Them bones

So like many plans cancelled, I wasn’t able to go to the Women physician in Christ (WPC) conference in person this year. It would’ve been my first time, held in Newport Beach.   I was so looking forward to this weekend away by myself,  in a nice hotel, visiting friends I haven’t seen in awhile, just me. And just what I needed to be refreshed in a time when I was starting to feel burnt out.  Instead, this conference was held virtually.   Although, I didn’t get to see this in real time on the weekend it was supposed to be held as there was some mix up with my email so I didn’t get the link in time but, I was still able to listen to the recorded talks in the days that followed.   So for the past month and a half, I’ve been listening to these treasure of talks and my, how God has used them to really speak his message to my heart. 

It’s Halloween time and gosh darn it if I’m gonna let Covid ruin my pumpkin season fun.  

Unfortunately, the pumpkin patch has been cancelled but I have been getting some fun in. So far, I’ve baked pumpkin pasties (from my son’s Harry Potter cook book), pumpkin cheese cake bread, pumpkin pie, pumpkin dip, and next I’ll be tackling my grandma’s pumpkin cookies.  Halloween is on a Saturday so I planned some fun activities to do with my youngest Micah who’s still at the age to appreciate these things.  Yes, Halloween time has always been ‘my thing’, especially because my birthday is in middle of October so  I love all things fall and pumpkin and spooky and stuff—And don’t worry I’m not into the occult or anything like that.   I wrote a whole other blog about how I reconcile my Christianity and can still celebrate Halloween,  reference back to November 19, 2016 if your inquiring mind would like to know. Or call it just me making excuses. Or maybe I’m just doing the same thing that the early christians did a long time ago to the pagan holiday and ‘Christianizing’ it.  Or call it my little quirk. Whatever it is, I believe God uses are ‘things’, or  quirks to draw us closer to Him.  

He knows us so well , there’s nothing we can’t hide from him and we matter so to Him that He will continue to pursue us through it all. 

So I really wanted to draw something spooky in my bible journaling  for this month’s blog, like skeletons or bones.   So God used that to lead me. Little did I know what God had in store for me like one of those haunted house mazes, not knowing what scary revelations lurk around the corner, except this maze was haunted by the Holy Ghost.

So I started to do a scripture search with  the key word, bones. 

At first I came across Ezekial 37, the valley of the dry bones. If you read this great story, you know it carries great imagery that would compete with  any modern day zombie apocalypse movie.  And also, of course with an awesome message.  Further more, as I was listening to one of those Women of physician in Christ conferences , there was a talk on this very passage , entitled ‘You matter’. How perfect. So this must be the passage I was to study, reflect , journal , draw my spooky skeleton pics in my bible for and later blog about, right?   Nope, God had other plans.  God revealed to me something much scarier because it was a truth about me. 

Then I came across this next verse in my topical search for bones. 

‘What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees.  Hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs-beautiful on the outside but filled on the inside with dead people’s bones and all sorts of impurity’.    Matthew 23:27

 

I like to imagine the last part of the sentence in the voice of Vincent Price. 

But anyway, what exactly is Jesus getting worked up about here? In this chapter of Matthew, Jesus is criticizing the religious leaders and telling his disciples not to follow their example as they don’t practice what they teach.  These criticisms are also known as 7 woes and some may say parallel the 8 beatitudes.   If the 8 beatitudes are supposed to teach us how to live, then these 7 woes, teach us what NOT to do.  

This verse carries an image of being beautiful on the outside, but rotten and decomposed on the inside. Our Lord knows our hearts and the heart of every man and woman. God will judge us by our hearts. It causes me to ask what is my motivation for doing things? Am I doing things just for show? What are my true motives? Or am I doing things for godly reasons? 

The Pharisees didn’t like being told they weren’t holy so they proved their holiness by murdering Jesus.   Too often when I read these verses, I confess that I first  think  to myself, ‘I would never do that’ but often I am doing exactly that, but don’t recognize it because situations and circumstances might have changed slightly.  

How many times have I, myself put someone else down or dismissed someone already in my own mind because they weren’t like me?  How many times have I judged others, only to make myself feel better? 

I struggle sometimes with what I see on t.v and the world today.  We are in election year and everyone has different points of view.   Even within the church, we are divided on different topics.   It makes me wonder and cry out to God, ‘why can’t we all just get along? ‘Why does everyone’s hearts have to be so hard? Why can’t everyone think like me? ‘ Life would be so much easier.  But God made us different, with all different points of view.  I guess that is the beauty and the challenge of it.  

There were three talks from this WPC virtual conference, in particular that opened the door to my white washed tomb  and exposed the rotten parts inside of me.   Am I really so right in my thinking? Who am I to judge? How can I love my enemies or those that don’t think like me? Live like me?  I’m going to attempt to summarize the take home points of these talks but I know I really am not doing them justice in really  listening  to the whole talk, but just thought I’d share. 

 ‘Becoming more  like Jesus in Covidian times’.  

Here, the speaker Dr. Joy Walton reminds us as how we missed the mark.  She shares the story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman (John 4: 1-26)  We missed the mark by not seeing ‘others’ through the eyes of Jesus. When Jesus met with the Samaritan woman he saw his bride, precious in his sight.  She explains how sometimes we make the recipients of God’s love in our own image.  We think God must love others the way we love, like the people we like, supports our same causes, agree with us, read the books I do, etc.  We find ways to ridicule others who don’t agree with us.  Its them that are blind, bigoted or unteachable.  'If you’re pro Trump you can’t be a Christian, if you’re anti Trump, you can’t be a Christian’  And this is exactly what I was doing by my own lies and judgmental thinking.  Then Dr. Walton reminds us about having the spiritual eyes of Jesus to see through the noise and see the thirst of the human soul.  Then we can see these people, I can see these people who I don’t agree with as the apple of Christ’s eye, not in the image of my own vilified entitlement but in the image God made them to be.  If I did this, perhaps I would have more compassion and less contempt. Another way we’ve missed the mark  as a church is thinking our job as Christians is to defend the truth to determine who’s right and wrong.  This creates false dichotomies that lead to an ‘us versus them’ mentality. We need to place our identity deeply rooted in who Jesus was. Then we can live in an ‘us AND them’ or us For them mentality.  God is for us and loves us and he wants us to be FOR them. 

Always be humble and gentle. Be patient with each other, making allowance for each other’s faults because of your love.   -Ephesians 4:2

 

‘The Rainbow Connection: Homosexuality and the church’ 

By Autumn Dawn Galbreath, M.D.  

In this talk, Dr. Galbreath talks about bridging the gap between homosexuals, LBGTQ group and the church.  This is a topic I struggle with sometimes, and I have to say, we don’t talk a lot about in the church.  I hope this is getting better though as I’ve seen this topic come up in some of the youth conferences around here.  The speaker goes over terminology and just a little bit on theology but I’ll just mention the important points that I got out of it.  One was that we definitely need to be more supportive of those already in the church, already in the Christian family who are homosexual.  We need to be careful of how we use our language that creates an ‘us versus them’ mentality. (There’s that phrase again).   I think this also goes back to what Dr Walton said in the previous talk, by defending the truth, we totally missed the mark.  We also need to be more gracious to those that are not yet Christian as we too are sinful. The bible doesn’t tells us  to hold non Christians accountable to their sin , but to reach out to them and share the love of Christ to them and show them what its like to be in community.  That is what leads them to Christ.  We can start listening to gay people as individuals.  ‘We can’t love them if we don’t understand their experience’. Cultivate a safe environment where people with same sex attraction can be comfortable talking about it.  Make churches safe communities.  Everything must be done in love.  These are just some ways we can bridge the gap. 

‘Jesus curious view of justice’. 

A talk by Michael Mclaughlin, the director of CMDA (Christian Medical dental Association) and Darilyn Falck, M.D. on the justice issues of our time and how would Jesus approach them.  This talk reminded me of how Jesus reached out to the outcasts and those that don’t have a voice. I am just going to ask God to soften my heart and give me a heart that He has on these issues and continue to pray for Him to reveal to me how I use what he gave me to honor Him and act justly.  We may not be able to change systems and institutions, but maybe and certainly  as a doctor, I can help the person in front of me and live a life of justice.   This totally reminds me of that Mother Teresa quote and one of my all time favorite quotes.  I only ask someone to cross stitch this so I can hang it in my office some day or better yet, maybe I’ll hand letter it. Anyway, Mother Teresa says, ‘Never worry about numbers. Help one person at a time and always start with the person nearest you’.  I think that is a great start in working for justice and peace. 

So one good thing about covid is that it enabled me to listen to these talks without traveling and really opened my world to the Women physicians in Christ conference.   I can not believe I waited this long to attend and definitely plan to attend next year’s conference in person God willing. 

So this is what I discovered in my tomb of bones. In that thinking, I was not much unlike the Pharisees and God opened my heart to these truths. 

Funny thing about them bones.  Although, they are a symbol of what’s left after our rotting flesh decompose, when we are alive, they are actually a functional very important living organ.  They not only support and move our bodies, but at its innermost core this organ produces blood cells, stores nutrients and minerals that are important for the rest of the body.  We can not really appreciate this organ without recognizing this. 

Just like we can not change until we allow God to help us look at our innermost core and identify the things that we too are doing and they are wrong.  Jesus exposed the Pharisees, and he also exposed the truth to me about myself.  

What awful, rotten  parts have you been ignoring?  What white washed tombs have you been using to hide them?  When I was in my addiction, I was using alcohol to hide the underlying character defects and pain I had. But slowly through recovery, I get to work on those rotten parts.  Once we identify these things, we can recognize our need for Jesus.  

I’ve been blessed to lead a group of beautiful ladies in the life’s healing choices group that uses the beatitudes to overcome our past hurts, habits or hang ups.  The first step in change comes from the first beatitude, ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 5:3)  This means realizing our need for Jesus. 

And even though as we are sinful beings, we carry these ugly parts of our self, we can turn to repentance because of what Jesus did for us on the cross.  We can then confess our sins (John 1:9), and ask for God’s grace to change us  and be restored (Jeremiah 15:19).

Praise the Father for opening my eyes and exposing the filth inside so I can repent and truly be restored. Grateful to celebrate my 45th birthday this month.  And grateful to be a believer who is sober. 

Thank you for letting me share. 

Hopeful girl, Janette, sober for 5 years 3 months and 20 days, hopeful for another day more.