Jack and the Beanstalk Gone Bad....

We've recently been trying to do some remodeling in one of our bathrooms. It only had a tub with a hand-held shower sprayer, so we were wanting to put a "real" shower in there for the kids and company. After much pain, Jason was able to remove the layers of concrete and old sheetrock, but since we've been gone so much, we haven't gotten it finished yet. 

When we got back from Haiti, he opened the bathroom door, and this is what we saw:

Yes, a vine growing from behind the window! I hesitated to add the picture, because, well, it's kind of embarrassing!! We got a good laugh out of it though! I kept thinking over the past few days that I needed to go outside and cut it down, assuming it had grown from below the window and somehow through some of the insulation above the window. 

When we got home from church this morning, I walked over and looked at the window. There was no vine on the outside. It was growing between the brick and the wall. I suppose there is really no way to remove it, unless, we went under the house and uprooted it! We will have to cut it to finish the bathroom but it will still be there, behind the wall, which may not be a good thing!

I thought about the wall of my heart. When we surrender to the demolition that the Lord needs to do on our heart, things are revealed that others may not have known were there. At a time in my life, it was a root of bitterness and jealousy that was well hidden between the walls of my heart and what you would see on the outside. It was green with envy, much like this vine. Only until the Lord broke through the layers did I see it for what it was.

I'm guessing that since we can't really totally remove it, this vine has the potential to cause further problems down the road. I hope not, but I know that in life, until those "vines" are totally gone from our hearts, we will always battle it. It may not be visible to others, but we know it's there. 

Jeremiah 17:9-10

“The heart is hopelessly dark and deceitful, a puzzle that no one can figure out. But I, God, search the heart and examine the mind. I get to the heart of the human. I get to the root of things. I treat them as they really are, not as they pretend to be.”

Bro. Dennis preached on pretending and wearing masks this morning. I'm asking God to get to the root of things in my life, to examine my heart and mind. I want to be real, nothing hidden, so that when the walls of my heart are stripped, it will be found pure. I know that ultimately that will never be this side of heaven, but I pray I am ever striving for holiness. And when I'm not, I hope I will ask for Him to remodel my heart again.

The Way I Walk in Haiti

No, I'm not trying to show you something I stepped in! 

If you look closely, you can see on the right side of my shoe, the bottom is starting to come off. Last year when I went to Haiti, by the end of the week, I had to duck-tape my shoes together to make it through the last day. By the end of the second day, I noticed it was happening again. The bottom part had already started to come off.  I found myself saying, "I guess it's the way I walk in Haiti or something." Yes, the terrain where we were is bumpy and rocky; stubs of trees that had been cut off where they cleared the land were sticking up. Maybe that had something to do with it.

It is a land that these ladies walked everyday.

By the third day, they were looking something like this. I didn't think to take a picture, but again, by the end of the week, all of the gray and pink grip part of the top half of my shoes was gone. 

On our next to last work day, the boy in the bright blue shirt, John Mykel, asked me, "Are your shoes good for me?" 

He had found a very special place in my heart, as well as others. He was one of six children, and what a brother and son he was! He was always looking out for his younger siblings, making sure to share with them anything that he was given. When I handed him the shoes the next day, he took them to his sister.

Here, John Mathis and I got in a picture with some of the rest of his family.

Unless you have been to a place like Haiti, it is hard to put into words the feelings you have when you are there. Here are a few: grateful, humbled, blessed....uhh, blessed, humbled, grateful, full, overflowing.

So what is the way I walk in Haiti? Some days, I walked with tears in my eyes. I walked with a smile on my face as I looked into the faces of those who were completely content. I walked with sweat rolling down my back, something that didn't even seem to bother most. I walked with ears listening to the infectious laughter of children, through which volumes were spoken in giggles. I walked in the presence of Jesus at a church service in which I understood nothing, except the name of Jesus in a song. Amazing how the Name of Jesus rings out, no matter the language. At the end of that service, hands were reached out to us, and in unison of voices but individual prayers, we were prayed for by these precious people of God. In closing, they recited the Lord's prayer. I was then walking with a heart overflowing-humbled as they lifted our needs up to the Father.

Returning to "normal" routines today, I thought back to "how I walked in Haiti." How do I do that here? My heart is still there right now. My mind is still singing the songs I learned in Haitian Creole. So how do I walk here they way I did there?

When I walked in to school today, I literally felt sick. Please don't hear that the wrong way. I am very grateful to have a job, and to be able to have such a nice facility to teach in. But as I entered those doors, the faces of those I'd seen for 8 days were before me. The picture of their school was on my mind.

Yes, Praise God, it is better than what it was last year. Now they meet in a concrete brick room, un-airconditioned, no electricity.

I thought about their church and the dancing and praising the lady in the pink shirt gave to the Lord when they got lights in the church, due to the solar panels.

How do they walk in Haiti? They walk by faith.

2 Corinthians 5:7

"That’s why we live with such good cheer. You won’t see us drooping our heads or dragging our feet! Cramped conditions here don’t get us down. They only remind us of the spacious living conditions ahead. It’s what we trust in but don’t yet see that keeps us going. Do you suppose a few ruts in the road or rocks in the path are going to stop us? When the time comes, we’ll be plenty ready to exchange exile for homecoming."

I used those verses last year when I blogged about Haiti. But it just seems appropriate again.

I don't know that we really walk by faith here. We do get stopped by the ruts and rocks in the road that tear up our shoes, and we just go buy new ones. Do we really trust in what we can't see? Is that what keeps us going? My prayer is that I would remember those faces, those songs, those prayers.
To my knowledge, the Lord has not called us to move to Haiti. 
But, I pray as I walk here, in my comings and goings, that my faith would be strengthened, tested, and proven solid, and my dependence only be found on Jesus.

Entangled

Hebrews 12:1a

"Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles." 

There was an unwritten list of things I needed to do today, especially in light of the fact that I am leaving for Haiti in 5 days. Yet I found myself doing yard work. I already mowed yesterday, so that should have been my extent of it for the week. As I was mowing, (and every time I do), I find myself dodging this:

Yes, that is a shrub, or a tree. I'm not sure. In our front yard. Lovely, isn't it? Try riding a lawnmower under that. Not so fun. So, I decided I would do a little trimming. Now, I do not claim to have any shade of green on my thumbs. Something I did not inherit from my mama. So, I'm well aware for all you who do, (especially my cousin landscape architect) and know that it probably is not the "time of year" do trim back your shrubs. I don't care. I was tired of looking at this thing.

As I began to cut, what I knew was there all along, I quickly realized in order to do much good, I needed to just cut low. The shrub-tree-thing no longer looked like it was supposed to, for it had been overtaken with honeysuckle.

It took some cutting, but eventually the weight of the vines was too much to bear, and began to fall. As I began more of a botanical surgery, I noticed the thin vines on top were coming from a stronger source.

Wrapped around several stems were these guys. My guess is they had to have been there for a while, to be this thick. It was not lost on me what these look like:

Their serpentine hold on the shrub had overpowered it. It did what was in its nature to do- entangle. What once was probably a little shrub-tree, (again, I don't have a clue!), planted with intentions of landscaping what was once a newly built home, now looked nothing like what their original owner had in mind.

As I severed the stems, along with the vines, John 15 came to mind. 

Jesus says,   

"I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful."

Just like the honeysuckle vine, there is so much in our lives that entangles us, making us look nothing like what the Lord intends for us to. We are alive, trying to grow, but like the seed planted in thorny soil, the Word gets choked out by the world, and soon we are overtaken. Freedom can only come through the Master Landscape Architect, the Gardener, who cuts away the thing that has twisted itself around us. 

When He is done, we definitely won't look like we did before.  

We. Are. Changed.

But the weight of that which easily entangled us is gone. 

No, probably not forever, at least on this side of eternity. It will be a continual pruning, a constant battle, because we are human. We struggle with the old man. But when the cutting has been done, others will notice too. 

If you drive by my yard, you will probably notice as well. You will see the pile of twigs, leaves and vines on the road. You may glance over, noticing the strange looking shrub-tree-like things and how crazy they look. 

But more than my yard (that will never win yard of the year!), I pray you see my life and your life as that shrub-tree-like thing, that either has been cut or needs to be, in order to change what we look like. 

Hopefully, it will be more like Christ.