Do I even dare try and process this in blog world?  I”m feeling prompted to do so.  Maybe it will resonate with someone else too.  If you are rolling your eyes just skip this post.  I need to do this for me today.

I’ve had my world a bit rocked this weekend.  Started out with the book “The Song”.  I love a love story and so I picked up the book.  It was a good.  It lead me to want to read some more and since Dave is out of town this weekend I finally picked up the book Redeeming Love.  My friend Angie gave it to me over New Years as she has an amazing love of books and I told her I love a love story and she passed it on and said I would enjoy it.  It’s sat for a while because who really wants to read a love story from a Christian Author?  How good can it be?  I’m not talking the sexual details but I’m talking about always having to put God in the story somewhere.  Sometimes I want to read books that have nothing to do with God.  Why?  because my husband always reads so many that have everything to do with God. Ha!..  I just was not looking for a self help or a theological discussion type of book.  But how could I ever think He’s not a part of every love story ever written.  He is. Shame on me.  Christian author or not.  He’s always there in the lines.

Redeeming Love shook me.  It was a beautiful love story and a story of utter redemption and discovering God in a long process and not a one night conversion. It reminded me how much God speaks to me when sometimes I think he doesn’t so much.  It confirmed doubts I have.  It also made me look at my own life and the story that is being told.  The way I think of the story of my own life in my mind and how God has comments along the way for me too.  I loved the way Francine used her writing to have God follow along the journey of real broken lives.  It was a blessing.  A timely blessing I needed right now.

This morning was divine for me.  Nothing new that I had not heard before but ever so timely in the progress of this weekend. Things I needed to be reminded about.  Things that needed to sear my heart again. I can’t believe I’m going to be this open. 

We live by the sentences we tell ourselves.  I heard that this morning and I believed that it’s true.  Don’t you?  Then the ugly.  What sentences have I been telling myself?  What am I living by?  It was mind shocking and awful.

• You have no confidence.
• People don’t really like you for who you are.
• No one really wants to be your friend.
• Your not a very good mom.  You have no patience and you are missing out on so much.
• Your husband will probably never be as impactful as he could be because he has you for a wife.
• People don’t really commit to you because they find that weakness you have.  Give them enough time and they will leave. 
• You’ll never find community again because your too afraid to commit to people.
• There is always a hidden agenda when someone likes who you are.
• You’ll never have maximum impact.  You’ll always end up one short.
• People only accept you because they have to be around you.
• Even if you try to do the right thing people will still have their own opinions.
• Your in the process of damaging your kids and their future.  You are messing something up for sure.
• You really don’t know God the way others do because your relationship looks so different than others at times.
• You’ll spend your whole life trying because God really does not want to bless you so you can succeed.
• You know that heart you have for Haiti and adoption?  You don’t really think you could do anything with it that could be impactful for people.  Don’t even bother.

(I just reread these before posting.  You all must think I’m crazy. I have good sentences too.  But these are some of the bad ones I tell myself on a daily basis.  Ugh.. that is pretty ugly huh?)

Sometimes we hold on to these sentences.  I know I do.  I don’t know what your sentences would look like.  I know I have a lot more to add to that list. Many of these sentences have been formed out of 34 years of life and struggles that I have faced.  In our brokenness that causes us to think and live our sentences so many times we will sit and defend the rightness to the wrongness done to us that they were birthed from.  And in doing this we remain a prisoner to them.  I”m aware of my sentences.  I”ve been aware of my story for about 5 years now and linking past happenings to my current struggles.  It’s a daily struggle for me to try and continue to write my story.  And in the hard times that always come because they will I do find how tied down I am to the lies I am aware of and I tell myself and live by.

The reality is that in our lives what is said to us or what is done to us was wrong and of course we play our roles in these sentences coming to life as well. I’ve shared my part in creating lots of my sentences. However we can choose what we do with our lives.  We can choose to have them continue to write our story -OR- we can step into God’s story and he can continue to write a story with a peace that will set us free.  A Jesus shaped story.  A new chapter.  Hmmm. Chapter Two?  See I’m not numb to this.  I feel like I know this and try to live it.  So them why all the sentences that continue to be there on a daily basis?

Sidenote:  And oh the sovereignty of God… Yeah would you like to debate that one?  I don’t.  It became ever so clear to me today as in Josephs story who was sold into slavery.  He said to his brothers when he exposed who he really was… YOU SOLD ME (TRUE) and GOD SENT ME (TRUE) oh what a beautiful way he chose to live his sentences.  Joseph lives by this sentence and he was comfortable with the tension. If God would step in and stop all the brokenness/sickness/bad things that happen to us/the darkest sentences that we have to tell, He would stop free will and the love God has for us would never do that.  I truly believe that.  We have to live in the tension of life.  Live in our daily mess but knowing it’s been redeemed and is being worked through.

So why even try to live God’s story?  Why try and take our sentences and make them into something different?  Because at the end of the day it’s not about me.  All my sentences were all about me.  I know God is working in and for me but it has to be more than about me.  Not just that God is with me in all my junk but that God has sent me.  It’s not about ME, it’s about US.  As true as God has ME on his mind which he does, He always has MORE than ME on his mind.  It’s plural.  He is working in OUR lives to preserve life through me….for many others.  That is what living in the God Story really is.  His salvation comes through weakness and sacrifice and brokenness.  It’s no surprise He takes our weakness and turns them into strengths.  He’s done that all of history.  Even before Jesus.  The son of man came for the MANY.

I’ve probably really lost you by now.  All of the  stuff I just processed out above is to say that God is in the mental of what we are going through.  That was once again stamped on my heart again. The sentences that we tell ourselves can continue to tear us down or build us up.  They can ruin relationships or restore them.  The battlefield is our mind.  If we can just destroy the arguments and the sentences that we raise up and take them captive to God’s standards then we win. 

YOU SOLD ME (TRUE) and GOD SENT ME (TRUE)   – I want my sentences to be redefined.

I will still hear the echo of the old sentences because they are a part of me…. BUT I need to start seeing them differently.  I need to stop telling myself the lies I have been redeamed from.  Not through pride but through God’s truth of who he says I am and how my life is so much more than just about me.

• You are a stong woman of God
• So many people love you because you try to leave them better than you found them
• People love to be your friend.  You are a good friend to many.
• You are a good mom. Sure you are not perfect but your heart is pure.
• You are a good wife.  You do help make your husband a better person.
• Not everyone leaves you.  Look around.
• You commit to a lot of people.  Look at the pockets of community you have.
• People like you for you. 
• God is in the daily workings of your life
• Others love you for who you are
• People will let you down always but God won’t
• You are not in control of others.  Love them.
• You do know God.  The heights and depths of his love.
• Success may never look like it on your standards but on His you are so successful.
• You can make a difference in Haiti and adoption.  Just take a look at your son.

When Dave left on a flight at 6AM Friday morning I never would have imagine the plans that were awaiting me this weekend.  Thank you Lord for using my weekend to rip places of my heart open to what I needed to hear.