Have you ever been in love?
Being in Love is a most glorious event. In fact, I can't think of anything greater.
And sadly, I can't think of anything worse than seeing true love come to an end.
But, that's when I found myself.
When all good things in my life came to the end, then and only then, could I come to the end of MY Self and MY world.
I sat on the lonely river bank, shivering in the cold with all my fur kids nestled beside me, 5 dogs and 2 cats.
In my mind, I was with my family. These were my 4-legged children who had been with me through thick and thin for most of my adult life.
These sweet creatures had traveled all over the great green earth with me, it was only natural that they should be with me at the biggest crossroads of my life. The decision I was soon to make would change their world as they had always known it.
"Please God!!!"
"Please God!!! I will give you ANYTHING! Just don't make it be this?"
Looking back, it is easy to laugh at myself. I mean what kind of false sacrificial prayer is that?
"I will give you anything, just not this..
Or this..
Or this.."
Sort of like when I was a kid and my parents would ask me to pick a few toys to give to different charity organizations.
"Oh sure.. Hmmm.. Let me see.. Not this one or this one.. Well I really like this one. And I will probably love that one...
I can't give up that one?"
What?
I mean, I can only imagine how God sees us sometimes?
Yes, us, the selfish human beings?
There is a quote that comes to mind:
"I asked God for all things that I might enjoy life. He gave me life, that I might enjoy all things."
Here I was sitting next to one of the most beautiful rivers that I had been so blessed to enjoy and it was one of the only things God was asking me to give Him and I couldn't?
I didn't know the value in that gift at the time, but I was being selfish.
I was right where I wanted to be!
Well aside from being homeless, career-less, single and broke, my world was everything I had ever dreamed of.
This was all the life I wanted.
I just wanted Freedom!!!
And, oh the Freedom!!!!
Big open skies, endless blue waterways, all four seasons, snow-capped mountains, fresh cool air, 360 days of sunshine year round and enough snow that you could actually enjoy it!
There was just no way I could relinquish the idea that long days of hiking, biking and skiing would one day be only memories.
But at the time, I wasn't thinking about life as a vapor, and us, humans, as only blades of grass, here one day and gone the next.
I wasn't thinking about my legacy or imprint upon this world.
I was thinking about ME.
My physical world was perfect, oh yeah, well other than the fact I was now homeless. But again, in the west, housing really isn't all that necessary, well at least not until the snow sets in.
I really only needed a place to lay my head at night. The daylight hours were far too precious to waste lying around watching television or sitting at a desk glued to a computer screen.
Rather I liked it or not, God was moving me into a TRANSITION.
It was up to me to accept or decline. I had to make a choice.
I think I was just a bit shocked at the timing of it all. Couldn't He just wait until after snowboarding season?
I had grown accustomed to having things MY way.
I was very independent and was rather used to controlling my own world.
Couldn't we have agreed on a time?
But in those prayers of deliverance, I was asking to be moved into another world, another kingdom, a sphere, a realm far from the reach of all that I had once known.
So, to my surprise, I had to understand this wasn't MY world anymore.
I was transitioning into another.
And the time was not my own, nor was my life.
What would be my sacrifice?
ME.
My world, My life, My self must be given so that I could gain so much more.
I had a choice.
Martyrdom with eternal freedom or
My world, my rules, my consequences and a natural freedom that, in reality, doesn't exist.
Could I truly stop worrying about what I had to lose and instead look at what I had to gain?
Or would the fear of the unknown, the "what ifs" of the road ahead hold me back?
I must remember it was I who had prayed many many times for this transition.
At the time, I didn't know the price.
Would that have changed things?
Would that have changed my prayers of desperation?
If I had known that I would have to give up what I loved most, would I have prayed the same prayer?
In this modern day life we have been so accustomed to convenience, that most passions in our life don't "weigh" much.
Meaning,
We don't want to have to give to get.
We don't want to lose to gain.
We EXPECT something for nothing.
But that's a false sense of reality and when your prayer involves huge paradigm shifts of thought, you have to reassess the situation and ask:
" How bad do I really want this?"
"Is this worth a sacrifice?"
"What am I willing to give up to see this vision come to pass?"
How quickly we forget.
Just a few weeks earlier I had been graciously pushed out of a house I had rented for over 2 years. I say graciously, because I had been begging God to move me out for quite some time.
My landlord was a bipolar stalker, who when he grew weary of driving other people bat s$&t crazy, he would turn to me.
I had just about had enough. My prayer for deliverance became a daily routine.
Not knowing my prayer would be answered so (un)timely, I took my "last" rent check to the bank for the usual deposit. Paying rent this way, prevented me from having to deal with "you know who" in person. I'll never forget the day, it was 10-01-11. I was a sucker for numbers. 11-11-11 was just right around the corner and I had anxiously awaited it's arrival.
I loved my little mountain town, we could always conduct business in uncrowded spaces and we knew very little traffic. And on this particular day, I pushed through the big heavy doors and right up to the teller and handed, what I didn't know, would be my very last rent check ever.
I'm glad I noticed it.... Handing the check over I glanced at the upper right hand corner and realized the number was #1111.
I paused for a minute, asking quietly, "Lord, please, please, let this be the last rent check I ever have to pay!!!"
I had moved around a lot, and being single, renting had become a way of life for me.
I had only known one great landlord. All the others had been horrible, despicable and unpredictable. This one didn't take the cake, but was a close second.
The teller looked at the name and said, "oh, you rent from him. What a d$&!!"
I nodded my head in agreement.
"Yes, I pray I never have to pay him another penny!"
"Yeah, Good luck with that!"
He said a few other choice words that made me laugh before I stepped back into the glorious fall day.
Winter was in the air! And my cares dissipated into it as usual!
"Oh, I'm so ready for the snow! I just can't wait til it's crunching softly beneath my feet! I can't wait! I can't wait!"
WAIT!!!!
I must warn you!!!!
Be careful what you wish for....
Or rather,what you pray for...
It just might come true!!
The next day I was working around the house, when I heard a knock at the door. Hoping, it wasn't "you know who," I open the door, only to find "a notice to vacate the property in 30 days" posted to my door.
Was this a joke? I was an excellent tenant. I had always paid my rent, I even worked to help renovate a 100 yr old home to make MY living situation more enjoyable. I never complained and always hired repairmen to fix problems without ever having to call upon "you know who!" I mean I couldn't stand the guy but that doesn't mean I wanted to screw him over.
At first, I was angry, but then I leaped for joy and danced around realizing I would soon be on my way.
Not even understanding, I had NO way and NO where else to go!
Not to mention I had a roommate!
It was stressful news to relay but when my roommate arrived home, I tried to carefully explain the months of prayers I had offered up to God to move me further in life and to rescue me from my current landlord. I couldn't help but giggle at the usual facial expression of my roommate when he once again realized that he lived with a fruitcake or let's be gentle here and just call me, "a free spirit".
I had always been called that and had never really understood it's meaning. I just knew I enjoyed freedom!! I was never one who liked being tied down. That would include, no signing of contracts, leases, binding words in relationships, or anything of the matter.
I liked MY space.
And MY world was just as I had created it.
My roommate, well he was quite the opposite.
"Where are we going to live?"
"Who knows?
"Hey, If nothing else works out, we can just camp on my ex-boyfriend's property?" (Not a good idea!)
He walked into his room and stared at the floor. I'm sure he was regretting the day he met me, but this move would catapult him into his next season of growth.
Knowing that NO good thing can grow in a garden of fear, I told him it was best we rejoice about it all and be thankful we never have to deal with "you know who" again.
This was common ground for agreement. Let's put it behind us and look forward to the transition that was just around the corner.
So, my prayers were answered. I had been delivered out of Egypt!! Might I add, for the 3rd time in 2 years!!!
Yet how quickly we forget the marvelous works of The Lord.
It's easy to look at the Old Testament and shake our heads at the Israelites, God's own people, who were delivered time and time again from bondage, starvation and even death, only to forget their wonderful deliverer shortly there after. As soon as they broke free from the oppression they would so easily forget their gift of deliverance.
Yes. I had scoffed at their ignorant and selfish behavior and now here I was sitting on a river bank, which might as well have been the Jordan River or the Red Sea, weighing what I was willing to give God?
This is what God promised the Israelites:
I will take you as my own people, and I will be your God. Then you will know that I am the LORD your God, who brought you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians.
And I will bring you to the land I swore with uplifted hand to give to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob. I will give it to you as a possession. I am the LORD.'" Exodus 6:7-8 NIV
This was their response:
So Moses told the people of Israel what the LORD had said, but they refused to listen anymore. They had become too discouraged by the brutality of their slavery. Exodus 6:9 NLT
History likes to repeat itself and while I had made plenty of my own mistakes, I thought this would be a good time to learn from someone else's and not my own.
I was in LOVE with a place, a town, a life, a world I had created.
but I was in LOVE with a God who was so much more!!!
It was one of the hardest decisions to make, so much so, that I didn't even make it that day...
As selfish as the times when I and others like me carefully picked through our toys, while orphaned children eagerly awaited a new toy, the orphans of this world wait in like manner, for a gift far greater than anything they've ever known, a gift they don't even know is theirs?
What was I willing to give up so that I might be able to bring hope to a hopeless world?
What was I willing to sacrifice to bring a freedom that very few people in this natural world even know exists?
What would you?
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