The One Where We Didn't Burn Easter Dinner

Easter Sunday – one of the happiest days of the year. “He is risen! Hallelujah!”

But what about Monday?

The day after Jesus rose from the dead…guess what, He was still alive. 
We so often forget that.  We only celebrate His life on Easter Sunday, when the resurrection should be the JOY that fuels us every day of the year.

My pastor said last week that we need to preach the gospel to ourselves everyday.  I think this especially applies to the resurrection.  How would your life change if you were celebrating Jesus’ resurrection daily?  If the celebration of Easter Sunday was your daily attitude?

I’m reading a book for a class right now that I didn’t think I would like.  Turns out its amazing and I cannot put it down.  James Wilhoit says, “The gospel is the power of God for the beginning, middle, and end of salvation.  It is not merely what we need to proclaim to unbelievers; the gospel also needs to permeate our entire Christian experience.”1

I woke up Easter morning plagued with anxiety.  Will I have enough money to pay for everything? Will I be able to finish my thesis in time? Will we burn Easter dinner in the crockpot?!

It is Resurrection Sunday.  Jesus died and rose again so that I don’t have to battle fear.  So that I don’t have to feel pinned down by my sin.  When He died, our sin died, and when He rose, we rose again in freedom.

We are not the same.  “It is no longer I who lives, but Christ who lives in me!”

Fear can’t own us.  Death can’t defeat us. My favorite hymn shouts in celebration: “As He stands in victory, sin’s curse has lost its grip on me, for I am His, and He is mine, bought with the precious blood of Christ.”

The Resurrection did not just raise Jesus from the dead.  It resurrected us as well.  He defeated death, not just for Himself but for us all.  We too are resurrected.  We are a new creation, free to be who He designed us to be, free to live life and live it abundantly (John 10:10).

That is what it looks like to preach gospel to yourself.  Wake up every morning and remind yourself that not only did Jesus die so you could be saved, He rose again so you could live.  Fully and freely.  With no fear or shame or insecurity.  You are saved and loved and free.

Preach.that.daily.

Today? It is resurrection Monday. Oh glorious day.

(This song? Beautiful description of the events of Easter. Makes me cry.every.time.)

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[1] James C. Wilhoit, Spiritual Formation as if the Church Mattered, (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2008), 29.

The One Where I Feel Like I Had Open Heart Surgery

There is no wonder why we use the heart as an analogy for our deep, inner emotions and experiences.  It is our lifeblood.  The heart keeps us alive; it causes us to function.  Without it all of our body fails.  The health of our heart affects every part of our lives.

So it is with our non-physical heart…the health of it impacts everything in our lives.  “Guard your heart, for it affects everything you do” (Proverbs 4:23, NLT).  Sometimes we need “open heart surgery”. 

Something about being vulnerable…makes you feel like you just literally experienced open heart surgery.  Laying raw on the table, cut open down the middle.  Allowing anything in and anything out.

Being honest and vulnerable…It is open heart surgery.  Only by being vulnerable can you learn, grow, trust, heal.

Open heart surgery is to fix something that was broken.  A valve that is not working properly, or to remove a blockage.  Something that is keeping your heart from receiving and sending out blood and oxygen.  That is what keeps you alive.

Sometimes we are ‘clogged’ with negative emotions.  Sometimes the lies we believe about ourselves thin our veins.  Often the lack of grace we give ourselves can make the heart work twice as hard just to survive. 

The pain and rawness of open heart surgery, well it is absolutely necessary.  And it leads to healing and health.  It will be painful for a while, but in the end you are better off.  So it is with being open with the Body of Christ, and with Christ Himself.

When we expose what is broken, what is not functioning as it should, we give God the chance to heal.  The Divine Surgeon goes to work in our hearts and helps us function truly.  Sometimes He uses His residents, to inform us of what needs fixing.  And then often He uses His nurses to prepare us, to stand by us, and to help us heal.  I’m experiencing this now.  Learning that people who love Jesus also love me, and care about my healing.  They care about the health of my heart.  And maybe as we let the Lord heal our heart, we can help others experience the same thing.  Because when the blockages are removed, and the thin veins are replaced, and the chest is sewn back up – well then the whole body works as it should.  Then the oxygen goes to the brain and air can flow freely. 

And as God heals our hearts then grace and love can flow freely, without anything standing in the way.  No longer is there something keeping us from releasing love from the heart, to the brain, to the world.

The One Where I Realized I Have Power

Jesus told us when He was on this earth, “In this life you will have troubles...”

One of the only guarantees we have is that this life will not be easy.  

Life is full of uncertainty.  It is often overwhelmed with troubles and struggles and frustrations.

So I’m just wondering how we still live well in the midst of it.

My last post was somewhat (ok, completely) a vent session and it doesn’t really help to get mad and verbal vomit and then just walk away.  So the night after I posted that, I laid awake asking God, “What do I do now?”

He repeated back to me what I just barely skimmed over last week:

Rise above your circumstances.

I wrote that this is one of the options when something is hard and you need to take action of some sort.  I said that I didn’t know how to really write anything more about it.  I guess God wanted me to dig a little deeper.

I realized in thinking over my life that most of it is really good right now.  Besides that one situation that was making me so mad, all my other relationships are healthy.  School is good.  My family is great.  I even know where I will be working this summer, which is amazing because I’m learning that I cannot really plan my life too far in advance.

Yet I was letting this one situation completely own me.  Completely dominate my emotions, my thoughts, my time.  I was letting it make me a person I didn’t want to be. 
I do have a say, I do have control; not over other people and the choices they make, but over myself and the choices I make.  I can choose to let something make me bitter, or I can give it over to the Lord.  I can choose to be a person of grace, or I can be mean and crabby. 

If our faith is real, and God is really transforming us, then these situations cannot and do not dictate who we are and what we do. 

We are not defined by our circumstances.  We are defined by Christ.  (repeat that to yourself.) 

We find our identity in His death and resurrection.  We find ourselves in His glory and redemption and in His name.  And there, we find power. 

There is power in the name of Jesus. 

Power to overcome.  To conquer.  To be victorious over that one, or several, situations in our lives that seem like they control us. It is just.not.true. 

Live in the freedom and the power of the resurrected God.  Find peace and the ability to rise above your circumstances in His Name.

The second part of that verse, it is where we need to live out of:
“In this world we will have troubles, but TAKE HEART, I have overcome the world.”

Removing the Barnacles

I am learning a lot about patience.  And grace.  And truth.

I am learning that gold really does have to go through refining fire in order to shine.  You know what they say, “No pressure, no diamonds.” (That was for my brothers.)

I’m learning that I cannot let other people affect my shine.  Or as a wise person once said (or a very dumb girl on the bachelor), “Don’t let them steal your sparkle.”  Despite the fact that she is outrageously annoying, she isn’t totally wrong.

Remember a few weeks ago when I shared about my new name? God’s treasure?  Well the thing about a treasure chest is that a lot of the time when we picture it, it’s on the bottom of an ocean.  And it’s abandoned.  And gross things grow on it.  Unless someone cleans it off and is careful to consistently rid it of the moss or barnacles or whatever, it won’t ever shine.  It may never even be found.

So I’m learning about what it looks like to “remove the barnacles”.  This means a careful examination of the relationships and attachments in my life.  And usually, my attachments are to my relationships.  Even the unhealthy and hurtful ones.

I’ve realized that I can be loyal to a fault.  Loyalty is awesome, except when you are being loyal to someone or something that is not loyal to you.  Often we can be loyal to people or ideas that are hurtful to us. 

I grew up not being a quitter.  I remember the first time my parents sat me down and said, “Ok, Kallie, you can quit your basketball team.”  It was a huge deal.  We as a family did not really quit things.  Which is awesome. I think it has made me a committed and responsible person.  It has made me a loyal and committed friend.  But it can also blind me to the fact that sometimes loyalty is not in our best interest.  Our emotional or spiritual health can be sacrificed.

I’m experiencing that.  I hate it.  I hate being so affected by a situation that I feel like I’m not me.  I don’t like feeling like I am not living the way I want to live.

But I cannot let a circumstance dictate who I am going to be.  I cannot let barnacles keep me from being a light.

So what are the options? One, scrape off the barnacles.  God calls us to love and forgive and extend grace.  Not once, or seven times, but always.  But I think that we are allowed to say, “You are not allowed to hurt me any longer.” I think we are allowed, and encouraged, to protect ourselves from people or things that will hurt us.

The second choice, when you can’t exactly ‘scrape off the barnacle’ at this particular moment in time, is to live above our circumstances.  I feel completely unequipped to write about this. I don’t know what it looks like or how to do it. I definitely don’t know how to do it well. 
I don’t know how to show grace to someone who makes my blood boil.  I don’t know how to represent Christ in a hurtful relationship. 

I want to so bad.  I just don’t know how.

What I do know is it is not possible, not on my own.  This is one of those “With God nothing is impossible” situations.  Sometimes these are the situations we need to be most grateful for.  Because it is in these times of extreme pressure and challenge that we draw closest to the Lord.  It is when I don’t know how to do it on my own that I snuggle up in my prayer chair and cry for Jesus to comfort me.  And He always, always, does.

I can’t wrap this up with a pretty bow, or in this case some words of wisdom and closure.  I’m in the middle of the fire and just hoping to come out on the other side shiny and gold rather than as ashes.  I’m just trusting that God is always teaching us something…and that nothing is every wasted. 

Listen to these beautiful words:

(“What if every tear you cry will seed the ground where JOY will grow? Nothing is wasted…in the hands of our Redeemer nothing is wasted.”)