Easter voiced- my thoughts exactly

I really loved this post from Jen Hatmaker because, well, this is very similar to the journey my family and I have been on these last few years.  

It’s Easter.
Between ages 0-32, I celebrated Easter the fun way: with bunnies, baskets, and expensive clothes. What better way to say “Jesus reigns” than dressing my preschooler in a $45 dress to show her off in the church lobby? (You’re welcome, Jesus. Be blessed.)
Now, let’s be clear, if you had asked me what my Easter priorities were as I stood all fancy in the lobby, I’d become grave and mention the resurrection. For crying out loud, I’m a Christian. But truthfully, between the outfit shopping, the Easter baskets, the egg ______ (dying, stuffing, hiding, hunting), the pictures, the lunch menu, and the gift buying, Jesus was flat last. I started thinking about him as the band started at church, and I thought about him for a whole hour.

That’s just true.

But for the last three years, Jesus has messed with me. Frankly, he’s hijacked all my holiday endeavors. I’ve always celebrated holidays with a Cultural Major and a Spiritual Minor. Take Christmas, for example. I endlessly spent on garbage no one needed and worked myself into a December frenzy and oh well. La de da. Now I’m overwhelmed by the poor and the disgusting consumerism cycle and the heinous neglect of Jesus and the appalling nature of it all.

Then we got to Easter, or as God called it, Passover. “Easter” is a little name picked up from the Anglo-Saxon fertility goddess of spring, ‘Eostre’, who saved a frozen bird from the harsh winter by turning it into a magical rabbit who could lay eggs. Hence: ‘Easter’, bunnies, and eggs. Why are elements of a pagan religion associated with the highest holy day of the Christian faith? (Oh bother. Can’t we just carry on and dye our Eostre eggs in peace?)

Assessing the typical American Easter, on one side I see Jesus on the cross, humiliated and mutilated, bearing the failures of every person past and present, rescuing humanity through an astonishing miracle of divine redemption, splitting history in two and transforming the human experience for eternity. On the other side, I see us celebrating this monumental heroism with chocolate bunnies and boiled eggs, with Jesus as an afterthought. It doesn’t make sense. (Insert some of you tossing this book in the garbage. Don’t mess with my Easter fun, you hippie chick.)

Read the rest of her post HERE. (Link opens in new window.)

The pouring out

Four or so years ago, God gave us this desire to move out to the country and live a simple life. Now, if you knew me before all of this, you would know that sort of thing would not have been very appealing to me. I really liked the city, and the idea of being out in the middle of no where and getting my hands dirty? Like, ew. When I was a kid, I would have loved to live out in the country. I was a tomboy, and loved getting dirt under my nails, but somewhere in my late teens and early twenties, I had definitely become quite the priss. In fact, the idea of working hard... actually having to work with my hands and work up a sweat... yeah, no thanks.

So, you can see how much of a change it has been for me to have my desires completely flip flopped. Brandon and I went from desiring a bigger house, nicer cars, more stuff, more money to just wanting to simplify. A lot of people thought we were nuts when we started talking about building what is called a "tiny house" and cramming our growing family in less square footage (so we could move out to the country). I used to talk about it a lot, but it seemed like such a distant dream. I had no idea how we were ever going to get to that point. It really felt like an impossible dream- that God had put this desire in my heart and this dream in my head that we would never achieve. It took a few years for me to realize that was kind of the point.

I believe the Lord wanted me to realize that this was not only a God-planted dream, but also a God-directed one. He is going to arrange it. It is in His hands. One day it became very clear. I was telling a friend about our dream, and then said something like, "Well, it'll be a miracle when it happens because it just doesn't seem possible."

{*Light bulb moment*}

Then it hit me that God had been, was, is still arranging all the pieces. Just because it's taken four plus years doesn't mean He hasn't been choreographing it all. The message to me has been, "Sit back and watch Me work, Mandy. Don't rush it. Don't push it. Just let Me do it."

Even though the journey has been rough, I am so glad that the Lord showed us that stuff is just stuff. As Brandon often says, "One day, it's all gonna burn." It's stuff. It breaks down. It gets lost, stolen, worn out, replaced, repaired, rebroken. It's stuff. It becomes clutter. More stuff to dust, wash, clean, care for. And, throughout our lives, we keep adding more and more stuff to the collection, don't we?

But I know what it's like to have nearly nothing. I know I've said this a lot, but I like to remind myself of how poor we used to be because that's one of the times in my life when I felt the richest. House on the brink of foreclosure. Truck repossessed. Restaurant going under. Twenty dollars in my pocket for groceries and diapers for the week. Electricity being turned off every month. It looked bad. It seemed depressing from the outside looking in. But I felt so rich. It's not like I loved the position we were in. I was indeed frustrated with the whole situation but boy did we learn a lot of valuable lessons. It was one of the richest seasons in our lives.

It's when we really learned that God wanted us to pour our lives into people, not our business, not our stuff, not the "pursuit of happiness". Our home may not have been much, but it was always open. It became the place of ministry as Brandon and I learned how to reach out to those who were where we had been- those lives controlled by drugs, alcohol, sex, marital woes, and various other addictions, lives that needed someone to love them until they could love themselves, pour out patience and kindness.

Not to say that being in that position didn't sometimes drive me crazy because it is really difficult to work with addicts, to help them get clean and then see them fall back into that pit. It's really hard because you love them, you want them to be free of those things, you want them to see how rich life can be, and how those addictions are chains that hold them back. But it's also a good mirror. It has shown me the love of God, how I was addicted to stuff and a dream that was useless and fruitless and never-ending (because you are never satisfied with the stuff you have if that's what you're chasing after), and how Christ wanted to set me free from my dependence on stuff, and I can get "clean", but I end up falling back into that pit because it's tempting and it's flashy and it's all around me and it's new and it's improved, and man, I've gotta have it.

And yet it never, ever brings happiness. It's brings a temporary high, but it never satisfies.
I firmly believe that nothing in this dimension can satisfy.

Look around at all the people who are constantly chasing after something fresh and new, never satisfied for long. That unquenchable thirst. We get what we think we want, and it's not enough. We're all starry-eyed and wooed and then after a few days, weeks, months or years, when we feel we aren't being served by it or him or her, the search is on. If you're pursing happiness, you'll probably never find it. Happiness is a state of being. It's not something you can find or create. Happiness is contentment, and you will never be content as long as you are focused on yourself, on what you have or don't have, on how you're being treated or how you should be treated, or whether you've achieved the goals you had in mind.

But man, we live in a society that hates contentment. Loathes it. We market against it. We are bombarded with images that stir a longing within us for something "better" than what we have. The "Keeping up with the Joneses" syndrome. An envy, greediness, a Gollum-like obsession over anything that sparkles- "My precioooous."

All that keeps us from really enjoying what we have already been blessed with, blinds us to what really matters, distracts us from what is truly valuable. It's so easy to be distracted. God is constantly realigning my focus. I am like a small child thrilled over trash, refusing treasure. Reminds me of what our pastor in Louisiana once said. "We're clinging to a cow patty, while God is offering us a gold brick."

I'm constantly stripping away the stuff, and yet the addiction is still there. My eye is drawn to things I don't really need, craving meaningless things. I'm no fool. I know that shedding the stuff won't make life perfect. I know that moving out to the country won't make me happy. I mean, yes, it will make life simpler, and it can bring about things I really want, but it, in itself, will not bring happiness. I can't live life waiting for the next phase, living for the "when". I've been in that trap. Life will be better when. I'll be happy when. I'll start really living when. I'll be a better wife/mother/friend/person when. I'll enjoy life more when.

What about now? I'm aware that my dream can become just as much an addiction as stuff. I can lean on a dream just as I can lean on stuff. I can chase after a dream just as I can chase after stuff. And it won't satisfy any more than my stuff will satisfy. It's a hard lesson to learn- how to live right now, to be intentional about living this very moment to its fullest. We categorize the days and the moments. This is a good day. That was a bad day. I'm ready for tomorrow. I miss yesterday.

So what about now? Can I choose to enjoy now, even if my newborn is fussy, and my toddler is clingy, and the children are being too noisy, and my house is dirty, and I miss/want/need my mama and..... Can I turn it around, appreciate that I have babies who need me, a house that is full and running over? Can I put on different glasses, change the perspective, realign my focus, tweak the lens through which I see my life?

I want to see the stuff as just stuff. I want to see the beauty where beauty really is. So many things masquerade as gold, but few things are. I want what is truly valuable, I want to clearly see it, never take it for granted.

I want the simple things. You can have the world, I don't want it. I don't want the competition for bigger, better, badder. I don't want to be a celebrity. I don't want to be famous. I don't want to be rich. I just want to live in the fullness of love, to really pour out my life like Christ did. That's where the value is- in the pouring out, not the taking in.

What will I have done with them?

 

I think it's fair to say that Molly Jo has changed my perspective on life.  I suppose that's happened with every birth and every child, but she really has taught me the value of each breath. I don't want to waste one, and boy, do we waste them.

We waste them complaining and arguing.  We waste them as we focus on negative things, grumble over things in our heads, stressing that beating heart.  And every beat of the heart is precious.  I can't tell you how many times in the last few days that I have counted to ten.  Ten seconds.  How can ten seconds seem so long?

Ten seconds without a heartbeat. Mouth to mouth. Chest compressions. Suction. Suction. Oxygen. Breathe.......

My-oh-my how ten seconds can fly at any other time.
I think of how many ten-second-spans I have wasted on thoughts and worries and concerns for tomorrow.  How many heart beats I've used frivolously on things rather than people, stuff rather than relationships. How many breaths I've inhaled, exhaled in anxiety over the pokes and prods of the devil instead of in peace and trust in the knowledge of Jesus Christ.

Our time is limited. Our heart beats have a number. The breaths of this body will one day be sucked away.
And what will I have done with them?

But I fear that, as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your minds may be seduced from a complete and pure devotion to Christ.

2 Corinthians 11:3

What I learned from skipping Christmas

 I am really, really glad we decided to do a low-key Christmas this year.  It was truly a relaxed, hassle-free holiday for once, especially since we were able to avoid all the chaos of the stores.

We were able to steer clear of most of the commercial holiday gimmicks (especially since we don't watch television), and no one seemed to miss going sans-trees and holiday decor. (Although, I still do have a fake strand of evergreen above the kitchen windows- it's been there for a year.)  I've read so many posts on Facebook, blogs, and other places in which people exclaim that they are so stressed out.  And, from my current prospective, I have to say that most of that stress is self-done.  I feel we choose to put so much on ourselves around the holiday seasons- we want it to look and feel a certain way, and we think we have to have so many gifts under the tree, and the family meal has to go just perfect and....

Then there's the depression that sets in when you cannot afford to buy very many gifts for your children, and the pretty Christmas picture you have in your mind does not unfold as you wish it would. I know what that's like, I've been there as well.  But, more and more lately, our family has been looking at other families around the world and seeing that, even at our poorest, we are incredibly rich.  

We complain about not having this or that gadget or toy, or not having the best gifts under the tree, or there not being ham at the Christmas Eve dinner (finger pointing at my husband here, ha!) .... and we're so caught up in what we want, what we desire, and things we think we need... when in reality, it's all a cherry on top. I suppose this is one of the big negatives of living in America where wealth is taken for granted and called "poverty", where people who have a big screen television and expensive gadgets complain about not having enough food on the table. I don't think we understand how completely ridiculous that sounds to someone in Lesotho, South Africa where our friend, Nkutu, lives.

Our perspective is extremely skewed, and we call our selfish desires our "rights", and we think we deserve every little thing we desire while people who work harderthan us, live tougher than us, and see things no human being should ever see struggle just to get food on the table. 

Believe me, I'm preaching to myself as much as anyone else.

And, maybe it sounds like I can say this stuff now because we're doing good financially, but that hasn't always been the case.  And, while the main reason we're doing well financially is because of the grace of God, another reason is because we've learned our lesson in managing money, don't buy anything we can't pay with in cash, and try to keep a savings stored up.  However, all of that is just MONEY and it can be gone in a second.. and someday it will.  (Seriously, all China has to do is cash in on all the debt we owe them, and the people of the United States are going to find that they won't be able to afford a loaf of bread!)

For all the folks talking about the "Christmas Spirit", I really hope they aren't talking about the Spirit of Christ... because that's not what I see this time of year (for the most part). What I see is a spirit of materialism, people concerned about what they are getting, what to get for other people, who got something better than they did.....  and depressed when the "Christmas Spirit" doesn't hit us like we hoped, and we can't smile through the season because the season is a hassle and a hoax and is making us go broke and our kids hardly appreciate the things we spent good money on.

Know what I mean?

I'm not saying we can't have nice things, but man... so often we make life about those "nice things".  This morning, I was looking at my face in the  mirror, noticing the subtle changes that aging brings, and I actually felt okay with that.  It's just a face, it's just skin, it's just a vessel. It's not me... it's just the vessel that contains me.

Lord, I don't want to be so obsessed with how I look, what I have, and my own status in life that I miss the point of it all.  It's not about any of that, yet we spend so much of our time- waste so much of our time- obsessing over it all.

These last half-dozen years of my life have been very interesting to say the least. I had everything stripped away from me, and I had everything "returned" (so to speak) and more. For me, who I was, my identity, was tied to my stuff- the appearance of things, how it looked, how I looked, what I had.  It was very humbling to have that all taken from me. Very. 

I didn't write a lot on my blog in those days, and when I did, I didn't go into much detail about that part of our lives. It was embarrassing. I didn't want anyone to know that we hardly had two pennies to rub together, and were always in danger of losing our business and our home.   But, through all of that, God taught me that it's just stuff.  And I learned to give, even when I had little to give (whether it was of my money, time, effort, strength, love..).  I learned to take joy in those "simple" things, which, in reality, are the big things.

But it's so easy to forget those lessons.

This month has been absolutely amazing as we have leaned on the Lord to show us what to do, how to bless others, how to be vessels of His love. I keep having to remind myself- it is not about  me.  It's easy for me to get caught up in my wants, feelings, plans.... and to ignore God's desires, His will, His hopes for me.

We started out this month with plans not to "do Christmas", and yet I feel that we have "done" Christmas more than ever.  It has been so refreshing to set aside the materialism, the rush and the mental stress of it all, and just focus on Christ.   It's been so great have so many opportunities to teach our children about giving, real giving.  Giving to people who can't afford to return the favor, who won't be able to repay your kindness.  I'm talking about the kind of giving that is not a "gift exchange", but the kind of giving that is as Christ's example- giving to those who truly need and will never ever be able to repay you.  I mean, if we're going to celebrate Christmas, isn't that what it's REALLY all about?

While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. [Romans 5:8]

For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.  [Romans 5:6] 

That is what it's about, isn't it? That's what life is about.  Sometimes I picture Christ dying for those who had stoned Him, scorned Him, betrayed Him- dying for those who hate Him, blaspheme Him, use His name in vain.  Dying for those who justify sin and love wrong-doing.  Dying... dying for the murderer, the child-abuser, the rapist.  Not just the "good" people, but those society deems bad and horrible and disgusting as well.

This is the kind of love we are called to have. To love the unlovable, not just those we like.  To give, to extend ourselves to the fullest extent.  To think of others, to serve others, above ourselves.

This was the lesson God was desperately trying to teach me when  our friends were living with us, yet I kept thinking about myself, my own feelings, and justifying myself by society's standards.  Afterall, as people kept telling me, hadn't we gone "above and beyond" in inviting a family of six into our home for a month? 

But Christ calls us to go beyond what "good people" do, to stretch ourselves, to give until it hurts.  And, in doing that, there really is no room for this mindset that Imust have, I will have, I deserve....

Like I said, I feel that, in "skipping" Christmas, I have had the best Christmas of all.  I've appreciated my family more than ever, I've enjoyed giving more than ever, I've seen the Holy Spirit move more than ever (not that He wasn't moving before, I just didn't see it).

Radical Charity

Give your life away in exchange for many lives, give away your blessings to multiply blessings, give away so that many might increase, and do it all for the love of God.  ~One Thousand Gifts, Ann Voskamp

For many of us, the great obstacle to charity lies not in our luxurious living or desire for more money, but in our fear- fear of insecurity. ~ C.S. Lewis

Sometimes our pride also hinders our charity; we are tempted to spend more than we out on the showy forms of generosity (tipping, hospitality) and less than we ought on those who really need our help. ~ C.S. Lewis

We are just a vessel for Christ to live His life through. ~ Terry Stanley

The point of your life is to point to Him. ~ Crazy Love, Francis Chan

Too much of the good life ends up being toxic, deforming us spiritually. ~ David Goetz

We need to realize that how we spend our time, what our money goes toward, and where we will invest our energy is equivalent to choosing God or rejecting Him. ~ Crazy Love, Francis Chan

True faith holds nothing back; it bets everything on the hope of eternity.  ~ Crazy Love, Francis Chan

God didn't just give a little for us; He gave His very best. He gave Himself. ~ Crazy Love, Francis Chan

May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and gave everlasting comfort and good hope by means of undeserved kindness, comfort your hearts and make you firm in every good deed and word. ~ 2 Thess 2:16,17

"Taking up the cross"... is a call to radical faith. Jesus is calling us to be willing to suffer anything and forsake everything for the sake of the gospel. [...] His call is to consider everything a loss for His sake. His call is total surrender. ~ Forgotten God, Francis Chan

In charity there is no excess. ~ Sir Francis Bacon

The charity that hastens to proclaim its good deeds, ceases to be charity, and is only pride and ostentation. ~ William Hutton

Note worthy