Mountian Top Experiences

Since becoming a Christian (accepting Christ as Lord and Savior, not just believing in God), I have heard the term, 'mountain top experience' at least a hundred times. I know what it means. I know what is implied when someone says they have had one. I also know that they don't last long (in this case, thank GOD).

You aren't meant to live on mountain tops. The view is great, but the wind is fierce, it's often far from water, and usually people have a hard time adjusting to the high altitudes and cold. It's just not logical or practical to live on a mountain top (and I'm speaking strictly of the peaks, here, not some nestled valley within two peaks).

For the last 16 months, I've lived in a combination of valleys and even lower valleys. I have definitely tasted fresh, mountaintop air, but it's a far cry from what I experienced when I was a new Christian. The giddy, mountain top breathlessness of my youth is nothing like the deep, cleansing (aka stripping my soul of sin) breaths of the treacherous peaks.... Which, at first, made my lungs feel like collapsing in pain.

In the worst of times, when my faith was stretched the farthest, I began to hyperventilate and shudder. (Which, coincidentally, is exactly what happens at high altitudes when you aren't use to them. Go figure.)

No, these brutal gasps and pants, I have found only with spiritual growth this time around. Of course, I had to be coerced up the mountain a bit in the first place...

Again, one cannot live on the mountain tops, and for that, I think I'm grateful. At least, I know my peaks have included jagged crags (fear), slippery slopes (temptation), falling loose rock (other's sin) and many encounters with the indwelling wildlife (my own ugliness). And I prefer to keep these frail human legs on soft grass...even though the peaks are exhilarating once conquered.

I prefer to say, "Woot-woot!" and then slowly climb back down to lay peacefully among the fragrant heather on the side of a hill.



See? Doesn't that look nice?

 

I dunno, doesn't it make sense that all the real fruit comes from the valleys? Not a whole lot grows up on those peaks.

I just pray, Lord, that when I'm in the valley, just hanging out with You, that I remember Your plan is good. Your will, perfect.

And that I'm never, ever alone.

Divine Intervention

Things are getting better day-by-day and I don't understand it.

One thing I'm recognizing is that my devotion to God, somehow, someway, is becoming stronger.

I realize I am not so legalistic as I was, even though my selfishness astounds me still. My husband has deep needs to be respected and restored. These things are coming out in our studies of Love and Respect and I fall way-short of the wife God created me to be. The helper. The help meet. However, he shows no disgust toward me...as if my sin has not created a hole in his heart and I am not the guilty one, holding the bloody knife. I am shocked at my own deception. Where did learn to I stray so far?

And when it's too much for me to be the wife I want and need to be, and when I am overwhelmed, I have found words coming from my very own mouth which are disrespectful and self-righteous. Ugh.

How dare I, right? How do I manage such nerve? I long to have righteousness and truth at the heart of our marriage, that is the truth, but I remain so dull. So vain. So evil-minded. To the point of thinking words like the above actually come from the Holy Spirit. When really it is my own fear of intimacy and laziness. Fear is yet in me and I must master it or it will kill us both.

Yet God's love remains. So foreign to me, this is. I've heard and read of God's sovereignty, but truly I have no right to take part in this heritage. I am but rags. Even now, these things are preposterous to God. "No," He says, "you are a daughter of the King. Redeemed. Now come to Me in repentance and start anew. I will give you the sweet words which have eluded you for so long."

I have heard Bible study after Bible study and I know the truths. I didn't have to be raised 'in the church' or with the Word to know I have hidden the truth in my heart and sinned against God, my husband, my family, my own peers, my child. It is only by the grace of God that I hid His truths deep in my heart, for they are there, but they cannot possibly apply to me.

No, no. I am the impossible who turned away and will be burned, not redeemed. Impossible to bring me to repentance. The Lord will say, "I never knew you." I can't possibly have a place among the saints or have any purpose.

Although. Although, I feel even if I am rejected, He would still be worth serving the rest of my life. (Ah, the battle of the elected vs. free will.) Predestination. I've taken my fair share of free will. Of that, I am certain.

A new day

As I was preparing my mind and body for death James 1:15 , God was preparing a place for me to come to forgiveness and a resting place. Not one of spirits and golden streets, but of earth and hard work and a clean heart.

The clean heart, I did not expect and the hard work, I feared. The earth, however, felt good beneath my feet and my spirit leaped with delight in planting seeds in rich soil. (Ahhh, what I was meant to do!)

What a mess I've made and I'm not entirely sure it can be cleansed, but even if my God, my husband, my friends nor family will forgive me, I must rejoice in His love and mercy. Even His justice.

Even this path I started down almost ten years ago has come 'round and brought me back to him...just like St. Augustine said it would.

How is this possible? For it's NOT. Did I not read and hear and know not to grieve the Spirit (Eph. 4:30)? And did I not, with this knowledge and having seen and tasted His goodness, plunge into sin and ask Him to leave many times? So, why am I still here? Why has not anyone left me...including, O Lord, My God, dare I believe You have not left me even now?

Did you ever have a time....

Did you ever have a time when you thought, "This isn't happening. This is too surreal to be actually going on around me, in me (whatever the situation may be). I can't actually be considering these things. I can't actually have just done that."??

I have a friend who has become an addict, of sorts. ;) (In-recovery joke.) She has been exercising her butt off.... Seriously, Mer, like, where's your butt? LOL I'm kidding, of course.

But there's got to have been a moment where she thought, "Holy crap, this FitLinxx thing says I lifted 3 elephants this week. For real! Over time, my circuit training efforts mean I lifted that many elephants?" (I mean, with this YMCA FitLixx thing, you can even count walking from the parking lot to the grocery store!) Anyway, I digress...as usual.

So, anyway, I'm waking up, trying to go through my day, not thinking about my addiction in the sense that I am not trying to figure out how I can sneak around and get my 'fix,' but like, "HOLY! I'm through with it! Done. Finito. Wow. REALLY? Like, no, really?" And I smile. Really big. I laugh out loud. Even in this mental and sometimes physical pain, I just want to thank God that I'm done. I'm out of the closet. (No, I'm not gay.)

And I've realized what my new addiction is going to be. I mean, some Dr.s have told me that I need to do this and that and be hospitalized and blah, and blah, and blah. God's bigger than that. I was never opposed to doing what I needed to do, if I needed to do it, but I haven't needed all that Dr. supervision. (Funny word: Super. Vision. Like, Superman? For real?) Anyway, God's been enough. Watching my back. And my family and friends, and prayer and, of course, Tommy and sleep and my new addiction...which really isn't new because I had it before.

It's lame, nothing interesting, I know...but it's music. And I have to say, the clean version of this song, and the chorus especially, LOSE YOURSELF is THE most inspiring song for me right now. Eminem may not be some clean-cut Christian, but he is honest and you know what? I admire him. He's more open and real than a lot of people I know. So slander me. *Shudder* Big whoop.

I forgot how much I love music. Acting like a rock star in the car, in front of the mirror (OK, maybe I'm sharing too much.... *snort* ME sharing too much. *laughs*) and just being the biggest moron and pretending I'm the bomb.

Don't lie. You know you've done it, too.

However, there is one thing that is missing. HUGE problem: I've never learned how to cope with stress or conflict. I am the epitome of 'fight or flight.' For the last 8-some-odd years I've been flighting...flighty is more like it. Before that, I was a fighter. Not a good one. A mean one.

Seriously, anyone who knows me...really knows me...knows I am not non-confrontational (unless I have a horrible addiction to fall back on and couldn't give a rip and didn't have energy to fight back anyway). However, when I am backed into a corner, I do not come out with my fists up or say, "OK, you're right. I'm being irrational." (Although, I am capable of that rationality, it takes WAAAAY too much effort for me.)

So, if I'm not a pretty tame 'fists up, ready to fight,' what am I when I'm backed into a corner? I am thinking...this: You asked for it. And I was taught this. Through pain and heartbreak and lies and blah, blah, blah, blittity, blah.

So I called up a shrink today and said, "I have no coping mechanisms. The only coping mechanism I've had for about 8 years is gone. I don't want that to ever come back. However, I don't know the balance between fight or flight. I either roll over and play dead or...well, become your worst psychopathic, belittling nightmare. (You think I'm kidding?) And I hate it. I need help. Celebrate Recovery will help me with certain things, but the psychological things...I need help, Doc." So, I have an appointment with a psychiatrist tomorrow at 5pm.

He's actually excited for me. I can't truly understand why. Pretty cool doctor, I guess.

Anyway. That's all for now.

OH, please pray that I can get some more painting done. I just don't have the energy and these headaches are killing me and things are strained (no big surprise here) between Tommy and me. I still have two full paintings to go and the lady asked for them by mid-August. I'm going to have to trust my instinct and JUST FREAKIN' PAINT.

Heavy Heart

I know that this world is going downhill. There is nothing that can redeem the evil deeds done by men and women all over the world except God Almighty Himself. Still, I am appalled at the changes that are expected to be made under the new President. Obama is so Pro-Choice that I'm afraid people like George Tiller and his abortion mill will go unchallenged because they are providing women with 'life-saving' abortions.

I look at my daughter, pictures of unborn babies, my nieces and nephew, cousins, all the children I see every day, and wonder how bad it has to get before people understand the atrocities that go on at abortion clinics.

This is the main reason I could not vote for Obama. As a mother, as someone who has been touched with abortion personally and witnessed it's destructive powers in friends and family, I cannot support someone who supports the slaughtering of tens of thousands of babies A DAY. SUPPORTS it. This isn't someone who just says women have the right to choose. He is planning on us, as tax-payers, to continue funding abortion clinics and Planned Parenthood.

WHY?? I don't think that Barack Obama understands the heavy consequences of sex before marriage OR abortion. His idea of helping a child (his own, even) is for them to get an abortion if they get pregnant so that they will not be 'punished with a baby.' Hear his own words here. If you find that this video is too 'biased,' there are many more where it just states his views plainly. You will see that they match up.

He even goes so far as to say abortions help men and the audience LAUGHS. Grrrrrrrrrrrr. I just can't stand this. I do not believe that God will stand idly by and continue to 'bless' this country with a leader who so adamantly supports the 'spilling of innocent blood' (see Proverbs 6:16-19).

Obama said "the first thing I'd do as President is sign the Freedom of Choice Act."[16] That bill "would invalidate virtually all state and federal limitations on abortion, and would make partial-birth abortion legal again."[17] Indeed, Obama was upset with the decision of the Supreme Court not to strike down the law passed by the United States Congress to prohibit partial-birth abortion, believing that partial-birth abortion is guaranteed right of the Constitution and that there should be no ability to legislate against it. This from the mouth of a family man who calls his own daughters 'miracles.' WHAT!? What makes them different from other babies?


Obama recently referred to his "Muslim faith."[24]
Obama said the Muslim call to prayer is "one of the prettiest sounds on Earth at sunset," and recited "with a first-class Arabic accent" the opening lines: Allah is Supreme! ... I witness that there is no god but Allah ...."[25]
Obama stated that the autobiography of Malcolm X, a Nation of Islam leader who became a Muslim, inspired him in his youth.[26]
Obama raised nearly $1 million and campaigned for a Kenyan presidential candidate who had a written agreement with Muslim leaders promising to convert Kenya to an Islamic state that bans Christianity.[27]

Obama unabashedly explained how he became “churched” in a 2007 speech:
“It’s around that time [while working as an organizer for the Developing Communities Project (DCP) of the Calumet Community Religious Conference (CCRC) in Chicago] that some pastors I was working with came around and asked if I was a member of a church. “If you’re organizing churches,” they said, “it might be helpful if you went to a church once in a while. And I thought, “I guess that makes sense.” Are you kidding me!? He all but admits that he just went to church for the election votes.

Look I know that "Bush" waged war on Iraq and that hundreds of thousands of people have died because of terrorism and this war. I use the term 'Bush' loosely because I don't know of anyone (even if they are against the war now) who didn't feel justified for going to war at the time. Indeed, many Americans demanded justice after 9/11. However, I do not feel that Bush lied to Americans (especially knowingly) or covered up anything he believed. What you saw was what you got, and for the most part, I would back him as one of the greatest, strongest Presidents of history. It took a lot of guts to do what he did. And don't lie and say you didn't think 9/11 deserved justice!

I don't sit on my cushy sofa and support the innocent being killed, tortured, raped, or interrogated by egotistical soldiers that need to be punished for their war crimes. I am disgusted at the pictures and propaganda that support killing ANYONE. I personally have a heart for Iranians and as I write this, there is a huge repentance among the young in Iran that may very well save their country and future generations from God's wrath! We could actually learn from their youth who despise Islam as it is today and want something better for their country.

OK, so I've not even begun to say how much I am against abortion, but this is my place I can vent my frustrations as well as record my joys. Today, for whatever reason, I am infuriated by this country and its people who turn a blind eye to murdered children, but are haughty about saving a dying planet by going green.

A place to learn and grow

So, this is a place I can call my nuthouse home. I seriously need a way to get out what I am thinking and also to make fun of myself. Blogging isn't new to me...well, I did a LiveJournal about 10 years ago and have misplaced what the name of it was. However, as I write this, I have the http://www.bloggingbasics101.com/ website open to help me along. (Hence the ability to cross things out. Woo-hoo.)

I am excited. This is a time of my life where I have about three hours during the day in which to relax do laundry, cook, clean, run errands, use the bathroom, shower, and if I am feeling really adventurous lazy, I can paint, draw, and now...blog!

The other hours of the day are mostly spent taking care of and playing with my sweet baby Ham. If you haven't understood where the three hours 'down time' come from, that is when Ham is sleeping.

I am 32 years old, a wife of almost 5 years, and a mother to a 9 month old little girl. I am also an artist and a writer, but those things have taken the backburner for years until recently. I am in the process of bringing those things back to life. It's very fun.

I love my family, I love my kid, I love nature, beauty, helping other people out, and my God. I am not very good at loving any of these things. I have trouble remembering to call my family, I get irritated at Ham's whining, I don't recycle, I eat too much junk food, read those dumb gossip rags, I don't help other's out enough, and some days I forget to talk to God all-together. I don't know why I use the word 'love' if I can't prove I love all these things.

I just know that I do and that I would be nowhere without any of these things...except the beauty part. However, I find beauty to be everywhere, not just in the conventional things like tan gams, rock-hard abs, celebriosity, and flowers. I think the homeless man is touching and beautiful. I find beauty in helping an elderly lady find Depends on aisle 3 of CVS so that she doesn't have to be embarressed about asking an 18-year-old male clerk, and there is something about my nephew coming inside smelling like a 5-year-old should and covered in sweat and dirt.

So, come join me on my jour....oh, Ham just woke up. Gotta go!