He knows me......

Last fall my son attended the final 2008 Presidential Debate, which took place at the college he is attending. He was in the same room, (okay, BIG room,) as the next President of the United States. It struck me then how few people ever get to say they are in the same room as the President.

Several years ago, my brother attended a function in Pennsylvania at which then President George W. Bush was the speaker. It was a much smaller room than the debate. He said that regardless of your political views, it was thrilling to be in the room with the President.

My friend Cordelia got up at the crack of dawn to attend a campaign rally for Barack Obama in Philadelphia. She was able to be in one of the first couple of rows and had the photos to prove it. She was so excited to have had that opportunity.

A couple of days ago, between one and two million people stood on the Parkway in Washington DC to be there when Barack Obama was inaugurated as our new president. Only the first few hundred, maybe a thousand, were probably close enough to actually see it with their own eyes, most of the rest could only watch it on the Jumbo Trons. And some people were happy just to be able to see the top of the Capitol Building in the distance. But nevertheless, they wanted to be in the same geographical area just to be near the historic event.

Somewhere, everyday, average, everyday people will go to see someone who is powerful or famous, someone they think they know all about, just to have a chance to be near them. Maybe they will get to shake hands, or get an autograph; or if they are really fortunate, the person will acknowledge them and speak to them. Miley Cirus, the Jonas Brothers, Queen Elizabeth, JK Rowling, Tiger Woods, Hillary Clinton, George Bush (H. or W.) ...famous, powerful people who are flocked by average Joes and Janes everyday. Even though we feel we know these people, chances are, they will never, ever know us.

All of this has me thinking how awesome, and I mean AWE-SOME, that we have complete access to someone even greater than any of those people: the Creator of all of those people....the Creator of EVERYTHING. We don't need to wait on line, or go through Secret Service security checks, or win a contest, or buy a ticket to meet with God wherever and whenever we want. But even better than that is that He KNOWS us. He knows us before we know him. Think about that......that ought to bring you some joy!

Scripture tells us over and over that God knows us, even better than we know ourselves. I found dozens of scriptures that confirm God's complete acquaintance with each one of us. Here are a few:

"Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you....." Jeremiah 1:5

"Even to your old age and gray hairs I am he, I am he who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you." Isaiah 46:4

"I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me-" John 10:14

And of course, there is Psalm 139. And that's what I'll leave you with to ponder. I'm not discounting the thrill of meeting someone famous. I'm just as impressed as the next person. But once in a while, I really think about how we get to know and be known by, and and do work for, the One and Only True Living God, the Creator, the Alpha and the Omega.......

Psalm 139

For the director of music. Of David. A psalm.

1 O LORD, you have searched me
and you know me.

2 You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.

3 You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.

4 Before a word is on my tongue
you know it completely, O LORD.

5 You hem me in—behind and before;
you have laid your hand upon me.

6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too lofty for me to attain.

7 Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?

8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.

9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,

10 even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.

11 If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,"

12 even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.

13 For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother's womb.

14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.

15 My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,

16 your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me
were written in your book
before one of them came to be.

17 How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!

18 Were I to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand.
When I awake,
I am still with you.

19 If only you would slay the wicked, O God!
Away from me, you bloodthirsty men!

20 They speak of you with evil intent;
your adversaries misuse your name.

21 Do I not hate those who hate you, O LORD,
and abhor those who rise up against you?

22 I have nothing but hatred for them;
I count them my enemies.

23 Search me, O God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.

24 See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.

Complete.....

I have been particularly joyful the last few days because I finally feel like I'm completing all of the tasks, projects, responsibilities that I've had going for the last 6 months. The Master Gardener certification...check! The bookkeeping for the high school fall play....check! The Women's Retreat...check! Christmas...check, check, check!!! It feels SO good to be complete! Sure, there are some new things beginning, like the high school spring musical (Grease...Mal was cast as Frenchie! or is it Frenchy...anyway, you get it.) But it's been a LONG time since I felt like I was finished with everything that I had been doing before I started a new round of "projects." I've caught up with whatever correspondence I needed to write, I'm back on my blog, I've caught up reading the blogs I like to follow. Wow....this feels WONDERFUL!

Even though some stuff is complete, I'm not...and that REALLY makes me JOYFUL!!!! As a recovering perfectionist, my goal was not only to be finished, but to be finished on my time schedule, to finish with perfection, and to never have to re-do the work I've already completed. OH BOY...was that attitude a big giant X on the top of my head. I can just imagine God chuckling as Dan Copper dunked me in the baptismal. Not that I thought that baptism was the end of the journey, I knew I'd learn more about God's Word, but I thought I was pretty good just the way I was. What a heavenly ha ha that must have been! "Hey Gabriel, hey Michael...not only does this one think she's got it all under control, not only does she go by her own measure of 'perfection,' but she thinks one day she gonna wake up and she'll be this completed, all wise, all knowing Christian. She thinks those kind actually exist! This is going to be quite a shock to her!"

So God put me through a few "test" trials to see if I'd catch on before he had to hit me with the heavy artillery. Can you say stubborn! Every time I went through something and realized I actually LEARNED something and matured a little...I figured I had it all figured out. Then I'd do the same stupid things and get myself in the same situation, and I had to have a review and a retake of the test. Just when I thought I had that lesson down...something else would happen. Are you getting the picture?

Some how, some way, I caught on. Perfectionism, well I finally learned that my idea of perfectionism and God's are two different things. I thought I could reach perfection in all I did, even though I knew that I myself was not perfect. No logic there! Only a perfect being could "do" anything perfectly, so I had to learn to stop beating myself up everytime I failed in my own eyes. God has promised me I will be perfect someday, just not in this lifetime!

"being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." Philippians 1:6

I LOVE that scripture! I LOVE that promise. I'm going to get there! And even better- it's not going to be because of anything I do, it's because of ONE THING Jesus did! He bore my imperfection. God's going to keep working on me in the meantime. And for some reason, even thought growth hurts, I've come to find joy in that. I can look back and see that God loves me enough to take the time to keep showing me that I can stretch and grow in ways that I never thought I could, or never knew I needed to. He'll patiently teach me the same lesson over and over if necessary, even though it's painful. I choose to surrender, and God takes care of the rest.

That's my only contribution... my choice to surrender. Making that choice did not come easy for me. But those "test" trials, they weren't just for God to see me in action...it was for me to see HIM in action. It was so I would learn to trust HIM before he laid the heavy stuff on me. And before the enemy launched attacks. And when I saw what God can do...it doesn't make the trials and battles less painful...but it does let me know that one way or another, I'll be standing with God at the end of it, whether that be here, or in the next life.

So when I was puttering around after church, completing a few last details from 2008, and enjoying it, Philippians 1:6 popped into my head, and then this blog post came out.

Also, take a look at Pattie's post for today. She thinking about the same kind of thing. Check out her current"theme" song, "Whatever You're Doing."


"Cause He's still workin' on me....."

Happy New Year!

NO...I have not abandoned my blog! I had gotten so bogged down with everything that I've been doing for the last 4 months that I pretty much crashed...not a joy filled experience. So I've taken the last couple of weeks to bite off on piece at a time in an effort to get back on track. The blog is one of the last pieces! And because I like to finish what I start, I'm post one last Christmas post before I convert my blog back to it's original format.

Here is a slide show with a few photos of our traditions like the annual ornament for the kids, Christmas eve jammies, Christmas morning, etc. I've included photos of the Santa Claus collection.
For those who have asked, Dave, the official church and family counter and accountant, has conducted an accurate census of the Santas. The official count....drum roll please...177! And I packed them away in record time...less than 4 hours! That's only because I took photos of the contents of every tub and box as I unpacked them and taped them to the lids!

Another item to complete in the promised Christmas posts is the story of My "Thing" about the Three Wise Men. I want to preface this by saying that I am not legalistic!!! However, we all have things that bug us, and for me it's the Wise Men....they WERE NOT there in on the night Jesus was born! So...in my house, they do not appear to be there on ornaments, cards I send, "Nativity Scenes" etc. I was aware at a very young age (thanks to my Jewish Grandmother who was a Jehovah's Witness...another story...) that the Biblical account makes it pretty clear that the Wise Men showed up a couple of years later. When I began to attend church again as an adult, I was attending a church whose members, I thought, were pretty "up" on their Biblical knowledge. Well one Christmas time, we were decorating the church sanctuary, and one of the "pillars" of the church had made silhouettes of the Three Kings approaching the life size Nativity scene we had set up behind the pulpit. I complemented her artwork, and said something like about the tradition of it even though they really weren't there the night Jesus was born. She said, "They weren't!?!" I was quite surprised to find out how few people there had read the Biblical account of Jesus closely enough to see that there is no mention of the Three Kings/Wise Men being in the stable on the night of Jesus birth.

SO....from then on, the Three Kings that came included in the Nativity set I had were set out in another room to make that point that THEY WEREN'T THERE! When we moved into our new house, I couldn't find a good place to put them, so I put them on top of the TV in the TV cabinet. I guess I didn't watch much TV in the living room at that time, because I forgot all about them found them in March! Now, my new set doesn't include the wise men, so it's not a problem for me anymore.

As I said, everyone has their "thing" and that's mine!

I want to wish all of you a Happy and Healthy New Year. Someone recently called it Divine 09 because we need to go into this year with an optimistic attitude. I agree. I also hope that all of the hardships turn into the blessing of bringing believers closer to God, and non-believers to embrace God. So have a JOY-FILLED DIVINE 09!!!