This Woman's War

I attended a high school graduation last night. It all sounds so promising, and it should. Reach your indescribable potential, you are exceptional, your options are limitless.... you know, you have been to high school graduations too.

There is nothing wrong with these thoughts, I actually believe them.

I think that if I could sit one on one with each of those students I would whisper, shout, send smoke signals, rent a plane and write it in the sky:

DON'T GET BITTER

This whole thing of life is managing crisis isn't it? It is riding those waves of our emotions. The success the failure, the win, the loss.

I am forty something now. I like to think that I am at half time. God willing I have another forty something years or more left to be married to my husband, and to be mom to my kids, to the best of my ability be a voice of hope to the next generation. 

If this is half time - then my coach is up in my face right now shouting at me:

"Fix your attitude Harvey!"

"Get up off the mat! Start swinging again!"

"You believed this stuff once. Pull yourself together and reach again for those dreams!"

Why wouldn't I?

Because life has come and taken a big, shark size bite right out of my dreams from time to time. Never mind my dreams, it has taken a bite out of me. I have choices to make.

I was talking to an older lady in our church,  She has to be pushing 80ish. I was telling her how much I admired her joy and enthusiasm.  She smiled, and with all of her beautiful wisdom and kindness she said "It's a choice".

Bitterness is so deadly. It sets its traps everywhere.

Grief  - the ones we love leave us, through death or decisions.

Loss - Relationships that we thought would be with us forever, end or fade through erosion or betrayal. 

Financial Hardship - the slow wearing down of not having enough, or just enough to get by -day after day, week after week, year after year. 

Anger - opportunities that pass us by and are offered to others, the perception that everyone else is somehow managing to live a better, easier life than we are. 

Disappointment - Expectations for things to be different slowly wear down our resolve to hope for something more. 

Criticism - A heart entrenched in bitterness cannot celebrate what is happening in other people's lives. It hurts too much. It is easier to find reasons to bite in the same way we feel bitten. 

Resignation - The systematic numbing with all of its vices that lure me into settling for a mediocre life that is afraid to hope. 

You may think of more, but these are the main ones that I see. 

The storms come. I didn't get married until I was 33, my heart was shattered a couple of times in the waiting. When I did finally meet the man I would marry, it was one short week into our engagement when my mom was diagnosed with terminal cancer. We endured 6 years of infertility - an eternity of waiting each month to find out if I would ever be a mom. Many personal struggles that cannot be mentioned. Then the day to day struggles that require all sorts of attention. Life takes its heavy toll sometimes.

Bitterness is waiting with it's crosshairs on every heart that wants to accomplish anything of significance in this life. 

Why? 

Because our hearts are beautiful. Valuable. Irreplaceable. 

If not, we would not be instructed to guard them above all else. 

Guard them from what? 

The poison of disappointment, fear, anger, all of it. 

I remember reading the verse "those who hope in me will not be disappointed". At the time, I was disappointed. Bitterly disappointed. But thankfully that was not the end of the story. It doesn't say "those who hope in Me will never be disappointed with anything". I think the implication is that if we hang in there, eventually things will work themselves out. I can certainly say so in my life. I am not even a little disappointed now. But 10 years ago? A very different story. 

The Bible calls bitterness a root. Meaning, we get our nourishment from the soil of negativity and unbelief. 

I am certainly not trying to simplify complex issues down to sheer will power - but there is a time that hard choices need to be made. I don't like the person I become when I choose bitterness. 

So, I must, in spite of all that is going on, choose joy. choose hope. choose life. 

Then, only then, can I smile at the days to come. Fulfill my limitless potential and all of that other great valedictorian stuff that fills us all with hope for the future. 

So here I go - 

I declare war on all that makes me smaller, meaner, more critical, less understanding, less hopeful. 

I declare war on the fear of failure or even success, the fear of pain and loss, the fear of set back, trials and opposition. 

I declare war of the enemy of my soul - The one who would stop me from becoming the  God breathed woman I am supposed to be.

I will be grateful - the cure, as far as I can see, for bitterness. 

I pray that in my sunset years, and all of the years in between, I will always be able to smile, laugh from my belly button, speak faith, encourage deeply, believe in impossibles, and love genuinely. 

My God is worth it, my husband is worth it, my children are worth it, my friends are worth it, my students are worth it. I will be a fragrance of freedom instead of a life swallowed in bitterness. 

Even if it is cliche - I will dream, reach for the stars, be extraordinary, you know the drill. 

Who is with me?  

Follow Me

Mark 1:16 - 20

And as He walked by the Sea of Galilee, He saw Simon and Andrew his brother casting a net into the sea; for they were fishermen. Then Jesus said to them, “Follow Me, and I will make you become fishers of men.”  They immediately left their nets and followed Him.

When He had gone a little farther from there, He saw James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, who also were in the boat mending their nets.  And immediately He called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired servants, and went after Him.

There are so many things I appreciate about Jesus Christ. I appreciate that He is patient and kind, that He takes time for the sinner and cares about the outcast. I am a Christian. I want to be like Him. 

One of the traits that may not be commonly attributed to Him is confidence.  He wasn't insecure. He was fully God of course.  But He was also fully man. He walked in our flesh, faced the same temptation that I do everyday, and He died having defeated it all. 

I usually associate temptation with sexual issues, or indulgence of the naughty kind like alcohol, gluttony, drugs etc...

Today as I was praying it struck me into the core of who I was that He must have also faced the temptation to make His life all about Him. This is my understanding of insecurity having faced it for so many years in various ways. 

Insecurity is the total obsession with how others see ME, what they think of ME, how I  am doing in every thing I do. Do others speak well of ME? Do they think good thoughts of ME? Am I a good wife? A good mom? A good leader? A good example? 

I don't think these are bad questions necessarily. I do however,  think they can be a trap. As a Christian, there is a deeper calling to magnify the Lord and not me, my problems or my personality. 

As a mom, I feel the constant pressure to be a good one. Sometimes, I want my kids to behave so I look like a good mom. This too is backwards. No one can make me look like a good mom, a good leader, a good wife. I am or I am not. The fruit will answer the question in the end won't it? 

It is not comfortable to have a child going through a tantrum, bad attitude stage, but that is really their problem to overcome. In the end they have to choose to overcome or society will revolt against them and they will learn the hard way. It is not their job to make me look like a good mom. And it is simply my job to give them the best I have and believe that God will make up the difference. 

As a leader, I find myself looking over my shoulder to see if anyone is following. Will people sign up for discipleship? Do people still believe in the process? Are we doing a good job? 

And this is where that scripture hit me like lightning this morning. Jesus wasn't insecure about being a good leader, preaching the most relevant message, being cool enough to follow. He was Jesus, and He believed in what He came to do. He was simply a great leader, and people naturally followed Him. 

I enter this with a deficit, because I am not the Son of God. However, I do follow Him. I like everything He does (maybe not in the moment, but in the end He does make everything beautiful in His way). I am His biggest fan. 

When I follow Him, I don't need to worry about others following Him. 

He doesn't worry. 

He loves, He reaches, He is truth and He never changes. His truth changes everything. 

It is captivating, and irresistible. 

My job is to demonstrate that irresistible love, and through everything in my life cry out "following Jesus is the only thing that really matters or makes sense in this lifetime". 

That cures my insecurity. He has been in the business of drawing all people to Him since the beginning of time. I think He can handle this generation with all of its troubles, lures and traps. 

I can keep walking forward with the assumption that as I echo His call, hearts will change, lives will change, and generations will be forever altered because we heard His call and we followed Him.