Spiritual Growth

Speaking Life

This week a professional friend/acquaintance told me “you have one of the happiest marriages I’ve ever seen on Facebook.”

While I appreciate what he said, his comment in and of itself was a can of worms.  I mean, we are all guilty of using our Social Media pages to portray the “highlight reel” of our lives – I certainly wasn’t posting a status update about the little squabble Barry and I had thirty minutes after that compliment!!  But later that night I thought about what he said while I was taking a shower.  Then I looked up and a reminder of why this is was literally right in front of me.

You want to know why my marriage is successful?  Happy?  Not perfect – but (a lot) more good days than bad?

Because these words cling to our shower wall and we read them every day, most days out loud.

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We are programming our minds with these positive thoughts and attributes DAILY.   Literally, speaking life into them.  Speaking each of them into manifestation in our lives.

Do you notice how they are all action phrases?  Deliberate choices.

So when one of us is moody or grouchy or tired or hungry and a quarrel begins, these are the words playing louder than any other track in my mind.  And it’s a lot easier to “avoid foolish and ignorant disputes” and keep my mouth shut, when I remember I already told myself I would today.

Having a happy marriage has NOTHING to do with finding “the right one” or your “soul mate”.  And happy marriages don’t just fall into place effortlessly.  Having a good marriage is the result of conscious, daily effort.  It’s work.

It’s choosing to let the snide comment go, and ignore the annoying habit.  It’s choosing to put someone else before yourself. It’s choosing not to be offended, or hold grudges, or keep a record of every misdeed. It’s choosing to see your spouse in the best light, even when that’s not really what you see at the moment.  It’s choosing to interpret what they said in a positive manner – not the manner that pisses you off – because honestly, that’s probably how they meant it.  It’s choosing to avoid strife.

A successful marriage, like success in almost any area of life, is really nothing more than a series of small (sometimes large, but mostly small) daily decisions.  But you must decide every day.

One of those decisions is choosing what you put/program in your mind about your spouse and about your marriage.  This has been a great place to start for us.  You can get your own shower cling here: http://clingtoyourconfession.com/clings

(If you’re not familiar with the concept and power of Positive Confession this probably all seems really weird to you, but diving into that subject is for another day and another post.  You can start with these books if you’d like to research on your own: “Hung By the Tongue: What You Say is What You Get”  & “What to Say When You Talk to Yourself”) 

And yet…..

My incredible friend Gaynelle helped me with a section in my book about combating the lies and falsehoods we hear in our own minds. She shared with me an incredible resourcebible called, the “Complete Personalized Promise Bible for Women”. I snagged my own copy for my Kindle and am pretty much using it as my devotion this year. (It’s awesome)

Each section/topic has scripture, then a faith confession, then a list of all the verses from where that faith confession came. I’m having so much fun studying God’s love letters to His children – to me – that substantiate many of the faith claims and confessions that I repeat to myself on the regular already.

Listen to part of what I just read today, “I have His Word that His love will never be taken from me, He knows how I am formed.

He knows my shortcomings and my limitations. He knows everything about me,

(This is my favorite part)
and yet…..

His love for me remains.”

Isn’t that exactly what EVERY single one of us desires from our relationships in this life?  To be loved for who we are, flaws and all, unconditionally?

There is Someone who can fulfill this longing we were born with raging inside us. There is a reason it’s there, and a reason you may have jumped from relationship to relationship disappointed each time you don’t find it.

#mondayfoodforthought #thebestromance #RedeemingLove #Helovesme

Color-Blinded

This is the most uncomfortable topic I’ve written about.

Here’s the thing, I grew up in a small farm town in Kentucky, of the 1300 kids in my school, there were like 3 black kids, and I was friends with them.

I wasn’t naïve enough to ignore that there were some people in my town and in my school who were outwardly racist – white people who hated the black families for nothing other than the color of their skin. But it didn’t make sense to me.

I moved to the “big city” of Cincinnati two months after graduating high school and my black friend ratio went way up. It’s not like I intentionally sought out to make my friend pool more colorful, it’s just that there are a lot more black people in Cincinnati than small-town Kentucky, period.

Every one of my black friends and I have more in common than we do not. Our skin may fall on opposite sides of the shade spectrum, but our beliefs, our values, our passions, our missions are aligned. I surround myself with people who are like-minded – on purpose. There is nothing of substance that differentiates my black friends from any of my white friends. (I do naturally talk more soulfully around them – I don’t know if they’ve ever noticed – and I love it.)

A few years ago, some weird things started to happen in our country and for the first time in my life, I started thinking about the colors of our skin. Although we are a more racially diverse society than ever before – think of how many more biracial couples, families, children, there are than in the 1980s when I was growing up – America’s racial tensions have increased not subsided.

I am told how my black friends feel about me by the media. And they are told how to feel about me.

I catch myself wanting to filter what I say and topics I bring up around them. Will I offend them? I start thinking about all the ways we are different, instead of all those things we have in common. And I hate that those things cross my mind. ABSOLUTELY nothing between us has changed, we have not changed. I can still talk with them about whatever I want, because we are friends, and that’s all that matters.

Earlier this week, riots began in Ferguson, MO again. I flew to Atlanta on Tuesday for work. Atlanta is a predominantly black city, in a lot of areas. And a lot of those areas are predominantly in poverty. I’m a small white girl wearing “fancy” clothes and driving a nice-looking rental car.

As I got in my rental and began to pull out of the garage, I wondered if the black woman working the booth was going to be sour to me this week, with everything going on. I wondered if she was thinking that I was thinking that I was better than her. I felt the need to come right out and say, “I have lots of black friends”, to justify the color of my own skin.

She was just as nice as ever. And I was relieved.

Next, I went through the drive thru for lunch and I could tell the girl on the other end of the speaker was black. So I knew she could tell I was white. And I wondered if she secretly hated me because of that.

She was the most pleasant KFC window-worker I’ve ever met, and when she handed me my friend chicken and mashed potatoes, she wished me a “good day” so genuinely I actually felt it.

Since then, the girl that checked me into my room was black, and the pool worker who tipped me off to the fact I had secret admirers watching me through the glass, and the woman who brought me my dinner tonight…. They were all black. They were all wonderful people and delightfully friendly. And none of them hated me because I was white. It’s like they didn’t even know they were supposed to.

Here’s what I hate: the fact that those questions even go through my mind. The fact that skin color is something I think about so much more often now, than when I was walking the school halls with the only three black kids. I hate that I feel myself stereotyping, and making assumptions. Rather than being color-blind, I’m color-blinded.

Have you ever felt like this?

And it’s not because we, as a people, as a country, have changed in the last 10 years, it’s not like we suddenly got more racist. (You could reason we have gotten less-racist – we do have a black president.)  But because the media has told us we are more racially divided than ever. Because there are people who entice that division and push the gap wider. And because, like Pastor Chuck Mingo said from stage at Crossroads’ “Night of Hope” two weeks ago (the day the DuBose case was finalized; and there was a palpable anxiety in the city wondering if Cincinnati would erupt into riots), “we have an enemy who’s behind all of that who loves nothing more than to see people divided.” And isolated. And self-conscious. And alone.

People aren’t rioting and looting and attacking each other because of something the media said (I get that), but because they’re angry and confused.  And those seeds of anger and confusion were planted, and nurtured and grown to full-stature by that enemy.

I love that I go to this church that is leading the charge to racial reconciliation, first, in our city then our country. I love that they get it. I love that they talk about the only color that matters is the color red, the color of Jesus’s blood that was shed to save and to reconcile each and every one of us – white, black, Hispanic, Asian – ALL of us. I love that there is literally a rainbow of an army of people in that church who are locking arms and working together to break down these stigmas and barriers. Who are re-writing that message that’s being sent out by the media. And I love that I get to be a part of that.

I am ready to see through people’s skin again, like when I was younger and less tainted by the lies of the enemy of this world. I’m through with those creeping thoughts and questions in the back of my mind.

But, this isn’t a clean-cut entry with a nice little “finished” bow on it. This is something that’s still very real and present in my life and something I’m still working on and working through. But, it’s something I needed to get out. To say it out loud. To face it head-on. So, with the help of ALL my friends, I can move past it.

Thanks for working through this with me.

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#56

Skydiving is was on my bucket list. It’s number 56, in fact. I kind of had it penciled in for this Summer, and then my best friend turned 40 and decided that’s what he wanted to do to celebrate. BINGO!

Weeks leading up to the event I was pure bottled excitement and eager anticipation.

My husband had a scheduling conflict arise so that he was not able to join us, and I remember having a strange little flutter of uneasiness. Am I going to be able to do this without him? Won’t I need him there?  Then I reminded myself, I lived a pretty routine life for 25 years before I met him, eight of which included my best friend who I was going to be with, so I would be just fine.

As the day drew closer, I started to feel my excitement turn slightly to nervousness and the night before, I was progressively overcome by sheer, paralyzing terror.

I took a long shower to try and relax my nerves, but sitting on the floor in the steam the words of the mandatory safety waiver video played through my head on a haunting loop, “Skydiving is dangerous and can cause serious injury, or even DEATH. Nothing about skydiving is guaranteed. No parachute manufacturer is perfect, no parachute packer is perfect, no skydiving company is perfect, no instructor is perfect. Equipment can fail. Instructors can fail. Weather can cause unsafe conditions. Strong winds can cause a parachute to collapse….”

And then this thought went through my mind: Was I going to die the next day? Followed by: What if I did? How badly would my husband be crushed? Would he blame himself? How long would his life be derailed? Is this the last day I’m going to spend with him?

I got out of the shower and the words continued to avalanche. I distinctly remember as I smeared lotion on my legs thinking, what if something worse happens – like we crash and I am paralyzed? I just met a quadriplegic who’s walking her faith journey out with God, and feels closer to God now than she ever has. What if God allows that same thing to happen to me? What if God tries to teach me something through an injury? I like my legs. I like being able to use them. Is this the last time I’m going to be able to move them freely myself?

A movie reel played in my head as it zoomed out on this moment: a bird’s eye view of me lotioning my legs was the foreshadowing of what I didn’t know was coming the next day. It’s actually beautifully cinematic, I darkly narrated to myself. Should I just not go through with it to avoid even the possibility of disaster?

I should pray.  But, is this something I am even allowed to pray about? Or am I not allowed to ask for protection for voluntarily jumping out of a plane – literally putting my own life at risk? Am I tempting fate? Tempting the prowling lion looking for lives to devour? Was I moving outside that hedge of supernatural covering I’d so clearly seen and felt protecting me?

I thought about all the things I knew I was created to do that were still undone, and wondered if I was risking letting Satan steal them?

I was almost sick to my stomach with all the thoughts swarming in my head.

I was terrified to say anything out loud, or at least wise enough to know what not to let come out of my mouth. I didn’t want to give life to any of these fears – as statistically improbable or irrational as they were. The seed had been planted and my enemy – the biggest liar in history – was having a field day with it!

I was lying on the bed staring at the ceiling when my husband walked in the room. I’m sure by my deflated body-language alone he could tell I was troubled by something.

“What’s wrong?”

I hesitated to answer. “I think I’m a little bit nervous about tomorrow.”

“Yeah? Are you scared?”

“No, I don’t think I’m scared, I’m just nervous I think.”

“Well, if you don’t want to go, you don’t have to.”

A little defensively, “No, I want to go, I want to go skydiving. I’m going to go at some point in my life, so there’s no reason for it not to be tomorrow. I’m just nervous.”

And he said to me again, “I’m just saying, if you don’t want to go, you don’t have to, you can back out. And it’s ok.”

My eyes lingered on his, trying to communicate what I was feeling without saying the words. All that came out was, “I don’t think that’s what I need you to say to me right now.”

“Oh.” He said. “What do you need me to say to you?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you want me to pray for you? Would that help?”

Knowing my friend, I said, “Well, I’m sure Keith will pray tomorrow before we all go up, but, yes, I think that would help.”

He grabbed my hand and began his prayer by thanking God for the day, and for our time together, for Keith and our friendship. He prayed over the rest of our plans for the weekend. For himself to get everything he needed out of the men’s retreat he was attending. He prayed that I would have fun the next day, that I would enjoy every moment and that I wouldn’t be nervous. And then, without a peep out of me, he literally started naming every single specific aspect of the jump the next day, eliminating each of those fears, one-by-one as if he was checking them off a list,

“And God, we ask that you watch over Rachel and Keith, and everyone else skydiving tomorrow. That the weather would be clear and perfect, that there would be no wind, that the plane would fly safely, that all the staff and instructors would be alert and focused, that all the equipment would perform as designed, that each harness and safety clip would function properly, and the parachute would deploy without issue, we ask for a safe landing….”  Tears streamed down my face as I received his words and a peaceful calm settled over my spirit.

I thanked him for praying, and he hugged me for a long time.

“Feel better?”

“Yes! 100%!”

“Not nervous anymore?”

“Nope. Not one bit. I’m pumped!”

He left the room and then I started to think about how sly the devil can be, how he uses the most strategic offenses to wage the warfare where he knows he can win – in our minds. Not only was he was trying to stop me from living life. From experiencing something new and invigorating. From creating a lasting memory with some of my closest and most special friends. But, from living boldly and confidently.

I thought about how conniving he had been, how he had slowly watered and pruned those thoughts as soon as they had been planted in my mind from that video.

What if I had listened to him and not gone?  What if I had let those thoughts overtake me and given life to those fears, given life to death, given it permission to come for me that next day?

The tongue is a “small part of the body” (James 3:5), yet Proverbs 18:21 says it “has the power of life and death.” This holds true whether we’re speaking of spiritual, physical, or emotional “life and death.”

And that’s when I got mad. How dare he?

I have already conquered this area of my life so many times and in so many ways. I have already learned to control my thoughts and mind my words. I mean, this is beginner faith stuff.  I learned this a looooong time ago. There is a whole chapter on it in my book for crying out loud!!  How dare he work his way back in there?  Satan is not welcome in my mind.

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And then I saw how easy it was, how quickly he worked back into that driver’s seat, darting my thoughts all over the place. How rapidly I spiraled down that dark, dangerous rabbit hole. And I was reminded again how vitally important it is to constantly be renewing and guarding my mind.  It’s not a one-time thing.  It’s an every day thing.

And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God. (- Romans 12:2)

I felt like Vince Lombardi was standing in front of me, pigskin in hand, uttering, “This is a football.”  The basics. The basics are the basics for a reason, in sports or faith or any other arena of life. They are building blocks, the foundation on which we build [the rest] upon. And if your foundation starts weakening, it won’t be long until your whole house crumbles.

Now am I saying it was God’s “will” for me to go skydiving? Maybe I am. I don’t know. But I do know it is NOT God’s will for me to live a life of fear and timidity, weak and limited, a life of mediocrity.

God has created and called each and every one of us to a life FULL of adventure, of taking new ground, of winning battles (even if they are just in our minds), and of doing it all for and with and because of Him. Because he has empowered us to do so. 
And don’t you forget it. The next time those voices of fear and uncertainty start to creep in, silence them quickly before they paralyze your faith.  Because if you don’t, you’ll miss out on awesome stuff like this:

The Lost Year

time's up blog

Driving around running last minute holiday errands, my husband says to me, “Babe! 2014 was such a great year.”

“Yeah?”  I was racking my brain to think of any significant milestones or events.

“Yeah. We got engaged, we got married…..”

“Nope.     That all happened in 2013.”  I replied.

“Ooohh. Then what happened in 2014?”

“Exactly.”

He paused for a minute while he tried to think of other things, “….Wow, I lost a whole year.”

Today, January 1st, 2015 is the first time I ever felt completely unprepared for a new year.  I was not ready to write a 1- in the upper right hand corner of my page today.  Everything in me screamed it was still 12- that I still had more time.  I wasn’t ready to start carrying my new planner, because I felt I wasn’t done with the last one.  With so much left undone and unaccomplished in 2014, I started to feel a little disheartened, especially with it being such a milestone year as I turned 30.  And I realized, I never want to feel that way again.

Today, I resolved to never leave a year unfinished again.

After receiving that clear conviction, I felt my focus shift to what I was able to accomplish and see to fruition in 2014.  I guess it wasn’t a completely lost year.  Could we call it a year of transition? 

In 2014 I:
Learned Discernment

For years I have been praying for discernment in hearing God’s voice, the promptings of the Holy Spirit.  It took losing a friend on earth, and finding his voice afterwards that I learned how to tune myself into God’s voice in my mind.  Now that I hear it loud and clear, I’m working on obedience. Every time.

Worked Camp

Working senior high church camp this Summer was an affirmation (that I needed) that I am good enough. That God can still use me. That I am wanted and accepted for His work.

I was blessed in meeting those kids and having the opportunity to minister to them, and influence their lives through social media even afterwards.

God showed me plainly that my story reaches beyond just other twentysomething divorcees. Which added fuel to the fire of my freshly renewed purpose.

Experienced Joy

I am only now realizing, as I type this, the irony of God having me focus on Joy for the majority of this year.  That despite 2014 was a time I could have been more frustrated and impatient and disappointed than ever with our stagnation, He had me meditating and studying and developing true Joy in my life and in my spirit. So that I find myself deeply satisfied, always; despite our current circumstances, or station.  I guess during that, He was also growing my patience.

I know God never gives you anything you can’t handle.  That sometimes before our Promised Land, we have to spend a little time in the desert while He develops specific things in us.

Discernment, Worth & Purpose, Joy & Patience…. I’d say those are all pretty valuable things.  And I didn’t realize I was lacking in any of them.  So instead of Lost, let’s call 2014, The Desert Year.

The greatest victory of this year is that without even trying, I have already had other people take notice of these developments in me, and reach out to ask how they might develop them for themselves.  Two people have already asked me to “mentor” them in their goals this year.  The years when I was working so hard to prove what a leader I was, no one ever noticed.

God can do so many greater things in us than we ever can on our own.  No matter how many books we read, or how many audios we listen to, while those are important, more important than that is simply letting go, listening, and allowing God’s Spirit work to in us to develop exactly what we need for Him to use.

And if that’s the only lesson I took away from 2014, I’d say it was a pretty good year after all.

Discernment & Hearing Tim’s Voice

My friend Tim died suddenly. He was 35. I was with him two weeks prior, joking around, pushing, poking. Then his heart stopped beating and he was gone. I will never see him again on this earth.

After his death, I was struggling with the decision of whether or not to attend his funeral or a Christian leadership conference that was coming up the same weekend.  We were going to be taking a friend with us to the conference who tried to commit suicide two weeks before.  As I contemplated the decision, weighing in my mind were things like being judged by other people for not going, and disappointing others if I decided to go and miss part of the conference instead.

While battling with it in my hotel room, I heard, Tim say as clear as a bell in my head, “Rach, of course you need to go the conference, don’t worry about me.”

And that was that. My decision was made.  Other people’s opinion’s aside, I knew what I needed to do.

Because I knew Tim, I knew his heart, I knew his passion, I knew his calling in life.  Because I touched him, and heard his voice, and saw his face.  Because I knew the inflection he used when he spoke, and the shape his mouth made when it formed words, and the expressions his eyes gave when he told a story…. I knew what he would want me to do in that situation.

And then it dawned on me, that’s how well I need to know and recognize God’s voice. I want it to be that clear and unquestionable. I never want to doubt again when I hear a directive: is this from God, or is this from my head?

So how do I get to hearing His voice that clearly?  By getting to know God as intimately as I knew my friend Tim.  To know His heart, and his desires for me – which is always what’s best for me.

As I pondered all of this, for the first time in my life “discernment” clicked for me.  I made a revelation I can never unmake.  Really truly being able to hear from and follow God’s Voice became a little more believable for me, and I have a clear mission and plan on how to get to that place.

Even after he left the earth, my friend Tim is still teaching me new things.

[January 2014]