Redeemed

Wow it’s been awhile since I have posted here. The last few months I felt distant and unmotivated even in some of the things that I love. Two of those things being writing and studying. A few days ago I picked myself up and prepared for the new year. I asked God to give me a word for this season I’m in and almost instantly I felt like he gave me “freedom and acceptance”. I wrote those two words in the front of my 2013 prayer journal and instantly felt a strange stillness inside of me. The stillness turned into emotion and then all of a sudden I burst forth with anticipation for what he has in store for me.

Amongst the last few months I was given the opportunity to teach (at our church) on living a life of contentment & a life devoted to offering a sacrifice of our best. Next week I will teach on living with grace…always perfect timing. Of course God knew where I would be at this time and knew what I would be dealing with and feeling in my heart. I tried to put words with the way I was feeling and I came up with resentment, validation and disappointment. I somewhat hit a wall with things and haven’t been able to break through it and honestly have dreaded preparing for next week.

It didn’t take long after I did a search in my Bible software on how many times grace is mentioned in the Bible (151 times) and really more than that if you look up the word favor to realize that what I was feeling was wrong. My Scripture verse for this month is “When you seek me you will find me when you search for me with all your heart” Jeremiah 29:13. Oh how true this is. You want to know God, search for him, you want to understand what Jesus did for you, then seek Him with all of your heart. Then get ready to experience something that is so unique and so real, something that for me changed every single aspect of my life. The first verse I read when researching grace was this, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed,” Romans 3:23-25. Hmmm, so God has passed over my sins that were previously committed and covered me with his grace. New perspective in unforgiveness in others.

I think some self-righteous actions have surfaced in me that I didn’t believe existed. I am dealing with them, God is dealing with them and that is never enjoyable, but none the less necessary. He has opened my eyes to a new way to love people. He has somehow shown me the innocence in people and it has somehow pierced my heart and changed my thoughts and actions…my feelings too. I believe that through this process I will be healed and when I receive the healing over it I will experience freedom over each individual thing that I am struggling with. Real freedom, freedom in Christ, the kind that is promised. (Gal 5:1, It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.)
I have also experienced a higher than normal level of fear and anxiety, yes I know for those who know me are questioning how this could be possible, but it is sadly true. My new tangent that I am on is school and what the right choices are for my family, private school, public school, home school, charter school…the list goes on.
The problem that I am dealing with is that I am just not ready to let go yet.
I don’t mean in an unhealthy way, I just can’t get use to dropping my 7 year old off at the curb every morning and 8 hours later picking him up. I mean we care for these children every second of their lives. I have known where my son was and what he was doing at all times and then they turn 5 and we are just supposed to let them go. Who’s idea was this? Oh yeah…the Government. I have had family members and friends laugh at me and roll their eyes. I have analyzed if this is just co-dependency or idolism and although I am guilty at times of both with my children I feel that it is something different than that. I believe that we are to be disciples and we are to be a light in the dark world. I don’t want to shelter my children from reality or the world HOWEVER I do not want them to be so desensitized by the time they are 10 that evil and perverse ways of the world will not even effect them. If we are compliant to the ways of this world why wouldn’t we just eventually accept them and live by them. You are probably thinking that many of us already do in one way or another. Man have I ever been there…

Will and I went to the movies this weekend to see a well known musical that after 10 minutes had both of us realizing that musicals were not for us. Before we left, and since we had already paid for tickets, we walked over to a movie that was about to start. We made our way through a crowded theatre and asked people to move down so we could sit together in the only two seats left open. The movie started and the first scene was so offensive and crude that Will looked at me and without us having to say anything we stood up and walked out.

It’s not that I have never watched movies that weren’t like this one. I love romance comedies, but when they have taken risqué scenes and made them porn and language that was so foul that you couldn’t even make out what the topic was and call it “funny”, what’s left? How far will the next movie have to go to take it to the next level? What would it take for people to see enough and stop paying to watch them? Will and I walked out, not because we are too good or too spiritual, but because I could not sit there and cover my humiliation and how uncomfortable I was watching it. Everything in my spirit was saying get up, and I’m glad Will felt that way too. Do you know what the definition of Desensitized is: to make (a sensitized or hypersensitive individual) insensitive or nonreactive to a sensitizing agent or : to make emotionally insensitive or callous; specifically : to extinguish an emotional response (as of fear, anxiety, or guilt) to stimuli that formerly induced it.

I’ve never given up rated R movies, mainly because I don’t watch a lot of movies so it’s never been something I’ve had to consider. I watch a movie and if I get into it and don’t like it I turn it off. That night we were the only ones who walked out. I wondered how many rolled their eyes or laughed as we did, but what I really wondered was how many wanted to stand up and walk out too. And if you think out Jr. High and High School kids aren’t watching these movies, you’re wrong, there were plenty of them there that night.

It made me realize that we often compromise our walk with God because of the things we have come to accept as “normal”. I’m going to tell you that if we don’t put a stop to that habit now IT WILL backfire on us. It made me wonder how often I lose focus on seeking his will, not mine and how I have allowed myself to be desensitized in believing or accepting things that make God cringe.

As of now God hasn’t lead me in one way or another in what the best decision is for my children but I can tell you I am certainly anxiously awaiting the answer. Last week I wanted answers that lined up more with my will, not his. Today I gave up the game of “give and take” where I look to God to do the giving and “prayerfully” do the taking and refocused back on his plan for our life…for their life.

I guess in some strange way I keep waiting for the wrath that my past deserves to come raining down on my life and destroy it all. Yet God continues to rain down his mercy and grace over my life.

As I dropped my son off at school this morning I was thinking about that wrath and how fear has stolen my peace for so so long. A song came on the radio and spoke these words and I carved them in my heart today.

I am Redeemed…You set me free…so I’ll shake off these heavy chains and wipe every stain yeah I’m not who I used to be, I am redeemed…