.Judgement in Christianity Sucks.

I have been working up the ambition and courage for too long to write the next chapter of my book. (I am still waiting to hear from the publisher, but honestly I need to write this book for me alone if for nobody else.) The next chapter is about the reaction of telling our families and friends that we were adopting (the first time around), and honestly I wish I could just skip that chapter. I don't want to write it. I don't want to relive it. I don't want to tell the truth. It wasn't all bad, but the bad still definitely sticks out the most. The words and actions still sting.

Africa?! Why would you choose Africa? Why not China? Then the baby would look a little bit more like you.

Why would you ever choose to adopt when you can make such beautiful children?

We will be your biggest cheerleaders! {crickets for most of the next year}

How will you ever pay for that? Don't you realize how risky this is? It is cheaper and safer to have your own.

What is the hurry in bringing your baby home? It's not the same thing as having Cadi or Scotty stuck over in Africa.

There was so much judgement, and all of this came from people we dearly love and who are our brothers and sisters in Jesus. (And the second time around, with Habi, was the same but worse, because now we were looking at bringing home a {gasp} teenager with "tons of baggage" who might be a dangerous threat to our family - the risks were unthinkable.) Thinking about it brings up a lot of emotions and hurt; hurt that I thought I had gotten past. However, it is part of our story - it is now threaded into our life. And even if I have to change names, I will write it. I will write it for me and for my healing.

I was naive and excited and probably overly-passionate - I was a lot like an expectant mother. Only the reaction was not quite the same. I still grieve over silly things - like the lack of celebratory showers. And it wasn't the shower or gifts or recognition that I wanted, but the memory and the celebration of this life that was being gifted to us. So many things have been stolen from my two brown-eyed children. I will never be able to pull out a baby book that starts with my expectant belly and chronicles their birth, their first bath, their first teeth, first smile, first giggle. There are so many holes in their histories that I will never be able to fill in, and that I can only pray that God will stand in and soothe. At the beginning I was truly hoping and praying that those around us would come around us and celebrate, so that in the future years, I could pull out some tangible evidence and say See? See all of these beautiful family members and friends celebrating you? See how cherished and treasured and wanted you were? But God had other plans and did it in other ways, and I think I do have tangible evidence to pull out for them, it just looks different than I expected. And honestly what in this journey doesn't look different than I expected?

I guess where I am going in any of this, is that I am just plain tired of the judgement that happens in Christianity. I get that we have taken a different road than some. I get that we are uber-passionate about this road, and that makes us unrelatable at times. I know that I have been misunderstood (and judged) regarding orphan care and adoption. I know there are people that think we think every Christian should adopt, and it does not matter how many different ways we say that is not the case, they will always believe it. What I do not understand is the judgement. Just because God has not called us all to the same journey, does that really give us the right to judge others? Hasn't God called us to love people? Isn't that the second greatest command? LOVE.

I'm just tired of the ugliness. I wish I could say the judgment stopped after we brought our boys home. However, now we are being judged on how many children we have, how we parent these children - all four, which child gets highlighted the most, which children are not getting the attention they need, decisions we make regarding school and sports, I have been judged for being "too perfect" or for our life being "too crazy", judged for decisions we make regarding Jamesy's special needs care, how we spread out our time, how we can afford gas to drive Habi to and from school (I don't know, but please stop judging us!) etc. I feel like I am constantly turning around and defending every. single. decision. It's exhausting. And what I would really love is a hug, a smile, and a there there, Jesus is near, and I am here for you. I am really here for you.

I am writing to me. I am just as guilty of judging others, but I want it to stop. It grieves me. I do not want to be critical of others and point out their imperfections. That is really not the intent of this post. I have way too many imperfections of my own to dwell on others. I am not trying to write a judgmental post on judging. I just really want it all to stop. I desire so much for Christians to really act like the body and LOVE. How we treat others should not be based on how we hope for them to treat us in return. Love is active. Love is the gospel in action. Love nurtures and protects and cherishes. What if we all just walked the journey that God has carved for us and cheered on others who are walking their own journeys?

What if the followers of Jesus were actually known by their love?

What if we brought the love of Jesus to this world and to our brothers and sisters?

I don't have a way to wrap this post up in a neat bow. I was kind of directionless in writing it. I'm just bearing my heart this morning, looking to give and receive a little more love and a lot less judgment.

Because judgement in Christianity sucks.

And to lighten the mood, here is a peak into our {crazy} home. I feel so blessed by these dear  ones. There is a lot of noise, a lot of chaos, and inside these four walls, rather than judgement, there is a whole lot of LOVE.

.Taking Back Grace.

Part Two: (Part one is here)

Growing up I watched grace being touted. I listened to the words salvation is by grace through faith. It's not from works! But then a strange thing would happen, once the sinner was saved, it seemed as if grace was erased and legalism took its place. I have written so much about one of my biggest weaknesses - fear. As an adult, and with hindsight, I can look back and confidently say that legalism breeded this fear in me. I am fully responsible for letting that fear penetrate my heart, but legalism introduced the fear to me.

Because legalism erased grace, I was afraid of letting people see and know the real me. Like most people in our kind of church, I became really good at the outward appearance thing - I wore a mask. I said the things I was supposed to say. I did what I was supposed to do. I threw on a mask of self-righteousness, and tightened it with fear and insecurity. I was good enough on my own, with this mask on to make me appear to be better than I was. Because when I looked to my left and to my right everyone else was wearing the same mask. I had to keep mine on, or I would never measure up. We were all plastic, or most of us were anyway. Most of us were pretty adept at pretending to have it all together, when really so many of us were falling apart. Because everyone is cloaked in these masks, we would look around and think in our hearts Wow, I am the only imperfect one here. I am the only one continually messing up. And we gripped the mask over our imperfectness even tighter in an effort to keep up the masquerade.

It wasn't until just a few years ago that God slowly began peeling off my mask. I had a lot of layers to peel, from a lot of years of legalism and pretending to have everything together. Each layer He has removed has revealed a new truth to me and brought grace crashing over me. God had seen through the mask all along -He could see through every messy, dirty layer, and yet He continued to love me perfectly, unconditionally, and completely. When it really sunk in that there is nowhere I can run from His Spirit, and that I could never escape His love or His grace, I started wearing less and less layers of that mask to church and in front of my brothers and sisters. Because I began to realize that measuring stick I was using of comparing side to side was all a mirage. I was comparing my mask to his mask to her mask. It was all fake. No one is perfect.

We all need grace, not just for salvation, but for life.

I feel passionate that now is the time to take back grace and erase the legalism that has permeated the church for so long. The only way that this can be accomplished is through Jesus helping us to peel away our masks, to be real, vulnerable, transparent, and yes, broken and imperfect before others. It is not an easy thing to do, especially if the mask has been worn for a long time. It's not easy to be vulnerable and exposed before others, when one has pretended to be something for so, so long. When we truly lean on God's strength and stop erasing His grace in our life, the mask doesn't fit well anymore - it stops making sense. And the truth is, as much as we think we are keeping up the charade, we always trip up and the mask always slips once in awhile. The charade is too much to keep up.

Today I am choosing to walk in grace, to erase the legalism, and to loosen the mask - the layers of fear and insecurity, because God has seen the real me all along. I am not perfect. My life is messy. I am broken in so many ways. I need Jesus, and I cannot live my life dependent on self and a check lists of rules. That leaves me empty. That leaves me fake. He loves me, and He has accepted me.

Will you loosen your mask today? I promise to cover you in grace, because He, who knows the real you - the you without a mask, has covered you in grace.

You have searched me, LORD, and you know me.

You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar.
You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways.
Before a word is on my tongue you, LORD, know it completely.
For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

Psalm 139: 1-4, 13

.Just Waiting.

Just waiting for something of worth to write about. I have a lot in my head right now, and I have been writing to get it out. I drafted up two posts last week, but just felt the Spirit leading me not to publish either of them. I am not sure the reason. I claim to write for my audience of One, and I think that is Who those two posts were meant for.

In between waiting I am very much enjoying summer with my family. It has been gloriously hot! I just love these bright sunshiny days, with my children playing barefoot in our tiny yard. I love laying them down for a nap, exhausted from their hard play, and kissing their heads that reek of sunshine. These are the moments I will remember all of my life. These beautiful hot days are what make the crisp fall air so wonderfully welcome.

On Friday we finished up a three week stretch of everyday 30 minute swim lessons for Cadi. Our city offers free swim lessons in the summer, which we were very grateful to take advantage of. I was rather proud of myself for being able to get the three children out of the house to and from lessons. This was my first time taking all three children anywhere by myself. (I will admit we missed three lessons - Jamesy had three bad mornings during that three week stretch and needed the security of home.) Scotty and Jamesy did really well sitting with me while Cadi swam. They are such sweet boys. Definitely ALL boy and crazy at times, but sweet nonetheless!

This week starts a two to three week stretch of summer insanity, but I am excited for everything that is to come. I am so looking forward to this Friday and tent camping with our friends JO and Steve and their family. I dare say this is the highlight of my entire summer, and I have been counting down the days. I can hardly wait! This is our first time tent camping as a family. I believe Jim is a bit skeptical that I can do it. He keeps saying You are not as rustic as you think you are. Ha! We'll just see! I don't really care where or how I sleep - the thought of that many hours with my family and my sweet friend JO thrills me! JO and I can certainly fill the air with a lot of words - you should have seen us walking the streets of Addis together. The guys behind us - we girls out in front, jabbering a mile a minute paying no attention to the guys desperately trying to get our attention in order to lead us in the correct direction. Ha! No photographs of that walk, but the portrait is burned eternally into my heart. It is not everyday that one gets to walk the streets of a foreign country with another whose heart beats out the same rhythm for that country and the people that walked among us. My camera is definitely locked and loaded for this weekend!

Next week we travel to Kentucky where Jim will be the best man in one of his closest friend's wedding. We will splurge and take our children to The Creation Museum as well, and visit some family along the way. It should be a fun trip. This will be the longest trip by land vehicle that we have taken with Jamesy, but he seems to travel just as well as his older brother and sister do. I look forward to the hours of sweet conversation with Jim. Some of my favorite moments are talks in the van on trips. I am sure we will be scraping our loose change together to stop at many of the Starbucks along the way between here and Kentucky as that is our tradition. Hard to go into a Starbucks now, though, and not visualize the Ethiopian women that we watched sorting the coffee beans by. hand. for Starbucks. Kind of puts things into perspective.

I told JO this last week, I feel as if God is stirring something inside of me. I am not sure what. I am not fearful, but anticipating the refining that I feel is about to happen. I haven't adequate words to describe what I am feeling. I have an intense and urgent hunger for the Word of God lately. Ethiopia is constantly on our lips, and Jim and I are feeling more and more burdened for a friend in Ethiopia that does not know the truth of the gospel. But God has also impressed upon us that we must share the gospel with the people here, too. We have been discussing this in length, and are very convicted over this blind spot in our lives. I am not sure if this is part of the stirring or not. My heart for the lost is enlarging, though. I feel it. The things of this world are slowly growing dimmer. Eternity looms ahead, and the world fades. So much that mattered to me before really doesn't matter at all. Amazingly my heart is filled with more joy. I feel at times as if the veil is lifted and I can really see with kingdom eyes.

Now to figure out how to hold onto that every moment.

.To Obey Them Quickly.

Does what Jesus say determine how I live?

Does it really?

Do I use Jesus as my standard or do I compare myself with others?

Is it possible to be a follower of Christ and to be indifferent to what His Word says?

Am I indifferent? Are His Words my source of authority? Or is it that author's words? Or that preacher's? Or that blog's?

Am I lazy when it comes to applying what Jesus demands in my life?

I am dangerously tempted, as I surround myself with this culture and look at my my life to think I just don't want to deal with what Jesus demands. Can't I still be a good Christian even if my life does not look radical?

Is it worth fighting this battle? Is it worth fighting against consumerism and materialism and professionalism and legalism?

Is it worth fighting against a self-saturated and self-indulgent culture that not only surrounds me but consumes me at times?

Is it worth fighting against...

hypocritical

nominal

unbiblical

Christianity?

Nowhere in the New Testament do we see the idea that Christianity is or should be an easy ride. Rather we are told that we are in a....

fight

race

battle

war.

Am I so prone to my culture around me that I have completely ignored the Word of God?

If I want to experience Jesus' glory, then I need to want the lost and the poor to experience His glory too. Do I?

Even though I know this battle is already won and that I am guaranteed the victory, do I really want to do hard things for Jesus?

In Luke 15 I am confronted, right along with the Pharisees. My life is supposed to be lived for the sake of those who do not know Christ.

In Luke 16 I am told that I should use my money, not to serve myself, but to serve the Kingdom.

My....

resources

possessions

money are intended to be used for the advancement of the kingdom, not for the indulgement of myself.

Luke 16:14 What is highly valued among men is detestable in God's sight.

Luke 16:19 - Jesus is speaking to the religious people who are so blinded by their affluence - to the love of money - that they justify their affluence in the middle of their religious devotion! Jesus is speaking to ME!

God, help me not to respond as a Pharisee to sneer at Your Words or justify myself when I hear them. Help me to hear them truly, and to obey them quickly.


Some of my thoughts, notes from, and the inward struggle I am reconciling with after listening to part of a David Platt sermon today.