The Meandering Mind of a Christian Woman

  Genesis 3:14 “God said to Moses, ‘I AM who I AM.’ This is what you are to say to the Israelites: “I Am has sent me to you.”             I feel the need to make a disclaimer statement up front as I can see what I will write in these next few sentences could be misconstrued. This writing is not claiming that man is God although I will say, that if you have claimed the Holy Spirit lives in you, that identifies that God is in you too.             How many times a day do you use the phrase “I am…”? Probably much more than you or I realize. This is how God identified Himself to Moses. “I AM who I AM” We often refer to God as the great I AM, which He is. Going back to how often we use the phrase, for myself those two words are often followed with denigrating words like; so stupid, so foolish, so dumb, so angry, so hurt, so fill in the blank. What if each time we thought about those two words and how we identify ourselves we replaced “I AM” with “God is” most of us (I make this assumptio

              It occurred to me this week that many of us have titles; professor, mechanic, doctor, pastor, nurse, teacher, plumber, carpenter, mother, father, and the list can go forever. Many of us have worked hard to earn our titles, I know I spent many hours becoming a nurse and I take a certain amount of pride in the title. But there are days I don’t want to be the nurse; I just want to be Jody, it’s comforting.             Isaiah 43:1b “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name; you are mine.” In context this is a prophecy to Israel and goes on to describe how God will be w ith us through water and fire, in other words through all our traumas. I cherish the idea of being called by name. You see, along with the titles we might bear come expectations, responsibilities, and pressures. I recall my first year of being a nurse among a staff of about 40 other fabulous nurses and feeling a bit lost in the crowd working the off shift and one of the doctors called

              It’s been a rough week. I began the week being heartbroken over the death of someone I hold very dear, he’s been a large presence in my life the last couple decades. I can’t stop thinking and praying for the family he left behind; a beautiful wife and three adoring daughters. It echoes my own experience becoming a widow. They are women of strong faith and I have confidence that their faith will pull them through on their dark days ahead.             Yet, a word keeps flowing through my thoughts; fragile. (If you’re a fan of “A Christmas Story” you read that as fra-jeee-lay, but that’s beside the point.) When a loved one passes away it is common to feel quite fragile, as though one could shatter into a million pieces at any given moment. I have been contemplating this idea and it occurs to me, we are all fragile. From an outside perspective we appear to have it all together but on the inside we’re afraid, tired, confused, trapped, sad and a multitude of other emotions. Y