Faithfulness: The Noble Cause

I’m ridiculously happy right now. And really, if you think hard about it, there’s no real reason to be. None of our outward issues have changed in terms of finances, the house, etc. And yet…

I have this joy. And really, that’s the thing about serving God. It doesn’t really make sense to the logical mind—not that the logic part of my brain is all that well-developed. He gives peace (in the midst) of storms. Not when the storm is over. Love your enemies, pray for those who use you. Believe even when you can’t see or imagine the results.

Simply put, God’s ways are higher.

And we are a culture—a world, really, of humans who have a hard time wrapping our heads around that sort of thing. Because we want answers now. We want results. Walking out onto a raging sea goes against everything sane and reasonable. We think we know best.

But we really don’t.

Faithfulness hasn’t always been my issue to overcome. Or lack of faithfulness, is a better way to put it. Many years, I did the church thing regularly, joyfully, and without complaint. Then God told us to switch churches about 13 years ago. This is what He said, and no he didn’t speak through a burning bush, but an inner knowing. “If you will leave the familiar and go where I’m sending you, I’ll raise your kids up in righteousness.”

We had been concerned about the kids being raised in the church we'd attended for so many years. There was strong worship and great preaching, but for some reason, the young people have always struggled to walk in purity—including me in my teen years. It’s like, it’s expected that for two or three years, the children of the church will fall away, into sin, and come back once they’re adults and marked with scars of sin and their past. And the cycle starts over with the next group of teens. We didn’t want that for our kids. We desperately wanted them to avoid the pitfalls I went through and learn something different.

Well, if you want something different, you have to do something different.

The church we attend now was new. The talk of the town, really. They were different from anything in our town where I grew up. And when I told my husband what I felt God said, he scowled. ☺ He’s the kind of guy who sticks things out. He’s steady and dependable and couldn’t imagine why God would ask us to pull up roots and plant somewhere else. But he trusted me enough to at least visit the new church. And within a couple of weeks, he knew we were doing the right thing. Whew.

But, truly, we struggled. The older kids, who were nine and seven at the time, struggled. We were like Abraham, leaving Ur and going to a place where God was asking us to have some faith. A place that was unfamiliar.

I was beginning my writing career at the time. I got my first book contract the year we started at the new church and it was really easy to turn my eyes from church ministry and make myself believe God was finished with all that in me. After all, we hadn’t come to the new church to use our gifts, we came to keep our kids from the pits of hell. It was a noble cause. And fiction writers know that the hero of the story must always have a noble cause. I was writing a new story of my life.

With that mentality, I could justify starting on the worship team, and quitting. Starting again, and quitting. Helping in kids ministry and stopping. Doing drama, quitting. You see the pattern. I had a victim’s mentality. My gifts aren’t needed. I’m not as good as the others who are serving. Blah, blah, blah.

And I knew better. I had served long enough and well enough that I knew when you commit to serving in the church: nursery, children’s church, worship team, door greeters, and you don’t show up for your turn, it causes a real problem for not only the leaders in that department, but for your fellow workers, because someone has to take up your slack. But I didn’t see it. I had so many insecurities that I figured they were better off without me. It was such a selfish way to behave.

As I’ve begun to open my heart again recently over the past few months, God has shown me so much of what I thought and felt and did or didn’t do came purely from a heart that wasn’t developed in Love. And that’s our first and second commandment. Love God, Love each other. Serve one another, prefer one another. By committing and blowing off those commitments, I was essentially telling those I was letting down: I don’t love you enough to ease your burden, instead, I expect you to ease mine.

This message truly hit me yesterday during a discussion with some friends—people who have sacrificed willingly, for years and years, who have taken up slack for those who haven’t loved enough to be faithful—including me—and have done it with grace and kindness.

It cut me to the core. And in that moment I experienced true repentance.

So here’s what I want to say: Be faithful where God has you right now. Put down some roots. The best way to do that is to see others more highly than yourself. Different from popular belief, Love means ALWAYS saying you’re sorry. But repentance isn’t saying you’re sorry and doing the same thing over and over. It’s being truly sorry and changing your behavior.

I’m making a fresh start. A few months ago, I did a 40 days of walking out my commitments. As day forty approached I was terrified that I would fail on day 41. But true change was beginning in me.

God walked alongside me with each shaky step forward. And He is continuing that work in me. But it hasn’t been without a setback here and there. It hasn’t been without what I considered sacrifice.

But I’m learning again, there’s joy in learning to love. To prefer others. To stop thinking it’s all about me. My roots are slowly sinking into the soil where God planted me. And I’m growing.

Change is hard. But the joy filling me up and pouring out, keeps me face forward on this journey to the place called God’s Best for my life. Whatever that promised land is going to look like and however it takes to get there, I believe God is leading.

Where He leads me, I will follow. Where He leads me I will follow. Where He leads me I will follow. I’ll go with Him, with Him all the way.

The Supernatural: flickering lights, moving chairs, the power of love

The world (and by the world I don’t mean our Christianese word that means “the people who are going to hell in a hand basket”—whatever a hand basket is)—Let me start over…

The whole world is looking for the supernatural God of the Bible. I truly believe that. We want to hear what the prophets of old heard, we want to see miracles like Jesus and the disciples performed, and we want proof that God isn’t some mythical being filing his nails, with no interest in the creation he fashioned and forgot about.

It’s so obvious as we watch TV and peruse Amazon.com—the market is glutted with supernatural stories. Some from a reality perspective, some clearly fiction.

Some MY fiction.

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Warning: Shameless plug coming.

I wrote two metaphorical vampire novels for the Christian market. Both on the subject of generational family curses. The first one…alcoholism. The second: co-dependency.
And then there’s the new one. My favorite book I’ve ever written: The Widow of Saunders Creek. Which is selling well and getting the best reviews of my LIFE! Thanks to Jesus and everyone who is reading and liking it!
Shameless plug is now over….
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But here’s the thing. I’m the LEAST likely person to write scary stuff. Except maybe, Deb Raney, who, as she readily admits, might be a bigger fraidy cat than me.

When I was a kid and even into my oh…40s. (I’m 42), I was a huge scardy cat. One of the original members of the Big Honkin’ Chickens club—of which Deb is president, although I’m not sure we ever held an election.

I’ve seen a ton of supernatural stuff over the years. Some of it BS and worked up by Christians who are desperate to feel God and hear his voice, but most of it real and true works of a loving Holy Spirit who wants to speak to us and reveal the love of Christ. And set the captives free. Some of it violent, a powerful struggle between evil and love.

I honestly don’t know why God asked someone like me to write The Widow of Saunders Creek. When I wrote the proposal for it, I was alone in the house (DUMB) and as I started to walk downstairs to my laundry room, the stair lights –only--started flickering on a clear night. They never flickered before and haven’t done it since.
It made me kind of mad, so I pled the blood of Jesus, spoke out loud. “God hasn’t given me a spirit of fear but of power love and a sound mind” and forged ahead, wildly beating heart, shaking hands, determined to put in a load of towels and not let the devil scare me off.

Then there was the time when I was finishing up the rewrite, preparing for the book to go into production. I was writing a very intense scene where the “ghost” is sounding off and the heroine is about to be forced to run away or confront it, and my chair started moving. MOVING! Back and forth.

I did what any crazy Christian would do. I got mad and rebuked the demon. Then it had the audacity to move my chair again! Hey! Didn’t I just rebuke it? It’s supposed to go away in Jesus’ name. My confidence shaken—clearly I need more faith—I sat there a second or two trying to figure out what the heck I was supposed to do now. Running out of the house and driving to the peace of my mom’s home, came to mind. Also, giving my publisher back the money and finding a nice plot for an Amish novel seemed like a good idea.

Instead, I called out to my husband who was in the kitchen, and isn’t afraid of anything, least of all a demon. “Honey?” My Big Honkin’ Chicken voice trembled. “I think a demon just shook my chair. Twice. Will you come pray?” ☺

He stayed in the kitchen, calm and completely unaffected, which annoyed me a little, but I didn’t let it show, because perfect love casts out fear.

“Honey!!”

“Good grief, calm down. It was an earthquake. It shook the kitchen too.”

“Oh, thank God.”

Turns out, the Oklahoma City earthquake reached a five point something on the scale and we felt it all the way in Ozarks. (insert sheepish grin).

But writing about the supernatural from a Christian perspective is risky. Christians are scared of the topic and non Christians don’t want to believe the devil and demons are alive and well and kicking serious butt, while we sit back and let it happen.

In spite of my deep down knowing I was supposed to write another supernatural novel, I decided NO WAY. I’m done with all that. It’s too scary and I hate when my lights flicker and my chair moves and fear nearly chokes me. I convinced myself and my agent that God was leading me to go back to writing historicals. So I came up with a really super proposal (in my own mind it was super) worked on it for about six months, which really should have shown me that I was doing it on my own. When God gives me a story, it pops onto the page almost without effort. And we sent it out. I confidently sat back, waiting for all the contract offers to come in…only…YIKES, for the first time in my career, editors weren’t biting.

So after a few months, I turned back to the idea of a supernatural fiction book. I hadn’t been able to get it out of my head anyway, and thought…okay, sheesh, maybe I’m supposed to do this.

But as I finished up a chapter, fear shook me to my core once again. And I told my agent. I don’t think so… I have another idea, a better one. She said, “Okay, I’ll read anything you want to send me.” Her way of saying, “But don’t get your hopes up.”

So I drafted a chapter and a synopsis on a topic that is current and suspenseful, but not scary, and dashed it off to her, confident she would jump on it, be excited and we’d be back on course.

Only….I have an agent who is not only smart and savvy about the market, but ALSO tuned in to God’s heart and quite intuitive about her clients’ motives. So we had a phone conversation. And I recognized Michael Hyatt’s “How to say No” model of YES, NO, YES.

YES: Tracey, anything you write is good

NO: While this proposal is good, I think you should continue in the genre you’re writing (whoooosh, the sound of my balloon popping)

YES: I think you should consider this…

So we discussed why I wrote Widow and I said, I woke up in the middle of the night after forgetting to set the TV timer and Ghost Hunters was on. So I got mad about the lies of the devil on our beautiful world. In the morning I had the idea for Corrie’s story.

She asked, “What else makes you mad?”

Knowing she didn’t want to hear about my son’s filthy bedroom, or the puppy who keeps pooping on the floor, I said, “When Christians won’t love people who are bound by satan because they’re afraid of the supernatural.” Then I proceeded to tell her about another idea I’ve had rolling around in my head since I started working on The Widow of Saunders Creek.

About witchcraft and the person who is bound up by it and why they got into it in the first place and the person God sends to her to shine light in the darkness.

And Karen said, “oooooh.” Which loosely translated means, “Go back to the drawing board and send me a proposal for THAT one.”

And I thought, “Crap.”

So here’s the thing. The Bible says we will be faced with demonic situations. Jesus even said, “Cast out demons.” If we bury our heads in the sand and refuse to associate with and love those who are bound, how will we ever reach them for Jesus?

The people in darkness have seen a great light. Or have they?

Jesus was “moved with compassion” when he saw the sick, the lame, the bound. It’s my heart’s cry to be like him during these days on earth when the dark is getting darker. The light has to be lighter.

So, that’s why I am saying YES to God and continuing to write supernatural fiction despite the obstacles.

As I press forward, I’m keeping the lights on, guarding my heart, and writing what he says write. One day, the battle will be over, but until then, we don’t wrestle flesh and blood. If we don’t shine God’s truth and light into a deceived and dark generation, then no one will.

What's God Saying When He's Not Saying Anything?

I love my quiet mornings on my deck. Everyone is sleeping, except for the birds and the occasional owl, which I happen to think is one of God’s coolest creations. I read my Bible, check email, read Michael Hyatt’s blog, check to see if my friend Lori played her turn in our on-going Word with Friends games. One game ends, another begins. I usually win, but I think that’s mostly because I care more about it—competitive ☺.

Oh well, that was an aside…

For the past eight months or so, even in the coldest days of winter, I have had soul-restoring moments, listening to God, dreaming of the future, blogging, whatever. God has met me there every morning.

Until today.

I emailed Miss Linda and told her, “God’s not talking to me today. What’s He saying to you? Maybe I can piggyback today on your Word from Him.” God always wants to speak to Miss Linda. She’s obedient, submissive to Him. Hears his voice clearly. I usually just open my Bible and point. Seems like the safer way to listen.

Anyway, so far, no word back from her. She must be doing the Memorial Day thing with family or something. So much for that.

I’m sitting in Starbucks, which, in Lebanon, is tucked inside a grocery store. I forgot my earbuds so I’m listening to ridiculous grocery store music designed to lead the unsuspecting shopper to aisles of crap food no one needs so we’ll spend more of our dwindling American dollars.

Thank God for Zen green tea and sweet n low.

As I sit here wondering why God isn’t talking, a question forms in my mind in a very Carrie Bradshaw kind of way—sans the sex…cue the spiritual:

What’s God saying, when He’s not saying anything?

Because, even when He said, “Be still and know that I am God,” he still spoke! I mean, he said, “Be still and know that I am God.” Right?

My heart is getting hungrier as the silent minutes tick away. I miss Him. The grocery store music is interspersed with Blondie and Phil Collins, which is okay, except the store manager keeps calling people over the intercom and it interrupts. And as my focus keeps getting pulled from one thing to the next, I think maybe it’s not that God’s not talking. It’s not even that I’m not listening, but my brain can’t focus today.

We’ve had a full weekend. My third baby graduated from High school. My oldest son brought a girl to church he’s been dating a few weeks and I think he’s getting serious about. Or is headed that way anyway. We’re in talks with someone who wants to move out of her house and we might move into it. I’ve been sleeping away most of the last two days to get rid of a rotten headache and then there was church yesterday.

And then I remember yesterday’s word for me from Isaiah 50:10, “For anyone out there who doesn’t know where you’re going, anyone groping in the dark, Here’s what: Trust in God. Lean on your God.” MSG

I feel like I’m groping in the dark. Either God is silent, or I’m not hearing. Either way, it sort of amounts to the same thing. We have a lot ahead of us, and I need Him.

I remember a few years ago listening to a minister talk about his experience at a tourist place here in the Ozarks called Fantastic Caverns. Which is exactly what the name says. A cavern. Cave, basically. At some point in the tour, all the lights go off and the guide says. DON’T MOVE.

The minister said, “When things get dark, and you don’t know what’s going on, DON’T MOVE until God shines some light on the issue.”

I think that’s where Rusty and I are right now. Things are dark and we don’t have a clue what happens beyond next month. God isn’t directing, because right now, we have all the information we need. Don’t make any sudden movements. Are you groping in the dark? Here’s what: Lean on me, trust me. WAIT for Me.”

So, God may not be “talking” today, maybe He’s not giving me goosebumps and weepy woo woo, but guess what? In the middle of a grocery store Starbucks listening to the worst of the 80s music and the grating intercom, God reminded me the lights WILL eventually come back on. Don’t move until they do and the path ahead of me is well lit. Maybe He was saying something after all. Only, He started talking yesterday and I didn’t get the full gist of the conversation, for whatever reason…headache, distracted, who knows?

He’s talking now. “Stay where you are. Lean against me. Trust. My finger’s on the switch and the lights will eventually come back on.”

Guest Blogger: Staci Stallings

Please welcome today's guest blogger: Staci Stallings! So honored to have her here.

Life Lesson: Be-Do-Have

This revelation hit me the other day while I was listening to a speaker on having financial balance in your life. The author talked about a goal setting seminar he went to. The lesson he revealed is that too often when we set goals, we are setting the “have” part of the equation, then “doing” the work of getting to the goal without ever making the effort to “be” anything.

If you’re paying attention, there’s a math lesson that translates to this message. Any math person will tell you that there is a definite order to life. A + B = C, and if you get it out of that order, even the simplest of ideas can get overwhelmingly confusing. So this equation must begin with “be” not “do” or “have.”

For example, people set a goal of meeting the right person. That is the “have” that they want, so they begin “doing” the things the world says make sense to get to that goal. They go to bars, they go to church, they go to work, they go to parties, they go to school—all with the spoken or unspoken intention of acquiring what they do not have, a partner. Years ago they called the females with this mindset, “Mrs. Majors.”

They were not in college to get a degree; they were in college to get a husband.

In today’s world some of these types—men and women—have the “have” and “do” parts down to a science. One manifestation of this is the book that became famous a decade or so ago called “The Rules.” This book purported to explain exactly what you had to “do” to get the goal of “having” a mate. The problem is that this is completely senseless when you understand the equation of “be-do-have.”

When you truly get this life lesson, it will have a profound impact on every aspect of your life. No longer will you focus solely on the goal—now you will focus on who you must first become, and the attainment of the goals will follow.

I know, it sounds Pollyanna. It sounds so simple. But it’s the simple-sounding things that are often the most difficult to actually do. I see this turmoil in teenagers a lot. They think that their identity is created by who they are with, what they wear, what their outward appearance is. The reality, however, is that identity is based on who you are.

That’s why you hear of 10- and 20-year high school reunions in which the popular kids are now struggling and some of the most unpopular kids are now the successful adults. When you understand this equation, it makes perfect sense. Think about it. In high school, the “popular” kids already “have.” They have the status, the good looks, the admiration of others. Why work for something you already have?

The unpopular kids on the other hand are forced to find their true identity not in the outer world, but in the inner world. So they work on themselves rather than on what the outside world says is important. Thus, 10 or 20 years down the road, they who have been forced to “be” are now “doing” and “having” in much greater proportion than those who “had” everything.

To be sure, this is a vast generalization. There are popular kids who take time out to work on themselves and “become,” and there are unpopular kids who want to “have” so badly that they contort who they are trying to fit in. The exceptions are there, but so is the rule.

You have to be before you can do, and you have to do before you can have. If you don’t, nothing you ever get will be enough. And if you do, whatever you have will be plenty. With this in mind, find some time today to fit a little “being” time into your “to-do” list. It may just turn out to be the best time investment you could ever make.
2002

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The Woman at the Welcome Kiosk

Beauty and grace are a couple of things I’ve often felt eluded me. But God always seems to bring into my life the one person in the crowd who is filled with both. He knows my heart and that, even though my personality lends itself to whatever the opposite of those two attributes are, it’s more of a cover for the grace and beauty I’d love to display, if only they came naturally. Those attributes that I know are hiding somewhere deep, deep down just waiting for abrasive layers to peel away so they can shine.

In my church, there’s this tiny, fortiesh, dark-haired woman who exemplifies both of these qualities in such a way that you just know God is biting His nails, trying not to call her home before her time is up and she can go be with Him. If I know God, He is aware this world needs her, but I bet He’d love to pull an Enoch and draw her into his giant lap, and just cuddle her forever, the way I have a feeling her gigantic six-foot-four (at LEAST) husband probably does every chance he gets.

She smiles, speaks in soft, gentle tones and is adored by all—because she’s the real deal. She loves animals, has a heart for children, and when she talks to you, there’s just a peace that comes over you. And she never seems to notice that you’re not worthy of her time.

Like Melanie Wilkes in Gone With the Wind—only with a God twist—and if anyone is dumb enough to be mean to her the way Scarlett was Melanie, I’ve never seen it. And if I did, I’d probably give them a dressing down that would make them beg her forgiveness—and maybe bake her an I’m-sorry pie.

I think there are very few women like this—and even less men. (not to be a man-basher, I like men too).

She loves Jesus with tears in her eyes and trusts him for herself, and for me.

Yesterday, I slipped out of the sanctuary during a film clip, making a dash to the bathroom before the sermon got a real start. And she was standing at the welcome kiosk with one of my friends. They both stopped talking to tell me they loved my hair and I looked good. Blah, blah, blah. And then she asked me about the house (clearly she doesn’t read my blog—which is probably her only flaw). I told her we lost it.

She seemed genuinely surprised because she knows we’ve been praying. And her God never fails. She said, well, remember, God promised you a house. “Yes, He did,” I said---honestly just wanting to run away. I don’t smile-through-the-tears very well. I needed to pee anyway and get back into the sanctuary where pastor was already preaching the first in a new series about making adjustments. Choices.

“Well, then,” she said, with a slight lifting up of her teeny, tiny shoulders, making her four-feet something stature, rise about a half-inch. “God must have a better house for you than the one you’re in.”

Oh, how I love this woman. Most of the time, I want to take her home with me so I can serve her in any way she needs. She might be the one person who actually deserves to have her feet washed like Jesus washed the disciples feet--but then if you only washe the feet of those who deserve it, you're probably missing the whole point.

“I’m sure he does,” I said.

She gave a confident tilt of her head. “Oh, I know He does." And she smiled, and her face glowed with love and kindness that made me believe maybe God actually does have something even better. And as I walked into the bathroom, I thought, “Lord, make me like this woman, filled with beauty and grace. Let me see the big picture through the tall, full trees that are threatening to suffocate as I navigate the forest. Let me see You in such a way that I trust without wavering, knowing that the end of one season, always brings the beginning of the next.”

I can “say” I trust God, but this woman KNOWS her God is not going to leave me in my weakened state. She KNOWS that if He promised to provide, He will do it. I think she must have seen God’s faithfulness many, many times. Because she has that quiet, unshakeable faith that only comes from experience and relationship.

So I’m praying today at the church with my pastor and whoever else shows up for our first Prayer and Seek service. I’m praying for grace to walk through the doors, not focused on my great need, but the needs of a town filled with people who need to know Jesus the way the woman at the Kiosk does.

Beauty and Grace. A face that shines with the love of Jesus, a gentle voice that brings peace. Kindness for all. Unwavering faith in a heart that knows her God.

Jesus, make me like that.

Change--it is A'coming

As a writer and a blogger who feels very strongly about being honest, letting you walk a journey with me so that you know you’re not alone, I have to share the difficult times as well as the good times.

So in that spirit, I’m sharing today that this is a tough time for my family.

Change is coming. My husband came home from his last deployment to discover the job he thought was secure had been given away. Due to an office error. Our world was ROCKED. And we kept thinking, “ok, in another week, or another month, it’ll work out. A job will be there.”

But it never happened. We fasted, prayed, tithed, gave above the tithe…did all the things we knew to do. But even my writing stopped being lucrative.

Hey, God. What’s the deal, already?

It took me almost a year to stop begging, bargaining, and blaming. (Hey, look at that, three B’s. I could work up a sermon with a title like that!)

The moment I said, Okay, Lord. What can I learn through this? God answered. And for the last seven or eight months I’ve been in a place of correction, change, re-discovering this God I had all-but forsaken. Taking my relationship with him from passive to deeper levels of surrender.

I’ve come to realize that sometimes God says, “no” and it’s for reasons my human brain doesn’t comprehend. I know that bumps up against the faith message. Because God is always good and he delights in the prosperity of his saints. But sometimes, the answer is still “no”. And God has a plan we can’t see while we’re in the middle of the loss.

A lot of people are in the same boat trying to navigate choppy water, trying to stay afloat in the middle of major waves. Financial pressure, foreclosure, loss… That’s where we are. I sit on the deck of the house I love, looking over the beauty of the green and breathing in the stillness of early morning nature, just waking up to the wonder of God’s world. I can’t help but praise Him for the soul-restoring months I’ve had here on this deck. Writing, listening to His voice, loving Him and being loved BY Him, but knowing it’s going to be gone in a few weeks.

It’s a hard pill to swallow. But I have this hope in God. He won’t leave us to fend for ourselves. It’s uncertain right now where we’ll go. Where we’ll live. We have some hard days ahead, but I trust God to walk with us as we go through them.

I know you might be thinking, “But you’re an author, where are all the diamonds?” ☺ I could tell you a lot about how much the average author really makes. But I’ll spare you.

So, as we travel this road, I’m asking for your prayers for guidance and wisdom. We have more decisions ahead than I feel qualified to make. The thought of leaving this area, if that’s what we have to do, hurts me in a physical way. I love my town, my church, and I know at least two—maybe three—of my kids would stay here without us. Because they love the town and church too.

So, change is coming. Is here. I don’t like change, but I’m hoping to move forward with grace and peace. We’ll look back some day and watch in hindsight, the hand of God gently pressing our backs and guiding us to a better place.

Eating Crow

I did something today I’ve never done before. Something I thought I’d never do—after all, I’m a writer and we’re all about our first amendment rights, right?

But here it is: I removed a blog post.

Here’s why. In my attempt to honor one person, I dishonored another. A kind and godly man who didn’t deserve it. I didn’t mean to be a big jerk and bring dishonor to someone who has been only good to me. But as I reread the post through his eyes, I saw that I was and did.

And I’m sorry.

I wear my heart on my sleeve and sometimes my expression doesn’t convey the full extent of how I feel.

I wish I were like Anne of Green Gables “The one good thing about me is that I never make the same mistake twice.” Unfortunately, I make the same ones over and over.

Who knows, maybe I’ll learn this time. I never want to hurt someone because of my words.

Forgive me, Jesus. Help me to think before I speak—or write.