What's a Road Trip Without a Few Beers

What's a road trip without a few beers, a few tokes or a few lines?  I mean, dudes gotta have something to do on their way to concert or an outta town college, right? 

It really amazes me all the different ways Jesus interceded in my life after I confessed my need for a Savior. His Faithfulness, to my heart's cry as little kid would get me through years of selfishness, stupidity and self destruction. He was Faithful when I wasnt. 2 Timothy 2.13

All the times of driving drunk or stoned, all the times of riding with someone drunk or stoned and all the times getting busted by cops while drunk or stoned.  Even the times when I wasn't buzzed or high and got caught up with the police and I had something illegal on my person, Jesus was Faithful to keep me outta trouble.  There are also those times of deciding to walk, errr, stumble home, no matter how far away from home I was and no matter the weather conditions. It could only have King Jesus that saw me get home safely, because to this day I can't tell you how I did.

 Except for the time when an Iowa State Trooper let me ride in the front seat as he drove me the remaining 35 miles home. After staggering and bumping into each other for a few miles on gravel roads my bud and I finally reached a highway.  I'm not sure which is more miraculous, the fact that Jim convinced me that I needed to leave the fifth of vodka in the broke down truck before beginning the trek home or that he convinced the troopers I was of legal drinking age and I would not puke in the front seat of the car. 

Even when I didn't give a damn about anything except getting my head bad, Jesus was revealing Mercy and Grace back in the day.Even when I only called on His name when I was cursing, He was protecting me from myself.   

And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of My Father’s hand. John 10.28-29

What's God's up to?

When I read scriptures like Psalm 139:13-16, Jeremiah 29:11, 1 Corinthians 12:4-27 and Ephesians 2:8-10, it's clear that God creates us as we are, and gifts us to be used in His work.

For as long as I can remember I've always wanted to help people. Be it a kid in my class at school that others picked on, an old person in a convalescent home that never received visitors, hungry children in a third world country, or even someone whose story I'd hear on the news. My heart has always ached when I hear of someone's pain, and I've had an intense desire to do something to make it better.

That's why I went into the kind of work that I do. Since 1980, I've always worked in some kind of human services job. I'm drawn to the disenfranchised.

Also I've always been especially interested in helping women. I don't know if it's as simple as the fact that since I'm a woman I'm more inclined to understand women. Or if it's because I was born in 1960 and grew up under the influence of the women's movement. Maybe it's because of the fact that if you look throughout history, all over the globe, you'll be hard pressed to find anyone more universally oppressed than women.

So when I thought about this week's topic of what would be our dream, or ideal, ministry I was a bit stumped. Initially I thought about how there are hurting people everywhere and God's repeatedly provided me with jobs, and ministry opportunities through local churches where I've lived, to reach out in ways that He created my heart to desire. Then I thought about the word "ideal" or "dream" opportunity some more and thought how cool it would be if I had the freedom to openly share the gospel as as well? What would it be like if I daily got to lead hurting people to Christ and then help them individually grow in Him? That would be over the top exciting! Those few times in my life when I've had the opportunity to help someone who was new in her faith to learn and grow have been among the most rewarding endeavors I've ever experienced.

I'm grateful that in my current church I have the opportunity to serve yet, to be candid, it's super rare that I ever get to work in this context with a new Believer, or to invest in a person, one on one, like I get to invest in my supervisors at work. So, if we're dreaming here, that's what would really do it for me.

Yet, I know God is in control of all things. So I choose to try to remain open to Him and sensitive to what He wants me to do each day. I also choose to trust Him that if I "miss it", that He is more than capable of showing me the error of my ways and getting me back on His path. I choose to stand firm in the knowledge (even when I'm as confused as I've been in my job situation and frustrations that I've shared about for the past couple of years) that He does have a plan for my life and it's His plan that I want more than anything else!

Run for your life, they are chasing you!

My first thought when I knew what we were going to write about this week was oh good, something "easy." Then I thought again. I'm a walking encyclopedia of old hymns and gospel songs. Thinking about Jesus and me triggered a song. The chorus goes like this:

Now it is Jesus and me for each tomorrow,
For every heartache and every sorrow;
I know that I can depend upon my new found friend,
And so to the end it's Jesus and me.

That led to a medley of songs including What a Friend We Have in Jesus. Seems we always think of Jesus being with us through some dark time. Sometimes it takes a long time to find him in the dark.

Being a preacher, I thought about a sermon I recently preached on Psalm 23. It's hard to preach on those passages we know the best. Everyone thinks they know all about it. I got a little long winded on the front end of the sermon so I didn't get to say as much about the last verse, the one about goodness and mercy. I wanted to really drive home that the correct understanding of the Hebrew is that it isn't that they follow you, it is that they chase after you. What an image, goodness and mercy chasing you!

Goodness and mercy, that sounds like Jesus. Sounds like it isn't just that we follow Jesus. He chases after us. In other words, He never abandons us. Regardless of what's happening in life, goodness and mercy are still chasing us.

I have lots of stories about Jesus showing up. I've told about Jesus showing up by miraculously sending someone to my door to provide food for us. I have a lot of stories like that one. The one that came to mind for today is long. I can't tell it in its entirety here.

You can read more details about the beginning of it here. I am like countless other people who have suffered under the hands of a pedophile. We read a lot about it now. When I was a child, it was kept secret.

For most of my life, I was unaware of the effects this had on my life. Like with any devastation that needs healing, first you have to have a diagnosis. As God miraculously began the healing process I got to the place where I wanted to know just where Jesus was when I was 8 years old.

I've never been much of a blame God type of person. However, I wondered. Where was Jesus? Countless people through the ages have asked the same question. Just where is this Jesus when everything falls apart, when death comes, when people misuse you, etc. The reasons we might ask where Jesus is are as many as the people who have ever walked the face of the earth.

I had heard that some women I knew, who like me, had been abused had asked the same question. They said they had an answer. They said they wouldn't tell it because each person had to hear an answer for themselves. Nonetheless, they also said that after they had their answer they told each other. They had heard the same thing.

I asked the question. I asked Jesus, where were you when I was 8? I waited for my answer. I finally got one. Jesus said He was there. He said I was standing in that doorway with you. I was weeping for you. I was interceding for your life and the healing I am now bringing to you. I was there. I saw it.

I know this raises all sorts of theological questions. We could go on forever asking why didn't He stop it. I don't know that answer. I do know that Jesus was there. I know He was there feeling the deepness of my pain. I also found out it was the same answer He gave those other women too. Jesus is always there. Goodness and mercy chased after me from that day forward. Eventually healing would come as I stopped long enough to let them overtake me.

Shortly after that, while receiving communion I thought about Jesus taking away the sins of the world. I though about my own sin, but that day I also thought about the sin of my abuser. His sin, not mine, had left deep wounds and scars. Jesus died for the wounds and scars that my abusers sins had left on me. Jesus died for your sins but also for the effects of someone else's sin on your life. That's pretty awesome.

I wanted to tell you about Jesus exploding in my life on some majestic hillside. I really wanted to tell you some happy story. But this is a happy story. Life is very hard. Life sucks much of the time. Injustice flourishes. Knowing that Jesus is always there, that His goodness and mercy are chasing after us is wonderful news. It is good news. It is the gospel.