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?

Pruning the Rosebush: A Parable

I've lived in this house for three years, and there's a group of rose bushes next to the carport.  These rose bushes weren't neatly pruned when we moved in and I only pruned back a branch here or there if it poked me getting in and out of my car.  Last year these bushes had many flowers.  With the coming of spring this year, as leaves and new buds started showing up, many dead branches sticking up above the new growth became obvious and ugly.  I knew I had to, at least, trim out all the old dead branches.  I had no idea how much that would entail after so many years of neglect, and after getting started it proved to be a much bigger job than I initially thought it would be.

I started with the ones up at the top of the bush and worked my way down, and the more dead branches I removed it seemed I just kept finding more dead branches deeper in the bush.  Some branches were dead all the way down to the bottom cane of the bush and were dried brittle thorny sticks and easy to remove aside from the thorns.  Trying to save the parts of the plants that were still alive while removing dead and withered canes from the middle of these overgrown bushes meant getting poked and scratched by the thorns many times.  Most these scratches didn't hurt much after the initial scratch, but one kept hurting with each movement of my finger, till I looked at it to find the thorn was still stuck in the scratch and I removed it. The thorns also made it harder to get a branch out of the bush after I'd clipped it.  The thorns of the live branches would catch on the thorns of the dead branch I was trying to pull out.  Often I would find where I wanted to cut a branch and I would then have to cut it in several places to get it untangled from the rest of the bush.  Other branches were only dead at the top.  Some canes looked greener than others, and when I followed some brown canes to their branches up higher they eventually did turn green and produce leaves and buds.  After two days of solid work on these bushes I could still see much more that needed work, but our trash bin was completely full of the dead branches I had already pruned away, and the thorns covering the branches prevented me from trying to smash them in tighter.  This forced me to take a break and give my wounded hands a rest.

The pruning of an overgrown rosebush is very difficult.  I decided to watch a video about pruning rosebushes, and it looked so easy, but the man in the video was working with a bush that had obviously been regularly pruned and maintained.  What a contrast it was from the painful experience I was having.

Churches claiming to belong to the scriptural Church of Christ have become overgrown with dead branches that do not serve true followers of Yeshua.  From pagan holidays and traditions of men to the judgments of others based on things that can't be understood without really experiencing it, there are many dead things that need to be pruned out of our hearts, to make room for the life giving unconditional love that needs to grow, if we are ever to become like Christ as his true disciples.  This can be a painful process.  We had a very fun Easter last year with our children, and this year we had a Christ centered Passover.  Passover was a beautiful and enlightening experience that brought me closer to Christ.  I worshiped with Davidic dance, and I fell short of being completely yeast free, but I did my best with a family that wasn't observing kosher rules with me.  It felt surreal walking through stores and seeing things that once made me excited for a coming holiday, which now instead, made me feel distinctly different from the people around me.  I found myself wondering why more people didn't educate themselves about these holidays and choose to replace them with God given Holy Days.  But I was one of them only last year.  My eyes have been opened, and I can't close them again.  Once a dead branch has been found and cut out, it can't come back to life again.  It is time to open our eyes and cut the dead traditions of men out from our hearts.  Make room to be filled with unconditional love, so it can have a place to bloom in your heart.

What you trim first is up to you, and between you and God.  I've been actively trimming false traditions and unbelief for a year and a half now, and would be lying if I said it hasn't been a painful process.  But the joy and beauty that can grow when the dead works are cleared away is well worth the painful process of clearing it out.  Just as Paul, I too have a thorn in my flesh that must be discovered and removed before full healing can occur.  Some traditions have become so entangled it might take multiple cuts to rid ourselves of one false tradition as we find deeper ways it was intertwined with truth and life.  It is a process, and a much longer one than we likely anticipate when we first take it on.  But the good news is that we don't take it on alone.  My children have eagerly helped me in little ways with trimming the dead out of my rosebushes, and likely the efforts of my children could be a parable for my efforts to get rid of unbelief and dead works, and there is an older more experienced gardener doing much of my pruning for me, working on my heart in ways I will only understand when I look back.  What are the dead works you need to prune from your life?  What is your thorn in your flesh?  Who is helping you tend your garden?  There is likely more than one helper.  Take some time to praise the gardeners of your heart today.  Shalom.

A Woman Without a Religion

About nine months ago I started wearing head coverings.  After a couple weeks of begging God for answers to a question He finally (instead of answering the question) instructed me to wear head coverings.  I did it every day for a few months, and I researched them (something I hadn't been doing about my question; I wanted the easy answer).  I grew to love them for multiple reasons.  I had a halo of frizzy regrowth after some postpartum hair loss that it conveniently hid, it kept my baby from pulling my hair, it kept my ears warm in the winter time, it kept the wind from blowing my hair in my face, and I felt pretty in them.  These were the practical and superficial reasons for it.  The biggest reason to wear it went much deeper.  I felt closer to God by obeying a direction that came personally to me, and my attention was drawn to Him more throughout the day as I had a physical reminder of something I was doing only for Him every day.

So now as I go about my days I've been asked a couple times by people I've met if I'm Muslim.  No, I'm not.  I've never read the Quran.  But how do I explain who I really am?  Mormons don't accept me as one of them because I don't believe in blindly following their modern prophet.  Christians, I've been afraid to admit to them that I still believe in the Book of Mormon, and I believe that bad things Joseph Smith is said to have done, are rumors spread by his enemies.  And for anyone who isn't Christian it brings to mind a variety of bad things Christians have done in the name of their religion that I don't agree with.  I feel no loyalty with the Remnant Movement started by Denver Snuffer.  I'm grateful for the stepping stone it was in my transition leaving the Mormon church, but don't quite agree with some things happening among their group either.  Messianic Jewish seems the best fit, but their services are at times difficult to attend.  And most people have no clue what that means, which is okay, I can explain it to some degree, but not very well since I haven't been attending with them very long and have much to learn myself.  So if they have any questions beyond my simple explanation I'm unable to answer them. Talking to my atheist/agnostic brother-in-law he said, "So you're agnostic. That's a start.  You can't go straight from Mormonism to atheist.  I was agnostic for years before I was atheist."  Almost as if I was on the way to atheism because I no longer believe in the men who lead a worldly cooperate institution.  So I explained that my relationship with God is stronger now than it ever was, and I still believe in a specific God so "agnostic" doesn't seem right either.  And talking with my husband, even he didn't understand my aversion to labels, saying, "We're just Christian."

Labels are a way of lumping people together and associating them with other similar people.  The problem is that most these labels end up misrepresenting parts of that group.  Some people lump together Muslims into one group, and even though the violent terrorists are the minority among them, all the rest are guilty by association.  Likewise with race labels.  People of one group label people of another group and consider the other group to be guilty of whatever the worst people among them have done.  Guilt by association.  This is the most divisive thing we as people do.  And we do it as much with religion as we do with race.  Dividing those who believe in one thing from those who believe in another.  Rather than loving each other regardless of what we each believe and building on common ground, and discussing with the purpose of understanding one another and realizing we both probably have truth to offer the other that we hadn't previously considered.  But instead we are often too caught up in trying to convince others of our ideas to stop and consider theirs.

Ultimately no label fits who I am.  My journey is more complex than that. When it comes down to it, nothing feels quite right except to say I am a lover of God, a lover of people, a humble follower of Christ, and a seeker of truth. 

The Real Love of Christ and Dreaming Dreams

Wow!  I was talking to my sister about her idea to write a guest post and realized it had been a couple months since I've written.  School started, and we've been bombarded by problems that I won't bore you with, but despite all that I think it time I record the next chapter of my spiritual journey.

I joined a group on Facebook about divine dreams, and at first thought it would be just for fun, but the longer I was there the more I learned about my own gift for dreaming.  I learned the meaning of a significant dream from my childhood and threw myself into seeking learning from God about the direction he wants for my life.  Having found joy in service at a nondenominational church after a while it seemed I'd learned about what they had to offer.  Then I started having dreams that gave me the impression it was time for me to move on somewhere that would offer more and deeper knowledge.  I remembered a woman telling me about a Messianic Jewish Synagogue.  I started feeling the desire to learn more about the Jewish roots of Christianity, after all Christ was himself a Jew and taught Judaism, and while the sacrifice of Christ fulfilled the Law of Moses so there was no more need to sacrifice animals, Jesus being the last "sacrificial lamb", there are other aspects of the law that can and likely should be kept.  In my heart, I feel that learning more about these laws will inform me of more of the nature of God and His character.  I decided to seek out and attend one of these Messianic Jewish Synagogues.

After attending a Friday night service I notified the people I served with at the Christian church I had found.  The contrast between their reaction and the reaction I got from Mormons when I differed with them on some matters of doctrine was so stark it was truly astonishing to me.  The reaction of Mormons had been to gossip, shun, or argue or some combination thereof.  Here, they prayed for me and my family and our journey, told me they would miss me, hugged me, and reminded me I was always welcome.  They accepted and validated my spiritual journey agreeing I had to follow what God had placed in my heart and I felt nothing but love from them.  There was no judgment whatsoever.  I almost couldn't believe it!  Was this what it was like for normal Christians?  They just do what feels right in their own spiritual journey, and allow others to do the same, and just love each other with the love Christ preached?  What an idea!  It was such a refreshing experience I almost rethought my decision.  My kids had fun there, and I could do something more productive if the sermon wasn't a topic that would enrich me.  Last week I couldn't get myself to go because I knew the topic was relating to how to decide who to vote for, and I've already decided and this not being a political blog I'll say no more about that, just that it wasn't how I wanted to spend a Sunday.  Perhaps this next week, or perhaps not, either way I know I am welcome and loved there despite believing things that are not common held beliefs in the congregation.  And with that example of Christlike love I don't think I've met a more Christian bunch of Christians anywhere else!

Grace and Repentance

Sorry for taking such a long break.  I feel like I'm in the process of reinventing myself.  I've changed what religion I identify as, one stage of life is ending and a new one beginning, and the dream I always thought I would be pursuing at this point in my life is not even in the picture and a new dream completely unlike anything I imagined (prior to several months ago) is beginning to take shape.  Anyhow for the past month this blog has been about the last thing on my mind.  But none of this is why you chose to read this post, though it does relate, so I'll show you how God's grace has been transforming my life.

Each Sunday I've been trying something different a while of just staying home trying to figure out the best thing to do as a family without going anywhere.  I've attended random churches, and I think we've found one that's a good fit at least for our current needs as a family right now.  I've realized some interesting contrasts by attending experimentally some other Christian churches, then contrasting it with a chance LDS meeting I went to on a whim.  The other Christian church was focused on the joy and the miracle that is available to us through accepting the atonement of Christ in our lives.  The LDS meeting was about repentance and was full of sorrow, and the hardship of life and the failings of us as humans, and the sorrow of these failings was the focus.  When we make our focus on the negative things in life that will be what our life will be full of.  When our focus is on the positive, the joy of Christ's grace to become a new person, a better person, in Christ we change and repent without realizing it.  We can't white knuckle our way to heaven!  If you have to "white knuckle it" to resist temptation your heart is still set on the thing you are tempted with and not on Christ.  If your heart is set on Christ, He will help you through His grace to become the new person He wants you to be.  I want to be clear grace is not the ability to be forgiven and never have to change anything about yourself.  It is by grace we are saved because we all are sinners and fall short of the glory of God.  But that grace is something we must accept and embrace and allow it to work in our lives, and as we do we literally become a new person.  I'm so completely different as a person than I was six or nine months ago!  It is all by God's grace that I've had the power to transform my life into something different than I ever planned or thought possible. 

I was going to write a separate post about all the life changes that have happened to me lately that distracted me from my writing for over a month.  But I realized as editing these two separate posts that they really are the same thing.  I have been shifting my focus and changing lately, this is what repentance is.  And through the grace of Christ I'm realizing greater purpose and happiness in my life doing things I never thought possible.  The story of my sabbatical from my blog is the story of God's grace being manifest in my life and me taking the time I needed to accept and act upon this gift.

For the last seven and a half years of my life I've been either pregnant or nursing a baby.  As this stage begins to wind down for many reasons, I've been overcome with the desire to make a difference in the world.  I even wept one night talking to my husband about this desire it was so strong, but without any clear direction.  I want to do something beyond raising children who will have the skills to make a difference in their world.  Don't get me wrong, I believe motherhood to be extremely important and I love it, but I also believe my example of how I use my time and what I do to change my world will also make me a better mother and motivate my children to find their niche to impact the world for the better as well.  I once thought that when this phase of life came along I would start offering private art lessons, perhaps to home school kids.  But there just isn't a demand for this, especially with the advancing pace of technology.  My skills are obsolete.  Now I've made the bold decision to become a lapidary (one who carves and polishes stone sometimes for jewelry, sometimes larger works like spheres, or small sculptures).  Thank goodness for youtube training videos!  I'm trying to settle into my new identities.  And I am full of happiness with this choice.  When I got just a few supplies and started working I knew this was the right path for me.

Hopefully as these aspects of life settle down a bit I should be able to write posts a little more regularly.  How has God's grace manifest in your life?  If you are resisting change that God wants for you, you are essentially rejecting His grace and Christ's atonement.  Embrace his love and his grace and let your life take the beautiful shape He has in store for you.  It is likely better than anything you could dream up for yourself.  May God's grace manifest in your life journey too.