A Diatribe with God

Tammy: God?

God: Yes, Tammy?

Tammy: I'm sorry.

God: Sorry? For what?

Tammy: I've failed you again.

God: Oh?

Tammy: Yes. I can't help it! I try so hard to stay away from it, but it keeps pulling me back! I don't want to be pulled back in, but it won't let me go!!

God: I see.

Tammy: You've got to be so tired of me.

God: What do you mean?

Tammy: I've asked forgiveness for this so many times! You've got to be tired of me telling You I'm sorry over and over again.

God: I don't know what you're talking about.

Tammy: How can you not?! I'm tired of myself! I keep doing the same thing over and over again. I can't forget it. Every time I fail, it's like just adding one more failure in a long list of failings that is me!

God: Tammy, what does My Word say in 1 John 1:9?

Tammy: Um, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness."

God: That's right. Did you ask forgiveness all those other times you say you've failed?

Tammy: Yes.

God: Then what does My Word say in Isaiah 43:25?

Tammy: "I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more."

God: Exactly.

Tammy: Exactly what?

God: I have no idea what you're talking about when you speak of your past failures.

Tammy: Oh.

God: Now, you were asking forgiveness for something?

Tammy: Yes. Please forgive me for my failure today. I am so sorry.

God: Done.

Tammy: I'm forgiven?

God: Forgiven? For what?

Tammy: (after a pause) Thank you.

*Yes, I know this may not be theologically sound, but it comforts my heart when I fail time and time again. I pray it will do so for all who read it*

Two Works In Progress

Two songs with which I'm kinda fiddling. Any thoughts?

Untitled

I had my hope, I had my dreams
But life isn't always what it seems
Sometimes I wonder what it's all about

The things I get, not always what I want
Things don't always go the way I thought
But I know there has to be a reason

Chorus
No acorn falls to the earth in vain
From it the mighty oak grows
And oh, the waters of the world are replinished
As hard the darkest storm blows
From pain comes life, a baby's first cry

-------------------------------------------------

No Better Place

Bowing low against the howling wind
The storms of life, they blow
Heavy the load I bear
No peace to be found here

Desperately I searched in vain
For a shelter from the storm
Crying to be free
That's where You found me

Chorus
No better place
There is no better place
Then in the arms of my loving Savior
All my worries, all my fears
In His presence they disppear
And from them He returns
My strength, peace, and joy
With all my days, in all my ways
Always will I say
There is no better place

The sun it slices through the clouds
The storm now a distant memory
Walking tall I move on
My burden now gone

The path ahead it beckons to my feet
To run and dance upon its turf
At the end I see You
All I know to be true

Chorus

Bridge

The storms I know they will return
Bearing upon me to weigh me down
But I know what I need
And they shall not succeed

And I call You
And I run to You
Into Your arms for I know

Chorus

With all my days, in all my ways
Always I will say
There is no better place

I've been reading through Hosea lately. I had read a few chapters, then was going to stop. But I kept reading. It's funny how Scriptures can just jump out at you sometime. This one hurt my heart.

"'Though Ephraim built many alters for sin offerings, they have become alters for sinning." Hosea 8:11 NIV

Painfully, my mind jumped from this verse to the modern day church. What started out so great, so honest, so worshipful of God, is now these buildings that we go to to make ourselves feel better, to make us feel like we're doing such a good job in the Lord just by putting a few bucks in a plate and smiling at a few people. Maybe even shaking the hand of someone new, if we really want to step out of the box a little! As our churches were, at the beginning, the modern (in relation to the Old Testament) alters for the sin offerings of confession and forgiveness, they have become a place of sinning. Maybe not blatant sin, although that certainly is present in some. No, I think the worse sin of Christianity today is complacency. Being happy with the way our lives are now and wanting nothing more to challenge our comfort! Go ahead and show me a picture of a starving child in Africa! I'll throw a dollar in the bucket for a collection for this child, but I really need the ten dollars to go to Cracker Barrel after church today, because I don't feel like cooking! Wow, look at that revival in China! I wish something like that will happen here! Oh, Lord, send us revival!! Oh, but I'm too tired to go to this ministry tonight. Maybe next time. Next time. Next time.

Next time. The axiom of a complacent church.

Oh, Lord, forgive us for the death, destruction, and ignorance in the world for the sake of our comfort!


Father, Blessed Father - Newsboys

Will You take what we have
A sacrifice unto You
Then create clean hearts
And, Lord, make our spirits new

Father, blessed Father
Lead and guide us for Your name’s sake
And keep us in the shelter of Your presence
‘Til we see Your face

Let us hear what You say
Let us know Your voice and all of Your ways
Take our hands, lead us home
To the refuge that we find in You alone

All adoration
To our Lord Redeemer
To our Shepherd
Who carries us forevermore

Breathe on me
Breathe, oh, Breath of God
(Breathe, oh, Breath of Life)
Breathe on me
‘Til my heart is new
Oh Lord, oh Lord
‘Til my heart is new

Here We Are, Lord! Send Us Today!

"Whom shall I send? And who will go for Us?"
Cries the Lord of Heaven and Earth
Echoing over the world as a crashing wave
Awaiting an answer from a trembling turf

A turf full of His children whom, in their youth,
Begged to be sent out in might
Hear now the call in their comfortable lives, and
Run off to hide their wills in fright

Why ask to be sent if you wish not to go?
As if ministry is just a whim or vice
Do you forget that your lives are not really your own
But subject to Him who paid the ultimate price?

Dear friends, do not think I write this as if it only
Applies to you and never to me
Because I am just as guilty as any who trod this dirt
Of forgetting who I was created to be

But right now I stand and I renounce my claim
Laying aside my will for all to see
So that, unhindered, I can rent the veil of Satan's night
With my cry, "Here I am, Lord! Send me!"

My friends, will you join me in this call of the Lord's
No longer content to sit idle in life
Fully knowing the way is not as easy as what you're leaving
But eternally worth the joy and the strife?

May it be that as the Lord cries His call for service
Echoing over this world as a crashing wave
He will not wait long for the trembling turf to answer
"Here we are, Lord! Send us today!"

-Tammy Craig <>< 8/15/09

Hands Holier Than Lips?

So I was listening to my Christian radio station down here yesterday, when an ad for a business impact partner came on the radio. The tagline for this business partner said that they believe the following:

"Hands that serve are holier than lips that pray."

For some reason, that caught me the wrong way. Putting some thought into it hasn't really led to anything conclusive on my part. Any thoughts? Why would this be true? Why would it be false? Is one better than the other? Or does it all come down to just motive?

Hmmm...Heart Attack, You Say?

First off, wow! I managed to post every night this week! I'm so impressed with myself, lol. I hope I'm starting a habit here.

Now, Saturdays are supposed to be health updates. I decided 2009 would be my year to get healthy. Finally lose the weight and get to wear baby tees ten years after they've gone out of style. Judging from the past month, maybe I should have started this health thing earlier...

The past month my blood pressure has skyrocketed. Most people would blame it on the fact that I teach sixth grade. Well, this is one thing for which my little "angels" have no responsibility. The past week, I've had random pains in my chest, neck, jaw, and shoulders, as well as having a hard time breathing and extremely high blood pressure. Several nights this week I've gone to bed with the fear that I wasn't waking up in the morning, because I felt so bad. Tuesday night/Wednesday was the worst. I felt awful that day. It was so bad, I stopped by the fire station on the way home, because my best friend was on duty. He's a paramedic, and I let him hook me up to the EKG machine in the ambulance. Yeah, if you know me, you know it had to have been bad for me to allow him to do that. The fear on his face when I was explaining everything made me worry all the more. If he was concerned, that scared me more. That night almost took me to the hospital. I ended up, thankfully, getting ahold of a doctor friend in Maine. He was able to get me set back up on my meds, which I was lacking down here, not having insurance to have a doctor. This is why I never went to the emergency room, although I should have.

FYI: Did you know that a lot of women have different symptoms of heart attack than men? A lot of times, we women don't have the chest grabbing, I can't breath, I can't feel my left arm symptoms. Some symptoms of the "silent heart attack": shortness of breath (check), nausea (check), vomiting, pain in jaw, chest, shoulder, arm, back (check to all except back), unusual fatigue (check), indigestion, gas pains (check), heartburn, anxiety (check), sweating, lightheadedness (check), and, believe it or not, an impending sense of doom (um, not waking up in the morning? check). Those, of course, are not all of them, but a lot. As you can tell, I had a lot of the symptoms. In fact, my doctor friend told me, from what I had described, that it was very likely I had had a very small heart attack earlier this week. Scary much?

Of course, my first thought was, wait a minute. I'm 28 years old! I can't be having a heart attack! But it can happen. My family is riddled with heart disease. It killed my grandfathers (both Dad and Mom's fathers)...it killed my aunt (Mom's sister)...my mom has heart issues...my dad has heart issues. Between family genetics and the way I've cared for myself over the years, it was only a matter of time.

So that's my story. As I sit here typing this, I'm still feeling little pains here and there, and sometimes it's a little hard to get a full breath. But after being on my meds again for the past four days, I'm feeling a bit better. We've also decided to bump me up another pill to hit the blood pressure more aggressively. All in all, I would really appreciate your prayers. For someone my age with no health insurance to be dealing with this, I am still a bit scared about how this is all going to pan out.

There is a good part of this week, though. I've lost 8 pounds this week! Yay!! ;) Love y'all!

"They're Just Trying to Impress You"

The title is what one of my sixth graders said about the fourth/fifth grade class this week. I teach 4th-6th Bible (35 kids...same time...yikes!). Yesterday I gave them an essay assignment. We just got done with the first series of Moses, from his birth to the crossing of the Red Sea. The students had two days to write me an biographical essay on the life of Moses that we had studied so far. I knew a lot of my kids, even though I told them they had to write me three paragraphs, would think they were trying too hard to give me a whole page. The fourth/fifth grade class, however, by the end of the first day, had me pages, and they only had to write two paragraphs! One fifth grade girl handed in three pages! I told my class that the other class was showing them up, and that's when the above statement was said and agreed upon by the rest of my class. I looked at them and told them it's nice to have people try to impress you every once in a while! Then the same student said, "Well, they're scared of you, too!" Technically, this is true. I think most of the elementary school is scared of me. *sigh* I wish my sixth graders still were. But if feels nice to have students who actually still want to impress you. The question of whether or not I'm impressed still remains to be determined. They can write me pages, but it doesn't mean it makes sense on paper. It kind of makes me feel good, though, just knowing the kids want to work hard for my approval. Just their effort wins that. Guess I'm doing something right. Otherwise, they wouldn't care, right?

TBA

It's late, and I'm tired. I'm working on a post, but I can't finish it right now. Why do I feel like I need to post this? Because I've been doing really well this week posting every night, and I would feel awful if had one night that I was working on a post and never posted it, causing me to miss a night. Okay, now I know I'm tired. I'm rambling. Sure sign I need to go to bed...

The Dash

I felt this poem fit well with the theme of our Live Like You Were Dying sermon series at church. Birth dates don't change. Death is certain. We don't know when that day of death is going to come. All we have is this present. This dash...

THE DASH
by Linda Ellis


I read of a man who stood to speak
At the funeral of a friend.
He referred to the dates on her tombstone
From the beginning to the end.

He noted that first came the date of her birth
And spoke of the following date with tears,
But he said what mattered most of all
Was the dash between those years.

For that dash represents all the time
That she spent alive on earth
And now only those who loved her
Know what that little line is worth.

For it matters not, how much we own,
The cars, the house, the cash,
What matters is how we live and love
And how we spend our dash.

So think about this long and hard;
Are there things you’d like to change?
For you never know how much time is left
That can still be rearranged.

If we could just slow down enough
To consider what’s true and real
And always try to understand
The way other people feel.

And be less quick to anger
And show appreciation more
And love the people in our lives
Like we’ve never loved before.

If we treat each other with respect
And more often wear a smile,
Remembering that this special dash
Might only last a little while.

So when your eulogy is being read
With your life’s actions to rehash
Would you be proud of the things they say
About how you spent your dash?

© 1996 Linda Ellis

I Have to Admit...

...I have grown to totally enjoy American Idol. There, I've said it. Mock me if you will.

Make Ya Smile

ICANHASCHEEZBURGER

This is so true of John and I! Whenever we get the chance, we torture poor Blue, his cat, with a laser pointer. It's just too funny to hold back!


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Gotta find out where this garage is so I can AVOID IT!!


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Live Like You Were Dying

"Teach us how short our lives really are, so that we may be wise." Psalm 90:12

This weekend my church started a four week intensive series on the concept of finding out you only have thirty days to live. Most of us have heard and been touched by the song "Live Like You Were Dying" by Tim McGraw. If today's sermon is any indication, it's going to be an incredible experience.

How many of you have ever put much thought into the scenario? Going to the hospital only to be told you have thirty days to do everything you wanted to do in this life. How would you handle it? What would you change? How would you prioritize, or reprioritize, your life? What are some things you would want to do?

I've been considering this, and the conclusion I've reached so far is, I don't know. I'm not sure what I would change in my life. The only thing I would really desire is to see my family and friends more and really impress on them my love for Christ, and how desperately I want to see them on the other side. At this time right now, I know my sister, brother, and father are not living for Christ. To consider spending eternity without them is heartwrenching. My words don't seem to have any affect on them. Maybe my death would, I don't know. That's the only major change I think I would make. Does that mean I'm living my life okay right now? I doubt it, but until I figure it out, I'll leave it at that.

What would I like to do? I think there are only a couple of things I would be desperate to do if I only had thirty days. The first would be to hike at least a little of the Appalachian Trail. I still have a intense desire to do that. The other thing would be to be able to spend one more day with one of my closest friends, Ryan. I would love to get all of us back together again and have a huge game of Smashy and Bond and hang out like we used to. Then I would love to gather all of my friends from college and have a huge reunion and just hang out and party. Long live the Living Parables, lol! Those would be my wishes.

So what about you? It's not exactly something we would want to think about, but we have to. Living with eternity in mind is what we're meant to do. I try to impress on my students what a blip this life is when compared with eternity. How are you living this blip now? And what would change if you only had thirty days? Remember, we're not guarunteed tomorrow. All we have is now. What will you do with now?

One of My Latest Obsessions

I have become obsessed with a few websites lately. The main one is icanhascheezburger. Whether you like cats or not, these things are funny! From there, if you go to failblog, you start to feel a lot better about yourself! This is one of my favorites so far:

ICANHASCHEEZBURGER


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