The Shopping Cart from Hell
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It began innocently enough. I walked into the store and grabbed the first available shopping cart. I checked it out a bit to see if it rolled nicely and having not received any red flags, I took off. Well, let me back track momentarily and invite you more fully into the moment.
Grocery shopping is a part of my life that I have a love/hate relationship with. It can feel like a piece of heaven or an experience from the pits of hell.
At times, I enter the store and they’ve got Norah Jones playing. When that happens, I always muse at how smart the owners are. Who could refuse such a beautiful musical invitation to experience the moment? I inevitably slow down and shop longer when Norah is pouring out her heart over the airwaves. I mellow out, breathe, and linger to experience the wonder of choice, creativity, color, smell, and touch. I dream of savoring that spinach dip or the chocolate cake or the chicken enchiladas….
And then on other days, I am on mission. I plan out my time strategy. I will shop when there are not too many people in the store. I will begin on Aisle C and proceed to Aisle G and blaze out of the store through Aisle H. It’s the ‘divide and conquer’ strategy. With laser focus, I enter the store to “get” something. With my Superwoman cape in place, I have a silent inner goal: I will enter this store, find my purchases, and be back in the car in less than ten minutes! Watch out, fellow shoppers!
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How God Speaks to Us Through Our Emotions
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What emotions are you feeling right now? Can you name what is happening inside your inner world? Could God be speaking to you through your emotions?
Are you annoyed, ashamed, confused, hurt, depressed, jealous, anxious, fearful, stressed, angry, or sad?
While it may sound like a simple task to name what emotions you are experiencing, I haven’t always been able to do that and I’ve found in my work as a therapist, that many, many folks are not able to accurately name what is happening inside them.
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Emotions: Moses’ Journey and Our Invitation
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I felt as if I were inside Moses’ skin yesterday morning as I meditated on Deuteronomy 31. I identified with his emotions. It was a moment when the Holy Spirit opened my eyes through my own journey to glimpse into Moses’ heart.
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Forgiving
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Forgiving. It’s basic Christianity, right? It’s fundamental. It’s like a required course for all Christians, Forgiveness 101. You gotta take it. Every single student has to enroll in this class. So we take the course. We think we figure it out. We know we have to forgive in order to be forgiven. We breathe prayers, “Lord, I forgive __________.” That should cover it, huh? And then we find out that the course has a second semester, Forgiveness 102. So we enroll because we have to. We think we get the material and we’ll sort of have this stuff conquered. And then we find there is Forgiveness 201 and 202 and 301 and 302 and 401 and 402. Then for those who will do the work there is Forgiveness 501 and 601 and so it goes.
It’s like peeling layers of an onion. There just always seems to be another layer. Those layers represent all the stuff in our hearts that keep us stuck, the things that keep us from growing, and the things that hinder us from really knowing God and really knowing ourselves.
Jesus told us that it was impossible to live in this world without offenses coming to us. We will be offended at times. We will be hurt by other people. And we will hurt and offend others ourselves. Dealing with these offenses is one of the ways God offers us to do our own soul work. By that I mean the kind of work that God invites us into where we own our own stuff, we discover our own our wrong patterns of thinking, and we allow God to reveal our own hearts to us.
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Finding Faith to Go On
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When you find yourself with your hopes and dreams lying in a million pieces around your feet, can you find the faith to go on? I found myself in that place about three and a half years ago. Every time I reference the story, I count the years, months, and days since the dam broke and my life was flooded with the violent waters of trouble. There seems to be some kind of solace in making that time further and further away from today. But in another way, my life will always be referenced from that point.
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