Believing God

The Lord is close to the brokenhearted, and He saves those crushed in spirit. Psalm 34:18

Today was a strange day, the first day of summer school, the first time I have watched another teacher take over the students that I put my heart into for the last 9 months and apparently failed. Then came some mind-boggling news; the person who supervised me, who had allowed me to tormented by a school Principal, who was unsuccessful in supervising three experienced teachers, and who has never taught in a public school classroom and does not even have anything but a school pyschologist's credential was named Principal of the special education program that I was once a part of. I, who created a program from the ground up and was successful with six students, among them those with severe behavior problems was non-re-elected (Not re-hired) as were my colleagues who were also under this woman. How does THAT work? I am struggling to forgive, to not be bitter, to move on, then I get this news.

So, maybe I have a bit deeper understanding of what Jesus went through; I am imperfect. I have made mistakes and done things wrong in spite of an overall successful year. Jesus WAS perfect. He did not make any mistakes. He did nothing wrong, yet people fought Him from all sides. He brought a new vision of God, a direct line to the Father, a communion never experienced since Adam and Eve, and they took Him, humiliated Him, beat Him up and murdered Him. The very people who should have been rejoicing in the Great Gift He brought; Jews and Romans alike. Yet in spite of all of this, He can still come to me and tell me that He understands. He knows I am brokenhearted. He knows my spirit is crushed. And He cares. He could point out all my mistakes in this hopeless year, yet He does compare my small wounds with the horrors perpetrated on Him. He says He understands. He feels for me. That He is close to me and will save me. The words of Corrie Ten Boom saying, "There is no pit so deep that God is not deeper still" remind me that even in my darkest, gloomiest hours, God has chosen to stand by me.

Unforgiven

Matthew 6:14-15 For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your Heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.

(Image is of Salvador Dali's "Person at the Window)

I realized just as I was typing in these words that forgiveness is a choice. I also realized that perhaps the reason I feel so far away from God is my lack of forgiveness for the many people who have hurt me. I have had a very rough three years. I am a special educator. When I went to my first public school job I tried to advocate for my students. That's what I thought I should do. That is what I learned in my credentialling program and in all the books I read whether I wanted to or not. That is not what the district that hired me wanted. In fact, for my efforts I was fired in a most humiliating way. So, I became a whistleblower on behalf of students and parents who could not speak for themselves. I was no martyr, I was scared to death, but it was the right thing to do. I suppose it was also a little revenge, too, which is not my job, but the kids did get their services. I look back at that time and think I could have been more diplomatic, I could have played the game better, but I simply did not know. The school I came from had never thought of walking on the rights of students. So, it went on. As far as I know, I have been blackballed. For doing what was right. The next district I worked at was pretty much a repeat of the first. And this last year has been the worst of all; I have spent most of the year targetted and harrassed by a Principal with no end of cruel headgames for me while I struggled with some of the most challenging students I have ever worked with. She drove me to the point of considering taking my life. It was that bad. She also has a Christian fish on her car. This, in a profession dedicated to the academic welfare of children. It still does not make sense to me.

So, what am I to do with these feelings of rage inside me? The steam that comes bubbling up from that cauldron of rage and blocks my view of God? How do I forgive when the sins and betrayals against me are continuous? When I went to find a verse on forgiveness in my study Bible I found at least 4 columns on forgiveness, forgiving, forgiven, forgave. It is vitally important to God that I forgive. These verses from Matthew do not say, "If you FEEL like forgiving men when they sin against you" they say "For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your Heavenly Father will also forgive you." There is no wiggle room. There are no excuses. You can't ignore or find another way to interpret what this says. There leaves only one choice; to forgive. To begin walking the road of forgiveness. To start throwing out the stones of hatred and hurt I am carrying that make my journey so much more of a burden. To believe and trust God that if He is commanding me to do something that somehow it is for not only God's benefit, but for mine, too. Within forgiveness is the chance to free myself of the simmering cauldron that blocks my view of the Lord so that the window to Him is once again crystal clear.

Mustard and other yellow stuff

He replied, "Because you have so little faith, I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to a mountain, 'Move from here to there' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you." Matt 17:20

I confess that I am not a big fan of the common yellow variety of mustard. It seems like something so sour and yellow could not possibly be happy on a hamburger, much less my mouth. I do like some of the fancy mustards though, but I often wonder if the simple word "fancy" makes them more palatable than the endless generations of common yellow bottles that have stood sentry in my refridgerator eaten by everyone but me. But I love the allegory of the mustard seed in the Bible because right about now, that is about the size of my faith; I am really struggling. In spite of this struggle, deep inside me is a tiny pellet with the gift of life inside it; the promise of a bloom and with it the possibility of scattering the seed to the wind and creating a whole field of mustard plants bright yellow and green against the radiant blue sky.  I know this seed that I carry, this tiny, homely seed can create great vistas of endless yellow as far as the eye can see. This mustard seed holds possibility, hope, promises for tomorrow because the only will of the mustard seed is to grow and bloom within us, reaching for the sky and for the Heavens as our own heart reaches for the Creator. 

The Sandwich

Then He said to them, "Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions." Luke 12:15

I sat next to the Vicar Jon Perez of Epiphany Church of Marina and laid out a complaint against my sister who had cheated me out of a substantial inheritance, and a God Who could easily intercede in my dire financial crisis. He was quiet for a moment, meditating on my words. Then he spoke. He told me of a person in a room with a sandwich. Another person enters the room. What will the person do with that sandwich? Abundance in God," he said "Is not in how much you have, but how much you are willing to share. Abundance is a thing of the heart." But my sister, I argued gently, has plenty and is getting plenty more while I struggle just to provide for me and my spouse on one income in an area where work is sparse.  "For some people," he went on, "alot is never enough. They always feel like they don't have enough even when they have much." As I have been meditating on his words, I have been deeply impressed by whether the sandwich in my own life is not enough to eat, or enough to share. 

Surrender

He mocks proud mockers but gives grace to the humble. Proverbs 3:34

Believe it or not, when I hit my NIV Study Bible concordance which often helps me to look a lot more biblically literate than I truly am, I only found one verse on surrender; it was the verse from I Corinthians 13:3 about surrendering our bodies to the flames (By then, of course, we are hopefully dead.). I started thinking about surrender when one of my Christian Facebook friends wrote after her name, "surrenders". The more I contemplated surrender, the more questions, the more thoughts, the more insights came up from that simple yet powerful word. I thought about people who surrender during wartime, realizing the futility of their fight and hoping for the mercy of the enemy. I meditated on surrendering to God as a Christian and was faced by the many ramparts I have built to keep the enemy out, the many skirmishes I am still involved in, and by my inability to give God some of these areas of my life and realize that surrendering to the Ally is an ongoing process.  And I wonder just what it is in me that thinks that I know better, that it will be easier, that I will do a better job if I simply take on the battle myself. I made a public commitment to God when I was around 14, yet God has known me my whole life. Before I had a Name for the sudden peace, the sense of Presence in my life, God was there. I have seen God answer prayer and heal people simply because I asked. I have received financial help from God in unexpected ways when I was badly in need. I have had visions of Other Places that are dulled by the use of human words. I have felt the Presence of God so near that it seemed the air that I breathed. Yet in spite of all these things, in spite of knowing, feeling and even seeing God at work and knowing that Being in Him is simply the Best Place to Be, I continue my own wars. Amazingly what I am really seeking is the end of the war in its' antonym, peace. In reading my own words I realize that the place of surrender is not in simply using my own strength to stop doing things or to accept circumstances beyond my control, but to be in a place near enough to God knowing that in His Character He will not shoot me when my back is turned or torture me for information about the enemy that we can willingly surrender. What loss I bring to my own life when I think I gain by fighting a battle that God can win. 

The Desert

At once the Spirit sent Him out into the desert, and He was in the desert forty days, being tempted by satan. He was with the wild animals and the angels attended him. Mark 1:12-13

I am not a great fan of the desert. I know some people can see in the desert the exquisite beauty of the landscape in the bold sunrises and sunsets and vegetation and wildlife unique to a parched terrain. I see cloying heat, choking dust and scorpions hitchiking on my socks. I stay as far away from the desert as I possibly can. As much as I dislike the desert, I know I have been there spiritually for quite a long while. I also know that the spiritual desert experience does not have to be the result or consequences of sin because He Who knew no sin was sent into the desert by the Spirit Himself. There is something to be learned in the deserts of our life that we cannot learn while all is well and good and all is comfort and rest. The Bible would have definatley noted the fact if Jesus had gone there and had a really great time; instead other Gospels tell us He was hungry, it goes without saying that he was probably thirsty, dirty, too cold or too hot, smelly and lonely at some time or another in the forty days He spent there. He was also tempted when He was physically at His weakest. We see it in hindsight in the Bible; we know what happens, we know the end of the story but at the point when it happened, it was so terrible that angels had to attend him. Maybe, then instead of looking at our desert experiences as a punishment from God and going through our laundry list of possible sins, or listening to other believers when they tell us it is because of sin we are there without consulting or listening to God on the matter, maybe we can look at our deserts in a more positive way; this time ushered in Jesus's magnificant ministry on earth, the beginning of His Calling and Destiny. That ministry that would eventually turn the entire world upside down. We will not experience that same ministry because  we are not the Christ, but when we walk out of that desert, that endless wilderness, we, too may be walking into God's Destiny for us. 

Wait for the Lord

Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord. Ps 27:14

   I have not grown into a world that values waiting; there is an ever beating pulse from the media and from ads on TV reminding me that I don't have to wait, that I can have it now, that I need it now, that I will become obsolete and old-fashionably laughable if I don't get it now. Many of those absolute essentials are gathering dust in cardboard cartons in my garage. Now. It is no wonder that our country has become nearly bankrupt in our hurry to grab everything we can that we really cannot afford; 5 bedroom houses for our two children, cars with every gadget imaginable including DVD players so we can talk on the phone to our friends while our children watch Disney in the back seat. Then the recession comes and the blame game begins; God's judgment has come on our country because of the immorality of the people; the States that allow gay marriage, the divorce rate, the fact that a good lot of people do not marry as virgins. I hear all these reasons all the time, except for the real reason which is a direct byproduct of the sin it came from; the sin of our nation is greed. The sin of our nation is envy and a covetous desire to fill our hearts and lives with everything BUT God. This is a sin we've all bought into which has become such a part of our lives that we no longer see it and cast about our eyes to other causes and reasons. If God is judging us, it is because ALL of us have fallen short, not just certain groups and certain people. Greed, envy, covetousness are woven into the tapestry of our country aided and abetted by greedy companies that create products that can't be fixed (Try finding a pair of new foam ear pads for your walkman headset....they will tell you to buy a new pair.)

    Now think of the things in your life and around you that you have had to wait for; the Thanksgiving dinner that took days to prepare, the baby that grew from an infant to a child to a teenager to a parent themself, the garden went from simply clumps of green surrounded by dirt to lush foilage where you spend time with your favorite book. Think of these things. Think of the things of God, the mountains, the oceans with craggy cliffs, the forests with meadows speckled with brightly colored wildflowers. Think of Abraham and Sarah who waited so long for a child. What is it that you are waiting for? Do you want it now? Or do you want to wait? Oh, it is so hard to wait for that Thanksgiving feast when we can simply run through the drive-thru of a restaurant and be filled immediatley! What are you waiting for?

Unexpected Gifts

If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in Heaven give good gifts to those who askHim? Matt 7:11

I was maybe seven or eight years old and we had gone to stay with a close friend of my mothers who had just separated from her husband. Of these things, I had no understanding; it was a different world then where separation and divorce were a foreign language that most of us did not speak. We stayed in a motel with that friend and her daughter who was my age. For me, it was exciting, staying in a motel with a kidney-shaped pool. While I liked her daughter, she was also very boring; she did not want to go swimming, so I couldn't either. Then, I was told, we were going to a berry farm. I could think of nothing more mind-numbing than a berry farm where I would watch endless jars of jam being filled and labeled. I whined and moaned about yet another one of the tedious adventures that adults seemed to find so exciting. I complained and pleaded all the way to this place, youthfully insensitive to the feelings of the little family with us. Until we got to the berry farm; Knotts Berry Farm. In trying to keep it a surprise for me, my mother had not told me that the days of canning jellies and jams were long gone replaced by ferris wheels and rollercoasters. I never could have imagined it. 

Even though it is a distant, it is a powerful reminder that although God has not directly told me where He is taking me, it is not necessarily the droll place I expect as I file in prayer complaint after complaint on my way there; it may well be a better place than I ever could imagine. 

Be still

Be still and know that I am God. Ps. 46:10a

Stillness does not come naturally to me. Some part of me is always touching, thinking, scratching, picking, stroking, without even thinking about it, moving. My mind whirls away, an overwound spring chasing thoughts, one after another, like hummingbirds from one flower to the next. As exhausting as it is (you would think I would stop and rest), the stillness evades me. Within the stillness, which I cannot hear through the thrumming of my never-ending flights, lies the Voice of God. That Voice that did not speak in the storm, but in the moment of quiet. I heard that Voice today when for a short second I must have paused, my mind moving to the things of God, in the mundane, in the privacy of my littered car, "Do you think I will ever give up on you?"