Waiting on Wings

Today a good and beautiful friend emailed me and asked me to pray for her, she was overwhelmed and wanted to run away. At the same time the old hymn "I'll Fly Away" was playing on the music station I had the TV on and all I could think of is that one day we WILL be able to run away from it all with a brand new set of wings!

How glorious that will be!

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Last night I lay awake after going to bed thinking of a conversation I had had with a friend earlier in the day. She told me about a conversation she had with someone while discussing the life of a family member and what that person said shocks me so much. This person of leadership in a church said to my friend "Well you know she (the family member being discussed) would never be able to go to our church because she has too much baggage and would never find a good guy that would be able to deal with it all, after all she has.................." (that may not be word for word, but it the basics, I left out some for privacy)

Where are we heading when a church can't except someone and their baggage?! Where are we heading when people are judged according to past mistakes and deemed unworthy of attending a certain church or unworthy of a good man/woman because we have done some things we aren't so proud of? It that's true than NONE of us are worthy. We have all done things that some could see deems us unworthy of love and acceptance. But, the beauty of it is that it is where we admit our unworthiness that God's salvation is realized in our life. It is only in our depraved lives that His grace can be given. It's not given to the perfect, to the non-sinner, the people without past, the people without mistakes......we wouldn't need Him. It makes me sad that a church/believer doesn't model our Christ. It's what we are called to do....dang it!

I have been attending on Friday nights a program called Celebrate Recovery and every one of those nights people in my group pour out their hurts, their habits and hangups. These are people who have suffered unimaginable things. People who are dealing with addictions or spouses with addictions and are there to find help, to find healing. It's true that sometimes I want to shut my ears to their pain, tune out their voices, avert my eyes from their "sins"......it's hard to hear, you don't know how to deal with what they are telling you. You realize some of their pain as your own pain and you want to run from it as fast as you can. But, instead I sit there, I listen, I learn and I take it with me when I leave. Those people need someone to listen, they need to vent, they need sympathy. What they don't need is someone telling them they don't belong, they have too much baggage, they need to just get over it or that people are burnt out on them.......

Would I, as a single woman ever think of marring someone that has some big mistakes in their past or isn't free of baggage..........YES! Because he will need to also accept mine. Besides who ever God has for me, regardless of their past or present is the very best person for me.

Model Christ in your life and church today. Embrace compassion.

When the Pharisees saw this, they said to His disciples, "Why is your Teacher eating with the tax collectors and sinners?" But when Jesus heard this, He said, "It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick." But go and learn what this means: 'I DESIRE COMPASSION, AND NOT SACRIFICE,' for I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners." (Matt. 9:11-13)

Baking Fixation

Lately I have had a need to bake. I've never been one to bake but I have had this fixation on baking for the last couple weeks. I have had to curb the need because there isn't enough people to eat everything I want to make!

I'm going to visit an old friend tomorrow morning at her house for coffee....so that gave me a good excuse to make homemade cookies to bring. I just put my last batch of my famous spice cookies in the oven....they are so yummy! And the recipe makes about 15 dozen, so there is enough to bring and for me to eat with a big glass of milk.

If only now I had a reason to make the cake I saw on Everyday Italian on the Food Network yesterday. I am dying to make it!

This Girl is Blessed!

It seems kinda corny to write a post on being thankful on Thanksgiving so if you will be patient with my corniness I would love to tell you of God's blessings .

It's been a hard year, one of the hardest I have ever been through. Changes I NEVER thought I would have to make, financial difficulties, family difficulties, loss of good friends are just a few of the things I have had to battle. Yet, there has remained one constant in my life, Christ. No matter how hard things have gotten He has remained with me. I felt Him as soon as I opened my eyes this morning. I thought about how by His grace I am alive and free. As I lay there I thought about all the things I had to be thankful for......a roof over my head, good health, a 13 year old laying beside me (he came and got in my bed at 5:30 this morning, he does that sometimes and I still love it!) shoes on my feet, and clothes on my back. For a moment there the negatives tried to intercede and make their presence know but I chose to ignore them for the day. God is good and He stays constant even when life is swirling out of control. That is something to be thankful for!

I received five invitations to Thanksgiving this year! Five! I don't think I have ever received that many before and it makes me feel so wanted and blessed. One was received from an old friend from work, one from a new friend I met at work, one from a friend at my new church and two from friends from my old church. All of them made absolute sure that I was not only welcomed but truly wanted. All of them are beautiful people and choose to model Christ by making sure that although I am not family by human blood we are by His blood. I have to especially send thanks out to my friends from my old church. When they could have given up on me even after the times I have cried on their shoulders or complained about life they have never burned out and they still see me as someone worth being around. And they really don't care what church I go to, they just care about me! They truly exemplify what it means to be like Christ. One of them said to me "Sonya, we just love to hang out with you dear". Thanks friend! I feel the same about you!

As the year draws to a close and I begin to reflect on it I realize despite the difficulties I have endured I am still standing strong. But only through God's grace can I say that.

This girl is blessed! Sing Praise!

The Street Cleaner

I haven't written in awhile, mainly because everything has changed in my life AGAIN and I have been keeping it between God and some close friends. But yesterday while out running I got a inspiration for a post and couldn't get it out of my mind till I wrote it. I have to say that I can sometimes get thoughts or inspirations on life in some of the weirdest ways....a street cleaner no less!

I was out running on the sidewalk alongside a pretty busy street outside my neighborhood which part of the street only allows each way one lane. There was one of those big street cleaners moving along with it's big brushes doing it best to clean up the streets in town. But the most interesting part wasn't the street cleaner itself but the long line of cars behind it. Street cleaners don't move very fast. They can't, they have to move slowly to make sure they get the job done correctly, make sure the big brushes get into every spot that it can. As I ran I could almost feel the frustration and impatience of the people in each car because they were stuck behind it. I could only imagine some of the not so nice words that were coming out of their mouths due to that frustration! You know what I mean, we've all said them or thought them! Anyway, everyone finally reached the part of the road that opened up to two lanes and once they were able, the long line of cars whizzed by the street cleaner and hurried on their way.

I thought to myself how much of a parallel you could draw between the street cleaner and God and the long line of cars as our fellow believers in Christ. God is constantly cleaning our lives with his big brushes, sweeping away the dirt and grim that dirties our lives and the trash thrown by others in days gone past that hinder the beauty he knows that is within. He doesn't go fast, he takes his time. He goes slowly, making sure he gets every spot. But sadly along the way of God cleaning our lives we encounter those Christians that grow frustrated and impatient with us because we are not clean yet or we haven't gotten rid of the debris from the past yet. I've encountered this myself and was told things like "you should be over the past by now" and " you haven't shown enough fruit in your life" and all the while my salvation was in question because this was the way they judged it by how fast I was going on the road. With all their theology and wisdom I think they forgot that I wasn't the street cleaner doing the cleaning but that God was and His timing is never anyone else's timing. God knows that 38 years of a life spent without Him in it, with so much hurt, grim, dust and sin in it was going to take more than 3 years to clean it out. It was going to take a lifetime. He was going slowly making sure He didn't leave a spot missed. Yes, sometimes it was through fault of my own that He had to go even slower because I was being stubborn and refusing to let Him into some of the corners, but He never stopped, He never gave up. He would just slow down, unhindered by the long line of people behind me and would take His loving hands and reach in and little by little clean out those stubborn corners. My past was not easy and it's taking God extra time than it may with others to rid me of some of the pain that it caused. I'm not angry with these people just sad that their compassion for a fellow Christian reached an impatient point and enticed them to judge my salvation based on my how fast I was growing. No amount of scriptures will support that our salvation is based on or gained by how much fruit we have shown in our lives. Salvation is free. It was paid for on the Cross. And no amount of scriptures will support that there is a certain timetable as to how fast a persons life bares fruit. And before you twist it around and say that it is by our fruit that our salvation is known check out what the fruits of the spirit are.....love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control and hold them up to the life you are judging and see how many of them are apparent in them. I myself know that I have modeled love, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control since becoming saved by God's grace. Him and I are still working on the joy, peace and patience fruits! But I have to believe that having the majority of them is definitely showing some "fruits in my life"!

So the next time you think of judging a person based on what you perceive as how fast they should be growing I hope you will think of this post. I talked recently with someone that was also hurt by some lack of compassionate words because they also weren't where someone thought they should be and now that person has little desire to attend church. I am so grateful that my love for God and my faith in Him is stronger than my faith in anyone else's ideas of me or thoughts of me. Remember God is the cleaner of others lives and He will take as long as is necessary, totally unaware of the long line of impatient people wanting us to go faster. Remember too, God is the gardner and with patience He cultivates our soul and tends to our hearts and waits for us to grow into the beautiful person that He knows us to be. Don't grow impatient, sometime it takes longer than it did for you or for someone else you know. Don't give up and miss out on the things God can do in the blink of an eye in someones life. I've grown tremendously in the last several months and I can see the beauty that is coming from God's patience in "street cleaning" my life. He has reached areas of my heart that I have kept guarded and is cleaning it out and making me free!

And the next time you get stuck behind an actual street cleaner take some time to think about what he is doing for the town you live in. Don't get impatient and take it for granted. Someone cares enough to tend to the town you live in and to make it as beautiful as he can.

And remember.............For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus. (Philippians 1:6)