To surrender is to relinquish my hold on, or control of, something. For most of us, surrender is a fear-producing, threatening act. But those who have come through the school of "hard knocks" have learned that you can surrender willingly unto God the things He desires, or you can live through multitudes of knock-downs and your nose scraping the pavement until you put up the white flag--you choose.
Fearfully, I dropped my first "surrender seed" into God's hands--my daughter Beth at just two or three years old. Thoughts of God taking her from me if I gave her to Him terrified me, but gentle nudges and reassurances that my God loved her even more than I persuaded me that it was a safe, and even wise, act for me. When my dear Beth contracted cancer at age twenty-nine, I revisited my act of surrender, much like the faith heroes of old returning to their meeting places with God, and I had assurance of heart from my God that the disease would not take her life.
Beth was my first seed, but not my last. I deposited three more daughters into God's hands, my husband, my hopes for a godly marriage, troubles too numerous to mention, my unsaved father (whom I had the pleasure of leading to salvation), other family members, friends...only God knows the seeds I have sown.
My strong desires, even to see God's will accomplished, took more time. I remember the day that I brought my unequally yoked marriage to God and said, even if my husband never surrenders his life and heart to You, I accept my ministry to be a godly wife and love him in Your name. This prayer represented almost twenty-four years of tears, pleading, rebuking the devil, hating my lot, carrying untold hurts, to my personal altar, and I offered them all up to God. Not long after, my husband came to me and asked if we could start reading the Bible together. God received my sacrifice as a sweet aroma and returned to me my heart's desire.
Things I surrender to God fall from my hand, where they have no chance to live, into soil that represents my trust and faith in God, and He never disappoints. In this soil, God is the garden-tender, weeding and watering, causing growth and giving harvest, as He sees fit.
Yet, He has a work for these hands. The utmost privilege for my hands is to lift them up to Him in surrender and adoration. In them, my heart and my spirit soar heavenward until I see myself coming into His throne room to enjoy His presence. With my hands, I reach out to love and help others. With my hands, I work dutifully at tasks that accompany life in this realm. With my spiritual hands, I snatch others from the hand of the enemy.
From my heart, I surrender my whole life--spirit, soul, and body--to Him. He loves me unconditionally, all the time.
You can trust Him and surrender your life, with all its individual parts, to Him, too. True life begins the moment of surrender. Test it for yourself.
Sunday, August 21, 2011
Saturday, June 4, 2011
A Suitable Helpmate
Look into our marriage, and you will see two individuals so markedly different that you will have to wonder, how did they ever make it to marriage? Indeed, our marriage resembles a bottle of oil and water. How so?
I see the glass half full; my husband sees the glass half empty. I drive at a quick pace with eyes fixed straight ahead; he turtles down the road, gawking right and left, commenting on each thing he sees. We communicate differently: he never lacks subject matter or an opinion, and he speaks vehemently and with little restraint whatever he thinks and feels. Conversely, I choose my much fewer words with care and speak them with a softer tone. Even our internal environments vary: his resembling a steady, crashing waterfall, stirred up by what drives it. Whereas, when my waters become rocky with trouble, like a trained kayaker, I vigilantly navigate toward more tranquil waters. We both diligently problem-solve, but we often see different solutions.
Night and day different, we are. But he needs me, and I need him.
With insight now into how different we are, you might imagine that we have our share of discussions—right, you are. With a steady influx of opportunities to disagree, I have learned some lessons.
The most life-changing lesson for me was to understand my position in the marriage—a helpmate, called to walk alongside my husband. In the beginning of our marriage, and for years to follow, I thought the Bible’s directive for wives to submit to their husbands in all things meant that I could not speak up for myself or disagree with him…a lie from the pit of hell. I was so bound by that misconception that when my husband said, “Let’s go to bed,” and I wanted to stay up awhile, I didn’t think I could even say, “I think I’ll stay up awhile. You go on ahead.” So frustration and resentment, sometimes hatred, grew because I held everything within. If a spotlight were shone within my heart back then, you would not have seen a positive likeness of a godly woman.
A God-pleasing marriage does not oppress either of its partners. The Bible says for older women to teach the younger to love their husbands and children. God delivered me in a big way the day June Sinclair, our women’s Bible study teacher, told a group of us women that to submit to our husbands means to submit to him how we see things. It does not mean that we lie under his feet like a doormat. June explained that God often gives the woman insight that she can bring to the table for consideration. That’s submission. If, after discussing a situation, the husband stands by his opposing position, which seems way off the mark, the wife should yield to his decision—and pray, she said. That, too, is submission. June explained that the husband, as head of the home, is responsible for the consequences of his decision.
A nugget I found in Ephesians 4:15, 16 supports what June taught us, that we need what one another brings to the partnership. It directs: speak the truth in love. More specifically, “speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.”
God is for the marriage, for the husband, for the wife. He will give the husband wisdom if he will walk humbly before God. He will hear and respond to a woman who seeks to aid her husband through prayer and a supportive attitude. A marriage is the perfect environment to train two people to give up foolish, stubborn pride. Through a healthy give and take, we can learn how to interact in a way that honors God and one another.
Marriage has taught me that sometimes we must leave “a discussion” by agreeing to disagree. A joint surrendering for the sake of peace is a defeat over the enemy of the marriage. Satan wants us to viciously turn on one another, but we can keep him from gaining a foothold into our holy matrimony by abandoning the need to be “right,” for the sake of unity.
Guard your heart, I learned. The critical element to examine in disagreement is: How’s my heart? Letting a root of bitterness settle into the soil of your heart will defile you, and then others, Hebrews 12:14, 15 teaches.
Guard your peace. If a partner has a heart and mind toward strife, back away for awhile. It takes two to fight. One disgruntled half can reconsider and come around; but when both emotionally charged participants vocalize their irritation, the ugliness grows. My peace does not need to shake because someone else wants to drag me into strife—my peace is my choice. Likewise, no one else can blame me for his or her choice to behave in a certain manner. Each one is held accountable for what resides in his own heart. Colossians 3:15 says, “Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts.”
When situations want to make opponents out of my husband and me, I try to remember that we are on the same team. We have stayed on the playing field for thirty-three years, persevering and enduring through many trials and storms, when other, less stout-hearted, partners in our circumstances would have quit very early. Oh, I still get tempted sometimes in the heat of our disagreement to call my spouse an idiot, but I haven’t sinned or fueled the fire if it doesn’t come out of my mouth. A “God help me” prayer and an self-admonition to "Stop it!" douses that wildfire before it gets out of control. God gave me Holy Spirit for a good reason—I need Him, desperately!
My final encouragement on being a suitable Helpmate: learn from those who have gone before you; most notably, Jesus. Hebrews 12:1-6 says:
“Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin; and you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons,
“MY SON, DO NOT REGARD LIGHTLY THE DISCIPLINE OF THE LORD,
NOR FAINT WHEN YOU ARE REPROVED BY HIM; FOR THOSE WHOM THE LORD LOVES HE DISCIPLINES, AND HE SCOURGES EVERY SON WHOM HE RECEIVES.”
NOR FAINT WHEN YOU ARE REPROVED BY HIM; FOR THOSE WHOM THE LORD LOVES HE DISCIPLINES, AND HE SCOURGES EVERY SON WHOM HE RECEIVES.”
God Himself will give specialized insight from this passage to help in your time of need—be ready to hear, for it may not be what you expect.
Monday, May 30, 2011
A Nothing from Nowhere
In my family, I hold the position of the eldest of five children, having two sisters and two brothers. My first brother, Wes, seventeen months behind me, became my first close playmate. Wes and I spent our days on our secluded country property making mud pies and mud balls, riding our tricycles round and round in the big shed, playing with kittens and caterpillars. Once we made a bug mobile, which we hung from our metal swing set. As an act of bravery, we caught honeybees by their wings and then released them. We learned valuable facts with our fun, such as: You should never spank a honeybee, because they don't bite, but from their backsides, hurt you. And another: If we worked and picked our summer fruits, like the grapes along our long driveway, and the apples, cherries, peaches and berries, Mom would make us delicious treats. Life there for us as youngsters was very good.
My first two memories of having a functioning conscience, came with measures of guilt--one a fairly small portion, the other a big dose. Remember those mud pies and mud balls we made? A little twinge of guilt followed my convincing Wes that I had eaten and enjoyed one of our mud balls, and he should too--poor boy. The next time, I earned a huge dose of guilt.
Mom had just finished covering a drafty upstairs bedroom window with plastic, and upon exiting the room, she warned us not to touch it. I observed that the air filled the space between the glass and the plastic, causing it to swell. I don't know what made me do it, but I poked my finger into the plastic, creating the most appealing popping sound. I did it again, and again, and again. I coaxed my innocent brother to follow my lead so that I would not be alone in my transgression. When Mother discovered the holey plastic, she demanded to know who had done it. Mother's angry look left no doubt that her wrath would swiftly fly out and come upon the implicated party, so sheepishly, I told her that my brother had done it. I watched the poor little guy take my spanking. The guilt weighed heavily upon me, but the fear of my lie compounding Mom's wrath birthed in me a self-preservation, and it urged me to stand silent. Shame fully engulfed me.
Another early memory with my brother Wes was being told to stay outside after Mom brought newborn Billy home from the hospital, number three of five. I think that's the day Wes and I found the dead sparrow. I gathered it up in my hands and we walked it in for Mom and Dad to see, expecting that they would feel as sad as we did that it had died. But Mom shrieked, "Get it outside; it has bugs!" Reverently and with tears, we returned outdoors to give the dear deceased animal a proper burial. I believe I always had a soft heart.
Except for shopping and short trips to Grandma and Grandpa's house, we rarely left our country haven. I remember one visit to either Mother and Dad's friends' home, or maybe to a seldom-seen relative's home, and though there were children around with whom I could run and play, I kept close to Mom's side, where I felt safe. Another defining personal trait of mine, which endured well into adulthood, included shyness. Mother called my shyness being backward. Coincidentally, I had entered the world backward, a breach baby.
Traumatically, I transitioned to school. Children in the early sixties weren't required to attend school until first grade, so I didn't attend kindergarten. I remember well my first days on the schoolyard. If my first grade teacher still lives, I would wager that she remembers me too. I stood outside the school building for the first three days, in the hot sun, as Mother later said it, declining the coaxing to go inside. How I got away with that, I'll never know. My mother was equally shocked to learn that no one had forced me to go inside. Actually on the third day, my teacher tried pulling me inside. She pulled one way, I the other, until her foot slipped out from under her. A subsequent call home informed my mother of how I spent my first school days. It wasn't defiance that kept me aloof. It was fear and a feeling of abandonment that I didn't understand. Why did I have to go there? Why couldn't I stay home with my mother and play with my brother.
A feeling of being alone marked my first three years of school, having moved three times that I can recall. After which, we moved into the center of small-town Creekside, Pennsylvania; finally a move that gave me identity and friends. After an initial fight over a hole on the property line, my siblings and I became friends with the neighbor's children, and then with most of the town's children. Now in fourth grade, I understood the concept of school, but like everyone else, I looked forward to summer break. We spent our summer days bike riding, playing kickball, baseball, softball, dodge ball, football, hide 'n go seek and tag, eating hard-serve ice cream cones after lawn mowing or gardening chores, going to Sunday School and Vacation Bible School with those that attended the Methodist church at the top of the street, and even sleeping over with friends. In the fall, the town's kids enjoyed Trick-or-Treating, and then winter activities, like sledding, snowball fights, and Christmas caroling with the few friends who "went to church."
What I didn't tell you about my family is that alcoholism debilitated our father. By eighteen, Mom says, he could be declared an alcoholic. I cannot ever remember Dad leaving the house to go to work. Mother tells, and photos prove, that Dad served as a helicopter mechanic in the Korean War; even then, he enjoyed his drink. Our parents said that a nervous condition disabled him, but more likely, fear had its hold on him, too. On Welfare paydays, he drowned his inadequacies, and then the tormented became the tyrant, who rampaged every time he imbibed. But in-between binges, a mild-mannered Dad could be found sitting on the kitchen chair, rolling his Bugler cigarettes, drinking coffee, and moving his feet nervously under the table. Coming inside from the school bus, I routinely checked out Dad's condition before anything else was said or done, and then I greeted Mother, who had dinner nearly ready for the table. A sober dad meant a calm dinnertime, homework, light chores, and then fun in the neighborhood. A drunken dad brought a new infestation of fear, anxiety, "walking on eggshells," fighting, Dad cursing, and Mom, trying to protect us.
No doubt about it, my internal and external labels declared me, a Nothing from Nowhere. It appeared that I must live hopelessly stuck in nothingness, until that day...
This particular summer, the Presbyterian Church hosted Vacation Bible School. The teacher, a pleasant woman, who lived at the top of the best sled-riding hill in Creekside, concluded the week with an invitation to pray with her to ask Jesus to come live within our hearts. Her sweet sincerity made her message believable, so I closed my eyes and prayed the prayer. When I finished, I felt somehow different. I looked around me. Did anyone else sitting at the table feel it? It didn't appear so. I went home and told Mother, "God is in that church," but I couldn't explain to her how I knew He was there. I longed to go back A short bike ride up the street and then up the hill would have made the return very easy. But that wasn't our church. We had chosen a Methodist label. So, I thought God stayed up there, separate from my little world. But that day, He deposited something into me. I remember leading my sisters nightly in our bedtime prayers, and being hungry to hear more about God at church. For awhile, I joined the older ladies in the choir to sing of God's faithfulness, His love, and my duty to trust and obey.
As a teenager, I remember some days lying on my bed, again feeling empty, alone and melancholy, wondering, is this all there is? Is there a purpose in my "being here?" If there were, I wouldn't have any chance to find it. Our circumstances entrapped our family, it seemed. Even a trip seven miles from our town constituted an outing for our family, and meager means told me to not expect or ask for anything more.
But what I didn't know then, became apparent later--that Somebody a lot bigger than me did have His hand on me. More time would pass before I would hear that He (Jesus) is not only alive; He wants to be intimately involved with every little aspect of my life. And the trials, tribulations and lack that followed me into young adulthood, married life and motherhood would become meeting places for God to manifest His presence with me.
More next time...
My first two memories of having a functioning conscience, came with measures of guilt--one a fairly small portion, the other a big dose. Remember those mud pies and mud balls we made? A little twinge of guilt followed my convincing Wes that I had eaten and enjoyed one of our mud balls, and he should too--poor boy. The next time, I earned a huge dose of guilt.
Mom had just finished covering a drafty upstairs bedroom window with plastic, and upon exiting the room, she warned us not to touch it. I observed that the air filled the space between the glass and the plastic, causing it to swell. I don't know what made me do it, but I poked my finger into the plastic, creating the most appealing popping sound. I did it again, and again, and again. I coaxed my innocent brother to follow my lead so that I would not be alone in my transgression. When Mother discovered the holey plastic, she demanded to know who had done it. Mother's angry look left no doubt that her wrath would swiftly fly out and come upon the implicated party, so sheepishly, I told her that my brother had done it. I watched the poor little guy take my spanking. The guilt weighed heavily upon me, but the fear of my lie compounding Mom's wrath birthed in me a self-preservation, and it urged me to stand silent. Shame fully engulfed me.
Another early memory with my brother Wes was being told to stay outside after Mom brought newborn Billy home from the hospital, number three of five. I think that's the day Wes and I found the dead sparrow. I gathered it up in my hands and we walked it in for Mom and Dad to see, expecting that they would feel as sad as we did that it had died. But Mom shrieked, "Get it outside; it has bugs!" Reverently and with tears, we returned outdoors to give the dear deceased animal a proper burial. I believe I always had a soft heart.
Except for shopping and short trips to Grandma and Grandpa's house, we rarely left our country haven. I remember one visit to either Mother and Dad's friends' home, or maybe to a seldom-seen relative's home, and though there were children around with whom I could run and play, I kept close to Mom's side, where I felt safe. Another defining personal trait of mine, which endured well into adulthood, included shyness. Mother called my shyness being backward. Coincidentally, I had entered the world backward, a breach baby.
Traumatically, I transitioned to school. Children in the early sixties weren't required to attend school until first grade, so I didn't attend kindergarten. I remember well my first days on the schoolyard. If my first grade teacher still lives, I would wager that she remembers me too. I stood outside the school building for the first three days, in the hot sun, as Mother later said it, declining the coaxing to go inside. How I got away with that, I'll never know. My mother was equally shocked to learn that no one had forced me to go inside. Actually on the third day, my teacher tried pulling me inside. She pulled one way, I the other, until her foot slipped out from under her. A subsequent call home informed my mother of how I spent my first school days. It wasn't defiance that kept me aloof. It was fear and a feeling of abandonment that I didn't understand. Why did I have to go there? Why couldn't I stay home with my mother and play with my brother.
A feeling of being alone marked my first three years of school, having moved three times that I can recall. After which, we moved into the center of small-town Creekside, Pennsylvania; finally a move that gave me identity and friends. After an initial fight over a hole on the property line, my siblings and I became friends with the neighbor's children, and then with most of the town's children. Now in fourth grade, I understood the concept of school, but like everyone else, I looked forward to summer break. We spent our summer days bike riding, playing kickball, baseball, softball, dodge ball, football, hide 'n go seek and tag, eating hard-serve ice cream cones after lawn mowing or gardening chores, going to Sunday School and Vacation Bible School with those that attended the Methodist church at the top of the street, and even sleeping over with friends. In the fall, the town's kids enjoyed Trick-or-Treating, and then winter activities, like sledding, snowball fights, and Christmas caroling with the few friends who "went to church."
What I didn't tell you about my family is that alcoholism debilitated our father. By eighteen, Mom says, he could be declared an alcoholic. I cannot ever remember Dad leaving the house to go to work. Mother tells, and photos prove, that Dad served as a helicopter mechanic in the Korean War; even then, he enjoyed his drink. Our parents said that a nervous condition disabled him, but more likely, fear had its hold on him, too. On Welfare paydays, he drowned his inadequacies, and then the tormented became the tyrant, who rampaged every time he imbibed. But in-between binges, a mild-mannered Dad could be found sitting on the kitchen chair, rolling his Bugler cigarettes, drinking coffee, and moving his feet nervously under the table. Coming inside from the school bus, I routinely checked out Dad's condition before anything else was said or done, and then I greeted Mother, who had dinner nearly ready for the table. A sober dad meant a calm dinnertime, homework, light chores, and then fun in the neighborhood. A drunken dad brought a new infestation of fear, anxiety, "walking on eggshells," fighting, Dad cursing, and Mom, trying to protect us.
No doubt about it, my internal and external labels declared me, a Nothing from Nowhere. It appeared that I must live hopelessly stuck in nothingness, until that day...
This particular summer, the Presbyterian Church hosted Vacation Bible School. The teacher, a pleasant woman, who lived at the top of the best sled-riding hill in Creekside, concluded the week with an invitation to pray with her to ask Jesus to come live within our hearts. Her sweet sincerity made her message believable, so I closed my eyes and prayed the prayer. When I finished, I felt somehow different. I looked around me. Did anyone else sitting at the table feel it? It didn't appear so. I went home and told Mother, "God is in that church," but I couldn't explain to her how I knew He was there. I longed to go back A short bike ride up the street and then up the hill would have made the return very easy. But that wasn't our church. We had chosen a Methodist label. So, I thought God stayed up there, separate from my little world. But that day, He deposited something into me. I remember leading my sisters nightly in our bedtime prayers, and being hungry to hear more about God at church. For awhile, I joined the older ladies in the choir to sing of God's faithfulness, His love, and my duty to trust and obey.
As a teenager, I remember some days lying on my bed, again feeling empty, alone and melancholy, wondering, is this all there is? Is there a purpose in my "being here?" If there were, I wouldn't have any chance to find it. Our circumstances entrapped our family, it seemed. Even a trip seven miles from our town constituted an outing for our family, and meager means told me to not expect or ask for anything more.
But what I didn't know then, became apparent later--that Somebody a lot bigger than me did have His hand on me. More time would pass before I would hear that He (Jesus) is not only alive; He wants to be intimately involved with every little aspect of my life. And the trials, tribulations and lack that followed me into young adulthood, married life and motherhood would become meeting places for God to manifest His presence with me.
More next time...
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Beginning
Publishing one's thoughts permits others to see your soul. I guard my soul as diligently as I guard my heart. Prove yourself trustworthy, or receptive to hear what I have to say, and I'll share with you.
Dear Reader, I think I can trust you. So, I'll put out the first bread crumb to my soul...you can pick it up and walk toward me, if you like. Maybe we'll discover that we have common ground.
This is me: I'm all about encouraging the disheartened, picking up the faint, building up the broken or naive. Excitement explodes within me when it seems that what I have to say will help someone along in their journey.
Why might you care to hear me? I've found water in the desert, food in the wilderness, hope in the face of hopelessness. Maybe you need a drink, life-sustaining nourishment for your soul, hope for your heart--I'll share with you what I've received.
With trepidation and reluctance overcome, I open the door to my soul and my heart.
Dear Reader, I think I can trust you. So, I'll put out the first bread crumb to my soul...you can pick it up and walk toward me, if you like. Maybe we'll discover that we have common ground.
This is me: I'm all about encouraging the disheartened, picking up the faint, building up the broken or naive. Excitement explodes within me when it seems that what I have to say will help someone along in their journey.
Why might you care to hear me? I've found water in the desert, food in the wilderness, hope in the face of hopelessness. Maybe you need a drink, life-sustaining nourishment for your soul, hope for your heart--I'll share with you what I've received.
With trepidation and reluctance overcome, I open the door to my soul and my heart.
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