He is Worth it ALL!

My BFF text me tonight to ask me to process my anxiety....here was my response:

(And really I have been so convicted to write in this blog...more than anything so that I will have a written record of my journey and for anyone else who might need encouragement as desperately as I do daily...so this was an easy way to express where Jesus and I are at and encourage you without writing it a second time.  We all know convos with our closest friends are when we are the most transparent and vulnerable so I am kinda going out on a limb here....  AND 6 children is making me into the master multi-tasker!  AND I love that God invented copying and pasting!  OK, that's all of my random thoughts for now.)

Ok, I think I might know what is going on. I'm REALLY being purified. I'm tearing down the straw man that I am even a teeny weeny bit righteous on my own. I think He is still revealing to me layers at a time of the gospel. I asked to know it, be worthy of it and live it out back when we were meeting in your condo. This is all part of that answer. He's wanting to show me how human and dust-like I am so I do not become self-righteous or self-sufficient or for a moment try to live on yesterday's manna! He's wanting me to see the glory and the beauty of the cross for ME so I can teach it to my children, my friends, my enemies, strangers. I can not teach effectively what I do not know. I prayed to grow in the knowledge and grace of Jesus a few months ago. He's pulling back His shield and protection a bit so I can see that my only Worth and Hope is Jesus and then to preach this from the mountaintops. I feel a bit like Samson when his hair was cut and his strength was gone. The difference is I know He is controlling and managing all of this chaos for His glory and my good and for a precise purpose! He's teaching me to walk in grace and holiness by being desperate and humble. Crystal ,He has done a miracle in my life. I'm a living, walking miracle. I could not live a second without Him. I would be crushed by the weight of it all. Yet I know I'm called to give and serve and lay down my life EVEN more...yet I'm maxed out. So He's pruning me, adding on extra weights to build my spiritual muscles for my benefit and the benefit of those around me. He has made me a mother to the Nations and is building generations through me...yet I'm Peter.  I'll deny Him in my own flesh but in His Spirit I can scale a wall and move a mountain. I'm 'getting' grace. I'm understanding it. I have to fall at the mercy seat of the cross! I have to find my strength and worth and purpose and power there. And I have to teach others this truth! So here's the logistics...

 

In my humanness I'm just wanting to homeschool my kids and do the laundry and discipline in love and have long talks and quality time with the kids here at home and have a 'normal' life...and...and... and realizing that isn't going to happen!!!! I am not normal because Jesus will not let me be. I'm stuck! I'm so desperately in love with Him that I can't turn back. I'm so far out in the deep that the shore us nowhere in sight and He's calling me DEEPER STILL! Yet if I take my eyes off Him for a millisecond I'm drowning!!! He won't take away names a faces of kids needing education in Sierra Leone, He won't let me ignore the reality that the godliest people I know can turn out to be like David in the bible.  He won't let me just have a normal life. He won't. He wants me poured out until nothing is left and then return to His Well to refill on His Living Water so I can be poured out again!
And He won't let me turn to false comforts or quick fleshly relief to escape the weight and pain and hardness of it all because He's teaching me that true joy in the midst of the weight and pain and hardness of it all is only found in Him! Ok....there you have it. Aren't you glad you asked for details.
Oh thank you for letting me throw up in you. I know you are in the thick of wedding planning and I hate to unload on you but I feel a weight lifted. So few get me or understand. I know you know. And I know you'll pray. And I know you'll rejoice with me when new fruit sprouts on the vine and when a harvest of righteousness and peace are produced in me from this season of submitting to His loving discipline!!! I love you sweet BFF!

 

God of the Hopeless

Written by Jerome:

There were 6 in the room including me. I looked around, every wall of the converted garage was covered with large posters of Eddy from Iron Maiden fame. LSD was blazing through my veins. Yes everything was normal except for the words that I was hearing. One of my good friends was bringing a startling message:

 “This will show them.”
“What other way will we get their attention?"
“What other HOPE do we have?" 

5 sets of LSD flushed eyes stared back at him but there was no response but a clear tacit approval. He is serious and no one was arguing with him! Finally after a few minutes some responded that they were with him. I wanted to argue, mainly because I was afraid of dying, but I did not have anything to argue back with. I hated my life, why shouldn’t I kill myself?  I was tormented. I hated the world and all of its BS. Anytime I would try anything in hope, I failed.  I knew even if I went back to school or got a good job or started a family I would still be miserable. Fear was alive in my body. I was afraid to die. Even if I said no they could still kill me.
 
I was the first to say no. It all passed. It probably was the LSD that made me afraid for my life. But the hopelessness was real and he meant what he said. I wanted to die. It was an appealing message that caused 5 of us to stare and think. The speaker was a good friend of mine. He went on to get married and have a couple of kids. One day the American dream died for that family as he pulled a gun out, killed his wife and then put a bullet in the back of his head.  Poor kids.

Now the Hope of the world pulses through my veins. He fills my days with hope and it runs though me like a river. Every day as I awake! I call to my Hope! With You I could live in the pits of hell and still find joy! What the world searches for in drugs, relationships, money and fame I have in you my Hope. Why You saved me I do not know! But an even greater mystery is why you give me Hope today. Why you use me to bring Hope to others?? I feel Your power and I see Your wind rush through my life!

OH HOW I LOVE YOU GOD OF THE HOPELESS! YOU ARE WONDERFUL IN ALL YOUR WAYS! I WANT TO BE LIKE YOU!

Ha! One day I was hopeless and could not think of a good reason to live! BUT NOW BY DYING I AM FREE TO LIVE!!! HELP ME TO DIE TO MYSELF MORE! I am like a drug addict searching for little of Your Presence. Just as a drug addict gives up thing after thing for what he wants most I will bring everything I have to the cross until my house is empty!

For you I sing I dance! I WILL NOT FORGET WHERE YOU HAVE BROUGHT ME FROM. YOU ARE TRULY THE GREAT GOD OF THE HOPELESS!!