Tag Archive | Story

Part Two – Growing Up Churched (2/3)

Mar8

Thou Shalt Not

There was one thing I heard clearer than anything else during those early morning church services.

Thou shalt not.

I heard the words the Pastor was reading from the Holy Bible kept on the pulpit. I heard the Thou shalt nots, and that the payment for sin is death. I believed those words.

I still do. But he was telling me the thou shalt nots, without a word about how not to. Basically, he was telling me what to think, without teaching me how to think. What I never heard was just how to not do the Thou shalt nots, or how to receive forgiveness for my ill doing.

Surely, God didn’t punish little girls with the death penalty, right? But how could I know? Since they never told me (or I never heard) I only knew for sure that I was a wrong-doer.

I heard the words God so loved the world, but to me they were overshadowed by all of my wrongness. How could He love someone who was just so wrong?

Fast forward again, to when I was that young mother, going to that different church with my children, without their daddy.

It was there that I began to understand my Father’s (God’s) love for me. How it extended much farther than I could have ever believed.

The story of my earthly father is for another day. Suffice to say that our relationship made it very difficult for me to understand that “love” could be any other way.

John 1:12 (ESV) but to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God. All God wanted was for me to receive Him.

The wrongness of my childhood was nothing in His eyes. It only mattered that I look to Him for guidance.

The choice was mine. Wait. I get to choose? I had never even known that there were options. My wrongness, just was. It was what it was.

I had an encounter with a woman at this time, which I barely knew.

Here is what she said;

“When I see you, I see a chalkboard. This chalkboard says that 2 + 2 = 5. No matter what you do, or how many times you erase it, you cannot get the answer to come out correctly.”

What she told me next, totally floored me.

“God wants you to know that it wasn’t your fault.”

What? I knew at that moment that all my wrongness, was not my fault, I just had not been given all the facts.

On that day I received three things; Freedom from wrongness, choices, and a Father who loved me regardless.

It was then I realized that I would be in a totally different “classroom” being taught in a way that I could learn.

Oh what a glorious day!

 

Part One – Growing Up Churched (1/3)

Mar7

 

Where Do I Fit In?

When I was growing up, we always attended one of the Lutheran churches in town.

Now I have no problem with the Lutheran church, per se. There are different kinds of people with different preferences, I get that.

But as a small child, I only knew that I would be required to sit, for an hour, and not talk. If I could not maintain stillness, I was sure to receive a painful pinch on the shoulder, or an elbow in my side. Even as an adult this sitting “still” is difficult for me. I can always sit, just not still, and I get to choose whether I speak or not.

Back in the day, every one really dressed up for church, but there was nothing finer than attending on a cool Easter morning, men in their suits and women and girls in all their finery. Springy dresses, bonnets, white gloves and the ever present white patent leather shoes.

None of which we had.

We wore the cleanest, not worn out clothing that we owned. I could feel the heat of the stares on my back as we walked up the aisle to our seats. It always seemed that we were less than, imperfect, those without.

Our dad never attended, even on those special days of Christmas or Easter. Often we would be dropped off, and picked up later. His absence was yet another thing that was my fault. My little mind imagined that in my wrongness.

I was often wrong at home. Every day I was wrong at school. Now here at the one place I should be right, I was wrong as well.

My hair was wrong, my clothes were wrong, our family minus our dad was wrong. Every church service simply proved more to me about my wrongness.

Fast forward, to when I was a young mother, going to a different church with my children, but not with my husband, where I felt the same burning heat on my back as we entered into a room with all the “perfect” people, all the “perfect” families all sitting perfectly still, in “perfect” little rows.

What on earth was wrong with me?

Was there anywhere I (and now my children) could fit in?

Crazy Women in Caves, With Oil!

Feb19

I heard the following quote at a conference in 2007.

I ran across it again while reviewing my journals.

First the quote, then, why it was so important to me.

“David was in a cave with some crazy people and some oil.”

The back story on this (a study I did) comes from years of feeling inadequate, lonely, and unloved, until finally, after my mother’s death, I went inside myself. I slowly took myself away from  most forms of social activity. During that time I became increasingly unhealthy in my body. At one point, for a couple of years, it was difficult to even get off the floor to get a drink of water from the kitchen. I only moved when I absolutely had to. I had two engagements each week that expected me to show up, so I did. No more.

The healing part of this story is for another time, but when I began to heal, the Lord put on my heart that I was a cave dweller.

Now cave dwelling is fine. For a season. But it was time to leave the cave for a while.

I argued that He had provided me a pretty cool cave, and that I was comfy here. To which I heard, “Comfy is what you come back to, to rest, but to come back, you first have to leave.”

As the healing was beginning, I had a handful of gals come to my home once a week for coffee and a book study. I had shared with them that I was literally a crazy lady hiding out with my friends in my cave on Wednesdays! (Note, I still wasn’t LEAVING MY CAVE.)

First I looked up CRAZY – full of defects and imperfections. Thanks a lot.

Before actually leaving my comfy cave, I looked up caves in my faithful, old, blue, 400 pound Strong’s Concordance. (No Google or https://www.biblegateway.com/  back then!) I looked up all the cave words I could find. Over 20 references!

I won’t name them all, but here is a short list of things people did in/with caves;

  • Lived in caves
  • Bought caves for burials
  • Some belonged to families so that they could all be buried in the same place
  • Some kings hid in caves, then they were executed and placed back there after the fact
  • Mighty men and prophets hid in them and were fed there
  • They were used to sleep in when travelling
  • Eat. Rest. Strengthen.
  • Used as shelters and strongholds
  • Living places for the homeless
  • A place of death (plague)
  • A place of prayer
  • And even a hiding away from the Lord place

What is the oil for?

  • Beautification
  • Fresh oil meant prosperity
  • Lack of oil meant judgement, curse, agricultural disaster
  • Good oil meant stability and prosperity
  • Used to anoint and sanctify
  • Used to consecrate tabernacles – made the tabernacle “Most Holy”. If anyone “unholy” touched the “Most Holy” item, they would die.
  • Sign of the Holy Spirit

Now, here we are. Present day. How does that apply, and why must we leave our caves?

As you can see by the uses for the oil, it can be a pretty powerful thing. It can give stability and prosperity. It has power to give life, and to take it.

The cave, (our homes) are used for many of the things caves were. (Hopefully/fortunately not graves) We eat. We rest. We heal.

We have all this power (oil) in our caves, and we’re not using it.

We need to use our caves to pray, eat, rest, strengthen, then, we need to take our oil and use it for good. We can share it with those no hope.

That power is simply wasted when it is hidden away in a cave.

I have a friend who says that the world needs our words. Could those words possibly be the healing balm/oil that someone needs?

We have it, and we’re hiding.

We find comfort in our caves, but there are others, without hope, who can be helped by a little bit of our oil, if we can just leave our comfort but for a little bit.

So go. Spread your healing oil around and then, you can always come back to your cave to rest.