An Outer Perspective Brings Inner Seeing.

Ya know how you see yourself differently then others see you?

  Well, I have recently taken a bit of a look at myself from a perspective outside myself.  I think it's a healthy thing to do, noticing how people see you. Not your inner intentions but your outward actions and reactions.

  Cuz let's face it, we look great to ourselves when we judge our motives and dismiss our actions, the inflection in our voices, our body language, facial expression and other outward expressions others see.

  Of course, even this statement is biased. Everyone is self-centred to some degree or other. Most of our truest motives are for our own benefit and not someone else's. Part of that is just self preservation. Instinctual. But a large part of it, if we are truly honest with ourselves, is just pleasure based. Even helping others can be self motived. How does it make YOU feel, or how does it make YOU look to others? Will helping others EARN you brownie points with God…etc. 

K, established…..So my perspective is what I'm really wanting to flesh out here. 

  I'm not sure I set out to look at myself from someone else's perspective on purpose. It was a series of little things that brought it to my attention and has it rolling around in my head now and then.

  The first I think, has taken a while to filter in. At my mothers Celebration of Life three years ago. For the first time in my life, I was given a glimpse at how others saw my Mom. I was usually frustrated with her growing up, and after I moved out and married. But Mom, it turned out was a very fun loving, well loved and generous person! She volunteered over 30 years to Girl Guides, worked in nursing probably as long. Changed careers when I was in my teens and worked with kids in the public school district and later volunteered for the Daffodil campaign for the Canadian Cancer Society. She had good friends for many years who played cards every month for over 20 years. Her friends thought the world of her. I had a completely different perspective growing up. Which is too bad really. I missed out on a wonderful person apparently! 

So that experience has been rolling around in my head and heart for three years now.

  A nudge towards this idea has been building because of work. As an employee at a coffee shop where I get to don a brown uniform day in and day out, who I am is toned way down in order to represent the coffee chain. I am a coffee automaton. Most days I hate it. But it has given me food for thought too. Since I can not express myself in outward appearence my fellow workers and regular customers get to see me in my actions, attitude, and facial expressions. At work I'm pleasant. I could count on one hand the number of times I have been very upset, angry or frustrated in the year I've worked there. From what I can tell, most of the employees actually like me, but few if any have pursued any kind of deeper friendship with me, and my attempts to do so with some of them are weak I must admit. 

  My second big push to look at myself from the outside came at a coffee date with a friend.

She was describing a long time friend of hers to me this last time. I can't even remember the exact term she used, but I do remember one was "she is a bit like a sailor on shore leave", meaning she is full of life and goes after living life to its fullest. I laughed at such a funny and unusual description. Then I realized what a compliment it was. What a great compliment! If only I was that kind of person! If only I could be described that way! But I know I'm not.

So how would someone describe me?! Not like that! I can not kid myself about that. 

  There are definitely different layers of me that could be described. Some know me causally, some think they know me, only a few know me well at all. Then there are the different areas of me that don't get brought out often, but a few only see that part of me. This is the part of me I'm most worried about right now.

Am I an angry Christian, an angry person?

  If you bring up issues of health care I can get rather upset. I have strong feelings about doctors, their god-like status in our culture, their lack of compassion, and specifically some of the doctors I have dealt with regarding my kids or husbands  health. The thought of them just makes me angry. The idea that Canadian health care seems stuck and incapable of evolving or improving due to lack of funds angers me like nothing else. Unfortunately I'm also in no position to do anything about it. I'm not even educated enough to know who to talk too, or how my experience could be a benefit. I also don't think so highly of myself that I assume what I have to say is even important enough to tell someone who could do something.

  Then if you bring up anything about church, or even God it doesn't give me good feelings any more. Instead I feel angry. I know I'm ruined for attending any kind of box church again. I don't think I'd be able to sit in a pew and listen to someone else's idea of what we should think about God, or how we should walk out, or work out our faith walk. Do this, don't do that….God helps those who help themselves yadda, yadda, yadda! If you bring up issues about Gods goodness, or prayer working, or anything at all, I've got an negative response now. I didn't use to! But then again I use to sit and hang on every word some pastor would say in his/her sermon. 

  I'm now thinking this issue of being an angry christian is way too deeply rooted in some wrong belief for me to delve into it here. I could be feeling this way because I really feel betrayed somehow. Maybe it's because I have stopped attending any kind of "service" where there is teaching, now that I have been working every weekend for the last year. Maybe I feel this way because I'm still depressed. I did stop taking anti-depressants back a year ago. Maybe I shouldn't have! 

Ha! But I don't have a doctor to talk to about this issue cuz I fired her ass back three years ago because she was almost worse then having none! 

  And the cycle continues. I mostly avoid these topics unless it gets brought up by others. If I dwelled on them all the time I really would be an angry person all the time. Thankfully I can turn those parts off during most of my dealings in a common week and live fairly happily. 

  Small mercies, very few people actually have access to even attempt to dive that deep with me. So it's easy to ignore these issues. Unfortunately, that also means when I need to do some digging to clear out the clumps they aren't around to help.

Maybe there is a deeper reason to why I hate gardening! But that is a different blog topic.

The Double Edge Sword of Healing

Last night was awkward. Last night was condemning. Last night shouldn’t have happened. What happened made me begin to doubt my faith in God. It set a whole chain of thoughts and emotions into effect that I should not have allowed. It made me feel less than loved, and even disappointed in God.

I had someone point me out and say God wanted my children’s backs healed of Scoliosis. This is how I processed the whole thing.

I ignored what he said. 

I think he noticed, cuz he came at me again a bit later with, ‘God really means it, He wants to heal the children, but somethings blocking it.....’

I responded with a bit of an attitude. ‘I’m not opposed to God healing my kids but it hasn’t happened yet, so I’m still waiting.’ That was the end of that.

SO! in essence, what he just said,  and what I just heard, like nearly every other “well meaning” christian out there who has done the same thing to me over the years was that I was blocking the healing process. As Mom, I was not good enough, faithful enough, trusting enough. Somehow all the right responses were void in me, and THAT’S why my kids have not been healed from the bone disorder, or the symptoms of the bone disorder, like scoliosis.  It was MY fault!

Oh wait! It could also be because I have ties to the Masons! Right! that could be it!!! Because the kids use the Shriners Hospital for Sick Children in Montreal, and the Shriners are first Masons. Therefore that’s preventing God from healing my kids. It’s the unholy tie.

Well I say BULLSHIT to all that!

If God could create everything out of nothing, it was HIS faith that created. If His plans and purposes were to have my children healed years ago then no amount of disbelief from me could stop Him. I’ve seen and heard of hundreds of people healed who did not believe. And only some of them believed after they were healed. Not all. Some of them even “lost” their healing eventually. Does that mean God made a mistake  in healing them?! Not in the least! That person is and always will be Gods child and God chose to lavish a gift on them. Not a waste at all!

Does singling me and my kids out for healing after years of not seeing healing do any good? Does it move any of us to faith? 

Not in the least!

In fact it moves me now to distrust the person who says anything like that! The internal result for me was to be reminded of how “the church” see me and my family. Damaged goods. Unable, or unwilling to be fixed.

It is not loving at all to point out someone and insinuate that I am the reason that God has not healed my kids. It is not loving to remind me that in nearly 20 years not one of my four children has been healed of this genetic disorder. Because that is exactly what just happened last night. 

If you were truly listening to Gods heart perhaps He was telling you to quietly pray about my children in your secret place. Maybe you should be praying that Gods love would be shed abroad in their hearts. That they would fall in love with Jesus and choose a life of love in everything they do, and serve others in love. Because regardless of what they look like, how they move, or how often they receive treatments, above ALL the physical stuff they are valued by GOD for exactly who they are, the way they are. And I will not have my children mad or disappointed in a god who “refused” to heal them because their mom wasn’t a good enough christian!

Maybe it is time “the church” does the same thing. Maybe it’s time we stop looking at the obvious and start asking God to heal the brokenness within our hearts. Stop pointing out the imperfections in each others short-term temporary housing situation (our bodies) and start focusing on the eternal love that can be experienced, and shared.

That does not mean I do not believe God can or will heal! I am not against the teaching or praying for healing. My husband is still alive today because God brought him THROUGH health issues many times. I still believe God could heal my kids, and that God can and will move through our prayers for others healing. But I caution you to be wise.

 Perhaps if you are feeling the general compassion for the other person you should be asking what they want prayer for instead of assuming it’s healing of a long time issue. Be quick with your love but not with your tongue. Ask for Gods will in their life, don’t ascribe your own sense of justice to the other persons situation and assume that healing of a physical issue is the only possible outcome needed. Gods ways are NOT yours. You are the one who still sees as through a glass dimly. 

If you think you have all the answers, you are in for a surprise.

(I speak from experience in that. I know less now then I did 25 years ago when I first chose to follow Christ. Now I desire to only know His love, it is the only thing worth really knowing.)

We are all the same.

One day I had someone tell me I was just like everyone else.
It stung.
Not because they were being harsh, or putting me down, but because they were right.
I am just like everyone else. I was noticing this on my own before being told, and that's why the statement stung for so long.

Once, a long time ago I would have never admitted it publicly but I thought of myself as better then some. You know the ones. The ones whose sin or misguided judgement was obvious and in your face. As obvious as blatant sexual perversities,  lewdness, or drunkenness. Even, dare I say, as innocent as bad hygiene or dental habits! Of course I was better then they were, I thought. I had it together. I was clean, tidy, had all my teeth, and they were straight. I was polite and impure thoughts just didn't enter my mind. I was never lewd, rude or out of control. By human standards I was a "good" person.
What a fool I was!
All those things are surface stuff. Just extensions or outward signs of what is in the heart. But I had stuff, and still do, that I was unwilling to admit then. Stuff I'd be hard pressed to admit openly now except to say that I am not perfect and I know it.

What lead me, and leads most of us to assume some are better then others? It is the humanness in us that judges based on degrees of good or bad. The human assumption that murder is worse then rape. But murder and rape are WAY worse then gossip. Yet all are deemed as sin according to the Old Testament. All sin is equal to God. All sin hides us from His sight. Creates a barrier between He and we, and between each other. It stops the flow of His love, and can even create hate within us. Hate in our hearts towards another is just as bad as murder according to The New Testament.
So if I judge another human as unworthy or less then me I am walking in sin just by the mere act of judging.
Romans 2: 16 says,  'God, by Jesus Christ will judge men in regard to the things which they conceal'. Yet we also read that He bore our sins upon Himself. He took the judgement for us,bearing the blame and the consequence of all our sins against Him and against each other. His judgement was to take our judgement and let us off scotch free! That is so amazing that no selfish, blame-finding human could have thought of it. Only a God of mercy would conceive such a crazy plan and pull it off.
So, where I thought I was better then others I was just the same.

Where I would hope to have shed some of my imperfect humanness I was only ignoring it and focusing on another's imperfect humanness. Degrees may be different, but the motive or cause is the same. The obviousness of my sin may be less visible to others because of my walls, but I was no less in the wrong.
We are ALL the same. Every one of us, in spite of our individualities and uniqueness.
But there is HOPE! If we are all the same in our wrongs, we are also all the same in our forgiveness! Each one of us is forgiven the same. No one can be excluded from the club. No one can excuse themselves from the removal of our sins. Not one of us can do a single thing to make God not forgive us, because it is done all ready! Not one of us can do anything to earn more forgiveness than another person. It is all equal. Christ's blood was spilt for all of us, not one excluded, not one more covered than another. We are all the same, all made equal in His sacrifice.
So, I might not always be able to be in control of my thoughts, emotions, or even my words. I am mighty thankful that should my limited human efforts to keep in check according to how I think I should act, or be that His grace and mercy are available to cover up my multitude of sins when I can't . He has done the same for you too already, without your permission. He didn't need your permission to forgive you. You just only need to accept this fact. It's the kind of thing that could change your life forever if you let it.
It's free, it's good, and its already yours, and mine!
Thank God, cuz there are some days I'm a mess!