SNAP SHOTS

June 2012

SNAPSHOTS

I grew up in a Christian home. I grew up in the Church. Christian behavior and love was modeled for me. My parents were not divorced; in fact they kissed and hugged and laughed around us. We prayed together as a family, we ate dinner at the table every night. My parents did not smoke or drink or cuss. We went to church, tithed, helped out the needy. They helped us with our homework and disciplined us. They gave us chores and limited TV and went to parent/teacher conferences. My parents put us in music lessons, gymnastic or ballet and were the proud parents that would cheer us in our part in the school play, no matter how big or small. They made us say “yes ma’am or yes sir”, and would not tolerate disrespect. In short I was blessed and privileged to have such a good upbringing. I had no clear reason to blame for my behavior and with such an upbringing it would be probably expected that I never would stray.

But stray I did during my teen years. I can look back on my life and shake my head at myself and as a parent now understand the pain, the confusion it can cause to watch your child rebel so strongly against everything you ever tried to instill. As an adult now, who loves the Lord with all my heart and truly earnestly try to serve the Lord in all I do, I cringe when I look back on some of the “snapshots” of my life. But in God's goodness He allowed me to stray, allowed me to wallow in my rebellion and come to the end of myself. He knows the end from the beginning; Philippians 1:6 "For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus." 

Snapshots: those moments branded into my memory; the good, the bad and the ugly. Those moments that have caused pain to others, those that I am ashamed of, those that have had life-long consequences, and those that don’t resemble the person I am now. They freeze you in time and to those who they have negatively affected that memory can keep you there; forever frozen in their mind.

In my straying years I can run through a reel of snapshots in my mind that play out a crazy, selfish, mean, lying, violent, foolish, arrogant, thieving, cheating, brash, failing school, controlling, drunk, seductive, self-willed Janette. Pretty much all the “do nots” in the Bible. Even as I write this, I blush and thank the Lord nobody else can see the thoughts running through my mind.

I also thank the Lord that He doesn't freeze us in our snapshots, like we tend to do as humans; to ourselves or to others. There is nothing I can hide from God. He saw it all and He grieved, yet He still loved me; as much as He does today when my snapshots would look very different.

I have been in situations where someone who I haven’t seen in decades still has an idea about me based from a snapshot. That feeling of humiliation rushes over me as I can remember why they view me presently solidified in time as the person who was mean to them, or broke their trust, or was the crazy girl that could out drink them, or watched me fist fight in a parking lot….or a whole lot of other possible flashes.

The Lord tests our hearts to allow us to see what is really inside of us. How much pressure can a vessel withstand before it cracks? How much heat does it cause to bring the dross to the top to refine it. He knows each one of us, the heart we have and the circumstances that will bring forth the ugly so we can see it as well and deal with it. Even if I surprised myself or those around me in the things I did, I never surprised God. 

My life as a Christian has been and always be a series of storms, tests, seasons to bring forth the change from glory to glory by the transforming power of His Spirit; a continual refining to be conformed to image of Christ. Will I accept His dealings when I am exposed to myself? Will I judge others before their time; freezing them in a snapshot? Oh Lord give us the eyes of the eternal so we may be gracious to one another, loving one another, bearing with one another, praying for one another, to not keep a record of wrong doing, to exhort, admonish and speak God’s word into each other’s lives. Oh Lord, as we all journey to come to the end of ourselves, help us to not have temporal eyes so that we may pray with Your power because we can pray by not what we see but rather what is unseen.