just say yes

When our organic church was being left on it's own for the first time, one of the Brothers who had planted us said these words, "Lean towards yes". We were being given practical instruction in how to handle meetings and situations. If an idea came up, unless there was a good reason to oppose it, just say yes. It seemed pretty obvious and simple.

Now, in the beginning I would have said that I leaned toward yes often. If someone had a great idea, why oppose it? Lean towards yes. Sometimes it was really hard and other times, especially when I liked an idea, it was no sweat. In the last year those words have come to shape my thoughts and my actions and the way I live in community with others. I have grown to see that my first reaction in every circumstance was to watch out for my feelings and my well being. I had held every idea, action, and statement up to the light of my will and my agenda and measured it based on what was best for me. The Lord revealed to me that I had become a lean towards no person. And there was bitterness attached to that, but more importantly Christ was no where in sight.

When the Lord revealed this to me I wanted to lay down my right to have any kind of opinion about anyone else's lifestyle, journey, or ideas. To live by the life of Christ was to say yes, my Brother or yes, my Sister, you may have your way. Whether I believe it's what's right or not, I will fall back and allow you to shine. That doesn't mean that I now all of the sudden agree with everyone else. Believe me, I don't. Inside I can rationalize anything... "But Lord, what if I *know* someone is being manipulative, or sneaky? What if that person over there is being controlling or leading the church in the wrong way?" Yes, even then, let them have the right of way.

Sometimes saying "yes, you can have your way" means letting others make mistakes and making the mistakes with them. But I know enough to know that Christ knows all, and I would rather be surrendering and losing than pushing my own will. The One I am really saying yes to is Christ and the only way I can say yes to something I don't like, is through Christ. For years I was the type of person that couldn't let anything go. I was hard on others and really hard on myself. Before moving to Gainesville, Florida and meeting with the organic church here I never had friendships that lasted very long because a soon as there was a conflict, I was gone. Sometimes I had very justified reasons, righteous anger. It really bothered me when I saw hypocritical behavior, for example. In order to justify satisfying the flesh, I could talk myself into all the reasons why it was good to call out bad behavior. But, Christ got to the very heart of this when He spoke of first removing the log in our own eye before telling others about the splinter in theirs. In the last year and a half, the Lord has been filling and replacing the old man. The Christ inside isn't concerned with other folk's sin or issues. As a result, I lean towards yes to my Brothers and Sisters, friends, acquaintances, and strangers. Yes, they have permission to make mistakes, to not be a perfect person, and I will not judge or hold them accountable.

On the flip side, I have lived in close communal life with my Brothers and Sisters long enough that they have seen the "real" Jackie. The Saints I live with have looked past selfishness and immaturity as I seek to live by Divine life. I have melted down quite gloriously at times, but all my fellow Brethren saw was the Christ in me as they "leaned towards yes."

This life comes down to a choice... am I willing to lose? Am I willing to die and let my plans go undone so that Christ can have His way, whatever that may look like? When living by Christ's life, He is always going to choose the way of grace. But what if someone is really doing something wrong, and leaning towards yes isn't what's best? It does happen, but it is extremely rare and I have yet to have it happen in my life. Usually the Spirit handles problems like that and human confrontation isn't necessary.

I began the blog with some wisdom that was shared when the Brothers who planted our church left over a year ago. Well, they are back for a visit this week and I would like to end with some additional wisdom from one in particular. "Love is not sentimental. It was costly." I think that sums it up. Living a lean towards yes lifestyle is sacrificial. It requires doing things I don't want to do. It costs the death of my desires and my agenda. It is humbling. It is beyond anything I could ever do in my own power and it takes Christ to do it.

Thanks for reading. Have a wonderful week!

Love,

Jackie

Another one...

Here's the next post in the series, written by my Brother Mark. He is a great Christian and a great writer. Enjoy!

Click here

forgotten art

The other day I realized just how much the Lord has taken care of me throughout the years. Not only did He keep me safe during my hay day, but He has given me the deepest desires of my heart and I get to live them out daily. I don't believe it's because I've done anything right, but because having so much to be grateful for bring Him the glory.
For a few years now I have wished and daydreamed about being good at something. Really good, like an expert. I mull over catalogs and research what it would take to become a master herbalist, holistic practitioner, or live out my dream as a counselor and open a home for girls. I have always felt like I was in some sort of waiting period while I raised my kids. Once they were grown, I could get to my real life. Along the way here and there I was encouraged by others telling me that being a mom is the most important job in the world *rolls eyes*, but it was too politically correct to even stomach. And besides, I know a lot of mothers who are also working or living out other dreams, while still being "mom." They are mom, but they also have something they are good at.
Christ within has been settling me big time lately and I am slowing down to become more aware of the present state of being. In recognizing Him and beholding Him, He has shown me something to be thankful for. I want to share why and how and make it very clear that it's by no strength of my own. Without Him being the Life to me and my family, I fail big.
Christ has given me the gift of homemaking. This is the revelation He's shared with me and I want to pass it along. Developing the best and right lifestyle for our family is important. Just like with everything else, no two homemaker's jobs are the same. I'll use mostly myself as the example.
When I moved out of my parent's home and into my husband's home I was starting from scratch. I knew how to clean my home well(thanks mom!), but everything else I did was pretty generic. I didn't have my own style yet as a wife or a mom. Over the years I have been drawn to read and seek out knowledge on how to keep my family safe in our toxic world. Not germs, germs can be good for us, but actual toxins. They are everywhere, specifically in our health products and food. I used to make boxed dinners and freezer dinners. I used to cook with toxic ingredients(and think they were healthy), but since have completely changed the way we eat. I spend a LOT of time in the kitchen. At least an hour per night just preparing dinner, not including cooking time. I used to give the kids sugar, sugar, and more sugar for breakfast and lunch, but have started making those from scratch as well. Over the years I have developed a system of collecting our recipes for the month, keeping track in a special planner, gathering the organic groceries from stores all over town, and making the time for preparing it all. You may not think that making food for my kids and hubby is an art, but when held up to what it used to look like, I can see that it is, and that the Lord has given meaning to it.
The Lord has been developing in me a desire to protect life on the planet. That passion has led to finding out about ways to live in harmony with the world, to tread lightly, and leave small footprints. A big part of our lives and how we do daily activities comes from this responsibility to the planet. My kids will see that taking the extra steps to hang dry clothes and compost our trash as a normal part of life. It's what works for us and I feel good about it.
Homeschooling, a biggie. This is an area of my "job" that the Lord has graciously given me a ton of passion for. We have discovered that Miss Charlotte Mason's methods work best and we make it our own. I love to write unit studies(small ones and year-long curriculum) and I love to pull existing pieces of studies together to make new ones. I love this part of my life and thank the Lord for that. It is Him who has called me to raise and teach my kids in His ways and He has provided the desire which makes it enjoyable. I love that we can saturate our day with Christ and it doesn't look like cookie cutter Christianity. It has been a process coming into my own as a homeschooling mom. As long as I remain open to teaching myself, the process will continue. I will always grow and mature in this area if I remain humble and continue on for the right reasons. I thank the Lord that He has developed the personal style perfect for our family's homeschooling and we can build upon that.
Another area of my fantastic job that I want to write about is my housekeeping. Boy, has this changed over the years. I have become a pro at multi-tasking, and sometimes I don't think that's a good thing. Most of the time it's helpful to have a lot going on, dishwasher running, whites in the washing machine, hanging clothes to dry on the line upstairs. Check. But other times I need to remember that I am keeping house so we can stay safe and healthy, NOT so we can have a spotlessly clean home. I could get carried away and clean all day long if I had the time. My whole attitude is changing though and I am learning to relax long enough to sit with and enjoy Chris and the kids. I don't want to miss time with them because I was cleaning. I have my daily chores that I fit into my schedule, but rcently I have turned my weekly chores into monthly tasks. It has helped my mindset so much and my house really isn't a whole lot messier! My husband blessed me with a gym membership in order to help me deal with stress and depression, but it only works if I go almost everyday. I have had to give up some things in my day to make room for that and cleaning was the first thing to go. My family doesn't mind me taking that time for my physical and mental health because they are reaping the benefits as well.
That leads to my final point. In all of my homemaking, what's become the most important part of my job is the atmosphere I help create. I have been entrusted with four beautiful hearts. These people love me so much that if I am not happy, neither are they. If I am having a bad day and have a rotten mood, they pick up on it. I take that very seriously. I once read that a mother's voice can instantly lower her child's anxiety level and blood pressure. When I began paying attention to how I spoke to my family, I was shocked. There was a time when I was taking my son to a class and realized I had scolded him(loudly) and nagged him the whole way there. I created anxiety in him and then sent him off into the world. I felt like a horrible person and was shown the ugliness of living in my own strength, again. I want to be the place for my kids and husband to come and receive love and nurturing. I want to build them up with my words and fill them with Christ's love. This is very much the most important part of my job. The art of homemaking is narrowed down to the atmosphere I am creating. More than anything I do, making sure my boys feel safe and secure with me is key.
So for now, I am a homemaker. There may not be degrees handed out, but I feel secure in that the Lord is making me an expert in caring for my family. Most importantly, I have complete faith in Christ, that He is my value. So even if my job remains a homemaker for the rest of my life, I am fulfilled.
Thanks for reading!
Love,
Jackie

Blog series

This begins a series of posts by some of my Brothers and Sisters in the church I live with, here in Gainesville.

Follow this link to read the first post... http://msy316.wordpress.com/2012/01/11/what-ive-learned-in-organic-church-the-difference-between-brotherhood-and-buddyhood-this-includes-sisterhood/


Enjoy!
Love you guys.

welfare as permanet income?

So the presidential election is just around the corner. My husband asked me this morning if we had friends that we really trusted and looked up to. When I asked why, he told me that he really doesn't feel like researching the potential candidates and just wants to piggy back off some like minded friends. While we do have friends whose opinion I value, I told him I would begin the research.
This morning there was a post on facebook about Mitt Romney obviously funded by his opponent. I don't know much about his guy and if I voted today it would not be for him, but this commercial didn't make him look that bad. One of the main selling points in not voting for him was that he made money shutting down companies, liquidating them, and firing the employees. I wonder if we looked at each company individually if we would find prosperous business and honest hard working men and women? Maybe, but highly unlikely. I wanted to post a rebuttle so bad, but knew the explosive tendencies of one of the supporters, and wanted no part no that. And so this blog came to be...
My husband has a few employees and I am used to him having to go in and cover their shifts because of their horrible, lazy work ethics. His employees are constantly trying of get out of doing work. Because of his experience with "hard-working Americans" I think might want to re-evaluate the term. Most people my age and younger are excuse giving Americans.
If a company was not doing well, I see no reason why liquidating it and making money doing it would be wrong. The hard working folks are free to get a job somewhere that is doing well and the lazy folk are the ones that will struggle and complain.
If hubby's branch was shut down, he could find another job. He would look until he found one. Fortunately he's turned the branch around from when he first got there and it is doing very well now. He has worked very,very hard and there were times he didn't know if he would make it. If he wasn't able to turn it around we would have expected to get demoted or shut down. And we wouldn't have complained or run to the welfare office.
It seems like welfare and food stamps used to be a temporary help for those going through a rough time. It was in place for single mother's, widows, those who got too sick to work, and to hold families over until they could find a job. Instead it has become common for whole neighborhoods to be on welfare because they can't get a job. It's weird because I could walk down to Denny's right now and get a waitressing job in a pinch. And I have a questionable past. Chris and I once went through a financial hardship and I got a job in the evenings to supplement our income. We would have been eligible for welfare, but it just seemed like a very lazy choice.
I know there are a lot of struggling families out there that are using the government help for it's intended purpose... this blog has nothing to do with them. One of my children was on medicaid for the first few years of his life because even though I worked almost 40hours a week, I was in a tough spot and couldn't afford medical insurance.
I have a pretty solid view on the matter from a factual standpoint. I don't claim to be right, it's just how I feel. I know what the Lord has said about the lazy and know what He's said about helping the poor, and most importantly, I know the difference. But I don't feel good about mixing politics with religion any more than that.
Done my little opinionated post, thanks for reading!
Love,
Jackie
p.s. vote for Ron Paul

my only concern

I love Christ. I love Him, live by Him, try to turn to Him in difficult situations, & meet with others who do the same. For long time my purpose has been to try to live by the life inside that wasn't me, but Christ. For most of my christian life I would "hang out" with God. Throughout the day, at night, during difficult times, and when I was bored.
For years I lived by the Life of Christ, I just didn't know that it was called that. When I met Christ I was 17 and in a rehabilitative home for girls. We were free to know Christ organically. We were free to burst out in songs of thanksgiving. We had time set aside to spend with Christ in whatever way we wished. The group was untouched by the world yet. A lot of us got to spend our first year as a christian in a wonderful christian community. Because of that beginning I always felt free to have a close relationship with my Lord.
The second(the first is in another blog to come) absolute, most important lesson I have learned about living organically with others is this... Instruction is meant for me, not them.
Every word in the bible, every piece of correction the Lord has ever bestowed upon me was for me, not someone else. Living entwined lives with other christians, and being a female that likes to talk, talk, talk it can become very easy to begin telling others what to do. Especially in a situation where the Lord has shown me wisdom.
I think about my pastor friends and their job. They read portions of the bible and then come in everyday and share about how we can live the better christian life. Well, I think the bible was meant for each of us, and not someone else. When Christ says that he wants us to put others before ourselves, he is talking to me. That's not a verse I can use to bind others with, that verse is for me. When Christ leads me to die to my desires and agendas, He is not leading me to tell others to die to self too. The instruction is for me.

The first time I heard a series of teachings done by one of my favorite servants of God, I was blown away. It was a 9-part series about living by the indwelling life of Christ. It lined right up with what I knew to be true and it made sense in what was becoming a confusing world. I still listen to it often. Because of those messages Chris and I are a part of an organic church. I was so excited to be a part of something so great. What I didn't understand was that the best part of what I was doing was getting the chance to share the Christ that was inside. I didn't have to discard the Christ I had gotten to know and form a relationship with since my teen years. I could know Him and share Him. Not His instruction, not what's right and wrong, and not even His wisdom, but Him. And because all of His children know Him differently at different times, my relationship with Him looked perfect between Him and me. If we all were having the same journey with Him, what we shared of Him would be the same across the board. And it's so much prettier when we share different pieces.
There have been times when my path, my walk, looked different from another's. It's a beautiful thing. What separates us from a cult is that we live by the indwelling life of Christ... not the fact that we are all doing the same thing or feel the same way.
I am trying to teach this lesson on a smaller scale to my children. I recently overheard one of my kids telling another "Say sorry to me!" I reminded him that saying sorry was something that was his responsibility to say if he hurt someone. It is not his responsibility to tell others to say sorry. As far as he's concerned, if no one ever says sorry to him again, so be it. And to echo that to myself, if no one ever does what the Lord is encouraging me to do in my spirit, so be it. I am not to be concerned with what the Lord is doing in others. All I am to do is express Love.
Thanks for reading!
Love,
Jakie