Why Am I Contentious? (Why Am I a Nag?)

I’ll start by introducing the word “nag” instead of “contentious.” It’s easier to type.  

So, why am I contentions, er, a nag (see a definition in The Vexing and Contentious Woman )? 

from www.bichonfrisegetaway.com

I nag to control my circumstances.

And so do you.

(If you don’t nag, you can probably identify other ways that you control people and situations).

Why am I a nag?  I nag so that other people will act in such a way that life works for me. I nag to gain control (as if it worked). I MUST be in control. My very life depends on it!

It started with the fall and it was sealed with the curse. 

(By the way, that’s good news! We are not meant to be controlling nags. It’s the opposite of how we were created as women… but it’s what we’re saddled with as sinners.)

It started with the fall.

from the Catacombs of Saints Marcellinus and Peter

Adam and Eve had this tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the garden. They didn’t know what good and evil were. They knew they would die if they ate from the tree, but they didn’t know what that meant either. They may have thought that if they could eat that fruit, they’d no longer fear the unknown.  Then they’d know for sure what good and evil were and maybe they’d be able to protect themselves from this death, whatever it was. And, besides, the serpent said they wouldn’t die anyway…

On top of it all, the fruit looked good.

Maybe God was holding back. Maybe He wasn’t so good after all: no fruit; no information about good or evil or death. Maybe they thought:

Hey, we better TAKE CONTROL of our destinies and take care of ourselves. We can’t trust this God. We need to know what He knows. We need to be in control like God is. Our lives depend on it.

So they ate.

And they were cursed.

My destiny to nag was sealed with the curse. 

Here’s part of Eve’s curse:

“You will have desire for your husband. But he will rule over you.” Genesis 3: 16b

Many scholars define desire in this passage by comparing it to a parallel passage in Genesis 4: 7 which also uses the Hebrew word translated desire.  Here’s the best explanation I found of the that definition:

When we apply the word picture that we see in [the parallel passage of] Genesis 4:7 [about sin "desiring" Cain], the meaning of Genesis 3:16 becomes clear. The wife’s “desire” to overpower and control her husband is a curse of sin on the marriage relationship. However, in this conflict the “prey” (husband) fights back and gets the upper hand, and the “predator” (wife) loses. (The cure for this curse is in Ephesians 5:21-33.)

http://thewildsource.com/african-safari-predators.aspx

A more complete explanation can be found at http://www.christdeaf.org/bible/TheHunt.pdf. It was published by Christ Lutheran Church of the Deaf at http://www.christdeaf.org/. Many conservative scholars agree that “desire” in this passage is not a desire for love, but a negative desire, a violent craving against.

Therefore, while God’s original (and restored) plan includes mutual submission of husband and wife, the fall lead to a fight for dominance and control between men and women. Because of the man’s superior strength, he often ends up in the ruling position.

We fell by not trusting God and taking control. And we are doomed to continue wanting control. 

But a desire for control was NOT God’s original plan for women. It’s not how females were designed.

I contrast the fleshly, sinful place where we often find ourselves:

Don’t trust God with situations in life -> anger, fear, and frustration at circumstances (and people and sometimes God) – > being contentious towards others (either quietly or through nagging, as a way to control circumstances and others in order to protect ourselves)

With the place God wants us to be:

Trust God with every situation in life -> inwardly gently rest  in His loving plan -> have an attitude of peace and tranquility (quiet) that doesn’t disturb, but instead soothes others (see A Phrase That Makes Me Gag: Gentle and Quiet Spirit for a definition of that phrase)

So, how do I move from distrust to trust? From fear and anger to gentle rest? From controlling contentiousness to peaceful quiet?

Before I go there, I want to take a detour and post about how all women, even the most verbally quiet women, find ways to control their circumstances and their people (with input from my husband, who has had vast experience in this arena!).

Next Post: Controlling? Not Me!

The Vexing and Contentious Woman

Well, here I go: describing what most women devolve to when they aren’t being “gentle and quiet” (see an interpretation of that onerous phrase in A Phrase That Makes Me Gag: Gentle and Quiet Spirit ).

At the NextStep conference I attended (discussed here: The Journey to My Holiday ) and again on a CD, Larry and Rachel Crabb both shared with me that the opposite of the Gentle and Quiet woman was the Vexing and Contentious woman of Proverbs 21: 19.

To make sure I agreed, I did my own study of this passage and a few related passages.

I have to say:  I agree -

Vexing & Contentious  Gentle & Quiet

Here’s the passage in question (NASB version):

It is better to live in a desert land Than with a contentious and vexing woman. Proverbs 21: 9

Vexing is also translated ill-tempered, angry, fretful, and irritable.

Although it’s not clear that the “vexing” woman is angry at God, it’s possible that ultimately that’s where her anger is directed. However, she’s likely angry with the people and circumstances in her life.

In any case, a vexing woman is probably not “gentle” in the sense of trusting God with her life, resting in His good will. She is instead fretful and frustrated.

Contentious is also translated quarrelsome, brawling, discordant, or bitter-tongued.

Five, count ‘em, 5 Proverbs talk about the contentious woman! In addition to 21: 9, above, here are the rest in all their glory:

…  the contentions of a wife are a constant dripping. Proverbs 19: 13b

It is better to live in a corner of a roof than in a house shared with a contentious woman.  Proverbs 21: 19, repeated in 25: 24

A constant dripping on a day of steady rain and a contentious woman are alike.  Proverbs 27: 15

The woman in these Proverbs is  not “quiet” in any sense 0f the word – not vocally nor by means of having an inner tranquility that does not disturb others. Perhaps her anger leads her to being contentious, but whatever the case, she is a nag, an arguer, a pain in the neck.

So where do I spend most of my time?

Sadly, I think I am more vexing and contentious than gentle and quiet…  

It just seems so, hm, natural for me to drip, drip, drip (and, hey, occasionally it works!). 

But I do want to move more towards being gentle and quiet (at least the way I think it’s accurately defined).

How do I get there? How do I learn to rest in God and ooze contentment  towards others, allowing them to NOT be who I want them to be?

That’s the subject (in part) of the next few posts. But, first, I have to lay a bit more of the theological groundwork beneath my journey towards being female in Christ.

The next few posts are therefore entitled:

Why Am I Contentious? (Why Am I a Nag?)  A study of the fall and what’s behind being vexing and contentious

Controlling? Not Me! How all women in one way or another try to control others (even if not in the outward, nagging way)

The Essence of Femininity  What the Bible says about femininity and how it is the opposite of being controlling

Why Am I Controlling? Larry Crabb posits that there’s a fear which drives all women to control their circumstances. What is it? And how do I relate to it?

Then, I’ll get into a very personal journey that’s still underway.

With Gifts Like These, Who Needs Enemies?

I will soon write a post about the opposite of gentle and quiet (vexing and contentious, if you must know… for more about gentle and quiet, see A Phrase That Makes Me Gag: Gentle and Quiet Spirit ),  but I just wrote a devotion for my church that I thought possibly worth posting.

Whether or not it helps you, I needed to be reminded of these truths.

He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with Him, graciously give us all things? Romans 8:32

This verse came alive to me nearly 20 years ago when I first understood that the great love that sent Jesus to the cross for me would undoubtedly give me all things.

What are the “all things” God gives me along with Jesus? The phrase used in verse 32 is also used in verse 28: “…in all things God works for the good of those who love Him…” So, “all things” means every single circumstance that comes my way. What kind of circumstance does God give? 

In verse 37, Paul writes, “in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.” What “things” does Paul refer to here? Things like “…trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword….”   life?   Hm – those are some gifts!

So, here’s what I learned during a difficult time of ministry:  Whatever God brings to pass in my life, whether easy or hard — all of these things are borne by the same amazing, immeasurable, super-powerful love that sent Jesus to the Cross on my behalf.  No less. 

God’s great love gives me all these things. Therefore, I must conclude that the sacrificial love of the Cross is also behind God’s gracious gift of job losses, broken dreams, illness and death, loneliness, shattered relationships, persecution, and incalculable pain.

Why does God do this? Why does God’s love compel Him to bring difficulties to my life?  Many other Scriptures tell me that He does this so that I may grow spiritually 

Jesus died to make the relationship with God possible; He then brings difficulties to increase our intimacy. God uses suffering to bring broken-ness and repentance, to reveal my idolatries so that I may walk away from false gods and into the arms of the One True God.  It’s all of His great love.

And when I learn to accept and even thank Him for His good, often-painful gifts, I move closer to becoming “more than a conqueror.”

I move closer to Jesus.

A Phrase That Makes Me Gag: Gentle and Quiet Spirit

If you gag at that phrase “gentle and quiet” spirit, then we are on the same page. If a glance at a Bible study on gentle and quiet makes you want to run for the hills, so do I.

I think that most Christian women carry around a definition of the phrase “gentle and quiet” that does not necessarily reflect what the Bible means.

In fact, I was really relieved to discover the true meaning of the phrase found in this passage:

 Your beauty should not come from outward adornment…. Instead, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight.           1 Peter 3: 3, 4

Gentle

The word for gentle in scripture is also translated “meek” and is often used to describe Jesus. The English translation doesn’t do justice to the meaning of the word. It makes Jesus seem weak. The true meaning is far from that.

“Gentle” is an attitude primarily exhibited towards God. It’s that trust by which Jesus accepted God’s will at Gethsemane. There is great strength and power in such gentleness, that which allowed Jesus to move forward to the Cross. 

When we  rest in the circumstances God brings to bear in our  lives, thanking Him for the difficult as well as the easy, when we don’t dispute or resist His will, we are likewise gentle.

When we rest in God’s sovereign care, no matter our life circumstances, we are being gentle. We rest in His hands peacefully, trusting Him with our lives.

Quiet

Our Gentleness before God is reflected towards men in our Quietness. Quietness in this case isn’t being quiet as in mealy-mouthed or not talkative.

Instead, quiet is an attitude of tranquility that arises out of gently trusting God. Quietness doesn’t disturb other people. We can be very talkative, yet be quiet within and towards others. And we can be very outwardly quiet while our inward turmoil negatively affects those around us.

When I think now of being Gentle and Quiet, I think of rest, of trust, of letting go of control, of feeling loved and cared for no matter what happens. I think of a Dove, not a Pigeon (see The Dove and the Pigeon post).

Because this spirit trusts God, it  has great worth in His sight.

Boy, do I have a long way to go.

Instead of being Gentle and Quiet, I am often distrustful and angry with God, anxious and frustrated inside, controlling and manipulative towards others. I am a Pigeon, not a Dove (see The Dove and the Pigeon post which describes how I am a pigeon).

In fact, I am often a poster child of the opposite of Gentle and Quiet – which I’ll discuss next post…

The Dove and the Pigeon

In my last blog (The Journey to My Holiday ), I promised to write about several things that God appears to be teaching me during this season of my journey.

Even though I still struggle with doubts and distance,  it seems that God is up to something in my life.

I hope so.

During the NextStep school I attended (discussed in my the last blog), Larry Crabb talked about something he read in the book Sensitivity of the Spirit by R T Kendall.

John 1:32-34 says about Jesus at His baptism by John:

32 Then John gave this testimony: “I saw the Spirit come down from heaven as a dove and remain on him. 33 I would not have known him, except that the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, ‘The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is he who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.’ 34 I have seen and I testify that this is the Son of God.”

Larry posed  this question to the class, “Why does the fact that the dove ‘remained’ on Jesus prove that He is the Son of God?”

Apparently, doves will not “remain” on anything that is not at peace. The moment that peace is interrupted, the dove flees. But because Jesus was a man at complete peace with His Father, His circumstances, Himself…

the dove remained.

Larry contrasted the dove with a pigeon.

Have you ever been to Trafalgar Square in London and seen the pigeons?

Nothing disturbs pigeons who want food.  Unlike the dove, who moves at the slightest disturbance, who knows what it would take to shoo those pigeons away. 

Maybe a stick of dynamite.

Larry continued to talk about how when we are walking in the Spirit, the dove remains.

We are at peace. We are quiet.

Well, I don’t know what more Larry Crabb said, because this metaphor took off for me. I continued to mull over these images in my mind.

In fact, I realized I am a pigeon most of the time.

And I need to learn to live like a  dove.

How am I like a pigeon? And how does that differ from a dove?

1. I’m agitated a lot. I imagine a pigeon jerking its head around, looking left, right, center, down, up, always moving. Agitated. Can’t stop. Must be busy.  Often feels nervous and uptight inside.

Doves just sit there, slowly looking around, quiet. I once sat under a tree that had a dove in it and didn’t even know it was there til it flew off. This is why magicians use doves in shows. ‘Cause they don’t move.

2. I MUST talk. And talk fast. And talk more. Sure, doves coo, but pigeons, they sort of making a coo with a rolled r: croo, croo. Sometimes it’s a coo crossed with a hen’s buckbuckbuck: a coo that never stops. Croocroocroo. It’s not relaxing. Not like the dove’s intermittent coos.

3. I get all worked up when circumstances take me by surprise, don’t go my way. Then I get everyone around me worked up. Can’t you just picture a pigeon flapping its wings? Flying up around back down. Flapping, flapping. A startled pigeon makes me nervous. A startled dove just flies away.

4. I’m controlling. And pigeons are controlling. If you have food, they won’t leave. Sometimes they’ll just sit on your head til you give in. They put pressure on you: feed me, feed me, feed me. You MUST feed me.

5. When they’re not controlling, pigeons are manipulative (who, me?). They wander around looking hungry til you give in and toss them some bread.  Doves will certainly take your food, but they’d rather fly away and find some peace then stay around and let you feed them. They eat after you leave.

I tell you, I was really convicted by this one: how often I live in the flesh (the pigeon) rather than the Spirit (the dove).

I mean, isn’t it obvious that the pigeon-like behaviors don’t reflect trust in God? If not, I’ll post more on that later (when I talk about the gentle and quiet spirit of a Godly woman….).

While I was thinking about this, I kept imagining how often I adopt pigeon-like behaviors when I sit down with each of my girls to help them practice their instruments. I get agitated, controlling, flapping, talking… It drives both of us crazy.

I kept imagining what it would be like if I could enter into God’s peace while they practice. Calm, encouraging, not expecting them to “do it my way,” so not controlling… I want to be that person. I think the girls want it, too.

I’m more aware now when I’m walking in the pigeon and not in the dove.  I try to remember to put on the dove when I feel that pigeon doing its thing.

And I want my heart to find the peace of the dove. My heart wants that, too.

But that pigeon is rooted pretty deeply in my life. I’ve come to depend on that pigeon. It’ll take a lot to remove it.

Like some dynamite.

Hm. The dynamite of God.

That could explain a lot about my circumstances…

Next up: What IS a gentle and quiet spirit??

The Journey to My Holiday

Now I am about to take a detour to discuss the positive things that appear to be happening on my journey to find that Holiday at Sea.

Bet you can’t wait…

At the end of August, I attended a week-long seminar/school called NextStep. This course follows Larry Crabb’s School of Spiritual Direction (which teaches how to have spiritually forming conversations). The second course helps fine-tune a person’s Directing skills through teaching and practice. For those of you who don’t know him, Larry Crabb is a Christian psychologist who wrote the best-selling Inside Out and Connecting, among others.

NOTE: If you want a fantastic week of fellowship, teaching, and life-changing conversations (the experience of most attendees), then go to www.NewWayMinistries.org and sign up for the next School of Spiritual Direction. Tell them HolidayLonging sent you. I don’t think you will regret it…

Seven years ago, my husband told me he sensed I was supposed to attend the School of Spiritual Direction. Even though I had very little experience as a counselor (I am still not doing Spiritual Direction!), I sensed he was right, so I applied and was accepted.

Little did I know what was in store.

Long story short, I was selected to be the week’s  ’guinea pig,’ by which I had the privilege of being sliced and diced by Larry Crabb in front of the class.

It wasn’t pretty.

But it was good.

Life-changing, in fact.

Through this process and the work of the Holy Spirit, I came to realize and repent of my “dog of defense,” a series of reactions I’d subconsciously concocted over the years to defend myself when I felt cornered by others.

Things like arguing impeccably to convince the other person I was absolutely right (my favorite!), crying (oh, pity me), blame-shifting, holding a grudge, then gossiping, etc., etc. Familiar with any of these?

I didn’t realize the extent to which these behaviors were not innate, but instead, I had created them for my protection because I couldn’t trust God to take care of me.

At the School, I found myself prompted to pray that God would kill the dog.

Don’t know if he outright killed the dog or mortally wounded it.

I do know that everyone, including myself, saw a change afterwords. I felt relief – like I’d been freed from something – and a sense of having been humbled.

So, a few months ago, my husband suggested I attend the NextStep course.

Guess he thought it was time for more change.

So I went.

I wanted to learn how to have better spiritual conversations.

And I hoped to deal with some of the issues that I’ve blogged about, such as my doubts, my sense I need to draw closer to the Man on the Cross, and what it would look like to be a female in Christ.

So, I’ll share what I learned and what’s been happening in subsequent posts.

Stay tuned.

Storing Up Thanks

A friend emailed this story to me a few days ago.  I usually ignore these sort of sicky-sweet email offerings.

But I actually read this one.  I needed to be jolted out of my whiny-hood.

This story helped: 

 A 92-year-old, petite, well-poised and proud man, who is fully dressed each morning by eight o’clock, with his hair fashionably combed and shaved perfectly –even though he is legally blind — moved to a nursing home today. His wife of 70 years recently passed away, making the move necessary.*

After many hours of waiting patiently in the lobby of the nursing home, he smiled sweetly when told his room was ready. As he maneuvered his walker to the elevator, I provided a visual description of his tiny room, including the eyelet sheets that had been hung on his window. ‘I love it,’ he stated with the enthusiasm of an eight-year-old having just been presented with a new puppy.

‘Mr. Jones, you haven’t seen the room; just wait.’ ‘That doesn’t have anything to do with it,’ he replied. Happiness is something you decide on ahead of time. Whether I like my room or not doesn’t depend on how the furniture is arranged … it’s how I arrange my mind. I already decided to love it.

 ’It’s a decision I make every morning when I wake up. I have a choice; I can spend the day in bed recounting the difficulty I have with the parts of my body that no longer work, or get out of bed and be thankful for the ones that do.

‘Each day is a gift, and as long as my eyes open, I’ll focus on the new day and all the happy memories I’ve stored away… just for this time in my life. Old age is like a bank account. You withdraw from what you’ve put in. So, my advice is to deposit a lot of happiness in the bank account of memories!’

Here’s what I got from this story: I gotta stop whining and gotta start storing thanks.

I don’t want to look back and remember everything that went wrong. I want to look back and recall all of the blessings.

And I’ve never thought of deciding ahead of time to accept what comes with thanks, but I believe that would be a welcomed change.

For everyone concerned…!

 

* Please note: picture credited to http://advancedstyle.blogspot.com/

Assailed by Doubts and Distance

A year ago May, I hit my first real patch of doubt after more than 35 years of being a Christian. It was a scary time and I wrote several posts about doubt, starting with Doubting at Last.

I pulled out of that phase sometime later in the year, only to be hit last spring with a distance from God and new bouts of doubt that I described in My Dusky Hour of the Soul

The summer wasn’t so bad if only because I was having fun being creative with our kitchen and bathroom.

Since the job hunt began in earnest, I’ve become more aware that I waver between feelings of doubt, distance, and tentative faith.

A recent email to some friends indicates how I felt last week when the job searches for both my husband and me appeared very bleak:

I would appreciate prayer. At this moment, I think God exists and prayer works.

But last week, and off and on over the past year or so,  I’ve suffered a loss of faith, a loss of my assurance that He IS and He is with me, and a loss of hope.

 

And I get very angry and depressed about it.

  

… I took up job hunting when I returned from [our seminar] and the kids went back to school. My husband has decided to look outside of the church for a job, too. And I gotta tell you, it ain’t pretty out there in job hunting land…

 

I met with [a local spiritual director] the other day, who many of you know…. We shared our stories and his now sounds like my husband’s and mine used to: strong sense of God’s calling, being part of a huge [ministry] movement, seeing God work through us, being part of a community, being taken care of by God, etc.

 

Instead of feeling encouraged, however, I felt depressed. Instead of being excited about how God was using this guy, I was jealous and angry.  

 

Have you forgotten us, God?? What about the “good works that You prepared beforehand” for US to walk in??

 

For years, I mean YEARS, I never understood why Christians complained to God and about God’s plan for their lives. Heck, didn’t they get Romans 8:28 and 32??

 

Now I am one of those whiners. 

 

I dreamt last night about some old church friends and the dream conveyed just how angry I am at the church, too, for letting me down.

 

Oddly, God (or is it just some psychological event??) has been doing some very disruptive things in my life [recently]. But despite these happenings, I sometimes feel like an outsider looking in. Oh, I know all the lingo, but is this just because I’ve been part of this Christian subculture for so long? Or is it true? I came to [our seminar] feeling exactly this way, and left a bit more tied in and believing because of you all.

 

But I still have bad days when I honestly think that the only thing that keeps me going is the fact I am a Mom. I don’t feel much hope otherwise.

 

But on the better days, I am pretty sure that God is doing some major surgery, that He wants a new Copernican revolution in my heart where my greatest longing is to pursue Him and to live for His glory, not just for a sense of His presence or guidance or calling or purpose….

 

Anyhow, if you BELIEVE, could you pray for us and for our jobs…? And if you’ve been here before, I’d love to hear your story.

That’s the end of my email and the end of this post…. More in posts to come

Back from Holiday

Yeah.  Well, I took some time off.  Had a bit of a blogging holiday.

Haven’t been posting or reading (sorry, friends).

I thought to myself, “Why not? Why have I eschewed this most noble activity?”

I’ll tell you why.

Life didn’t suck this summer. I actually had fun.

I realize in retrospect that most of my blog posts starting in late 2008 were the direct result of life going off the rails.

And wondering what God was going to do about it or to me.

My husband had heard it all, but I still needed an outlet. So here it was: my anonymous blog where I could blow off all I wanted.

But this summer was great. I didn’t work (at a job), but, instead, devoted myself to redoing our kitchen, bathroom, carpeting and other odd jobs which arose, in part, because of a toilet overflow last spring.

[An aside: amazing what damage water can do. I now have nightmares of toilets filled to the brim. They've replaced the "I'm on the way to an exam and never attended the course" stress dreams. See How Bad Can it Get?? Apparently Worse... for the sad story and Our Kitchen Saga for the result]

And I spent the summer living off of the home equity loan we used to do to the house what the insurance company didn’t — and TOTALLY DENIED THE FACT THAT THERE WAS A RECESSION GOING ON!

So, I had a great time.

No need to blog.

‘Til now.

Now I am looking for a job

And guess what??

I have something to blog about again.

 

… to be continued …

Our Kitchen Saga

Back in February I discussed how a single overflowing toilet did amazing damage to our home (How Bad Can it Get?? Apparently Worse… ).  Here’s a pictorial history of the Kitchen Saga (and one reason I’ve not been blogging very much lately!):

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So, our kitchen is done (less light rail, still to be installed). We added some neat features that make life easier, like racks to put trays upright and a neat spice rack from Lowe’s. My favorites are extending the countertop so the kids can eat at the island (and keeping our Jennair gas cooktop by just replacing some parts) AND  that we replaced a lousy dark closet with a pantry where the shelves each pull out. Now I know what we have to eat! My husband also came up with the cool idea of putting lights up on top of the cabinets which shine out over the molding. We are VERY happy with the new kitchen.

Now, if one of us can just get a job to pay for all of this. Sigh…!

More Dusky Hour Reflections…

In my last post (My Dusky Hour of the Soul), I discussed some passages from Tim Farrington’s A Hell of Mercy.

I’d like to share another here, a passage that really resonated with me in this time of wondering and waiting…

 What the dark night shows us, through the intensely resisted revelation of our spiritual bankruptcy, is that we have been in the game for the payoff… We’ve been hoping for peace of mind during our golden years, a solid foundation of spiritual capital, security, and a 9 percent return on bliss. But now the bottom has fallen out of the market. Our spiritual checks are bouncing. (p. 71)

Oh, how I relate!! I posted earlier (Bargaining with God (Who, Me?)) how aware I was of this very phenomenon in my life.      

But, now, I am even more conscious of the fact I’ve been “in the game for the payoff.”

I recall during my sophomore year of college, I suffered an emotional breakdown of sorts and entered the campus infirmary (I had an infection and fever as well).  The infirmary staff kept me there until they knew I was on the rebound, both physically and mentally.

Anyway, upon leaving the infirmary, I headed over to the dorm room of one of the spiritual leaders on campus to seek counsel. I will never forget her words upon my sharing the recent struggles:

“God has a wonderful plan for your life” (or something to that effect, though I doubt she quote Law 1 of the 4 Laws to me). 

In any case, I believed it. Those words (and the subsequent friendship with this woman) encouraged me more than you can imagine. I needed to know someone had a plan for me.  I needed to know someone liked me, too.

It’s only recently that I’ve seen that I am angry at God for not giving me the wonderful life I thought He had planned (I suspect we had different plans in mind all along).

Though I talk a lot about the benefits of suffering (again, in terms of repenting and growing closer to God), at some level, I expected God to deliver on that wonderful plan with something tangible, not just something spiritual (and even that seems to have been lacking lately).

I’m embarrassed to tell you what I now realize I thought that good life entailed, but it did NOT include four years of an unemployed and unhealthy husband, exceedingly (for me) difficult job and church situations, and a loss of the type of community which has made me feel loved most of my Christian life. And it did include some sort of “spiritual payoff.”

I don’t think I saw God as a cosmic Santa Claus or Vending Machine, here to serve me if I inserted the correct spiritual coinage. It was/is more subtle than that.

Rather, I saw Him as my loving Father who intended to take care of His child, to ensure that His child had a good life. 

Any of you parents know how self-centered kids can be are… Well, I realize that in a real way, in my relationship with God, I was very much like a child, very egocentric.

It sort of makes me sick. 

Maybe it’s time to grow up.

More reflections to come…

My Dusky Hour of the Soul

 My husband recently listened to St. John of the Cross’ Dark Night of the Soul on his iPod.

After hearing the description of this phase of spiritual growth, I’m not sure I can claim to be passing through the Dark Night. But what about the Dusky Hour?

Since I lost my job, I’ve not posted for two reasons:

1. I’ve been pretty much consumed with rebuilding our kitchen (which you faithful readers will recall was taken out by an overflowing toilet… see: How Bad Can it Get?? Apparently Worse…  ).
2. My doubts have returned. My confidence in God has waxed and waned over the past two months. It’s been disconcerting, to say the least.

I do wonder if this dark passage is part of God’s way of answering my prayer that He would help me repent of anything that prevented greater intimacy with Jesus (see Compelled by Love ).

Anyway, I told a friend I was in this dark passage and she sent me A Hell of  Mercy by Tim Farrington which discusses its author’s trip down Dark Night lane and back.

There were some passages in the book that were just spot-on about how I feel right now. Such as:

You will be graced by the disaster your soul requires to find its way home. (p. 79)

A wise friend of mine once said that God gives us the exact curriculum we each need for our spiritual growth. To me, these two statements say that God knows exactly the disaster – the life loss – each of us requires in order to find Him in a deeper way; He knows what idols to remove so that we turn from them to Him.

Here’s another:

One way or another, life will bring us to the point of feeling we have nothing left to lose, in spite of our best efforts to avoid it. But the miracle of this thing we call death is that it is only in our seemingly final defeat, only through suffering the annihilation of everything we know and think ourselves to be, that we find ourselves capable at last of knowing God’s real mercy. (p. 90).

I’m not there yet, but I sure do look forward to more deeply knowing God’s “real mercy,”  the mercy of the cross.

Just not too crazy about this dusky hour.

More observations coming in future posts…

God Loves You…

Yesterday, a friend emailed me the following ”failed gospel tract:”

Ain’t it the truth?!

It all depends on how you define “wonderful plan,” doesn’t it?

Compelled by Love

… Still recovering from my 15-month ordeal (see the last post, below). Who knew I could sleep so much?

Now, on to a more spiritual topic.

I wrote a while ago about the sense that Jesus is calling me to greater intimacy, a call, I realize, that at some level I am afraid to follow.

I think one aspect of sin’s root is that God offers his love and we reject it, convinced (perhaps by our own experience?) that He will not love us well and that we must take matters into our own hands. Therefore, we seek love in all the wrong places.

It’s not that I must find Him, but that I must respond to His knocking at my heart in a way I never have.

I am always moved when I recall the passage in Blue Like Jazz about a friend of author Donald Miller who interviewed Bill Bright [Founder of Campus Crusade for Christ]:

… as a final question he asked Dr. Bright what Jesus meant to him. Alan said Dr. Bright could not answer the question. He said Dr. Bright just started to cry. He sat there in his big chair behind his big desk and wept.

When Alan told me that story I wondered what it was like to love Jesus that way. I wondered, quite honestly, if that Bill Bright guy was just nuts or if he really knew Jesus in a personal way, so well that he would cry at the very mention of His name. I knew then that I would like to know Jesus like that, with my heart, not just my head. I felt like that would be the key to something.

I do, too.

I always thought Bill Bright had some amazing relationship with Jesus that simply drove him to forget himself and share the gospel.

I would like to have that, though it scares me a bit.

It reminds me of what the Apostle Paul said:

… Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again. 2 Corinthians 5:14-15

Frankly, when I look back on why I’ve done ministry in the past, sure, obviously I am compelled by the love of Christ, but I am painfully aware of all the other motives stirring within and along side of that one, dross such as:

• longing for the sense of excitement and power that come from seeing God work (through me!),
• feeling like I am somebody special because God chose to use me
• finding identity in being part of a community that’s working alongside of me

Who, me? I’ll stop there. No need to bore you with any more facts…

Today, I told my husband (a pastor between callings) that if both of us really knew Christ the way Bill Bright did, we wouldn’t care what job we had.  Because Jesus would be enough.

And we’d do ministry no matter what the pay or recognition or result. We’d want so much to honor Jesus. We’d be compelled by our love for Him.

My husband told me I could stop talking.

Just a wee bit too convicting, apparently.

Dear Lord: I want to know and love you like Bill Bright did (and now does, for eternity), but I think I am afraid of it, too. I don’t even know how to proceed. But you know. Please do your thing in my heart. Amen.

My 15-Month Ordeal Ended Today

Yep. I got my wish. I was fired. Er, “laid off.”

I cried all the way home.

And guess what? No severance. And just two weeks more to work.

I’m not surprised.

Well, a bit surprised at the timing. I thought I’d have a bit more time to look for a job. I’ve looked outside of the area (hoping we could move), but not here. And after the toilet flood wrecked our house (see How Bad Can it Get…). I was too preoccupied to look. Though I am thinking I need to find another job right where we are, even if dear husband can’t find a job here. And I’m angry that the idiot who fired me feels totally justified and blames me completely, while he has a job and we are not only without income soon, but have a mess of work on the house before us. Oh, and he did this while my husband and kids were away for Spring Break…

My mind’s a whirl. Can you tell?

So I went and played Battleship on the Wii. And won. Yea.

Still…

Life sucks. And then you die.

That’s a paraphrase of John Calvin who essentially said the same thing in his Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life:

… we should at once come to the conclusion that nothing in this world can be sought, or expected, but strife, and that we must raise our eyes to heaven to see a crown.

I’ve heard people talk about all the crowns we’ll get in heaven.

But, frankly, I think there’s only one crown – and that’s to be with Jesus.

That’s the Holiday at Sea.

You know, there have been times this last year where I thought (and wrote here), “I really don’t care if I know God more deeply through all this ick. I just want pain relief.”

Do you think I was mad at God?! LOL

But, now, I really do want that intimacy with Jesus that I both need and am afraid of (see my last post:  Ten Ideas Changing the World Right Now  – the last part).

Even if it requires more pain.

Someone said in response to my sharing this event: “God’s got something better in mind. You’ll get a great job. You’re so talented. Blah Blah.” 

Well, God’s better may be another horrible job or no job at all for some time. With this economy, neither of us working, and with our now meagre savings tied up in horribly depressed stock, we may be in for a very frustrating, scary future

But, thankfully, I have some peace. I really do want Jesus more and maybe this is the only way I will get Him (and maybe a better attitude towards my nemesis…).

Life sucks. And then you die.

The good news is: you die to self, too.

For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.  Matthew 16: 25

By the way, check out John Piper’s sermon on the recession here: What is the Recession For?  It gives some perspective about suffering. Good words to have heard right before this morning’s event.

Stay tuned…

Dear Lord: Thanks that I soon will be out of that horribly toxic situation. Thanks for the peace I now feel. Help me to draw close to you. And if possible, can I get a really great job? Amen