Personal Church Service at Jirem's House

I'm home from church today. I have a migraine, a migraine I got a yesterday. Apparently he likes me and wanted to stay for the weekend. I saw the neurologist earlier this week, and he started a new preventative medicine, but it hasn't really kicked in yet. He also prescribed a medicine that should help WHEN I get a migraine, but my insurance only covers 4 pills of that a month; plus, it is VERY expensive to retrieve those 4 pills a month, AND it takes 2 of said 4 pills to relieve 1 migraine. If you do that simple math, it's not so pretty. Sometimes I equate insurance companies with Hades and demons. I actually wrote another post allllll about that. It's in my drafts section. I haven't edited it or decided if I am going to post it, however, because it might be inappropriate. I'm not sure.


Anyway, when I awoke this morning at 6 a.m., my normal Sunday morning wake-up time, I couldn't get out of bed. My head was pounding too bad. I decided I would skip coffee/God time, and sleep another hour, and then try to get up and shower at 7 or 7:15. When that time rolled around, my head was still pounding. When I stood, I realized I was also still really dizzy (like yesterday). In addition, my stomach was kind of crampy. Sometimes the headaches can cause nausea, but the crampy stomach could have been unrelated. So I got up and made my way to the couch b/c I wasn't tired anymore, (I usually get up at 7, or 8 at the latest, so sometimes it is hard to sleep past then) but I knew I wouldn't be able to shower and make it out the door, especially since apparently I'm prone to fainting and forgetting that I got married (if confused, see the New York Times post). I made myself something warm to drink and pulled out my bible/journal to try to spend some time with God, hoping reading wouldn't worsen my head, (Oddly enough, it's a toss-up. Sometimes it does. Other times, it doesn't at all. The world of migraines=incomprehensible).


Jesse got up shortly after, kindly offered to go to the pharmacy to get me some additional OTC headache medicine, (I declined; I didn't want him to miss prime Chinatown parking time), and set me up all nice and cozy before he left: He found me some online sermons to listen to by Ed Welch (from CCEF and Westminster Theological Seminary) and downloaded them to my desktop, got me one of Ed's books, Depression: A Stubborn Darkness, (he'd actually put it on the night stand for me the night before), reminded me to email Jordan and let him know I wouldn't be at church, encouraged me with some silly Jesse joking as well as words of God, got my phone for me and made sure the sound was on because he said he'd be texting me to check in on me and make sure I was okay, and basically did all the nice things a caring husband does for his ill wife that he wishes he could help but can do little for other than pray for her. 


     Sidenotes:

1. (On Jesse: Yesterday, at one point, I had a mini-breakdown and started crying and freaking out, and then went into psycho-cleaning-up-mode to try to calm myself down. That didn't work, so I just laid down on the couch and cried myself to sleep, and while I was sleeping, he prayed out loud; He prayed some Psalms over me. I only found out b/c he thought I heard him and asked me about it later. I hadn't heard him though. But seriously- what woman is lucky enough to be completely off her rocker and have a husband who, instead of leaving her or screaming at her, prays Scripture over her after she tires herself out from being insane) ????
2. (On the depression book: I've had this book for a while. I started reading it over a year ago but stopped when I got to a point where I felt I had heard EVERYTHING he was saying before and that it hadn't help, but I had written down on a sticky note the following: "I need someone I can talk to about all my painful memories and how they are still affecting me. I need to speak to him/her at least every other week. He/she must be a Christian." I already had a non-Christian counselor, but I really needed a Christian one and had been unable to find one. So it was really encouraging to see that here, a year later, upon picking up this book again to read further in it (and hopefully not get mad at it again), I had made some headway in my fight even though I often feel like I am in quick sand and never moving at all. What has felt like a walk upstream, has perhaps gotten me further than I have thought. A year ago, I did not have the opportunities in front of me that I have now, and a year ago, I was not able to recognize a lot of the things going on inside of me that I recognize now).

In fact, the past 4 days have been progressively hard. Monday was an extremely low day, one of the lowest I've had in a while. It was followed by a very great day, Tuesday, where I felt very much strengthened by God, sensed light at the end of the tunnel, and enjoyed work and being with the students, sensing the presence of God all around. But then Wednesday, I seemed to wake up with a cloud surrounding and without knowing exactly from where it came, only knowing that it brought rain from my eyes and a lot of fear and confusion. I continued to seek Jesus, cry it out, walk by faith, stumble because of my sinful heart, fight with Jesse, talk it out, make up, and live. I suppose really live too since perhaps what he and I were doing all week allowed us to pull from all realms of emotion and thoughts and have to draw deep from the well of humility and compromise and patience...even when we were drawing deep, digging deep, and then throwing what we found in each others' faces as if asking the other gratitude for being Godly. haha :). We are learning together. 


Anyway, the POINT to this post is that although I have not PHYSICALLY been in the house of the Lord this morning due to my migraine (which has made this post particularly hard to write. It's taken me very long. I keep misspelling things. Probably because of how dizzy I still am), I have had much of an EXPERIENCE with God, and it has been a bit of a bookend to an immoderately difficult week. Today bestowed upon me a great deal of revelation about what is wrong in my thoughts as well as, I think, a little more about who HE is and what that means for us. Today, was a personal church service gracefully and mercifully given, and I humbly receive it with a gladness that is not demonstrated through elation and smiles but through persevering sternness, setting my face as flint and pressing onward, (Isaiah 50:7).


Earlier this week, I had a time with God that was nothing short that heaven-sent. I thought about blogging ALL about it as a testimony to how God can give these times, and I still may do that, but it was so deep and impacting on me, that another part of me wanted to keep it personal, just between God and me, like something special and intimate. Jesse says I encourage him to be more open. Actually, a lot of people tell me that I encourage them to be more open, but I could also learn from others about the value of being like Mary from time-to-time, and treasuring some things in my heart. So I want to treasure this earlier time with God this week AND most of today's time in my heart. BUT, I do want to share a few key points that stood out today from this time of quiet solitude and worship I have had here by myself. (Strange, I lived from August of 2006 through June of 2011 completely alone, meaning no roommate, just pet-mates, and often did not enjoy such isolation and loneliness, but now I sometimes think...can I just get a few minutes PEACE without this BOY ALWAYS IN MY SPACE? -no offense husband. <3 you and your Psalm prayers over my crazy self). Anyway, here are the points:

• A first point: As Christians, we are very often called to be subversive in the culture of the world, especially when it comes to how we define beauty. We must divert our attention from what the world esteems as beautiful, especially in terms of outward appearances. In the Bible, the Lord is deemed as beautiful, and we are told to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord. So we must seek to think counter-intuitively. We can find beauty in serving the less-fortunate, working with the elderly at a nursing home and watching their faces light up as we sing their favorite songs or play games with them. I recall when YCF did that last year. Was not THAT beautiful? We can find beauty in watching a child learn something for the first time or discover the world. We can find beauty in nature, in humility, in self-sacrifice, in the way that Jesse treated me this morning before he left for church, in the text messages I received from caring people who noticed I wasn't at church and were concerned for me, in the way Kim prayed for me in my office on Friday, in the way David emailed me after he saw me crying. God came into the world in the form of a human ONE time, and when we think back upon that ONE time and His choice of how, specifically, to come into the world that ONE time, we are forced to recall that His specific mode of transportation was not, by any explanation, certainly not by Isaiah's in chapters 52 and 53 of his book, a pimped out luxury vehicle or super model body or jacked-up, nearly 7 foot tall, basketball pro body, or husky, all glory Roman soldier, or even a deeply religious and pious Pharisee. God came through a baby boy in a barn. Jesus was a homely package, and Jesus' death, the climax of beauty and of beautiful work, was a cursed means of death according the laws of the religious world. Furthermore, in Heaven, we will be creatures gazing upon the beauty of the Lord and delighting in His holiness. We will be fully part of His new Kingdom. Will that beauty really have to do with the type of things that America or Europe or China or the Middle East or Latin America considers beautiful right now? Will it have to do with skin color? Complexion? Hip size? Breast Size? Height? Hair color? Hair style? Weight? Foot size? Nose size? Butt size? Clothing? Shoes? Amount or lack of hair? Or will beauty be something else entirely? I think it will be something else entirely.
• A second point: The trajectory of the Christian, Ed Welch points out, has always been OUTWARD. The world's trajectory teaches that people should look inward, or at least look outward only toward those nearest to oneself or outward to those who have an impact on oneself, which is still, ultimately, looking toward one's SELF, thus...looking INWARD. But for the Christian, the call is to 1. Love God, and 2. Love neighbor. Therefore, the question for us should not be, "how can I please people so that they will like me," but "how can I love this person/people the way Christ loved?" And if we are focusing our efforts on answering this question, then we really need not concern ourselves with whether or not we are fat or thin enough to meet the world's standards, or popular enough or pretty enough or smart enough or fast enough or brave enough or rich enough or slick enough. The Bible says "for freedom, He has set us free, and we are free indeed." Shane and Shane have this new song out called Liberty, and when I listen to it while running, I LOOK like a complete fool because I raise my arms and flail them around and mouth the words and nod my head intensely in agreement. He has broken the chains and set us free to live for HIM. To live to answer the SECOND question, not the first. "He's written my name;  unshackled my shame, opened my eyes to see. I am free. I am FREE. I AM FREE! LIBERTY!" -S&S.
• And the final point I will share is: Many of us live trapped lives, trapped in our minds, daily making sacrifices to altars that we like to pretend like we don't have set up in our lives, altars we like to try to hide even from those closest to us, like our spouses and friends. And our spouses and family members often overlook our altars because they are hoping we will overlook their altars, or because they are too busy taking care of their altars to see or notice our own devotion to our altars, or because they aren't spiritually equipped to even recognize altars in the first place. But it is very easy to let a good thing become a central thing and to reroute one's focus toward it, creating rules about it and laws surrounding it, making a way that one finds some type of worth or esteem or salvation in it, this thing, this altar, and leaving no room for God to be ANY part of it, certainly leaving God with no salvific purpose. And maybe we talk to God a little about it, a little about our altar, but we don't really want Him to do anything about it because we are terrified about what our lives will look like without our little altar as a part of our life. So then we experience shame around God, maybe even alienation, or isolation. And then Satan comes in, and he strikes that chord and plays it well, and he whispers lies. Oh this is a dangerous recipe, very poisonous, and it's probably cooking in many kitchens of many Christians filling the pews of churches across the world this morning because it's a very deceptive recipe. It's deceptive because it begins from a good place. It begins because we rightly sense that we are NOT okay, that we are NOT alright. We rightly sense that we are sinful and need to be made right. But the Gospel often feels TOO good to be true, and like the Galatians, who were seeking to use circumcision as a means to earn their salvation, we create something that we think if we can JUST do, we will be alright. So then in our minds, the subconscious tape plays, if I can just have Jesus and ________, then I'll be okay. But the truth is, whatever is in your ___________  or my _________ ends up becoming something we want  more than we want Jesus. And THIS is no good.

So the Psalm I read this morning, or well, to be honest, the Psalm I sobbed through multiple times, is Psalm 30. There was a period in my life, back in 2006 and 2007, that I wouldn't read that Psalm. I was too depressed and too sad, and I felt like that Psalm, a Psalm about joy coming in the morning, was a Psalm about a person who had had his/her despair lifted. So I told God that I wouldn't read that Psalm until He had lifted my despair, and I actually said that to Him in faith, I thought. I prayed that to Him with the mindset of faithfully believing that He WOULD bring me up from the pit I was in, eventually, and that He would set my feet upon the Rock, and I would stand firm to testify and glorify His name about how He'd done it. Now I eventually did allow myself to read the Psalm, sometime in late 2007, but I remember when I did, it felt very unfulfilling. I felt like, "Okay, so I didn't die. I'm in New York now, and I have a job, but I'm still kind of sad, and I don't necessarily feel like I've conquered, and I think there is a LOT of sadness still deep in there...I juuuuuuust think I'm gonna push on and trust He'll handle it eventually. So I'll ignore it for now, and He'll eventually make it go away." And so that's what I did. I ignored it, thinking He'd make it go away eventually.   And I was even reading Emotionally Healthy Spirituality and Emotionally Healthy Church with Aunt Esther at the time. How could I miss this??? Anyway, of course, it never went away. It actually just got worse, and eventually I couldn't deny it anymore. 


But today, when I read the Psalm (I've read it since then too I'm sure), I saw it differently. Today as I read it, it dawned on me that it isn't just a guy saying, "YAY, I'M SO HAPPY. MY LIFE IS GREAT. PRAISE GOD!" No!!! It is a guy who is saying, "My life was in ruins, and you restored it. I was in the pit, and you brought me up. I was in Sheol, and you restored me. In my prosperity, I thought I'd never fall, but you turned your face from me, and I was dismayed. I cried out to you though, and you heard me. I begged for your mercy, and you gave it. By your favor, you made my mountain stand strong. You made my mourning turn INTO dancing." So this is a guy who is saying "it DID suck, and you DID change it." And I guess that just like EXTREMELY encouraged me because yesterday and today I had written in my journal that it was hopeless, that I could never get better. And I told Jesse countless times yesterday that he should leave me because he deserved so much more in a wife and ministry partner and that I would never be well enough to be that for him, that I'd never get better. I think I even told him that this morning. And I often think GFC should just let me go because they can do so much better and the kids need someone so much better. And I REALLY believe all this, so when I read Psalm 30, it encouraged me that even though all this may be true (and I believe it is), God can CHANGE that. God can make me better. He CAN turn my mourning into dancing, and He can actually bring purpose out of all the messes and mistakes I've made and out of all my sin and self pity and self loathing. God can use it all and make something good....because like I taught the kids on Friday, God is a sovereign God who works in ALL things for His good and glory. 


So I'm encouraged here this morning. I'm not in God's house, and I hope you all will forgive me for that, and that He will as well, but I am encouraged. If Psalm 30 is true, and I believe it is because it is in God's true Word, then there is Hope. Because that is what God does. Praise Him. Now why He does it? Well, wow...the mind of God. I cannot fathom. I cannot fathom and will not attempt to fathom the mind of God. But I'm sure, if ever we are seeking to find TRUE beauty, (yes, this is my attempt to bring this WHOLE POST together now), if we ever want to see what REAL beauty and glory is, we would see it if we could but for one moment gaze into the mind of a God such as He. And we thought the TV show Lost was unfathomable... we haven't seen anything!


Ok that's all for now. I won't torture myself with the computer screen anymore. I'm going to take 2 of my 4 pills I've been given for the month and then sleep. Oh, and since Edna likes pictures, I found this random picture the other day while going through old emails. It's from my seminary graduation.