A Summer Away From Facebook

I'm sure some of my friends wonder what happened and why I left Facebook for now, after being a prolific Facebook poster for several years. There really wasn't (and isn't) any stunningly huge reason, other than that I simply felt the Lord asking me to do it. It was amazing how simple it was for me to give it up, too. I just said, "Okay, Lord" and actually began looking forward to life without Facebook for awhile.

It started this spring, as the Lord began convicting me of attitudes and habits in my life that didn't please Him. And chief of all sins, was that my habits and ways of wrong thinking didn't bother me enough to change them. I wanted to change them... I'd resolve to do better... but so soon I'd be living the same old busy, self-absorbed, God-forgetting, people-pleasing way.

Which meant that I really wasn't very serious about changing. People who say they're preparing to be professional athletes or musicians and can barely squeeze in a little time each day to practice show by their actions what really matters to them in life. They can say whatever they want to about their desires and goals, but it's obvious to everyone where their priorities lie. So lived I my life.

God brought it up to me over and over. I was miserable - trapped in a life of pressing needs and clamoring noise, knowing I needed God more, but living a barren inner life. How can one give God to others if you aren't full of Him yourself?

My dear sister-in-law gave me a book on Brokenness that I managed to read in snatches over Spring. The Lord used that book to show me how wrong, dead wrong my heart was. I was existing as a Christian, looking like and acting like one to all the world around me, but not living, fully living - drinking at the Springs of Living water, every day, all day any more....

The difference between doing and being something is so vastly huge! I realized that although I still looked and acted much the same outwardly as I did back when my heart was right, inwardly I was withering. I'd lived the Christian life long enough, that I could get up every morning and "do" it... be kind, servant-hearted, cheerful, forgiving... but did I love God with all my heart? Did I crave Him? Did I still know and walk with Him as I used to?

I then spent a few days at a Bible conference, seeking God. He kept peeling back the layers of my heart with every message I heard, every chapter in the Bible that I read, and every time I sought God in prayer. Showing me my heart, probing into the corners... reminding me that He resists the proud but gives grace to the humble and that He is near to the brokenhearted.

Did I really care more about living a life that people agree with and being a person who they like, or did I care most about what God wanted from my life? ...All so elementary, but all so fresh again when your heart is all wrong and you didn't even realize the half of the ugliness of it all!

There was also another situation going on in a friend's life that had been heavy on my heart for months. During this time, God pointed His finger at my heart as the prophet Nathan once did to King David and said, "Thou art the man!" All of the grieving I had done over this dear, dear friend of mine growing cold towards and then leaving her husband and children.... God showed me that she had done it to another sinful human being... but I had done it to Him, my Creator, Redeemer, the Holy, Almighty God. I no longer loved him like I should, not because I had any reason not to love Him, but just because I was busy and full of everything but God. I can rarely remember being so convicted and grieved by my own sin and my own heart as at that moment as I realized that God's words from James 4:4 rang true in my own life: "Ye adulterers and adulteresses...!"

God brought me to a point of desperation to again have a pure heart, a broken and contrite heart before Him, a heart that I wouldn't exchange even a little piece of for anything in all the world or in all of this life.... A heart desperately hungry for God... to love Him, to know Him, to delight in Him, and Him alone!

All of these things I've always said in my head. There's never been a day in the last twenty years, when I haven't thought these things or wanted my relationship with Jesus Christ to be like that.

But living these things is different. It's one thing to resolve to know and love God as He is worthy of. It's an entirely different thing to roll yourself out of bed an hour or two earlier after only a few hours of sleep to seek Him until you find Him, instead of just functioning on fumes. It's one thing to realize that you need God more than anything else in the world. It's an entirely different thing to live that way - to let urgent work pile up and cancel fun events because there is nothing that needs to be done more than to commune with God and listen to His voice.

As the Lord humbled me and crumbled every last little thing that I might have thought I was doing "good" or right, I began to desperately want to bring Him pleasure, and the slightest care about what anyone else thought or approved of faded. It has become one of my goals this year to live for an audience of One - God, and Him alone.

Which brings us to Facebook. Sometimes Facebook makes me feel like I live in a viewing tank with many folks visiting my life and sharing their opinions. It's not all bad, in fact, often it's helpful or nice. My goals for Facebook have always been to encourage and inspire others to seek what matters most in life; to make them think; to be real and honest about myself, and if nothing else, to just make people smile. But, in my quest for seeking the pleasure of an audience of One, I thought that might be easiest without the distraction of other people's commentary on my life or opinions. :)

Facebook hasn't taken up a ton of my time in the last year because I rarely log onto it when I'm on the computer. I usually just Facebook from my Blackberry while I'm waiting in line or elsewhere have 2 minutes with "nothing else to do."

Nothing else, that is... except seek God. He can be sought anywhere. I don't ever see myself having a slow-paced life and easy routine that makes it easy to seek God and spend lots of time in His Word. I don't have slow mornings in my jammies with tea and my Bible. I have 2 am calls from frantic mamas who need me now.... or if I wake up in my own bed in the morning, there's an incredible amount of things to be done around here, like my own mother needing my help. Evenings are no better. Days are non-stop. Sometimes there just are a hundred things that HAVE to be done.

Mothers of little ones find this true. You can't wait to nurse the baby just because you haven't spent some time with the Lord yet. The toddler wakes up at 5:30, crying that he's wet again... and the four year old wakes up throwing up, regardless of whether you've read your Bible or had enough sleep. Sometimes you just have to be a mom. Some days I just have to be a midwife, and a sister and daughter and caregiver....

But above all, I HAVE to seek God. I have to love Him. I have to know Him. I have to live for Him! THAT is the cry of my heart. If my heart is desperate enough, I will seek Him daily and above all else in life!

I plan to come to back to Facebook and I'm not making a lot of other major changes to life... except that regardless of what else happens, I need God.... enough of Him to fill my heart to overflowing, every day. And I intend to live that way!

When I Don't Know What My Heart Needs

"God is beyond good to bless our lives with children!

When we don't know what our hearts need, He does!! All we have to do is let Him bless us. :-) "

-- The words of a long-time family friend,

a mommy of 14 children,

writing about her youngest child turning three.

"When we don't know what our hearts need, He does!!"

So true. So true.

2010 was a year of me not knowing what my heart needed, but God was kind enough to give me what my heart needed.

Lots of pain, lots of stretching, lots of disappointment... but He stirred up the stagnant places and the places that had grown hard and selfish and dead and just full of myself.

He broke my heart so I could be tender and compassionate instead of proud and "together".

He disappointed my fondest hopes so that I could learn to love Him more than life itself.

He led me through the fire so that I could learn what really matters and what doesn't matter at all in life - this one, and the one to come.

He gave me Himself, and His tenderness, and His nearness and compassion so that I could learn to love Him and Him alone. So that I could see that really nothing else matters much in comparison to clinging to Jesus.

He said, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall SEE GOD!"

That is one of my goals for this year. To have a pure heart. Not because I can make myself have a pure heart, or even see what is ugly and defiled in my heart (I'm so blind to my own sin so often).

But it is my goal to let the Lord Jesus form in me a pure heart - a heart with a single eye, a single master, a single vision, by yielding to His Hands in my life, even when they hurt. For He knows what my heart needs, even when I don't.

I love Him for that.

Restoration of My Wretched Heart

'Twas yesterday that I pondered on another.
Their sin, their pride. . . their wretched heart.
As I thought of my response,
How to restore. . .
The Finger of God pointed at my heart:
"Thou art that person!"
I was smitten, ashamed.
I saw the filth, the pride, the rebellion
Within myself.
'Tis I who needs restoration.

I see my sin.
I feel my guilt.
I bow my head.
Words... they do not come.
Brokenness I need - that I know.
But tears, where are tears?
My heart is cold and stale and limp.

I want to push this back inside the closet
. . . Rest.
This confusing, jumbled mess.
I hate it, but not enough.
The nudging of a still, small Voice at night. . .
How I hate this, nagging when I want to rest.
And yet - and yet - I fear it ceasing.
I am terrified of growing comfortable with this.

Plowing of my crusted, hardened heart
Will not be easy, quick.
That I know.
I dread the agony, the pain,
The bitterness of yielding up my will. . .
And yet, I cannot be right and whole
Until I have given all again and hold no claims to Self.

I know that I should care enough to change.
But tonight my heart seems far away.
I sort of care.
For I hate the person I've become.
In retrospect, I see the hardening of my heart,
The numbing of my conscience. . .
As time has passed
As days and weeks and months have marched on.
I am me, but I am not the person I once was.

Innocent.
Pure.
Transparent.
Humble.
Submissive.
People used to call me that.
In truth,
I may still look like that.
But I am not.
I know the motives of my heart.
I never saw them clearer than when God pointed His finger yesterday.
Ugh. Why did I have to get here?
Its too hard to go back. . .

It scares me to see that I AM this.
Not, I might become.
But I am.
But it terrifies me most to know
That I am too tired, too lazy to change tonight.
I'm not happy with this mediocre plane
And yet I don't hate it enough to do what it takes
To purge the sin from my heart.

I'm not broken enough by the hardness of my own heart. . .
If I cared, I would be sobbing.

Instead, I sit here numbly, staring at the stars,
Fingering my worn Bible.
Waiting for repentance to well up,
But finding none.

Instead of weeping, broken,
I mourn the loss of purity of heart.
I mourn as though staring at my neighbor's casket.
Numbly, sadly, regretfully. . .
But not desperately.

Am I resigned?
What once was mine no longer is?
Never will be mine again?
Oh, Dear God! No!

I do not as the broken mother does. . .
Clutch the stiff, cold body of her baby.
Sob, and writhe and pull away from those who love her most.
Refuse, refuse to let her baby go.
. . . Hold its now empty body to herself as if
Her heart-wrenched groans could bring him back. . .
Wail into the night. . .
Refuse to think of better days,
Because this, her treasure, her light is gone.

I have bit adieu to my once-pure heart?
I have let it go?
Oh, God! What have I become?
All these years of fighting what Self wanted,
Of yielding to Your Will. . .
I will give it up for this?
I say the effort is too much?
I choose the easy road. . . now?

"Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it. . ."
The words of haunting melodies come floating back.
I have wandered.
I feel it.
I see it.
This ugly path where walking is easy.

Why would a man yield his soul
To gain the world of Self?
And yet I have.
O foolish, hardened one!
And then the words,
"Pray when you don't feel like praying,
And pray til you feel like praying. . ."
Prompt me.
And so, I kneel
Beside this bed and try to pray.

The still, small Voice, it prompts again.
"Are you willing to yield anything?"
Anything?
My heart - it clutches - rags of
Self-will
Pleasure
My reputation -
Oh, spare deep embarrassment, Dear God!

I clench. . . and then, slowly, let go.
I drop those worthless bits that mean so much to me.
"Yes, Lord, it is Yours.
I am Yours, if only
You will bring repentance. . .
Clear the mess,
Restore my tender heart."

I hold my breath,
Tremble. . .
I have given God my reputation in this?
Permission
To take all I love
To smash my idols
To break me through and through
To make me whole?

Yes.
I swallow hard.
. . . And wait.

I've yielded, given God
The keys to hopes and dreams.
But, still, repentance real, where?
My eyes fall
Upon the well-worn book of Genesis.

If I like Jacob, wrestle and take hold
And clench the hem of garments white
And cry,
"I will not, will not let Thee go,
Until I am right with Thee!"

If I wrestle with my God til morning light
And will not let Him go 'til dawn breaks through
And I am whole again,

Can God, my Father refuse and turn away?

A broken, contrite spirit draws His gaze,
A desperate heart - His hand.
My Savior's Blood -
It pleads before the Mercy seat.

And as I cry,
"God, be merciful to me, a sinner!"
I am whole again.
The clouds have lifted.
I have battled with my foolish heart.
But GOD has conquered ME!

The grace of God has reached e'en here.
And washed with fresh floods of repentance
O'er this dry and barren ground.

I am whole and live again!

~ Mary,
May 2009

Myself - My Deadliest Foe

Note to younger readers: This blog post contains some sensitive topics – please ask your parents to check it out before reading. Thank you!

This post has been in the works for several days. I’m still reeling from the news of the fall of a “good” man.

I don't know why I'm surprised when I hear than any human being has failed miserably. But I am, every time that a friend stumbles into grave and ugly sin. Adultery, divorce, abuse, anger, bitterness, rebellion…. now child rape.

"How could they?!" I ask myself over and over again.

And then I remember that it could have been me.

This time it was somebody from the Capitol who I respected as a Christian man who was purposing to live a life of integrity and love his family. Sure, I knew he wasn’t perfect – far from it. Sometimes I saw him make decisions that were politically motivated more than they were completely about justice. I didn’t know him that well, but several of my really dear friends at the Capitol considered him one of their best friends and respected him as a man of integrity, morality, and character.

I have a hunch that Representative M. went to the Capitol, originally purposing to do some good in the world. I think he loved his wife and boys. I think he was a "good" man (by our human standards) who never would have dreamed of doing what he has been charged with.

I'm sure that as he was logged into the Cole County Jail the other day, he wondered what on earth had become of him and the man he planned to be. I sure he asked himself a hundred times why he had been so stupid; why he had ever thought that his sin wouldn't find him out.

*** *** ***

I still remember the day four years ago when I met Representative M.

I was totally new to the Capitol, trying with a friend to find my way around to the twelve offices of the committee members who would be hearing our bill in the morning.

I don't remember much of our exchange except that he took my information and listened. As we were getting ready to leave, he asked us where we were from and somehow seemed to assume we were Christians. He smiled pleasantly and said, "It's so nice to meet people like you up here. I was raised in a good Christian home with wonderful parents, and now that I have two little boys back at home I realize what a big responsibility I have to raise them up with Christian values in world like we live in today. It's a lot of work, but my wife and I love them to death, and I'd do anything for them. You know, it's really hard to kiss your family goodbye and leave them every week. But the reason I first decided to run for office was to make a better world for my boys when they grow up. So, it's worth the sacrifice to my wife and I when we remember that we're doing this for them."

I liked him there on the spot. Most of the politicians I had met were very business-like, but Representative M. seemed transparent, like you could glimpse a bit of his soul when he talked.

The next week, I was talking to the Committee Chairwoman about our bill, which Representative M. was not supportive of at the time. She had nothing but good things to say about him. I remember her looking up from her desk over the top of her glasses and saying, "Representative M. is one of our very best and brightest in the entire Missouri legislature. We all go to him for advice and I'm sorry to say that if he has a problem with a bill, then I have a problem with a bill. He's just of the caliber that makes you take his opinion seriously... and I listen to him on any bill that comes through my committee. He’s really a good man, with a tender conscience and a principled set of values."

That was four years ago.

*** *** ***

The years passed, and I saw Representative M. frequently. He wasn't supportive of our bill most of the time (he had a strong constituency who opposed it), but I still liked him and respected him in many ways, even when he refused to vote with us.

He was one of those guys who, unlike many politicians, seemed to exercise self-control and realize that life was about more than just living for today.

He always ran up the three flights of stairs, instead of taking the elevator that was just down the hall from his office. He was pleasant to people he didn't like or agree with, and he seemed to avoid some of the ethical breaches that many legislators found themselves falling into. He was willing to work hard and smart and earned himself an influential place - including hanging out with the Governor on private excursions. The moral conservative lobbyists made him one of their go-to guys because of his firm commitment to family values issues. Some legislators were known for their partying and wheeling-and-dealing. Representative M. was known for his strong conservative principles, his willingness to stand firm on his beliefs, and his ability to communicate effectively.

He seemed wise – one of the rare people who realized that every decision he made today would effect his tomorrow.

He was considered one of the rising stars of the conservative Republican Party - he was young, bright, articulate, personable, handsome, rich, and had impeccable credentials. A few people called him "The rich kid from St. Louis," but most people seemed to envy and admire the way he had everything and had it all "together."

On the House Floor, during debate, Representative M. was brilliant, witty, and nearly always on target with his comments. Even the Democrats found themselves smiling at the analogies he thought up on the spot. Whenever I saw him rise to a microphone, I would tell myself, "This is going to be good..." And it always was. I was either in stitches, or saying to myself, "Wow! Some people in government still use a lot of common sense!"

Since he was friends with several of the legislators who I was closest with, we frequently ended up in the same offices and the same conversations.

*** *** ***

Three nights before the legislative session ended this year (May), I was watching a legislator's children in a Capitol office, when Representative M. strolled in and asked what was up. The little girls began chattering away eagerly and Representative M., as usual, obliged them with funny stories and tales about his boys. I asked him how his family was, and he happily told me all the details of what his wife and boys were doing these days and how glad he would be to be back home and take a vacation with them over summer. Once again, I found myself impressed with him – he really seemed to love and miss his family, unlike many of the other guys at the Capitol.

Session ended a couple of days later. I went home. Some of the legislators stayed over and partied late into the night. According to police reports, sometime during the wee hours of the morning, Representative M. raped a 14 year old girl while her mother witnessed the incident. The girl's mother was a former legislative staffer who Representative M. had been having a secret affair with over the past year.

When the news was first reported a couple of days ago, as Representative M. was booked at the Cole County Jail, I found myself feeling disbelief.

Him? I could see other people at the Capitol doing that, but not him!

I texted a couple of my friends at the Capitol, “What?!”

They all replied, “Shocking… we can’t believe it either. He was a man who would have never dreamed of doing that to a girl. How? Why? We don’t know what happened to him either.”

The political blogs have been filled with comments about how Representative M. should be shot, beheaded, stoned, or locked in prison with the key thrown away. There has been an outpouring of angst against him, with many people saying, "These 'family values voters' Republicans that supposedly care about morality go around doing this?! We knew they were hypocrites all along! They don't approve of homosexuality, yet they do worse things!" and on and on...

Beyond the disbelief, rage, and calls for him to resign, I have to hope that Representative M.’s sad legacy will imprint itself deeply in the minds of not only the sleazy politicians, but the “best and brightest and most principled.”

As one of my lobbyist friends remarked yesterday, “It goes to show that no one is immune to sin, anywhere, and especially not in the Capitol world…”

I’m only speculating here, but I can only imagine that most likely this awful situation started out so innocently. The devil rarely appears with horns and a pitchfork in any of our lives.

I’m sure that it wasn’t an affair at first, just a pleasant staffer who he enjoyed being around..

Then it was adultery, but I guess he (and she) had some way of justifying it, and feeling certain that it would just be something between the two of them that would never be found out and would never hurt anybody.

He got used to living a double life – coming home to his wife as though he had been faithful throughout the week.

…Continuing his friendships with people who would have been appalled if they had any idea that he was living in adultery.

He had started out with the reputation of a “good man” – he had to maintain that front, and maintain it he did.

The final day of session, when Representative M. got up and headed back to the Capitol for his final day of work this year, I’m sure he would have been appalled if anyone would have suggested that he would rape a child before his day was over.

After all, he had been busy pushing legislation to allow the death penalty for child rapists.

I don’t know what happened or how it happened (other than that alcohol was involved, according to the police report), but I’m sure that when Representative M. headed back home to St. Louis the next morning, he had to wonder what kind of a person he had become.

He abruptly announced three days later that he would not seek re-election, and said that he and his wife had actually decided such “back in January, but didn’t want to tell anyone till the session ended…” What a load of guilt he must have been carrying. The girl hadn’t even reported the incident to the police yet, nor had her mother.

*** *** ***

I don’t know what will eventually happen to him. It looks like he may be facing up to 7 years in prison, if convicted (he’s already been indicted by a grand jury).

Whatever the case, I hope that Representative M.’s story will remind all of us “good people” who would never think of doing something like that, that we are all prone to fall in the most awful ways. We may shudder at what he did. I can assure you that a couple of years ago, he, too, would have shuddered at the thought of anyone doing such a thing.

I think of the story of David and Bathsheba… and Nathan the Prophet’s story of the poor man with the one little lamb. As David’s indignation rose in him, Nathan pointed the finger and said, “Thou art the man!” So, often we are doing the same things we condemn others for, but until God points the finger back at us, we don't see the deceitful, self-righteousness of our own hearts.

We have no idea of the depths of depravity lurking within each of our hearts. Especially if we’ve been raised in a “good” family, and never done anything “terrible.”

Representative M. was also raised in a "good Christian family" and lived a clean life and wanted his boys to grow up to do the same.

Martin Luther’s famous quote came to my mind: “I am more afraid of my own heart than of the pope and all of his cardinals.”

I am more afraid of my own heart than I am of the devil, of worldliness, of wrong influences, of humanism, or anything else. The battle for sin is won or lost there. It is I who chooses day by day if I will flee from sin or if I will embrace it little by little.

I would like to think that I would never succumb to unthinkable evil like Representative M, but I know myself a little too well. I know that “little” sin leads to big sin. That my mind can justify anything, a little bit at a time. That I can convince myself that something is necessary or acceptable in my circumstances. That my conscience can become dulled to the gentle promptings of God’s Holy Spirit, saying, “That isn’t holy like I am.”

I think the first step towards preventing us from finding ourselves in place like Representative M., is to realize the deceitfulness of our own hearts, and live wisely according to that knowledge.

That means confessing and repenting while things are “small.”

It means being accountable.

It means accepting God’s authorities and their wishes in my life, regardless of how uncomfortable I may find them at times. Rebellion starts when I think that I know what is good for me, better than my authorities do.

It means never allowing myself to become comfortable with a little “pet sin” in some back corner of my heart that I think will never hurt anyone.

It means knowing that my freedom in Christ will allow me to go places, to do things, to participate in activities, but that those things are not expedient for me and could lead my heart to places it should not go, and therefore I will not do those things.

It means living life humbly, realizing that “If not for the grace of God, there go I…

Myself, arch-traitor to myself;

My hollowest friend, my deadliest foe,

My clog whatever road I go.

-- Christina Rossetti

Here again!

It's been a long time since I've posted. It will probably be a little while longer before I get back into the routine of blogging regularly about normal life.

The last two weeks at the Capitol have been some of the most intense, exhausting, and emotionally unstable weeks of my life. That may sound like an overstatement, but it really isn't. I feel like I've only begun to recover from everything that happened. It's hard for anyone who wasn't there walking through the day to day situations to really understand what I'm talking about, but I covet your prayers as I attempt to work through all that happened, and as we decide on an appropriate response to the utter corruption that we witnessed.

I probably won't be elaborating a whole lot here on a public blog, but suffice to say I've been brought to tears many times this week at the thought of our Gracious God, and my unworthiness and sinfulness. More than anything, seeing the corruption and wickedness that lurks inside the Capitol walls has brought me to my knees. My heart is just as deceitful and desperately wicked as all of the rest of the politicians who I spent so much time with.

My motives have been re-examined, and I have been convicted of the need to seek a pure heart and a tender conscience above anything else in life.

I rejoice to know that my Father IS truth.
He IS light.
In Him is NO darkness at all!