Devil with the Blue ‘Roos on By Sharon Lurie

© 2010 David's Harp and Pen

Mood: Sleepy

DISCLAIMERS: This blog is based, in part, upon actual events and people. Certain actions and characters have been dramatized and fictionalized, but are inspired by true events and real people. Certain other characters, events, and names used herein are entirely fictitious. Any similarity of those fictional characters or events to the name, attributes, or background of any real person, living or dead, or to any actual events is coincidental and unintentional. Therefore, I don’t want to hear any complaining from any child psychologists or people with adult-onset Peter Pan Syndrome who want to accuse me of emotionally scarring small children. Believe you me, the irreversible psychological trauma has been all mine.

*All Scripture quotations are and forevermore shall be from The Amplified Bible (I like my Scripture loud!)

“Maggie Rice: We fight for people's lives in here, right?
Jordan Ferris: Uh-huh.
Maggie Rice: Don't you ever wonder who it is we're fighting with?” City of Angels

Genesis 4:6-7 says, “And the Lord said to Cain, Why are you angry? And why do you look sad and depressed and dejected? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin crouches at your door; its desire is for you, but you must master it.” [emphasis added]

I am coming to the end of a long and challenging year. God has brought a lot of revelation and change to my life, and so naturally, Satan has followed suit to thwart everything God has done. Satan stoked the furnace seven times hotter (metaphorically speaking) upon my return to Nashville from New Jersey the last week of August. I got attacked in every area of my life in one fell swoop. Desperate to hear from God and regroup, I decided to head out to visit some friends, Bill and Trudy, at their ranch. They live way out in the sticks; their nearest neighbors are a pack of coyotes. In fact, friends and family from New Jersey who have been to the ranch with me before described the landscape as “barren wilderness.” I fully expected to spend the week in peace and quiet, spending my days in thoughtful reflection, Bible-reading, and prayer, hearing from God about my situation. I failed to remember, though, that when Jesus was led into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit, Satan was right there waiting for Him with temptations o’ plenty.

My friends have an eight-year-old son named Josiah. He is cute. He is loud. By his own proclamation, he is “redneck and proud.” Josiah likes to wander about in as little clothing as possible. In fact, his favorite duds are blue Underoos emblazoned with a veritable cornucopia of macho and virile superheroes. For those who’ve read my previous blogs, I don’t want to give the impression I don’t like children, because I do. I am a proud veteran of the day care, babysitter, Children’s Church, and Nursery circuit. Kids are wonderful, and should I ever marry, I want to have a whole litter of them. However, kids are better than probably anyone else at pushing buttons and unintentionally bringing out the worst in people.

Now before I go any further, I must explain. I have major sleep problems. I have had them ever since I was a kid. I have sleep apnea, for starters, and must sleep with a CPAP machine. Secondly, I have a terrible time with sleeping at night. All the sleeping pills and herbal supplements have been of no use. When I’m unable to sleep, and I force myself to stay up all day so that I can fall asleep at 9 or 10 PM, when 9 or 10 PM arrives, although I am exhausted, I still can’t fall asleep, and I end up being awake for 36 hours straight. I hope and pray some day this is not the case, but for now, my sleep situation is what it is, and so I must work around it. Josiah doesn’t see it that way.

My first night at the ranch, I couldn’t fall asleep until 5:30 AM. I woke up at 8 AM with the distinct impression the earth was shaking. Turns out I was wrong; it was ME who was shaking. Josiah, who was wearing nothing but his blue Underoos and a smile, had climbed into bed with me, shook me violently, and asked repeatedly, “When are you going to wake up, Sharon?”

I gently and lovingly explained to Josiah that I’d only gotten two and a half hours of sleep and that I would be happy to play with him when I woke up. He seemed agreeable to that and left the room. I laid back down and fell asleep around 8:30 AM. At approximately 8:35 AM, I awoke again to the sensation that I was at the epicenter of a monumental seismic disturbance. Once again, it was Josiah, this time jumping up and down on my sternum while using my cell phone to call Afghanistan. The tremors must’ve registered quite high on the Richter scale because Trudy, Josiah’s mom, came running into my room. She then pulled Josiah off of me, smacked his fanny, and told him sternly not to disturb me or come into my room uninvited if he knew what was good for him. I decided, as I usually do, that the problem was not with Josiah but with me, that if I was a normal person, I would be up during the daylight like the rest of the non-vampire population, and so I got dressed and attempted to enjoy my surroundings.

I went through the rest of the day in a zombie-like state. I found myself nodding off and blacking out. Trudy apologized again throughout the course of the day for Josiah’s behavior and gave me permission to yell, scream, smack, banish, and/or evaporate Josiah if he woke me up again. I assured her it wouldn’t be a problem. After all, since I’d been up all night and all day, I was sure I wouldn’t have any problem falling asleep that night.

Wrong again! I went to bed at 10 PM, and tossed and turned aimlessly until almost 7 AM. At precisely 7:20 AM, I awoke, startled, to the feeling of something small brushing up and down my thigh. When I opened my eyes, I noticed a large lump under my covers, burrowing about, in search of, I don’t know, the Holy Grail. I threw the covers off and, of course, the lump was a scantily-clad Josiah, asking again when I was going to get out of bed. I told him as nicely as I could that I needed to sleep more because I’d not slept the night before. He argued back that I shouldn’t sleep any more because “the sun is up.” Once again, a horrified Trudy rushed in, dragged Josiah away, and apologized profusely to me. As I tried to lay down again and go back to sleep, I heard Josiah in the background crying, “Sharon doesn’t love me! She hates me! She never plays with me! All she does is yell at me!”

Of course, none of that is true. I love Josiah. I tell him so all the time. I play with him when I’m awake. In fact, I think I’ve played with him when I’m asleep. I even looked the other way the first three times he cheated at Monopoly. Naturally, when I told him I wouldn’t play Monopoly with him any more because he cheated, he told me I was a big meanie and regrouped his campaign to deprive me of sleep.

Thus commenced the battle. I could not sleep at night my entire stay at the ranch. Every morning, as soon as I’d fall asleep, Josiah would barge in and wake me up. Since the doors didn’t have locks on them, my first tactic was to barricade the door. Josiah pushed right through, followed by a stern warning to me that I “better NOT tell Mom!” As soon as I’d return to sleep, he’d do it again. I felt so guilty not being able to play with him. Part of the time, I would tell myself it was my fault, that I should be awake during the day, and other times, I would rationalize and say that Josiah couldn’t help himself, he was just a sweet little boy, and I should just let it slide. The end result every time, though, was me getting more and more sleep-deprived and irritable. My rustic retreat to be alone with God was turning into a descent into Hell. I couldn’t leave early. I didn’t want to hurt my friends’ feelings, but something had to give, and soon.

During one of my last failed attempts to sleep, I got deep in thought. I began to rationalize again that there was something truly wrong with me because I couldn’t sleep at night. In fact, depending on the Christian circle in which one travels, Christians should never have to endure prolonged illness, insomnia, negative cash flow, or waiting of any kind. After all, nothing grows a person up spiritually like instant gratification! However, as I said before, my sleep trouble is what it is, and I had to deal with the crisis at hand, from right where I was, and hurt feelings or no hurt feelings, Josiah had to get the message from me once and for all that barging into my room and waking me up constantly was NOT cool!

The next morning, Josiah barged in again. At first, I merely pointed my finger several times for him to get out of my room, which he did. Two hours later, he woke me up again. This time, I screamed for him to get out. He let out a hearty, diabolical laugh, told me I was funny, and informed me he’d come into my room any time he felt like it. His mother yelled at him in the background for him to leave me alone, so he walked away, but he continued to laugh and mock me, and so I knew he’d be back. He’d taken off the kid gloves, and so would I.

Two hours later, just as I’d returned to sleep, in he barged, straight through my barricade. “Sharon!” Josiah yelled at the top of his lungs. “It’s time to…”

“Get out!” I yelled right back, cutting him off.

“But I just wanna…”

“Get! Out! Now!”

“Where’s your phone? You promised I…”

“Out!!!!”

“Sharon, you’re just a mean…”

I inhaled deeply, jumped out of bed, looked Josiah in the eyes, pushed him out the door, and as I slammed it shut, yelled with the fury of a hurricane-force wind, “GENUG!!!!!!!!” (Genug is Yiddish. It means ‘enough.’) In fact, I yelled it so loudly, not only did I scare Josiah, I gained the respect of the pack of coyotes next door.

I slept in peace the next day. And the next. As I pondered the strange turn of events that had unfolded on my intended sabbatical, I remembered the two things God had told me about temptation, and it suddenly all made sense.

As Jesus hung on the Cross and breathed His last, he cried out, “Genug!” (Well, no, He didn’t say “genug,” because Yiddish wasn’t invented yet, although it would’ve been cool had He said it.) He said something similar; namely, “It is finished.” His death broke the power and penalty of sin, and His Resurrection broke the power of the grave. Everything necessary to defeat the stronghold of sin in our lives, Jesus accomplished with the shedding of His blood. Satan, however, is a sore loser, and wants to keep his digs in, like a deadbeat tenant who won’t leave even though he’s received an eviction order.

So why do we so often lose the battle against temptation?

1. We don’t want to acknowledge to God, other people, or to ourselves that we are susceptible to certain temptations in any regard.

1 Corinthians 10:13 says, “For no temptation (no trial regarded as enticing to sin), [no matter how it comes or where it leads] has overtaken you and laid hold on you that is not common to man [that is, no temptation or trial has come to you that is beyond human resistance and that is not adjusted and adapted and belonging to human experience, and such as man can bear].” Satan tells us we’re a special case, though. He tells us no one struggles with that particular temptation except us, so we are somehow worse than everyone else and, therefore, beyond God’s help. He loves to play the shame game, and keep us quiet and isolated about our struggles, and so keep healing out of reach (James 5:16). I don’t like to admit my vulnerabilities any more than I like to admit that I have trouble sleeping at night, but I have to be honest about my sleep issues and propensity to sin so that I can be open to God’s solution.

2. Since temptation often presents itself through another person, we don’t resist as we should because we’re afraid to hurt that person’s feelings.

We’re told in 2 Corinthians 11:14, “Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light.” It’s safe for me to say Satan also masquerades himself as my best friend. My pastor. My boss. My boyfriend. My parents. Yes, Satan even masquerades himself as adorable eight-year-olds. If temptation, or discouragement and condemnation, for that matter, came through ugly, demonic-looking, Lord-of-the-Rings-y-type creatures or total strangers, they wouldn’t have the power they do. However, it was Judas, one of the Twelve Disciples, not a Pharisee, who betrayed Jesus, and it was Saul, not Goliath, who hunted David like a wild animal, and so the sting of the act was that much more intense. Because Satan often delivers his temptations and taunts through those we love and trust, we are that much more susceptible to him, and the consequences when we yield to those temptations and believe those lies are all the more horrifying.

If these are the reasons, then, that we fall prey to the Enemy, how do we stand firm in the future? In his book Waking the Dead, John Eldredge addresses three very important truths for all believers to inscribe on their brains.

1. Things are not what they seem. Sin and temptation, though they almost always appear fun and enticing, are, like insomnia, insanity-producing and death-dealing.
2. This is a world at war. Combat is the norm for every believer, and any Christian who says the Christian life should be absent of strife, trials, and temptation has never read 2 Corinthians 10 or Ephesians 6
3. Each of us has a crucial role to play. It’s because of that crucial role we all play that Satan plays dirty to keep us out of the game

James 4:7 says, “So be subject to God. Resist the devil [stand firm against him], and he will flee from you.” In other words, we fight the good fight by clinging closely to God and standing firm against Satan, no matter what form he may take, because we know his tricks, and he’ll take whatever form necessary to destroy us.

Not too long ago, I had coffee with a friend who really struggled with sexual purity. She complained a male co-worker kept coming on to her, and even though he frequently crossed the line, she didn’t have the heart to tell him to stop because she didn’t want to be mean to him and she liked the attention. I looked at her and asked, “Is your vanity worth your purity?”

Nothing is worth my purity, or my sanity, or my identity in Christ. I will no longer be afraid to tell friends or family no if I think they’re asking me to do or believe something that I know is displeasing to God. We can’t be afraid to say no. We can’t be afraid to admit we’re weak. We can’t be afraid to hurt peoples’ feelings, even if they’re cute and cuddly and eight and don’t know any better. Josiah was crouching at my door. Sin crouched at Cain’s door. Satan crouches at all our doors, seeking whom he may devour (1 Peter 5:8). When he knocks on our door, in clever disguise, and tries to barge his way in, let’s stand firm, resist, and say in the authority Jesus’ shed blood has given us, “GENUG!!!!!!!!”

The End

Milk!!!!!!

Prayer Is...

© 2010 David’s Harp and Pen

Foundational
the vehicle through which I first knew Him
the primary means by which I know Him now
His pipeline to restore my soul
His medium to reveal His will for my life and His delight in my soul

Freedom
God’s Word in real time that gives me the means to move forward
where I receive forgiveness for myself and where I forgive others, the starting point for healing
the eternal battlefield in which, having already received the surety of God’s promises, I am empowered and rise up to possess the Promised Land and fight for those in captivity who cannot fight for themselves

Foreshadowing
asking for and listening to in secret the great wonders that God will do in the open
practicing as I do spiritual battle in the Spirit for the day when I shall rule and reign in Heaven
touching the Father’s Heart and feeling His Spirit in mine to prepare for when I see Him face to face, made to be like Him, and behold Him as He really is

On the Mend

© 2010 David’s Harp and Pen

Mood: Grateful

DISCLAIMER

This blog is based, in part, upon actual events and people. Certain actions and characters have been dramatized and fictionalized, but are inspired by true events and real people. Certain other characters, events, and names used herein are entirely fictitious. Any similarity of those fictional characters or events to the name, attributes, or background of any real person, living or dead, or to any actual events is coincidental and unintentional, so I don’t want any complaints from any multi-level marketers and I especially don’t want to get any grief from Charismatics, Pentecostals, Word of Faithers, or Name-It-and-Claim-Its who want to accuse me of not walking in faith. I most certainly am walking in faith. That’s why the majority of you are still alive.

I woke up one morning in the summer of 2002 to find my wrists in terrible pain. I was a waitress at the time, so I chalked it up to a very busy evening the night before. After two weeks, the pain grew progressively worse. One evening, while in my car, I reached below the front passenger’s seat to pick up the keys I had just dropped. As soon as I closed my fingers around them, a pain akin to 1000 Cutco knives being driven into me shot through my wrist, causing me to drop the keys again. I determined this wasn’t normal and made an appointment to see the doctor. The doctor prescribed painkillers but was initially baffled about the cause of the pain. I prayed it was a short-term condition. Besides my restaurant job, I had just opened my own detective agency and pulled in $4000 my first month in business, so I didn’t want any sort of physical problems to slow me down.

By the time Christmas rolled around, I had to quit my serving job because I couldn’t lift the trays. Around the spring of 2003, a new host of symptoms had reared their ugly heads: hot flashes, dizzy spells, mood swings, panic attacks, insomnia, and unexplainable, and rapid weight gain, along with other symptoms that, for a woman, are very bad, and let’s just leave it at that. Multiple trips to various doctors ensued, but no one seemed to have any answers for me. I had to wear hard braces on my hands and wrists all the time. There were days I couldn’t get out of bed, and other days when my hands and wrists hurt so much, I couldn’t even do simple things like work a fork and knife or move the gearshift on my car.

During that season, I learned an unspoken rule among Christians: it is a sin to be sick for longer than a week. What started with well-meaning concern and promises to stand in faith with me quickly morphed into accusations of secret sin and/or lack of faith on my part. Questions like, “Why aren’t you healed yet?” and “Where’s your faith?” used to drive me up a wall. Comments to imply I wasn’t trying hard enough or was making my physical condition out to be worse than it was made me feel condemned and alone.

My condition, both physical and emotional, continued to decline quickly. I eventually had to give up my business because I didn’t have the presence of mind any more to do it. I tried every diet in the world to lose the unwanted weight, but had no success with any of them, and attempts at regular exercise also proved futile. The doctor diagnosed me with a hormonal disorder which, because it had gone undiagnosed for such a long time, had become debilitating. The doctor prescribed a lot of medication, but all of it was to treat symptoms, not to really cure anything. The research I did said there was no cure, nor was there any explanation as to the cause of the disease. Doctors and women I knew told me point blank, “Sharon, if your hormones are screwed up, then all of you is screwed up.” For the first time in my life, I faced a crisis that I had no idea how to fix.

I quickly became non-functional. I felt as if I was walking around in a fog most of the time. The simplest things, like doing laundry or dishes, took all my emotional energy, and even the smallest inconveniences caused major crying fits. One of the hardest parts of dealing with the illness was what it did to how I viewed my value as a woman. I used to be a dish! I had a cute figure, cute clothes, and loved to dress up as often as I could. When I started to have hot flashes all the time, any make-up or hair styling products I used would lose their hold and streak down my face. I had to wear baggy everything, and there were days when the hot flashes were so bad, I had to carry rolls of paper towels with me everywhere to soak up the sweat.

Hope seemed fleeting. I got to where I was on 17 different medications. I was exhausted and grumpy all the time. No matter how cold it might be outside, I always felt like I was trapped inside the earth’s core. I was having dizzy spells constantly and so was put on driving restrictions. I dieted as hard as I could and exercised even when I didn’t feel like it, but none of it made a dent in my weight. The doctor even told me near the end of 2007 that almost all the women with my condition experience the rapid weight gain like I did and that I would probably be hefty for the rest of my life. As a single woman, that was the last thing I wanted to hear, but it hit so hard that I simply gave up hope, abandoned all the unsuccessful diets. If no amount of dieting was going to help me, I was just going to eat what I wanted.

I’ve faced many challenges and had to walk through a lot of adversity in my life, and honestly, I’ve never had a problem with it if I thought it was something ordained by God to produce character in me. The hardest times of my life were those things I faced which I thought were punishment from God for things I thought I had done wrong, because the condemnation I would feel was crippling. After that first year of being sick, and especially when I applied for disability, a lot of well-meaning but misinformed people, both Christian and non-Christian, pointed their fingers solely at me to blame for my physical and emotional state. “It’s a sin to be depressed.” “It’s never God’s will for His children to be sick.” “You better make sure you’ve examined yourself thoroughly to make sure there’s no unconfessed sin in your life.” Every time I would hear any of these comments, I would beat myself up internally, blaming myself for not trying hard enough. It was a vicious cycle that lasted for five years.

In fact, I’ve heard so many excuses for my sickness, I’m beginning to think I’ve heard them all. Here are some examples (and, of course, my response to them):

“You’re sick because you have sin in your life.” That’s always been my favorite. “Sin in my life” has also been the reason I’m not married, I’ve had financial problems, relationship conflicts, etc. I loved something a former pastor of mine said. His wife and he had struggled with fertility problems for years. One day, someone said to them, “Do you think maybe the reason you don’t have kids yet is because you’ve got sin in your life?” My pastor replied, “There’s a whole world out there full of people, evil people. Murderers, traitors, thieves, etc.. and they are having babies left and right with no problems at all. So, if having kids is dependent on how much sin I have in my life, I should have a whole slew of children by now!” Jesus said in John 16:33, “In this world, you will have trouble.” That’s as much a bankable promise of God as, “By His Stripes, we are healed.” However, when sickness strikes, we’re always surprised, and we want to place blame on the sick person.

“You’re sick because of the medication.” That one always confused me the most. After the second year of being diagnosed, friends started to say they were sure, they had even heard from God, that my illness was because of the medication I was taking. They said with great urgency that all these medications were polluting my body with toxic chemicals and making me depressed. Some of them would even make trite comments such as, “You don’t need all these pills because Jesus is your medicine.” I explained to all of them, and to some of them multiple times, that I had dealt with all of the symptoms for at least a year or so before I had started on any medication, and since being on the medication, I had experienced no side effects from anything I was taking. That didn’t matter, because they all knew without a doubt that it was the medication that was screwing me up. I worked for a Christian ministry for a while, and I remember testimony after testimony from co-workers that would go something like this: “I didn’t feel well, so I went to the doctor. He said I have Crazy Man Disease and prescribed 500 mg of Cur-i-tol every day, but I don’t need no pills because Jesus is going to heal me!” I would listen to that and think, “Well, if Jesus is going to heal you, why’d you bother going to see a doctor in the first place?” For someone to say they don’t need medication, in my mind, is like someone saying they never need food because Jesus is the Bread of Life. Yeah, I could last 40 days tops with no food, but not much longer.

I was a Name-It-and-Claim-It person for a long time, and I cringe at the thought of things I said, did, and believed because I thought, number one, since I was a Christian I was entitled to the whole world and a bag of chips and, number two, if I ever uttered anything “negative,” such as “I’m sick” or “I’m tired,” I was giving Satan absolute power to make my life a living hell.

“You’re sick because you don’t want your healing badly enough.” This was the most hurtful to me, in light of all the different things I’d tried, the multitude of different doctors I’d seen, and the tens of thousands of dollars I spent on various treatments. I lived with a Christian couple for a few months a few years back. The wife was in a wheelchair and was on scads of medications herself, yet she was so hard on me about the medications I took and the physical struggles I had. She would say things like I relied on the medication too much, that I didn’t need to sleep as much as I did, and part of my problem was I didn’t want to deal with the spiritual issues that were affecting my health. She even went so far as to say that people who take too many medications are opening themselves up to demonic influence, and that demons actually get high from those medications. So, again, it was all put back on me. Not only did I have to have enough faith, live completely sin-free, and eat a diet of nothing but tree bark and mineral water, I had to make sure I had the right amounts of “want” to be healed.

“You’re sick because you haven’t tried the amazing (fill in the blank) which, if you’re one of the first 100 callers, you can have for the amazingly low price of $999.99 plus shipping and handling.” The tenure of my illness has seen countless fad miracle cures come and go. The vast majority of these quick fixes are only available through some multi-level pyramid-marketing scheme. Now, I’ve been in church long enough to know that churches are breeding grounds for these direct sales companies, just like churches are breeding grounds for gluttony, gossip, and male-pattern baldness. In my years as a believer, I have been hit up for just about everything from direct marketing people in church: Amway, Excel Long Distance, Avon, Mary Kay, Pampered Chef, Pre-paid Legal, you name it. In recent days, the latest direct marketing trend in churches is health and wellness products. It’s always something really exotic, something only that company sells, and something very expensive, although the sellers will always ask, “Can you really put a price on your health?” I usually reply, “Well, you can; and you have. $999.99, to be exact!” Of course, none of the expensive things I tried, like the berry cream, or the powdered pomegranates, or the yam juice, or the super-duper industrial grade vitamins, did me one bit of good, and when I would say, “This isn’t helping me,” I would be told the fault laid not in the product but in my attitude! I still remember the last time I bought one of these products. It also seems nowadays that I’m not even allowed to purchase one of these products without attending one of the company’s sales recruiter meetings. Everyone there was a Christian, of course, and the speaker spoke of the values and virtues of these finely ground mushrooms that only grew in a remote part of the Congo, and when the distributors pitched the product, they should tell their customers that these ‘shrooms were everything that was good and wholesome, just like Jesus! My blood pressure spiked at that moment, not only because of the sacrilege, but because I had also heard that same sales pitch for every other direct marketed product any church person had ever tried to sell me. Jesus is not just like Amway, and for God’s sakes, Jesus is NOT just like Mary Kay! I turned to the person who brought me to the meeting and asked, “Did your director just compare the King of Kings, Lord of Lords, and Savior of the Universe to a South African fungus?” I’ll be honest. When I hear Christians pitching these products with more evangelistic fervor than the Gospel and putting Jesus on the same plane as their vitamin pills, I often daydream of grabbing them by the throat, putting them in a rear naked choke, and whispering in their ears, “Don’t you EVER cheapen my Jesus like that again!”

And yet, in spite of the list of causes given to me by others, my sickness continued. In fact, things got about as bad as they were going to get last year. I had been diagnosed with sleep apnea, but even with aid of a CPAP machine, my sleep was erratic at best, and I missed an inordinate amount of work because I kept having dizzy spells. In the beginning of the year, the woman I’d lived with, the one who’d been in a wheelchair, passed away. When I went to her memorial service, I heard testimony after testimony from her friends and family, praising her as a pillar of faith and perseverance. Everyone loved her and looked up to her, and unlike me, it didn’t seem like anyone pinned her health issues or seemingly early death on unconfessed sin or a lack of faith on her part. She had all the faith in the world, right up to the very end, that God was going to heal her in this life and raise her out of that chair. I, on the other hand, didn’t have much faith for anything. It was at that moment that Satan first whispered in my ear concerning my health, “It should’ve been you, Sharon. Not her.”

In May, I had my annual physical. Some test results came back abnormal, so I had further tests, which also produced abnormal results. For reasons I still don’t understand, there was a fight between my doctor and the diagnostic center about getting me the necessary follow-up to find out what was wrong, and if something was wrong, it could’ve meant cancer. I had gotten to the point where I was tired of the questions and looks of disapproval from some friends and family members who insisted my health issues were all my fault; so, in the beginning, I didn’t tell anyone. I told God, if I did have cancer, not only was I ready to go, but I wanted to go. It turned out I was fine, but the condemnation I felt over the never-ending health issues only grew. I couldn’t turn off the voices in my head that told me I was sick because I had no faith, I was sinful, I looked to medicine instead of God, blah, blah, blah. I then made a very dangerous decision. I went off all medication at once, and stayed off it all summer. Because of that foolish decision, I then drifted into almost complete non-functionality.

In June, I started taking college classes online. It was all I could to keep up with them, but I was determined to show God and everyone else that I was serious about being normal and healthy. In July, I went to Chicago for a church conference. I missed a lot of the sessions because I felt miserable, but I didn’t want to let on about it. The week I spent there, I met some of the most deliciously godly and gorgeous single men ever to grace the face of planet Earth, some with whom I still correspond. Despite how bad I felt physically and mentally, I had the time of my life with those guys. Up until 10 years ago, boys were completely off my radar, but when I met some of those guys in Chicago, that changed. When I went home from the conference, though, and got back to dealing with the daily challenges of my health issues, I got discouraged again. What guy in his right mind would want to be with a woman with chronic fatigue, over the top mood swings, and hot flashes that keep her in a perpetual pool of sweat?

I started school again in September, but my sleep and fatigue issues got much worse. I had to quit my job and drop out of school because I couldn’t keep up. I had been awarded disability, so at least I had something to live on. I gave up regular exercise because it completely drained me. My short-term memory really began to suffer as well. Around that time, I began my two blogs. I remember one Sunday going for a hike with my editor, Peter. As much fun as I had, I was exhausted for the next two days, sleeping away one of them completely. I would have discussions with him on the phone, and then have to call back later to ask him if the conversations really happened or if I just imagined them. That’s how tired and confused I was at the time.

Around October, I went for another sleep test. During that time, one of my girlfriends said she heard from God that my problem was my diet and that fact that I often ate after 9 PM, and if I just ate right and before 9 at night, I’d be fine. A gentleman friend emailed me to say his cousin had sleep apnea but found diet and exercise kept it from getting too bad. He then asked me if I ever tried eating right and exercising regularly. And really, I know people mean well when they say such things, but making common sense suggestions to someone who’s been chronically ill for a long time comes off as patronizing and only makes the person feel worse. When my good-intentioned friends said these things, I thought, “Okay, how many people do I know who eat like pigs all the time and at all hours of the night and get no exercise besides lifting and putting down the remote control who don’t even deal with a fraction of the health concerns I deal with?” The last straw was when I met with a mentor who I’d not seen in almost a year. She said she was concerned because I always had my hair in pigtails. She said it didn’t look feminine or lady-like. I told her I’d given up on doing my hair because of the sweating problem. She said, “Oh, well, you just need to go to a hairdresser to find an easy cut or style that works for you.” I thought to myself, “Do you know how many hairdressers I’ve been to, how many different styles I’ve tried, and it all ends up the same? I do my hair, I put any number of styling products in it, and when the hot flashes and sweating spells come, my hair-do is reduced to ruin.”

I had had enough. I didn’t want to try anymore. All my dreams of becoming something I abandoned because I thought I’d never be or feel well again. About the only goal in life I had left at that point was to possibly get a disease named after me. I couldn’t handle the blame from my friends that all that wrong with me physically and psychologically was all my fault. I was tired of doing everything I was told by every friend, relative, medical doctor, natural medicine doctor, chiropractor, faith healer, and whack job and still not getting any results. One night, I started crying, after having spent the whole day in bed. I didn’t want to talk to God, because I was sure that out of everyone, no one could’ve been more displeased with me than He was. However, I had the feeling that if I didn’t talk to Him then with complete honesty, things weren’t going to get any better.

I prayed, “God, for the last five years, I have prayed for You to heal me and given various reasons as to why You should heal me, because I’ve lived my life right, because I’m completely doubt free, because I never ate or drank anything I shouldn’t have, because I exercised like I was supposed to, because my confessions were always right on the money, because I wanted my healing badly enough. None of that has made a difference. Here I am, five years of my life wasted, and I still feel completely miserable. Maybe I’ve been wrong. Maybe I don’t have to prove to You that through my words, actions, and attitudes, I’ve met all Your requirements and deserve to be healed. Maybe it’s not all up to me. I mean, my salvation wasn’t about me proving how worthy I was for You to grant it to me. You did it because You loved me. It was all about You. Maybe my physical healing isn’t about me wanting it badly enough but all about the finished work of Christ on the Cross. I couldn’t make my way up to You to save me, and I’m not going to try to make my way up to You to heal me physically. I really need You to come down here and meet me on my level, God. And I’m not going to plead and argue with You any more like a lawyer, trying to show You all this proof that I’ve done my due diligence, dotted all my ‘i’s and crossed all my ‘t’s and so that’s why You should heal me. The only thing I have, God, the only plea I can come to You with is this: please heal me, God, because I’m Your baby, and Your baby’s in trouble!” I cried myself to sleep and slept restlessly, but something significant happened during that prayer.

In the weeks following that night, relief finally came in short order. It was indeed a miracle cure, but it wasn’t something obvious, and when I told people about it, most people didn’t believe me. There was a new treatment on the horizon, and through God’s grace, I finally found a local doctor who was both willing to treat me and took my insurance. I had tried a lot of different treatments through the years, but for some reason, this time I thought it would be different. The doctor said she wasn’t sure how long it would take before I noticed any results, but she was confident that, if I stuck with it, I could be totally well, off all the other medication, and completely well within six months to a year.

The heat was really on. Before I could start the new treatment, I had a set of horrible symptoms for 15 straight days. By day 13, I was exhausted, badly anemic, and thought I’d gone completely insane. I went hiking that day with Peter and some other friends, but because of my weakened condition, I couldn’t climb the hill. I told God that day that if He healed me, I would return to that hill and climb the whole thing.

The day finally came when I could start the treatment. I didn’t see any results the first two days, and I began to struggle with the possibility that I was going to be disappointed again. It turned out I wouldn’t have to wait long, though. On the third day, the hot flashes and sweating stopped. By day 5, the horrible fog I’d been in for five years began to lift. In the first week, the depression and mood swings stopped. After two months, I had lost 31 pounds and was able to return to work. Each day, I noticed I had a little more energy. More importantly, I also noticed I had a little more hope.

I have wondered in recent days why I had to wait five years to find the cure. I think one reason may be so that God could grow compassion in me. People shouldn’t be afraid to admit they struggle with anything, least of all their health. We in Charismatic circles tend to jump all over those who admit they have problems of any kind, and we talk as if it’s all up to our faith. I know several times Jesus said to sick people, “Your faith has made you well.” But it’s not all about our faith. People have lots of faith for things that never materialize. It’s all about Jesus’ finished work on the Cross that we have anything good in this life at all.

Now that I am on the mend, I have been reflecting a lot on Luke 17 and story of the 10 Lepers. Jesus healed 10 men of leprosy. Of the ten, only one came back to thank Him, and that man was a Samaritan. Back in that day, Samaritans were considered the lowest of the low, half-breeds, unloved by man and by God. I’m sure Jews who learned of what Jesus did probably thought that Samaritan man wasn’t worthy of healing. I feel so much like that Samaritan leper. I’ve always been the oddball in the circles in which I’ve run, and over the years, I’ve been told all I’ve done to NOT deserve to be healed. Jesus healed me anyway, though, even though my faith at times was so weak, and I was so angry, and I would regularly eat twice my body weight in T.G.I. Friday’s brownie obsessions. Jesus still had mercy on me, and because of that, I want my response to be that of the Samaritan: extravagant praise, wholehearted worship, and the drive to follow God and proclaim His goodness to everyone I can. Too many people put faith not in God, but in their own faith, and when they do receive their healing (or whatever it is they’re looking for), they go back to living their lives for themselves, under the false impression that God is no more than a genie to keep them well and wealthy. That line of thinking is too small for me. God is not my genie. He is my very life, and my health and welfare are only for building His kingdom, not my own. I am finally on the mend, and for all my pleading and demanding of God in the past, now that I’m getting well, I know the only proper response is humble gratitude.

A few weeks ago, I returned to that hill and climbed it. It wasn’t a quick process. As I did, I thought of how much more I enjoyed the climb because I took my time. I also thought about all the people in my life who had helped and encouraged me over the last five years: the friends who let me call them in the middle of the night when I was having a panic attack or feeling suicidal, the leaders at my church who poured all sorts of time and money into me, the doctors who worked hard and studied extensively trying to find answers for me. The view from the top of the hill is incredible, and I’m all the better for having climbed it, instead of it being moved for me.

THE END

Milk!!!!!!!

Bringing up Baby

© 2010 David’s Harp and Pen

Mood: Hopeful

DISCLAIMER

This blog is based, in part, upon actual events and people. Certain actions and characters have been dramatized and fictionalized, but are inspired by true events and real people. Certain other characters, events, and names used herein are entirely fictitious. Any similarity of those fictional characters or events to the name, attributes, or background of any real person, living or dead, or to any actual events is coincidental and unintentional, so I better not hear from Child Protective Services, Child Psychologists, or any parents. I’m all for preventing child abuse, but what about the too often ignored epidemic of babysitter abuse? When the little girl I watch throws my cell phone in the toilet, smacks me in the face because I had the audacity to make her sit in her car seat, or pounces on my stomach right after I’ve eaten lunch, who’s going to stand up for poor, defenseless me?

Children have always been drawn to me, except, of course, when I was a child. When I unexpectedly had to go back to work this year after having to take a break from school, the only job I could get was babysitting a small child during the day. I must admit that part of me is jealous of the kid. Some days, I wish I could get away with anything simply because I was little and cute. I think the main reason God allows children under the age of eight to be so cute is to prevent their parents from killing them when they are naughty. Should I ever have children of my own, I pray that they be ugly so I will not have trouble disciplining them. Being a small child also allows one to have mood swings for which someone my age would be declared schizophrenic and thus institutionalized. Of course, there is also the lesser-publicized benefit of being given exorbitant amounts of candy whenever the kid takes a trip to the bank, mall, or doctor’s office. Best of all, not only are midday naps perfectly acceptable, they are also greatly encouraged.

Before taking the job, I had been praying to God about growing in Christian maturity. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 13:1, “When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; now that I have become a man, I am done with childish ways and have put them aside.” Jesus said in Matthew 18:4, “Whoever will humble himself therefore and become like this little child [trusting, lowly, loving, forgiving] is greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” When I read these passages, I got the sense that the Word condemned childishness but encouraged childlikeness. Hence began my little journey to discover the difference.

I decided that perhaps the best place to begin when attempting to understand the difference between childishness and childlikeness is to define the two words. So I looked them up in Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary. ,

According to Merriam Webster, childish has three definitions:

”of, relating to, or befitting a child or childhood, marked by or suggestive of immaturity and lack of poise; childish: lacking complexity: simple; deteriorated with age especially in mind”

Merriam Webster also describes childlike as “resembling, suggesting, or appropriate to a child or childhood; especially: marked by innocence, trust, and ingenuousness.”

While I certainly found those definitions helpful, I realized I needed help applying them to my life, so I began to ask the Lord to help me understand the difference between the two. God, the great Canadian Comedian that He is, decided I would best learn this in the form of daily object lessons from the children placed in my care.

CHILDISHNESS

I must admit: this job has been more challenging than I thought it would be. Most days, I just have the one kid to watch, but some days, I have her brother and sister, too. One of my greatest frustrations is the competitiveness among the three. Their house has four bathrooms, three televisions, three large pieces of living room furniture, three brand-spanking new state-of-the-art video game systems, and two computers. However, all three kids have to be using the same (fill in the blank) at the same time. For example, if they all have to go to the bathroom at the same time, they will fight to use the same bathroom. Despite the abundance of cushy couches, not only will they have to be on the same couch at the same time, they have to be sitting on the same couch cushion at the same time. The other day, when I had to drive the three of them someplace, they fought over who would get into my car first, even though my car has four doors, which allowed each of the kids to enter the car at the same time with their very own door. The competitiveness is such that, if I were allowed to spank them, they would fight over which of them would get the honor to be spanked first. What’s worse is they will fight over something even if they have each have identical items. This happens mostly around mealtime. They often eat pizza for dinner, but no matter how evenly I slice the pizza, and even in light of the fact that I give them slices from the same pizza, they fight because they think somehow one of the other ones got a superior slice.

This was the first of childish behaviors God pointed out to me. Childishness questions the goodness of the Father and believes God shows partiality among His children based on silly, irrational whims, or that He would want to withhold His best from us for no apparent reason. Ephesians 6:9 says, “You masters, act on the same [principle] toward them and give up threatening and using violent and abusive words, knowing that He Who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and that there is no respect of persons (no partiality) with Him.” Jesus also tells us in Matthew 7:11, “If you then, evil as you are, know how to give good and advantageous gifts to your children, how much more will your Father Who is in heaven [perfect as He is] give good and advantageous things to those who keep on asking Him!” This isn’t to say that God won’t at times give something to one and withhold that same thing to another, but that is only because, since we are all in different places with God and stages in our spiritual growth, what is beneficial to one person at a certain time might be detrimental to another. However, one thing that doesn’t change is God wants His best for all of His children, and though His best may mean different things to different people, He never holds back what will be the most beneficial to each of His individual children.

Another example of childishness is conditional obedience. Jed, the boy in the family is a master negotiator. I foresee a successful future for him in law. Most of the time, when I ask something of him, the conversation goes something like this:

“Jed, pick up all these toys and put them away,” I’ll say.

“I’ll only pick up the toys that are mine,” he’ll respond.

“No, you played with all of them, so you have to put all of them away.”

“But Lexi played with all of them, too, and she doesn’t have to put any of them away.”

“It doesn’t matter what your sister does or doesn’t do. You have to do what I tell you, or you’re going to bed.”

“I won’t pick up the toys unless Lexi helps me.”

“Okay, then. You’re going to bed right now.”

“If you’re sending me to bed right now, I’m going to put a DVD on to watch while I fall asleep.”

“Oh no you’re not! You’re going straight to bed with no DVD.”

“Alright, but I’ll have to have milk and cookies first!”

“No! No milk and cookies, no DVD, no room service. Don’t you understand that going to bed early is punishment for disobedience?”

“But I’ve been a good boy!”

“No you haven’t. I told you to clean up the toys and you refused!”

“Yes, but I stopped choking the cat when you told me to, and I’ve been good because I didn’t hit you all day yesterday.”

“Not doing something you weren’t supposed to anyway doesn’t get you out of doing what you’re supposed to do, and that’s why I’m sending you to bed!”

“But you wouldn’t have to send me to bed if I didn’t have to clean up all those toys!”

“Don’t argue with me, Boy! It’s total obedience or you pay the piper!”

“Well what if I only clean up my toys, and I go to bed with cookies, but no milk?”

“Do I look like a car salesman to you? This is not a negotiation! I don’t offer options packages. You either do everything you’re told, or you’ll totally be punished!”

“Okay, I’ll clean up all my toys and go to bed with no DVD or milk or cookies. But only if I get to hit you first.”

“That’s it! Not only will you clean up all these toys, not only will you go to bed early with no snacks and no DVDs, but I’m going to ship you off to the Supernanny lady on TV!”

The Bible makes it clear that obedience is immediate and total. Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 8:3, “But if one loves God truly [with affectionate reverence, prompt obedience, and grateful recognition of His blessing], he is known by God [recognized as worthy of His intimacy and love, and he is owned by Him]” (Emphasis added). Moses wrote in Exodus 15:26, “If you will diligently hearken to the voice of the Lord your God and will do what is right in His sight, and will listen to and obey His commandments and keep all His statutes, I will put none of the diseases upon you which I brought upon the Egyptians, for I am the Lord Who heals you” (Emphasis added). In fact, the issue of total obedience is reiterated in the Books of Moses six more times. In God’s eyes, delayed and partial obedience are the same things as disobedience.

The last major facet of childishness God pointed out to me was self-sufficiency, not the good kind that makes a person take responsibility for himself, but the prideful kind that desires to look and be in control all the time to the point that one cannot admit his need for help or that he has weakness of any kind. McKenzie, Jed’s other sister, refused to brush her teeth for the longest time. Her breath got so noxious that, if she stood too close to me while she spoke, my skin would start to peel. Many heated arguments ensued, and what usually ended up happening was I would have to physically carry her to the bathroom, hold her down and her mouth open with one hand, and brush her teeth for her with the other. She would scream and cry and try to hit me each time I did it. I finally pinned her down one day and wouldn’t let her go until she told me why she didn’t want to brush her teeth. She told me it was because the flavoring of the particular brand of toothpaste her family used burned the inside of her mouth. So, we switched to a different brand of toothpaste, and it was no longer a problem. I asked McKenzie why she didn’t just say in the beginning the toothpaste flavoring was the reason she didn’t want to brush her teeth. She said she didn’t say anything because she didn’t want to look stupid, especially since her brother and sister were able to use that toothpaste without any problems. I told her, though, that she looked a lot stupider throwing a temper tantrum every time she had to brush her teeth than coming out and admitting she had trouble with the toothpaste. That is so much like most of us, however. In our attempts to look like we’re in control, that we don’t have any problems, that we don’t need anything, we do things that only cause us to look out of control and needy. Jesus stated plainly in John 15:5 that apart from Him we can do nothing, and a major part of allowing God’s power to work in us is admitting our need and weakness apart from Him.

CHILDLIKENESS

Since I am not permitted to spank McKenzie, Jed, or Lexi, I must devise creative, non-corporal methods of persuasion. I learned early on one of the most effective threats I can make, no matter where we are or what we’re doing, is to leave them alone. For example, if I’m out in public with Jed, and he refuses to do something I’ve told him, even if he just told me he hated me, if I threaten to leave him behind or leave him alone, he will panic and scream, then tell me he’ll do whatever I ask. For little kids, there is no feeling worse than being abandoned by a parent or parental figure.

Part of Biblical childlikeness is the revelation that close communion with the Father is the greatest thing on earth, and there is no one or thing worth being separated from Him for even a second. King David, who had more worldly wealth, possessions, and accomplishments than most of us ever will, nailed it when he said in Psalm 84:2,10, “My soul yearns, yes, even pines and is homesick for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh cry out and sing for joy to the living God. For a day in Your courts is better than a thousand [anywhere else]; I would rather be a doorkeeper and stand at the threshold in the house of my God than to dwell [at ease] in the tents of wickedness.”

Jed spends a lot of time in time out. In fact, to really drive home whatever point I’m trying to make with him, I make him spend time out in his old crib. The vertical bars on the crib give that nice, prison cell feel, so much so, that time out is now referred to as ‘Jed Jail.’ However, as much as he hates punishment, as much as he’ll say every hateful and hurtful thing he can think of to me to get me to commute his sentence, when time out is over, he will run to me and hug me, because he wants to know that he is forgiven. Then he will ask me to help him with whatever got him in trouble in the first place so that he won’t get in trouble again.

Often, whether I consciously decide this or not, when I’ve messed up, I stay in that prison cell long after my sentence is finished. I will scheme and strategize how to clean myself up and better myself so when I approach the Father again, I can successfully argue why I am now worthy of forgiveness, that I’ve corrected my own mistakes, and am therefore now able to resume my relationship with Him. However, like Jed does as soon as he’s finished his jail time, the arms of the Father should be the first place I run. Another important component of childlikeness is to run to Him first and quickly when I’ve sinned, when I’m in need, when I hurt. In the story of the Prodigal Son in the Book of Luke, once the prodigal realized how badly he had messed up his life, how far he had fallen from who he was meant to be, he went straight to his father.

Ever since I became a Christian back in 1987, I have longed to grow in my relationship with God and get to the place Peter talks about when he said, “You will be mature and complete, lacking in nothing.” Back in November, I was upset with myself because I felt like I wasn’t making the progress I should. One night, I was talking to a girlfriend who had spent many years working in a women’s prison. She said many of the inmates had atrocious childhoods. One prisoner, at eight years old, witnessed her mother violently murdered. Even though the woman was now in her early 30s, she was emotionally never more mature than a little girl. My friend said she noticed with these women in the prison that, however old they were when the traumatic events in their lives transpired, that was the emotional age they stayed at as they got older. My friend’s words gnawed at me long after our conversation ended. I knew what she said applied to me. As far as my spiritual and emotional growth were concerned, I too felt like I was ‘stuck.’ Even though I was 35, I was still responding to the people around me and the circumstances that befell me in downright childish ways. At that time, I couldn’t pinpoint where exactly I had gotten stuck, or what I needed to do to fix the problem.

My heart was heavy with my lack of emotional and spiritual maturity as I began Thanksgiving Day 2009, and the events of the day didn’t help to improve my outlook. I went to a large Thanksgiving dinner at my Life Group leaders’ home, and in front of everyone, I experienced a wardrobe malfunction of mythic proportions. I felt self-conscious and silly for the rest of the day, even though I’m sure no one except me remembers my little clothing snafu. My mood grew progressively worse as the day wound down. Towards the end of the day, I tried to be of service to a girlfriend, but instead of being helpful, I succeeded only in being annoying. From the time I began to drive home on Thursday night well into Friday night, I bawled my eyes out. I began the regular practice of obsessing about the day, what I should’ve said and done differently, and convincing myself that my girlfriend would never speak to me again. Then I remembered what my friend, the former prison worker had said. I cried out to God, “Lord, what’s wrong with me? I’m a grown woman, but in so many ways I act and think like a child. There is something I can’t seem to get past. I want to grow up and walk in maturity, but something is holding me back. Please help me.”

I put the whole matter to fervent prayer and decided I would stalk God until I got the answers I needed. Since I didn’t have a job at the time, I barricaded myself in my apartment for the next week. I turned off the internet. I turned off my cell phone. I didn’t talk to anyone except God and Bruno, my dog. Friday night the following week, the Lord showed me where I had gotten stuck.

It was my first day of school, tenth grade. I had just started a new Christian school and was terrified. Every school I had attended previously, including another Christian school, I had been teased mercilessly and lacked any friends. I had recurring visions of the times I had been knocked to the floor or the dirt by classmates; of the school bully who slammed a volleyball into the side of my head in the first grade so hard that I lost part of my hearing in my right ear; of the boy behind me on the school bus who, after spitting into my hair over and over again, crumbled a chocolate cupcake on top of my head, to the delight of all the other kids on the bus; of the kids at the first Christian school I attended who told me all the time that I smelled and teased me because I couldn’t afford the expensive clothes they could; of my last day at that first Christian school, when I arrived in a new outfit, and when I couldn’t answer my classmate’s question as to the brand name of my new outfit, she snuck up behind me, put her hand down the back of my dress, and pulled the label out to see for herself. I’m happy to say that my experience at the second Christian school was wonderful, and I made many true, life-long friends. However, a harmful habit got set in place. I discovered that I could make my classmates laugh. Since my newfound sense of humor seemed to draw people to me, I took on the role of the one who always cheered up those around her, who solved all her friends’ problems, and who couldn’t be honest about herself and her own struggles.

This mindset stayed with me all through my 20s and halfway through my 30s. The week following Thanksgiving, I had to come face to face with the fact that the reason I was still reacting like a child in so many ways was because emotionally, I was still that 16-year-old high school sophomore, scared out of my mind, desperate for anyone to like me and be my friend, but who couldn’t shake the notions that no one would like me unless I performed; that like the proverbial problem child, although I was tolerated, I was not celebrated; that though the people around me cared about me, they didn’t respect me.

God showed me where and when I had gotten stuck in childish thinking and immature behavior. Next, I asked Him to get me unstuck. He then had me revisit that petrified teenager who started over in a new school. As I saw myself there, so unsure of myself, I suddenly saw Jesus standing there next to me. He put His arm around me and said to me, “Your Father loves you. He wants you to know that you are His child, and He has always approved of you.”

In the time that’s passed since that fateful Thanksgiving, I have experienced what I can describe only as spiritual growing pains. Knowing that God has always accepted me as His precious daughter has helped me mature by leaps and bounds. However, in the last three weeks, I found myself in familiar situations, and the temptation to behave and think childishly was painfully overwhelming. In some of those situations, I persevered. In others, I failed miserably. When I went back to God with my frustration, He said something to me that most people would’ve assumed was a given, but opened up a whole new level of freedom and maturity for me. He said, “Sharon, you don’t have to grow up spiritually by yourself.”

Without going too much into detail, most of my life, I spent most of my time growing up alone. I had to learn too much on my own. I didn’t get a whole lot in the way of guidance, except after I tried to figure things out by myself and failed. In recent days, though, God has told me over and over again that He will not leave me to my own devices when it comes to maturity in Him. He is with me every step of the way, not only to direct me in the way I should go, but also to model for me what a grownup Christian looks like. When it comes to God, there are no questions too stupid to be asked when I need help. He assures me in James 1:15, “If any of you is deficient in wisdom, let him ask of the giving God [Who gives] to everyone liberally and ungrudgingly, without reproaching or faultfinding, and it will be given him.” The Apostle Paul echoes this hope in Philippians 1:6 when he says, “And I am convinced and sure of this very thing, that He Who began a good work in you will continue until the day of Jesus Christ [right up to the time of His return], developing [that good work] and perfecting and bringing it to full completion in you.”

Because of my Father’s great love for me and approval of me, I am able to move from childishness to Christian maturity. I long for the day when Christ is fully formed in me, and I am brought to completion, and I hear the words, “well done, good and faithful servant.” As I grow up, I want to be just like my Father, and my Father will see to it that His little girl grows up big and strong.

The End

Milk!!!!!!

My Name is Kevin

© 2010 David’s Harp and Pen

Mood: Slightly Coherent

DISCLAIMER

This blog is based, in part, upon actual events and people. Certain actions and characters have been dramatized and fictionalized, but are inspired by true events and real people. Certain other characters, events, and names used herein are entirely fictitious. Any similarity of those fictional characters or events to the name, attributes, or background of any real person, living or dead, or to any actual events is coincidental and unintentional, so I better not hear from any people named Kevin or any advocacy groups for people named Kevin. I have worked through all my issues and hold no resentment towards any of you. I realize none of you can help being evil. You were just born that way.

“Welcome to Open Door Church!” I said with all the enthusiasm I could muster.

“Thanks! Looks like a cool church you have here,” replied the dark haired, brown-eyed stranger who stood before me with an innocent smile upon his face.

“My name is Sharon. What’s yours?” I asked.

“My name is Kevin,” he answered, completely unaware of the anguish he was about to unleash upon me.

“NOOOOOOOO!!!!!” I screamed with the ferocity of a woman whose last frazzled nerve had been stomped upon with an industrial strength, steel-toed, steel-shanked work boot. Kevin, fortunately, was one of those perpetually perky and jovial types who wasn’t easily fazed. Why he even talked to me again after my deplorable first impression is still beyond me. As he stared at me curiously, my friend Lisa rushed to my side with a worried look on her face.

“Sharon, what is wrong?! You sound like you just saw a ghost!” Lisa exclaimed.

“They’re everywhere! I can’t escape, no matter where I go,” I muttered in a tone revealing my impending delirium.

“Who’s everywhere?”

“The Kevins! They’re popping up all over the place, like a crop of poisonous mushrooms after a bad storm!” I replied, alternating between speaking and chewing my nails down to a nub.

Before I go any further, I must, of course, give the reader, some background as to why a name as innocent sounding as Kevin could turn me into a complete mental case. As one can probably imagine, it all started with a guy named Kevin:

Kevin epitomized the phrase wolf in sheep’s clothing. Hindsight is usually 20/20, and in retrospect, it was poor judgment on my part to be chummy with him the first place, but more about that later. Without going into detail, I’ll merely say that he burned me, and burned me badly. I don’t remember when I’d felt such a seething hatred towards anyone before and, feeling perfectly justified in my bitterness and resentment, decided to hold a grudge against him. After all, I told myself, he deserved it for what he did to me.

One day, I was talking on the phone with Richard, a mutual friend of Kevin and me. As I related my tale of woe to him, he said, “Sharon, you have to let this go. I know he did you wrong, but you know what the Bible says about forgiveness.”

“How do you expect me to forgive him after what he’s done to me? Besides, I tried to work this out with him, and he did everything to send me the message that he wasn’t sorry except spit in my face!” I shot back.

“Sharon, you don’t have to convince me that he was wrong. Holding a grudge against him isn’t gonna make the pain go away!”

Thoroughly agitated at this point, I ended the conversation by saying, “Maybe it won’t make the pain go away, but it’ll at least ensure that he can’t pull one over on me ever again.”

After we hung up, I felt something change inside of me. At the time, I couldn’t put my finger on it, but it was one of those surreal moments, kind of like when Bill Murray’s character in “Groundhog Day” discovered that he was reliving the same day over and over again. Yeah, my bitterness had encased me in a wall of self-protection, but I was soon to discover what had snuck in while I was building that wall.

The next morning, I awoke to snow and ice covering everything in sight, including my car. Naturally, this hadn’t been predicted in the weather report the night before, and I was running behind getting to work, too, so I put myself in overdrive as I began the task of chipping the ice off my car.

After ten minutes, I’d not made much of a dent in the glacier holding my car hostage. As I sighed in dis-gust, I saw a friendly looking middle aged man in some kind of dark blue work uniform approaching me.
“You look like you need some help there, Little Lady,” he said cheerily.

“Why thank you. I can’t believe how thick this layer of ice is on my car,” I replied, thankful for the assistance.

Another 10 minutes passed before we were successful in clearing away enough ice to open my driver’s side door. As I got in to my car, I extended my hand to the Good Samaritan and said, “Thank you so much. My name’s Sharon, by the way.”

He took my hand and replied, “You’re most welcome; my name is Kevin.”

Time stopped for a split second and a cold chill went through me. How I’d grown to hate that dreaded name! Oh well, the guy couldn’t help what his parents named him, right? And the name Kevin, although relatively common, wasn’t as popular as, say, John or Stephen, so I’d probably met my quota of Kevins that I’d have to interact with that day, right?

I turned the radio on as my car warmed up. The overly enthusiastic DJ, in a sing-song voice, said, “You’re listening to Tennessee’s Christian music station, WWDJ 89.1. John Seymour’s sick today, so I’m filling in for him. My name is Kevin Berry and…”

Uggh! There it was again. Up until that point, I didn’t realize there were quite so many Kevins in the world.

The drive to my office was rather treacherous that morning. Parts of the road had been plowed and salted, but others hadn’t. What was normally a 15 minute drive took 45. As I neared the office, about to move from the right to the left lane, a large white work van cut in front of me, causing me to swerve and drive up on the median. After regaining my composure, I looked over at the van as it sped off. Guess what it said on the side of it? “Kevin’s Mobile Motors!”

The office receptionist greeted me as I walked in the door of the health insurance network where I worked. “Rough ride this morning, huh?” she asked.

“I’ve never seen ice that thick before,” I replied.

“Just so you know, we’re still having that administrative meeting this morning. We’re going to meet the newest member of the credentialing board.”

“That’s cool. What’s his name?” I asked. (You’d think I’d know better by this point.)

“Kevin Jernigan,” she replied, oblivious to the damage her revelation was doing to my sanity.

I didn’t say anything more. I merely retreated to my desk in order to bury myself in my work for the day. Now, my job at the health insurance network was to oversee the credentialing of the doctors and facilities that wanted to be a part of our network. On a typical day, I’d get about five files, some as thick as a phone-book, of doctors whose references and credentials I needed to check before sending their applications on to the credentialing committee. Guess what the first name of the first, third, and fifth doctor in my stack of five files was? KEVIN! I was beginning to sense a pattern here.

I left my office job at noon (I only worked there part time) and headed to the detective agency where I worked the rest of the time. As I drove, I turned the Christian radio station on again, just in time to hear an interview with one of the members of DC Talk. Guess which one? Kevin Max. At that point, I decided I needed to invest in a good CD player for my car.

I walked into the detective agency and picked up my stack of assignments, which included delivering a subpoena to a local law office. I was thankful for this type of work, because it meant I’d mostly be driving in my car and not having to interact with anyone for extended periods of time.

Determined to salvage a bad day, I pasted a smile on my face as I walked into the law firm. Approaching the man at the front desk, I asked to speak with the attorney whose name appeared on the subpoena (which surprisingly enough, wasn’t Kevin). The young man watching the phones took the papers from my hand and asked me to wait while he tried to locate the attorney.

“Hey, this is Carl,” he spoke into the phone, “I’m trying to find Jerry. Do you know where he is?... Well, why don’t you ask Kevin?...What do you mean you don’t know where Kevin is? I just talked to Kevin not even thirty seconds ago…Have you looked at Kevin’s desk?...Kevin and Jerry were working on this thing together…I swear, Kevin takes more smoke breaks than anyone I know…Tell Kevin I’m looking for…What do you mean you’re not Kevin’s secretary…Well, you can tell Kevin that if Kevin worked like the rest of us in-stead of cultivating lung cancer all the time, Kevin would be thought of more highly by yours truly…Yeah, well, just give Kevin the message.”

When Carl turned back to look at me, I’m sure he was probably frightened at what he saw. I think the security video actually got footage of real smoke coming out of my ears.

“Ma’am, are you alright?” he asked sheepishly.

“Sir, I just have one question for you: DON’T YOU KNOW ANY PRONOUNS?” I screamed, dealing a deadly blow to proper business etiquette.

After ending my work day, I was looking forward to a peaceful evening at my church’s Wednesday night service, hearing a soothing message from my pastor, and then going home and quickly drifting into unconsciousness. As I walked in the front door of the church, Richard greeted me warmly.

“Hey there, Miss Private Eye, how are you?”

“Fine,” I replied unconvincingly as we made our way to our seats in the sanctuary.

“Are you sure? You look…deranged!”

“There is nothing wrong with me! Do you hear me? I’m perfectly sane. I have every right to feel what I’m feeling, and no one can tell me otherwise.”

“Sharon, are you still seething about Kevin?”

“Don’t mention that name in my presence” I shot out sarcastically just as our pastor approached the podium.

“Good evening, folks, and welcome to our mid week service,” Pastor Dan said excitedly from the pulpit, “Before we go any further, I’m pleased to announce the newest additions to our Board of Elders. Would you please give a warm round of applause to Kevin Mills and Kevin Burkowitz?”

I don’t remember anything else from that night, except the feeling of dread in the pit of my stomach as I came to the realization that Kevin’s name was haunting me like a bad dream everywhere I went. It was a master conspiracy on the part of the powers that be to drive me completely batty, and the entire city of Nashville, including the Christian radio station, was in on it. I had to escape, get out of town or something, before that awful K name did me in once and for all.

The next day, Elizabeth, one of my girlfriends from church, asked me if I wanted to tag along with her to Louisville that weekend. She’d been a missionary in Africa for several years and was speaking at the churches up there that had supported her financially. I was thrilled to have the ticket out of town, so I gladly accepted her offer.

The weather was snowy that weekend, so the drive up took about two hours longer than normal. For most of the drive, a white sedan kept ahead of us, bearing the personalized Tennessee license plate reading, “Kevin 1”. Not how I’d have liked to have started my great escape.

After five exhausting hours, battling snow and the Louisville rush hour traffic, we arrived at the home of the Reeds, friends of Elizabeth’s. We would be staying with them that weekend. We made our introductions, and Shelley, the mother, introduced all of her four children. Guess what the names of the two youngest were? Richard and Kevin! Not only that, but Elizabeth and I would be sleeping in their room that weekend.

Shelley showed us up to the room. As I looked around, I saw posters, plaques, etc., with the boys’ names and initials everywhere. Directly in front of my view from the bed was one of those name plaques that show a person’s name, the meaning of the name, and a corresponding Bible verse. Yes, it was Kevin’s plaque. Turns out his name means “kind and gentle,” by the way. The verse under his name? Colossians 3:13, which says, “Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.”

At this point, I tried deluding myself into thinking that my continued exposure to the K name and the alarming frequency with which it was spoken to me over the last week were mere coincidence. On that note, I retired to bed early that evening, hoping to forget that name and my childish reactions to it.

It started snowing again that night. Outside the bedroom window was a street lamp. Every so often during the night, the light would flicker due to the snow, causing me to wake up. When I’d awaken, the light from the street lamp would shine into the bedroom, illuminating a very small area on the wall opposite my bed: namely, the Kevin name plaque and that verse about forgiveness. It must’ve happened about eight times in the night before I finally surrendered my hope of getting any sleep that evening. Maybe it wasn’t coincidence after all.

The weekend passed quickly, and I was happy to get through Saturday without hearing that name. Sunday afternoon, we attempted to make our way back to the highway leading back to Nashville, only to get our-selves hopelessly lost. As we drove around, my thoughts kept drifting back to that verse. I knew at this point that I was disobeying God by holding on to my anger, and maybe hearing Kevin’s name all the time was God’s way of reminding me that I needed to let it go. I replayed in my mind my entire friendship with Kevin, how we met, the things we did together, even the nicknames we had for each other. He used to call me Ms. Stone, like Sharon Stone the actress, and I called him Mr. Costner, after Kevin Costner the actor. The more I thought about it all, however, the angrier I became, and I defiantly said to God, “Why in the world should I forgive him? Don’t You remember what he did to me? It was totally inexcusable! Do you think I’m going to open myself up to that kind of treatment again? If so, God, You are sadly mistaken!”

No sooner did I finish my dialogue with God that we finally came upon a street sign, hoping it would tell us where we were and we could then look at the map to find our way back to the highway. The name of the street we were on? Kostner Road, like Kevin Costner the actor, except Costner was spelled with a K—as in Kevin!

For the next 24 hours, all I remember is kind of floating through the minutes and hours in a numb, drug-like daze. As Monday evening approached and I drove to church for Volleyball Night, I was beginning to think that maybe holding on to a grudge was way more work than letting the grudge go. Which brings us back to the beginning of my little story here: me screaming in terror at church at a bewildered stranger who showed up at Volleyball Night, his only crime being that he shared the same first name as the one who of-fended me.

Tuesday afternoon, I went in to see my pastor for a counseling session. I related to him all the events of the past week and asked him if he thought all these Kevins I’d encountered were God’s way of telling me to let this bitterness go.

Pastor replied, “Sharon, forgiveness isn’t for Kevin’s benefit. It doesn’t sound like your grudge is hurting him any, but it’s definitely hurting you. When you forgive, you’re not saying what he did was right or having to be his friend again. You’re merely letting him off your hook and putting him on God’s hook for Him to deal with Kevin as He sees fit.”

For the first time in a week, logic took the driver’s seat in my mind and heart, and I realized what I needed to do. By holding on to bitterness, I was protecting myself to a certain extent, but in trying to keep Kevin out, I was also keeping God out. God wanted to heal me, but that whole time, all I wanted to do was be angry, and the end result was reliving all the pain the offense had caused me in the first place. Forgiveness sets me free, whereas bitterness, resentment, and unforgiveness keep me locked up with the crime for me to painfully experience over and over again.

“Well, I’ve made my decision!” I told Richard confidently as we spoke on the phone.

“And what is that?” he inquired.

“I’m going to forgive Kevin completely.”

“Oh, that’s great, Sharon. God will honor you for it.”

“Yep. I’m meeting with Pastor tomorrow, and he’s going to take me through the whole forgiveness process.”

“Awesome! Let me know how it goes.”

“I will. Oh, hey, what time is it?” I asked.

“Let’s see…it’s almost 10 PM,” he answered.

“Yeesh, I need to go,” I said.

“Where are you going at this hour?”

“I’m going to Kevin’s house to slash his tires!”

“What?” Richard yelled. “I thought you just said you were going to forgive him for everything!”

With tongue planted firmly in cheek, I replied, “I am, but I’m forgiving him tomorrow, which means any revenge I want to exact I need to get in tonight!”

THE END

Milk!!!!!

One Is Such a Lonely Number

© 2010 David’s Harp and Pen

Mood: Bordering on Rational

DISCLAIMER

This blog is based, in part, upon actual events and people. Certain actions and characters have been dramatized and fictionalized, but are inspired by true events and real people. Certain other characters, events, and names used herein are entirely fictitious. Any similarity of those fictional characters or events to the name, attributes, or background of any real person, living or dead, or to any actual events is coincidental and unintentional, so I better not hear from any self-help gurus or personal enrichment organizations. If I become any more well-rounded, I could pass for a globe.

The whole thing started out so innocently. I’d placed a call to a lady from church because I wanted to find a cleaning person.

“Sharon, you’re a single woman with no children,” the well-intentioned lady said. “Why do you need a house cleaner?”

“Well,” I replied, “house cleaning just isn’t my thing, so I’ve always paid someone to do it.”

“Oh, Sharon. Some day, you’ll be a wife and a mother. You can’t put off that responsibility forever. As women of God, we’re supposed to be good stewards of our homes, which means doing all we can to keep things orderly. I think this may be the time that God wants to instill this in you.” It sounded good. It sounded logical. It even sounded spiritual. I made up my mind, then, that I would take on the task of doing my own housekeeping. Little did I realize at the time the Pandora’s box I was about to open.

Then came the phone call from my girlfriend Marcie.

“Sharon,” she said enthusiastically, “church is starting up a women’s intensive discipleship class that’s going to run for the next 10 weeks. I’ve been assigned to be one of the small group leaders. Can I sign you up?”

“Oh, Marcie,” I answered, “it sounds like fun, but work is really busy right now, and I don’t know that I can really devote the time to it.”

“But Sharon, you’ve said in the past that you wanted to learn how to be more a girly-girl and have more female fellowship. Besides, the Bible says the older women are supposed to pour into the younger women, and the younger women are supposed to submit to the older women, so really, you have a responsibility to be there.” Again, she sorta sounded right, so I told her to put me down for the class.

A few days later, I went to Life Group, and the topic of discussion was physical health. When we were all done talking, my Life Group leader Joshua, who’s also a personal trainer at the local YMCA, came up to me and asked, “So, Sharon, when are you going to stop procrastinating and join the Y?”

“Oh, Josh,” I replied, “I really don’t have the money. I exercise when I can, which is usually at night after work, and I seem to be doing okay.”

“But Sharon,” Joshua said in a chiding manner, “the Bible says that we’re the Temple of the Holy Spirit. Studies show that everyone needs vigorous exercise for 30 minutes at least three times a week, and it’s always best to do it first thing in the morning so that you’re burning calories all day long. As for the membership cost, can you really put a price on the good health God’s given you?”

Now, around this time, I was having major health problems and was finding it difficult to keep up what was becoming an increasingly impossible schedule. I talked to a leader of mine, also well-intentioned, and very innocently told her that I wanted to hear from God what I should and shouldn’t be doing, what my limitations were, specifically in regards to my health. Then, she went there. I was waiting for someone to finally go there, and she did. She said, “Sharon, my Bible says that I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. So, that means you shouldn’t have any limitations.”

Okay, then. I was supposed to be superwoman. I was glad someone finally told me so. Thus began my descent into insanity. I signed up for everything. Before long, I became completely unrecognizable as a human being. The following is an excerpt from my diary during that time (I like to call it, “The Week of Living Ridiculously”):

Day 1: I woke up at 4 AM because I was told that really spiritual Christians are all morning people. I can’t remember the Biblical justification for that, but it sounded good at the time. After my quiet time, I went to the Y and attempted to do the Nautilus circuit. I wasn’t fully awake, though, and I managed to not only knock over the machine I was using, but it caused a domino effect to knock over all the other machines in the circuit. The Y staff wasn’t too pleased with me, so I decided to try again the next morning.

After work, I went home and decided to clean. However, I got off to a very rocky start and suddenly remembered why I had always hired someone else to do my cleaning for me. I wiped and wiped the bathroom mirror and surfaces continuously, but the streaks I created looked worse than everything did before I started to clean. I was about to try a second round of elbow grease on the bathroom, when I noticed my face, arms, and hands were now covered with giant red splotches from the cleaning products. This created another problem, because when Bruno saw me, he attacked, probably because my face now resembled a pepperoni pizza.

Day 3: I got up again at 4, but I had entered hyper-exhaustion. As much as I tried readjusting my system, I was finding it impossible, even though I was tired, to fall asleep before midnight. Therefore, I was beginning to go through life in a daze. I went through my quiet time, but couldn’t remember anything in the Bible I had read after I closed it.

I then headed to the Y, this time to try water aerobics. My thought was that maybe this would be safer because there’s no equipment for me to break. Twenty minutes into the workout, I got terribly nauseous and threw up in the pool. Again, the Y staff was not pleased, and had I been more awake at the time, I would’ve taken it harder when they asked me to go the Y across town.

When I got home from work, I feverishly rushed to finish a dessert I was supposed to bring to my women’s class for an assignment. As soon as I took the dish out of the oven, I got a text message from the children’s church pastor asking if I would teach the 3 year olds’ class that Sunday. I replied with a wholehearted yes. No sooner did I hit send on the reply when I got a call from the singles’ group leader to ask if I would spearhead food for the Valentine’s Day dinner, which just so happened to be right after church on the day when I agreed to teach the 3 year olds’ class. Again, I said yes, because I was under the impression that to say no to anything remotely God-related was a sin. I was starting to feel very empowered, almost superhero-like, when, to my horror, I turned around to find Bruno eating my dessert. He didn’t even leave the foil pan in which I baked it. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to use the excuse, “Well, my dog ate my homework,” especially since I made it all the way from kindergarten to college without ever having used it.

I came back from the class, feeling good that I had not been too terribly chastised for the whole dessert debacle. Even though I should have, at that point, been trying to go to sleep, my house really needed to be cleaned, so I was going to make another attempt. This time, I was going to try these environmentally-friendly cleaning products that would be tough on dirt but easy on the ozone layer. Again, the streaks that I produced on everything made the bathroom look worse and this time, instead of big red splotches on my skin, I began to sprout big, eco-green splotches, similar to something I saw in “The Toxic Avenger.” I had to keep trying, though, no matter how tired or frustrated I was, because if other women could do it, why couldn’t I?

I was about to collapse into bed when I remembered I needed to do laundry and feed Bruno. Unfortunately, I was so tired at the time that it wasn’t until the next morning that I realized I had fed Bruno with laundry detergent and ran the washer using dog food.

Day 5: I was now barely functioning on 4 hours of sleep a night. I didn’t know if my system would ever convert from nocturnal to morning person. I was convinced the very fate of my soul depended on it, though.

I went back to the Y, this time to try the indoor track. I didn’t like being there that early because the place was packed, but I was determined to make it happen. However, three laps into it, I became horribly light-headed. Now, I don’t remember what happened next, but according to eye witnesses, I passed out on the ground, which caused all the other runners to trip and fall on top of me, causing a 20-jogger pile up. When I came to, I was lying face down on the hood of my car, and lying next to me was my Y membership card, which apparently had been run through a paper shredder.

I felt so bad I called in sick to work, which made my boss really angry because, since I’d started this insane schedule, I was about as productive as a pet rock.

When I got home, I decided again to try to tackle the housecleaning thing. I bought some cleaning products that were advertised in an infomercial as being the same cleaning products used on all the space shuttles. I thought all the dirt, germs, and streaks lying around in my house had finally met their match. However, because I was so tired, I failed to notice the directions, which said, don’t mix bottle A with bottle C, as toxic fumes may result.

Day ?: I wasn’t sure how long I had been unconscious, but it was long enough to miss teaching the kids class and cooking for the singles’ dinner. I woke up to my cell phone dinging with voicemails and text messages. The children’s pastor said in his voicemail he was very disappointed in me and it would be better if I had a millstone tied around my neck and I was cast into the sea. The text message from the singles’ group leader said I better be dead, because that was the only excuse she would accept. Another text message from Joshua, my Life Group leader, said he had been fired from the Y, and when he asked them why, they told him to ask me. If all that wasn’t bad enough, though, poor Bruno, who didn’t know what was going on all that time, had nothing to eat while I was in a coma except the two smaller dogs.

So, as was just previously demonstrated, I made a horrible superwoman. Instead of doing it all, I had accomplished nothing, and I felt like a failure. I’m sorry to say that I went through several stages similar to this in which I felt a spiritual obligation to do and be everything. It doesn’t help when it’s preached from the pulpit, either. Several years ago, some of the local churches came up with a theme for the year: “simplify and intensify.” Now, I distinctly remember the intensify part, but the simplify part completely escaped me, and I know I was not alone in feeling that way, either.

Shortly after I moved to Tennessee, I was going through a crazy phase of trying to do and be it all, and was being very down on myself because of my perceived failure. I would pray nonstop, “Lord, please change me.”

Finally, one day, God replied and asked, “Why do you keep praying that?”

I answered, “Because, I don’t like myself. I know I’m not doing enough for You. If I could just do more and be more, I could be so much useful to You and I would be so much happier with myself.”

God said gently, “Sharon, you don’t have to change who I’ve made you to be. You need to change some of your behavior and wrong thought patterns, but your personality, your insight, your perspective, your personhood—that’s how I made you, and you will bloom where I plant You. You have to be what I made you to be and do only what I tell you to do. Nothing more.”

This summer, I read the book “Strengths Finder 2.0.” What a burden-lifting experience that was. The book promotes something called “Strengths Psychology”, the heart of which says that, instead of spending so much time to try to compensate for our weaknesses, we should focus on flourishing in our strengths. The book includes a test which shows the reader what their top five strengths are and ways to build on those strengths. While I felt such freedom knowing that it was finally okay to not be superwoman, I was also angry. I was angry over all the time I had wasted trying to do things I was not equipped or even expected by God to do. I hated all the time I had spent trying to be omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent.

When I wrote my first draft of this blog, Peter, my scholarly and astute editor, whose job it is to make sure my writing is theologically and grammatically correct, doctrinally sound, and that I come across at least mildly coherent, brought up some good points, which I must, of course, include, or he will hit me in the head with a frying pan. (Just kidding. He would never do that. He would just look at me with searing disappointment, which would make me wish he had hit me in the head with a frying pan.) Now, there will be times and seasons when we do have to do things outside of our giftings, skills, and talents. One of the ways we learn to trust God and grow in our faith is when we are in situations in which we don’t feel comfortable, because Paul said in II Corinthians that when we are weak, then He is strong. However, God should be the one Who leads us to do those things that don’t come naturally to us, because He has a special purpose to accomplish in us through those things. We should not take on extra tasks just because we feel the unnatural need to do everything. When God does tell us to step out in faith to do those things for which we have neither the talent nor the desire, His grace will meet us in our shortcomings.

After my multiple failures at multi-tasking, I decided to see what the Word really had to say on the subject, including the infamous Philippians 4:13. When Paul said he could do all things through Christ who strengthened him, he was speaking in the context of difficult circumstances and trials he had to endure, not ridiculously heavy burdens Paul had inflicted on himself. Even Jesus didn’t do it all. John 14:31 says Jesus only did what the Father told Him to do. So, where does this compulsion come from to do and be everything? Could it be a ploy from the enemy to keep us busy being busy and out of fellowship? Paul clearly states in 1 Corinthians 12 that not all of us have the same gifts, but each gift is important and a valuable part of the Body of Christ. When we try to do everything, Satan is tricking us into disregarding our need for community with other believers and communion with God. Self-sufficiency negates relationship. God is the only all-powerful One, and when we succumb to that hyper multi-tasking, we are falling for the same lie Satan gave Adam and Eve in the Garden: “You can be like God.”

Most Christians have heard the story in Luke 10 about the sisters Mary and Martha. Jesus had come to visit them. Martha was busy making dinner and entertaining guests, but Mary sat at Jesus’ feet. Martha was upset that Mary wasn’t helping and told Jesus to tell Mary to help. Jesus replied: “Martha, Martha, you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”

I had always wondered about what Jesus said here. I mean, after all, aren’t we as believers called to serve others, to be hospitable? What was the problem? The problem was Martha’s response to Jesus’ presence, namely service, wasn’t the appropriate one AT THAT TIME. Jesus was going to be crucified soon, then return to Heaven. Mary had decided she was going to use the time to soak up as much of Jesus’ manifest presence while she could, and that which Jesus imparted to her would be hers forever. Ecclesiastes says there is a time and a season for everything. My pastor, whom I love, says we can do it all, just not at the same time. Therefore, I am listening very closely to the voice of the Holy Spirit, because I don’t want to waste any more time doing things He hasn’t called me to or trying to become something God never intended me to be. I must be on guard against the temptation, because, let’s face it, I’m human. If someone pitches something to me to do or try, I am prone to do it, no matter how gloriously out of context the Scriptures are taken to justify me doing whatever it is. Now when I feel pressured from someone to do something I know is not God’s plan for me, I simply ask him or her “Are you trying to help me become more like Christ, or are you simply trying to make me more like you?”

The days are short. Time is precious. I would rather do one or only a few things well than many things poorly. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 10:23, “ ‘Everything is permissible’—but not everything is beneficial. ‘Everything is permissible’—but not everything is constructive.”

At this moment in my life particularly, Jesus isn’t calling Sharon the athlete, Sharon the Bible scholar, Sharon the singles’ ministry leader, or Sharon the super cleaning lady. He’s calling Sharon, part of His Bride and Sharon the Worshipper. I want to do that one thing well, so I can have that which can never be taken from me.

The End

Milk!!!!!!