Pride and Prejudice (well, maybe more like Pride and Humility)

They say the first step towards recovery is to admit you have a problem. 

I admit it. 

I have a problem. 

I have a problem with pride that has reared its ugly head for a few months now. So last night I laid it all out to the women of my Bible study. We are studying the Book of James and James, man, James does not strive to treat you gently. He will lift you off your feet, shake you like a rag doll, and set you down roughly. And this week, he did me in again.

I have not written for a while and it took some wrestling to figure this out. I don't write consistently. True. I tend to write when something gets a hold of me and I have to put words to it. But lately there have been stories floating around me that I just can't seem to pin down. I'll start one and never finish it. My virtual waste basket is full of wadded pieces of paper with discarded ideas. But it took an ancient writer to confront me and point out the truth to me: you don't write because you don't write like her, her or her.

James has harsh words for jealousy but I sat smug in my chair. That is a illness from which I don't suffer. I don't envy these bloggers. I'm not jealous of them. I celebrate them. I encourage them with comments. I share their sites with my friends. 

But then he got to humility and my smugness turned to conviction.

I have read post after post about not comparing yourself to other writers, about writing the story God gave you, about how even if one life is touched by your words it is worth doing it. I know. I know. I agree. I've uttered those words. And yet... I'm struggling to accept that God can use anything less than this right here. 

And so, my friends, this is pride. 

"If I cannot write like that, I will not write at all," says my heart stubbornly, in essence denying that God is smart enough to know what gift and to what measure and for what purpose is ours to have.

I know God has called me to write. I know He has given me tools. I know when I write I am changed and I know that some of you also walk away a little different. So why is that not good enough for me? James would not mince words in telling me that it is because I lack humility to accept my place in the Kingdom of God. 

Joan Chittister said that "humility is the admission of God's gifts to me and the acknowledgement that I have been given them for others." Pride is forgetting where those gifts came from but it is also discarding His good gifts and His holy calling in our lives because they are not as important/developed/talent-full/necessary/interesting as other people's.

It was an epiphany. 

I have to stop hiding behind my excuses that I only write when I "feel" it, or that maybe God is not really calling me to write, or that I just don't have the time. The truth is I suffer from pride when it comes to my writing. And the road to recovery will be long because those amazing writers are still out there writing away. Temptation to compare and to desist will keep coming. But I took the first step and it was tough: I admitted it. And not just to myself. To a room full of women who know me.

The cure for what ails me is a dose of humility. And there is nothing more humbling that to speak it out loud: I am prideful.

So here is to step two: hit "publish" and pray for the Lord to continue to teach me who He's called me to be.

Home

**Linking with Lisa-Jo for Five Minute Fridays. What can you write in five minutes about Home?**

We've moved a lot. Two states, three cities, and five houses in twelve years. I know to some that is nothing. But this girl grew up well-rooted in the same house her grandmother built. My people stay. They are not the sedentary kind.

I knew when I married him that pastors migrate. That's what we do. We move. So home is an elusive word for me. And having my heart in two countries just makes it harder. Is "home" Ecuador, where I grew up? Is "home" my mother's house in Kansas where I've never lived? Where do I go when I go "home" for a holiday?

My life is not to stay put. My kids won't grow up in the same house and come home from college to the house where they took their first step. That is just not how we roll and it is not what we were called to do, this family.

So home for me is where he is. And where she lays her head at night. And where he plays with his bear. Home is where all four of us gather at night, regardless of continent, state, or house. They are my home because He has moved heaven and earth for a boy from South Carolina to meet a girl from Quito, Ecuador to become parents of two children who look nothing like us.

I am home when I am with them. 

                                                               Any time. Anywhere. 

Choose this day...

This morning I discovered the remnants of three bad choices Isabel made yesterday. To disobey, to sneak, and to disregard caution. By her own admission she had a "bad" day.

I sent her to her room while I collected myself. My downfall is my temper and disobedience is a sure way to set it off. So, following a sensitivity to the Holy Spirit that I am learning not to ignore, I asked her to go elsewhere while I sought some wisdom and diffused the blood that was boiling inside me.

I sat on her bed ready to hand down consequences and was, once again, amazed by the depth of insight of my small child. I was going through the obligatory lecture about obedience and obeying parents to learn to obey God and my job of teaching her to do both when she stopped me with these words:

- "But, I have to be who I am."

-" What? What do you mean?"

-"I am a person and I am who I am and I don't know how to stop sneaking and doing bad things."

This seven year old understood, without understanding, the core of our depravity. We are who we are and we don't know how to be different. And often we don't want to.

So we talked about God's grace and his power to transform us into the people He wants us to be. We talked about consequences of our choices and the importance of learning to obey the Lord while we are young. And we talked about ways to withstand temptation. All in all a good conversation.

But the most crucial nugget of that conversation, the one I credit to the Holy Spirit itself, was this:

- "Every day, Isabel, there are voices calling for your attention and every day you make a choice of whose voice you will listen to."

I opened my Bible and showed her what Joshua told the Israelites in his last speech to the nation. "Choose this day whom you will serve...as for me and my family, we will serve the Lord" (24: 15b).

- "You can choose to serve yourself, Isabel, what you want, what you need, what you feel like doing. You can choose to listen to your own voice telling you that your desires are more important than the teachings we are giving you. And you can spend the day worrying that we will find out. Ashamed and fearful. Or you can choose to serve God and never have to hide what you did or fear the consequences. Which one sounds like a better life to you?"

Even a seven year old can figure that one out.

So I made signs that say: "Choose this day whom you will serve. Joshua 24:15" and hung them, child eye-level, around the house, on the refrigerator door, on the mirror of her bathroom, on the entrance of our classroom. Because this concept she understood and  it is my job to teach her, to help her, and to remind her while she lives under my care.

But also to remind myself that every morning, I, too, have a choice to make. We all serve someone no matter what. It's who we are. So we choose. Every day. And we should choose wisely because how we choose will not only affect us but also our children, our husbands, and all we encounter in a day.

I know it is a choice I cannot make on my own. I don't have the strength. I can only make seeking God's grace which daily allows me to say with Joshua: "As for me and my family, we will serve the Lord." 

Bare

Today I'm joining with Lisa-Jo for Five Minute Friday. You have five minutes to write. This week's topic: Bare. 

If I bare my soul to you, would you still love me? If you knew all my shortcomings, my mistakes, my past sins, would you still call me friend? Could you bare your heart to me and trust that I would not betray you or discard you? Could we be that transparent with each other?

There would be healing if we were. 

I would hold you and tell you that you are not alone. You would take my hand and tell me to forgive myself for I have already been forgiven. 

We would cry together and remember that a burden shared is lighter on the shoulders.

But we walk past each other with the mask of a smile. We say “fine” and “great” and “wonderful” when we mean “broken” and “hurt” and “ashamed.” 

And I don’t know why.

Sister, let me into your world. Let me be your safe place and be mine as well. Let me pray for you and feel your prayers over me. I covet your arm around my shoulders holding me up when I want to crumble. I yearn to hear Christ speaking through you with words of peace and comfort and renewal.

And I long to speak such love and healing into your life as well. 

For the heart in chains...

It's so easy for a heart to be put in chains. 

It only takes an unkind word, an unjust situation, an unfair accusation for a heart to go in bondage under the pain. 

And it weighs. 

It is heavier than a boulder inside your chest. The iron shackles surround it and threaten to drown it in grief. 

The offender wraps the first few chains around it and we add the rest link by link.

When we refuse to forgive, when we feed the thoughts of revenge, when we verbally assault the wrongdoer in our minds, arguing for days with their memory, always winning: sometimes with reason, sometimes with ugly words, sometimes with righteous anger, but always winning. 

Relishing the idea of a confrontation where we come out victorious, but forgetting that when a relationship is broken, nobody really walks away the winner. The real confrontation is rarely as we imagined. There is no penitence on the offender's part, no ready apology, no bowed brow or downcast eyes. There is defensiveness, and frustration, and truth flung back at us that we may not want to hear. It is often messy, always hurtful, and many times disappointing.

So how will this heart lose the chains of having been wounded that are pulling it deeper and deeper into darkness? 

Only when we forgive the undeserving, the one who does not even think he requires mercy, the one who will never utter the words we long to hear. Only then. Only when we give the pain back to the One who suffered like no other and more unjustly than any other, for him to take and to exchange us for peace and mercy. Only then. Only when we let go of the desire to confront, the right to speak our piece, the need for an apology. Only then.

"Come to me, you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest," He said. 

There is no heavier burden than un-forgiveness. There is no more wearisome life than the life of the offended. 

"For my yoke is easy and my burden is light," He said. 

There is no harder yoke than the yoke of self-righteousness. There is no stronger bondage than the bondage of anger. And there is no emptier existence than the existence of those who don't know how to unburden themselves of these shackles.

"I have come that they may have life to the fullest," He said. 

When a heart is drowning in the pain resulting from living with others just as flawed and sinful as itself, grab onto Him who is Life himself and let Him pull you out of the mud of tears and the mire of shattered friendships, and set your feet right back onto the rock of his grace and forgiveness that will then flow out of you and onto others and... 

Set you free. 

When fear is all you have...

A few nights ago I fell asleep with a sob in my throat, tasting the salty tears that would not stop coming. I had just screamed “I don’t trust you with my children!” and collapsed onto the pillow in despair. No, I was not talking to my husband. I was talking to God Almighty himself. I half expected to be struck by lightning right then and there for my blasphemy but instead I found myself lulled by a gentle sleep, almost as if an invisible hand was stroking my hair and whispering “there, there, go to sleep now” ever so soothingly.

I have been struggling with some theological truths that don’t seem to match the reality of this world. On one hand I know from scripture that God is good, that He loves us, and that He works in all things for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose. You know these concepts, too, I’m sure. On the other hand I see the news, the kidnappings of children, the abuse, the evil that befalls innocent ones all over the world. How to reconcile the two? Isn’t this the age old question that keeps so many people from trusting fully in a God they know to be all-powerful, but who often seems to simply not interfere in the most atrocious situations? If God is good, then...

The truth is that this has been an ongoing battle for me since my best friend Sara was murdered by a stranger a decade ago. On and off since then God and I have fought this fight. On and off He has had to teach and re-teach these lessons to my stubborn, wounded heart. Over and over I have had to rely on his promise that there is enough grace in Him to continue, patiently and lovingly, to remind me as many times as needed of what I need to get through these crises of faith.

This time the crisis came as a result of a trip we are going to take, just Matt and I. I do most of my stinking-thinking at night and I had begun to think about what would happen to my children if Matt and I were not on this earth to take care of them. Images of all kinds of tragedies and painful trials came to my mind and built and built until I lost all means of rational thought. If God allows all the horrendous things I see happening every day around the world, who is to say He would not allow my children to suffer? Worse yet, who is to say He would not allow them to walk away from him destroying in the process all hope I have of ever spending eternity with them? If I was not here to protect them from harm, who would? Clearly not a God who allowed my sweet friend to be murdered in the sanctity of her own home. Hence the outburst of my lack of trust and the sobbing that ensued.

I wish I could tell you that when these dark moments of doubt come, God answers all my questions in neat, packaged replies that I can take to my friends and solve their own issues with trust and good vs. evil. He does not. What He does do each. and. every. time. is remind me of a few promises and truths I allow the routine of my life and the state of our world to bury so deep I almost forget them.

God loves my children more than I do. In my most wonderful day as a parent I cannot begin to scratch the surface of the love their Creator has for them. He loves them so much He sent his son. He loves them so much He knows each and every hair of their head. And if I, who don’t have that kind of love, work tirelessly for their good, how much more is the One who is love itself working every day for them, for their good, for their sake.

God placed my children into our family. In other words, He trusted me, flawed, sinful, and a little on the crazy side me with them. I didn’t even have a part in their creation yet He trusted me with them. Yet I have difficulty trusting the Perfect Parent back? This one humbled me.

God placed my children into a loving extended family so that Matt and I are not their end-all, be-all. No one can replace your parents, true. But if something were to happen to the both of us, my children have loving grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc. who will take care of them and raise them in the faith we are trying to instill in them. In that way God has already provided protection for them.

I am not God. Bad things happen to children even when their parents are around, carefully watching. People walk away from God in their own accord, even when their parents are around to pray for them and model godliness for them. In other words, my presence in their life is not what will save them. Only God can do that. And I’m not him.

God is always working to redeem them, to draw them to him, and to point his will to them. I may not understand this. I may not see his handiwork in their lives all the time but He is working in their lives constantly. Always. I asked in despair: “What about all the children who have or are suffering? What about them?” and He gently reminded me that I don’t know what He is doing in their lives. I don’t know it all and I don’t know how God works around the world every day.

I know I am only aware of a fraction of the evil that happens daily in the world. A tiny fraction. While God, omnipresent, omniscient God is aware of ALL the hurt and violence that happens every minute of every day. “How?” I asked him, “How do you stand to see it all?!” and I was confronted with the understanding that, while God does see all the evil in the world, He is also witness to all the goodness, all the love, all the compassion, mercy and grace of which we are capable as a people. There is hope in this world as long as there are people who love God and love their neighbors as themselves.

 It is my worst enemy this fear. It brings with it worry, doubt, and mistrust. I know I will forget and I know I will cry out in despair again and again when fear grips me. That is my nature. And He will still be there, again and again, to answer me when I call in frustration and hopelessness. That is His nature. I don't know why bad things happen in this world. We could talk about free will, about sin, about choices people make, but those are empty words to hurting people. I may never know in this life the answer to that question no matter how eagerly I ask. I won't pretend to. I also don't know what the future will bring for my children. But I know who holds their future and I believe they are in pretty good hands. 

Growing Pains

On and off for the last year Isabel has been complaining of pain on her legs. It wakes her up at night. It is worse after she has had an active day. It is overall uncomfortable for her. Worried mom, I took her to the pediatrician who smiled reassuringly, patted my arm and explained that Isabel is suffering from growing pains. I told her I thought that was an old-wives tale but she assured me they are very real, especially in children of elementary school age.

And these growing pains are a good thing, she said. They mean her bones are stretching, doing their job to make her taller and stronger. Doing what bones were created to do. But, to the suffering little girl, this is only partially good news. Because the bad news is that there is not much to do but let them pass. She can take some pain killers to ease the pain temporarily, but these growing pains are part of the life of a child who is following the natural progression of growth, just the way God intended it. The pain she is going through means a more mature Isabel by next summer, both physically and emotionally.

Lately, I’ve been having growing pains as well. The spiritual kind. The kind that comes after a fruitful season of praying and seeking the Holy Spirit’s movement in my life. Be careful what you ask for, they say. For when I open myself to growth, Jesus begins to prune. And the pruning process is painful. Growth hurts. With each stretch of my spiritual bones and muscles I am uncomfortable. And at first, I protest, try to get away, raise my voice in indignation. Yet these pains are good news. The pains mean I am going through the natural progression of growth, just the way God intended it. The pain I’m going through means a more mature Gaby by next season, both spiritually and emotionally.

Isabel’s growing pains are deep inside her leg, beyond the muscles, right into the bone. My growing pains come from the outside. From dealing with difficult people and keeping a humble attitude. From silencing my pride when it has been injured because someone has stepped on my toes. From apologizing when I am not to blame, for the sake of a relationship. From allowing Him to teach me that my rights, my wants, my comfort are not as important as the greater good of his Body and his Kingdom. From admitting when I am wrong and changing my way or my perspective. None of this comes easy to me. Yet his grace is sufficient to show me just how to get it done. But it hurts. And stings. And keeps me up at night.

Unlike Isabel I have a choice to go through this process or not. I can tell God to forget it, that I really did not mean that I wanted to grow closer to him, that I was fine and comfortable just the way I was, thank you very much. And He would let me be. But just like a child who fails to grow, I would become stunted, underdeveloped, useless for the purposes that He intended for a more mature, strong, healthy me. So all I can do is let this season of growth run its intended course. But I wait actively, abiding in him as I learn from this pruning. Bringing my frustrations to him and letting him comfort me like I do Isabel in the middle of the night when she wakes up hurting.

Growing pains are not enjoyable. Yet like refining fire that purifies and cleanses, this scraping of my rough edges, of my resistance to be molded to his image, is what I need to do just what the Lord requires of me: to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with my Lord. 

**Joining with Jen and the sisters of Soli Deo Gloria ***