand. The Solid Rock, Edward Mote

Under-realized

The sky of my life has been gray these past few days. The storm clouds keep rolling in trying to block the light of the Son. There are many things on my heart and mind that I will not share in detail here, but they are heavy and painful and I would appreciate your prayers*.

Through these things the Lord has been showing me how much I underestimate Him and how much I overestimate myself. The Lord first grabbed my attention with this a while back when a speaker in chapel warned against having either an over-realized eschatology or an under-realized eschatology. I am definitely not the former. I am fully aware that God’s kingdom is not here. There is too much pain and heartache and suffering and things-gone-wrong, for the reign of Christ to be in full-force. But an under-realized eschatology? I had never thought of it that way before and, at the time I heard the message, I could definitely pinpoint specific areas of my life where my life and attitude wasn’t resting in the power of Christ to hear and answer and save and transform. Oh, I was praying. I was reading my Bible. I was interceding for others. I was serving in and outside of my church. But I was also not really expecting God to answer my prayers. I was looking at the darkness in one particular ministry situation and wondering if God would really change the people that seemed so comfortable in their life apart from Him. I was too focused on the hardness of life and the mire of sin to think that God could/would change it. That is under-realized eschatology. That is a lack of faith. And that is sin.

So what do you do when the Lord convicts you of such a sin? Repent and go back to the basics. Focus on the truth. The truth is that Christ has conquered sin and death and is ruling and reigning at the right hand of God. The truth is that God desires all people to be saved. The truth is that God’s ways are higher than mine and He is often working in ways I cannot perceive. The truth is that God delights in hearing and responding to my prayers. The truth is that the Holy Spirit is guiding my prayers. The truth is that God is sovereign and good and has all-power and all-authority and He does all that He pleases and all that He pleases is good.

Another basic is that my eyes need to be fixed on the eternal, on Christ. While the things that I see and experience are real, Christ is more real. He is over those things. He allows those things. He is working in and through those things for His own glory and my good. Jesus is the constant in any given situation. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever, and His promises never fail. My health may fail. My job may end. My circumstances may worsen. My relationships may change or end. But Jesus is the same through it all. The Bible tells me to consider Him; to fix my eyes on Him; to focus on Him; to place my hope in Him; and to cast my cares on Him because He will sustain me and because He desires my good.

It is exactly in Jesus’ powerful working in response to my prayers that reveals my lack of faith that He will answer, because I am almost caught of guard when He does respond. For instance, I have been praying several specific things regarding two of my cousins and my dad, and one Sunday they all went to my home church together. That’s right: all at one time. And I couldn’t believe it. And the Lord was like, “Isn’t that what you’ve been requesting for each of them?” Well, yeah, but I still didn’t see that one coming. I mean, God answered three separate, specific prayers in one swoop. I’m still amazed.

Then, most recently, I prayed a rather dangerous and hard prayer last week. One that I am seeing answered this week in ways that I never would have imagined (or prayed for actually), and the Lord is beckoning me to trust His good intentions and plans in the midst of the current situation. My pastor’s blog post was very timely to strengthen my faith in light of this. In the pain and the struggling, I need not comfort myself with Christian platitudes or mask it with superficial pleasantries, but, instead, I should consider Christ. I should consider all the ways the Lord may be working to answer the cry of my heart last week, and how He may be working for His glory in my family, and how He may be working to give me and my family more of Christ.

    But, as it is written,
    “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard,
        nor the heart of man imagined,
   what God has prepared for those who love him” 1 Corinthians 2:9

Finally, all of these things are helping me to see that I have an under-realized view of my own brokenness and frailty (basically, an over-realized view of myself). Here is the truth: I am broken. I would rarely ever tell you that, but it’s true. I am a broken and fragile human being that needs the grace of Jesus Christ every single day, and His grace is sufficient for all of these things. So often I think I have to be strong for so many people: my sister, my family, my church family, the people I minister to, but the truth is I cannot be and God doesn’t call me to be. He calls me to rest in His strength and then He will strengthen me to help others. And it’s very well true that He could use others to strengthen me (a.k.a. be strong for me). It’s a lot of responsibility (and it’s prideful) to think that I must be strong for others. And it points to me rather than pointing to my God. I am not sufficient for any of these things, but Christ is. May He show Himself to be through this broken and fragile human being.

But [Jesus] said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong. 2 Corinthians 12:9-10

*One of these things is that my dad was diagnosed today with a tumor. Please pray for his healing and for my family. Thank you.

Lessons Learned in the Dark :: Brokenness

The Lord continues to reveal the many lessons from the events and difficulties of last year. The lessons are numerous (waiting, singleness, vulnerability, more waiting), but I think this one kind of undergirds all the others: Brokenness.

A few years ago while I was sitting in a seminary class, one of my professors was giving his testimony of how the Lord revealed to him that he was too strong for God to use in ministry because other people would be able to look at my professor’s life and deeds and think he did it on his own. The Lord then took my professor through a very difficult time and completely broke him so that it was the strength of the Lord that shone through and not that of my professor. This man is one of the most humble men I have ever met. Christ has made him that way and I have no doubt that this breaking by Christ has everything to do with it.

As he was telling this story, I knew that I was just like him. I was too strong. As I have recounted many times over, one of the biggest sins I struggle with is self-sufficiency. Just look at my life; the evidence abounds. For instance, I have the desire to be able to work on my own car. Now there are many reasons for this (it’s cheaper; I like cars; I like to fix/figure things out), but, let’s face it, I really just don’t want to have to depend on anyone else. Like the stubborn two-year old, I want to “do it myself.” The Lord allowed me to see this vividly recently in an interview with the organization with which I hope to go overseas. We were talking about some pretty difficult things from my past and the interviewer kept asking, “Who did you tell about this (at the time)?” My answer each time, “No one.” Then it hit me: Rachel, you are a self-sufficient fool. No wonder the Lord is making you be more vulnerable now with others.

So, when I heard this testimony from my professor, I knew the Lord would have to break me too. So I braced myself for God’s breaking. But it didn’t come. The Lord was very gracious to allow me to complete my seminary degree without this breaking, and so I forgot about it. But after graduation, the real lessons began (the kinds textbooks and classrooms don’t really prepare you for). My life was flooded with disappointments, difficulties, and struggles. My soul was in turmoil and all I could see was the sin—my selfishness and pride and self-righteousness—that these circumstances revealed (Matthew 18:15-19; Luke 6:45). And, through it all, God was silent. I can all-to-well relate with these words from Jonathan Edwards:

I have had a vastly greater sense of my own wickedness, and the badness of my heart, than ever I had before my conversion . . . My wickedness, as I am in myself, has long appeared to me perfectly ineffable, and swallowing up all thought and imagination; like an infinite deluge, or mountain over my head. I know not how to express better what my sins appear to me to be, than by heaping infinite upon infinite, and multiplying infinite by infinite. Jonathan Edwards (quoted by John Piper in “Job: Reversal in Suffering”)

But, after the last year and a half or so, I think the Lord has me (or almost has me) where He wants me. My pride has been diminished. My will has been broken. My self-sufficiency has been shattered. My trust in the sovereignty and wisdom of Christ has been solidified. And my identity has taken deeper roots in Christ. Not that I have “arrived,” there is still much, much more work the Lord will continue to do in me. But this period of my life was designed by God for a purpose and I think it is for this very purpose described by Piper (in the same sermon) here:

That’s [below] what God is after, Brothers and Sisters, in your life and mine. If He has to lay you in the hospital, He’ll do that. If He can prosper you, He’ll do that. If it takes your spouse, He’ll do that. If it takes your children, He’ll do that. God is after broken-hearted, child-like joy of faith. Whatever it takes. It’s the most valuable thing He could give you. Whatever it costs is worth it.

Even so, Lord Jesus, Your will be done. Amen.

Challenges of the Week

Last week was a tough week. It was one of those weeks when nothing seemed to go right:

• Several things happened at work that did not go smoothly (and were extremely frustrating) that weren’t my fault (though it usually is) or anyone else’s. One of the things being that there was a problem with Google and I couldn’t get a campus-wide email out in a timely manner.
• The upper radiator hose in my grandma’s car started splitting, spewing antifreeze. This should have been an fairly simple repair, but the manufacturers put the lower clamp on the hose upside down, making it almost impossible to get to. What should have taken an hour, took almost three. Plus, my pliers stopped working.
• I discovered I contracted head lice from one of the ministries I am involved in. I haven’t had to deal with this since South Asia and it’s got me wondering, is this going to be my Achilles heel of ministry? :) Oh, and I gave it to my sister as well.
• I have had late nights and little sleep due to taking care of the above two things, so I have been extremely tired.
• My laptop decided it didn’t recognize it’s battery. It told me to install an official DELL battery. (?!) The original battery has never been removed. I restarted it and I think it is okay now.

By the end of the week, nothing caught me by surprise. I believe the Lord is using these things to humble me. It’s a lesson I never seem to catch on to. I am completely exhausted now (and sore) and realize more than ever how much I need Christ in every moment of every day.

The pesky clamp (put back in the upright position)

The week, of course, had some bright spots. I went to a Hymn Sing on campus where the Lord graced me without His presence in a much needed way. In the weeks preceding, all I could see was my sin – my selfishness and pride and self-absorption. Every motive, every decision and even my worship seemed to be rooted in these things. I felt like I really was living life in Romans 7 (“for I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is in my flesh,” verse 18). And the worst part about it was my apathetic disposition towards the Lord. My feelings were not warm towards Him and I had no desire to do the things that I knew I should do. I hated feeling this way. I prayed constantly for Him to reveal what was going on and had others praying as well. The Lord is extremely kind in all this – even in allowing me to see the ugliness of my sin. It is only when we see ourselves as we truly are that we can see and appreciate and grow in love for Christ. At the Hymn Sing, the Lord was like water to my parched soul. I could literally feel the scales of sin and stubbornness fall from my being and my heart was warmed toward the Lord.The external struggles that I faced this week are much preferred to the inner ones I experienced the weeks prior. (I hope I don’t have to eat these words later).

Also, during these difficulties, I got to watch my sisters in Christ step up to the plate to help me. My friend, Jodi, who went with me to the Hymn Sing and was with me when I discovered the split hose, worked right along side of me to repair it (even though she knew I had lice!). My other friend, Katelyn, gave up her Saturday night to de-lice mine and my sister’s hair. Hasn’t the Lord given me amazing friends?! This is how the body of Christ is supposed to function – something the Lord is teaching me a lot about lately.

Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though He was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. Philippians 2:3-7