I need to improve my diet. I’m not talking about more vegetables and less snacks, I’m talking about more words of affirmation and less words of criticism. I’ve never considered myself a person who was overly critical. I figured I had just the right amount of criticism in my diet. There are things we have a right to be critical about, yes? The dictionary defines Critical as “expressing adverse or disapproving comments or judgments.” I can express my disapproval of the way other people drive, or of the waiter who delivers poor service, or of the way someone chooses to dress. I’m just stating my opinion, right? The problem for me is knowing when to stop. I can't stop having an opinion. I mean everything that happens causes a response in my thoughts. If the driver in front of me does something crazy like turning without a signal, I’m going to respond. Most likely by yelling to the windshield as if they can hear me “what are you doing? Signal? hello?!!” And an opinion forms in my head…... “Person in front of me. You’re a crazy driver!” If I’m out for dinner and we have a waiter that keeps forgetting to bring us requested items or is particularly slow, I’ll state my opinion. “Our waiter is so slow it’s driving me crazy.” “Can you believe they forgot the extra butter, again?” I’ve formed an opinion: terrible waiter. Maybe those are innocent enough. I mean after all, haven’t we all had a crazy driver around us that MADE us want to scream out loud? Haven’t we all had poor service at a restaurant that makes us want to collect the check and never go back. Or at least make sure we don’t get the same waiter again? When does criticism start being excessive? And what is it that’s really bothering me about being critical? Well let me start with what brought all of this to my attention. It was a Bible verse shared at a conference a few weeks ago. I know I’ve heard it before. Maybe it was the way she “broke it down” that made it really stand out. Susie Larson was speaking and she told us that our words are like seeds we scatter on the ground and they reap a harvest that we will eat. Then she quoted Proverbs 18:20 “A man’s belly shall be satisfied with the fruit of his mouth; and with the increase of his lips shall he be filled.” I immediately pictured myself in a field surrounded by large plants. Nothing you would recognize, like corn or wheat or sunflowers. Plants that were dripping with the fruit of negative, critical words and thoughts. Because face it…even thinking it is like forming the seed that you’re about to plant. I imagined myself pulling the fruit off those plants and how yucky it would taste. Bitter. Probably rotten. If it was any other fruit, wouldn’t I take it and throw it as far away from me as I could? Yet here I was, swallowing it whole. And planting more. I went home and looked at Proverbs 18:20. Not realizing that another verse I was very familiar with was listed next. Verse 21: “Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit.” We have all heard that words are powerful. That when you say something, you can never take it back. I’ve always thought of that in relation to other people….to what they’re hearing me say. I’ve never thought about it in relation to me. Now here I am seeing that not only does it affect my relationship with other people, but I’m partaking, I’m ingesting the very words I speak. And they can become death or life to me. I’m choosing a diet of life or a diet of death, depending on what I plant with my words. When is criticism too much? I guess we all have to answer that question for ourselves. In the definition of critical it mentions that we’re making “disapproving comments or judgments." Maybe it’s the “judgement” word that bothers me the most. When I make a judgement about someone, I really should have all the facts. But I rarely do. The driver in front me acting sporadically? Maybe they just received a phone call that’s devastated them and they are in a hurry to reach the bedside of a loved one. The waiter who can’t get it right? Maybe she’s trying to figure out how she’s going to make rent this month and her anxious mind can’t focus? What about the other folks or situations I’m critical of…..do I know all the facts? Again, probably not. What if I could change the verbiage I’m using? Would if I could plant different seeds? “That poor driver. Jesus, take the wheel!” “Our waiter must need some prayer today. She’s tired and dragging” I’d rather eat a fruit that is sweet and pleasant than bitter fruit any day. Ever bitten into a strawberry not yet ripened? Sour! Yuk! But a delicious, mouth-watering, ripe strawberry is a delight to the tongue, it can make your whole mouth sing! What are you planting?
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Show and Tell
I’ve always been a pleaser This is hard for me To pull back the curtain from my face And simply just be You probably wouldn’t know it I seem confident in my skin Yet I’m always trying endlessly To find a way to fit in If you laugh, I’ll laugh along with you If you’re a diva, I’ll step aside If you’re quiet, I can take the lead And if you’re lost, I’ll be your guide I’m the helper, I’m the giver I want to make everyone else feel good But when it comes to knowing what I need I don’t know it like I should I can speak up and fight for others I can defend them tooth and nail But when it comes to saying what I want I get scared and bail So this is me trying to be honest No more games of show and tell I have to expose it all or else i lose myself I had the opportunity to hear Susie Larson speak this weekend. I had never met or even heard of this lady before. She’s an author and a host of her own radio show called “Live the Promise.” She’s from Minnesota. Ah ha! That’s why I’ve never heard of her. She may be the first Minnesotan I’ve ever met! It was at a women’s conference in Tifton. A sign-up sheet was being passed around in our Sunday School class a few weeks ago and when I saw that Nichole Nordeman was going to be there, I knew I couldn’t miss it! You just don’t know how much I love that girl! Her songs, that voice……… So I signed up and went, not recognizing the names of either of the two speakers, but that didn’t matter, because, um, like I said before, Nichole!!! Susie was up first that morning and she came out to a podium situated between two small tables. One table was lavishly decorated with a beautiful white table cloth, a silver tea set, an elegant candelabra, a bowl of delicious fruit and a basket full of bread. The other table was draped with what appeared to be a gunny sack and contained only a tin cup and some small grains of bread on a tin plate. Susie began to talk to us about the two tables; one was The Heir table and one was The Orphan table. One was set with an abundance of good things, the other with only leftovers. As Children of the King, she reminded us that we’re invited, by God’s Grace, to sit at the Heir Table, yet some of us feel so insecure in our relationship with God that we sit at the Orphan’s table. “Orphans beg and plead, Heirs pray and believe” she declared. She acknowledged that we all face storms, trials and discouragement in our lives, but we should not let that cause us to doubt God or that we’re still an Heir to His Kingdom. She reminded us that the enemy wants to keep us discouraged, because discouragement can keep us from Divine Appointment! She also said this, “Storms can reveal the lies we believe and the truths we need”! How good is that? How deep is that? I’m like any of you travelers, I’m not asking to go through a storm. I don’t enjoy bad weather (except when I’m safe in my house tucked in with a good book). Based on what Susie said, it causes me to want to review the storms I have faced. What lie have I believed in the storm? And what lie about God’s truths have I believed? Have I doubted that God cares? Have I doubted that God really sees me? Does He know each hair on my head? Really? Have I believed I am worthless because of the storm I was in? Ever been there? The storm rages and you wonder what you did to cause it? You think if you had just a little more of that mustard seed faith, you wouldn’t have ended up there? Lies, all lies! God has not abandoned you or has turned His face from you. He is carefully holding you even when you don’t feel it. Susie said she learned to “move my weight onto the truth, even when I didn’t feel it.” I wondered, what does that mean exactly? What does it mean to “move my weight onto the truth?” As I’ve thought about it, for me, it means a couple of things. One, I am going to put all my focus into believing God and taking Him at His word. It means when I read the scriptures, I will read them OUT LOUD and DECLARE my belief as I do. Secondly, it means that I will LEAN on God and refuse to dwell in defeat. It means I will not move over to the Orphan’s table as though I am a beggar who needs to beg God to see me. I will remain at the Table of the Heir, as a beloved Child of God and wait to see how He will choose to supply my needs. I will put my “weight” on God and wait! Romans 8:17 “Now if we are children, then we are heirs, heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ the Son of God.” I don’t know if I can fully grasp all that it means to be a co-heir with Christ; to know that I’ve been adopted in the family as if I always belonged. I do know this though, when I call on God, He is near. I have that promise because it is in His word. And because you are a child of God, you have the same promise. ALL His Children can claim that. When Susie closed her first session, she share something else I’d like to leave with you. Life doesn’t always “look” like we think it should. We obviously didn’t calculate the storm to show up or be as severe as it was. We expected something different. But here’s something to remember about our expectations, they can also be called “pre-meditated disappointment”. I’m setting myself up for disappointment if I “expect” something out of God. Instead, try EXPECTANCY. That means I acknowledge that God is “up to something” and His ways are not my ways. There is a mystery in Expectancy and there is a mystery to God. I give Him the freedom to work in my life however He deems necessary. A storm? OK. A blessing. OK. I’m with you God. I won’t move. I’m sitting at Your table. “He locked me up in a crack house for a year”, she said. “I thought God had forgotten me.” She stood nervously in front of the room, holding onto a brown paper towel that someone had given her when the tears started. I’d wished I was closer; I had soft Kleenex in my purse that I could have handed to her, but she’d endured worse things than having to wipe her tears with scratchy, brown roll, bathroom grade, paper towels. Her story started out innocently enough. “I met a guy.” It was 2013 and she thought he seemed nice enough. They got along so well in fact, that within a month he was living with her. And a few months after that, she found out she was pregnant. She said the abuse started out as emotional and verbal. Slowly he drove all her friends away. And soon after, he alienated all of her family. She said there was no one she could turn too except him. She repeated the words as if hearing some stranger say them, “I lost all my friends, all my family and I even lost my child.” The room that we were in was so quiet by now that you could have heard a pin drop. No one wanted to make a sound, as if she were a baby bird that we wanted to save and we couldn’t make a noise or else she would be gone. She was brave enough to make eye contact with a few of us, and I know we all tried to give her an encouraging nod. It takes a lot of guts to stand in front of a room and spill your life out for everyone to see, to judge. As far as I could tell, there was no “judging” going on in the room, only broken people with their own stories to tell. Yet the fear remains, doesn’t it? That when we speak, we will be judged. It’s why so many people remain in their own darkness; the darkness of secret sins, the darkness of secret abuse, the darkness of secret addictions, the darkness of loneliness and depression. “If I tell, what would everyone think?” “If I go down front and pray, what will everyone think?” “If I risk my fear and confide in someone, what would happen?” Maybe if this precious girl had had a friend who would have REFUSED to let themselves be pushed out of her life….maybe they could have been a lifeline to save her. They wouldn’t have judged her behavior, they would have fought to love her and find out what was going on. She said that soon he decided they needed to move away. And soon she was in a city she knew nothing about. And before long, he’d locked her up in a crack house. Now I’ve never been in one and I couldn’t tell you what it looks like, but obviously people are high all the time and no one is going to care about some girl with a sob story hanging out in the bedroom. She went on, “For a solid year I never spoke to another human being except him. He controlled everything I did. He was ex-military and He called me his little P.O.W.” But one day something changed. Someone came through the house and wanted to pray for people. Some stranger with a mission of mercy….to share Jesus wherever they could, even a crack house. She said as they prayed together, for the first time in a long time she could feel Jesus again. “I thought God had forgotten about me” she said. And in the crack house, there was a crack of light and God’s love showed through some weary Christian who promised Jesus they would pray. The girl who was ready to give up all hope, now decided she had to get away. So when she saw an opportunity, she ran. It was the very day her captor had decided he was going to kill her. She said she ran to the first house with a light on and begged them to call 911. They didn’t want too at first, they didn’t want police to come to their neighborhood. But she pleaded for her life and they finally made the call. She was taken to the hospital and spent two weeks there and was then transferred to the local shelter for abused women. It didn’t take long for him to discover that’s where she was, and so the local shelter made plans to move her to The Haven in Valdosta. “I just spent my first happy Christmas in my own little house with my own tree. I was all by myself, but not really, because now I have Jesus.” I sat in that room amazed at what God had done. But also amazed at how Jesus uses ordinary people to be His hands and feet. The people who finally called 911 (He will use anyone!), the nurses and doctors at the hospital, all the volunteers at the shelter, the people who donate furniture and clothes for victims of abuse to have a fresh start, and the one obedient Christian soldier who willingly went into battle in a crack house to pray. I don’t know where God is calling you today. Maybe you’re a volunteer somewhere, maybe you religiously donate clothes and items to Goodwill or Salvation Army, maybe you pledge financial support to a worthy organization, or maybe you are on your knees every morning praying for that lost soul. Just know this, she needs you, he needs you. The giving you do. The loving you do. The praying you do. It’s making a difference. You’re a thread in a rope of hope that someone will be clinging too. A woman named Rahab once hung her rope of hope outside her house and it saved her life. And today, I saw another beautiful woman talk of how she was saved, just in time. She’ll come as close as the stairs and that’s it. It’s the second time I’ve seen her. A dimpled, sweet smile and a huge tattoo that runs across her neck to her shoulder. I’m not sure when she appeared on the steps that first week. I had handed out the song sheets and we’d started singing. Maybe it was the motion of someone coming down the stairs that caught my eye, but I turned and there she was….4th step from the bottom. She smiled, but didn’t seem interested in coming any closer. I still had extra song sheets spread out on the table so while we were still singing I walked over and handed her one. I wasn’t sure if she’d take it or not, but she did. I’m fully aware that sometimes the ladies come out of their cells just because they’re bored, or they come to see who it is that’s making all the noise and disturbing their Sunday nap. Some may come out because they like free things, and we give out free bibles, devotions and, of course, a paper with the lyrics to songs on it. She holds the paper and I see her reading the words, but she doesn’t offer to sing. She looks around and seems to observe the other ladies with a kind of curious fascination. I’m sure the interruption of this music to the normal sounds of the Officers locking doors, inmates yelling at each other, the ever dripping/running water in the community shower and the flushing of the toilets in the cells, must seem an odd interruption. Music? Ok, well, maybe not music. It’s more of a joyful noise we’re all making. On any given Sunday there may be a lady who sounds like she’s singing bass, someone singing in a key that doesn’t match one note of what we’re singing, and the boisterous singer who comes in and out of pitch as if she’s weaving on a road, not paying attention to the center line. Maybe the dimples keep appearing because my stair sitter friend is amused at the inmate choir gathered around the table. Or she could be amused at the loud red head walking around singing, trying her best to lead a group of inmates to the throne room while surrounded by bars and locks. If she would join in and sing, maybe she would understand. It’s in the singing that we are freed. The Spirit of God isn’t hampered by a trip down Prison Farm Road; He’s not held up, searched and required to present His I.D. for verification. The Holy Spirit willingly travels down the grey, cold hallway and makes Himself known to the soul who searches for him. He doesn’t look to see if you’re sitting on pew, in a coffee shop, or locked away in a forgotten cell. He only sees the heart that’s lifted up to receive Him. And He comes close. And He asks to abide. He knows without His power abiding in you, taking full control, you’re still a hopeless mess. He sees my friend on the steps. He beckons to her. He woos her. He never gives up calling. Right now, maybe she feels she’s come close enough. After all, she’s at least gotten out of the bunk. Several girls are still sleeping in their cell, or at least trying too. They want nothing to do with “church”. Maybe too many churches have let them down already. Maybe their opinion of Christians is someone who signs up to feed the hungry at the local shelter every Thanksgiving but happily sits at their dinner table the other 11 months. Or someone who gives them a flyer about coming to “Revival”, but never offers to give them a ride. Or maybe they’re the one who looks disapprovingly out the window at the cardboard sign, refusing to look at the person holding it. She’s at least sitting on the stairs listening. That should count for something, right? She’s close enough to hear the songs and the message. Ah, my sweet sister I want to say…..close enough only counts in horseshoes. Close enough won’t cleanse your heart of the sin. Close enough won’t free you from addiction. You have to leave the steps to find the Savior. Not because He can’t come to you, but because sometimes the true repentance only comes when we’re willingly to move away from the dark and come to the light. She’s obviously a bottle blonde with deep dark roots growing out. Her hair is swept up in a half hazard ponytail. Her nails still hold onto a little of the red polish that was so carefully painted on before everything got crazy and she was arrested. She carries a tattered, paperback Bible to the table and joins the other inmates for “church”.
Society may label her a failure, I see an Angel. You know the verse. We’ve all read it. “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have entertained angels without knowing it.” Hebrews 13:2 I don’t know if you’d call going into the jail “hospitality”? So I looked up the definition. Noun…the friendly and generous reception and entertainment of guests, visitors, or strangers. Adjective….relating to or denoting the business of housing or entertaining visitors. They are strangers and we are friendly and generous to them as we share fellowship with them, so maybe we are showing hospitality. I’ve never noticed this before, but the root of that word seems to be hospital. Wow! Maybe we’re actually being a “hospital” for people when we love and reach out to them in tangible ways. That’s an AHA moment for me! But here’s an even bigger one. Had I ever seen this before? Did I always stop at verse 2?? Because I promise you that I don’t remember seeing Hebrews 13:3 before. So here it is: “Remember those in prison as if you were bound with them, and those who are mistreated as if you were suffering with them.” AS IF YOU WERE BOUND WITH THEM. Not as their judge, not as their jury. Not from a distance, not from sympathy. Not from pity or self-righteousness. But BOUND with them. Together in their suffering. Less you think I’m writing any of that as someone preaching at you, let me correct your thinking. I’m writing this as someone who has done all of the above. When I think of the “easy” life I’ve led as a Christian and the state of apathy I was in for quite a while, and the resulting self-righteous person I became, it truly saddens me. I was with a past Sunday School teacher of mine recently and he was speaking about how God gets our attention. Sometimes it takes years and it can even take some difficult circumstances, but in every Christian’s life, God will get your attention. We are human after all. He knows we like the focus on us. He knows we like to think we know it all. So at some point, He needs to make sure our eyes our TOTALLY on Him. He got my full attention. That’s another story for another day. I wish it hadn’t taken so long. But just know that I gave up doing it my way and I have no wisdom or worth without my Savior. And I have no purpose except to live for HIS purpose for my life. And because He loved me extravagantly, I am called to love others the same. Welcome to the jail. God found a great place for me to put that love into practice! He has a place for you to put that love into practice too. I’m not advocating that everyone has to sign up for jail ministry. Or maybe I am?!!! But I know this….He does have someone for you to love. AS IF YOU ARE BOUND WITH THEM. Who do you see in need around you? Who is bound that could use some extra love that might just set them free. Who needs a little kindness? Who needs a phone call? Who needs a batch of those cookies you’re so good at making? Who needs a book that you’ve read and would just collect dust on your shelf? Who needs that scarf you almost bought in the mall last week? AS IF YOU WERE SUFFERING WITH THEM? Who needs that hug that you meant to give them last week? Who needs a handwritten note reminding them they are not alone? Maybe you’re thinking right now that someone needs to do that for you. After all, we’re all broken and in need of repair. I know this much. When I step out in my brokenness and give a cup of cold water, the hand that I hold out suddenly looks a lot like the one that was nailed to the cross. He loved the forgotten. He sees the forgotten. He died for the forgotten. And if you can step out in your brokenness and hurt, He will show you more than you can ever imagine. You might even see a few Angels. *The Blonde angel is a fictional character, not based on any one woman from the jail They look up from the table as the officer unlocks the door. I’m just one broken woman coming to talk to other broken women. On the outside, they may look at me and feel no connection at all. I’m dressed in nice clothes, they wear borrowed jumpers; I’ve had a mirror to look in and fix my hair, they’ve air dried their hair if it’s been shampooed at all; I’m free and can leave at the end of the hour, they are forced to remain until a Judge says otherwise. What they can’t see are the scars I carry from a broken life. They weren’t there to see the Lord put me back together. Just one broken woman, loving other broken women for Jesus sake. A group assembled at the table and I handed out the song sheets. I told them about my new favorite song by Zach Williams, “Chain Breaker.” “Let’s just read the words, can we?” I asked. If you’ve been walking the same old road for miles and miles If you’ve been hearing the same old voice tell the same old lies If you’re trying to fill the same old holes inside There’s a better life There’s a better life If you’ve got pain He’s a pain taker If you feel lost He’s a way maker If you need freedom or saving He’s a prison-shaking Savior If you’ve got chains He’s a chain breaker Tears were already spilling down two faces. And I knew, I just knew. It’s so weary being chained to lies, chained to addiction, chained to the past. A better life? Please. Where? How? For me? Chains tell you that’s the lie. To believe, to hope for more. Chains tell you that you can’t possibly change. Chains tell you that it’s pointless to even think about a future. Chains tell you as soon you leave jail, you’ll end up right back where you were. We started singing that song. “There’s a better life”. Oh yes indeed. He’s a Chain Breaker. I couldn’t stand there and sing that with the women if I didn’t wholeheartedly KNOW it! I silently prayed as I sang that the message would GET THROUGH! Tears kept falling and I saw women trying so hard to believe. Two women were on lock down in their cells. I hadn’t noticed until I heard a voice say “Can I have one of those pages?” and a hand reached through the narrow opening in the door. She followed along as we sang all the songs. She’d been in here before and she remembered one that I’d sung in her cell block last time she was locked up. “Next time you come, could you bring ‘My God is Awesome’”, she asked. “I love that song.” There was desperation in her eyes and a sadness that seems to cloak all the women, as if it’s part of the assigned wardrobe. “Jumpsuit? Check. Flip flops? Check. Sadness? Check.” She seemed so tiny, so fragile, so beaten up by the world that she kept crawling back too. I told myself I would be sure and pray with her before I left. I had asked God what to share with the women before I went in and as I was looking through the Word I stopped at Psalm 27. Verse 5 really stood out to me: For in the day of trouble he will keep me safe in his dwelling; he will hide me in the shelter of his sacred tent and set me high upon a rock. I felt the Lord directing me to speak on “Foundation”. Where are your feet planted? Are we standing on sinking ground or have we planted our feet on the rock? After all, you can’t move anywhere unless you know where you are. I started singing the song: The wise man built his house upon the rock The wise man built his house upon the rock The wise man built his house upon the rock And the rain came tumbling down You can’t sing that song without doing the motions, so I started building my house with my hands and one of the girls’ faces lit up…..”I remember that song”….and she started doing the motions with me. We talked about what it’s like to stand on a firm foundation and what happens when we look around and decide we’d rather toss caution to the wind and place our foot in sinking sand. It only takes one small step and we start sinking. “Help!” We cry out. We are rescued and as soon as we grow complacent, or board, or we seem to get amnesia about all the awful days….we step right off the rock and back into that sinking sand. “Help! We cry out again. Over and over again this can play out in our lives. After a while, our friends and family may grow tired of coming to our rescue (and at this, several women nodded in knowing agreement) but I promised them that according to His word, Jesus would never turn away when we cry out to Him. We talked about what quick sand they needed to get out of (bad friendships, addictions, wrong choices) and how they needed to get to the solid rock. I asked if anyone wanted specific prayer…… “Yes, please pray that this addiction won’t control me any longer” said one. “I need prayer for hope. I’m just living life day to day. Does God still have something for me?” asked another sweet lady. “Please pray that I can find new friends” said yet another. We stood, we held hands, we implored God to move. He did. Stacy* kept walking around after the praying was done with tears and rejoicing all mixed into one. Praising God for deliverance and for salvation and for freedom. We started singing Chain Breaker again and then someone asked Lucy* to sing the song she always sings “Take Me To the King”. There were more tears and more rejoicing. Stacy was still in tears and so I went to hug her and she wrapped her arms around me and as I hugged her I noticed my arm around her. I know this will sound crazy, but it didn’t feel like my arm. It felt almost like an out of body experience, as if Jesus was hugging her and I was just there to help Him do it. She was crying and saying “you came in here for me. You came in here for me.” I thought about how I almost didn’t. I knew there had been another chaplain from a church that had visited that morning. I almost just stayed home. Now I know why the Holy Spirit wouldn’t let me. It was almost time to go so I went to my friend on lock down and asked if I could pray with her. She promised me things were gonna be different this time. She was gonna go to rehab. I hope with all my heart she means it. She stuck her arm back through the opening and I took that fragile hand and asked that somehow she would know and feel Jesus holding on to her, just as I was holding her hand. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry I’m back in here”, she kept repeating. Maybe to me, maybe to God. And I thought about the gentlemen I’d met in the lobby while waiting to go back. He was there to visit an ex-girlfriend. I told him how nice it was that he cared enough to visit her. “Oh, I’ve been in jail before. I know what it’s like to feel forgotten. To have no one visit you, to have no money in your jail account….i just couldn’t leave her in here like that.” I have no idea who is visiting my friend on lock down. Does she have money in her jail account? Does she have a friend writing letters of encouragement? I let go of her hand after we prayed. I gathered my Bible and my notebook and the officer let me out. I looked back at the women and they began to clap. They have a reason to rejoice! Psalm 27 says Hear my voice when I call, Lord; be merciful to me and answer me. 8 My heart says of you, “Seek his face!” Your face, Lord, I will seek. 9 Do not hide your face from me, do not turn your servant away in anger; you have been my helper. Do not reject me or forsake me, God my Savior. 10 Though my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will receive me. 11 Teach me your way, Lord; lead me in a straight path And He will lead them. In Granny’s church they brought in a real Christmas tree and set it up in the same place every year; on the right side of the church, the corner behind the organ. If I breath in deeply right now, I swear I can still smell the fresh pine needles that had fallen on the floor and been crushed under foot by all the kids, who against the wishes of their parents, would not stay away from the tree. I loved it when they put up the tree, because I knew it wouldn’t be long before we’d be making chain links out of red and green construction paper to decorate the tree. Ms. Hines, our Sunday School teacher, would already have cut out perfectly even slips of green and red paper and all we had to do was to grab a stack and start pasting them together. Half of the fun was after we finished making our chain, we would put glue on the palms of our hands and let it dry and then slowly peel it off as if we were creatures from a wax museum made of solid wax and we were molting. Ms. Hines would always say “now children, that’s a perfect waste of good glue!” I always figured any sentence with the word “perfect” in it couldn’t be that bad. Funny how the second grade mind works! I look down at my hands now. They’re fidgeting with a loose thread of this jumper. When they issued the jumper to me, it had obviously seen its’ share of wear and tear. I was just glad to have something with long sleeves as the evenings get rather cool in here. I would give anything to be back in Ms. Hines class gluing pieces of construction paper. Anything to keep myself busy. Being locked up for these last few months has made me stir crazy. And with the holidays approaching, it’s worse. Granny always had stuff for us to do around the holidays. She prided herself on her sugar cookies and thought the least we could do was to help decorate them. “Baby Jesus came to show love, and that’s just what I’m doing when I hand out these cookies. So you children best decide you’re gonna decorate those cookies with every bit of love you got!” Granny would say. And she didn’t take any goofing off when you decorated her priceless Christmas gifts. She carefully set out bowls of candy beads that looked like pearls, sprinkles in Christmas red and green, and little M&M pieces. She would frost the cookies with her special designs that made the cookie into a tree ornament, or a jolly round Santa, or a Christmas tree. We were each given a tray of cookies to decorate. It became a contest between us to see who could decorate the best cookies. My brother was always the slowest because he said he had to make sure that no two cookies were alike. It used to drive me crazy because we weren’t allowed to eat the extra cookies that Granny made for us unto ALL the cookies were decorated! There was nothing to compare to the way that one of Granny’s sugar cookies just melted in your mouth. “Lunch trays” shouts the Guard, interrupting my imaginary holiday baking. I’m not really even hungry today. It’s Mystery Meat Monday anyway. I can skip it. I settle back on my little wad of a pillow and think about all the ovens being turned on and trays of warm cookies being left on counters to cool. Do the mom’s in those kitchens know what a blessing it is to be able to bake cookies? Do they feel rushed by the calendar and the endless to do lists? Do they wish they could just put their feet up and not have to even see their kitchen till New Years? Do they grumble when the kids drop sprinkles on the floor? Do they grudgingly pull up stools and let the kids help do the dishes? Knowing that more soap might end up on the floor than on the dishes? I remember those hectic days. The few years that I was actually sober enough to be a mom. I would give anything to go back. Granny used to let us help hand out her bags of cookies to the neighbors on her street. She would say, “no one is a stranger when you hand them a cookie and a smile.” I sure could use both of those right about now. *A fictional series of an inmate's life. Not based on any real person “Two hundred dollars—SOLD! Here’s your bottle of water”. That’s right. A bottle of water. $200. How can that be you ask? Was it a bottle of water autographed by someone famous? No. Is the lid made of sterling silver? Nope. Is it water from the purest mountain glacier? No. Dasani off the shelf. Then why would someone pay $200 for a plain bottle of water? To help a jail ministry and build a house for women coming out of jail and addiction. This is the season of Thankfulness and I would be so ungrateful if I didn’t take a moment on this blog to thank God for what happened last weekend at the writing retreat. Every year I sneak off into the woods of Clayton, Georgia, along with 50 other folks and we gather together and write songs. The first year was 2007 and I remember walking into the lodge (it was held in Indiana back then) and seeing all these folks standing around and wondering how I was lucky enough to be with them. Although I didn’t personally know most of them…I knew their writing, at least some of them. I was meeting many of them for the very first time and as they sang some of the songs they’d already written and gotten cut, I just listened in amazement. I’d only been writing a few years and some of these folks had been writing for fifteen and twenty years. These were really talented people---Dove Award Winning talented people. What I was to discover that year and in the years to follow, is that not only are these incredibly talented people, they are incredibly loving and open hearted. As we sat in writing rooms and talked about our lives, our stories, our joys and our pains, we sat with people who “got it”. Who understood that each of us have our own path next to the Savior and the song comes from what we find along that path is valuable and unique and may be worth writing. Over the years as I have gotten to know and love these folks, I have found a generous community of caring, kind, generous people. This year I was to discover just how generous they were. It started with a picture of a blanket and $5 donation. But you need to know the back story first. In May of 2016, at the Spring Retreat (we have them twice a year now), they were giving away some door prizes which usually consist of CDs, pens, bags, water bottles, etc. When a nice warm blanket was held up I fell in love with it and shouted out “I’ll give you $20!” Our sweet Director, Joel Lindsey, was so shocked by someone bidding on a door prize that when I ran up waving my $20, he just handed it to me. Fast forward 6 months and I have now decided to bedazzle the blanket and take it back and auction if off for more than the original $20, just for fun! But then I had another idea (you know how the Holy Spirit works…), and before I knew it was I holding up the bedazzled blanket to the room of songwriters and saying “You can have your picture taken with this amazing bedazzled blanket for $5 to go towards the jail ministry.” Several people responded and I was thinking “how cool God, you and I might raise $100 before I go home this weekend!” Oh boy, God must have smiled at that one. He had much bigger plans. It was during another door prize giveaway time on Friday morning and some items were being given away from the Write About Jesus Conference. The founder of that conference, Sue Smith, was also at our retreat. If you’re not a writer you may not recognize her name, but in the songwriting world, she’s kind of a big deal. She’s a really BIG DEAL. Just trust me on that, ok? They had just given away a Write About Jesus tote bag and then someone noticed there was a pen in the bottom of the bag. Someone else yelled out “Did Sue Smith touch the pen?” And before you know it the bidding started at $5, $10, $12, $17, $20 and all the way to $30! It was so much fun! And everyone was having a good time and I thought that would be the end of it. But then in the bottom of that bag was also a cardboard liner. And someone asked if Sue touched it….and the whole thing started again and the piece of CARDBOARD went for $38!!! How amazing is that? People continued to take pictures with the blanket and some folks just handed me cash. I’d collected over $100 in one day. I was thinking how good God was as i went to my room Friday night to collapse in happy exhaustion from having written some cool songs that day, never knowing that he had more in store. Saturday the water bottle auction started. My writing friend, Gerald, had come up and said he’d purchased some water bottles and maybe we could auction those off. I was doubtful (oh ye of little faith) and I guess when Gerald saw he wasn’t getting anywhere, he went straight to the Director cause next thing I know, Joel is holding up a water bottle and saying “hey folks, who wants a bottle of water?” and my friend, Gene, gives the winning bid of $200!!! What? Really? I’m sitting there in disbelief at what God is doing and I can’t stop the tears. I happen to be sitting next to Candace, aka Chewbacca Mom (you ARE one of the 162 million viewers of her Face Book Live video?? If not, stop now and watch it. Then thank me later), and she leaned over and said “I’m crying with you girl”. Then other crazy good things happen. Joel offers a free registration for the next writing retreat….BOOM……$550 from Bev my Colorado writing buddy! Chewbacca Mom offers a selfie on her face book page that has over 800,000 followers and my artist/songwriter friend, Sean Smith, wins that bid at $700. PEOPLE!! What’s happening here? WE SERVE A BIG GOD. Heard that before? Seen that before? I guess it had been a while for me. Oh me of little faith. Oh me with my $100 faith. God thought I needed to increase that a bit. I sat there with more tears. I sit here now with tears again. Jesus uses ordinary, loving, kind-hearted, broken, struggling, hardship-ridden, people to BE His Kingdom on earth. That’s what I witnessed. Something not of this world. Then to further blow my mind, the Director walked to the front of the room. His publishing company is Sunset Gallery and several of his writers were in the room. He asked them to stand and I looked around at the faces of folks I loved. I thought maybe we were gonna have a big group hug or something. “On behalf of Sunset Gallery and all of the writers, Sunset Gallery is going to match every dollar raised this weekend.” OH. MY. WORD. I thought my heart would bust out of my chest. And you know what I was seeing through my tears? A house. A house filled with women who are broken. Women who feel unworthy. Women who haven’t heard the words “I love you” enough to ever believe them. Women who need to experience something not of this world. Kingdom love. The kind that Jesus came to establish. The kind that songwriters displayed in a place called Clayton. It was a baptistery in a beautiful sanctuary and it was a metal trough in a jail cell, but both were filled with the water that signified new life. One saint was clothed in a baptismal robe, one saint was wearing her jail jumpsuit, but when both were lifted out of the water they had the glow of the Holy Spirit on their face. At 9 A.M. I stood with the preacher lady and three candidates for baptism. They had declared Jesus their Savior last Sunday and were ready to proclaim their love for Him by following in His footsteps to Believer’s Baptism. Their witnesses would be a couple of church ladies, a couple of inmates and an officer. They remove their state issued flip flops so as not to slip coming out of the trough. They gingerly hold a hand and step into the water that’s been prepared sometime during the week. It’s usually quite chilly and some ladies endure it better than others. But without fail, they stay in the water while they are prayed for and dunked under. They wipe the water from their eyes, wring out their soaked hair and hurriedly step out, usually. But this Sunday, one of the ladies tarried. She was lifting her eyes and hands to heaven and letting the freedom of the Holy Spirit consume her. She began crying and praising God. At 11: A.M. I stood with three candidates for baptism. One was a mom and her son and one was my dear friend. I was there to take pictures for her. They had all declared Jesus their Lord last Sunday and were ready to proclaim their love for Him by following in His footsteps to Believer’s Baptism. Their witnesses would be Pastors, family, friends, and a congregation of believers. They would be clothed in baptismal robes and step into water that had been prepared and was just the right temperature. They would be welcomed in the pool by a Pastor and would have a chance to declare to hundreds that this day forth, they were completely sold out for Christ. Beautiful music would be playing as they were immersed into the water and lifted up again. Pictures and video would be taken to remember the beautiful event. The inmate who stood in chilly water and my precious friend in the baptismal pool…..two such different baptisms, but here’s where they are so much the same…..both went down longing to wash away the past and both rose up into a BRAND NEW DAY. Jesus, lover of our souls, graced both events with His sweet presence. He saw hearts that had been broken and made them whole. He saw wrong choices and redeemed it all with His love. He saw women thirsting for the Water of Life and quenched their thirst. He saw women who wanted to choose obedience and He gave them wisdom to walk in it. And in both instances I know there was a voice from heaven saying “This is my daughter in whom I am well pleased.” |
AuthorHi! I am Donna and I'm traveling. It's a journey to discover who I am in Christ every day....no looking back, face to the Son! Come join me! Archives
October 2017
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