Advent Is A Season, Not A Day

My brother has angels. Everybody in my family knows this. If Mama, Daddy, Austin and I all got together and we had to vote on who in the group should probably be dead, it's him. We've all had our close calls, but he takes the cake. I won't tell you all the incidents in which his life has been unexplainably preserved (I probably don't actually know about all of them) but I will say they range from shop and farm accidents to motorcycle and car wrecks. We had a conversation a couple of weeks ago in which he said, "If I'm still alive today, it's not for lack of opportunity to be dead." The take-away from this is that there's a reason Austin has a legion of angels following him around. He has something really big ahead of him. I believe God has a special mission in mind for my little brother and I cannot wait to see what it is!

The Christmas season is officially here (hence the red font) and I want to challenge you all to start reading the Christmas story in Luke 1 instead of Luke 2. It's the only Gospel that offers us a glimpse of what it looks like to prepare and wait for the birth of Jesus. Some of the things you'll notice about this preparation are that 

1. There's a really significant wait time. The Jews had received no spiritual revelation for almost 400 years. Think about that. That's about how much time passes between the Book of Genesis and the Book of Exodus. America is barely half that old. 

2. There's a couple of faithful prayer warriors still barely clinging to hope. If you want to know what waiting on God without seeing Him looks like, ask  Zachariah and Elizabeth. Esther and the Jews in Susa were not hearing from God directly, but at least there were other prophets in the world who were. Zachariah was a priest in the temple so one would think he'd have a direct line to Yahweh, but nobody was hearing from God anywhere. And 

3. Bonus! There's even more angels in this story than we usually remember. In fact, Gabriel's pretty busy making house calls about babies. Heads up, ladies. If Gabriel shows up at your house, you're probably pregnant. 

Today, I want to focus on the angels. I'm pretty convinced Gabriel and the heavenly host didn't make their birth announcements and then disappear into the sky. They stuck around. If my little brother has a legion of angels guarding his life, I can only imagine what sort of holy war must have been going on in the ten foot diameter surrounding Elizabeth, Mary and their children for the rest of their lives. But let me take this one step further; we know there were plenty of angels around after John and Jesus were born, but how often do we consider the angels that had to prepare Elizabeth and Mary for their special mission? Until recently, I've never even contemplated how many angels were contending for Elizabeth and Mary before they got pregnant. Mary was a young girl, but Elizabeth had reached old age by the time Gabriel told her husband that her prayers for a child were being heard. A lifetime is a long time to pray and not see fruit. I get frustrated when I don't see fruit after a couple of weeks, sometimes days. Yet Elizabeth (her name means 'God is abundant' by the way) knew her identity in Christ and never let go of that. I don't think she hung on alone.

Just like Elizabeth's waiting to see fruit from her prayers, revelation can take a long time to come. The church calendar only dedicates a few weeks to Advent; imagine waiting with that kind anticipation for years. But also like Gabriel's visit to Zachariah, once it comes, it can show up in a big way.  Advent has been particularly special for me this year. I'm finally getting answers to some questions I've been trying to process since my baptism back in 2014. A lot of things came to light then and it's taken about two and half years for my eyes to adjust. As I go through my Advent devotionals, I'm learning that waiting, hoping and anticipating should always be directed at a person and not an outcome. When we put our trust in Jesus for a particular outcome like a job, a relationship, a new opportunity or freedom from an old mistake, we are in danger of making that trust contingent on us getting those things. I'm finally learning to trust Jesus period, not just trust Him to give me what I want. Starting this year, if I'm going to anticipate and long for something so much that it consumes my thoughts and dictates my decisions, I want it to be Jesus. Not a dream job in Virginia and not a husband. 

I have to admit, this Christmas more than ever, I'm really thankful that Luke 1 is in the Bible and that I have Elizabeth to show me how to wait faithfully. I'm also really thankful that I have my brother around to remind me that angels are real.

P.S. For anyone interested in a new perspective on how angels (and demons) operate in our world, or for anyone who doubts for a single moment that there is a battle going on around us. I want to recommend a book by Frank Peretti called This Present Darkness. I admit, it's not very Christmas-y, but it will forever change how you view prayer, the other day-to-day tasks you perform every day and especially how you feel the next time your car won't start. 

Apology Unaccepted.

Today at church, I heard some beautiful words of wisdom from a woman named Kat Lee. Kat attends Antioch Community Church in Waco and for the last few years, she has written a blog for women entitled Hello Mornings. I strongly recommend it! While explaining the need for daily quiet time with God, Kat stressed the importance of starting small. "I am a model of low goals," she said, "I have never finished a Beth Moore Bible study, ever." Let me tell you ladies, hearing that from such a successful and kingdom-minded woman gave me some very real hope and encouragement. The main point is, starting small is still a start. She went on to say that talking to God for 30 seconds every morning often does more for our relationship with Him than a 3-hour 'prayer chunk' once a week. "What we do faithfully is a lot more significant than what we do sporadically."

So right there in my chair I made a list. What do I do faithfully? Here's what I came up with:

1. Cry. (Duh, I'm a woman, what did you expect)
2. Realize my mistakes and crawl back to God.
3. Dream of an adventure.
4. Dream of someone to share it with.
5. Realize I'm lonely & obsessed with finding said someone and crawl back to God.
6. Wonder if I'm beautiful.
7. Try to invest in my relationship with God, let it fizzle out and....crawl back to God.

At first, I took a lot of comfort from the fact that Numbers 3, 4 and 6 were straight out of Stasi and John Eldredge's definition of a woman in Captivating. But after I reread them, I laughed out loud. In church. 

There's a lot of crawling here. And let's not forget Number 1. 
Crawling and crying. 
Yikes. 
It's a good thing my God self-identifies as a Father.

I'm 110% confident I'm not the only one who is building, rowing and steering the ugly cry face boat. We all know that face, we all know that hurt. We all know what it's like to multi-task cry-face management with holiday shopping, dieting and taxes. And yet, when our aching, exhausted souls cry out to our Father, how often do our prayers begin with shame, with embarrassment, and feeling like we're taking up His time. God, I'm sorry, but I'm really hurting and I need you right now.

Let me go on the record and say that I think God takes personal offense when we pray that way. Honey, do not ever apologize for the way God made you. He made you to feel and love deeply, so don't apologize when you do. And it's not just our prayers, it's our everyday conversations. One of my favorite slam poetry performances includes a young woman who recognizes that all of her questions in math class begin with the words 'I'm sorry'. My friends, this should not be! 

I'm on a mission to stop apologizing for who God made me. 
I'm not going to apologize for disagreeing with you because God gave me an innovative mind and I intend to use it.
I'm not going to apologize for not understanding something, because He also reveals His wisdom in His perfect time. 
I'm not going to apologize for needing to talk things out, because God made women in such a way that this is physiologically impossible. 
I'm not going to apologize  for asking you for too much information about your life, because women are unique vessels of His ridiculous compassion. 
And I'm not going to apologize for realizing that I am worth more than the time someone else will not give me, because God told me so in His word. 

Women apologize for these things all the time and yet at the heart of each apology, the God of the Universe is screaming at us No, I made you that way! Apology unaccepted!

So here's a thought. If we're going to be consistent, let's be consistent in our crawling, not our apologizing. I hope you can see the difference. The former moves us ever closer to the heart of our Maker. The later is nothing short of the audacity to criticize His handiwork.

The Bar

A college friend and I recently discussed a double-standard we have encountered in our professional and personal lives. For the first twenty-five years of our lives, my generation has been encouraged to think for ourselves, be independent and shoot for the stars, but now that we are beginning to use that freedom and independence, many of those who wished it for us are expressing disappointment with the end result.

The examples are everywhere but I'll give you two. I know several people who have suffered severe breaks with their parents and grandparents because after years of going to youth retreats and Christian schools, their faith does not look exactly the way it did when they were children. What did they expect? I met a man a few months ago whose parents encouraged him to be open-minded and treat women well, but were extremely disappointed when he gave up football to work for a sex-trafficking awareness non-profit. Both of these groups of people are good, kind, compassionate people of integrity and I can't help but wonder, if they are a disappointment, what is the standard?

So I ask you, do we really want our friends, kids and spouses to reach the standard we set? It appears the parents I mentioned above might be second-guessing the prayers they prayed over their children in their cribs. 

Let's take that one step further. Do we really want to reach the standard we set for ourselves? The perfect job, perfect relationship, perfect house? Because we all know we're not actually going to get them. Why do we demand so much of ourselves, only to be as unreasonably disappointed as parents who want open-minded children to never change? The Millennial generation is shooting themselves in the foot here and the solution isn't settling for less, it's appreciating what we have. 

Growing up, everyone and his brother told us to set the bar high. I'm beginning to think there was an extreme miscommunication here. In this seemingly simple encouragement, my generation did not hear set, we heard high. I think the intended message was you set your own destiny, you create your future and no one else. But what we heard was, always aim high, anything less than the top is failure.  This is very important. We learned that fame was more important than how we acquired it. As a result, we created a standard that makes us feel like we failed and leaves us with no understanding of how to properly recover or try again. And now that we're having kids, we give out ribbons for showing up so that they won't feel like failures the way we did. 

I think we do the same thing to the Gospel. I once heard a pastor say that Americans are far better at adding to the Gospel, adding rules and standards, than they are at cheapening it. We are a nation built on overworking - for both our jobs and our salvation. To this, God says, "Why do you think I'm disappointed in you? I didn't create that rule for you, YOU did!" When we fail to meet the Gospel standard we created, no only are we convinced that we are bad people, we are convinced we are bad Christians. We are irretrievable and hopeless because, since our standard is so fluid and emotion-based, we have no idea how to recover and get back to a point of grace. But that's the beauty of grace - we don't have to get back to it. Rather than swing the pendulum back to a place where we are still working for it, we simply have to remember our Sonship and be thankful for what we most assuredly have. 

Once we know our salvation is secure, maybe then we won't demand perfection in this life because we know it will only be found in the next.

Steroids.

Last Tuesday, I  discovered a new level of feeling miserable when I got tonsillitis. 
On Wednesday morning, the doctor gave me steroids and antibiotics. 
By Thursday evening, I wasn't just back to 100%, I was flying at a solid 150%. 
It's now Sunday evening and I can't believe that I'm still riding this high. 

I haven't felt this good in months. I'm motivated, happy, smiling more and crying oh so much less. I'm feeling amazing physically, in control emotionally and mentally I feel like I'm breathing fresh air. I am at peace with things I used to worry about constantly. It's truly glorious. The doctor wants me to steadily decrease how many pills I take every day, but lucky me, I have to finish the bottle. At this point, it looks like it'll last until about Friday. 

It is truly amazing how much your life changes when your body feels good.
I get why people work out regularly, eat healthy and get plenty of sleep.
This. Feels. Good.

But that's just it. This is completely drug-induced. 
What I've felt for the past few days has been generated by pills, not by me. For now.

When you make a commitment to understand how your body, your heart and your mind all work together to make the best version of yourself, sometimes the team doesn't communicate so well at first. Your heart goes on a joy ride and stops listening to your mind or your body tells you that you want something when both the heart and mind are screaming to just leave it alone. As miserable as tonsillitis was, it was a real wake up call. The last really bad interception before coach finally calls a time out. 

Sometimes, I think God lets us get tonsillitis or dumped or demoted because we need to know what happens when we stop communicating properly. When we get distracted, the team starts to throw some lousy passes and I imagine God just holding the whistle out to me saying, "Whenever you're ready." But the great thing is, once we finally own up and get the team in a huddle, God's got the playbook to turn it around. And sometimes, He gives us a glimpse of what it will look like when we start playing like a team again. 

Right now, my million dollar question is What am I going to do to stay feeling this good once the meds are gone? I haven't figured it out yet. But thank God for tonsillitis. I wouldn't have realized how sick I was without it.

A New Way to Worship

Have you ever considered that maybe God sings with us when we worship Him?

After you read this, I'd like you to find some of your favorite worship music and imagine that Jesus is singing it to you rather than you singing it to Jesus. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but when we sing about how much we love our Heavenly Father or how faithful and sure our salvation is, we should take a moment every so often to remember that the truth of the Gospel teaches us that Jesus feels the exact same way towards us. Just as we long to someday be with Him, He longs to present His bride in the Throne Room of Heaven. 

I'll start with a simple example. Matthew West's song More has always been me and Jesus's love song; it is probably the only song I never sing along to as a rule. I just sit and listen while Jesus sings it to me. I love you more than the sun and the stars that I taught how to shine. You are mine, and you shine for me too. I love you.

Just a heads up, this does not usually work with old hymns. They are very foundational and heaven-focused, which is healthy and necessary in worship, but they don't usually work for this practice. However, I have recently grown incredibly fond of Blessed Assurance, and every now and then, I imagine Jesus singing it instead of me. Go with me on this. Blessed Assurance, You are mine. You are my story, you are my song. And for just a moment, this song is a two way conversation. Jesus is my story; to tell my story is to tell of Him (Thanks Big Daddy Weave for that great quote). But you are also His story and His song; when He retells the story of history to the angels, it's a story about you. And I think we forget that sometimes. To accept the gift of salvation from Jesus is a one-time decision, but the reality of the depth of love in the Gospel is something we need to remind ourselves is real every single day. 

Here's a little deeper example. A recent favorite of mine is You Will Never Run Away by Rend Collective. The chorus goes: You will never run away, you're forever mine. You will never run away, you're by my side. You will never run away, you'll forever shine. You will never run away you're by my side. I think on our hardest days, Jesus sings this to us. He knows the strength of our faith better than we do and He's cheering and fighting for us when we question where we stand. One of my favorite Bethel Music song's declares Jesus we love you, Oh how we love you. You are the one our hearts adore. Whenever I sing this song, it's really weird, but my focus literally goes back and forth; I sing a chorus, then Jesus sings a chorus, repeat. When was the last time you had that kind of a conversation with the God of the Universe. 

So give it a try. It might feel strange to imagine Jesus worshiping you, but in a kind of weird way, He does. Worship is an act of love. When we worship God, we are lifting Him to a high place in our hearts reserved only for Him. And believe it or not, Jesus has a high place in His heart for you too and He will always, always love you more than you love Him. And while we really shouldn't let it go to our heads that we are worshiped, what I want this exercise to teach us is to never forget that we are loved by Jesus in a way that surpasses everything we could imagine.

I Fasted for Three Days and Nothing Happened.

I know this is supposed to be a blog about Eating, but permit me to dedicate just this one post to NOT Eating. Immediately after teaching His disciples the Lord's Prayer in Matthew 6, Jesus spends 2 verses stressing forgiveness and then the first 'next topic' words out of His mouth are "Whenever you fast". Note that He does not say if, but when. It's like every other Christian discipline; it doesn't always, but it can cause movement in the heavenlies and should be a practice that saved believers (at least) think about (at least) occasionally. 

After extended seasons of attendance at Zootown Church in Missoula and Antioch Community Church in Waco, I've come to expect a lot from fasting. I've seen my food-free peers experience supernatural healing, prophetic declaration, the works. I myself had a truly profound experience during a fast I did about a year ago. After several fasts in several different environments and seasons of my life, I expect Spiritual Awakening when I fast. So...

From sunrise on October 14th to sunset on October 16th, I did not eat any solid food.
I drank water, milk and juice.
I read the same passage every morning when I woke up and every evening before I went to sleep. (For the record, it was Psalm 119:33-40)
I attended daily prayer meetings at my church and I only listened to worship music.

And nothing circumstantially changed in my life. 

I woke up on Saturday morning in the same apartment with the same job, still hungry, still a graduate student and still unsure of how I was going to wrap up the next chapter of my thesis. There were no fireworks, no prophetic dreams, no writing in the sky and no dry fleeces in my shower. I had no visions of a museum career in Virginia, no name of my future spouse underlined in my Bible and no burning desire to be any nicer to the annoying undergrads that blared loud music last night. In fact, I'm pretty sure every emotion I felt those three days, every word I prayed and every faint whisper I may have heard from God (or imagined) were all familiar, repeated things I'd heard and felt before. Leftovers.

And somehow, the God of the Universe knew that leftovers were EXACTLY what I needed. 

I recently finished Beth Moore's 10-week study on the Book of Esther and Beth points out several times that the name of God does not appear anywhere in Esther's 10 chapters. In this way, Esther is the book of the Bible that shows us what God looks like when we cannot see Him. After the king's best man Haman sets a calendar date to destroy, kill and annihilate all the Jews in Persia, a secretly Jewish scribe named Mordecai fasts, puts on ashes and mourns at King Xerxes' gate, crying out to Yahweh to save his people. At the end of his fasting, the Jews are still not saved, but Mordecai is still certain that 'relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place' (4:14). For three days this week, I thought about Mordecai a lot. And this morning, I was still missing a lot of the answers I wanted when I started fasting, but I have to admit, after three days of hearing nothing but familiar words of the hope and faithfulness of my Savior, I was pretty sure that He had all my questions handled.

I believe that the will of God is something we Earthlings often experience in retrospect, but rarely as foresight. As Soren Kierkegaard gloomily points out in Fear and Trembling, "Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards." We see in Scripture that the moments God revealed His will before it happened were rare and even among those few, most of them were pretty fuzzy on the details. What was absolutely NOT fuzzy was the faith of those He revealed His will to. A lot of them ended up in the Hall of Faith in Hebrews 11, but none of them got there because mountains moved and walls came tumbling down every time they decided to skip a meal. They got there because after pouring their hearts out, fasting and mourning, the silence that followed didn't slow them down.

So, if anybody out there is considering fasting, I pray that you can be content with whatever revelation God gives you or chooses to keep secret. If He told us everything we wanted to know, we wouldn't need Him, so even when we fast, He sticks to telling us what we need to know. And sometimes, all we really need to know is, Dear Heart, did you know that I love you?

Silent Treatment.

Does anybody else write down their anger and never, ever let anybody read it?
Or maybe wear their heart on their sleeve, but only when they're in front of a mirror?

I want to suggest that social media is full of two kinds of people:
1) People who hurt and tell someone.
2) People who hurt and tell an empty room.

I think there's a lot more women in this second category than we think. And it's not healthy, ladies. The fear of being too much and too little at the same time comes out on Twitter, Pinterest and Facebook. We fear being too little in fashion and motherhood, so we post dorm decor, recipes or pictures of our children. We fear being too much emotionally, so we avoid anything that might suggest we are stressed to the point of tears. Which is ironic, because going to all the effort of making our own pumpkin spice latte cupcakes with creme cheese frosting and a cinnamon stick is what induces the stress we want to hide. Face it ladies; social media is your great-grandmother's last ditch effort to convince you not to air your dirty laundry in public, to put on some lipstick and fix your hair before your husband or (God forbid) your girlfriends get here for Bible study. Yeah, because those are definitely two relationships in which secrets are totally acceptable.

I cannot tell you how many screaming, angry, crying, just-want-to-rip-my-hair-out posts I've considered posting on my Facebook status these last three weeks, only to reword, rework and rewrite until I just get fed up and retract. I give in to the old granny behind my ear, still whispering about dirty laundry.

This needs to end. And it needs to end now. 
Because I'm a time bomb waiting to go off. 
But I don't know how to tell you that yet.
So the clock keeps counting down.

I really don't have an answer to the silent treatment. 
I hope you weren't expecting one.

The only thing I can suggest is to keep going, somehow.
Eat. Pray. Plank.
Most importantly....PRAY.
Because even if you try to give God the silent treatment,
He hears it.

Psalm 18:6-7, 9-10, 16, 19

In my distress I called to the LORD; 
I cried to my God for help. 
From His temple He heard my voice; 
my cry came before Him, into His ears.
The earth trembled and quaked, and the foundations of the mountains shook; 
they trembled because He was angry. 
He parted the heavens and came down; 
dark clouds were under His feet.
He mounted the cherubim and flew; 
He soared on the wings of the wind.
He reached down from on high and took hold of me;
He drew me out of deep waters.
He brought me out into a spacious place;
He rescued me because He delighted in me.

If that's not a knight in shining armor, I don't know what is...

A Single Tear In The Storm

When I started a blog primarily directed towards single Christian women, I expected backlash. That's the thing about taking up a cause for your faith - it's like placing a target on your back and saying "Ok Satan, come get me!" And what do you know, after the first few posts, some things I'd successfully forgotten came to light again. After some serious conversations with people who read this blog, guilt started pounding me like a freight train. I've said before that Satan knows your weaknesses girlfriend and he will use them against you. 

For the last couple of weeks, his weapons have been working. 
For the last couple of weeks, I haven't felt qualified to post anything. 
For the last couple of weeks, Satan's had me convinced
I have nothing to say
I have no authority
I have no room to talk about these things.

I want to write about faith,
He tells me that mine is weak, unstable and conditional. 
I want to write about purity and forgiveness,
He tells me that my past makes me unqualified. 
I want to write about self-confidence and identity,
He tells me that my value lies in others' opinions.

In the great words of my beautiful mama: WHY AM I SURPRISED BY THIS?!?!!

My purpose in sharing this is not to generate pity, but to issue a warning. If you're going to take a leap of faith, be prepared to encounter flying debris. What I'd like to do now is encourage everyone else in this position. 

When the devil throws your sins in your face and declares that you deserve death and hell, tell him this: "I admit that I deserve death and hell, what of it? For I know One who suffered and made satisfaction on my behalf. His name is Jesus Christ, Son of God, and where He is there I shall be also! I didn't say it, Martin Luther did. And he said it really well, I think.

Acknowledging deep-rooted sin is new territory for me; I've been a bit of a coward for a few months now. But at some point last week, I recalled that I had a saving faith long before this problem started. I also realized that the God of the Universe knew it would be a problem long before I had a saving faith, and He still gave that faith to me anyway. 

Romans 1:24 says God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts...

Hear me. If you have even an ounce of faith left in the midst of your addiction to sin, it is because God gave it to you. He was planning to give it to you even before you got your first high. He has not, will not, and has never ever planned to give you over to this thing.

Later in Romans, Paul says that If you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live, because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of Sonship. And by him we cry 'Abba, Father'. The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children.

Hear me once more. If you have even an ounce of faith left in the midst of this, it is because God gave you Sonship even before you got your first high. And Sonship doesn't go away, friends. It's a guarantee. He WILL see you through this. You might be pretty battered on the other side, but you will be His and He is very good at putting back together broken pieces.

Let me wrap this up with a quick story. This morning in church, we were singing about our longing for Jesus, our need for Him and our desire to see His face and my attention was drawn to an older Hispanic man sitting alone in front of me. He was very inconspicuous in his jeans and dirty t-shirt but he stood out in a roomful of pastey white college kids. Just looking at him, yup the back of his head, tears filled my eyes instantly. I've only been slammed by the freight train of compassion once before, but it hurt a lot more this time. My chest was tight, I couldn't even hear the words being sung and every fiber in my body told me I had to talk to him. 

God, what do I say? It was like the words were written across the inside of my eyes, they were so clear. Tell him I LOVE HIM. Tell him I long for him, I need him, and my strongest desire is to see his heart. This song isn't about your love for me, it's about My love for HIM. He is my first love.

So....I did. Somewhere between the offering and the start of the sermon, I leaned forward and whispered in this old man's ear, "Sir, this has never happened to me before and I don't know you. But God wants you to know that this song isn't about Him, it's about you." He didn't turn around, didn't tell me his name, he just nodded, faced forward and listened. After sharing the message God had put on my heart, I awkwardly leaned back in my seat. 
Only then did the man turn around.
 Only then did I see a single tear tattoo under his right eye*. 
"Pray for me." he said, then began to cry and turned away.

As much as I hate this sin in my life and hate myself for being consumed by it, I am beginning to consider this fight a blessing. I have a mission that I'm not afraid to fight for and there is literally nothing that can keep God from completing the good works He begins in the hearts of His children. So I'm going to keep writing, keep praying and keep returning to that place in the Throne Room where my face is on the ground. I'm going to cling to the truth that Peter knew very well: it is always better to be terrified, exhausted and drowning in the middle of the storm with Jesus than to be sitting comfortably in the boat without Him.

*For my friends unfamiliar with prison tattoos, this tattoo varies in meaning, but is most often associated with inmates who have committed murder. 

Gracers vs Sustainers

I had a conversation recently that drastically changed, possibly forever, the way I approach and understand my fellow Christians. Today I want to present you with two kinds of Christians. Yes, putting people, especially faith-people in a box can be dangerous, offensive, and limiting, but we've been doing it since Paul saw Jesus on the road to Damascus: Jews and Gentiles, circumcised and baptized, Catholic and Protestant, Calvinist and Armenian, the list goes on and on. So bear with me.

I want to suggest that these two kinds of Christians are likely both represent in your circle of friends. They are the Gracers and the Sustainers. Let me just insert a disclaimer here that the remainder of this post is exceedingly generalized. Most people will likely find holes in it. There, now that that's done, we can move on. Open minds here, people; I'm only human and this is still learning and practice.

Gracers are the Christians who have a day-month-year anniversary for their salvation, who may or may not have been raised in a Christian home, but came to personally know Jesus later in the life, probably after making a few (or more) not-great choices, and can recall a time in their lives where they didn't know Jesus. They love the song Amazing Grace; these are the folks Jesus drew out of the pit. 

The other kind, Sustainers, are the ones who have home videos of themselves reciting the NIV version of Psalm 23 as toddlers. Granted, they do fall down and get dirty occasionally, but they're the ones who were, generally, raised in a Christian home and learned their colors, numbers, and vegetables from a happy mix of a Children's Bible, Veggie Tales and the Chronicles of Narnia. For this bunch, Jesus was as real as the color orange and they cannot remember a time when it didn't feel totally natural to talk to, cry with or yell at Him. 

The whole point of this post is to highlight the fact that neither one of these Christians are better, worse or on a faster track toward heaven than the other. They both have their strengths, but boy do they have their blindspots too. My recent conversation with a very close friend revealed that I am a Sustainer and he is a Gracer, which explains a lot of our discussions on faith over the last several years. Let me give you a few basic examples that this realization cleared up.

First up, missions. As a 24 year old Sustainer, I cannot understand why the Gracers in my life are all already hyped up about missions. Local, regional, global, you name it. Forget jobs, forget college, forget car payments. Gracers want to tell everybody about Jesus. As a Sustainer, Jesus is, as I said, like the color orange. He's just there and soon enough, people will figure out what they've been looking at their whole lives. For Gracers, Jesus became real to them and He still needs to become real to others. In some ways, both of us are right.

Second, prayer. Again, I'm speaking super generally here, but Gracers tend to struggle with prayer, especially in the first few months and years of their faith. Prayer for them begins with figuring out what to say and moves towards spilling your soul like David. I've noticed that Gracers, especially new ones, struggle with silence and often, listening. Sustainers, however, are usually the other way around. They've been talking to God as long as they've been able to form words so they think it comes naturally. As a result, Sustainers are often comfortable with long monologues or long stretches of silence from God. We call it worship via quiet quality time. Unfortunately, this can lead to the feeling that prayer is easy or even worse, unnecessary, a myth that this very blog is designed to debunk. By the same token, Sustainers also tend to forget about the importance of...

Scripture. Sometimes, Sustainers settle for knowing it once-upon-a-lifetime and fall back on Sunday School memorization. Then again, they might not read it as often, but they know it like they know how to drive. Gracers, on the other hand, cannot stop reading. This guy Jesus just crashed into their lives and there's a whole book about him, you guys!! Unfortunately, how you know Scripture, how you pray and how you feel about your own salvation are all good signposts, but how those beliefs are lived out can be completely different between and among Gracers and Sustainers.

So let's get a little more complicated. Aka applicational.

Fear. Sustainers are, well, Sustainers...they've seen scary before, they're almost comfortable in it. In fact, they can be a bit cocky, but they give great hugs and motivational speeches. Gracers get a little panicky because Gracers are afraid of relapse and they remember before. And that's ok. That's healthy.

Grace. Obviously, Gracers get this. In fact, I firmly believe Sustainers could learn a thing or two from Gracers, especially Gracers who have been to prison. They have a very unique view of justification that Sustainers just don't get (but angels do, because they saw a lot of it in the New Testament). A friend of mine who tends to speak before she thinks once said to a well-known local Sustainer, "You've been saved for so long, you don't remember what it was like to be broken." ... Ouch. But true. 

Mercy. I'm only separating mercy from grace because, although they are similar, Sustainers tend to grasp mercy the same way Gracers grasp grace. Hey, say that ten times fast! Really though, Sustainers have seen a lot of stuff, and they've seen a lot of people through a lot of stuff, so they usually have both a confidence and a compassion towards Christians who mess up that Gracers sometimes forget about after salvation.

Finally, hope. Sustainers eat, live and breathe hope. The beautiful thing is, so do Gracers. Sustainers do it because it's kept them going, Gracers do it because it's what got their attention in the first place. No matter how many differences we see between the Christian who's been saved since crawling days and the Christian who's been saved since yesterday, they're all going the same direction. Jesus told the thief on the cross, Today you will be with me in Paradise. That thief got to the disciple's destination before they did and he'd only been 'walking' for about 20 minutes. If you're a fan of fairness, Christianity is not for you. At the end of the day, Sustainers can learn a lot from Gracers and Gracers can learn a lot from Sustainers. And at the End of Days, both will laugh about how much they didn't know.

We Are Every Woman.

It sounds crazy, but it took me 24 years to realize God KNOWS I'm a girl. And all that that entails. Some of us have no problem believing the God of the Universe is fully capable of handling...the Universe. But we aren't always sure He can handle our space in it. Stasi Eldredge says in Captivating that most women feel we are both too much and too little at the same time. I totally get this! On the days I feel that I am too little, God seems so big. But on the days I feel too much, somehow He shrinks. He becomes the God of the Universe Except Me. Hunger in Africa? God can handle that. Sex Trafficking in St. Louis? God is handling that. The Christian Underground in China? Just you wait til He shows us what's happening there, 'cause it's gonna be big! But me? 5'6, 140 lb. me? Nope, we've officially passed beyond His reach.

Only in the last couple of months did I learn this was completely untrue. God created the Universe. He can handle it. God also created me. He can handle Me. Because sometimes, women want...no, NEED, to be handled. And by handled, I mean held. When this life-long Christian feels gut-wrenching doubt (because that's a real thing, most of the time) she needs to have a good cry and some assurance that if she reaches out, something else will reach back to her.

When the distance between me and God seems so big, I remember that God is really good at big things, which makes Him uniquely qualified to reach across that distance. And when Grace takes hold, ladies, our only job is to hold on and not let go. But even then, God is really good at the holding part and even better at listening. He knows the place of fear and worry my words are coming from. He created the tiny part of my heart that hurts in ways for which there are no words and He speaks its language. Yesterday I was getting ready for bed and realized, Father, I haven't talked to you all day. I haven't even thought about you today. And the response was so quiet, yet so clear: Dear Heart, I haven't stopped thinking about you since you fell asleep last night. (Cue tears.)

Psalm 103: 14 tells us that He knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust.  He knows the stuff we're made of. Emotions. Cravings. Hormones. He knows how these affect us because He put them there.

Speaking of dust, I saw an anti-fat-shaming video last week. Yes, this is a thing and yes it does have a purpose in this blog. In this video, one of the most beautiful self-identified-overweight women I've ever seen unintentionally preached the Gospel. "When you see someone on the street," she said, "Don't judge their character by their size. You don't know if they are funny, creative, depressing or nerdy based on whether or not they weigh 120, 150 or 200 pounds. Most importantly, you don't know if they just lost 120 pounds."

Listen to me, ladies. When you see a woman, any woman, anywhere, don't underestimate her - you don't know the mess in her message (Citation nod to Judah Smith). What you do know is that she's a woman. And God created a tiny part of her heart that is pumping blood, tears and dust the exact same way yours is.  

God alone is the living water that makes that dust beautiful. You cannot be another woman's living water, but you can tell her how you used to be dust.

Willing & Able

I realized today that I have never shared my plank workouts with ya'll, so below you will find two Neila Ray plank workouts. I try to do one of these every morning. 

Key word: TRY.

The problem is not that I find myself unable to hold it for 4-5 minutes. The problem is that I find myself unwilling to do it every morning. Motivation is still a big obstacle; not just in Planking, but with Eating and Praying too.

Most days Eating is easy.
Most days Praying is hard.

And just like Planking, it's not a matter of am I able; it's a matter of am I willing. 

The thing about being willing, though, is that it's still just the first step. Even if I'm willing to plank for 5 minutes, this does not mean my arms can handle it. I have to train up to 5 minutes. By the same token, if I'm willing to talk to God for 5 minutes, this does not mean my human mind won't wander. That takes training too.

Be willing.
Be willing to train.
And you will become able.

I Dreamed A Dream...

My Mama and I have known for years:
Going to sleep is like putting on a target.
We put on more Holy Armour before we go to sleep
Than when we are awake.

We learned early on,
Our Enemy was on to us.
And He's on to you, too.
He knows your weakness.
And if He can't tempt you to be bothered with it in the day,
He'll make you worry about it at night.

Dreams are infectious.
We have the least amount of control,
but when we wake 
they control us as long as we let them.

I am here to tell you:

If you wake up afraid.
If you wake up nervous.
If you wake up worried.
If you wake up anything less than 100% positive

YOU ARE A RESCUED 
SANCTIFIED
SATISFIED
and VICTORIOUS
CHILD OF GOD

Then your dreams are not,
I repeat
NOT
From Him.

Tonight I pray for each and every one of your dreams. 
May they be covered in the joy and peace that only the Spirit can give. 
And when you wake up
I hope the Devil panics. 

Oh no, SHE's awake.

Judgement.

"Don't judge me."

We've all said it. And we all still do it. Somebody cool once pointed out to me that the 'flaws' we judge the most harshly in others are the ones we expect the most mercy for in ourselves. I'm pretty sure s/he was absolutely right.

Somebody else cool told me that when we say Don't judge me, what we really mean is, Don't disapprove of me. Scotty Klaudt of Zootown Church once spoke a truth that changed my worldview forever. He said, No matter what any of us say, none of us are truly afraid of judgement; we're afraid of a verdict.

You see, honey, there's a difference. Judgement is considering the situation; applying a verdict is labeling it. As Christians, the Holy Spirit imparts on each of us His discernment. When we examine ourselves (or others) and discern (or judge) an action, desire, or thought process, what we're actually doing is considering its value or truth in light of Scripture. The gift of discernment and the wise use of it are key to our sanctification, aka the process by which the Holy Spirit (not our own actions) makes us more like our Savior. Without it, we are stagnant, stationary Christians. Sanctification is a key chapter in the Grand Narrative of our salvation. If we miss that chapter, we only have part of the story and with only part of the story, we only have part of a Christian, which is no Christian at all (citation nod to Ravi Zacharia's radio broadcast last Sunday).

What I'm trying to say is that judgement is more important to our spiritual, emotional and physical health than we care to admit. It's essential. Discernment is essential. Balancing what we see in others and ourselves with Scripture...is essential. And the beautiful fact is, when we balance what we see and feel against the real truth of Scripture, we'll discover that we're not comparing our faults, flaws or shortcomings to a list of rules. We're comparing it to what always, ALWAYS comes between the Christian and the Verdict and that's Grace. Hear me very clearly, dear friends: Judgement is essential not for making us 'better' Christians, but for receiving the grace that always accompanies it for those who are in Christ Jesus.

I want to take this thought one step further for us girls. Especially for women (I can't speak for men), I completely, totally, 100% believe that the Christian's discerning eye is turned more often towards ourselves than to others. We are our own worst critic, ladies. And what's the Christian lingo for that? Conviction. When we sense something 'bad', or 'unholy' or 'imperfect' in ourselves, we often feel a sense of something we call Conviction. And like Judgement, we tend to take a leap from Conviction to something more final: Condemnation.

BUT WE DID IT AGAIN!!! DID YOU SEE THAT?! WE MISSED GRACE!!!!

Paul tells us in Romans 8 that there is now NO condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus! Do you see it, ladies? When we examine others and ourselves, we have a tendency to skip grace both times. I said before that characteristics we judge harshly in others are the ones for which we demand the most grace. But I think as women, the opposite is also true; the characteristics we judge harshly in ourselves can be the ones we most easily forgive in others. And in both cases, we miss the grace that is desperately needed. In both cases, we miss the very thing that judgement was passed in order to reveal.

For Christians, the truth of grace HAS to win. Matthew West's song Grace Wins spells this out beautifully:

There's a war between guilt and grace.
We are fighting for a sacred space.
And I'm living proof
Grace wins every time.

The most beautiful part of this chorus is that the war isn't between grace and sin, it's grace and guilt. As humans, sin is inevitable. As women, guilt is most often self-inflicted. And as Christians, grace ALWAYS comes before the Verdict.

Plank.

First thing in the morning, Plank and Pray go together for me in a big way. Before I work my body, God and I have a quick conversation about why I'm doing this. Who am I really working out for: Me, Him or some guy who's never actually going to see the abs I'm trying to sculpt? Who am I trying to impress? Why do I bother? While they seem a little deep for most people at 7 a.m., realigning myself with these kinds of questions can really ground me in who I am and what my day is really supposed to revolve around. It gives me a sense of purpose.

While we're on the topic of our bodies and our purpose, I want to take a quick rabbit trail.  A few months ago, several celebrity women began posting photos of their postpartum bodies and I loved it. One of them, I really wish I could recall who, went on record saying, My body was not made to look good in a two-piece swimsuit. This is what I was created for. AMEN SISTER!! Now, not all of us want kids and certainly not all of us will have kids. But we all know what the female anatomy is uniquely capable of doing that men cannot. We can carry tiny humans in our bodies for 3/4 of a year and still love them after labor. Now more than ever, women who are pregnant or have children are not just experiencing, but talking about this unique purpose they feel for themselves and their bodies. So let me tell you a secret, ladies: I plank so that someday, I can do that too. And do it well. Not just the labor part, but the living-to-see-them-grow-up part too. Again, not all of us are going to have kids, but we all DO have a purpose and one of mine just happens to be mommyhood. And planking isn't the only way I prepare for this: I read, observe, take notes (literally, ask my cousin Genae) and most importantly, I let God know how terrified/excited I am.

Alrighty, I shared mine. Now you share yours. What's your purpose? We talked about this a bit with Pray, and hopefully some of you were able to think, even just a little, about who you are in relation to God and, by extension, where your purpose comes from. Now that you may have a better idea of what it might be - what are you doing to prepare to do it well? How are you training? Not just physically, but mentally and emotionally?

While I've got ya'll on the floor next to me, elbows digging into the mat and bum muscles burning, I'd like to humbly suggest that there is power in being ON YOUR FACE. One of my favorite Lewis books, The Screwtape Letters tells the story of a demon trying to woo a Christian away from his faith. Some of the first advice this demon receives is to convince the Christian man that it makes no difference whether or not he prays on his knees. Like I said in Pray, there is no better way to realize who you are and what you are created to do than to get on your knees before your God. 

Since coming to Baylor University, I've been meditating on a very particular scripture from the Book of Joshua and it's been a major theme for most of my prayer time here. When Joshua meets the angel of the Lord, he doesn't know who the angel is and he asks, "Are you for us or for our enemies?" I love the angel's answer: "Neither." Isn't that annoying? Joshua asks a multiple choice question and the answer he gets is 'no'. I totally get this, though. When my roommate has a rough day, I ask her, 'Would you like some chocolate or a glass of wine?' and she says 'Yes'. It's her way of saying 'Schu, you asked the wrong question, but I'll still give you the right answer'. I believe God does the same thing here with His faithful servant Joshua; He gives Joshua the answer he needs even when he doesn't ask the 'right question'. I'm not for you or against you, I AM. Listen to me. But then the angel reveals his identity and what do you know, Joshua ends up face down in the dirt. Talk about a proper reaction! As soon as he knew the character of the person standing before him, he knew the right response.

Sometimes I think the reason our worship seems lacking or we're not sure where we stand with our Father is because we don't know who He is. We might think we do, but every now and then, it's very healthy to get your face in the dirt and ask the same question Joshua asked, What message does my LORD have for his SERVANT. And it's in those moments, my friends, when the Lord tells you how to bring down Jericho.

I went to the Baylor Law School graduation last week and the commencement speaker summed up his speech with 'Fish or cut bait'. I loved that. When I plank, I'm cuttin' bait, ladies. Both physically, emotionally and spiritually. And when I'm done, that shower feels REAL good and the day ahead of me looks a lot easier to conquer. 

"Some days, I feel everything at once. Other days, I feel nothing at all. I don't know what's worse - drowning beneath the waves, or dying from the thirst."

Pray.

Last week I received the news that yet another one of my aunts had breast cancer. 

God, again?! Didn't we just do this? I'm so sick of this! I'm so sick of getting these phone calls that make me so sad and angry...then I get to drag out my 'give this to You' prayer all over again. I'm really tired of talking to You about cancer.  (By the way, I believe God was 100% okay with this prayer. See most of the Book of Psalms. Anyway, I thought I had the 'cancer prayer' down to an art.) 

God, I asked, Be with my aunt. Give her peace.

Pause. 

I wanted to say, Make her better and Give her strength. But all I could think about was the fact that I feel the most peace...when I pray. 

Dear God, help my aunt to PRAY. 

For all intents and purposes, she might as well have not even had cancer. I didn't think about cancer for the rest of the day. All I could think about was her relationship with her Father and the unsurmountable peace she would find in just talking to Him.

I firmly believe prayer is a spiritual discipline created for man to move towards God, not for God to move on behalf of man. He can, He does, miracles do happen and yes, prayer can be a powerful weapon. Want to meet a truly amazing prayer warrior? Let me introduce you to my Mama sometime. But even she will tell you that when she prays, the one who feels the first fruits is her. Prayer has a funny way of showing us who God is and, more importantly, who we are in relation. Our identity, our purpose, our reason for being can be found in that simple realization that we are great sinners and Christ is a great Savior. (Citation nod to John Newton).

I said in Eat that food is a God thing; I want to humbly suggest that prayer is a human thing - God is not the primary beneficiary. In Genesis 18, Abraham intercedes for the city of Sodom, home of his nephew, Lot. I always get a kick out of the first verse of that story, v. 18, which tells us that the angels left...to rescue Lot. Abraham hasn't even prayed for anything yet, and God is 1) already starting the rescue mission and 2) still ready and willing for a conversation with a worried uncle. Abraham talks for a good 11 verses and which God makes all kinds of concessions about saving Lot's city, but in the next chapter, both Sodom and Gomorrah are destroyed. Levelled. Removed from history. Lot is saved, but the city is destroyed. Archaeologists are still looking for it. Now, God did not ignore Abraham's prayer here. God kept His word; He told Abraham he would save the cities if there were ten believers there, but there were not ten to be found. Not even ten believers? Abraham wasn't asking much; in fact, he never prayed that Lot be saved, but God saved him anyway. So, if we're re-capping, after 11 verses of prayer, God keeps His bargain with Abraham by destroying Sodom, which Abraham didn't want, and He saves Lot, which Abraham didn't ask for. Now, if you're anything like Casey Schu, you're looking back over those 11 verses wondering, What good did this conversation do?! 

Answer: It got Abraham talking to his Father. Chapter 19 diverts to Lot's story, but we see in Chapter 21 that Abraham and his wife Sarah eventually have a son in their old age. I want to suggest to you that those 11 verses of pleading and begging for the salvation of Sodom were a brick, if not the capstone, of the strong, stable bridge of communication that fuels Abraham's trusting relationship with God. That trusting relationship will continue to grow until the day God asks the ultimate sacrifice of Abraham: his only son, Isaac.

Sometimes, and I have to be careful saying this, but sometimes, cancer is a lot like the city of Sodom.