A Lesson from Su-Doku.

Who is Su-Doku?  Has anyone in our time met him up close and personal?  How old is he?  Where did he come from, and how did he get “here”?  By boat, plane, horse and buggy, train?  Who named him and how do I know he’s a “he”?  Well everything, or every word in the French language is either masculine – “Le”, or feminine – “La”, and Su-Doku is a “jeu” (not a Jew, I don’t think he is) and in the dictionary I found “le jeu”.  So from that I deduced that Su-Doku is male.  I may be wrong, but so far I’ve not heard anyone say otherwise.  That’s amazing too because in the English language even though we don’t genderize every word, we do do some words.  :-)  Like “car” for instance.  In French it’s “la voiture” and in English/America I’ve never met anyone (yet) who named their car (or even their guitar) “Eugene” or “Leroy”.  It has always been a lady’s name like “Gloria” or “Rhonda” or “Tinker Bell”, and the famous BeBe King named his guitar Lucille.  LOL!!

 

Anyhoooo, this morning I spent some time with Su-Doku to quiet my thoughts and my aching body from so much traveling and singing, as I meditated on my lover Jesus.  This game I started a couple of weeks ago (and it doesn’t usually take me this long to complete one, but this one did) and I put it down because I got stuck.  So this time I picked it up again and as I worked it I heard in my heart “it’s time to look at things a different way.”  A huh, hummm, okay there’s another number for that square, but this time I looked at it not from INSIDE the box, but on the vertical peripherique.  Those of us living and traveling in Europe understand the peripherique to mean the highway outside and circling Paris and other cities constructed comme ca.  We may have these types of roads in the United States too, but they differ from state to state, and I don’t think we refer to them as the “peripherique”.

 

I’m not going to give a lesson on how to play and solve Su-Doku, but today Su-Doku taught me a thing or two about how to “play” a better way this “game” called “life”, and how to solve challenges with a more open mind.  I love the saying “life is like an elephant.  How does it look from your side?”  But today my eyes were redirected and opened even more to see that my side of the elephant is a description of where I’ve been, and where I am now.  But how am I supposed to see another side?  Life can become mighty boring and stagnant just staying in one position (you can get a cramp), and doing things the same way all the time.  It’s time to “change my view point” and I’m not talking about morals, right and wrong, or changing from loving and serving Jesus to living with another god (which is really no god at all).  I’m talking about what Su-Doku taught me today:

 

• Where I am is because of where I’ve been and what I’ve done, and where I’m going is because of where I am now, should I decide to move from “this place.”

Am I willing to move, go on, change, to see another side of Paris, another part of Europe, another side of myself and my dreams, the world, my ministry and music?  In these blogs I share my adventures – where I am on the way to where I’m going.  I’ll admit too the ride is sometimes bumpy, but it’s not always due to my driving.  LOL!!  (blame it on the taxi driver, the metro, or the bus driver.)  Sometimes it’s the “road” itself, or maybe the tires of “my Explorer” need more air or even changing, or the shocks need to be replaced.  Hmmm, you get my drift?  (Puns sometimes, okay most of the time, are intended.) :-)

It has taken me a long minute to learn to enjoy the ride, though bumpy it has been and may be, and not just anticipate and rush towards my destination.  I was so results-oriented that when I “arrived” to where I was pressing to go, I was ready for another trip.  I really couldn’t tell you about the journey except when obstacles arose which made an impact, making movement impossible.  Looking back I realize I would be “driving” so fast (and Miss Daisy was not in my car, thank the Lord!) that God had to allow problems to arise to keep me from crashing (like the prophet Balaam on the talking donkey on his way to meet the angel’s sword), for several times I was truly on my way to a head-on – mentally, emotionally, physically, financially, and in some of my relationships.  Looking back again I can describe myself as an addict – never quite satisfied with the current fix – always in pursuit of the next bag of M & M’s with peanuts (very important, for I was not too fond of the plain.), the next singing engagement, the next Sunday service – always something outside of myself to bring happiness unto myself.  Yet never satisfied when I got it, or satisfaction came, but was either short-lived or just packed away as another memory.  I had to keep “moving”, but not in the way Su-Doku taught me today.

 

• Nine numbers in each box of squares, one through nine, in any order, however you must look at all the angles of the entire picture before you can put, in this case, the “right” number in the correct square.

You see, in life, as much as many people don’t like this truth, there are still absolutes that must be respected.  There is still right and wrong, black and white, up and down, in and out, and cold and hot, GOOD and BAD.  There’s gravity and oxygen to be respected and appreciated.  The necessity of clean water and nutritious food, sleep and security, warmth in the winter and cool in the summer.  You get my meaning?  So you SEE what I’m SAYING and HEAR where I’m GOING?

To be successful in life we must honor and respect the absolutes while looking at life on the horizontal and vertical, the interior and exterior peripheriques, inside and outside of the box (-es).  There’s YOUR side, his and her side, their side, God’s side and yes, the devil’s side, and there’s MY side.  LOL!  We all have a perspective, motives, M.O. and agendas, but only ONE of us has the multi-dimensional view as described above by Su-Doku, and at all times:  past, present, future and eternity.

 

• Some things don’t seem to be related, but they are.

Everything is connected whether we see, feel, hear, taste, smell or understand it or not, directly and/or indirectly.  I was trying to place a “5” in what seemed like a logical place in the middle left interior perpherique, right?  But Su-Doku said “look to the far upper right quadrant and then to the left upper quadrant”, and I said “Aah, thanks, Su-Doku.”  But at first, my immediate short-lived reaction was “what does the upper right hand quadrant have to do with the middle left interior perpherique?  Well, as far away from each other as they are, they’re still connected, for the placement of the “5” in the one affected the successful placement of the “5” in the other because of the “5” in the top left quadrant – it was connected to the upper right quadrant AND the middle interior peripherique.  Gheez! :-)  I know at least one bass man here in Paris, who is also a mathematician, understands what I’m talking about.  LOL!!

The decisions I make today, right now, depend upon those I made yesterday, and the plans for the ones I must make tomorrow depend on those I make today.  And not only that, they affect the people in my life directly and or indirectly so it’s not just all about me!  We cannot and must not live our lives totally unto and for ourselves without considering others – from our past, our present and our future.  Yes you have a right to smoke like a chimney today and drink alcohol like a camel, but when you decide to have children later in life your decision to indulge and “enjoy” yourself now will impact them too.  Yes! We each must live our own lives in the skin we’re in.  Yes! We’re each responsible for our own thoughts, words, deeds, and actions.  Yes! We each have a right to enjoy our lives without harassment from others and each other.  But we are still dependent and interdependent on and with each other somewhere down the line, for no man (or woman) is an island. 

 

Years ago in our family church at home in Dublin, VA my dad and my cousins Pam and “little” Alpha would sing this song (and man could they blow!!!):

            No man is an Island,

            And no man stands alone. . .

            Each man as my brother,

            Each man as my friend.

 

It’s okay to see life from your side and as a matter of fact, you have so many things to share with family, friends and the world from your side of the elephant, for those experiences helped to shape who you are and what you now do.  But stagnant water stinks, and breeds diseases.  It’s undrinkable and therefore unusable for humanity in any way.  Useless.  We cannot afford to just “stay on our side” – where we’ve been and where we are.  WE must be willing to move in order to grow, and be willing to grow and learn new things in order to move.  We cannot afford to become useless and lifeless for God created us – men and women to be life-givers.  We are full of purpose.  Scripture tells us we are “fearfully and wonderfully made”, and we are made in His image, and that God is God of the living, not the dead.  Wow!  (Like Morgan Freeman said in the movie The Shawshenk Redemption:  “Get busy living, or get busy dying.”  It’s your choice.)  And one of my favorites is “He Who has begun a good work in you is able to complete it. . .”  

Back in the 70s the late Reverend James Cleveland recorded a popular song that we just wouldn’t let die:  “Please be patient with me, God is not through with me yet.”  Well that’s what I say about you and that’s what I say about me.  It ain’t over until the Black lady sings!!!  (I’m not fat anymore so the original version of that saying does not apply to me.)  Yes be patient with yourself, but don’t stay in the same place forever – emotionally, mentally, financially, physically, even geographically – at least travel some time.  Be patient with others – be gentle treating them like you need to be treated – with kindness realizing we all have issues and pains and we’re at different levels of growth and change.  But, keep motivating each other for change.  God didn’t create us to be mold or moss on a rock, but even mold and moss grow.  LOL!!

 

Thus my next question at this place, as I prepare to “move” to the next is, “what does it look like?”  What’s the new perspective for change in my life now?  As I experience growth pains anew, what kind of choices will I make?  What about you?  May I introduce you to Su-Doku? 

:-)  BTW, is that his whole name, or the first or last?  Was he so famous that he has only one name?   Hmmmm.

Do You Have Homework?

Most of us who grew up with nagging parents (thank God for them! Whew what the world needs now is another generation of parents of the nagging kind that kept our hind-parts warm.  And I’m not talking about child abuse either.) heard these words every day after school.  And most of us are now grateful.  I know I am.  As I write this it is past my “regular” bed time mom and dad, but what’s regular these days?  I’m six hours ahead of you.  Nah nah nah nah nah.  LOL!!  Some of us just received some disconcerting news about a minister’s son in the United States, and also another celebrity gospel singer, and we began to ask ourselves and each other, and finally the Lord, “what’s going on?”  “What went wrong?”  Where are we missing it for things like this to be happening to and by PKs i.e.  Preacher’s Kids?  Yes, we are human just like the rest of us.  No, we were not born perfect just because our parents are ministers.  Yes, we want to play and misbehave and be normal and abnormal just like everyone else.  Why not?  Everyone else is doing it!  And making it look fun too.  What makes us so different?  Why do we have to be perfect while the rest of the world gets off scott free (who chose that name anyway?  Why not “Joe free” or “Jane free”?  or even “Willy free”?  Just a thought.) to enjoy the decadent things in life? LOL!

Then when everyone else gets tired of playing in the dirt and wants to take a bath, they come to “our” house i.e. the church and choose what we’ve been forced to eat and wear all along for they see it is the good way.  Hmmm.  Then we trade places and WE go out and play in the dirt for a minute and the world declares we’re the worst on earth because we are PKs.  Hmmmm.  I have to speak up for the PKs and explain, not make excuses mind you, why we seem to be so “bad” when in fact we’re not bad at all, nor any different from anyone else.  We’re just born into families with a public  and highly visual and visible mission that has been misused, abused, accused, elevated and degraded at the same time (like they did Jesus:  “Hosanna!” today and “Crucify Him!” tomorrow from the same people He loved, taught, healed, prayed for, and raised from the dead.).  Yes, I’m a PK too and living under a microscope is a very tiny and narrow life.  Not much space to breathe much less burp, okay?

As we philosophized and made sure we were not gossiping or criticizing others, it seems the Lord began to answer our questions right away and His answer through my heart was this:  Preachers (whether they are televangelists, pastors, prophets, etc.) forget, or just fail to do their homework.  This is where the ball gets dropped.  They become so busy, too busy “saving the world” i.e. missions, aids, leprosy, street ministries, megachurches and megaministries, the money, the traveling, the numbers, the souls, the . . . they forget about Jerusalem – home.  Home is supposed to be where the heart is.  Home is where your wife and/or husband is, the children and the dog and cat, hamsters and rabbits, the leaking roof, the softball and baseball games, the plays, the band and choir concerts at school, intramural sports, the family gatherings and reunions, the talks around Monopoly, Clue and Go to The Head of the Class, grace at the dinner and breakfast meals, discussions and hugs, corrections and hugs, disciplines and hugs and kisses, bath time and bed time and hugs, and eye contact and listening, sex education and listening, mom and dad cuddling, arguing, concluding and hugging and kissing, and . . .  You get the picture?  And no the Cleavers and the Huxtables are not the only families that can have it all.  Your family, my family can have it all, but it takes time.  Making time for each other and what’s important.  It’s time to do your homework Sam.  It’s time to do your homework Sally.  It’s time to do your homework mom.  It’s time to do your homework dad.

You see, we all have homework to do.  It doesn’t stop just because we graduated from school.  Oh no.  Once we marry, we start all over again.  And when we have children, we enter graduate school where the homework never ends.  LOL!!  Fathers, the more time you spend with your daughters listening to them and not berating or hitting or molesting them, the more you build them up to be a whole woman so they will know what a real man is.  The more you hug and hold them the right way, the less they will need to be hugged and sexed by boys the wrong way – at any age.  For a fake man and a wanna-be-a-man is just that, a boy.  Daddy, the more time you spend with your son building up his self-esteem and not hitting him and punching him and not telling him lies like “real men don’t cry”, the less they will look to other boys and men, and boys to men for affection which can lead to misapplied affection, and you know what I mean.  That’s not the topic of this blog, but we will keep it real.  (Thanks Dave Chappelle!)  Dads, the more time you spend in the presence of the Lord dealing with your hidden stuff - things from your childhood and unfinished business with your parents etc., stuff nobody knows about, but you’re carrying it in your spirit and subliminally passing it on to your children, who then are doing stuff “you don’t know where they got it from” (duh, the nut never falls too far from the tree.) – the less burdens your children and you will have to carry and deal with in a psychiatrist’s office or prison cell in their teenage and adult years.  Dad, it's time to do your homework, please.

Moms, the more time you spend being your daughter’s best friend by being her loving mom, and not being jealous of the beauty that came from your body, and not being jealous of her relationship with her dad, (just because yours wasn’t all that great doesn’t mean you have to take it out on your daughter), the less likely she will run away from home into the arms of the first boy who gives her a first look and a kiss and tap on her behind, i.e. rocks her world and his baby, and the less likely she’ll want to keep spending the night at her best “girlfriend’s” house becoming something she was not created to be.  Moms, the more time you spend with your sons not nagging or degrading their growing manhood even if you can’t feel the invisible chin hairs he says are there (agree with him, for one day they will be, and he’s looking to you to affirm him as his daddy’s son, and that he’s good enough to get a good woman like you.) the less he will find it necessary to look to young immature and exotic (what the heck is that anyway?) philly’s to affirm him as a “man”.  Mom’s, the more time you spend in the presence of the Lord allowing Him to heal your hurts from the past, and helping you detox from disappointments and broken dreams, jealousies and depression, the less likely you will pass on the invisible phantom of bitterness to your children for them to deal with as teens and adults and wonder why they are so bitter towards you and difficult to talk to.  Mom, it's time to do your homework, please.

Moms and dads, the more time you spend with each other gazing into each other’s eyes like you did when you first fell in love with each other and couldn’t get enough of each other and never wanted to be apart from each other, the less time you’ll have to look at the form of other men and women, and the less space there will be between you to gaze  into the eyes of others.  The more time you spend breathing each other’s air the less you will be attracted to the perfume and cologne of those passing by.  The more time you spend building each other up spiritually, emotionally and psychologically the stronger your bond will become and the less the spiritual forces will be able to tear you apart; the stronger the foundation will become for your children and they won’t want anything less for themselves when it’s their turn to marry and make a family.  Do your homework please.

Before the prophet Samuel was conceived  his mother promised to give him to the Lord, and she kept her word.  After he was weaned off of diapers and bottles, she took him to the temple as a young child and gave him to the priest Eli to be trained for the work of the Lord for Israel.  Well during this time, the priest Eli wasn’t doing a good job of raising his own sons in the house of the Lord, and they began to abuse the people and take their money and offerings, etc.  (So you see this didn’t just start in our days and times folks.  Are you shocked?) and they disrespected the Lord right in the temple, and also had sex with the young phillys or Phillies (my computer capitalized that second one.)  See I Samuel 2:12-18, 26-36; 3:10-15; 4:10-11.  Hophni and Phineas died in the war as judgment against them.  But watch this.  Eli was Samuel’s example of a father and guess what happened?  Samuel also failed to raise his sons well.  I Samuel 8:1-5.  Samuel was a good man and the Lord trusted him, but he failed to do his homework, and thus did not leave behind a positive legacy of fatherhood/parenthood.  Children do not become good citizens by osmosis, nor are they born that way.  They must be raised on purpose, otherwise we cannot cry “accident” when they’re allowed to grow like weeds or according to the panoramic view surrounding them.

Oh, when we finally slow down our fast-paced lives, and self-centered and gold-digging mentalities, put the tyranny of the urgent on the back burner for a minute, we can and will change our lives, our families, our cities and our communities.  “Yes we can”!  President Barack Obama.  Yes we can, if we are willing to stop and smell the coffee (I prefer hot chocolate myself, but a cappuccino with lots of cream will do nicely too.), watch Barney with the kids (please bring back Electric Company! And the old Sesame Street.), read more books together (heck write your own stories with your kids based on your everyday experiences with each other.  Sell those buggers and start a family business, together!) roll on the floor wrestling and laughing and playing games.  Aah, yes it is possible, I know it is.  It just depends on what’s important to you, and what’s important to you will become important to your children.  Don’t look at them strangely when they act in certain ways.  Look in the mirror first because you were here first.  You are the first one they saw when they were born, just like the duck when it was hatched.  The first thing it saw was a chicken.  No wonder he acted like a dog.  LOL!!!  This is the fun homework we miss because we’re all WORK and no play.  Homework can be fun.  It’s all how you look at it and what you decide is most important.  So the next time you hear an unsavory story about PKs, or really anyone, I know we all make our own decisions but remember:  we all started somewhere.  We all have our foundation somewhere, and when a house is leaning, the first place we must look to try and save it is the foundation.

So, I’ll ask you again.  Do you have any homework? :-)   I think the answer for all of us is “yes”, whether single or married, parent or childfree.  Yes mom and dad, I have homework.  Let’s get it done, so we can enjoy the rest of the “day”.

House of Mirrors Part II

 

Hmmm, sounds like a scary movie sequel doesn’t it?  Sometimes life can seem that way when we ride the metro or walk the streets of Paris, cause you never know what would, could, or might happen.  But really that’s anywhere in the world.  However we know what’s happening on a daily basis in some places and we know whether or not it would be healthy for us to take a train or bus there.  Like in war-torn Somalia or Afghanistan, just to name a few.  But here of late things have been heating up in the more docile places.  Like on the metro the other day for instance.  Oh the people seemed to be packing themselves as tightly as they could on the line 5, like they were trying to pack-a-Pacer (that’s an ultra small American car from the late ‘70s), or even a sardine can.  My feet were hurting and all I could think about was Rosa Parks – "when I finally sit down I’m not getting up to move to the front, back or even off the train."  Just one long ride until my feet decided it’s time to get up.

Anyhoo, I finally got in one of these sardine cans after letting a couple of packed ones pass by, for it was taking me longer than usual to get home.  And wouldn’t you know it, I had to stand up, so I tried to position myself in a place so when a person got up I could easily sit in the seat they vacated.  All seemed to be working according to plan when we reached a stop and not one, not two but three ladies got up from the same area to get off.  Yes!!  So I stood closely to the person behind me so they could pass in front of me and get off the train to my right.  The first lady knew how to follow instructions without any prompting.  However it was the second older lady who stopped right in front of me and said “pardon moi”.  I said in English “go ahead” and I took my left hand and helped her go in the same direction as her companion, which was the path of least resistance from me and those around me.  This didn’t make her happy at all for I voluntarily helped her get off the train without her asking.  She huffed and puffed and growled at me, and would have blown my house down if it had been made of straw or hay, and said “oooh lala” in that old-fashioned French way.  But since my house is made of brick :-), I huffed and puffed and growled back at her and said “stupid French”.  Voila!  Then I sat down and my feet began singing “Amen” and the “Hallelujah Chorus” as a medley.  I felt pretty darn good cause I showed her who was boss.  Yet who did she see?  If she could have understood my language, or if she knew my love relationship with Jesus, did she see Him in me?  Could she?  Would Jesus have helped her off the train the way I did?  I hope so.  LOL!!  He probably wouldn’t have said what I said in response to her “ooh lala”, mais peut etre He would have stood His ground too, for it was not unreasonable for her to follow her companion who saw the pathway very clearly. 

I could tell it was a battle of wills – cultural, racial, status for maybe she thought I was someone else from another country and that I was supposed to bow to her and not she to me.  But I didn’t see her bowing to me at all.  I had my eye on one of those doggone seats and I was not going to let her problems cause more problems for me and my feet.  I recall Jesus telling His disciples several times “come away” because He was tired and hungry after much walking, preaching, teaching, praying for folk, healing them, feeding them, playing with their kids, spitting in their eyes, whipping them out of the temple, answering their questions with a question, maintaining His stance for He knew Who He was and is, and for me He is the boss.  So why is this blog entitled House of Mirrors part II?  The main question that came up in our conversation last summer was “What does God see when He looks at me/us?”  Does He see Himself – the nature and characteristics of His only Begotten Son Jesus the Christ, who we say lives in our hearts?  Who does He see?  A distorted image of Himself, or a clear image of . . . me?  Oooh, that one hurt.

I’ve never seen it done up close, but I hope one day I will get to witness gold being refined in the fire.  I’m told that the goldsmith heats the gold at ever increasing temperatures and at intervals, and before increasing the temperature, he/she will skim off the impurities that rise to the top, and then look into the gold.  For what are they looking?  They’re looking for their face – their image in the gold.  This is how they know the gold is ready and all the impurities are gone.  Increasing temperatures and continuing to skim off the dross.  This is the spiritual process the Father lovingly subjects us to through our life experiences.  Ever-increasing difficult and challenging situations to reveal what’s inside of us that’s not like Him, so we can agree with Him and cooperate with Him for the purifying of our motives, our thoughts, our desires, our intentions, etc. those things we do within our souls that nobody else can see, yet when they push our buttons the entire world gets to see, hear and know what we’re really all about down below.  :-)  “And you call yourself a Christian” they ask and say, thinking that because we’re Christians we don’t bleed when we get cut, we don’t cry when we lose a loved one, we don’t hurt when we experience divorce and financial crises, etc. and etc.  

Being a Christian doesn’t deny our humanity, pas du tout.  Being a Christian means we’ve first invited Jesus to live, dwell, inhabit our hearts and lives and thus take us through the difficult transformation processes i.e. the ever-increasing temperatures, into becoming like Him.  It means we’ve decided to turn over the reins, the pilot’s controls, the steering wheel, (you see what I’m saying?)  to Him and are trying more and more to trust Him to lead us on a daily basis.  This is not the lazy way of living by no means.  It takes skill i.e. trust, to obey the Holy Spirit inside.  It takes nothing to do things your own way, say the first thing that comes to your mind, strike out automatically whether or not you have the right to do so.  It’s easy to live in the flesh and think your own thoughts.  It takes power to think the thoughts of the Almighty and to allow His kingdom culture to supersede our earthly culture and beliefs, for we feel we have the right and responsibility to share our mind, no matter what’s there – pie or poop.  Sorry, but you see what I’m saying so you won’t step in it.  LOL!!  Where’s a pooper scooper when they need it?

When Jesus moves into our temple – our homes, our hearts, our lives He already knows what He’s getting Himself into.  That’s what excites Him.  He’s not afraid or discouraged by our imperfections and issues.  As a matter of fact, it’s because of these very things which cause the death of our souls, for which HE died!  He knows when He walks into the “door”, each room has a mirror which reflects a certain area of ourselves.  Some of our mirrors we keep hidden behind a cloth way up in a secret room, like Dorian Gray (I just loved that story by the way.) and before others we try to appear one way, but the mirror reflects the true us.  Hmmm, but that’s the room Jesus wants to go to first because it’s the distorted images we have of ourselves that’s causing us, our families, and other relationships so many problems.  He wants to help us replace these mirrors with true reflections of who we are, then we can become who we are meant to be by gazing at the image of Who He is. 

Some people think if Jesus comes to live in all our hearts and we all become like Him we will become clones.  But this is not true.  Jesus comes in not to take away our unique identities, but to release them, for without Him, we’re just copying somebody else, and do I need to mention “his” name?   See Jesus told the Pharisees that if they knew Him they would know the Father in heaven, and of course they had to argue their point.  Finally He told them they were of their father the devil.  There are only two fathers:  Father God in heaven, and the godfather (not James Brown either).  You see, the satan has been trying to take God’s place since . . . before the Garden of Eden, when we came on the scene.  That’s why he was kicked out of heaven.  His wonderful position of first place cherubim, or whatever he was, wasn’t enough for him.  He wanted to be the HNIC (ask a Black American what that means.  LOL), and God wasn’t having it.  Aren’t you glad?  I am.  Ahem.  So who’s YOUR daddy?  Maybe that should be the title of this blog.  You see, all the children of the satan look alike:  destructive.  Need I say more?  But, back to the mirrors.

In the Garden of Eden man was made in the image of God.  That image inside of humans was lost, distorted when sin entered our world through disobedience.  God’s desire from then on was to be reconnected with His lovers – that would be us.  When He sees me, He desires to see Himself for He is perfection, He is holy, He is goodness, He is pure love, and it’s that pure love – not the kissy kissy stuff we see and get aroused over – that has the power to change our world one heart, and one life at a time.  Years ago Margaret Becker sang what has become one of my favorite songs:  “When He sees me, He sees His righteousness, He sees His holiness filling up the emptiness.  When He looks at me Yeah, He sees the blood He shed.  I’m glad He sees Himself each time He looks at me.”  Wow!!!  When I really give my life: my wants and desires, my needs and myself, my heart and affections to Jesus and not just invite Him to come and live with all my junk, I’m giving Him permission to clean out not only my garage, but my attic, my cellar, the basement beneath the cellar, and to investigate every room of my heart, my soul, my existence, my past, my ancestors – anything that has something to do with making me who I am now.  I want Him to have at it.  I want Him to break my distorted mirrors (no seven years of bad luck here Snow White and Sleeping Beauty) and give me new ones.  No more distortion, looking skinny when I’m really fat on unforgiveness, looking airbrushed when I’m really covered with pimples of jealousy and blackheads of depression.  No more lies, illusions and allusions, deceptions and flattery.  Only the truth will MAKE us free.  I don’t want to just be set free from the pen and chains of slavery, I want to be made free on the inside of slavery to yes, the ugly word no one wants to face in this day and age – sin.  For you shall know the truth and the truth shall MAKE you free.  For whom the Son sets free is free indeed.  Mirror Mirror on the wall, Mirror mirror down the hall, No more lies about my fall, Christ is now my Lord and all in all.  Break those mirrors!!!

House of Mirrors

By the way, did I mention that I’m enjoying life for a change?  LOL!  Yeah, I’m one of those who used to live life dreaming of what my life would be like if I were somewhere else doing something else, and sometimes if I were someone else, but never anyone I already knew mind you.  I never desired to BE anyone else I knew even though there were a few people in my life, from time to time that I truly admired and desired to be like in some way i.e. musically for instance and having long elegant fingernails.  :-)   Finally, and it has taken me a minute, or two (some things take longer okay?), to learn to like me, and to like being me.  It took me being removed from all I knew as my life, and the people around me, my everyday routines, my religious beliefs, church attendance every week, hourly trips to the refrigerator and my secret Snickers bar and M & M’s with peanuts chamber (I didn’t need to watch Harry Potter, I had my own secret chambers.);  Day after day being alone in a foreign country, living with just. . . ME.  Wow.  I got to see me and nobody else, finally for 2.5 months.  What made me happy, sad, laugh, cry without the aid of family, friends, television, or videos, no frequent flier telephone miles, no money, no shopping.  Rien, nada, nothing.  None of my crutches.  I could check in with family and friends through email daily, but only for a couple of hours out of 24, nine of which I would sleep away.  (Which also helped me become less than half the woman I was before, in size I mean, which we can talk about another time.  Yes sleep.  Look it up on the internet.)

 And what a lesson that was for me because for many years I burned the candle at both ends.  I would go to bed between midnight and two o’clock a.m. then awaken at four a.m. to go to work, clocking in at six a.m.  Oh, yes some days I would sleep walk through my job from one end of the factory to the other.  It was all I could do to keep my eyes open and my head up, yet when I arrived home I would pick up another book, cook with the book, watch television with the book, sing with the book (oh, any book for I loved reading and learning, and escaping to other lands and worlds.  Move over Alice and Dorothy, there’s room for all of us.).  Can you believe I actually tried to drive with a book one time?  This was after I saw a woman driving her car on the highway while reading and when I tried it, I almost crashed, so I knew I had gone too far with the book.  So you get the picture.  I was kind of out of touch with me for I wanted to be someone else, somewhere else.   So finally it happened, but in reverse order.  I had to be somewhere else in order to become someone else and that someone else was the real me, hidden beneath the me everyone and everything else in my life had defined me to be.  Voila!!  Magic!  LOL!

Last summer I was blessed to meet a new family of friends who are now a part of my family.  They invited me to stay in their home in Langorn, France for three days, which turned into five days, and would have turned into seven or nine if I had not needed to return to my work schedule.  They allowed me to retreat with them in their wonderful home and on their land which reminded me of Virginia.  Oh, we ate, and read books, and watched the Olympics happening in China, we joked and laughed and rode bikes.  Ah.  .  . well the kids rode bikes, I went for long walks down the country road, and yes I slept.  Peacefully in the country, far from city life (love those Green Acres! Achew!).  I have finally learned to appreciate the benefits of sleeping well and respecting my body when she says “I’m tired”.   That’s a topic for another blog.  Anyhoooo.  One evening after supper when the kids were gone to bed, we stayed up talking, soaking in each other’s company for we knew our time together would be short, and I don’t remember how we got on the topic of the House of Mirrors, but it left an impact upon us. 

I made the comment that the fun part of the House of Mirrors is the distortion – looking fatter, taller, skinnier (YES!!!), shorter, uglier (ugh), cuter, than you are.  LOL!!  Yet in real life with each other, and in our spiritual lives – our relationship with God – distortion is no laughing matter.  It is also called deception, delusion, and illusions, to name a few.  Who and what we are inside is who and what we really are, and we and the world learn who we are by our words, actions, and inactions.  The Bible tells us “whatsoever a person thinks in his/her heart, so is he/she”.  Yes, the heart thinks.  One thing I love about the complexity of the French language is also the simplicity.  (oxymoron?)  The same word for thoughts or “mind” is the same word for “spirit”.  So if I say “mon esprit” I am saying “my mind” and I’m also saying “my spirit”.  In English we differentiate between the spirit and the mind, and we refer to our heart when talking about our spirit, and we refer to our mind when speaking about our thoughts.  Okay, just needed to go around Robin Hood’s barn and retrieve that so what I said makes sense to ya.  (Thanks Mr. Ed.  Oui mais, bien sur!)

So I guess it’s important what we feed our minds (all those books I read, I’ve got a library inside of me!) for what goes in will come out.  Also, not just through books, but the media, newspapers, videos and movies, television and internet, social clubs, church (oh yeah, be careful there too), conversations, and most of all the conversations we have with ourselves.  What do you say to yourself when you look in the mirror?  “Mirror mirror on the wall, mirror mirror down the hall, can you hear me when I call, did you see me take that fall. . .”  Okay, sounds like a new nursery rhyme coming through.  (Ding dong the witch is dead!)  Don’t touch it, it’s mine.  LOL!!  The things we tell ourselves are more important than what others tell us because at the end of the day, we are left alone with ourselves and our thoughts.  Now, what others have spoken into our ears and manage to get into our minds/hearts about ourselves, becomes the dissertations we expound upon even in the night seasons, and if they’re not good, positive, and accurate, guess what?  We wake up thinking “you’re ugly”, “you’re too fat”, “you will never meet a good man/woman looking like you do”, “God doesn’t love you, heck He doesn’t even like you”, “you’re a bad person, why else would you be having a hard time?”, etc. and blah blah ick!  Stop!!!  “In the name of love, before you break my heart.  Think it o-o-ver.”

Now, if these thoughts become monuments inside our souls then guess what we will look like, act like, and sound like when we speak?  (Walking Baffled Towers and Statues of Bondages.)  We are what we eat, not only physically, but mentally as well, and what we think in our minds/hearts affects our emotions – how we feel at any given moment, and what we think about ourselves and others.  We will assume that others see us and hear us the way we see, hear and feel about ourselves, and thus we will respond  (or react) to them according to . . . you’ve got it – the glasses we’re wearing.  I’ve been so blessed to have sisters and brothers in my life to refute the lies I’ve swallowed down through the years about me.  Yes, they had to induce emotional, spiritual and mental vomiting to help me get free from negative things that were ruling me from inside of myself. 

On the one hand I was professing to be a Christian, a disciple of God through Jesus Christ, yet on the other hand I was living a defeated life in the hidden parts, where no one could see except my close family and friends.  Yet it was from those places my life decisions were being made, from a distorted view of me, and of God.  I would sing, teach, preach, dance and sweat of His love for you and me, His salvation, His peace and joy etc. yet inside I failed to be convinced of His undying and unconditional love for me.  Why?  Because my life didn’t seem to reflect His love.  I thought if He loved me He would give me the desires of my heart, ALL of them and when I wanted them (NOW), and how I wanted them (MY WAY, like Sinatra).  Ahem.  Sounds like I was LIVING in a house of mirrors.  

You see, I grew up in a religious environment where we were taught, whether explicitly or implicitly that when you give your heart and life to the Lord, and you’re doing it right (whatever “it” is), and He’s happy and pleased with you etc. etc. then whatever you ask of Him He will give it to you.  Heck, that sounded like a good bargain to me.  Right up there with K-Mart’s blue light specials.  (I ought to know, I used to work there.)  So for many years I tried to be the best Christian I could be – saying “yes” whenever the church made a request, no matter how I felt or my resources, or lack thereof, forgiving and forgetting, trying to walk in love (mind you is a good thing, keeps you free inside), becoming everybody’s doormat.  You get the picture.  Yet these were not requirements from God for He didn’t see me as a “yes” man or “yes” woman (slavery is over), nor did He see me as a doormat.  That was my distorted view of myself because of what I felt I lacked in life, and how others treated me in response to what I thought about me (how I allowed others to treat me), and how I treated myself.  The thoughts we have about ourselves create an aura around us that gives off “energy” – positive or negative, and it either draws people or repels them, and all kinds of people are drawn to honey – bees, and the superfly too.   :-)  Several powerful scriptures are running through my mind at this time as I come to the end, which have helped me so much with this area of my life, and have changed ME forever.  I hope they will touch you too.  One is my absolute favorite:  Jeremiah 29:11 “For I know the thoughts I think toward you, SAYS THE LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.” (Emphasis mine) Wow!!  Because His head is bigger than ours it stands to reason that His thoughts about us are too, and much better and more positive.  Yes I get excited about John 3:16 too, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever (you can call me “whosoever” too) believes in Him shall not perish, but shall have everlasting life.”  But Jeremiah 29:11 met me where I was – dealing with my distorted self.  And now I find myself hanging out with the mind of God more and more.  It’s a no-brainer!

So what are my thoughts these days?  About me?  How in love God is with me that He would give me a second thought, and a third.  That He would make plans for me, my entire existence and my future, not in a controlling way, but because He knew what I was supposed to be and become when He created me, thus He knew I wouldn’t  be happy being anything, or anyone else, but the real me.  God has perfect vision and I’ve been told for humans, that’s 20-20.  But God’s got us beat by an eternity!  His view of us is multi-dimensional, all knowing (omniscient), everywhere at all times (omnipresent), and all powerful (omnipotent).  Another scripture says “we are the temple – house, dwelling place – of the Lord, the Holy Spirit dwells – lives – within you”.  When you have the Creator of the Universe living in your house, there’s no more room for distortion.  He knows who you claim to be, who you want to be, who others see you to be, who you really be (gotta stick with the “be” family), and who He has created you to be.  “Mirror mirror on the wall, mirror mirror down the hall, if before you I should stall, I’m just gazing at Him in me, big and tall”.  *Poof*