Conviction Time

Please excuse my morning video...Yall. it was bad. God convicted me. The only way I wouldn't attempt an argument with God was if I posted it without re-watching it. >insert face palm emoji<

I love love love getting to know people. As terrible as I am at forming relationships, I’m not so good at letting people get to know me or love me, learning about other people is my absolute favorite. What makes them tick. What causes their reactions to be so coarse or their words to be so sharp. I love seeing peoples “why”. The problem I have, and I think a lot of us have, is that I lose a lot of opportunity to learn the why by focusing so much attention on the result of the why. Does that make sense? Let me explain what I mean.  

 I may completely ignore someone because of how they are expressing themselves. Whether they are expressing themselves through their clothes, hair, actions, words or body language, I have a tendency to lose an opportunity to walk life with that person by judging them…without knowing the why behind it. And y’all that is just plain ugly. Why is it so hard to love people where they are?

“This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you.”

John 15:12  

Jesus is like, look guys. I love you all past your mess so try and love others like I loved you. That is super hard, right? I have been praying for months now about seeing people past themselves, just to see peoples heart. I want to see their why before I react to them but Lord help my mouth because I am so quick to pop off whatever enters my mind and that isn’t pleasing to God. In Chapter 3, James ((brother to Jesus)) tells us that a salt spring cannot produce fresh water.

^"9 With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who have been made in God’s likeness. ¹⁰ Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this should not be. ¹¹ Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring? ¹² My brothers and sisters, can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water."

James says something huge here that really caught my attention “in Gods likeness”. I have been told, read the verse a thousand times, and heard many sermons from Genesis 1:27....

^"27 So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them."

Side Note: I love when something is repeated in the New Testament. >Insert Praise Hands<.

We all know it by heart but hearing it out of the mouth of James spoke deep to me this morning. News Flash y’all…God created us all in HIS likeness. He said it twice. Its kinda like when your mama has to ask you to do something more than once...we all know what happens next. 

We are all doing our best in messy lives with ever changing circumstances. We all want acceptance and love from others so why do we make it so hard for others to receive it? We take one bad action, on difference in opinion, one bad day, and throw people in the returns bin. I am so guilty of letting my mind think “you are a defect, go back to where you came from” when someone crosses me wrong. What kind of world would we live in if we only saw the why in people? If we looked past the person to see their heart we would be broken over the circumstances that led them to where they are. 

My favorite thing about reading is getting to know the author. I read very little fiction, but if I do, I want to know about the author. What made this author choose this topic? Was it happenstance? Was it just creative thinking or did they have a circumstance or trial that they modeled their book after? Were the characters based on people in their lives or people they just dreamed up? That must be why I am drawn to nonfiction. I love to read books about how circumstance or challenges changed a person. Would we love this person just as much during the journey? Would we lovingly support them in the midst of their ugly mess and extend them grace? Sadly i think no. I think we love reading about the ending but fail to remember all the not so pretty moments during the journey. 

I know that during some of my darkest days I said some very insensitive things because of my circumstances. When we are in our darkest, no matter our intention, we don't always act in a Jesus like fashion. I am sure that at some point, someone has thrown me in to the defective bin and asked for me to be returned.

This isn’t Target y’all, we can’t just throw people away. As Moses, maybe Moses, says in Genesis and as James so eloquently confirms…we are all made in Gods likeness, HIS IMAGE.

I don’t know about you but I am so thankful that Jesus knows my why. If it weren’t for His infinite Grace we would all be in that return bin with a Red slash on us “Mark down, sold as is” and I hate to think that I would ever judge someone so harshly. Pray with me to have eyes that see past all the mess and extend grace like Jesus. 

ask the lonely..

"Inside is where the heart grows
Picking up the pieces
Something more to believe in" Journey

Im about to say something that may blow a few minds...

Loneliness is something I've always struggled with. Woah--I know, how can loud and obnoxious Lauren struggle with loneliness? Well it took me a while to give a name to this awful feeling and even longer to figure out the why. And let's be honest, I spend just as much energy covering up the loneliness as I do trying to make the physical ache of loneliness go away so I didn't do a whole lot of soul searching when it came to this topic. Because in my mind, lonely people are sad people...and I'm not sad, I'm truly not sad. I have inner and outer joy, there's no doubt about that, so how could I be lonely? And worse, cue one of my biggest fears, how can I open up and show a little vulnerability on a subject that could possibly make people question my authenticity? 

And let me also say that this started well before losing Berkley. Loss can make you feel all kind of emotions in a whole new way. It can escalate the mildest of hurts very quickly. But no, this loneliness isn't associated with grief. This loneliness is self inflicted and directly associated with fear. 

I've been reading "Uninvited" by Lysa TerKeurts...she is my jam, let me just tell you. She speaks Lauren, fluently. And no worries, I told my therapist about Lysa-she can use all the help she can get deciphering Lauren. I say that to say that I picked up the book because of my love for her, not because I've ever felt left out or uninvited...not that I would admit anyway. She takes rejection to a level I've never associated with rejection. She says this: "rejection steals the best of who I am by reinforcing the worst of what's been said to me.." And in this statement, "Lauren's loneliness--but not sad"-has a reason. Yes I had to give it a full name. Hello my name is Lauren and I am a label maker...

The fear of rejection is what keeps me from allowing relationships to blossom or even begin, this I knew. This I've tracked back--thank you therapy. I have example after of example of why I fear getting too close to people but that doesn't change that I have "people". I have people, wonderful fabulous Lauren lovers that feed my soul with energy and remind me of Gods love for me on a regular so loneliness just sounds ridiculous.

Most people who know me, know that I am such a sore loser. I am competitive to a fault...so I choose not to participate. If I lose, at anything...there is a 99% chance that I am going to show my tail, possibly cry, get a rash across my chest, pull my hair up, and have to apologize later for my behavior. I'm serious. I will also probably spend the following days analyzing why someone would want to hang out with this psychopath who just threw her club during mini golf...and then, I'll push away. That fear of someone not wanting to spend time me with, not that I blame them, has caused me to learn to adapt to loneliness. The same concept that led me to walk away from sports causes me to keep my distance, "sit this one out" and causes my heart to stay lonely in fear of losing someone or something dear to me. Turns out, I've known all along why I have a loneliness ache. Also-as a Southern Baptist >Jesus lover<who rarely misses a Sunday, I know that my hope and heart should rest in God and not in others approval or even my own. So why, if I know all these things, if I have all the tools, have I allowed myself to have this achy feeling and allow this scare tactic emotion to keep me separated from others...even God? What keeps me there? What keeps me from pursuing things I enjoy? Is others judgement or my own judgment? I'm going to venture out and say it's #2...and just like a #2, it's stinky and smelly. It's a judgment fueled by negative self talk and uninvited insecurities that keep me from relationships, career goals, and being who God intended me to be. So in turn I self inflict loneliness because the fear of judgement is far more painful than the fear of loneliness. Am I making sense? I feel like I'm rambling... So when Lysa said "what's been said to me"....clearly I heard, what "I've said to me"

I am slowly learning ways to reject the fear but why is it, with all these tools, I still have to fight this tendency to go into my lonely place? 

My friend Lysa, sweet Lysa who doesn't know me, said something that has resonated with me for the past 24 hours--"Inspiration and Information without personal application will NEVER amount to transformation." 

If we don't put into practice what we know, it's just useless knowledge. It's not anymore beneficial than negative self talk...it's all just words scattered in our minds. What if we took all the tools we have and actually put them into practice, in our daily lives?? I do it in some aspects of my life, so why not when it comes to some of my biggest fears? 

I have challenged myself to go beyond fear and beyond just talking about it. My goal is to daily put in to practice positive self talk and to not allow fear to control my thoughts, decisions, and ultimately outcomes in my life. I want to push lonely in to a corner for a time out, forever. In order to do that I have got to meditate on scripture and stay focused. I am sure the devil will do all he can to get in the way so I have put a few verses down that I am going to be meditating on over the next weeks. It's time to accept that I'm valuable, that I matter, and that no ones opinion, not even my own, can take away from who God made me to be. I don't have to choose to be lonely anymore...it's wasted pain. 

Praise God for revelations from writers who follow His commands for their lives! 

And coffee...also praise God for that. Never leave that out of your daily prayers, guys. 

"For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind."

- 2 Timothy 1:7 KJV

"So that we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me."

- Hebrews 13:6 KJV

"So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them."

- Genesis 1:27 KJV