Romans 6

   I've been hanging out a bit in Romans.  I'm in no hurry and I don't get to it near often enough, but what a book!  It's like peeling layers off an onion- deeper and deeper until you're crying, each layer more pungent than the one before.  However a little time, some heat applied and it caramelizes- sweetens and brings out the flavor in the rest of the meal.
    Particularly Chapter 6, about law, sin and death; grace, freedom and life.
  "For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace."  (feel those onions affecting your eyes yet?)
    My biggest thing at present is how do I become a "slave to righteousness"???  How does every choice become.... not a choice because I have enslaved myself to God and His choices?    And if I am not, in deed (literally) a slave to righteousness, am I not a slave to the law of sin and death?  back to death again?!
          And yet the chapter ends with...   "but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."
 Chapter 3 reiterates God's faithfulness despite our lack thereof.  Chapter 4 talks of Abraham... a very far from perfect person, and his faith through which justification comes.   "Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will never count against him."  What would the Jehovah's Witness ladies who visit me say to that?  They think I'm nuts for my stance on behavior independent grace.  They seem to confuse the Lord's punishments/discipline with His promise keeping.  How sad it is to believe without confidence.  What would they say to Romans 4 (much less chapter 8) in one of our more accepted translations? 
        Even though I struggle with knowing I am not a slave to righteousness so much of the time and thereby I fall back into the law of sin and death- that's where His grace comes in and there is where my faith will hang out.  That is where I will put my confidence which adds so much to savor in life.   As the layers of the onion unfold, I find new layers of gratitude for the gift God offers- and that enhances all that life here and hereafter is and will be.

So you might have figured..

    So for those of you who don't know- I'm a huge Rich Mullins fan.  not was. am.  He may be dead (died the same month as Mother Theresa and Princess Di- I think that's significant), but it's hard for me to think of any Christian who is in heaven as dead... really.  What's "dead" about heaven?  Are we not going to be with them some day?  Plus, this guy wrote about heaven as if he was on a first name basis with it. (and I know I've listened to his music enough to be influenced fairly heavily by it!)  "When I leave, I want to go out like Elijah.."  who else could have written that?
     So lately I've been listening to a little Rich when I steal the Camry and run errands at night.  After long days of this child care business, I'm soul hungry and so this is what I hear...
                                              "...and everything You sent to shake me
                                                  from my dreams they come to wake me
                                                  in the love I find in You
                                                  ......and I can see the things that really matter
                                                  become the wings You send to gather me
                                                  to my home........I'm going HOME."
  His music is big on Home.  Heavenly home- earthly home is in God and God in us.. it's a core place of peace for Rich (now more than ever).   HOME IS WHERE GOD IS.  and that is so as it should be.
     I think that's always been something I crave- roots, home, place.  My parents moved a whole 2 miles when I was 18. It would be my first move shortly after graduation.   I wigged out.  Completely flipped my lid and gave them heaps of grief over the thing.  There'd be no home to come to from college.  Place has always been important to me.  I will call Tennessee home till I die even if I live in Michigan for 60 years.  I also crave roots likely because I went so long not knowing mine and then even when I did meet my birth mom- I find out she's from up north too!  So much for a Southern heritage of any kind.
     So for me- it is crucial to see God as HOME.  as my identity.  as not only my roots but my present and future... how secure is that?!  A place of peace that we carry with us and will be our eternal destination on this journey which is basically to realize Home.
      So how do I live like I'm home?  quit waiting for the next thing?  be content and not afraid of the monotany and struggle of the next few years (like 18 or so?)  how  do I realize verses like the one someone sent me (very well timed!!)  " And let us not be weary in well doing for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not" (Galatians 6:9)  How do I give that sense of HOME security to my boys, live it for my husband?
     Ask me in a few years... maybe I'll be closer to knowing.

reasons

     As many of you know, many things have changed for me in the last year.  I find myself needing space and time to process life as it now is- not as I wanted it to be, not as I planned and dreamed for, but as it is with it's blessings as well as it's struggles.  The journey I am now on seems to be one of re-writing my identity, re-developing my core self. or maybe just getting back to who I should be.
     I am no longer working- something I'd always loved and drawn identity from.  I have always had aspirations that just don't seem to fit with what God is doing in my life anymore.  My migraines had caused me to face limitations I did not want to admit- and yet I have found learning those limitations invaluable.
     So in this blog, you will find me processing life- a life which as of almost 6 weeks ago involves 2 more children, lots more laundry, a lot of screaming and an amazing desire to bake.  You'll read of adoptive mom quandries, scriptural puzzles, attempted methods of sanity, and if I ever figured out what to do with those chestnuts in the front yard.  And the more I write- the more you'll know that Charlie is being superdad, so I can get away a bit.