A God Set Up

Yerba Mate

I saw weed for the first time yesterday. It looks like Yerba Mate, or alfalfa powder. I was taken aback by the freedom at which it was pulled out and shown to me. More so because I didn't want anyone else to see. It is after all an illegal substance in Canada still. How did I, a 40-something "Christian" Mom come to a place in her life where I would be shown weed? That's a very good question. One that I would have very judgementally assumed an answer to back ten years ago. Instead the answer is so simple it may be shocking to the legalistic mindset, which I used to have.

It's called love and grace. Mountains and oceans of it; and ten years ago I would never have been able to give that answer. Mostly because I had never really understood what those were by experience until only a few years ago.   

I lived a life of faith, fuelled more by fear than by love. I was the one who believed with everything in me that God was good, so long as I did all the right things. If it was preached from the front of a church with passion and conviction then I would attempt to live it. I sang loud and danced in the aisles. I managed my money with the hopes that if I was a good steward of what we had than more would come our way. I was more interested in what God would do for me or give me for my obedience or passion then I was interested in who He was, or what He had already done for me. I thought that if I prayed consistently for my family then they would be protected. This was reinforced when I forgot to pray for five days in a row and one of our children broke a leg. I was devastated. I ended up feeling more ignored or forgotten by God than loved and blessed because my limited understanding of love was wrong. But at the time I didn't know that. Living this legalistic way brought more pain and hurt than joy and blessing. I see now that the blessings did come, in spite of myself. 

I am a different person now then I was back then. Since that time I have been loved. Truly loved by people who have an amazing understanding of how good God's love is and how encompassing His grace is to those who dare to accept it. I was loved in spite of my crazy, my obsessions, my depression, my fears, my hurts, my lashing out in hurt, my anger, and my stubbornness. I was horrible at relationship because I didn't feel loved or worthy of love. My problems were too big for others to handle and I had nothing of value to offer anyone.  

For a while I lived in the shadows of the former me. My emotional walls, not as high and thick as they once were, still up. I felt like everything was too good to be true. I had stopped reading the Bible. I no longer prayed as often. I didn't write out my prayers like I had once done and I couldn't even sing some of the worship songs with feeling or conviction. I felt like I was in a no mans land waiting for the bottom to drop out. I didn't know how else to live out the middle ground of what I once was and what i now was experiencing. Instead I just shut down.

Now I am so thankful that those walls were loved into pieces! The more freedom I live in the more freedom I learn is available to me. I have found out that I am a treasure hunter. I have the privilege of hunting for and digging out the truth in others. I have the freedom to walk without fear of judgment from others. Conversing with the Poem Guy downtown at the market, finding out what makes him tick. Asking him his name. I head straight for him now when I see him instead of avoiding him like I used to do. He is loved and has value. Just like all of us. Just like the guy who showed me his peanut butter jar half full of weed. He is worthy of being loved. He is worth getting to know. He has gifts and abilities that are essential to others around him. He has value and purpose that goes beyond what he does for a living. I'm hoping that I can pass on a little of that revelation to him just like it was passed on to me. The feeling of freedom that comes with it is so wonderful!