I’m taking a blogging vacation – maybe for a couple of weeks. I am very tapped out right now physically and emotionally. I really don’t want to drag anyone who might be reading this through the doldrums with me.
I’m going to crawl into Papa’s lap where there is life.
I’ll see you all soon! Oh, and I’ll still be popping in on my blogroll friends, so you won’t be rid of me completely. 
There is a beautiful post over at Windrumors, a blog by the author of The Shack. The post is beautiful, and those who have read The Shack will appreciate this conversation between Paul Young and Papa.
One of many parts of it that really struck me was the following:
“Okay, then let me ask you this. Would it bother you if it’s my purpose to allow the majority of the human race to experience a place in which they will be tormented for infinite duration?”
I think carefully before speaking. “Emotionally, yes. Sorry, but the very idea troubles me a great deal. You’re talking about people that are precious to me, and people I know ‘you are especially fond of’…so yes it would bother me a lot… if I had my way no one would end up in hell for eternity.”
“But, what if that’s exactly what I am purposing to do, to allow people because of their ongoing choice of independence to experience and be lost in that independence forever with no possibility of escape? Would you trust me in that?”
I am silent for a while as I wrestle with the question. “Yeah, as much as I wouldn’t understand it, I do know that I can trust you and I am convinced about your character. Our only and final hope is that you are Good and that you are involved and loving. So if that is your intention and purpose, as hard as it is for me to understand or emotionally comprehend, I know that it’s motivated by both your goodness and love. I still don’t like it, but I do trust you.”
This issue was part of the crux of my recent struggle with God’s nature. People that I dearly love have no apparent relationship with Jesus. Growing up, my young heart truly feared for them. I’ve had tormenting dreams over the years that my own dad was in hell, lost in torment forever. Tough stuff for a young child – and the picture it painted of God was not particularly positive.
How could God throw my daddy in hell? How is that love? I grew up knowing a very schizophrenic god. Jesus who died for me and loves the little children of the world, and a Father of wrath and judgment, allowing people to be tormented forever. It was very confusing, and it really came to a head over the last few months. Then there was that transformation that I blogged about a couple of posts ago…
The fear is fading. I don’t know what will come after this life for those who are lost in this one. It’s possible to pull out any number of scriptures and make them say what you want. I would love to believe that we are all ultimately reconciled – that hell is a place of refinement for those who have not tasted that fire in this life. As much as I want to believe certain things, they have not been made clear for us.
Can I rest in God’s true nature and trust Him with this? I feel the tentacles of fear losing their hold. Yes, I can trust Him in this.
It’s a beautiful, glorious day here in South Carolina. Mostly I am feeling the joy of the day, though not as fully as I could. PMS tends to put a damper on most anything. 
I also am faced with the fact that summer is just around the corner, and my kids are going to want to go swimming. My difficult season last fall and winter with the anxiety and depression put 20 extra pounds on me (added to the 15 I already needed to lose). Thoughts of a bathing suit right now are threatening to cloud this sunny day. And I just feel so unhealthy and tired.
I have a horrible relationship with food. I ate whatever I wanted growing up. Since I lived on a farm, I worked it off. I was in wonderful shape. But food filled many empty places. I still eat when happy, sad, anxious, bored, tired, etc., etc. It’s a vicious cycle. I am able to lose weight quickly when I try, but I’ll be 35 in June. I have a feeling I won’t be able to do that much longer.
I am praying that Father will help me break this cycle. I don’t need food to fill me. He is all I need.
Okay, so I eluded to a transformation that I experienced a week ago following our God Journey weekend. I’ve been rather caught up with our daughter’s surgery and recovery, but I’ve been trying to find a way to put this into words. I’m just going to have to copy the e-mail I sent to Wayne and paste it here. I can’t think of another way to express it.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart for visiting with us last weekend. I trust that the rest of your trip has been wonderful. It’s funny how I still hold so many expectations in my life. I had expectations about your visit, and of course they weren’t met. What I pictured beforehand is not what happened (it had nothing to do with you, but I had expectations on myself and others who came to join us). What happened instead was that God quietly worked on my heart in the 24 hours after you left.
I had been suffering a lot lately from insomnia and a general restlessness of spirit. What I know now is that I’ve been wrestling over who God is. Sunday afternoon’s conversation was the breakthrough. You were talking about the Cross. I had heard it before from Transitions and the podcasts, but sometimes you have to hear something over and over before it takes root. I know I mentioned my struggle with the OT and NT God seeming to be two different people. You gave me the piece of the puzzle that brought it all together.
I get it now!!!!!!!!!! HE LOVES US!! He reached into the OT times in the only way they could handle Him then!! He really doesn’t do anything apart from love! I am so excited!! I finally understand what His wrath really is. Wayne, I will never be the same. I even feel like I can handle reading scriptures again now that I am more fully settled on His loving nature.
This revelation did not come to me Sunday afternoon. It came quietly with no fanfare over the day following. I suddenly realized that everything was different.
That was my experience. I had expectations of deep spiritual conversations and revelations of great magnitude during our get-togethers. (I laugh at myself remembering those great visions) Those things didn’t happen so much. Some of the conversation was even just plain silly. But it doesn’t take an entire weekend of intense spiritual BS to be changed.
It’s funny how Father can work in us without us being really conscious of it. I left our meeting Sunday still in a bit of turmoil, knowing that this understanding God’s nature business really shouldn’t be rocket science. I had already heard this stuff before. Then, 24 hours later, it just all quietly clicked. I’ve slept so much better since, and I was able to face Brianna’s surgery having great peace with God’s nature. The Good News to me is that He really does love me!
We’re going home soon. Everything about Brianna’s surgery went better than we had hoped for. We are relieved and thrilled with the outcome.
Of course I cried buckets after leaving her at the operating room. The surgery lasted close to three hours. She is playing today, and it is amazing how resilient children are.
Thanks to those of you who prayed.
Brianna’s surgery is today. We are getting ready to leave for the hospital. They couldn’t get her in until 1:00, so we’re trying to be creative in keeping her attention away from food and drink.
I’m really okay right now. The tough moment for me is when they wheel my little one away and I have no control over the situation whatsoever.
I’ll update when I can. We’ll be in at least until tomorrow.
So we’re finally getting some normalcy back in our lives. We spent a good bit of our waking hours this past weekend at our friends’ house for a God Journey gathering.
It’s kind of strange how we have expectations of something coming up and our minds sort of decide for us what it’s going to look like. This weekend didn’t look much like what I had pictured beforehand. Some of it was actually disappointing, but that’s where expectations get you in trouble. I had really thought and hoped that a lot of people I had never met before would come. That wasn’t the case. There were definitely some who did, and it was fabulous meeting them. I finally got to meet Aida, who hangs out on the God Journey forum. I’m hoping to see her again, along with a few others. But most of the people who trickled in and out over the weekend were people we already knew (not that there’s anything wrong with that).
Another thing that was frustrating for me was I’ve had insomnia lately and I couldn’t remember most of the questions that I had in my mind to discuss with Wayne and the group. They flew out of my head and I mostly found myself listening. What a concept! I like to talk so this was good for me.
One of the few times that I posed a question to Wayne turned into an embarrassing moment. The living room was full of people, though there were little conversation groups going on. As he answered my question, his response went a little long. All of a sudden I had that lovely panic feeling as I sensed how full the room was. I squirmed and tried so hard to pay attention, but I finally had to interrupt him to leave the room to breathe. I truly felt like a dork.
After I apologized a few times for my rudeness, Wayne told me to stop apologizing or he would smack me. 
One of the pleasant surprises of the weekend is that Wayne Jacobsen is one of the most real people I have ever met. He has a wicked sense of humor that not even the podcasts truly capture. In the spirit of the God Journey podcast from 2/29, we did bestow some blue eye shadow upon him. I heard that he showed up to breakfast wearing it the next morning, but no actual evidence exists of this.
I did have a bit of a spiritual transformation from this gathering. I’m not ready to put it into words yet, but I hope to process it over the next couple of days. I’m very glad that he came to visit us, and I look forward to growing in this journey with the wonderful friends who joined us.
Our daughter Brianna finally has surgery scheduled for next Friday, March 14th, to fix her urinary reflux. It will be possibly a two-night stay in the hospital, so that’s where I’ll be next weekend.
In an hour from now, my family is heading to our friends’ house for a gathering of believers who are desiring to live outside of the constraints and control of religion. Wayne Jacobsen will be there for the weekend. We are excited to meet him and other believers on this journey. So I may not be posting this weekend.
It was this gathering that I blogged about a couple of months ago when I had to let something go. We were supposed to host this event, but things just got too intense for us with my anxiety problems, Brianna’s illness, and our son’s ADHD. I realized that hosting the event would push me past my limits, but I was disappointed. I’ve gotten over it, and I know it will be a great time.
Have a great weekend, bloggers.
Fear will be exposed as being really absurd when we begin to see it for what it is and how being afraid never eliminates the thing we are fearing anyway, it just gives it more power. When we begin to have eyes to see it in the light, the words “Do not be afraid” begin to make sense. There really isn’t anything to fear. But until we begin to see it for what it is and are learning to rest in Father, knowing we are loved and are secure in him…”Do not be afraid” is just another silly command. – Kent Burgess from the comments section in my previous post.
I was watching Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban last night and this quote from Kent really connected with the movie. The kids were learning how to take on a boggart at Hogwarts. A boggart takes the form of what or whomever the person facing it fears the most. In order to defeat it, the kids learned the spell Riddikulus. When they used the spell, the boggart took on a humorous form. Laughter defeats a boggart.
Most of my fears really are riddikulus. Afraid of sitting at traffic lights, of losing control in a restaurant. The more I fear those situations, the more power I hand over to the fear. What a vicious cycle. Maybe I just need to start laughing hysterically while “stuck” at a red light. It’s just that nothing seems very funny in that moment.
I would like for this cycle to end. I wish there was a “How to rest in Father” formula. I guess that would remove the need for me to actually interact with Him, though.
Fear not… Fear not…
I would like to believe it.
I was bored this evening and in a bit of a funk after feeling pretty lousy for most of the past week. I feel much better now, but I just haven’t been myself lately – whoever that is. ;)
Anyway, I was trying to find something worth watching on TV. Usually that is a fruitless endeavor and tonight was no different. I did land on a show called Taboo at one point. It’s one of those documentary shows on either National Geographic or Discovery – I can’t remember which. I knew immediately that my sensitive nature probably would not tolerate that particular show very well, but there is something in us that is just so drawn to what disturbs us. At least that is sometimes the case with me.
So as that voice within pleaded with me to change the channel, I learned a little bit about a tribe in Ethiopia that is obsessed with physical perfection. They live a brutal life off of the land, and there are so few left of this particular tribe. Their demands for physical perfection are so extreme that they will kill their babies if they have any flaws or differences. If a child cuts their top teeth before their bottom teeth, they are likely thrown in the river. Twins are killed because they are unusual. As I sat horrified listening to this, they actually showed a goat being killed. That was finally enough to make me change the channel.
Grief and rage surged through me. How can a mother (or father) kill or allow their child to be killed simply due to the order in which their teeth come in?? How can two healthy babies born at the same time be left alone to die? God, where are you?? I was naive enough to not realize that these things are still happening in the world.
As I tried to process what I had just heard, I remembered the anthropologists stating that this tribe believes that these children are bad omens. Their lives are so hard and they use their children to make sense of things. If a child has any physical difference whatsoever, they believe that they must die or the entire tribe will suffer.
What Kent has been blogging about now for the past few months finally came home to me in a big way. Fear really is our greatest enemy. It acts in complete opposition to love. It causes us to throw the first punch, leave our spouses, and kill our children. The people in that Ethiopian tribe are afraid. They are trying desperately to preserve themselves.
Fear has plagued me as well. Fear of losing control, of being seen for who I really am, of failing my kids. Fear has suffocated me to such a degree that I wasn’t leaving my house just two months ago. Fear is the thing I have in common with these African people who kill their babies. Instead of hating them, I weep for them.
