The Shelf

I feel as though I have been on hold for five years. Maybe longer. I feel as though God picked me up, gave me one quick hug and placed me on a shelf then turned His back, turned off the light and closed the door. For three of those five years I was content to stay perfectly still and perfectly quiet on that shelf. It felt right, it felt safe. Then about two years ago the shelf became dusty, the air stifling, my bones stiff and I began to want to change positions. I began to miss the light so I cracked opened the door just a wee bit. The light was a little uncomfortable and blinding after so long on the dark shelf. The little whiff of fresh air that came in through the crack caused me to breathe a little deeper. The warmth that came in felt good and I began to yearn for more. But yearning is not doing. A feeling of a little loneliness crept across my heart and I called out to God--remember me? Did you forget me on this shelf? Are you ever coming back?

Oh I know you're protecting me in here. I know you promised never to leave me so I know you're around here somewhere. I hate to be a pest, but now might be a good time to show me your presence--I miss seeing you--did you miss me? We used to be so busy together. We never had a moment to think, to breathe, to feel. I don't know about you but those times really wore me out. I did need the time on the shelf, but I never meant for you to go on without me. Did I disappoint you; did I disobey you?

 "But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint." Isaiah 40:31

That's what the shelf has been about! Waiting. Waiting upon the Lord. You knew my strength was gone. Years of trying to be that Godly woman, wife, mother, ministry leader were exciting and gratifying but tiring. When taking care of a mother with Alzheimer's and a father-in-law with terminal cancer were added in, the tiredness turned to exhaustion. The exhaustion turned to illness--diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure. I needed a waiting time and place but I didn't know how to get there and I didn't think Christians were allowed to go there. I just kept slipping down further into a pit of despair and I couldn't find a way out.

 "He brought me up also out of a horrible pit, out of the miry clay; And he set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings." Psalm 40:2

But then God...heard my groanings and understood every feeling I could not express. But then God...moved me thousands of miles from everyone and everything I knew and loved. But then God...allowed my mother's Alzheimer's to get so bad she could not live with me any longer. But then God...gave me an empty nest and gave my husband a job that took him away from home during the week. He put me on the shelf--the quiet, peaceful, safe, secure shelf. He showed me on that shelf in the quiet days and nights just how tired and numb I was but more importantly, He showed me that it was o.k. to stay there until I felt better and stronger.  He taught me something I was never good at before--He taught me to wait. The world didn't end. My children and grand children's lives were not put on hold until I could help them with it. My mother still needed help but I learned to allow other's who were trained to help me with her. I missed my husband and he missed me but our marriage grew stronger and more loving. He let me see that He really didn't need me to help Him heal abuse victims (my ministry), but He gave me peace to know that when He restored my strength He would use me again. God showed me that I was His daughter and therefore He would take care of me just as I told others He would take care of all of their needs. He lavished love on me by letting me just rest. He didn't value me because of what I could do for Him but because of what He had done for me. Jesus did it all!

After I cracked open that door and called to Him, He answered. He brought me into a time of prayer. The next two years were years of preparation. Everyday He allowed me more and more time to commune with Him--pray and wait for His answers, a luxury I had never had a lot of. I don't believe in "magic" but that is the word that most will understand--these years were "magical".  How amazing that the God who created everything would take the time to hear my prayers and to care enough to answer each one! Each answered prayer did make me feel as if I was soaring with eagle's wings. Finally, in His timing, I was ready to come off of the shelf.

In His gracious goodness the Lord allowed my husband and myself to move back to a place where we are known and loved, where we met Jesus and served Him for the first time, where we met each other and married and raised our children and watched each other grow older and dearer. I don't know all of the reasons He has allowed this; I only know that He has renewed my strength, He has given me back my joy and excitement to serve Him.

I also know that there are so many of you out there who are just tired--worn out and weary. Your joy has worn thin from years of caring for others and keeping your family's going. It's difficult for you to get up in the morning or make decisions or keep up the pretense that your life is fine. Please believe me when I tell you that God sees you and knows how difficult your life is right now. He doesn't want you to bear these cares and feelings on your own. He is there for you. Contrary to what you might firmly believe, He really doesn't need you to keep everyone and everything together--that's His job. He wants you to surrender. Surrender the control to Him. For some of you that thought is terrifying so I challenge you today to surrender just one tiny problem to God. Ask Him to take control of it and leave it with Him. Watch and see that the Lord is good and can be trusted. No matter what your circumstances look like don't take it back. Leave it with the Lord--WAIT upon the Lord and feel the freedom He gives you. Then next week give Him one more thing, then one more until you have cast all of your cares on Him. At that point you will understand how waiting on Him has set you free to soar like an eagle and run the marathon of life without fear or fatigue.

Sisters

"The Christian faith is meant to be lived moment by moment. It isn't some broad, general outline--it's a long walk with a real Person. Details count: passing thoughts, small sacrifices, a few encouraging words, little acts of kindness, brief victories over nagging sins." Joni Eaeckson Tada

I started this blog as an outlet. I was, and am, going through a transition time in my life and I needed to express my feelings about it and so many other things that I prayed the Lord would use in other women's lives. I have had the feeling for a long time now that we, as Christian women, do not fully follow the teachings of Titus 2:3-5.

"Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good. Then they can train the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God."

I prayed that the Lord would give me the words in this blog for that purpose.

As I began writing this blog it became apparent to me that He had a different purpose for calling me to write again. Hopefully you will be able to find somewhere in my ramblings encouragement to adhere to Titus 2:3-5, but I think, more importantly, we can discover together that it is a journey to Titus 2:3-5. Yours' will be different then mine but we can travel together towards it. We don't have to chart new territory constantly, we can pick each other up when we stumble and fall, we can encourage during those dark times of discouragement, we can pray for each other when there is doubt or fear or anger or remorse. We are called to be sisters--we need to start acting like sisters.

I'm probably the last person in the world who should be writing about being a sister. I'm an only child, I had only one daughter--I could write a book on what it's like to be an only child, but how do I know anything about sisters? What I have learned through the years has come mostly from observing. My mother had five sisters, three are still living. Not one of them had the same personality. They shared few of the same attributes, some had brown eyes, some blue, one green. They were brunette, blond and red headed. They were short and tall, small and medium framed. They lived different lives. One married to one man until his death, the others married and divorced. Some lived in near-affluence, others in near-poverty. Yet from these women I learned what it meant to be strong, to be generous, to be loving, to close ranks and defend your sister against anything or anyone. I learned to trade recipes and cleaning solutions. I learned how to manage money and mis-manage money. I learned how to dress, how to put on make-up, how to attract a man. I learned that people respond to honey more then vinegar and that everyone loves to be really listened too (although that was not a strong attribute in our family), that gossip was fun and that family sticks together no matter how mad you get with them. Without ever saying a word they taught me what a woman should do and be--in our family.

Then I got saved and a whole new group of sisters came into my life. Not born of the same mother, but born again of the same Heavenly Father. I was very timid about joining in with these women. They seemed so sweet and so good. I thought they couldn't be true. I feared that when I left the room they would begin to talk about me. They prayed so earnestly and knew so much scripture. Maybe I wasn't good enough for this sisterhood. I stayed to myself most of the time. I was a divorced single mother of three. It appeared these women had been married and loving their husbands forever. I felt more like a step-sister (in the fairy tale meaning) then a real sister. Little by little the Lord began to draw me into this group of sisters. First by listening to Christian women speakers on the radio, then going to a women's group to hear a study I was interested in. Then He did the most amazing thing. He put a ministry on my heart for abuse victims--women abuse victims! I tried to just hand it off to the women's ministry at my church. I told the leader there that I would help organize it and get the material for it but she said only if God was calling me to teach it. I couldn't say no.

As Corrie ten Boom said, "Peter said, "No, Lord!" But he had to learn that one cannot say "No" while saying "Lord" and that one cannot say "Lord" while saying "No".

When I said yes to Jesus, to the ministry for abuse victims that He gave me, I began to finally be in a sisterhood of God. Week after week as I sat in a classroom with injured survivors and watched the Lord walk among us and heal us, I began to understand. He used all of the things that I had learned growing up with my amazing Aunts and He fine tuned it with His truths of what a Godly woman looks like. She is not a robotic super woman with a bow on her head. She is one of many beautiful Princesses of God. She might have brown or blue or green or grey or speckled eyes. She might be tiny or fluffy; tall or short; a beauty queen on the outside or gorgeous on the inside. She could be rich or poor or anywhere in-between. She might be the one who prayed amazing prayers or she might be the one who could only manage to say "please help me Lord". She could have memorized every scripture and read her Bible through and through every year since she was 17 or she just might be the one who jumped for joy because some caring woman just donated a brand new Bible to her or she might even be the one who after thirty years of shame finally admitted that she never learned to read and had never been able to read one word of scripture but still knew that she loved His word. A Christian sister may not start off dressing a certain way, talking a certain way or acting a certain way. A Christian sister starts with the act of giving up her life to Jesus. She doesn't have to understand it all, she just has to understand that she's been one way--a sinner--and when she surrenders to Jesus--He will forgive those sins and start to teach her another way, His way; and while He's lovingly teaching her, He brings these amazing women into her life that He has already taught some of those same lessons to. He doesn't want us to be observers the way I observed my Aunts and Christian sisters right after my salvation. He wants us to be participators in each other's lives.

"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God." 2 Corinthians 1:3-4

He wants to use us to instruct each other, encourage each other, love each other. He cannot use Christian men for this particular part of our growth so we as Christian women must make ourselves available to Him for this work. Chronological age has nothing really to do with our Titus journey. A fifty year old new Christian woman can be taught much from a loving twenty-three year old sister who has walked with Jesus for years. Because Jesus valued women and thought of them as equal in the kingdom of Heaven, He has given us roles and the means to accomplish those roles. He needs us to be sisters involved in each other's lives. He needs us to say yes when He calls us to speak a word of encouragement or challenge or just to relate to another sister's suffering. I encourage you to use this blog for that purpose. You don't have to know all there is to know about being a Christian, you don't have to be considered a prayer warrior or an authority on scripture. Come as you are, just as you came to the cross. The Lord will make sure that you are coming with a gift and a purpose that someone else needs to share.