Level, Square and True

My husband is building a small shed to house the lawn tractor and a few other, smaller tools.  He's designed it himself, taken his time and carefully laid out the foundation, and invested a lot of energy especially in those first stages of making sure that everything was level and square.  He tested and retested those concrete blocks and the beams he placed on them with his level (okay, can't resist a joke: you know a guy's on the level if his bubble's in the middle), and made minor adjustments in the depth the concrete went into the earth, before ever he screwed in the first screw to the wood. 

It might seem like a lot of trouble to go to, but that extra time and effort is going to be well worth it.  The building will be more sturdy, more reliable, and more long-lasting.  It will withstand everything that the north wind and the snow and ice will throw at it in the winter, and it will protect its contents from the rain during the rest of the year. 

Here's the link where I got this photo

Starting from a level foundation and making sure that all the parts are square - that is, perpendicular to each other and fitting the way they're supposed to fit - will only enhance the function of the shed and turn it into an asset rather than a liability.  

The process is a visual reminder of how to build a life.  Make sure the foundation is level, spend extra time, as much as you need to.  Use tools to measure and be certain that the foundation is square because you'll be building on it - if the foundation is wrong, the whole thing will be crooked.  Think about how it's going to be, plan your escape route (the door) and a way to see out (the window). Frame it out and make sure THAT is square and true. 

"True" is hard to explain - carpenters understand the term. It means that the integrity of the structure is right, that the corners are not just square (that is, coming to a 90 degree angle) but that the framing is in a straight line all the way along, and that both the framing and fitted corners, put together, will support the roof and the walls as a result. 

Plainly put, the building process is a metaphor of life and the foundation in particular, is one of relationship with God - it's the foundation for living life as it really is.  Life needs to be grounded on something that is going to stand the test of time... and relationship with God is that something.  The floor and the framing are relationship with the self.  Nothing external can hang on those for very long unless the framing is True.  Self-care, setting boundaries, letting go of the need to control or look after others to the exclusion of the self - these are good structure for what will eventually be what everyone else sees: relationships with others (the walls).  Top that off with healthy boundaries between self and others (the roof).  That keeps the floor and the framing from getting soggy and rotten (grin) and keeps the tools from rusting.

The analogy is rather loose; I only just thought of this one tonight as I heard my hubby talk about his project.   But I believe that it has merit.  

Happy building. 

Guilt and Shame

They are used interchangeably.

Guilt and shame.  Shame and guilt.

But they're not the same.

Guilt is the feeling that you get when you've done something wrong and you feel bad about it - whether it's through getting discovered by another person, or by your own conscience. 

It hurts.  It's supposed to hurt.  It can be constructive; in the right circumstances, it serves a purpose.  Its purpose is to bring you to the place of making things right and changing your behavior.  Guilt is God-given, healthy, and meant to be a means to an end.  

It is never supposed to be dumped on you by another person because of their own dysfunction. That's not something another person has the right to do (that is, take the role of God or your conscience in your life.)  Neither is it ever supposed to be held onto when the wrong has been confessed and forgiveness sincerely sought.

Shame, on the other hand, thought it might feel very much like it, bears very little resemblance to guilt when you look at the root of it, the source of it. It hurts far, far worse than guilt ever could, goes deeper than any wound anybody could inflict, leaves scars that are ... permanent.

When you feel bad for who you are as a person in the centre of your soul - THAT is shame.  Shame is the evil one's counterfeit for guilt.  To be shamed is when another person makes a judgment about you at the very core of your being. A simple message planted in that very tender area at perhaps a very young age has the potential to cripple you emotionally for the rest of your life and becomes a target for the enemy to wreak further havoc in a vulnerable area.  

Shame makes you believe that you are worthless, that your opinion doesn't matter, that your life experiences are of little or no consequence. It can even go as far as to make you believe that your very existence is a mistake or a sham.  Its close relative is despair: a complete loss of even the slightest glimmer of hope.  It can keep you trapped in a cycle of abuse - or self-abuse - or letting people walk all over you - thinking that you deserve all of the bad things that keep happening to you.  

It's a lie.  It's all a lie.  

There is a way to emerge out of that dark and lonely place inside.  To believe that you have worth.  To shed the shame like a snake sheds its skin, and - come to think of it - that's a really good analogy that just happened to pop into my head!  

It starts with the simple admission that you can do nothing about your own inability to climb out of that place by yourself, then believing that God can give you that strength and asking Him.  Other steps follow - healing happens from the inside out... and before long that old skin of shame feels like it doesn't fit, that it's stretched to the max and you've grown bigger than that inside.  The growth sometimes hurts - mostly because of the stretching of the old person that once was, the one that doesn't want to give in to the new person that's emerging.  

Before long that old skin just peels off as you keep going forward and living life, really living it!  It's a new sensation, the silencing of those condemning voices in your head - they might disappear slowly, like turning down the volume bit by bit. And one day you don't hear them anymore.

I can't say that I have gotten to that point yet.  But I am getting there.  Slowly.

Miracles in the midst of want

I mentioned in my last entry that not all Christians judged us for our financial failure.

Some of them loved us through it, supported us with prayer and with kind words.

Still others went the extra mile and were willing to be God's provision for us as and whenever He led them to do that. It always turned out to be the perfect timing.

One day, about half-way through that nine months, I noticed that less and less of my clothes were fitting me. That was because we could only afford starches and high-fat meats. "Lord," I prayed. "I only have a couple of outfits left. I need some clothes, but I can't afford to go buy any, not even at the second-hand stores." Within two days, one person (I still don't know who) left a garbage bag on our back step filled with clothes... nice ones. Most of them fit me, and what didn't fit me, fit my oldest girl so she could hand down some of her clothes to her younger sister.

We didn't talk much about our problems, but there were those whose lives were affected directly, people we had to tell. Among those were members of our extended family. We got varying reactions from them, everything from hand-wringing worry from those who knew what it was to be in want, to something similar to "Let them eat cake" from those who had no clue what financial distress even looked like.

It just about drove my mother-in-law crazy that she couldn't write us a check for a hundred dollars and make everything okay for us. She even wanted to open a bank account for us. We told her that any extra money that anyone gave us would be confiscated by the bankruptcy trustee to pay the creditors with. She wanted US to benefit, not the people we owed. So every week, she would send her husband over to our house to drop off about three grocery bags of meat. Chicken legs or thighs, pork chops, lean hamburger, whole chickens. Sometimes even the occasional package of steak. She didn't get much in the run of a month; she called it "mad money." That she would spend her own money on us - just blew me away.

We never went without. There were times, the day before my husband's payday, that we had to rummage through the couch cushions for change. He'd go down the street with his head down - he was looking for coins people dropped. But with the generosity of some of God's saints, and His miraculous provision, our family never went hungry.

The first God-miracle we noticed though, came when the trustee sent an appraiser to look at our house, to see if it could be sold to pay the creditors. He made his assessment, looked at our mortgage, which we'd added to about five years previous in order to finish the basement, and told us that if the house were sold, there wouldn't be enough equity left over to pay the realty fees AND have enough to pay some to the creditors. So we got to keep the house.

A particularly trying time came when the tax department, who had been auditing my husband's taxes, decided to press charges for tax evasion. They knew full well that he couldn't fight the tax department in his situation of bankruptcy. He had made some errors in judgment about two years previous, based on lack of information about tax changes, and they decided he would be a great object lesson to anyone who wanted to have a home business and do their own taxes. Anyway, we had no extra money for a lawyer. The court date came, and the judge called his name. He stood up and the judge said, "Where is your lawyer?" He said he didn't have any. "Get one, and be back here in two weeks."

We found a lawyer willing to take our case but he charged a fee of $600. It was an enormous sum of money for a cash-only budget. It certainly wasn't an approved expense. However, my husband went to the trustee and told him the situation. Finally, after much pleading and arm-twisting, the trustee said, "Well, there's the third pay period this month. Out of that, you pay the mortgage and the lawyer. We get the rest." What about groceries, my husband asked. "No. The mortgage, and the lawyer. Nothing else."

When I heard this news, I was overcome with worry. No grocery money for two whole weeks?? How would we survive? How could anyone survive?

I needed help - some message from God to know what to do.

God was punching down the clay. Jeremiah 17 says that the clay was marred in the hand of the potter, so He made it again another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to make it. That's what was happening.

In desperation I opened the Scriptures. "Please tell me what to do, Lord. We are so in need of Your guidance." Somehow I remembered the story of the widow who was financially destitute. Her children were going to be sold into slavery to pay her debts. And she went to the prophet to ask him what to do. Of course this is the story of the widow's cruse of oil that didn't run out until she had enough oil to sell to pay her debts. But there was a part of the story that had escaped me... until it jumped off the pages of the Bible at me. When she explained her predicament, the prophet said, "What do you have in the house?"

I stopped. What did I have in the house? Well, now. I didn't know exactly.
"Find out," said a little voice in my head. Or was it my heart?

I decided to do an inventory. I went through the fridge and the cupboards, and put together a menu plan for 14 days' worth of breakfast, lunch, supper, and snacks. It amazed me that the little bit of food in the house would last that long. We actually had enough food. I discovered that if handled right, one pound of hamburger could stretch for three meals for two adults and two children. The only thing we had to buy in that 2 weeks was one container of milk. The loose change paid for that.

God had provided; there was no other explanation for it!!

The court did impose a fine, by the way, near the end of our bankruptcy period. It was substantial - and the bankruptcy laws didn't allow for that debt to be erased since it was imposed by the court system. In a way it felt as though we'd gotten out of one mess and into another.

But God wasn't finished with His miracles yet.