a big mess

This morning I made a big mess in my pantry:

I had stupidly been storing flour in a zipper storage bag. As you can see, my pantry is very deep so stuff tends to get lost back there. This gallon-sized bag of flour was one of those lost items. When I went to retrieve it, I pulled it out by the bottom (mistake #2) and behold the mess! This picture was taken after I pulled out more stuff that was in front of and under the mess. More was on the floor. 

I sent a picture to my friend who asked if the bag had exploded. It certainly did look that way. But no, I explained to her what happened and likened it to a slow leak. When I got to the back of the shelf, I realized that flour had probably been coming out of the bag for a while. But nobody noticed because it wasn't doing any real harm in the deep, dark back of the pantry. 

It wasn't too long before God started connecting the dots for me. 

Disclaimer: I don't like to use extended metaphors, but this one just screamed to be used. Bear with me, please. 

In my last post, I wrote about how my heart had been leaking junk for quite a while before I noticed any real problem. Since I started addressing the actual heart problem before God, He began pulling out items here and there. And when He finally got to the source of the leak and began the long process of pulling it out of the dark (which is far from over), I began grieving over the mess. 

I grieve because I know how these things go. When God chooses to use something to refine me, especially this particular issue, I know the process will be long and difficult. 

It took me about 30 minutes and a trip to Wally World to clean up the flour mess: 

I certainly felt a measure of victory over the disorganization, especially since I have had it on my "to do" list for some time. 

But I know God has depths of knowledge and insight to reveal to me on my real problems. And He won't do it in 30 minutes.

As much as I would like my emotional life to be nice and tidy like my pantry, or even more so, God is showing me that no part of our lives ever fit into airtight containers or tiny bins (yes, the metaphor is killing me too, but I can't help it!). And very few things are black and white, especially when it comes to such things as emotions and relationships. 

But I want desperately for certain things to fit in a box. I want definition. I want the straight path. 

God keeps reminding me that life isn't like that. We live in a fallen world where things are not as they should be. 

So, I'm starting the painful process of letting go of an ideal. I don't know where it will take me, and that's pretty much part of the package. But I do know that the Lord will be there with me, whispering truths to me when I call on Him or using the piercing sword of His word when I refuse to listen. And I know, as Job, that God "knows the way that I take; when he has tried me, I shall come out as gold" (Job 23:10). I can take this truth to the bank. 

I am thankful to have a Savior that left the Heavenly places for a while so that He could understand things like messes in the pantry and confusing emotions and broken relationships. I am thankful that His death made a way for me to climb up and pull on His ear.  

And I am thankful that He loves me through it all. 

confessional

"Hello, my name is Christy and I curse badly when I'm alone and have a tendency towards angry outbursts." Nice to meet you. 

Don't you just wish we could all greet one another like we were in a perpetual AA meeting so that we could stop pretending to have it all together? You don't? Yeah, I guess I don't either. 

But it is helpful to confess our sins to one another (James 5:16), and I suppose this is one of my outlets for doing so. So, you'll have to just bear with me. 

I've had a pretty rough past couple months sprinkled with some joyous moments. Unfortunately, the rough moments slightly outweighed the joyful ones. I thought I had been handling my emotions pretty well through it all, but today I realized some junk has been seeping through the cracks of my heart and revealing that I'm not in as much control as I had thought. 

The junk (i.e. what I opened with) has been getting a little out of hand, okay a lot out of hand lately. The other day I finally went to the Lord about it all. My opening line was the first red flag: "I thought I was handling my emotions pretty well." And God, as he is wont to do when we come to him with repentant hearts, pushed through that and showed me the I's in that statement. Where was he? 

As I fumbled and finally broke down halfway through the prayer, God pulled scripture to mind: "From the depths of the heart, the mouth speaks" (Luke 6:45). Yes, something was jacked up in my heart, but what was it? I was handling everything well, wasn't I? My eyes locked in on the devotion from Jesus Calling I had read that morning which read, "Remember that I take great delight in you." 

Great delight? No, not great delight in my sin. Not great delight in my feeling wretched in that moment or in my tears. He takes great delight in my drawing in close to him, my confiding in him, my need for him to fix my brokenness. He takes great delight in us. 

See, I hadn't been spending much time with him lately. And, believe it or not, God is jealous for our love. So he allowed me to go my own way in "handling" my emotions until I realized my foolishness and came back to him. 

This is the constant battle I have with myself--controlling my thoughts, emotions, overall life versus allowing God to control my thoughts, emotions, and life. The very idea that I could handle on my own all the emotionally brutal events from the past couple months is simply ridiculous. I know part of why it feels satisfying to hold everything together is something that's been with me since childhood. But part of it--even if it is a very small part--also has to do with thinking that keeping control of all of my junk somehow shows others what a good Christian I am. I am sure I'm not the only one who does this. 

And that leads me back to my wonderful Savior. You see, he does not delight in my putting all my emotions in a neat box. He does not delight in my venting my pain through channels that the world deems as normal and acceptable. 

He delights in my coming to him as an absolute broken-down mess. He delights in my confession of sin and pain and doubt because he knows exactly how I feel and exactly how to fix me. He delights in my turning away from my idol of self-reliance to nestle in his lap. He delights simply in our being together.

He reached down from on high and took hold of me; he drew me out of deep waters. He rescued me from my powerful enemy, from my foes, who were too strong for me. They confronted me in the day of my disaster, but the Lord was my support. He brought me out into a spacious place; he rescued me because he delighted in me. --Psalm 16-19

we sold the house!/...

One month ago we finally sold our home on Country Glen, the house we moved out of two years ago so that I could stay home with our daughter and so we could get our financial world more aligned with God's idea of good working order. Yes, the burden is finally off our shoulders, and we are just now beginning to feel the lightness of that certainty. 

A month ago, however, when we left the title company's office after signing our home away along with a hefty sum of money, we felt pretty dejected. The receptionist congratulated us, probably assuming that we were "moving up." I can tell you that it was the most ironic congratulations I'd ever heard. I'm pretty sure I laughed out loud and asked Chaz if he had heard what she said. Yes, he had. 

Those first couple weeks after selling were difficult for us. We had wrongly assumed that we would feel great joy and victory after getting rid of our "largest debt," but all we felt was an anticlimax. We didn't question our decision, but we did feel the loss of that money, our pride of home ownership, and the impending doom of starting over. It was hard not to let my mind wander down the road of "when will we own a home again?". 

But one month out we are starting to feel the release and freedom from not having the financial burden of our house hanging over our heads. The payoff of our smallest debt is within range, and we are living with more ease knowing that our emergency fund is funded and if we have to make big repairs to the car or have to fly home for some reason, we can do it with cash. Now, Chaz is still working his second job at South Shore Grille, but we have gotten into a good routine working around it and we also know that it is temporary. And we are VERY thankful for it! 

Also, it was pretty amazing to see God's orchestration of events right before we sold the house. Through our own perseverance of saving the second job money and some small miracles that came through during the last couple months, we were able to bring all our cash to closing without going into any further debt. It still hurt to write those checks and see our savings account go back down to zero, but it was good to know that we didn't have to dig ourselves into a bigger hole to do it. 

This whole experience has taken us through a vortex of emotions, making us confront adulthood and responsibility. Overall, I'd say that God has mostly been at work in our marriage these past two years. He has brought us from a somewhat fragile marriage marked by hiding from each other and poor communication to a strong marriage marked by mutual trust and honesty. Making this change in our life has been worth it just for that alone. I love and trust my husband far more now than I did two years ago, and I think he'd say the same for me. And for the first time in a while, we are truly looking forward to our future. 

Poppy

     So, I haven't posted in months. It's really only because I've found little time to sit down and write. But this week something happened that prompted me to get out pen and paper again: my beloved grandfather went home to be with the Lord. I wrote this in the two days following his death and read it this morning during his funeral service. Please read on and get to know a great man.

As all of you know, my grandfather, Austin “Horsefly” Herring, was a great man. So many of you expressed your feelings about him last night, speaking of his humor, wit, friendliness, sweetness, and love of the Lord.  I knew him to embody all of those qualities as well. But I’d like to tell you about the grandfather I love, my Poppy.

For most of our lives my brother and I considered Poppy to be more than a grandfather—we considered him to be our dad.  I’d almost say that he “stepped in” to act as our father, but that would imply that he made a decision to do so. I believe it was just a natural act for him. Our Poppy was the one to take us on so many camping trips to Sardis Lake in the trailer and the old “Green Hornet” as he called that old Ford. He taught me how to pick the very best tomatoes out of his garden. He taught us how to take care of a home and yard and showed my brother what hard work truly looked like. He helped to teach us both how to drive—and I’ll never forget the time I tried to turn left on a green yield light. He almost put both feet through the floorboards and scared the life out of me. He guided me through the death of my mother, as he had been through the very same experience. He was there to give my then boyfriend the infamous “Herring stare” for several months every time he came to visit—and if you don’t know what that is, then count yourself lucky. He was the one my husband went to to ask for my hand in marriage. And he was the one I chose to give me away on my wedding day.  And then he was the one whose heart I broke when I moved all the way to Texas. But we seemed to only grow closer over the years.

We had a sweet relationship—one that a father should have with his daughter. And through that love, he taught me what it was to be loved like a Princess and how I should expect a man to love me.  In one of our last conversations , Poppy began talking about my grandmother, whom we called Meme. He talked for a while and then said that those last few years were the best of their marriage. I wasn’t necessarily surprised by this because I saw that love in his every action in those years. His gentle care for Meme while she was still living at home has been forever imprinted on my heart. His dedication and faithfulness to get to the nursing home every day he could just to sit with her has become my definition of true love. But I still asked him why—why were those last years the best? He couldn’t really answer me because he was overwhelmed with emotion. He only said that they had a sweet love. I know that this kind of enduring, faithful love is something I will not truly understand until I taste it for myself. But because of the example of love and marriage he provided for me, I believe I will be able to someday know the fullness of that brand of love.

And today that is one of the reasons that I just cannot go very long grieving the loss of my Poppy.  I know that this world was not his true home, and now he is again with his beloved wife of now more than 65 years. You see, his life has not ended; it has only now truly begun. He is now in a place that has been prepared for him by his most precious love of all, Jesus Christ, whom he walked with since the age of 34. My grandfather was able to be more than a grandfather to me because his example of how to live a full and loving life came from the Living God of the Bible.  And my greatest debt of gratitude to him was that he passed on this legacy of faith as one who discipled me.

Now, I don’t want you to think that I won’t or am not grieving the loss of my Poppy, for I surely am and will continue to do so. And what I’ll miss most are those very sweet discussions we would have about the Lord because I so loved to hear of his love for the Lord. But, again, I can’t get over this picture in my mind—one of my Poppy standing in the presence of his precious Savior. So, I guess the best way to honor my Poppy would be to ask you what he considered to be the most important question of all: Do you know Jesus? In that question, you are required to think of a relationship, because truly walking with Jesus, true Christianity is beyond upright moral values or religious attitudes. It is, in its essence, a relationship.  So, as you honor the memory of my grandfather today, please ask yourself that question and remember how he lived out his faith.