Our bunny has fangs and drools as it menacingly swipes at our docile dog, who jumps away from her, cowering in terror!
Seriously1.
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Thank you for liking me! I like you too! Let’s journey together!
Halloween is around the corner, so I thought I’d post about the last time I dressed up.
No, it wasn’t Halloween then or a holiday of any kind. Why do you ask? But this got me thinking:
What if people HAD to love us (no matter what we wore or how silly we acted)?
The good news is that depending on what your friends and family believe, they do!
For example, we homeschool our kids, so we read to them from books that say things like this:
Most of all, love each other as if your life depended on it.
Then, we go to a church where they read the same stuff.
At church, they HAVE to love us, too! If we find people who don’t love us there, we can find some others to love. We’ll all find true followers of Jesus who promise to love us no matter what our personality – even the “unusual” ones – whew!
So we can finally relax and have fun.
We’re loved!
This is good news for me in particular because I figured out what my family REALLY thought about me lately, and it was a bit of a shock.
Here’s what happened.
We were reading an excellent book together as a family.
Caveat: Before you get the wrong idea of us all drinking hot chocolate and stringing popcorn and cranberries by the fire as we each take turns reading aloud together, singing a song between each chapter, aka Little House on the Prairie style, no, it wasn’t like that. It was an audiobook played in the car during our day-long drive to visit extended family. The book just helped us not to want to kill each other.
Setting the mood.
Anyway, the book was excellent. It was called Jesus Revolution. I would highly recommend it*. We all got into the story, and even the child we initially had to bribe to listen to the story with us asked for more!
At one point in the book, the author, Greg Laurie, is described as having something like “deep spiritual depth and a bit of an unpredictable, crazy personality. You never knew what he was going to do next.”
My husband looked at me sneakily out of the corner of his eye, smirking. “WHAT???” I asked. “What are you smirking about??”
“Oh,” he replied, looking away casually, “just something said in the book.”
“What??” I protested. “I’m not…!” And then he laughed, and there was a muffled chuckle, I think, from the back seats.
So I guess my family thinks that his personality describes me!
And this reminds me of what we did last night! I bought a gift for my family – well, sort of. Okay, yes! I did buy it for myself and pretended to give it to the family!
It is called The Adventure Challenge. You scratch off an “Adventure,” and then the family HAS (Yes, teens, that word is “HAS”) to do the Adventure together. Last night, we strung out yarn as an obstacle course through the basement, and we had to go through it as fast as we could, being sprayed in the face with water each time we accidentally touched a string.
It was fun.
And my superhero outfit? Yeah, I am wearing a bathing suit over the top of my leotards. And yes, the big “S” on my shirt WAS made a spur of the moment. It helped me go faster!
I even got first place!
(Before any of the others went, I was ranked first, that is.)
So relax! Make your teens do fun and crazy stuff with you! If you’re unsure how, try making “fun” a prerequisite to “food,” for example! They’ll thank you later! (When they’re old they may thank you – At least that’s what happened to us!)
Your kids are loved, too!
And that was the message of the Jesus Revolution book, actually. It was about a bunch of crazy hippy kids who were overcome, in some cases literally, by the love of God. That love overflowed to others and transformed a nation (Even Time Magazine did a cover article about this movement on June 21, 1971).
So go ahead and be the real you, whatever that looks like.
And then, after you’ve let your stomach fat and the rest of the real you out a little bit, if you’re desperately looking for a way to improve your self-esteem, spend a few more minutes with the kind of people who believe they HAVE to love you!
You’re welcome!
Good luck!
Footnotes
*If bribing your kids to watch a movie with you is less expensive than bribing them to read a book with you, the movie Jesus Revolution can be rented here.
So, I’ve been reading about becoming a successful and influential online figure that others look up to and admire.
Did I mention that yet?
Yesterday, I learned that we need to establish AUTHORITY that we KNOW WHAT’S GOING ON before we boss others around. “So THAT’S what I have been doing wrong!” I realized, slapping my head with this newfound wisdom. So today, I will ASSERT my AUTHORITY and EXPERTISE in the following sentence before I advise you:
I WAS VOTED ONE OF THE BEST DRESSED PEOPLE (!!) IN MY SMALL RED-NECKED HIGH SCHOOL SEVERAL DECADES AGO!!
And so, because of this obvious flair for fashion, you can now wholly trust me as I tell you about the cultural fashion trends I am currently observing!
As I sat in the new Mexican taco place last week, I was scratching my head and puzzling over the décor.
Why was this place decorated with skeletons and skulls?
The previous month, in another restaurant, when the 20-year-old kind waitress turned, her forearm flashed a skull tattoo. She didn’t look or sound like a terrifying “Hell’s Angel” motorbike member, cussing and starting fights. Or whatever scary biker guys do – I don’t happen to have any good friends who are active Hell’s Angels members, come to think of it!
Actually, there is one scary-looking biker guy who attends our church, but his heart is so kind and full of a desire to love like Jesus that I forgot he’s frightening.
Anyway, this young waitress had a kind smile and a genuine desire to see us be well served.
She just happened also to like skull tattoos. “Why did she like a skull tattoo so much that she wanted it engraved into her arm, never to come off?” I wondered, scratching my head, trying to figure out this new fad.
Now, as proven here I am a very cool person, and with only a BIT of imagination, I am even CLOSE to attainting the title of “Cool Surfer Dude!” At least, this is the case in my imagination. (Now – What is my editor yelling at me again for anyway? – And something about “Authenticity”? She’s a bother!)
We can all define ourselves the way we want, and I am definitely cool.
Anyway, since I am, as proven above, so VERY cool, you’ll want to sit down and listen to me when I talk about tattoo fashion trends and current decoration styles in the public space.
The only problem is, with this ONE vogue trend of demonic fashion decor, I have absolutely NO idea what is going on. (I’m SURE there are NO other cultural fashion trends for which I am confused – Rest assured!)
The point of this post?
We’ve tossed the church as the source of a beautiful gate leading to God’s heart. The gate has cobwebs, and the path beyond it seems dark and foreboding. We have added stuff to Christ’s message so that The Way isn’t as brightly lit, especially in contrast to other paths that flash their bright neon lights and claim The Way to God. And so, people are gently turned away from the beautiful gate by the cultural forces of progress. “Travel here,” the dark shapes seduce us.
“Life comes from death”, they whisper, stroking our heads to keep us calm, like a parent to a small child.
It is true that life comes from death.
Unless a grain of wheat is . . . dead to the world, it is never any more than a grain of wheat. But if it is buried, it sprouts and reproduces itself many times over.
Jesus Christ, the guy 1/3 of the world claims to follow
We sense hints of the divine in the symbol of the life of a flower emerging from the skull of symbolic death, so we blindly walk in that direction.
And so, we allow ourselves to be steered down a path of partial truth, which has always been the path to the most destructive of lies.
There is a profound truth within this metaphor, but blindly embracing all demonic symbolism is a path leading in the wrong direction.
Wake up, friends!
Let the bathwater of unhealthy Christian culture wake you as we toss it in a panic. Ah! Let’s throw out everything that doesn’t reflect the love Jesus showed us as He washed His friends’ feet and hung on a cross! Let’s toss the dirty bathwater of some parts of Christian culture! And may many wake up by this water splashed in their faces as we toss it, friends.
But let’s keep the baby.
A virgin will get pregnant and bear a son; They will name him Immanuel (. . .for “God is with us”)
Let’s polish that beautiful gate and allow Christ to transform our hearts so they are bright enough, full enough of selfless love that our hearts on fire light the way for others to see the path to God, too.
But let’s stop turning to demons, friends, to show us the path to God.
Let’s worship God instead!
The reasons why we may want to worship a beautiful God who wants to set us free in joy instead of foul demons that will eventually devour us will be discussed in the next couple of posts!
You’re welcome!
Good luck!
So I went to church the other day.
A kind fellow welcomed me by taking off his hat and bowing to me. Then he slapped me upside the head and told me that I had to believe a political ideology as well before they would welcome me into their church.
They’ll make a show of religion but behind the scenes they’re animals. Stay clear of these people.
I left the church and got into that church through another entrance because I knew how to look for another door. But many of you don’t. Many of you turn away, saddened, looking for another path to God.
“That path is not in the church,” many of us assert.
Have we replaced our primary sense of belonging . . .to [Jesus] . . . with politics…?
So we stay home the following Sunday and watch TV or ask questions online, wondering, “Where is God?” Our hearts are stirred at night as God tries to wake us from spiritual slumber. We hear stories and wonder, “Maybe?” and then we are again distracted by our lunch and phone notifications.
But our hearts are a black hole that attracts the supernatural, often against our will or our reason.
Let’s dig deep down in our hearts today, friends, and see what we find deposited there in the depths. Like a vacuum attracting dust and debris, cultural beliefs swirl around in our hearts and sometimes settle there even though these ideas are simply filth, cluttering our minds. Instead, we need to find thoughts and questions that are food to fuel our spiritual journeys.
What we find often surprises us when we dig deep, deep down, hitting the depths of the heart.
Here’s some everyday clutter that we dig up and can inspect from all angles before DECIDING, with our MINDS, whether these ideas should be treasured in the depths of our hearts or thrown far, far away into the night, never to wake us again with their mischievous badgering. Sometimes, the wrong thoughts keep us awake at night. What do we toss, and what do we hold onto of the musings deep in our hearts, friend?
Here are several ideas:
Why?
A counterfeit Jesus, counterfeit rules, and counterfeit beliefs POINT TO THE TRUTH THAT SOMEWHERE OUT THERE, THERE IS “THE REAL” OF EACH OF THESE THINGS.
No one counterfeits items that hold no value.
The fact that someone bothered to counterfeit these items hints at the truth that the accurate, authentic, valuable versions are out there somewhere.
Don’t turn away from your path to God just because someone slapped you upside the head a bit.
Find the other entrance.
Restoring Life 