In Grieving, In Joy - Bittersweet Endings...

....leading to bittersweet beginnings.

Today dawned early, as is typical for me these days.  That could have something to do with the sun coming up around 5:30 or so this time of year...or maybe it is just the stress that seems to have planted itself square on my chest these days - making it difficult to breath at points.

Then there is the constant pain that has ensconced itself just below that stress.  Right in the heart chakra region is lodged pain that is fierce, sometimes making itself forcibly known like a roaring lion.  The pain of a broken heart from a broken life...from a broken soul...feels like a jagged piece of bone that is tearing away at my flesh - from the inside trying to make its way out.

The pain that loves to creep up at the most unexpected times - bringing with it tears.  Sometimes those tears turn into wails and deep gut wrenching cries of mourning...sometimes those tears just turn into quiet sobs that beg to find a way out of their cage.

The pain - oh God the pain of allowing myself to feel the grief, the depth of grief of the human experience...how does one describe something like this?  If you have never allowed yourself to feel this pain - if you have always suppressed it, tried to push it out with other "medications", but inadvertently have only pushed it down deeper into your soul - how does one describe this pain?  Sometimes the only relief from this pain is the deep crying - helping to dislodge some of the more than moderate uncomfortableness that resides in that region.  At least until the grief starts to build once again...the bubbling up from the depths of my soul.

The bubbling that began the end of last summer - sparked by the long, spiky fingers of judgement by friends...of being cast out from a family...of starting the process of losing the person I thought I was, of the faith I thought I had and of a God I thought I knew.

Sometimes, all I can do is sit, knees pulled to chest, arms encircling knees...rocking myself back and forth, allowing the memories of my life to flood in - one by one saying, "hello you are welcome here as part of me" yet at the same time saying ,"good-bye - you no longer define me".

I am not depressed...even though the external indicators might point to that.  I know that with grief, depression can also come.  Yet, with depression there is a sense of hopelessness and pointlessness.  I do not feel this.  Yes I feel overwhelming sorrow and pain; however, I feel comfortable knowing this is part of the process...this is part of my journey.  Others might not understand it, and there is no need for them to.  They might not feel comfortable with me or the process...and that is okay, for I am.  

I have struggled over the past week in my attempt to continue to allow the God I know to be lost to me.  I am typically the eternal optimist...the cheerleader of others and myself - and probably a bit of the reason I succeed in fitness.  Yet, this week I have had to purposefully allow myself to intentionally not feel that hope...to allow myself to look at the world without that hope there.

In doing so, I have had to give myself permission to cry - whenever and wherever.  To not stuff my feelings at any given moment, to not put on the facade that I'm okay when I am not.  I would love to say that I have gotten this 100% correct...but like anything it is a process of letting go of my inhibitions...of letting go of those voices that yell at me saying, "Don't you care what others will think of you?"

Yet, I did take some strides forward this past week in doing this.  At a women's gathering I had the pleasure of coordinating and running - there were sweet tears shared between friends that brought me to my knees with tears running out of my own eyes.  And at church on Sunday, where I have struggled the past couple of weeks trying to "hang on" to my emotions...I finally felt the release I so desperately needed after an extremely painful, poignant-on-so-many-levels message.  Where at the end of the message, the pastor gave us permission to respond how we needed to respond.  By him giving me permission, I gave myself permission.  The most beautiful thing is that I discovered my friends could handle me.  Not only that, they embraced me with their arms and their spirits...giving me more permission to let it out...as much as would come at that time.  It felt so good to have that emotional and physical connection - to be held in the midst of my pain - wouldn't you know it brings tears to my eyes now?

So much has happened since I began this blog as a way to document my journey, as a way to speak my mind and regain my voice.  I have grown by leaps and bounds.  I started at a place where others would cry for me and I would try to shut them down.  I wouldn't allow anyone to speak of the talents they saw in me.  I was a touch bit bitter and judgmental myself...self-righteous I would even venture to say.

I have realized I am a Jonah, running away from problems; a Peter in speaking my mind too quickly while being full of passion that can easily get distracted; a Moses that has been called to speak but that makes excuses as to why I cannot.

I have gone from being a firm believer that women had no place in the pulpit to believing that God does call women to this position...to believing that what I had been taught in general about the bible and the Christian faith could never be questions...to questioning and doubting all of it.  From living on the right side of everything to living in the middle.

I have gone from being maybe a thirteen year old in emotional maturity to hopefully being closer to my true physical age...from being blind and deceived - to continually feeling another layer of scales and deception to fall from my eyes.  I have learned to put away my childish ways, the childish voices that protected me for a time...and to challenge my ANTS (automatic negative thoughts), to rephrase them in order to Practice Joy.

I have gone from hearing God almost constantly as He resonated His words in my soul...to being a floundering, wandering nomad begging to once again hear His sweet voice.

I am learning how to integrate my grief into my daily life, to integrate my pain into my joy, to integrate my endings into new beginnings.

Which leads me back to today, and where I am at as of this moment as I sit here and write.  I feel caught in the dichotomy of the human experience that is life.  I feel caught between the closing of of my old life while saying hello to a new beginning of this new life.  Between the grief and the joy - between the full range of emotions that can take me either way at any moment.

For today, today is what would have been my 10 year anniversary.  Instead, a year ago today I irrevocably changed the direction of my life, that of my children and of my husband at the time.  A year ago today my husband was served with my decision that I was done with that old life.

How is it that as a human we can feel such deep pain and sorrow for the loss of one thing, yet feel such release and freedom at the same time?  Why is it that in order to feel the joy in this life, we must first walk through the pain and grief?  That in order to get to the other side of the rainbow we first have to trek through the trenches of mud and rain?  That in order to get to the resurrection - we must first go through the insurrection of our own soul?

Why is it that 

bittersweet endings are really just 

bittersweet beginnings?

Judgement Gets Personal

Note:  The saga of judgement continues...I wrote this in response to Stephen's comment on Judgement 2...but felt it was too long for a comment and thus am putting it here.

I think the gist of the issue is this: that before we can fully start to judge another we need to know them and their story.  And maybe that is the problem - all of us are trying to "stereotype" judgement without knowing the "case" that we are judging.  So let me give you a personal example if you will.  This example is extremely personal - yet I share it in hopes that it will help.  For if we as the church don't stop throwing around judgement left and right and start listening to people's stories...then how are we ever to hope to love the world as Christ has loved us?  For when - in our over plugged-in/hyper-connected/gossipy world - we judge others we do not even know - it is really telling them we are a Church filled with hate and not love...

MY STORY WITH JUDGEMENT

I decided after trying my hardest to keep my marriage together - that I needed to separate from my ex.  It was a painful, gut wrenching decision heightened by the fact that it has been an abusive relationship (with both of us to blame for this if you truly know the dynamics of an abusive relationship).  I had tried to keep it together on my terms, trying to force him to change by calling his sin out to him, etc.  It didn't work and I was led - yes by the Holy Spirit - to divorce for the hardness of heart towards not repenting.  

Now, you can say what you will...but there are many Christians that have passed judgement on me or that put the full failure of the marriage on me because I decided to divorce - and not on him because of his hardness of heart.  He can continue to profess that he is a follower, and most in the church wouldn't ever say otherwise.  And is he?  I honestly couldn't tell you ...nor do I think it is my place to say whether or not he is.  But I can discern/judge his actions and if they are unhealthy - then yes, I can set up the appropriate boundaries for myself.  

Furthermore, there are many Christians that - even after knowing me and some of my intimate story - told me that I was not hearing from God correctly and that continue to tell me they are praying and asking me to consider reconciling - and putting the burden of that on me without ever giving pause to ask what he did to or for the marriage.  

I can honestly say that I can see all of their points and hold them as valid points in my mind - because before this experience in my life I would have held the same view points and done the same thing as them.  However,  I can tell you that being on this side of judgement - to be judged by people you thought were your friends and could be trusted - truly and utterly sucks and is so painful.  Unless you have been in an abusive relationship, you will never know the depths of deceit and pain and heartache that both parties are wrapped up in...and that no one but God working through the Holy Spirit could have guided me through that process and released me from my vows.

So I ask, is it any one else's right to judge me and tell me that I am not following God?  That - without being in my shoes - tell me I should have continued to subjected myself to abuse in order to just keep a marriage together?  That if I didn't stay in the marriage - then I was not following God and would be judged?  Can man see the heart - or is that God's job?  I mean - if you judge my relationship with God just based on the fact that I divorced someone - isn't that narrow and closed minded?  Do you know what else I have done in my life, how else I have grown from this experience and how I am even more sold out to Christ now than ever before?

I guess if someone thinks they know without a shadow of doubt they are right, that I am sinning by divorcing*, than by all means they should condemn me.  But they would need to condemn him too for his actions - which is rarely the case within the church in regards to Domestic Abuse.  So if we are going to use judgement - let's at least use it across the board and not just selectively.  Furthermore, maybe I'm reading my bible incorrectly - but I believe Jesus is the only one that can condemn me...and is the only one that can set me free.

Could we admit that perhaps, just perhaps us church-goers don't have all the answers and can't draw hard-core lines on most subjects in life...that we need to learn to live life more in the middle of knowing and not knowing and letting God fill in the blanks in each individual case?

Judgement: this is such a harried and in-depth subject it is impossible to work it all out on a comment section or in a post or two.  All I know from is that - as a follower of Christ doing the best I cam - it really stung to have people that didn't even know me judge me and to be talking behind my back.  It showed me how horrible my actions towards others have been in the past and I have decided that I will try my best to purge myself of this type of judgement.  If I must judge, then I pray I do follow God's loving manner in Matthew 18 - and that my heart is not set on revenge but on the hope the person will repent.  

One last thought: While I know we are called to call each other's sin out to one another - are we held accountable for that person's sin?  No.  Are we held accountable to how we react to their sin?  Yes...and that is where we need to learn to set up appropriate boundaries.  I had to use judgement/discernment in my decision for divorce - but I could do this because I was the one intimately involved in the daily details of the marriage. Ultimately, the judgement came not in the form of accusing him of all his wrongdoings, of begging and pleading with him to change - but the judgement came in taking control of the only thing I could control - and that was myself and my actions and my boundaries.  

Essentially, I did follow Matthew 18 - yet I now see this was done with a twist in respect to me.  Both of us had failed at upholding the marriage vows and both of us were now going to lose the benefits of marriage.  With my decision to divorce, I cast both of us out of the "fellowship" of marriage in hopes that it would have redemptive effects on both of us, that it would lead both of us to repentance in God's sight.  Only time will tell if this was the outcome of my decsion to judge my situation or not.

In closing, I go back to the fact that we cannot sit here on the interent and hypothesize about how and when judgement should occur. Just like in our courts of law, it needs to be taken on a case by case basis - with the first hand parties giving witness to what is going on.  We cannot sit here and stereotype that all judgement is bad or all judgement is good.  Yet, in any situation, judgement should be exercised with extreme caution and NEVER without love, grace and mercy.  For I am afraid, if we exercise judgement without these things...we will be seen as a people who ....

Judgement vs. Discernment

Over at my blog on Crosswalk.com I just got to my series about Judging others and how detrimental it is to our own walk.  There were a string of questions that mentioned we are to be careful between judgement and discernment and I couldn't agree more.  Here is my exploration of this topic:

I appreciate all of your comments about my thoughts.  I have definitely written more on this subject...and I completely agree that often times we are so quick to not call sin sin...and by not doing this people, families and our society is suffering tremendously.

First, I find it helpful to actually look up words and understand their meanings...so let's start there.  I'm using Urban Dictionary here because - while Merriam is good - semantics play in to defining words in our culture and must be taken into account when looking at these two words in our present age:

To Discern: to come to know or to recognize mentally 

To Judge: to quickly form a bias and/or personal opinion about someone or something 

By no means do I pretend to have all the answers and understanding of how to apply discernment vs. judgement...but I do think there is a difference.  Maybe the difference being we are judgmental of only ourselves while at the same time allowing the Word to be the mirror we hold up to people and allow the Holy Spirit to be the one that brings discernment into someone else's life.  I think it is a matter of realizing that we are ALL PRONE to deception of our own sinfulness...and out of that realization is where we approach others and say "me too...I struggle with sin and if you allow me to - I would like to struggle with you through this sin."

Judgement ==> something we use only on ourselves.

Discernment ==> what we use CAREFULLY when trying to help others with their sin. 

If they react positively to this type of "discernment" we have brought forth - then we follow a certain path.  But if they choose to continue in their sin, then we turn them over to that sin...that the point of being discerning and "casting people out of fellowship" is to allow the redemptive work of the Holy Spirit to hopefully redeem them for the glory of God.  That if our motivation is anything other than this - then we know that we are not the ones to bring to light that person's sin.  

I think my point mostly is that yes - we need to use discernment - ESPECIALLY in the church when others are adversely affecting those that they are "leading/guiding/shepherding/etc."    But often times, more often than not - before we turn to discernment, before we really get to know people and their stories and their hearts - before we learn perhaps that they are doing so much better than where they used to be, before we learn that they are on a journey just like us - we make judgement calls on their actions and characters - we pretend we know more than them about their own lives.  We pretend to think that their sins are greater than ours and therefore they cannot love and desire to serve God.  We pretend that we are not sinners ourselves, that we aren't chalk full of sins that has left a wake of brokenness in our path.  We invalidate them and their feelings and their walks and PRETEND we are the Holly Spirit.  

Ultimately, the difference in the story I use from Matthew is that we ARE NOT Jesus...we are the sinners.  Jesus addressed mostly the Pharisees of his day (the Church of ours) with this sin of judgement, with their hardened hearts bent towards power and control displayed in judgmentalism...Jesus told them not to judge the lady using the report card they wouldn't use on themselves.  Jesus was the one that held the report card up to them - the Pharisees.  Jesus NEVER once said that the woman hadn't sinned...He just pointed out that every one there had sinned...and that EVERYONE deserved to be stoned for their sins.  The Pharisees were the ones to walk away before they allowed themselves to be extended His mercy and grace.  The woman stayed and thus received the mercy and grace.  The Pharisees needed more time in order to realize their sin and to be refined by it...the woman was at the end of her rope and was ready to receive the mercy and grace and command to not sin any more.  The Grace and Mercy Jesus offered was for both the woman and the Pharisees...but just like us - they were free to either accept it or reject it.

In analyzing this story even more - 

Jesus perfectly demonstrated to us the way we are to offer discernment without being judgmental.  

I am blown away by Him yet again...

Walls Come Crashing Down: Losing God

Have you ever lost something of importance?  Say, like when you were a child and you had some type of blanky that you took every where, you slept with - that your parents gave you when you were upset and it immediately calmed you down?  Your security blanket...did you ever loose something like that?

This is exactly the idea of what I have seen happening in my life with God over the last year or so.  The God I once thought I knew - the one that worked everything together for the good of the one He loves, that tells me to ask for whatever I want in His name and it will be given to me, the One that HATES divorce and loves the union He created between man and women - well, He seems to have all but disappeared these last months much to my dismay.

As I sit here now, I can't honestly say that I have not even heard from God in months....not like I did back at the end of last summer.  Gosh, when I think back to those times - times when it felt like God was ever present in my moment to moment conversations with Him - when He would seem to give me so much direction, encouragement and hope through verses that He would point me to...I have to question myself.  Was I REALLY hearing Him?  Did He  REALLY tell me some of the things back then...or was it just something I ate?  Was it just my own desires that led me to BELIEVE I was hearing from Him?

....Because frankly at this point in time I would say that God doesn't exist if I based my belief, my faith off of hearing from God.  I feel like I am a lone wanderer out in the void of light sifting through the darkness...trying to find my balance to no avail.  I do not even feel that HOPE I did when I wrote about it in my "In Grieving" series.  Everything I once held dear, the knowledge I felt I had of God and of who He was...well, it all seems like hogwash now.

I find myself staring into a bleak future where nothing at this point seems certain.  I am scared at the way my life is looking right now: that I am alone yet with kids, with no job even on the horizon.  {Not to mention all the feelings that go behind those thoughts that I must sort through...that I must discover what I am truly basing my self-worth on...gosh, I guess one is never done with being prone to looking to relationships, careers, etc. for self-worth.}

I have no idea how all these things are going to pull together in the end...and yet I know the pat "Christian" answer is that it will all turn out at the end.  That God is just waiting for me to have some big revelation of faith before He knocks my socks off with the right job, the right path, etc., etc.

Yet, life up to this point quite frankly hasn't turned out okay for me?  How is it turning out for you?  Is adulthood all that you thought it would be, the big bowl of ice cream with cherries on top?

I do not want to tell you a lie - I am not sure if I even have faith right now that things will turn out okay.  And I do not want to hear back from you that they will...that God knows everything that will happen to me and that it will all be okay...for that is not the God that I know anymore...and I'm not sure I even have a grasp on the God I am now seeing.

For in my old world, in my old way of thinking...a real God would NEVER allow all the things that have happened to me to happen.  He would NEVER allow all the horrible awful things in this world like sex trafficking and abuse of children and women to happen.  He would stop all the wars between nations and between family members.  A real God would have never forsaken His only son on the cross...to be left totally and utterly alone - devoid of friends, of religious and political leaders...and most of all of Himself.

Yet, in the real world - these things happen and happen every day...and there is no nice, neat little bow to wrap God up into when these things go on around us every day.  More people are enslaved today than ever before - in our modern age of progressive thinking!  And when I mention "enslaved" I am not just talking about sex trafficking - as horrific as that enslavement is.  No, I am also mentioning how many of us are enslaved in even more subtle ways - to our own thoughts and habits that keep us from truly experiencing freedom as we were meant to.

Sure we try to fit our "security blanket" God around these things...yet these are just bandaids we offer hurt, lost and desperate people.  No wonder so many people turn away from God when these bandaids are offered.  People want a God that is real, that can address their real concerns and their real heartaches about their pain and the pain they see in the world...not some God that just makes them feel good for a moment.  Not some God that just pats them on the back and says that all will be okay in the end.

When is that end?  When and how does it come?  Is it the afterlife...just some promise of eternal life in some unknown land doing some unknown thing(s)?  That doesn't sound very comforting to me.  I mean, how am I to get through daily life right now with all the pain, with all the overwhelming grief and with all the uncertainty of what tomorrow holds - let alone the next few hours -- with just the "hope" of some far off heaven where I will be wearing shinny white garments, walking on pearly streets and singing songs that I might not even be that in to?

No, I don't believe in that God any more -  that God I was "raised" to believe in.  I can honestly say that after all my Earthquakes that that God no longer exists...and the scary thing is I am not sure what does.  I know that my thoughts about God is that He is so much bigger, grandeur and mightier than I can even fathom...but at this point...as of today - this is all I can muster.

I cannot give myself the false hope that everything is going to be A-Okay, hunky dory, etc.  It wasn't when my mom died, leaving me an orphan to basically fend for myself at age 9.  It wasn't when I was a scared teenager living in a home of alcoholics and kids doped up on drugs.  It wasn't okay after my first child was born and I developed a severe case of postpartum depression.  It isn't okay right now as I look at my own family life and the sad, sorry state that it has ended up in.

I know, I know - but I am all about practicing joy even in the midst of all this right?  That I am all about rephrasing my mind to look at all these negative things and to see where and what I can learn from them.  I know.

Yet, one thing I have learned is that as humans, we have to learn to sit in the uncomfortableness that is life.  For - unlike what I once believed as a child - adulthood is not a bunch of ice cream with cherries on top.  No, it is really a big, fat kick in the ass by reality day-ater-day-after-day.  Sure there are some good times nuzzled in there...and sure we need to take time out to celebrate the good, to remember the good so we don't fully go over the deep end...but for the most part this world is REALLY, REALLY hard to live in with lots of hurts and disappointments, anger and frustrations, depressions and anxieties.  And if I don't learn to sit in them - learn to sit in the mire and grit and dirt just as Job did in his horrendous mid-life curses - then I feel like I will just be sugar coating life, placating it with a "security blanket" and never learning to grow up into adulthood.

So, while I know many of us - me included - would be quick to try to bring comfort and hope and encouragement to someone in my situation - I am asking that you do not do that for me now.  No, I am asking of you and of myself that you just let me sit in my grief, in my tears mixed with grime and soot - that you just let me sit in my uncertainty of what my future holds...that you let me doubt faith and the God I have known and - well to doubt everything.  That I would allow the walls to continue to crash down around me...that I would allow the earthquakes to finish happening...that I would roll around in the "floundering" that is my life right now....that I would continue to allow myself to be "forsaken by God"...for I feel like this is real and true and honest and in a odd way - like Christ on the cross.

This exercise I must warn you is not for the faint of heart...it is not for the kids among or in us.  Doing something like this takes drive, determination and fortitude...and I understand many of us might not be ready to do this.  Might not be ready to "Kiss the God We Know Good-Bye".  That many might think I have really gone off the deep-end of the pool to never have returned.  I am okay with this...for I know we are each on our own journey and that we must allow each other to take our own journey at our own pace and timing.

Yet, for those who want to see what is just over the great abyss, for those that are willing to kiss their "security blankets" good-bye and for those that have already done this - I welcome you on this journey.  I thank you for showing me the way, for allowing me to sit with you and when ready - to stand with you in this new place that is unlike anything I have ever known...

"To believe is human, to doubt is divine."

~ Peter Rollins

Drawing in the Sand....

"Life is like a box of chocolates: you never know whatcha'll get."

Forest Gump

If you have been following me over at Crossswalk.com...especially as I have been posting my series about the "Earthquakes" in my life - the posts where I realized that much of what I had believed about my faith in God was being shaken to the core - you might have noticed that one in particular has been getting a lot of feedback on it.  The one entitled "Earthquakes: Are Men the Only Qualified Leaders?"

I engaged in some of the early conversation...knowing full well that I most likely would be talking either to people who already believe what I believe or just to hear myself talk.  I fully know that people set in their ways are not interested in changing, or even being open to the idea that there could be different ways to look at things.  I know I certainly wasn't that interested until a little over a year ago.

The thing is, I really desire to be able to take the focus off of me and what I am saying...and to do what Jesus was so very good at: to point it back to them and the condition of their hearts.  I have been racking my brain on how to do this...praying for God to give me a way to "draw in the sand" so to speak to allow them time to realize ....well realize what?  

Well, my humanness wants to convince them that they are the ones being deceived....not me.  To show them that human tradition is predominating their scripture - not God.  That all of the arguments, all their rebukes, all their well-meaning prayers that I would be re-converted to their line of thinking is really making them out to be the Pharisees of our days.  That they cannot see that their comments are feeding a societal system where Power & Control are allowed to dominate....where FREEDOM is suppressed not only for women but also for men.  That this line of thinking is often times what leads women to leave their homes for shelters, leaving churches for the society, leaving God for idols.  

This is why so many of my generation and younger are being lost from the church.  For when we hold hard lines without being welcoming and open to others...we only serve to push people away from Jesus and the love that He brings.   

I want to share that I NEVER went looking for anything other than Complementarism - for I didn't know anything else existed.  To me, society was portrayed as being over feminist...and I was to be different than society - so I was what I thought of as "traditionalist."

However, I now see that society isn't really a free society for any of us  - only a society where women certainly have more rights than ever before.  Yet, we are all entrapped in a bitter battle of the sexes - dogging on the other sex, blaming the others for the plight of society and the world at large and competing with one another until we are blue in the face.  Frankly, I am just so tired of it...is it just me?

I NEVER believed before 10 months ago that a woman could be a pastor...I was uncomfortable and awkward with the idea.  For heaven's sake, the last election when Sarah Palin was running as VP candidate...I remember having a conversation with others that I didn't think it was right for women to be Presidents of countries - using all those verses that everyone keeps pointing me to.  That was just 4 years ago....

Yet, I know that I cannot convince anyone that I used to be this woman...the good ol' Christian gal who sat quietly in church and only spoke up in a room full of women - as I had believed this was what was right.  I cannot convince anyone that it wasn't me who went looking to change...that it wasn't me who went looking

~ for divorce 

   ~ nor equal opportunities for women 

    ~ nor to become a "liberal, left-wing" Christian (if I must put a title on myself)

     ~ nor to realize that God was the first feminist and that I now see myself lining up with the original ideas of the movement

     ~ nor to be a voice amongst the people of my generation...

...that I cannot convince anyone that I simply started praying something similar to this and that the outcome has led me to where I am now:

"Lord, continue to knock on the door of my heart.  Allow your word to burn inside me, as you open up your Word to my understanding (Luke 24:32).  Allow the scales of deception to be removed from my eyes (Acts 9:18) so I can clearly see through your lens and not the one of human tradition.  Lord help me to take the plank out of my own eye, help me to remove my preconceived notions of myself and who I am instead of being way too eager to help others with their issues.  Lord, look deep into my soul and show me my heart; test me and my anxious thoughts - the ones that seek to drive you away, drive you back into my comfort zone and out of the intimate place you crave to come into.  Remove those offensive ways in me and help me to instead walk in your everlasting, noble manner...the quiet yet strong way I see Jesus walking in.... (Psalm 139: 23-24)"

I cannot convince any one that it was the Spirit that prompted me in all that I have undertaken these last months...that it was Him that led me to start analyzing my thoughts and to see where these thoughts about men and women were keeping me in bondage.  

I realize I do not have the power to do what I so desperately care to do: to change a societal norm that has been in place since the Fall.  I am completely powerless on this issue.  All I simply wish to do is to get people to stop, to think and analyze their own beliefs....to see where they are making God into something He is not...into a prosperity God, into a security blanket....into a God that is all of the masculine but none of the feminine.  Yet, I am completely powerless to do this...for I know the human condition.

Yet, does that mean that I will be quiet?  That I will not voice my thoughts as God gives them to me?  That I won't continue to make mistakes and speak rashly at points?  

For heaven's sake - NO!

For I suppressed who I am for way too long...and I will not let any human intimidate me again into not following God's call on my life.

For while I know I have a good part of the impulsive Peter in me who sometimes speaks her mind (or writes the words) too quickly before stopping to think....I am also a work in progress who is learning how to "draw in the sand..."  

So, I would like to say this with all the sincerity of my heart to those who are rebuking me, trying to correct me, to pray for my deliverance while reminding me that I am sinning:

"Thank you!  Sincerely thank you!  A year ago your criticism and rebuke would have made me waiver and made me start to think that I was doing something wrong, that who I was trying to be was not right and that I needed to stuff her back into her neat little box.  It would have made me stop being who I was.

However, as the comments continue to pour in - and as I continue to read them...I am amazed that I have the understanding of where you are coming from.  I do...I completely understand what you are saying because I used to believe it too.  God only knows I too probably would have left comments trying to rebuke and correct this misguided girl.

Now, however - in my humanness - I want to defend myself against what you are saying, to hope that you will be convinced of my honest conversion.  Yet, I know this will do nothing more than cause the hairs on our necks to rise.  As I keep on commenting - I am not interested in this.  Instead, I will leave you all with this:

I can honestly say that this is God's movement in my life...not yours, not mine - but His.  And instead of letting people push my boundaries and letting others declare what is right for me...I am standing firm in what I know is true and right for me BASED on God's revelation to me.  I never thought just a year ago that I would be able to be standing here....and to me that means I am growing, learning and living as Christ called me to live.

I cannot say that of myself before last year...in fact I was becoming less and less like Christ the more I followed that path I was on....I was full of judgement and criticisms, disdain and distrust for others who didn't line up to what I was convinced of was the only way to see the scriptures.  It makes me shudder to think of who I was without even knowing it.

To the one man who mentioned that I am ruining 2000 years of work with my one single, solitary blog..."wow" is all I can say.  I would never imagine that I would have this kind of power...so thank you for thinking I do.  I can only pray that this is true - but don't quite believe it to be true myself.  I guess only God knows...and only time will tell.

In the end...if I am wrong about what I am saying, if it is only from my effort ...then it will fail - God will bring me down and judge me accordingly.  But...if I speak the Truth according to God - then no man or woman will be able to stop that Truth from spreading.  They will only find themselves fighting against God himself."