Tag: Lord

Unraveled Identity

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When my husband first told me he wanted to go to seminary I threw up in my mouth a little bit. This was a calling he was sure of for himself but a calling for which I did not yet feel prepared.

I did not grow up in a family that attended church every Sunday or attended VBS in the summers nor did we have family devotions around our dinner table and the only way I knew how to pray was “now I lay me down to sleep.”

I have struggled with a difficult past marked with depression, unhealthy relationships with men, partying and I have experienced great loss through the passing of my mother from cancer as a young teenager.

Back then at twenty-three, in a little four door Camry on my way to St Louis, I did not believe that God could use me in His church.

Back then I did not see myself, this girl with an imperfect past, being able to ever connect with faithful church attenders on Sunday morning serving a perfect God.

This calling felt too big.

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I followed my husband to seminary anyway like a faithful solider not quite ready for battle but on the inside I struggled against the inner voices from my past that whispered I just wasn’t good enough.

It wasn’t like I believed it to be from 2 Corinthians 5:17: if you are in Christ you are a new creation, the old has gone and the new has come.

The new had come, I did have a changed life, but it was also so interwoven with many past experiences and voices. Somehow the old would have to begin to unravel from the new.

Walking through this story has been quite a journey. A journey against myself. A journey so challenging it would fail if God was not in it with me.

I have had some unraveling to do especially when it comes to my identity.

I was being called to the beginning of a journey against myself where I would constantly be required to put off the old and use the new to redefine the woman God was making to be in Christ.

It wasn’t long before the inner voice became coupled with the outer voices from others who were surrounding me.

I will never forget one of my first interactions with another seminary wife, “Wow, I’ve never met anyone like you… someone from total darkness.”

In that moment, whether that woman was joking or not, I stopped putting on what was true about me from the promises of scripture and I put on the scarlet letter of “the girl from total darkness” and I never wanted to step foot on the seminary campus again.

Just-not-good-enough-girl-from-total-darkness became the anthem of my season in seminary. I let that moment mark me and this just-not-good-enough-girl-from-total-darkness let the inner voices win.

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I spent three years trying to distance myself as far away from seminary as possible. I didn’t want anyone else to know the real me. I chose to mark myself with that just-not-good-enough-girl-from-total-darkness scarlet letter.

What happened to me while we lived in St. Louis was painful. I was crippled by my anthem. I wept. I was sick to my stomach almost every day. While my husband was thriving I was dying, carrying this heavy scarlet letter around my neck.

I still appeared to be a good solider on the exterior. But on the inside I was barely breathing.

It wasn’t until one morning on my couch when the words from Matthew 11 appeared on the page of my hot pink Bible in technicolor. “Come to me all who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

I thought about how long I had been carrying the weight of this interwoven old and new. How long I had walked with this just-not-good-enough-girl-from-total-darkness scarlet letter around my neck breathless and searching for air?

How long had I carried this burden alone and not shared the yoke with my Risen Lord?

He makes the burden light when I share it with Him.

Matthew 11 helped to let the unraveling of my identity begin.

The thread started to pull and I felt like I could breathe.

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This moment happened in our last weeks in seminary. It took me too long to realize I was not bearing the just-not-good-enough-girl-from-total-darkness identity alone. The one sharing the yoke with me was Jesus. The One Who had overcome death itself.

If He could overcome death He could help me overcome the voices.

So the unraveling of my identity in Christ began as I started to put off the old patterns and ways of viewing myself and I began to put on the new.

I started to challenge the just-not-good-enough-girl-from-total-darkness label with the label of the deeply-loved-completely-accepted-image-bearer-of-The-Risen-Lord-girl-from-total-darkness.

(I mean, I need to stay true to my roots, right?)

You can’t appreciate where you are if you forget where you came from- so the girl from total darkness stays…for now.

I know this journey of the unraveling of my identity is Christ is not over. I know the thread is just beginning to unravel.

I can’t say I feel completely equipped even now to serve alongside my husband but I can say the idea now longer causes nausea. This
deeply-loved-completely-accepted-image-bearer-of-The-Risen-Lord-girl-from-total-darkness knows God calls unlikely people in His Great Story Of Redemption.

No matter what the past, the inner voices, or the audible voices might be whispering I can hush them with truth because Christ, the One who ultimately has called me, is walking alongside me sharing this burden.

In Him I am…

Deeply Loved.
Completely Accepted.
Image bearer of the Risen Lord
Girl From Total Darkness

What is your identity? Are you letting the new unravel from the old?

Parenting in The Pew Part 2: Where We’ve Been And Where We Are Going

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This is Part Two of my Parenting in the Pew Journey. If you missed Part one find it here: Part 1: The Journey And The Destination

Part Two: Where We’ve Been And Where We Are Going
When we think of training worshippers as a journey, it is important to use your end result or outcome to help you develop achievable expectations. It helps to start with the end in mind. Just like a wise teacher or a smart business person starts with the end result we too should think about what kind of worshipers we want our kids to be 20 years from now.

For us our destination is two fold.

We want our children to understand worship is not about them or what they “need” from church and we want our children to develop into active listeners.

So the objectives I am working on look like this:

Worship is about God.

I want my children to be active listeners in church.

These two objectives shape everything on a Sunday morning for me. Everything.

Objective 1: Children will understand worship is about God.

This means worship is not about my kids and their entertainment. I have learned this the hard way. Mountains of coloring books, sticker books, matchbox cars, mazes. I spent almost four and a half years lugging around huge bags of activities until I realized those heavy bags were not only making me sweaty but those bags were working against my most valued objective.

Twenty years from now I don’t want worshippers that spend the service only doodling in the bulletin or playing tic tac toe with their brothers. The heavy bag was working against my first objective because I was showing my kids that I valued their entertainment over my first objective.

Worship is not about my children or their entertainment.

Worship is about God.

I have learned the hard way that coloring books and activities to entertain my kids during the service are actually working against me on the journey to my final destination.

Objective 2: our children will work towards active listening in church.

My goal is not, I want my children to be still and quiet statues in the pew. I can look still and quiet while I am counting all the tiny holes in the speakers up above the PowerPoint screen.

My long term goal is to have active listeners at the end of this journey. So if my children need to wiggle or make a joyful noise unto The Lord, as long as they are actively listening, I really don’t care anymore. I have small kids. We wiggle and we don’t completely know how to whisper.

I can give myself and them grace in this. Active listening and participation looks different in a five year old than it does in an adult. Honestly, visualize a kindergarten classroom compared to a college classroom or even an eighth grade classroom.

Currently, I am teaching active listening through recording tally marks. This keeps my sons busy and aligns with my two objectives.

On Friday I preview the sermon topic, look at the songs we will sing and I help my boys think of names of God they might want to listen for during the service.

They listen for the names of God during worship and tally them either on the iPad or on paper. In the beginning, I would give them a tootsie roll or a lollipop when the made it to five tallies. I needed them to see the reward quickly at first, Then I increased the reward to ten tallies and then twenty.

Recently I have found myself hardly giving out any prizes at all as they learn to just listen without the motivation.

My hope is this will turn into listening for different words, topics and eventually main ideas and note taking.

I use a free tally app on the iPad.

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Not every week is perfect. Just on Easter Sunday my three and five year old where having a whisper fight whether or not to have eyes open or eyes closed during the congregational prayer. In these moments it helps to take a big breath and see the larger picture. One slip up on Easter might help you give yourself and your kids a little more grace when it feels like one step forward and three (or four) steps back on the journey.

Ah. And grace. There is abundant grace. I just read this Timothy Keller quote, “God does not give us hypothetical grace and a lifetime supply. He gives us what we need one day at a time.”

Ah. One Sunday at a time in the pew. God gives me the grace I need one Sunday at a time in the pew. And God is giving our kids the grace they need one Sunday at a time in the pew.

One Final Piece Helping Us Get To Out Destination
Location, Location, Location. We take a front row seat. If my conviction on worship is “worship is about God” we will have a front row seat.

I am a big Dave Matthews fan, like it or not, and when I go to a Dave concert it is all about DMB. I am going to sit as close as to the front as I can because I want the best experience I can have. Same with Reds games. No one calls the box office and says, “I would like to sit as far away from the action as possible.”

Location helps. We sit in the front so my small kids can see everything and do not have to squirm to see over rows and rows of people three times their size.

Also, in regards to location, sit in front of people who like you having your kids in the pew with you. I have developed a great friendship with the family that sits behind us. They know what I am trying to do and can fill in for me even when I am not able to be at church. My friend has even been ready to record a tally mark or her hands have been open for a quick pass of the baby when a curve ball comes my way.

Remember. This is a journey. Keep the destination in mind. Location. And grace.

“God does not give us hypothetical grace and a lifetime supply. He gives us what we need one day at a time.” -Timothy Keller

While on this parenting in the pew journey there is the grace we need. One Sunday at a time.

It’s Not Like A Quick Wardrobe Change

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Almost ten years ago I came to know Jesus. This was not an effort to clean up my life nor has it been what some have referred to as a “spiritual awakening.” What happened to me took no effort at all. I wasn’t even looking for Jesus. The only thing that happened to me was I went to coffee with a friend and he challenged me to read the book of John and consider the teachings of Christ.

I had never read the Bible. Never. But at the age of twenty-one when I opened a real Bible for the first time something in me just could not put The Book down. I couldn’t even sleep without thinking about the verses written in it.

In the next few weeks something in me changed. The God of the Universe changed me for real.

I don’t know why.

God changed me when I wasn’t even seeking Him.

Adapted from Ephesians 2

In the past I was spiritually dead because of my sins. Yes, in the past my life was full of those sins. I lived the way the world lives. That same spirit is now working in those who refuse to follow God. In the past all of us lived like that, trying to please ourselves. We did all the things our bodies and minds wanted. Like everyone else in the world, we deserved to suffer God’s anger just because of the way we were. But God is rich in mercy, and he loved me very much He gave me new life together with Christ.
it is because I am a part of Christ Jesus that God raised me from death and seated me together with him in the heavenly places. God did this so that his kindness to me and my belonging to Christ Jesus would clearly show for all time to come the amazing richness of his grace. I mean that I have been saved by grace because I believed. I did not save yourselves; it was a gift from God. I am not saved by the things you have done, so there is nothing to boast about. God has made me what I am. In Christ Jesus, God made me new  so that I would spend my life doing the good things he had already planned for me to do.

As I was changing in the back of our car in Atlanta traffic out of my yucky road trip clothes and into my cute party dress I thought about how quickly and easily you can switch from one outfit to another.

It’s easy to put on the Christian look and even talk the Christian talk however, the Christian life is not at all like a quick wardrobe change.

The Christian life is more like an unraveling of yourself. Little by little your life gets turned upside-down and inside out.

I’m still the same Rachel I have always been. Kinda awkwardly funny, super bossy, intense, first on the dance floor and last to leave. But as I continue to walk with Christ all of the parts of me are constantly being unraveled as I recognize old patterns of responding to life without any thought of what God thinks and pursue new patterns as I seek to please a merciful God who changed me when I was not even looking for Him at all.

Marriage becomes unraveled. Being in Christ is not a one time magic formula for becoming the best supportive wife in the world. Constantly I am working to identify old patterns of responding to situations and praying God would redeem them.

Parenting becomes unraveled. As you seek The Lord in His Word, the Christian life helps turn past hurts and harmful patterns into redeeming, new, life giving ways to grow up a new family heritage in Christ.

Friendship becomes unraveled. For me little by little I unravel and discover how to be a better listener, question asker and more thankful for the friends God has given me.

My sisterhood unravels. I have decades under my belt of responding to my siblings in a way that does not honor Christ and slowly… very slowly… those previous patterns are unraveling and becoming new.

You don’t run to the altar on Sunday morning after a nice sermon and walk back up the aisle with a magic formula to now be perfect.

God’s Word does not say, just as you received Christ now be absolutely perfect in Him.

The Word says, now walk in Him. (Colossians 2:6)

It’s not a quick clean up or a wardrobe change.

Knowing Jesus and walking with Him is a lifetime of unraveling.

Ephesians 4
assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

So ten years later I am committed to this constant upside-down and inside out way of unlearning and relearning.

I know I didn’t get quick clean up when The God of the Universe called me into relationship with Him.

I get to walk in Him and unravel as I go.

I’d love to write more about this unraveling story and share personal stories of unraveled patterns. Please leave feedback if you’d like to hear more about this.

Here is a link to that first study I did ten years ago when my friend asked me to just consider the teachings of Christ.

Click to access libook1xpress1.pdf

I Hope You Don’t Find Perfect Love…

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As a young woman I saw perfect loves in the movies and heard of perfect love stories in ballads on my radio in my hatchback manual Saab.

The idea of a perfect love brainwashed me into thinking all my relationships would be saturated with whisk-me-away-romantic moments. I really at my core believed if I ever had a dispute with one of the men in my life it would only be moments before they would show up on my doorstep (in the rain of course) with an I’m-sorry-bouquet of flowers.

And that NEVER happened.

Darn love stories.

Darn love songs.

In a way I was disappointed.

My expectations gave me a twisted view of myself and others.

I was naive. My expectations for this so called perfect love ruined any relationship I ever had.

How could any of my boyfriends ever have competed with the image I had in my head-comparing them to a soaked and sexy Ryan Gosling  on my front doorstep with a drippy bouquet of flowers and begging of my forgiveness?

What I was seeing on the screen and hearing on the radio built up my expectations for perfect love and left me waiting in my home for ‘no one’ soaking wet with a bouquet of hydrangeas at my front door.

I was left questioning all the moves of my significant others. If my boyfriends couldn’t execute love like in the movies and the characters I compared them to I became suspicious of men…suspicious of perfect love… I became suspicious of myself.

I began to believe lies that I just wasn’t good enough for a perfect love and believed that maybe I didn’t deserve love at all.

The combination of all of the above became very dangerous for me and like a ticking time bomb my expectations literally blew up every relationship I had.

I would like to point the finger at culture and the misrepresentation of perfect love on the radio and displayed on the screens we hold in our hands.

However, I think the real person to blame is me and how I visualized love as being perfect right from the beginning.

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Perfect:

: having no mistakes or flaws

: completely correct or accurate

: having all the qualities you want in that kind of person, situation, etc.

Anyone really in a loving and committed relationship knows that love is not perfect at all.

How can love be perfect when the two people in love are not perfect themselves?

As a Christian, I believe that on this side of heaven I will never be perfect. I believe that my self absorption, my bitterness with others, my desire to be righteous like God is all so bad that it requires the penalty of Jesus’ dying on the cross in order for me to be right with God.

I believe in a gospel, the good news, that on this earth I will never be perfect but I am loved by my God – even with

my imperfections.

I am in process.

I am perfectly imperfect.

Actually I am perfecting.

perfecting: in process of becoming perfect or coming to completion

What I know now is in real life love is not perfect. Love on earth between two people is full of mistakes and blemishes. Love on earth is two flawed people choosing to live and love all the imperfections of one another.

There is a misconception of love in our culture. The idea of perfect love is not only on our screens and radios but it breeds in our expectant minds it is spewing out of our lips.

 “Oh, he is perfect” or “You are the perfect couple”.

Sure the idea of perfect love is in the movies but we are perpetuating it with our words.

Loving relationships are not perfect. They are perfecting. Love is the perfect moments mixed in with the refining – imperfect ones. I can tell you with certainty I love my husband more now than I did when I met him. Sure he was charming back then and always on his best behavior but in perfecting love I get to be alongside him as he grows and changes into the better verison of who God is making him to be.

Perfecting love can be tough.

Perfecting love is a love that grows.

Perfecting love goes through seasons of giddiness, gladness, anger, sadness.

Perfecting love experiences disappointment.

Perfecting love dwells in the colder seasons knowing that a new season will come.

Perfecting love makes us better men and women as we walk alongside one another and experience a front row seat in the perfecting process of one another.

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Truth connection:

I want you to go back to that image of Ryan Gosling soaking wet at your front door with a bouquet of flowers. (Hard to go there I know)

I want you to know it is right to desire this kind of perfect love where from the beginning you are sought after and constantly pursued with a never giving up always and forever kind of love.

I want you to know this kind of love exists but we look for it in a man on earth when this never giving up always and forever kind of pursuing love is actually found in God.

Perfect love is only found when we find it nailed to a cross. Crazy I know but true. The idea of a man loving you so much that he would die for you originated with God. We are hard wired to long for perfect love. You just won’t find it in a boyfriend, fiancé or spouse.

I hope you never find perfect love in any earthly man. I wish you will find perfecting love. The kind of love committed to the process of you being made perfect over a lifetime of some of the coldest and warmest seasons.

And I hope you do not find perfect love anywhere else but on a cross – where a God that loves you so much He died for you. He pursued you. He is still pursing you. He is where you find the man soaking wet on your doorstep pursing you with a never giving up always and forever kind of love.

I hope you don’t find perfect love in anything else but Him.

Romans 5:8

But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us.

How Saying No Is Leading Me To More Yes

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If you have happened to cross my path in the last ten years you might have seen a whirling tornado of lists and calendars and book studies swoop by you. For the past decade I have immersed myself in busyness; being involved help me feel in control and together.

The more involved I was in activities on campus, at work or in the church the more I felt in control of my moment by moment. If I planned out every second there were no surprises and I kind of like it that way.

My involvement in just about everything not only gave me control of my moment by moment but it also gave me significance.

“Doing” has become a god for me and little by little I have found myself finding my ultimate significance in my successes and failures.

Just to give you a small picture of what this tornado of lists and calendars and books studies looks like- here are a few of the things I said yes to last year.

My God
My marriage
My three sons aged 3, 2 and 1
Women’s bible study
A mentoring opportunity with an older woman
Leading a discipleship group of 15 faithful and godly young women
One on one discipleship with a sweet friend
Teaching Sunday School to preschoolers
Classroom Coordinator at Preschool
Women’s Retreat Planning Leadership Team
Trained for a half marathon
Started a blog

Okay, seriously, right? I know it looks crazy but once you sit down and write all the things down that you commit yourself to in a year it can look overwhelming.

I know you probably do just as much as I do.

So what?

Well, I have a distorted view of myself and my gospel. I have made my involvement big and my God small. My pendulum swings too hard when I rise and fall.

I want to be steady when the waves come and still be steady even if the waves don’t come at all.

This year I am saying no to all of it- obviously with the exception of the first three: My God, my marriage and my sons.

This was so hard especially when there was a ministry fair at our church and I could see myself walking down to the rows of tables and writing my name on every sign up sheet.

Or when I am not really sure if there will be someone to step in and lead this group of fifteen faithful young women and I love them and want them to continue to grow in the knowledge of God.

It is tempting for me to get involved. To be in control. To have my hands holding up the world instead of letting go and trusting that it is God who holds up the world.

Saying No

So I am saying no.

So I am going to stop doing.

I am going to make myself small so God can be big.

It seems both insane and lazy to me but I really think believing the gospel for me this year requires me to let go of everything and trust in the One Who is before all things and in Whom (not in Rachel) all things hold together. (Colossians 1:16)

Saying no will be a step of faith- to trust that I don’t keep my world from spinning around and I am not in control of my moment by moment.

Saying no will help me see that I do not begin and end any ministry. It is only the Alpha and Omega Who is the beginning and the end.

This year I hope saying no will allow me to say yes.

Yes to my big God who is pleased with me when my name isn’t on any sign up sheets.

Yes to my husband who is most likely tired of receiving leftovers from me because I am giving my best to everyone else and yes to more date nights.

Yes to my sons. Less putting them to bed early so I can lead a bible study or dragging them to nursery care so I can be involved in women’s bible study. Yes to their spiritual health and family devotional times around our kitchen table. Yes to discipline that is consistent and loving instead of exhausted and impatient.

Yes to my daughter arriving in December and yes to enjoying my last round of late nights feeding her and caring for her.

Yes to being available to be a better friend.

This year I feel a call to be still. (Psalm 46:10)

I am making myself small and trying to break the cistern.

I can already hear a loud exhale as I stop trying to hold up my world. Stopping everything is leading me to see Christ more clearly and giving me freedom to say yes to the most important things God has given to me.

My sweet family

family

You can pray for me as I take on this “year of just saying no.” Sneaky and tempting opportunities to get involved will be coming my way like wolves in sheep’s clothing.

You can also make a list of all the things you say yes to in a calendar year. Where is God calling you to make yourself small so you can see that He is big?

Please share this on Facebook and Twitter with your friends. Maybe someone else out there needs to hear that God is pleased with them even when their name is not on a sign up sheet.

He holds up the world- not us.