Treasures

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven....... For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.......No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money."

Matthew 6:19-24

Treasure Defined

Noun

1)    Wealth and riches, usually hoarded

2)    Any thing or person greatly valued

Verb

1)    To retain carefully or keep in store

2)    To regard or treat as precious

3)    To put away for security or future use

So, everybody knows that God tells us not to store up for ourselves treasure on earth. I personally do not believe this means that God is against his people owning stuff… instead, I am learning that if we pay a great price for our stuff, our stuff begins to control us.

Our STUFF will control our emotions when we jump to anger any time our beloved STUFF is believed to have been damaged. It will steal our peace as we worry about the rust and moths and thieves that are sure to come during this lifetime. It will ruin our ability to be hospitable when our STUFF becomes more important than the people using it.

Consider the following personal examples.

I have bought very few new things for myself during my life. The short list includes my bedroom furniture, each of my children's bedroom furniture, and two rocking chairs.

I have always been the type of person who never really minded if a glass broke, a spill happened, or a stain set in. It just never mattered to me if STUFF didn't stay in perfect condition. I believe in living in my home, not treating it like a museum!

This has been an easy world-view for me to adopt since my house is decorated with furniture from resale shops, junktiques, and things that people have given me. I love it!

I DO believe in being good stewards of the things God has entrusted us with... my things are not riddled with filth or stains; I take care of them the best I can.

That being said, I do NOT believe in obsessing about my STUFF. If a spill happens, I just shrug it off. I know in my heart of hearts that it simply doesn't matter. It can be cleaned (and if a guest is present, it can usually be cleaned after they leave)... if a stain is left behind, it just doesn't matter. When you pay little to nothing for your belongings, it is very easy to let them go.

Oh, but I have been learning the meaning of, "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth..."

The very same day Josh and I bought our brand new, expensive bedroom furniture; one of the dressers fell over in the moving truck and caused a huge dent. I was MAD. Mad at whoever secured the dresser in the first place and also mad at whoever was driving. My STUFF had gotten damaged.

A couple years after purchasing that same brand new, expensive bedroom furniture, our husky chewed up the bottoms of three of the four pieces in the set. I also noticed that the foot of the bed was all scratched up where our wiener dogs had made themselves at home jumping on and off our bed to be more comfortable. I was FURIOUS with those animals for ruining my STUFF.

Only a month or so after Micah was born I bought some scented oil for his room. I placed it on his dresser and the next week when I dusted his furniture all of the finish had been taken off of that brand new, expensive dresser where the oil had leaked through the jar I had decorated with. I was livid!

On the other hand, I have a piano that got all banged around when it was moved. I didn't care in the least. Micah has a toy box (my old toy box) that has been slammed shut and used as a crashing sight for his train, and it has never made me cringe. I have a leather couch that Tucker will tinkle on if company gets too loud, and he gets too worried. I have never gotten mad at him because of it (annoyed, maybe! but not mad)...

So, what’s the difference? In the stories where I was so angry about my STUFF getting ruined, my STUFF was more important to me than anything or anyone else at that time.

In the next three examples, my stuff was just not important because I hadn’t paid much for it. In those examples, the movers were more important than my used piano. I saw them straining to bring that heavy thing into my new house. They were trying their hardest to be careful, and I was genuinely just grateful that they had done such hard work for me, and not at all upset that a few bangs had happened in the process.

Micah's joy (and the joy of his little friends who slam the lid of his toy box closed) is more important to me than worrying if that old chest is going to get damaged or scratched. 

My wiener dog, and his worried little heart is more important to me than some old, stupid couch that can easily be cleaned, or just thrown away if it gets ruined.

I have been appalled in the past with my childish behavior regarding my stuff. I believe that Jesus told his disciples to go and preach the gospel without taking a “walking stick, traveler's bag, food, money, or even a change of clothes” because He knows what power our stuff can hold over our hearts. (Luke 9:3 NLT)

We cannot love both God and money. I believe this can easily be adapted to: we cannot love both God and STUFF.

Our Sin

This life is hard to live.

We are born into sin. It is our nature, and it’s our preference. Our sin is easy.

Last week, our preacher said that there was no sin so big that God couldn’t forgive it. I was unsettled, and I wanted to scream out, “You’re wrong!! My sin is bigger!”

And don’t we all feel like that some times? My sin is bigger because it is always there. Recurring, frequent, habitual sin. How can God forgive again? Why would he forgive again? How can he forgive if there was never any true repentance in the first place?

How many times have I flippantly ask God for forgiveness for one of my recurring sins? If I have not truly repented from my sin- I mean, truly turned away from it to never do that sin again… have I still been forgiven?

The easy answer is yes. The “Christian” answer is yes. But I’m writing this post, so obviously I’m still wondering.

God says, “I know all the things you do, that you are neither hot nor cold. I wish that you were one or the other! But since you are like lukewarm water, neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth!” Revelation 3:15-16

Am I lukewarm if I say I’m a Christian but have never truly repented of my sins? What about if I ask God for forgiveness because I really want His blessing on my life, but don’t really want to do my part to stop doing those sins I’ve come to enjoy?

I have said it before, but it’s worth mentioning again: I am like Paul when he said in Romans 7:14-25,

“…the trouble is not with the law, for it is spiritual and good. The trouble is with me, for I am all too human, a slave to sin.

I don’t really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead, I do what I hate. But if I know that what I am doing is wrong, this shows that I agree that the law is good. So I am not the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it.

And I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. I want to do what is right, but I can’t. I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway. But if I do what I don’t want to do, I am not really the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it.

I have discovered this principle of life—that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong.

I love God’s law with all my heart. But there is another power within me that is at war with my mind. This power makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me."

I am still learning what God’s grace is all about, but I like this writing from Paul. It gives me hope that God can still love a flawed and sinful human such as myself. And I guess that is the definition of God’s grace: that He loves us anyway- even though we don’t deserve it- even though we can’t obtain it- even though we are still ruled by our own sin while we are still on this earth.

Thank you, God, for sending your son so that someday we might live with you forever in Heaven. You will be the ruler of all instead of our sin. I thank you for your sacrifice. I thank you for your patience. I thank you for your words of instruction, and I thank you for your revelation. You are good, kind, just, and holy.

Help me learn how to praise you and accept your forgiveness without guilt. It’s in your son, Jesus’, most precious name I pray, Amen!

Anna Vi Gerrels

I had a baby last week. She was small and innocent, but God's breath of life had been taken out of her. She was already home with our Heavenly Father, even before I got to meet her.

We named her Anna Vi.

I will miss her in so many ways. I will miss getting to feel her kick and grow inside of me. I will miss getting to see what color hair and eyes she had. I will miss getting to see what type of personality God blessed her with. I will miss getting to see the man she would have fallen in love with and gaining him as another son in our family. I will miss getting to see her as a mother. I will miss getting to have her as a friend.

But with all this sadness and earthly loss, I am also happy for my daughter. I am so happy that she is already face to face with the King of Kings. I am happy that she has been adopted by the Father of fathers. I am happy that she gets to miss out on the things her earthly parents would have done wrong. I am happy that she gets to miss out on the trials and pain of this world.

I thank the Lord that He has now blessed me with the ability to understand and comfort so many women who have lost little babies of their own. I thank Him that He saw Anna's unformed body and that  her days were ordained for her and written in God's book even before one of them came to be. (Psalm 139:16)

Most of all, I thank the Lord for His wonderful peace that passes understanding- such a "church-y" phrase that has come to mean so much to me.

"Walking In the Light"

As I was on my way out of The Home Depot today, a man working there said the strangest words to me. He said, "You are walking in the light." I stepped towards him and said, "Excuse me?" With a smile the man repeated, "You are walking in the light."

What does this even mean!? How can this man even know that I'm a Christian? I had barely spoken to him earlier as I explained that I didn't need any help as another man had already pointed me in the direction I needed to go... and then as I passed him again on my way out the door he makes the strange comment.... I didn't know what to think.

But it's true. And that's what amazes me.

Lately my desire has no longer been to be a good person. My desire has not been to be a good wife or even good mother. I cannot do any of these things in my own power. I am just as human and just as flawed as everybody else in this world.

My desire is to know Jesus Christ. My desire is to have His will revealed to me and to live out the life He has planned for me. My desire is to know and love Christ with all of my heart, soul, and strength; enough so that I cannot tell His will from my own- that we operate as one.

Everyday now I engage in a personal one on one Bible study with my Lord. It is amazing the things He is revealing to me. Everyday I get to talk to Him makes me long to know Him more. I pray that He will lead my life and that He will give me just as much wisdom and discernment that I need to follow Him.

It was nice having a stranger notice something today that I have fervently been trying to do:

Walk in the light.

I Am God

Shocking! Isn't it?

I am reading a book by Michael Fontenot and Thomas Jones called The Prideful Soul's Guide to Humility. I've never been slapped so hard in the face or kicked so many times in the gut as I have figuratively been while reading this book. I am less than halfway through but already feel the need to write a post about it.

Everything is pride. Pride is easy to excuse in one's self because, well... everything is pride.

When I'm at Walmart and see a kid throwing an outragous fit, the thought that immediately goes through my mind is, "What a terrible mother." (Or if the child is with a grandparent or father I think, "Where is that child's mother?") Pride. If that child were in the store with me he or she would NOT be acting like that.

I could go on with numerous examples of pride in my own life... but naturally that would hurt my pride. Instead let me give you a passage from the book I'm reading and you can see a little better what I'm talking about.

Everything is pride.

"What is pride? It is almost always an attitude of self-sufficiency and independence (I can handle this without help" or "I understand my situation better than anyone else"). It is often an attitude of self-righteousness ("I am at least as good as you are, probably better"). It is sometimes an attitude of boastfulness ("Look what I did, and look what this proves I can do"). It is commonly an attitude of superiority ("My intellect is greater, or my looks are greater or something about me is greater"). Pride looks down on others. Pride does not listen well. It is stubborn. Pride is not eager to learn because it is confident in what it already knows. Pride is not quick to admit wrong because it fears it may look bad or lose its position. Pride is competitive and is easily threatened. Pride is insecure. Pride finds it hard to rejoice in the success of others."

Well, I don't know about you, but when I read these lines I feel as low as the ground I walk on. How is it possible to stop those thoughts from racing through my head when I see a screaming kid at Wal Mart? I don't invite the thoughts. I don't have to think about how to develop them. They spring up, usually uninvited. They are the overflow of my prideful, sin-filled heart.

Oh, but then, I go home and invite those thoughts for a fun resurfacing. I dwell on them. I tell others about the aweful kid I saw screaming at the Wal Mart. All the time this makes me feel better about my well-behaved child. But it's not my child at all. It's me. Only me. I am the best thing there ever was! My child would never do wrong, not because he's so good, but because I'm so good.

I did not realize this little habit of mine was rooted in pride. I would have guessed that I was being judgemental (I was). I would have guessed that I was being unloving (I was). But deep down, I guess my passing judgment on another mother having a bad day with a screaming kid is just me feeling better about myself because I am filled with pride.

I am sorry to those mothers.

I am not finished with the book, so I don't know how to be a better person than the embarrassment I already am. But I do know that I can't do it by myself. I do know that I need God to change me. I do know that humility is found at the heart of the cross and that the heart of the cross is found in Jesus Christ. So all I can do is pray. I'll ask forgiveness once again and ask God to fill me up with his spirit. I'll ask for a heart that is more like Christ's so that the next time I go to fill my cart up with groceries I won't just look at the woman with a screaming kid in disgust... instead I might look at her through Christ's eyes. Though I can't pretend yet to know what Christ might see. I doubt he sees all the bad in her that I choose to see... because I pray the bad is not all he sees when he looks at me.

Read the book. It will challenge you. It will remind you that you are NOT a God. It will reveal in you a disgusting human being that you may have forgotten is in need of a Lord. It will reaveal what you may have forgotten: that you are also in need of a Savior.

Five Years, Five Lessons

Tomorrow will be Josh and I's five year anniversary. I stole an idea from another blog and decided to write about five life-lessons I've learned during those five years.

5) God is good. During our marriage I have watched God provide for us time and time again. I believe God has placed us in towns to live in at just the right times. I believe he has given Josh jobs where he is supposed to work at just the right times. I believe he has allowed opportunities to come and go so that we could learn and grow from them at just the right times. God is so faithful to care for those who love him, and he has blessed us far more than we deserve.

4) Save. Neither Josh nor I have been very good about saving money during our marriage, but I am grateful for the little we have. In today’s world it is naïve to assume you are secure in any job, and I believe it is foolish not to have the finances available to both survive for a while without an income and to move if necessary. Twice during our marriage Josh and I have had to survive off savings for as many as three and a half consecutive months. At the end of those months came first and last months’ rents, pet deposits, utility deposits… bottom line- we need to rely on God, but we also need to save. God takes care of and feeds the ants, but they still have to save in order to survive the winter. People as a whole could learn a lesson from those tiny little ants.

3) Our Greatest Gift is Time. I very much enjoyed the time I had with my husband the four (or so) years we were married before we had our children, and now that we have children, I am very grateful for the time we all get to spend as a family. I believe it is more important for Josh and I to “waste” a day by not being productive and instead invest time into our family than to “waste” our day away on a thousand never-ending projects. Yes- there is certainly a need to take care of business and be productive… but in our lives there will always be a car in the garage that could use some work… there will always be a pile of junk that could stand to be sorted and put away… there will always be more dishes to do… but our kids will not always be little. Our kids will not always want to hang out with mom and dad. Someday our kids will be grown and gone, and I do not plan on wasting what little time God has given me with them by always putting family time off for the sake of yet another project.

2) I married the best man I could have ever dreamed of! As children I think all of us women dream of what our husbands might be like someday. I know I did; I used to think about my life after I got married and what it might be like. I would imagine how many kids I might have and how many cats I would love… well, I don’t have myself a kitty right now, but Josh is so much more than I ever dreamed a husband could be. 1 Corinthians 2:9 says, “…No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him.”  I always thought this verse was talking about life after death, but now I think it could also refer to the incredible blessings God gives us right during this lifetime. I could have never conceived a wonderful man like Josh while dreaming as a child… and now I live with the man every day, and still sometimes have trouble conceiving why God would bless me with him in my life.

1) Contentedness is Learned. Oh, how I wish someday I could be like Paul when he said he had learned how to be content during the happiest stages of his life and also during the most trialing. I do not believe I can make that statement yet, but I have learned that contentedness is not a passing feeling that occurs when everything is going our way. In order to be content we have to consciously make the decision to be satisfied with every stage of our lives. I have learned that one way to learn contentedness is through practicing the art of gratitude. I feel much more satisfied with my life when I am tempted to drown myself with worry when I stop and give God thanks for everything that he has given me and my family. I thank him for being so much bigger than me and being able to see the larger picture that I might be temporarily blinded to… and though I am probably not as “good” as Paul, I believe I can say that I have started to learn how to be content in this life.

A New Kind of Blessing

A couple nights ago I was getting into bed. Micah had already been asleep for a couple of hours, and Lydia was down until her next feeding. While climbing in I felt an incredible surge of happiness, joy, and gratitude. For the first time in my life all the rooms in my house were filled with little children. My little children.

I am grateful for my babies. I am grateful for my babies in a way I never knew was possible before I had children.

Somebody asked me before I had Lydia if I was worried that I would love Micah less after I had her. It was a question I hadn't really considered, but with as much love as I already felt for the new little baby-to-be, I started to worry a little and was afraid Micah might get a bit neglected.

What an amazing thing God does to mothers!! God doesn't give us one serving of love that has to be divided up between our spouses, kids, other family members and friends... one dose of love to figure out how to distribute throughout our whole lives. No! He gives his love and somehow multiplies our own! I am so grateful for this.

Lately I have been asking myself how does anyone ever stop having children? How do we decide which is the last little life we are willing to bring into this world? How do we decide how many gifts and rewards are enough for us? (Psalm 127:3) I like Michelle Duggar and the fact that she and her husband are willing to have so many children. Do I think they're nuts? Absolutely!! But now that I have two babies of my own... two little souls to bring up in the way of the Lord... I can understand why they could never find the hearts to stop.

I love my babies. I love Micah now more than I knew was possible before I had Lydia. I can't wait until he's up and running around. I am looking forward to getting to see all the stages of his life seated in the front row. I am looking forward to seeing who my little daughter will turn into. She is such a happy little baby and has been smiling all day.

God is good. We never get too old for him to teach us new things, and he never stops amazing me.