Blog

The price of forgiveness

gypsybobbi5 Comments

Matthew 6:15 [Full Chapter] but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

Years ago, I had a falling out with a friend. Not just a casual friend but a close, speak to almost everyday, love them like family, friend. It was more like they fell out and I was left wondering what had happened. They made some choices to change their life and I was one of the casualties. I didn’t want to be part of their drama but I wanted to keep my friendship, so it stung. This was one person I thought I would be friends with my entire life. The one friend I truly trusted. I thought they would get past the crisis of their own making and we would be friends again. Of course we would be friends, they were my family. That’s not at all what happened. Not only did we not speak again but I found myself kind of hating this person. I had stuck up for them, remained loyal to them and had been their biggest defender. Then they became involved with some people who didn’t want them to have other close friends and poof, that was that. What a turd. I tried for a long time to convince myself that the friendship had just run it’s course, better if we didn’t speak, blah, blah, blah, but the truth is, you can’t choose someone’s ugly.

I’d moved on until recently when this person’s name was brought up on several different occasions by different people assuming we were still friends. Every time I heard their name, it was a scratchy tag on my neck. A wool sweater in July. So I did what all sweet Christians do and prayed for them halfheartedly. Then their name was brought up again and I prayed the least amount of words I could get away with to form a legible sentence. When they got brought up the third time, I complained about them, prayed for them and actually asked God if He could have someone else pray for them. Hey man, sanctification is a process. I don’t want to think about them. It wasn’t until I was having a conversation about forgiveness last night that I realized what God had been trying to show me all along, I don’t forgive them. They hurt me. I loved this person like family. There was no big fight, no smack-down in the 7-11 parking lot, no exchange of words, it just was a friendship and then it wasn’t. I was angry that they got to make the decision for both of us. I didn’t know until last night that I needed to just forgive them. Forgiveness is a big gun. You don’t just whip it out and point it at someone. Forgiveness is God’s territory. I always think that saying I need to forgive someone is ridiculous considering where I’ve been. So true forgiveness is just not something I can wrap my head around. The word forgiveness has been tossed around so much in Christianity, beaten and battered until it’s hard to recognize and even harder to implement. What does it really mean? Is it the saying my dad always used to quote?

“Holding onto anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.”

Is that forgiveness? Letting go of anger? This isn’t a balloon launch to commemorate a special day. I can’t stuff my hurt into a paper skin, light a match and watch it float away. People say the funniest things. Let go and let God. Well, that would be great if I wasn’t so busy being annoyed trying to figure out how to do that. I don’t want to be a hypocrite wanting Jesus to forgive me entirely but only want to go halfway when forgiving someone else. The price of forgiveness in this situation? I can no longer be a victim to this circumstance. Forgiving them means I can no longer be the injured party. To give up my right to tell people who ask that the fault is not my own or at least imply that it wasn’t. I don’t want to be the villain in this story. I want them to be. Let’s just be honest. When someone does you wrong, don’t you want people to know? To at least let people know it wasn’t your fault? I do. I don’t want people thinking I’m responsible for someone else’s train wreck. I wanted sympathy for this lost friendship and I got it, but it never brought my friend back.

Now I can look back and see that I’m glad this friendship has ended. I didn’t want to go where they went, still don’t. Their rabbit hole was not something God wanted me to fall into. But I do forgive them for rejecting me. For allowing others to dictate to them who they should and should not be friends with. I forgive them for not wanting to be my family anymore. If I did them an unknown wrong, I hope they forgive me too. I know in time I will mean that 100% and not just 99%. I’ve been holding onto that 1%, hiding it in a drawer just in case I need it. If I run into someone else that asks me about my                   not-friend I might miss it if I gave it up. Then again, Jesus is too good to me to withhold even that 1% from Him or from others. Giving up my right to be right means I don’t get to fly the victim flag anymore or wear it like a shawl or break it out on special occasion like a heirloom tablecloth. I think I’ll take a page out of my not-friend’s play book. One day there was no forgiveness and the next there was.

Copyright 2017 ©

Photo credit: Bobbi Adams

 

 

Facebook Christianity

gypsybobbi7 Comments

I’m pretty tired of social media right now. Can you relate? You go on to pass the time, catch up with friends, because you are bored. BOOM, 5 minutes later you’re angry or at least seriously annoyed.  When did the world become such a harsh place? Even worse, sometimes I can’t distinguish between Christian friends and people who claim no religion. People get caught up in the frenzy and they just WON’T LET GO. Sometimes, I want to engage in word warfare too. When someone posts anti-Christian sentiments or rails against God. I want to defend God. You can’t talk about my best friend like that! I want to chastise the haters and set the misinformed straight. I have to stop and ask myself at what cost? A true atheist isn’t mad at God. They don’t believe He exists in any form. That would be like me going on Facebook to say crappy things about a unicorn. I don’t talk about unicorns because they aren’t real. So if someone is ranting about Christians and God on Facebook, I consider it a call to pray for them.  You can’t be mad at someone who you truly think does not exist. Their raw and angry heart wants you to fight back to give them one more reason to be justified in their anger at Christians, God, religion.

I know a lady who is an agnostic. She does not know many Christians and some of the few she knows have left a bad taste in her mouth. Recently, a family member of hers who claims to be a Christian and who has many times over the years “witnessed” to her, got angry at her and posted a picture of an ugly animal with the caption “this is what I think of when I think of (insert the agnostic woman’s name here)”. Say it isn’t so. We are the light of the world and the World Wide Web. At least we are supposed to be. If we want people to come to know and love Jesus then every word counts. You can’t post “Praying for you” one minute and and insult someone the next. One Facebook rant can undo all that you’ve done to bring someone to Christ. She won’t remember what you said about Christ but she will never forget you comparing her to an ugly beast for all the world to see.

Can you imagine what the Pharisees would have written on Jesus’ Facebook wall? His Twitter? I imagine them sitting in the glow of their computer screen trying to craft a clever zing in Jesus’ direction. They would have tried to trap Him in word combat. 20,000,000 followers would wait, holding their breath to see what His response would be. E-magazines would be building up hype, people would be ready to take a side. Are willing to sacrifice their agnostic hearts to further your cause? Do we really need to make our opinions so known? I don’t think that is what Jesus would want. He alone knew the hearts of those He spoke to and the exact right thing to say. So how do we govern our responses?

1 Corinthians 13:1-3 (ESV) The Way of Love                                                                                            13 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

Love. Humble, agape love. Paul said it best, if you don’t have love, you’ve got a whole bunch of nothing. When God first touched my heart with the knowledge of changing my speech, I thought the best way to tone it down was maybe not swear so much when I decimated someone with my words. I can actually remember feeling pretty proud that I fought with my husband and didn’t swear. No rocket scientist here. The swear words may have been gone but the intention was not. Jesus in His infinite kindness didn’t give up on me. First He taught me to curb my speech, then salt it a little, and years later I learned the best lesson of all. Silence(still practicing that one). I do not need to join the word combat army. There is a time and place for all things, but love is for all times and all places.

When I see posts that really get to me, I understand now that I am a warrior. A prayer warrior. Never praying that people change their minds to think like me but to know God’s love. Only He knows their business, their struggles and how their thoughts are formed. Let’s follow Jesus. Let’s go the way of love and bite our tongues and exercise our control muscles. Let’s set down our clanging cymbals and noisy gongs. That’s all words are when used against someone and not for them. I want to pray more and speak less. Words are God’s currency, a gift from Him and should flow through us and return to Him untarnished.

Bobbi Adams copyright 2017 ©

Photo credit: Bobbi Adams

Guest blogger – Makenzie Adams

gypsybobbi5 Comments

Single. And a single Christian at that. Some would call this a blessing. A time to explore my options about what I want from life, what God wants from my life, what career paths I should be looking into, and scoping out my dating options. Others would call it a curse.  A time of loneliness and too much over thinking about what to wear when getting asked out by a friend of a friend of a friend who you’ve never actually met before. A time of impatient waiting for “the right one” to come along. A time when people ask about your love life and you reply with the answer you’ve said for 25 months now. “Nothing new here. Just me. Just waiting on God and His timing”. You see, I thought I found my person when I was 17. But one broken heart and engagement later, and God has taken us down different paths. So I would have to say it’s been both a blessing and a curse.

A blessing because yes, I have been able to seek Jesus in a way that I hadn’t before. It’s been a time of loneliness that has taught my heart to run recklessly after the One who never leaves me. A time of self reflecting and praying about what kind of wife I want to be, and praying for my future husband. A time of prayer and opening my heart up wide and asking God to just pour out more of Him. This time of singlehood has given me more opportunities to be completely real, openly honest and utterly raw, not only with myself, but with Jesus.

But this singleness has also had its fair share of struggles. How am I supposed to find time to date when I’m working, going to school full time, commuting back and forth from school, completing homework, attending church, getting up early for 5 am workouts, participating at church, and trying to have something that resembles a social life? How do I find the time to meet someone? How on earth does a girl like me find a decent way to date and stay true to her beliefs in the age of casual dating, Tinder and nonchalant hookups? (No judgement here, it’s just not my style). I’ve never been one for casual dating. Not in high school, and not now. I’ve always considered myself to be a total commitment kind of girl. I’ve always figured that once I chose someone, once I knew God had said “Yep, that’s the one”, that would be that. How do I know when God is saying yes? It all feels very confusing, and so at the end of the day, I try not to think about what I end up thinking about the most: my singleness.

Another struggle that comes with being single is having non-single friends. Married friends, friends in relationships. Most days, I really don’t mind being a third (even on occasion, a fifth) wheel to my married friends. I thoroughly enjoy watching God work in the lives of my friends and their marriages, and it makes me look forward to my own marriage and how God will use us.

But what about the now? What about the days when I can’t ignore the loneliness anymore, the longing to have my person by my side? The want for a partner to just do life with? What about the Friday nights where I’ve just finished another three hours of homework and have to start the mountain of laundry I haven’t gotten to because the week has been nuts, and I really just want to be going on a date, with my person, like my friends are doing? What about the Sunday mornings at church where I used to have my person by my side, but now there’s nothing but empty air next to me in the pew and my friends are sitting side by side with their spouses? What about the times when you least expect bitterness to strike and it does?

I thought I would be married by now, or at least planning a wedding to my person. But for reasons God has revealed and reasons God has kept a mystery, I have become single.

A lot of times people will tell you how great it is to be single. And there are many perks to being single, I agree. But what no one really talks about is the loneliness that comes along with it sometimes. The bitterness that can seep into your heart because you’re questioning God’s timing. It’s a difficult road to travel, being single. I want so much to be within God’s will, yet I push my own. I want so much to want God’s timing over my own, yet I complain about how long He’s taking. I deeply desire to be equally yoked with my future partner, yet I don’t take the time I should to pray for him. It’s a cycle and it loops with each rising and setting of the sun. Mostly, at the end of the day, the Holy Spirit gives me two thoughts.

One: I am not alone. Matthew 28:20 is where Jesus said “And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”  In the throes of my pity party of loneliness, Jesus is there, nurturing and guiding my wounded heart.

Two: I have a hope and future. Jeremiah 29:11 says: ‘“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” At the end of the day, Jesus is my hope, and He is my future. At the end of the day, I lay my confused and weary soul down at the foot of the cross and Jesus breathes gentle healing on my aching heart.

And so while being single may feel like the biggest obstacle in my life right now, I know that God’s got it. And if God is for me, there is no ocean of struggle wide enough, no depth of loneliness deep enough, no mountain of doubt high enough, no valley of frustration low enough, that could stand against me. Praise You, Jesus. Praise You.

Makenzie Adams Copyright 2017 ©

Photo Credit: Bobbi Adams

Fierce Christian Women

gypsybobbi5 Comments

Years ago, at our church, there was a small select group of women that pretty much did everything. A lot of times it goes like that. You’ve heard the saying 20% of the people do 80% of the work. This was different though. They didn’t actually want help. Several women offered to help for upcoming events and they would get turned down. I don’t think they meant to be exclusive but that’s how it came off. I was one of the people that tried to volunteer. I was trying to make Christian friends and instead I felt shut out. Years later God has sifted and shifted our church and what remains is amazing. We do Women’s Bible Study on Mondays. A few years back, we were doing a particular study and we decided to have everyone give their testimony. Two or three women would stand up each week before we began and tell the story of their life. It was incredible. I had known these women for years but it wasn’t until I heard their stories that I really understood them. Stories of incredible pain, abuse, grief and ultimately, through the grace of God, victory. I already knew I liked all these women, truly liked them, but after hearing about the pieces of their journey, I was amazed and inspired by them. Lots of tears and laughter came from that time. I consider it a sacred gift from God that I got to experience that with them. Since then, I can honestly say, every one of us has bonded with the others. I can’t express to you what these women mean to me. They cheer me on, encourage me, pray over and for me. I know my prayer requests will be met with an onslaught of fierce women charging the gates of heaven on my behalf and I on theirs. What God has done is miraculous. A small preview of a heavenly community. Believer’s coming together to praise, worship and adore the one who loves us so dearly, He died for us.

We are all as real as it gets. No one tries to be the perfect christian. We have no need for pretenses. We bring it all. The ugly, the pain and the praise. By being able to be ourselves, we have found freedom in this perfection seeking world. I used to wonder why I couldn’t be the (almost) perfect christian since God was perfect. He deserves a much better daughter than me. But me, is who I am. After getting to know these fierce, incredible, christian women, I realize we all have areas that have yet to be sanctified. Not because I noticed that about them, it’s actually the opposite. They would say that about themselves and I would think, “No way”! I desperately needed their honesty to stop the cycle of self-condemnation. Had they pretended to be the perfect Christians, I would have believed that I was hopeless and the only one to struggle in my walk.

We take a break between each completed Bible study and I miss them, their fellowship. I miss the laughter and the tears. They are so precious to me, I can’t even imagine how this group must touch the heart of God. Oh, I still get to see them on Sundays, but still. I wish you went to my church. I would love to hear every fierce woman’s story, to get to know you for who you actually are and not who you think you should be. To hear your testimony. To pray for you and to love you like they have loved me, in spite of me. Isn’t that the exact kind of love Jesus was talking about when He said in John 13:34-35 “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” that we love one another in spite of our flaws and imperfections? People who come to our church recognize right away the love we have for one another. They always comment how everyone is so nice and the best part of it for me is that it is 100% genuine. Now when we have an event, the majority of ladies say “what can I bring, how can I help?” Every one working together, no exceptions, no exclusions. A keyhole peek into eternity.

Proverbs 27:17  Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another.

Photo credit: Bobbi Adams

Copyright 2017

Where am I LORD?

gypsybobbi9 Comments

Grief is a crazy thing. Everyone handles it so differently. Even the circumstances leading up to the death of a loved one profoundly affects how grief plays out. I’m no expert in grieving, these are just observations. To one words spoken, heal. To another they don’t want to talk about it. To me, I can’t seem to find myself in the midst of this grief. I wonder if this short tempered, grey, full of regret person, is the new me. I shudder to think I may be stuck like this. It’s natural to lose your dad at some point. But I’m left with an ocean of regret. It’s a long story, a two and a half year story, but it always ends the same. My dad was dying after complications from surgery but no one could correctly diagnose him. Turns out, what he likely died from is not detectable. So we watched him suffer day after day and I tried to “fix” him. “Dad, just try to eat better. Just use your spirometer more. You’re not eating any of the food I brought.” These conversations play out in my mind daily because the one thing we realized after his death is that he couldn’t have done any of the things I asked. His likely cause of death was micro embolisms due to 40 inches of blood clots that had formed in his legs after the surgery that successfully removed the cancer from his lungs. He didn’t die from the grapefruit sized tumor, but from a slow suffocation. I spent months trying to cheerlead someone into doing more and trying harder. I operated entirely out of fear. Fear of his death, fear of failing him, God, myself. In the end I’m left not even knowing what I’m grieving. I hate to break it to myself but my dad is completely fine now. Whole, happy and in perfect peace and love, worshiping Jesus without human pain, shame or hurt for the very first time.  So while I miss him everyday, I’m also happy for him. I’m also grieving my choice of words. Why was I constantly asking him to do stuff? Because I desperately wanted him to recover. I wanted my dad back. When you go through two and a half years helping to take care of someone, you want a pay off. You want them to go back to who they were. Or something, anything like it. I’m also grieving the fact that I may have grieved the Holy Spirit in my fear-fueled state. I worried from the time I got up until I went to bed. What if the power went out and his oxygen went off? What if he fell trying to take the dog out? What if the doctors are missing something? Well, he did fall going outside because he took his oxygen off (3 times!), the doctors totally missed what was going on with him and God showed up in a big way every time.  A neighbor who just happened to be outside when he fell all 3 times? I don’t think so. That’s a grace filled God providing, but still fear attacked my mind like a flesh eating virus. I begged God to deliver me every morning on my way to his house before work. Every time I walked into his house and called out “Good morning Dad!” and he would answer “Ain’t nobody here but us chickens!” relief would wash over me only to start again as I drove away. I would then go at it all over again asking God to deliver me from the crippling fear. I didn’t want to find him if he died. I begged God not to let me be the one. I didn’t want it to be my sister either but I was terrified it would be me. After months of begging God to protect me from that on August 25th I told God “OK, if it has to be me, please help me”. And he did. On August 26th, 2016 I drove to my dad’s house as always before work  and as I pulled up I saw that his front door was open. At first I was worried but then I thought, maybe he remembers it’s my birthday! I walked up to the glass screen door and saw him laying on the ground. The neighbor “just happened” to be outside again. I screamed for him, and he came running. He said “I’m sorry, he’s gone” I asked him “Can you check again because it’s my birthday”.  I have no idea why I said that. But I do know that I was delivered from my fear that day. The thing I feared the most had happened and I lived. I kept breathing, the world didn’t collapse. God was there with me providing exactly what (or who) I needed. He didn’t leave me or forsake me. He knew before I was ever born that my dad would die on my birthday and He would never hurt me. His purpose is always good and His plan for deliverance isn’t usually easy. That day he delivered my dad out of his physical suffering and me out of my emotional suffering. I think He allowed my Dad to die on my birthday because I needed reminding that He alone is sovereign. My worry added nothing. My fear served no purpose, but having gone through what I was most afraid of, did. Fear is a liar. It convinces you that you cannot do something when God knows that you can. The blessing is often in the burden. So is God. He doesn’t create the burden but He allows it sometimes to show us how dearly He loves us. I know my grief is normal and incomparable to what others have had to go through but still, it’s mine. As I try to figure out who I am now, I don’t want to trade a duffel bag of fear for a mountain of regrets. I don’t want to live in the nothing anymore. The grey area of unbelief. I miss the sun, the glorious Son. I miss hope and life and the stirring of the Holy Spirit. I know it will come again. I wish I could pull it closer to me by sheer will power. I long for Spring in my soul. But grace is God’s alone to give. I live daily by His grace but sometimes you just want an all-you-can-handle buffet of God’s blessings. I don’t want to go back to who I was but I’m still trying to figure out who I am now. Only God knows, and I’m OK with that.

Psalm 121:1-2 I lift up my eyes to the mountains—where does my help come from? 2 My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.

Photo Credit: Bobbi Adams

Copyright 2017

 

Waterfall

gypsybobbi4 Comments

To my Redhanded Jill…

Sometimes, life is like standing behind a waterfall. Not in it, but watching it rush down in front of you. Wanting to step out, wanting to know what it feels like to be brave. To be the one who knows what it feels like to stand under the rushing water and feel it pounding down on you. You hesitate, waiting, thinking too much. What if it hurts, what if the pressure is too much? You stretch out your hands and feel the cool water run between your fingers. You climbed slick rocks to get here. Steep rocks that echo the remnants of thousands upon thousands of gallons of ancient water. Water that passed through here never to return and water that that made it back only to be gone again. The rocks tell the story of the others. Other explorers, other adventurers. The others that cannot stand the thought of ordinary and search for the extraordinary. You sat down too many times to count up this rise. You decided not even God himself could move you another inch. “I’m done LORD” you said. You didn’t hear His silent chuckle because He knows you were born for this. He put that pirate heart in you. He let you rest, tend your wounds and when all movement stopped, He whispered “Come child” and you did. Over and over and over again. Here you stand now knowing that there were others who stepped forward into the curtain of coursing waters, the sideways tide. Yet in the back of your mind you know that there were some who came and saw and were so close. So close to stepping out but never did. In these seconds you choose. Your foot never falters as you step out on the ledge. The water pours down on your head, a glorious crown, and you hear the echoes of joy of those who stood where you stand now. It is magnificent and thrilling but there is still that last step to take.To jump or not to jump? Free fall into the watery abyss or be driven back by the same fear that weighed you down the entire way up the mountain.What lies beyond the liquid curtain? “Jump” you tell yourself, “just jump!!”But your frozen feet won’t move and inside that moment lays a thousand days and hours just like before. “Why Lord, why did you bring me here if I can’t do it? Lord, help me! I’m afraid!” Then you remember, you cannot do it. You cannot do it, but He can. Only the maker of the waterfall knows how high He made it. And He does. You meet the wind and and your body feels weightless as your feet lift off. Through, over, down. But this is not descending, this is a mountaintop with God. A rebellion against your human form with the taste of eternity on your lips. You slice through the water with a new name. Brave. You have become one of the others, the ones who dare to believe.

Photo credit: Bobbi Adams

Copyright 2017 ©

Looking at me

gypsybobbi6 Comments

I keep doing it wrong I’m looking at me,
myself, moi, I, personally
I know I came with my own set of hurts and of broken
I regret things that I’ve done and words that I’ve spoken
Who I am in you is so far from what I actually see
But all of that is because of You, with little to no help from me
You tell me to seek truth, speak truth, so the truth can set me free
You say hold still as you try to sanctify me
But I toss like a wave in an ocean of unbelief
Not in you but in me and I need some relief
In light of your goodness and grace I hate what I do
Then I’ll do it again I have no follow through
I’ll ask your forgiveness for the sin and the shame
And I promise to try harder but in this sin I remain
And I’ve tried to condemn myself time and again
To prove that I love you and that I hate my sin
But that only serves to keep myself thinking of me
As I nail myself to the hypocrisy tree
See I know all the songs, I know them by heart
And every time my church opens, I’m taking part
And I read the word and memorize too
But this heart is so scared to just believe You
I look up your word in Hebrew and Greek
Every morning I’m here and it’s you that I seek
It’s easy to believe what you say about you
I know that it’s real I believe that it’s true
And I have not one doubt that you uphold the universe by the power of your word
That you died on day one and were risen the third
I know you ascended, Lord of lords, King of kings
I believe you have done every miraculous thing
I never doubt the prophet’s predictions, angels appearing, the virgin birth
I just struggle to know that I have real worth
I can see in my mind the Garden of Eden and the parting of the Red Sea
I just can’t understand why you’d choose to help me
See I know that you love me, I know that that’s real
It’s my feelings that lie and the accuser that steals
The whispers they come and say you’re on your own
Help yourself out then sit on your throne
Crown yourself weak or crown yourself strong
Crown yourself something even if it’s so wrong
Because whenever I look and focus on me, myself and I
I can’t see you and it’s the truth I crucify
Because apart from you I have not one good thing
Nothing to offer, nothing to bring
But IN you Jesus Christ, I’m the righteousness of God
I’m made holy and pure and completely unflawed
I’m called and I’m chosen, forgiven and complete
By the scars on Your hands, Your head and Your feet
You tell me to speak truth so I’m speaking it now
Your word tells me the way and then shows me how
The truth is simple, the truth is free
Jesus died to pardon me
And because He died and rose again
Then no weapon formed against me can win
I can speak truth and I can live free
I can hold still while you sanctify me
You are the truest of loves, to which nothing compares
And while the accuser accuses, still my heart declares
You are in all and are all, a consuming fire of grace
By your mercy I’m running and will finish this race
So Jesus help me today in the right here and now
To hold on to the truth that is in you and live it somehow
Help me to speak truth and live truth like it’s my occupation
And help me to pick up the sword of the Spirit when faced with temptation
Help me fix my eyes on the author and finisher of my faithfulness
Where you become more and I become less
Awaken the places in me that are asleep like the dead
And help me remember ‘blessed is she who believed what the LORD said’

Bobbi Adams 2017 ©
Photo credit: Bobbi Adams

What about girls like me?

gypsybobbi5 Comments

I was watching a video one night with multiple prominent Christian women speakers and kept thinking that something was amiss amongst the ladies. As my mind tried to sift through what it could be, I started a checklist in my head. They all love Jesus, check. They all have a ministry and work full-time for Jesus, check. They all tirelessly advance the kingdom of heaven, check. What was it about the one speaker that stood out to me compared to the others? I didn’t know until the next morning when I was driving to work and suddenly it dawned on me, the other two seemed weightless, clean, and joyful. The one who stood out in my mind seemed to be yet relieved of her entire burden. She spoke of sadness, loss and pain. So did the others, but hers I felt more keenly. The others spoke of pain as a distant memory, she too spoke of it as in the past but her sadness, it was still with her. I recognized her. She is in a sense, me.

We all know those women whose perfectly messy bun and house come off as adorable. That’s not me. When my house looks messy, it’s because it is. I didn’t clean. And don’t get me started on my hair. Born with naturally curly, sometimes frizzy hair is never adorable. If I don’t spend a significant amount of time trying to blow-dry it into submission, I just look like a mess. The very un-adorable kind. Make no mistake, I am in no way trying to shame this woman. Her heart for the Lord is precious and completely evident in her life. I’m only bringing this up because if she who has a full time ministry can still be a work in progress, why do I hate myself for still being one? Why do I always think I need to have this all figured out by now? I’m a broken vessel. God has in His infinite mercy chosen to love me. I have in my brokenness chosen to trust Him little, by very, very little. It makes it so difficult to cleanse an untrusting child. If you grew up with a reason to have a hard time trusting, I’m sorry, me too. I used to think it was just me. Incapable of understanding. Studying my Bible for years and never coming to the entirely sanctified version of myself. What was wrong with me?

God gently pointed it out not too long ago. Something I have been pretending not to know for years. My whole life really, FEAR. The big, four letter “F” word. That shadow that lurks around my heart and mind. That steals my joy and hurts my purpose in this life. The weapon that satan uses the most on me because it is so darn effective. It takes courage just to exist in this world. It takes courage to get out of bed, to watch the news, send your children to school, to love and love and love some more. Oh, how much courage it takes! I did and still do all of that. I’m not building a bunker in some undisclosed location, planning to live the rest of my days driving Charlie nuts in a 10 X 10 room. I’m talking about the courage to believe that God loves me. Just me. Not just a general statement, “God loves everyone”, of course I believe that. But to think, He knows my name, He purposed me, He loves me in spite of me. That’s terrifying. I’m not good enough, strong enough, cute enough, thin enough, sin-free enough. My words and heart aren’t pure enough. In my experience growing up, I was a very disappointing daughter. Oh how I wanted my dad to love me! He struggled because I reminded him of the one person in the world he disliked the most, himself. I looked like him, I acted out like he did when he was young. He was the one whom his father didn’t love. I tried for years to make him love me and when that didn’t work, to hate me. And I brought this dysfunction into my relationship with my Father God. I didn’t know how a Father loved His daughter but I assumed if I wasn’t good enough, fast enough, that He must hate me. I was a giant disappointment to God and all of heaven. I would try, fail to be perfect and then fall back into self-loathing. The least favored child, the one destined to screw up. It’s so hard to dare to hope.

Ephesians 3:14-21 grabbed my attention and my heart with this gem…

Ephesians 3:14 For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, 16 that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. 20 Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

Did you see that?  Right here… “May have the strength to comprehend with all the saints (that’s us) what is the breadth and length and height and depth and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge”

It takes strength and courage to comprehend the love of Christ because we have NO KNOWLEDGE of ever having been loved like this. Wow, just wow. His love is so deep and wide and perfect we cannot comprehend it. It’s beyond our understanding. But the Holy Spirit will strengthen us with His power in our spirits to be able to understand more and more the love that God has for us. Our perfect Jesus, loving imperfect us.  Set your baggage down sister! You are not intended to be perfect and you most certainly are loved. Right here, right now, just as you are. Jesus already knew everything you would ever do think or say. You are not a disappointment to Him. To say that you are is to say you surprised Him with your bad behavior. You can’t surprise God, He knows EVERYTHING!

So what do I do now?

  1. I have in the past had to tell myself that God is not my dad. He is my heavenly Father. His love does not depend on my performance. His love flows from His goodness, not mine.
  2. Forgive. Forgive. Forgive. I forgave my earthly dad a long time ago and God completely healed our relationship. I still need to forgive myself for hating myself and for basing my worth for so long on what my dad thought of me.
  3. Ask God daily for the courage and strength to believe and understand how much and how dearly I am loved by Him. I need to pray Ephesians 3: 14-21 over my life and anyone else’s who struggles to comprehend.
  4. Because the love of Christ surpasses knowledge, it must be taught to us. Would you be angry if a two year old didn’t understand Trigonometry? Of course not! Math is a step-by-step concept. Each thing you learn is a building block for the next step. So is love.
  5. One last thing I need to remember. God is not impatient with me. He doesn’t need to be, because he already knows when this will all come together in my heart (Please let it be before Heaven!).

 

My prayer for you and today is simple:

Father,                                                                                                                                                                   You are the genesis of love. All love began with you. You love us first, best and completely. Give me courage today to believe you. The world is harsh and unloving but you are not. Give me the strength to comprehend this amazing gift that I already have, the perfect, matchless love of Jesus Christ. Increase my understanding of your love every day that I may be filled with all of your fullness. And help me to love others out of the abundance of love you give me. Thank you for loving me, thank you for doing more than I could ever ask or think. I love being your perfectly loved, cherished, adored daughter. Amen.

Photo credit: Bobbi Adams

Bobbi Adams copyrighted 2017 ©

Time

gypsybobbi14 Comments

 

Disease has a funny way of changing time. I don’t mean “It’s time to wake up”, time or “Time for bed”, time. I mean “when was he diagnosed with cancer”, time. Suddenly your life is marked off by a calendar marking time in a way you have never done before. Your life pre-diagnosis and post-diagnosis. How long has he been sick? 2 ½ years. How many minutes does it take to drive to his house? 9. How many minutes from the time you called 911 until the ambulance arrives? More than 10 but the fire department guys who we like much better get there in 5. And larger, broader strokes of time, “Lord how much longer” and “Thank you Jesus for helping my dad again this time”.

Your friends and family adapt to your new way of speaking “Sorry I can’t this time”, “It’s my turn to meet the nurse this time”. You ask your bosses if you can leave early “one more time” even though everyone knows, it won’t be the last time. You enter new sentences into every conversation with your only precious sister and we say foreign things, speak in new ways that we’ve never spoken before. “He was great this time”, “the doctor will check that again next time”, “It’s my turn you did it last time”. And this new language becomes more familiar and you get it down to a shorthand because you can’t take the time to speak in full sentences. And your brain measures everything. You are not spending enough time with your husband, children, cleaning your house. You have no vacation time left because he needed you and it was worth it, every time. When was the last time I talked to my sister without talking about doctors, nurses, sugar, pulse ox and on and on and on again. Until it stretches out and you can’t remember who you were before. Before Cancer, before the surgeries, before you knew the things you never wanted to know. Before things became complicated, a simpler time.

And at some point you realize that time is God’s commodity. We cannot produce it, sell it or extend it. While He as the Creator of all things is never governed by time and time cannot contain or hold Him. Time is nothing more than an ant on a leash to God. He allows us to mark time, and when marking time is all that you do, he pulls you close and reminds you that you cannot control time, no matter how hard you try.

Peter said in 2 Peter 3:8 But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.

I agree Peter and sometimes one day feels as though you’ve lived a thousand years. And that day is usually the last day. The last time you saw them. The last time you called 911. The last time his neighbors came running to help. And suddenly time rushes forward and God allows it to engulf you. To carry you onward to honor him one last time. And even though you prayed and asked God “when will you take him home LORD? When will it be time” God understands when you say “I just want one more time”. The Lord, the Lord, the glorious Lord!

I’m a witness to the grace of God upholding me minute by minute.  I have found more grace than one person can hold in the seconds with God. When he said “I will never leave you or forsake you”, He meant for ALL time. Not just this time or last time but EVERY time. Why was I so slow to learn that? God helped him every time and by helping my dad he helped my sister and me too. His grace never gave out. He is Elohei Chasdi, The God of my kindness. Over and over I prayed help me be brave, help me to have less fear, help me Lord, help me. And He did. Every single time, without fail. What God is this that we serve! Who can understand His track record! There is no end to His goodness, His mercy and care. If we would not have gone through this season of time we would not have understood like we do now that Jesus is the one you can count on every time.

Every time

Every time

Every time

Time goes on and now we say new even stranger words. Words like “remember when” and “Dad would have loved that” Our dad’s earthly life has become a past tense and we are torn between speaking correctly and wanting to somehow bring him into the present tense with us. Dad loved this or that, not loves, as in currently. But time is God’s commodity, not ours.

Isaiah 46:9-10 (ESV) 9 remember the former things of old; for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me, 10 declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose,’

He knows the end from the beginning. He knew He would be there for us every time but that was something we had to learn. Growing in faith takes most of us time. A long time, a highway through a desert by foot, time.

Is that the time you’re in too? Marking days, hours, seconds? You look back and think when will you deliver me, him, them? I can relate.  The best advice I ever got from God during that time was “It’s none of your business. You take care of what you need to take care of and I will take care of you”. He did, He never failed me, never failed any of us, not one time. Hear that, know that.

And as we move forward marking time in a new way, free from disease but certainly not free from pain, we will tell others who speak the time language, what the LORD has done. We will tell them that the Lord is good, He is kind, He is the only one you can count on at all times. And when we see my dad again, it will be as if it was no time at all. One second he was here, then he was there. He was sick and suffering and less than a micro-second later he was healthy and whole. And we will be together again and we will worship the Lord together for all time.

Photo credit: Bobbi Adams

Bobbi Adams copyrighted 2017 ©