how is your soul today?

How is your soul today? I heard that question from a pastor yesterday. Great question. The pastor was teaching the book of James. I had forgotten how much I love the book of James. My husband and I are searching for a new church home. We have been on this new journey for awhile now. We were just doing what we thought was what GOD wanted from us, and not really seeing. The bigger picture has finally been seen.


Reading or hearing scripture over time can become numbing. We hear it, we know it, but we don’t live it. 2010 was a whole year of not living it, but I was trying desperately to get it back. My whole journey had become just about the acts, and not feeling it in my heart. I listened finally, and stopped for a while. I was missing what HE really wanted, and I wasn’t giving fully to HIM.

Yesterday afternoon I was watching a sci-fi movie about individuals that had been created just for the means of harvesting their organs for research. A group of individualsraised them from the time of infancy; teaching them, nurturing them, and preparing them for their destiny. At the end of the movie two of the characters realized that they could love deeply, but they weren’t allowed to live their lives together. They were told years before that through their art they could get a deferment so they could have a few more years. The truth was that some of the adults in the program were trying to prove that these individuals had souls, so they could put an end to the program.


You would think that I would be for advanced research of MS, but I’m not. I cannot condone medical research that would hurt another life. I am going on almost a year now without having an MS attack. Since I was diagnosed this has not happened. I could say that it was the new MS drug they added, but I am in more pain now than a year ago. I have actually had to take more meds because of the long term damage of the treatments over the years. I finally just in the last month learned how to say no, step back, and say “that just does not feel right.”


By stepping back I awoke from some sort of dream that I had been in. I am grateful for the individuals that helped begin the journey, but in the end I looked around and they all had moved on to search for a deeper relationship with GOD. They are still apart of my life and they are living out HIS word. I asked myself the question; what I am holding on to when I know something is just not right? My gut was telling me to see what was happening right in front of my eyes.

About five months ago I started drinking more after years of not really doing that. It was starting to become my escape. Five o’clock would roll around and I would have a few drinks. My hands and feet burn all the time from my MS. Some days it is unbearable. With the burning my pain intensifies and feel likes torture. I justified the drinking because of that. I felt overwhelmed with my children, so that calmed me down. I knew that it was wrong. I knew that I was going down a path that would hurt me and then ultimately my family. So I stopped. I did it again a couple of weeks ago and the next day I felt physically sick, but the guilt of it was worse. I just have to learn self-control, or just not do it at all.


From October of 2010 this is what has happened that made me pull back. My grandmother died, my uncle died, my dad had to have heart surgery because his stints had stopped working, and we had a huge disagreement with my husband’s family. All of this occurred within six weeks. Pre-ceding these events we had attended a love and respect conference about marriage. Man what a wake up call in the next 10 months. After January more started to happen, and this time God was showing me something that I had been ignoring with our church for a very long time.

If it can't be backed up by scripture it shouldn’t be there. If another Christian from your church is telling you that the church won’t help another, because they are not a member of the church it is wrong. If a pastor is telling you that you can’t discuss a nation that is in great turmoil with other members it is wrong. If your church is asking you for more money, but isn’t willing to cut the un-necessary spending it is wrong. If they fire someone, because of church politics and they are not willing to resolve a “Christian conflict,” but choose to ignore it, it is wrong. I am pretty bitter about this right now, pretty raw in my emotion, but I will move forward from it. I just need a little time to heal.

What is worse is that I allowed it to happen, and just went with the flow. I haven’t been doing that lately. I have been pushing the envelope by questioning things more out there, because I can’t ignore it. I can’t ignore someone’s suffering. I can’t ignore a nation that is hurting. I can’t blame someone else for what is going on when I chose to ignore it myself. The mirage of abundance and prosperity has fallen. We are finding out now that people really didn’t have it all. We are finding out that people are broken. We are finding out now is not the time where we can ignore things any longer.

GOD does not owe you anything. You owe HIM for your life and everything you have life. HE bought you with HIS SON's blood. If you've chosen to ignore HIS words and live another life that is not pleasing to HIM that is your issue. I screw up all the time. I will choose the wrong thing because it is easier, and it doesn't work. I make horrible decisions, and I think that it will work out it end. It usually just gets worse over time. I am taking steps back now and really thinking about something before I do it. I am listening to HIM and choosing to do some of the hard things, because I know is the right thing to do.

19 Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; 20 for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. 21 Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls. 22 But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. 23 For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. 24 For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. 25 But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing. 26 If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person's religion is worthless.” James 1:19-21