Jesus, friend of sinners.

It’s funny I’ve had all these blog ideas rolling in my mind but today they will have to wait because I got something in my heart that just needs to get out.

Let’s talk about Jesus and sinners. And let’s talk about ourselves and sinners. Anything that Jesus did with sinners we should be doing too. And the way sinners felt around Jesus is the way we should only hope and pray they feel around us.

But first, let’s ALL remember that all of us who are no longer “sinners” find ourselves with a new title of “saint” by the Grace of God alone. That’s the only thing that separates us and them. A saint is no better than a sinner and a sinner is NO worse than a saint in terms of our sin and what we are capable of. The benefit to the saint is that we are under Jesus’ blood and our sin no longer counts or acts against us. The detriment of the sinner is that they are bound to sin and to obey it. They have no hope of real change and obedience out of faith in grace. The law has its hand around their neck. These facts should burden the saints’ hearts…Not elevate ourselves in our own eyes.

Have we been saints for so long that we have FORGOTTEN where we came from and what it was like to be separated from God and unable to receive His lavish grace???

I’ve got news for you and for myself.

We are no better than…

…the mothers and fathers who gladly abort the unborn

…the homeless brother

…the prostitute sister

…the gambler

…the druggie

…the Muslim

…the terrorists in ISIS

…Judas (the disciple who betrayed Jesus)

…Peter (who denied Jesus three times)

…Saddam Housin

…the father who abandons their kids for another woman

…the mother who loses her kids because she is mentally ill

... the severely obese person 

…the brothers and sisters who love someone of the same sex

…the pedophile

…now you think of the people you look down on and add them to this list.

If we are saints then we are who we are by the Grace of God alone. We are just like the “sinner” in terms of our sin nature BUT we have Jesus. How can we truly love the least of these while we have this notion that we are in any way above them or better than them? The answer is we can’t. And honestly, these wonderful amazing people can TELL we have this notion. They won’t feel like they can be themselves around us.

How can you tell if you’ve fallen in to the trap of thinking you are better? Well, I can answer this because I see it in myself ALL the time. (So don’t think I’m judging you, I’m just relating my internal learnings.) You can know if you’ve ever had thoughts like this about a “sinner”:

...I would never do that!

…How could someone do that to their kids??

…If I can change why can’t they?

…Why don’t they just get it together?

…I cannot believe they said that!

…Who could ever kill an unborn child? Something is wrong with them!

…That person is just SICK.

…etc.

These are just some of the thoughts I’ve had. I look at people and expect them to do things or handle things the way I would (problem #1 because everyone is different and is shaped by their different upbringings and life experiences and personality). I look at people and I state the obvious (of course a pedophile is sick and its wrong to kill the unborn) but I FORGET that if not for Jesus I could be (would be) in the same place as them. Jesus makes the difference not anything about ourselves. I think we will always have these wrong thoughts but we must take them captive and plead with God to change our hearts.

As a mom it’s a hard walk to walk. I want to protect my kids. I’d rather them not be around smoking or drinking or talk of anything ungodly. But that’s not realistic is it? Jesus made wine at a friend’s wedding. He must have been fun and accepting and grace filled and people saw it. We can say we are things but I think the true test is whether or not unbelievers see it. Can they be themselves around you?? Are you even friends with sinners??? And if you aren’t – then why not?? I would rather my kids be exposed to hard things because we live a life that is tangled up in love with sinners than being sheltered because of a wrong need to protect them. Will we sacrifice raising kids who know how to LOVE for kids are who are "safe"??

We are called to be in the world but not of it. I can, with a clear conscious and full heart, surround myself with the lost and still maintain my identity. *Within balance of course, I’m not talking about having only friends who don’t know God* I’m not friends with people just because I long for them to know the amazing grace of God and the power of Jesus. I am friends with them because they are amazing and I love them and they are WORTH something. They add to my life. I want people to feel free to cuss around me if that’s who they are or where they are. I want to the Muslim to feel loved by me even though we believe something fundamentally different. I want the homosexual to feel free to love who they want to love in my presence.  I want the broken to be free to be broken around me. No one had to get it together to come to Jesus, and they shouldn’t have to feel they have to do it for us. Do I agree with everything “sinners” do or believe? No. Is loving them tolerating their sin? Yes. Because loving them is loving them in their sin and that means accepting them in it and asking God to bring His love and power and change. Can I love “sinners” and keep quiet about God all the time? No. There is a balance of being led by the Spirit and loving them and speaking about what God is doing in my life. It’s building a relationship that isn’t contingent on their “salvation”. Again, people sense that. Let love be our agenda. Not a passive love or generic love… But a PASSIONATE love and a LOUD love.Because I don’t save people. Jesus does. But I can love them in word and deed and I can in that show them Jesus’ saving grace.

** As an ending disclaimer I do not write this because I think I have it all together or figured out or because I live such an awesome example of this. I can say with confidence that God been challenging me in this for about 7 years and that I find my heart is reacting more in love for people than judgment. Praise God he offers hope for change!! And this has also come through some radical life experiences my husband and I have walked through since we’ve been married and doing life together. These revelations  do. not. come. easy. They come through seasons of intense stripping down of myself until I no longer just feel naked and bare... But realize I have and been that way all along.

Letting Go...Part One?

As a women I can testify that we women generally have more control issues than our male counterparts. I think this goes all the way back to the fall of man...but in case you don't believe all that, then just examine yourself to see if its true. I can look back on my life and see many times when I went through a time of anxiety and it was mostly due to my trying to control life or other people and it/they not bending to my will. It's the human nature to want to control our fate or destiny. And to some extent we definitely are able to shape our futures. Make good decisions have a good future. Make bad decisions have a pretty rough future. However, sometimes you are going to find that no matter what you do, your decisions do not equal the reciprocated outcome and you realize: YOU ARE NOT IN CONTROL.

Parenthood has been one of the main ways God has brought this home for me. I remember when Jeremiah and I were potty training our first child. We did everything wrong...Starting with our thinking processes. We thought we could put a child on a toilet and by saying "poop!" she would poop. Well, you can't make another person poop. Especially when the pressures on. Lesson learned! 

As parents we do our very best to keep our kids safe, protect them, love them, lead them on the straight and narrow. But sometimes you find that no matter what you do they get hurt or endangered, they end up feeling unloved or they make bad decisions. They are their own person. They grow up and go out into the world leaving you praying they got everything you were throwing at them all those years.

I saw all this to say this: as a mother, letting go of my kids has been especially hard this past year. You may be thinking, "Maria, your kids are so young". Yes, they are...My oldest is only 6. But its a mental thing and emotional...and spiritual. And it takes time. So (despite my best efforts to avoid it) I'm starting to let go now. 

Before I even given birth to our 4th daughter I had already begun grieving the ending of my birthing years....The precious baby years I've grown to adore. (Yes, that means we do not "plan" on having any more children by birth). For 7 years I've been pregnant or nursing and even though I know those things do not make my identity...They have become the only world I know.  I cannot remember what it was like to do not be doing these things. And now, as I wean my sweet Abaleen, I am trying to urge my heart to be at rest. Nurse her longer some may say...Have another baby others will say. But if I did those things they wouldn't because I truly want to nurse another child or be pregnant again or have another child. It would be with selfish motives because I couldn't bring myself to let go right now. And at some point, no matter how many kids I had, I would be right back to this place. Letting Go. 

(More on this in the next post...I think :)

The Best of Both Worlds

For a long time I've wrestled with guilt over a "small" thing. It started when I met Jeremiah and increased when I bore my first daughter. You see, until I had these precious people in my life I was content with whatever life brought my way. I had no fears or qualms with an uncertain future. Sickness? Bring it on; I'd die praising Jesus. (Not that I wanted it but I wasn't afraid.) Martyr??? Even better; let me deny myself unto death. A life of celibacy in some foreign jungle spreading the good news??? Yes!!! Please!!! Jesus and my heavenly home was enough. Life was short and I'd push through until I was in my real home.

I was very internally dramatic in my imaginings of the life I might lead. It's easy to have a "risk it all" attitude with you have nothing but yourself to risk.

This all changed when I met Jeremiah. I love him so dearly that I wish I had two lifetimes with him.
And then I had my children and instead of embracing a metaphorically short life I wish for the reality of a llllooonnnggg life on this earth so I can soak in every minute of the heaven I have here.

And then I was stuck. Because I'm not supposed to love this life on earth this much. (Am I?) I've felt guilty that I no longer wish to rush into the arms of my Saviour with such haste. I hope I'm explaining myself well. I know this isn't my home and that heaven will be a billion times better. And the older I get the more I look forward to heaven. Not just because I get to be with God forever, but because I will never be sad there, or see myself as less than beautiful, or look down on someone and miss their beauty. I will never be angered there or  hurt or tired. And everyone I've lost on this journey--I'll have unending days to catch up with them as well. It's all wonderful and I'm tearing up just thinking of it.

BUT, that's when I get stuck. Because for so long I've felt guilty that I love what I have right now as much as what I'll have then. I've felt guilty because in me burns the revelation that I don't want to go to heaven yet, I want this life now for as long as I can and then I want eternal heaven. Maybe God will reveal to me that in some fashion I've created an idol of what I have now. But to not say it is far worser to me. I've got to be honest with myself and with God.

I LOVE THIS LIFE HE HAS GIVEN ME. I want a hundred years and more with my husband and my children and my (one day) grandchildren. I want to make love a thousand more times and fall in love over and over and over. I want to take vacations and make memories and travel and know what it means to die old and bursting at the seams. I want to spend as long as I can loving people and pointing them to Jesus. Reveling in every miracle: big and small. I want to laugh and cry and embrace the essence of my humanity. I know the heaven that comes when this body perishes will be outstanding. But the heaven I live in now is outstanding as well. That's part of the good news of the Gospel. We DON'T have to wait to die to experience heaven. We start now. Jesus brought the Kingdom Heaven to earth.

This is what's burning in my heart this week. The best of both worlds. I have it!!!!

Give it all.

A few weeks ago during our corporate worship time we were singing the song "Scandal of Grace" by Hillsong United. (An amazing song oozing with deep truths!) There is a line that says "oh to be like you, give all I have just to know you". For those of you who don't know, one of the main ways I minister to the body of Christ is by leading worship at our church. So, trust me, I know (if anyone does) how easy it is to sing truth but not really get what I'm saying. I'd love to say that every song I've ever sang was uttered in the purest of heart. But I'm human. Sometimes they are just words.

The words to "Scandal of Grace" are powerful...But they also remind of another "song" I used to be silly and sing. "Oh be careful little lips what you pray, oh be careful little lips what you pray." Sometimes I've prayed things and I didn't realize what I was asking God to do in my life. Can you relate? For example in high school I felt that I didn't really understand the spiritual realm in terms of battle of good and evil. So I asked God to open my eyes to see what was going on. Boy did He. But it wasn't an easy answered prayer. Even as I write I wonder if my strong spiritual gift of discernment stems from this prayer. I love the gift of discernment but it carries a weight to it. I can read between the lines when people say how they are doing. I can sense something is going on and it burdens me. I carry people's burdens like their my own. I feel the battle. Anyhow, all that to say is that we pray things and sing things and say things and sometimes, despite our best efforts not to be ignorant...We say things in ignorance.

So I was singing that song in church, blissfully telling God I will give ALL I have just to know Him more and GUESS what??? He clearly showed me an area in which I'd been fighting Him and clinging to a safe zone. I had dug my heels in. Now if I told you the situation you'd insist that I have every right to feel the way I do and to fight it. And in a way you'd be right. We have every right to feel the things we do. And we can be totally honest with God about it. But when we sign up to make Jesus our LORD, we also consequentially sign up to resign all our personal rights. We live for someone else. Things in life happen. Sometimes they are glorious, but also sometimes they suck. We feel helpless and out of control. (Really, we are...that's not a feeling.)

When I sang those words a few weeks ago I heard His voice. He said "You CAN gladly give it all in this situation, because you will gain more of ME."

I had lost perspective. It's easy to do when the crap hits the fan. You see the crap everywhere, instead of what is really there. The crap is life and God is the room.

The words He spoke to me DO NOT make it easy for me to give my all, but they give me a hope in doing it. I can save my energy and stop fighting. I can rest easier and wait to see how much more of Himself I find in having to go through the fire. He is worth it. He is our reward. Everything and everyone in life can fail us and fall away...but He never will.

So, I give you the challenge He gave me. You are not going through what I am, but you are going through something. The enemy wants you to gain more of yourself and become inward focused. But God wants to replace yourself with Himself and become Kingdom focused.

Give it all my friends. Give it all.

2 years ago...

This is a blog I wrote 3 weeks after I had a miscarriage in September of 2012.


Three weeks ago I was me. But I was a different me.

I was a me with a handsome husband, 3 children and we were getting by. Life was hard but I had nothing to complain about. Three weeks ago I struggled with guilt because I know so many people who want children so badly. I know people whose desire for children have starved their marriage of desire for each other. I know people who have tried everything and still have no kids. I know people who have miscarried many times. I was not one of them. I get pregnant easily. At the blink of an eye easy.

Today I am me with a handsome husband, 3 children and one miscarriage under my belt. Life is still life but I don't see it the same way. Some will say what I carried inside me for 3 weeks was not really a child. Some will say they understand but they don't. I said it too, but I didn't. All I can say is there was a filling that occurred in my soul when I knew I was pregnant with my fourth child. And this morning when I found out for certain I wasn't anymore, there is an emptiness. I look around my house and see what might have been. I see my 3 beautiful girls and know that there should have been one more.

Three weeks ago I thought I knew what loss and sorrow and grief and confusion felt like. Surely I thought I did. I'd lost my grandfather. I'd been engaged and lost that love.

Today I know loss and sorrow and grief and confusion and we are no longer just acquaintances. We are like old friends. There's a knocking on my heart..."Oh, hello, it's you again. Did you come to stay or just to visit this hour?".

This loss has changed me, as I know all loss does. What you may surprised at is to know that it changed me for the better. I am not angry at God. I don't blame Him. I know He is good and I know He is all about life. I also know that He doesn't make babies die in the womb, but He does know about everything we go through before it happens. I know that if He has allowed me this suffering He has something to show me, to teach me, to tell me. So, I've been listening.


When I first started spotting and bleeding, this is a Psalm I read...
You are my hiding place.
You protect me from trouble.
And sing over me with songs of deliverance.

I made it into a song and I sing it over myself and over this life.

An open letter to my child in heaven...

Its been some time since I blogged but yesterday words began to pour like the great flood and I have found them healing me as the came. So, I'm gonna write as it comes and I hope that you can find some healing in this too..For whatever ails you in this short life. 

Yesterday I wrote some hard honest letters to people that I have lost along this road. My last letter was to the child I miscarried in September 2012. I wrote that child one letter when I first found I was pregnant, and one more when the bleeding started. I begged them to stay within me...But we know that was pointless. The aimless cries of a mother in agony. So I wrote a final letter (because I'm not going to be one of those people who goes kuku by writing letters to deceased people all the time). 

I share it with you because we have all lost something and have all grieved deeply for someone or something. As I did in my first post, I recommit to being as real as I can. My love to you all!

Dear Child of Mine,

I’d like to believe you were a boy but odds are you weren’t. But I’m naming you Zeal (hopefully your dad will agree…He did!). I think it’s a perfect name either way and hopefully all your heavenly friends will think it’s pretty sharp. You rocked my world and changed me in weeks the way waters carve lines in the rocks over hundreds of years. You were radical and I needed (need) that change. I would never have chosen it but I needed it. 

My grief has been like a seed. It falls in the soil of your heart without your permission. When the bad thing happens a flower in the field of your heart dies and it drops its seeds. Some blow away with the winds of time. But some take root. Your silent tears water them and before you know it, you have an underground system of roots belonging to grief. In most respects I am very in touch with myself. But no one wants to be angry or sad so I had rejected them. I had said, “Go away from me!” and dusted them from my shoulders like an old cobweb. It was silliness and futile but I tried. Did I mention grief is like a nasty stain??? You can’t merely dust it off. You must wash it repeatedly and possibly use some oxy-clean. Unfortunately there is no spiritual oxy-clean so there you have it. Life goes on and with each situation you find that over time the grief stain lessens. That is if you dealt with it. But remember I didn’t.

So, here I am with a grief tree growing in my heart. You can call an apple tree a pear tree or an orange tree. But really, it is still an apple tree. So it is with a grief tree. You can call it whatever you like or nothing at all. It doesn’t matter. It’s there.

Sweet child, you were the beginning of my grief tree. And just because of that I think it’s lovely because it grew from you. Grief is not a bad thing. Well at least not to me. Depression is the evil twin of grief…but grief itself is normal and natural. So I tell myself.  (I shall call it my Zeal Tree). And the reason I think grief to be good and not bad for me is that it has drawn me closer to our Maker. To the one who breathes life into all my leaves and waters me when I’m thirsty so that I grow and thrive.

And I do grow and thrive even in the midst of this time. His words say that better is the unborn baby. And in the past months I will say that you haven’t missed out on too much when it comes to what others undergone. For that reason only am I thankful you are there and not here.

Now, onto something completely unrelated. The idea that I would have no Abaleen if you hadn’t gone. I can’t conceive that because she is all I know in the flesh. I can’t think “I’m glad I have her and not you”. Or  “I wish I had you and never her”. That’s absurdity. So, I cherish every moment with her because that is a moment I have with her that I never had with you. And I thank God that He gave me her even though I lost you. I thank him that this life is a breath and even now in His mind we are all together in an eternity of something I can’t comprehend…But I know you’ll be there and I’ll be there and our Maker.

One day I’ll “hold” you… and I will be able to love you in that moment without any grief because thankfully there is an end to this madness. And passing from life to LIFE uproots all the trees in my heart and lays down a new forest of only Goodness and Joy and Peace. I don’t know what your Home is like. Can you see me? Do you watch us? Do you laugh when I’m silly? Do you watch me worship and know that it’s only the tip of the iceberg? You know so many mysteries I can’t fathom.

It’s not fair that a mother should nurture a child even for a day that she would never be able to hold and nuzzle and smell and kiss. It’s not fair that I didn’t receive your first smile or glean from you your first giggle. It’s torture that I don’t know if you were my one true son. It’s crazy that I must wait to know if you were the one who took after your Daddy. (Who, by the way, is the most amazing man I know).

In my last letter to you I begged you not to go. But in this letter, I leave you in better spirits Zeal. You are in way better hands than mine. (After four children I realize children living past age 5 is a sheer miracle in and of itself.) I give myself fully to the shade of this grief tree. In it I find the comfort of my Maker in ways I would have never known otherwise. Your life was not a waste. It has been used for my good over and over and over… And therefore the good my children and my husband and our church and my grandchildren and so on. Your tiny formless body has had a great impact. The fruit of your life grows with in mine.

Zeal, you have all my love.