Mars Needs Moms - Really?

I am a perpetual student.

I will admit that I have a tendency to look into most (not all) situations or circumstances I am in for a lesson to be learned. I really spent too much of my life as if on a mission, focused on task, and missed the life lessons - and life - happening all around me. I can often get on people's nerves with this, but from traffic to that annoying person standing in line next to me at the store to kids movies, I am looking for a lesson to be learned.

Yesterday, I took the kids to see Mars Needs Moms. (Aside: if you have not seen it, it is a pro-family, pro-father and pro-mother, tearjerker of a movie - especially if you are a mom. Trust me, bring a kleenex). I'm not going to spoil it, I just want to make a quick point. The part of the story I want to focus on here is this: there is a particular character in the movie, Gribble, that is able to help the young boy, Milo, get to and save his mother. However, the reason Gribble is even on Mars in the first place is that years ago he tried, unsuccessfully, to save his own mother from the martians. But, as I watched the story unfold, I saw that had Gribble not gotten on the spaceship so many years ago, he would not have been there to help Milo. It would be easy to see Gribble's situation as a failure - he was unable to save his mother or return to earth so his life was wasted. Yet, had he not been there when Milo arrived, no one would have been able to help Milo.

Lesson: it is easy to look at a circumstance as a failure because things didn't go as we planned. It is easy to look back with regret or feelings of "wasted time." Yet, I refuse to believe that just because circumstances don't go the way I think they're supposed to, that I've wasted anything, especially if I came away having learned something and become a better person through it. God has laid it heavy on my heart for about a week now that even when He tells me something is His plan, it may not be for the purpose I think it's for; that doesn't make it any less His plan. I may never know how He has used me. I may never know why God placed me in the position He did at that particular moment in time - possibly to help or connect with or encourage someone in need - until I stop making every moment about me.

Some of you know that I have said goodbye to a very important relationship this week. In the spirit of transparency, I cannot pretend that it didn't happen and I cannot pretend that I do not hurt. Yet, I choose not to see any moment of our time together as wasted. I wish things had turned out differently. I wish I could have done a better job at certain things and wish we could have communicated better about things. But, in the end of it all, past anger and hurt and confusion, I choose to see the positive; the lessons learned.

God used this special person:

To make me stronger.

To bring back out the minister in me.

To encourage me to write.

To help me to see life in a grander scheme that my own tiny perspective.

To fuel a desire within me to live life like an adventure.

I am changed - I like to think for the better - and I am who I am today because God allowed me to experience this adventure. I will look back with fondness and joy over who God has been honing me to be over these months. And look with anticipation towards what lies on the horizon.

Hmmm...wonder what kind of life lessons we can learn from Kung Fu Panda...

I Pledge Allegiance: Part 1

It's a wonder I have feet at all after the last two years.

When my world began to crumble beneath me two years ago, the Great Love of my life did not allow me to curl up in a ball of defeat or to lay blame elsewhere. He forced me to look deep inside my own soul and see the ugliness of selfishness that had taken root. That, my friends, is not fun.

Since then, He has been on a roll with stepping all over my toes: Placing me in the paths of the faithful who speak truth in love regardless of how difficult that truth may be to hear; Causing me to stumble across books filled with Biblical teaching that challenge my long-held traditions of religion; Stirring within me a deepening hunger for His word that has stretched me beyond my earthly limits.

And lately, the Call that I heard late that summer has been growing louder and louder within my ears and my heart.

You see, I cannot live "Comfort-Zone Religion" any more. Even just this morning, the Spirit opened my eyes to just how much I enjoyed being comfortable. Being in paid-ministry for so long, I grew comfortable with doing my part and self-sacrificially making known that I was in ministry. Yet, also enjoying the comforts of this Western life. One foot in this world, one foot in the one to come. And even now, though my years of paid-ministry are far behind me, I still feel the comfort of my occasional acts of service combined with my token gift in the collection plate, all while I live my life of ease. I look at others around me and my pride takes over as I make a mental list of the sacrifices I make (putting up with my broken van door handle by having to roll down the window in order to open my driver's side door from the outside, for instance). "Look at them with their brand new 'this-and-that', " I say to myself in my martyrdom.

And I immediately hear my own rooster crowing in the background of my life as I am humbled by my arrogance.

Honest? I am weary. I am exhausted of church traditions that make us "feel better." I am tired of church politics and committees and fellowship gatherings. Before you ask, no nothing has happened...

But...you could take that one of two ways...

Nothing has happened? That, then begs the question, why not? WHY has nothing happened?

I don't know what this means for my life. I struggle and have entirely too many questions for God so I sit, arms folded, expecting an answer before I will give in to a step of faith. (*insert sarcasm here*). I am simply sharing this journey out of a call to transparency.

All I know is this: God is calling me out of my Comfortable Life and into a deeper place with Him. A wise man once told me, "People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care." I can no longer simply say what I am learning. I must live it.

Do I know what that means? At the moment: no. But join me in prayer for my family; and for so many of us who I know are being called love out our faith.

Out. Loud.

A Panoramic Viewpoint

This is picture-perfect Perspective.

Adrian is our indoor boxer-mix puppy. She loves the cat. Really. When outside, she chases her and grabs her by the scruff of her neck (ever so gently of course) and, when inside, whines - often - to go outside to chase the cat.

Sassy is our outdoor kitty. A purposeful figure in our family, Sassy holds a job and an important one at that. We live on 5 acres, 4 1/2 of which are wooded. Sassy's responsibility is to keep the homefront free of critters. And she does an amazing job! However, she is also the most affectionate, socially needy cat I have ever known. And, if it weren't for the cat hair and the fact that she is a tremendous hunter, I would de-claw her and allow her inside.

So, there they sit: Eye to eye with simply a pane of glass between them. Adrian longing to be outside. Sassy mewing to come in.

Perspective.

My life is filled with these reminders that keeping proper perspective takes effort. My life has not turned out the way I had planned. It could be so easy to sit and Lament my situation. God will not allow that. He expects significantly more than that of me - He has greater plans than that for me - and He does not have time for me to sit and Lament. So, because I am indeed the Fave, He grants me Perspective.

Surrounded by friends who must adapt their daily routine to include venomous fights with exes over control, manipulation, selfishness, and rage. Daily. I am forced to recognize and then thank God that the father of my children and I can communicate civilly, do occasional acts of service for one another and even make each other laugh. Is this the way I wanted it? No. But...

Perspective.

Exhausted at the end of a day, and lacking greatly in patience with my children and their questions and nagging and arguments and shouting and messes and selective hearing... (the list goes on)... I lean down for a quick bedtime prayer with my Squirt. Until she softly whispers "Curt" into my ear as I bow my head. I raise my head and look into the eyes of my 7-year-old daughter looking back at me. I am swiftly jolted into the reality that a mere few hours away, dear friends are sitting looking over their 7-year-old child as well. However, I am not looking at tubes, listening to monitors, longing for sweet arms around my neck, praying for a miracle. Does this erase the need for discipline? No. But...

Perspective.

I am an optimist at heart. My accuser stands to my side and reminds me often how my life has not turned out the way I had planned. He points out all the shattered dreams and hopes for the future of my children.

God is standing ahead of me (and to my side. and behind me.) with reminders of Perspective. He knows my story. He knew what would happen and where it would lead me. And where it has led me thus far has been into the middle of the greatest Love Story ever written.

I am not preachy. I am not wise. But I thank God that He opens my eyes to see the Panoramic View around me. The Word tell us that Christ opened the minds of the disciples in order to understand the scriptures more fully. I thank Him for loving me enough to open my mind - and eyes - to see His purpose and my life more clearly.

When I have perspective, I am less concerned about my unfulfilled desires.

When I have perspective, getting my way becomes less of a priority.

When I have perspective, I no longer feel neglected.

When I have perspective, I transform a little bit more into who He created me to be.

Back At It

How many times have you heard, read, or referred to this scripture?

"For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well." Psalm 139: 13-14

It is a beautiful reference to God's divine hand in your creation; His purpose for you to be here; His declaration of life from the moment of conception.

But, I want to take this a step further. Peruse with me if you will:

"Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be." (verse 16)

This scripture has been hovering over me for a while - for the last few weeks in fact.

We love to refer to Jeremiah 29:11 - God has plans and a purpose for you. However, do we ever connect these scriptures? We think of God's plans to prosper us meaning to bless us and love us. And I agree that is true. But, how often to we get out of our earthly, materialistic mindset and think about what that really means?

Let me put it this way: If I believe the Bible (and, I do) then I must trust His words. And if I believe the Bible, then I believe ALL of Psalm 139; that God not only formed me from the moment of conception, but He also knew my life before one breath was taken. All of it.

Travel with me: God knew I would be in a car accident at age 31 that would leave me with a dislocated shoulder that would plague me for years. (Not a big deal in the grand scheme of things.)

Let's keep going: He knew I would be divorced at 38. He knew my children would grow up without their mother and father a part of their daily lives.

Take it further: God knew Curt Cannon would be in a devastating accident at age 7. God knew Caleb Gill would die of cancer at age 6.

So...what's my point?

God's purpose.

I found myself two years ago at the point of physical illness because of unknowns. Or, I should say unknowns - to me. And the Spirit reminded me in that devastating time that there are no unknowns to God. And in order to fully trust Him, I had to trust God with my unknowns.

Our future is unknown - to us. Our purpose is often unknown - to us.

But it is never - and I really believe NEVER - unknown to God.

So - as His follower; as His beloved; as His child; as His bride - do I trust Him with MY unknowns? Am I willing and ready to surrender my life to His purpose?

We can ask, "How can God's purpose be for me to face divorce? Traumatic brain injury? Death?" I am not saying that God wills pain and suffering on us. I am saying that He knows it is part of our experience on this earth. And He uses those experiences to His purpose.

If I focus on my pain and my heartache and all that has been taken from me, (thanks for the Narnia reference, Dana), then I am not fully trusting God. I am not trusting His love for me. I am not trusting that He does in fact hold me, and my life, and my children, in the palm of His mighty hand. And I spend too much energy and tear-filled nights filled with pain and heartache over "why."

But, if I trust that He does in fact have a point to all of this; He does in fact use my life, and my pain and my experience, to point others to Jesus; then my life truly does have a purpose.

You see, I cannot live one day thinking that my pain - or any others' pain - was pointless and random. If that is true - then truly what is the point?

It is for one purpose and one only - to point others to God. This is not my life. This is not ultimately my destiny. I am simply in the training camp for my true destiny that lies ahead. If my life is all sunshine and rainbows (you had to know I'd have a 'Rocky' reference in here somewhere) then I can never truly appreciate God's grace and providence and relentless passion for me. I can also never witness to others who face trials and do not know my Savior.

Whatever you're facing. There IS a purpose to it. There IS a point. And there IS a God. Who is not punishing you. Who is not indifferent.

Who IS: Desperately. Passionately. Relentlessly pursuing ... YOU.