Romans

This morning I finished reading Romans.  And my take away message from the book as a whole is rather simple. 

First is that we as believers shouldn't judge one another or give each other cause to stumble.  Ultimately we all will answer to God for our deeds and whatever our own conscience tells us, that is what we should follow. (Romans 14) If I feel the need to learn the Biblical feast days as a means to get to know Yeshua more, I shouldn't judge those who don't feel this is necessary. And consequently those who don't feel it necessary shouldn't judge the way I've felt this need to learn and understand them through observing them.  In my observance of these Holy days I should be careful that all the rules of the law of Moses don't distract me from the real source of salvation in Yeshua. Following excessive rules can be a stumbling block that diverts our eyes from our Messiah and makes us think we save ourselves by our works.  Ultimately the laws and commandments of God are summed up in the ones to love God and to love our neighbor, and if we are living in judgment of one another we aren't living in love of one another. 

All of us have sinned and fall short of perfection.  All of us have need of a Savior to overcome our sinful natures.  This nature isn't overcome by our own sheer will power.  I personally have never accomplished anything through will power.  Everything I accomplish is done through love and hope in Christ.  When I lack in love or hope for something better I can do nothing of worth or maintain a habit long term.  It is Yeshua who along with paying for our sins gives us the power to overcome them and become better people.  Therefore we have nothing to boast of ourselves.

Feeding myself

For the past two years I've been part of a Messianic Jewish community.  I've learned the Biblical feast days and how they point us to Yeshua (Jesus).  And I've learned a lot about the first five books of the Bible.  These were parts of the Gospel that my origional Earthly church overlooked a great deal and I feel I've grown and learned more about my God than I knew before.  After my second Passover, I began to be dissatisfied with this level of knowledge.  I wanted to dive into the other books of scripture too. 

The Rabbis have a schedule for studying the Torah each year and there will be a "Torah portion" assigned for the congregation to study each Sabbath.  There will also be a small portion from the prophets and writings, but so as not to lead people to Yeshua it goes out of order and relates to a topic in the Torah portion so that people won't notice the careful exclusion of everything in the writings and prophets that is rather obviously about Yeshua.  These carefully excluded parts are exactly what my soul has become hungry for over the course of these two years.

Every time I talk to someone from my congregation about this problem they ask, "Well, how's your home study going?"  I'm always distraught in response because when they're awake my kids or their messes seem to demand all my attention and when they're asleep it wasn't my first go to activity to read my scriptures.  I would say something like that I can't just learn all alone that I need people to discuss with.  Ultimately this comes down to motivation.  When I know I'm going to get to share what I learn with someone else I'm more motivated to study.  My learning style is teaching.

I talked to my sister about this dilema, and unlike people of my congregation who all suggested talking to my Rabbi, my sister just flat out rejected the lie Satan's been feeding me that I can't learn this stuff on my own.  She reminded me of times when I just dived into things I wanted to learn and came back with rewarding results and a depth of knowledge on a topic.

Since then I read John in about a week and Acts in three days. I'm going to try to read a book at a time through the New Testament. And I think I'll start a series here discussing my findings on the book as a whole, pulling out what stood out to me right now as I go through.  They won't necessarily be in order but whatever I feel the need to study next will be next.  How do you like to study?  What helps motivate you?  What helps you make time for it?

Routine Signs of Love

This blog being about my whole healing journey I thought this an appropriate thing to share here.

I've been married now for 10 years to a man who among other things has OCD, and every night there is this routine of saying "Goodnight, I love you, see you tomorrow."  Always in that order.  Always together.  If we said it at one point then had more pillow talk then either of us said "good night" again the rest of this scripted conversation had to follow.  There were two options for this.  One with alternating speakers:
"Good night"
"Good night"
"I love you."
"I love you too."
"See you tomorrow."
"Okay."
Or he could say all three phrases together in a row and I had to reply with all three phrases in a row:
"Good night. I love you. See you tomorrow."
"Good night.  I love you.  See you tomorrow."
Only recently my husband allowed me the new answer "Okay. Good night. I love you too."  This was actually a huge thing for him allowing me a new answer that felt more natural to me.

This routine was actually very stressful for me.  If I absent mindedly varied from the script we had to start over. Sometimes I'd say "yeah" instead of "okay" and he would be upset by it and we'd start over.  Over time when I'd make this mistake if I corrected it right away he'd let it slide.  A few times in our early marriage I switched it up on purpose, "...see you tomorrow." replied with, "yeah, you will." or some other affirmitive answer outside the script.  This bugged him the most.

Growing up most affection was routine.  Very little was spontaneous.  It was hard for me to tell how sincere these routine affections were:  whether they really meant I was loved or whether they were just done because it is what you do at bed time (or whenever it was routinely occuring) but didn't actually mean anything.  This question of whether routine affection is actually sincere is why I had such a problem with my husband's scripted bed time "good night, I love you, see you tomorrow."  Realizing this for the first time tonight felt like a huge break through for me.  As well as the love languages there's also the question of whether you prefer spontaneous affection or routine affection.  My husband prefers the routines and once I obliged he has been satisfied in our marriage ever since.  I prefer the spontaneous and it doesn't come naturally to him and is harder to remember and make that effort.

Routines can be a way of making sure something happens at all.  I haven't had these bedtime affection routines with my kids because I'd rather show affection spontaneously throughout the day.  But in this busy world you don't always get to do that.  And my daughter is very much routine oriented and affectionate on her own terms kind of girl and between school and her brothers sucking my energy I don't know how much I've shown her I love her.  But just like saying the Shamah every week doesn't make one guilty of using vain repitions using routine affections doesn't make that affection any less sincere.  All this time I've thought myself unlovabe because affection from others hasn't come in the spontaneous ways I prefer.  If I assume all affection to be sincere I've really been loved all along.

Parenting Inspiration

The internet is full of parenting advice.  Mostly of what people think we should not do and with that comes a sence of shame if we every resorted to such a tactic in a desperate hour with our kids.  This post will not be about any of that.  What good does it do to know what not to do if we aren't given an alternative to do instead?  This leads to undisciplined kids disrespecting adults.

I've seen it in my own kids.  I've not known what to do so I tell them to stop doing the undesired behavior, but have no consequence to follow up with because all I can think of are things parenting gurus online say not to do.  So this morning when the kids were fighting and yelling at each other I told them all to go outside.  I figure out door voices belong outside and it makes for a good natural consequence.  But it still didn't address the fighting.  Then while they were getting shoes and coats I had my ah-ha!  All this time I've really wanted to get to their hearts.  None of the online advice or ideas has ever helped with this goal.  My husband, when I have bemoaned this problem, has said they're just too young to get to their hearts yet.

Well today an idea occured to me.  Praise God!  Have them each say five things they love about the person they were fighting with.  First this involved a lot of quiet thinking time.  Then as each one went through the process of voicing and discussing things they love about their sibblings the whole atmosphere of our home changed.  Their anger was gone and they started thinking of ways to show love to each other and ways they could serve each other.  Especially doing things they just heard someone say they love about them. They heard and voiced what they each love about each other and were now focused on the positive attributes they each have.  I hope this continues to work on their hearts, but it sure did this morning.  Each child had a change of heart about the sibbling they have been fighting with.

What do you do to help your kids have a change of heart?  Or if you don't have kids what helps you step back from a negative situation and change your own heart? 

Passover preparations

This year is my second Passover.  Last year I was very worried about how my kids would survive when I was finding yeast in the ingredients of most the foods they ate.  I try to eat mostly kosher, but do slip up from time to time. I grew up not worrying about it because it was just the Mosaic Law and after Yeshua (Jesus Christ' Hebrew name) it doesn't apply any more (a more careful read of my Bible has convinced me that the clean and unclean animals are more than just part of the Mosaic Law, after all Noah brought seven of each clean animal instead of just two on the arc). So I have many habits that can be hard to break, and many foods I simply didn't know where they came from, I'm learning many foods I didn't know where they come from, really come from pork (apparently marshmallows aren't just fluffy sugar).  So I decided to really try to be kosher for Passover.  My mom came to visit and wanted to help with the shopping and decided to buy a pizza.  It had yeast and pork!  I figured, "Oh well, I don't want to offend her and she's even less used to thinking about it than I am."  Other than that pizza we enjoyed lots of homemade Matzah, and my kids survived coming up with creative ways to eat it.  Like Matzah pizza, and the good reliable peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

Preparing for Passover this year consists mostly of slowly buying less of the products with yeast in them and phasing out what we have to make sure it gets used up before Passover starts.  It's a good time to check the pantry for mixes that over time the leaven would get old and become ineffective anyway.  Like the nasty pancakes that have been a past result of using an expired pancake mix. My kids were scared of what my next pancakes would be like and talked about them for at least a year.  Passover is the opportunity to save myself from such cooking or baking disasters with subsequent embarrassment as it is talked of till I finally live it down.  I just make those pancakes and buy a fresh box of mix when Passover is over.  The kids will be happy and so will my pantry. 

As a Gentile who believes in Yeshua I don't prepare or eat a Passover Lamb because He was and is our sacrificial lamb.  It is a good time to look to Him, remember Him and ask Him to reveal the leaven that needs to be removed from my life.  What wastes my time that could be used better to be more in line with his purpose for my life?  What attitudes and thought patterns need to be removed?  What is hiding in the back of my heart that should just be thrown out like the expired pancake mix in the back of my pantry?

Passover and First Fruits are a great way to teach kids about Yeshua the Passover Lamb and the First Fruits of the resurrection.  I'm preparing my children for this lesson by teaching them the Scriptures in 1Corinthians 11:23-26 about Yeshua ministering the bread and wine to His disciples at His last supper before his death. As I've celebrated the Biblical feast days over the last year I've learned more about the God I worship. I've also found it refreshingly easy to use these Holy days to teach my children about God since they were designed by Him to do just that in the first place.

Whether you celebrate Passover and First Fruits or Easter or Resurrection day remember it is all to point us to God's grace that can show us what we need to change and also give us the power to do it while removing our guilt when we realize what we still lack.  Isn't grace wonderful?