What Was, What Is, and What Could Have Been

Going home is a little like going back in time. I'm in Texas for my grandfather's funeral, and everything around me reminds me of life fifteen years ago. I grew up on a piece of land he bought about forty years ago, and each roll of the land and every tree speaks of an earlier point on my timeline.
Last night I visited the house I lived in from age eleven to nineteen, which is little more than a circa 1970's mobile home and a two story addition. Only ten years have passed since it was deserted, but it looks more like a century. Mobile homes aren't built to stand the test of time, but even the addition which has good bones, wears siding that was never painted. So one side is just rotting away, leaving six foot gaping holes. An entire forest of honey locust trees have sprung up, blocking the entrance to the front door. Everything sags. It is desolate.
It is especially hard to look at it right now, because my family is selling the land since it is too much work to care for. Even though my childhood home is a rotting carcass and remembering life there is painful, it is even more unbelievably heartbreaking to realize I can't come back to it.
I've just always counted on that land being there. I explored every square inch with my brother. I fished countless bream and bass out of the pond. My grandfather bought the land to leave to his children and grandchildren and great grand children, and he was at his best when he was working it. Not that he was good at it, he was too cheap to do anything right, but he was the happiest fiddling around with his pond, his garden and his tractor. Every spring he'd be up and at 'em, tilling his garden and planting onions. Along with the waves of new spring grass, tiny fragrant white flowers would spring up in between his peach trees. He loved to fill cups with them for my grandmother.
Everywhere I look reminds me of my past and my hopes for the future. My house is a crumbling bookmark to a painful childhood. I wanted to come back someday and rebuild, take my kids fishing, explore in the creek for old glass, and dredge up snakes and rabbits in the tall grass. I wanted to tell them stories of my grandfather who left them a legacy. I wanted to show them that they grow up in a loving home with committed parents, and that not all kids get that. I wanted them to see that they are blessed, and that their responsibility and gift is to build on what they've been given. It's hard to know that the land will be sold. It feels like being set back two generations. I will have no legacy in the land to give to my grandchildren. As I looked at my old house, I wept for the lost future; like weeping for unborn children. I can't describe my grief.
With my sisters and my friend by my side, I prayed for our family. That God would restore what had been stolen. That He would rebuild. That He would multiply our finances, our love and our compassion. That our coming out would be greater than our coming in.
I can't change my circumstances sometimes, but I can change my heart. It's a process, though. I'm still grieving my loss. But I can be thankful in all things, and there is always joy in between the tears.

Choose Better

I really don't like to eat. Sounds funny from a self proclaimed foodie, I know. The real truth is that I don't want to think about it. I don't want to prepare it. And I definitely don't want to go grocery shopping. I want fantastic food to burst into existence like an exploding star on a silver platter in front of my face. Then I'd be happy to eat. My husband must have it so good. ;)
Food preparation and meal planning is a very large portion of my stay at home mom job. But I don't like it. I think my time would be better served climbing a tall tree, reading a good book with a glass of wine...or anything else. 
Surprisingly I have almost as hard a time carving out a piece of my life for Jesus. I listen to a lot of teaching by podcast and audible book while I clean house, because I go crazy if I have nothing to occupy my mind. But taking intentional time to sit and worship in His Presence? Tough. It doesn't matter that I know it would be better for me to practice time with Him consistently, the voices outside my head are louder than the Voice in my heart. Even more truthfully, I find it hard to make myself shut up when I finally do take the time for Him. Just like it is hard for a rich man to enter the Kingdom or a camel to go through the eye of a needle, it is unbelievably hard for a thinker to stop thinking. 
Fortunately the Holy Spirit has had mercy on me and usually talks to me outside my intellectual ramblings, usually through friends, dreams, pictures and music. But it's not enough. I'm absolutely certain that I will stay hungry until I eat, and I am absolutely convinced that He has something special for me in that quiet place. I have to choose the better thing.

Luke 10:42 NCV

Only one thing is important. Mary has chosen the better thing, and it will never be taken away from her."

God's Creation: Cookies and Control

I wonder how many children out there were on the receiving end of Dr. James Dobson's 'The Strong Willed Child.' I was. I can't tell you what's in it because I've never read it, but my mom sure did.
Why the 'Strong Willed Child'? Do parents want weak-willed children? How silly is that? The problem doesn't lie in the strength of the will, but in the ability of the child to be persuaded to go along with the parent's will. Seems to me Dr. Dobson should write a book about the strong willed parent. ;)
Just like God is a three part being, so are we; we are spirit, soul and body. The spirit is the part that becomes new at salvation, the soul consists of our mind, will and emotions and becomes more like Jesus through the guidance of the Holy Spirit. The process of maturing as a Christian is getting all three parts to act in harmony with each other and with the Spirit. We are supposed to be just like Jesus; all human and all God. :)
The Church tends to view the parts of the soul like a child looking at an assorted box of donuts. We love the intellect, snub the emotions and ignore the will.
God put the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden for a reason. He was offering choice. The ability to choose is what makes us like Him. The ability to see good choices and bad choices. We are not slaves or robots. We are free and powerful.
God made us emotional because He is. He is passionate and jealous, compassionate and kind, angry and loving. It is possible to have the full gamut of emotions and still honor each other and ourselves. Emotions make life worth living. We love Him because He first loved us.
He fashioned our intellects with the same characteristics that He has; the desire to know, to create, to impact and to grow. While Jesus was crazily emotional, it is His thoughts that impact me the most. If you read His words about the Kingdom, and how He interacted with His disciples and with the Pharisees, you can see how anointed His intellect is. Jesus is brilliant.
The most misunderstood and misaligned part of the soul is the will. Our entire culture including Church culture either subverts it, glosses over it, dominates it or just convinces you that you don't have one with the crazy weapon called victimization. We are not responsible because we have no power. Or there's the other side of the coin in which you use your will to take power from others.
Your biggest weapon as a child of God is your ability to control yourself. We misunderstand self control. It is not Nazi-like self discipline. It is a fruit of the Holy Spirit. It is something that is grown in us. Our definition is influenced by our culture's values of body fat percentage, recycling, tolerance and silent politics. I don't think God would ever write a diet book because it wouldn't sell. The entire point of fasting in the OT was to get to the feasting. Physically and spiritually.
Jesus gives us a great picture of Holy Spirit self control. He drank wine, made wine for drunk people, hung out with sinners and corrected the religious leaders. All while pleasing His Father.
It is possible to talk about sex, politics and religion and honor your Father and others. It is possible to eat a cookie without eating two dozen. It is possible to have a couple beers and not get drunk. This is about what is important to you, and learning who you are. You are a son of God, and you have power. You have a brilliant mind, a rainbow of emotions, and a CRAZY STRONG WILL!!!! Use it wisely. ;)