My Big Mouth

I have to give you some more back story on me before I can really get into what God is doing right now in my life, just so it all makes sense. I like things in order.....

Anyway, Randy and I met in college at the Baptist Student Union group and fell in love. He was a Christian, and when we met all I could think was that there were Christian guys out there and this one was cute!!!! We dated a long time and married as soon as we graduated. We were pretty blessed then too. Kids started to come along in the prescribed three years or so. We continued to go to church where my dad was pastor by choice. It was a great gift to be involved with many of the same "extended family members" that I had always known, and to raise my kids in the same church their Grandparents attended. We were living what I thought was a Christ centered life. I was doing all the things I knew I was supposed to be doing. Going to church, being a mom, teaching Sunday school, working vacation Bible school etc.I remember being grateful for my "ordinary" life.

I was struck one day by what I think was a Sunday School lesson that talked about the Pharisees of the Old Testament and their inability to see themselves as sinful. I think the lesson talked about the number of Pharisees in the church today. (People that are Holier than Thou in their attitude and actions. People that see themselves as better than the poor sinner without recognizing that they still have sin in their own lives.) Anyway the reason I mention that is because it was a real gotcha moment in my life, or at least the start of one. I remember considering that question as I was driving east on 87th street parkway. I was just crossing Pflumn road (I think its significant that the woman who would forget her head if it wasn't attached remembers all this) and I distinctly remember thinking that I wasn't doing too badly in the sin department. But that if there was sin in my life would God please reveal it to me? Seriously as I read that now I realize what an idiot I was(am) God is good to answer prayer, especially that one and I was laid pretty flat in the next few years recognizing my own sinful nature. I got a well deserved whoopin' from God on that. The log in my eye was very big. I was a Pharisee! It is so easy to judge others, as long as we don't have to look at the same condition in ourselves. I really think that day was the start of my growing and grown up relationship with Jesus.

Isn't it crazy that one conversation with God can impact you forever? It is kind of like praying the sinners prayer (I know I am a sinner and that without Jesus and His sacrificial death for me I have no hope)and really meaning it. When you honestly commit your life to Jesus there is no going back. You are whole-heartedly there with Jesus. When you ask God to reveal your sin to you , there is no going back. It's there laid bare and you are unable to shove it back under the bed from which it was drug kicking and screaming.