Photo: Takras on Flickr

I have many friends. In fact, I count myself blessed to have such a multitude of amazing people in my life. Today, however, there’s one friend I’m thinking about. I can’t get her off my mind. My heart has been aching for her for the last four days.

See, this friend of mine has asked for my help… she asked for a favor:

She asked me to pray.

I am humbled and honored that she would come to me. That she would ask me to lend her my faith in her time of need, I believe, speaks to the power of God in my life and in hers. I have prayed for her several times since I received that email.  The bible tells us in 1 Thessalonians 5:17 to “pray continually”. I believe the reason I can’t stop thinking about my friend and her circumstances is the Holy Spirit of God reminding me to pray for her.

My friend is pregnant. And scared. There are complications.

I hear people say all the time, “God never gives you more than you can handle.” That’s not true. I’m convinced that God will give you infinitely more than you can handle on your own in this life. I’m convinced that God will allow you to experience deep hurts or horrifying fears in order to draw your attention to Him. He will absolutely give you more than you can handle.

But He is more than able and willing to carry our burdens for us… to be our strength when we are weak. Jesus said, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” [2 Corinthians 12:19] The truth is, God will never give you more than you can handle WITH HIM.

Jesus tells us, in the book of John, chapter 15 and verse 5, “apart from me, you can do nothing.” But in Matthew 19, verse 26 we read, “with God all things are possible.” Oh how beautiful are those words… He is more than willing to carry you through your fears and your pains and take up all the weight of what is hurting you:

²⁸ “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. ²⁹ Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. ³⁰ For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” [Matthew 11:28-30]

Through all of life’s trials I think my favorite verses of the entire bible are these:

⁶ Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. ⁷ And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” [Phil 4:6-7]

I have known that peace.

Tonight, my prayer for my friend is that she would come to know that peace as well. I wanted to share this prayer, so that those of you reading it might also join me in faith as she is going for some testing tomorrow:

Heavenly Father, Creator God… tonight I bring you my friend. You know her, Lord. You know everything about her. You created Her just as she is for just this moment. Father, as your Word says, you created her inmost being. You knit her together in her mother’s womb… just as you have this tiny baby in her own. Father, God, I trust in your sovereignty. I trust that you ARE love (1 John 4:8). I trust that you have created my friend and her baby for a specific purpose. I pray, Lord, that you would show her your amazing grace through this trial. I pray, Lord, that you would shower her with your mercy right now. I pray, Lord, that you would make your nearness known to her… that you would reveal yourself to her in a way she has never known. I pray, Father, that you would take her mustard seed of faith and let her see the power of that faith move even this mountain that lies before her. Overwhelm her with your peace and surround her with your joy, Lord, as only you can. Heavenly Father, I pray for your favor on her baby. Father, you are merciful [Luke 6:36]. I pray for your mercy in this pregnancy… that this baby, whom she already loves with an unending love, would be healthy and thriving. I pray that you would bless my friend with the best doctors, nurses and technicians and that your hand would guide every move, every decision that would be made for this new little life. I pray also for her husband and the strength and solidarity in her marriage. I pray for her family also, that they would be united with a holy love and compassion for one another and for this baby. Lord, I pray for a powerful movement of your Holy Spirit to work a miracle that will see you glorified in it. Father, as I pray right now, please heal the broken places. Mend the weaknesses and let your power be known. In Jesus’ name I pray, Amen.

Photo: Will Foster on Flickr

I have a confession to make: I have some anger issues.

When I was a kid, my parents were strict. They were loving, but strict. I thought so anyway. The rules and moral code I had to adhere to placed the bar just above my head and I was always striving to reach it. I was a good kid. I was never spanked (ever), but I was disciplined with a wave of guilt that only a father can bestow upon his daughter. My dad used to say, “I’m disappointed in you.” Well… he may as well have beaten me. That was usually plenty to make me change my tune. When it wasn’t, though, he yelled.

He yelled loudly.

He yelled because he loved me and hated that I was making poor decisions. He yelled because he couldn’t make me choose to behave better. He yelled because he felt powerless to fashion me in to the awesome person he knew I could be, all the while resting the idea of how well I turn out on his own shoulders. In truth I’m not sure if that’s how he felt, but it sure is how I feel about my own kids.

I yell too.

The other day I was helping out in Mini-Man’s kindergarten classroom with their lunch program (could you imagine trying to feed eighteen 5-year-olds without any assistance?!) and I saw the kids interacting with their teacher before and during lunch. I watched as they tried to stay still on the carpet, as they budged in line while waiting to wash their hands, as they poked one another and giggled. All the while their teacher was correcting them gently and moving on to the next task. Her voice never wavered.

She’s soft and firm.

See, she loves her job and is awesome at what she does; I think you have to be in order to actually survive being a kindergarten teacher. She cares for each child and wants them all to succeed, but because they’re not her kids she doesn’t need to feel any burden for how they’ll turn out as adults. I’m sure she hopes that in some way she’ll make a lasting impact on the life of each child she teaches, but I’m sure she doesn’t lose sleep over it.

She doesn’t yell.

Honestly I’d be angry if she yelled at my kid. Why? Because it’s inappropriate and ineffective. I love my kids and I love being a mom; and I care for each of my children and step-children and want to see them succeed. But I have heaped on my own shoulders the complete and total responsibility for how my children turn out as adults through my own condemnation of other parents whose children have faltered. My own judgemental attitude has set the bar way higher than any parent can hope to achieve.

What I need to do is remember that my kids are only on loan to me. I have been charged with loving them, teaching them and protecting them but I MUST remember that they belong to God; and parenting is God’s work. He is the one who bears the ultimate responsibility for how they turn out. He is the one who created them with a plan and purpose. He is the one that will work in their hearts as we scatter seeds of faith in their lives and aim, by the grace of God, to pour out the fruits of the spirit in our homes – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

Notice yelling isn’t on the list.

What I need to do is correct them gently each time they fall short of my own expectations. I need to lovingly show them the right way to behave and then move on to the next task. I need to hand my kids over to God at the end of the day understanding rightly that the ultimate responsibility lies with Him.

I need to parent with the grace of a kindergarten teacher and trust God for the rest.

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” [Matthew 11:28-30 NIV].

Photo: Meredith Farmer on Flickr

I remember planning my move to this beautiful place and my new future with Big Mack and I was so excited. I was excited to move back to the Okanagan; I was excited to be a part of a whole family again; I was excited to live in a house with a yard; I was excited to give my sons a new dad; I was excited to quit my job and become a stay-at-home wife and mom; I was excited to spend time writing music. There’s only one thing I wasn’t excited about.

I hated the idea of leaving my church.

My church was my home. It’s where I wanted to be. It was filled with people who cared about me, people who prayed for me and listened to me when I needed to talk. It was people who held me accountable and people who stretched me and taught me to reach out for God’s truth… to get to know Him better. It was where I belonged. It was my home.

I’d visited Big Mack’s church a few times during my visits with him before we were married – maybe 3 or 4 at most. I remember comparing it to Valley Church – my home church since I became a Christian in 2005 – and feeling completely underwhelmed. I remember thinking the music was lacking and the congregation was stifled and I remember disliking the preaching I did hear simply because it wasn’t Pastor Owen. There was some social awkwardness too… or maybe it was just me. I was, after all, attending where Big Mack used to go with his now ex-wife and, well… it just wasn’t MY church.

Ugh.

I remember mulling it over. I remember asking Big Mack if he would consider moving to something a little more vibrant. I remember wanting something different… I remember saying I couldn’t feel the Holy Spirit there. I remember praying about it and I remember God telling me to stop looking at church with an expectation to be served but, rather, to look at it as an opportunity to serve others and trust in Him.

This is right where he wanted me.

I am so grateful to the Oliver Alliance Church community for embracing me wholeheartedly, for welcoming me into their lives and into their hearts, for including me in their social engagements and for caring for me and my boys through the children’s ministry. I am thankful I have been given the opportunity to serve with the worship arts ministry and that I have been encouraged and prayed with and loved on and lifted up.

I am so completely ashamed at the terrible attitude I once held about this great group of people. As I have come to know many of them – even just a little bit – I can tell their hearts are genuine, their faith strong and true. I can tell they love my Jesus as I do.

I still have close relationships with Valley Church through songwriting; my co-writers are there and I have been meeting with them about once a month since I moved here. And I always take in a service there when I’m in the city on a Sunday… I am even still asked to sing with the worship ministry there on occasion. What’s beautiful, though, is I now have a new church family and all those things I thought about Oliver Alliance before were completely wrong.

So wrong.

It’s funny how our perceptions change. I think God changes them. Where once my poor outlook clouded my vision to where I couldn’t see the Spirit moving in that place I am now moved to tears in worship and humbled by the inspired preaching. So often Pastor Jeremy manages to preach on a topic or scripture passage I was just reading or contemplating the day before, confirming to me that God is very much still at work.

As Christians, our church becomes our family. They are an extension of us – the body of Jesus. We cannot function well without those vital relationships. We must allow ourselves to fall under the leadership and guidance of a pastor and a church body for our own well-being and growth.

I’m so grateful that God put me right where I am. My heart is here.

Photo: Britannia Willes

Children are a gift from God.

They’re a gift to us; they’re a gift to this world. They’re His children, His creation… The kingdom of heaven belongs to them (Matt 19:14). He loves them infinitely more than we ever could. He has a perfect plan for their lives. Not one of them is an accident. Not one of them was unplanned. Not one of them was unwanted. Not one of them arrived at the wrong time or the wrong place or to the wrong parents.

Not one.

How we treat our children is a reflection of how we treat Jesus. If we don’t have time for our children we don’t have time for Jesus. If we yell at our children we yell at Jesus. If we smack our children we smack Jesus. Every time we sin against our children we are spitting on Jesus and mocking him on the cross over and over again.

Sometimes I feel absolutely overwhelmingly frightened at the sheer magnitude of the responsibility. Sometimes I feel like my heart is going to break when I realize that they need more than I will ever have in me to give.

Every parent is given a monumental task… a mission… a ministry. To them. To our kids. To train them up in the way they should go (Prov 22:6). To not provoke them to anger (Eph 6:4). To love them. To teach them in humility and with patience. To speak truth into their lives and to model the fruits of the Spirit of God: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control (Gal 5:22-23)… It’s a high calling and a daunting one.

But God is able.

Remember… whatever He has called us to do He will do it. He is the one who fed the crowd of five thousand with just two fishes and five loaves of bread (John 6:1-15) and so we are able to raise up our children even without the best of examples (or even any example at all!) … just God’s promises and our faith.

And yes… I’m mostly just writing this post to myself.

Photo: mumchancegaloot on Flickr

I have been writing music for quite some time now, meeting with a group of friends and collaborating to create. I suppose it’s almost shameful to say it’s been nearly 3 years that I’ve been doing this because I have yet to really share anything of what I’ve written with even my friends let alone the public at large. It’s just that doing so feels like that dream… the one where you’re at school and you realize you’ve forgotten to put any clothes on at all. So there you are standing stark naked in front of hundreds of children laughing at you. Yeah… I’ve had that dream.

But this has been a long time in the making.

Long before I became a Christian I was drawn to gospel-centred music. I went to a Christian camp when I was 12 years old; it’s where I first heard the gospel. I’d never been to a church before and had no idea what they were talking about to be honest. But I did love the music. And there was a guy at this camp that had recorded a tape of his own original Christian music and I bought it. I left there listening to it day in and day out… the messages were beautiful.

When I was 16 I worked a part time job with a Christian woman who always played Christian music in our work area – again, I loved it. She turned me on to Amy Grant. Actually, I came to love Amy Grant’s Christmas tape (yes, dating myself I know… what are tapes?!) and listened to it every Christmas for years to come. In fact, any time I heard gospel music I couldn’t help but be drawn to it.

Something about it just captivated me… actually it continues to captivate me.

When I came to faith at the beginning of 2005 I found myself in a very vibrant church. From the moment I walked in the first time, the music spoke right into my heart and I knew I’d come to the right place. Within 6 months I was asked to join the music ministry there and sing with one of the worship bands and I’ve been so blessed. I’ve also made some amazing friends who have become my collaborators over the last few years now.

I think it was late 2008 when I started meeting every other week at a friend’s house to write with 3 friends. It became our de facto home group church meeting – we would have coffee and cookies, talk about stuff, create some music and pray together. These guys have become a huge part of my life… like brothers to me.

See… I love to write music. I get inspired with lyrics and melodies and can hear in my head what chords I want to put to them to an extent, but my musical background is 25 years of playing the trumpet. That’s not exactly conducive to writing contemporary pop music though I think it lends itself well to hearing all the melodies, harmonies and counter-melodies all swirling around in my head at the same time. My piano skills are limited to the 5 years of lessons I took when I was 5 years old and I can’t play the guitar to save my life. And so my co-writers bring life to my lyrics and my melodies by weaving the fabric of the song together underneath them.

But it’s the idea of sharing what I’ve written that makes me want to throw up just a little; it feels so vulnerable.

At this very moment my friends, Joe and Randy, are in the process of recording some of the songs we’ve co-written. I write most of the lyrics and melodies and they create the music that brings them to life. When I got married and moved away from my collaborators I didn’t want all our efforts to simply vanish into the history of our individual stories; I wanted to keep a record of the time we’d shared and record some of what we created in order to share our art with our friends and our church family. After all, we all felt like God was calling us to create these songs together… like it was what we were meant to be doing with our lives. At the same time, the prospect of sharing this stuff with anyone else is like bearing my very soul to the wolves. It feels like I’m standing naked in front of hundreds of laughing school children.

When you create any kind of art – writing, music, visual art etc. – it’s so very personal that the thought of receiving critique, or worse – ridicule – makes death feel welcome. At least it does for me. But here I go. There will be 5 songs coming on the EP currently in progress and a new draft I’ve shared on my Michelle Evans Music MySpace Page called “Why did He”, which is my first collaboration with Big Mack.

If you enjoy them, awesome. If you don’t, they weren’t written for you. I’m okay either way… or at least, I will be.

Photo: Allogist on Flickr

It’s Mother’s Day today.

I’ve never been a big fan of Hallmark holidays but I am a huge fan of my own mom and so I want to wish her and every other mom in my world a happy Mother’s Day. I also want to share a little about my own journey into motherhood.

I just got home from church where my pastor preached on Hannah, the mother of Samuel from the book of 1 Samuel, chapter 1. Hannah was barren and in her devastation, she prayed to God: “O Lord of hosts, if you will indeed look on the affliction of your servant and remember me and not forget your servant, but will give to your servant a son, then I will give him to the Lord all the days of his life, and no razor shall touch his head.” (1 Samuel 1:11)

So God gave her a son and she called him Samuel. And when Samuel was weaned, the book says, she took him to the house of the LORD at Shiloh and gave him back to God as she had promised.

As I sat listening to the story told and the sermon preached I felt tears well up over my own experiences with my son. I know how Hannah felt. I’ve always related what happened to me and to Mini-man to the story of Abraham laying Isaac on the altar, but the story of Hannah is fitting too. And I know I have written about this before when I wrote about my postpartum depression, but I wanted to tell the story as the main point of this post because it was such a momentous time of testing and a huge defining moment in the development of my faith.

When my oldest son was born his birth wasn’t without complications. I was induced at 41 weeks; my blood pressure was rising and I had gestational diabetes so there was some concern he could have been large in size. The induction seemed to go well albeit slow: it took 30 hours for me to dilate to 10cm. Alas, after 3 hours of pushing there was no baby in sight and he came into the world via surgical birth. Dave and I took him home on day 3 – a Sunday. All continued to be well despite a growing bruise on his head. But he had a HUGE cone head (on the side lol) because I’d been pushing on him with his head turned sideways for 3 hours so the nurses chocked it up to a rough birth. I had been recovering well and baby was nursing fine; we were exhausted and elated at the same time, and Dave had to go back to work the next day.

On his 5th day of life I noticed a black eye forming. I had a follow-up appointment with my obstetrician set for that afternoon anyway so I waited it out. As soon as she saw the black eye she had us admitted back to the hospital where they ran all kinds of tests on him as they suspected a bleeding disorder. After running all the tests they found nothing wrong except for low hemoglobin from the bruising and, once again, chocked it up to a rough birth experience. After a month of iron supplements his hemoglobin was back into the normal range – albeit the low end – and we were told we were free to circumcise him.

Now I know I have friends who are completely anti-circumcision and I hope you can look past that to get to the heart of what I’m sharing here. I had read the arguments both ways and eventually handed the decision over to my husband as I couldn’t come to a conclusion for myself. He decided it would be best if we did it.

So I made him an appointment for the circumcision with “the” circumcision guy of Vancouver – Dr. Pollock. Because Mini-man was now 5 weeks of age we had to go to his New Westminster office to have the procedure done. So I took him and my closest girlfriend and the diaper bag and thought we’d be in and out.

That day changed my life forever.

After the procedure we were asked to wait for 10 minutes and the doctor would return. Well I managed to calm Mini-man down by nursing him in the office and all seemed well until the doctor opened his diaper. “That’s not normal,” he says. There was quite a bit of blood. I could see his concern and I started worrying. I told him of the iron situation and the low hemoglobin and he immediately requested the test results from the pediatrician we’d been seeing. He left the room and went to get them off the fax machine. When he came back he told me he had called for the paramedics to take us to Royal Columbian Hospital. The bleeding wasn’t stopping and he didn’t know why.

I rode in the ambulance with him and called Dave. He came to meet us at the ER. It was awful. What was supposed to be a routine procedure was anything but and no one knew why this was happening. They’d run tests for bleeding disorders when he was 5 days old and had found none. So as the doctors and nurses are running around us I was beginning to realize this was one of those situations. It wasn’t just a little problem. No one seemed to know what to do. I was holding the baby and they just kept wrapping more gauze around the wound. The gauze was soaking up more and more blood and no one was even applying any pressure… at least I knew enough about first aid to know to do that much so I did it myself.

Finally I shrieked for someone to help us. He was turning quiet and grey in my arms. His eyes looked empty. One of the nurses took him from me and they frantically worked to get an IV in him. I cried out, “Don’t let my baby die!” She replied hesitantly, “I don’t think he’s going to die.” I’m feeling the adrenaline of that day just as I type this out. I was so scared. Dave and I were both bawling at this point.

We prayed right there in the emergency room.

I felt a strange sense of calm wash over me and the clearest of all thoughts came to me. I thought,

“If the only reason I conceived this child and grew him in my belly, gave birth to him, nursed him and loved him for 5 short weeks was to usher him back into the arms of Jesus, then that’s God’s plan and I’ll trust in it.”

I shared my thought with Dave. We prayed more. We cried. We knew we were having that moment… the moment where time feels suspended. We knew our son was on the edge one shift in the wrong direction and he would die. The precipice. He was right there.

A few moments later the nurses were able to establish an IV and get him to pink up a bit. He was still eerily quiet and his eyes looked placid but I was no longer fearful. Once he was stable enough they transfered us to BC Children’s Hospital where they put him under general anesthesia to surgically close up the wound. We were kept overnight and within 24 hours we had a diagnosis: he has Hemophilia.

I feel like God used that moment to find out just how committed we were to this boy, to our marriage and to creating a family that would go through the valleys together. But I feel like He also wanted to know that we trust Him. I feel like it was a test and we passed. I feel like our faith was rewarded and we got to keep our son. But I will never forget that helpless feeling. I will never forget the clarity of that revelation. I will never forget the closeness of God in that moment.

That experience has given me a special sense of freedom with my kids. Over time I have come to appreciate that our children belong to God. They are not ours to keep. God loves our children more than we do!

but Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 19:14)

Now in practice I suppose I worry as much about my kids as the next mom. In fact, when Dave died I can tell you my very first thought was for my kids and how they would have to grow up without their dad. The thought of that killed me… like a knife to my heart. I felt like keeling over every time I thought about it. But even in everyday stuff I believe my kids are set apart for God. I trust in that. God can use our children to test us and grow us and shape us into the people we were created to be. He can use them to increase our patience and our mercy and our perseverance. He can use them to nudge our conscience and to make us laugh uncontrollably. I no longer worry that my son will die from anything unusual because I figure if God had wanted him in heaven He had the perfect opportunity. I no longer worry about how he’ll fare without his dad; God has brought him an awesome new dad. I no longer worry about whether or not he’ll grow up damaged from my imperfect parenting. No, I believe God has a much bigger purpose for my son.

And I believe God has a much bigger purpose for your kids too.

You can give your children over to God and trust Him with them. You can trust Him to supply their every need. You can trust Him to be everything they lack. God loves them more than you do. And I know if you’re a mother, you love them more than you ever thought you were capable of loving. So sit back and enjoy them. Enjoy their smiles and their laughter, their cuddles and their curiosity. Enjoy their carefree outlook and the risks they take. Enjoy every day with them. They are truly a gift from God.

Happy Mother’s Day.

Photo: The Doctr on Flickr

The other day a friend of mine told me that a friend of his had been following my blog (yay at least one reader!) and had been enjoying it (even better!). Apparently he said something to the effect that he liked it because I seemed “real” and not like all the people he’d gone to bible college with.

Uh oh. What?

Now I’ve never been to bible college. In fact, I have to (rather painfully) admit I still haven’t read the entire bible yet. Those old testament books are a little on the dry side and I have the attention span of a goldfish (Oh look, a castle!)… but I will get through them. I will… but I digress. I don’t know what students at bible college are like but I would think that people pursuing higher education towards a pastoral ministry ought to be real, no? In fact, I’m pretty sure that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob… the God of the bible, expects this to be very real to us.

What is faith if it’s not real? Is it still faith? By its biblical definition, “faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1). So faith means assurance. Do you have assurance? Do you think it or do you know it? Can you believe and yet not apply biblical principles to your life? And before you get all over me for suggesting we need to “work” to “apply” these principles I was primarily thinking of principles such as:

• Trusting God for everything you need (Matthew 6:25-34)
• Trusting He has good plans for you (Jeremiah 29:11)
• Believing that all the trials you face in this life will work out towards God’s greater purpose if you love Him and walk with Him (Romans 8:28)
• Knowing that we were all created for a very specific purpose; you are not an accident (Ephesians 2:10)
• Having freedom to forgive those who wrong us because it is God who will seek vengeance; we don’t need to. We can let it go (Romans 12:19)
• Trusting God will deliver us out of all our troubles if we cry out to him (Psalm 34:17)

… and if that is considered “works”, sign me up.

It’s funny… I don’t quote scripture all that often in conversation. Mostly because I have a terrible memory – I have a hard time connecting the verses with the actual references. But these verses are so powerful that if you read them and allow yourself to just mull them over with an open heart I believe they will speak right into your spirit. When you think on these things, how can your faith not prove real? As believers in Christ we MUST take God’s Word – the bible – as infallible, inerrant. Holy.

I think Christians, in general, don’t spend enough time being real.

I think we are all hypocrites. It is always easier to see someone else’s sin than our own. In fact, that is precisely why we have Matthew 7:1-5. Because people throughout history have been the same way. We are all hypocrites. Now having said that, I believe wholeheartedly God’s Holy Spirit empowers us to be humble… to recognize our own sin. To stare it in the face and to not run from it. I believe based on my own personal experience that if we stay honest with God (after all it’s not like he doesn’t KNOW what we’re up to!) we will find His all-sufficient grace (2 Cor 12:9). We will find peace (Phil 4:6-7) and we will find redemption (Psalm 78:35) and deliverance (Psalm 18:2).

So if our God is big enough to deliver us, redeem us and fill us with His Holy peace, surely we ought to consider all the other ways God wants to bless us. There are blessings to be gained by knowing God’s Word. Dig in and find out! Did you know that if you honor your father and your mother you will live a long life (Ephesians 6:2-3)?! Here’s another thing the bible tells us: “confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed” (James 5:16). So on the topic of being real, do you think maybe we should be doing this? As a body of believers… the church, the very body of Christ? Do you think there would be healing in an environment where everyone felt comfortable enough (or crazy enough) to go ahead and confess it?

I think we need to be fostering the kind of relationships and the kind of trust that allows people to be open about what’s going on so that we can build them up! Why is it that we see what we think is an awesome Christian family – beautiful parents, awesome kids, financially blessed, strong faith (or so it seems) – and BAM! Next thing you know he’s moved out with another woman. Uh… what happened?! Why didn’t anyone see this coming? My guess is that no one fostered an environment for that man where he could say, “Gosh we’re having some real trouble and I just don’t feel like I can do it anymore; I don’t love my wife.” That’s where it starts. That’s where the healing starts… with the confession of our sins one to another.

In Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians he says, “But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me,” (2 Cor 12:19). It’s in our weakness that God moves. His power is made perfect in OUR weakness. If we never show our weakness we don’t allow Him to move and work in and through us.

A huge part of what has allowed me to be so open about my faith, my struggles and my failures is the love and support I have felt from my church community. I have been very blessed to find an awesome group of people who really care. The more I have shared the more I’ve found others with similar stories and the more we’ve all poured it out. But there has to first be a sense of community and a humility in the Lord. We have to humble ourselves and accept that none of us is perfect. You know who your true friends are when you receive a rebuke in love for something you’re doing wrong in your life. Not someone who is oblivious to the log in their own eye, but someone who loves you enough to say, “Hey, what you’re doing is wrong and I’d like to help you… love you… support you and hold you accountable.”

Let’s all get more real. And lets start by loving one another and creating an environment of trust so we can openly confess our sins one to another and find the healing God promises.

Photo: Zach Dischner on Flickr

I remember when I was in my late teens and I was sitting by the water at Lonsdale Quay in North Vancouver. There was a choir singing on the wharf and I was listening. While I wasn’t really hearing what they were singing I was enjoying it. A young woman walked towards me and sat down next to me and said, “Hello.” She smiled and I responded politely. Then it came… –insert record scratching soundhere– “Have you received Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior?”

Aaaaaaaaaack. %@#! Get me out of here… I was so thrown by that question that I think I got up and walked away awkwardly without even a word. I know what people think about Christians… bible thumpers… jesus freaks… fundamentalist crazies… I know. I used to feel the same way.

If you know me and if you knew me, say, 6 or 8 years ago – as many people I work with did – you would have seen (I think… I hope?) a change begin to take place about 6 years ago. Six years ago was when I “converted” (for lack of a better word) to Christianity as a “religion” (another word I hate). I use these terms because they’re widely used and they convey the truth I suppose. Not the truth I feel and know inside but the truth as I can convey it to someone who doesn’t share my faith.

Now at the time I was a newlywed. Dave and I had been married in August 2004 and my conversion took place basically in the last few days of the calendar year. I remember being afraid. I was very afraid. I even said to him, “I know this isn’t what you signed up for,” – he wasn’t a believer either – “but I can’t stop what’s happening here. I can’t NOT believe.”

The only thing that stands out to me in those early days is this overwhelming desire to stick  my nose in my bible and not even come up for air for months. I read it every day for at least an hour or more. I soaked it up. It was like my food. I craved it. I loved it.

I needed it.

Surprisingly, Dave was actually very supportive. He had grown up in a catholic home and so he understood religion to some degree. He knew the contents of the bible and just sort of figured he’d give me the time and the grace to learn what was in it if that was what I wanted to do. No judgment. I was grateful and very relieved.

I started going to church.

I fell in love with it. When I’d go I’d want to stay the whole day… I wanted to soak up the presence of all these other people who understood what I was thinking and how I was feeling. I was so uplifted and encouraged to know I wasn’t the only crazy one out there who went from not believing this stuff to believing it without a doubt overnight. Was I going crazy? Was this entire room full of people crazy? Were they all nuts? Am I?

I started going to a home bible study group one evening a week. I made new friends. I read Christian books on marriage and prayer. I was invited to start serving the church in ministry. I couldn’t get enough.

And that was just the first few months.

In the fall of 2005 Dave had his own conversion experience. “Born again” we call it. There is nothing like it… one minute you don’t get any of this stuff and the next you’re busting out in tears or laughing hysterically at the joy bubbling over from inside. I can’t describe it well… I’m not sure it can be described and I’m fairly certain everyone who experiences it has a different experience indeed. I remember Dave calling me up at work and saying, “I GET IT!! I totally know what you’ve been talking about!” He was in tears.

I was excited to be able to share this new part of my life with him.

During our marriage we learned together and grew together and began to model our marriage after God’s plan the way the Bible describes it by God’s grace. It became easier. We became stronger. We were floating on the beautiful newness of our faith and reveling in it. We got through nearly losing our newborn son by leaning on our faith in God together. That experience actually strengthened both our faith and our marriage. Our faith grew. It began to take up a bigger and bigger part of our life.

When Dave died, our marriage and our faith was the strongest it had ever been.

I feel like he accomplished what God set forth for him to accomplish in this life and now he has reaped the ultimate reward… an eternity with the Father. And now God has more for me… more growth, more service… more purpose. In chapter 5 of the book of Hebrews in the bible talks about spiritual maturity… it likens our spirituality to milk and meat. Milk is for babies just learning; eventually you learn to eat meat and be nourished far beyond what milk can do. I believe God is calling me to move towards digging deeper… going further… stretching me to a greater understanding. He wants to nourish me with meat rather than the milk I’d been relying on.

I started thinking about this a few days ago as I was re-writing my About Michelle Evans page on this blog. I know how I appear. I know who I’m becoming. And in the same way I couldn’t stop what was happening with my original conversion, I can’t stop what’s happening now.

Nor do I want to.

All I desire is to become what God wants me to be. Nothing else is of any consequence. And that’s not to say that I am a religious fanatic that doesn’t do anything normal people do in life; I still have every intention of enjoying life the way I always have – running, snowboarding, music, beaches, friends etc. But I really just want to strip out the areas of my life that are of little consequence to my purpose. I believe God is calling me to put my energy into being a wife and a mother. It’s not something I’m doing because I feel like I “should” because that’s what Christian fundamentalists do. It’s a new desire placed right in my soul. I believe God is calling me to serve others in the church and in my community through music… through songwriting and singing. I believe God is calling me to build a home and a family that will glorify Him – a place where our kids will be welcome to grow in strength, love and learn in a wholesome, nurturing environment.

The remnant of the old me wants to apologize for who I’m becoming. But I can’t do it. I love who I’m becoming. For the first time ever I feel like I’m finally becoming who I was created to be.

So please pass the meat. I’m ready to dig in.

Photo: hddod on Flickr

I have to admit I’m not at my best first thing in the morning.

Getting up early in the morning was so much more enjoyable before I had kids. I’d get up between 5 and 6am, make coffee, sit around and watch the early news on TV, bumble around the house… have a shower and slowly get ready to face my day.

As any parent knows, however, when you have kids your day is going to get started whether you’re ready for it or not. It usually starts with the sound of a small child’s voice saying, “Hi Mommy!” And I have come to the conclusion that there is one, and only one, very specific thing I can do to make sure each day starts off well:

I must get up before my kids.

See, if I wake up to a little face peering at me – no matter the size of the grin on it – I am usually not in the right head space to get up and be the best mom I can be. Waking up to immediately fulfilling others’ needs even irritates me a little if I’m being honest. I’m just not that selfless. I wish I were. I SO wish I were… it would make those middle-of-the-night crying/barfing/falling-out-of-bed moments that much easier to deal with. However, I am not. So while I am very good in a crisis, fulfilling plain old everyday kid-needs goes so much more smoothly when I’ve had a chance to get my head on straight beforehand.

And so I must get up before my kids; in fact, my best days start at 5:30 am.

My best days start with a cup of way-too-strong coffee from my French press, my backside firmly planted in my favourite corner of my couch and the coffee table pulled close. I get out my bible and a devotional book and put them on the table with my coffee… and I pray. My best prayers usually pour out first thing in the morning before the day has wrapped around me and surrounded me with detail.

I then open up my devotional book to find the day’s scripture passage – I find having a devotional book helps direct my bible reading; I wouldn’t really know where to begin without one. I often find relevance in whatever passage I read. It almost always seems to be on a topic that has either been on my mind or applies to a specific situation I’m currently dealing with. For instance, just this morning I was praying that my life would be a testimony of God’s goodness; that somehow the way I live my life would show evidence of God’s love to those around me. After all, sometimes I think people who know me outside of my church life would have no idea I’m even a Christian, or worse: that they would know I profess to be a spirit-filled follower of Jesus but my actions don’t indicate any love for others. So I pray often hat I would love others in a very genuine and practical way.

Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” Matthew 22:37-40

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” John 13:34-35

Then this morning’s reading was from Matthew 5:13-20 on being “Salt and Light” and I was reminded of the commandment to “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven”.

This little morning ritual helps me to get my head wrapped around the most important things each day before I have to selflessly give of myself to my kids. In fact, after spending this short but so meaningful time I usually find I’m more than willing to pour out my love to my family and friends.

It’s funny what just a little mind shift can do. Now if I could just be disciplined enough to go to bed early.

Photo: bradjward on Flickr

I have been thinking about so much stuff lately… my mind is like a circus! I’m not even terribly certain I can put into some kind of reasonable sense of order the things I want to share with you today, but here it goes anyway:

According to canadianchristianity.com’s The State of the Local Church 2010, “Weekly church attendance has dropped from about 70 percent of the Canadian population in the 1950s to 20 percent today.” Yet fully three quarters of Canadians claim to be Christian according to Wikipedia.

It used to be that families attended church out of tradition or a sense of moral obligation. It was considered normal and a sign of being of good character. Many people grew up believing they were Christians simply because their parents took them to church and they knew all about the gospel message. Nowadays our society has shifted away from church attendance. Our social and religious norms now include questioning every practice and every principle in order to make our own determinations as to their validity based on own own moral values. It’s not that I think there is anything wrong with this questioning… quite the contrary: I think questioning is a good thing; it allows us to really contemplate and develop conviction in what we believe and why. It allows us to seek hard after our purpose and meaning in this life. And I truely believe we’ll find the answers if we are open to them:

For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. [Matthew 7:8; Luke 11:10]

Having said that, the current lack of church attendance has led to a growing number of people in our country who have never even heard the gospel of Christ nor read anything from the bible. It has also led, in part, to the prevalence of what I’ll call selective Christianity – the acceptance of parts of the message but not all of it.

The Rejection of Organized Religion

I hear it said all the time: “Oh I don’t believe in organized religion.” Or, “Oh I believe in God, but not in organized religion.” “I’m very spiritual; I have my own beliefs.” It has become trendy to reject the major religions of the world and embrace new-age principles and eastern philosophies instead. Many people in this world seem to have developed their own sense of faith that borrows a little bit from each religion or faith system to create whatever works for them.

Here’s my question to those people: “How’s that actually working out for you?”

Photo: amanky on Flickr

I hear people claim Christianity but then also claim they don’t go to church nor do they need to. Okay, that’s true I suppose… you can confess faith in Jesus Christ, pray to God and read the bible without ever setting foot in a church. However,  the scriptures do say Christians should meet together for several reasons:

The Bible tells us we need to attend church so we can worship God with other believers and be taught His Word for our spiritual growth (Acts 2:42; Hebrews 10:25). Church is the place where believers can love one another (1 John 4:12), encourage one another (Hebrews 3:13), “spur” one another (Hebrews 10:24), serve one another (Galatians 5:13), instruct one another (Romans 15:14), honor one another (Romans 12:10), and be kind and compassionate to one another (Ephesians 4:32). [Source]

I can’t speak for anyone else, but I go to church because I adore being there. If there were more services I’d attend those too… in fact, I also enjoy listening to sermons I download on iTunes and still others I watch on YouTube. I receive devotional messages to my email and I have even been known to stay through both services at my church on a Sunday just because I wanted to be there. Some people describe me as a very religious person, but I just love hanging out with like-minded people and growing and serving with them. Plus, I feel like I get a lot out of going, too. The pastors there are great speakers and my church friends are like family to me. I want to know how to apply all that wisdom and knowledge to my life; and I find that doing so makes my life easier, more joyful and more peaceful.

The truth is, I don’t actually consider myself religious at all. I consider “religious” to mean adhering to a set of rules, reading prayers written out by others, standing when told to stand, sitting when told to sit, forcing a set of guidelines and dragging yourself to a room full of other equally unenthused people doing the same things in the hope of maybe being chosen by a holy God to receive salvation upon death. I simply consider that I have a personal relationship wtih the living God… I talk to Him… I hear from Him… I want to know Him more. I want to know His plan for my life… I want to live that out.

I want, more than anything, to be who I was created to be.

The only reason I’m writing all this down is that my heart aches for all those people out there who are hurting or who are seeking for a deeper meaning to their life. I am convinced we are created by God in His image; our spirits know there is more – we were created to know our creator! Why do you think people spend so much time considering and seeking the purpose of life? All the while they are being bombarded by messages about how evil the church systems are, how corrupt and how dangerous organized religion can be and even just how uncool it is to accept that there is any possibility that the bible might actually be the true, inspired Word of God. So where does that leave them? Floundering to intellectually create their own god using selective Christianity or some other philosophy or faith system.

So going back to my earlier statement, there is a growing number of people in our country who have never even heard the gospel of Christ nor read anything from the bible. In fact, am going to bet that many who reject the teachings of Christianity and the bible have never actually read it nor heard it preached in any way.

Parental Guidance Suggested

If you’re a parent you might, more easily, see where I’m coming from on this one. But if you aren’t a parent, that’s okay… if you had parents you might also be able to track with me here.

Photo: ryk_neethling on Flickr

As a parent, you know things. You know about life, you have experiences to draw upon, you have wisdom you’ve gained from years of living. You want to impart that wisdom and that insight to your children so that they might have a successful future. You want to provide love and guidance; you want to set boundaries and discipline them. You want them to grow up to be people of good character. So you love them with all your heart and you provide for them and you give them good things and you set rules for them to follow. You insist upon certain behaviour else you will implement certain consequences. You want to teach them that there are natural consequences of their actions while not allowing them to feel the full brunt of their mistakes. You want them to make it to adulthood, after all.

If you’re a parent you know your kids better than they know themselves. You know what way they’ll respond to certain circumstances; you know how to best encourage them. You know when what they need is more love vs. more discipline. You know when they’re tired, when they’re hungry and when they’re just grumpy. You want to give them everything they need – they don’t need to ask for those things – but you want to teach them to be grateful for them. You want to give them many of the things they want… unless of course you think getting what they want will be a detriment to them. You want them to talk to you. You want them to open up and share their hearts with you… what’s going on in their lives. You want to know how they feel and what their struggles are. You want to help them. You also want them to ask for what they want, even if you know what that might be.

Do you see the parallel here? Can you see God as a loving father? Can you see the bible as something like the written memoirs of a loving father for his children, grandchildren and generations to come?

Only it’s way better than that.

Kids need love, discipline, boundaries; they need to explore their environment, learn and grow. They need someone to guide them and direct them and someone to keep them in line. A loving parent looks only to help them be the best human being they can be. God wants that for you. He wants you to be his child and He wants to father you, hear your heart, help you grow and become everything you were created to be.

We reject the notion of organized religion because we are told that once we’re adults and out of the care of our own parents we should not be accountable to anyone or anything. But God is our Father. He’s the God of all creation who fashioned you together with all your beautiful intricacies and a specific purpose.

Are you living out that purpose?

Maybe you need some parental guidance from your Father.