A Journey of Gratitude©

     Contentment has always been something I thought I had to strive to have.  Truth is I wasn’t sure how to even get my mind wrapped around what that meant.  Paul talked about being content in all circumstances. How does one find that when the world throws curveballs at you.  How does one become content in all circumstances when what life dishes out is really hard?

     For most of our marriage we were a one income family.  We chose that life when our kids entered this world. As a family of 7 it didn’t allow us to have much surplus but we always had what we needed.  We had enough to pay our bills and sometimes a little extra for a treat.

    On those occasions we would go to a fast food restaurant and have lunch or dinner out.  You would think we had won the lottery as we ordered our cheeseburgers and fries. The excitement of our children always astounded me.  They had no real idea what they were missing, they saw what they had and were content. A McDonald’s cheeseburger from the dollar menu was the best in their world.  Their gratitude was humbling. I learned a lot from them as I watched them appreciate the little things in life.

    By now, if you’ve read any of the things I post you know I’m a fan of Brene Brown’s books. Her study on shame and vulnerability have really spoken to me.  I find the results of her research to be spot on. One of the things she has spoken on is gratitude.  She states, “We’re a nation hungry for more joy because we’re starving from a lack of gratitude.”

     I realized something as I read those words.  I’m not prone to look for things to be grateful for.

     I can easily succumb to the details of the circumstances I find myself in.  It’s easy for me to see the glass half empty, to notice what’s lacking. It can make me into a real “Debbie Downer.”

     A few months ago a friend and I were discussing gratitude and how bad we were at it. She and I decided to start sharing them with each other.  We both needed a pick me up in the seasons we were walking in. We’ve been texting each other daily ever since. A couple more people have joined me.  It’s one of my favorite parts of my day, especially where we’ve been lately.  

     My husband was suddenly let go from his job almost 6 months ago.  There have been days when the silence from applications have caught up with us.  It’s been hard not to feel the weight of where we are. I work a part time job that doesn’t come close to being what we need for our bills.  It’s been a challenge not to let it pull me down.  

     To quote Brene’ again. “What separates privilege from entitlement is gratitude.”

     As I make the choice each day to look for gratitude I’m finding it changing my perspective, putting me in touch with what really matters.  My outlook on the day quickly changes when I look at what is good in my life, with appreciation and thankfulness.

    That is what I saw with my children as we walked into McDonald’s.  They saw the privilege of a hamburger, fries and coke in a restaurant and were grateful.  It’s all perspective. It all comes down to what I focus on and consider.

    My children saw the simplicity of life and were so very grateful.  It became harder as they grew up and saw the lack we had versus the plenty their peers appeared to have.  The world grabs at us and tells us we are what we have. It all can get so blatantly distorted. It has always challenged me and yet as I look for gratitude in the midst, things are able to shift.  My lens changes.

    I have been astounded by the care of God during this joblessness.  As the weeks tick by I feel more settled than ever in the reality of His great love for me.  Because contentment isn’t about what I have, it’s about who I have.  It’s what makes the difference in a world of “never enough”.

    It’s not about having the latest and greatest.  It’s not about having a bank account that is filled or opportunities to take wonderful vacations.  I can be poor and discontent, I can be wealthy and discontent. The answer is the same, no matter what my circumstances are. Christ in me is the contentment.  The Passion Bible puts Philippians 4:4 perfectly “Be cheerful with joyous celebration in every season of life. Let joy overflow, for you are united with the Anointed One.”

    Yes, it would be wonderful for a company to sweep my husband up and put him in their employment, but it’s not the answer to my contentment.  The secret to my contentment is the reality of knowing that I am united with the Anointed One, the One who overcame the world, the One who fills me with His strength, the One who loves me beyond my wildest imagination.

   The world comes at us in full force telling us to strive for more, to look at things and see where we lack.  God comes and offers us the ability to experience the joy of gratitude in knowing we have all we will ever need in HIm.

    Life with God in this world full of suddenlies can change me from the inside out.  In those difficult places I can lock my gaze on knowing that He is everything in this life I live.  The strength of His explosive power infuses me for every difficulty and that makes me content.

   Gratitude causes me to focus on what really matters. It makes me aware of all I have in Him. He is my contentment.  

    Today I am grateful for the 3 women who have journeyed in gratitude with me over these last few months.  What a beautiful time we’ve had.     

     ©copyright: 2019 Julie H Todd

Love Consumes My Fear©

     The conversation opened up with my daughter as we drove down the road.  She’s grown now, with a family of her own. As we talked she mentioned to me that one of the hardest things was when I didn’t trust her to drive the car.   I was pretty freaked out about the thought all of my babies behind the wheel of the car. But the truth is, I’ve lived with so much fear about so many things.

     I can still go there, don’t get me wrong. But as I’ve begun to understand the acceptance and love of God, it’s not as crippling as it once was.  

     One of those things that I was told for so many years is that fear is the opposite of faith.  I was ashamed for my fear, as I felt that somehow I was letting God down, that is, until I began to consider my children.

     There were times when one would wake up in the night from a nightmare or maybe the sound of a thunderstorm.  One child was afraid to leave us for a season of their lives. My reaction was not to be disappointed in them for being afraid, but instead to wrap my arms around them and tell them everything will be OK.  As I held them tight, love won over their fears and they settled into a deep sleep.

     It’s how I see God now, when fear knocks on my door.  He’s not the least bit bothered by it. In fact it’s His opportunity to surround me and remind me that everything’s going to be OK. He covers me with His great love and care and I find an ability to let go and rest. His love is consuming my fear.

     It wasn’t always this way as so much of my life I didn’t see God through a very loving lens.

     I couldn’t find a way to marry the God of wrath that had been shown to me through the Old Testament with the God of the New.  I’m stunned as I begin to see things through a different lens, now.  

    The Old Testament begins with the story of perfect love.  It ends with 400 years of silence. In between are stories of life with man as his own god.  It’s pretty intense to read, sometimes. The wars, the deaths, the betrayals, the sheer forgetfulness of love and then there was silence.

    The New Testament opens with the genealogy of Christ.  Perfect love was beginning to take back over this broken world and would change the lives of all mankind, forever.  To any and all who would receive, it waited to be given.

    How did it all get so distorted in this life of mine, I wonder.   Oh I heard of the reality of God’s love for me but the litany of things to do took me right back into the Old Testament life..  As I spoke with my daughter I told her what that did for me. It created a boatload of fear.

     I remember being told how important my quiet time was and that if I really loved God I would do it first thing in the morning.  On my way to work one day I had a flat tire. As I told someone their first response was “Did you have your quiet time this morning?”  No, I had not. “That’s probably why you had a flat tire.”

    I felt responsible for the bad things that happened.  I didn’t know how to just equate it with a broken world.

    There were many voices in my head from years of exposure to religion.  One by one I’ve had to consider them as they come into my mind. Is this the God I see in Christ?  Jesus told us, “If you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father.”

    I had to get past some things to begin to comprehend.

    I had been told that if I had any unconfessed sin in my life that God could not hear me. Talk about fear, what if I missed one?  The scripture that supported this teaching was from the moment on the cross when Jesus said, “my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”  I was told that God could not look on sin so he turned his back on Jesus. I believed it. I was wrong.

    All throughout the scriptures it says “I will never leave you or forsake you.”  So what was Jesus saying I began to consider? I believe Jesus felt His humanity.  I believe that he felt the burden of sin on Him. He felt the separation of what sin does.  He felt what all of us feel when the weight of what this broken world weighs us down. Why do I think this?  Because to think otherwise goes completely against God’s nature.   

    What I was told about this life with God often seemed to be conflicting.  I’ve spent many moments considering things that I’ve been taught that don’t reconcile to love.  I’ve learned most from considering my own mind and heart in regards to my children. How would I be?  What would I do? But more importantly how was Christ?

    When He met the woman at the well He boldly approached her.  She hadn’t confessed one sin to him. He stepped into the arena with her and offered love.

    When the New Testament started it started with a litany of broken people who had no real clue they would be in the lineage of the greatest man who ever lived.  His seed was in them. They bore life to what was already there. It’s the life we are all invited into now.

    “The old with its regulations and requirements is gone, Paul said in Corinthians.  It revealed what life lived on our own huspa looks like. It didn’t work.  

     There’s a new life now.  It’s the life of perfect love offered to me, every single day.  Perfect love truly does drive out fear. I live to tell.

©copyrighted 2019 Julie H Todd

      

           

 

Learning to Dance©

      There is something that I love about watching someone learn to dance for the first time.  One of my favorite movies is an old movie called “Strictly Ballroom.” What captures me is the sheer pleasure you see on the young dancer’s face as she discovers she can dance.  It’s not where she starts but where she ends up. I never tire of seeing the transformation.

     She has to learn to trust her instructor.  She places her hands into his and he begins to speak one word at a time, revealing where to put her foot, how to arch her back, how to trust in his lead.  She comes alive in the dance. She had no idea she had it in her, but she did.

     I think one of the reasons I’m drawn to this story is because it resembles my journey in so many ways.  When I got to the end of performing I had no clue what life was supposed to look like. I had spent so many years checking off boxes and doing requirements that I wasn’t really sure where to put my foot.  All I knew was that I couldn’t go back, even though to do nothing felt unnerving. It was time for me to learn a new dance, one that would bring me to my freedom.

     It went against everything I had been taught but as I look back now I can see that this was  the step I had to take. I had to get away from the rituals in order to find the love.

     You see in God’s economy I was made to receive all that He is for all that I need.  But when Adam made the choice he did, I, along with the rest of mankind, was plunged into an economy of achieving, performing, and acquiring. It was an economy of law, do the right thing, try harder to be better.  It’s a life of “Yes, Jesus loves you, BUT, you must _______.” It dominated and drove me.  

     I had heard so many statements that left me full of guilt and shame.  “After all God’s done for you, what will you do for Him?” There was pressure to know for certain that all my sins had been confessed.  I feared I would miss one. I had been told God couldn’t hear me if there was even one not taken care of. “If Jesus came back today would you be ready?” Would I be ready if He showed up?  There was a great pressure to try to make sure I was.

     Before we could participate in communion we had to make sure all our sins were confessed or that we had made amends with anyone we had hurt.  If not, the cup and bread would have to pass us by. I can’t tell you how many times David and I passed them up due to a bad conversation on the way to church that had not been made right.

    Quiet times were evidence of my spirituality and proof of my allegiance, preferably first thing in the morning as that showed the importance God was to me.  That was a hard one for this non-morning person. So much of what I did was because I was told I must. No matter what I did the list of things to get past, learn, put on, was insurmountable.  

    It was all so screwed up.  When I came to the point of sheer exhaustion I realized it.  There was so much that had to be left behind in order to know the love that God had offered me. I had to unlearn what I had learned.  

   As He turned my steps away from the striving I had known, I began to wrestle with my belief alone.  Would it be enough?

    My normal quiet time stopped, my prayers lists went away, I didn’t open my Bible, nor did I want to attend a Bible study.  I was way beyond burned out. All I had left was my belief in a God who loved the world. I hoped it would be enough.

    When all you have is belief you discover that belief is all you really need. 

    It didn’t happen overnight.  It has been a process of maturing into what is truest about me, and Him. I discovered that I had received a lot of wrong information about Him.  It’s been the hardest part of all. I’ve had to relearn so much about who He really is and what He truly desires for and with me.  

    You see it all got mixed up when Adam chose to eat the fruit from the tree.  It’s all on display throughout the Old Testament. Follow the storyline, from Genesis on and you will see, the pressure was on the individual to keep the law.  Achieving was the name of the game.

    The problem is that no one could do it.  Of all people, you would think the children of Israel could. After all they had witnessed incredible miracles.  They couldn’t get it right. They were constantly told to “remember” all God had done. They failed miserably.

     God knew it would happen, but He had to let them see for themselves, just as He did for me.  He had a plan all along. It’s what the New Testament is all about.  

     It’s what I began to find when I stepped onto the dance floor of grace.  It took me a while to get comfortable but I stayed because the more I unlearned, the more I gained.  I learned to trust Him like never before. I learned that all of this life really is on His shoulders, not mine.

      The gospel is so very simple.  I am loved, completely, totally, right where I am.  I don’t earn it, I don’t deserve it, it’s offered freely and I have the chance to receive it. There aren’t any  “Jesus loves you but_____”. I no longer have to try to make myself better. All that was messed up has been made right.  Unconditional love, love that requires nothing, is mine for the taking.

     I am encouraged to receive, every, single day the free gift of love and belonging.  It’s not measured by my church attendance, my Bible study, my prayer list, my witnessing or any of the lists I once knew and lived.  It’s a gift freely given to all who will receive.  

     It’s what God had in mind all along.  Love, He freely gave with hope we would freely receive. Oh how I love this dance.

©copyrighted:  2019 Julie H. Todd

 

     

 

    

 

    

      

     

 

     

Changing Identities©

     Love changes everything.  It changes the way we see and act from the inside out.  Getting there can be the difficult part. The voices of the world don’t help. Everything around us grades our achievements.  It starts early. 

      I always hated report card day in school as not only was my ability to grasp what I was learning graded, so was my conduct.  There were always the little notes “Julie can’t sit still” or “Julie talks too much in class.” It doesn’t take much to feel like you just can’t get it right.  Report cards seemed to be an evaluation of me. I didn’t like seeing the alphabet on the card sent home, especially when it came to my conduct assessments.  

     I moved through life with one place after another demanding I achieve something.   It was easy for voices to become implanted, telling me whether I was up to par. Getting past all of that to allow myself to be loved has been daunting.  I have often wished I could be someone else.  

     II Corinthians 5:17 says “If any man be in Christ He is a new creation, the old has gone, the new has come”.  I’ve given a good bit of consideration to that. I mean I am still me, so what is it that’s new anyways?

    Throughout the scriptures there are stories of seriously dysfunctional people whose lives are changed forever.  The gospels are full of them. One word from Jesus does it. “You are forgiven, go and sin no more.” He compels them to leave the life they’ve known and embrace the life they’ve been given.  

   What does it mean to be given a new identity in Christ?  The thought of it baffles me yet I’m convinced life hinges on grasping what it’s all about. 

    Butterflies have always amazed me.  To think that they were once a caterpillar is mind boggling.  A butterfly looks nothing like a caterpillar yet they share the same DNA.

    The old has gone.  All that stuff that evaluated and graded me, begging me to work harder to achieve more, to be accepted is gone.  Whether I can fully see it or not, it’s gone. All my wrong decisions, all that “badness” has been forgiven once and for all.  In fact there is no memory of it. There are no traces of the old life as far as God is concerned. To Him I am complete, pure and fresh as a baby out of the womb, embraced and loved beyond my wildest imaginations.

    To be loved for who I am, apart from anything I have to do or have done is the new beginning I am given.   It makes the words of Jesus in scripture make sense. He wasn’t expecting perfection He was telling us that we are no longer defined by what we do or don’t do.   We are now complete because He is the completion that lives in us.  

     It’s the caterpillar becoming the butterfly.

     I am still me but something is drastically changing as I begin to learn that knowing love is enough.  The pressure to achieve is being left behind. I no longer need to perform to be accepted. I already am.  Take me or leave me I am who I am.

    The Samaritan woman left her old life behind and ran to tell her friends.  They found life for themselves. The leper was healed and restored back into the community.   Where they had been living isn’t where they were anymore. They had met love. It changed everything.  They entered a new way of living.

     That’s my story, in so many ways.  A striver and performer in the religious community brought me to a place where I just couldn’t do it anymore.  I couldn’t pick up my Bible to do my ritual quiet time as I had been so strongly instructed to do. I couldn’t pray a prayer list or filter through the sin list to see if I’d covered them all.  I didn’t want to attend a Bible study to learn more stuff to do. I was so burned out on achievement that I just couldn’t so I didn’t. 

     If believing wasn’t enough then it would all fall apart, because it’s all I had.   It’s then I began to really find what love really looks like. It’s there I found God.

    All that stuff that I did for so long just kept me from what I had always wanted.  Religion is a sin focused life that shrouds with shame. There is always something I could do better.  It’s the old covenant way of living where everything is up to the person.

     God didn’t love me for what I did.  He loved me because it’s what He does.  After all, He created us to love us in ways that are above our wildest imaginations. 

     The Samaritan woman left the life she’d known behind when she met love.  So did I.

     I didn’t take on a new personality.  I accepted being loved and I began to spread my wings.  I no longer have to achieve anything. There are no standards or criteria to meet.  There is no grading system. No one is keeping record of my wrongs. I am complete, just as I am, because I am loved by a very big God.

     The new identity is what God offers in the new covenant that Jesus made.  It’s an end to the laws and regiments the old one demanded.  It’s an invitation to leave it all behind and enter the world of being enough.  

     Becoming a new creation is accepting the new life you’ve been given.  His for yours.

©copyrighted: 2019 Julie H Todd