Five Minute Friday: Real

I am linking this post to Gypsy Mama's five minute Fridays.

Here are the rules:

round here we write for five minutes flat on Fridays.

We write because we want to, not because we have to. We write for fun, for joy, for discovery.

We just write without worrying if it’s just write or not.

Won’t you join us?

1. Write for 5 minutes flat – no editing, no over thinking, no backtracking.
2. Link back here and invite others to join in.
3. Please visit the person who linked up before you & encourage them.

OK, are you ready? Give me your best five minutes on:

Real

Start:

Real. I am beginning to realize some real things about my mother. We have not always been close. There were, in fact, times in my life that I just wanted to get as far away from her as I could. I wanted to nothing to do with her. I just wanted to start over in a place where she couldn't get to me. She was not the perfect mother. As a matter of fact she made a lot of mistakes and allowed some really horrible things to happen to us.

I am so glad, though, that God didn't allow me to run away and start over without her. He has healed so dramatically and restored so beautifully. We have forgiven and loved and seen the most unbelievable and miraculous healing and change in our relationship. My mother lives with me. She has for about 6 years now. It has not always been easy. Sometimes it has been downright hard. But it has been beautiful and healing and great. I am so grateful that she lives with us now. I love her with all of my heart. I am so grateful that she lives right down the hall from me. I am so grateful that her grandchildren get to see her every day. I am so grateful for God's amazing and healing grace.

I would not trade the time I have had her in my house for anything. It is a treasure to me.

I am realizing now, though, that she is frail and fragile. The woman that I have sometimes been angry at and sometimes found exhausting and frustratingly childlike. The woman that I started to raise and parent from an early age. She has been strength in my life. She is where the intense strength that those who know me say I posses comes from. She has been a rock in my life. She has carried so much and she is a survivor. She has survived more than I have time to tell. Some of what she has survived is unspeakable. I am a survivor because she is a survivor.

She is getting old, though. As she recovers from a simple knee surgery that became much more complex, I realize that the strength is fading. She is not as strong as she once was. She will not always be here. She is fragile and frail. She will lean on me soon and I will be her strength. I will help carry the one who once carried me. As I realized yesterday she was becoming less strong, I selfishly asked God to keep her strong. "I am not ready for her strength to fade, Lord. I still want her to be the strong one. Please don't let her get weaker, yet. I never realized how much I took her strength for granted."

She is real. She is not superman. She is human and human strength fades. As the flower fades....

I cheated. It was more than 5 minutes. Please forgive me. I was not done and I needed to say it all.

My Lenten Journey

This year is the first year I have observed Lent. I have not really been in a church that observed it, nor have I even been taught anything about it. This year our church began following the Liturgical Calendar and observing the rhythms and days of the calendar. I have been so amazed at the focus and direction it has given my walk to think in terms of the seasons of remembrance in our faith as a opposed to just passing the days and months of the year. When we started this journey, our pastor, Mark taught a class on the Liturgical calendar, the meaning of the days, and what is significant about walking this calendar. I loved the idea of walking through the seasons of the life of Christ and how that can and will shape us into His image if we will allow. I love the idea that each year we can revisit remembering and re-walk the path, and as we revisit each year we will be changed and have a deeper understanding of who He is and how He walked. We will, in turn, have a deeper understanding of who we are in Him and be daily formed by Him into His likeness. I have been so excited to walk this path and have been so amazed at what He is doing in me as I seek to be in tune with the seasons and what He wants to teach me in all of them. The other part of this new journey I really enjoy is reading each day from the Book of Common Prayer. It really amazes me to think on the idea that brothers and sisters all over the world are reading the same verses and listening to what our Father has to say about them each day. There is something big, and grand and beautiful to me about the church of Christ unified in readings that cross ethnic, denominational, economic, and national boundaries. I have been so blessed to be able to discuss with my husband and other members in our church what we are reading and what He is teaching each of us as we read. It has been such a surprise how much I have enjoyed implementing these two practices into my life.

So onto Lent. As we were following the Church calendar and preparing , I had prayed for weeks about what the Lord wanted Lent to look like in my life this year. Observing Lent was a new idea and our pastor was so good to post links to sites we could read and research to understand what this journey of Lent is about and how people historically have observed it and people who are accustomed to observing Lent are doing so now. I began to seek the Lord and ask Him what He wanted me to do or give up. What I felt impressed to do was surprising and seemed pretty unorthodox. But, as I continued to press and seek Him, I continued to feel the same impression. What I felt I was to do was really press into finding the creative artist He created me to be. I felt Him tell me to bath it in prayer and be faithful to take time each day to express creativity or write something. I felt like He said we were going to walk through the darkness and shadows the have buried "the artist" in me, and deal with that fear, the insecurity, the doubt, the paralysis that sometimes keeps me from even feeling like I can try. I began to work through a book by Janice Elsheimer called The Creative Call. I am also taking an online creative Indie business class. I felt like He told me if I would work on these and seek Him everyday, we would walk through the shadows and doubt resulting in Him resurrecting "the artist" at the end of the journey on Easter. So I have undertaken His call to really push into who He made me to be and all that stands in the way of that. There have been times when I just felt like giving up in the last week. I hear the old familiar voice in my head telling me that "this is stupid", "who am I to think I am an artist", "I am not really an artist". Then I would hear Him whisper to me "don't give up, press in, how are you going to inspire the people I want you to inspire if you give up and don't find your freedom?" So I press on. I am supposed to write every day for my assignments in The Creative Call and I have failed many days to make time to do that, but I can and will keep pressing and seek to do better. I spent hours yesterday writing in my journal as I sat on the back porch in the sun. It was amazing. It was so amazing that it may be easier for me to consistently make and guard that space to write. I read His word and just wrote my heart out. It was liberating and beautiful. I also made a piece of art that He inspired me to make; I trusted Him and worked on it and finished it yesterday. And, I actually like it. The picture above is what I created yesterday. It was such a great day. I feel so free and inspired and motivated to keep pressing on. I see the progress and growth He is doing in me and I am so excited to keep going and see who I am in a few weeks after completing my commitment to undertake this journey and be disciplined about making space to do what I actually have such a deep desire to do anyway.

So this morning as I sat quietly before the Father resting and waiting to hear what He wanted to say to me, He showed me a beautiful and heartbreaking picture. I began to weep. He showed me that I buried my true self; the beautiful artist, the truest part of who I am. I buried her a long, long time ago b/c I wanted her to be safe. I put her away in a box buried in corner in the basement of my soul. She is the most beautiful, purest part of me. She has been buried and covered over with so many layers so that none of the pain, abuse and tragedy could get to her. I needed to protect her b/c it was not safe for her when I was growing up. Now, though, it is her hour; it is time for the me He intended when he thought me up to come forth. My Father is digging her up out of the dirt and introducing me to the beautiful artist that I have kept safely tucked away for so many years.

I am so glad that my Father challenged me to take this journey for Lent and that He gave me the courage to accept the challenge. What a beautiful dimension and sense of adventure I feel as I learn to let the Creator teach me to develop and cultivate the creator He has created, called and equipped me to be.

Thoughts on Grace

I have so many thoughts on grace. My understanding of grace has changed and grown more than can even be measured over the years. For me, learning about grace has taken so long. I have a feeling, that stems from experience, that I will look back in ten years and see how little I really understood this mystery of grace today. I certainly had no understanding of grace in the years I first began to walk with Christ. I heard a lot about grace and I knew we were saved by grace, but I didn't really have any understanding of what that meant. When I look back to 15 years ago, 10 years ago, 5 years ago, 1 year ago, I can see how far I have come in my understanding of God's immeasurable, consuming grace.

This post is in response to an opportunity to share thoughts in grace that my friend and author, Hillary McFarland (Quivering Daughters Hope and Healing for the Daughters of patriarchy), posted on her blog, http://www.quiveringdaughters.com/.

To talk about my experience with grace, first I must give some history. Those who already follow my blog know much of this history, but for new explorers I will give the short version. For the more extensive version look back to http://searchingforaplacetobelong.blogspot.com/2010/01/in-beginning-start-of-this-path-im-on.html; then look for part 2, 3, etc.

I began my life in a very dysfunctional and abusive house which was pretty non religious. My mother was clinically depressed and estranged from her mother. My grandfather (mom's father) had sexually abused all the children in the family from the time of my mother's childhood up to when we completely separated ourselves from the family when I was 15. There some strange religious undertones relating to the grandparents, but there is not enough time to breach that subject today. I began to do drugs pretty heavily at 13, spent many years locked up in rehabs and psychiatric hospitals, and repeatedly ran away, attempted suicide, and practiced self mutilation. I finally ended up living on the streets. At 19 years old I became pregnant; I continued to do drugs and attempted to procure an abortion (thankfully that did not work out). At about 4 months gestation, while very high on LSD and inhalants, I had the experience of going to hell. My mother had previously met Jesus and had been praying for me for several years. When the hell experience happened, I called her. I told her what had happened and asked her what I should do about it. I didn't think I believed in God, but, when I came back from "Hell", I had a sense that I did not ever want to go to that place again and that if I ever did find myself there again, I would not be allowed to leave again. God, being the amazing, gracious Father that He is, put the perfect answer in my mother's mouth. She said to me, "This is what I would say to do; pray and say, 'God if you are real, reveal yourself to me,' if He does then you will know, and if He doesn't then you haven't lost anything and no one even has to know that you prayed that prayer." So I secretly started praying that prayer. About 3 months later I called my mother and asked to go to a Friday night church service with her. She was very surprised, but of course, picked me up and took me. That night, as I stood in the service, I felt the presence of God, but I did not know what it was. I kept having tears flow down my face (which I kept wiping away in frustration). I met Jesus that night and was never the same. I had never felt loved; when I was told that Jesus loved me as I was enough to die for me, it transformed me forever.

What I did not realize was that as I began to learn about Jesus in the church I met Him in, I was taught about rules and striving to please Him. I very quickly learned that He did not love me as I was. I needed to clean up or at least put the ugly broken parts of me away so that I could make the church look good. I was a "trophy". "Look at what we did in her life." I loved Him so much and wanted to please Him however I could. I wanted to be clean and right for Him, but there were so many parts of me that were so broken. Broken is an understatement. There were parts of me that were crushed into finely ground powder. I didn't even know what wholeness was supposed to look like. I wanted to not struggle and walk in habitual sin. I wanted to be free. I was taught that if I just had enough faith, I wouldn't struggle with the pain and sin anymore. I prayed so hard for more faith. I tried to figure out the rules and to be good girl.

I have to interject that I have one of those really structured temperaments that was also conditioned toward a pretty severe Obsessive Compulsive tendency by my childhood environment. I still tend to put things into my life and brain in the framework of boxes and rules. So the legalistic environment fit into the way I tended to experience the world. I wanted rules about how long I was supposed to pray, how many chapters to read in my Bible; if the church doors were open I had to be there. There were a lot of do's and don't in my mind and world. I still tend to be one of those people that others say is "disciplined". What that really equates is my compulsive structure habits. I can get caught in what I call "loops" of behavior; it may be how long I have to work out, or eating habits, or binge drinking. Once I hit a "loop" it can be hard to find my way out of it. It gets easier the longer I walk with Christ and learn to walk in his "unforced rhythms of grace". There were lots of those "loops" in the beginning of my walk.

The Compulsive tendencies of my personality combined with the "charismatic legalism" that I was spiritually developing in did not equal much understanding of grace. I never felt good enough; I felt driven to pray more, read more, do more and compare myself to others. I would judge and condemn constantly. I had no concept of grace or mercy. I was not kind or loving, b/c I did not really feel loved. I had to hide the black sin that still strangled me like an orangutan on my back. Some of those deep wounds inside of me have just begun to stop bleeding 18 years after meeting Jesus. I was not in an environment in the first years that I could be honest about the devastation and brokenness inside of me so that I could have help baring those burdens and find healing.

My first real brush with the grace of God came out of a pretty big situation of sin.

The church I was in did not believe in dating; we practiced courtship. The courtship, though, really needed "elder approval" to be smiled upon. I had learned that if I rebelled against church leadership, i was rebelling against God b/c He had put them in authority over me. I was supposed to follow what the leadership of the church said, "the Lord wanted." Prophecy was a means of controlling those who would allow themselves to be controlled (my mother and I were very much willing to be controlled). I was engaged to a young man when I had been walking with God about 2 years. We were very careful not to be alone (in the beginning at least). We did not even kiss one another. He was not, however, one that would be controlled. He had many questions about the way the church was being run and the control I was allowing them to have over me. We met in the church through a singles group. He started attending the church, but did not buy into many aspects of the church. This led to many arguments between us, b/c I just wanted him to be "submissive" to the leadership. I was afraid he and I would fall out of favor with God if he wouldn't submit. All of this finally culminated in one of the elders telling me that God said I had to break up the relationship (this was 9 months into courtship and 3 months before the wedding was to be). This broke my heart. I was told, though, that "the heart was deceitfully wicked above all things" and "that he would be a weight to me and would keep me from fulfilling the call of God on my life". When it was presented to me that way, I felt like I had no choice but to submit. I loved Jesus with all my heart and would not choose a man over my Savior. I cried every day for 6 months; sometimes I cried to the point of almost throwing up. I would beg God to help me not love Larry. I wanted to obey God, but it hurt so bad and I could not stop loving him. He was my best friend. He loved me even though he knew about all of the ugly scarred devastated parts of me. I had never loved anyone or been loved by anyone the way he loved me. It ripped both of our hearts out.

After six months of grieving and trying to forget, in a moment of weakness, I went back to him. Being with around him was like being home. At that point, we crossed to line of being involved physically. In the three days we were back together, I conceived my son. Then I was drawn back into the church where I was told to cut ties with him. When I realized, 6 weeks later, that I was pregnant, I was told that God still did not want me to marry him. I also stood before the church to confess my sin. I felt so ashamed; I had let the church down; God was disappointed in me.

As a result, of my perception of God, I thought that God was going to punish me. I was so excited to be pregnant. I wanted another baby. Certain leaders in the church tried to pressure me to put the baby up for adoption and to go as far as lying to Larry about losing the baby so I could leave for the rest of my pregnancy and give the baby up with his permission. I refused. B/c of my sin and my refusal to cave to the pressure to give up the baby, I waited daily to lose the baby. I thought that was how God was going to punish me for me sin of fornication. I would go into the bathroom every time expecting to see signs of miscarriage. I really thought that God allowed me to get pregnant so He could take the baby away to hurt me and punish me. I think I was pretty detached from the baby for most of my pregnancy b/c I was waiting to have him taken away from me. It wasn't until I held him in my arms that I believed that God wasn't going to take him away from me. Through the pregnancy and birth God showed me about grace. As I held him in my arms it was as if God whispered in my ear, "look I gave this treasure to you in spite of your choice". He didn't give me the baby so He could take it away from me. He gave me the pregnancy to show me His grace and mercy. He blessed me with an amazing gift in spite of my sin. That was the beginning of seeing God loves me just b/c He chooses to. I cannot get Him to love me any more or any less. He loves me apart from my behavior and in spite of my wicked heart. B/c He first loved me, I can love Him. That baby is now my amazing and handsome 14 year old son, Stephen. Stephen Isaac (meaning crowned with laughter) is my baby of grace. God used him to teach me about His amazing grace. God would also used baby Stephen to keep me connected to the young man who would eventually ( 3 or so years later) become my husband in spite of the manipulation of the church. Today, September 2, 2010, we celebrated 11 years of beautiful marriage. He is still my best friend and I love him more today than the day I married him. We have an amazing commitment and resilience to our marriage b/c of the path we had to walk to end up together. There are more details on how we ended up together at these posts http://searchingforaplacetobelong.blogspot.com/2009/12/love-story-part-1.html , http://searchingforaplacetobelong.blogspot.com/2009/12/love-story-part-2.html , http://searchingforaplacetobelong.blogspot.com/2009/12/love-story-part-3.html

I have so many more thoughts on grace, but I have taken up enough time today. I will share more another time. I just wanted to start with the first major brush with grace in my walk.

God never ceases to amaze me

I had a really amazing and surreal moment this morning that I wanted to blog about. I am not sure this will even make sense to anyone reading it, but I have to get over letting what people may or may not think about my writing influence my posts. I need to be faithful to write what is on my heart, and trust that God will do whatever he wants with it.

I was riding my bike this morning and listening to a Matt Chandler sermon as has become my habit when I ride. I actually haven't ridden in about 3 weeks and I actually enjoyed the ride tremendously. I have been listening to a really old sermon series from 2006 called Beyond the Sun: A study of Ecclesiastes. I am really enjoying it. It is helping me to really get some perspective on life and try to live as God would have me live which is really actually the point in all sermons. The premise of the series is that everything under the sun is meaningless. Everything we do and seek after is empty, a chasing after the wind. That is unless we get beyond the sun. If we can get the real point and live the lives we have been given in light of the Cross of Christ and what it means. When we can see everything in the framework of the cross then hard times are easier to deal with, we can enjoy what we are given b/c they are gifts and not the point and end to it all, we can make choices more based on what God wants not what we want or what the world system says we should want.

So as I rode, I was listening to sermon about the middle of the series and I remembered the sermon so I looked at the date on the podcast. We were attending the Village when this series was being preached and I was in the service when he preached it. The moment came when I realized this is one of last sermons we heard before we left the village. As a matter of fact, I am 90% sure that this is the last sermon we heard him preach before we left. He was addressing Eccl 7:6 "For like the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of the fool. This is also vanity. " He was talking about how pride is the most destructive force in the universe. In pride we look at ourselves on fire and laugh and pretend like we are not burning up. The church runs around wreaking of smoke and pretending like everything is okay. Marriages fall apart b/c instead of screaming help we are on fire as things get bad, we hide it and laugh and pretend like everything is okay. We struggle with debilitating sin, addictions or wounds that cause us to hemorrhage the life out of ourselves, but instead of screaming HELP!! I am on fire and burning to death, we put on a face and pretend all is well partially b/c we assume we must be the only ones who are on fire and so we can't open up and ask for help. The "church" instead of being a burn unit, like it was originally, where fire is put out, bandages are applied and healing happens, has become a place where we are all completely deformed by the fires we are hiding. We aren't real and we can't help the people who don't know God and are on fire b/c we won't be honest about our fire and get help. Marriages don't fall apart over night; they fall apart as two take one step at time away from each other and refuse to acknowledge the reality that things are not going well and that the marriage desperately needs help. We don't get trapped in deep sin or addiction over night, we slowly choose to give more control to whatever, and the more we hide it the tighter the grip it has on us becomes.

The reason this was so striking to me was the place we were at back then and what we would walk through over the 2 years after we left the Village. We really were on fire. We went through a really, really dark period in our lives and in our marriage after we left the Village. Things got very dark and very desert like. I do believe that God brought us to the desert to pound some things out in us (especially in me), to get rid of some religious baggage I was still carrying and to reveal some really bad stuff buried in the basement of my soul. It was a necessary part of my walk and I am grateful for it. Anyone watching from the outside would have seen us as "back slidden" and I guess in a sense that was true, but I was also still totally in love with God and crying out to Him daily. We were kind of smoking (figuratively speaking) when we left, but we would erupt into full blown flames shortly after. Over those two or three years after leaving, I really got kind of lost. I got lost in the world of makeup and hair; I got lost in pursuing "success", "money", "things". I became completely consumed with becoming "something" so I could prove I was worth something. Larry and I went through about a year and half or 2 years that we pretty much just coexisted in the same house. We were cold and not really happy. We didn't talk about divorce or anything like that, but my heart was very far from him. It is probably only God's grace that I didn't have an affair, b/c I think I was dangerously capable at that point. I would begin to really battle alcoholism at the latter part of that couple years. I loved God, but I did not love His church. I had become so disillusioned. Part of that may have been things people did, but the bigger part of that was that I felt completely isolated and alone b/c I was hiding so much of myself. I was trying to be the person I had forced and molded myself to be instead of letting God define me, tell me who I was and allow me to embrace the me He intended when He created me. I was so protected internally and so with drawn emotionally from everyone. I did not know how to have a truly open, not dispensable relationship. So my disillusionment had more to do me hiding and feeling totally disconnected than it had to do with anything Christians did. We would go through a long season of being even more isolated, having friends that did not have the moral or spiritual beliefs we did, being so so dry. As I said, it was such a good season for us. It was difficult, but when I did come back around to knowing that we really needed to be in a church where we were accountable, being taught and trying to build authentic relationships, I came back a different person. So much of the really religious, somewhat legalistic, proud, and self righteous ideas had been stripped away. I reached the place where I didn't want to hide anymore. I wanted to lay out the truth of who I was and what I struggle with on the table knowing that the one's who couldn't take it weren't true friends and the one's that chose to be in relationship with me anyway were the kind of friends God wanted me to have. So actually, the fire was good for us. It was purging; it was destructive only to those things that were corruptible, but it worked an eternal weight of glory, it left the true faith purified by fire that God wants us to have. God led us into the desert and let the smoldering sinfulness of our flesh erupt into purgatory flames of purification. We came out of that desert place ready to move forward with less baggage, less secrets, and a desire to do whatever was necessary to go where God was calling us so we could do the works He prepared beforehand for us to do.

It was just such a surreal experience to hear that message 4 years later almost exactly and look back at where we walked soon after and where we are now. I had no idea sitting in that church what was in store for us over the next few years. I also had no hope or inkling that I could be as healed and free as I am at this point in my life. I know that He is no where near finished with me either. I will look back in 2 years and think boy I thought I was healed back then, look at where I am now. I feel like my whole walk has been such an amazing and wonderful adventure. It has been such a beautiful picture of His grace and redemption. Parts of me that I despaired could ever be whole are so beautifully restored. God is a great and amazing God. He has been so so so good to me. I could never enumerate or even realize how great His grace has been to me and how much he has done in my life. I have no idea how many times He snatched me from death's grip b/c He wasn't through with me. If I were to praise and thank Him every minute of every day for the rest of my life it would not be enough. He is so great and His grace so so much greater than we can comprehend. To know that He chooses to let me be a part of His plan and see how blessed I am, is so overwhelming to me. He is good!!! I stand in awe of the fact the He made me exactly how He wanted me to be and that I have arrived at a place in my life that I like me and appreciate who I am in Him is awesome to me.

Reversing Roles

And again, it has been a bit since I had anything to say. I have been in the process of de-cluttering my life. Getting the clutter out will allow time to write and to create. I am finally reaching a place in my life that I really get it that doing more doesn't make me important. Being busy doesn't necessarily mean we are productive and being productive is not the point in this life. It is not productive to have a long lingering dinner with friends enjoying food and fellowship, but it is more the point than running ourselves crazy building a kingdom for ourselves that will be burning up in the end and amount to nothing. I am learning to stop and take time to take in the moments, enjoy friends, laugh with my family, taste the flavor of the food God provides for me, sit in His presence and enjoy just being there with no agenda but to enjoy my Creator. How much we could learn if we would stop and take life in like a child. Children are content to just sit with us (sometimes) with no agenda or need to be productive. They just want to be where we are. They enjoy the silly simple pleasures of life like running barefoot through the grass, or playing in the rain; they enjoy the flavor of food and don't worry about how many calories or fat is has. If we could just simplify our life and be more intentional about not letting the world squeeze into a mold, give us an identity or tell us what to value. I am hoping as I continue to make space in my life that I will write and create more. I want to use the gifts God gave me and not waste them b/c my life is too busy to develop them.

The bike ride was one of the things that needed to go. There was a such a process in getting me to the place that I could give it up. I am such a driven person and really wired to finish what I start. It is very hard for me to walk away from a task until it is finished. So giving up the ride was kind of a wrestling match for me. I was pretty consumed with riding for a few months. I spent a great deal of time on my bike and a another good chunk of energy focused on planning how to get my miles in. I didn't really realize who much pressure was on me until it was removed. I don't necessarily thing that the cycling was a bad thing innately; I don't even think it was an idol. It just took too much of the little bit of time I have and didn't allow me to focus enough on the things that should be my priority right now. I am reading a Oswald Chambers book on the Sermon on the Mount. One of the things it said was that giving up sin is one thing, but the challenge comes when we are asked to give up good things for Him. Cycling is not a bad thing, but, when asked to give it up then I reach a cross road. If I choose not to give it up, then it becomes bad b/c it is an idol b/c I choose it over obedience.

Over the last few weeks, my husband and I have been listening to a lot more sermons on our Ipods. We were listening to a series by Matt Chandler of the Village Church called The Path. We were both challenged in many different ways. It was a tremendous series which caused us to evaluate things and see the need for some changes. One of the main changes that we really as a couple agreed on was a reversal of roles. As most anyone can see, in our marriage, I pretty much run the shop. I do what I want to do and he backs me up. He doesn't really challenge me much and he doesn't really lead or make many decisions. We both see and take our responsibility in this situation. (This situation seems to be pretty common place in our society, but God will have to deal with everyone else; it's not my place.) As I have shared this story with my different circles of friends, the sentiment has been almost unanimous, "Us too." I take responsibility for taking charge and he takes responsibility for being passive and not leading or challenging me. We are moving toward reversing things, but it will probably be a journey for both of us. We may fall back into the pattern at times as it is the norm and comfortable for us, but God will be faithful to challenge us when we are falling back into comfort. Soon after this discussion my husband and I had, we got to put feet to our words. He told me that he did not think I should do the ride. Right at that moment, I had a choice to makes; I believe that it was a defining moment for me. Would we move toward the new order of things or would I be willful and push us back into the old way of functioning. I made the right choice. This choice was not too hard for me, but I am sure the tests and choices will get more challenging. I feel so much peace in my decision. I don't feel the need to analyze and second guess my choice. I didn't make the decision to drop the ride. I made the decision to defer to the wisdom of my husband and obey him. I believe in God's order of things, I will never be wrong for choosing to submit to my husband. God will always honor that choice and the gentle heart of obedience. I also feel more peaceful because I don't feel the pressure to make all the decisions and make everything work out. While my husband and I are partners in this life and equal, ultimately the responsibility falls on his shoulders. That is a wonderful relief to me. I guess it's b/c I have been shouldering responsibility that is not mine to shoulder. I I used to it liberated me to take charge b/c I can be in charge and make my own decisions, but that is not true liberation. It is bondage to pressure that God did not create me to carry. True liberation is being able to trust my husband to lead and have our families best interest at heart and being able to trust that God is able to speak to my husband and guide him and redeem any mistakes. The opposite of faith and trust is control and manipulation. Faith and trust lead to life and peace; control and manipulation lead to stress, fear and contentions. The word says that perfect love casts out all fear. That can be applied to receiving and believing in God's love for me and in my husbands love for me. Neither of them would want to harm me. When I am tempted to doubt my husband and be afraid he won't make the right decision, I need to remind myself to trust God in my husband; I need to trust that as God can speak to me and redirect me, He can do the same for me husband. In that is peace. To be honest, though, much of my controlling the house has less to do with not trusting Larry to make the right decision and more to do with me just wanting to have my way. I have been a pretty willful person my whole life and so that will not die easily, but one day at a time I will choose to commit my will to God and ask Him to give me that ability to be gentle, trusting and submissive. I was watching a documentary about the widows in Afghanistan one day and one of the women made a profound statement that I have never forgotten and have meditated upon every since. She said they had a saying in Afghanistan which says, "A husband is shade." She said, "He is a covering to keep out the sun and protect." I think that is something that we, in our society have missed. Our husbands are our protectors, and shade to us, if we will let them be. Without shade we are subject to the elements and predators. I want to lean upon my husband and let him be my shade.

We have always had a really great marriage. He is absolutely my favorite person on the face of this planet. He is my best friend and there is literally no one I would rather spend time with. There is commitment, passion, and stability between us. I have a feeling, though, that this leg of the journey we are embarking on is going to give us depth like we never thought possible. I think that things are just going to be even better. It is a great thing to be on the same page about life, where we are going and how we intend to get there.