All Things Hold Together

I mentioned a few times in the past that I had some struggles with my faith last year. I wrote a couple of posts that laid it all out there, but I never published them.

I decided that I do want to share, but since this is a long post and not everyone will be interested in the subject matter, I am going to snip it here. Click the link if you want to read on.

In the beginning of 2007, our next-door neighbors moved away. We were very close and the kids were best friends with their kids.

Well, our neighbors were driving across country to Seattle, WA from Vermont and this was a vision that God had put on their hearts for seven years. He was doing amazing things bringing all of the components together for the move. Then their van broke down two weeks before they were to set off on their trip.

When I first heard about it, my first thought was to give them our mini van. Our mini van with 45,000 miles on it. Our mini van, which we had just paid off. Our mini van that was the nicest car I have ever owned, and probably will ever own as long as we are a one-income family (which is to say until Little E (age 4) grows up).

I quickly put that thought out of my mind!

I was telling Bob about their van and he said that he had heard about it. Then, he said that his first thought was that we should give them our van. My husband, my very practical husband, my husband that it took me months to convince that we should tithe because he is so practical about money (read: such a tight wad), said that his first thought was to give them our van. Our paid off van that we could not afford to replace.

All I could think was: this is God. It has to be. There is no other way that Bob or I, let alone both of us, would think to give away our most prized possession. (Did I mention that it was a beautiful sea green and had NO rust? In Vermont. No rust!)

We prayed for days, maybe even a week, about it and were both completely at peace that this was the right thing to do and that God would provide us with all we needed. So, we gave our van to our neighbors.

At their going away party, everyone was telling us how God was going to bless us.

Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. -Luke 6:38 (NIV)

I was hesitant to set my own mind on what God would do for us. I even made peace with the idea of being home without a car all summer. After all, I had been praying about losing weight (as in, needing the will power to diet and exercise), so maybe this was the answer to my prayers. We would have to walk everywhere. (We live in the city.)

Well, as it turned out, I was not able to walk anywhere.

The D had been struggling with some mental health issues brought about by a trauma the prior summer, and for a time, he became very violent. During one incident, he kicked me in the knee and I have only recently stopped having daily pain.

My knee flared up almost daily all summer. No biking. No walking. And, since our only car is a standard, any time I took Bob to work and used the car, I was guaranteed not to be able to walk at all the following day because my bad knee is the same one used to push in the clutch pedal.

It was an awful summer. Our best friends had moved. We had no car. I could barely walk most days. The kids were mopey and depressed. The D was having violent outbursts, that had become worse after his friends moved.

As the days went on, my resentment grew. This is what I get for my obedience? This is what I get for giving away my van?

I was mad. I was mad at God. Only, I didn’t realize it for a long time. I only felt…indifferent.

One day, I went for a ride by myself and the CD player was on. Bob had been listening to Kutless‘ Sea of Faces album and it was playing, but the volume was low and I hadn’t noticed it.

All of the sudden I heard,

“I know that, that you blame me for all that you go through
It could be so different if you would just let it go.”

I felt like God was talking to me. I did blame him for all that I had gone through that summer. I turned up the volume.

“You’re all alone
Running out of ways to
Hold on to hope
And it always slips away
You’re all alone
But you don’t have to
Pretend to cope
There is a brighter way

If you would change your perspective
You’d see that it is true
Life is not always what you want
Sometimes it’s hard to bear
I’d be with you, and help you in all that you go through
I love you, let Me change your heart by coming in

You’re all alone
Running out of ways to
Hold on to hope
And it always slips away
You’re all alone
But you don’t have to
Pretend to cope
There is a brighter way”

Tears were streaming down my face. I felt so bad. I felt so sorry. I know all that Jesus did for me. How could I be so selfish? He doesn’t owe me a van, or a healed knee, or a child without mental illness.

I thought things were better, but it was only temporary. I continued to feel indifferent, only now, I felt guilty about it.

Then one day, I was reading an article on Christian Women Online, written by one of the bloggers in my reader, and I noticed a link for an interview with Candace Cameron Bure. I read it and in it she referenced her brother Kirk Cameron’s ministry with Ray Comfort - The Way of the Master.

I was checking out the site and I watched a video called, “Satan’s Best Kept Secret.” In it, they talk about the touchy-feely way that most churches evangelize these days. What they fail to do, though, is prepare the heart by convicting us.

We hear a lot about how much God loves us, and about grace, and about forgiveness, but we do not hear the message that we deserve to go to Hell for breaking God’s laws - that we are not “good enough” to live in eternity with God.

I had never heard this.

In the church’s effort to be “seeker friendly,” I was never shown that despite being a pretty good person, by worldly standards, I do not deserve to go to Heaven.

I had started to feel entitled to God’s blessings because I was doing all of the “right” things - tithing, going to church, praying, reading the Bible, giving away our van. And when I started to see that my life was not any better than other people, even some who were not Christians, I was bitter.

When I watched this video, I realized that I am completely unworthy of God. It put me in my place.

I was not able to be new in Christ because my old self had not been completely broken down. And I needed to be broken down.

The amazing thing is that even if I had missed that link that night, the next day, that same video was posted on a blog in my reader, Simple Pleasures, and I would have seen it then.

This was obviously something I needed to see and I was going to see it one way or another.

It still took a while for me to get things sorted out. Everything is so complicated, so paradoxical.

I mean, I am not supposed to feel bad, but I am supposed to understand that I am not good.

The key really is that everything needs to be viewed from God’s perspective, not mine. That is where my selfishness was getting the better of me and really keeping me from God.

From God’s perspective, I am not worthy of Heaven. I have not kept His laws. I have sinned.

At the same time, from God’s perspective, I was worth dying for. He wants to have a relationship with me. He wants to forgive me.

But I am not better than anyone else, either. Being a Christian does not make me better. Making good choices (from a Biblical perspective of what is good) does not earn me bonus points. I am still human. I still struggle against the flesh - some days more than others.

I am better than my old self. Being a Christian makes me live better. Making good choices earns me a peace that I could never even imagine before I knew Christ.

I was too blinded by the desires of this world to see the real blessings that I had all along, which is a God who loves and stands by me to carry me through all of the pain that we experience in this fallen world.

Gee, that’s kind of better than a van when I put it that way.

Here are links to the Kutless song, All Alone, quoted above.

With lyrics on a blue screen.
With a picture of the band (and lyrics written in the “about” section of the video).