Gods Favorite Moments

I have been wrestling over the past few weeks about why I have had to go through a lot of the crap that I have gone through in my life. I think many of you my friends can relate to this. There have been situations that we have lived through that we wish we hadn’t or we feel was completely unnecessary. I think this is normal. No one likes to talk about what has made them cry, or when they hit rock bottom. I love making people laugh not cry, so telling my story isn’t exactly something I like to do. It is embarrassing and frankly, who wants to be that vulnerable with anyone?

After asking God to help me understand why I have had to live through depression, suicide attempts, sexual abuse, physical abuse and emotional abuse God used my pastor this morning to suddenly shine a bit of light on this puzzle. This is what my pastor described.

Imagine there is a Father who loved his child more than life itself; he would do anything to protect that child. One day there was a huge storm, a frightening experience where the Father had to pick up his child and carry him through the most frightening moment of his life. The Father never felt closer or more attached then in this moment, as he held his son to his chest willing to sacrifice his life for his child while braving the elements. By the time he reached safety his son was rather soaked and terrified but he had made it through. The Father was so relieved that his child made it through, he had never felt closer to his son then when their two hearts were beating in fear as one, as they made it through the storm. This moment bonded them together as nothing else possibly could.

But…

Imagine that child, though his father carried him through the storm, protected him from the worst, went to a psychologist saying that he was damaged from that storm. That storm ruined his life; he can never trust his Father again for taking him to that place where he could be put in harm’s way. The rain, lightning and thunder still cause fear to flash through his heart. He hates speaking to over even being around anything that would remind him of his Father because of that day.

They are two very different emotions and thoughts about the same event. The Father was bonded in love in protection, keeping his child from the worst while the child could only think of the fear that he experienced. In turn he refused his Father’s love; he refused to be close to him in the same way his Father wanted to be close.

As my Pastor described this scene in Church I could not help the tear

s well up in my eyes. There have been so situations that I have practically cursed God for making me go through them. Where I have told God that those moments ruined me, they broke me. I would never be the same… and yet. I lived through those experiences. God brought me through them. Looking back those were the moments that truly brought me closest to my heavenly Father, the moments where I had to rely on Him the most, where after the longest time of not hearing his voice, I heard his voice more clearly than ever before.

My heart truly broke. Often times my own stupidity has brought me into some of the tough parts of my life, sometimes it was through the evil of others that has caused me to suffer. Each time my God has been there with me, and will always be there with me. No that doesn’t excuse the abuse I have had to live through, and no it doesn’t make it all better instantly. But God treasure those moments because they are the moments where I truly turn to Him. Those are the moments where we are talking constantly and He really is my best friend.

God loves me and God loves you. More than anything He has created. When our lives turn horrible and we see no light at the end of the tunnel; when our hearts are breaking because of the evil this world has dumped on us; when we lose those who are closest to us, maybe instead of cursing God and screaming at him to make it better maybe instead of turning our backs on Him. Maybe just maybe we should turn to God and bond with Him, pour our hearts to Him. Life may not instantly get better, but at that point we have the God who created the Universe willing to be the one to carry us through it. We may get to other side a little wet. But at least we will be alive.

God’s favorite moments are the moments when we are actually communicating with Him. Keep up the talking and the listening. When God is trying to change our hearts and help us to understand it is never easy. He is teaching us a whole new language. The language of love. It is hard to learn but once we do, I think it will become our favorite language. 

"Fish are Friend not Food" Thoughts on the modern day American Church

Hey everyone, been a while since I posted on here. My Facebook fast was wonderful I am back on now so if anyone wants to say hi please do. 

I have had some thoughts rolling around in my little heart lately about bitterness I have towards modern day American Churches. I have only had experience with American Churches, just to clarify so my little rant (?) today is focused on that. I don't make it a secret that the past oh five or more years I have hated going to Church, being at Church, talking to people from Church, having anything to do with Church, having grown up in the Church that is not easy to admit. I am one of those kids that the first Sunday after I was born I was in Church. 

Why are you so bitter you ask? Well it all started with the way my mentally handicapped older sister has been treated by many Churches, she has been kicked out and treated sub human for being a poor kid whose body grew up but her mind didn't. Then I watched as people fought with each other and Churches split over the type of music that should be played; Church members spreading rumors about the other members who sit behind them. This bitterness grew like a cancer all through High school as I watched my friends go through tough times and instead of being offered help, were kicked out. I went through some really tough times, my rebellious period, to be fair I was not doing anything that God approved of during that time. But the Church instead of being somewhere I could go for help, turned into something that spread rumors about things I didn't even do. 

I came to a Christian college hoping that maybe this magical thing would happen where they would say some magic words and all my hurt, anger and bitterness would just go away. I tried to pretend that it did, I have always been good at pretending life was ok. It didn't work though, hiding it made it worse. Over the past year I have yelled at God countless times about how much I hate "The Church", how much I can't stand the hypocrisy and the lies, the people who are fake; how I can't stand Pastors who say one thing and yet treat people the way they do. I can give you a list of everything but that would take the entire blog. I admit I have cursed out the Church to God so many times. I would yell and cry as my heart broke over and over again about the things "His Church" had done.

Finally God had enough. He can only take so many one sided conversations before He says how about you shut up, sit down and listen, won't that be a change of pace (God speaks sarcasm to me). In my listening to God, He asked me a few important questions, here is our conversation. 

 Natasha, what do you think the Church is? 

My Sunday school answer: (please read in a bored/annoyed tone of voice) Well Jesus the Church is the body of believers it's not a building it is whole bunch of Christians getting together to worship you.

Gods answer: Natasha you are lying

Me: (totally offended) Excuse me? No I am not; I gave you the right answer. 

God: You gave me the right answer but you did not give me your answer. 

Me: (stops and thinks, this stopping and thinking took a couple of weeks, I am slow sometimes) 

That was when I realized something about my view of "The Church". When I talked about Church I referred to what I can only describe as a type of ethereal floating being that hovered over Church building and caused   everything bad to happen; kind of like blaming the government for everything. Everything bad that happened I just lumped into what I considered the Church to be until everything I thought about the Church was just nasty.  

Then God reminded me of Matthew 7:1-5 (CEV)

 1Don't condemn others, and God won't condemn you. 2 God will be as hard on you as you are on others! He will treat you exactly as you treat them.

3You can see the speck in your friend's eye, but you don't notice the log in your own eye. 4How can you say, “My friend, let me take the speck out of your eye,” when you don't see the log in your own eye? 5You're nothing but show-offs! First, take the log out of your own eye; then you can see how to take the speck out of your friend's eye.

I said screw the Church and God reminded me not so gently that he never said that to me. I straight up yelled at God and said look what those people have done to me; I am sick and tired of dealing with them. Gods response was look what you have done; look at what you have said. I am not giving up on you; I am not giving up on them. I love them as much as I love you. 

I did not want to hear that. God reminded me that every person in Church was human too. They all had hurts the same as I did. I had hypocrisy and terrible things in my life just like they did. But giving up on people is not what I am called to do as a Christian, by giving up and turning my back on the Church I am turning my back on my Christian family, the body of Christ (1 Corinthians  12:27). I am doing exactly what happened to me and my family. Ouch. I did not want to come to that realization. I still can't say I have forgiven what has happened in the past but here is where the Finding Nemo quote in the title comes in. 

My favorite movie is the Disney Pixar movie Finding Nemo, in that movie (if you haven't seen it go watch it like now) Marlin and Dory meet up with a group of sharks. They think they are going to be eaten when they discover that these sharks are part of a support group of sharks who don't eat fish, they even have a pledge. "I am a nice shark. Not a mindless eatin' machine. If I am to change this image, I must first change myself. Fish are friends. Not food." 

How does this apply to anything I have just said? Well if I want to change the image of the Church, if I want to change how Christians are viewed, I have to first change myself. People are friends not food, or to put it another way, all people are messed up but as a Christian I am called to love and to help them; not devour them with hatred and bitterness. Yes people are still going to be hypocritical, yes there are still going to be things that happen in the Church that will make me mad. But guess what we are all hopeless sinners just trying to make it with Jesus’ help. So instead of me being the one that talks bad all the time, from now on I am going to try and be the one who encourages. I am going to try and be the one who helps and loves. Who knows maybe a few others will start doing the same thing.

The sharks in Finding Nemo haven’t had much luck in changing the shark image but who knows maybe God and I will have some luck in changing even a small portion of the image of what a Christian is, even if that only means we are changing me and how I am seen.