Why Jesus?

I admit it.  I was rebellious and angry toward God for a long time.  My parents took me to church from the time I was born.  I got baptized at 9.  I guess I just didn’t really get it though.  Anyone can claim to be a Christian, but what does that really mean?

A lot of not-so-good things happened in my life.  No one lives a perfect life.  Actually, one person did, and I’ll talk about that later.  My life….having to deal with a mentally ill parent who when she had episodes would kind of be fanatical about Jesus.  As a young teen this was hard to see and understand.  I think it turned my sister and me off to religion.  I lost someone dear to me when I was 18 to a motorcycle accident.  I might have married the guy had he lived.  My friend’s mom tried to comfort me with religious words.  But I was angry at God and didn’t understand why Eddie had to die at 17.  I hated my mom for being sick and trying to control every aspect of my life and thoughts.  I went into a really bad part of my life after that. My friends who went through it with me remember. My dad was a strong support to me from that time on.  I attended a Presbyterian college but wouldn’t step foot into the chapel.  I was rebellious, angry and got into all kinds of un-godly things. 

Like many others, I was looking for the meaning of life and understanding.  I turned to the New Age movement, meditation etc.  This continued through my move to Boston.  I lived in a teacher dorm my first year at the boarding school.  God had placed a few Christian women there who helped to soften my heart.  One night during a meditation class these words came into my mind so strongly I could not ignore them.  “This is wrong!”  That night I let go of the New Age movement and went back to God with the help of Christine across the hall.  I attended church with my friends off and on and in between relationships. 

After my move to California, I didn’t have time to go to church.  I wanted to, but with working 6 days a week and Sunday being my only day off, it just didn’t happen.  I thought of myself as a Christian, but at that point was still pro-choice.  Why should someone want to bring an unwanted kid into the world.  Why didn’t those pro-lifers just adopt all those unwanted babies if they were so against abortion.  What was the big deal about aborting an unwanted pregnancy anyway?  That’s what we all were told by television and magazines we were supposed to do.   I got married and we struggled with infertility for some time (see "Babies, Babies, Babies"). 

Again, God was faithful and placed a Christian in my path.  I met Eileen while at the park, who had a newborn baby like me.  She invited me to her Bible study again and again for about 2 years.  I finally agreed and went.  Through the study I learned about God’s word and how to apply its truths to my life.  I had never really studied it in depth before.  I had kind of looked at passages here and there but didn’t understand a lot of it.  During this time God changed my heart toward many things. I realized how every life was a precious gift, even a little tiny baby.  It wasn’t just a bunch of tissue like some would suggest.  God handcrafted each one of us individually in our mother’s womb.  Even a child with Down’s or any other “defect” is His child and loved by Him.  I had a blood test come back positive for Down’s when I was pregnant with Jack.  I was devastated, but knew I would not be able to abort him if it were true.  Well, these stupid tests can be misleading and wrong.  Jack turned out to be a normal little guy.

So, why Jesus?  Because He saved my life!  He changed my heart and gave me a new life. He gives me hope for eternal life with God our Father.  How is that possible, you might ask?

Jesus lived a perfect life when he walked on this earth.  He interacted with people who did lots of bad things, just like me.  He showed them love.  He accepted them “as is”.  That’s not to say he’d be okay with letting them continue doing those bad things.  Jesus required his followers to leave their lives full of sin and repent from them.  Now, we have been separated from God because of sin.  It goes back to the Adam and Eve incident. None of us are good enough, pure enough, smart enough, or can work hard enough to be worthy of being with God for eternity.  But God had a plan.  In the Old Testament days, animal blood was used to cover the sins of the people.  That was only a temporary fix, like patching up a flat tire.  God sent His son Jesus to be a one-time sacrifice for sin to cover anyone who put their faith and trust in Jesus.  Jesus was put to death on the cross, but defeated death by coming back to life.  People saw Him, and interacted with Him after he was resurrected, and wrote accounts of it.  When someone believes in Jesus and what He did, that person is given a new heart.  The Holy Spirit is given to you as a deposit for your upcoming eternal life with God.  The Holy Spirit helps to change you to become more like Jesus.  It’s like letting someone else take the wheel and drive you through life.  You get to know Jesus through the Bible and learn to trust Him because of what He did for you.  You allow God to work in your life and mold you into what HE wants you to be.  It’s not easy, especially if you are someone with a very rebellious spirit like me.  It’s hard to make changes in behavior and thinking.  It’s hard to admit that you might be doing things that go against God’s character. 

I stopped hating my mom just before she died.  I wouldn’t have been able to do it on my own.  I know that. God changed my heart toward her, and helped me to forgive her for all that she put us through.  God freed me from all that anger and resentment.  I’m not the same person that I used to be, even who I was a few years ago. I’m still a work-in-progress like all other believers.  Followers of Jesus trust Him to mold us into His image.  And it is a choice.  No one can force you to follow Him or to believe in Him.  Maybe you don’t feel you’re good enough for Him.  You’ve done lots of bad things.  Jesus will meet you where you’re at right now. When you trust that He is who He says He is, and that He died FOR YOU,  you will be saved.  It's the beginning of a new life.  And I am so very grateful for the new life He gave me.

Praise the Lord or Pass the Loot

PTL!

Those from the Charlotte area know first-hand what those letters mean, or meant. There was a couple of evangelists on a television show called The PTL Television Network. Jim and Tammy Faye. Remember when those t-shirts were popular around Charlotte, the “I ran into Tammy Faye at the mall”. It was a plain shirt with what appeared to be rubbed-off make-up in the image of a woman’s face. Tammy Faye Bakker wore a lot of make-up and cried a lot on tv. The network was just taking off when we moved to Charlotte. Years later, the group bought a large piece of land down in Fort Mill, South Carolina, just over the border from North Carolina. The plan was to build a massive resort with a shopping mall and amusement park. Their television show would be broadcast by satellite from here as well. This new location was called Heritage USA. Their ministry was a great success and pulled in millions of dollars. Anytime you tuned in to the show, they were asking for money. Send in your money and good things will happen to you. Some teased that PTL stood for Pass the Loot. I’m sure the ministry did do some good, but their use of wealth was troublesome. I remember going to see fabulous fireworks there on the 4^th of July. The Christmas lights were something to see too. You could drive through the property and see such bright colorful lights all around you. I couldn’t help but wonder how much money was being spent on those lights and the electricity for them night after night. Shouldn’t that money have been used to help people in need instead? To make a long story short, there ended up being a huge scandal involving money, taxes, and a woman. PTL fell and fell hard. Jim and Tammy Faye divorced and Jim went to prison for a while. (Tammy Faye died from cancer in 2007). Jim Bakker discovered the truth of the Bible while in prison. He realized he had led many people away from the true gospel. Jim Bakker remarried and is back at evangelism apparently. While PTL was a massive turn-off to Christianity for me in its glory days, the bigger picture can now be seen. Anyone can sin, and sin big time. No one is immune to the temptations of money, fame, sex, power, prestige, etc. God used PTL to expose false teachings and destroyed its empire. It took being in prison for Bakker to come to terms with what he had done and to seek God’s forgiveness. The Bible teaches that when you confess your sins (admit what you did wrong), and turn completely away from those sins (stop doing them), that you will be forgiven. What Jesus did on the cross makes that possible. And when we put our faith and trust in Him, He helps us to walk on the right path. Bakker has been forgiven by God, and given a second chance to tell the good news of the gospel. If someone like Jim Bakker can be forgiven and restored by God, then so can we.  And that is good news.

Babies Babies Babies

In the past few months there have been lots of babies being born to family and friends, and families in our church. Children are a blessing. They are a miracle. These little tiny perfectly formed people. It seems like a given. You get married and then have kids. But sometimes it’s not that easy.

We got married later than many couples. I was 34 and Nate was almost 31. I was never worried about the baby thing until I hit 35. That seems to be the age where your chances of conceiving start to get slimmer. We were trying, but nothing was happening. Month after month was a letdown. People would ask me was I pregnant yet. I sadly replied no. When I turned 35, I decided to take charge and be more proactive about getting pregnant. We saw a fertility specialist who did some tests and suggested an IUI. It’s a pretty simple procedure. We did a couple of those and then added fertility drugs. I was sure that would work and maybe even get us twins. Nope. Nothing. We made the decision to try IVF. In Vitro is the test tube thing, or I guess petri dish. This would work. It had to. We found a great clinic with a great reputation and results. The doctors at the clinic said because of my age, our chances of having a baby with the IVF process was about 25-35 percent. I had to take birth control pills to manipulate my cycle. I felt crabby most of the time from these. Next came the daily hormone shots into my leg. Toward the end of that I just couldn’t do it anymore and made my wonderful husband give me the shots. Then came the day we were waiting for. It was early September. Harvest time! The procedure was somewhat uncomfortable, but had to be done. The doctor would then work on fertilizing the eggs in the lab. He thought an ICSI process would be our best bet considering our odds. That’s when a single sperm is injected into an egg. It’s faster than waiting for a little sperm to find its way around in the petri dish. We would return in a few days and I would be implanted with an embryo or two depending on how many we had. The night before the scheduled implantation, the doctor called and said they had to do a rescue ICSI for one of the cells. We still felt that things were going just fine. The next morning we were so excited and happy. This was really going to happen. I was going to go to the clinic and get pregnant!

But it was not to be. As we were getting ready to leave for the clinic, the doctor called and told us the cells had stopped dividing. There was no embryo. There was nothing to implant. It was devastating and depressing. We took a trip to Hawaii to attend the wedding of some good friends. It was nice to get away from our situation and celebrate with them, but the fact remained that there would be no baby for us. Maybe this was how women who miscarried felt. Even though no baby had been inside of me, there was such a feeling of grief and loss. The doctor then told us that because of the failed IVF our chances of conceiving with assistance was now about 15 percent. What a kick in the gut. My eggs were getting old and were poor quality. We could try another IVF in a few months if we wanted to. We would think about it. We also considered adoption.

A couple of months later, I was feeling kind of strange. We had not yet started on a second round of IVF. My sister was in town for a visit. Just for the hell of it, I thought I’d take a home pregnancy test. I still had some tests in my drawer. No way! Positive? How could that be? We went and bought a different brand test and I took it. That one was also positive! I called the IVF clinic to ask them if I could possibly still have hormones in my body from the IVF that would give a positive result on a pregnancy test. They said probably not and for me to come in and get a blood test. They would be able to tell from the numbers whether or not I was pregnant. We stopped by the clinic on the way to the airport to drop off my sister for her flight back to Charlotte. She was as excited as I was about a possible baby. She wanted a little niece or nephew. The clinic called after she got on the plane and said the numbers indicated that something was definitely growing in me! How in the world did this happen I wondered. We were pregnant. The clinic seemed to think that perhaps my system was off, and that by going through the IVF process, it had straightened out. Hmm, okay.

In July of 2001, our miracle baby Miles was born. He came into the world breech, and has insisted on doing things his way ever since. I later reflected about how faithful God had been through everything. We had really wanted a baby. We had done all these things to make it happen, but failed. It was a huge reminder that He is in control of everything. He was in control of my fertility, not me. God wanted to bless us with children, but on His terms and in His timing so that the glory would go to him not to us or the doctors.