We had gone to Carowinds this past week. The older kids had gone off in pairs and I sat in one of the baby pools with Gregory and Elizabeth. The day was perfect. The skies were that perfect Carolina Blue and the warmth of the air mingling with the refreshing coolness of the water just set the scene. I sat in one place and Gregory would splash this way and that and then come back and then go off..... repeating this variation of movement and "checking in on mom" scenario. But Elizabeth .... Elizabeth was the one who was acting out of character..... My climb on whatever is in front of her, squeeze into every tight corner, explore everything and anything child was not willing to leave my lap or take her arms off from around my neck...... She wasn't afraid and I wondered if she was just tired.
As I lay awake tonight the Lord brought the picture of that moment back to my remembrance..... you see after the first hour and a half or so... Elizabeth was back to being herself... exploring, running, climbing, being the keep up with me if you can kind of girl.... that she is..... but for the moments before that she was not going to move from my lap..... not just sitting but resting so deliberately upon my chest with her chubby little arms wrapped around my neck and her head placed upon my shoulder...... I remember just holding her.. every now and then pouring a little bit of water upon her back and cooling her off.... checking in on her by just holding her up for a moment and looking into her face... after which she would just find her place back nestled into me and her whole body would relax as she took in the scene.....
Tonight the words were simple.... I love being a mom.... I love that I have many stages of childhood and young adulthood around me... I love the challenges and the excitement and the joys of each place.... from building tracks with Gregory, to cuddling Elizabeth, to sitting and listening to Caspian, to watching Josh becoming a man, to enjoying Gideon's simplicity and fantastic nature just glow, and being a part of Rebekah's life as she becomes all she is becoming......
I stop and think of each one and each stage and joy just fills my heart... a satisfaction.
An understanding that each season each one walks through contains within it the joys and struggles and yet the knowledge that we will emerge from each season having been richer for going through it and stronger in the end..... The successes, the failures, the joys, the sorrow... and well, everything in between.... they have taught me about life and love and they are some of the most amazing people I know and I love getting to spend my times with them.......
Again.. and tonight the words were simple...... I love being their mom.... there isn't anything I don't love about it... things I don't like... days I don't like but I love them and in it all we create something with each other.......
Tonight as I knew that there was something that the Lord was getting at.... the words were simple.... He loves being a Father.... a Dad... He loves it all.... unlike me He loves perfectly and completely.... He loves being a Dad... a Father to all... as I sit and acknowledge how I know my children... he knows me and them perfectly and completely...... and there are times when there is nothing more to do then to sit nuzzled up to the One who created all things and just rest against His Almighty Chest as He holds us there..... as Elizabeth so out of character did the other day.... and there are times to acknowledge His delight as we discover aspects of the Kingdom not known to us before.... and then there are times to just quietly realize that He loves us... He loves being a Father... and He knows all things.. and in that knowledge we can rest.... when the wind and the waves are carrying a tiny boat across a lake... we can rest in the bow because we know that we know that we know.. that our Father truly loves us and watches over us perfectly....
Psalm 5:12 For you bless the godly, O LORD;
you surround them with your shield of love.
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Friday, June 11, 2010
A 100 Day Experiment Gone Wrong.... and a Letter to Someone wanting to get into Ministry
I remember when I was 19 and had newly come to believe in Jesus…. All I wanted was to give my life to him and serve….. do anything…. Just to be with him all the time….
It is interesting how we do things with one thought in mind and yet the thing we do takes us in a whole other direction. I did an experiment for 100 days to love God and people more… Until day 75 I thought I had found the thing that God was going to use to bring me back to him more fully…. Rinse my heart of the residue of years and experiences gone wrong … instead I was more wrong then I could have ever thought…. By day 100 I had stopped journaling. I felt further away from God then ever and angrier about things that had transpired then I had been prior to the 100 days……. I found myself questioning the very foundation of my faith and giving myself more room to navigate the doubts then I had in a very long time…. I came to the realization that I knew too much about the goodness of God to walk away…. To forget…… I had tasted and seen Him too much to deny that this was what I believed…..
I felt like Peter having gone back to fishing after Jesus had died and yet truly hungered for Him to be on the beach cooking breakfast…. But I couldn’t see Him… and wondered even more….
I know more than ever that answers don’t truly exist … religious platitudes do but that isn’t what I want….. My experiment has been nagging on my mind for days now…. Keep feeling pushed to come back and write what had happened……
Beginning to think that the 100 days will end up in their time fulfilling their purpose… I think I will love God and others more….. I have realized a lot of things lately… like we can’t really love until we have first been loved… until we know that we know that we know that we first have been loved… and I think my perceived failure of an experiment gone wrong was to show me that in my own efforts I will never be able to love God and people the way I long too…. I think my experiment as noble as it sounded was my attempt at a tower…… I learned good things from the first 75 days… how to not accept a rut in life, how to break out and see things from another perspective, how to intentionally live life and make productive decisions that bless the ones I spend my day with…… but I think the last 25 days will end up teaching me more than the first 75 ones…. I think I have learned more from failure or what I saw as failure… and I think that in the end of it all these last 100 days since the experiment have taught me more about God’s love then I ever knew before….. I don’t even really know what that means.. And don’t read anything hyper spiritual into it… I have fought and hated God more in the season since the experiment then ever in my walk… I have hated being a Christian and knowing more then I wanted to… I have hated knowing that I know the truth and couldn’t deny it and yet wished to more than anything…… and as I emerge just even a bit from that… as God has pushed me to this place, to write today…… all I can say is that I am more honest with Him…. And I am more myself… I’m not trying to be something I’m not… not that I consciously walked as a Christian with just some façade exterior playing the games and knowing the roles.. But it happened….
So amidst this time I get this letter …. From a dear friend… with a wonderful heart….. Asking me about ministry and asking me for advice… It was comical to me….not that she had asked but the timing….. I wondered for a long time if I was being set up by God…. So I wrote this letter…. And today I felt nudged… more pushed to share parts of what I wrote…. I think it is a wake up call…
I started my experiment because I wanted to love God and not be mediocre about it… I wanted to love people because we are told that is how people will know we are different…. I ended up hating God and being angry at a whole bunch of people….. and yet I am ending up in a place where my eyes have been made open to even a deeper goodness of God… and I know that I know that I know even more that an experiment gone wrong actually went right…..
Here’s parts of the letter:
so don't know if I am at all the person to talk to or give advice about ministry stuff .... except to say... love Jesus and each other... and let anything else flow from that... there is so much that could be said about "ministry" so much that probably needs to be said... but I'll tell you this.. if you are loving your kids and each other then everything else will fall into place.... there is so much "ministry" going on these days that is more of man then of God...
stay away from the super stars of ministry...make sure that their close friends, wife, family... speak well of them and not just tongue in cheek..... Jesus is the only one you truly need... and make the choices to love one another above all.....
If you are called to minister to the Nations then be ready for lots and lots of testing... just saying nothing comes without paying the price and paying it upfront is better... then falling short because character wasn't in place to with stand the anointing... anointing will come and yet if character isn't in place all it will do is destroy everyone in its wake......
again and I can't stress it enough..... don't look for other ministries or men to do something for you.... find the leaders that people don't have to cover up for.... or prop up and you will do well...... don't be tantalized by anything you see.... so much in ministry especially big ministries are good Hollywood productions with lots of hype.....
Care more about the character of the person you would choose to follow than anything else.. And love one another... love your kids... don't think for a minute that they aren't your most important thing.... they will be the best thing you will ever do.....
I almost lost mine to ministry… to my choices.. and my needs to serve God.. I’ve ministered to the PKs and the MKs and met some of the loneliest people in the world because of it….... and yet God in His grace turned things around... I would do so much differently but if you ask for my opinion this is it... ministry is what it is..... It can come and end up coming only to rob, steal and destroy if done wrong and love and the reason for truly serving gets lost…
So love .. love Jesus, each other, your kids.. and everything else will fall into place.... anointing will come… ministry will come… but if we don’t love one another then it won’t matter…. It won’t matter at all….
Mims
It is interesting how we do things with one thought in mind and yet the thing we do takes us in a whole other direction. I did an experiment for 100 days to love God and people more… Until day 75 I thought I had found the thing that God was going to use to bring me back to him more fully…. Rinse my heart of the residue of years and experiences gone wrong … instead I was more wrong then I could have ever thought…. By day 100 I had stopped journaling. I felt further away from God then ever and angrier about things that had transpired then I had been prior to the 100 days……. I found myself questioning the very foundation of my faith and giving myself more room to navigate the doubts then I had in a very long time…. I came to the realization that I knew too much about the goodness of God to walk away…. To forget…… I had tasted and seen Him too much to deny that this was what I believed…..
I felt like Peter having gone back to fishing after Jesus had died and yet truly hungered for Him to be on the beach cooking breakfast…. But I couldn’t see Him… and wondered even more….
I know more than ever that answers don’t truly exist … religious platitudes do but that isn’t what I want….. My experiment has been nagging on my mind for days now…. Keep feeling pushed to come back and write what had happened……
Beginning to think that the 100 days will end up in their time fulfilling their purpose… I think I will love God and others more….. I have realized a lot of things lately… like we can’t really love until we have first been loved… until we know that we know that we know that we first have been loved… and I think my perceived failure of an experiment gone wrong was to show me that in my own efforts I will never be able to love God and people the way I long too…. I think my experiment as noble as it sounded was my attempt at a tower…… I learned good things from the first 75 days… how to not accept a rut in life, how to break out and see things from another perspective, how to intentionally live life and make productive decisions that bless the ones I spend my day with…… but I think the last 25 days will end up teaching me more than the first 75 ones…. I think I have learned more from failure or what I saw as failure… and I think that in the end of it all these last 100 days since the experiment have taught me more about God’s love then I ever knew before….. I don’t even really know what that means.. And don’t read anything hyper spiritual into it… I have fought and hated God more in the season since the experiment then ever in my walk… I have hated being a Christian and knowing more then I wanted to… I have hated knowing that I know the truth and couldn’t deny it and yet wished to more than anything…… and as I emerge just even a bit from that… as God has pushed me to this place, to write today…… all I can say is that I am more honest with Him…. And I am more myself… I’m not trying to be something I’m not… not that I consciously walked as a Christian with just some façade exterior playing the games and knowing the roles.. But it happened….
So amidst this time I get this letter …. From a dear friend… with a wonderful heart….. Asking me about ministry and asking me for advice… It was comical to me….not that she had asked but the timing….. I wondered for a long time if I was being set up by God…. So I wrote this letter…. And today I felt nudged… more pushed to share parts of what I wrote…. I think it is a wake up call…
I started my experiment because I wanted to love God and not be mediocre about it… I wanted to love people because we are told that is how people will know we are different…. I ended up hating God and being angry at a whole bunch of people….. and yet I am ending up in a place where my eyes have been made open to even a deeper goodness of God… and I know that I know that I know even more that an experiment gone wrong actually went right…..
Here’s parts of the letter:
so don't know if I am at all the person to talk to or give advice about ministry stuff .... except to say... love Jesus and each other... and let anything else flow from that... there is so much that could be said about "ministry" so much that probably needs to be said... but I'll tell you this.. if you are loving your kids and each other then everything else will fall into place.... there is so much "ministry" going on these days that is more of man then of God...
stay away from the super stars of ministry...make sure that their close friends, wife, family... speak well of them and not just tongue in cheek..... Jesus is the only one you truly need... and make the choices to love one another above all.....
If you are called to minister to the Nations then be ready for lots and lots of testing... just saying nothing comes without paying the price and paying it upfront is better... then falling short because character wasn't in place to with stand the anointing... anointing will come and yet if character isn't in place all it will do is destroy everyone in its wake......
again and I can't stress it enough..... don't look for other ministries or men to do something for you.... find the leaders that people don't have to cover up for.... or prop up and you will do well...... don't be tantalized by anything you see.... so much in ministry especially big ministries are good Hollywood productions with lots of hype.....
Care more about the character of the person you would choose to follow than anything else.. And love one another... love your kids... don't think for a minute that they aren't your most important thing.... they will be the best thing you will ever do.....
I almost lost mine to ministry… to my choices.. and my needs to serve God.. I’ve ministered to the PKs and the MKs and met some of the loneliest people in the world because of it….... and yet God in His grace turned things around... I would do so much differently but if you ask for my opinion this is it... ministry is what it is..... It can come and end up coming only to rob, steal and destroy if done wrong and love and the reason for truly serving gets lost…
So love .. love Jesus, each other, your kids.. and everything else will fall into place.... anointing will come… ministry will come… but if we don’t love one another then it won’t matter…. It won’t matter at all….
Mims
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