Tough Woman's Creed -- the lie and the truth

This is what tough women say:

TRUST no one, especially not men.  If it needs to be done, I can do it myself or find someone to do it for me.  If I have to steal it, sleep for it, or find some other way to do it --I'll do it.  I'll do anything but depend on someone else to do it for me.  I will protect my children like a mother tiger.  No one will harm them or do to them what was done to me.  I love God because He is my ally in the battle.  He's got my back, and  He won't let me down.

(This is what tough women really feel):

I have been hurt and broken so much I don't dare open up my real feelings to another person, but only God knows how much I want to be loved.  I want my daddy back.  I want real love, but all that's offered is a cheap substitute.  Still, I will take it.  I'll do anything for love -- I would steal for it, sleep for it, give up my own self-respect for it.  I would sacrifice my children for it.  I would do whatever it takes to fill this emptiness.

I believe in fantasies.  I believe lies.  But I can't accept the Truth that saves me.

Blaming God: "Who Took My Baby?"

As we go through the questions of the Bible study on "Spiritual Warfare", she rustles the pages with impatience, unable to find verses as quickly as the others, her face darkens.
"I don't know nothing about the Bible," She says finally, glaring at me, expecting who knows what kind of response. "I haven't been sober in eight years.  I'm tired of coming to jail.  I'm tired of this kind of life."

"That's why you're HERE," another one tells her.  "We invited you to bible study because you're tired of that life..."

"Well what's God going to do about it," she wants to know.  "I don't even trust God...he's the one who took my baby.  He's the one who took my father..."

"Why would God take your baby?" I ask  "Do you think God is evil?"

"Well,no...well, yes a little."

"Because to take your baby, something you love,  from you --- someone intentionally trying to hurt you...that someone would be evil, right?"

"Right."

"So you'd have to think  God is evil to take your baby.  You'd have to think that God is someone who doesn't want the best for you, who wants to hurt you."

"Right."  but she is not so certain now, now that her fears are out in the open. 

"But honestly, I don't see it that way.  All I see when I look at God is pure love."

"So who took my baby?"

It's the question we all ask.  Who took my baby -- my happy marriage -- my lucrative job -- my health -- my bank account?  Who took the only thing I had that made me feel important or secure?

What's the deeper question?  Why am I suffering? Why is this world so painful? Why can't I have what I want?    Is it because of our fallen world, sin-sick and wounded?  Is it because God wants us to learn reliance on Him?  Is it Satan and his minions messing with us, tempting us to sin even more?

I have friends who argue that God does what He wants.  Yes, God took your baby because He had a greater purpose in all of the events of your life.  Look, it brought you here, didn't it?   I have friends who say that Satan is the father of sin, sickness, and death -- this is his dominion and he's calling the shots. I have friends who believe that God stands outside the box once the start button has been pushed on our lives:  every occurrence is a consequence of our behavior from the beginning.  We do it to ourselves. 

Every answer reflects a different view based on their own learning and experience.  I imagine that some would answer:  There is no God.  Stuff just happens.

I can say only this:  There is a God. Of this I have no doubt.  Babies die.  People die.  Nothing is permanent.  The woundedness inside this Tough Woman goes so far beyond the death of her baby that I can't even begin to count her sorrows.  She is at the starting point with God.  I can't wait to see where He takes her. This is the joy of my life -- to introduce wounded people to the Healer.

"God, this is Lisa.  Lisa, this is God."

"Oh yes," He says, "We've already met..."

Giving them a place to Heal

My heart's desire comes from a place of solitude and offering a safe, receptive, affirming place for women who are broken and need healing.  The literal place I have to offer is a concrete room, twenty by ten in size, where six adults feels like too many.  In this room, there is safety.  There is music, a tissue box, and an ear to hear.  There is community, prayer, affirmation, and forgiveness.  Broken, tough women have a place to tell their stories in confidence.  They comfort, teach, and heal each other.  They live with each other day and night.  Yesterday, one of them asked me to get someone in to lead groups for drug addiction.  They want a 12-step group.  I said, “You do it.”  Then one of them said, “Yeah, I’ve been in lots of those groups.  I know how to lead that.”  Wow. Right then, she was affirmed and believing that she could do something better with her life than kite checks.  I have seen several of these women grow in their confidence as believers, as doers, as givers of their gifts.  Watching God heal women through me is the most precious experience I have had in my life.  It is giving birth, which I was never able to do.  It is celebrating every person who gave me a hand and a word and a prayer along the way.  

To Label Me...

Soren Kierkegaard said, "To label me is to negate me".  As we define someone, we disregard the fullness of that person's potential to be so many other things.

I think it goes beyond even that -- "to label me is to potentially block me from receiving the richness of God's goodness!"  If you call me "learning disabled" or "diabetic" or "homeless" or "Baptist", and if I buy into that label as who I am -- a name tag that I must identify with -- then I am less able to believe I am also "brilliant", "healthy", "connected", or "in love with Jesus"

I am not saying that to be diabetic, for example, is an illusion.  True, the lab reports show that your body is not functioning as it should and something needs to be done about it before more harm is done to your body.  But that is not who you are.

To say you are "an addict" has a deep, alienating impact on your soul.  True, at this moment you may be struggling with your dependency on a substance or a person or a position.  Something needs to be done about it.  You need a place to go where you are loved and cared for -- where people connect with you on a deep, meaningful level.  You also need to give up your dependency, but to do it in a vacuum, without the belief that anything of value will take its place leaves you with a hole inside of you that can't be filled.  If you believe you are "an addict", then you are "an addict".  When will it ever end unless you say, "I am not an addict any longer." ?

The more you buy into your label, the harder it will be to achieve the very connection you require for your healing. 

Last night I watched a transformation take place at my Table Church, where I go every Friday night  to meet God and a bunch of people with all kinds of minimizing labels, according to the world. 

I watched a man who could be labeled "recently released inmate" or "homeless person"    restored to his dignity as a child of the King of Glory.  I watched him become filled with the knowledge that he is a family member, that God has a plan for him, that he is worthy of being called "son".

You should have seen his face light up.  You should have seen the shoulder slump rise.  You should have seen him pray over another brother who needed help and comfort.

"Son" "Beloved" "Brother" -- now, if you have to live with a label...

The Healing Thing-- more Spiritual Gifts?

I think women especially  understand how it all comes into play -- that physical, emotional, spiritual chaotic mixture that makes "me".

 So many hurts, so many issues:  some physical, some emotional, some spiritual --  they are almost always knitted together and cannot be segmented and treated separately.  You see it in their eyes, hear it in their voices, sometimes -- if they are able, you will see it in their tears and in their words.

Look deeper and you will see it in their physical and emotional diseases, too.

We all need healing!


Now this whole notion of being healed through the Holy Spirit  -- delivered through the prayers of  other believers, for me, is a bit shaky.  I, like many evangelicals, have been turned off by the ranting and raving of televised healers, the pushing of the forehead, the falling down.  It looks like a carnival act for money.


On the other hand, it is obvious that  God heals us in many ways-- we grow, sometimes in spite of our efforts, we change, we become closer to Him as we slough off the sins of our flesh and cling to Him.  We are being healed in many ways every day -- as we agree to do what He tells us to do.

So where does He stop?  How much healing does He do?  Does He stop at the flesh, which is being corrupted anyway, so why bother?  Jesus healed all the time He was walking on earth -- and He told the disciples to keep doing it as well.  Does He heal the mind?  Does He heal the emotions?

Through a number of recent circumstances, I am coming to the realization  that God might actually want to use His children on earth today to heal others -- to use them as vessels of His power.  (Clogged, imperfect, leaky vessels to be sure -- but still useful.)

 I mean, He has given us gifts, right?  Every believer receives spiritual gifts to use. For what?  Why does God "need" us to use the gifts? He is a sovereign God who can do whatever He wants when He wants.  Why would He use us at all?

The only reason I can come up with is that it benefits us somehow to use His gifts to minister to other believers,  to make their lives better, and to be a demonstration of God's power  so that others will believe and come to Him.

It is His desire to see us inhabiting fully functioning, happy, peaceful lives so that we can impart our stability and freedom and assurance onto the lives of others.  He wants to get into the deep stuff, clear it out, and give us freedom to live for Him in a way that is not painful to ourselves and to others around us.  He wants to put us on solid ground so that we can throw a rope to the ones who are drowning.

Put that way, I can buy into the "healing thing". I guess I can believe even today, lives can be changed by God's incredible warming, comforting, blinding, purifying Light.  I guess I can believe that even today, people could help in aiming the Light to the place that needs healing.

It Aint No Struggle, Really...

Struggling believers often quote Paul's dilemma in Romans 7 as a justification for their difficulty in overcoming their sin:

Well what about Paul?, the argument goes,  Look at how he struggled with doing what was right.

They quote:   I do not understand what I do.  For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.(Romans 7:14)


So if Paul, I mean PAUL the incredible zealot who gave up his entire adult life for Christ struggles, then why shouldn't I?


Here's what I see today, and you can correct me if I'm wrong:  Paul was making a point  here that started way before this verse.  He's talking about sin and why we sin and if we should even sin in this new Spirit state that we have received.  But the point he is making does not end at this verse!

I believe it ends in Chapter 8:

But you are not controlled by your sinful nature.  You are controlled by the Spirit if you have the Spirit of God living in you (And remember that those who do not have the spirit of Christ living in them are not Christians at all) (Romans 8:9)....
So dear brothers (that sounds like a summation to me!) you have no obligation whatsoever to do what your sinful nature urges you to do. (Romans 8:12)  

THIS is his point -- not that issue back in Romans 7, but here in Romans 8:  we don't have to sin and if we do it's because we CHOOSE to!  Come on, what's the purpose of having God's Holy Spirit living in us, directing us, infusing us with wisdom if we aren't going to allow Him to change our lives?  Here is the real struggle:  is it Him or is it Me?

I know that many argue about whether or not Paul was speaking about himself as a Jew before conversion in Romans 7,  or whether it was a personal, autobiographical statement of what was going on in his life at that moment.

I don't think it really matters.  What matters is that although we may struggle with the CHOICE of doing right or wrong (i.e. submitting to the Holy Spirit or not), we struggle not because we  have to, but because we want what we want when we want it.

Now where those desires come from is another question for another day...

I have been accused of being condemning and harsh when I bring up the Truth of Scripture in light of something that a person has been describing that's going on in her life.  Ironically, this comes from people within the church more than in the jail.

(People in jail know they need help!  It's us "free people" who are truly caught up in the snares of our sins and justifications.)

But anyone who knows me well knows that I have had  a whole litany of sins in my  life -- starting with number One and going all the way to Ten on the list in Exodus.  I haven't avoided one of them.

In my experience, freedom comes from allowing the healing, penetrating, powerful heat of God's Holy Spirit to get inside of us and do His redemptive work, not to run from it.

Well it's hard!   some people tell me.

Yes, it is hard to put yourself in the spotlight and ask God to burn it all off -- all the dross, all the impurities, all the ugliness that we have been carrying around inside us for years and years.  It's embarrassing.  It's humiliating.  It's painful.

And it's worth it.  What could be more fulfilling than to bask in that Light-- be warmed by that same, sweet, penetrating Light, be comforted, be given strength and purpose?

The rewards so outweigh the painful process that brings you there...

Finding Healing-- Speaking in Tongues for the First Time

Repressed Baptists don't know much about the Holy Spirit. It's a sad truth, but one that must be faced. We hear the words and we read about it all through Scripture, but for the most part, the best we can do is to relate it to the feelings of peace we have during prayer, the thrill we have when we're singing during worship.

It is difficult for us to come to terms with the reality that the Spirit of the Living God is here -- on the inside of us, working, prodding, speaking, moving. It takes catastrophic experiences, sometimes, to blast us into the next level.

I am speaking about my own experience. It might be different for others, but I think there are a number of God-fearing Christ-followers who know this to be true.

There is no question that we are saved -- we can stand at the throne of Grace boldly because we love Jesus, we live our lives for Him, we worship Him with our our decisions, our time, our money, our efforts. We often feel His presence. But the Holy Spirit? It is that ephemeral, ghost-like apparition that puzzles us. What do we "do" with It? or is it Him?

Some things we just gloss over in Scripture -- or we say things like, "Well that was then, and this is now..." Does the Holy Spirit really have to operate like He did in the book of Acts today? I mean, we've got the Bible, don't we?

Some people even believe it is nearing blasphemy to say that the Holy Spirit is operating full-force today. But this is what Jesus says to His disciples:

  It's actually best for you that I go away, because if I don't the Counselor won't come.  If I do go away, He will come because I will send Him to you and when He comes...He will guide you into all truth.  He will tell you about the future.  He will bring me glory by revealing to you whatever He receives from Me. (John 16:  5 - 15, NLT)

Are we to assume that this revelation stopped at some point along the way?


All this is coming to me today. This morning. I have spent the last hour doing something I didn't even believe in 2 years ago -- speaking in tongues. The few moments I had of "earth thinking" while it was going on I was thinking to myself -- "Okay, now you really have gone nuts. The pressure of living through your husband's death and everything that followed has finally brought you to madness."

The rest of the time I was saying "Oh Yippeeee! Now I get it. Now I see it. Now I know what this is about."


Apparently, I have the gift of sobbing tongues because every time I have spoken in tongues (this was the longest by far), I sobbed from deep within. I know certainly that this is a healing process. God is pulling out all of the stuff that's been bottled up for years and years and years. I know also -- don't ask me how, I just do -- that my healing is leading to the healing of others. So through this magnificent experience I am made aware of one thing: we all need healing.  There is so much going on outside that reflects what is broken inside.

Of course to have the Holy Spirit, the Comforter,  does not mean you must speak in tongues or have a dramatic manifestation. 
I am not suggesting that every believer should speak in tongues.  I have gone for thirty years as a believer without the experience.  I could have continued a wonderful, fruitful Christ-filled ministry without it for the rest of my earthly life.

But why would I?  Wow.  I feel like I've been living in a glorious mansion for many years and just discovered the secret room where generations before me have stashed their treasures.

God has presented me with a way to be fully healed and to heal others on my way.  Broken hearts and lives cannot stand up to this.