FMF: Following Jesus

Joining Kate  for another Five Minute Friday

Follow:

As a child, I used to read the verse, "take up your cross and follow me," and I never really understood what it meant. I used to think it was very strange. As I grew I started to understand it a bit better, as I had to bear things like ridicule from non-Christian friends, and being left out of things that happened on Sunday mornings because my family went to church every Sunday without fail unless you were home sick in bed.

Now in my adult life, I am learning a whole new meaning to the phrase, "take up your cross and follow me."

I am learning that every single one of us has a cross to bear. We were given it at conception in our mothers' wombs along with the sin-nature that was handed down from Adam. We all have to bear that symbol of death and destruction due to sin.

We don't have a choice what our particular cross looks like. For me, it partly looks like saying good-bye to my precious babies. For my cousin it partly looks like raising four preschoolers one of which has special needs including a feeding tube. For my college roommate and dear friend it partly looks like losing her father as a teenager.  For a dear friend and colleague this week it partly looks like holding her mother's hand in the hospital not knowing if she will ever come home on earth or if it is her time to go home to heaven.

We do not have a choice whether or not we will bear a cross, and we do not have a choice what our particular cross might look like each day, but we do have a choice of what to do with our cross. Some choose to buckle under the weight of carrying our crosses ourselves, barely inching along life's road weighed down, tired, and discouraged. Others choose to try to ignore their crosses, paint them up fancy and disguise them to look like something else. Some might just plunk their cross down in the dirt and refuse to go on.

Me, I have chosen to daily pick up my ugly, heavy, pock-marked cross, and follow Jesus. I follow Him because He bears my cross alongside me, shouldering the heavy load. I follow Him because He doesn't disguise it or ignore it, but rather promises to one day exchange it for a crown of glory. I follow Him because He gives me strength to put one foot in front of the other, even when I cannot see where the road I am walking goes up ahead, and I am surrounded by darkness.

And one day when I get that crown of glory, I will lay it down again at His feet and I will be able to say with that great hymn, "All the way, my savior led me!"

FMF: Good

I know it's not Friday, and it will take a bit more than 5 minutes, but I felt this message on my heart this afternoon and just had to share, and since it fit with this week's theme I decided to link up anyway :).


GOOD

GO:

We say that God is good. We say taste and see that the Lord is good. This time last year I had a hard time seeing or tasting the goodness of God as I was seeing nothing but darkness and tasting nothing but bitter tears.

I was questioning why a good God who had conquered death would still allow my beautiful beloved daughter to die before she even got the chance to be born.

This afternoon I was looking through a photo album and found a snapshot of June Bug. She was only about 18 months old, and was sitting in a kitchen cabinet (she had emptied the contents onto the floor), arms crossed, pacifier in her mouth, and such a look of anger and hurt on her face. You see, she had been betrayed.

Earlier that day I had taken my little girl to the doctor to get her vaccinations. I remember holding her on my lap while the nurse jabbed a needle into one chunky little thigh, and then having to hold her even tighter against her struggles and wails as the process was repeated on the other side. She continues to cry as we left the doctor and drove home, and the first thing she did when we got home was to empty out that cabinet and close herself inside, sobbing to herself.

In the toddler mind of June Bug, she had been betrayed. The Mommy who said she loved her little girl, who said she would kiss boo-boos away, who sang lullabies and read bedtime stories, had just held her down and allowed some mean woman to jab needles into both her legs. She was mad. She was hurt. She did NOT want to see Mommy, or talk to Mommy, or have anything to do with Mommy.

In her mind, Mommy was no longer good.

In my mind, God was no longer good.

But June Bug grew. She grew and learned and developed, and when she was four years old it was time for more vaccinations. This time around I was able to explain to her that it was for her own good. That even though the shots would hurt, they would protect her from getting sicknesses that could hurt her much more. I explained that Mommy didn't want to let her hurt, but this hurt would only be small and for a short time, where the sicknesses could cause big hurts for a long time. This time she sat calmly on my lap, and only winced a bit when the needles went in, and then smiled at the Dora band-aids and stickers she was given, the pain of the shots melted away.

I also grew. I grew and learned and developed spiritually. Though I still don't understand the whole plan of why God allowed the pain of losing first Mikayla and then Selah, I do know that my pain does not remove His goodness or love. I know that it hurts Him to see me suffer just as it hurt me to hear June Bug's wails. I know that He want nothing more than to have me run to Him so He can scoop me up in His arms and comfort me, just as I wanted to do with June Bug. Yet so often I go and hide in my cabinet, pouting and sobbing about how unfair it all is while He waits outside ready to shower me with love.

I have opened the cabinet. I have run into those everlasting arms. I trust that one day He will wipe away every tear from my face. I can once again taste and see that the Lord is good. My trials and pain are not bigger than His love. My limited understanding of the reasons does not mean the reasons are bad or wrong.

God IS good.