Judge Not

This morning I was convicted of holding other people up to my standards. It is so easy to judge people based on my perspective, my experiences, and my belief. It is so easy to expect people to react like I would react, but it is not right for me to do so.

Recently someone decided to stop speaking to me. She has her reasons, although they are not based on what really happened. I could judge her reaction based on how I would have handled it, but I choose not to. Not to sound like I have it all together, I have make this decision daily, and sometimes it is not an easy decision to make. It is so much easier to choose to react badly.

Another situation, one that doesn't involve me at all, recently happened and someone made a comment about how they would have reacted if they had experienced the same things as another person. It is easy to say, but it is so not true. We have no idea how we will react to situations that we have never faced. We can't look at our own lives and think we will know how we will react to situations we have never faced, possibly will never face.

But neither of these situations were what I was convicted of this morning. I realized that I had been holding another person's life up to my standards. I had to stop and think about what my life has been like, what my exposure to Christ has been, and what my relationship with Him means to my life. This person has not had a life like mine. This person has had infrequent exposure to the Truth and has been mislead more than not. My childhood wasn't easy, but even so it wasn't as difficult as this person's. I don't know how I would react to life if it was like this person's. So I was convicted of judging based on my life.

Ultimately, this conviction lead me to tears and prayers on a deeper level. On a level that looked beyond me and even beyond this person. The prayers were for this person to have a chance to be exposed to Truth and to develop a true relationship with Him.

Will I slip into the habit of judging? Judging based on my life and believes? Yes, I am sure that I will, but I hope that it will become easier not to.

The One That I Love

This blog exposes me. It makes me put out there things that I would rather keep all to myself. Things like fears, feelings, dreams, and longings. I especially want to keep my longings to myself. I keep just enough of me back. I have such a hard time letting it all out, letting it go. I don't want to risk being judged, being rejected. Part of me wants to spill it all out and let it go. Part of me dreads that possibility. But right now I feel like I will bust if I don't pour some of me all over this post.

I love someone. I mean truly love this person. I want this person to experience joy, especially the joy of a relationship with Christ. I want this person to not have to experience the pain of strained relationships with family. I want this person to know he is wanted, that he is loved. I want him to experience a stability in his life that he has rarely had. I want him to have great friendships. I want him to have success in the things that he loves to do the most. I want him to smile everyday. (He has a great smile.) I want him to feel loved. I want him to know that I love him and that no matter what I always will. No matter the miles of separation. No matter the past. No matter the present. No matter what the future may bring. I want him to know, but I fear that he never will.

Oh, I have said it. I have showed it. I just don't think it has been enough.

You see this person I love is not an adult, but a child, well a teenager. I first knew I loved him when he was only 9. I had the strongest pull on my heart that I have ever had in my life. I am not a parent and although I can't be sure, I believe I love him like he was my own child. Like I said, I have never loved anyone like it before or since. And just when I thought maybe he would become more apart of my life, it all crumbled in front of me. I was devastated and the pain of that time is still with me. In some ways the intensity of the pain has diminished but in some ways it is just as strong as ever.

I have tried to keep my hands totally off and let God do what He will, but it has been hard. I have put my hands in and it hasn't gone well. This morning I was trying to convince myself that I could put my hands in just a little bit and it would be okay, but I knew that it wouldn't be. I knew it wasn't for me to do. I knew it wasn't about him. I knew it was about my selfish feelings. I knew I had to stay strong in my faith and keep my hands off.

That doesn't change the fact that I want the pain to go away. I want the joy of being apart of his life. I miss him terribly. I pray for him. I cry for him. I hope for him. And for right now, that is all I can do.

Change Is Happening!

Life is full of change. And I am pretty sure this is one of those times for me.

Right before I started teaching my last year in New York God spoke to me. He told me "don't look past this year." So in faith I knew I was supposed to finish out the year and then quit my job, sell my place, and move. Move where? I will admit  a few times that year my faith was shaky to say the least. The school year ended and I no longer had a job. I had decided to move to Texas with my parents, but I still owned my place and my last paycheck was coming soon and then what. I had August left. After August I would be broke and stuck. In August a man came along and with only a day or two before the I was supposed to move my place sold. The moving van was packed and my brother and were set to drive to Texas.

God came through on the last moment. Can't say I didn't wish it had been sooner, but He was right on time.

My last year in Georgia I knew it was my last year even before school started. I knew I was going to move to North Carolina. I put my house on the market and it just wouldn't sell. A few came and looked, some even acted as if they would buy and then nothing. I got new job in North Carolina and I knew I was to go, but the house wasn't selling. My faith was shaky again. I left North Carolina but this time the house didn't sell at the last minute.

It never sold actually. It was foreclosed because in almost 2 years I had eaten away my savings paying for it and living in here. My faith was really shaky through that whole process, but the end it all was for the best. That is another story altogether.

Last school year I felt like God was doing some major work on me, preparing me. The school year was difficult and I kept thinking that I wasn't sure how much more I could take. I thought something was going to change. God told me on January 1st that this was the year. I, of course, had my ideas of what that should mean, what I wanted it to be. None of what I expected has happened and my faith has never felt so shaky as it has the last month.

Then yesterday I finally realized whatever change He has in mind has to be better than this. So I made a decision to embrace it. I have no idea what the change will bring, but I know embracing what He wants for me has brought me peace. And I am excited that someday I will be posting about all He is doing and showing me!

The Vulnerability of Complete Surrender

When I used to live 5 minutes from work I loved the fact that I never felt rushed to get to work. I loved being able to go to events at school just 5 minutes before they started and it only taking the same number of minutes to get home afterwards. It made evening events not so bad, I still had much of the evening to myself. I was close enough to go to Kate's Skate nights, school restaurant nights, and such. It was convenient.

Now I live in my blessing of a house. I love my home and I thank God for it almost every single day. My drive is longer and I must cross 74 to get to work. Depending on what time of day it is that can be a bit of a wait. Too close the 7 AM and the cars are backed up for quite a ways and it can take 2 lights to get over 74. It makes going to evening school events very inconvenient, but it does allow me the time to pray that I need so much.

Since I started driving, I have been a car prayer. Of course that's the only place that I pray. For whatever reason it is one of the most special places for me to pray. Now my trip to and from work is closer to 20 minutes and I get to talk to God both ways, if I'm not singing, which I'm really good at in the car. :)

This morning as I drove to work I was praying. I was praying about surrender. I was asking God to help me to surrender so many things in my life right now that seem to be crowding into my thoughts and feelings lately. It was a good time of prayer and it reminded me of an incredible instance in my life.

When I was a senior in college I prayed a prayer that resulted in something that I had never experienced before or since. I do not remember the why of this prayer. I don't remember what events were happening at that time. I just remember the prayer and the results. I prayed a prayer of surrender, total surrender. I have prayed to surrender parts of my life before this prayer and also since. This time was different.

The difference was the results. Instantly I felt a peace like none I have known before. That peace was followed by a complete sense of rawness, exposure, vulnerability. It was an amazing sense of knowing that at that moment anyone or anything could rip me to shreds, and yet having the knowledge that I was totally in God's hands. This amazing experience only lasted a day, but it was a long day. I went about my classes, hanging with my friends, and being a senior in college, and the whole time this dual vulnerability/peace in His hands was also being experienced that day. The next day the stripped away feeling was no longer there, but I still knew that I was in a total surrender state.

I only know of one other person who has experienced this, I'm sure there have been others, maybe many others. I only know of one. I know about Carrie's experience because after my experience I told her about mine. A few days later she told me that she didn't understand what I experienced until she prayed the same prayer and experienced the same sense of total surrender and vulnerability.

Like I said, even though I have prayed to surrender to God since then I have never had that experience again.  Part of me is glad that I haven't, it was extremely hard, and part of me wishes I would. As hard as that experience was, the fact that I knew I was completely in God's hands overshadow any other feelings or fears of that day.

Trying to Figure Out How to Deal With the Feelings

Lately I've been feeling, I don't know what word fits best, but not right works. I try really hard to balance my feelings. There was a time when I would stuff all my feelings down and ignore them. That by the way is not healthy. So a few years ago I decided to let God heal me and help me feel again.

The healing process can be a painful one. Stuffed feelings tend to grow infections all over your heart, and my heart was green with gangrene. God had to gently remove the yuck, but even though He was gentle it hurt. It hurt a lot! I spent so much time crying, most of the time I didn't even know what I was crying about. Even though it was one of the worst times in my life it was also the best. I know that sounds crazy, but it's true. I know that God was working so even though it hurt I knew it was making me better.

Since then I have done my best not to stuff my feelings, sometimes that is really hard. I do not enjoy feeling the bad feelings, and I want to stuff them so badly. Lately, I have been feeling those bad feelings: lonely, sad, angry, and hopeless. I have wanted to stuff those feelings away, and sometimes I do. That hasn't helped, because I have continued to feel the yuck feelings, and the effects of stuffing.

My problem now is having the emotions and figuring out how to deal with them. Do I just wear them on my sleeve? Do I put them away when I need to do my job and let them out when I'm not at work? Do I just go through my life, feeling them, and not letting them overwhelm me? That would probably be the right answer, but as a former stuffer I still don't know how to do that.

I want the yuck feelings gone. I want my prayers to work and for me not to be sad, to not miss people, to not be overwhelmed by my job, etc. I figure I have feel these feelings for some reason. I just wish that I didn't. I wish that the people I miss weren't gone to be missed. I wish my job wasn't so stressful so I didn't get overwhelmed. I wish I wasn't feeling sad and lonely.

Why this post? I've said it before that posting is like my therapy so maybe that's why I posting. Maybe somehow it is helping me deal with those emotions and feelings that I don't know how to deal with.

He Always!

I saw this on Facebook and had to share. It is exactly me. I fear what is to come and the pain of the past sometimes cripples my heart. Sometimes it is hard to look up when my eyes are full of my present condition, but looking up to Him is the answer. He is always there. He always loves me, even when I don't deserve it. He always keeps His promises, even if it feels like He is taking too long. He has never failed me and He never will.

My Post Posting Condition

So I wanted to post and let you know that I have this condition that happens after I hit "publish". Whatever emotion I am dealing with while posting seems to go away. It's like I get lighter after the post, like it lifts off of me. I can think of only one time that didn't happen, at least not right away. My last post was about being angry and after my post I wasn't angry anymore. I still have to deal with my lack of faith on this issue, but the anger was gone.

Whenever I have those need to post I guess it is like therapy for me. I have my posting session and then I feel better. I know that I'm supposed to post, because God wants me to be obedient about sharing what I am feeling and going through. Maybe I have to keep feeling the emotions until I post about them. Maybe that's why they seem to simply disappear after I post.

Now, for that issue I'm dealing with now, I was praying on the way to school. I once again had to admit that I can't handle this on my own. I can't see beyond my emotions and my small view. I can, however, put it in God's hand and let Him deal with it. That does make it easier, not easy but easier to wait on Him to work everything out for good in His time.

So as long as posting helps me deal with what I am feeling and experiencing then I will keep posting. :)