Sqeaky Clean (or the How to be Holy note)

This note is going to get personal, but I believe in testimonies, I believe that a Christian only reports his (or her) horrible past, or horrible self-seeking ways, or horrible inner-self in order to boast in Jesus all that He has overcome! This is a difficult one to write, but I have come a long way to turn back now. Besides, if I keep this in the shadows I'm only giving satisfaction to the enemy! So, in your face, enemy.

The process of being set free:

• Step 1: Be in bondage.

Check. No matter who you are; check.

John 8:34 "Jesus answered them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin."

• Step 2: Realize you're in bondage.

This step is a little trickier, especially for Christians who love Jesus, are led by the Holy Spirit, and live their lives according to the word. There are roots, embedded deep down in our souls.

Romans 6:16 "Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one’s slaves whom you obey?"

In my case I was harboring shame (and I didn't know it) for all the the sexual or sensual things that had happened to me or that I committed in my past. I was also harboring bitterness toward those who caused or participated in these acts, which translated means I was blaming them and shaming myself.

• Step 3: What to do about it.

I took a week, once these things were revealed to me. I took a week to figure out what to do, what steps to take because I believe God never works the same way twice.

Judges 6:18 "Do not depart from here, I pray, until I come to You and bring out my offering and set it before You.” And He said, “I will wait until you come back."

• Step 4: Be ready for Him to expose you even more.

Ephesians 5:13 "But all things that are exposed are made manifest by the light."

As I prayed that He would be so kind as to give me a heart of repentance and forgiveness, and if I should go about contacting people to ask for forgiveness and apologize - in the name of Jesus - I realized that I was remedying the symptoms. The roots were being yanked around a bit, but it was time to pull them up. This is when I saw it.

I was playing the victim, the hurt one, the accosted. I was playing God when I said, "Thank you, Lord, for dying for me and allowing me to go to Heaven when this is all over, but for now I'm just going to scrub up the table and chairs so that we can have our relationship over coffee. Nevermind that closed door over there, I never even go in there so I don't even know what's there!"

2 Peter 2:19 "While they promise them liberty, they themselves are slaves of corruption; for by whom a person is overcome, by him also he is brought into bondage."

I always said I was "broken" because it was difficult for me to open up my heart. The roots of my bitterness were actually saying, "I don't deserve love and neither do they."

This is BLASPHEMY! I was contradicting everything the Bible says about grace, and mercy, and love, and purity, and the resurrection. In effect, I wasn't the devil's advocate, I was the devil. Or, at the very least I had convinced myself that the devil was right, NOT GOD.

He got up from the coffee table and waited expectantly by the closed door I had refused to open. I stared. WHY would you ask me to open those wounds? Because they're no longer just wounds, they're gods.

• Step 5: Once you've opened the door, TALK to Him about it.

I began to pray, to confess, to let it all out as it were. I told Him all the foul things I had become, though I was living right, and all the ways I had been my own personal Lucifer and not allowed anyone in, and even placing boundaries for Him in my heart. "No Lord, this hurt is mine." I talked until I felt I had said it all, and then I talked some more.

• Step 6: Just telling Him what you did doesn't make it better; repent!

This is where He got out the broom and Lysol. He was poised and ready as I went into that room. I had to touch the gross, I remembered the grilled cheese sandwich under the bed from 2003, all the gory details of my sin surfaced. This was important for me, it was important not so that I could dwell on my shame. Not this time, this time I was looking at my past sins WITH God. I wasn't looking at it as something to bury and forget, to be ashamed of. I picked up each event, each relationship, each action and I handed it over to Him. "Lord I'm sorry I hurt you, that I tried to take your place. You died for me, that these didn't have to be a part of me anymore. The shame of these sins is not mine to hold on to or to bury. I'm taking the bitterness and the shame off the throne of my heart, to give to You."

I think it's important to note that when I gave my life to Christ I already asked for forgiveness and He granted that to me. Because I repent doesn't mean that I didn't have salvation to begin with, it means that I am wrong and I need to admit it and stop doing what it is I'm doing.

• Step 7: Declare victory!

Soon after I realized, confessed, and repented, my prayer started sounding different. And suddenly I felt the need to say these things out loud. God is the only omnipotent, so I decided to declare it to the Heavens and to Hades. "I'm am free, in the name of Jesus! By His blood I am released from these chains!"

• Step 8: Glory is due. Give it to Him

When this moment, literally a little less than an hour, was over I caught a glimpse of what God saw. I was standing before Him in a beautiful white gown, and it was just a flash, just a moment, and maybe until you experience purity before God this means nothing. For me I was just beginning. I thanked Him, praised Him, declared my love for Him. "Oh God, I love you!" He is amazing, and there is nothing I could do to try to clean out my own dark rooms, only He has incinerating power to rid us of even the most deepset stains forever.

• Step 8: It's not a one-time deal. Live a life of repentance!

Galatians 5:1 "Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage."

It's like keeping the bedroom clean. We are stuck in these bodies until Life comes, and until that day we will be struggling with ourselves, our flesh, indwelling sin, "it is not me, it's the sin that lives in me," until death do us part. Is it hopeless then?

Hebrews 3:14 "For we have become partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end."

The beginning of our confidence = faith in purity, in grace, in sanctification by the blood of Christ. We become partakers of Christ = He gives us more of Him, and if you didn't know all of your discontent in this world - for a car, a husband/wife, a good job, a great ministry - stems from one thing: the desire to fulfill our purpose. The problem is some people forget that our divine purpose is to cleave to Him. Period.

Holy Wrath

When someone sins, someone who knows better, who has been taught, who supposedly loves the Lord, and it makes you go crazy with the urge to hunt them down and punch them in the face for their general unremorsefulness, is that okay?

I've been looking for verses that say it's okay to punch someone in the face, but it appears that the Word was written infururatingly to make us peacemakers:

Psalm 37:8 "Refrain from anger and turn from wrath; do not fret—it leads only to evil."

Exodus 34:6 "...The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness."

And of course, we can't forget good ol' Romans 12:19 "Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but rather give place to wrath; for it is written, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,” says the Lord."

So, then I guess my prayers will be for a solid punch in the face from God, who is wrathful and just.

Pleats and Puddles Cliffhanger

I realize I left some of you in the dark about the pleats and the puddles of dust. This was not an entire blog's worth of story-telling, but I will say that as I was running around trying to get lost and not sweat I discovered that there is one great joy to American public schools: FASHION.

Here, you've got your prep and high school uniforms swimming the streets like they were going out of style. I've got NEWS for you, Mexico! They've BEEN outta style, you got me?! Or maybe they really have an unnatural love of khaki and navy blue that we United Statesians won't understand due to the asymmetrical nature of our culture.

I have to say that while the various shades of navy and khaki, and the size of the plaid patterns vary, pleats are a-plenty. I wonder if it's the pleats. For the sake of the pleat, the uniform will remain. They are everywhere! I sometimes wonder why they don't pleat their backpacks, they're already on the pants, the skirts, the shirts... I wonder if you can pleat a shoe? Probably not, if you could Mexico would have made its teenagers wear them already.

As for the puddles... of dust. I'm amazed each time I hop off my country bus, onto my country road, and make my way toward my country home (anywhere else this would sound so elegant and charming).

As I cross the quiet highway and enter the drive that is to take me to the gate of my country home (again, charming, right?) I realize there is a sudden give-way beneath my country boots (also known as worn All Stars), and a cloud of dust lifts gently off the ground (i.e. gets in my face, blows about for a bit just to make sure it covers my pants and turns my shoes an uncanny tint of khaki - again, with this country and KHAKI).

I continue gaily down the lane with my recent purchases (peanut butter, gouda, the usual) swinging by my side, making a lovely swishing sound as the plastic bag swings back and forth, I realize that the dust phenomenon is not a passing fancy. It's continued to life, to swirl, to blow about, and now to get into the holes in my Converse (I said "worn"), and seep through my Hanes all the way until they reach the in-betweens of my toes. Yes, the in-betweens therein.

After a kilometer of prancing through the dust, and as frustrating as it can be to have to wash my feet and change my socks each time I arrive from a days' outings, I am always thankful for one thing: no rain.

The Police Station, Official Papers, Pleats, and Puddles of Dust

Thanks to a kind and faithful reader - and some recent interesting events - I am inspired to remind the world that I still live. This story is another that I can chalk up to the history of Emily, "Legends of a Mensa" (dum-dum), an ongoing saga.

To make the short and embarassing story much shorter in order for it to sound less embarassing, I was pick-pocketed on Friday for the first time in my life, yet I did not break a sweat. I was told by all my work authorities, the police, and my lawyer that I simply cannot hesitate to act. Still, I paused, thought it through, weighed my options.

Finally, I took the 1/2 hour van-bus ride to the police station in Cholula, yet was redirected to the station in Puebla - at least another hour away. Still, cool as a cumquat.

I disembark a little less than the aforementioned hour later at the street crossing, 9th and 15th. I look again at the address I had scribbled hastily on an envelop.... 8th and 14th. Which, unfortunately did not mean just a mere couple of blocks away. The streets are ordered odds and evens which in short meant that I was on the OPPOSITE SIDE OF TOWN.

Again, and with only thirty measly pesos jangling in my now sadly sagging purse, tac on an empty rumbling stomach and I still decided to hoof it.

40 minutes later, now plodding much more slowly than when I valiantly decided to walk, now sweating just a LITTLE, yet not from the stress, from the thirty-block hike in the afternoon sun. As I near my destination a young man remarks on my unzipped purse, an umbrella sticking out one end, "You'll get robbed like that you know," he warns. I smile wryly at the irony of his timing.

I took out the umbrella and began to weild it more than to carry it, and zipped my purse - to discourage the attacker who may be tempted by my sagging change purse, the only survivor of value. That, and my hand sanitizer.

Upon arrival, people, as I begin to explain my problem, wave me to various different offices, different people, and finally to run the "quick" errand of getting copies made of my passport. The man told me specifically where, he just left out the part where the faded painted-on-the-side-of-a-wall sign "Copies" was covered up by the taco stand.

6 blocks farther than intended and a sudden hightened awareness of a blister forming of the bottom of my heel brings me back to my destination where I am told to sit and wait. "Thank you," I respond with feeling, thankful even now that the wait lasted for over an hour, though the entire time feeling trepedatious that they would require a fee of thirty pesos and then I'd have to beg for some tacos and hitch hike home.

No fee. I found my cheap cheap tacos, and the Lord even blessed me with the nice man who told me of a somewhat ghetto, and not well-known, but blessedly close bus line that took me home.

All to accomplish what? To get a piece of official-looking paper that says I lost my visa. I still have to go to Immigration to get the actual document. Another day of adventure awaits!



PART TWO
Why pleats?

Why puddles of dust?

To be continued...