Tag Archives: faith

My personal rescue story

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Our pastor at church said we all need to share our personal rescue stories, even the ordinary. I have a completely ordinary story. He says ordinary stories are helpful to ordinary people. Deep breath. Here goes…

I grew up in a mostly non religious home. Both of my parents grew up in religious homes, so it’s not like we didn’t believe at all or never talked about God. Mainly God and heaven were talked about when someone died and we kids had questions. It was this easy, comforting answer to give to kids. Good people go to heaven, bad people go to Hell. We never went to church, except maybe on rare occasions or the odd Christmas service here or there. There was no reading of Scripture or much in the way of conversations about God or Jesus.

I had a very basic understanding of the important people in the Bible. I knew God was God and that Jesus was His Son. I knew about Adam and Eve and how they messed up everything for all of humanity, which I thought was unfair. I knew about Moses from watching the old movie that was on cable every year around Easter, I think it was called, The 10 Commandments. And this was my understanding too about how to be “good” or “bad”.Good people didn’t kill people or steal, or lie.

I was an oldest child, so your typical rule follower. I had no idea then, but my basic understanding of Christianity was the Old Testament or law way of thinking. I had to earn my way to heaven by following the rules.

When we start to grow up, the question of identity comes to the forefront of everyone’s mind. What is my identity? It may not be a question we’re consciously asking ourselves, but it’s there nonetheless in trying to find out where we fit in to the world. I happened to start running cross country in 9th grade at age 14, which turned out to be a crucial time for me. That’s where I found my identity as a runner. Specifically as a fast runner.

This summer I read Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone’s book, Far Beyond Gold: Running From Fear to Faith, on the recommendation of one of my best friends (who I met that freshman year running cross country). There was so so much in her personal story I could relate to. Even though she is a decorated, medal winning Olympian and I was just a winner of local races, I shared so many of the same fears she did. My 11 year old daughter read her book too, and finished it and read it again.

Running is a great hobby, but it makes a very terrible god. What I mean by that is that running is a very good thing. That’s partly what I mean when I say that my story is ordinary. I wasn’t caught up in addiction or embezzling or anything like that. Those stories are powerful, as they really showcase the power of God in transforming individuals completely.

For many of us ordinary people our idols aren’t in the extreme. We’re not rescued from the streets. Yet, we are saved nonetheless.

An idol is anything (that could be a very good thing) that you make it god in your life. It’s when you say, “once I have that, then I’ll be…complete, happy, valuable”, pick your adjective.

I found my identity in running and even more so in the success that came with it. When I performed well, I felt good about myself and I was happy. If I performed poorly, well, you can imagine I was really hard on myself. Who was I of value if I wasn’t a fast runner??

As time went on and my running performance proved a pretty unreliable idol to stack my whole identity on, I started branching into other areas. I tried to find my value in relationships, in my work ethic, in success in general.

As it always was with running, when my life looked good on the outside, I felt good on the inside. But what about when the deck of cards starts falling down? Broken relationships, not getting that promotion, indicators of failure left me confused. Life was full of winners and losers to me, and if I wasn’t a winner, I couldn’t be a loser!

As a result of my trying to always fix everything, I stayed in toxic relationships way too long, sacrificed my own happiness and health to at least appear successful, and used my running as a crutch to get me through when times were tough.

By my late 20’s, on the outside, I was a high functioning adult with a career and a husband and I even could add winning a marathon to my identity. It seemed only natural to have a baby, which plenty of ordinary people do. I could certainly do it.

Then motherhood happened, and if nothing in life will humble you, motherhood will.

Nothing about motherhood was easy for me. And of course, in my comparison game I played in my head, there were winners and losers and I couldn’t deny that I was a loser in this area. My oldest child had colic and screamed most hours of the day. I tried everything to help her and nothing seemed to work, or, work consistently. We went to the doctor, I tried pacifiers and rocking swings and driving her in the car. Eventually, the only thing that I could do was put her in a wrap, and pace around the house until she cried herself to sleep. Then, once she was asleep, my aching body would try to stop moving, to sit down and no sooner would I stop moving and she’d be up and crying again.

My social media feed was full of other moms with sleeping little babies, in their car seat or stroller. They actually took their babies places. I was confined to the house and it was wearing on me. One day, I did attempt to take her to Hobby Lobby for my own sanity and I remember we got there and she was screaming so I’m walking around holding her and people were staring and an employee came up to us to see if we needed help. My daughter had a good set of lungs, which seems to have come in handy now that she’s running too. I remember seeing another woman I knew from work in the store who was also on maternity leave with her peaceful baby in the store and I hid and left.

I felt so ashamed. I was failing at something that was supposed to come naturally to me as a woman.

Thankfully though, God had been there my whole life, trying to get me to find Him. When I look back, it’s many of the people of faith that were a part of my life that ultimately led me to finally answer His call. They wore their faith like a piece of them that they never took off. And when life was hard, they still clung to it. I wanted some of what they had.

I remember it was near Easter that I started reading the Easter story. I had read through some of the Bible in my college years and had felt I fully got the message but after that I stopped pursuing it. Reading about Jesus, and about the Pharisees, I could see myself…as a Pharisee!

The Pharisees were the religious leaders at the time. They were the rule followers. They prided themselves on being the best of the best. They looked down their noses at others. That had been me!

They killed Jesus because He threatened their god of pride.

I had lived much of my life self focused on success and I looked down at those who struggled. I justified my own shortcomings while harshly criticizing others. This was ultimately because my identity, my whole sense of being, was tied to the outward appearance of success.

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, pretenders (hypocrites)! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self indulgence.”

-Matthew 23:25

After Easter, I was hungry for more, so I kept reading Scripture. And I haven’t stopped since. We started going to church as a family and my kids are learning the gospel. They may not fully understand what it all means until they are older, but they know the basics of it, even my 5 year old. We read Scripture together nightly and we pray. That’s not me trying to say, “look how much I’m doing.” It’s rather an indication of how much my life has changed since giving it over to Christ. But I’ve gotten ahead of myself.

For me, I understand now that it wasn’t all Adam and Eve’s fault but that I’m personally responsible for my own sinful nature. I chose to serve the god of pride and success and self interest.

Jesus paid the price of my sin. He died because of me. Jesus, who never sinned and lived the perfect life took on my punishment. He did this willingly and as a free gift of grace to me. I didn’t have to do anything other than accept it. Once I accepted the sacrifice of Jesus into my heart, my old ways died, and I became a new person. Now, this doesn’t mean I never sin. It would be false to think that Jesus’s sacrifice on the cross only wiped my slate clean and then I had to perfectly follow the rules again for the rest of my life.

No, my old ways of thinking had to die. I have accepted myself with a new identity. I am a sinner. This means I’m still a sinner. It doesn’t mean I have a free pass to just live the way I want, it means I have a changed heart. One that’s soft. One that listens to the Holy Spirit when it convicts me of my sin.

And my works grow from that changed heart. The good I do now is not in my own self interest, and it’s done when no one is watching. But people should be able to see it. This is the fruit of the Spirit. This is what I saw in the other Christian’s that were influential to me. They weren’t perfect. They still made mistakes. But when they did, they corrected them. They didn’t cover them up. They didn’t blame others. They were trustworthy.

I’m not perfect. Far from it. The grace I’ve been given I did not earn and I don’t deserve. I still sin. But I feel convicted of it now instead of making excuses. I repent and I try to live like those Christians I so admire. I am free from feeling like I always need to succeed in order to feel valued. I’m deeply loved, and the parts of me that fail have been accounted for by Jesus.

Running? I still love it and it’s a part of my identity but it’s not my identity. Running is a gift I am able to enjoy. Should I ever not be able to run, I know I’ll be ok. Motherhood? I love it. It truly is the hardest work I’ve ever done and I make mistakes all the time but I give myself grace because God is gracious. My kids are sinners and we all give each other grace and forgiveness, though sometimes we don’t always get this right off the bat.

If you are wanting to know more about Christ or the gospel, please reach out to me. I’d love to have a no pressure, non judgment discussion with you. We’ve found a church I love that we call home, and I would love to have you attend with us sometime if you want to. If you don’t feel comfortable talking to me or someone, but are still curious, I would suggest you start by reading God’s word, or Scripture. If that’s too overwhelming for you, like it was for me, start by reading the Easter story. I read it online and then started reading in the New Testament after that. I read online in the King James Bible online. I read every day. I don’t read for hours on end and I have never read the whole Bible in a year, it takes me two or three years to get through the entire Bible but I’ve now read it about 3 times. I still am learning how to apply Scripture, that’s where a good church helps but I also use study guides that are online. I currently am using David Guzik’s online study guides as he covers every single chapter and really brings home the main idea.

The New Testament is a good place to start reading because it tells the good news about Jesus. And once you understand Jesus, reading the Old Testament makes more sense because you see all the foreshadowing of Jesus. Just start reading. Start today. Even if you only have a few minutes. And start praying. Pray that God would open your mind and heart to receive His word. I’m praying for you too.

The Hard Days

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This week we had a couple rough start mornings followed by a rough practice with my daughter’s team I coach where my own daughter kept interrupting when I was trying to keep the girl’s attention. Then I heard from my sitter that my younger daughter had a hard time listening.

We got home, had a family meeting, enacted some consequences and had a much better morning. Then this morning happened.

I had texted my husband last night while he was coaching my daughter’s soccer practice, to get some cash out at the ATM because my oldest needed some tomorrow for school (why oh why are there SO many events in the last 2 months of school?!) and we needed it for various other things coming up, like paying our sitter for the practices I coach to watch my other kids.

Anyway, said daughter who is not supposed to be on phones or devices at all this week was using his phone to practice her songs for her music field trip coming up. So he missed my text, didn’t get cash out and this morning I had to scramble to get it together.

Then I tried sending an email to the parents of the girls I coach and it wasn’t working from my phone, I tried using my computer and it died and the charger apparently no longer is working. I was thoroughly frustrated before 7 am.

My daughter started asking me random irrelevant questions as I’m trying to get everyone out the door and I got very short with her. Then I felt terrible about it.

From talking to other moms, I know for a fact that my experience is not unique to only me. We all have date like this and they tend to make us feel like complete failures.

The truth IS that raising kids today is so much different than it’s ever been before. Some of it, we put on ourselves, for sure, but some of it, is just that our culture is so different too. Technology makes it different. I could probably write a book (if I had the time, ha!) on just how different it is raising kids now than it was when I was a kid.

My point is this. If you are a parent that is trying to raise your kids counter-culturally, it’s going to be very difficult. It’s hard to be involved with your kids and take an active role parenting them. You’re going to slip up and you’re going to mess up. Ultimately though, being involved is what’s important.

I’ve been thinking about running lately and why I love it so much. It’s not always easy to put into words but I’m trying because these girls I coach, I really want to give them the gift of running.

There are days that I am excited to run. The sun is shining and the weather is perfect. Then there are days when the wind chill is -10 and it’s a blizzard. Or the rain is just pouring down and it’s not a warm rain. On these days, I can’t exactly say that it’s easy to get out there. But when I do, when I’m gritting through the elements or fighting off a virus or dealing with sore muscles, or…or…or, any time it’s not all flowers or rainbows, THOSE are the runs that empower me.

It’s not something you can experience in a video game. The feeling of your body, being pounded by the elements and getting through it, one step at a time. The confidence you feel afterwards is invigorating.

It’s the same with faith. It’s usually when we’re in the eye of the storm that our faith blossoms the most, not during times of plenty.

So parents, if you’re struggling and feeling defeated, take heart. Gritting through these difficult times is helping you grow. Putting in the hard work now, digging in, and showing your family that you’re in it, no matter what shows them the depth of your love for them. Keep failing and learning and picking yourself back up.

When tragedy breaks our hearts

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I had stayed away from news and social media all day because we were busy getting ready for spring break. It wasn’t until I finally sat down at the end of the evening to quickly check something on Facebook until I saw some posts about Nashville.

When things like this happen I get very quiet within myself. It’s like I have no words, even in my own head. And I pray. And I feel so upset. Upset becomes a physical feeling.

I know that in the aftermath of this tragedy, there will be a whole lot of noise. Politicians will push their politics as the answer and people will get nasty with each other arguing their different views on who’s at fault and what the solution is.

It’s actually quite sickening how the evil that caused the tragedy in the first place, settles into our hearts and enjoys the division and hate it sows among us.

And people will blame God or say it’s evidence of no God, or one who allows such horrible things to happen. Even some true believers may find themselves shaken and asking why oh why this happens.

I don’t have all the answers to life’s big questions but I DO know why this happens. It happens because our world is so, so broken. It was NEVER supposed to be this way.

Back in the Garden, Adam and Eve had everything they wanted and were like children. God only warned them that if they ate the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they would surely die.

Think about it. They were naked and unashamed and had no knowledge of good and evil in the Garden. It was safe there. They were as children, being cared for by a loving father.

Then the tempter lied to them and told them they surely would not die, but would be like God. This broke everything. But God still loved them. He made them leave the Garden, because He didn’t want them to live forever in such a cursed, and broken world, and He doesn’t want us to live here forever either.

This world is cursed with the most terrible evil, but it’s not where we live forever. He sent His own Son to die an excruciating death so that we may have everlasting life outside of this broken world.

Why though, would He allow such terrible things to happen to His children? I DON’T know why some people die and others do not. I know I’ve followed many children that have had or have cancer. Many of these families have incredibly strong faith. Some of these children are healed and the families give all glory to God for their healing and other children are healed in Heaven.

I’ve witnessed these families that have had to say goodbye have incredible faith that’s just astounding. Even some of these precious children often showcase incredible faith that many adults do not possess. I don’t know why some are healed and some are not. Nor do I know why Jesus chose Lazarus to bring back to life.

I do know that Jesus, cried out to His Father to take this cup from Him. Yet, Jesus was still obedient to the Father, and succeeded where Adam and Eve had failed, allowing all believers to live in peace with the Father for all of eternity.

I do believe these children are there now. Their families still go through incredible, incredible pain here. My heartbreak is with them. Why must they live the rest of their days here with this pain? I don’t know the answer to that. But I do believe they will see their child again. God says that every tear will be wiped away and I believe it. But they need people to surround them in love, not hate.

When terrible acts happen here, we don’t fight evil with more evil. We fight evil with love. What can we do to put more love into this world? We shouldn’t try to spear people with our words and our opinions. Because it is not flesh that we fight against.

When the noise gets loud over this tragedy around you, don’t add to the evil. When you hear people screaming about why God would allow such terrible things to happen, take them to the cross. Spread truth and life where death and lies live. Pray. Pray for mercy on our nation and our world.

There’s a true story that is not mine to share but someday I need to. It’s too long to put here but I hold that story up in my heart and bring it to mind in times like these. It reminds me that these children are safe. I believe that with my whole heart.

Love and pray for your enemies. When evil tries to knock you off your path, go right back to the cross. Hold Jesus’s sacrifice in your heart and remember Jesus’s words to the thief, “I tell you the truth, today you will be with Me in paradise.”

When you feel defeated

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Sometimes, we hope and pray so hard for something good, and it seems like the answer is no. What do we do? How do we move forward when things feel so hopeless.

“For My ways are not your ways”

“Father, if there is any other way, please take this cup…Your will be done.”

I’ve been in this place before and it’s one of the more unpleasant places. You put in all the hard work, were best suited for that promotion and it didn’t happen. You trained so hard for that race and your workouts were all showing you should be more than able to hit that goal, but race day comes and you fail miserably. Why did I even bother?

I remember going through some of the secondary infertility we experienced and feeling so hopeful going into a month that everything was done “right” only to stare in anger at yet another negative pregnancy test.

Sometimes it’s even bigger than that. Sometimes it’s in regards to laws and policies that leave you feeling completely gutted.

In all these situations, it felt like you did what you were supposed to do, but didn’t get the results. It’s hard to not feel like it’s a judgement of you personally. It’s hard to not be angry. It’s hard to not feel hopeless or wonder why you should put yourself out there emotionally ever again.

Take heart. Jesus was preaching in a corrupt Roman Empire. And word spread quickly of His teachings and His healing and He even was said to be the long awaited Messiah prophesied. People were full of hope. Hope that He, like Moses would lead the people out of oppression.

When He rode a donkey, people waved palms, fulfilling yet another prophesy. Yet He was murdered. Not only that but He was mocked and humiliated. Stripped down naked. The people who truly believed He was the Messiah must have wondered why He didn’t free Himself from the cross and end it all there. Instead, He allowed it to occur.

Can you imagine what the believers must have been feeling? I can. I can feel it. They were hopeless. It would seem that the naysayers were right all along. They were made out to be fools and conspiracy theorists. But this wasn’t the end of the story.

Jesus rose on the third day. And on the day of Pentecost was the birth of Christianity. A fire that still burns brightly today. The Bible is still the bestselling book of all time.

It’s hard not to feel dismayed, hopeless, broken or even humiliated when we think we’ve been defeated. I urge you to remember that the story is not over. Sometimes God is working something even bigger and better in our moments that feel like defeat.

Don’t give in to feeling hopeless. Sing praises and be joyful even in your suffering. The enemy wants us feeling broken and defeated. But we have a strength that they can’t take away.

Encourage each other. Get back up and joyfully do the work. Pray. Love. Rejoice in your sorrows and let the flame within you shine all the brighter. Laugh when you are mocked. Don’t allow yourself to be humiliated. Be brave like Daniel going into the flaming furnace, saying “even if God doesn’t get me out of this, He is still God!”

If you want to change the world, go home and love your family. Love your community. Love your enemy.

The split road

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I was out running with my dog this morning and suddenly he started acting strange. He’s always either running a bit in front of me or directly at my side. He’s never running behind me unless he’s taking a quick pee and then he sprints to catch up.

He was definitely trotting behind me. I called to him and yet he still kept back a bit. Puzzled, I started to look around. That’s when I saw it.

We were jogging down a long country road where you could see much more than a mile into the distance. Looking straight on you could see a cloudy sky, mostly heavy shades of vanilla. To the left, there was a wide open field and a mostly light sky and you could actually see the sun rays poking through the clouds. It looked beautiful and for some reason seeing rays of light poking through the clouds like that always makes me feel God’s presence.

The view to our right was another story. The sky was so dark it seemed nearly black. Heavy storm clouds were creating this ominous feeling. It was after looking at that sky that I noticed the strong wind.

I had checked the forecast before going out and there was a good chance of rain but I didn’t see any storms. It certainly looked like a storm and I figured it was scaring my dog.

I looked back to the left. Peaceful. Beautiful. Calm. I looked again to the right. Dark. Stormy. Frightening.

Suddenly I noticed I had picked up the pace. If I continued running forward, I’d eventually run away from that dark sky but it was going to take a while. What if a bad storm did come on suddenly when we were out here? I looked around. There were plenty of barns we could duck into.

I looked again at the rays of light poking through the clouds on my left and prayed quickly that He would keep us safe. I focused on that light and calm and I wasn’t afraid. When I looked at the dark sky and how much further I had to run, I felt more anxious.

I knew I needed to just trust and feel confident that things were under control. When I focused on the light, it was easier. When I focused on the dark, it was easy to let the fear creep in.

And isn’t this the way it is in life? When we focus on our fears, our doubts, our insecurities, the what if’s in life, that’s all we can see. How long till we out run the storm?

When we set our confidence on the light, we see all the safe places we can shelter if need be, but don’t focus on that too much. We keep going on, confident, and secure that our path is the right one and it’s going to get us where we need to be.

Eventually, it started raining and the wind started really blowing against us. I got my dog back to my side and encouraged him that it was ok. He seemed to do better knowing I was not afraid.

We made it back and there never ended up being any thunderstorms, just rain and wind.

But storms can happen any time so it’s best to be prepared for them. If they do catch you by surprise, know where to look to keep you safe and secure. Feel confident in the light.

Exodus part 3

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The first part of this post can be found here, and the second part here.

So we left off with God showing up to Moses in the fields he’s working for his father in law Jethro, a priest of many gods. Moses is married to Jethro’s daughter and they have two children. As far as we can tell, Moses is living a happy, simple life.

God says incredible things to Moses. He says that He’s heard the cries of His people and has compassion on them and plans to lead them out of slavery with Moses’s help. And how does Moses respond? Like a noble leader who is brave and ready and honored to do his part for the good of his people? No.

Moses basically tells God that he’s not up to the challenge and he comes up with plenty of excuses why he can’t do it.

And I have to wonder, even though Moses doesn’t SAY he is comfortable in his life and just doesn’t WANT to, if that’s more or less what was going on in his heart. And far be it for me to judge Moses for this. I can only try to imagine myself, while washing dishes one day hearing the voice of God telling me these things and thinking I wouldn’t respond the same way.

So it gets me back to what I really wanted to write about as the thoughts came together for me while reading in Exodus this time. How often are we unwilling to do what we should do because it seems overly burdensome in our comfortable lives we lead?

I know for me personally, several years ago I would NEVER have shared my thoughts on faith publicly because I was worried about the way I would be perceived by my peers. But sometimes we get to a place where we realize we have to speak out and believe that God will be with us when we do. This is also spiritual maturity. The story of Moses is also a great story that illustrates spiritual maturity.

So going back to Moses; To all his objections, God tells him that He will be with him. Yet Moses still resists. This kindles God’s anger.

How often have we been there? We feel this tugging in our soul. We KNOW that God wants us to do something that is for our good but we resist. We come up with excuses because it’s hard. For me, there are so many times in life I’ve been where Moses was. One time was when I knew I needed to read the Bible every day to grow spiritually but it seemed like I didn’t have the time. I had all these excuses. I don’t have more hours in my day now than I did back then, but I finally made reading in my Bible daily my priority.

There’s someone in my life that I won’t name that confessed they wanted to give up drinking. Not permanently but for a period of time to try to rid themselves of the crutch it had become. Yet, the night before they intended to give it up, they wanted to have a few drinks, and this was how I knew they weren’t serious. It’s why the sign “free beer tomorrow” is so funny. Because it’s easy to say you’re going to do something hard tomorrow but it’s hard to start today. I told this person if they felt they needed to remove alcohol as a spiritual road block, if they were serious, they would start today. By thinking you need “one last fix”, I don’t really believe someone’s heart is really prepared to let that thing go.

With the addiction that ruined the relationship I had with someone in my family I could very easily see this struggle. I honestly don’t think he wanted to be a slave to alcohol. Yet he could never seem to get to the point where he could put in the hard work today. The alcohol was too much of a comfort to him and even though God would be with him, he couldn’t let go of the bondage it kept him in.

So, again we go back to Moses. God is angry with him, but tells him that his brother Aaron can be the one to speak since one of Moses’s excuses was that he was a poor speaker. God also tells him that all the men that wanted to kill him for his murder of the Egyptian are now dead.

So Moses takes his wife and kids and starts heading back to Egypt. Here it gets interesting again. It says on the way that the Lord met Moses again and sought to kill him. Why??

Well, we see next in the text that Zipporah, his wife, took a sharp stone and cut off the foreskin of her son, and threw it at Moses feet and said, “Surely a bloody husband ART thou to me.” So God let Moses go, and then Zipporah says, “A bloody husband THOU ART.” Because of the circumcision.

The first time I read this, I was wondering what in the world was happening! I searched out some help online and think I understand it better today. I think it’s another example of where Moses was spiritually at this time.

It was already a custom among Israelites to circumcise their men. The book of Genesis talks about Circumcision of males by their 8th day of birth as part of the Abrahamic covenant with God. So the fact that Moses had moved off to Midian and had children there but had not circumcised his own son yet, seems like it became a problem.

We can’t tell from the text if God had told him to do this and Moses disobeyed or put it off or what. What we do see is that Moses’s disobedience was literally killing him. His wife, though not one of God’s people herself, was quick to act to save her husband by performing the Circumcision on her son. And her act did save Moses.

Sometimes our actions or inactions are so destructive to us that people outside our faith can plainly see it too. Moses had a long way to grow spiritually, but we can see throughout his life, God was with him, putting many people in his life (regardless of whether or not they were Israelites or not) that helped him along.