Thinking about honor.

Honor was never really something I thought about. Especially when it comes to the political system. Being from Chicago, the land of corrupt politicians it had really hardened me from looking at the political system as something God wants apart in. I had so many things in my heart that would seep out of my mouth. I was very much a person about justice. A " finally they are reaping what they have sown" or " finally they got Found out and are in prison "

About a year and half ago God really started to talk to me about honor. There are positions of authority that come with power. And wether the person that is in the position understands their authority or not I still have to honor them. 

Scarlett has recently been obsessed with lions. We have been reading " Daniel and the lions den" 

It got me thinking. I used to read this thru justice. Like " yes, Daniel got justice for himself!" when really Daniel showed honor to a king who never deserved it, who had actually violently besiged Daniels homeland changed his name and took him as personal slave. Daniel showed love, honor and compassion continuously to Nebuchadnezzar. When he was in the lions den and Nebuchadnezzar came to see if he was alive the first thing out of Daniels mouth was " oh King, Live forever!"  Could I say this to someone who had slaughtered my nation, and then intentionally and unintentionally attempted murder upon me and three of my friends?

Oh king, live forever. No, I don't think that could have been my response. I think I would have been like, " I'm alive you moron, only because of my God. Will you please let me leave and leave me alone"

But no. Daniel showed honor, loved and served. He did not agree with the King, but he honored him. This is how God had access to change the heart of the king. To show Himself  mighty and strong.

What about David- as he was running from a wild bitter murderous King, he showed honor. He had plenty of opportunities to kill Saul and step into his rightful place as king. Even God had given him opportunity to kill Saul and everyone with him said " look at the opportunity you have to kill him and take your place as king, God has done this"  David only cut off a piece of his robe. ( 1 Samuel 24:4-6)
The amazing thing is that just cutting off a piece of his robe just killed David. It says " his heart smote him"

These men were written about and have been recorded for all to know about, and to show us pictures of Gods heart. David is said to be a man after God's heart. Jesus will sit on" the throne of David"

I think that God values this. His heart would rather see a man changed thru love than condemned continuously. Love and honor changes the heart of someone. It loves them into their purpose, it shows them who they really are. If we did lots of honoring, lots of loving out of the love and wisdom if God ( not from " because its moral or good"). This is not kissing butt to get ahead, it's honest and true, ONLY able to happen because of the Holy Spirit. I've been wondering for myself if I just shut my mouth, asked how to act. Listened to what people needed and honored them, spoke words of life and wisdom from heaven, where would God allow me to go? Would he put me in tough places? Would he place me in situation I never would imagine?


Honor is important. It's a choice.
It changes kings, it changes nations
It has to start everyday

A blurt.

" in times of great personal struggle we often increase our spiritual activity to silence the pain. Doing so often increases our striving, which delays breakthrough.
" Be still and know that I am God" Ps. 46:10 Slow down and lean into Him"

-Bill Johnson


This is what I do all the time, in the name of " believing God and walking in faith" of course. When really I try to shove spirituality into a gushing wound when really I need to get quiet and let the Healer do His thing and bring me true healing and wholeness.

Maybe this is why I continue around the same mountains in my heart? Because I can't just be quiet. Maybe there would be more answers and more honesty in my life if I would just feel pain and let Him take care of it.


That's all.

Social media and the Big Story.

So, is it wrong to pick apart social media on a blog? Also, since I deactivated my Facebook who will know when to read a new post? No tweet about what's going on? Oh no how will my blog survive? These are the thoughts that I am laughing at myself or having.

I have had some form of a blog for about 10 years. I was under the 500,000 mark for joining LiveJournal.

I had a Facebook as soon as I could, got a twitter soon after Ashton and Demi.

After all the hours I have spent reading people's statuses and looking at photos I have started asking myself some questions.

- How much of this is really beneficial?

- why do people post so many complaints and whines and moans about people or their lives?

- has this brought us forward, made us better, changed society, changed me?


I enjoy saying updated with family and friends and past co-workers and students. It's great to see what their up to and great to see photos of their baby bellies and kids and their work.

Then I think, what happened to letting the past be the past. Something you just want to let lie, leave alone, and then one day something will be in your face, on your screen that you never wanted to know, or maybe a person you were ok with never seeing again. But there it is - complaining about their husband, or wearing pasties in nearly nude photos, or spewing bitterness about others maybe even you in a manipulative indirect but direct way.

What happens in Facebook/ twitter doesn't stay there. It is this new realm that everyone also lives in.

And everyone sees. I can't tell you a week that has gone by where I see something, read something, see a relational interaction that makes my heart hurt. It makes me say " too much. This is unhealthy." or " back off, why are you picking a fight" or " I never wanted to see/know that about you"

I just ache for something authentic, and this 'extra realm' everyone is living in isn't it.

For me personally I felt like I always needed to check or I was missing out on something important that was happening.

And what I was really missing was usually lame stuff. And what else could I be accomplishing? What did people do before Facebook,Twitter,Instagram
,Pinterest.

Did they accomplish things? Did they appreciate mental silence ? Did they sew? Cook? Have real convorsations? Read good literature? Paint? Expand their creativity ?


WE ARE SATISFIED BY SO LITTLE.

I was listening to a message from Donald Miller and he quoted someone to the effect of " as the morality of a society declines the quality of creativity and the ability to tell a great story are lost"

This grabbed my attention. There is so much crap everywhere. Why- because we buy it. We watch it, we vote for it. We say- well I guess this is where the world is and I must allow this to satisfy.

Are you satisfied?

I'm not.

There's more in me brewing about all of this. I have research I want to do an things I want to check on. A question I have is what will this age be called? When we look back, will we say of this generation, " and now you can see where the decline of creativity and intelligence really began"

Curried Quinoa Salad

Curry always freaked me out. Maybe it was all the shows I saw that talked about Indian food and bathroom issues. And I thought it smelled funky AND I was afraid to cook with it. One day I put my big girl pants on and just did it.

I originally tried this recipe with israeli Cous Cous and used a Food Network recipe.

Then I wanted to make it again, gluten free and with some ingredients that I had.

Curried Quinoa Salad

1 cup of dry quinoa
2 cups water
1 tbsp of curry powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
3 tbsp of olive oil
1/3 cup of orange juice
1/2 lemon, juiced
1/4-1/2 cup of walnuts, toasted ( if you want)
3/4 cup of dried cranberries
1/8 cup of chopped scallions.
1/8 cup of chopped parsley

Cook quinoa according to directions.
Mix with 1 tbsp of the olive oil and put in fridge to cool.

Mix juices, oils, and herbs into a dressing and toss into cooled quinoa.

Add walnuts, cranberries, parsley and scallions and toss.

Eat it. I do it as a meal or a side. It's also good over spinach with a bit of goat cheese for an actual salad.

If you don't like quinoa, try it with israeli Cous Cous ( the big kind)

Getting really real.

This post is its title, getting really real. It is some things I am working thru at the moment. If you aren't a fan of blood or sadness you may want to skip this one.

Recently Jon and I decided with some prodding by God that it was time to try for another baby. We had some things to work thru. Fears when we thought of my last pregnancy and the time afterwards. Finances, living situation, etc. really what would having another child mean. Our lives changing again, Scarlett being a sister, us having kid(s), plural.
We discussed, and we prayed. We went thru our fears and asked God to replace them with His truth. What does He want our family to look like? It was obvious to us both that it was time to add. He brought us both great resolve. And all of a sudden everyone we saw was asking when another little Gish would be in the works. And so we came thru on the other end of a journey from something that was horribly scary, to being filled with hope and excitement. And so we started trying. ( insert sex jokes here)


And I got pregnant. Right away. The first go, Fertile Myrtyle people called me. I started getting really tired. When I farted in public and had no awareness that it was even coming was the real moment of truth. I found out on a Monday. The whole week I was exhausted. Sleeping while S slept, sometimes beyond her sleeping and yells of " mommy, hello, mommy... Hellloooo?" Other than that I was ok, just snacking to prevent nauceousness from ruling my day.

Saturday morning I woke up, Jon and I were going on a morning date , breakfast and Avengers. Scarlett came in our bed and snuggled a bit before the sitter came, and I started suddenly cramping. Normal for early pregnancy. I went into the bathroom to use the toilet and when I sat blood just poured out. This wasn't normal, this couldn't be happening, my baby was going into the toilet. I screamed for Jon to take Scarlett and leave me to weep. He stayed and tried to comfort me as I just sat and bled. He reminded me of how this happened with S and not to worry and I would be ok, lets pray together... Everything he could do. I immediately called the midwife and she said it could be normal, and gave me signs to look for thru out the day. So I wiped my eyes, put some clothes on and we headed off. all the while speaking over this baby. Declaring life and blessing and all that we know to be true. By the time breakfast was done I felt pretty awful. I could feel the feelings of pregnancy melting away in this very un natural way. If you have ever been pregnant, imagine all your senses and bodily changes just reverting back to normal over a short period of time. The strangest sensation I have ever experienced. Heart wrenching and unnatural. I told Jon we had to go home.

By the time we got back the bleeding had gotten worse and I knew it was over. What was coming out left me no hope. As I sat on the toilet and cried I felt a sudden, overwhelming heart for babies who are being aborted. I wanted to find the nearest girl who was getting an abortion and say " Stop! Let's trade" I would have done anything in that moment to save the little poppy seed size life inside, and I couldn't. And yet people do it every day without these emotions. There are parts of me that after going thru the sickness and fear and overwhelming feelings of my first pregnancy that all of a sudden understood how someone could disassociate themselves and get an abortion. The sickness, the fear, your dreams are so loud sometimes. I would never do it, but there was a sense of compassion that I now had for girls everywhere who were afraid and made that choice. Also a sadness because now I look at my daughter and know that it is all worth it. I had a friend tell me her story of finding out she was pregnant. She was freaking out to take the test , didn't know what she would do or how she could do it and she said " once it gave me a positive, anything was possible. I could do anything, make it all work out"


Later that afternoon it was all confirmed, I was in fact miscarrying. I got off the phone with the midwife in tears and sat on my bed with my husband and cried. So did he. It was a bizarre, surreal feeling. To thing that my body was a beacon of life and now was this place of death for the moment. The 'glow' was gone. Feelings of sadness mixed with early labor type contractions ensued for the next few days as I watched my pregnant body morph back into its regular form and rid itself of whatever else remained. I kept myself busy, probably not resting as much as I should. Sitting with friends, talking it thru, letting myself be sad and angry. All my life I have been a great stuffer of emotion having to do with any sort of pain. I would clean, organize, cook, shop, read, music, go online, constantly go out to distract myself, drink . This time I said " No way." I was going to let myself feel pain and run to nothing but Jesus, even though my heart felt confused about Him at the moment. If I did shove this it would come out later. Shoving it into some corner would not make it go away, it would just cause long, drawn out emotional pain that would not just effect me but effect everyone around me somehow until it was all worked thru.

So it has been one week since the miscarraige began,
Today is Mothers day. I let myself enjoy Scarlett, but be sad as well.

With God- I am working thru this with Him, asking Him some tough questions I may not have dared to ask before. Trusting that He is good, faithful, the giver of life itself, and loves me enough to cry with me and work this thing out until the end. He didn't ' take my baby' or need to see how I acted under pressure. This breaks His heart as well.

I know that I will get pregnant again, that I will hold another new born in my arms and all will be well. I am just gonna let myself feel and heal. Also my heart has been filled with compassion for so many women around me. For friends that have miscarried multiple times, for still births, for so many things that only a womans heart will know.


Life is precious, and I feel it like I had never known that before.

-LG

Redeeming Memories

Over the past few years I have been discovering that the things that I have felt during difficult moments of my life aren't always true. That is easy to say right?

But when a memory comes flooding back to you and you feel emotions and feelings all over again just as fresh as the moment you were there, it all seems more real than the first time you experienced it.


So I have been on a journey of rewriting my history. Stepping outside of what I felt happened, looking at situations and asking God " what happened here? Where were you? What did I choose to believe instead of you, instead of love?"

I think of past experiences with guys. There are ways you see someone at 16,17,18 that come out of a different kind of search than I would be on now. I searched out of a 'broken, desperate, not liking myself to much at the time' kind of place. These people and situations wrote their stories in my heart.

Entering 'the work force' in an unsure, freaking out, pursuing my dreams( what I thought were my dreams) performing my heart out, running from real life kind of way. Then I would have said I am a responsible, hard working person who is in pursuit of a dream.
And all the people that came along with that time were seen thru those thoughts, those lenses.


Motherhood take 1 scared out of my mind, but told myself I wasn't. My identity had melted into what I could do and I couldn't believe that now I had to let this happen to myself. I was excited ( because this exact thing was one of my first true dreams I had as a little girl, to be a mom) but I was so far removed from that I resented it. A major tug of war that rolled into a year long battle with post-partum afterwards.


Each of these stick out the strongest right now. I have asked to Lord to how me which memories are really true. Where did fear, depression, self loathing, rejection come in and start lying, and where was he in the situation and what does He say about it.


I am not one for living in the past but I am ok with seeing thru " Jesus lenses" instead of what tried to weasel its way in and tell me I was a failure.


He wants me whole and complete and if I don't stop and take the time to see correctly what about future relationships? Future jobs? Future kids? Who will reap the harvest of the unhealthiness of my heart? OR who will reap the healthiness of my heart? How will generations after me be influenced by me choosing to take care of my heart?

I need to sing. It's where I feel most alive.

The end