Put Your Jesus Where the Church Is

I love the Church. I’m often very saddened by horrible stories of condemnation, abuse, hypocrisy, and so on that come out of the church. The bible describes the church as the bride of Christ. This is a wonderful mystery that I often can’t quite wrap my brain around. I choose to believe and embrace that Jesus loves the church and gave his life up for her. People often tell me that they love Jesus, but hate the church. Every single time I hear these words, my soul cringes. I usually offer a sincere apology to the person who received wounds from the church. But, in the same breath I offer an apology to Jesus for his bride not representing who he truly is, what he desires for individuals, and what he desires for the world.

To be clear, when people say they love Jesus but hate the church it is like someone walking up to Chad and saying, “Man, I really like you. You’re funny, wise, a great communicator. You’ve given me so much help in my life. But, let me tell ya, I really hate your wife. Angel is just a pitiful excuse for a wife!” Can you imagine? It’s absurd! Chad wouldn’t be ok with it! In the same way, I’m convinced Jesus wants to love and defend his bride, even in all our sin and stupidity.

If you are not a follower of Jesus and you’ve had ugly experiences with the church, I am truly sorry. My only excuse is that humans make mistakes...often. Please don’t hold your experiences against Jesus anymore. Please give Jesus and a different church another chance. I’m willing to help you find a place to learn and worship in your area. But, to be involved in a church takes participation and commitment in order to feel connected. If you are offended, don’t hold it in. Speak up in a loving way and make sure you aren’t just looking to be offended. If they won’t listen to you, I would love to have a conversation with you.

If you are a follower of Jesus that is still angry at the church, it might be time to work towards forgiveness. Some of you have wounds that may be incredibly deep and may need to be scrapped out in order to find proper healing. Not to be offensive, but in the spirit of authenticity, some of your hurts may just be surface scratches. It’s time to forgive the way Christ forgave you. Ouch. I know. But, let’s just be real. Talk to a leader in the church. I pray whoever you choose to talk to is wise and humble, and that your wounds towards the church will be healed.

For the church bashing followers of Jesus out there... stop bashing and hating the bride of Christ! It’s just time to stop it. Be part of the solution! You will not find a group of perfect people. It does not exist. Commit yourself to a body of like-minded followers of Jesus and affect change! Jesus desires to use communities of faith to do his work. Yes, he can use individuals. But, the Bible says over and over that he will bring redemption to the world through Jesus, through the church, to the glory of God the Father.

Ephesians 3:20-21 Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.

It's Been a Week

Phew. I'm tired. It's been a long, busy, frustrating week. At one point, I even had an ugly cry...with snot and everything. Thank goodness Chad loves me and doesn't freak out when I cry like that.

I'm not going to give you details of the week. I know some of you want the dirt, but that's not the point of this post. The point is I'm glad it's over. I'm glad Chad loves me. I'm glad God is God and I don't have to be even though trying to be contributed to my long week.

"I pray to GOD-my life a prayer-and wait for what he'll say and do. My life's on the line before God, my Lord, waiting and watching til morning, waiting and watching til morning."

Ps 130 The Message

I'm not stuck. Being a watchmen waiting til morning is possible because my hope is in God alone.

Sweet Reflection

I can't believe it's been over a week since Retreat de Moxie. To the forty of you who joined me on the journey, thank you. There aren't words to express how you blessed me. Your attentiveness as I spoke was humbling. Watching some of you shimmy up the wall and telephone pole on the ropes course was challenging. Listening to some of you process the tremendous difficulty of feeling like a failure on the ropes course was heart-wrenching. Laughing with you because of our awesomeness in creating music videos was refreshing. Hearing how loud you lifted your voices to worship Jesus was inspiring. I so love the mountain top experiences we have each year on our retreat. Thank you for making this retreat wonderful!

As I was preparing each session, I continued to say to God, "I don't know. This stuff seems so simple. Shouldn't I say something more profound or holy or fancy?" But, I knew what he wanted me to speak about, so I chose to stay the course. Little did I know how much we all needed to hear about our barriers and his overwhelming, true, amazing love for us. I had no idea how much it would affect the entire group. Thank you all for pressing in, allowing him to speak to your hearts, for desiring to worship in spirit and truth. I hope and pray that you are truly changed, that you have a new experiential knowledge of who God is in your life. I pray that the connectedness you found with Second Mile women will compel you to commit and participate as we live out our values together.

Over the last week I've thought a lot about his love. I read John 4 so many times to prepare for the retreat. Somehow I just can't seem to leave the passage. Most days in the last week I continued to read it. It means more to me now. Imagining the look in Jesus' eyes as he talked to the Samaritan woman continues to cause me to pause, reflect, and ponder. I grew up in the church and often heard and sang that Jesus loves me. Preparing for this retreat, speaking about the depth of Christ's love for women, and seeing how it affected the 40 beautiful women listening has taken the understanding of this love to a new level in my soul.

For those of you who weren't fortunate enough to attend Retreat de Moxie with us, have you seriously pondered the love Jesus has for you? Not a Sunday School knowledge, not an I've-heard-it-a-thousand-times knowledge, not a that's-a-bunch-of-crap knowledge. A true, real, ask the God of the Universe if he can show you how much he loves you kind of knowledge. For my female readers, think about how much he loves women. We still live in a world where females are often treated like second class citizens, made fun of, paid less, treated like sex-objects, are under-appreciated. Think about how many women Jesus met and healed as he walked the earth. One woman a bunch of religious men tried to stone because she was an adulteress. Jesus knelt down by her and wrote something in the sand. What did he write? Did he tell her how much he loves her? We can't know what he wrote, but we can see that his posture changed for this woman. He knelt by her. He wrote in the dirt. I'm positive his face towards her was full of love and not condemnation.

One woman had been suffering from severe bleeding for 12 years. She simply reached out and touched his cloak with the hope of being healed. It was so crowded that day, but Jesus knew that someone had been changed by touching him. He called out to find out who did it. This woman fell at his feet in fear. But, he called her daughter! He told her to go in peace and be freed from suffering.

What about the woman who came and washed Jesus' feet with her tears and hair? The religious guys condemned her. Do you think Jesus leaned forward in comfort of her or sat back in an arrogant posture to let her wallow in her guilt? If we believe that he knows how to truly love people, we can be confident that his posture was full of humility, grace, and deep love for this woman. I would so love to see his eyes as he looked at this woman. We can be sure that she was overwhelmed by how he comforted her. She had probably lived a life full of condemnation, but now she had encountered true, unconditional love.

Do you realize that he allowed women to be the first to see him after he resurrected? They were grieving, alone, wondering what to do without this man who loved them unconditionally without ulterior motives. He did not use them. He did not want their bodies. He did not treat them as his culture dictated. They knew he loved them purely. He showed himself to them in all his resurrected glory. Again, they knew the look of love from his eyes. They had grown to know and understand what it felt like to be so loved.

I pray that many of you will pause this week to reflect deeply about Christ's love for you. Let it overwhelm you. Allow your emotions to be affected by drinking deeply of his love. Discipline your mind to truly know he loves you unconditionally. Don't allow lies from past wounds and hurts to captivate your thoughts. Focus your mind on his unconditional love and ask him to help you believe it.

I'm not naive enough to believe that everyone who reads this post will jump around in a happy dance basking in a new understanding of Jesus' love. If you have questions, please contact me. There isn't much more I enjoy more than having a conversation about Jesus with people who are curious.

What I've discovered over this last week as I've rested and recovered from our fabulous retreat is that the more I feel loved by Jesus, the more I love him and people. It's actually kind of miraculous if you think about it. Knowing Jesus loves me does not turn into a self-centered, hoarding, dysfunctional love. I am more patient, kind, not easily angered. I don't hold grudges. I'm more trustworthy, protective, hopeful, perseverant. If you knew my true self, you would know that it is only Jesus' unconditional love for me that allows this miraculous shift in my heart that allows me to love others in these profound ways.

May we all love the way he loves us!

Making Psalm 131 Personal

Please make this true in my life, Covenant Keeper:

My heart isn't proud, arrogant, or ready to fight.

I am content with the hear and now of what you are asking me to do.

I only concern myself with you and what you've asked me to do,

not with the 'if onlys' of life.

My soul is still and quiet like a toddler

who is worn out from an exciting and busy day.

I will rest in you like a content child that rests in a mother's arms.

Thank you for parenting me!

As always, my hope, my full eager expectation, is in you.

I Played the Lottery Tonight

It has been a long crazy week, so after tonight's gathering I decided to search meaningless websites and let my brain take a break. I came across the Nate Berkus Show website. If you don't know who Nate is, he is one phenomenal designer who takes dumpy living spaces and makes them glorious. I love his make-over shows, although they make me covet just a little bit.

In the random reading of the website info, I came across the 'Be On the Show' section and then stumbled upon the question, "Is your house outdated?" Uh, yeah, it is. Thankfully, last Spring I had already composed a please-help-me-and-my-ugly-house letter to a celebrity, so I modified it to fit the proposed question, up-loaded some atrocious photos, said a little prayer, and hit submit.

Here's a sample:

I smiled at Chad and mumbled, "Wouldn't it be so great?" He just smiled back and said, "Playing the lottery?" Yep! Maybe you can hope with me. :)

The Years Are Short

On May 4, 1998 Chad and I became the proud parents of a beautiful 18 month old Chinese girl. Our lives were changed forever. The strange part of our adoption was that we actually had interaction with this child before we knew she would become ours. We had met her a few short weeks before we took her home. I hadn't allowed my heart to fully love her quite yet, but as soon as we stepped out of the orphanage, hailed a dirty red taxi, and made our way to the Friendship Store to buy diapers, I knew there was no going back. Chad and I instantly referred to each other as Mom and Dad, and our new little Esther had a death grip around both our necks.

Once we made it home, the first stop was the bath tub. She had 18 months of gunk in her toenails, and eau de China in her hair.

When I look at this picture, it reminds me of how stressed she must have been. She knew us from the time we had played with her and fed her in the orphanage, but I'm sure she was wondering who in the world we were and why we had taken her from the only home she knew and why did we stick her in this weird container filled with water.

And, why the man we wanted her to call 'Dad' was washing everything so thoroughly. I'm sure she totally gets Chad's cleanliness now. :)

She had a contemplative look a lot for the first few months. I'm sure she was trying to make sense of her new life. I often wondered if she struggled to keep the memories she had already made, words she had come to understand, familiarity in the only faces she had known in her small orphanage room.

A quick way into her heart was through a ball. Some things never change.

My friend John recently wrote a blog about his newly adopted daughter's birthday. He talked about how most adopted people are overwhelmed with thoughts of their birth mom on their birthday. Esther and I have had extensive conversations about her birth mom. We've prayed for her together many, many times through the last 12 years. Because I know Esther is a child who prays, I'm sure she has prayed for her birth mom more times than I can imagine. What has surprised me is how much I've thought of her birth mom through the years. I've speculated about her age, her occupation, her beliefs. I've chosen to wholeheartedly believe that she has continually thought about her little Chinese beauty that she chose to leave at the police station in a basket with an expensive blanket lined with money. I know she grieves as each year passes knowing that apart from a divine intervention from God, she won't be able to meet the child that she gave up 14 years ago. My prayers for her are for peace and comfort, that somehow in her spirit she will know that her tiny baby went to live with a family that loves her deeply and accepts her as a full heir with their birthed children.

Every year on Esther's birthday at least one person asks me if it is her "real birthday." I'm never sure how to answer exactly, so on good days I offer grace and say, "To us it is!" As we celebrated her first birthday with us, two years old, we were wide-eyed, joyful, so thankful that God saw fit to put this precious child in our lives,that he entrusted us to parent her, love her, nurture her.

We are so blessed that Esther is such a lovely young lady. She is responsible, caring, funny, smart, even-tempered (most of the time. She is 14, after all), loves her sisters and brother deeply, looks after people in need, wants to have people over for dinner every night, loves her community, prays constantly, asks good questions, and is a delight to Chad and me. I can't imagine my life without her. Maybe that is one of the reasons I think about her birth mom so much. She is living her life without this sweet, precious child that has so enriched my life. I will continue to ask the God Who Sees to give her hope that her child is loved, valued, and cherished.

Happy 14th birthday, sweet Esther! We love you more than you can imagine!

All or Nothing Kinda Girl

I love to exercise. I love to sweat. I really love to make other people exercise and sweat. (Side note: I don't enjoy making people throw up when they work out. I'll leave that to my friend, Angela.)

Because I teach fitness classes four mornings a week, I assumed I was getting the work-out that I need. Turns out, during two of the classes I teach, I spend more time facilitating, checking form, and ensuring safety of the clients than actually exercising. This is actually my job, so it's no big deal, but then I'm left with a dilemma. Do I spend separate time getting the work-out that my body actually needs or do I just keep eating and pretend I'm working out?

Yesterday I decided to do my own thing, kick my own tail, plyometrics, core, cardio, sweat like it was the last time I would be able to exercise. Today.... I can't walk. Almost every single muscle in my whole body hurts.

Chad said that I'm an all or nothing kinda girl. I like to be sore, but this is ridiculous. I'm sure there is a lesson to be learned, but I don't care. I'm going to go jump around like a crazy girl again as soon as I get the chance. Doesn't that sound fun??