Love This Song

I bought this cd - Sarah Groves, All Right Here - because I'm supposed to be singing a song on it on some soon Saturday, and I have only heard the song twice...and I'm really nervous...but this is the first song on the CD (different than the one I may sing), and it's called Less Like Scars. It really fits the last few years of digging up the ugly stuff and replacing the pain with hope...though a lot of times I have to wait and wait and wait...at least there's hope now that He's picking up the pieces. Here are the lyrics, but you can actually listen to a piece of it at http://www.saragroves.com/store.asp


It's been a hard year • But I'm climbing out of the rubble • These lessons are hard • Healing changes are subtle • But every day it's... • Less like tearing more like building • Less like captive more like willing • Less like breakdown more like surrender • Less like haunting more like remember • And I feel you here • And you're picking up the pieces • Forever faithful • It seemed out of my hands a bad situation • But you are able • And in your hands the pain and hurt • look less like scars and more like character • • Less like a prison a prison more like my room • Less like a casket more like a womb • Less like dying more like transcending • Less like fear, less like an ending • • And I feel you here • And you're picking up the pieces • Forever faithful • It seemed out of my hands a bad situation • But you are able • And in your hands the pain and hurt • look less like scars • • Just a little while ago • I couldn't feel the power or the hope • I couldn't cope, I couldn't feel a thing • Just a little while back • I was desperate, broken, laid out • Hoping you would come • • And I need you • And I want you here • And I feel you... • • And I feel you here • And you're picking up the pieces • Forever faithful • It seemed out of my hands a bad situation • But you are able • And in your hands the pain and hurt • look less like scars • And in your hands the pain and hurt • look less like scars • And in your hands the pain and hurt • look less like scars • And more like character • •

Longing

There is a gap between You and I...between all that You've called me to be, created me to do.
I long to minister to You, to love You with abandon.

The longing grows stronger and stronger, and I ache to know You more.
I ache for the space between us to be sealed up.
I so want to offer up every part of me, to lavish upon You the ocean of love that roars deep inside of me.

But this thing, this human woundedness, my flesh, it causes me to hold back.
It causes me to withhold my trust.
I cease to rest in You, and I defy that which my heart dreams of.

There is a place inside me that is bursting at the seams with zeal for Your house.
I want to fly freely, stepping boldly and faithfully out of my cage, but my fear keeps me safely on the ground.

Jesus make me whole.
Change me.

I want to be like the one You danced for, before the Father, when You were planning me.
Just like her...

On a Lighter Note

Our little Mayah's bedroom is upstairs right next to the bathroom. She is a really light sleeper. Friday right after I put her down for her nap (YES! She finally took one!!) I went to the bathroom - I have to tell you this detail, and you will see why later on in this post - it was #1. I didn't flush because it wakes her up...Oh, and I didn't close the lid to the toilet.

I went downstairs and went about my business forgetting all about it, and when Mayah woke up, I went and got her out of her crib and let her play on the floor. I put the baby gate up, so I could work on the computer for a few minutes. But...after a while, I didn't hear anything. And, any parent can tell you, that when it gets quiet, we're probably in for a suprise.

Mayah was in the bathroom...she has pulled the toilet paper out of the toilet and was eating it!!!!! Yes...the toilet I had used and not flushed!!!!! GROSS! She was just chomping away with the biggest grin on her wet, pee-covered little face. I brushed her teeth, and washed her hands, and now am just hoping for the best!

I hope I remember this so I can embarass her later!!!

I started taking notes on a teaching by Gary and Marie Wiens on Hope Deferred, and it turned into a prayer, that has really been my heart's cry to the Lord for the last 5 years regarding my own heart healing. Here's everything...not because I'm seeking advice or sympathy, but because I am trying to be more transparent, to give others permission to be so. I didn't even touch the teaching in this post - which, by the way, is really really good...if anyone's interested: www.bhmkc.com (burning heart ministries kansas city)

Notes:

Hope Deferred Due to Disappointment:

He takes our Pain and disappointment. He is also the redeemer of our grief.

Hope deferred makes a heart sick - Proverbs 13:12
When we feel like God's promises to us are not being fulfilled...we become discouraged, thinking that our prayres are not enough, we're doing something wrong, or something's wrong with God. Staying in the place of disappointment causes a block of faith, an inability to accept the next blessing...God longs for our honesty, and longs to bring His peace - even if there is no explanation for what happened or what didn't happen...

Prayer:

Lord, the expectation of normalcy...normal childhood...it was blown apart. Lord, my disappointment was the death of my mom. I've carried this with me for 17 years. I've lived 17 years without her. My heart has been affected in such a way by disappointment that it has blocked my faith. Father, I've asked for a heart healing, for healing of memories, to be relieved of my anger towards You. God, I've been crying out for 5 years at least...My disappointment has turned to anger - I confess my bitterness God. My hope, to be made whole in this area, has been deferred, if not lost all together. It makes me feel like something's wrong with me and something must be wrong with You. Like You've handed me this lot in life and that's that! I am past the point of heart sickness. My faith waivers daily...I expect, Lord, that You won't answer me. How long must I wait, O God, for You to answer me?

Psalm 13 "How long will you forget me, O Lord? Forever? How long will You hide Your face from me? How long must I lay up cares within me and have sorrow in my heart day after day? How long shall my enemy exalt himself over me? Consider and answer me, O Lord, my God! Lighten the eyes of my faith to behold Your face in the pitchlike darkness, lest I sleep the sleep of death!" Give me some understanding!!!

How long can I wage this violent war, choosing to trust? I don't want to abandon what I know just because today those things seem untrue. I confess I have assigned to You things that are not of Your character...but my heart continues to deceive me, Lord. This is how I deal with the anguish of my broken heart. It is sick, truly.

Lord, where were You on that day? How many times have I asked You this? How long must I wait for Your answer? I don't have a clue what to do with this heart of mine, with my waivering faith. I know enough to know that I can't. I can't fix me and regenerate me, so I cry out to You. Why do You delay in Your regeneration of me? My soul argues with my spirit because the evidence of my heartache seems so strong compared to the truth of Who You are sometimes....

It is a daily struggle, God...to choose to believe that someday I will have peace, someday I will understand, someday You will show me why and how and it will be worth it. Even if there is no understanding, Father, I so long for peace...I long for a time that every area of my life is not stirred with the ingredients of my anger towards You...I want to be able to open ALL of me up to You, I want to trust You with everything...I want to truly rest in You.

This Christmas was pretty rough...it was good, but the Lord allowed me to see a lot of the yucky stuff that is still hiding in the dark recesses of my heart and in the hearts of those I love. Most obvious were the wounds we hold onto like life preservers, thinking that if we allow someone to see them or know us in that place, we would surely die...unfortunately we hide these things also from the only One who can really heal us, our Father Physician.

As I prayed through the rough times, the Lord impressed upon me over and over Hosea 6:6
"For I delight in mercy, dutiful, steadfast love and goodness, not sacrifice, and the knowledge of God and acquaintance with Him more than burnt offerings." Amplified

I saw it all around me and in me: We somehow misunderstand that the call of our lives is to be sacrificing things that God doesn't even care about...we give up this and that, we live in a constant tone of sacrifice, poor perpetual grief, as though we are truly giving God what He wants when we haven't even bothered to ask Him what He wants.

So surrounded by stuff, busyness, and tension, I couldn't grasp the fullness of what the Lord was showing me. After I got home, and was able to spend some time asking Him what was on His heart, He kept pointing me to Isaiah 1.

v3-6 "The ox knows his owner, and the donkey his master's crib, but Israel does not know or recognize Me as Lord, My people do not consider or understand. Ah, sinful nation, a people loaded with iniquity, offspring of evildoers, sons who deal corruptly! They have forsaken the Lord, they have despised and shown contempt and provoked the Holy One of Israel to anger; they have become utterly estranged and alienated. Why should you be stricken and punished any more since it brings no correction? You will revolt even more and more. The whole head is sick, and the whole heart is faint, feeble, sick, and nauseated. From the sole of the foot even to the head there is no soundness or health in the body - but wounds and bruises and fresh and bleeding stripes; they have not been pressed out and closed up or bound up or softened with oil. No one has troubled to seek a remedy. "

They are acting out their sin, which is a result of wounds and bruises, and because they do not even consider God any more, they have not thought to bring these wounds to Him, the only One who can bring healing. In His mercy, He is saying, "Don't you see? I know your sin nature, and I am the only One who can fix it, the One you need, and I am waiting for you to come to Me, but you have forgotten me. " The result is a breakdown of the entire nation, the land is devoured, strangers have been allowed to come in and take over. In the midst of the breakdown, the Israelites are still keeping the bare minimum requirements to God, as if somehow going through the motions makes their neglect okay. God's response to them is this:

v11-14 "To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices to Me unless they are the offerings of the heart? " says the Lord. "I have had enough of the burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed beasts without obedience; and I do not delight in the blood of bulls or of lambs or of he-goats without righteousness. When you appear before Me, who requires of you that your unholy feet trample My courts? Bring no more offerings of vanity, emptiness, falsity, vainglory, and futility. Your hollow offering of incense is an abomination to Me; the New Moons and Sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot endure - it is iniquity and profanation, even the solemn meeting is. Your New Moon festivals and your hypocritical appointed feasts My soul hates. They are an opressive burden to Me; I am weary of bearing them."

Pretty rough words...but at the same time, pretty heart wrenching. He is so desperately in love with them...He knows their hurts, longs to heal them, yet they turn away and pretend that He doesn't know. They try to fool God, pretending to worship Him...the King who has set them free...and so to draw their attention back to them, His response is to tell them the truth of what they do, what they already know He knows. He pulls the veil off of their cover up.

There is a pretty phenomenal parallel between this story of so long ago, and what is happening today in some churches and homes, no doubt, I am not innocent. So many of us walk around carrying our wounds, gaping and bleeding, right in front of us, almost as a warning to those who come near. We have not truly offered up all of our ugly, filthy wounded bleeding hearts to the only One who can really fix it for good. Our wounds fester and infect the whole of us - getting in the way of who God made us to be. He wants us to come to Him for the oil that softens and heals and binds up our wounded souls, so that we can be the bearers of mercy.

We so often go through the motions as the "law" requires, but the law was not set into place for the sake of motion. Like zombies we operate, going through the motions of life, even going to church, but this is not what was intended. It dishonors Him that we would "fake it," when we know He knows the difference. It saddens Him when we operate out of our woundedness and create other wounds for those we interact with...feeling like it's such a burden, a huge sacrifice on our part to do the right thing, when all He wants is our hearts to be true. He wants us to hold them out to Him so that He can melt them and mold them into what He dreamed before He even saw our faces...lovers of mercy, having compassion on those around us. Letting our walls fall down to allow us to offer our genuine love to someone who needs it....taking a few hours a day to KNOW God, know His heart instead of making the sacrifice to do church the right way all of the time, to work all of the time, or whatever other burdens you carry.

"For I desire mercy and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings." Hosea 6:6

RELIGIOSITY

If man controls every part of worship, community, preaching, and man discriminates and dictates to those who have made themselves vulnerable to hear Jesus....where is there any room for God? I wonder what is on HIS heart....what would HE have us do or not do? He would have us be what He created us to be...an original, a "one and only" created by Him...one who doesn't look like and act like other Christians, because we were created to be different from everyone else in the whole world.

How do you look and judge other people? What are your standards? What are your motivations for the decisions you make?

I pray that mine would reflect what is on the heart of God...though my flesh is weak and I fail miserably at so many things...this is what I most want to be successful at....not being RELIGIOUS, and not fitting the world's mold of Christian.