Being Fake, a Fight, a Miracle and Surrendering to the Father.

So I am not so good at faking it. I have never been good at following the societal norm. I admit I am socially awkward. So mostly, I have in the past, just kept silent when I didn't measure up to the expectations of those in my peer group. Sort of the philosophy of Proverbs 17:28 Even fools are thought wise if they keep silent, and discerning if they hold their tongues.

I have some of the same social traits and even some of the sensory issues as my autistic son. I am not autistic, but I can understand his struggles in some ways. As a child I was extremely shy. Then I married an extreme extrovert. Living with him has helped me to reveal myself more and more over the last 18 years. Sometimes kicking and screaming, but God has helped me through Jason's example to be more social. So I am not so silent anymore, but the awkwardness is still there in some ways.

About being fake, I can't do it. I can't hide behind a mask of “everything is fine”. There is an unwritten policy in some churches that you don't rock the boat. Don't let others see how messed up you are. I actually heard a man preaching say, “Fake it till you make it”. And in some, there is this realization that even if you were “real” there is no hope for “that” issue. The idea that there is no power to heal the broken in body or in spirit.

However, Isaiah 61:1-2 says, “The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor”

Isaiah is speaking prophetically about the coming king who will one day fulfill this promise. In Luke 4:17 we see Jesus is handed the scroll in the temple and after reading this passage he says in verse 21 "Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing." Jesus said he is here to bind up the brokenhearted and proclaim freedom for the captives. Not only that, but He has given His bride the power (through Him) to do these things as well.

So here on this page I am saying that sometimes I am brokenhearted and sometimes I am captive. Sometimes I feel like a prisoner bound in darkness. I want to live a life filled with the great love of Jesus. I want to be a perfect example of how God can come in and fix your every problem. I want to say my life is full of blessings and that I am strong in the Lord. I want to smile and say, my life is so blessed, my marriage is perfect, my kids are always obedient. I've got it all together, I am the best homescooling mom on the block, I'm the best wife around, and so many other affirmations. But that is not my reality.

The truth is I am far from arrived. Over the past few months God has been dealing with me about control. I blogged a little about it a few days ago, but there is so much more to it then I was able to articulate.

When we become believers we choose to give the control of our lives to Christ. Jesus said to his disciples, "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.”

The denying self part of walking with Jesus has not been easy for me. I have struggled to give my will to the Father's will. When I say I have struggled, I really mean that. It has been a daily battle in my life for the past eleven years to truly surrender my will to His. It has been hard for me to respond to life's circumstances as Jesus would, the ol' saying, “What Would Jesus Do?” is not very helpful if you know what Jesus would do and choose not to do it.

This morning Jason was in a “mood”. He get's in moods from time to time. Sometimes I am good at dealing with his moods, often I am horribly inadequate. I want to make it better. I want to “fix” the issue, but more often then not I make matters worse. Today, I made matters worse. So we went from an irritation to a verbal fight. To compound matters our four children were witness to our bloody mess. I knew what I needed to do.

Proverbs 15:1 says, “A gentle word turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.” I wanted to give a gentle word to Jason this morning as he struggled in his mood. My voice was gentle when I spoke, but my heart was not gentle with Jason's heart. There is truth in the saying that it takes two to have a fight. And I blew it. I did not surrender control of my responses to Jason's mood to the will of the Father. In my disobedience I caused harm to myself, my husband and my children.

In the past we would have continued to fight and forget going to church, or go to church and put a smile on our faces, often resuming the fight after church. Today, we went to church. On the way, I apologized to Jason for my poor response. We talked about matters, but they were not fixed. It is hard to explain, but being there (being in the place of hurt at church) was okay.

Pastor Tom preached out of Isaiah 9. He talked about what is and what is to come. What is at the time of Isaiah's writing was that devastation had come they were in darkness, but in the future the people will see the light. There was a lot more, but the one thing he said that really reverberated in my soul was this simple phrase that the way you see you is not the way God sees you.

“The way I see me is not the way God sees me.”

After the service a young man not much older then Josiah came over to me and asked me if I was okay. I was praying and crying a bit about our fight. This kid prayed for me such a simple prayer, a real prayer. It was his heart to see healing for me. How humbling. A man came up to me afterward and asked me, “How are you doing?” I said, “Horrible, thanks for asking.” I don't think he really expected that kind of response. In a few moments Jason poured out what had happened and this man began to pray with Jason. Then he just put his arms around Jason and let him cry about it.

It would have been enough you know. God touched us through these two. But after the service they were having something they call First Look, which is a meeting for newcomers to the church. After the meeting, two of the small group leaders sat with us and just let us pour our hearts out to them.

You might think that's no big deal, or that it is odd. But the truth is that it was a miracle. You know we think that a dead person coming from the grave is a miracle, the lame walking- that's a miracle. How can I say that two people listening to us tell our struggle of faith is a miracle?

Here is how... They listened to the Spirit of God, they heard Him saying, just listen to them. And they obeyed, they didn't try to fix our issues. We chose to be vulnerable to them. It is very difficult for a brokenhearted person to be vulnerable to others. The fact that we were able to is miraculous. In our own power there is no way we could have orchestrated this. There is no way they could have either.

Jesus said, “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” That was love.

So a little fight isn't a huge deal, I know that some have much bigger things going on in their lives. The thing is that God is doing things in Jason's heart right now and the moods is just one of the things He is healing and rooting out of his heart. I won't really go into his stuff here though. I really don't think that's for me to do.

For me, it isn't about a fight... it is all about control. I want to be in control of our relationship. I want to make everything work just so. Why? Because I want to protect my heart. My heart has been broken many times.

This week I saw an imagining; it was of my heart. My heart was one of those blown glass ornaments that has been crushed into dust. Some by the sin of others, some by my own sin, some by the uncontrollable circumstances of life. But there it was dust in my hands. Then I saw the Father's hands beneath my cupped hands and I knew somehow that He was waiting for me to give him the dust that had once been my heart. And I heard, “Will you give it to me? If you do I will refine it in the fire. I will make a heart of flesh.” In my imagining I saw myself pouring my crushed heart into His hands and surrendering my heart, my brokenheartedness, to the Lord.

I can choose to think, “That is just my imagination.” after-all, I do have a vivid one. Or I can choose to believe what I saw in my imagination was from God. That God cares about my heart and that He wants to bind up my brokenhearted soul. I choose the latter. But I can't literally take my physical heart from my chest and hand it to the Father. I can't even figuratively do so. What I can do is release my control in circumstances to the will of God. I can trust that His ways are best.

I know I'll mess up again. I know that I will respond in self again along the way. As I said before I have not yet arrived. But I also know that the Kingdom of God is inside of me. There is this dynamic in my life. It's like we are always saying, Father, Your Kingdom come Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. In Christ I am already arrived, but in myself I mess up. So I am again coming daily to lay myself at Jesus' Feet and saying I surrender control. And I will mess up, but I am not condemned because of it... because God's grace is enough. It really is enough to deal with my bloody messes.

So today, I choose to not be fake. Today I choose to receive the miracle of His power to bind up the brokenhearted. And I choose to surrender to His will in my life, both the big things and the tiny little things. And tomorrow... tomorrow His mercies for me to do it all again will be waiting for me.