I used to be scared
to go to any meeting
afraid of judgment.

Now I wonder what
I will be doing next week
during meeting time.

How will I keep up
with the precious friends I’ve made?
I won’t see them much

and that makes me sad.
But I am so excited
to begin anew!

Who I am in Christ,
Spirit growing through the Word,
these are my passions!

If only they would
come and let me share these things,
really dive right in…

I think the lessons
will ignite passion in them.
It’s so contagious!

Who we are in Christ~
How we grow in grace and truth~
These things bring freedom!

From Blue Like Jazz:

Here is one of the coolest things I ever did: This past summer I made a point to catch sunsets. I would ride my motorcycle up Mount Tabor and sit on the steps of the reservoir to watch the sun put fire in the clouds that are always hanging over Portland. I never really wanted to make the trip; I would want to watch television or make a sandwich, but I made myself go. And once I got up there I always loved it. It always meant something to me to see beauty right there over my city.

My first sunset this year was the most spectacular. Forest fires in Washington State blew a light, nearly unnoticeable haze through Portland, and the clouds were just low enough to catch the full reflection of red and yellow. I thought to myself, This is something that happens all the time. From the ridge on Tabor where I planted myself, I could see the entire skyline, the home of more than a million people. On most nights there were no more than two or three people there with me. All that beauty happens right above the heads of more than a million people who never notice it.

Here is what I’ve started thinking: All the wonder of God happens right above our arithmetic and formula. The more I climb outside my pat answers, the more invigorating the view, the more my heart enters into worship.
-Donald Miller, Blue Like Jazz

Lately, I’ve been working on my productivity. I’ve been thinking about my life and what is currently on my life’s resume, and how much time I’ve let just slide by without even noticing it has escaped. A slow leak of time. I think about the things my heart wants to add to that resume and I wonder if I plug up all the slow leaks will I be able to accomplish these new things? So I’m all about the little tips and tricks to catch that time and harness it. I’m all about the organization, the goal setting, the baby-stepping toward the goal…I’m all about the formulas and the proofs and the theorems of how to get from point A to point B.

But what if point A is my humanity and point B is God’s divinity? What if point A is my finite experience, and point B is eternity with Him? What if point A is spiritual infancy and point B is the ultimate fulfillment of spiritual destiny? In terms of spiritual growth, the pat answer is to talk about the exercises of our faith; prayer, fasting, study, worship, community (this is the “add, subtract, multiply and divide foundation”). But the wonder and the worship comes when I step away from my constantly changing formulas and look to the sky. When there is no solution other than to shut down the hyper analysis and just let my heart run free.

So, I’m looking for beauty today in that space right above my head where I never notice it.

*Every single time I type the word “Changes,” I hear David Bowie in my head. Am I the only one? Yes? Ok, moving on…

Tomorrow night, I will be leading the last “official” Thursday night Women’s Celebrate Recovery meeting at VHM. Over the last six to eight months, attendance has declined. When I started asking why, I started hearing things like “I can’t come because my child has {basketball, football, soccer, gymnastics} practice.” “I’m already at church on Wednesday night, and can’t do two nights away from home, back to back like that.” “Recovery is for *those* people.” “My kids can’t be out that late.” And my personal favorite: “But I really need to come, I really WANT to be there… but….{shrug}”

Obviously, there was an admitted need but we were not meeting it. The schedule was off. Or maybe the format wasn’t quite right. Then my heart started pulling me in a different direction. I kept thinking about leading a more intense Bible study experience, rather than focus on the support group environment. I began to see how the themes of Biblical recovery are rooted in spiritual growth. And when I started asking around about interest in a spiritual growth Bible study to help overcome our life issues, I never once heard or felt the resistance I was getting for a “recovery program.”

So after much prayer, I approached my Pastor about the need for such a class. And next week, during regular Wednesday night activities, this class begins. I am incredibly excited and feel particularly blessed to be able to lead it.

That said, I’ve been pondering the message I want to leave with the CR group. What to say? I happen to teach the lesson tomorrow, which is on Step 10 and Principle 7 so that can give me a starting point. But it’s not really what I want to say…

• I want to say, again, that the CR program saved my life.
• I want to say, again, how much I have grown up in the Lord since beginning the process.
• I want to share how by going through recovery, I have learned that I am on a bigger journey. The goal is not just to climb out of my pit, but to climb to the peaks! And also, now that I have some pit-escapes under my belt, that peak does not seem impossible any longer!
• I want to reiterate how being in that group has blessed me. One way or another, each of the women who have ever been a part of the group has touched my heart. They have also challenged me to walk the talk in a genuine fashion.

But mostly I want to say that I am not special in that regard. I didn’t do anything to deserve the blessings God has brought to my life since beginning my recovery. If anything, my inventory proves the opposite! I didn’t do anything other than constantly surrender to His leading during this process. And sometimes I was unwilling to even do that…but eventually, He would wait me out and I would follow Him onward and upward. I don’t consider myself super-talented, super-spiritual, or anywhere near a “Perfect Christian.” I (on my own) do not have super-human strength, in fact I have just the opposite. I am riddled with faults, weaknesses, and problems. From a human perspective, I am a mess.

But from His perspective, I am not. I am a work in progress. Someone He will be faithful to complete.

And the women I’ve traveled with so far are no different than I am. They are works in progress, even if they think they are too much a mess for Him to fix. Even when they mistakenly believe they are hopeless. Even if they still think the peaks are unattainable. GOD SAYS DIFFERENTLY about them. And I want them to know this down in the deepest most intimate corner of their *KNOWER*: God sees them, loves them, and thinks they are more precious to Him than they could ever imagine.

edited to add:
I’ve gotten a couple of emails asking the same question so I thought I better clarify: the Men’s CR group is continuing on Thursday nights. Also, the new Wednesday class is co-ed. Sorry for the confusion on that.

Our Wednesday school class has been working through the video curriculum for The Bait of Satan, by John Bevere. The basic idea of the program is that offenses will come and that how we react to them in this world makes all the difference in our relationship to Christ.

Bevere teaches that the Greek word “offenses” in Luke 17:1 is “skandalon” which is basically the movable trigger or bait stick of a trap. Once we’ve allowed offense to root, it grows into bitterness. Eventually we are so mired with these things that our spiritual growth stagnates completely. We may even fall away.

And, even though I know that the cure for initially taking the bait is a spirit of forgiveness to those who have offended me and a spirit of humility toward those I have offended, I still find myself struggling. It’s like Romans 7 over and over again! It’s as if the more I want to avoid the trap, the more opportunities I am being given to trigger it. The same principle about praying for patience, I assume.

Recently, an unbelieving friend of mine said something very hurtful to me. It touched on a recent event in my family that broke our hearts and his comment was accusatory and downright mean. Basically, his way of thinking was that I was to blame for the unfortunate event, and some recent changes were only going to set my family up for the same event to happen again. We were unfit, basically is what he said, to do what we are currently doing and as proof he used our past.

To me, this is a glaring opportunity to practice what I’ve learned. But I find myself acting as if I haven’t learned a thing. I was so hurt that I cried over it. Then I fumed. Then I prayed (trying…seriously!) that I would be able to get past it and forgive him. I received some peace…but the next day the entire hurt was back in my face again. I was able to say the forgiveness words, but my heart hadn’t quite soaked them in yet. You know the drill–sometimes you have to forgive and forgive and forgive again until it soaks into the heart and becomes a permanent state. So the second and third days…I rode the roller coaster of “who does he think he is?” to “why am I falling for this?” to the “this is proof positive that this friendship should not be!” to “God loved me when I was unlovable…and then instructs me to do the same for others.”

Sigh.

And so, every time I think of him, or his hateful words, it’s as if I am pulling down the shoulder harness for another trip through the loops and dips of that coaster.

Until…this morning I read John 6:70 where Jesus said to His dearest friends, “Have I not chosen you, the Twelve? Yet one of you is a devil!” Ok, I know that what I am about to say is out of context, really. But Jesus said that one of his friends was a devil so I just had to look that up in the Greek: Diabolos, meaning “prone to slander, slanderous, accusing falsely. Metaphor applied to a man who, by opposing the cause of God may be said to act the part of the devil or side with him.”

I know Jesus was talking about Judas, the one who would later betray him. And I am also fully aware that my situation is and never will be anything like that one. It’s almost silly comparing the two. But what I took away from this was healing and this is how~

First, even Christ chose unbelievers to be His friends. So I can’t just dismiss this person and say that because he is not a believer that we just don’t have anything of substance to hold our friendship together. I really wanted this to be the straw that broke this friendship! At least while I was fuming, I did. Our world views may be polar opposites, but our experiences together have bonded us. And second, my friend was the “devil” in this situation. He’d probably think that was funny, or be proud of it or something. He was and is prone to slander, he accused falsely from the limited information he had, and while I don’t necessarily think this situation is a “cause of God,” my friend certainly opposed me on this. AND he provided the enemy with a perfect plot of ground to set up the trap.

So, now I’m thinking I can get over it. After all, he knew not what he did. Actually, he did know he was going to hurt my feelings, but he didn’t realize what a spiritual issue he would raise, I’m sure. But since *I* realize it, it’s time for me to lift the harness, gather my wind blown self together, and pull myself out of that coaster car.

I know a lot of Religious Christians get their ire up over the secularization of Easter, the same way we tend to do over Christmas. And I understand that. Really I do. Although I’m not sure I’m doing that “right.”

This year, I rejected the whole Easter bunny thing (if you call my lack of planning and lazy streak a full-stop rejection). I rejected the pressure and expectation of showing up on Easter morning for services decked out in sparkly new duds, choosing to show up super-casual for Worship today. I was totally going against everything traditionally “Easter” for me. We even had our family Easter dinner yesterday…so this afternoon, I’m putzing around in a semi quiet house, rather than baking and serving and cleaning up after the 12-15 or so I usually have on holidays. For me, it’s not about that stuff. It’s not about the huge ham and fixin’s my family devoured yesterday, the candy and toys, the plastic eggs and grass, or the patent leather shoes with frilly socks.

For me, it’s this simple. My God stooped to my level, bore the weight of my sin, suffered and died a gruesome death on a cross and was buried in a tomb that he WALKED OUT OF THREE DAYS LATER. Today is the day I sit, over fed to an unfortunate level, basking in the amazement that He loved me that much. I am feasting on the realization that He did that for me before I even cared to know Him at all.

And it makes my soul laugh. I am giddy with the joy that His love knows no bounds, not even death. This joy runs deeper than the giggle-fits that my brother sends me into when he impersonates others (I’ll never be able to see my mailman in the same light again!). This joy has more depth and flavor than our traditional “Ma-maw’s” chocolate pie, and it’s ever so much sweeter.

So maybe there are folks out there who equate Easter to a whole lot of pastel and plastic. Maybe they dismiss the “religious-ness” (new word!) of it all. Maybe Jesus doesn’t factor into the God of their own understanding. I’m ok with that if you feel that way. I just hope you get to meet Him and then get to know Him the way I have. Someday.

And if you do, come sit next to me to worship, because I still felt like an oddball being the only one in jeans, even though I know He can anoint a heart dressed in denim just as readily as one in pantyhose.