Spiritual Journal Set 5 part 2

 Thankfulness

Ann Voskamp made lists of things she was thankful for, from fresh eggs to her husband.  Often times, the list was full of simple everyday things that no one ever even thinks to be thankful for because they are always there.  As she did so, other people began commenting to her on how she is changing in a good way.  But one of the things that I try to find thankfulness for is in the things that there seems to be nothing in it that can be thanked.

I'm thankful for my dad having a treatment if not a cure.  I'm thankful that it at least gives him just under two weeks of feeling better.  I'm thankful that the nurse can come to our house rather than having someone drive him to Cleveland for it.  I'm thankful that his job kept him on.

I'm thankful for our house.  I'm thankful that we could keep our dog if not out cats.  I'm thankful that we found Charlie a home, since we couldn't find one for the rest.  I'm thankful that it is affordable.  I'm thankful that there is one restroom that everything works in, even if we have to walk through our parent's bedroom to get there.

I'm thankful for coming to Houghton now, since I couldn't before.  I'm thankful for the friends I made now, that I may not have known earlier.  I'm thankful for getting to spend a mayterm in London, since I was unable to spend an entire semester in London.

There are so many things that I can find to be thankful for even in bad circumstances.  The problem is that I often don't look for them.  I focus on my misery, on my anger at what's going on, rather than at what's going right.  Things will never go as easy as we may plan them to go, but they do go better than we thought they could if we look at them with thankful for eyes.  Voskamp and her family struggled to move past the death of her sister for years.  It was that accident that turned her father away from God and haunted her even into her adult years.  But just the act of being thankful for the little things began to make a positive impact on her life.  I have always been someone who views the glass as half full.  I never understood why people wouldn't.  One person believed themselves to be a realist by looking at the glass as half empty.  But can't you be real about what you are thankful for?  Can't you look at a situation and know that it is bad but to see the glimpse of good, no matter how small?  I can't answer the question for you or even for myself.  But it is something to try for.

Spiritual Journal Set 5 part 1

"I'd Write this Story Differently"

When I read this in One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp, my mind went to R.  I didn't know her.  She had just graduated when I started seventh grade so though we went to the same school, we were not on each other's radar.  But I do remember praying for her.  A truck hit her car on her way to college.  While she was aware and lucid as they cut her out of what was left of her car, but by the time she got to the hospital, she was confused.  Then she was unconscious and not waking up.  My entire school prayed for her for over a month, that she would wake up from her coma.  We prayed for her at school and at church and at home.  If it wasn't for the head injury, she would have recovered despite breaking both of her arms and legs, multiple ribs, and her neck.  But she never woke up and they eventually took her off life support.  

While I prayed for her, there was never a doubt in my mind that she would recover.  God was awesome and he wouldn't let someone die before they fulfilled His plans for them and she wanted to be a nurse.  But that was R's plans and not God's plans and it took me a bit too realize that.  She left behind her parents and her older sister.

I grieved more when her mother took her own life five years later.  R, I never cried for because I never knew her and despite my denial, part of me knew that she wasn't going to get better.  I was horrified to find out that D committed suicide and wondered how my family would deal if I died young.  My mom was in a bad mood that night when I got home and was snapping at all of us.  She's done it many times and I have been fine for the most part which is probably what surprised her so much when I burst into tears after she snapped at me.  She, of course, comforted me and forgot her bad mood.

If I wrote this story, I say the same thing as Voskamp, I would write it differently.  R would have gotten better though she would always have a limp.  D never would have killed herself and instead would have become even closer to her other daughter.  But I don't.  God does and I have to trust in his plans even while I hate what is going on.  He knows best.

Spiritual Journal 4 part 2

When we were young, my mom often had the three of us bathe together.  It saved water and we had fun together.  I can’t remember at what age we stopped but I’m pretty sure Matthew stopped once he could no longer fit in with Andrew and I and then I stopped when Andrew and I could no longer fit together.  But I remember one thing that Matthew imparted upon us, his siblings: how to cheat in taking a bath.  What he told us, was that if we mixed some water in with all the different soaps and shampoos in the bathtub in our little water bucket and dumped it into the water with us, we would count as clean and wouldn’t have to do anything else but play in the water.  Even back then, a part of me knew it didn’t work like that because I knew that my mom, if she knew, would make us wash ourselves anyway but we did it anyway.  The only thing that my mom noticed that we touched was her Noxema so she told us not to touch it (I would notice to if I saw little gouges in my previously smooth facial cream).  We were very specific with how much of each item we put in the mixture so that we would compile almost a magic cleaning solution (at least in our minds).

But how many of us do that in our spiritual life?  We compile a bunch of items, activities, songs, words, throw them in a bucket with a little dabble of the Scripture and WESTO PRESTO!!!!  We are suddenly wonderfully spiritual people who are right on track with God.  We don’t need to do anything else because we have found the perfect, short and easy, way to be a Godly person with almost no God needed.  Neat huh?  But despite our best “formulas” and “programs” and “ministries”, we can be spiritual by ourselves.  We can’t go to heaven by ourselves.  We can’t even make it to the next day by ourselves sometimes.  We need God.  There is no denying that no matter how much we try.  

And didn’t I say we were young when we had this brilliant idea?  We were in no ways mature.  We were little kids trying to get out of the boring parts of baths while still playing around in the water.  When you try to create a way to be godly without God, it just shows you immaturity as Christians.  You are still too new at being a Christian to realize that it doesn’t work like that.  You may even be so new at being a Christian that it may even help you become a bit godlier.  But the formula won’t work forever.  Eventually without putting God into your routines and depending on Him fully for your godliness, you won’t mature.  You won’t move past the baby food that you first started being fed.  And when people try to give you bigger chunks of food since they thought that you had matured enough, you won’t be able to digest them or even chew them. You need to grow up.  Maybe not get rid of your “magic formulas” all together but build upon them.  Make God the forefront of them more.  Dig deeper when you were previously just scraping the top.  It will pay off.

Now, when I take a shower or a bath, by myself, there is no magic mixture I make unless you count the shampoo/conditioner two in one bottles.  I take each different cleaning solution I have and use it separate and in accordance with the directions on the bottle.  And when I leave the bathroom, I am a whole lot cleaner than when I entered and I even feel better than I did before since I am now clean.  It should be the same way with your devotions or whatever ways you use to grow closer to our Lord.  You should leave your devotions feeling as if you’ve been cleansed from the dirtiness of the lives that we live and you should feel better for having done so in the first place.  More than anything else though, you should feel closer to God than you were before.  Life doesn’t give us magical formulas.  But we do have a loving God who will help us more than any magical formula ever can.

(728 words)

Spiritual Journal 4 part 1

Dear God, 

You have said that we are to love our neighbors as we love ourselves.  But I have a problem with that.  It is all too easy at times for me to “love my neighbor” but I struggle to love myself.  There was a time where I believed that true humility meant looking in the mirror and pointing out everything of myself that I hated so that I would not grow proud of myself.  And I thought that I could love others while at the same time hating myself.

Well, they say that hindsight is twenty twenty and I am now realizing what you meant.  When I hated myself, I did try to love others but can it truly be called love when I doubt their every action and word?  I had friends but I never trusted them with myself.  Since I hated myself, it was only logical of me to believe that everything of myself that I hated, others could see and hate too.  So that while I was friends with people, I didn’t believe that they were friends with me.    For years I believed that no one really liked me for me but just hung out with me because they would feel bad if they left me out.  How is that love?

God, you have given us examples of what true love does and I can honestly say that I don’t think that I loved anyone for years because I could not let go of the hatred that I had for myself.  Love is a verb and I didn’t really act like I loved people, at least in my thoughts.  

I can’t remember when it started but one day You showed that I needed to love myself but it has been slow, Lord.  How could I get over years of hatred in just a few days?  It took years and it is still at work in my life.   I know that I couldn’t have gotten as far as I did without your help though and I am just so grateful that you are willing to help me.  I no longer regularly call myself stupid and retarded and ugly.  I barely hear the echoes of the words from third grade when perhaps it all started and I heard someone say, “Don’t worry about her, she’s retarded.”  Those words colored my existence and perception of how others see me for years but no more.   I can now honestly say I love myself.

And by Your words, I can now also say that I love others.  I no longer cry myself to sleep at least once a week over how much I think people hate me and don’t like me.  I no longer believe that friends are only friends because of their conscious and not because they actually like me.  I can be myself without fear of making others hate me more because I know that they don’t hate me to begin with.   When people actually dislike me, I am okay with that because I know that it probably has nothing to do with all the reasons that I used to hate myself and may just have to do with a personality clash.  

Dear Lord, may I never go back to the way that I was.  When people insult me, let me laugh it off rather than taking everything to my fragile heart to let it get hurt some more.  Let me be strong in ways that I never knew was possible and let my life be a reflection of how You want us to love.  May I love others, yes, but let me first love myself so that I can do it properly and without restraint.  May I be so focused on Your will for my life that my insecurities and lingering self-doubts fade away to the awesome power of Your plans.  May my love for myself and for You be so overflowing that I can’t help but splash it onto those who surround me and love them as I love both myself and You.  May I never return to the way that I once was and may my every action only bring me closer to how You want me to love and live.

In Your Most Loving Name, Amen.

(711 words)