Love is not

I don't always do well simply reading the Bible. It doesn't just make sense to me every time. Truth be told, I've read the Bible cover to cover a few times, and I still don't get it all.

I love that no matter how many times I read the Bible, I still have more to learn and understand. That's cool to me. But it requires more work, and sometimes that's frustrating.

I like reading commentaries and grasping something new about something I've read or heard a thousand times. Growing up in the church can cause such a mundane feeling when it comes to the Bible. It really can get so boring without context.

So I was thinking about 1 Corinthians 13... you know, the "love chapter." It's quoted endlessly, even by people who don't give a rip about the Bible or any kind of faith.

So in this commentary, I learned something very thought provoking.

Most of what the love chapter talks about is what love is NOT.

This letter about love wasn't just so the church in Corinth could practice love. It was correctional. Saying love isn't jealous, or proud was specific to them. They were very jealous and proud people. Saying that love doesn't keep record of wrongs or insist on one's own way was because they did keep record of wrongs and they did insist on their own ways rather than thinking about someone else.

The "love chapter" we apply to seemingly everything was written with such specific purpose. We use it so broadly. So generally. So much more loosely than it was originally used.

Sure we can apply the principles taught in the passage... the fruit of the spirit all give birth to each other.. you really can't be kind without gentleness. You can't be peaceful and not loving. But the passage was written with very pin pointed implications.

It made me start to wonder what a letter written to me about love would look like.

Love is not...

Well, how don't I show love?

Dear Shai,

Love is not snapping at your husband when he's exhausted too.

Love is not letting your mind wander when someone is trying to talk to you.

Love is not taking the easy way out because you don't feel like putting in the effort on someone else's behalf.

The list would go on and on and on and on.

Seeing love defined so tailored to my life is much more convicting than reading 1 Corinthians 13 for me, honestly.

I'd imagine the church at Corinth feeling very convicted by 1 Corinthians 13 because it was about them specifically.

So, yeah. I learn a lot more when I understand the context. Suddenly, something I've heard a thousand and one times hits me head on. Love is not... me.

All there is

We are so bound.

We fall apart. We unravel. We cry. We come undone.

But we are bound.

I can't get out of my shell, my frame, my body.

That leads me to believe that "I" am not just what I look like. I have a spirit. I'm not just hands, feet, and face.

I've been thinking about how I am going to teach Selah about how to take care of herself, but to also point her towards the Lord with why I'm teaching her to do so.

How do I teach her to brush her teeth, and eat healthful foods, and go to bed when I instruct her to so she will grow big and strong? That's not all there is to it.

I've never been the type of person that just accepts surface answers. "Because I said so," only goes so far with me. I don't like giving those answers, either.  Yes, I hope to gracefully teach Selah to respect authority (I will fail very often, of course). But I want my girl to know WHY we do the things we do.

I want Selah to know that our earthly responsibilities are a response to something greater, deeper, more fulfilling.

We live the narrative of the Gospel in our lives. It's a glorious truth... everything in our lives points to something. I want to create an awareness in my daughter that the earth isn't all there is. There is a God who loves her. There is a purpose for her life.

There is an evil one who desires to destroy her, and cause her to feel that the earth, the fading, breaking, disappearing world is all there is.

The world is crumbling around us. We, people, age. We die. But that's not the end.

If it's not the end when we die, then it's not the end when we live.

If my Selah can know that, she won't be defeated when her heart and flesh fail.

We are bound by humanness. We are kept in a cage of corruption and imperfection. Sin, like a thread running through an entire tapestry, spins through every part of us.

We're given an opportunity to worship in the way we live our lives. Because it's not all there is, even though it's all we're accustomed to. It's not all there is.

Simple

Living simply is something that has always drawn me in. I hate being overwhelmed by too many things. If you know me, you know this sounds probably like a lie, since I do a thousand things everyday, and when I do less than a thousand things a day, I feel like I accomplished nothing. It's a problem.

But what is also a problem is the way "stuff" rules the world. I've seen it circulating around Facebook and Pinterest all the posts on how to minimize your closets so only 15 items and how to minimize the amounts of toys and clothes we have for our kids.

I love it.

It's really important to me to instill a comfortability in my family to live simply. I never had the yearly huge shopping trip to spend a few hundred dollars on new school clothes. I loved going to thrift stores and searching for the cheap but awesome treasures I'd find. Getting massive bags of hand me downs was never a burden to me. I never felt like I lacked anything growing up in a home with 7 other kids. There was always an abundance of bodies in the house, and never a ton of money for "extras." I was never sad, though. I had everything I needed.

I want my children to feel that way, too.

It's honestly been challenging to still have plenty of gift cards for Target left from my baby showers nearly a year ago. Caleb and I agreed we'd only use that money for things for the baby. We haven't spent money on diapers yet, because we've stuck to this. Oh, except that time I forgot the gift cards... ok, we have spent $9 on diapers. Still not bad ;)

It's hard to walk around and see fun little baby toys, and deeply desire to see Selah's face when I present her with some toy. But she doesn't even really care right now. In fact, as I type right now, Selah is sitting in front of me in her bedroom having an absolute blast tearing apart her sock bin. The socks are everywhere, and she is ecstatic.

Spend money to get a toy she doesn't need, or allow her to explore what she has, be it a toy or not?

I want to be flexible with the fact that children aren't neat freaks. I want Selah to have fun with what she has, not feel like she doesn't have enough.

I've only bought one outfit since Selah was born myself, too. People love to give their old clothes, and I am a happy receiver. I hope to return the favors to other moms in the future.

I'm thankful for the upbringing I had full of yard sales, thrift stores and hand me downs.

For this time in Selah's life, I'm the one that needs to be content with hand me downs for her. She's as happy as she'd be in hand me downs as anything else.

I like it simple. I want her to be comfortable in a simple lifestyle.

My job

I've never known myself to struggle so much with change. I get extremely restless when I become bored. Doing the same thing gets painful for me. I get excited about new things.

My new life, however, has been very taxing. I'm finding myself increasingly irritated by anything that disrupts Selah's and my schedules. I just want something to stay the same. Something to stay dependable. Something to remain sturdy.

It doesn't take much concentration for me to sense a few lessons God is using His blessings to teach me. Just like when I started dating Caleb, God was teaching me how to trust. He was teaching me how to trust Him with something I wanted so much. When we got married, God demonstrated through my new marriage an astounding reflection of what intimacy with the Lord can be like. I could go on and on about how my marriage has been sanctifying me (because goodness, it can be hard), but recently becoming a mom has rocked me a lot, too.

I can't raise Selah perfectly. The bitter truth is that she is wet cement, and my sinful self is already planting itself firmly in her impressionable heart.

I can't make myself perfect. I hate that she will eventually catch on to my short comings. Right now, I can really do no wrong in her eyes. She needs me desperately. I'm her lifeline. Soon, she will see me for who I am: imperfect.

It started to scare me that she will imitate not only my good qualities, but my sinful ones.

I started to feel rushed and pressured to "fix" all my flaws so that my daughter might not inherit them.

It'll never happen.

Instead, I felt a sense of unrest about trying to teach Selah perfection.

It's not possible, and it's not my job.

It's my job to exemplify grace, and forgiveness, and beauty in the struggle of being human.

When she hears me complain about my appearance instead of always feeling and being confident that how I look is fine, I have the opportunity to let her know that it's ok to struggle, and to have difficulty sometimes. I can show her that we all make mistakes, and that we have the opportunity to press into the Lord more and more.

She might not imitate every "sinful" quality I have, either. She will bring some of her own to the table.

If I can't teach her through my own sinful habits, she won't know how to walk through hers.

I feel refreshed realizing that it's all I can do to be a sinful example of a rescued sinner in an imperfect, hurting world.

I don't even feel that bad to consider how she will hurt, and make mistakes.

She needs a Savior, too. And I have the opportunity to introduce her to Him.

That's my real job. Not to perfect myself so that I don't teach her to be flawed. But to show her through my flaws that I need Jesus, and that in Him I'm flawless. In Him, she is flawless, too.

Mom blog

One of the hardest things for me being a mom is how my to-do list gets shoved back into a corner. I'm such a doer, it kills me to feel unaccomplished with my day. Sometimes that's the only thing that gets me through a day. Change a diaper. Done. Feed baby. Done. Change another diaper. Done. Accomplishment!

But now that I'm a stay at home mom, it's actually really hard for me to feel like I've accomplished much. I'm not going to work and bringing in some money anymore. Not to the extent I was anyway. It's challenging for me to feel that what I accomplish everyday in my child is important, because it's mundane. 

I have full confidence that in 20 years I'll look back and think these sleepless nights are beautiful. I know I will. But for now, I do struggle. 

I even signed up for daily mom devotional e-mails because I've been THE WORST at staying consistent with my time with God. That would solve a lot of my melt down moments for sure :/

I love seeing how God uses his gifts to us to also break us down, and make us (give us to opportunity to) be more like Him. 

Being a mom is definitely challenging. 

Home

Caleb Selah and I were back in NJ for a wedding, and we're finally back "home" in TN. It's a very bizarre feeling to know that this is where I live now. Being back in familiarity for a little bit for the wedding was strange. Something so familiar feels like home, but it's not right now. That's alarming.

I never forgot hearing at Greenville after my first trip back to NJ that home is not a place, but wherever you are.

It made me feel less unsettled then, because I felt overwhelmed about how two places felt equally serene in my heart.

Again, I find myself replaying this scene in my new house as opposed to my dorm room in Greenville.

Home is a lot of things. Today it's rather confusing.

Right now, the home I need to accept is where I am. Here's to settling hopefully settling in!

We've been framed

Up in her attic, where she rarely went, there were boxes full of memories. Each one coated with dust, each one a story.

The downstairs was getting fuller and fuller of so much stuff. She had to venture up in that attic to clear out some space.

Up the wooden staircase, through the cob webs and musty scent she went.

She placed a new brown box full of unneeded items on the floor. She turned around to leave, when, oh wait. What's in there?

Oh. She remembered that box. She remembered all of it.

She sat down, and opened up the box.

One by one she pulled out a memory.

This one made her sad. She felt her eyes sting.

The next one made her angry. She felt like screaming.

The next one made her feel frustrated, and sad and angry at the same time. She gripped that memory with white knuckles.

She remembered everything. The memories refreshed themselves in her mind, and she felt like they weren't memories. No, these things still lived. They shouldn't have been boxed up. She relived the box anew. New life was given to old memories. The memories had been summoned, invited. They were no longer of days past. Now they are today.

She took her box of memories, and carried them downstairs.

One by one she framed them in her home. She set them on her walls, so everyone who entered her home would see them. They are precious to her. They belong to her.

She belongs to them.

She is a prisoner of these memories. They have power over her. They make her not only remember, but feel.

It's not possible for the past to live in today. Time leaves yesterday behind. But memory reaches out a hand, to pull back the past into the present. Yesterday isn't today. But it feels like it to her.

It feels like it to me.

Occasionally I go upstairs to my "attic," a place in my heart where I store my deepest feelings and most sacred experiences. Some happy, some sad, some terrifying, some earth shattering.

I visit this place, I watch the memories play before me as if on a plasma screen TV. I'm overwhelmed at my memory. I'm overwhelmed. I feel. I feel all over again.

Sometimes I take these memories "downstairs." Into my current mood. Into my words I'm currently speaking. Into my reactions to new things. Into my reasons for my current tasks. Into the core of my very being.

And I feel secure. I feel loved by my own memories. I feel understood, because they are mine. I control them. They take orders from me.

But that's not true.

My emotions are all too submissive to my memories.

I am a slave to my memory.

Why does God let me remember? Why can't I forget? Why can't I move on into a new place, estranged to the evil that lurks in my "attic," my mind?

How can I disengage my heart, when I feel so seen, so known, so safe inside my memories?

Memory is something other worldly. The Bible constantly uses the word remember. The Israelites constantly forgot the Lord, their God.

Judges 8:34 says Thus the sons of Israel did not remember the LORD their God, who had delivered them from the hands of all their enemies on every side.

Their memory failed them in some ways, but not in others. Yes, they remembered something else. At least they thought they did. They remembered comfort. They remembered ease. They valued the past, even though when they were in the past, their slavery, they suffered and begged for deliverance.

Their memory was alive and well... but not to make them alive and well. They chose to allow their memory to enslave them again. The memories changed as they recalled them while in current fits of rage of confusion and hurt. Those memories didn't shine anew since they had in fact been saved. No. They viewed their memories through lenses of pain, and confusion. Now those memories didn't seem like bad ones. They seemed like home. They felt like home.

They had gone up to their attic, retrieved memories and felt them anew, and framed them in their current mind so that they viewed their today enslaved to disillusionment.

Judges 3:7  The Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD; they forgot the LORD their God and served the Baals and the Asherahs.

Psalm 78:42  They did not remember his power-- the day he redeemed them from the oppressor,

Deuteronomy 4:9 Only be careful, and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them fade from your heart as long as you live. Teach them to your children and to their children after them.

Hmmm... clearly, there is reason as to why God allows our attic to exist. We can use it to store the memories we need. He has a purpose for our memories. 

We don't have to forget the pain. We don't have to throw away the dark hurts we store inside. 

But they will destroy us if we don't frame them in His purpose. 

The Israelites chose to forget His purpose... they framed their memories in their own sickened and hardened hearts. They remembered the pain. They drank it in deep. They chose not to frame their important, precious memories with renewed strength. No. They framed their memories with pain. And the pain grew deeper. 

They chose to forget the Lord. They selectively chose their memories to frame, and forgot what they wanted to forget. 

There's another side to this picture. 

Exodus 2:24 God heard their groaning and he remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob. 

Numbers 10:9 When you go into battle in your own land against an enemy who is oppressing you, sound a blast on the trumpets. Then you will be remembered by the LORD your God and rescued from your enemies.

We are remembered by God. He remembers us. He calls forth the past, and brings it to today, and remembers.

But this can't be right. This can't be good. He knows us. He knows us too well! This can't be a good thing!

Jeremiah 1:5 Before I formed you in the womb I knew you...

Psalm 69:5 O God, it is You who knows my folly, And my wrongs are not hidden from You.

Psalm 44:20-21 If we had forgotten the name of our God Or extended our hands to a strange god, would not God find this out? For He knows the secrets of the heart.

He knows us too well. If He remembers us, it couldn't be a good memory. He must remember our sin. He must know the things that should separate us from Him forever. 

Someone, keep me, hide me! I can't be seen by Him...

Unless.... unless He frames his memory somehow... unless He frames his memories of us in a way that shields us from what we deserve to be in His mind. 

Exodus 12:13 The blood shall be a sign for you, on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt.

Oh... the blood of the Lamb. The blood of the Lamb on our door frames. Our frames. His blood. His blood. 

1 Peter 1: 18-19 ...knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. 

Hebrews 10:19-23 Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus,  by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh,  and since we have a great priest over the house of God,  let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.  Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.

When He looks on us, when He remembers us, He sees us framed in the blood of the spotless Lamb. He sees us through the blood of Jesus. 

Now our memories... our memories should be framed. But not with pain. Not with hurt. Not with the unforgiving confusion we so easily retrieve. 

Our memories must be framed with the blood of the Lamb. So that the pain, the hurt, the sin might pass over us. So that we might be saved from he that lives to rob, kill and destroy. 

We've been framed, my friends. We have been framed in the blood of Jesus. We have been framed.