Tuesday, September 18, 2007


My weekend with the Lord…or lead me from the Labyrinth


I interrupt my series on words to bring you a story of restoration and more evidence on the power of prayer. I had many of you praying for me this past weekend, as I was to embark on a spiritual quest. Thigh bone broken or not, some things needed to be wrestled out with God. The prayer was for both strength and protection from impending spiritual warfare.

The prayer retreat was in itself a gift from the Lord. I had needed to go into an extended time of prayer and meditation for a while now. As you may or may not know, I dealt with child abuse as a child and young adult. My mother was, (and is) suffering from depression. As a result, she did a lot of things that she no longer remembers. So, I cannot extract my pound of flesh from getting her to remember and confess to her sins.

So the burden falls on me and the Lord. In order to proceed into a deeper relationship with Christ and feel safe doing ministry work, I needed to ‘clean the pipes’ as a dear mentor once told me. I was carrying years of anger, rage, sadness, pity, fear, resentment, rejection and scarring (I made a list.) I needed to work through my feelings with God and my mother, and assorted family members.

So, my counselor and I were waiting on the Lord for the opportune time for me to go on a retreat. Well, that time came last weekend. The retreat was offered last minute to my church. ‘Coincidentally,’ my husband was going up north and taking our children with him. Here was my big chance!

I had a set agenda. I was going to go off on my own and do some primal screaming, breaking of branches, and lots of crying. There were about fourteen of us on the retreat. We started out Friday night with a relaxing dinner. Then, our pastor led us on a directed prayer journey through John 13.1-5. It’s the passage that describes Jesus washing the disciples’ feet.

1It was just before the Passover Feast. Jesus knew that the time had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he now showed them the full extent of his love. 2The evening meal was being served, and the devil had already prompted Judas Iscariot, son of Simon, to betray Jesus. 3Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; 4so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. 5After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples' feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him.

Our pastor led us into directed contemplation about this passage. We wrapped our minds around what this scene really looked like. What were the sounds, smells? Then he had us put ourselves into the place of one of the disciples and think about how it must have felt having the Lord wash our feet. The whole exercise was a beautiful reflection into scripture, and for me, set the tone of the weekend.

Then, we played games and laughed hysterically for the rest of the night. This was nothing at all like I was expecting. It certainly didn’t fit my agenda.

When we were finally let on our own the next morning, it was off to business. However, my pastor just had to say one more thing in his prayer for us. Here is a paraphrase, “Father, I ask if there is anyone going out with their own expectations for the day, I ask that you make them flexible to your plans.’ Great. Now I had that to deal with. But I took it in stride. As I was walking outside, I prayed, “Ok God, if you want to run this encounter differently, then I’m willing to go with the flow.”

Remember, my original plan was to go deep into the woods and get busy with some primal emotions. Instead, the Lord led me to a Labyrinth that was cut into the grounds at the retreat center. How could this ever help vent the anger I needed to get out?

Still going with the flow, I started by walking around the Labyrinth cautiously, checking it out. Actually, I was wondering how stupid I would look walking around a maze. At least it had no dead ends. When I got around the perimeter, I gave up and walked up the path. It actually resembled the Labyrinth I pictured above. It seemed like I would hit the middle right from the start. I thought that would be a little too easy. (It was here I started to notice parallels to my spiritual journey) instead, the path veered away from the center. It wound around one side and then the other. At one point, I thought it was going to spit me out, that I had missed a turn somewhere, (another parallel), but I was wrong. The next time it seemed like that, I knew better and was less anxious (parallel there too.) I could see where people had tamped the grass down where they had given up their walk.

Throughout the walk, I spoke to God about the things that had happened to me throughout my life. I cried some. But the whole time I felt very reassured by His close presence and His love for me. Somehow, by my obedience and His gentle prodding, I was able to release the years of hurt into His care. He really showed me my mother’s intense brokenness.

After I made it to the center, I sat for a few minutes thanking and praising Him. Then, I went to a tree I had been eying and sat underneath it. I looked up at the branches and started almost immediately thinking about the fact that I had already been grafted in as a child of the Lord. That I was to remain abiding in His ways and trust He was walking me down the right path, no matter what it looked like. He reassured me that I shouldn’t give up, but continue where He had laid my path. He also reminded me of the passage in Ephesians, where He had spoken to me before.

“In love, He predestined us to adoption as sons (and daughters) through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will,” Ephesians 1.5

He adopted me from my past. Not so I could abandon it, or forget it ever happened, as that would negate a good portion of my life. But God has adopted me as one of His own, and He has healed my wounds, and wiped my tears. I will do well to remember that.

Wednesday, September 05, 2007

a public confession

Confess:
1: to tell or make known (as something wrong or damaging to oneself): ADMIT
2 a: to acknowledge (sin) to God
3: to declare faith in or adherence to: PROFESS
4: to give evidence of1 a: to disclose one's faults; specifically: to unburden one's sins or the state of one's conscience to God
2: ADMIT, OWN

The Old Testament book Leviticus talks about sin offerings. In those days, if a person sinned against the Lord, they would bring an unblemished animal to the priest, and the priest would make atonement for the person with the ‘sin offering,’ or the ‘trespass offering.’ The Mishnah, or the oral traditions of the Old Testament, records the confession as something like the following:

"O Lord, I have committed iniquity, transgressed, and sinned before you, I and my house. O Lord, forgive the iniquities, transgressions, and sins, which I have done by committing iniquity, transgression, and sin before you, I and my house. As it is written in the Torah of Moses, your servant, 'For on this day shall atonement be made for you to cleanse you. From all your sins shall you be clean before the Lord.’

I think it may have been easier to drag an animal to a priest than to confess my sins and transgressions to my fellow brothers and sisters. In the New Testament, we are told to ‘confess our sins to one another.’ (James 5.16) How can I tell people the truth that lurks inside?

“To long for relevance, success, effectiveness, and glory – this is not just a slight misunderstanding of the Gospel, but its very betrayal. It is not error. It is, according to Jesus, satanic.” Jesus Mean & Wild Mark Galli

How can something like that lurk inside me? How can I walk around on a daily basis, seemingly humble about my job cleaning my church, while thinking to myself how God is wasting my time and talent? I keep a constant cycle of thought running in my mind, ‘Oh, if I could just share my ideas and vision with this church, how we could all benefit!’ When Lord, are you going to get me off the bench?

So, with this kind of self-glorifying vile running through my head, how can I tell something this? They would think I was slime. Where’s a goat when I need one?

“For we also once were foolish ourselves, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures, spending our life in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another. but when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior so that being justified by His grace we would be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.” Titus 3.3-7

Well, I guess the goat isn’t necessary anymore. I came from that world. I believe that it would be betraying the Gospel if I wanted to work for the Lord because I thought I could do it better than the people who do it now.

Jesus said, “It’s who you are and the way you live that count before God. Your worship must engage your spirit in the pursuit of truth. That’s the kind of people the Father is out looking for: those who are simply and honestly themselves before Him in their worship. God is sheer being itself – Spirit. Those who worship Him must do it out of their very being, their spirits, their true selves, in adoration.” John 4.13-14

I want to serve the Lord because of what He saved me from. I was a wreck, as those of you who read this already well know, and He pulled me up from the gutter. And the grave. My desire to serve Him comes from that gratitude, from the pure mercy He extended to me. I am not looking to glorify myself. Although, to be totally honest, in my humanness it feels good to go from someone who most people had written off to a completely different person. I am proud of myself for finishing college and going for my Master’s. And I think that’s okay as I point the glory to my Father.

So I confess, I have a big dream to serve my Father. One of them is lived out by writing this blog. Another is to help people know that they too can be themselves before the Lord too.