Walking...

I have grown to adore silence. When I was a child, my mom would always lament about how she wanted quiet. I remember thinking she was crazy....why does this woman constantly want silence!? Noise is great! But as I sit here in my rarely quiet home, I enjoy the silence. My family is all asleep. They are beautifully resting and peaceful in their beds...snuggled up under the comforters and dreaming. I think it's wonderful. I enjoy not hearing all of the noise that so often becomes a distraction in our lives. I have spent many years working hard to fill the void with noise. I never wanted to feel alone. I never wanted to feel afraid. I never wanted to listen to the silence. What is it about silence that can be so intimidating? What is it about our own thoughts, or maybe God's thoughts, that we don't want to hear?

Recently God has challenged me to embark on a journey of alone-ness. Sin is constantly crouching at the door. It is ready and willing and eager to destroy me. Often times, I have found that sin entices me, through other people. It is extremely difficult for me to have female friends. Not because other women are wicked or evil or bad or anything of that sort. It is difficult because I am! I love to hear the juicy details of gossip. I have spent many years enjoying "being in the know" and feeling like I was a part of some "organization" of women. I have spent years seeking that out. It is all foolishness. I have no need for any other human being. Period. No need. I have often found that when I come home from spending time amongst a group of women at a social gathering, if I truthfully examine myself, I have come home from spending time gossiping or judging or ensnaring myself in drama.

I think we as Christians are completely unaware of how much we judge others. For example, if a friend comes to you and she's mad at her husband, you automatically will have an opinion about it. That's judgment. It isn't your place or your right to have an opinion about anything in that situation. Your "opinion" is irrelevant. But we get all high and mighty and we like to pick sides. This is foolishness. Women, as a natural tendency, like to vent our problems to other women. We like to retch out of our mouths all of our discomfort or dislikes or irritations, and then sit back and watch everyone congratulate us on how we're "such a great person" and "how could they do that to you" and "you'll get through it." We like to be pitied.

I must admit, I am the worst of all at this. I adore pity. It is a terrible wickedness that grows and swells and often times pours out of me. I seek pity. I have no idea why. Why does that aspect of myself have such a dominance in me? I believe it is because of pride.

I recently read this book about pride that my husband brought home. It was the most amazing book I have ever read. I don't know if I should really call it a book, or a large pamphlet. It was pretty short. But it hit the head on the nail, completely accurately, about how much I struggle with pride. It had so many examples of why people's sin are related to pride. Quite honestly, probably all of sin is somehow attributed to pride. We are so quick to see the sin and errors in other people and completely slow to understand or perceive the sin in ourselves. "Becky Sue judged me and was mean to me. She is a terrible 'Christian' and I can't believe she is doing ABC for the church." This is a perfect example of how we focus so much on the sin of everyone else...not ourselves. Because in that statement, the person talking about "Becky Sue" is the one who is completely immersed in wickedness. She is proud, judgmental, and slandering towards her SISTER in Christ.

Why are Christians so quick to forget that we are ONE BODY!? Why do we go on wickedly believing that we are able to have quarrels and fights and just to let it go? That is the complete root of evil. It is divisive and wretched and awful. Why do Christians believe that there can be clicks and that God would think that's okay? We are ONE! Like a husband and a wife. The Body of Christ is ONE entity. You can not have clicks, quarrels, drama, and problems and go on as if life has not changed and nothing is different. As Christians we are called to obey God. Not ourselves, not our pride, not our fear, not gossip, slander, malice, dishonesty or anything of that sort. We are called to be one body. One people. One unit. The essence of belonging, as being a part of the body of Christ, is not that we "belong" to our small group of friends at our church. It is that we belong to Christ as a whole. All of us, collectively, are the bride of Christ.

I grow tired and weakened by the wickedness that seems to thrive everywhere. Honestly. I hate how sin has such dominance in my life. I hate how what I want to do I don't do, and what I don't want to do, I seem to continue doing over and over again with such ease. I feel sometimes like sin is always winning.

The other day I was talking to someone, and all of this rage and hatred and resentment was pouring out of my mouth. It had been welling in me for several days, and I was praying for God to take it away...but He did not. He had a lesson for me to learn. I sat there and poured out these horrible, horrible, horrible words on my dear Christ brother. I unleashed a wickedness in me that I have not seen in a long time. I remember sitting there watching this horribleness defeat and deflate my brother in Christ. I could visibly see what it was doing. When my eyes saw through my own horrible pride and saw what this was doing I became silent. My brother in Christ asked me why I had stopped talking and if I needed to continue. I started to cry. And pride continued in its wickedness and I walked away so that he would not see me cry. Alone, I cried to God and asked him what He wanted me to learn. Why this situation was here. What did I need to change. My dear friends, I kid you not...my brother in Christ, my fellow heir in the kingdom of heaven came in and comforted me in my tears. He poured no wrath or rage on me. He retaliated in no way. In humility and kindness, he embraced me with complete forgiveness. I was broken.

This is such an example of our glorious Father in heaven. As we pour out enormous amounts of wickedness...He is there embracing and forgiving.

To be honest with you, this post is now so long that I have completely forgotten what I was originally writing about. I suppose, I am trying to write about what I'm learning. Oh yes...now I remember what my point was. My brother in Christ had "wronged" me. I mean, he literally did. It was a clear cut, anyone could see, how he had wronged me situation. And I was hell bent on licking my wounds and being angry and feeling sorry for myself. I was determined to be angry and to wallow in self pity. I was completely blinded by my own pride. Instead of embracing my brother (as he did to me when I was completely sinning against him) and forgiving him with open arms, I resented him and wanted to hurt him. I was so focused on his sin, that I didn't see my own.

In the busyness and the noisiness and the chaos...it is so easy to ignore my own faults. It is easy to continue walking onward, as if I was really different, or really changed by God's grace. It is easy to convince myself that I really am obviously different from the "non saved" and that people can see God working in me. When I surround myself with believers, who will be there to actually tell me whether or not I really am different? Christians have been taught to seek out Christ in other believers. We are quick to do that for our fellow Christians. We rarely do it for those that are not in our click. I was too comfortable. I was too contented by the people I had surrounded myself with. I do not want to be comfortable ever. I want to constantly be bended, challenged, pushed and changed. I want at the end of my life, to be so clear an example of Christ, that there is NO question about who lives in me and who leads me. I don't want to be like everyone else. I want to be like Christ.

Okay...so this has been really rambly. God is good. Please always know...when I write these things...I am writing about myself. I am judging myself and condemning myself. I would never be so presumptuous to assume that I know what anyone else needs to hear. God is teaching me so much about myself, who He wants me to be, and how He wants me to get there. I am a constant work in progress. I am not now, nor will I ever be, content with who I am. I do not believe the day will ever come where I will go, "Okay. I've finished working. I am a complete puzzle now" at least not while I walk this earth anyway.

Oh I can't wait to get to heaven! I can't wait to be free from myself! Until then...these boots were made for walking, and that's just what they'll do! :)

Memorial Day

What does it mean to memorialize someone? I mean, seriously...how do you honestly tribute someone whom you have adored, whom you have loved? How to you say during some one hour time frame...goodbye? How do you find words to say what they meant to you? How do you walk away from their coffin and let them "go"?

I have a few beautiful women that I have been blessed to know who have buried their husbands. They buried their lovers, their partners, their children's fathers, their best friend...their soldier. Each of them have handled their heartache in amazing ways. I am humbled to know them. I am humbled to call them my friends. I am humbled to have sat at the funerals.

I am broken by this nations attitude about Memorial Day. Sure...people will maybe take one or two minutes to comment on the "cost" of freedom, but then they turn around and move right along to their pool parties, or their barbeque's, or their "family" vacation. To many people, it's just a three or four day weekend.

In our home, we have no party. We do not play or do anything "vacationy". We remember the fallen soldiers. We spend our weekend talking about those we have loved and lost to war. We remember their family members who have been left behind. We pray for them. We talk about them.

I want to take a few moments to talk to you about one soldier in particular who was very significant to my husband, and also to me. He was the first soldier that we have ever known to have perished in Iraq. My husband had a deep love for him. He considered him one of his best friends. His name was Yoe. The first time I met Yoe, was when I had come up to visit my husband one weekend from college. He came over to visit with my husband and we all three sat around talking. I think he was on CQ and he wanted a movie to watch. I sort of forget the small details. Anyway....he was telling us about his wife. He was telling us about how he met her and that she was the most beautiful woman he had ever known. He was saying that love like that was worth everything and that if we loved each other that way...we should never be apart. The subject came up because my husband and I (at the time) were not yet married and the question came up if we were going to get married or not...

Yoe used to always make me laugh. Before they deployed, I was pregnant with our first child. He told me that he would always call our child CAJ (this was because if the baby was a boy, his name would have been Caleb Aiden Jones). I remember asking him, what if it's a girl? And he said...I don't care. It's not a girl! It's a boy! And HE will always be CAJ!

My husband has a thousand stories of Yoe. He tells them to me and our children often. Something will trigger his memory and he'll talk about how Yoe did this, or Yoe said that. One story that he told us about recently was that during the ground war his hair got so long that he would slick it back. So another Sgt in the platoon started calling him Guido and that the entire company joined in on the nick name. Or how he would tell all of the Iraqi children to go see another Sgt because that Sgt had "chocolate". My husband said Yoe thought it was the funniest thing ever when the children would swarm that Sgt asking him for chocolate.

It has been almost six years since Yoe went to heaven. Honestly, it feels like yesterday. The wound is still fresh. The hole is still here. My husband misses him terribly. I miss him. And the depth of our grief and our sadness is nothing compared to his beautiful wife. She has the highest level of strength I have ever seen in a woman. Throughout all of the years I have been blessed to have known her, she has mourned with the utmost grace and honor. I will never forget sitting beside her and her family at Fort Riley for his memorial service. I will never forget the moments where they gave her the flag. I will never forget his laugh and his silliness. I will never forget what she gave for this country. I will never forget him.

So, you will have to forgive me if I struggle with how people "celebrate" Memorial Day. To me it is a heartbreaking day. It is a sad day. It is a day that honors and remembers the fallen. It isn't just another three day or four day weekend. We are sad to have lost those we have loved. We are sad and mourning with the families who are still here. We are broken. We are crying. We are grateful.