Vices and Virtues

We line up our treasures of the soul, memories a string of pearls, moments like seashells on the rough hewn timbre of the past. All life is virtue or vice, high palisades of glorious success and deep valleys of sorrow, sacrifice, and succumbing. Under the microscope of our own conscience and the sharp light cast by the Holy Spirit on our soul, our vices loom large and clear. We pass the glory of our delights and our shining moments on to the Savior to whom we credit them. Yet we claim our failures as our own.

This double-edged sword of perspective can reduce we Christ-ones to hopeless peons in the struggle against sin. If we do not share in glory with our Creator, and wallow in our dismally dark moments, we are forever stuck in the mud of loss and lethargy. For how long can we struggle against the chains of sin if we never allow our souls to ascend to the mountaintops with Christ in our triumphs?

I started smoking last April, a desperate attempt to drown out the triple demons of flashbacks, nightmares, and anxiety. The deep inhale, the slow exhale became the rhythm to which I dragged myself out of the emotional mire. The dirtiness of a soul whose dark corners remained unredeemed seemed congruent with the stink of the smoke I wrapped around me like a cape. And with the vapors of toxin, I insulated myself against a cruel world, pushing out other Christians unsure what to make of a daughter of the King wrapped in the shrouds of soot.

The time has come now, a year later, to walk away from this shroud. Tobacco was created by God, and yes, I think it was used by Him to help me through a tenuous time. But now it has become a vice - a habit unfitting for a temple of God Himself. I never struggled with the habit of it as an occasional smoker since my college days. But now that it is ingrained - especially as my relaxation, my joy, my moments alone - it is proving more difficult to quit. I glue verses to the doorpost, to the porch rail by my swing. Reminders of why the time has come.

Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have received from God? (I Corinthians 6:19)

It is time to put my money where my mouth is. To line up treasures instead of tortures. To claim freedom from sin through the power of the Holy Spirit, who liveth in me...for the law of the Spirit of life has set me free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death (Romans 8:2).

Amy's treasures from the sea, lined up on the surf breakwater.

As I walk free from these chains of sin, will you walk with me? Post a comment here to tell me of your prayers for me, visit my Facebook wall in the coming days and weeks to encourage, send me an email with a personal prayer you've offered up for me? Do you have a vice you need to walk away from, too? Let's do it together - tell me how I can pray for you, either publicly or privately. I, Genevieve, your sister and partner in the tribulation and the kingdom and the patient endurance that are in Jesus...I want to stand with you and join you, that we may both go free from the chains of darkness and walk in the light together. (Revelation 1:9, paraphrased)

Linked to Imperfect Prose

and the Life:UNMASKED project

and Thought Provoking Thursdays

The search begins

Yesterday we embarked on our search for a new church. We are praying, desperate and broken on our knees, that the peace that passeth understanding directs us in the way we should go. With a long history of painful church experiences behind us, we feel somewhat like we're stumbling along blindfolded. How do you recognize a healthy church? Which doctrinal points are on your "absolute" list?

Did not our Lord pray, "that they may be one, even as we are one?" (John 17:22) A chorus of ecumenical voices keep harping the unity tune. What they are saying is, "Christians of all doctrinal shades and beliefs must come together in one visible organization, regardless...Unite, unite!" Such teaching is false, reckless, and dangerous. Truth alone must determine our alignments. Truth comes before unity. Unity without truth is hazardous. Our Lord's prayer in John 17 must be read in its full context..."Sanctify them through thy truth; thy word is truth." ~ Charles Spurgeon

The Gospel. Grace. The Apostles creed. These stand like the columns undergirding the structure, the concrete footings in the Rock. They are our absolutes. Beyond that, things get murky. There are many beliefs within Christianity that don't cause division - young earth/old earth, free will/election for instance - and a whole host of lifestyle decisions that are left wholly up to the individual and aren't defined as doctrine at all - stay at home/working moms, public/private/home education, big house/little house, white collar/blue collar, clothing preferences, piercings, tattoos...

So we enter this incredibly confusing time with only one note of confidence playing sweetly and constantly in our souls: Holy Spirit. He whispers, and we hear it. And so we know that, with that note of confidence playing constant, we will recognize the home of fellowship God has already prepared for us.

Though all the winds of doctrine were let loose to play upon the earth, so truth be in the field, we do injuriously by licensing and prohibiting to misdoubt her strength. Let her and falsehood grapple; who ever knew truth put to the worse, in a free and open encounter. ~John Milton

I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth: And in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord, Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, Born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried: He descended into hell; on the third day he rose again from the dead; He ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead. I believe in the Holy Ghost; The Holy Catholic church; the communion of saints; the forgiveness of sins; the resurrection of the body, and the Life everlasting. Amen.

Living water

I wasn't born with a demonstrative bone in my body. From Scandinavian and Native American heritage, I come from people who are generally quiet...until you get to know them a bit. But you might not know that if you just met me now. I played softball with some outspoken girls in high school and hockey with a bunch of wild women in college and learned to shout, and hug people I didn't know that well, and give high fives and slap the ice when something really cool happened. Started attending a more flamboyant, rock-band type of church in 2000 and learned there to lift hands in prayer (Psalm 134:2 and I Timothy 2:8). Cancer has been refining me since 2008 and teaching me what is important and whats not...and often social mores mean less to me than showing someone I love them or telling them when, why and how they impacted my life today.

I thought about all this in the shower, of all places. I hop in as quickly as possible when I wake up. By the afternoon, my hands are clamped in claws that won't bend and I hop back in the hottest shower I can stand to thaw them out again from the crippling arthritis that comes part and parcel with severe hypothyroidism. So there I am every morning, and again every afternoon, worshiping in the shower. My hands feel better elevated...so over my head they go. Right up into the hot water stream. And the praise literally is wrung from trembling lips as the pain dissipates in that wonderful, warm liquid plumbed up from 100 feet under the frozen ground and heated in my basement. God is good!! (can I get an amen?) 

Yep. I took a picture of it. That's how much I love my shower right now!

I hop out of the shower and dress as quickly as I can to go cuddle my almost-3-year-old baby son who's waiting patiently for his daily naptime cuddle. And he smells so sweet. You know why? Water. Hot, fresh clear water. Those 12 hours after his bath, it's almost like I have a baby to sniff again (until he gets into all the things that boys inevitably do). I bury my nose in his neck while he strokes my hair, and it's a quiet praise in my heart that brings tears springing to my lashes. Caleb looks up and says, "You dripping on me, Mama." Then we do our little routine: I say, "You're my favorite little boy in the whole wide world." And he replies, sweet and sleepy and heavy-lidded, "And you're my favorite Mama in the whole wide world." And we melt into sleep in mama-baby bliss.

Lovin' the waves in South Carolina just after my pacemaker surgery this summer.

I know why Jesus calls Himself the Living Water, folks.

This stuff is the miracle liquid that none of us could do without. Your body is made up of 60-70% water. About 71% of the earth's surface is covered by water in any given year. If you've ever visited a third world country, you know to what lengths people will go to clean water. I've drunk mine with bleach in it, and I've showered in ice cold gravity showers that left me with a clear understanding of the virtues of bathing once a week. I've washed clothes in a not-so-crystal-clear river and I once rode a kayak on an absolutely filthy garbage-littered beach.

Sediment settles on the Lake Superior shore in May.

Fresh water is one of those things I've taken for granted most of my life. Living water? Where do I find that? Now that's some water to worship!

On the last and greatest day of the Feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.” By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified. John 7:37-39

A drop of rain "held" by an impatiens petal in June.

The Holy Spirit. Living in me. Streams of living water flowing from within me? It seems impossible. I am coming out of a time when I spent more time looking at flaws and examining my spirit for darkness and dirtiness and filth. It is hard to imagine that, if I just step out of the way, there is a stream of living water waiting to flow right out of my heart. I think on this one I've got to take an A to B approach. I believe in Christ. Therefore the Scriptures said (and Jesus Himself said too) that streams of living water will flow from within her.

I think I forget it all the time. Living Water lives in me. I have the opportunity to yield, at every turn, to Living Water.

Two sisters I love walk down into the water to be baptized.

Just a few thoughts from the girl singing in the shower with new vigor in these pain-wrought days, living with cancer in the Midwest when it is zero degrees out. Tomorrow maybe I'll write about down, wool, or the miracle of electric heaters!

Whispers

My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.
...you have been anointed by the Holy One, and you all have knowledge. 
But the anointing that you received from him abides in you, and you have no need that anyone should teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about everything, and is true, and is no lie — just as it has taught you, abide in him. And now, little children, abide in him, so that when he appears we may have confidence and not shrink from him in shame at his coming.
~ I John 20: 1-2, 20, 27-28 ~

I hear the whispers in the quiet communion between these two amidst the rustling of the leaves in the park on a dewy morning.  Cousin-twins, two giants, born 10 days apart and joyfully expected for 9 months together, leaping side by side in my belly and my sister's while we talked over coffee about their lives together, just up the road from each other.  This, too, is what I lost...what we lost...when Theodore grew in the wrong place and died in my body last October.  This is communion, fellowship, love like little children. Kisses, cuddles, wrestling each other down on the leaves in laughter; learning obedience side by side, making mistakes, and making up; forgiveness and blessing through forgiveness.

The events of life can be so confusing, so muddled, the chaos of the days so clanging it drowns out the little whispers of the Holy One who never speaks aloud.  When I don't force my day into rhythm and read His Word in the morning...when I don't take time for a prayer before I correct a child...when I hustle through dinner prep...when I cram work into every corner of the day...those days life becomes a cacophony of error as the little mistakes add up to big ones.  And when life is filled with pain, the noise is deafening.  The pain of this world like a Niagara Falls of tears overwhelming the little trickle of the Holy Spirit speaking truth from within.  How important, in these times, to first remember that we have an "unction" (annointing) from the Holy Spirit, that He is in us, we believers; and second, to bend our ears to hear, to still our lives to listen, to slow our days to study.

We do not need to be afraid of the Big Bad World...He who conquered death has promised us - has given us - an internal link to God Himself (John 16:13).  No mediator or priest required.  We can pray directly to God and through the Holy Spirit, who interprets even our wildest and most unintelligable prayers and carries them personally to the Throne of God (Luke 12:12; Romans 8:26; ).

I repeat it, when I am confused and sad and scared and worried and anxious...I have an unction; He says He'll guide me in all truth; He is groaning for me.  And if He's there, inside you...if you've accepted the free gift of salvation...you have an unction; He is guiding you in all truth; He is groaning for you.



............................................................
For a thorough exegesis of the I John 2 passage, click here (note: this is pretty deep stuff!).  For an excellent, short piece on the power of the Holy Spirit in the believer's life, click here.

Tongues

My Bible fell open to Acts 2 yesterday morning, the scene in which the Holy Spirit descends on the early church  on the Day of Pentecost.  So many times of late, I feel like I am speaking the wrong language...or at least a different one.  I remember a mission trip to Honduras, when I, by some magical interjection of the Holy Spirit into my stubborn brain, demonstrated fluency enough in Spanish to see patients without an interpreter for several whole days at a time.  I remember coming home to the States the next week and trying to speak to a Hispanic patient, and fumbling over a basic word I'd learned many years prior.  That experience taught me that the Holy Spirit intercedes for us, at times, with that gift of tongues...that New Testament kind of "tongues" where you actually speak a foreign language and are understood by the person you're speaking to.  If He can do that with my tongue, why now this season of misunderstanding when I'm speaking my very own native language?  He certainly could bridge this gap.  Yet He chooses not to.

The phrase from Isaiah 30 I quoted the other day comes to mind: though the Lord give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction...not allow, not step out of Satan's way for a moment, but GIVE you.  Is it possible that this, too, is my spanking from the Divine?  Don't I GIVE my children the water of affliction (i.e. punishment) when they are drifting away, or demonstrating foolishness, or thoughtlessness, or stubbornness?  I must humbly accept that this situation may be God's way of drawing me gently back, showing me my error.  It may not be a "simple" misunderstanding.

Yet the Holy Spirit that remains silent in this moment, the Holy Spirit who does not loose my tongue to speak the wisdom I so long for...that same Holy Spirit bathes my soul in comfort through the words I am sent from the pages of my Bible.  That, from Isaiah 30, too: your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way, walk in it,” when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left.

For God alone my soul waits in silence; from him comes my salvation.  He only is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall not be greatly shaken. Once God has spoken; twice have I heard this: that power belongs to God, and that to you, O Lord, belongs steadfast love.  For you will render to a man according to his work. (from Psalm 62, emphasis mine)