That’s What I’m Here For

I am sure most of you have heard the wonderful song by Brandon Heath, “I’m not who I was”. Hopefully you have seen his video as well. He has it on his myspace page. I watched it at work one day and instantly cried. I watched the faces before me and the sins that they had before knowing Christ intimately. Every time I saw one that was me, I cried more intensely and I am sure more than often nodded my head in agreement.

There was one sign that pierced right thru me. The sign read QUICK TEMPER. If it weren’t for my physical body being at work with a co-worker only a few feet from me, I am sure I would have fell to the floor and begged for grace from our mighty Lord.

I had a reason to be mad mind you. I remember being married in the first few years and thinking I don’t need any help with my childhood abuse. I actually had pride in me that I would be fine without it and it wouldn’t affect my life than or in the future.

I hated being wrong, but I was. Horribly, and accurately wrong! Over the seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months and years (8 to be exact) I took out all my pain and anger out on my husband. It spewed from me and it was so quick that sometimes I didn’t even know why I was so mad or why I picked a fight with him. For those that know me personally, my husband is so good to me; it is a scary blessing that I forced him out of my life. But it was a blessing that he left. I say that with such sincerity that it saved me. I was forced to look at what I had done. I was forced to see I hurt one of God’s precious children, my husband.

I sit here and cry because all my husband ever tried to do was help and love on me. He wanted to save me but it wasn’t for him to save me but the Lord’s.

I sat home alone that first night and cried in the dark feeling helpless. I actually at first wasn’t sure what I had done. God showed me of course. I remember sitting and wondering how I could fix it. My husband wasn’t talking to me and I wouldn’t have expected him to in hindsight.

I went to church…and than I went to get help. In my mind, I was running in a building that was on fire and I was yelling and crying and falling down and clawing at the ground as I couldn’t move, my anger weighed me down. I laid there waiting to die. (Some days during this time, I just sat and breathed and waited). Slowly, I dealt with the disease that lived in me. I so wanted that overnight cure but that was not the case, it took years to get rid of something that profound. Satan had his hay day with me. I struggled. I fell. I got back up.

God helped me thru all of it. And restored my relationship with my husband. We remarried. I couldn’t have asked for more. In fact, I got more than I imagined. Isn’t God like that.

Now, as far as my temper goes, I can hear it when before I just let it rule. Now when I disagree with my husband, it is a discussion done with rules (I need them) and love.

I’M NOT WHO I WAS! Thank you Jesus, I’m not who I was.

2 Corinthians 5:17 NIV
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!

(note: i was sitting at a round table waiting on a friend of mine at bible study. all around me was hundreds of women going to a beth moore bible study and these were the thoughts that ran thru my head while i waited)
What am I doing here,
among women who can quote
scripture for verse as quickly
as they can say their own names,
I am not fit to be
here in this place, I know so
little and not that well is the
little known to me.
I judge myself so harshly
but I feel it to be true.
I condemn my lazy ways
but know it is who I truly am.
I look for an easy fix such
as a book or study to rearrange
me into what I feel I should
be.
Am I not a Christian woman?
Don’t I pray to a living God?
Was I not saved from my destiny with Hell?
Yet I feel stuck.
I feel fake, unorganized, damaged
and unworthy because I just don’t TRY!
I have figured it out. It is me who
has me stuck right where I sit. I
am comfortable but how I need to stretch
and get up! I need to MOVE to that
next level with Christ! Why haven’t I?
And how do I? Won’t I just turn
it into another “to-do” list functionality?
Is that wrong?
I feel like I don’t know how to study the bible.
I could never be a Beth Moore or
Joyce Meyer or
Virgin Mary.
I know so little and hardly follow any
of His ways.
Satan circles waiting for my death.
He sees me staggering and wavering.
He is always going in for the kill.
He hears me trying to catch my breath
as I run the race of life.
He can tell the Word hasn’t sunk in
and all he needs to do is just look my way and I tumble to my old ways.

But there is VICTORY, Jesus always picks me up. He cries at my inner pain and lifts me around and sends me back out to try again. But He does not send me alone for He lives in me and doesn’t leave my side. He fills my body with His spirit all the way to the surface of my skin. Thru Him I can walk and try again to fight:
my sin
my ways
my fears
my concerns
my issues
my voices
my screams
my nightmares
my memories.
I can fight because I have Jesus.
I may not be able to quote scripture.
I may not know the order of the books of the Bible.
I may not know all the disciples by name.

But I know the most important thing, I am SAVED! I will not perish but have ever lasting life with the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Recently, a friend of mine was helping me with some sin I was struggling with and she blurted out this word… “Squash“. Squash the sin like a knat flying in your ear. So I pondered the word some more and decided to try and tack on an acronym to the word to give it meat. This is what I came up with :
S eek the
Q uenching
U nequivocal
A bba Father
S aviour, the
H oly One!