Laundry Day

It’s Monday and I’m doing laundry.  Why? Because I was taught that Monday was laundry day.  “Why Grandma? Why is Monday laundry day?”  “Because it’s the way we do it.”  When I got older Ma Ingalls helped me to understand why: 

“Each day had its own proper work.  Ma would say:  ’Wash on Monday, Iron on Tuesday, Mend on Wednesday, Churn on Thursday, Clean on Friday, Bake on Saturday, Rest on Sunday.’ ”

~ Little House in the Big Woods

So, I try. Life gets in the way and I can’t always get the laundry done on Monday and when I don’t  - I feel as though I am turning my back on a time honored tradition.  In Laura Ingalls and my grandma’s day, laundry wasn’t hit the start button, but an all (well three) day affair. Yet, it is also is a non-stop process because laundry is dirty before you even are finished with the current load! As you sit there reading this, those clothes you have on will be hitting the laundry eventually!  Some laundry is absolutely filthy (think construction, garden, cow yard, wet dog) and some is a little lighter, but in the end - laundry is laundry. And the fact is, you can add all the soap and fabric softener you want, but without water nothing happens…nothing is washed away.

Sin can be a bit like laundry.  Some sin is staining and deeply embedded and some is unintentional but ultimately like the laundry sin is sin and without the water it remains with us.  Wellhouse, a local church, gives people being baptized a shirt that reads, “Left it in the water.”  I love that imagery.  Just like the dirtiest of laundry, we too leave it behind in the water and not just on the day of our baptism, because sin is going to keep coming back at us like chocolate stains on the shirt you borrowed from your sister.

I didn't make the choice to get baptized until I was in my 50s! My parents had baptized aka christened me and I didn’t want to somehow belittle what they had done for me.  Then I came to understand that being baptized after the age of accountability is a public profession of faith and I am all for that! Jesus wasn’t sprinkled by Mary and Joseph, He got down in the Jordan River and got wet!  Jesus, He who was without sin, got baptized! Mark 1:9-11 paints the picture for us, “At that time Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. Just as Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: ‘You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.’”

Even as life changing as being baptized can be, it can’t keep us from sinning, because we will and we do. It is the grace of Jesus that erases those sins time and time again better than the best laundry stain remover.  And it’s ok! Just like we don’t wash our favorite t-shirt once and expect it to stay clean forever, we put it back in the wash water.  1 Peter 3:21 assures us, “and this water symbolizes baptism that now saves you also—not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge of a clear conscience toward God. It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ.”

Still, baptism doesn’t save anymore than not being baptized will prevent you from being in Heaven. Ephesians 2:8-9 clearly tell us, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.”  Yes, baptism is an important expression of your faith, a pledge-like vow similar to a wedding vow, but the first step to life everlasting is professing your belief in the Lord Jesus Christ and asking him in your heart.  You can do that! RIght here and now! Say:

Dear Lord Jesus, I know that I am a sinner, and I ask for Your forgiveness. I believe You died for my sins and rose from the dead. I turn from my sins and invite You to come into my heart and life. I want to trust and follow You as my Lord and Savior.

If you prayed that prayer for the first time, please let me know so I can celebrate with you and come alongside you for the journey.  And if you renewed your faith with that prayer and are ready to get wet, reach out to me-  I know people!

Best Year Ever!

 

Someone recently asked me, “What was your best year?” So what makes a best year? The year I was born? The year my children were born? The year I landed my dream job?

Naturally, I reviewed my life like a notable highlight reel. I thought of my days as a young girl spent blissfully on the back of my horse roaming and rambling the dense oak woods of our family farm. With arms spread wide, with a smile to match, face to sky in utter bliss, she could have never imagined what was still to come.

I pondered the flutter in my soul when meeting – the one. The explosion of love that erupted from my heart the moment I held my newborn son. That young mother could never have imagined there would be enough room to love even more when my daughter was born.  And when a mother turned to grandmother, there was yet another trajectory adventure!

They say when the date of your birthday matches the age you are turning – it’s your golden birthday and the year that follows is supposed to be your best year.  Given that logic, no one past the age of 31 would have a best year! So, is it possible that every year can be your best year to date?

My golden birthday was when I turned 23. I was in the middle of a Saudi Arabian desert serving in the United States Army. We were caught in a once-a-century flashflood and I spent the day digging trenches to drain the desert. Perhaps not the most fun birthday – definitely not like the year I turned 6 and my parents threw me a surprise birthday party - but certainly a very memorable birthday.

That year went on with highs and lows. A most notable high was returning stateside to be reunited with my husband on our 1^st anniversary! A notable low was returning with lung damage that ended my military career. Each dawn ushers in an accumulation of days that quietly multiply into a year -each one dripping with unknown promise and yes, each year, the low tides have come with their loss and heartache.

Historian and 20^th Century writer, Alice Morse Earle wrote, “Every day may not be good... but there's something good in every day.”  I challenge us to see our years in this way too. Like ocean waves, there will be best moments at the high tide and the harder, worst, least, lean times at low tide. Still, each depends on the other as the waves never return to the shore in exactly the same way.  We too never end the day in the same way as we started. Therefore, the person you are today is distinctly different than who you were on January 1^st and not who you will be on December 31^st.

Although we are constantly changing, Hebrews 13:8 tells us, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.”  Jesus is our rock that cannot erode. He is our lighthouse that cannot be lost. We don’t have to be stuck in the low tides of life because Jesus already washed us clean. His renewal simply waits for you to ask! The love He felt for you on the day He died on the cross is the same love He felt walking out of the grave and is the same incredible love He feels for you when you come to Him broken from being rolled in the waves or giddy from playing all day in sonshine.

So, I believe I would have to say, most certainly, that my best year to date ….is the one that is still to come…and the one after that….and after that… until Jesus returns to take me home!

Hey Jelly Roll?

 

Hey Jelly Roll, FFDP?

 

Ok let’s be clear right up front, I am not randomly picking on Jelly Roll or Five Finger Death Punch. They are just the two I have experience with and yes, I do listen to them.  I’ve been listening to FFDP since they first were on MySpace. Yup, I said it My. Space.  I’ve seen them in concert and I was due to see Jelly Roll, but can’t (story for another day.)  Yep, it’s true, I don’t always listen to Christian music although it is so easy to because of the wide spread scope of music genres these days. There is no longer a one size fits all Christian music scene. With groups like Richlin, Demon Hunter, and Rivers & Robots, you can go from coffee house to bringing down the house in a click!  Still, I step out of that zone because frankly I enjoy Jelly Roll’s sound and the heavy music of FFDP, sometimes, until I don’t.  

I was recently reading an article about Jelly Roll acknowledging a veteran in the audience of a concert. Not only did he recognize him, but gave a lifetime pass for any future Jelly Roll concerts! Super cool, despite me wondering how many other veterans in the crowd were thinking, “Well <expletive> Shoulda worn my hat tonight!”  Still, super cool!

FFDP makes entire videos highlighting serious causes like veteran homelessness, mental health needs, and suicide. This shows me a real and deep level of respect for other people.  I think, “Wow, what a power houses these guys could be for Jesus!”  I’m not saying ditch the label and go full on Christian music, but is it possible you are doing more harm than good, because in both cases they misuse the name of God.  I don’t mean in a 3^rd commandment sort of way. I mean speaking for God in a way God would never speak.   Get your facts straight guys, because people are listening!  You could be hurting the very people you want to be helping.

This stuff matters, it really does. Like I said, people are listening and they need hope not hopelessness!  Music touches people deeply and I find it irresponsible to propagate misinformation which creates hopelessness. Hopelessness is a killer.  Think I’m making this up? Have you heard the term deaths of despair? Not depths but deaths! A National Library of Medicine article states,

The term deaths of despair comes from Princeton economists Anne Case and Angus Deaton, who set out to understand what accounted for falling U.S. life expectancies. They learned that the fastest rising death rates among Americans were from drug overdoses, suicide, and alcoholic liver disease. Deaths from these causes have increased between 56% and 387%, depending on the age cohort, over the past two decades, averaging 70,000 per year.

 

You could argue that music is just a form of entertainment and not a message, but music affects our limbic system. It literally makes that part of our brain’s network react! That’s why music can amp you up or calm you down or put you to sleep or make you cry. Music is a message! Here’s an example:  Third Day wrote a song called I Need a Miracle.  They wrote it because they met a family after a concert whose son intended on committing suicide and went to the woods, but his radio was stuck on a Third Day song called Cry Out to Jesus. The man couldn’t go through with his plans and went home to live! Cry Out to Jesus was written about a family that lost a son. Tragedy happens, but Third Day saved a son by writing hope into a tragedy of a lost son.

I want to love FFDP’s song Wrong Side of Heaven, but I can’t it because of a huge error! I’m not addressing the whole female role of God, but the falsehood is that God is ashamed of us. The notion that God would ever be ashamed of us for doing what is right is the most hopeless message you could deliver in a song dedicated to veterans that desperately need hope!! You can’t just roll the organizations willing to help in the end credits of your video! They need to hear hope from you! Your words need to speak life! The radio doesn’t scroll silent credits!

Ask Mission 22 to fact check about the 22 veterans that commit suicide every day. I’m a Desert Storm Army veteran.  That part of the song cuts me every time I hear it and I can’t unhear it. Fellow soldiers, we were put in some unthinkably ugly places by a devil that prowls the earth but we did it. Don’t be ashamed of that and don’t let anyone project their shame of not answering the call on us! 1 Peter 5:8 says, “Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.”  Think of how we said, “Stay alert, stay alive!” and we stood up for right against that roaring killer. Ephesians 6:12 says, “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” Again, never forget that we answered that call.  We may have done things we didn’t want to, didn’t mean to, and can’t forget, but that could never EVER make God ashamed!

FFDP my brothers in arms need light and hope not a lie saying the Almighty Creator of their very being is ashamed of them! Mark 8:38 says, “If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels.” That means in this broken world if your sole aka 1 purpose is to deny God’s soul purpose on your life and live in the most debauched way possible then you have turned your back to Jesus and His gift of eternal life. People that willingly gave up security, comfort, freedom, family, and home to fight for others – flat out NO WAY – no shame there. Note the incredible amount of warriors that are in the Old Testament!

FFDP rocks the world with a suicide prevention song, Coming Down and the video is chilling, but when the lyrics cry, “Does anyone hear my final prayers?” the question goes unanswered. YES! Jesus heard every prayer. 1 John 5:14 answers this question! “This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.” Does a lack of an answer to the question leave people believing the answer was no! My heart breaks that people are gravitating to this song in crisis, but not given the only real and true solution. JESUS! He actually answered this question himself in John 14:6, “Jesus answered, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life.’”

FFDP’s song Wash It All Away asks:

I'm wasting here

Can anyone

Wash it all away?

I'm waiting here

For anyone

To wash it all away

Wash it all away!

Well, duh! Yeah, Jesus!  Acts 22:16 gives my favorite answer to this, “And now what are you waiting for? Get up, be baptized and wash your sins away, calling on his name.” If I am riding with my husband, we never make it through this song, because I can’t stop answering, “Yes, Jesus! You need Jesus!” and he hits skip. Sorry not sorry, babe.

I could go on, but I don’t want Jelly Roll to feel neglected in my unsolicited advice. Jelly Roll has Son of a Sinner. He says,

Might pop a pill and smoke and maybe drink

Talk to God and tell Him what I think

At first He's gonna hate me

But eventually He'll save me

So let’s break this down. God isn’t your first choice to fix things. You’ll turn to him after pills and smokes and drinks don’t work. Well, at least he admits none of that crap is useful, but the part that makes my head explode is that Jelly Roll says God will hate me but eventually save me! Pass me my John 3:16 sign, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” Don’t get me wrong, God hates sin! It keeps you from living your best life, and He hates it because the best life is what He wants for you because He loves you so incomprehensibly much! Romans 8:38-39 says, “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

So, then Jelly Roll you go on to break my heart again with Save Me!  Dude, the pills, the drinking, the smoking, didn’t work before why keep returning?  You know the quote by Werner Erhard, “'Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.” Side note: Albert Einstein is wrongly tagged for saying this. See what a little fact checking can do?? I’m also here to tell you no one is damaged beyond repair. Seriously, a thief was hanging on the cross right next to Jesus they were dying together and Jesus says, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise” in Luke 23:43. Let’s sit down sometime and talk about the artist formally known as Saul, but we know him as Paul today. (If you’re curious about this transformation check out Acts 9!)  Lastly, the title alone says it all – Save Me – ok Jesus will! Titus 3:5 says, “He saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy.” You don’t have to come to Him in perfect working order to be saved! Just ask!! Pray this!

Dear Lord Jesus, I know that I am a sinner, and I ask for Your forgiveness. I believe You died for my sins and rose from the dead. I turn from my sins and invite You to come into my heart and life. I want to trust and follow You as my Lord and Savior.

I hope you prayed that prayer if you haven’t before especially you Jelly Roll! Is it in the name of a record label and the belief you need to keep people miserable to sell? Like the news, if it bleeds if it leads? I don’t know, but it makes my heart hurt for people spiraling into hopelessness. These are just two big names, big labels that I know from personal experience that are perpetuating using the name of God in a way that belittles our Creator and inaccurately portrays His Mighty Power. In a world where people are obsessing over clean living, what goes into your mind is as important as what is fed through the mouth! I’m guilty, I’ve supported their music.  If I boycotted them, zero people would notice. Correction, my husband would notice. I honestly don’t have a good solution other than to say, “Hey Jelly Roll, FFDP! Fact check your lyrics! PLEASE! I’ll help you!” I’ll continue to be praying on this for sure! God can move mountains, one day if I pray hard enough Jelly Roll and FFDP just might be winning Dove awards!

Holey Rocks or Holy Rock?

On a recent visit to the ocean, I found a rock with a perfect hole through it.  As I picked it up, I thought this wasn’t the first time finding one.  Sure enough, when I got home, I found it hanging forgotten by the window.  I had put it on a string, hung it, and promptly forgot about it. There is a Celtic Legend about holey stones, these stones with a perfect hole worn all the way through it.  Legend says that only good luck can pass through the hole because it was created by moving water and moving water is impervious to magic or spells. So, I had hung it by the window like a farmer hanging a horseshoe over a barn door. Legend goes on to say that you don’t find a holey stone, they find you and if one is broken, then it saved a life.  

I admit I enjoy the heritage of my Celtic ancestors. The fanciful side of me creates fairy houses, makes wishes on dandelions, and searches for four leaf clovers. Yet in reality, I am less inclined to place my life in the hands of a stone, even if it “found me” because I know that Jesus is my true rock and foundation. 1 Samuel 2:2 says, “There is no Rock like our God.” Breaking down the legend and comparing it to Jesus is easy! Jesus the living water is truly impervious to evil. John 7:38 tells us, “Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” When Jesus saved my life by dying on the cross, stones were broken. Matthew 27:51 says, "The earth shook, the rocks split .”  Then, three days later a stone was rolled away announcing His glorious resurrection!! Luke 24:2 tells us, “They found the stone rolled away from the tomb.” 

Honestly, I could go on and on with the comparisons! So, consider this if you will. Some of the holey stone legends pre-date Jesus’ birth.  There are different names for the stones on practically every continent yet the alleged powers are all very similar. Is it possible our ancient ancestors were searching to explain the unknown? Something they knew they were missing, but hadn’t heard about yet? Deep inside every human heart is an innate desire to be one with Jesus. Whether you are willing to admit that or not, it's true.  He just waits for you.   Revelation 3:20 says, “Look! I have been standing at the door, and I am constantly knocking. If anyone hears me calling him and opens the door, I will come in and fellowship with him and he with me.” 

We have a luxury that some of those ancient ancestors didn’t have and even some people of today don’t have. Jesus asked his followers (including me) in Matthew 28:19-20, “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” So, if you are reading this, then you have heard His word and all that searching to fill your empty space can end right now! Simply pray: 

Dear Lord Jesus, I know that I am a sinner, and I ask for Your forgiveness. I believe You died for my sins and rose from the dead. I turn from my sins and invite You to come into my heart and life. I want to trust and follow You as my Lord and Savior. 

If you prayed that for the first time, please let me know so we can rejoice together.  I may have two holey rocks hanging by my window, but I don’t believe in their power.  They do however remind me that my world is waiting to hear about my Holy Rock.

The Purposeful House

My sister is full of good ideas and great advice. Recently she shared that she was no longer keeping special "things" for special occasions. She said, “Why hide them away? Use them!”  Of course our initial reaction is to hide Grandma’s tea pot or Mom’s cookie jar away from danger for fear of breaking it. The joy I get from seeing those things aren’t for the item, but for the precious memories each piece stirs in me.  Still, if they stay hidden my children or my grandchildren won’t have a single memory attached to those items and when I am gone they will just be things.

So, I have given them a new purpose.  I don’t drink tea, but I can use the pot to hold knives. When I see Grandma’s tea pot, I see her in her kitchen and I smile.  I don’t often make cookies, but when I do they sure don’t stick around long enough to make it into a cookie jar! Again, I can use it for kitchen utensils and when I smile at it, Mom is smiling back at me.

I once thought I was doing the barn cats a big favor by giving them a bath. Every cat on the farm was miserable. After hearing the exasperated, “Mary Elizabeth!” from my grandma, she gave me a washboard and put me to work washing something that needed washing!  The washboard now sits where we use it for reminders and messages.

All of these things started out with one purpose and if I had kept them hidden away, that would have been the end of their story.  God designs us for a purpose long before we are ever born. 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.’”

Wait! Did He say plans? Yes, plans! Plural.  Just like a tea pot with a cracked spout, we too have more than one purpose over our life time and sometimes it doesn’t look like the plan we thought it would!  Sometimes when things seem especially trying, we turn to the first part of Romans 8:28, “God causes all things to ‘work together’ for the good of those who love Him.” But we forget to finish the verse, “AND are called according to His purpose.”

Don’t hide yourself away in a dusty cupboard holding on to what you thought was your only purpose. Boldly sit out on the cupboard and take on a new challenge.  Be open to new ideas, new ways to Glorify God, new ways show love, a changing purpose in a changing season.