Thursday, June 17, 2010

Anger in Love


I've been thinking about something. In John 2:13-21 Jesus gets angry that they turn his father's house into a market. I think He's angry because He sees something they could not see.
The truth.
The clear truth that day was that those men were being deceived and corrupted through the sin some may not have even been aware of.  Those money changers and those selling doves were not only destroying themselves through their sin but they were bringing others to corruption with them.
The temple is for worship, trusting, surrendering, praising...
Jesus was angry not at them but for them. their sin was destroying them. He was angry in love.
The temple of God which now is us, our body, is for the same thing. Worship, trust, surrender, praising....

There is someone in my life that is very toxic and destructive to my loved ones. I can clearly see how this person hurts themselves and the people that I love so much. Even though my loved ones cannot see the destruction that is upon them because of this one individual. It makes me angry and not at them but for them.
My first reaction is protection for my loved ones and there have been times that I have tried to clean out the temple. I've tried to kick her out of our sacred temple. Our holy worship and daily surrender to the Lord has been interrupted for foolish sinful behavior because of this persons existence in our "home". In our "temple". I wish I could be more specific.
I've thrown the tables and confronted this person in truth with a furious sadness and rage of the sin she has brought into our home and the destruction she has brought onto my loved ones (whom have allowed her in).

My anger though is not coming from a place of wanting justice or revenge. The anger I can tell you has genuinely been anger for her and for my family. Anger for the loved ones that have allowed this sin to hurt them. Anger in love. Love that says "I SEE SOMETHING HERE" You are destroying yourself and my precious loved ones in the process.  I want to yell as Jesus did. "GET OUT OF HERE"
The kicker is that my loved ones do not see the truth. They are allowing her into their lives they are sugar coating the truth of the severity and they are thinking that they are loving her but they are supporting destruction, deceit, corruption and a foothold for satan in their "home".
I've been on the chair shouting out "GET THIS SIN OUT OF OUR HOME"

Our body is a place of worship and oneness with Christ... when I see it being destroyed by the sin of this toxic person I get angry for her and angry for my loved ones.
I see the truth but my words are going unheard. I'm sick of satan lurking in the corners of my loved one's lives through this person and what she brings to our home.
I want to clean house and kick her out for her own good and the good of those I love. Jesus kicked out the money changers and the others for their own good the good of the temple and the love of His father and those that were being hurt by the sin.

Friday, June 11, 2010

Experiencing the God of All Comfort


"God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble."
Once again I cried myself to sleep a few nights ago during this time of grieving with my parents and brothers and family. I was crying out to the Lord for relief and peace and for Him to come and finally take us home. I had an overwhelming feeling of hopelessness and anger when I fell asleep.
I woke up later in the night my whole body was tingling with love and peace.
The room was filled with a heavy thickness of love and all my senses were heightened.
I could smell and taste this amazing sweet aroma. It smelled like orange blossoms and tasted in my mouth something like honey.
I was so encouraged and uplifted in that moment. I was full of love and joy. I knew that our Jakers was emersed in this feeling too as he is standing before our Lord continually in Heaven.
It was such a beautiful and wonderful experience.
I closed my eyes, my body tingling with the physical weight of God's love revealed to me in that moment and I knew God was ministering to me, to my broken heart in the spirit. I'm thankful He allowed me to actually feel it and know it without having to use blind faith to get through that sad night.

What is striking to me about this experience is that without the sadness of trials on earth we would never experience God in those ways that He reaches out and comforts us. I know that He doesn't always show us Himself and His tenderness physically. Mostly we have to simply believe He is with us and helping us through and in that faith we see the truth. We will see some amazing truth that we are ready to know because of the hardship we were going through, we will see that God was with us the whole way through. That is where I wonder if the most reward comes to us. When we have to have faith without the sight and the physical "feeling" of His nearness.
It's been a few day's since that wonderful time with the Lord and I've noticed a major difference in my day. God replaced my hopelessness and my faithlessness with His hope and His faith. He replaced my desperate longing for His return with His patience and His longsuffering. At least for now the day's are not so miserable. My hope is in the Lord and in Him I can sing praises that He knows what He is doing.

I keep thinking about Jake at 7 years old. So excited about life and adventure and danger.
But even this unbelievably brave Jake that wasn't afraid of anything even at the age of 3, had a really cute fear.
He used to crawl into bed with me (I was in highschool) and I would tell him that at night my old dolls came to life. I wasn't trying to scare him I thought it would be a neat thought that they lived at night but it freaked him out so bad he never got over the idea that dolls might come to life and haunt us all in our sleep.
I think he was afraid of dolls up to his 17 years.
I think about that and I want to call him really quick to laugh with him about it. So as it really hurts to realize I can't call I pray, "Lord, hug Jakers for me and tell him I cannot wait to spend every second I can with him as soon as I'm there, tell him I love him and miss him too much to live without him much longer"
I'm thankful to experience God in a way I would not intimately know Him without the pain this world brings us. But I am looking forward to eternal life with Jesus and my family and friends without all the drama.

Friday, June 4, 2010

Brutally Honest

Experiencing the shock of loosing someone so young and so dear and close to me was more desirable than the reality that hits weeks or months later.
Honestly I haven't been able to write on here in a while because I'm working through the most pain I've ever felt in my life.
We got back last night from a court hearing where Jake's killer James Menard was present in the court room along with several of his family members. To make a long story short being in the room with menard and his family brought on a whole new wave of more extrene anger and hurt and torture of grief.
It wasn't the official trial yet. It was a hearing where he asked for a bail reduction. Praise God the judge did not grant him the reduction. Which is a ridiculous thing to even ask after shooting 3 boys and killing one. My baby brother Jakey.
Are these extreme pains in life actually labor pains?
"For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope 21that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. 23And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body. 24For in hope we have been saved, but hope that is seen is not hope; for who hopes for what he already sees? 25But if we hope for what we do not see, with perseverance we wait eagerly for it. "
Romans 8:20-25
As I lay in my parents bedroom the night of the trial I cried out to the Lord.
When oh Lord will you return to rescue us from this horrible sinful world? When are you coming to get us?!
I received a vivid memory and a question for my answer in that moment.
The memory was of when I was giving birth to Oscar and he was "crowning" which is when the babies head is just starting to appear in labor the baby is on his way out.
I could see the top of his head in the mirror and it seemed like time stood still.
God asked me after this memory, "did you savor that moment?"
I thought to myself, yes absolutely I savored that moment. It was a special moment.
Oscar was entering into the world for the first time never to be in my womb again.
The Lord said to me. "You are crowning and I'm savoring the moment."
I know this may sound gross or weird to you but it was the sweetest most precious gift God could give me in my time of mourning Jake.
He was saying. I'm coming to take my children. I will be there soon. Our life in the world is our gestation period before our life in eternity with God.
It takes a baby 9 months to prepare it for life on earth. The baby is being developed to withstand a life on earth. Hearing and fingernails and eyelashes....The baby is being prepared and formed for a lifetime of maybe 70 years on earth give or take according to the number of days God has given that child.
We can call the world our womb preparing and developing us for heaven, for eternity with God.
We are being formed and prepared for an eternity everlasting with God and our gestation period is 80 years give or take depending on God's will.
So as God was telling me we are crowning now, I got really excited! I'm feeling the labor pains of the womb that is this world. It's painful but we are crowning and on our way to being born into eternity!
Anyway, I'm taking this as Christ return being very soon. 
We are all feeling the contractions and pains of labor in this life.
Come quickly Lord Jesus. We are ready.