2 Chronicles

"If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land."
2 Chronicles 4:17

I've heard this scripture quoted quite a bit over the past few days. I've heard it quoted by men ranting on Facebook about "THOSE WOMEN". I've heard it in the same post as another person saying, "Well, I guess there's a lot of husbands cooking their own dinner tonight," meaning - Saturday, the day of the March.

I've read it and then watched comment after comment appear with people saying, "I don't support these women," and "If you don't like it, you can get out," as well as, "Idiots", "Stupid", "Feminists", "God-haters", "liberals", and "THIS is what's wrong with our country."
I've watched women, christian women, back away and go quiet.
I've wanted to call out, "where are you?"

Oh, I was angry. And I wanted to fight back. The words clambered over each other to free themselves from my mouth.

But then I clicked it off. I am learning this kind of anger doesn't get us anywhere. I have to feel it and submit it. Submit it and channel it.

God's TRUTH is greater than my feelings.
I cried in the truck as Jeff and I drove home from LA. I prayed. I ripped off all my fingernails. I tried to breathe as anxiety and frustration built and clawed and threatened to choke out my breath.

And I thought to myself, "God? I am a christian. I love you. I believe in you. I do my best to follow you. And I can't get behind those comments. I can't."

I wondered if there was something wrong with me. Maybe I don't know God at all. Maybe I'm just a bad egg.

Here's the thing, folks. God is the same. For everyone. Across the board. He does not contradict. He does not show favoritism. We are all fearfully and wonderfully made.
So if there is apprehension and confusion going on, that's on ME. That's on YOU. Hard questions need to be asked. Hard answers need to be found.

And this is tough because guess what? Christians are lazy. We take what we hear, or we read one scripture, and we don't dig or question or read more. We take the easy way.

Jesus never took the easy way.

Loving is always harder than judging.

The woman at the well? He listened.
The woman thrown down in front of him after she was caught in adultery? He listened and he protected. (Let's not even get going on where the other half of the adultery act was. Or, you know, LET's. Interesting how the man wasn't brought out and thrown down, isn't it? Interesting how she was caught in the act because these men, these religious leaders, were obviously watching her, yes? Interesting the double standard that was shown here and even MORE interesting is how Jesus reacted. With love and mercy and all the men backed away.
He. is. my. hero.)
The demon possessed man who ran up to him? He talked to him and freed him.
The woman who was sick for years and banished from society because she was a bloody mess and pushed her way through to touch his robe? He healed her. And you know what? That woman? She was a marcher before her time.
The teenage girl who was pregnant and unwed and gossiped about? Yeah, that was his mother.


I have said, and will always say, God is not afraid of our hard questions.
We are. I am. I get afraid and I'm going to tell you why.
I get afraid because what if I ask God a question and the answer I get is something that causes me to doubt WHO HE IS and if HE IS REALLY GOOD?

I can ask the hard question or I can take the easy way.
The easy way though, doesn't help anyone. Not the maligned. Not the mistreated. Not the sinner. And certainly not the saint.

I started asking questions. I started writing them down. And a thought would come, and then another. And soon I was writing those down. Then, more questions. And I paid attention as my life flashed before me and all the things I have been asked to live and all the decisions and the day I walked into a small church in El Cajon dressed in boxer shorts and anger with eyes that said, "Stay. Away. From. Me.", and I was hugged. I was hand-held. I was looked in the eye. I was loved.

That's why I kept going back. I was loved.
No one asked me first how many drugs I had done or if I had stolen or how many people I'd made sex with or if I hated men or hated God or smoked or cursed on the regular. No one asked me later either.
I was loved.
Foul-God-hurting-MAN-hating-mouth-cursing-middle-fingers-up and all.

And as Jeff and I drove home and I thought of all my yesterdays, I got a word. And that word was freedom.

Someone did awful things to me when I was a child because he had the freedom to make that choice and do so.
Someone was able to choose him and not me because they had the freedom to do so.
Someone can live gay or live straight because they have the freedom to do so.
Someone can hit a crack pipe or hit the gym because they have the freedom to do so.
Someone can go to church and sing with their mouth and hate everyone there in their heart because they have the freedom to do so.
Someone can love others and love God and serve serve serve quietly all their life because they have the freedom to do so.
Someone can love God and be mouthy and go against the church current because they have the freedom to do so.
Someone can grow up in a house that loves God and decide for themselves they don't want to and they have the freedom to do so.

And do you know where this freedom comes from? God himself.
He died for us all. And He allows us all to make a choice.

And yet here we sit, day after day, telling everyone else they can't have one, because we are elevating ourselves to the place of God.

if my people,

I have a confession to make.

who are called by my name,

A number of years ago

will humble themselves

same-sex marriage was on the ballot,

and pray

Proposition 8,

and seek my face

and I did not listen to the hard question nagging at my skull

and turn from their wicked ways,

and I did not ask for a hard answer,

then I will hear from heaven,

and I took the easy way, with the rest of the crowd,

and I will forgive their sin,

and I was wrong.

and will heal their land."

This is the Lord speaking in this verse, speaking to Solomon. And do you know who he's talking about?

US.

Christian. Christian.

If WE will humble ourselves,
If WE will pray,
If WE will seek his face,
If WE will turn from OUR wicked ways,
THEN
He will forgive US and heal our land.

When we don't listen; we are not humble.
When we call people stupid and idiots and say the words "THESE WOMEN" in a tone of disgust and rage; we are not humble.
When we don't stop to ask ourselves WHY ARE THEY HURTING?; we are not praying.
When we don't feel bothered by injustice; we are not seeking his face.
When we condone or remain silent or cheer for someone who promotes treating others as less than himself, ourselves ; we are not turning from our wicked ways.


We don't have to agree. We are ALL still learning, how to love God, how to love people, how to love ourselves, better. But we can't begin to do that if we have PRIDE.

Ego.
The need to be right.
The last word.

I hope these words shake you. I hope you dig and search and seek and look for yourself. I hope if you are angry, you ask yourself why and then ask God to reveal it to you.

You can stand for what you believe in - it's very easy. Make sure you don't do it. That's it.

I wonder what would happen if we stopped focusing on what others are doing and saying and living, and we began to be more like Jesus? He did not pass laws. He spoke to people. He did not put them on blast. He loved them.

In fact, the only time I see Jesus getting mad and throwing tables and calling people a "brood of vipers", is when he spoke to the religious. Chew on that one for a bit.

"They" are not the problem. "These WOMEN" are not the problem.
We are.

God help us.

XO

Under Construction

.... And that's not the end of the story.
Me finding Jesus or being saved, that is.
The story did not stop and the happy ending start when I cried my soul out to Jesus on the church floor that day. If it had, then I guess everyone would get saved wouldn't they? A life without suffering. A daily guarantee of comfort. It's sticking it out - this Christian faith - when life gets really hard and too much for us to understand. That's when we see what we're made of.
If there's any substance.
Anyone that tells you finding Jesus will make your life rosy is lying to you. A few months in you may want to find them and high -five their face.
And then ask for forgiveness.
It's not rosy. It's not white picket fences. It's not a whole, smiling family. It's not a place where jobs are never lost, bills are always paid, Target trips happen every two weeks, kids stay drug free, and husbands never cheat.

Nope.
You're not in heaven just yet.
You have the Hope but life right here can still throw mud in your face and drag you into a pit of crazy. The difference is - Jesus has a rope that doesn't break. You just have to hang on. Tight.

No one really warned me about that. I think some tried to, in a really nice good Christian way, but i wish someone would have just quit trying to be so nice and said straight up, "You've spent the last 18 years in all this crap and your family was in the same crap for at least 18 years before you and your husband and his family? Another twenty years of a different kind of crap. The consequences are still rolling in like waves.

Wear a life jacket."

Some of those waves weren't bad. A few feet. The kind I could boogie board over. But then others would come, tidal wave status, and I'd would watch my life get sucked right out from under me while I tried not to drown.

I wish I could say all these waves, especially the big ones, were of someone else's doing.
It's hard to look at yourself and know the role you have played in the crumbling of your own life. Oh but I did.
I gripped it sometimes with both hands, hurling down bricks with my words; leaving my fingers and relationships, damaged and bleeding.

A wise woman builds her home, but a foolish woman tears it down with her own hands. Proverbs 14:1

I was foolish. And the worst part is that I knew it. I knew it and i felt unable to stop it. I remember huddling on the floor, wailing, helpless, lost in an abyss of frustration and inadequacy, and then i would grab my own hair and start to pull it. I would drag my fingernails down my face to try and make myself bleed, try to make myself disappear. I would bang my head against the wall, eyes wild, screaming.

I was going crazy. I couldn't do it right. No one saw me.
I wasn't good enough.

The helplessness I would feel would wrap me in a straightjacket of fear so tight I felt like I couldn't breathe. I was coming undone.

Isaiah 1:17 says to "learn to do right." Know what that means? You also have to unlearn how to do wrong.

No one told me this either. I thought it would just happen. I thought all the badness would vanish and "poof!" in it's place would be all this shiny goodness. It was a shock to me to still struggle - almost more because now I knew better. I knew I had to be better.

Looking back, I can see how the Enemy must have laughed and laughed, using me and my life, as his personal game of dodge ball. There I stood in the center as he hurled, "ANGER" and "FUTILITY" and "DEFECTIVE" at my head. If those didn't work, out flew "ugly" and "fat" and "unwanted" and "slut". These would knock me down. These would leave me hardened; scar tissue all over. These would make me fight back.
Except I couldn't see the devil.
So I fought everyone else instead.
With my words. With my hands.
I tore down.
Until there was almost nothing left.

No one told me I could catch the ball. No one told me I didn't have to keep playing the game. No one told me all I had to do was stop and stand, stare him down with the Word and he would run from me. I was told things like, "This too shall pass" and "Just trust Jesus" but no one told me how to do that or what it meant.

And it's pretty simple really.
I choose to react with His words rather than mine.
Simple.
Not easy.
Just to clarify.

I wouldn't lie to you like that.

So, I have learned and I have unlearned.
Learn - to love my enemies. Unlearn - I don't verbally castrate every man that gets on my last nerve to prove to him I am just as good as he is if not better. (see the attitude there? Still a work in progress folks.)
Learn - to show mercy and give grace. Unlearn - If my feelings are hurt, I don't try to hurt back. I keep my mouth shut and sometimes, walk away so if it opens, no one will hear me.
Learn - to recognize jealousy and envy and ask God to help me with my heart. Unlearn - lashing out because I don't have what someone else does.
Learn - pride really does come before a big fall so I better wear a helmet if I'm going to keep it up. Unlearn - the universe is not named "Shannon" and everyone is going through something. Just love on them already and then the helmet is not needed.

I am happy to report, I no longer try to rip my face off with my fingernails (well, at least not very often). I no longer think my self worth is nothing and I try really really hard to avoid dodge ball.
I am not able to do this by pinning a zillion personal affirmations from Pinterest, although I do think I am a little awesome and ya know - God thinks so too.
It is not made possible in watching every episode of Oprah although I wouldn't mind attending her "Favorite Things" episode. That would maybe help. For a bit.
I am not following instructions from Dr. Phil, or Dr. Spock, or Dr. Anyone.
And while exercising certainly makes me feel better about how I look in my jeans and yes, my insides flow along a calmer river, I cannot run 24 hours a day. (Nor would i want to)

What has given me back my life? What has left me a hammer and nails and some 4x4's that aren't all dinged up and termite ridden? What is telling me how to rebuild a life that I tore down a long time ago?
It's not a mystery and is so simple I am sure for the self-proclaimed intelligent and perspicacious, there may be some eye-rolling and nose snorting.
but guess what?

I really don't care.

This is what has worked for me. And for countless others.
It is honest. And truth. And mercy. And grace. And life. And it is page after page of love in its purest form.

The bible. My happy ending. Under construction.
Right now.
and forever.