Does your housekeeper love you?

Okay, most of us average people don't have a housekeeper.

But we do have the Barista that we see regularly.

Or maybe that cashier at our favorite store.

Or the Librarian that has been wearing the same vintage glasses since they were in fashion the first time....

Perhaps the person that comes to mind is someone who you've gone to Zumba with for over a year now... Works in the cubicle next to yours... Sits directly behind you at church every Sunday... Lives on your block... Drives your child's bus... Has your same last name and the eyes of your Grandfather... Or maybe even placed a ring on your finger and made promises to you that echo into forever...

I woke up one morning last week with this partial verse running through my head on repeat:
"Do everything as unto the Lord...." (Col. 3:23)

It went round and round and round.... and then it stopped.

The echo that remained was the word EVERYTHING.

I got up from my bed and headed to the bathroom to get ready for my day and a new thought stream began to flow....

Everything as unto the Lord....

As unto the Lord....

Get out of bed as unto the Lord.

Look at my reflection as unto the Lord.

Choose my clothing as unto the Lord.

Take in the beauty of Autumn outside my window as unto the Lord.

Listen to my children roaming through the house as unto the Lord.

and then...

Complain as unto the Lord?

Stress about the future as unto the Lord?

Criticize my husband as unto the Lord?

Procrastinate as unto the Lord?

Focus on constant negativity as unto the Lord?

Harbor unforgiveness as unto the Lord?

Put off what I know I should do NOW as unto the Lord?

WAIT.....

I looked in to the mirror. Really looked hard at my reflection there.

I asked the Lord, "Why? Why is it that I struggle with focus? That I forget daily that everything I do is AS UNTO YOU. An offering to you, my daily gift to you. Why do I struggle with hanging on to these things, avoiding these things, training my eyes to look in one direction when I feel you calling me in another... why?"

And the answer came so quickly I had to hold onto the counter to keep from buckling under the truth of it....

UNBELIEF.

The word flashed on a white canvas in my mind in 50 different fonts and every color I have ever imagined....

...but the last time it landed, right in the middle of the mess, it was bold and red and BIG....

UNBELIEF

I took a sharp breath in, not in shock or surprise, but with familiarity. Like being confronted with an old bully from Jr. High. My gut turned over and I felt that old sense of failure and captivity that comes with that word.

Unbelief.

It has manifested itself in so many ways in my life. So many levels. Subtle. Flagrant. Sophisticated. Grungy. As quiet as a whisper and as loud as a fog horn.

We are not strangers.

I came down the stairs to start the day with a heart tuned to the voice of the One I say I believe in.

And oh I do. I believe...

I felt much like the father in that story in Mark chapter 9....

 “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!”

I believe in the Lord, I believe that He came and died on a cross and rose again on the 3rd day and is preparing a place for all those who believe....

Believe...

Belief...

Unbelief.

There I was again. That word.

So I did what wordy people do... I looked it up.

And here's what jumped at me when I did, 

Unbelief-
In the Greek: apistia: unbelief
Part of Speech: noun, feminine
Definition: unfaithfulness, distrust

Ouch.

Another word that felt more like a void that cold winds blow through...
  
Trust-
Definition: firm belief in the reliability, truth,
ability, or strength of something or someone
Synonyms: confidence, belief, faith, certainty,
assurance, conviction, credence, reliance


 Do we have to go here again? This crevasse that I can't cross. This exercise that only highlights my total inability to complete Even One REP... It's not that I don't want to. I DO. I always have... I, just, well... I don't know how.

Trust is earned. Trust is given. Trust is modeled....

But it's always felt like trust is an enigma. A mystery. The Unicorn grazing peacefully while crystal rainbows form in perfect circles above her pristine white mane.... 

Yes... No...WAIT......

Trust is belief. 

Belief is trust. 

Unbelief is Distrust.

Distrust is Unbelief.

Oh me. 

When will this never ending cycle ever end?

I'm cruising along through life and everything is going just great and then one morning I wake up and I'm challenged. Challenged by the Lord.

This isn't the first morning like this. No. I've had many. But the usual M.O. is to get busy doing things that don't highlight the myriad of reasons why my Trust button doesn't work.

Who wants to sit and think about all that junk? 

But on this particular morning, all those familiar painful memories flew by my mind like cards being shuffled. Slow enough for me to recognize them, but fast enough that the usual feelings attached to them didn't have time to land.

Mercy...

Again.... "I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief."

My unbelief.

My broken trust.

My lack of confidence, certainty, conviction....

Where do I find the key Lord? The key to unlock my unbelief?

...and the answer floated down like a feather from a clear blue sky...

forgiveness...
 Ahhh.... now this is a muscle I'm familiar with.

Sore from use in forgiving myself for so much sin that I once held like a blanket and now hate with the very fibers of my being. 

But the Lord had some specific forgiving in mind... He began to bring to memory situations that I hadn't thought about in decades. 

Horrible, gruesome, true memories of cruelty and evil.

And in those memories certain frames would stop, stark and still, and in THOSE moments the Lord would say "Forgive there. Right then. Forgive and pray. Forgive now."

So I did.

In my minds eye, I looked right into the eyes of both of the people that the Lord brought to mind. In THOSE moments... and I forgave. It was like a paralysis being reversed. 

Tears came. I prayed as I felt led to, and I sensed light shining into places that had long been dark.

"I do believe (trust); help me overcome my unbelief (distrust)."

Jesus is reliable. I know that well. He has never let me down, He never will. He can't... it's not in His nature. 

 I know that He is trustworthy. I have trusted in Him for many things. For my salvation. For my healing. For the lives and eternal lives of my loved ones. For the very breath I breathe.

 Do everything as unto the Lord. 

Everything.... Lord. It's all yours. 

Release my past as unto the Lord.

Walk my remaining days redeemed as unto the Lord...

I went back to the Strongs Exhaustive Bible Concordance Online and looked up forgiveness...

Forgiveness-
Definition: release from bondage or imprisonment,
to pardon, the cancellation of a debt
Part of speech: noun, feminine
Synonyms: pardon, excuse, extend mercy

I went back and forth between the definitions of unbelief and forgiveness.... I couldn't help but notice that both were nouns in the feminine form...

The feminine form...

Which feminine form do I want to be?

I have had the opportunity to witness many believing, trusting, faith-filled women in my life. Many are my friends and loved ones. I am honored to know them and blessed to have the examples to follow...

One such woman is my friend Jenni Sprunger.

She chooses to be a believer. A truster. She chooses to have faith in the face of heartbreaking trial and tragedy...

Face your husband's inoperable brain tumor as unto the Lord.

I see her determination to love her Lord and love her man no matter what, and I see the feminine form I want to be.

Another woman is a sweet sister in Christ that just went home to Jesus last week.

Joyce Hamilton Graham...

She battled vicious bladder cancer and faced it with a smile and love for her friends and family that shined the love of God like sunrise over the Grand Canyon.

The testimonies of her love and joy and faith in the steadfast redemption of Jesus at her memorial yesterday are another example of the feminine form I want to be.

I sat next to her housekeeper of a decade and watched as tears rolled down this young woman's face at the loss of such a gracious and genuine lover of God and His people.

Her housekeeper loved her.

The young moms she mentored loved her.

Her god children, grandchildren, grown children loved her.

Her husband loved her.

Right up until the very end she was loving on people...

Live a life of love even when you're facing your own death as unto the Lord.

I don't have a housekeeper. But if I did, I want to be the feminine form that she would love. 

Because I'm a believer, a truster, a forgiver. 

Because Jesus loves me, helps me, gives me the strength to be the feminine form he made me to be....

Yes. 

I 
     do
             believe. 

Learning to Stay...

Have you ever spent time with a dog that's been in a shelter for a while?

So long that maybe he doesn't know his name anymore, doesn't want to touch his food, doesn't look you in the eye?

I have.

I used to work in a shelter. A no-kill shelter, which meant that we often had animals that were nearing permanent residency.

When I first walked into the shelter I remember recognizing the body posture of an animal who had given up. The slow breathing, head hung low, dry nosed resolve to never leave. To never trust again. The loss of hope.

This doesn't happen to every animal in a shelter situation by far, but when it does it is utterly gut-wrenching.

Dogs by nature are so unconditionally loving, so forgiving, so resilient that when they give up it is only because they have been pushed to their limit.

I could instantly relate to these dogs, and cats, that I worked with. It would take patient persistence to bring them back to the possibility of trusting a human again. I had had my fair share of experiences that lent to not trusting humans and that gave me a radar that some people just don't have. The compassion and commitment that it takes to woo one of these sweet creatures back to the place of trusting taught me volumes about the love of Jesus toward his wounded children.

He really does use everything...

Once you get past the barriers to trust there is a long road to being able to obedience train these animals.

Trust is fragile, yet it is essential to obedience training.

I had a rescued terrier once that I took months to trust train. Everywhere I went he went with me. I actually had his leash looped through my belt loop... he wasn't thrilled to say the least. He had been the dog that would act like he didn't understand English, only to find out months later that he knew tons of commands. He was also the dog that would leave me "presents" that he made his-very-own-self in precise intervals the entire length of my closet floor when I had upset him by telling him no.

But I knew that he was also the dog who had been raised since he was a pup by a service man and his wife only to be dumped when the husband was overseas and the wife decided to leave. He then had been shuffled from family to family in hopes that someone would have time for him and found himself in a laundry room for 12 hours each day with a temporary family who really did have the best intentions but realized they didn't have the time to care for him properly.

That's where I came in.

Boy howdy did that dog know how to ignore with precision.

The first moment I took his leash and spoke to him he didn't even turn his head my way... I spoke his name again and he responded by promptly walking over to the nearest stationary item and marking it with his signature scent.

 Oh me. 

I knew I was in for a challenge, but I also had had the sense that this challenge had my name on it from the first moment I saw the information about this dog. So, I put him in the kennel that came with him and headed back to my house.

I had done trust training in shelter settings in the past, but never to the extent that this dog required and never in my own home. Strapped to my side; he got up when I got up, he laid down when I laid down. He even went in the restroom with me and stood by my side while I cooked dinner or folded laundry.

It was an all day, every day experience that lasted months.

Then one evening as we were all sitting around reading by candle light he did something that shocked me.

He jumped up on the couch and one by one he went to each family member, stood on our laps, and licked one of our cheeks while slowly wagging his tail.

Trust.

It had come.

He finally knew that we were not going to just arbitrarily dump him or lock him away in some room for all his active hours every day. He knew he was safe.

The hardest command I ever taught him was Stay.

Terriers by nature are easily distracted. They love to chase small animals and thirst for the hunt once they catch a scent or sight in on one. Squirrels were not helpful in my endeavors, or birds, or butterflies, or snarky fence-balancing cats.

But he got it.

Lots of treats, and much praise was a big encouragement. That and an extra long leash...

The side-by-side tethering was one tool that worked wonders for this dog that had lost his faith in humanity. Another is the Gentle Leader. It looks a bit like a muzzle but isn't really a muzzle at all. We have a rescued dog currently that was taken from his mother much too young and wasallowed to be  mishandled by very young children. These cicrumstances led him to become very nervous on a near constant basis and to have fearful aggression tendencies on certain rare occasions.

The Gentle Leader reminds him that we are RIGHT THERE. The gentle pressure on his muzzle mimics the pressure from a mother to a pup and lessens his anxiety considerably. It is a wonderful tool of help for him, and an essential one for us to be able to integrate him into situations that would normally be overwhelming to him.

The lessons I have learned from working at the shelter and from owning my own pets are innumerable. They serve as a mirror to show me the Lord's training in my own life.

He is patient.

He doesn't take me anywhere that He Himself isn't willing to go.

He is liberal with treats.

He understands why trust is hard sometimes.

And it is possible to learn to stay...


~ In Honor of Tobias Longbottom, Louie the Meatball, and all the other furry blessings that have graced our lives.