How God Used a Dishwasher to Reveal My Sin

If you're following along with the Scripture Memory / Dwell Richly printable, here's the verse for week 8: 

For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. Galatians 5:13 (ESV)

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This is the moment…

where I can choose to be angry about our dishwasher with standing water or I can choose to be grateful for the fact that we even have a dishwasher

where I can curse the realities of home ownership or I can be grateful for the beautiful home God has given us as shelter and as a place for friends and family to gather in community

where I can choose to get agitated with JD for not pushing a magic button and fixing it within minutes or I can be grateful for a husband who didn’t let it sit there untouched for days, and tries everything within himself to figure out a way to make our dishwasher work so that we don’t have to use our finances to pay someone else to do it

where I can flip out about having a messy kitchen for a day or two or I can be thankful for everything in it and be reminded that messes are necessary so that God can restore order and make us clean

where I can choose to be frustrated about having puddles of water sitting on our kitchen floor or I can choose to be grateful for absorbent towels that I can throw into a working washing machine later tonight

where I can act like a child of selfishness for not being able to watch “my Monday night shows” or I can stand tall as a daughter of righteousness, washed by the blood of the Lamb and remember that it’s more important to support my husband than it is for me to watch “my shows” (plus, it’s not like I can’t stream the shows tomorrow)

where we can be bitter at the fact we’re up late working or we can choose to be grateful for the day of rest we had yesterday and be thankful for a comfy place to lay our heads after a hard day’s work

where I can choose to be a child of darkness, cloaked in sin 
or I can return to the Lord and walk in His light
 

While I’d like to say “I choose to return to the Lord and walk in His light,” it’s a choice that can only be made because of Jesus. It’s certainly not the initial reaction I had last night.

I prayed yesterday morning that God would reveal to me the depths of my sin so that I may have a better understanding of the depths of His grace. [heavy sigh] It didn’t take long before my ‘not such a big deal’ sins came to light. 

But it especially hit me last night as I stood (and tried to help) in the kitchen for two hours, watching my husband work tediously to figure out the source of our dishwasher’s problems. All of the former thoughts above were my legit thoughts. Thoughts of selfishness, ingratitude, anger, impatience. Quickly following, the Spirit convicted me, revealed my sin and reminded me of the response I should have because I am a temple of the living God. He dwells in me, purifying me and reconciling me to Him on a constant basis. 

So what was wrong with the dishwasher? We're not entirely sure. JD completely disassembled the inside, only to find that nothing is broken or blocking the filter, sump, etc. He put it all back together again, ran a cycle and it ran perfectly. Once again, we were faced with the choice of being super upset about time wasted and a faulty dishwasher issue or we can laugh it off and be super grateful that all is well, we don't have to pay a mechanic, and praise God for taking care of us. 

Witchcraft

Yesterday I bought a package of sea salt. The cashier and I were talking about the how her day was going; following that, we discussed the tedious task of couponing (which I fail to do); and then she picked up the sea salt from the conveyor belt. She said that sea salt is great for cooking but also good for witchcraft. I thought I misheard her but then she repeated it.

“When you feel an evil spirit in your presence, people believe you can sprinkle sea salt around your room and the evil spirit will go away. That’s witchcraft. I don’t know if you believe in that kind of thing but it’s happened to me before. I get scared so I sprinkle the sea salt around my room.”

I don’t know if I was simply in shock (because I’ve never encountered someone who believes in witchcraft) or if I was… no, I was just in shock.

“Yeah, I gotta be honest with you. I don’t believe in witchcraft. I believe in Jesus.”

I wish I had said more. I wish that I had doused her in the “living and active Word of God, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12).

But all I could say, “I believe in Jesus.”

I wish I had said that “the Lord is my strength and my defense” (Exodus 15:2). The Father is the One I run to when I’m afraid.

I wish I had said that “even the demons believe that God is the one true God - and they shudder at His name” (James 2:19). Demons are real but God defeats them, not sea salt.

I wish (and I’m aiming for this) that God’s Word was so deeply ingrained in my spirit that I would be able to say these things to her.

But instead I simply say, “I believe in Jesus.”

Today, my prayer is that “I believe in Jesus” was enough. That somehow God would use my simple, not-thought-out-enough statement to penetrate her heart. That somehow, through the power of the Holy Spirit, she heard me say something a lot more life-changing and pertinent than the real words that came out of my mouth. 

While I don’t feel like it was enough, I believe that God can make it enough. I’m clinging to that hope.

I’ve been praying for opportunities to share the Gospel with people. It’s a simple prayer with pure intentions but I forget just how powerfully God can use that prayer to draw others into Him. And my confession to y’all is that I also forget to pray that God will couple those opportunities with the words to share the Gospel with the people He places in my path. I pray for opportunities, but I fail to pray for the wisdom in how to act in those opportunities. Today my prayer is changing. 

A Post-Memorial Day Post & An Attempt at Not Being Silent

I'm always pretty silent on social media outlets when it comes to Memorial Day and Veterans Day. While I am incredibly grateful for our service men and women, I feel like none of my words would even come close to speaking to the sacrifices they have made for us. Throughout the day, I kept trying to write something - anything - but none of it sufficed. So I tried to sleep on it to write as a post-Memorial Day excerpt and instead, ended up writing this at midnight last night because I couldn't stop thinking about it. So here's my attempt at not being silent...

Both of my grandfathers (still living today) defended our country in uniform. But I know very little of that lifetime of theirs. They have spoken very rarely of those seasons in their lives. I've heard the stories of their pre-war adventures, mid-war love rendezvous with their wives (/my grandmothers) and post-war heart celebrations with their families. I know that there was absolute devastation when deploying and absolute joy when returning home. While my investigative nature wants to know the details in between, they gravely sit back and say, "I don't want to talk about that." And rightfully so. I can't imagine the fear they felt leaving their families behind and the pain they experienced physically, emotionally and mentally. They fought beside the brothers they would lose so that we could have freedom. I can't bear to extract those painful memories from them. But I'm thankful for their courage. I'm thankful for their sacrifices. I'm thankful for their strength to fight.

And there's another veteran in my life that I am especially thankful for. Of his military life, too, I know very little. But I know that he was a Navy man. I know that he loves talking about the vessels, the beauties of the sea. I know that he also claims that he got diabetes because of all the cookies he ate on duty. But I'm not sure that I have ever heard him actually talk about the war though. Politics, yes. America, yes. The best Navy ships out to sea, yes. But the hardships of war? Not so much. Once again, rightfully so. I can't imagine attempting to extract those heavy details from him. And I refuse to try.

But my favorite details lie within the sweet stories of his deployment. It was during his service that he shipped out to the Philippines. Upon his stay, he met a sweet little lady by the name of Josie. He brought her back to America and they got married inside of the walls of their first home. One year later, their son JD was born. And 25 years after that, I had the privilege and joy of marrying their handsome son. I'm thankful for you, Mr. Jim. If it wasn’t for your dedication to America's freedom, I fear that your amazingly loving and kindhearted son would not be here.

Moreover, if it weren't for our brave heroes, I fear we wouldn't have the freedoms and liberties we have as Americans today. In fact, I know we wouldn't.

So thank you, Mr. Jim, Papa Charles, Papa Roy, every man and woman who has ever served or is still serving. Thank you for fighting for our country and defending it well. Thank you for making America what it is today. Thank you for your sacrifices. Though we will never fully know of the hardships that entails, we thank you for it. 

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And on a completely unrelated note...

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