Thursday, November 7, 2013

Eucharisteo Day Seven... Cause sometimes it gets uglier before it gets better


I have loved you with an everlasting love;
    I have drawn you with unfailing kindness.
-God, Jeremiah 31:3 (NIV) 


 
I am thankful that God doesn’t give up on me. 

I am stubborn.  It’s a proven fact & unfortunately, it’s worse when I’m tired, sick or super busy. It's then that I tend to go into full freak out defense mechanism mode.

Yesterday, I was in a real bad funk. So much so that after I finally got home last night from work & teaching Hani’s small group, I had a complete melt down. I cried my eyeballs out over some potential vacation plans, ranted, raved & threatened to get in my car & round up ‘my children’ & head for the UP ‘cause I miss their stinkin’ faces & that’s where I want to be RIGHT NOW’. Yes people. It was ugly. Mid rant, my sweet husband came & sat down beside me. He rubbed my back, passed me a tissue (cause let’s be honest, the snot was dripping off my chin) & listened patiently to my incoherent ramblings, knowing full well this too would pass & sanity would soon return.  

I love that when I’m at my worst, my husband is at his best. He doesn’t judge me. He doesn’t throw up his hands up & tell me I’m talking crazy & I need to get a grip. Instead, he gives me grace, disregards my prickly exterior, gets in my personal space & loves on me. He gently tells me I’m beautiful & precious & that together we will figure something out that will work for everyone.  

My husband is an earthly picture of God to me. 

You see, I so love to have things my way.  Now I’ll admit, there are times when I freely open my hands in complete surrender to God & to whatever He has planned for me. But there are more times when I just ball my fists up tight, stamp my feet, pinch my eyes closed & refuse to see what God has planned at all.  

It reminds me of this old timey hymn that we used to sing when I was a little girl that always rubbed me a little bit wrong…

Take my life, and let it be
Consecrated, Lord, to Thee;
Take my moments and my days,
Let them flow in ceaseless praise,
Let them flow in ceaseless praise.

Take my hands, and let them move
At the impulse of Thy love;
Take my feet and let them be
Swift and beautiful for Thee,
Swift and beautiful for Thee.

 Take my voice, and let me sing
Always, only, for my King;
Take my lips, and let them be
Filled with messages from Thee,
Filled with messages from Thee.

Take my silver and my gold;
Not a mite would I withhold;
Take my intellect, and use
Every power as Thou shalt choose,
Every power as Thou shalt choose.

Take my will, and make it Thine;
It shall be no longer mine.
Take my heart; it is Thine own;
It shall be Thy royal throne,
It shall be Thy royal throne.

Take my love; my Lord, I pour
At Thy feet its treasure-store.
Take myself, and I will be
Ever, only, all for Thee,
Ever, only, all for Thee.


I don’t know what it was about this infernal song. I’d like to say that it’s was the stodgy melody that set me off, but in retrospect, I’m betting it was the lyrics. The BEAUTIFUL lyrics.  Most likely, my stubborn soul took offense to listening to six whole verses containing, ‘Take my will & make it Thine’.  Cause… ARGH!
This morning, in the aftermath of the aforementioned um… melt-down? er… tantrum?  ah… total freak-out? or… whatever… as I drove into work I heard something that pricked me deep down in my soul… I turned the radio up. I turned it down. I turned it up.
You brought me this far so why would I question You now
You have provided so why would I start to doubt
I've never been stranded, abandoned or left here to fight alone
So I'm giving You control

I lift my life, lift my life up
I give it all in surrender
I lift my heart, lift my heart up
You can have it forever
All my dreams, all my plans
Lord I leave it in Your hands
I lift my life, lift my life up

Have Your way in me
Have Your way in me

If peace is a river then let it sweep over me
If I'm under fire I know it's refining me
When I hear You calling out I follow now wherever the road may go
I know You're leading me home

I lift my life, lift my life up
I give it all in surrender
I lift my heart, lift my heart up
You can have it forever
All my dreams, all my plans
Lord I leave it in Your hands
I lift my life, lift my life up

Have Your way in me
Have Your way in me

Take my life and let it be all for You
Take my life and let it be all for You

I lift my life, lift my life up
I give it all in surrender
I lift my heart, lift my heart up
(Take my life)

I lift my life, lift my life up
I give it all in surrender
(Take my heart)
I lift my heart, lift my heart up
You can have it forever
All my dreams, all my plans
Lord I leave it in Your hands
I lift my life, lift my life up

Have Your way with me
Have Your way with me
Have Your way with me
Have Your way with me

Take my life and let it be all for You

Lift My Life Up- Unspoken, The World is Waking

Tears streamed down my face. Again. But this time it was not because I was angry or frustrated or anxious but because I was grateful.

Why do I do this to myself?

It’s kinda like what Paul’s writes in Romans 7, “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.

Seriously.

I do know & understand that God has & wants the best for me. He’s proved it time & time again. I just have a thick head. 

I am so grateful that He chooses to love me anyway. 
To pursue me anyway. 
To teach me anyway. 



“The same God who loves us as we are also loves us to much to leave us as we are. Perhpas because we tend to hold to ideas about God that reflect our own suppositions and fears, more than God's self-revelation. We reduce God to our own dimensions, ascribing to him our own reactions and responses, especially our own petty and conditional kind of love, and so end up believing in a God cast in our own image and likeness.

But the true God, the living God, is entirely "other":. Precisely from this radical otherness derives the inscrutable and transcendent nature of divine love-- for which our limited human love is but a distant metaphor. God's love is much more than our human love simply multiplied and expanded. God's love for us will ever be mystery; unfathomable, awesome, entirely beyond human expectation.”
-Joseph Langford, author of Mother Teresa's Secret Fire: The Encounter That Changed Her Life and How It Can Transform Your Own

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