Freedom from Anger

Blog? I don't want to blog. I have a blog? I keep one? That's a joke.

I'm too tired to blog.

My back hurts.

My foot hurts.

Okay, I'm out of excuses. I guess I should blog.


Can I just pause here to thank the Lord for coffee? It just helps everything. It makes everything just a little better. I like honey and cream in mine. It's beautiful.

Okay, so onto today.


Can I just say that the past three days have been a big "mom fail" for me. I don't know what we did exactly or why. I can't name specific instances, I just know that there was lots of yelling and screaming and anger coming from all three of us. (Simeon doesn't count, he's just a baby and really, he probably cried the least of all of us.) Aria and Levi kept fighting and then I was distracted and would come in on the end of things and pass out judgement and punishment however I saw fit (probably unfairly). One night Ben was asking if he could run an errand before coming home and I told him he better come home or he might not have three kids by the time he got there.

It was a mess.

I was a mess.

I'm not sure how it creeped in, but I was becoming very angry. Yes, the kids were more needy this week, they are coming down with colds. Aria has been more whiney and has resorted to screaming. Levi has taken up a habit of scaring Aria when he wants her to do things. She will sometimes be okay with being scared, but usually it ends up in her screaming and crying. Then I lecture Levi about not scaring his sister and I say, "next time you scare her, you will get a spanking." Oh the threats. How I hate threatening. How I threaten.

On top of this Ben has been extremely busy at work. His company is implementing a huge new system and he plays an important role in it. He will be working strange, round the clock hours for the next few weeks. All that to say that he is working today. And it's a Saturday.

This morning started when Simeon woke up at 4;15. I nursed him in bed until Levi came in at 5 crying for a cough drop and someone to blow his nose. Ben went ahead and got up to read the Word. I decided to get up and shower at 5:30. Levi came back into our room at 5:45. I told him to go back to bed to which he whined "Nooooooooo!" There was no reasoning with him and I knew if he went and laid down he would just continue coughing. I hate coughs. They are from Satan.

Aria might have started crying at 6, I'm not sure. It doesn't matter.

I don't like mornings like this.

I want to start my morning ALONE. With my husband and the Lord and maybe Simeon, he's quiet so he can stay. I don't enjoy trying to read my Bible with my kids climbing all over me asking when they can eat breakfast. I go and fix them breakfast and then they start fighting, which in the world of a 2 and 4 year old that consists of yelling "Yes!" and "No!" for no particular reason. Jesus, help me, I might yell over all of them.

I sat on the couch wondering if this is what the rest of my day would look like. And I started to cry.

The only thing I could pray was "Jesus, I need You."

I wrote in my journal: Lord, I am struggling! I need You. I am bitter and angry at my kids. I don't want to be around them. They are annoying me. Everything they do is getting on my nerves.
Please help me Jesus! I don't want to feel this way! I want to love my kids. I want to not be annoyed by them. Please! I need You.

Verbatim. Seriously, I just copied that out of my journal. Ah, the rawness of motherhood.

Every morning before Ben leaves we pray. Sitting on the couch Ben and I told our kids to go to their rooms so mommy and daddy could pray. And don't come out or else. Parenting is never perfect right? We are a mess. Without Jesus we are a mess.

So we prayed. I don't remember what Ben prayed. He was in a much better state of mind than I was. I remember confessing my bad attitude and asking that the Lord would give me a new heart. I knew that the day could go either one of two ways: I could continue in my miserable attitude and have a miserable pity party day OR I could cry out to God and He would change everything. I didn't know what that would look like, but I have experienced His new mercies enough times to know that they really are new.

Ben left and I didn't feel any better. I was still angry and still bitter. Still dreading this awful day.

I felt like I needed to ask a friend to pray for me. So often I am willing to pray for others when they are in need, but I neglect to ask for prayer when I'm in need. I have this weird pride thing that says I have to struggle through it alone. It's ridiculous.

So I just sent an emergency text message to a friend who I had been able to lift up a few weeks before because she had sent me a text asking for help.

Then I put my phone away. I knew that Facebook and instagram could not fix any of my problems, as much as I wanted to post on them or run and hide into them, my only need in that moment was Jesus.

I started to pray.

Lord, what should I do?

It was probably 6:45 in the morning. Aria went to my computer and said "Fireworks" This is code for a song Praise Like Fireworks from Rent Collective's Campfire album. The kids LOVE it. I'm starting to get tired of it. But for some reason (maybe it was the Lord) I said, sure. Let's do this.

So we turned it on.

These are the lyrics

You've given us a heart, given us a home

You've given us a heart, given us a home

You've given us a heart, given us a home with You

I lift my voice to praise You

I lift my voice to praise You

My concrete heart won't stop me

My concrete heart won't stop me

I'll sing like it's the first time

I'll sing like it's the first time

And leave behind the cynic

I leave behind the cynic in my soul

We're letting praise like fireworks

Loose from our thankful hearts

We're bringing You our praise, bringing You our lives

We're bringing You our praise, bringing You our lives

We're bringing You our praise, bringing all our lives to You

Through joy and pain we worship

Through joy and pain we worship

With heart and soul wide open

With heart and soul wide open

Your strength will never fail us

Your strength will never fail us

We're not lost in the darkness

We're not lost in the darkness

You are here

Can I just say, that in a moment the Lord spoke into my heart. 

He's given me a heart and a home. I will sing and praise Him and I'm not going to let my concrete, angry, hard heart stop me. I will sing like it's the first time… 

Every lyric in that song was what I needed in that moment. The Lord showed me that there is power in praising Him. Even when I don't feel like praising Him. He gives us new hearts. That was what I needed in that moment. I started dancing around our living room like a crazy person. I did not even care. Worshipping at home where no one can see you but your kids is the BEST way to worship. The looks on Aria and Levi's faces were shock and delight. I was jumping up and down and declaring His praises. I don't know what came over me except that the Holy Spirit was so rich in  our home, it finally felt like I could breathe. All of my anger was GONE. Levi even started to act up and try to scare Aria in the middle of the song and the Lord allowed me to deal with him in my softest, kindest voice. I felt like a new person. 

So we listened and danced to the song a few more times. 

Then we just let the album play throughout the whole morning. I heard from the Lord about several other things I had been struggling with and He gave me a peace about them, a direction to go. 

I picked up my phone a little later and saw that my friend had texted me back. Her text was that she was praying for me and that I needed to PRAISE Jesus and have fellowship with Him. I texted her back and got to tell her that her prayers had been answered. 

I texted Ben and told him that he didn't need to worry about us, we were doing fine and that God is truly good. 

I finally felt free. Free from anger. Free from bitterness. I felt like I could truly love my kids and enjoy them. 

The scripture from Psalm 73 "The Lord is the strength of my life and my portion forever." kept ringing through my head. He is my strength and my song. I needed Him and He came through. 

Thank you Rend Collective for writing that song, the Lord used you in my life. 

Thank You Jesus for being so faithful, even when I have such a bad attitude and an angry heart. Thank You for a new heart. 

"And I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit in you. I will take out your stony, stubborn heart and give you a tender, responsive heart."

 Ezekiel 36:26 NLT

Listening

A friend of mine recently was talking about how she is always in conversation with God. That He directs her, she talks to him out loud while she is washing the dishes, doing the laundry, He tells her to do things that might seem random but she sees why she did them later on and can see how God was working through the situation. She said it's not always like this. She said it's kind of like a muscle that the more she prays and spends time with God the more He speaks to her. The less and less she meets with Him the less she hears from Him. She says she's far from perfect in keeping an ear to Him, but when she does He is so close.

I have been thinking about that this morning. Listening to God and praying, as though He is just walking through the day with you. I was thinking about the book The Practice of the Presence of God which is a book of letters from Brother Lawrence who made it his goal to pray without ceasing. He wondered if that was truly possible, so he tried it. He was a dishwasher, I think in a monastery.

As my friend was speaking about this the other day a thought struck me (probably it was God speaking): is my schedule open enough to just hear from the Lord? Do I have the time, do I take the time to stop and listen? I definitely read the Word every morning, that's a no-questions-asked, I-will-do-this-no-matter-what thing. But after that time of focused time in His Word, how much time do I think about asking Him what He wants me to do?

Lord, teach me to listen to You and Your Holy Spirit that You have put inside of me. Help me to know how to follow You with and without a schedule. I pray that my busyness would not get in the way of Your voice. Tune my heart to Your ear.

Stuff I am learning part 1

The internet is so distracting. It's like a minefield of ADD stuff. All my usual tabs that I check, the home feeds, the messages, the sites I need to check up on... I usually put off or just don't blog because I wasted all my time just being on the internet without a purpose. I'm not going to do that tonight. Another problem I was thinking about is the fact that I'm writing this at 10:30 pm on a Sunday night. Who gets on the internet and reads blogs on Sunday nights? I will probably have like 3 hits by tomorrow (I hate it that I can see how many people have looked at my blog, but it's like I can't keep from clicking on that "stats" button. I keep telling myself it won't effect me... there you go, there's another one of my weaknesses.)

What am I even blogging about? I don't know. Things running through my mind are how I don't really sleep at night, therefore I don't want to go to bed. Or about this morning's worship service and how I got to read scripture as we sang, it was out of Revelation 4 and by the end of it I was yelling (my voice was starting to go hoarse) the part about "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God almighty who was and is and is to come" Afterwards my dad and I were talking about it and he said, "Yeah, that scripture needs to be powerful, if you really think about what was happening and how those powerful angels were falling on their faces... I can't imagine what it will be like for us when we see God."

I am thinking about how reserved we are in the way we pray or the way we worship.  Maybe it's because we are white, maybe it's because it's always been done. I read a blog from our pastor today about prayer and how we need to be living and walking in prayer, how we don't do it enough. For sure this is true, we are never praying enough.

I went to a prayer meeting a few weeks back and it was difficult. I'm just going to be honest. It was hard to sit there and listen to people pray. I kept sitting there thinking, why am I struggling like this? Don't I love God? What is my problem?  I'm going to say something totally controversial on here, but that's okay because only like 3 people will read it... I feel like we settle for boring prayer. As though we have to pray starting with "Father God" throw in a few "dear Lord"s, and end with "in Jesus name" we need to ask for stuff, but not too much, we need to mention the sick people, but don't pray too boldly because if God doesn't heal them, then both we and God will look foolish... we need to pray in pensive voices with our eyes closed, we need to be articulate because others can hear us... all of that is crap. I shouldn't say stuff like that really, but I am so frustrated to hear prayers that sound like God is some sort of thing you say enough "Heavenly Father"s to and then you will get what you want. He is not a weakling and He definitely knows what is going on in our minds. He hears how we talk to our friends and family and it's not with a pensive voice or furrowed brow unless we are really being pensive about something.

Shouldn't prayer be just talking to God? Isn't He our Daddy? I read the Psalms and I wonder if David ever yelled or wept any of the Psalms. We get very passionate at football games, athletic events, concerts, but we act as though when we gather together as believers we need to be dignified.

Wow, I'm suddenly getting so tired. Maybe I can continue this another day.

A Wind is Blowing part 2

I want to post today, but I don't want to post. I usually do not title my blogs until I am done with them. It's like when God created me He was thinking, "she is going to be completely random." I am the kid that takes the long way around the block, I'm not good at sequential thinking, I can almost immediately understand abstract concepts. Yeah. If I could come up with song titles most of them would only be one word or they would be ten words. My favorite title for a song is "Untitled" it says it all. So when I post a title before I begin my blog, it frightens me and I am now chained to that topic. So strange, I know. I just have write and then say, "oh, this is what that was about." Crazy right? I don't know, maybe other bloggers do that too. I like being unfettered.

My eye has been twitching for the past two days. I think I'm just exhausted. The thing is, I don't even care. The past few weeks of going to prayer meetings almost every night, being at church from 7:30-2:30 on Sunday mornings has been so beautiful. I feel like each time I go it is sweeter and sweeter. People confessing sin of pornography, pride, apathy, anger, bitterness, homosexuality, it's amazing. People going downtown to witness to people on the streets, homeless guys coming and our church is able to provide a home, it's crazy. So crazy. People getting baptized, it's so beautiful. People are getting healed and lives are being changed. People are praying over one another and lifting each other up. Monday night both of our pastors through tears asked for prayer and the whole congregation came up and were just praying over them. It was beautiful.

The wind is still blowing. I feel like this is just the beginning of something that is going to happen that will be big. It's not something that is specific to The Summit Church. I believe it's going to bring revival and unity to all of our churches of all nationalities, (Lord, help us, I hate being separated by nationalities), all denominations. I'm continuing to pray.

A Bodily Cleansing :) part 13

I prefer to learn from my mistakes... not make them again. Of course, pride comes before the fall.

As soon as I finished my post yesterday Levi woke up. It was a chaotic afternoon. I didn't want to think about anything, didn't want to put away the laundry, didn't want to fix something for him to eat, didn't want to change his diaper, didn't want to clean the house... You get the picture. Schedules for moms are like a backbone, a way that allows you to do what you need to do. For most new moms, life revolves around the nap time. If nap time ends early, life goes crazy.

All that to say, I ate a brownie. And a banana and some dried fruit and almonds... and a granola bar... I think it was in reverse order. I DIDN'T want to write about this. I thought, "whatever, people don't need to know this, they don't care, I'll just glaze on and go to my next topic on my blog..." But, I don't feel that would be honest. So I will be thankful for these things: eating one brownie doesn't cause someone to gain 10 pounds. (some people say it would cause them to, but that is not possible, a brownie doesn't even weigh 10 pounds). At least I didn't eat the whole rest of the pan of brownies. I will be thankful that the other food I ate was reasonably healthy. I am thankful for a husband who is quick to pick me up, brush me off and helps me to move on. I am thankful we had an enjoyable date that night and didn't even eat dessert (he is a kind man isn't he?). I am thankful that the Lord allows me to be humble.

Okay, with that aside, I just want to tell y'all that I am struggling. I'm not sure what it is, but I'm struggling. I hesitate to share it on here because I don't want pity or for people to feel sorry for me.

After running my errands I took Levi for a walk and was just talking to God today. "God, I don't want to do this. I don't want to go home. I don't want to call someone. I don't want to go see someone, I don't want anyone to come see me. I don't want to be stuck in my house all weekend, I don't want to have people over... " and on and on God just got to hear me complain. I asked God to help my friends. No, couldn't pray for them specifically because I didn't know what to say or how to say it. My speech wasn't eloquent I just asked for some help. Just some help God, You know. I'm tired. I don't want to do this. I kept going and crying out to Him and going and crying out and complaining. I don't know if anyone looked out their window and saw me talking to myself, I told God, I don't want to care about what people think of me. I'm tired. I started to tell Him about how messed up my family is, help my mom as she is helping my grandma and my pre-Alzheimer grandpa go home from Texas to Missouri. Lord, I want my grandpa to come to know you. Even though this is the sunset of his life, maybe he prayed a prayer long time ago, maybe he's saved, but he's not living for You God. My heart LONGS that he would be consumed with love for the Lord. Before his mind leaves him that his mind could be consumed with YOU God! ... Man, I was praying out loud, almost yelling (someone was running their leaf blower, so it didn't matter much).
I was going to the top of this hill and just claiming back my sleep, the sleep of my mom and aunt and cousin back from the enemy. I was sick of Satan stealing from us. I didn't want it for my children, I want to cast off these things!

I got to the top of the hill and saw the clouds and the sky. It was like my face was lifted up. My head was lifted up and all of the sudden it came over me.

"Thank You for being my friend."

Scripture says He is a friend to the down-trodden, to the weary and heavy laiden, to the broken and humble of heart. The thing is, He is a friend who can actually DO something. I have a lot of friends who would probably love to come help me do something about my family, help me straighten out my life, give me some strength, but they can't. He can. He put His Spirit inside of me and he can change hearts. If I ask something He will listen and He has the ability to do it.

He is the author and perfecter of our faith.

He is a loving father.

He is a friend who is more faithful than any friend on the planet.

He knows my sorrows, He has carried my pain, He has born my sins, He carried my iniquities.


And He is not through with me yet.

The Redemption of My Physical Body: part thirteen

I was talking to my husband about my last post. I ended up reading it to him and then realized all the mistakes in it. I am not an editor. I'm a writer. I hate editing and going back over. So I apologize and ask that you please forgive me in this and other posts.

I don't think I finished everything I wanted to say about exercise. What I have learned is that I need to LISTEN to my body. If I am sick (like I am now) or recovering from surgery (like after Levi was born) or something like that I need to rest. My body needs that energy to repair itself. If I am feeling sluggish and lazy, it probably means I need to get out for a walk. It doesn't have to be hardcore running and P90X and all that jazz, just sometimes needs a little lift. Something just to get my body moving. If I feel like I could get out for a run, then I will run. If I feel like I could have a big huge workout, because I have been faithful with my smaller exercise, then that is okay. But I don't have time or energy to work out for several hours a day, and my body is just not in that place.

Walking has also helped my struggle with depression.

Something about being outside, thinking, talking to God, breathing, going as slow or as fast as I feel like is just good for my soul. My brain needs it, my body needs it. I try to get some kind of exercise at least four days a week. Sometimes it will be six days a week (I rarely exercise on Sundays because of my responsibilities at church). I also count a hard day of housework as exercise. If I am doing loads of laundry and vacuuming, washing dishes, fixing dinner and chasing after Levi, then that is plenty of exercise for that day. This has been especially the case with the winter months when it's just not feasible to go out walking in the weather with a little one. I'm looking forward to the summer and the long walks with Levi. He has been a huge encouragement to me. Last summer every time he saw me getting ready and heading to the door he would squeal with delight. Our walks were his favorite time of day. I feel like God used him in my redemption of my body, and that is just one of the ways.

My encouragement to you, if you are stressed and procrastinating, I want to encourage you to just turn off the TV, put on your tennis shoes (you don't even have to change out of your jeans or skirt or whatever) and go for a walk around the block. I say this because I WISH I HAD DONE THIS. So many times I would procrastinate doing laundry, doing homework or whatever by watching TV or something like that. If you don't feel like you can do it, you can for sure go for a stroll. It doesn't have to be high intensity or anything like that, but you will be burning calories, getting fresh air, exercising your heart, freeing your mind, talking to God (complaining to Him if you must, then asking Him to change your heart) :) It's the best kind of procrastination you will ever do. :)

Another thing, with the summer months approaching and the extreme heat, I would usually leave my house at about 7 in the morning, and I was able to walk pretty much the whole summer. I would come home, put Levi down for his nap and then shower. It was the best way, after my time with the Lord at 6, to start my day.

I hope you all are encouraged! Jess, thanks for asking if I would post. I wouldn't have if you hadn't asked. :) This one is for you.

The Redemption of My Physical Body: part five

One of my favorite books is by a woman named Anne Lamott, it's called Traveling Mercies. In the prelude she talks about her "lily pads of faith" where God kind of brought her around bit by bit, kind of from one shaky, wobbly place to the next, that she wouldn't have been able to get there if it had all been in one leap, but it was this growing process. I love that analogy. I'll take it.

So I feel like my journey has been a series of lily pads, learning to trust God, to walk in faith and be led by him.

In high school I didn't think he wanted to have anything to do with this struggle. Those first years in college I began to cry out to him, going back and forth from trust to distrust. I kept just taking it out of his hands and trying to do it my own way, always ending in failure, of course.

My sophomore year I was living with some girls I didn't know very well, I had gone potluck and ended up with a wonderful Vietnamese roommate, another Christian girl and a girl who hated the sight of me. I felt very alone that first semester. I remember biking back to my apartment after being a part of an amazing worship service with dear friends, getting to play piano under one of the most passionate worship leaders I have ever met and just being overwhelmed by a sense of being alone.

You all are totally gonna think I'm crazy, but I'll just share this. I believe I was under some sort of spiritual attack/oppression. I would wake up and feel like I was hitting a brick wall. I wanted to study and to practice my singing, I wanted to exercise, but I couldn't. Many practice sessions would end up in tears, it was almost this physical thing beating me down. It was like my mind was under attack. Some might say that was just depression, my own thoughts... and to some degree I'm sure I helped it. But there were times when I literally could not do what I wanted to do. I ate a lot, slept a lot and watched a lot of TV instead. This of course did not help.

During this time our campus pastor had it laid on his heart to start a 24/7 prayer room. He called us as the leadership to step in and pray, at all hours of the day and night, to fill time slots and make sacrifices to pray. In the prayer room I felt a freedom that I could feel almost nowhere else, except maybe on Monday nights during worship. It was like a relief came over me when I entered. Again, I believe that it was spiritual attack/oppression. Some kind of demonic force or something.

One night in small group, my leader was sharing about seeing a friend of hers freed from spiritual oppression. What? I had never heard of this thing before, but it was like she was describing my life. So in tears I shared what I had been going through and my confusion about my situation and feelings. So they all gathered around me and prayed. I mean prayed! It was like a battlefield of crying out. My friends just lifting me up. I will tell you that I felt the presence leave. I don't mean to be spooky, I'm just speaking from my experience. I got up and I was free.

For the first time in months, maybe years, I didn't feel overwhelmed. I didn't feel afraid as I once was. I was free.

It was as though I needed to be lifted up by others. I was trying to do it on my own with just me and God and he was like, "No Jody, you need community, you need others around you." My life was changed from that point on. I had new eyes for the spiritual that was going on around me.

Another answer to prayer is that my roommate who hated me moved out. We sort of reconciled about a month beforehand, but it was just a relief not to have to deal with her anymore. The other Christian girl had moved out and I spent that next semester having an awesome time with my Vietnamese roommate and her amazing friends. I look back with much fondness on that time.

I guess I shared this story because I feel like there were things that had to be freed in my spirit first before my physical body would reap the consequences. I am just sharing my life on here. I realized the other day that I'm not really sure of how I got to where I am, so I am sort of discovering along with you as I look back. Thank you for sharing with me.