39 years ago to this very day
And I've never been sorry for choosing this way
or missed anything I left behind"
Today is my anniversary with Jesus. It's the day I chose to step out of the safety of "religiousity" and plunge headlong into the chaos of relationship.
With God.
It wasn't that I was seeking a way out of a miserable life. For all I knew then, I was very happy. I wasn't an abused child. I wasn't a child at all. I was a healthy, happy adult of 25 with a shining, though unknown, future ahead of me.
I just fell into the wrong crowd. A bunch of Jesus people. People whose faces shone with something I'd never seen before. The religious crowd were nice, but there was always a disapproving look about them. They had a list of rules that must be obeyed or...or something awful would happen.
There was no doctored Kool Aid to drink, no mind altering drugs, no sleepless brainwash harangue, no charismatic evangelist at the end of a pew yelling "turn or burn". Just me, my guitar, that tree, and a question from a passerby who later became my dear friend Margo.
I was sitting under that tree very happily singing songs and strumming my guitar. I was a product of the 60s. My idols were Peter, Paul and Mary, Judy Collins, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez. The songs I knew and loved were filled with the cries of human misery and injustice. Such poetry. Then Margo walked by. She didn't even stop to engage me in theological debate, just asked the question in passing, "Singing songs to Jesus?"
She kept walking and I was stunned. I quit strumming to listen to the ticker tape passing through my head. "Why am I singing songs of sorrow instead of joy? Why am I dwelling on the agony of man's inhumanity to man when I could dwell on God's amazing love toward man?
Toward...me.
I gladly gave up for my sweet Savior's name
and consider it loss that I might proclaim
that Jesus Christ is my Lord"
The next weekend, I gathered up my entire collection of vinyl (around 50 albums strong) and traded them in at the local flea market for the only two records about Jesus they had--a bunch of hymns by Tennessee Ernie Ford (you've got to be kidding!!!) and another I can't remember. That was quite a trip from "Blowin' in the Wind" to "I Need Thee Every Hour"!
And, I'm telling you, that's not much of a price
considering all He had to sacrifice
when He hung upon the cross"
It was the sacrifice of love that got me. That cross, that crown of thorns, that bleeding side. Why would anyone put up with that, much less God? How could anyone love that much?
That powerful love drew me into His arms.
I now truly had something to sing about. A song of hope. A song of love. I started writing songs and fell into a singing group. For three years we shared our songs of hope with people in the US, Switzerland, Germany, and France. Then I fell in love with another man, a handsome attorney who loved Jesus too.
We based our lives, our marriage and our family on that song of love.
but He's shown me the joy in the midst of the pain
And it seems the more I lose, the more that I gain
I can do all things through Him"
We have not been spared the ravages of life: man's inhumanity, disease, loss, disappointment, grief. We have been shaken but not shattered, held together by the Rock that is higher, the Hope that is surer, the Love that is faithful.
God is good even when circumstances are not. We go nowhere He hasn't been already.
39 years ago to this very day
And I've never been sorry for choosing this way
or missed anything I left behind"
Yes, I have wavered in strength of commitment, cried and shaken my fist at the heavens, wondered why. Life is not perfect with Jesus, but it is perfected in suffering. Becoming like Him, becoming a Christian, is not for the faint of heart. It's hard. It is not easy to love others more than yourself and offer forgiveness when your heart is trampled on.
But it is good. It is worth the struggle. Who else has the words of Life?
I gladly gave up for my sweet Savior's name
and consider it loss that I might proclaim
that Jesus Christ
that Jesus Christ
that Jesus Christ
is my Lord"
"30th of May" by JAS
Counting thanks with the community of gratitude:
292. that tree
293. that passerby
294. that question
295. that answer
296. that thorny crown
297. that bleeding side
298. that amazing love
299. so great a Savior
300. the Father's arms
301. simple questions
302. profound answers
303. the right choice
304. a friend for life
305. a song of love
306. 39 years proof of His faithfulness
307. God's riches
308. Christ's expense
