Thought For The Day

"You haven't seen the last part of the best of me."
~ Serena Ryder

I'm riding these words all around my world today, and probably for some time to come.

How about you?

~

Cause Something to Happen

- I did not write the following words, but they I think they are some of the best words I’ve read lately. Maybe you will too.

You come out
of a meeting
and someone asks,
“What happened?”
And you answer,
“Nothing.”
You sit in a
legislative gallery
and someone sits
down beside you
and asks,
“What’s happening?”
And you say,
“Nothing.”

Maybe that
meeting room and
that gallery
should have had
the same sign
hanging on their
walls that –
so the story goes –
a college football
coach pasted in
his teams’ lockers:
“Cause something
to happen.”

He believed that
if you didn’t make
something happen
with a good block,
your runner would go
nowhere – and if
you didn’t tackle,
the other team would
run all over you.

He sure caused something
to happen. Bear Bryant
won more than 300 games.

- I hope you cause something fabulous to happen today.

~

The Survey

On the counsel of someone wiser and more possessed with awareness in these areas than me I recently took a test or survey, if you will, to determine my spiritual gifts. According to Romans 12 we all have them. We all have different ones and we all use the ones we have in different ways.

This survey consisted of 84 questions that I answered on a scale of 1 – 5; 1 being “almost never” and 5 being “almost always.” I have to say I was quite pleased with myself as I began to answer and I was able to answer with lots of 4s and 5s. Then inevitably the 2s and 1s began to creep in.

I won’t tell you the results of the survey – I am still deciphering what it all means and what exactly I am to do with my new found knowledge of myself. But I will tell you that I scored rather high in a couple of areas, err “giftings,” and much lower in other gift areas. (There are lots of spiritual gifts but this survey was geared towards identifying the strengths of Perceiving/Prophecy, Teaching, Encouraging, Showing Mercy, Serving, Giving, Admin./Ruling/Leading).

The thing that surprised me the most is not finding out what my gifts are but instead the freedom in finding out what they are not. I cannot tell you what a joy and a relief it is to know that I do not have a God-given gift for certain things. It so explains why I do not enjoy certain tasks. It explains why certain things are not on my radar. It explains why I get bored so easily when I do particular things.

God taught me about one of my non-gifts early in my working career. I learned a long time ago working in sales was not a talent I possessed. But, Lord love me I kept trying, I waited tables several different times, I worked in wholesale sales and retail sales. I just cannot make people buy something they do not need/want or sell something that I do not believe in or work for a company I know is not giving a fair deal to the customer.

Well, that pretty much rules out sales of all kinds – even waiting tables – as I was always selling the “daily special” or pushing dessert or the wine list. Just thinking about it now is creating all sorts of anxiety in me!

And that’s how we know we are not working in our gift. We get easily frustrated. We become bored with our task. Doing a particular thing causes us to become anxious or fearful. Now, there will be times that we feel these things even though we are working in our gifts and talents – life is what it is and frustration and anxiety come with the territory. But we can be aware enough to know the difference.

When we are in a close relationship with God, we are filled with the Holy Spirit and we become Spirit-aware enough to discern the difference between our area of talent and our area of “God-gave-this-gift-to-somebody-else.” And boy, we and God are happy when that day arrives.

Knowing what God has called us to do is vitally important. He has possessed us with certain abilities, talents and gifts so that we may live our lives to benefit others to His glory. If we do not know what those gifts and talents are we cannot do that to the fullest.

But at the same time it is just as important that we identify what we are not called to do. God does not want us wasting time serving Him in some capacity that does not suit us because that would not bring Him glory. Living our lives in frustration and boredom does no one any good – especially God.

So the next time I am buying shoes at Nordstrom I am giving my salesperson a big ‘ol hug – because I know that person has been called from a mighty high source to be putting that shoe on my foot.

And is there anything more glorious than a new pair of shoes?

~

Standing Up

It has been several weeks since I have written on this site. I have had a great deal on my heart and God and I have been working it out. He tells me that if I’m going to have a site in which I talk about my love for Him and His love for me then I have to tell my whole story; our whole story actually – His and mine together.

This is not easy. Telling my story is risky. It opens me up and exposes me and creates an opportunity for others to judge. I don’t like being vulnerable. But He has asked me to trust Him in this. If I stand up, He will stand beside me. So, I am standing up – for Him, for me and for His beautiful sons and daughters.

My name is Dee and I am gay and God says I am okay.

I have loved God ever since I can remember. My earliest childhood memories are of playing inside the sanctuary and on the grounds at St. John the Divine Episcopal Church. I grew up in that church. I continue to grow in that church. It’s where God first grabbed hold of my heart. God’s had a hold of me for so long I cannot remember a time when He and I were not holding hands.

While I hated getting up at eight A.M. on Sundays (the crack of dawn for a child) to make it to nine o’clock church, I really liked Sunday school, my church friends, my teachers, going on youth retreats and E.Y.C. as a teen. As a high-schooler we put on Godspell each year in the sanctuary for the congregation – what a blast to sing and dance all over God’s house.

I remember in the nave there used to hang the most glorious portrait of Jesus I had ever seen. It was huge, or maybe I was just small. The painting depicted Jesus surrounded by little children, like me at the time. He was smiling and His love was radiant. I just knew He loved me like that too.

I felt so safe in that church. So secure. So loved by God. That feeling has never left me.

I have also been a lesbian ever since I can remember. I have always felt a certain compulsion towards females. A closeness and bonding that is difficult to explain. I never told anyone about it until I was an adult, after college. But my homosexuality was there, always, and I knew it.

I have never been molested. I have never been sexually assaulted or abused. I grew up in a loving family with two devoted parents. My parents recently celebrated 48 years of marriage. My childhood was about as close to Leave it to Beaver as you could get. I had normal relationships with boys growing up. I always had boyfriends and I like guys – I find the male form beautiful and desirable. I don’t have the typical “societal-markers” for being gay – I just am because that is who God created me to be.

At no time in my life have I ever felt that these two constants – God’s love for me and my homosexuality were mutually exclusive. They are not. And society and the Church cannot make them so.

Let’s be clear on one point – being homosexual is not all about sex. It goes far beyond the merely sexual; that fact is something that is paramount for people to understand but many don’t try to or care to. Homosexuality does not begin and end in the bedroom. But it is that 1% of our lives that the world focuses on. What about the other 99%? Why does the world so easily try to throw us away?

Too many of us, my beautiful gay and lesbian brothers and sisters have had terrible and sad experiences with family members and/or with the Church. Some believe we can be loved by God or we can be gay but we cannot be both. (I use “gay” in a unified way from time to time referring to both gay men and lesbian women). Many believe that God does not love us for who we are, as we are. God has asked me to stand up and tell my story so that everyone will know the truth. So that the lies can be broken and the healing can begin.

Here is the truth as it has been taught to me and I have the God-given authority to pass it to you – God loves you just as you are, right where you are, just as gay as you are.

That is a truth many in society do not want us to believe. Make no mistake; there is a battle raging that means to stop us from knowing God and knowing who we are in God. However, our battle lies neither with misguided legislators nor with the far religious-right or others like them for they are but flesh and blood and know not what they do. No, our battle is with the Enemy which uses them and their weaknesses to do his dirty work. The Enemy is cunning and relentless. He knows how to hurt and how to inflict the most damage. His attacks are effective no matter how brave we try to be on our own.

I know the attacks had an effect on me. I took on a healthy, or I should say unhealthy, sense of shame for being a lesbian. Now don’t misunderstand, I didn’t intrinsically feel this shame or feel that there was one thing wrong with me. But I took in the shame that society laid upon my doorstep.

Tell someone they don’t measure up, that they don’t matter, that they are an embarrassment, that God hates them and won’t love them unless they are different from who God made them to be – they will eventually believe those lies. And those lies do so much destruction.

I have news for society, I am not an abomination. I am not the “greatest threat to America.” God does not punish the world because I exist. God does not punish what He created for He would be punishing Himself. God is a part of all creation.

I am not a trained theologian; I’m not a minister, priest or pastor. I don’t need to be. My religious and spiritual training comes from my life experiences. From growing up in the Church, being educated in religious schools, attending bible studies, and spending time in God’s word and in His presence. Which means I’m nobody special, I’m like everybody else; just a girl crazy in love with God who God is crazy in love with in return.

God has never withheld His love from me because I’m gay. God has never withheld His blessings from me because I’m gay. God has never turned His back on me because I’m gay. I cannot say the same things about people.

Because of the sense of shame I carried inside me for who I was, I prayed to God more times than I know to please “heal” me and make me different, make me straight. I prayed for this because I believed it would please my parents and family, it would please society and it would make my life so much easier. (I didn’t make that prayer because it would please me.)

God did answer that prayer and He did heal me but not in the way I expected. And God did make me different. He healed me from the shame I had accepted for being gay. He healed me from the guilt I carried for not measuring up to someone else’s ideal of who I was supposed to be. He healed me from the fear of living my life as He created me to be. He taught me who I am in His eyes. And what a difference that has made.

God has told me in no uncertain terms that He is not ashamed of me and I am not an abomination in His eyes but that I am His beautiful beloved. He told me loud and clear in a way I was sure to understand, “I am proud of you, Dee.”

Those are some of the greatest words a girl could ever hear from her Father. But they are words that so few of my brothers and sisters get to hear. The safe and loving feeling I felt as a child and continue to feel today is the feeling everyone (whether gay or not) should feel when they enter a church or approaching God. But they don’t and God is grieved by that.

Not all, but the majority of our churches are not safe and loving places for homosexuals. (Even right now my Episcopal denomination is in a life and death struggle within itself over how to deal with us.) In most churches we are welcome but only if we try to “change.” They say God wants and demands that we change. This prevents some of us from even entering the door of God’s house. Or others of us stopped seeking God long ago believing the lies that God does not love us because we are gay. These lies are heavy and can make a person question God’s very existence. These things stop so many of us right in our tracks from ever seeking our Heavenly Father.

Society and the Church have it all wrong. The reason they have it wrong is because they cannot know what I (and we) know. A straight person cannot tell me that God hates me because I am gay and that He demands that I change. First, God cannot hate – anything or anyone. Second, they don’t have the authority. I am the one who is gay. I am the one in my relationship with God and God has told me personally that He loves me “with all His heart and all His soul.” He has also told me that I am no surprise to Him, who created me. He has told me that “I know you are gay, and it’s okay.”

And He wants you to know that if you are gay, God says you’re okay, too.

That is not a message the world wants you to hear – but it is one God wants you to hear. Like every human, I am not perfect, far from it. I am a sinner and God leads me through my sins and from them everyday. But I have something no human can ever take from me and that is the never ending love and approval of my Heavenly Father.

God wants every one of His beautiful gay and lesbian sons and daughters to know that love and approval too. So many feel unworthy, so many are thirsty, so many are wandering. That has got to change. God wants that to change. He so desires a deep and abiding relationship with each of us.

When our heads and hearts are filled with lies, when we are kept from knowing and having a relationship with our Heavenly Father we are kept in a world of darkness, of shame, of guilt, of brokenness, of fear. Then we are weak, we will not put up a worthy fight – and the enemy knows that.

Luckily, we will not be denied by the God who loves us. Society can try and bar the doors and crowd the windows but they will not keep us out. Just as the four men carrying their paralytic friend had to go through the roof to get past the crowds to reach Jesus (Mark 2:1-5); so too God’s love will let nothing stand between us and our Heavenly Father and the life He died to give us.

Love will no longer allow me to sit down – my love of God, His for me, my love for my beautiful gay and lesbian brothers and sisters. My story is not a special story. It can be your story. God is waiting to sweep you off your feet and have an eternal love affair with you. You only have to ask Him into your heart – and you can do that right this second, sitting right where you are reading this. No fancy words required.

When you do your life will never be the same. That is one thing the world does have right. When you enter into a relationship with God you will be forever changed, but not in the way they think. You will be cleansed and freed from all the hurt, anger, bitterness, shame, fear and bad things that ever happened to you. You will be restored to the complete person God created you to be and you know you are.

When we are complete in Him and know who we are in Him we are strong. And we are filled with His abiding love – forever. That love is the most formidable force in the universe.

And love does not sit down.

~

Please Stay Tuned

I'll be right back. I am on vacation and will be back with renewed vigor and vim next week.

Blessings to all.

The Greatest Love of All

Today is the day of love. It is the day that we set aside to celebrate our love relationships. The holiday may have started with the greeting card and candy companies (I don’t really know the history of how it started) but the holiday did not create the reason we celebrate – Love. God did.

Whether you are in a relationship or not this day, know that you part of a completely, thoroughly, head-over-heels “I-Love-You-To-The-Bone” relationship. You already have the greatest Valentine a person could ever hope for or dream about. An eternity-long valentine. This One brings riches on His date far better than the best chocolates or prettiest roses. You are His, He is yours and He desires you. (Song of Songs 7:10). Good word - desires.

He rejoices over you with all His heart and all His soul. (Jer. 33:41) That’s a lot of heart and a lot of soul – it’s God size. So as you enjoy the day with your significant other or on your own, my prayer for you is that you also feel the desire, feel the heart and feel the soul loving you of the One who loved you first and the One who will love you last.

Happy Valentine’s Day

~

Whistle While You Work

I hate chores. I did when I was little and I do as an adult. Getting me to make my bed as a kid was like pulling teeth for my Mother. Every morning she would ask me at breakfast if I’d done it and I would always roll my head and neck (a mere eye roll did not convey the enormity of my distain for the task), harrumph, and trudge back upstairs – ever so slowly, and make my bed. It took me, what all of 3 minutes to do it but it was a tortuous 3 minutes.

I also was assigned the duty of feeding my dog, Patches, and the family dog, Fawn. And feed and clean out the cage of my parakeets, Daiquiri and Scooter. The nerve of my parents, expecting me to feed and care for my own pets. What were they trying to do, teach me responsibility or something? Well, I didn’t have to like it. And I didn’t have to do it with a good attitude – there that’ll show ‘em.

After all, who did my parents want me to be, Snow White? Boy, she was a real case. Her stepmother sends her off into the woods with the woodsman who has secret instructions to kill her, and bring back her heart. Nice. He decides to take the high road and let Snow White live, telling her to run away and he’ll fake out the Queen with the heart of an animal (like ‘ol Queeny knows a human heart from a pig’s heart). Snow White, as we know ends up at the home of the seven dwarfs where she is offered free room and board if she does all the cooking, cleaning, sewing and washing.

This is where the Princess and I diverge off each other’s tracks. She just lights right up at that invitation. She acts as if nothing would please her more than to spend her life cleaning up after these seven messy little men. Birds start flitting in, squirrels jump in the window and soon the whole forest is lending a hand in the joyous chore-a-thon.

Does Snow White fail to realize what got her into this predicament? Has she forgotten the whole “kill her and bring me her heart” mandate by her stepmother? And what about her life? Doesn’t she want to get on with her life? Meet somebody and settle down with her own family? She seems so content to stay put and be the mistress of this little chore-filled house.

She doesn’t even recognize her stepmother when she comes to the cottage and gives her the poisoned apple. She is so cheery and welcoming, oblivious to her impending doom. (All that dust has gone to her head.) Finally, evil seemingly prevails and Snow White falls under the spell of the apple’s poison. (Evil is sneaky that way.) The dwarfs think she is dead. Luckily, she isn’t and we know that love revives her (and saves her from a life of chores – my favorite part).

Hard to admit as it is, I think Snow White has it right all along. Whistling while I work is the better way. Harrumphing around while doing boring chores is just what Satan wants. He is trying to steal my joy at every turn. All day he is at my heels following me around seeing where or when he can grasp an opportunity to put me in a bad mood or create strife.

Satan isn’t after my stuff; he’s after my joy. Nothing makes him madder than to see me having a dodge ball kind of day yet still be smiling, laughing and whistling a happy little tune. And nothing would please me more than to displease Satan. (I’m kind of contrary that way.) So excuse me for a second while a take a lesson out of Snow White’s play book and go wash the dishes in my sink - with a song on my heart and a smile on my lips.

Heigh-ho, heigh-ho, it’s off to work I go!


~

What Remains

My mind is a crazy place. Thoughts zig-zag past each other at dizzying speeds. And rarely do they have anything in common. Daydreaming is a favorite hobby. Night dreaming is too but those can get a little scary, and weird. Lately, my thoughts keep returning to things past. Events and days and people gone by.

If you are a regular reader of this blog then you know that I have a penchant for telling stories of my life already lived. Memories keep bubbling to the surface. I’m not exactly sure why – or how – I come up with some of the things I do. But they do and so I am forced to deal with them.

The late author and speaker, Corrie ten Boom, once wrote that memories are events that God is not finished with yet. “Memories are the key not to the past but to the future. I think the experiences of our lives, when we let God use them become perfect preparation for the work He will give us to do.”

Memories, overcoming bad ones in particular, are keys in letting God resurrect and restore us and the dreams and plans for our lives. While we are not to cling to the past, we are told to “remember the days of old” (Deut. 32:7). I think this is because we can learn from our past and the past of others. When we place our past in the hands of our Heavenly Father He opens our eyes to things that we never saw before. Beautiful things that can only be uncovered by His hand and in His timing. (Is. 61:1-4).

Recently, I was taught this lesson most beautifully by a dear friend. I have known Barbara for about 35 years. She is the matriarch of a family that is very close to my family and our families’ lives have intertwined most of my life. I know Barbara to be a beautiful, loving and gracious woman. I love her like a second mother. But I will now sadly admit I did not know as much about her as I could have.

She sent me a very innocuous looking email recently. The body of the email had just five words “Click here: Hope Group Notes”. So I clicked. What I read next transformed me; brought me to tears and gave me amazing insights into a woman I admire and adore (and now I know why) and taught me true-life lessons about God and His boundless love.

Barbara gave testimony about her life and the notes from that testimony were put online by the chapel where she spoke. What she sent me – with no forewarning of any kind that she had even given a sermon – were the notes of that testimony. I am going to give you that same link in a moment but what I want you to know first is that the woman who stood before that congregation and told her story has told this story to very few others. I never knew her story until I read it. It took a world of courage to stand up and give this witness of her past. But as you will see, if you choose to click and see, is that God will redeem us, He will restore our past, wash away the hurt and He will heal the brokenness. We just have to let Him.

Memories can be transformed. They can transform us and they can transform others. What remains is God's abounding love.

Click Here: Hope Group Notes by Barbara Adams

~

Letter to a Friend

Dear Friend,

I saw you recently at our local coffee café. You said it was good to see me after so many months. I said likewise. You asked how I was and inquired as to what I was doing and if anything were new. I reported that I was doing well and that lots in my life had changed since we had last seen each other.

You then asked if my “situation” had improved. And I replied that indeed “it” had not. You said, “Well, if that hadn’t changed then nothing had.” And I disagreed with that assessment and before I could go on – you were “shocked” and asked how I could “sit here looking so good and calm and pretty and relaxed?” “You must be an idiot!” you stated flately.

I sat there for a second and then replied that I was so sorry to disappoint you. You again said there was something wrong with me. That if the situation was reversed and it was you “in my situation” you would be a raving lunatic. You would be bald from having pulled out all your hair, you would be at home curled up in a ball in a corner where no one could find you crying and hiding in shame and dieing from the stress of it all. Why was I not doing the same? Did I not care? Do I not understand my situation for heaven’s sake?

Then, thankfully, your blackberry bleeped and you were called away on some important errand. To spread more of your uplifting joy, no doubt. “But we have to get together again soon!” you said as you strode out of sight. I can’t wait.

In the meantime, I am posting this “open letter” to you because you left before I could respond to your questions.

I am not doing the same as you because I have already done the same as you allegedly would – and it did not work. First off, there is no shame in my situation. Secondly, yes, I care. I care more than you can possibly imagine. That is why I changed my plan of action. And hear me when I say this I understand my situation far better than you as I am the one in the battle, fighting the fight, 24/7/365. You, my self-centered friend gets to peer into my life for snippets at a time and see a snapshot of something you cannot possibly imagine or understand. So, please let’s allow only those who can see the whole picture the right to judge – and baby that ain’t you.

But Friend, you did get one thing right – I am an idiot.

Because only an idiot remains peaceful when the world tells her to be full of strife. Right? Because only an idiot thinks she is strong enough to face her fears and overcome them when the world says otherwise. Right? Because only an idiot maintains courage in the face of worldly enemies much larger, more numerous than she. Right? Because only an idiot thinks she has the endurance to go the distance when the race lasts much longer than she ever thought possible and the world tells her to quit. Right?

Friend, during “my situation” while trying it your way I also tried it another way. I asked my Heavenly Father for several things – one being to end the situation – but until that He answers that one, and He will, I also asked for a few others. I prayed for Peace during this time instead of the anxiety which was consuming me. I prayed for strength to handle the fears and stress which surrounded me at every turn. I prayed for courage to overcome the enemies that battled my insecurities. And I prayed for endurance to get me through to the end and withstand it all.

Those prayers God has answered. Those prayers are what you saw the fruit of when you saw me looking so “idiotic” the other day. But you were too self-centered to see it and understand it. The sad thing is is that you were one of the people who has said she was praying for just those things for me.

But Friend, I don’t blame you for not seeing. We all run so fast it’s easy to miss the blessings and answered prayers right in front of us. In fact, He’s probably answered a few of yours; you just need to sit still long enough for Him to show you.

So, yes, I am an idiot. I will happily be one until the good Lord brings me home.

And I have you to thank for it.

Love,
Your Idiot Friend Dee

~

The 1st Day of Christmas - January 2009

I am happy to report Jesus had a Merry Happy Birthday indeed this month! I had the inaugural gathering of the 12 Days of Christmas Club last Saturday night. It was the first of 12 birthday parties we will be throwing for Him during 2009. And it was a smashing success if I must say so myself – and I must.

In case you are not familiar with what in the world I’m talking about I wrote a post about this back in December – The 12 Days of Christmas. Jesus is getting a year long Christmas/Birthday celebration in 2009. The gifts will be gifts of ourselves in the form of our time, resources, labor – whatever we can come up with – as a way to give back for the blessings we have all received. And there will be cake.

This month in January, my friends and I chose a church’s ministry which assists the homeless. St. John’s Downtown in downtown Houston assists the homeless in several ways. One of the things they do is provide kits of toiletry items for the men and women to have while out living on the streets. Our group gathered items – toothpaste, toothbrushes, deodorant, soap, lotions, razors, socks, etc. – and made as many kits as we could for the ministry. It was awesome how much stuff just a few open hearts could collect and create.

Then we had birthday cake and sang Happy Birthday. (If you think I’m kidding – I’m not. What kind of birthday party would it have been without cake?) Jesus seemed very happy with His gift - I could tell as He spread His joy all over the room. Check out the pictures below and let me know what you think.

And please, there is always a standing invitation for you to join us or to start doing this in your own town. Our tent is very large and includes everyone.

The 2nd Day of Christmas is not set yet, so if you have an idea for February - a group we could help or a charity that needs some sturdy and able bodies - please let me know!

Dee



Jesus gots lots of gifts this January!



And more gifts!



Putting it all together.



Some of the beautiful members of the 12 Days of Christmas Club.



The CAKE!



More Christmas Clubers anxiously awaiting the eating of the cake.



The wonderful people of St. John's Downtown recieving Jesus' birthday gift of the hygiene kits.

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