Be a Good Girl

Be a good girl. Never say a mean word to your husband. Watch your tone carefully at all times. Do not parent based on your emotions. Discipline wisely. Feed your family healthy foods with moderate amounts of sugar, organic is best, and plant a garden. Honor your parents, never disagree with a thing they say. Don't carry debt. Brush your teeth. Have a quiet time daily. Serve others. Pray about everything and do not make any decisions that the Lord isn't leading you to. Do not cuss. Do not let your kids watch any TV, OK, no more than 30 minutes a day. Healthy snacks only, candy rots your teeth. Exercise. Sleep a good 8 hours a night. Do not watch trash TV. Do not listen to vulgar music. Limit your computer time. Drive the speed limit. Visit your OB annually. Have sex with your spouse regularly so that he is fulfilled and won't have a desire to cheat on you. Dress your best, in a size 2 please. Make sure your flower bed is beautiful. Make sure your house is clean enough to eat off the floor and that your laundry hamper stays empty. Make sure your kids get enough vitamin D from time outside in the sun, but also put sunblock on them so that they don't get too much sun. Go to church every Sunday and Wednesday. Put your kids in some sort of extracurricular activity, but not too much because then you are never home and not too little because then they will have low self-esteem. Make sure the coach esteems them so that they won't be ruined for life. Make sure your hair is always cut to look it's best. Buy the latest, coolest appliances, or else your dishes and clothes won't really be clean. Enter a triathlon. Serve the needy. Get to know all your neighbors. And love them well. Never question authority, or the guy from the billing office who wants to charge you $5,000. Be environmentally friendly. Don't wish you had your best friends life, or salary. Spend quality time with each of your children, every day, doing things that engage their brains. Do not play violent video games. Or let your kids, because they might turn out to be murderers. Go on vacation. Don't work too much. Pay all your bills on time. Drive the nicest car. Keep your toenails painted at all times, chipped nails are a sin. Wake up an hour before the kids to do your first quiet time of the day. Fix every problem in your child's life, but not all of them because then they will think life caters to them. Make them work around the house so that they feel needed. Don't spoil them with materialistic things. Make sure and maintain a perfect marriage, and if you do have hard time, don't tell anyone because then they will lose respect for you and hold a grudge against your spouse. Make your bed every day. Wash your sheets regularly. Get a dog, and make sure to keep up on it's vaccines, heartguard, and flea meds. Spend time with your girlfriends. Take your vitamins. Keep the toilet clean, even if your boys get it dirty a hundred times a day. Oh wait, teach them not to get it dirty. They should be sanitizing the toilets by age 2. Submit to your husband, he is your authority. Keep the lawn mowed and treated at all times. Be nice, calm, and happy at all times. Especially at church. Take your child to the nursery, oh wait nevermind, they need to learn how to sit still and quiet by age 1. Spank. No, don't spank. Don't spank out of anger. Teach first time obedience. Make sure your child speaks to and hugs every adult that speaks to them. Vaccinate, no wait, vaccinate, but only if they are separated. Do some, don't do the others. Research everything so that you always know what is best for your child. Back sleep is best or you may kill your baby. Let them cry it out or they will be spoiled rotten, don't let them cry it out because they will be emotionally scarred for life.  Use all natural products. Tip well. Tithe. And then above that, give. Don't let money be your reason for doing or not doing anything.Make sure you take good care of yourself. But not to the point that you are your own priority, every one else should come before you. Teach a Sunday school class. Go to a Sunday school class. Don't dress in such a way that you might be a temptation for another man. But always look your best. Shop for bargains. Learn how to sew. Don't talk on the phone too much, but make sure you are always there when your girlfriend needs you. Dust your ceiling fans. Trust God for everything, never question anything. Just have more faith and everything will get better. Give your kids the best of everything, but make sure to never put them above your spouse. Don't drink juice, it's got too much sugar. Drink milk. But not too much and make sure it's organic. Drink water. Put your kids in preschool or they will be dumb and socially awkward, nevermind, don't because you will never get that time back, they will have emotional issues,  and they won't really be dumb and awkward. Don't work outside the home, unless you need to.

Oh. My. Goodness. These are some of the messages that we get thrown out at us on a regular basis. How in the world can we ever live up to all of this stuff?? HOW IN THE WORLD??? The stress of reading the above is TOO MUCH! We don't really have the 10 commandments thrown at us anymore, we have the thousand commandments.

This week at Pine Cove, Matt Carter talked about sin. I missed half of his talks, but what I did hear was amazing.

One day, he talked about low-level, mid-level, and high-level narrative. The low-level narratives found in scripture would be the small details. Like, "the boat's dimensions were t x t."  Or, "the bird flew away and brought back an olive leaf."

A mid-level narrative in scripture would be the story about Noah and the ark. There was sin in the world so God had Noah build a boat. His family and some animals got on the boat and God flooded the earth becuase it was full of sin. Then Noah and his family repopulated the earth and sin came back.

Or the story about the 10 commandments. God gave the ten commandments for the people to follow and they couldn't.

Or stories about sacrifice's. So when they broke a law, they sacrificed an animal and their sin was covered by the blood. It was washed away. But then, they went home and sinned again.

I have heard many mid-level narratives over the years, and while I do not know as many as some children do :),  I am familiar with a lot.

The high-level narrative is the over-arching story behind all of scripture.

The problem was that no-one could keep the law, we can't either. When the earth repopulated, sin came back, it's still here. And as soon as they walked away from making a sacrifice, they sinned again, so do we.

Was God at a loss for how to save the world? Did he keep making mistakes over and over? Was He hoping for different outcomes and suprised everytime sin came back?

The answer is NO. He wasn't surprised. He wasn't at a loss of ideas. He was writing a story. A beautiful one. He was showing us over and over again, that no matter what we try, no matter how hard we try, WE CAN'T CONQUER sin.

Even if we seclude ourselves from all sinners. (Who are we kidding?) Or even if we make daily sacrifices. (Could there ever be enough?) Even if we obey the law. (Again, who are we kidding?)

We cannot conquer sin. The bible is a high-level narrative that points to the redemptive love story we find in Jesus Christ. It points to the fact that we are desperate for someone to save us from the world of sin that we live in. Sin is in our hearts and everywhere in the world around us. We can't conquer it.

The three mid-level narratives above are examples of that.

So God, because He loves us, sent His son Jesus, the perfect lamb, to do it for us. It's a gift of love. It's something that I have been guilty of saying and taking all too casually. It's a BIG deal.

One thing that being sick has taught me is that I am unable to follow the law. No matter how hard I try to be a "good girl," and no matter how good a job I do of it, I am still infected with the disease called sin. I still need Jesus.

It's a lie that we buy into when we think that we can do it on our own. Or when we think that our "good works" have anything to do with us. Even the knowledge and ability to do good things is a gift from God.

This love story is about transformation and grace from the Lord. He is the only one who can change our hearts. Sure, we can do things that contribute to learning and growing, but even those "things" that we do are a gift from Him. And it can all be taken away in a moment's time.

I like to study scripture. I love to study scripture. Currently, I can't because my brain is too foggy from the pain, exhaustion, and medications. I used to think I was a better christian because I studied.

I like to cook healthy food for my family. Currently I can't as often as I would like to because the pain, exhaustion, and medications. I used to think I was a better mom because I did these things.

I like to play games and wrestle with my boys. I like to be my husband's helper and encourage him in his calling. I like to breastfeed my babies. I like to hang out with my neighbors. I like to worship cooperately. I like to have meals at the table. I like to disciple my kids the way I think a shepard would.  And the list goes on and on and on...

I think we do all these "things" that we think define ourselves as good people or good christians and what I am learning more and more lately is that I am incapable of "doing," or "being" anything good without the holy spirit that lives inside of me. And without the grace of God.

And the hugest thing that I am learning is that God loves me. Period. He doesn't love me because I can do things for Him. He doesn't love me for being a good girl. He doesn't love me less when I am not a good girl. He just loves me. It's nothing that I did that bought His love. And there's nothing I could do to make him stop loving me. He loved me before I was born, and He will love me to the day I die, no matter what. He created me exactly like I am.

And guess what?? He loves YOU like that also. Please believe it because He does. He really does and it's with a love that I don't think we can ever really grasp on this side of heaven because it's a love that no human being could EVER replicate. It's a perfect love, that see's us as washed white as snow when we are covered by the blood of Jesus. Not by the law, not by being a good girl, but by the blood of Jesus.







update. I am having surgery Friday at 7:30am. Please pray for God's protection and divine will.