The belief system of 25-year-old me (part 1)

11 Wednesday Jul 2012

Posted by Meagan Sean in Dirty's Reports, Holidays, Human Interest

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Hey kids and my mother! It’s time to take a few minutes and learn some things! I am making a list and checking it not at all of all the things I find to be truths in my life. Some of them are biblical. Some of them of logical. Some of them are not. I’m calling it The Belief System of 25-year-old Me in 5 Parts. It is in honor of my birthday, which is on saturday, and starting to depress and scare the shit out of me. So I figured, hey, why not make a list? A list of things I know about life! I’ll make it a list of 25 things, so it matches my age! And there you have my thought process. So here we go!

Using your cell phone while spending time with someone is pretty much offensive. I’m pretty defensive of my quality time with people, and I’ve let some get away with this, but I find that when a person doesn’t bring out their phone I appreciate the time all the more. Don’t get me wrong, I use my cell phone in front of people all the time, but I’m now attempting to put an end to that rubbish.
Saying that you hate drama generally coincides with a dramatic nature.
If you don’t say something out loud it doesn’t exist. No one knows what your thinking until its said out loud. Nothing is official until it is given a name. No matter how someone acts the feeling don’t exist unless they admit to them out loud. What is between 2 people that is left unspoken is potentially damaging when unsaid. For example: Ron and Hermione. Proof. Pudding.
Happiness, joy and peace are all very different things. You can have any or all, at the same time and at different times.
Saying things behind someone’s back that you would say to their face is still talking about them behind their back. It’s gossip. I’m guilty of it, but that doesn’t make it right. It’s usually mean. It’s time to end this stupid habit and behave like an adult.

Church Thoughts.

02 Monday Jul 2012

Posted by Meagan Sean in Dirty's Reports, Human Interest

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Today at one of my churches the discussion was marriage. The first thing I would like to say is that yes, I now say one of my churches and I have been wondering how many I can belong to before the “officials” track me down and make me commit to only one. The second is that marriage has been in so many of the sermons I’ve heard recently that I’m afraid that I’m supposed to be paying attention for some reason.

The main thing that the pastor and his wife were discussing (at least to me and my attention span) was how people need different things from marriage partners. It’s not even down to 5 Love Languages anymore it’s all the way up to a 10 Needs Worksheet. The “homework” for married folks was to discuss their top 3 needs and how to meet them with each other. I was interested but sort of disappointed because it’s not something I can really apply to my life at the moment. I have to make note of it and remember to review it if/when the time comes for me to start planning the house party that will be the send off to my honeymoon.

(For the record, according to the quiz for the 5 Love Languages I am all about Receiving Gifts, which is interesting considering I don’t get them from many people aside from my mother. I sure as heck haven’t gotten many at all from any of the guys I have ever been involved with. And I do not like meaningless things, last minute grab off the shelf items that have nothing to do with me. The next on the list was Quality Time, which makes sense. I like it a lot. After that was Words of Affirmation.)

The 10 Needs Worksheet contained the following: Attention (care), Acceptance, Appreciation (praise), Support (bear burdens), Encouragement, Affection, Approval, Security (peace), Comfort (empathy), and Respect (honor).

I figured out the first thing that I will need from a relationship whenever that goes down. It was the first thing on the list that I was drawn to, the first thing that I understood really well without having to think about it: Security.

Definition of SECURITY

1: the quality or state of being secure: as

            a: freedom from danger : safety

            b: freedom from fear or anxiety

            c: freedom from the prospect of being laid off

2          a: something given, deposited, or pledged to make certain the fulfillment of an obligation

            b: surety

3: an instrument of investment in the form of a document (as a stock certificate or bond) providing evidence of its ownership

4          a: something that secures: protection

            b (1): measures taken to guard against espionage or sabotage, crime, attack, or escape

                        (2): an organization or department whose task is security

Do I fully understand this? Eh, not really. Do I understand partially? Sure. I’ve been in very insecure place much more of the time than I would like to have been. I have been in positions where trusting God was the only security in my life, and I was not happy about it, to be honest. And yet I continue to get myself into these situations. I continue to pursue what is wrong for me, and to fold to whatever hand is dealt. I don’t want to do that any more. I want to be able to know without the shadow of a doubt that there is something mutual, something based on a relationship with God, something exclusive and intentional happening. I don’t want to deal with subtle, with games, with signals. What, are we supposed to communicate through fire puffs like Native Americans? Do we have symbols to decode? Do I need to learn how to understand key words? Because I am unwilling to respond to anything that isn’t direct. And if there is a doubt then there shouldn’t be initiation. I want security. I want peace.

Remind me the past is behind me

15 Friday Jun 2012

Posted by Meagan Sean in Dirty's Reports

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I like to think that I can help others with their struggles because I’ve gone through them, and because for some reason I compulsively have to try. But i have realized over the past few years that struggles of the heart don’t just go away. Maybe for some they do, I’ve heard stories of complete turnarounds, but I find that some of my sins are more like viruses than bacteria: they flare up occasionally.
I have certain things that cycle through my heart on a regular basis, various forms of unbelief and doubt that when left untended will fester into full blown issues. I’m incredibly great full for the tools I’ve acquired to take care of certain ones before they get consuming, anxiety being one that I am surprised is so easily combatted by scripture. I continue, though, to taste it every now and then, which is a great reminder to continue to minister to my own spirit with the truths of the Word.
There are things that I haven’t yet gotten a strong grip on, one being my self depreciation and habitual desire to actually be punished. The gospel makes sense to me only some of the time I guess, and when it doesn’t I can’t just let myself go on and sin without feeling as though I’m paying for it. I’ve done that many ways, and was practiced in the ways of self harm for many years. I have stopped acting on these desires, but continue to find them once in a while waiting for me, a deceitful stronghold that whispers promises of fulfillment through pain. When I think about it, when I allow the ideas of what I could do to “make up for it” run through my head i actually scare myself. The darkness can be so tempting, and is so dangerous.
So I was thinking for a hot second, why? Why do some things remain? Why are there parts of me that need to be continually ministered to? Why can’t I hear the gospel once and have an entirely new heart and mind? Why can’t I move past these things? I’m pretty positive that they are 75% of what is keeping me from being perfect (the other 25% is cigarettes, alcohol, cussing, not having a filter and lust).
I’ve come up with 2 reasons.
First off, every time I find myself struggling and turn to Christ I get a renewed vision of his grace and love, and it perseveres my heart.

And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. -1 Peter 5:10

For now, this is a continual process and one that reminds me when I’m stagnant of how good my God is! Yes, I’m using an exclamation point to emphasize that, because it’s so true!
The second thing I’ve realized about these struggles is that Christ never said thy they would go away. He said they would be ever ready to ruin our work, relationships, and days. But he also said that we now have his Spirit as an ever present help in times of trouble. We don’t deserve to have such a good and faithful God, yet here he is. Working in us for the rest of our lives to bring us closer to holiness, to sanctification.

I’m looking to become not the pray-er but the prayer

11 Monday Jun 2012

Posted by Meagan Sean in Dirty's Reports

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This weekend I went on my church’s annual women’s retreat at salter’s point. It was beautiful, and we were blessed with sunshine so that those who have adventure coursing through their veins could go swimming! Ok, I might not have adventure coursing through my veins but it’s been 2 years since I have had an adequate dippy-dip in the big blue, and I’ve felt like Lindsay Lohan’s hair: dried out and crispy. I went swimming twice, once sort of fully clothed and the other time I had found my swimsuit and proceeded to force mom to imagine I was the little mermaid… old habits die hard I guess.
So that was my personal experience high light of the weekend, and that made me sad. I didn’t expect the same experience as last year, but there wasn’t as much honest reflection with the other women, I wasn’t a huge fan of the DVDs we watched, and I was super exhausted. I’ve gotten into a really bad habit, and I blame myself for being impressionable and the girls I see 5 days a week for doing it first: I’ve been whining like I don’t think I even did as a child. My poor roommate, my mother, had to listen to most of it. Thank God for continuing to do good works in her or she would have slaughtered me. I have been dwelling on the wrong things, and a lot of them were expressed to my mom over the weekend, and surprisingly only to my mom even though I dearly love the rest of the women who came with us as well. The main points that were cyclin through my head were regarding friendships (I feel that I’ve dropped the ball on some, that some friends have dropped the ball on me, and that a montage of all the ball drops in NYC on new years might come close to what I imagine is wrong with my friendships) and of course, my lonesome polecat status (it is difficult to imagine a healthy relationship, and yet I decide on my wedding song as soon as Gavin DeGraw’s first cd came out. For the record, it’s Overrated because it reminds me of McCartney’s Amazed but with better lyrics. Or Stereo Love by Gym Class Heroes featuring Adam Levine.).
So I talked to God about this stuff, and while I thought that I didn’t get much out of the weekend, after a review I realized that I have a refreshed desire for something specifically Christ! I guess I’m just a little slow.
What I have going through my head this morning, and what I want to keep cycling for as long as I can, is the desire, the prayer to see Jesus more, to see his character and works revealed in new ways to me. I want to read his word and get something stunning and securing from it. I want to have his word in my empty spaces, prayer in the times when my mind wanders, and a real desire to be his girl, his ambassador on this earth, in this place where he has placed me for a specific time and reason.
And no, I did not leave for this weekend feeling like this. I am so grateful to have a God that is faithful to refresh me, to persevere me, to listen through my whining to the cries of my heart and to answer them.

Today Is About Trust

28 Monday May 2012

Posted by Meagan Sean in Dirty's Reports

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Dirty's Report, Human Interest, Nugget 'O Truth, True Life

But even if he is absolutely fully to blame we still have to forgive him; and even if ninety-nine percent of his apparent guilt can be explained away by really good excuses, the problem of forgiveness begins with the one percent guilt which is left over. To excuse what can really produce good excuses is not Christian character; it is only fairness. To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable, because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you.

This is hard. It is perhaps not so hard to forgive a single great injury. But to forgive the incessant provocations of daily life—to keep on forgiving the bossy mother-in-law, the bullying husband, the nagging wife, the selfish daughter, the deceitful son—how can we do it? Only, I think, by remembering where we stand, by meaning our words when we say in our prayers each night ‘forgive our trespasses as we forgive those that trespass against us.’ We are offered forgiveness on no other terms. To refuse it is to refuse God’s mercy for ourselves. There is no hint of exceptions and God means what He says. – C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory

I’ve been thinking about how things happen in life that we can’t figure out, about how people hurt us and we can’t understand why, and about how we are supposed to respond to this. I may have mentioned multiple times that I’m a fan of looking at things from the devil’s perspective so I can figure out why bad things are happening and our correct way to handle them from the side of a believer, and I’ve been doing it recently regarding a situation that I believe is designed to plant disbelief in the hearts of those involved.

It’s easy to let disbelief in when someone has hurt you, because it comes not necessarily in the form of not forgiving them but in the form of walls. Our tendency to build walls up around our hearts in order to protect ourselves is a way of telling God we don’t believe he will be able to protect us as well as we can. It’s a way of telling him that he can’t heal whatever hurts, or fix whatever breaks. And that can lead to a growth of unbelief that we don’t even realize we’re cultivating.

I’ve done it. I still do it. But I’m struggling against it because I know that Christ, when he was walking this earth, didn’t bother to put up walls. He was so vulnerable that his best friends abandoned him and his enemies led him to the slaughter, and he still chose to love and save them, us. Every painful thing in life is designed by the devil to pull us away from God, and every plan the devil has made for evil the Lord has already established to bring about good, and to give him glory.

“Christian worship is the response of God’s redeemed people to his self-revelation that exalts God’s glory in Christ in our minds, affections, and wills, in the power of the Holy Spirit.” – D.A. Carson

Ps I got the wonderful quotes from a few entries at Thoughts from Fabs, which I adore and recommend.