No Alerations Required

I know I promised photos and more on how my son Jack changed his perspective, but I am going to give that a few days before I post on that. My daughter, Madie, jumped on the band wagon as well and spent yesterday cleaning out her room. There is so many lessons that I can pull out that God placed on my heart over the last few days while "cleaning out" rooms with my kids and talking about changing perspective...but those will have to wait.

God has placed a purpose in my heart. And I know this purpose is not new, but I have finally discovered it. God always knew what it would be since according to His word it says, "Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed." Psalm 139:16 And if that isn't amazing enough on its own it says "How precious are your thoughts about me, O God. The can not be numbered." v17 He still has precious thoughts about me, even though he already knew of all the good and bad (even the VERY bad) that I would be involved in. So, back to the purpose...I can deny it no longer. I can not run from it any longer. I can not hide from it.

One of the reasons I began this blog was to encourage, support, and talk about our identity in Christ. To discuss who God says we are and how our worldly view has changed it so much that we don't always understand it. The world has placed a veil over our eyes as to who we were created to be. Of course I could never just write one blog entry to talk about all I have learned and how I spent more than 98% of my life searching for who I was in everything other than God even when I chose to accept Him as my Savior. So this is just a start. This is just one discussion of many to come.

And in light of Michael Jackson's death, I think we can start with the very first thing that came to my heart when I heard the news. I shared this with my kids and then felt the depth of my life choices...

Michael Jackson spent most of his life trying to alter himself. I do not know all he has done. I don't have any facts, but I will say that we can visually see that he was not happy with what God gave him. Yes, he did some great things and I am not going to sweep that under the rug for his fans, but just for now I want to talk about altering. I am not sure what his actual cause of death will be confirmed as, but so far we have heard he went in to cardiac arrest.

Michael Jackson tried to change the color of his skin. Michael Jackson changed most of his facial features. If you compare his earlier pictures to those of recent, he doesn't even look like the same person. I believe that he spent most of his life trying to make alterations to himself to make him "good enough" for what he thought was "good enough". He was in constant pursuit of making changes to his original form. I thought about this so much last night. We try to alter what God made.

Let's go back to Psalm 139. I know we hear this all the time and sometimes quote it with out really looking at what God meant for us to understand. "You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother's womb. Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex. You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion. You saw me before I was born." v13-14 It says he made ALL of the delicate parts. It says he KNIT me together. We also know that God does not make mistakes. One day my friends and I were talking about the verse that God wrote about knitting us together. I don't knit, but my friends and one of my daughters do. First you have to carelfully plan out what you are going to knit...you have a pattern. Each stitch (I am sure that is the wrong word) is specific so that the end product is just how they planned, just like the pattern. It takes time to knit. Most people find it relaxing and rewarding. When they are done, they show what they made with pride and people are amazed by it. God took his time, planned out every stitch of our body, and when He was done he was oohing and aweing over each of us.

I have also spent a life time trying to alter my body. The body that God so carefully created for me. The body he spent time knitting together so that each stitch was perfect in his eyes. I spent most of my life in the depths of an eating disorder. I will get more in to that in later blogs and how it all came about, but I tried to alter what God created. The act of the alterations almost took my life last year. The act of alterations made me self centered and lost. The act of alterations pulled me from the gift of a family, of a life, of my purpose...and it could have ended in cardiac arrest. Last year...in June of 2008...my doctor's warned me of this...my prophetic friend warned me of this...cardiac arrest...because I was desperate to change who God created me to be. Because I did not understand my identity in Him. I didn't understand my identity in Him. And I will say it again, I didn't understand my identity in Him. I say it 3 times, because it is of upmost importance that I make that clear. In the bible God repeated himself when he wanted to emphasize something. So I am repeating that so that I can emphasize that we have to understand who God says we are and then BELIEVE it. We have to read scripture in a way that each time we read the words of our Bible we know that God carefully chose those words. He could have placed so many other words on the pages of our Bible, but he chose the ones that are on each page. I am sure many other events happened, many other conversations took place, other people had stories to tell...but God knew exactly what we needed to know to live the life we are living and all we have to do is open the Bible and there it is...our life in black and white...He loves us...He created us...He forgives us...He has plans for us...He redeems and restores us...

We don't have to alter ourselves. The world says we do. The media says we do. The magazines, music, the internet says we do. Who breathed those words? It wasn't our God. Our God breathed the words in the Bible...and it says we are "workmanship", it says we are "wonderfully made". No alterations required. Our identity is in Him. We don't have to change the color of our skin, or the shape of our face or the way our body was made. Our God says No Alterations Required. His word is true...His word is perfect. His word was meant for you and for me and for each of us. You are a workmanship...I am a workmanship...I was wonderfully made...You were wonderfully made....Michael Jackson was wonderfully made...I wish he could have seen the wonderfully made workmanship that he was...and I now see that God knit me together...carefully, wonderfully, and marvelously. I believe that because God wrote that to me in a beautiful love letter called the Bible. He breathed the words on the pages with just as much care as he did when he created you and I.

NO ALTERATIONS REQUIRED...says our God
In love...Teresa