G-Rated Prayers

 Pain happens in all of our hearts. Some days you wake up to a gnawing feeling that things are all wrong. Then you have to deal with it. You have a choice. My usual choice has been to deny it, ignore it and push it down. Then when it works its way out, I feel guilty about it. That is not honest or healthy.

For example, when I am lonely, I shove it down thinking, “other people are so much worse” and successfully shame myself for feeling lonely. This is how I deal with every other feeling that is negative. I shove it down then shame myself into faking it. I know I am supposed to be honest and often apply this to everything except honesty with myself and God.

You don’t have to read very far into Psalms to see the authors dealing with bad feelings in a much different way. They let it all out! In Psalms you will find the authors dealing with anger, sadness, blame, depression, sleeplessness, mistreatment, abuse, sickness, and injustice to name just a few issues. They even go so far as to wish their enemy’s children dead! This can’t be right. But seriously, it is in the Bible. We are taught that it is evil to express feelings like this. And we suppress it. We never admit it, we never deal with it and we shame ourselves for it. Well, it is the human condition. We are ALL sinners.

We all have bad thoughts and if we don’t deal with it we eventually act on them. The Psalms show us how to deal with it. The Psalms show us that we should pour them out to God. This is anything but denial. This is dealing with the negativity in a healthy way. Take it to the Lord in prayer. You can even write it out to him and let him know how you feel. He won’t be shocked. He loves you and he created you and he has done time in flesh-and-blood in this evil world. He gets it.

Check out this Psalm dealing with social injustice:

Psalm 12:1-5;7-8 MSG Quick, GOD, I need your helping hand! The last decent person just went down, All the friends I depended on gone. Everyone talks in lie language; Lies slide off their oily lips. They doubletalk with forked tongues. Slice their lips off their faces! Pull The braggart tongues from their mouths! I’m tired of hearing, “We can talk anyone into anything! Our lips manage the world.” Into the hovels of the poor, Into the dark streets where the homeless groan, God speaks: “I’ve had enough; I’m on my way To heal the ache in the heart of the wretched.” GOD, keep us safe from their lies, From the wicked who stalk us with lies, From the wicked who collect honors For their wonderful lies.

So I need to quit praying G-rated prayers. I need to get real. I need to learn to express my issues to my Father and Friend. I won’t shock Him. He already knows but I need to express it. I need to write it, vocalize it and sing it out to God just like the Psalmists.

Keys, Phone, Wallet and Puppies

 I have nightmares about forgetting appointments and arriving late. Along with that goes my fear of Alzheimer’s. Forgetfulness is one of my biggest sources of anxiety. It comes from a lifetime of ADHD(don’t ask me where my phone is) and years of dealing with a mom with dementia. Should I get dementia, I have given my children orders to put me in a care center and for my oldest to bring me chocolate, my middle child to smuggle in wine, and my youngest to bring me puppies. Yes, I have issues.

by Pexels from Pixabay

As a small child, church attendance for me was not an option. At least three times a week I faced the pulpit looking at a table carved with the words, “Do This in Remembrance of Me.” I don’t think remembering what God has brought us through and remembering what he has done for us was a suggestion. If you have endeavored to read through the Bible you have found many instances in which God tells his people to remember what he has carried them through. I don’t think that so much of our Bible is dedicated to remembering by accident. In the stories of the Old and New Testament, our God is a God who reminds us. He knows our penchant to forget and he is a patient Father.

I believe God wants us to remember in honesty and not put lipstick on the pig. The history in the Bible isn’t shined up the way we shine up our history, telling the story from the perspective of the victor and not the victim. The Bible gives an honest account of God and his children without polish, applause or idolizing. People in the Bible are just like us. They are victors and victims. They abuse and are abused. They make stupid mistakes and they pay dearly for them. Yet when they turn to God, he shows them the path back into his loving arms. He didn’t just tell us to remember the good stuff. He told us to remember when we rebelled and went through hardship. I have to remember my stupid decisions based on my own inflated ego. I must remember what happened because of my rebellion. I also remember how God gently brought me back into a relationship to him.

Proper remembrance requires honesty that may be painful. We must take a path down memory lane even if it is a filthy alley, a lonesome road, or a dark valley with no end in sight. I realize that trauma makes it hard to remember. If you have suffered trauma, ask God to reveal his hand holding you through the trauma. He was there in ways you didn’t recognize at the time. I know He rescued you because he rescues me. And He asked us to remember. So here is your reminder. You are welcome.

What I Learned From My Students

 I don’t know if you have ever had the opportunity to work with special needs children but it is an experience that I highly recommend. My experience began when, as a veteran teacher, I was assigned one class of resource science students. Resource classes are for students with a wide range of learning disabilities. I was honestly not looking forward to it since my favorite teaching assignments had always been advanced high school classes of college bound students. It wasn’t a week into this new assignment until I realized I had been missing out on so much joy all those years without them in my classes. I have tried to reflect on why they were so delightful to be around and this is what, I believe, it boils down to: humility and simple trust.

My resource students didn’t worry about all the things that other kids worried about. They were so much more free and joyous. They didn’t worry about what the other kids thought about them. They trusted and they were guileless. They let others look out for them. I will never forget the baptism of one of our special needs kids at our church. If you ever have seen baptisms, you know there is a procedure to it and it is very structured for safety. But when this dear child of God came up out of the water she did a full-on cheer with arms raised high and jumped up and down looking to the sky with the look of ecstasy on her face. She was radiant!

Luke 18:15-17 MSG People brought babies to Jesus, hoping he might touch them. When the disciples saw it, they shooed them off. Jesus called them back. "Let these children alone. Don't get between them and me. These children are the kingdom's pride and joy. Mark this: Unless you accept God's kingdom in the simplicity of a child, you'll never get in."

Can you imagine letting go and trusting God like this everyday? To step into this we must let go of any thoughts that we are superior to anyone else in any way. We must let go of our self reliance and adopt a God-reliant attitude. We must trust Him and give up trusting ourselves. I really think that it is those of us who are not special needs that have a handicap. We mistakenly think we are smart enough or experienced enough to navigate our day on our own power. We depend on no one and nothing but ourselves. After all, we have diplomas and college degrees. We have passed classes like organic chemistry for crying out loud! We have studied under professors that would make you cry. We are stinking brilliant in our own eyes. We know things.

But can we see our “brilliance” in the light of the creator of the universe? We don’t know what will happen next Tuesday, much less tomorrow or the next hour. We are handicapped and we have no idea. We need to realize it and lean into it so we can experience the Kingdom of God here and now. We need to let go of all thoughts of being self-reliant and become God-reliant. With that will come joy. How do I know? My resource students taught me this.

A Poster-Child for Atheism

 Many Christians like to wear t-shirts proclaiming who they are. I do not. But my reasons for this are not noble. Here is what goes through my judgmental little mind when I see a Jesus bumper sticker or shirt. “Look at how they drive! Look at how they act in line at HEB. Ugly. Ugly. Ugly. And they have the gall to wear that shirt. 🤦🏻‍♀️ They are the poster child for atheism!”

So since I could be a poster child for atheism at any one point in my day-to-day life, I cannot and will not wear the Christian swag. But, in reality, can any of us? We are all so far from perfect. And most of us are far from joyful except maybe when we are filled with spirits that are not so Holy. How are we any different? None of us can live sinlessly and joyfully all the time. We are all repellant for recruitment into the faith at some point in our day.

Have you ever tried to live a perfect day? It is painstaking and joyless work watching our own thoughts and actions every second of the day. In a book by Steve Brown called Scandalous Freedom, he calls out Christians that are faking it. He says we are not living in the freedom that Christ gave us and we bind ourselves to things like rule-following perfectionism, sacrificing the joy that Christ followers were given. The author says we are wearing masks that we think the church people ought to wear to be acceptable. And he says that those masks are the very thing that repel folks from Christianity. After all, who wants to live a joyless life of rule following?

In the aforementioned book, the author says Christ followers need to focus less on sinning and more on Christ. He says we are still sinners and when we try to pretend we are not, we lose our freedom and joy. We will always lose in the battle for perfection in the eyes of the world. So quit trying. Quit beating yourself up because you don’t fit the Christian profile. Quit chasing joy and let it catch up with you.

The point is that Christ set us free when we humble ourselves and cry out to Him. He didn’t remove our penchant for sinning, He forgives them and covers them with His perfection. This makes us perfect in His eyes even though in reality we are riddled with sin. And His, is the only opinion that matters. In that, there is joy! In that, there is freedom. It is joy and freedom that makes folks want what we have, not a life of rule-following. So are Christians really any different? I have found the answer to be, “Christians are not better, they are forgiven.” I believe that saying is on a Christian t-shirt.

Galatians 5:1 MSG
[1] Christ has set us free to live a free life. So take your stand! Never again let anyone put a harness of slavery on you.