The Afterlife.

I was awake until 2:30am last night this morning answering some very serious questions from my 4 year old. I can't stop wondering how much she really needed to know at her age, but I also hope I didn't withhold too much information from her that she really wanted to know. I don't like answering her with "you're not old enough to know." If she has questions about something (even some this serious), I want to be able to answer her questions. Her questions last night were particularly tough.


It was a quiet movie night complete with mattresses on the living room floor and me on the couch. My 3 year old had already fallen asleep and my 4 year old really wanted to watch Felicity (American Girl movie). All was well until Felicity's grandfather died. Suddenly, my 4 year old didn't understand. "What happened?" she asked. "Her grandfather died." I answered. "Why? What happened?" she continued.

I tried explaining that Felicity lived a very long time ago, before there was Tylenol and other good medicine to make us better. I explained that back then, sometimes when you would get sick, you would die because there wasn't good medicine like we have now.

She continued, "Well, why was he in the box and being buried?"

"Because when we die, our bodies are buried, but our souls go to Heaven." I answered.

It was then I realized I had just opened the can of worms. I said the word soul to my 4 year old.

By my Christian beliefs, I had to continue explaining what happens to you when you die. That brought up more questions about what happens if you do not know Jesus. I told her that you will live in Hell with the Devil - who's name is Satan.

She asked what Satan's last name was. I said he didn't have one. So then she said we need to think of a last name for Jesus and for Satan. lol

It was question after question after question.

We've spent her entire childhood teaching her about who Jesus and God are. I never really thought of talking about why we believe and the difference between Heaven and Hell. Perhaps that was me trying to protect her innocent mind from picturing the two extremes. I was never sure what the appropriate age was to teach them about death and how beliefs in God come into play in the afterlife. Thankfully, she was really cool about it all and made me laugh a lot through all my nervousness - thinking about giving Jesus and Satan last names, wondering if Satan beats you up in Hell ("because that's pretty mean and bad"), and listening to her innocent curiosity about death.

Clearly, conversations about the afterlife was not something I wanted to happen till she were older. I'm not even sure I wanted to have them at all. This is real life though. As a parent, I'm realizing I don't get to pick and choose when to and when not to have certain conversations. There's not enough education or life experience to teach me how to have those conversations either. My best advice if this should ever happen to any of you is to follow their lead. If they want to know a little more than what you've explained, believe me, they'll ask.

Decisions

The year of hard decisions. That's what 2011 is turning out to be for us. While that may sound like a lot of bad things are going on (and I guess they sometimes are)... we're really not looking at it like that.

The best part about making hard decisions is that there's an outcome on the other side of that decision that we're all okay with. I won't go into detail on all of the hard decisions we've made this year, but there have been quite a few big ones as well as some we're still trying to figure out.

There was one very recently that I'm still having a hard time dealing with. I know praying about this and discussing it with my husband that I made the right decision for us right now. But sometimes these decisions aren't always what I really want.

That's just life. In the words of The Rolling Stones, "You can't always get what you want. But if you try sometimes you just might find you get what you need."

I thank the good Lord above for always watching out for us and always answering prayers. It may not always be the answered prayer I was looking for, but all our prayers get answered. I'm so glad that He knows better than I do.

I know what I'm doing. I have it all planned out - plans to take care of you, not abandon you, plans to give you the future you hope for. When you call on me, when you come and pray to me, I'll listen. When you come looking for me, you'll find me. Yes, when you get serious about finding me and want it more than anything else, I'll make sure you won't be disappointed.

Jeremiah 29:11-13 The Message

(This video is from my church 4 months ago during a series called "Rock for the Rock".
The picture is blurry, but a great message I think you may like.)

ROCK for the ROCK: Week Three from Darin Hamm on Vimeo.

Forgiveness

I started reading though an old blog of mine (just a personal one I didn't share with the World). I found something there I wanted to share in this blog.

It was written toward the end of last year when hubs and I were in marriage counseling. To those who know us now, it's hard to believe our marriage almost ended last year. I am so thankful for our marriage counselor, J, who helped us get through some really rough stuff. We're also so thankful we discovered New Heights church at just the right time - when we had to end our counseling sessions (it was far away and we couldn't afford the gas to get there anymore). God worked through our pastor, Darin. We applied what he taught and it has saved our marriage. In fact, we're at a place now where you couldn't even imagine hubs and I even thinking about splitting up.

Back to the old blog post... In counseling, I learned something about forgiveness. It was one of those moments an answer I gave wasn't really my own thoughts. These words just poured out of my mouth and I learned something pretty spectacular from it. Here's the post:

I've learned a lot about forgiveness. I'm not sure I've ever talked about forgiveness with anyone until last night. J asked me for my definition of forgiveness. I told him I couldn't really give an official definition, it's more of a process. I explained to him that I know what Jesus did for us a long time ago. He died on the cross for our sins. It wasn't just for MY sin... it was for everyone's sin. That includes my husband. That includes my family. That includes my friends. That even includes strangers. People make mistakes in their life. I certainly have made a lot of mistakes in my life. I've learned from them - the biggest lesson being forgiveness. Who am I to say that Jesus died for my sins and that I am forgiven but think that others don't deserve the same forgiveness? Whatever bad things have happened, I forgive him because God did. He deserves that forgiveness as much as I do. I will not judge someone by their mistakes. I have done a lot of bad things in my life but I have grown up from those mistakes. I am not the same person I used to be. I trust God that my husband will not be the same person he used to be.

I believe God deals with each of us in a unique way. God is certainly dealing with my husband right now (and me too) and I am holding on to all of God's promises for us. I am exercising patience. I am exercising forgiveness. While there are still days I want to give up, I keep holding on.

The Secret

Fact. Life is hard sometimes. Sometimes bad things happen - yes, even to good people. Sometimes we make mistakes. Sometimes things beyond our control can ruin a perfectly good day.

But every day is full of new possibilities - possibilities to dwell on the bad or think about the good.

Last night, hubs and I watched The Secret. It's crazy how much of it relates to Christian principles. So is "The Secret" to life Christianity? It could be for everyone. For me, it is. For me, there is no other way to live. The movie described our lives as being controlled by "the Universe" but Christians call this kind of "Universe", God. God is the One in control of my life. He is the powers that be.

The movie talked a lot about how we are to stay focused on positive things to have a positive life so "The Secret" can manifest itself in our lives. The rest is up to "the Universe" - or in my case, God. The thing that made most sense to me in this movie was how bad things happen because we're always thinking bad thoughts. If we start focusing on good thoughts for our life, then good things will happen. I really think there's some truth to that.

Think about what happens when you surround yourself with awful people. Your life starts to kind of suck and you always feel bad. But when you surround yourself with positive people, good things start happening and you're more joyful. Right? It's the same for our thoughts. Go through your day thinking about the positive things you want to happen in your life. Cut out the thoughts of why or how it won't work. Just focus on the fact that it will. The Universe God will take care of the how/when/etc. You just have to believe it'll happen.

Today, I tried to put this into practice with my own life. When I started to get upset at my children, I tried redirecting my thoughts to all the things I appreciate about them. When I started to get upset about my finances, I started to think about all of the times God provided for us no matter how much money there was wasn't in the bank. I think it all starts by appreciating your life and those in it. Stop thinking about what you don't have and appreciate the things you do. Focus on what you want in your life and don't question it ever happening.

And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus.
Philippians 4:19 (NIV)

A New Old Car

I mentioned before how awful last week was here on Birch St., but I must say it's a huge blessing to know and trust that everything is going to work out. We put God in control of our lives (which is a hard thing to do, really) and it's been proven time and time again how faithful He is to us in our times of trouble (even in blessing).

We've been having a headache with the finance company for our van. When we bought the van, we made much more money than we do now. "Life happened" and we can no longer afford the car payments. We've fallen behind and struggled often to catch up. We've been pleading with this company for a few months now to help us out and allow us to keep this van that we've invested so much into already by lowering our payment - but they won't. No matter how much we pay them, they always tell us that we can't afford this and threaten to pick up the van. It's true - we can't afford it on our current income. But they won't adjust what we pay every month. And this is coming from the company who recently decided to give all of their hourly employees a $5,000 bonus.

It was getting pretty awful last week dealing with them. I don't think I could talk to someone else they way they talk to us and be okay with myself at the end of the day. Ya know? Last week, they actually showed up at my inlaw's house looking for the van to repo. Thankfully we no longer live with them, but it was only a matter of time before they found out where we do live. We are really trying to do the right thing with them, but they aren't so helpful on their end. So we had to think fast and pray God gave us answers quickly.

We finally decided to make the sacrifice and give up the van no matter what. If they want to pick it up, that's fine. If we need to drive it to a dealership and surrender it, that's fine. We tried trading it in, but our credit score is too low now (thanks to this finance company) that they won't let us trade for something cheaper.

Then, we found this great used car dealership in Tulsa and told them our story. They specialize in helping people like us who have/had problems and/or bad credit get into a vehicle and rebuild credit - but don't rip you off with a humongous car payment. Since we are surrendering our van, they decided they would finance us for something new (used). We had a few issues getting into the new vehicle, but God worked it out. We feel like we're doing the right thing because we kept seeing what we call "little God blessings" through this process.

First, we got approved. Second, we found a great vehicle at an incredible price. We managed to have payments we could afford for at least $100 less than our minivan. We put down part of our tax return which helped a lot. We later found out that the vehicle we chose has a brand new engine and 4 new tires plus a full size spare. It also comes with 18 months or 18,000 mile warranty on the engine, transmission, and other main parts - but not bumper to bumper. The left tail light was broken but the bulb still worked. They had ordered a part for that and will install that when it comes in.

Then the "little God blessings" came through.

Just before we went in to sign the paperwork, we realized the radiator was leaking. So we had to put our down payment as hold money in their layaway program so they wouldn't sell the car to anyone else. We didn't drive home with our new vehicle, but they were putting in a new radiator for us on their dime. Where is the blessing in that - you ask?

Come Monday, our dealer called us with some good news. He said because we didn't finalize the deal, we could take advantage of their new promotion. There was a $100 coupon online that we could print and bring in for $100 off our vehicle. Then, they just started a new promotion that matches our down payment up to $1,000. So instead of putting down $1,500... it was like putting down $2,600. That lowered our payments even more in addition to getting an already amazing deal on the vehicle.

We are now paying over $150 less on our car payments than we were on the van. We have a new engine, tires, and radiator with a tail light on order. We will have just over a year before our vehicle is PAID OFF! And the best part is no matter what happens with the van - they can't touch this one!

Oh, but the blessings didn't stop there. We're significantly saving on our car insurance now too!

^"The Lord will keep you from all harm - he will watch over your life; the Lord will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore."

Psalm 121:7-8 NIV

A Bad Week

You may have noticed that I haven't blogged since last Friday. This has to be one of the worst weeks on Birch St. It's inevitable that when things start going so well, that the Devil will come along and try to mess it all up. Past mistakes in our life are coming back to haunt us and is leaving us completely stressed out this week trying to deal with it. On top of that, it's getting in the way of something incredibly important we're trying to do which is stressful enough on it's own. There's also all the little annoyances like locking ourselves out of the house on a cold day, neighbors driving through and tearing up our front lawn, and our first mouse situation in years. All in one week!

Side note: I am TERRIFIED of mice. It's my #2 all time fear. My first fear is too personal and weird to talk about. My #3 is drowning/head underwater. But back to the mouse... I'm terrified! I go into a full on panic attack when I see them. It's pretty serious and uncontrollable. People have tried telling me that they are more scared of me than I am of them, but that's just not true. I've had them run over my feet/legs before while cleaning out a closet. I've had them actually on my bed pillow while I was sleeping, eating my hair! So don't tell me they're more scared of me or they wouldn't come so close. Trust me. My fear instinct is to get as far away from it as possible. Them? Not so much.

I think the thing I dislike most about weeks like this is that it's hard to control my feelings around others. I can't even count how many times hubs and I have snapped at each other this week even though we both know it's better to stick together to work this out than fight for no reason. It's hard to not yell at the girls when they're so happy and I'm so upset. So you know how annoying the sounds of a squealing girl is when you're on the verge of tears? Sometimes I am so upset and involved in my problem that I can't even be "mom". I can't even be a very good friend. I feel like I get sucked into my problems and I don't even know what's happening with my friends. I don't always let my friends in on our problems. That's also tough to do. There's nothing they can do really and I try to only ask things of my friends when I know there is something they could do. I'm also very forgetful and I'm not there for people like I should be or when I should be. I'm completely living in the land of sulk and fear.

I suppose the hardest part about weeks like this is prayer. What? Yes. Prayer. I want things to work out but I don't always know what God's answer will be. His vision may not be ours. And I don't want to pray for something and have it not work out that way to the point that I don't understand why and then explain to everyone why God didn't work out what we've been praying for. It's hard to be a Christian and even harder when God doesn't have the same plan you do after you've prayed for something specific. I suddenly don't have "the answers" for anyone.

On the bright side, I do completely trust God to take care of us. He always has and I believe He always will.  It may not be our way, but everything will work out one way or another.

Know this: God, your God, is God indeed, a God you can depend upon. He keeps his covenant of loyal love with those who love him and observe his commandments for a thousand generations. 

Deuteronomy 7:9 (The Message Bible)

WWJD?

WWJD?

I have seen this posted all over my Facebook and Twitter pages more times this week than I have in a whole year. I remember the bracelets being so popular in the 1990s. It might be making a comeback or I might have just fallen off the bandwagon for a couple of decades and not realized it never went out of style.

Whatever happened there, I am seeing it being overused and used in ridiculous situations.

I do love reading about Jesus and the life He lived on this Earth. I understand that we should live our lives as close to the way He lived His as possible.

"Those who say they live in God should live their lives as Jesus did." 1John 2:6

"And as we live in God, our love grows more perfect. So we will not be afraid on the Day of Judgment, but we can face him with confidence because we live like Jesus here in this world." 1John 4:17

That being said, our world is so different now than it was the years Jesus walked the Earth that we can't possibly know what Jesus would really do in every life situation. We couldn't possibly know if Jesus would lay out in the snow in his bathing suit to have a good time. We couldn't possibly know if Jesus would prefer an iPhone or Android. There's no way to tell what television shows He would be interested in or if He would start each day with a cup of coffee. Would He agree that Starbucks is overpriced? 

 

Some things are just a little ridiculous to think about and I think we need to stop overusing the phrase so much. It's getting a little out of hand. Let's stick to what we know about the guy.

Letting Go

While it hasn't been updated in a while, I am so inspired by this blog. I find something new every day that inspires me for a project in my own home. That blog lead me to read this blog. And that blog lead me to this great quote:

What matters most...  

How well you lived.

How well you loved.
How well you let go. 

I think about these things a lot, actually. And I believe it matters most when in reference to beliefs, faith and our life as Christians. 

How well do we live according to how the Bible calls us to live? How well do we love as God loves us? How well do we let go of our troubles and let God have total control of our lives?

Letting go is certainly the hardest part for me. It's so easy to say God is in control of my life and I live my life to glorify the Lord. But do I really? If I really did, then I wouldn't worry as much as I do. I wouldn't be sad as often as I am. John 14:27 says, "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid." It's still so hard to let go and let God take over sometimes. I know God has never failed me when I've called on Him, but I honestly sometimes still forget that I don't have to do this on my own. So.... I'm a work in progress.

While trying to get through the biggest break up of my entire life, I prayed this prayer to God. I told God that I knew I had to let him go. After hearing him say out loud that he was tired of doing the right thing all of the time and wanted to do what he wanted to do and didn't care what God thought about it. I told him that unfortunately for him, I did care what God thought and I couldn't marry (we were engaged) someone who didn't care about God anymore. I hung up on him and poured my heart out to God and admitted that I still loved this guy with my human heart and that my human heart wouldn't let me let go. I needed God to step in and help me let go. And God was faithful in this. A few days after I heard these awful things he said, I think God answered my prayer. This guy had called and let me know that he ran into an ex-girlfriend and thought he might still love her. He said he loved me but was really confused at his feelings toward her and thought he still might carry a love for her too. God knows I don't deal with things like this very well at all and it made it easy to break it off with him. I told him I was breaking off our engagement because I wasn't going to marry someone who might love someone else more than me and certainly not even if she were that close of a second place to me. While I told him he needed to figure it out and I was breaking up with him and calling off the engagement to give him time to do that, I knew that was really God stepping in and helping my human heart let him go. Of course, I ended up calling him back up a month later and he apologized and was ecstatic to hear from me and said he knew as soon as we hung up that I really was the one he loved and the one he wanted to marry. So the engagement was back on. But just before my birthday that following year (and a couple of months before the wedding), he stopped calling for no reason at all. It's like he just disappeared. I left him message after message and no reply. I thought maybe he felt bad about missing my birthday but assured him it was alright and I just wanted to know he was alright. Then once my great grandfather passed away (whom he adored), and there was no reply, I knew it was over. God stepped in once more and didn't give my heart a chance to feel sorry for him and eventually marry him after further apologies. Although crushed at the time, I knew deep down that this was God's move and He was protecting my future from further hurt by this man. I never heard from this guy again till shortly after my engagement to my (now) husband. I think that was a good way to have closure and let go of the past to be able to completely move forward with the relationship God planned for me. God is funny like that. Things we don't understand now, we just have to trust that what's happening is right. And trust me, sometimes it's really hard to understand how something like cancer or death is "right." But it will all be revealed in His time. And if we're truly living our lives for Him, we can wait for that big reveal because we know and trust Him to do good for us and take care of us. The Bible is filled with these promises.

"All things work together for good to them that love God and are the called according to his purpose." Romans 8:28

Do You Know Who You Are?

I woke up this morning bright and early to make it to Standing In The Gap. That's a local faith-based group that helps supply area needy families like mine with food once a month. They also have 30 minutes of a faith-based message and sing some worship tunes before handing out groceries. While the guy who normally gives the message was out today due to a shoulder surgery, I was delighted with the message that was delivered by a guest speaker (youth pastor for Destiny Life Church).

He talked a lot about how important it is to find our identity in Christ. Many times we look to salvation as something that happens after we clean up our life. But that's not true. God accepts us right where we are and clothes us immediately in righteousness. We are not the things our neighbors think about us. We are not who our pasts reflect us to be. We are adored by a God who gives us everlasting unconditional love. 1 John 5-7 says, God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. (NIV Translation)

Then the guest speaker said something that really hit home for me. He said many times, the Devil will try to use who you are in Christ against you. For example, you can be proud of reading those 3 chapters of your Bible today, but the Devil can come right around and point out someone else who read 20 chapters today. It kind of makes you feel bad sometimes that you didn't read as many. Or maybe you've just thrown in $10 more than usual into the offering plate knowing your financial situation was already tight and you may have to do without some things this week, but believe God is going to bless that money and good will be done with it. Later in the day, you found out someone else at your church just bought an entire well to provide clean water for a very needy country. Suddenly your $10 doesn't seem like much and you question your family's sacrifice for a measly $10.

I think in our lives the Devil often makes us look at our troubles and compare them to others. One day I may be frustrated at my children misbehaving and feel I'm really losing it over here. Some other mother may be out there weeping at the death of her child who fought for our country's freedom overseas. Mine suddenly seems a little more trivial.

But does that mean God doesn't care as much about my problem as this other lady? Does God not praise and bless my $10 as much as the clean water donation?

Of course not! And this is where we really need to focus on who we are in Christ so that these thoughts the Devil will place before us don't consume us. God wants to hear us. He wants to help us. He likes to take care of us and bless us. He loves our good works - big and small. He cares about our troubles - big and small. We each have a purpose unique from any other of God's people.

Ephesians 1:7-12 says, Because of the sacrifice of the Messiah, his blood poured out on the altar of the Cross, we're a free people - free of penalties and punishments chalked up by all our misdeeds. And not just barely free, either. Abundantly free! He thought of everything, provided for everything we could possibly need, letting us in on the plans he took such delight in making. He set it all out before us in Christ, a long-range plan in which everything would be brought together and summed up in him, everything in deepest heaven, everything on planet earth. It's in Christ that we find out who we are and what we are living for. Long before we first heard of Christ and got our hopes up, he had his eye on us, had designs on us for glorious living, part of the overall purpose he is working out in everything and everyone. (Message Bible Translation)