The Gospel Is All I Have

At church this week, we sang this song; the words have been ringing in my head ever since.

The Gospel Is All I Have

The gospel is all I have.  The gospel is all I have.

No well-kept, presentable life to display;

The gospel is all I have.

The gospel is all I have.  The gospel is all I have.

No courage, no virtuous, bold use of faith;

The gospel is all I have.

Well, the Lord God Almighty leapt down from the sky,

And He made himself nothing and served till he died,

So that I, just a beggar, at the Judgement might cry,

"The gospel is all I have!"

The gospel is all I have.  The gospel is all I have.

No merit to offer.  No excuses to make.

The gospel is all I have.

Well, the Lord God Almighty leapt down from the sky,

And he made himself nothing and served till he died,

So that I, just a beggar, at the Judgement might cry,

"The gospel is all I have!"

The gospel is all I have.  The gospel is all I have.

No clever, persuasive words I could say.

No debt I could work off.  No bribe I could pay.

No goodness.  No promise of love that won't fade.

The gospel is all I have.  The gospel is all I have.

And I was reminded again that when I see the Lord after my short stint on this Earth, I will have nothing to lean on, save...the Gospel.  And as we were singing, I imagined myself standing there.  Before God.  Empty handed.  With nothing, nothing, nothing worthy enough to save myself.  And I couldn't help but get teary.

Tears because I felt so unworthy to be in His presence.

Tears because then I imagined God ACCEPTING me, and me being allowed to stay with Him.

Tears because this wasn't just my imagination.  It's reality.  He DOES accept me!  Amazing grace!

Tears as I write this, because the Gospel is good news no matter how many times you've heard it or how long you've believed it.  It's GOOD NEWS!

"But God showed His great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.  And since we have been made right in God's sight by the blood of Christ, He will certainly save us from God's judgment.  For since we were restored to friendship with God by the death of His Son while we were still His enemies, we will certainly be delivered from eternal punishment by His life.  So now we can rejoice in what our Lord Jesus Christ has done for us in making us friends of God." (!!!!!!!!!)  Romans 5:8-11

Friends of God!

"He saved us, not because of the good things we did, but because of His mercy.  He washed away our sins and gave us a new life through the Holy Spirit.  He generously poured out the Spirt upon us because of what Jesus Christ our Savior did." Titus 3:5-6

The Gospel is good news because it is a gift of God, not something that must be earned by penance or by self-improvement.

That is such a relief to me.

Oh that our strivings would cease!  Oh that we would accept what He is offering to us!  Friendship with Him! - not a pretty mask to wear.  Real, genuine, relationship with the Creator of Universe!

Everybody plays the fool

There's no exception to the rule, listen baby 

It may be factual, it may be cruel, I ain't lying 

Everybody plays the fool

Sing it, Main Ingredient.

So I left my car lights on not once, not twice, but thrice in a two-week span.  The only good thing about it is that I just got to use the word "thrice."

An all too familiar sight lately

My excuse is that my Honda's lights are so so quiet (shhh) when I click them on that it doesn't even register in my auditory memory that they were turned on in the first place.  And in the soft morning light, when it's not super dark to clearly see that the lights are still on, it's easy to forget.

Excuses, excuses.

Why do I even turn them on in the not-that-dark morning anyway?  I think it's because I see other people driving around with their car lights on and think I'm supposed to do it too.  Peer pressure.  Or would this be mass psychology?

Here is how The Car Light Saga unfolded.

The first time:  "No big deal, everyone makes mistakes," I think to myself.  Call Matt up to hook up the jumper cables, done.

The second time:  I feel a little more embarrassed.  "Oh, Liane.  What's going on, girl?", I say (out loud this time) to myself.  A co-worker did the jumper cable honors.

The third time:  No words.  Just shame.
Fortunately, I had already thought to move the jumper cables from Matt's car to my car since I would probably be the one needing them, given my track record.  Self-fulfilling prophecy?

I was at my school working again, this time in the evening, no co-workers around.  I just couldn't bring myself to interrupt Matt's study time again to come and bail me out.  Since my school building is also a church, there are often non-school people around, which I was hoping for.  I didn't see any cars parked around me in the back lot so I walked to the other side of the building and found some cars in the front lot - a sign of people! (thank goodness).

After wandering the building for a minute, I found these people.  In a room down the hall. Clearly in the middle of a powerful intercessory prayer meeting.

Hmmm.  Do I interrupt this?  Should I wait until it's over?  When is it going to be over?  Maybe I should join in?  Standing at the door, I sheepishly piped up:  "umm?  Excuse me?  I'm so sorry to interrupt.  Can someone jump my car?  It's dead.  I have my own jumper cables.  Again, I really am sorry to interrupt...."

It was a little awkward.  But a kind man came and helped me.  I couldn't tell if he spoke much English.  So I smiled a lot.  And gently nodded a lot.  And said "thank you" a lot.  (I notice I tend to do this smile/nod/repeat the same words routine around foreigners.)  When Black Beauty (that's my car) was up and running again, I pulled away with another smile and nod and "thank you" and headed back to the Tree House.

Home sweet home.  Matt doesn't need to know about this, I concluded.

And then, a few days later, I did it again.  It's true.  Feel free to judge.  Four times leaving my lights on.  Four. 4!  Enough is enough!  A co-worker (different one this time) came to my rescue.  I thought it best to switch it up/rotate the people I ask help from, so that the same person doesn't think I'm a complete dingbat.  However now, I have let everyone know (or at least all 4 of my blog "followers") as an act of catharsis.

Needless to say, I felt flawed and forgetful and embarrassingly irresponsible (although quite adept at using jumper cables now).  I also felt like I was living a lie, because Matt only knew about the first two times.

I brainstormed with myself some possible solutions to my bad habit and eventually realized that with all other areas in my life, when I want to remember something, I WRITE IT DOWN (grocery list, sermon notes, to-do list, journal...).

 So, I wrote it down.
And I am glad to say that it has WORKED!  No fifth time for this girl!

Sometimes, you just get tired of playing the fool.

Do I have that?

Matt will admit that he has a tendency towards hypochondria.  Med school does not help this.

When Matt reads about horrific diseases
that involve symptoms he has

Could that lingering cough he's had actually be histoplasmosis? (What's this?  Well it's a fungal lung infection endemic to river valley areas, much like the one we live in near the Missouri River).

The knot in his back, a rhabdomyosarcoma (skeletal muscle tumor) perhaps?

Ecclesiastes 1:18 - "...the more knowledge, the more grief."

I am not against health and preventative care and am all for being proactive in paying attention to our bodies and stewarding them well.  And I have known friends and family who have gone through real and painful diseases.  So please hear that I am not mocking the reality that our bodies are passing away and that there is often much grief involved.


That said, I choose to avoid regularly diagnosing myself.  (Emphasis on the word regularly.  As my past roommate Sara can attest, I was once convinced that I had torn the meniscus in my knee.  I may or may not have gotten melodramatic about it.  I initially thought it was a blood clot that would travel to my heart and burst.  I lay in bed, clutching my knee in tearful pain, ready to meet my Maker.  I even told Him how excited I was to be moments away from seeing Him face and face.  But alas, I fell asleep and woke up the next morning still on Earth.  It turned out to be tendonitis.  I told the doctor that he might want to check again.  It was tendonitis.)

The goal around our home now is 1) don't be lazy in taking care of yourself and 2) don't freak out.  Sometimes we are lazy and sometimes we freak out.  The goal remains.

God's word forever remains and has helped us:

"For God has not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind." - II Timothy 1:7

He will not drown

Did you know there are 19 muscles in the forearm?  19!  Each with its own purpose.  The more Matt learns (and the teeny bits that I pick up here and there), the more I marvel at our Intelligent Designer.  The infinite wisdom that belongs to Him!

Matt is currently in the musculoskeletal block of his studies, which has long been rumored around here to be one of the hardest blocks of med school.  By the looks of things and by Matt's verbal confirmation, this rumor is true.  The sheer volume of information he is responsible to learn boggles my mind, and I get a slight headache if I even casually glance over at the diagrams in his books.  The fire hydrant has morphed into NIAGARA FALLS.

While he might spend more time with his assigned cadaver than with me, I trust that God's promises are true and have been praying this on Matt's behalf:

My cry -
"Save me, O God, for the floodwaters are up to my neck...Don't let the floods overwhelm me, or the deep waters swallow me...Answer my prayers, O Lord, for your unfailing love is wonderful." - Psalm 69

God's promise - 
"When you go through deep waters and great trouble, I will be with you.  When you go through rivers of difficulty, you will not drown!...For I am the Lord, your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior." - Isaiah 43

A happy anniversary

A 2nd hand is now officially needed to count the number of years I've been married (unless you lost a digit in a wood shop accident, in which case you would have needed that 2nd hand a little earlier.  Sorry, Pastor Bruce.)

October 7, 2012 marked 6 years.  6 years of being married to this guy.

My beloved doing his impression of an ant.

I find him to be kind, smart, funny, and honest.  Most importantly though, he has shown me on a deeper level what the Gospel looks like.

Both of us have had to encounter the hard realization that we each married....a sinner.  A sinner, in daily need of Christ's sanctification and grace.

As my brother likes to include in his pre-marital counseling sessions - "Every day is a Leah day." (as in, you think you married Rachel, but you realize you married Leah, someone who falls short of your expectations, of your 'ideal.'  Because in reality, none of us can fully meet each other's greatest desires and longings.  Christ alone can.  Christ alone).  My brother is not known for his tact, but he is known for his insight and honesty. (He, by the way, loves and respects his wife very much.  And also, by the way, my brother did not do our pre-marital counseling.  That would have been awkward.)

Matt and I have miscommunicated with each other, disappointed each other, and hurt each other.  There are times when we have each been inconsiderate, selfish, and blind.

And Christ, in his goodness, has reconciled us to each other and to Himself.  He has softened our hearts when they were hard.  He has given us eyes to see each other.  He has gently convicted us of our wrong doing and has moved us toward each other when it would have been easier to move away from each other.  Only Christ can do that.  It's just not in us naturally to do that.  There is nothing good in me, apart from Christ.  My own righteousness is as filthy rags before Him.

One tool the Lord has used in my marriage is this book.  I have gone back to it on numerous occasions and highly recommend it.

The Marriage Builder

While matters of the heart are not to be taken lightly, we do laugh now about a couple of our beginning marriage "tifs" (ie. the staff Christmas party debacle of 2006).  Matt refers to such times as his "rookie mistakes."  Not that I didn't make my share of errors too (ie. the Ava Gardner experiment of 2007 - note to self: don't "try on for size" a fabulous and elusive 1940's Hollywood persona, however briefly, without letting your husband know that you're "in character.")

Amateurs we were.  It's a good thing we no longer make any mistakes in our marriage. :)

Matt proposed on top of Pikes Peak.  It was 13 miles up and took us 7 hours to hike it.  (It sure was humbling when a spandex-clad 60ish yr. old man jogged past us, summited, and jogged past us AGAIN on his way back down before we had reached the peak.  There is a breed of person in Colorado that regularly runs Pikes Peak.  I am not of that breed.)

I do love the symbolism of climbing that mountain together though. 
When one was weak, the other was strong.  There were pleasant and flatter places, rocky and difficult places, beautiful and breathtaking places.  And when we reached certain vantage points, we could look back and see where we'd been.

Moments after Matt proposed.  I think we look happy and sliiightly nerdy here,
a fairly accurate description of us at other times too.

We trade off each year planning our anniversary (totally stolen idea, thanks Kimber), and this was my year to plan.  So I consulted our "33 for Free" list (all free ways to enjoy Kanas City).

There was no need for deliberation, the clear choice to me being the Nelson Atkins Art Museum.  We drive past it each Sunday on our way to church, staring at it through our car window, and always talk about going there.  We're really not art connoisseurs or anything, just regular ole appreciators of history and culture...and free things:)

I just can't believe this place is FREE!  It's a Kansas City gem.

 

I wanted to capture so much more, there being original pieces that spanned from before Christ to modern times.  Here at least are a few shots.

from Mesopotamia, long before Christ's birth.    Cuneiform etchings all over it.

more Mesopotamian art.
It just baffles me whenever I see something extremely old (thousands of years)
and in amazing condition.  I should really take better care of my stuff. 

This is an unknown bust by an unknown artist.  It's interesting to me that these sculptures and paintings are mostly of real people who lived at some time, somewhere, and now they are forever immortalized in Kansas City.  What were they like?  Were they kind?  Were they awful?

This one reminds me of Pikes Peak.

This one reminded me of a conversation I once had with my dad.  When I asked him what animal he would be if he could be any animal, he said without skipping a beat, "a rich person's lap dog."  Touché, Dad, touché.

Florentine bust of John the Baptist.
Somehow I imagine him to have been much more, mmm, rugged than this.

Seeing this depiction, albeit inaccurate and certainly not gruesome enough, of my Lord paying for my sins gave me pause.  How could He endure such sorrow for me??

I've loved impressionist art since I was a girl when I used to tape Monet calendar prints up in my bedroom.  And here I was enjoying the real thing!

Everyone has a favorite chair - even Picasso.  Interesting fella.

I didn't take any pictures of the surrealist art - it was, after all, a revolt against traditional values and it looks it.  I personally find it strange and unsettling.

Looking at several centuries worth of human expression and displayed ideologies, into my mind flashed a picture of that glorious future day when every knee will bow and every tongue from all nations will confess that Christ is Lord.  One day, the truth will be known to all!

And what museum isn't complete without giant shuttlecocks in the front lawn?

Later that night, we walked around the Plaaaaza

and eventually made our way to Glacé artisan ice cream.  I chose it because they have sorbet, one of the few desserts I can have without feeling like someone is giving my colon an Indian rug burn.  Matt and I both love to try unique food, so I thought this would be perfect.  And it was.

I had the pineapple cilantro sorbet.  Matt went for the french lavender ice cream.  Both were memorably delicious.

I so love and respect this man.  He models to me humility, hard work, honesty, and moderation, and I'm glad to spend my earthly life with him.