Praise Break!

 I've been looking back over the things I wrote on this blog between 2006 and 2013. Two things have struck me about my writing:

1. I don't feel like I can still write like I used to.

I think it was because I practiced, which reminds me that I just need to start writing again.

2. I was lost and I was proud of it.

The answer to the 2nd point lies in the resounding grace and mercy of God's redemption. It is amazing that God called me back from that place of floundering, irreverent doubt. There is a post where I used lower case "g" for God and upper case "F" for fate. I was thumbing my nose at religion, flaunting my rebellion. I quoted from philosophy and the Tao de Ching and Richard Dawkins. I got a tattoo on my forearm to celebrate myself. It is a man with a walking stick, standing on a path under a waterfall. To me it represented how I had found my own way. I embodied what Paul wrote to Timothy about below.

"For the time will come when people will not tolerate sound doctrine and accurate instruction [that challenges them with God’s truth]; but wanting to have their ears tickled [with something pleasing], they will accumulate for themselves [many] teachers [one after another, chosen] to satisfy their own desires and to support the errors they hold,"  II Timothy 4:3 Amplified Bible

The truth that I refused to see was clear to others. Gil, who was a Buddhist, told me that I would find my way back to faith again. Carol openly scoffed at my claim to be an atheist. Others, secure in their own doubt and defiance of God, congratulated me on my "free thinking" and wanted to hear how I had arrived at these conclusions. Between the lines of my writing, in numerous emotional posts, it is clear that I was missing something. I wrote so many posts about how unhappy I was, then apologized and blamed it on my infertility, or my period, or something else.

Today, I was walking the dogs in the snow on the mountain, and spending some time with God. I'm learning something really powerful about quiet time with God. I don't always know what to say when I'm praying. I used to come to God with a formula. Follow the pattern set forth in the Disciple's Prayer (commonly called the Lord's Prayer). Or I would come to God with a list of everything I wanted. I think that God is happy to hear from me, and I'm not saying there is any right or wrong way to pray. But today, and many times, when there is something on my mind, I needed to start with praise. 

This week we read Psalm 148. The Psalmist makes a list- mountains, hills, fruit trees, cedars, wild animals, cattle, small creatures, flying birds, and many more. He simply exhorts everything and everyone that exists to praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. What a good place to start when you're not sure what to say!

So that's what I did. 

"Praise the Lord, you snow-covered hemlock trees! Praise the Lord, you blackberry bushes hanging over the trail! Praise the Lord, beautiful bright blue sky!" 

That praise entered my soul, and suddenly I knew what the rest of my prayer was. 

"God, I trust you." 

I remembered my list, my parents who are sick, loved ones who need to be saved, my 11 year old who got written up for standing on the chair and running out of the room Friday, my questions about how to best serve God. 

"God, I trust you with my list. I know you're going to do what's best." 

My heart was filled with peace.

Our praise is so powerful! Praise truly opens the gates of heaven.

Return from Exile

(Originally written June 22, 2017) 

God has called me back to his side after ten years of running from him! He has filled me with such peace and blessing as I learn to know him again.

I had started online dating for all the wrong reasons in February. A few weeks ago I accidentally went on a date with a Christian man. He listened to me recount the basic events of the last fifteen years and asked, "when you went to Florida and Oregon, what were you running from?" Then he told me I should read the story of how Elijah had God's strength to stand up to Ahab and the false prophets but ran away when Jezebel threatened him. God didn't let him escape though. He went with him and called him back with a still small voice. I couldn't get that out of my head.

After our date, I kept thinking about him and his question. I was impressed by his Christian character and I really liked him, but more than that God was moving in my heart. I called my old pastor's wife Tina for counsel, and she wisely said, "Ask God to show himself to you, and he will." As we finished our conversation it started to storm outside with thunder and lightning and heavy rain. I was reminded of Psalm 18, my favorite, where David asks for deliverance from his enemies and God descend on the clouds to defend him, embodied by storm. I ran through the drenching rain to get my Bible from the car so I could read that Psalm. I was just finishing copying favorite phrases on a notepad and thanking God for speaking to me so clearly when the phone rang.

Mom was on the phone telling me that Dad couldn't walk and they were taking him to the emergency room. I was working at the hospital that night, so I spent every spare minute checking on Dad. He was being treated for Lyme disease and improving overnight. I slipped Mom my notes on Psalm 18 as I rushed into work, and later was able to share my joyful news with both my parents, who have prayed faithfully and trusted God to redeem me these many years. In the midst of illness we praised Him and wept together.

A few days later I was reading Elie Wiesel's memoirs. He recounted being deported to Buchenwald in 1944 and watching the slaughter of most of his family and friends. He writes:

"God accompanies his children into exile.... He will never be absent. Present at the Creation, God forms part of it.... No space is devoid of God. Good is everywhere, even in suffering, and at the very heart of punishment.... What happens to us touches God."

Today I thank God that he went with me into my self-imposed exile. I suffered the consequences of my own willful choices, but God did not punish me. He protected me. He stayed with me, and He waited for me. What undeserved Grace!