I know... I have been so bad about writing

I really have so much to say and I want to say it so badly. It just took longer than I thought it would to settle into a rhythm of life after starting my job. I moved; then I started my job and I started training for my 100 mile ride. It just took me the last 3 months to develop a rhythm to this new schedule. I wanted it to happen faster, but it really took this long. I guess in retrospect, 3 months is not so long to settle after having a couple of major life changes. I have had so many things rattling around in me, but I just haven't been able to find time to let them out. I not only need the time, I also need the right environment with which to release it. I can't really get in the writing mind set of there is chaos around me. I am going to try to set some time at least once a week to write during the summer. I hope that once the children go back to school in the fall I can devote more time to writing during their school day. I also hope to be able to spend more time creating things.

That being said, I am also hoping to slow my pace of life. I find myself always in a hurry, always over committed, never able to just slow down and enjoy the moment. I have always been that way. My brain is always going ninety to nothing; I am onto the next task before I am even done with the task I am currently tending to. I see life as a never ending task list. Even those things that I should enjoy are just tasks to be checked off. Busy, busy, busy!! I have known this is a problem for a long time and have attempted at times to slow down, but never with success. I know part of it is our culture; if you free up time it immediately creates a time vacuum and something else takes its place. That is not an excuse, though. We are supposed to go against the current of society. Jesus calls us to a different kind of life. He was never in a hurry! Fortunately, those things He calls us to, he also helps us to do. I am praying over it and reading and meditating about scriptures that encourage me to slow down, be at peace, and rest.

"What has prompted this new found desire to slow down?" you may ask. Our pastor preached this weekend on this very thing and I felt like he was preaching directly at me. I am so tired; I am so rushed. I felt a sigh within my soul listening to the sermon. It's like inside I was saying, "yes, this is what I need." Almost like I needed permission to realize that I needed to slow down. I don't even take time to enjoy the days and the moments that I am given. I almost think the only way to do that would be to take my family totally out of the race, move to some other country and be missionaries. No, I am not planning to move off right now, but I am seeking God's hand, wisdom and the ability to slow down and not cave under the pressure to continue pushing so hard. Mark said that we all live daily in the fight or flight state of being. This is so true for me and I have made tremendous progress. I am in fight or flight now, so I don't know what you would call where I used to be. I was in a constant state of panicked motion. It was as if a bull dozier was behind me going 90 miles an hour and if I slowed down it would run me over. At one point during the sermon I said to my brother, "I never sit still b/c when I sit still I fall asleep." To which he replied, "Maybe if you sat still a little more often, you would get to the point that you did not fall asleep." Meaning if I could slow down over all, I wouldn't be so exhausted that sitting still induced sleep. I think for the first time in my life I am in the place where I can agree with him about that. He has tried many times to get me to see this point and I have never been in the place to be able to say, "you know, I think you may be right."

I have recently been trying to think about life from this perspective, "If I found out I had cancer, (something that I seem to be seeing a lot around me right now), what would I cut out? What would I want to spend my time doing?"

I put more pressure on myself than I would ever put on anyone else. I feel like I have to make the most of every moment that I have. Part of that is that I wasted so many years being destructive and doing drugs. I have so many things I want to experience. I feel bad if I take a whole day and do nothing, but watch movies and nap. I hate to feel like I have wasted a whole day. That is why I resent having to sleep. I feel like it is such a huge waste of time. There are so many other things I would rather be doing. That time could be used to accomplish so much more. That might be exactly the place I need to look at first. What is the root of the belief that sleeping is a waste of time? God says that rest is good; that we should rest in peace. I need to reprogram myself to believe that rest and sleep are good. I think that we are probably so much more productive when we don't cram every moment with tasks and activities. When we can disengage and relax there is probably better focus and passion to the things we do. I am only guessing b/c I don't disengage very well. I hope that I can learn to disengage and then be able to confirm that theory is in fact true.

It just seems the older I get that faster my life goes by. I don't stop to savor any of it. I don't savor meals, time with friends, time with my family, opportunities to play games. I don't really stop to think about the moments with my children that are passing me by. I only get to live this day one time. I only get to see them in this moment from this perspective one time. Do I stop and take time to breath in the moment? NO!! Ally will only be in our house a few more years, then she will move out and start her own family. Experience tells me that it is at that point we learn to slow down and enjoy the moments. Why do we have to get grand children to be able to embrace the moments children give us? We miss those moments with our children and grand children get the best of us. Stephen is a young man and quickly growing into man hood. When these moments are over, I will long for the day that he leans over and licks my face or punches my arm. Why do I find it so infuriating right now. He loves me and wants to show me affection in his way. Chloe is quickly approaching the awkward teenage years. If I don't learn to love her, speak softly to her and experience her on her terms, then I won't even be able to help her through the awkward years b/c she will have shut me out by then. Chloe is my baby. I don't have another one after her. As she grows up, I am experiencing some of these things for the last time. I pray that this time, I can take this wake up call to slow down serious enough that I can actually reorient my life and apply some breaks.

It seems like life is going by really so slow at some point then without you realizing it life begins to fly by at a dizzying warp speed. Years pass and they seem like days.

Yeah, it has been a really long time...

I know. Things have been so super busy adjusting to my new part time job and learning to balance everything. I really didn't think that adding a part time job would throw things into such upheaval, but it has. This week I am finally starting to feel things level out after a month, but up to this week I just couldn't seem to find equilibrium in my daily life. As I get used to getting up earlier than I really care to admit (I am an early riser, but the time I have to get up to be ready to open Starbucks is ridiculous.) and as the school year comes to an end, I hope to have time to write on my blog again and to be creative. This week is the first week I have not felt totally out of sorts. I know that when you make a change it takes a while for everything to shift and find balance; it just took longer than I was hoping it would. Adding the 5 hours of work to my day caused me to have to reassess priorities and rearrange things. Since I am a person who craves order and consistency it has been a little disconcerting to try and find a new rhythm. I have prayed every day about it and although I was very uncomfortable during the shift process, I knew that God would show me how to find a new rhythm. I knew that He had asked me to take the job with Starbucks and that He was leading me into a new leg of my journey so I knew He would help me find balance and a new rhythm. I also had a sneaking suspicion that being flexible and diligent enough to find a new balance was actually part of the point in all of this. So as I struggled and wrestled and prayed I also tried to look with eyes of faith knowing that no matter what things look like or how I felt, God was in control and He was still busy working in my life to make me more like Jesus.

I am accustomed to having great deal of time to spend talking to God and studying in the morning. I know that time with God does not necessarily have to be in the morning, but it has been a rhythm in my life for a really long time. Being the creature of habit that I am, losing my usual way, time and rhythm of life has been kind of difficult and extremely uncomfortable. The last couple weeks leading up to this week, I have really missed my time with Jesus. It kind of felt like being married to someone who is gone oversees or something. I was still in relationship; it was just different and a little distant. I knew that He was not actually distant, but it sure did feel distant. I was a little sad and crying out desperately every chance I could for Him to help me find a new rhythm that included being able to spend time with Him in the midst of this crazy schedule. It did make me very hungry to to seek Him and cry out for His help to find time to be with Him. To make matters worse, my treadmill went out on me. That would be the second treadmill that I have killed. I guess they aren't really made to put a lot of miles on; they are more for sitting in your room hold clothes, because I use mine a lot and it seems to kill them. I went like two weeks without it. I was riding my bike, but it is not the same. Yesterday, one of my friends gave me a treadmill. She is a wonderful friend. I guess really Jesus gave me the treadmill. I just really seem to need that time on the treadmill in the morning. Nothing else effects me quite like running on the treadmill in the morning does. I made a very resistant Larry go and pick it up last night. I have to say that I was giddy getting it into the house. I actually could not wait to go to sleep so I could wake up and run with Jesus. I felt so much better today. I haven't felt like this in several weeks. I think it must be a combination of things that makes it so beneficial to me. I believe that it is physiological and spiritual. Running does something to my brain chemistry that nothing else is able to do. It is like my antidepressant/ mood stabilizer. It also does great things for my soul and attitude to have that time to talk to God and process through struggles, responsibilities, goals, etc. Running puts me in a very receptive mindset. I am able to work through so many things and get the Lords mind on life, situation, etc. I don't care what anyone says, that is my place of solitude; that is where God meets me, deals with me, and teaches me. It doesn't matter if anyone else gets it; that is me and God's place. It is also interesting that each time I have put a treadmill to death, He sends me another. So, I run in the morning and I bike in the afternoon. It works well for me. I felt so much more balanced, stable, at peace and alive today after my run.

As I was saying, I am getting used to getting up super early. I am finding ways to connect with God and I am beginning to develop a new rhythm to my day. I guess some of us are so natural at developing habits and being disciplined that God has to shake us up and disrupt our order to do a new work.

I love my new job. It is such a blessing to be able to work early in the morning and be able to get off by 10 or 11 am so that I have the whole rest of the day to spend with my children and friends. I love that I get to see so many of the same people every morning and build a relationship with them. It is so great to be able to learn to genuinely care about them and connect with them. I get the biggest kick out of remembering their drink and remembering their names. I absolutely love that I get to work with such a wonderful friend as my boss. She is so amazing and teaches me so much about loving people and serving each and every one of them. I really, really love my job and feel like it is such a blessing in my life. I say all that to lead into the process of taking the job. I was so, so, so resistant to taking it. I really did not want to take it. And that resistance was all about my ego. I really did not see Starbucks as a real job; even after I knew that God wanted me to take it, I was really put off by the idea. I was willing to take the job, but only b/c I love Jesus and do not want to disobey Him. I also know that anything God asks us to do is a blessing and is for our good. I just kept thinking, "I am a makeup artist and I have a hair license; I have a college degree and you want me to make coffee. What am I going to do when people who know me come in and see me?" I was so concerned about how it would effect my "status" in the mind of people. I was concerned about being looked down on and treated like others were better than me. I was kind of ashamed of going to work at "Starbucks". There are still times that I struggle with telling certain people, especially people in the hair and makeup industry. How terrible that I felt and sometimes still feel that way. Why would I be ashamed of obeying God. Why does it matter what people think about me and my job? Really the only thing that should matter is "Am I obeying God; is He pleased with where I am working?" My status in the world or among peers really means nothing when compared with His love and what He thinks about me. After all the struggle, I love my job. I love the people I work with and get to interact with every day. I love knowing that God is still at work in my life changing me and using me. And the truth of the matter is that anyone who looks down on me has a problem they need to deal with. It really has nothing to do with me and does not reflect on me at all. What reflects on me is that I choose to obey even when it is difficult and not glamorous. The most important thing is that God asked me to do something and it turned out that when I obeyed, I loved it.

I hope to be able to write more frequently again now. I have quite a build up of thoughts, lessons and experiences to pour out again.

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Our Dangerous God

April 14, 2010 by Jeff Dunn

Two and a half years years ago a friend of mine stepped forward in our Sunday morning service to share a message he had wrestled with for weeks. It was not a message he was excited to share, but knew that God was compelling him to do so. The word he shared that morning changed my life. God used this as a sledgehammer to shatter all that I thought was good and right in my life. This was the Master Potter taking the clay into his hand, squashing it, and starting over. The Potter is not finished with me yet–will he ever be before the resurrection?–and this word continues to be a tool he is using to shape me.

We often repeat the line that “Aslan is not a safe lion.” Of course he’s not. But how many of us actually want to encounter Aslan in all of his un-safeness? Aren’t we really more comfortable just reading about lions, then putting the book away where it can’t find us, claw us, scar us? We are much more at home with a safe God–one who can be contained in Seven Secrets or Five Principles. One who wants to do nice things for us all day long, like keep the rain away while we hang out the wash. Do any of us really–really–want to meet God, as he knows himself to be, face-to-face? Do we want to hug a God who is an all-consuming fire?

God, it seems, has very little interest in making things comfortable and nice for us. Instead, he is intent on our freedom. As Robert Capon puts it, “What would you do with freedom if you had it?”

Here is the word shared in October of 2007 by Joe Spann to a congregation in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Be forewarned: If you truly embrace this, your world will be unmade. I don’t say that lightly. Mine has been. Freedom is a very scary and dangerous thing.

“There seems to be a growing feeling that God is ok with making us uncomfortable. In fact, I think He plans to. We worship a dangerous God and He is coming to threaten every area of your life. God is a loving God, do not be mistaken about that. His love, however, is unlike any human love; its chief concern is not to make you comfortable, but to make you free and to be free is dangerous and the act of making us free is dangerous.

“I am sensing specifically the danger of the nearness of God. He is waiting in places you do not expect to approach you in ways that you think God shouldn’t and wouldn’t approach you. He is about to move in a way that will not allow Him to be a household idol on your mantel that you cherish and pass down to your children. Your “here and now” will be changed by His presence. If you want safety, then go back to your idols. They get their name from you, they don’t change your name, they don’t move without your leave, and they will never threaten your comfort. If you want safety, then go back to your idols but do not profess to worship the Creator of the Universe, because He will not be counted among your idols.

“He is about to become dangerous to your everyday trappings, dangerous to your comfort, dangerous to your retirement plan, dangerous to your schedule, dangerous to your social standing, dangerous to your secrets, and dangerous to your religion. The good news is, He is also dangerous to your limits, dangerous to your fear, dangerous to your addictions, dangerous to your sickness, dangerous to your unforgiveness, dangerous to the chains that bind you – chains that you have become way too comfortable with.

“The end result of this is that He wants to make you dangerous again; dangerous to your neighbors’ bondage, dangerous to the pain in the people around you, dangerous to the generations of abuse and pain in your family and the families you know, dangerous to the culture you are in every single day. And He wants to make us dangerous again. Dangerous to our neighborhoods, dangerous to our friends, dangerous to our culture, dangerous to the kingdom of darkness.

“God is about to overtake us, to leap from the shadows and subdue us, to wrestle us to the ground and change our names, and in the process to injure us forever. We will never be the same.

“Now, I grieve. I grieve because I am a rich young ruler and I am not so sure that I want this. I want it from a distance, but to actually be in the Presence of the un-nameable God seems increasingly dangerous. So many of us are rich young rulers. We have our problems solved, our needs met. If they aren’t met at any given moment, an alternative other than God is there to meet them.

“It will truly cost us everything to follow Him. The fact that we have to ‘lose our lives to find them’ has been relegated to a cliché and sapped of its power for most of us. God is about to move in a way that will no longer allow that to be a cliché for you. That means that both the losing and the finding will be at a much deeper and more meaningful level.

“So what should be our response to this?

• Brutal honesty – you may find yourself in situations in the future where you are not sure if it is God dealing with you or not because He has never dealt with you like this before. The best response is an honest one. Don’t pretend that you know exactly what to say to God – just be honest. But be prepared to wrestle all-night if you must.
• If you respond honestly, then God’s work in you will be completed.
• Recognize that He is a dangerous God. Look for the God-boxes that you have built and tear them down.
• Commit today to never pray another superstitious or insincere prayer. Your pretense dishonors Him and He doesn’t want it from you anymore.
• He wants you to have a dangerous relationship with Him. Tell Him all the things you’ve always been afraid to say to God. Meet Him where you are and reveal yourself to Him in ways that you never have.

“This seems severe, and I want so badly to say something to make it more palatable. But I can’t. He comes now, and He comes in force, and He comes to threaten us, His followers, in every way.”

Little Easter Revelation

God has been working on this for a couple of days, but this morning He really drove the point home.

Many of my friends know of the ongoing drama of the "drug house" that we moved into. We have had several visitors that were hoping to find the former tenants. To explain the latest piece of the puzzle, I have to rewind to right before we moved in. A new kid started at my daughter's place of work. Through the course of conversation they figured out that he had just moved out of the house we were living in. It was a strangest sort of "coincidence". Then it got complicated as his apparently mentally ill girl friend decided that Ally was trying to steal her boyfriend. Ridiculous! She began calling repeatedly and hanging up. She would do this for hours straight, literally call hang up and immediately call again. Ally ended up on the phone with her some time at the beginning of this; the girl had been screaming at her boyfriend and asked to speak with Ally. When the girl accused Ally, Ally just laughed, said "Don't flatter yourself, I have a boyfriend and I have no interest in your boyfriend," then hung up. The calling went on and on. When Ally would answer the girl would call her a bitch or worse. Finally, the place of employment fired the boy and pressed charges on the girl. I was not too concerned about the matter, until she showed up at our house. We realized that they knew where we lived b/c they lived here before us. They also know where Ally works and leave after 10 pm on most nights. By God's grace, the two showed up when Ally, my mother and I were gone. Only Larry (my husband), Chloe (my youngest) and Larry's brother were home. I have to be honest, I would have taken that girl out and asked Jesus to forgive me later. Call it fleshly instinct, mother's instinct, or whatever. I am a short somewhat tiny girl, but I am strong and I lived on the streets almost 20 years ago. In case you aren't aware, I am not someone you want to really tangle with. Thankfully, I am generally a peace loving hippie type. Anyone who knows me at all, knows I just want everyone to get along and love each other, but deep inside of me that homeless punk girl still lives. I would have shown her crazy like she has never seen. She probably would have been horizontal before she even realized that I have made a move toward her. My husband said,"If I would have thought about it, I would have told her that Ally's mom used to be homeless and she is crazy as a loon." With my rooster hair and my sleeve,I am sure she might have been a little intimidated when she saw me. I am not really what most people expect when you say mom. Needless to say, I was livid. I was ready to kick that girl into next week. I did not care about being a Christian, or living a crucified life at all. She talked smack to Larry, who refused to engage her. He just kept saying "I don't care what you have to say about her, you better leave my daughter alone; I don't play games." He just kept repeating it like a broken record, so they finally left. I am so glad that I was not home. I would have reacted and probably landed myself in jail in the process.
By the next morning God was already at work in my heart. As I ran, I realized that I could not hate the girl or be angry at her. I had to pray for her. She was me. I was crazy jealous like that. I was a nut case before Jesus turned me into a pecan pie. I would have totally gone to some poor girls house and yelled at her. I actually would have probably started beating on her. How sad, b/c Ally really didn't do anything. She really" loves" her boyfriend; whatever that means at 17. But she does care about him and has no interest in this other kid. But had I been the girl I wouldn't have been reasonable either; I would have beaten up an innocent girl b/c I was threatened by her. I started praying for her and the girl with the rotten teeth to come to the Kingdom. I prayed for the Spirit to go ahead and prepare the way and make their hearts open to the gospel and for God to send authentic Christians into their lives to love them and show them the way home, but I was still angry about her.

I prayed the next day for the whole crew, dad, mom, son (boyfriend), girl friend, and the girl with the rotten teeth.

Then this morning as I ran and prayed, and I prayed for them b/c I committed in my heart to pray for them something deeper happened. I saw the whole thing in light of the last day, when we stand before the Lord. I saw the situation outside of my small little story and say it in light of the much bigger story being told. The story that began before I was born and will still, probably, be being told when I am gone. The story that I am in for only a moment; our time here is like the flicker of a lightning bug. We forget that next to eternity and even history, our time here on earth is so fleeting. I saw a much bigger story that I am blessed to be able to have minute in. All this "coincidence" could not possibly just be coincidence. Seriously, what are the chances of the boy being hired at my daughters place of employment. Of all the places, of all the stores in a chain, with the girl who is moving into his house, a house where drugs were dealt. No chance in my mind that this was a coincidental chain of events. God was in the middle of the whole big mess. He orchestrated the whole thing. He chose this house for us. He decided that we would move into a former drug house. The former drug addict, in a house that will quite possibly see many former customers at it's door. The crazy girl friend deciding she hated Ally and stalking her. God has a plan. He knows my heart and He knows what I do when someone does something to me. I get angry for a minute, then I begin to pray. And when I say I am praying for someone it is not with pretense. I am not one of those who says they will pray then walks away and forgets. If I say I am praying, you can take it to the bank. Once you get on my list, you will be there for a while. As a matter of fact, I have a really hard time removing people once they are on. My list just keeps getting longer and longer. Call it a twitch. I feel very responsible for the people on my list of prayer. Not responsible to fix them or something, but responsible to lift them up every morning. I am a creature of rhythm and habit. I pray every day, like I breath and eat. I am not trying to say I am something special or spiritual, or whatever. I am just stating that prayer is as much a part of my life as eating is. It is something I spend a lot of time doing every day. God has given me a gift of being able to develop habits and rhythms very easily and in that He has made prayer a very rhythmic part of my life. So, He purposefully, brought this situation and these people into our lives b/c He has them in mind for the Kingdom. He wants them to come into the Family of God, so He has assigned me to them to seek His face for them. I don't know everything about prayer; as a matter of fact, I don't know much about prayer except that it works, it is a mystery and it is something that beats inside me like my heart. So, I have no doubt that these people are coming to know God b/c I have been assigned like a prayer marine to storm the gates of hell until the shackles fall off of their hands and feet and they are welcomed into the arms of the one who died for them.

There is no coincidence only Providence.

Then when I read my devotional for this morning, God drove it home for good measure. Luke 23:34 says, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do." Jesus prayed for all those around Him. He prayed for the religious leaders, the Romans, the disciples who abandoned Him; he prayed for all of humanity, including this family who used to live in this house. If He can pray, "Father, forgive them, in regards to the ones who nailed Him to the tree, how can I do anything less for the girl who just yelled at my daughter. Haven't we all done at least that, yelled at someone.

I am quite sure that God probably raised up stealth bombers to pray for me. There is no telling how many people prayed for me to come into the Kingdom. I am so grateful that He loves me enough to assign people to pray for me. What a beautiful day it was on earth and in eternity when those prayers found fulfillment. What an amazing day when the "the girl with the mohawk" came to Jesus. Who know someone may have prayed for me just like that, just like I pray for the girl with the rotten teeth. I stole from so many people and did so many terrible things, who knows, God may have directed my destructive behavior to one of His prayer warrior just b/c He know, like He knew with me, that they would pray for me. What a good and gracious God we serve.

I would like to ask for all of my friends and followers to pray diligently for these individuals. God has eyes for them. Jesus loves them and we have no idea what amazing works God has for them to do.
Ephesians 2:1-10
And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just s the others. But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved) and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. FOR BY GRACE YOU HAVE BEEN SAVED THROUGH FAITH, AND THAT NOT OF YOURSELVES; IT IS THE GIFT OF GOD, NOT OF WORKS, LEST ANYONE SHOULD BOAST. FOR WE ARE HIS WORKMANSHIP, CREATED IN CHRIST JESUS FOR GOOD WORKS, WHICH GOD PREPARED BEFOREHAND THAT WE SHOULD WALK IN THEM.

Who knows what works He has for them to do. Pray for them. J and T (mom and dad), T and girlfriend, and girl with rotten teeth. I don't want to put their names out of respect for them. Please pray diligently for them. The enemy has them and wants to keep them, but we must pray for them and fight for their salvation. I don't want a pretense of prayer, but I pray that God puts passion and love in your heart for them and compassion for the suffering they are undergoing at the hand of a very cruel master.

I am praying for myself as well. I pray that God will break my heart and fill me with His Spirit, love and compassion so that if I am faced with them I will share my story and how Jesus changed my life in a way that is authentic and loving and impactful.

What a beautiful Resurrection gift. I am so glad that God does these things. He is so good to me and I love Him with all my heart.

When God shows you your heart

God has the most unpleasant way of showing me what is really in my heart. I am so glad that He does it, but it is usually pretty disconcerting. We think we have come so far, which I definitely have, but lest I get proud God is so faithful to show me how far I still have to go.

This morning, as I ran, there was a knock on the door. It was pretty early, 830ish. I felt, at first, a little annoyed thinking it must be Ally needing in after locking her keys in the car. First, for those that do not know, the house I recently moved into used to be a drug house. Apparently a lot of Chrystal Methamphetamine came out of this house. The narcotics officers came to see the first week I was here. They did not realize that the house had been vacated and was now inhabited by a family that did not sell or even do drugs. We have only had knocks on our door twice so far that were for the previous tenants. I was kind of expecting a lot more of that.

Any way, on with my story. As I opened the door I say a youngish girl, with pretty rotten teeth (clue number one that you are dealing with Meth, for real). She asked for Tracy, the lady I have already been informed was one of the main players in this little Meth drama.

I, haughtily stated, "They don't live here any more, we do."

To which she replied, "Oh. I love your hair!"

I responded, "Thanks, there are no more drugs here and no more drugs dealers."

"Oh," she said and walked off.

I was so proud of myself and feeling quite amused with my quit witted response. I went to inform my husband with a grin on my face. Then I got back on my treadmill, where as most everyone who follows this blog knows I run and pray every morning for longer than I really want to admit to most people b/c I know they think I am crazy when they here how long I actually run every day. I enjoyed my amusement of myself for about 60 seconds on my treadmill before God started gently talking to me about what I had just done.

I missed last Sundays church service b/c I was sick as was the whole family. I like to keep up with the sermons b/c Mark (our teaching pastor) is spending this year going methodically through I Corinthians. I didn't want to miss out. So I listened to that sermon last night before I went to bed allowing for God to pull from what I had listened to Mark teach last night. I won't go into the whole sermon, but it was over 2 verses. The main thing God prodded me with was, "We are the temple of the Holy Spirit and He inhabits us like He once inhabited the physical temple in the Old Testament."

So God says to me, "Are you not the Temple of the Holy Spirit?" "Do I not inhabit your very being?" "Was there not someone just standing before you that needs me?" "My Spirit dwells in you to give you power and to love people." This girl is obviously held captive by a very harsh slave driver. I have been addicted to Meth; it is relentless; it is like being chained up in a darkness that there is not escape from. This poor girl with rotten teeth is chained to the gates of hell with chains that she had no idea would hold her so tightly. She was deceived at some point into willing putting her hands into the shackles that now hold her in an hopeless grasp, a dark, hopeless, painful grasp. I stood before her with the answer to all the longings in her heart, with the power to set her free. The only thing I lacked was the compassion to reach into her darkness, take her hand and lead her into the light. I lacked the heart to care about someone God brought onto my porch. "Jesus had compassion" is written so many times in the new testament. Jesus dwells in me and He had compassion on me or I wouldn't be here. Because He had compassion on me, I am now the Temple of the Holy Spirit. I have been pondering, chewing on, and trying to digest the idea of taking up my cross daily. I cry out to God every day to make me a lover and servant of people, to help me take up my cross and here stood before me the opportunity to take up my cross and act like Jesus and I missed it. I don't even know her name. I didn't even ask her name. My ego, my pride, the ugly, ugly part of my heart overlooked her need. Now, I may not have been able to make a difference in her life, but I will never know b/c I didn't even try. How different could that encounter have been if I had just reached out? How might things have turned out if I had instead said, "Tracy doesn't live here anymore, but I do. What is you name? I would like to pray for you. Do you know Jesus?" I will never know if possibly she was desperate enough this morning to hear that someone loves her so much that He died so He could redeem her, walk with her and make her the Temple of the Holy Spirit.

Oh my God, have mercy on me, have mercy on all of us. Forgive us for not having a heart of compassion and eyes to see the desperate states of so many around us. Help us to know that we have you dwelling in us and that you dwell in us not so we can walk around glad that we know you while the world around us goes to hell. Help us to remember that we hold the answers to all of life's problems, questions, and needs. Forgive us for taking for granted all that you have done in us and all that you have given us.

What really makes this horrible is I personally know what it is like to be chained up with those chains. Even in the midst of spending time with God in prayer, my first reaction was pride, arrogance, and lack of compassion. What an unpleasant realization to have to come to this morning.

I am so grateful that God knows our failings and our tendency to do the wrong thing. I am grateful that He knew that I would react in such a flippant insensitive manner. He will send another. As a matter of fact, I began to pray for her as soon as He had taken me to task. I prayed for Him to send godly, authentic, sincere individuals into her life to show her the way home. I prayed the he would life the veil off of her heart and give her eyes to see the truth and that He would not let the enemy blind her to the truth of the Gospel. I added her to my prayer list, "the girl with rotten teeth". He will send someone to her and He will be faithful to remind me to pray for her. I may not be able to be the one who takes her hand and leads her out of darkness (my loss, truly), but God, in His grace and mercy will allow me to participate in her life by praying for her. I have repented and so am no longer guilty of that sin, but I have learned a lesson; I have seen my heart and I did not like what I saw. I will not beat up on my self and continue to feel guilty, but I will pray diligently that God will change my heart and not let me do that again. He is so good that He would show me, b/c we do not work on what we do not see. If we are not aware that we need to change, we don't seek Him to change us. What an amazing and gracious God we serve that He does not let us be complacent. "He who began a good work in us, will be faithful to complete it til the day of Christ."

I am filled with the Holy Spirit and He gives me power to love, impact and care. We should be so finely tuned and aware that He is in us and He leads those in need to our paths. If we will just open our eyes to see the need and realize that we have the answer, if we could only have compassion, what could we do in this world. Why has the church become the laughing stock of the world; why is the church so impotent that we hardly change any place we are? It is b/c we don't love. We don't see that every person we pass each day was created in the image of God and is one that He died for. Lord, give us eyes to see, ears to hear, and a heart to care. How many times do we walk by someone who desperately needs what we have and we don't have to heart to see it and care enough to share, to reach our hands out?

I didn't even just walk by, God brought her to my door and I looked the other way. Change my heart o God!!!!

Just wanted to share; I hope that my harsh lesson opens the doors of your hearts so you can learn from me and maybe do better in the face of the test than I did.

Its been a hard couple weeks

It has been a while since I wrote in my blog. It has seemed to me like someone has had their finger on a fast forward button in regard to my life. I have been so busy and had to go so many places in the last couple weeks. I keep looking back at the end of a week and wondering what happened to the week. I really want to slow down a bit and find a slow motion button. I need about 48 hours in slow motion I think. We moved and then it seems like life just sped up. What seems to happen when I get in this mode is that, when it does slow down, I feel out of sorts. I keep feeling like surely there is somewhere I need to be or something I need to be doing. I haven't sewn in probably 4 or 5 weeks, the blog has been neglected for about 3 weeks. Today, once I confirmed to myself that I really didn't have anywhere I needed to go or anything I needed to do, I decided to write about the last couple weeks. Then I hope to be able to sit down and be creative for a few minutes.

This last couple weeks I have really been confronted with how temporary life really is. I have been jarred out of the attitude I tend to walk around with that says bad things don't really come my way. We have not had health insurance for about close to 6 years. I just kind of operate with the idea that we will be okay and we are somehow immune to serious illness. I have had that illusion shattered for me in the last few weeks.

First my very good friend was diagnosed with Lymphoma. I am very sad about it, but I know that we will beat it as a team (her whole huge support group). Her diagnoses has caused me to re-evaluate my fairytale idea that my family is immune to any kind of sickness.

The thing that has really rocked me is losing someone that I once spent a good amount of time with. My friend Charla passed away this last Wednesday/Thursday. We were friends and she was one of the most accepting and wonderful people I have met. She had many long term health problems so I guess we all knew that it was possible that she could leave us at any moment, but I don't think anyone was really expecting it. I know she just seemed to me like the cat with more than nine lives. She would have problems, but she just kept kicking. B/c I didn't really expect her to go any time soon, I was really bad about putting off going to see her for a visit. Weeks turned into months, turned into over a year. I would feel in my heart that I should go see her, but I never stopped and took the time. It's like God would whisper to me, "Hey you should go see Charla." I would think yeah, I need to go see her, but somehow something else always came up. I would run into her and she always had a huge hug for me and, more times than not, she would be so happy to see me that she would start to cry. Over the years, as she got sicker, I found it harder to go see her. It was so difficult to see someone so sweet and talented and amazing be trapped inside such a broken body. I just always thought, I'll go tomorrow. I know that she did not hold it against me and still considered me one of her closest friends. When I first got the news, I felt so guilty for not having gone to see her more; she had been somewhat home bound for a good while. I sort of felt like that I had let her and God down b/c I hadn't spent more time with her. I have since realized that it's not that she needed me to come see her and it is not that I need to feel guilty for not being a "good Christian" and spending time with my friend who "needed" me to come see her. The truth is that I missed out on being able to have the gift of Charla in my life that last year or so. God wasn't wanting me to go bless Charla, He was wanting me to be blessed by her. I have learned a very hard lesson this week. We have to stop being so busy that we don't love the people in our lives and allow them to love us. Most of what keeps up busy is stupid and meaningless. The people are whats important. I read a book one time that talked about people being the "treasure" we store up in heaven. When we invest our time and money into people we are putting our priorities in the correct order.

I have been really quite sad over losing Charla. I am very sad that I did not take better advantage of the time I did have to spend with her. I feel like I can learn and take away a lesson, though, which makes it a little easier to bare the loss. I have to weigh my priorities very carefully. People must always hold the highest weight. The dishes will always be there; the house will always need to be cleaned. Running is fun, but I am not sure that I will look back with fondness over running 12 or 13 miles on my treadmill. I will look fondly back at all the people I have had the opportunity to know, love and be loved by. I find myself praying these days that God will help me be a better friend and to love people better. I want to be engaged in the lives around me and be always on the lookout for someone new to love and impact.

In the beginning part 5

Ok, we are coming up on the best part of the whole story. Every one's eager anticipating of the great meeting has me motivated to try and plow through the last of the story.

So, I guess we stopped at moving in the guy. But wait, first. I just have to say, I love writing this blog and I love sharing my story. Sometimes, though, I feel so exposed. Sometimes it hits me that all my darkest secrets are on the World Wide Web for anyone to read. People that I see everyday and people I have never met know all my secrets. I mean, I love telling my story, sometimes, though, I just think, you are telling people things that any normal person would keep secret locked away in a vault. They say that you are only as sick as your secrets and that the power of a secret is in the fact that it is a secret. So, once they secrets are exposed to the light, it has no power any more. Don't make too much of this little rant. I don't regret sharing. I want to tell the whole world my story b/c it is such an amazing story of God's grace and redemption. I just sometimes have a moment where I think what an odd thing it is the my blackest deepest moments are in print for all the world to read.

I moved in with this guy. It was kind of an awkward situation b/c I was married to this Squid character (he wasn't dead yet); I was pregnant with Crab's baby, and I was living with this other guy. At the time, we were really into inhalants. We would frequently mix them with LSD. There was a lot of LSD floating around that place. I had just gotten back from Cali and the LSD was not very strong. I cannot really remember how long I have been staying there. I don't think it had been very long. We took like 6 hits of LSD (for Cali standard at the time, that wasn't much, normally that is quite a bit). It just so happened this was a point in time when there was really, really strong acid going around. So we took quite a roller coaster ride, all of us. The whole night was pretty insane. I was pretty out of touch. It wasn't the type of out of touch that I can't see what was really going on now, but at the time things were pretty weird. I can say, I am not sure why I took so much LSD when I was doing drugs b/c I have very few good trips. Most of the time, I was miserable. It caused me mind to be so paranoid and weird. Everyone used to think I was so cute when I was tripping b/c I would keep one hand in my mouth with a big smile on my face. I was really actually scared out of my mind most of the time. I usually thought that Satan was after me or that someone was trying to kill me. Now tell me, why would someone want to repeatedly put themselves in the position to be that scared, but I did it hundreds of times over my drug career. I couldn't tell you how many times I did it. So it was a pretty strange night. At one point, I kept hearing this strange noise in the living room; we were in the bedroom hanging out. I thought that my boyfriends room mate was cooking the cat in the microwave (what I really heard was the hippy beads hanging between the living room and dining room every time some one passed through them- of course I did not realize that until we had come down). At another point, I became convinced that my best friend and boyfriend thought I had stolen something from them, so I cleaned out my pockets and told them to take anything that belonged to them (of course they looked at me like I had two heads). Then while laughing I caught sight of one of the boyfriends knives laying beside the bed and was convinced that they were plotting to kill me. That really freaked me out. Of course, in my paranoid state I did not share what I was thinking b/c I didn't want them to know I knew what was going on.

I must share the religious views represented in the house that night to give you a framework of what was about to happen. I was a proclaimed Atheist (my mom had met Jesus a couple years before and I thought she was crazy). My best friend was an agnostic. The boyfriend and his roommate were proclaimed Satanists who like stealing tombstones from the graveyard (they were all over the house). The boyfriend had been raised a Christian in a Charismatic church and turned away. I have a sense that he wasn't shown a very authentic Christianity. Then there was this one guys who claimed to be a Christian.

We were trying to just chill and the Christian (who was tripping too, was our LSD dealer and was huffing carburetor cleaner) kept coming in bringing up God. He is the one who started us on the religious talk. We all ended up in the living room tripping and huffing every kind of huffable chemical you can imagine. At one point me and Star were on the porch huffing Glade and watching the "sun rise" only to be told it was 10 pm so whatever we were looking at was not possibly the sun rise. There was starting fluid we huffed a bit. Then the Freon came out. Now, lest you forget, I am about 5 months pregnant with Ally at this point. Thank God, for His grace and mercy, b/c she is perfectly normal, super smart and a tremendous blessing in my life.

We were all huffing stuff and arguing over religion. I was calling all of them idiots for believing in anything. I said, "You guys are stupid, there is no God, no Satan, no heaven, no hell. You are all going to rot in the ground and feel stupid for believing in all this non sense." Then I took a huge gulp of Freon. Now, this part of the story must be told in two different perspectives. The first perspective is mine. I heard a deep guttural voice come from out of the floor that said, "Go get her boys." Imagine the voice a movie would give a demon or Satan; that is the voice. Immediately, I fell through the floor and fell for a couple minutes. When my feel landed I was in Hell. I will do my best to describe what I saw, but I have trouble putting it into even verbal words. There were flames all around me, but they were sort of transparent. I felt this horrible feeling inside of me that I came to realize after I met Jesus was total separation from God. Then I realized that there were demons all around me pointing and laughing at me. I knew that they were mocking me as if to say, "ha!! we tricked you, we got you to not believe in us or God and now you are here and there is nothing you can do about it." I truly believe that every person that ends up in hell will experience this mockery as the hoards laugh in victory. Then came what I have called "the dooky monsters". I know that you probably LOL ed over that, but when I came out of the hallucination that is the only thing I could come up with to describe them. They looked like sleestaks from the old school Land of the Lost, only they had glowing grids on them like the old Tron game. The walked kind of like sleestaks too. As they got closer to me, they jumped at me and then I was inside of them. It was like I was inside thick gelatin. Then I sort of flashed from scene to scene in hell. I was retarded for a minute, then some other places I don't really remember. The next think I knew I was back in the trailer, one of the guys had a hold of my arms and the door to the trailer was knocked off the hinges.

Now, the perspective of the observers. I took my big hit if Freon, then suddenly I was screaming bloody murder, stomping on the guy that was laying on the ground beside where I was standing while I tried to get something off of my arms. The guys said that they had never heard anyone scream like I screamed before. It was blood curdling as they said. The guys had to grab me to keep me from stomping the other ones face in. And I was still going so crazy I knocked him into the door and knocked it off of its hinges.

As I came too, everyone was staring at me wide eyed like, "what the hell, just happened?" I was like, "wow, what the hell was that?" Then I said, "I don't know what just happened. I don't know where I just was, but I don't think I am an atheist anymore. I don't know what I believe, but I feel like if I ever end up in that place again, I will not be able to leave it. and...I don't want to go back." I was pretty flipped out the rest of the night. To this day, the group of friends that I hung out with at the time says that I had a bad trip and went religious.

So, the next day, I called my mom. I knew she would be able to help me understand what had happened b/c she was into this religious thing.

Now stop for a minute and really think about what you have read in the previous parts so you can really see the miracle here and really see the power of God. Forgive me for becoming an evangelist for a minute. This is the girl who used to kick in peoples wind shields. This is the gutter punk who stole and conned, manipulated and attacked people. This is the drug addict who just wanted to die in a numb overdose. Hopeless, angry, bitter, broken, and done with life. Who do you know, that is a hopeless case? Who have you just given up on? Who is the person that you have spoken over and over to only to have them reject or even laugh in your face? What is the situation that you despair has an end, an answer, a hope? Think about in a minute.

Don't cheat!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Stop!!!!!!!!!!! Think!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Find it in your mind!!!!


Now, you can read on. That girl who wasn't even looking for God, that angry girl who would have stolen your wedding ring right off of you finger, and spit in your face while she did it, God reached from eternity and grabbed her by the shoulders, shook her, and said "here is what you are choosing for eternity, wouldn't you like to have something better?" There is NO HOPELESS SITUATION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! God is the God of Hope. He is the God of redemption! He is the only one who can change us. He is hope for the hopeless, healing for the bleeding, salve for the wounded, peace for the tormented, joy for the sorrowful. He loves, forgives, and restores.

Now back to my story. I called mom and I said,"mom, I know you don't approve of me doing drugs while I am pregnant, but something happened last night and I need to talk to you about it." I told her the story and asked her what I should do about it. I said, "I am not sure I believe in God, but I am afraid to take the chance on going back to that place. I don't want to spend eternity there." Her response was the wisdom if our loving Father in Heaven. I believe that He told her exactly what to say. She said, "This is what I would tell you to do. Pray and say, 'God if you are real show yourself to me.' If He is real, He will show you. If He is not, you haven't lost anything and no one ever even has to know that you prayed that prayer." So I started praying that day. I prayed it every night for a couple months. I broke up with the boy and the adoption agency I was talking to about having my baby adopted helped me get an apartment. I was working the night shift at Whataburger.

Then one night when I was about 7 months pregnant, I called me mom and said I want to go to church with you tonight. It was a Friday night (the church she went to had Friday night services). She was a little shocked, but said she would pick me up. I walked into that church that night 7 months pregnant (huge belly), in a tiny little mini dress, Doc Martins, leather jacket, bright red mohawk (standing straight up). They started doing Praise and Worship and as I looked around everyone seemed so happy and they seemed to be really into the God thing. Tears kept streaming out of my eyes. I kept wiping them away and I was so annoyed that they wouldn't stop. (I never cried, ever!!) I think the tears were b/c I could feel the presence of God around me. I have no idea what was preached that night. At the end of the service a man named David Fees stood me up and began to "prophesy" as they called it. He spoke right to my heart. It was like he cut through every layer of denial, hurt and fear I had and got right into my true heart. He said to me, "The Lord wants you to know that He loves you and that He has seen your tears." I still get tears in my eyes and chills every time I say or write that. I began to weep uncontrollably. No one had ever loved me. My mother and father didn't even love me. She does now and she really did when I was a child as well. She just didn't know how to love b/c she was so broken and devastated herself. I had never felt loved by anyone. I had never felt like anyone valued me at all. But then David spoke to me and told me that someone did love me and that someone loved me enough to die on a cross for me. Well, really he died on the cross for all of humanity, but that is a whole theological discussion for another day. David asked if I wanted to ask Jesus into my heart to be my savior and I did pray and I was never the same.

My transformation was immediate. It was like night and day. There was nothing gradual about any part of it. I did a 180 and hit the ground running. I even went to hang out with some of my old friends that night and began to tell them about this Jesus who loved me. I didn't really know anything at all about Him or the Bible or anything, but I knew that He loved me and I loved him. I knew that I prayed and I felt His presence. I had prayed and asked , "if you are real, show yourself to me" and He showed up and He showed himself to me. I knew I would never be the same. It didn't matter who believed me or who mocked me. No one could change my mind Jesus loved me and no one else really mattered to me anymore. I have never done drugs since that night. It was actually a few weeks before that night, but I count my drug sobriety date as that night b/c that is when I knew I never wanted drugs again. Jesus was so much better!!! That was July 17, 1992. At that point, I was intending to give the baby up for adoption and they had no idea about the drugs.

I am going to stop for now and pick up more on that later. But for all of you who have been eagerly awaiting this part of the story, there you go. Thanks for reading. I love to tell this story, it is so good, He is so good.