There were multiple parts of the conversation I found interesting... I have never been in the charismatic world and Meredith is. There were some of the things she said that I wrestle with how those ideas are practiced sometimes (I do not know her well enough at all after listening to a podcast to know her whole views on things, I just know there are some things sometimes that I worry about how people practice that theology however I have seen other people do it beautifully)... but then there was a beautiful moment in our car...
Meredith was saying how she talks to her kids about what they think God is saying to them... honestly I had never thought of asking my kids that. So I did. As I pulled into our driveway I asked Jilli what God says to her. She said she is not sure but then she ask me "momma, what does God say to you."
Honestly just a few minutes before this I was thinking about the things that I feel like God is saying in my life... however honestly I do not share those things with other people often... maybe its the world I have grown up in but I don't have many people in my life where I feel like I could tell them that I feel like God is telling me ______________________ in my life. I mean I have always heard people talking about looking for what God is doing in the world but it has never been brought to the point of people asking each other what they think God is personally telling them. I think there are multiple parts of this...
1. I think that honestly we are often a country of shallow surface social club Christians... where talking about what God is saying to you is still "crazy talk" within many Christian circles. I mean one of the current favorite "Christian Women" books scares me because it shows how sallow our communal faith is if that book is being taken to be Christian.
2. I think we think of prayer as a before a meal activity. Or maybe a wishlist that we tell God before bed. I was listening to a podcast (I am pretty sure it was Aaron Niequest but I don't remember what podcast he was on as I have listened to him on multiple) was talking about what the Bible was talking about when it says to pray without ceasing and I had a light bulb moment about what a conversation with God looks like and the crazy thing is that I was already doing it... it just didn't look like the scripted meal time prayers that we are all taught.
I was driving and thinking about the things that God has been telling me lately and how I felt like I needed to share some of those things with someone in my life that could speak back into those things... here is the thing though... I feel like some of the things that I feel like God is saying are things that you would only understand the journeys we have been on for several years... and I feel like some of the things that I feel like God is saying are not necessarily the culturally acceptable things... actually the mirror in our bathroom says "Maybe God's way of providing doesn't look like the world's way." When I wrote that up there many months ago I thought that was just a truth He was giving me to get through a situation... but what has ended up happening is that phrase has been a phrase of this season... maybe I need to get a canvas and paint that saying (there are paintings around our house of different things God was teaching me in different seasons... I can tell you what was going on during each of those paintings and what God did, but most of them have been painted during the pain of the situation).
So back to Jilli's question... I gave her a "simple" but true answer. I told her that "after NIH I felt really hurt, upset, and internally bruised and the evil ones likes to kick us when we are down... and I started to feel very accused and the thing I have felt God telling me lately is that He is not the accuser. That He is love." Love does not mean shying away from the hard stuff... actually I think we contribute a lot of things to love that should not be (I have been wrestling with the phrase "though love" and how that relates to God for a while now and I am starting to really wonder if those two things can go together... I really should pick up Learning to Speak God from Scratch because I believe he talks about that).
There are some other things that I feel like God is saying that I don't want to wrestle out on a public platform but instead seek wise voices... partially because of that phrase on our mirror... but that I feel like He keeps bringing back up. I also heard a really interesting Twitter post the other day (I can not find it to attribute it to anyone but I will keep looking because I really want to read it again too) but it talked about how the evil on tempted Jesus with good things... we often read that differently but that the evil one tempted Jesus with things that people could have said were positive but they were not Godly. But I was feeling really accused about one of the things that I felt like God was saying and it took me a while but I feel like that was the evil one trying to shame me with something that looked "good" but was not of God... and it wasn't anything evil or bad and if I had gone running in that direction, from the outside many people would probably have cheered me on but it would not have been obedient to God. Sometimes doing the wrong thing looks like chasing after a shinny hallow good.
Jilli started talking about what she thinks God tells her stuffed sheep and you know what, thats fine because she trusts that God is big enough to talk to her stuffed sheep just like she does.
i then got Lydi out of the car and when I came back to get Jilli she was singing worship songs... I love how her little heart just turns to worship... that is actually pretty frequent to her.
Jilli was in church on Sunday but having a really rough muscle day... infact I was not sure that we would make the day out of the hospital... her body was beyond tired. One of the things that kept coming to my mind for some reason that morning is that God is looking to move the things that stand between you and Him but for different people that looks like different things. For Jilli, right now, I do not think that her health stuff stands in the way of her relationship with God... but I don't think that is a view that everyone in my shoes would have... Jilli doesn't attend any kids programs at our church (and it is not that I am against children's ministry... actually I almost went to college from that and I started teaching a 3yr old Sunday school class when I was 12) but Jilli sits with us in service. We don't water God down much at our house... my kids listen to the podcasts I do (and we don't allow them to use technology in the car so they are stuck looking out the window and listening to whatever I am) so they are listening to conversations about God all the time... amazing conversations that sometimes are very deep. My kids know some Sunday school songs but mainly listen to the worship music we do (side note, there are some Sunday school songs that as I learn more I am having more theological issues with...). Once again I am not stating that children's ministry is bad... what I am stating is that because of who my kids are and what their needs look like this is their experience in life and I see some of the great depth of conversations that I am able to have with my kids because we don't water God down. Conversations about God are very normal to them... to the point it was not weird at all for my child to ask me, after listening to a podcast, what God is teaching me.
We got into the house and I went up to the bathroom and Lydia was chewing on a chewy (frozen teether that is safe for her) and Jilli was working on getting her coat and shoes off and while I was going up the stairs I could hear Jilli telling Lydi about God... she was saying that God is big enough to be here with them right then and be everywhere in the world too. It was the sweetest conversation that happened so naturally. It was one of those mom moments where you feel like maybe you are doing something right (man I needed that this week... these two have been at each other a lot the last few days!)
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