Untie the Love

As the Father has loved me, 

so have I loved you. Abide in my love. 

If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, 

just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love.

These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, 

and that your joy may be full.

John 15:9-11 (ESV)

"How do you take the prayers out?" Little fingers winding in and through the knots. Never still, head tilted, eyes wide with wonder, Charli had just heard the story of this quilt, this prayer quilt, of how the knots were tied with prayers.

Knots tied with love. Old, gnarled fingers on hands stiff with arthritis and ropy with veins. Young, supple fingers on smooth-skinned hands. Working hands, hard with callouses tied knots. Surgeon's hands, pastor's hands, teachers and musicians. The congregation gathered around this quilt, praying over the knots. Praying for the man who would receive it. Praying strength and comfort, praying forgiveness and grace, praying wisdom. For him, for his family, for his doctors and the medical team.

To little Charli Grace, it must seem like a wonderful gift - each knot a prayer - like a wish, a blanketful of wishes, like lighting advent candles, like opening a series of birthday presents, like Christmas morning - all of these prayers tied up in the quilt, all of these prayers laying over her Grandpa's lap.

Sweet smile, innocence in blond curls and china-blue eyes. "How do you take the prayers out of the knots?"

Because she realizes the prayers are the important part. The part to be unwrapped. The gift. Precious and holy.

I want to take the prayers out of the knots in all of the prayer quilts of this world.

I want the prayers for comfort and healing and strength and wisdom, for forgiveness and grace, for families and doctors and medical teams to stretch from here to Paris, from Paris to Syria, and Kenya, to Russia, to North Korea, to India. To the United States.

I want the prayers to grow like a vine, a wild, beautiful vine, that winds around and upholds the lost, the hopeless, the grief-stricken, the desperate, the lonely. 

I want the prayers to rain down on hubris and greed, on fear and ashamed, on selfish, on self-loathing. Rain down and melt down. Healing rain.

I want the prayers to heal the sick, help the poor, adopt the orphans, build houses for the homeless, find homes for refugees. 

I want to unknot peace, and kindness in this broken world.

I want.

Jesus said "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you."

Love and pray.

Love and pray. Precious and holy.

I want to untie the love in this world - the action of love - of loving one another as Jesus loved us. He died for us. 

Can't we untie the love?

Linking with #TellHisStory, and Three Word Wednesday

Kicking and Screaming

He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.

Micah 6:8

God has a funny sense of humor.  Well, I guess that kind of goes without saying...  If you think of us as created in God's image... and we have some pretty good comedians... then God must be a pretty good comedian.  This Christianity thing, though, oh-my-goodness-is-it-ever-so-serious sometimes.  And it doesn't have to be.  I think God likes to laugh.  I think we'd better learn to laugh with him because he certainly laughs with some of our antics.  We might as well enjoy the fun.... 

Yes, I believe.  Yes, I try to obey - operative word is try...  Yes, I believe I am being changed, grown, cultivated, into a stronger, better, more Christ-like person.  And yes, I do it willingly. 

But it wasn't always that way.  Once upon awhile ago, even after a blessed childhood in a good, Christian home, I left the faith.  I denied God and in the process I denied Jesus.  It hurts to even write about it - so, no - this isn't the funny part.  Yet.  After a good decade of nothing very important, I decided I was going to look into the Christianity thing again;  I decided it was time to find out what the faith club was all about; I finally decided it was time to fill that God-shaped hole in my being.  It's easier to write it in shorthand than to go through all the reasons - because the story isn't in the decision itself.  The story is in the process.  Read:  My Journey Toward the Christian Life, by Janet.

God literally pulled me into Christian living kicking and screaming.  First, I went to the classes.  They met once a week at the local church I had sporadically attended.  I liked the music and some of my friends went there.  The very first class convinced me that my oh-so-logical viewpoint of Christ was wrong.  He was, in fact, not only a good man (which I knew by his actions), but he was the Son of God (which he told everyone who would listen).  He was really the Son of God because, a. he wasn't crazy-deluded, and b. he wasn't an evil villain out to pull a world-changing charade.  He was who he said he was which meant my carefully-crafted theology of non-belief was wrong.  Dead wrong.  If he was the Son of God, than there was a God.  Uh-oh.  I was in trouble!

Yes, you can start to chuckle at the frantic scrambling.  Of course I was now obligated to attend every single one of those classes.  The ones that explain the whys and wherefores of Christianity.   Kicking and screaming.  I had to make room in my schedule of teaching and a second job in order to attend.  I had to stay up later than my normal bedtime (losing beauty sleep...).

Then I was told that reading Scripture was part of the Christian life.  Huh?  I have to attend classes, and now I have to read the bible?  Oh, and by the way, we should really read Scripture daily.  Every day!  Daily as in every day??  So, hang on, I have to keep up with my family and work, go to these weekly religion classes, AND read my bible every day?

Scramble scramble.

Next, came the praying part.  Of course daily-every-day.  And no, reading the scripture is not praying, and praying is not reading the scripture, and even though you're doing both during class once a week, you really need to be praying and reading God's word daily.  At least daily.  Maybe even more than once a day.  Someone snuck in a more-than-once-a-day when I wasn't looking!  Because I was so busy trying to be a good Christian...

Scramble scramble.

I actually started to complain in the classes when they brought up journaling.  Kicking and screaming - it was the last straw.  Either the leaders of my small group thought I was totally nuts and were placating my schizoid behavior, or they'd seen it all before and knew I'd eventually come around.  They calmly went on with the discussion.  Kind of like ignoring the tantrum of a two-year old.  Even my husband was keeping his distance from this crazy wife who was trying to fit a new life into an old one; I was trying to stick a square peg into a round hole.  God was up in heaven just cracking up.

Scramble scramble.

Have you figured it out?  What was so funny?  Why God was laughing?  Here's where we are:  Weekly classes, plus I started to sing in the choir, so a service and a half on Sunday, reading the bible daily, praying - a LOT, keeping a prayer journal to track asked-for prayers, and answered prayers, and yes, even taking notes on my scripture reading - drawing diagrams and organizing tables - comparing and contrasting.

Scramble scramble.

God, am I doing ok, yet?  Do you love me yet?  And the whole time, the Holy Spirit was in me, working His magic.  Transforming.  Square peg slowly rounding up...Certain words and verses started to stick out in my reading.  Forgiveness, grace, unearned.  Undeserved.  Me.

Yet...yet... Do you hear him?  God laughing?   Not at me, never at me.  With me.  All that scrambling, all that kicking and screaming - trying to deserve, to earn - when all I had to do was accept.  Yes.  God chuckling now, it was a good one...now I get it.  Somewhere I had missed the point.  Not through works, but by His grace.  Thank God for grace!  He wants us to walk with him, to talk with him.  How else but through His Word?  (Oh!  the bible AND the Son!  See how the holy spirit works...)  How else but through conversation in prayer?  It's not a scramble scramble thing.  It's not a kicking and screaming thing.  It's an open-your-heart-and-learn-the-language thing.  It's not work - it's I want to.  Because I know I can't live without Him, not one day, not one hour, not one second longer than I did when I denied him.  And He already forgave me for that.  He just wants me to be wholly His.  And sometimes, we just have to laugh together at how He made it happen.

Heavenly Father, thank you for all the silly kicking and screaming; thank you for the memories of my scramble-scramble to be yours when all I ever had to do was accept You.  You.  Are.  Wonderful. 
 Help me to walk humbly with you. 

I love you.

God has graciously placed me in a full-time position at a school as a long-term sub for a woman who is battling a life-changing, life-threatening illness.  Except for the fact that my writing time has dwindled down to nothing, it is a good fit.  I pulled this from the archives - wanted to share.  I miss my blogging community.

This week I'm linking with Beth at Three Word Wednesday, and Emily at Imperfect Prose.

#TellHisStory: Letter to a Friend

I can't get you out of my mind.  About a week ago, I happened on a comment you made on Facebook, a comment about having a different-than-Christian point of view because you are an agnostic.  The word brought up memories of a time when I said the same thing.  You want to hear something funny, though.... I actually looked the word up again, yesterday, just to make sure that what you said and what I was thinking were one and the same.  And once I read the definition, I knew we were.  Because I see the searching in you.  I see the logical thinking, the fascination with science fiction, the taking reality one step further into an infinite universe of possibilities.  Agnostic: a person who holds the view that any ultimate reality (as God) is unknown and probably unknowable...

I remember days of being open-minded.  If God exists and truly created the universe, then earth and mankind would be so small and insignificant as to be completely unnoticed - I believe I compared us to a drop from a sneeze...  Thou shalt have no other gods before Me - meant God was not alone.  If there was more than one god, then the whole premise of Judeo-Christian belief fell apart.  When a group of Jehovah's Witnesses came by, I asked them what made their beliefs different.  They said they believed that Jesus was on the throne in heaven.  My response to them was "Why? Is God dead?"   Open minded, right?  I loved Bible stories, but I didn't believe they really happened.  I believed just as equally in the possibility of fairies.  There seemed to be enough evidence that Jesus had actually lived, that he had been an amazing teacher of moral good, and that he'd had a huge following in his day, but Messiah?  Savior?  God?  No.

I wasn't in love with religion.  History had shown me that evil had been done in the name of God.  The Old Testament showed me a jealous God, an extreme justice, eye-for-an-eye God, a God of thunder, fire, and storm.  I was pretty sure that I didn't want to be a part of religion.

But, I also remember feeling left out.  Good people tried to do right, they cared about others, they gave to social causes.  That was me.   I tried.  I cared.  I gave.  I didn't say mean or ugly things.  I wasn't a monster.  But I wasn't a Christian.  People around me were Christians.  They said things like Have a blessed day.  They held prayer meetings.  They listened to praise music.  They talked about grace and forgiveness.    I wanted to join their faith club, but I couldn't.  My intellect wouldn't allow it.  I would have to believe in something that I couldn't prove.  I would have to talk to someone I couldn't see.  My integrity wouldn't allow me to fake it - I couldn't just pretend to go along with the group.  Not that group.

Faith was the answer, I decided.  Faith is that ability to do those things that I was rebelling against... to believe in the unprovable, to speak to the invisible.  So I asked a friend about faith.  "Faith is a gift from God," she said.   Back to the drawing board for me, then.  It hurt to think that this God of hers would choose to give her a gift and not me.  Tears.

Well, I couldn't very well call myself open-minded if I chose not to listen to the side I'd been fighting against. The side that had caused me to feel unwanted and unloved.  Another friend suggested a program at her church and I convinced my husband to attend with me.  It was called the Alpha program, and it changed my life.

Classes met every week; I ended up going to every single one.  See, the people who wrote the program knew me.  They knew my arguments.  I was an agnostic - I could argue either way about the existence of God.  I was open minded.  Jesus, a good teacher, had existed.  And that's where they started - with Jesus, not God.  The mind-blower for me was this quote from C.S. Lewis:

A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher.  He would either be a lunatic, on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg, or else he would be the Devil of Hell.  You must make your choice.  Either this man was, and is, the Son of God; or else a madman or something worse - but let us not come up with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher.  He has not left that open to us.  He did not intend to.

We are faced then with the frightening alternative.  The man we are talking about was (and is) just what he said or else a lunatic or something worse.  Now it seems to me obvious that he was neither a lunatic nor a fiend; and consequently, however strange or terrifying or unlikely it may seem.  I have to accept the view that he was and is God.  God has landed on this enemy-occupied world in human form.  

Mind blower?  For me, it was.  Because this statement put the missing piece of my illogic into place, turned it around, and made me believe - not only in the divinity of Jesus, but in the existence of God.  In logic, you know the outcome once A equals B, and B equals C....  So, yes, I went to every single class in the program - sometimes kicking and screaming, because I have to tell you, being a member of the faith club is not without work and expectations.  That gift from God?  Faith is given because we ask Him for it.  Simple as that.  Jesus?  He is waiting for us to ask Him into our heart.  Simple.

Here's the thing.  I know that we - you and I - don't really know each other that well.  We worked together - we talked a little.  I keep thinking about that saying from school - that thing we talk about when we analyze good teachers.  They won't care how much you know until they know how much you care.  I care about you!  I care that you are honest, and logical, and searching.  I care that you probably feel left out sometimes.  I care that you're trying to do this thing - this living right - all by yourself.  It breaks my heart to think of you without God.  Without Jesus.  Without the Holy Spirit.  The most amazing thing that I found in my journey back to God, is that He really never left me.  He hasn't left you either.  He loves you more than you will ever understand, and that's ok.  Sometimes you have to let go of that control and intellect and just know that All things are possible with God.  It's Theology 101 - He is God and we're not.  Period.

Please let me know how you're doing.  If all of this is just too much, it's ok - I still care and want the best for you.  Of course I'll joyfully share anything and everything else I've found on this journey - it's been quite a ride so far, and I'm looking forward to SO MUCH MORE!!

Love,

Janet

Just a note - I did actually write this letter to a friend, for all the reasons stated.  It was a first for me - I don't know exactly how I would have taken receiving a letter like this during my years as an agnostic.  But I just couldn't stop thinking about how grateful I am for God's grace, and how very different my life has been since I invited Christ in.  I was lost and now I'm found.  Admittedly,  life here on earth isn't always happily-ever-after  rosy, and I'd be lying if I said it was.  But having Jesus makes all the difference.  He truly strengthens and comforts.  I know that I am a child of God.  I know that I am loved and forgiven (!)  My redeemer lives!  

So,  I thought maybe someone else might be feeling lost...someone else might chance on this blog - might be lead to read this post... and maybe this personal letter would lead them to search - as I did.  I pray that if it's you, that God puts the right people in your life to help you, to teach you, to show you.

But if from there you seek the LORD your God, you will find him if you seek him with all your heart and with all your soul.

Deuteronomy 4:29

Another post from the archives - until I can get to writing again - which I sorely miss! Linking with Jennifer, Emily and Jen.

TellHisStory
Imperfect Prose

Unite