Thoughts on faith reconstructed, being alcohol-free, dealing with disability,and living transparently (and somehow keeping a sense of humor)
It’s book giveaway time again! I am happy to announce that two copies of my recovery memoir, “EDGEWISE: Plunging off the Brink of Drink and into the Love of God” will go to winners in the http://www.goodreads.com giveaway event. The deadline to enter the contest is July 20.
It’s easy to enter, and there is no obligation whatsoever.
To enter, CLICK HERE.
God bless you!
By: Jana Greene
I have been reading “Mystical Union” by John Crowder. And it is wrecking me, absolutely wrecking me. If you are a Seeker, I cannot recommend it highly enough. Getting wrecked can be a good thing.
“It will turn everything you believe on its ear,” I was told by the person who suggested I read it. “In the best possible way.”
Oh, goody. Because everything I believe is all that I know. And I know so little, really.
The word “mystical” can be off-putting for Christians, although it shouldn’t be – you don’t get much more mystical that the Creator of the Universe becoming human to reconcile himself to his creation – Christianity 101. The whole thing is mystic to the core. Still, I am rattled by what I am reading.
Among the dozen or so ideas that have taken me aback – in the book I’m only half-way through with – is Crowder’s assertion that “God is never looking at your performance as the indicator of His pleasure toward you. So many people live on an emotional roller-coaster ride … ”
Raising hand, and wearing the promotional roller coaster T-shirt, nauseated from the marathon ride…
I am on a quest to lose my religion – religion being all the spin that man has put on relationship with God through the ages – and turn down the noise of it, so that I can hear what God is really saying.
That we cannot fathom how much he adores us, every one of us.
That He is always in a good mood, not temperamentally mood-shifting, like we are.
That He is only always good.
That He is less the stern-but-loving Father-figure that churches have historically made him out to be….assessing our accomplishments and shortcomings – and more of a laid-back, hippie-dippy, all-you-need-is-love (Christ), welcoming, tolerant Father – in a way that transcends all time, space, and reason.
(What if He isn’t even disappointed in me for comparing him to a hippie-dippy, all-you-need-is-love, welcoming, tolerant, Father and Creator who transcends all time, space, reason with pure, unrelenting love?)
I usually invite a challenge, especially the kind in which I can easily prove the challenger wrong. But this time, I know the Challenger Himself is Almighty God, and He is pulling me away from the idol of religion, and into Him. My weaponry of thin, papery religiousness powerless against His embrace of Truth.
He transcends all with pure, unrelenting love. He transcends the regulations, pontifications, rules – all the things we’ve made it about for more than 2,000 years. Surely he can transcend my own dirty deeds; my wonky quirks.
Maybe that’s what Jesus meant, when He uttered his last words, ” IT. IS. FINISHED.”
I don’t think I’ve ever grasped the finality of what happened at the crucifixion and resurrection of God. If it is finished, the residual guilt and shame I keep picking up and hauling around is not my cross to bear– as I’ve always believed. The grace I ask for and receive is not meant to counterbalance the heft of my shame. I do not receive grace by the bucket-full to douse the fire of each indiscretion – I am already drowning in it. So are you. The work of the cross was the catalyst for God to flood the world with grace.
Religion says that God swoops down and saves me from myself a thousand times a day, and that is what grace looks like. But the theology of Mystical Union says (and with scripture, I might add) that we believers were co-crucified with Christ and in one swoop. God reconciled us to Him….
We can stop trying to make perfection happen. Perfection is not going to happen.
It is finished, period. Mind blowing.
Sometimes being a Seeker gives me a headache.
Religion says we are responsible for aspects of our salvation – ergo, we can turn the volume up or down on our spiritual speaker, tweak the boom of the bass, turn down the treble, change the center with the fader of our deeds and actions.
But God cannot be moved from Center. He is the Center. He is undeterred by the noise we create.
Fundamental to this spiritual epiphany is the idea that we are not “sinners saved by grace,” which I have – over the years – convinced myself was my identity. After many years of sobriety and much prayer, that had been the only conclusion.
But what if the work of the cross – that event in which Creator God heaved toward humankind with such love and power that it knocked the evil in us to the ground and buried it with Christ – was powerful enough to resurrect us in glory with Christ, while leaving evil in the grave?
What if God only sees us through the lens of his living, life-giving Son, and not as sinners wearing toe-tags that say “Admit One – Heaven.” I am going to have eternal life, yes. But I don’t want to slog out my existence here during my mission on Earth, not understanding and appreciating what my birthright truly is. I want joy now too, please.
Hey, has anyone seen my “everything I thought I believed?”
Oh, there it is – on the ground. On it’s ‘ear’
Wreck me, God. Wreck me.
I’m after Truth. Help me to accept it, and to share it with others as I walk the journey. I’m ready to be fully, 100% set free.
Amen.
Could be titled “Prayer in the desert” … Could be titled “VEGAS, BABY!”
A friend of mine, who happens to be a writer I admire very much,
asked me to guest blog. When I was trying to figure out what to write, I struggled a bit. He suggested that ‘prayer’ might be a good subject. I told him that I’m having a bit of a (as Christians are disposed to saying) Walking in the Desert prayer spell right now. Then I prayed about it a bit. Then I remembered a trip to Vegas. And then I wrote. The result is attached below.Thanks, Chris Canuel, for the opportunity to guest write for your awesome blog.
And thanks, God, for reminding me of Vegas.
I’m so excited to have one of my favorite writers guest blogging for me today. Her name is Jana Greene and she blogs over at The Beggars Bakery. Jana is also the author of Edgewise: plunging off of the brink of drink and into the love of God
How do you get out of the spiritual desert? You build a huge, blinking distraction to it.
Or, you can just walk through it, and fully expect God to bring you to the other side.
About eight years ago, I went to Las Vegas on a business trip. The long and short of it was that I had a mini-nervous breakdown.
My colleagues and I stayed in the Luxor – a magnificent pyramid structure on the Vegas strip, smack dab (as we say in the South)…
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There is so much noise. Do you hear it?
A pulling like the moon on the tide, darkly scooting across the earth. An undercurrent of intolerance for those who love Christ, who love God. More and more there is a cultural acceptance to bash them. And at Easter time, a growling and blatant disrespect for Yeshua – Jesus – and his lifework and ministry.
Never in history has a single King elicited such passion – both adoration and loathing.
But then, never in history has a single King come to redeem not only his own subjects, but the ones who mock him.
And mock him, they have. Internet memes, social media, and other venues for popular culture may be the latest vehicles for this derision, but on this Good Friday, we mark the day of the Crown of Thorns. We mark the event in which his contemporaries intended to make a parody of him, affixing a sign to the cross that read, “King of the Jews.” The event in which an innocent man was whipped and nailed to that cross, his body in ribbons, so that he could die a sinner’s death to bridge the gap for sinners to God.
His dying retort? Forgive them, Father. They know not what they do.
And now, more than 2,000 years later, why such vitriol still spewed in his direction? Why does the very idea upset this generation so … that there is a God, and that he so adores his creation that he sent his very own Son – his flesh and blood – to die for us and draw us near while we were still sinners?
Because, in this fallen world, Jesus and his resurrection are offensive.
It offends humankind that they might require atonement. It annoys them that their deeds might be construed as “sin” at all! The natural within us wills to live bound by appetites they feel justified in satisfying.
The same culture of entitlement that parlays that we are all entitled to all the good things in life, also tells us we are entitled to the not-so-good things…self-satisfaction at all costs. The world and everyone in it? Yours for the taking. It is owed to you.
Jesus offends people because – at the end of the day – they don’t believe they need any redemption at all. Which is nothing new, of course, as evidenced by the day of the Crown of Thorns.
We live in a time in which the credibility of all things mystical and paranormal are not questioned, but all things holy and divine (and by the way, plenty mystical) are treated with disdain. Like resurrection. Like eternal life.
So much noise.
I am not offended by Christ. You see, the stakes were just too high. I’ve seen in my own life that he not only rose from the tomb, but set me free from one as well. I’m not willing to bargain on this fallen world being my oyster. I’ve seen what my appetites can do. I am hungry for much more than this meager life, and living in this skin … depending on the turning of the tides – the lucks.
The mockery is not the only noise, of course. As the tide turns on the phases of discontent this Holy Week, and the enemy ups the ante in popular culture – the noise – you can hear the rolling rejoicing from believers all over the world that the grave holds no power at all!
Can you hear it?
With no cultural constraints, it will undulate forever, just as it has for 2,000-plus years.
It roars like the sea in the lives of those who follow Christ. Just under the surface (but deeper and more authentic than anything that has ever resonated in popular culture) the thunder rises, drowning out the drums of denial and mockery for the Savior.
Forgive them Father. They know not what they do.
Yeshua, KING OF KINGS!
It is finished.
It sounds like an enormous stone being rolled away from crypt, grinding and roaring and echoing from the empty chamber. It sounds like life.
It sounds like Easter.
I’ve been learning a lot about my identity in Christ lately. Through a series of events and sermons, experiences and words of knowledge – it has been presented to me that I am not, in fact, a sinner saved by grace, but a most-beloved daughter of Abba whose transgressions were nailed to the cross of my savior over 2,000 years ago.
It would behoove my spirit to believe that, to know it 100 percent. But I am really struggling with it. It took a long time for me – my sin-list dragging behind me everywhere I go like coattails – to accept that I am a sinner and a saint, both. …that there was any “saint” in me to be had.
I am, after all, a paradox. Like the Apostle Paul, I find myself doing what I do not want to, and not doing what I should. But I love Jesus with all my heart; it’s just I’m actually not Jesus; you would never in a million years mistake him for me.
My pastor just happens to be a man I respect very much – a man whose heart beats for God. He knocks around in the supernatural as if God had just poured it into his spirit to overflowing. That might be because God did – in fact – pour it into him. He is different; he is chosen – and humble and grateful. I want that supernatural walk, but my struggle with my identity in Christ is putting a damper on the manifestation of my faith.
I can believe – for 30 minutes in church – that I am an absolute princess, daughter of the most-high God; and as such, God sees me only through the filter of his son when he looks at me. He doesn’t see sin. God is – spiritually speaking – illiterate to my self-professed labeling. “Sinner,” “Alcoholic,” “Worrier,” “Selfish,” “Short-tempered,” “Moody,” “Judgmental.” All of these things about me are true, really. The truth is that I’d rather be all of these things, than to be “self righteous.”
For those 30 minutes in church, I will know that I am royalty – God’s own child – but I also know that – on my drive home from service that very day – I will curse at least a dozen other drivers in the ten minute drive home (under my breath if I’m really feeling holy.) I will have negative thoughts almost immediately, and ask Jesus to help me rein them in, and he will – but I will hesitate to let them go because I feel justified in thinking them. Because I have three young adult daughters (who sometimes make abysmal choices – where do they get that?) I will worry about each of them, one at a time. Maybe I have had a lustful thought thrown in to the mix for some random reason, or entertained thoughts of how someone has wronged me, or beat myself up for a diet failure, or ….. Well, you get the picture. By the time I get home from church, I feel like a “Princess of God Gone Wild” at the very least; certainly like a sinner, not so much like a saint. Like one of those princesses who cannot quite get the hang of it, or worse…makes the royal family look bad…brought shame upon the throne – Apox opon ye! That kind of thing. (My paparazzi of self-condemnation follows me everywhere, and catches every slip for the world to see…)
But what of the old adage I learned in recovery, “Feelings are not facts?” Am I living in regal-ity, or legality?
Hmmm.
What if the blood of Christ were powerful enough not only to save a wretch like me when I first believed, but cover all of the transgressions I am yet to be guilty of? What if I was royalty enough to cut off the coattails, leave the labels behind, and – and a daughter of the Most High God – accepted the supernatural to overflowing?
While these things sink into my spirit, and begin the (often long, treacherous) journey to my brain, I ask God to help me struggle less and trust more. And wear this crown that sits on my head ever-so-wonkily just now. And ask for him to see me through the filter of his son as I learn to be righteous in Him, and not in self. I want to knock around in the supernatural, overflowing with the same love and grace for others that has been given me.
Help me understand my birthright, God. And until I understand, hold the paparazzi at bay, in the name of your son, Jesus.
Amen.
And it came to pass that she did not think of Munchos *every hour of every day, and her spirit learned to recognize that chocolate was – in fact – not necessarily the only means of spirit-soothing. And in that day, she did no more dread Romaine instead of Big Mac, but did so feel slightly feel slightly less like Jabba the Hut when dressing in the morning, as her pants did not cutteth her in half.
* But only every other hour
Today is Day 8 of “clean eating,” and the truth is that I do feel better. I am supposed to do 30 days, which – in theory – helps reboot my mindset about food.
Although my body feels better, the psychological effects come in lurches. For example, last night – in a fit of seemingly random stress – I announced to my husband that I could eat a whole bag of chips all by myself at that very moment; that I wouldn’t even share with him.
“And,” I said, for dramatic effect. “I would lick the greasy, salty remnants out of the empty bag, after I ate it all myself!”
I really could have done that, but instead I just bitched about not being able to, and the urge passed. My husband, knowing my penchant for both bitching and the dramatic, just listened and lets it pass. He is so much saner than I.
For the hundredth time in the past week, the parallels between this 30-day program and my sobriety came to light. In a stressful moment, I wish I could obliterate. In reaction, I do one of two things:
A) The healthy choice: Dig out my recovery tools – affirmations, prayer, mindfulness, admittance of powerlessness, and ask God for help. Examine why I desire to obliterate.
B) The less-than-healthy choice: Gripe about why I cannot handle food, alcohol (it keeps going….fill-in-the-blank) with said substance like a regular, “normal” person, until the craving passes. And then examine why I desire to obliterate.
I am working on making choice “A” my default, but working is the operative word here.
Progress, not perfection.
I am also working on acknowledging the results of my eating regimen. Fussing about having to do something does not cancel out the effects of following through and not doing it. Successes still count, even if my attitude isn’t so peachy.
Instead of focusing on my Munchos/chocolate dietary deficit, I am going to give thanks that my (fat) pants fit! I will give myself props for fighting the good fight, and embracing the Romaine (figuratively, not literally. That would just be really weird.)
And ask God to soothe my spirit when I am stressed, on Day 8, Day 30, and for a lifetime; to help my mind stay “re-booted.”
And in that day ….
She shall enjoy the occasional chocolate as a treat and not a staple, and she shall rejoice in God’s bountiful creation of the components of the Hershey bar, and useth moderation in imbibing in the works of thine hand.
Alleluia … and pass the salad tongs.
Them bones, them bones gonna’ walk around……
Today, the message at church was about (among other things) Ezekiel, the biblical Old Testament prophet. I know only a few things about Ezekiel – that there is an unleavened bread named after him that is okay to eat if you are on the Daniel Fast; that he saw a wheel “way up in the middle of the sky;” and – courtesy of another song learned as a child – I know that God asked him to raise the dry bones of soldiers into an living army.
Dry bones, like the skeletons we keep in our closets. Living with active addiction is like having only dry bones with which to function in life.
Addiction renders our spiritual bones dry as desert sand. Active disease sucks the marrow from us, the very cells that keep life going. It saps our souls of the muscle to get up and move out of that place, our lifeblood drained from veins and vessels. Without the sinew to hold us together, our skin – protective covering for what has wasted away – falls away until. Our hope gone, there is nothing left of us but dry bones.
This week, having published my first book – a tome of essays addressing my alcoholism and recovery – my bones have been rattled a bit. I long ago decided that if I were to share my experience, strength and hope with others, it is important to be authentic, but sometimes who I authentically am is messy. In publishing the book, I unlocked the closet, swung the door open, and let the bones fall where they may for all to see. If I tidied up my story, I would be in danger of becoming only a bleached-out, “dry” drunk, and not a person in active recovery.
But it’s hard. It’s really difficult because my humanness – my flesh – still just wants to get a bigger closet for my skeletons.
Until this morning, I had been feeling a little embarrassed going public with some of the details of my story; the graphic nature of my pain. And then in church (of all places!) I was reminded about Ezekiel, because you see – what God asked him to do is not all that different from what God has asked me to do – what he asks each person redeemed by his love to do: To spread the message that dry bones can rise up in life again.
In Ezekiel’s own words:
“…Dry bones, bleached by the sun. God said to me, ‘Son of man, can these bones live?’ I prophesied just as I’d been commanded. As I prophesied, there was a sound and, oh, rustling!
The bones moved and came together, bone to bone. I kept watching. Sinews formed, then muscles on the bones, then skin stretched over them. But they had no breath in them. He said to me, ‘Prophesy to the breath. Prophesy, son of man. Tell the breath, ‘God, the Master, says, Come from the four winds. Come, breath. Breathe on these slain bodies. Breathe life!’
So I prophesied, just as he commanded me. The breath entered them and they came alive! They stood up on their feet, a huge army.
Then God said to me, ‘Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. Listen to what they’re saying: ‘Our bones are dried up, our hope is gone, there’s nothing left of us.’
I am prophesying today as he commands me. Yes, me. This middle-aged, middle-American, middle-classed woman seemingly of no great consequence….I am prophesying to the breath to those alcoholics and addicts all the world over walking wounded. The hopeless ones. Because God grabbed me and showed me the bones strewn about, you see. And he says that we are ALL of great consequence.
“I’m bringing the breath of life to you and you’ll come to life. I’ll attach sinews to you, put meat on your bones, cover you with skin, and breathe life into you. You’ll come alive and you’ll realize that I am God!”
He is raising an army of the lost and broken, the addicted. God, breathe on these slain bodies! Breathe LIFE!
There is a sound – oh, a rustling! Dry bones knocking together, but then a wind from Heaven giving breath to a huge, living army. An army that goes forth in flesh to prophesy for the others who have only dry bones with which to function.
Now hear the word of the Lord:
“Therefore, prophesy. Tell them, ‘God, the Master, says: I’ll dig up your graves and bring you out alive—O my people! Then I’ll take you straight to the land of Israel. When I dig up graves and bring you out as my people, you’ll realize that I am God. I’ll breathe my life into you and you’ll live. Then I’ll lead you straight back to your land and you’ll realize that I am God. I’ve said it and I’ll do it. God’s Decree.” – Scriptures from Ezekiel 37 1:-14 (The Message)
Alleluia! Make it so, God. Make it so.
By: Jana Greene
Ever feel like you are just too far gone?
For a long time before experiencing my current spiritual revival, I felt an awfully long way off from the Father.
I love the story of the prodigal son because I can relate to all three of the central characters.
I have been the prodigal child, returning to the father after making an absolute wreck of her life.
I have been the brother who did not think his father’s warm welcome of the long, lost brother was fair.
And as the mother of three teen and young-adult daughters, I have been the joyous parent when a rebellious child returns home that I would gladly kill the fatted calf (or at least make a trip to Costco for a porterhouse steak) for her welcome.
But the most poignant thing about the story is this:
“When he was still a long way off, his father saw him. His heart pounding, he ran out, embraced him, and kissed him. The son started his speech: ‘Father, I’ve sinned against God, I’ve sinned before you; I don’t deserve to be called your son ever again. But the father wasn’t listening. He was calling to the servants, ‘Quick. Bring a clean set of clothes and dress him. Put the family ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Then kill the fatted calf and roast it. We’re going to feast! We’re going to have a wonderful time! My son is here—given up for dead and now alive! Given up for lost and now found!’ Luke 15:20-24 (MSG)
While the son was still a long way off. The father did not stand on the porch, arms folded, waiting for his son to reach him.
So tonight – praying on my knees – I told God that I was sorry for wandering such a long way off (as I am want to do from time to time) and that I was feeling pretty lousy about the low-grade effort toward my faith walk. I’ve been giving it the old college try, but only half-heartedly, feeling like I’m slogging through a muddy rut.
But getting me out of muddy ruts is one of Abba’s specialties.
When I am truly a long way off – in the throes of addiction, depression, anxiety – and feeling ‘too far gone,” He simply cannot wait to hold me. And nothing is sweeter than the embrace of the Father.
When the air (and mud) clears, it is the supernatural, unexplainable, un-containable God, wildly in love with me. The God that is not content to be the vague and angry character we all learned about in Vacation Bible School as children, or the long-ago Messiah who turned a few loaves of bread and a couple of fish into a mass-meal. But the radical, revolutionary of love itself that I want to walk close enough to to be covered in the dust of his sandals.
“My beloved daughter,” he is saying. “You were given up for lost – if only by yourself ….and now you are found!”
And this radical, revolutionary Savior who sees me in various states of disrepair from a long way off, running toward me to pull me into a crazy embrace.
And I am 100%, all-in, too far gone in love with him to let go.
By: Jana Greene
“For those who feel their lives are a grave disappointment to God, it requires enormous trust and reckless, raging confidence to accept that the love of Jesus Christ knows no shadow of alteration or change. When Jesus said, “Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy burdened,” He assumed we would grow weary, discouraged, and disheartened along the way. These words are a touching testimony to the genuine humanness of Jesus. He had no romantic notion of the cost of discipleship. He knew that following Him was as unsentimental as duty, as demanding as love.”
― Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out
From the very first minute I met my beloved husband, it was obvious that he was interested in me. He made is so clear! If ever there were a love at first sight, we totally nailed it.
But seemed to be such a good man, that I had this primal urge to warn him.
“You should probably know,” I said, while waited for a lunch table on our first date. “I’m an alcoholic in recovery.”
“And have two daughters, 10 and 13, who I raise by myself. And they are really handfuls.“ He only smiled at me, undeterred.
As that first date progressed, it was clear that this man was special, different. He was warm, attentive, interesting. I had butterflies, but in the most comfortable, natural way. As it turned out, that he had a 13-year-old daughter, too. In our first, long conversation, I kept having the oddest feeling that this was The One.
We saw each other every day after that. We simply couldn’t be apart.
In times of anxiety, I wanted to tell him, “RUN! I am not worth it!” and when he didn’t run, that dark place in my spirit that was born of so much rejection in the past, whispered, “He will one day abandon you, you know. He will figure it out.”
Even after such a brief courtship, it occurred to me that If he wanted to run, I would rather it be right away, before I fell any deeper in love with him. I felt like such a mess, with nothing to bring into this new relationship.
Nothing but me.
“I have medical issues,” I would say at otherwise intimate times. Or, “I struggle to pay my bills.”
I was sure that this sexy, compassionate, amazing man would not stick around, if only he knew the true me. But a strange thing happened … the more he came to know the true “me,” the more he just kept falling in love. The alcoholism recovery (which is a lifetime endeavor,) the single-parenting of teenaged girls, the health issues….none of these – or any of the other in the plethora of anxieties and insecurities – kept him from loving me.
Oh how many times I experience the same dynamic in my walk with God! From the very first moment I accepted Christ as my savior, it was obvious that he was head-over-heels with me.
From time to time I remind him: “I am small, insignificant. I battle anxiety, and fear abandonment, and have nothing to bring to the table. Only me.”
He is such a good God, it’s almost as if I feel I should warn Him.
Often, when I feel those butterflies that come from knowing the Living God has fallen in love with me, I still wonder “why?” I am in awe that the God of the universe is undeterred by my character defects, challenges, and not concerned about what I can “bring to the table.”
I’ve told God that – if he wants to run, I understand. I’m kind of a mess. Sometimes, when I am most anxious and depressed, when the old feelings of being a “mess” crash over me, I think about the early days when I tried to talk my Beloved husband out of loving me, and he just smiled. I was enough, he wanted me, just me – forever.
What kind of God would be crazy about me? The kind that cannot be talked out of it.
The kind who just wants to be with me, because when he created me, it was love at first sight.
And when he runs, it is only toward me.
By: Jana Greene
I’ve been looking back on my very brief career in the airline industry recently, not out of melancholy or nostalgia, but because so many of the terms I learned while training seem to relate to my current spiritual life.
You see, I’ve been in a bit of a funk, waiting upon the Lord to reveal his plans – and himself – to me.
“I’m ready, Lord,” I tell him, impatient that his timing so out of whack with mine.
But instead of instructing me on where to let the wheels down and make a descent, I am getting: “Circle back around, be patient.”
Life in a holding pattern, it seems, is not my forte.
And so I wait, trying to trust that the Pilot knows what He is doing. He has all the credentials, certified and able to direct the course of my life. This is not his first flight. He knows his way around – the lay of the land, the circumstances of my life – since he is the mastermind of both.
He knows exactly where I’m going, and I don’t have a clue. Not having an idea of my destination only adds to my frustration.
“Thank you for flying blind with God today,” pre-flight announcements would say. If there were any. ” on your way to God-only-knows-where, for the purpose of God-only-knows-what.”
And that’s not where the air travel metaphor ends..
Right now, God is on the precipice of taking my life somewhere wonderful, but it’s going to be a bumpy ride.
So many challenges have presented lately, I feel like a Frequent Flyer who has earned the status as a hostage – having experienced too may changes in a short period of time.
And most recently, I’m just justthisclose to a full-on Tarmac Tantrum, because there has been an inordinate amount of time just sitting in the plane without even getting off the ground. Confined, and feeling slighted, the whole situation out of my control.
I’m afraid of new journeys, and resent the Comfort Compromise – even though the safety constraints are there for my well-being, I’m tired of being all buckled-in.
But when we are soaring, God at the controls – and I take enough time to look out the window instead of trying to figure everything out, the views are incredible.
“We are, once again, in a holding pattern,” I hear God’s voice crackle across the intercom.
“But you can still enjoy the view!”
Down through the clouds, I see the people milling around, as they become tiny ants on the ground. I stop to consider that my Pilot knows every thought in the heads of each “tiny ant” – and ever hair on each of their heads, so precious are them to Him.
I can’t help but admire his creation as we fly over, knowing that the majesty of mountains and vastness of the sea that confirms God’s handiwork is also manifest in the smallest cells and molecules .
He is in all. He IS all.
Why do I so often Miss that?
And as to directly answer my question, I hear:
“The Free Will sign is always illuminated,” my flight attendant – an angel – advises. “so feel free to move about your life.’
Ah, yes. The Free Will, so generously given us by God. That’s how I so often miss the things God shows me…my free will is busy focused on other, more trivial pursuits.
As the Captain indicated that we will be descending shortly, he reminds us not to fear. “you may hear changes in the engine, or feel a little turbulence, I’ve got this. I’ve got you.”
I’ve been flying in a holding pattern so long, I scarcely know what to do when Permission to Land has been directed. What shall I take with me into this new place where God has brought me?
The armor of God, of course. It’s really heavy, but absolutely essential.
His word, of course. It is how I will navigate my new surroundings.
Good friends, who have been through thick and thin, and love Christ with all of their hearts.
And faith. Never leave home without it!
And as I depart the plane, which has kept me hostage in a holding pattern for so long, God stops all of the important things he is doing to thank me for flying with him. Thank you for Trusting Him.
Stepping onto the concourse, the whole atmosphere changes, It is loud and bustling, full of people and full of opportunity. It is almost always a vastly different place than I thought I would end up.
But I know that my Pilot accompanies me on my missions every day of my life, even – especially – on a new, bumpy journeys.
It’s going to be wonderful.
By: Jana Greene
This letter is a gift to someone who is a gift to my life. I asked her permission to publish it, to which she responded:
“You have full permission to publish it if you want—I hope it inspires others to have real friendships like ours!”
Amen, Sister-Girlfriend. The world would be a much better place.
My sweet Melissa,
Do you remember the first Christmas that we became friends? Our daughters – now freshmen in college – were fourth-graders who had just declared themselves Best Friends Forever. I was a struggling, single mom, just having divorced my children’s father after fourteen years of marriage. My little girl was having a terrible time. I got her a good therapist, and tried to calm her fears of loss, which were pretty well-founded.
What she really needed was a very good friend. Your daughter was that very good friend to her.
It was a horrible, awful time in my life. I was working four jobs to feed my girls after being a stay-at-home mom all of their lives. They became latch-key kids. I became a hot mess from the guilt.
When we first met, I was holding on to my four-year-old sobriety by a single thread, it seemed, and living on high anxiety. You invited me over anyway when the girls were having a play-date, serving coffee (and, I’m certain) sweets. You asked questions that nobody else had bothered to ask, and didn’t judge me when I answered honestly.
Sometimes when you stop trying so hard, God makes mystical things happen. Like our friendship.
At the time, you were wary of organized religion, and I was wary of everything. But in your guest bathroom, you had a display of decorative crosses. Every time I went to the loo at your house, I thanked God for you and your kindness. I prayed that you would trust Him again, even as I struggled to trust Him myself. Yes, on the loo! I can tell you that now, all these years later.
That Christmas, I sat with all of our girls while you went on a date with your hubby. Before you departed for the evening, you gave me a pretty little wrapped gift box, and instructed me to open it when you left. I did, and it was a lovely new wallet.
When you came back home, I thanked you, and you said that I should make sure to look inside of it. Folded in the zipped compartment was a hundred-dollar bill.
“Get your girls a little something for Christmas,” you said, like it was not a big deal.
It was SUCH a big deal, Melissa, to fill the girls’ stockings that year. Such a big deal.
Little did I know that praying for you on the loo would be the least of what we would come to discuss as our friendship deepened! No subject was off-limits, no pretending to be who we were not. No pretense, all acceptance – what a wonderful foundation for a friendship.
I have to tell you, my friend, throughout the storms, you were my safe place. And always – even if there were tears – laughter was ultimately the order of the day.
We are pretty cool that way.
Over the years, we have really been through it together, have we not? With six daughters between us, holy cow – have we ever!
Teenagers and all the stupid stuff they do. Teenagers and all the awesome stuff they do.
Through a divorce and a new marriage (both mine) you were such a support. Through your steady marriage, you taught me so much.
When our husbands drive us bonkers, we have a kvetch session, and are a-okay again.
When our kids drive us bonkers, well … together, we find the strength to soldier on.
We’ve done the Mom Circuit, and weathered the “Mom, leave me alone!” syndrome.
Between us, we’ve done new careers, and unemployment.
We’ve drowned our sorrows in Queso dip at every Mexican food restaurant in town. (Cheese plays a major role in our relationship, as well it should!)
We’ve had pajama parties, and felt the betrayal of gravity (especially me….you look MAHVELOUS!) and – as we schlepped into our forties – the reward of chasing dreams and catching them, on occasion. (Or should I say, we sashay gracefully into our forties – and beyond.)
We’ve struggled with the discovery of what is out of our control (everything, essentially) and celebrated what we which we can control (keeping the faith.)
We’ve threatened to write a book together – which, incidentally is still TOTALLY happening!
Most meaningfully, when my own family members high-tailed it out of my life, you ran towards me.
You and I …. we’ve had spiritual crisises and awakenings, stumblings and triumphs. And shared with honesty every experience.
We discovered together that we are NOT orphans after all, but beloved daughters of the Most High King….princesses, really!
And that makes us sisters. Family.
Even our husbands became MFFs (Man Friends Forever…please don’t tell them I said that,) and our daughters as close as any siblings.
Family, like I said.
Your love, prayers and steadfastness have helped keep me sober. Honestly, I doubt I would have maintained it without your support.
That love….those prayers and acceptance – they have kept me from running away from home on numerous occasions (“This parenting teens thing? I QUIT!”)
In the midst of building this friendship, you had a revolution in your spirit. When God lit a fire under you, he used spiritual kerosene!
Girl, you were on FIRE, and you are still on fire! It is one of the most beautiful things I have ever been witness to.
A spark from the heart of Jesus himself caught the hem of your garment, and you just had to serve Him. You served Him by helping other women, like you helped me. By genuinely loving them – fiercely. From it came additions to the sisterhood – the WAYwards – and lots of tears and laughter.
And laughter came in handy during the difficult times.
Several years ago, when I got sick, I stayed sick for nearly three years. It was another awful, dark time in my life. Chronically fatigued. Endlessly in pain. And with no answers in sight, living on high anxiety once again.
For three solid years, I fought numbness, pain, fatigue….every single day, and bitched about it plenty. My complaining and frustration had to have tested your dedication! But you listened every time, and never gave up.
You prayed for my health fervently. Sometimes, when I was in the middle of exhaustion and complaint, you would just extend your right hand toward me and pray so hard that we would both cry – even when I was right in the middle of a bitching session!
It’s hard to be hopeless when someone is that dedicated to asking God to help you.
But sometimes – when you stop trying so hard – God makes mystical things happen.
“I can’t do this anymore,” I remember telling you. And I meant it. “I can’t!”
“God can,” you said, with no judgement. More listening, more praying, more encouraging. You listened. Like a true friend, you loved fiercely, calming my fears of loss, which were pretty well-founded. “Father,” you prayed. “Please heal my friend. But even if she doesn’t get better, we praise you. We LOVE you!”
Because you see, what I really needed was a very good friend. You were – and are – that very good friend to me.
All these many years later, how many cycles have we gone through !– Distrusting organized religion, and calling on God. Trusting God, and being there for each other.
I’m so grateful for you.
Thank you for being so steady a prayer-warrior. Thank you for never, ever saying, “This friendship thing? I QUIT!”
Thank you for all the times you still give me encouragement (and chocolate) and for being my “nothing is off limits” sister.
When I think about who you are and who you’ve become, and all God has in store for you, it brings me to my knees.
When I pray for you, I ask God to take that beautiful, bright, effervescent and glorious spirit of yours and just unleash it on the world in a way that brings him glory. I pray that the same joy your spirit brings me gets unfurled on the world, and comes back on you like a tidal wave.
I never forgot the Christmas that you folded a Benjamin in the gift of a new wallet … so that I could give my daughters a Christmas. But more importantly, I never forgot that you reached out to this hot mess girl, that you went out of your way to be kind.
I never forgot that you treated my frightened, maddeningly insecure and hurting fourth-grade daughter like your own. Now a confident – gregarious, even!- young woman, she never forgot your love, either.
I love that you never stopped praying for my healing. I love your heart, that it breaks for hurting people.
I love that the most important prayer I ever learned to pray, I learned from you – “I trust you, God. I may not understand a single thing you are doing, but I trust you.”
It was a beautiful thing to do for an old friend, to teach me that prayer.
I love you with all my heart. Thank you for being a friend. Thank you for being family.
And Merry Christmas, BFF.
Why “the closet” is no place for addiction
Out of the closet.
Closets are for shoes and jackets and unused scuba gear. They are for cramming clutter into when company arrives, and storing cardboard boxes full of unused stuff. A closet is a room for what we put on to present ourselves to the world, and where we keep what no longer fits. It is no place to keep addiction.
I am not suggesting that anonymity be compromised in recovery; on the contrary – it must be protected. Many, many people would never seek sobriety without all-important confidentiality being respected with the utmost care. But I do believe that it might be possible to become sober on one’s own, getting healthy in recovery requires the fellowship of others who have suffered similarly.
The “safeness” of the closet is really just isolation. And no matter what your struggle, there are others who have survived it – thrived, even – who want to help you. There are others who know exactly where you are; you are never alone.
They meet in community centers and church basements to drink coffee and talk about living life on life’s terms. They meet because each one of them can learn from the others. They come together on a regular basis to clear the spirit and mind clutter from the closets, to get rid of what no longer fits. These rooms are a place to dress in healthy surrender to God so that we can present ourselves to the world as his broken but fully redeemed kids. And one of the tenants that helps keep our recovery going is the duty to offer a hand to help others out of the addiction closet.
You are never, never alone.
“Sometimes the light is shining on me, other times, I can barely see” – The Grateful Dead
Can I just be honest?
I hate change.
The past several months have been one change after another for me, and I resent it. I’m ready for some normalcy, but I no longer believe it exists. I’ve decided that believing in “normal” is for suckers.
What do I hate about change? I hate that good things go away, and bad things come around – before the good things come back.
I hate that change seems to happen at the precise moment that I seem to find my groove. Change often feels like having the rug yanked out from under me. You know that rug….the one that can feel like a genuine magic flying carpet, before it gets yanked.
I like riding on the high of good times. I cling on to the good times as if they are The New Normal. I like the exuberance of feeling ‘normal.’ Normal seems, for all the world, to have a rhythm, a steadiness. But changes keep rolling in.
Peace sometimes gets disrupted, and chaos ensues – it is lost, before it can be found again.
Jobs, weight, weather – all forever rising and falling – and getting on my ever-loving nerves.
Fresh things get stale.
Income comes in, and becomes “out-go” in the blink of an eye. Bills go up, the market goes down.
Kids outgrow their childhoods, but don’t leave when you are ready for them to fly. Then they grow up, and leave before you’re ready.
Relationships grow and change, morphing in uneven spurts.
Feelings in a footrace with facts, boundaries built and crumbled.
The world is a mess – just look at the news! Nothing stays stable – nothing on this earth.
Pets grow old and sick., and pass away (we lost two beloved animals in a two month span.)
We – and our circumstances – change unevenly.
Don’t even get me started on hormones… Oy vey!
Lately it occurs to me….what a long, strange, interesting trip it’s been
And the hardest changes? Spirits get bound and released, and broken and mended. (Why can’t they just stay mended?)
I suppose because….It just wouldn’t be “normal.”
Jesus said, “In this life, you will have trouble,” and He wasn’t whistling Dixie. I think he was saying, in a way: “In this life you will have change.”
In this life, you will lack for normal….if you’re “normal.”
So, is it normal to hate change?
I decided to look up synonyms for “normal” in the thesaurus – to see if Webster could define what I cannot. Interestingly, “normal” is synonymous with ordinary. Its meaning is the same as “ uniformity, average, common, and routine.”
I cannot relate to any of those words. They are not words I would claim over my life. I do not ask God for average, common. Where is the interestingness? Where is the exuberance?
The antonyms –exact opposites of “normal” are magic-carpet words: buoyant, eager, exciting, vigorous, vital, and zesty. (Zesty!)
I am learning to “go with the flow,” really. I’m trying. Since change seems to be the order of the day, I really need to enjoy the ride. My hatred of so many changes doesn’t seem to be preventing any of it, anyway.
Circumstances will never stop evolving, but eventually …
New, fresh things come to pass with change. Buoyant, vital things. Change means the change in seasons just when you are sick and tired of the current one. It means new babies. Sunrises. Music you’ve never heard before. Laughing about something that you have the frame of reference to appreciate now – because of all the changes.
Relationships deepen and broaden, and become more enlightened – if not ‘normal.’
Kids do grow up, and have their own kids to contend with (ahhhh, a sweet consideration!)
And God still loves this messy, messy world – made up of so many lives that will have trouble. So many lives who will have change.
Normalcy is for suckers, honestly. I’m sure of it.
By: Jana Greene, thebeggarsbakery.net
Hebrews 13:3
God,
I’m thinking today of all the saints in the early church who prayed to you from the cells of prisons. Wrongly persecuted, they mustered their faith and lifted it to you, because they had been stripped of everything else they owned.
I know you’ve gotten your fair share of letters from prisoners.
Jails and prisons are often the venue in which lost souls lift their last remaining possession to you – faith – but the truth is that many have been stripped of that possession, too. Many, before even arriving for intake to be processed by a legal system, were already processed by another captor – Addiction – before ever setting foot in jail. Addiction is a thief of hope.
Today, I have a broken heart for a dear friend and Sister in you, whose adult son is both literally, and figuratively, a prisoner. He is addicted to drugs, God. He has reached the end of himself. Right now, he seems a shell of himself.
But a long time ago, this friend raised this man up by filling him with God- seeds. She took him to church, and youth group; she talked out her active faith in you….all the way forming rows as she raised him, and planting seeds in the soft soil of youth.
He is familiar with you. But he has made some bad choices, covering that fertile, planted ground with all the world has to offer, including substances that distract him from You. He has filled his life with all the plastic distraction that keeps the sunlight from getting in; that keeps the water of life from reaching the seeds.
Society sometimes has very little compassion for those who bring woes on themselves. Society forgets that it is only made up of infinite units of just the same kinds of people – sinners. It’s easy for them to open their bibles to the letters that Paul wrote as a prisoner, and feel compassion.
But you don’t forget to be compassionate, because you never forget that we are infinite units of people who sin, but whom you love dearly. All people must come to you from their knees on the floor of a prison cell, its only a matter of what four-walls constrain us.
Today, this man – this addict – is on the floor of a cell. I like to think he is calling out to you right this minute, but I know how stubborn addicts can be (being one myself) – I know how insane the cycle is, and how hard it is to let go of that tarp of denial we keep covering ourselves in.
But I am asking you – right now, in Your Holy Name, to crouch down on that prison floor with this man. Scrootch up so close to him that You feel familiar, that the seeds planted in his spirit in his growing-up-years feel like beads under his skin. Crack them open, and as they are opened, let him feel surrounded by love.
The supernatural feeling all addicts crave, that many addicts are willing to go to prison for – to die for – is only just a craving for you, Lord.
This young man is feeling the pain of the chemicals leaving his body, as we speak. Let the suffering he is experiencing be for the cause of one little Seed of Faith germinating. Fill up the space left by the chemicals, the hurt, the loneliness, the shame and pain. I’m sure he will remember you, God.
Be with his family, who is suffering beyond comprehension. Fill them up, too.
Since this precious son of my Sister in You is currently in no position to “write letters” in your name, and lift prayers from his broken spirit, mind and body, today I am interceding on his behalf. I ask that everyone who reads this to pray along with me.
For the addicts, the prisoners. The broken, the sinners. For my friend’s son.
Remind them that they are full of seeds of Truth, let them receive water and light, in their own personal prisons, and let those seeds grow healthy and strong and take root in You. So they can go out and tell other prisoners that there is life waiting to be lived.
Give them HOPE, Jesus.
In the name of the Father God, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
AMEN
By: Jana Greene
“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” – Romans 12:2
Too much noise.
The world is just full of too much noise. The past few months have simply overwhelmed me, good things and bad things, both. Graduations, illnesses, a new job, family issues, children leaving the nest, new pets entering the nest….a reorganization of priorities made necessary because of that creeping, wonderful, awful thing called “change.”
Getting used to the “new normal” is hard when “normal” won’t stay static long enough to catch my breath. I’m really struggling with a bit of depression lately, low-level sadness and a feeling of being overwhelmed.
You know what used to really help me unwind? A glass of wine. It’s hard to believe its been nearly thirteen years since I’ve had a glass of wine. Of course, its been twenty since a drink actually relaxed me; there, toward the end, it nearly killed me. I am glad it doesn’t control me anymore.
But still, after all this time – and a life so blessed it is virtually unrecognizable from pre-sobriety days – my mind still sometimes thinks that “one glass of wine” would do the trick! It parrots the same garbage that made me so sick years ago.
I’m on to it, though. In the recovery world, it is the soundtrack of “Stinking Thinking” (or stinkin’ thinkin’, if you are from the South.) I know what it looks, feels, smells and tastes like. And this is it.
1) That one drink would just help me unwind….
Never, ever have I had one drink. Or one of anything else, for that matter; unless it is one pint of Häagen-Dazs ice cream*. Because eating more than one pint at one sitting is just gluttony!
Sometimes, and I’m just being honest, I just want all the noise and anxiety to stop. For five minutes. The five minutes a drink afforded me cost me hours and days of spiraling, and the occasional blackout. The parroting stinking thinking soundtrack forgets about that little detail. Hardly worth it.
2) Its been over a dozen years! Maybe I’m cured ….
This is a sneaky one because it adds pride to the already-convoluted mix, as if the length of my sobriety insures against future alcohol abuse. Danger! Danger!
I have known people with extraordinary “”time” relapse, and instantly be transported back to the depths of despair afforded by addiction, or worse. There is no cure for alcoholism. Not taking the first drink is the best insurance there is.
There was a time I could not imagine going 24 hours without a drink. It is not ‘living in the past’ to remember what that was like. It is essential that I remember that.
The fact that I still – when really struggling with life on life’s terms – obsess about drinking as a relaxation technique, confirms that I am, in fact, an alcoholic. I will never be able to drink normally. And to try could very likely be the death of me (and very nearly was.)
3) It wasn’t that bad, my drinking…
Except that it was; it was awful. Again, remembering the reality is key. I did not have a fun, rosy, Nicolas Sparks-type romance with alcohol. I had a dysfunctional, co-dependent, Stephen King-type relationship with alcohol.
It’s best to remember that it made me a person I really don’t like at all. Not to mention I turned yellow and became very sick. The self-loathing was worse than any other symptom.
4) I shouldn’t have admitted to the world that I am an alcoholic…
Well, the proverbial cat is out of the bag now! It jumped out of the bag back on January 3rd of 2001.
At my lowest – when my thinking is the most stinking, I have actually wished that I’d never told a soul about my secret, because if nobody knew – I could just resume having the “one” glass of wine or random margarita and be like everybody else. See? Doesn’t that make perfect sense?
Lather, rinse, repeat…(see # 1) This is why it is called the “Cycle of Addiction.”
5) I REALLY shouldn’t have blogged about it…
Ah, the blogosphere. Nobody forces anyone to blog, of course. But having a passion for writing and recovery, I found that a Force was compelling me to do it anyway.
With the miracle of technology via The Blog, not only is the cat out of the bag, but it is circling the globe on a uni-cycle.
In the beginning, writing a recovery blog was very difficult, because it required such rigorous honesty. I wanted to become involved in recovery ministry and share my experience, faith and hope openly. And because living life in open-book format makes for vulnerability.
Ironically, vulnerability contributes to accountability. More than once, that accountability has kept me from relapsing.
6) I will never “get there”…
This one is true. I will never have it all together, because then I would have nothing to learn. And this recovery thing is all about learning. Boy howdy….is it ever about learning. When I’ve learned all that God intends for me to learn, He will take me home.
Until then, I will depend on Him to help me navigate the noise. When I’m overwhelmed, I will go ahead and feel it, and acknowledge that change is inevitable. Sometimes, my mind is wrong about things, squawking when it should be listening. I’m going to try extra-hard to take that into consideration when depression creeps in.
I’ll write about that wonderful, awful thing called “change” when it happens (which is constantly), spending every thought generously on paper. You know, since its already out there. I’ll own my crazy, ask for Divine help with my anxiety, and let the guilt of the past go.
Change is what brings the good stuff, too…the stuff I don’t want to be too numbed out to feel. Because stinking thinking kept under wraps only rots and festers. Change is what brings all that is good and acceptable and perfect.
And a life so blessed deserves to be truly lived, transformed by the renewal of my mind…noise and all.
*I would totally eat more than one pint of Häagen-Dazs in one sitting if nobody were watching and it wasn’t so expensive.
Today, dear readers, another share from Redemption Feast, the WilmingtonFAVS.com blog I write for. It was previously posted as an origional on this blog under “Unhinged” and only minor changes were made for this publication. Anyway, it’s about feeling unhinged. Can you relate at all?
My apologies for not keeping The Beggar’s Bakery more current with new content. I’ve begun working full-time in addition to serving in Celebrate Recovery in church, in addition to all my other goings-on. I really need to become better at this time-management thing!
**also, if there is a video under this post….it is a WordPress thing – I did not post it! The views in expressed in whatever video is there may not represent the views of this writer.**
Thank you for reading, and God bless you and yours.
Today, I am sharing the Redemption Feast blog post I wrote today for WilmingtonFAVS.com. It is a sensitive subject, but one that the world – and the church – cannot afford to ignore.
http://wilmingtonfavs.com/blogs/jana-greene/starving-the-stigma-in-the-church-mental-illness
By: Jana Greene
A man walks into a bar.
No, wait. That’s the wrong story.
A man walks out of a bar. The establishment has been his “safe place” for years. He knows the owners and they keep a seat waiting for him on the end, where the bartender can lean in to listen when he talks without knocking over the high-ball glasses. They know his story and keep pouring, and those two things have always made him feel understood. Loved. He went to the bar every day because he wanted to be cared about and he wanted to just be left alone. Drinking is a funny thing – it makes both seem possible simultaneously.
He was incredibly brave, he thought, to work so hard and provide for his family, to deal with all the drama and dealings of life. Wasn’t he due this time? Didn’t he have it coming to him?
Until very recently, when it became obvious that his safe place was a dangerous place, he thought he would keep drinking. As his wife was leaving for the last time, and he had not been willing to follow her. He had not been willing to ask for help. The path to help was a rocky, treacherous road. The way to the bar was paved with familiarity.
As he slowly became more lost, lost, lost, it became increasingly clear that pouring did not equal understanding; that having someone lean into you and listen did not always equal love. Over the years, he chose this seat over relationships, over passions. Everybody knew his name here, but not a single soul knew his heart.
He is sick, in mind, body and in spirit.
He doesn’t know how to stop. How do you stop? Someone somewhere has to know how.
There must be magic pill to stop the drinking, and there was. There were lots of pills, all supposed to make him better, but they only made him worse in time. Perhaps he needed another diversion? A few days without drinking made possible by strange women and dirty, secret deeds. And then drinking again. What about sheer willpower? Alone, in his room, shaking and sorry, he had no one but himself for company. Nothing is working. He asks God for help, if God is real….if he exists at all.
“Love me and leave me alone,” he wanted to tell God. But instead, he searched for a support meeting nearby. Because, at the end of himself, he had no other choice.
Before the first meeting, he sat in his car, debating with himself about going in at all. Because the rooms are full of “those people” and once you walk in, you are one of them…no turning back. But he knew that he already was.
He thought of the bar, but he made another choice. And stepped into a new place.
Inside the building, worship music filled the space. He filed past others – men, women of all ages, all races. The stereotype represented was very specific: The Human Race. As he took his seat and the speaker began to share her experience with substance abuse and recovery, he leaned in.
I am lost, lost, lost, he said in his spirit.
In that most-alone place, God made his presence known.
There were relationships among hurting people in those rooms. There was a passion for living. He took small glances around the room as the meeting wrapped up. Over cups of coffee, there were tears, but laughter, too. There was palpable joy, something he’d forgotten existed.
And nobody knew his name. Nobody knew it until the men gathered alone for small group.. There, in a small circle, he shared his name. He told a little of his story, when it was his turn.
At the end of the meeting, all of the others knew why he was there, and why he didn’t want to be there anymore. And no-one turned away from him. His eyes met with love.
There was a pouring-out of himself and all of his drama and dealings, and he filled up that space with hope for a future, because here, “those people” have one – a future.
The God he had doubted helped him to stop drinking when he couldn’t do it himself, and gave him people who loved his heart when he was at the end of himself. He had been incredibly brave to walk through the door. He was due this time, he had it coming – this life raft. This safe place.
Keep coming back, they said. Your seat will be waiting for you.
A man walks out of a bar……and into a meeting. He keeps coming to meetings because he feels cared about there, and he knows he cannot be left alone to his own devices. The road he is on – to recovering his life – is well-worn by others.
It is paved by hope.
“If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are half way through. We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others. That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear. We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows. Self-seeking will slip away. Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change. Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us. We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us. We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.
Are these extravagant promises? We think not. They are being fulfilled among us—sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. They will always materialize if we work for them.- Alcoholics Anonymous
By: Jana Greene
Who do you say that he is?
Jesus, I mean.
He asked me to ask you…..who do you say that He is? He is quite concerned about what you think of Him.
Do you say that He is Historical Figure, criminal, prophet or ordinary man? Would you say that He is the Son of the living God?
Writer and scholar C.S. Lewis, who was an avowed (and very vocal) atheist for many years before accepting Christ described him this way: “Either this was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us.”
This Jesus, who so radically changed the world, was brought up on bogus criminal charges at the end of his earthly life. He was the first and only completely perfect human being to have walked the earth. His reward? Death by brutal crucifixion, burial in a tomb from which He would rise in splendor three days later.
But what does that have to do with you? Why would it matter what one man did over two-thousand years ago?
You and I can never live as perfect human beings. I’ve tried, and it was the hardest seven minutes of my life! We need God’s help to secure our place in eternity. Jesus was the sacrifice that makes this possible. But God is not only interested in the “forever”; He is sincerely invested in the ‘here and now’.
Who do I say that Jesus is? He is my
Debt Settler: Jesus is not a debt collection agency, reminding you of every mistake. He is not in the business of setting up payment plans for all of your sin, either. He settles the debt of all you have accrued in the past (and I mean ALL of it!) and cancels it entirely when you ask Him to be your savior. When asking His forgiveness, no sin debt is too big or too small. He is waiting to set you free!
Game Changer: Your rules? The way you’ve always handled challenges on your own…He doesn’t even need to see the playbook. He wrote a better one! He changes the trajectory of your life in ways you cannot imagine….in ways you will be so humbled by.
Name Changer: When you accept Jesus, your name is written in permanence in God’s book of life. It isn’t penciled in, jotted down hurriedly. It is written in Spiritual Sharpie, bold and eternal. Your name, and your life, becomes His as you are adopted into His family. The name He remembers you by when He thinks of you? “Mine.”
Life-Giver: I want the kind of life that is eternal, but let’s be honest…I’d like it to be pretty awesome here, too. Jesus doesn’t want us trudging through each day with just enough energy to survive until we get to heaven. Here’s what Life-Giver Jesus has to say about that in scripture: “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” John 10:10.
Friend: Why the Creator of the universe would want to hang out with me, I have no idea. But for some reason, He does. If he were a great human teacher, that would be humbling enough; but no. Jesus, in dying on the cross and raising to life, bridged the gap between the Holiest of Holy Ones and puny, neurotic, recovering alcoholic, generally-all-around misfit and master of mistakes – ME. His Holy Spirit never leaves my side and calls me “friend”. And that’s a miracle.
Who do you say that He is? It matters very much.
My name is Jana Greene, and I say He is also the Savior of the world.
By: Jana Greene
Church is a community of believers in salvation through the one and only Son of God, Jesus Christ. We humans make it about other things so often. Throughout history, we have tried a thousand ways to make it about ourselves.
But what if the tide turned and God’s people made gathering for worship about our thankfulness to God. What if we would seek purely to know Him, because He has been so generous in His love for us?
There is a horticulture technique called “grafting”. Tissues from one plant are delicately combined into those of a healthier one so that the two sets of vascular tissues may join together and thrive.
What if we could become related to the God of the universe via grafting? What if we could become brothers and sisters to one another by the same technique?
Many people who grew up in churches across the globe avoid joining a body of believers because they have been hurt by “church people” in the past or made to believe that church was about money, pretending to be perfect or pot-luck dinners. These things are not what Jesus Himself intended for His church. He sought out the ones who were broken and bent, cast out and hurting. The priests in their fine robes and the elite with their feasts did not impress Him much. These “church people” had no appreciation for God Himself in their very midst.
The ones who became Christ’s beloved family on earth all had one thing in common: an imperfect but genuine love for God, and a grateful heart. Because Jesus wanted so much to count us as branches on His family tree, he hung from a tree as sacrifice to make it possible.
He tells us to gather together still today and encourage one another, grieve with one another and praise Him.
God, I worship you because you never give up on me – not even once!
God, I thank you because you gave your life up for me so that I can be called “yours” forever.
God, I magnify you because you take time to nurture my spirit, loving me when I’m not too loveable.
We are the church. Cut off from one another, we run the risk of withering. Together the way our Brother Jesus intended, we thrive. All of us saints and sinners are drawn by God’s flourishing, vascular love for us. God’s people are us, you see. It is His will that not one of us be lost. We are black and white and every glorious shade in between. We are young and old, the clean-cut and tatted up. Haphazard branches going every which way, full foliage and a strong trunk, grafted and grateful.
God’s family tree.
Musings of a Gypsy Soul 