Good Friday

I love Easter. If you asked me what my favorite holiday is, most of the year I'd say Easter. I get a little more conflicted around Christmas and New Years. Anyway, there is a reason why Easter is my favorite time of year and this Easter I have been remembering that day not too many years ago when it became my favorite holiday.

I was a rather broken woman at that point in my life. I remember lying in my bed in my apartment in Kenosha. I was alone. The most alone I had ever felt in my entire life. I had begun to hate that apartment and all that it represented - my life slowly and dangerously adrift as I sought to meet my own needs, live life my way, and only allow Jesus into the parts of my heart that didn't demand any kind of serious life change. My heart was no longer His but my own. I had pushed Him back to the farthest, smallest corner. Stuffed away so He wouldn't mess with the things I wanted desperately to cling to. But He didn't die to live in the farthest, smallest corner of my heart. He died to consume all of me and He fought, pursued, chased, pushed, and pressed on my heart until it broke....until I gave in and realized HE was all my heart really wanted, until I finally surrendered all.

I remember how dark the room was, the glow of my ipod, the way the lights from the parking lot made lines on the wall like a prison cell. I felt like I was in prison, my covers weighing down on me like a wet beach towel, or maybe the heaviness was my heart and not so much my covers? I remember wanting so desperately to cry out for Jesus, but I felt such shame. I was completely lost. I was once all His and somehow, somewhere I had pushed Him away and made my life mine.

I hope none of you have ever felt so far from Jesus you can't even find the words to speak to Him. I felt like a child who had been caught with her hand in the cookie jar - busted for my sin and now too ashamed to even speak to the One who had died to save me from it. 

I hope I never forget that moment, so totally empty all I could say was Jesus. In a whisper and almost a question as if to ask, Are you still there? Even when I pushed You away? But all my lips could form was one word, but it was all I needed to say...Jesus. Then the song, the piano, the guitar, those first few notes and those first few words....piercing through the cracks in my broken heart until they reached those far corners in the back. And just as soon as His Name left my lips, Jesus filled every part of my broken heart. 

And with those words and that moment He reminded me..."But God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us."

I remember the tears that came and how wet my pillow got. How I played the song over and over. How my heart felt like it might burst. How He used my brokenness to open my eyes to my desperate need for Him. How with one whisper He came rushing in. How suddenly the weight of my sin, the price that He paid, the day that He died all became so incredibly real. It was for me, for me He died. My sin held Him there. This sin held Him there. And even when I pushed Him back into the farthest, smallest corner He never left. He waited, He pursued, He loved. Me. This selfish, broken, messed up girl. He loves!

And with a whisper and a song, just a few days before Easter He rescued a lost little girl. She finally let go and He held fast. Oh how I love Him, Savior and Friend!

Up Calvary's mountain one dreadful morn

Walked Christ my Savior, weary and worn

Facing for sinners death on the cross

That He might save them from endless loss

Blessed Redeemer, Precious Redeemer

Seems now I see Him on Calvary's tree

Wounded and bleeding, for sinners pleading

Blind and unheeding, dying for me

"Father, forgive them," my Savior prayed

Even while His lifeblood flowed fast away

Praying for sinners while in such woe

No one but Jesus ever loved so

Oh how I love Him, Savior and friend

How can my praises ever find end

Through years unnumbered on Heaven's shore

My songs shall praise Him forevermore

Motivation

What's your motivation?

Do I love Jesus simply because He loves me? Or is my love for Him motivated by what I desire to receive from Him?

These are questions (among many others) that were raised while I was sitting in a pew at church last weekend attending a conference for women. Within (what felt like) minutes of the start of the conference my heart was being challenged. I expected God to do this - because I had asked Him to challenge me and He took me up on my invitation. I'm always surprised when He does this...I really should start to get used to it.

It began with something like "Give God the ONE THING you're afraid to lose." Say what? I was thinking something more along the lines of a good message on prayer or a challenge to have a more positive attitude or something relatively "easy." Not that "anything" I am legit afraid of losing!! Talk about off to a great start...I had that lump in my throat, that feeling of "oh my! He's going to go there today."

Yep. He went there.

Anyway, during the main session of the conference the keynote speaker was sharing  a story about her young son. She said every once in a while he crawls up into her lap and loves on her and then...before not to long he is reaching for the iphone in her back pocket. She was comparing what her son does to what we often do with our Heavenly Father. He longs to give us just His love, knowing this is really all that we need, all while we are constantly reaching for the iphone in His back pocket. The "iphone" being that "anything" we desire above His love.

This analogy has been running through my mind since she shared it with us on Saturday. The more I think on it the more I am aware of my lack of surrender, my pride, and what motivates me in my walk with Jesus. I began thinking about how I am so much like her young son - how I love on God simply to get what I want from Him. I want security, protection, blessing - so I devote my life to Him and expect that He give me those things in return. Then when He doesn't do what I think He ought to do I find myself grumbling, thinking that I have done the right things so why isn't HE doing HIS part. For real, how ugly is that? Writing it out is actually rather embarrassing. I've typed and deleted that thought about 5 times now. It's the truth, though, so it has to be said.

Let's be real, what of those of us who honest to goodness LOVE Jesus only to have horrible things happen in our lives? To have good things seemingly ripped from our hands. Blessings stollen away, security shattered, and protection entirely thwarted. All while we have done nothing but love Jesus and give our lives to Him!? Why would a loving God allow horrible things to come upon His children?

Honestly, it kind of blows my mind....but God does work this way. I so easily forget that His ways are so far above my own - I can't possibly comprehend them. We live in a world that has been poisoned by sin. Which means, bad things happen. Trials come. Hearts break. Do I love and trust Him enough to accept even these things as allowed by Him?

Let me tell you, it is darn easy to stand at a women's conference with arms stretched wide before the Lord and declare (while the music plays of course) my own surrender, my desire to be completely His. I'm actually feeling rather comfortable there in my H&M shirt and my scarf, hair and makeup just so. I don't feel sick, or tired, worn out or lonely. It isn't like this isn't a sincere moment - but when the rubber meets the road, when life comes crashing down around you, it's a whole different ball game. I'm watching some people pretty close to me suffer in a rather significant way and I'm pretty positive that when they surrendered their lives to Jesus they didn't have these "rewards" in mind.

Truth is sometimes I find myself loving Jesus for what He could give me. I desire to be a woman of integrity so that He will allow me to marry a man of the same character. Jesus, I want to be sold out for You, but can I keep my H&M clothes and my scarf? Oh and don't ask me to be single or to stay at that job or move to that place, etc....Jesus, I love You. Don't You think it's time You started to give me those good things I've been waiting for? What good is it if my motivation for becoming a godly woman is only for what I can gain?? It is pointless....completely empty.

God wants to lavish us with His love and His love alone. He doesn't want us reaching for the iphone in His back pocket. He desires our devotion to Him to be motivated entirely out of love for Him. Period.

Sometimes I feel like God is keeping my "anything" in His back pocket to torture me. As if to say, if you love Me enough and do the right things enough times then maybe I will let you have this "anything" I am keeping here in My back pocket - maybe.

That's just ridiculous...typing it out for you to read makes me feel rather foolish. It isn't like I don't know this isn't in any way how God works. He doesn't dangle good things over our heads like a carrot. In fact, that is one thing that makes God so incredible - He lets us make our own choices! He WANTS us to make our own choice. It's called free will. He doesn't want us to choose Him because He talked us into it or forced us to.

I'm reminded of the song Oh How I Love Jesus. Do you know it? Oh how I love Jesus, Oh how I love Jesus, Oh how I love Jesus because He first loved me. It doesn't say because He's going to give me everything I want and make my life a happily-ever-after-fairy-tale. Nope. Just because He loved first.

I want my motives to be pure, but so often I feel like they are muddled up by my pride and my desire for certain things in life. When I tell Jesus He can have EVERYTHING I want to mean EVERYTHING. I want it to come from a place of pure and total surrender. I want to love because He loved first. I want to surrender because He is God Almighty, completely trustworthy and capable of handling all my hopes and dreams - however big or small. I want my life to be HIS - not for what He could give me but because of WHO He is. Period.

Take Heart

Never underestimate God's ability to use your own hurt to comfort another. Embrace the opportunities He gives you to love and comfort those who are hurting. Be fearless in your willingness to feel your own pain in order to comfort those around you. Be bold in admitting what things are difficult for you - your courage may inspire another person to do the same. Believe on those nights you cry yourself to sleep, you feel too weak to carrying on, and you can't find purpose in your circumstances that HE IS "preparing for [you] and eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison." Hold fast and when you can no longer hold on - He will hold fast for you. Allow yourself to be real and accept when things are too much for you. It is at that moment - when you have finally surrendered - that the Almighty will rush in and be all that you need. Don't worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself, and Jesus has provided you with all that you need today. Remember that all pain, however great or small, is pain all the same. Don't allow guilt to creep in and make you feel you are weak because "it could be worse" or "you should be over it." Jesus never classified pain nor gave a timeline for it. Pain is pain, don't apologize for hurting. Take heart, there is purpose even in this dark place, for it is all a part of His grand story and the story ends with Him in eternity. Until that time, never underestimate God's ability to use your own hurt. He works all things for His glory - give Him the glory even in this!