Author: lesliealamb

One of the most God inspired moments I had at Prince of Peace had nothing to do with the girls. I was actually talking with one of the interns Yolanda, asking about her experiences, and sharing my fears about them having so many in and out of their lives, and hearing her journey of faith that God has begun in her. After less than an hour of sharing our hearts she says, “I have a book that you should read. I got it for my birthday. Do you read fast?” I laugh thinking about it, and the thoughts that filled my head, “Yes, I do read fast, and I love to read, and I rarely have time to finish a book.” I started to decline, but then I felt an excitement in my Spirit and I knew I had to read that book. “On a mission trip, ministering to girls and serving them, I should take up her offer to borrow her book?” As we often do, I tested the prompting. There was no doubt about it, the answer was, “Yes!”

The book was “Compelled by Love” by Heidi Baker. I had never heard of her before, but Yolanda had shared with me a little of her testimony, her amazing miraculous wake, and I was very interested. I should add here that I am not from an Apostolic background, but I have seen miracles, have witnessed them, and I believe that nothing is impossible with God. Immediately I was pulled in as Heidi’s husband writes the forward expressing her character and her personality, and how just being around her you could feel the love of Christ. I was jealous. If there is any characteristic of God that I feel most acutely it is His love, but I don’t exactly put off that aura. I dove into the book thinking to learn her “secret”.

Heidi’s is a testimony that you have to read to believe, and I highly recommend you reading it. But, she talks about her surrender to the love of Christ, the love that compelled her to go out of her way and do the unthinkable so that she could share what she had found. One day she was in an intense prayer time and she felt the Lord say to her that she would be a vessel of healing. I say vessel because only God can heal. The first miracle she heard Him say she would do is to heal the blind. Immediately she believed it. She looked for it, and the time came. She brought healing to a woman, an elderly woman, and she was amazed…she was even more amazed to hear that the woman shared her same name! The next time she brought healing it was also to a woman, a younger woman, and remarkably again she shared the same name! When it happened a third time with another woman named “Aida,” she knew that she was missing something. So, she asked God, “What are you trying to say to me?” God is very intentional. He answered, “You are blind, Heidi.” As I read this exchange I felt the Father speak the same to me, “You are blind, Leslie.” Even as she asked it, I also questioned how. His response was, “You are blind to my works, to my purpose and to my power.” Heidi asked, “Father, heal me! Help me see!” And she did, and the works that He did through her far surpassed what her faith before would have been able to see!

I read through some more, more miraculous works, more missions that she had led that brought life and healing to so many. “Is that what you want me to do, Lord? Go to another country and take in orphans and live and share Your love?” I asked with anticipation, almost a sense of eagerness, that He was indeed asking exactly that.  I thought about everyone I had chanced to meet and had spoken to in the last week: Yolanda was going to the Philippines to minister to women in sexual slavery. Ann was going to India to start another girl’s home, modeled after Prince of Peace. A friend was considering leaving the States to help another mission. It wasn’t hard to believe that He might not be asking the same of me. He wasn’t. As I read, He told me to look deeper.

“That would be too easy.” I wasn’t sure I heard that right. Too easy? To uproot my family, to move thousands of miles away, to start a church or a mission or a ministry – Who was I kidding? There was no part of that that would be easy. I heard His voice again, “Where does your heartache lie?” Immediately I started to cry. I thought of those that I minister to, those that I write for, and all of those that I meet and have yet to meet. Teen girls and women – my heart breaks daily for broken and used and scared and deceived girls that are longing for answers and hope and Truth. And, the truth hit me, and I wailed out loud, “It’s so hard, God!” He was confronting me with the truth that the hardships of leaving and ministry in a foreign land wouldn’t be easy, but what He had given me, the ministry that He had laid on my heart, His aching heart for His daughters, it was hard work.

I’m a runner. Not in the sense that my husband runs half marathons, I escape. When I was molested in boarding school, I ran to furthest recesses of my mind. When I was afraid that I was about to lose everything that I had ever known and faced never seeing my friends again, I tried to leave Earth. When I was raped in college, I ran to the ledge of reality and refused to believe it was happening. When I am scared or tired or overwhelmed, I try hard to find a way out…only there wasn’t one this time. With each passing day over the last couple of years, God was reminding me over and over in a million different ways exactly what He had called me to do, and still, I was looking for a way out! I argued with Him, “You don’t know what You are asking?! I am old. I am irrelevant. Let others, like Abbi, do this thing!” I gave a million reasons and excuses and better options, and at the end of my rant God said, “Are you quite finished, Moses?”

In the stillness, I realized there was no running. To run away was to abandon everything that He had gifted me with and had broken my heart over. So I did what a defeated, weary, and surrendered soul does, I cried out, “Help me!” And His answer came back, “You will bring them healing.”

I woke up to the blue Guatemalan sky and the sunshine pouring through our window Tuesday morning. It was a beautiful start to the day, but I was lonely for family. I tried to push them out of my mind, but their little faces and dimples and smiles kept intruding on my best attempts.

After breakfast, we went straight to work painting another two rooms in the school building. While we worked, we could hear the kids singing and chatting in the courtyard, and we wondered what they were up to so we leaned over the balcony to see. They were having a party! They were given bags of candy and a piece of cake that some of the workers had made for them. (We had smelt the lingering tendrils of baked chocolate at breakfast and now we knew why!) They were the happiest children on earth it seemed! It made my heart smile, but immediately I wondered at my own kids and their class parties and missed them all over again. I knew they were fine, figured they were happy, and I jerked my mind back to the task at hand.

With each brushstroke I found myself daydreaming about my girls. When out of the corner of my eye, I saw a girl from the home; it was Alicia (14) and she was smiling at me. I smiled back, and then I saw that she held something in her hand. It was a change purse like the one that I had been given the night before, and she was opening it up to hand me what was inside. She handed me a folded note. As I read it I stopped –“To my forever sister.” In the letter she wanted me to know that she was praying for me and my family and that she was pleased to meet me. I almost cried as I reached out to hug her. She was precious…and she was exactly right. I felt God speak to my heart, “Here is your forever family! You will go back home to your girls, but these are My girls, your sisters, and they are happy to spend today with you!” I folded the note up and put it in my pocket, thanking my sister for thinking of me. She handed me the change purse, “Here.” I didn’t want to take it. I had already been given something and these girls didn’t have much, but I accepted her eager gift. “Thank you.” She smiled, “I love you, sister.” I thought I would crumble, but the day was looking up.

Lured out to the balcony again later that morning, we were met with cake and juice. We smiled as we ate and watched the girls chattering and dancing and inspecting their bags of candy. My roommate Donna and I laughed and smiled and commented on how precious this day was for us. We saw Sarai, our little performer, and waved. She smiled and bounded up the stairs to us. She gave each one of us a piece of her candy. Donna was speechless, but as Sarai walked off she finally spoke, “Do you realize how big that is?” To be honest, at the moment, the significance of her treat had slipped by me. Donna explained, “She gave us her candy! It’s not like she gets that all the time, and she chose to give it away to us.” She looked at the wrapper in her hand, “I’m going to keep this.” (I love that lady… she shares the heart of Christ.) After day two of edging out walls and climbing up and down a ladder my back was hurting, and I knew that I needed to take a rest after lunch or I’d be no good for the rest of the week. I walked back to our room and pulled my “gifts” from my pocket with a smile. I turned the change purse with it’s love letter over in my hand. I now had two of them…two pink change purses with pirate skulls and the words, “Buried Treasure.” I was getting the message…He was pointing out His buried treasures. I was blessed to have discovered them. I picked up a book that Yolanda had given me and listened intently to the heartbeat of Daddy God as I rested.

During our rest time, two of the ladies had been plotting. Christine (the Yellow Rose of Texas) and Louanne were discussing something special they could do to show the girls our love and, more importantly, God’s love for them. Louanne wanted to “kidnap” them and take them to McDonalds in the city, but we convinced her that this would not be safe or possible on such short notice. She settled for ordering food into the compound. Christine took a more romantic approach and bought roses for each one of the girls and the workers. We would all pass them out at supper and were excited about our banquet!

I don’t think I can adequately describe the feeling in the dining hall that night. Kids were grabbing our hands, guiding us to tables, and calling out our names. I was led to a table by Alicia (my forever sister, or one of them) and Yeymie…I have to tell you about her. Yeymie is a precious little angel with dimples and a personality that goes on for days. She was abandoned by her mother when she was either an infant or a toddler. The woman that she was given to loved her and took care of her, and I believe that Yeymie really loves her and wants to be with her. Sadly, it was not an official adoption and years later after Yeymie’s mom had a couple more kids and needed some help taking care of them, she decided she needed her back. So, they went to court because the no one knew who was the real mother. The judge sent Yeymie, now 7, to the Prince of Peace Girls Home with the decision, “Whoever comes and sees her in the time specified, she is her mother.” Her biological mother has not visited her once. Her “adopted” mother comes as often as she can. Yeymie will most likely be going “home” soon.

That night I learned why God brought Yeymie there, no matter the short time. It was in the midst of Alicia and our leader, Karvin, teasing one another that she spoke. Alicia was telling Karvin her name was “Nada” meaning “nothing.” He pretended like he believed her, and then he asked, “Is that what is in your head?” She giggled and said, “Nooo.” Then he looked at her and smiled and asked, “Is that what is in your heart?” To which Yeymie in all seriousness piped up and said, “No. Jesus is in my heart.” She silenced Karvin, and she almost made me cry. I was reminded again, “These are My girls, Leslie… I AM rescuing them.” Right then and there I prayed for Yeymie and for Alicia, that they would always cling to their Savior.

After we had finished eating, Christine and Donna got up and sang with the girls, “Thank You” by Ray Boltz. Nothing can quite prepare you for hearing 50 kids and adults singing with a Spanish accent a song that says, “Thank you for giving to the Lord, I am a life that was changed. Thank you, for giving to the Lord, I am so glad you gave.” I was choking back tears as I tried to hold the video camera steady. I took the moment into my heart and soul as a forever memory with my forever sisters. Talk about your Valentine gift!

Donna, my beloved roommate on the trip, was the next to touch my heart. Slowly, so the girls could understand, she said to them, “There is no where else I would rather be and no one else I would rather be with than here with you on Valentine’s Day.” This was the heart of a woman that was still healing from a painful divorce and longing to be loved again. I looked at her, feeling the truth in every word that she spoke, and I felt God speak to me, “Tell her and Christine that I am loving on them as they love on my kids.” I started to cry. I never doubt the Father’s heart, but when I feel His desire so deeply and the delight He feels, it never ceases to take my breath away.

We ended the night as the girls made a line, and we handed out a rose to each one of them. I wish I had spoken Spanish because I wanted so badly to say, “This is how the Father sees you, as His perfect rose!” It’s probably good that I couldn’t. I have a feeling it would have come out sounding cheesy instead of passionate.

That evening, after group devotion time and as I pulled out my journal, my two change purses fell to the floor. They had been at the foot of my bed under my blanket. I smiled as I picked them up, “Buried Treasures and Perfect Roses what a Valentine’s Day it’s been.” I reached to put them in my suitcase when I felt a tug in my Spirit, the language of romance from the Lover of my Soul, “You, My Love, you, too, are a buried treasure, and I delight in you.” Sometimes in those moments of conversation, when His words seem too good to be true, I question if I am going crazy; after all, why would the Creator of the Universe speak such love to me? But, in the course of twenty four hours, two separate girls, at two separate times gave me the same gift with the same message. I don’t believe in coincidence, and like I said, I don’t doubt my Father’s heart. He is my Eternal Valentine, and He does delight in us and longs to lavish all of us with His love! Sadly, we don’t always let Him…nor do we realize that we are His Valentines.

Something happens when the God of the universe points out you’re living in a box. You notice it. Immediately it becomes tight and constrained and not nearly as comfortable as before. Claustrophobia kicks in and you find yourself wanting to tear off the sides and breathe! Only it’s not that easy. You not only see it surrounding you, but you see the boxes that others live in and you are desperate for them to be freed, also! But again, it’s not that easy. First, they have to see that they are in a box.

It was the second day, the first full day, in Guatemala and we were headed to church.. I don’t know what I expected, a church like the ones I have visited in Mexico and grew up attending in small country villages in Korea? But, the church we attended was huge! Mega.. To borrow a commonly used term. It seated thousands in an enclosed ampitheater, with engaging praise music, a huge information desk in the lobby, and familiar literature about what the church believes and what they have to offer all age groups of all kinds. It was a great place to get lost if you needed, a place where an orphan or cast-aside girl could blend in and maybe find a home.

I say that because we discovered on our bus ride that the girls hadn’t always gone to this church. They were once attending a church just outside the gates of their home which was far more convenient. Only, the church was not acting like the Body of Christ – they were discriminated against, not allowed to attend regular Sunday school, and consistently left out intentionally as if something was wrong with them – bearing the stigma of another person’s judgement cast in ignorance.
Looking around us, my two team partners and I found ourselves separated from our leaders, but we were in church and we saw one of the girls. She spotted us, smiled nervously, and apologized that she didn’t want to sit with us but with her friend that she only saw on Sunday (Please! I totally understood! We were there a week; this was her friend. No offense taken!).
I sat in my folding theater seat and took in my surroundings. I’m a watcher, an observer, I like to see where I am and absorb what I am experiencing. Again I heard the voice of God, “Look around at your family!” And, I did. I drank them in: families, children, men, women, girls, arms lifted up offering praise to my Daddy! Our Daddy! And I wondered, as I looked at their faces – some longing, some basking in His glow, others looking around them – “Do you see the box? Do you like it there? Are you content or tearing at it’s walls like me?”

After the service, we left, and I watched as families filed out, laughing, hugging, moms and dads and sons and daughters, sisters and brothers going home. I looked at the girls we were with.. Did that ever hurt? Did these glimpses of family sometimes feel like a stab in the heart that longs for that kind of connection and love? I knew it must. Maybe not for all of them, but no doubt most felt that pain. My compassion for them grew afresh, and whether or not I fully realized it, that was the moment I pulled back. My whole life I’d had people come in and out of my life and that had left bitter scars and pain and reluctance to trust. That was throughout decades, these little girls welcomed teams from America and beyond every week during the summer and often during the year! What scars might that leave, what issues would they later face? I decided I would love them and pray for them and serve them in anyway available or necessary, but I wouldn’t expect them to open their hearts to me, not again, not to a stranger, only to watch me walk away in 4 days. That wasn’t fair. I wanted to protect their little hearts.

We jumped back on the bus full of smiling faces, girls chattering and whispering, no doubt discussing life just like all teenagers and little girls the world over. I sat by Lucy – precious, beautiful Lucia whose smile and eyes twinkled with shy delight. “What’s your favorite color?” she asked. Strange. But then I understood, she was practicing her English. And the fleeting thought came, “When was the last time I answered that question?” I was stumped but she was waiting so I said, “Green.” She smiled; she agreed. I said, “There are so many shades!” I don’t know if she knew what I was saying but she nodded like she did. I asked her name. “Lucia,” she replied in her most beautiful Hispanic accent. I attempted, “Lucheeya.” She smiled, “Yes, but they call me Lucy.” Plain Lucy. I preferred Lucia, there was nothing plain about her.

In the corner of my eye I see another little girl resting on one of the seats, she has a phone to her ear and she is singing. I know her name already, because she is an entertainer, knows no stranger that I can see, and immediately she looks fun and mischievous. “Sarai!” Lucy teased as her singing voice got louder. (You have to say it with an accent, “Sara-ee.”) A daughter of promise… One of a whole bus full. She smiles at me, “You like Selena Gomez?” and sings a snippet of her song. I recognize it as the very same song my daughters belt out through the halls of our house. “Si!” She smiled and cocked her eyes daring me to say no to her next favorite, “Justin Beiber?” Having understood the threat, I answered, “Si!” before she belted out into what would be her song of choice for the rest of the week “Baby, baby, baby, Ohhhh like Baby baby..” She fell back on her seat, phone back to her ear, absorbed in her music world.

She wore gold stiletto heels, and a flower in her hair. She looked to be twelve dressed like a woman. I felt her injury distinctly though I didn’t yet know her story. “What’s your name?” I asked. “Fernanda.” She giggled, and shyly smiled. Her freckles and light skin reminded me of my daughter, Lily. Angel Kisses…our term for freckles. Did she know that? Did she know that her freckles were beautiful? She propped herself on the side of the seat, standing up, and watched me. I was new. I kind of felt like an intruder in their world. Not that they made me feel that way, but I didn’t understand their language and they didn’t know anything about me, or I them. She rattled something to Lucy, who smiled and looked out the window. “What’s your name?” she asked turning her attention to me. “Leslie” I answered. “Leslie” she repeated. (My name sounds so much more beautiful in an accent.) “Si!” I smiled. “Leslie,” she whispered as she slid into the seat behind me. She was trying to remember. That meant the world to me.

Veronica had been standing beside me the whole time, watching me talk to the others, politely listening, and always, when she caught my eye, smiling. I found her captivating. Lucy had told me her name, so I asked her, “What’s your favorite color?” She smiled, “Azul!” then she swallowed and repeated in English, “Blue.” I smiled and let her brown eyes pull me in, “It’s beautiful.” She smiled and said, “You’re beautiful.” I was touched and smitten.

My box wasn’t gonna last the week. His love for me and my love for the world around me was compelling me to reach for so much more. The walls I wanted to hide behind were of the weakest plaster.. I felt incredible love for these girls – His love – and with each look, smile, or awkward name pronunciation, I prayed, and still pray, that He is Who they saw.

 

I’ve been in ministry long enough to see that some of those that are destitute and impoverished choose to be that way. They have found something that they value more than their clothes, their food, and their shelter. They choose to live in a cardboard box rather than to give whatever it is up or to accept what is being offered. It is no less sad to me.

In Guatemala I learned that there is a whole community that live on and in the dump eating whatever they find, living in boxes or makeshift shanties. They have made this a village within the city; they even have electricity there! Children are raised in this place, babies are born here, and what looks like a trash pile to us has become their home. As our leader was briefly telling us about this, God nudged my heart, “You are a box dweller.”

Immediately I disagreed with Him, “Me?!? A box dweller!? No way! I am open to all denominations. I don’t discriminate. I believe in gifts and the power of the Holy Spirit! I am NOT a box dweller!” Even in the midst of my argument, He spoke. He addressed the biggest box that I live in – FEAR. And He pointed out over and over the places that I attempted to contain Him and revealed that all the time, I was only containing myself and His work in me.

“I AM not in the box,” He repeated.

No. I was.

With fresh awareness I realized that I had not only been living in a box but I had made it home. I was living off the scraps of faith and the crumbs of grace and I called it a feast! I didn’t want to hope too much because then I would be disappointed. I didn’t want to believe in miracles because when they didn’t happen they were easier to dismiss. I didn’t want to trust in His work because if I wasn’t being used that meant I was worthless. I didn’t want to address demons and sickness as enemies of God because I didn’t want to be seen as charismatic. And, the big one, I didn’t want to be ordained because I didn’t want my family to be disappointed. So, I folded the four corners of my insecurity around me and expected nothing more, which is exactly what I got.

I had come on this trip asking God to be what He already was – wild and free and passionate and amazing. And the first day in, He was asking me to be the same.

I just recently finished a book called “Blessed Friction” by Brad Hill. Brad brings to life that place that we all must come to where we ask, “Is this all there is?” It’s a little harder to give attention to this voice in our heads as Christians. We are taught to believe that as long as we have Christ we have everything, and we do. Greatly, it is a lack of understanding and limited perception.

Henry Blackaby calls this season, “A crisis of belief” that place between calling and pursuit. It’s a place that invariably each of us has to come to before we take on life. It doesn’t necessarily come before a great adventure or before some incredible ministry launch, sometimes it can come in the midst of all that. But, always if you will be honest with yourself and with God, it will lead you to a place of peace and an understanding of Love.

Friction is defined as “the resistance that one surface or object encounters when moving over another; confilict.” I came to this point in my life 2 years ago. Suddenly I had stuffed so much crap in a box labeled “my past” that I had ceased to realize that it was very much affecting my present. I remember the day that God nudged me. I was sitting on my couch reading through some resources to help some teen girls through their pain when it hit me – I’m hurting. I pushed it away. God had seen that, we had talked about it, it was all good. But, the more I delved into the topic of sexual abuse the more I realized, it wasn’t all good. In fact, I was angry. It hadn’t gone away with the years, it screamed just beneath the surface and whether or not I recognized it as such, it was still haunting me.

It took one more fragmented shard of glass to cut before I saw it for what it was and finally collapsed into the honesty of “I’m not okay.” This gaping hole was exposed and with it came out years of pain and hurt and dishonesty and fear. Then the questions bubbled and brewed and I found myself doubting everything. Everything that I thought I knew about myself, about God, about love, and about faith was teetering at best. I was grasping at straws and praying that one of them would hold me up. My whole life was in question and my desire to live it was almost gone, and in the darkness of that place, my heart posed a choice: “Fight through this and find life, or give up and die.”

And that is when the friction became intense.

That is when the crisis became real.

That is when I found life and Love – because one does not exist without the other.

We can exist in heartache. We can exist and go through the motions and look like we are alive – we breathe, we move, we eat, and sometimes we find within us a place to smile or to laugh, but if someone were to ask, “Are you really living?” We know ultimately that we merely exist. And, at the back of our mind, when the doing ceases, we are haunted by that thought.

There are ministers, moms, dads, teachers, coaches, businessmen, business women that merely exist. Someone in every walk of life finds him or herself asking, “Is this it?” They go through the motions of doing and serving and sacrificing all the while thinking that they are pleasing God. “If I don’t do it no one else will. It’s just one more place that God can use me. I will make the time.” To stop would be a disappointment. To not achieve goals that they have placed on themselves is to fail. Somewhere, in the time that we were called and now, we’ve lost the passion. We’ve become complacent. We have accepted that this IS all there is, and we believe that there is nothing more. Work and serve and die. Only, we are dying…a little more everyday.

That’s not life.

That’s not His plan.

“Perfect love casts out all fear.” I’m pretty sure many of us know this by heart, but do we believe it in our hearts? How about “There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” We can quote it, rattle it off like the ABCs, but does it abide in our hearts? This is where my journey took me. This is the place where my faith found flight and my life took on meaning. These are the words that God spoke over me in the midst of the questions.

When I was on the cliff of life and existence looking down, “God is love” became real to me. In my mind, I had failed me and Him and everyone, and everything that I had ever thought I’d wanted was now forever out of reach. And as I resigned to let go of that last straw, He caught me with one last question: “Do you believe that I love you?” My answer was timid and afraid, shame-filled but desperate, “I WANT to believe You love me.” He led me to His word and there He spoke to me. Suddenly I realized that I was no different than those that He had called on before. They were no more perfect or had it all together. In fact, in someway or another every single one of them were flawed. I found an excuse, “Yeah but that’s THEM. I’m me.” And the return was, “And I love you. Just the same.”

In his book, Brad tells the story of his two dogs. They both, very different in nature, are lying on the bed, longing for affection. He, being their master and father, reaches over and simultaneously pats both of them, rubbing them, and loving on them, but they are so focused on the affection that the other is receiving that they cannot enjoy the love that he is showing them. This is so much our interaction with Father God. Maybe we can’t even admit it, yet there is apart of each of us so desperate for love and attention and we see others around us getting it and we wonder, “Why can’t I feel like that? Where is my blessing?” And all the time, Jesus’s hands are scarred He’s loving you so much! But you don’t enjoy it, because you can’t see that love is for YOU. That was me, too.

“God is love.” We say this all the time. “How He loves us so” our souls rock with passion when we sing these words. “He will never leave you or forsake you.” We tell this to one another. We mumble scriptures about good plans and hopes and future, we memorize scriptures about compassion and how they never fail, and mercy that saves us, and love that endures, but do we really believe it? If we believe it, we have a funny way of showing it.

My journey is not over. Nor is the friction. But the crisis, the questions of why and what and how and when and where, they don’t haunt me as much. My faith is strengthened, not because I am that good, but because His love is that strong. I don’t know what tomorrow holds, but I know that He has gone before me. I can rest, when I do, because I know that my doing doesn’t determine His love for me. I can enjoy my family because I know that they are a blessing, even in the friction that shapes and strengthens our relationships. I do not merely exist. The life that I live is not my own…but the freedom that bought my life gave it back to me as a gift. And my Rescuer and Lover of my soul, asks nothing more of me than to live. He gave me life and longs for me to enjoy it, He gave each of us life because He loves us. If you are alive and breathing, you are loved. No matter what. He is just as desperate to lavish love on a prostitute with a drug addiction as a nun in a convent. There is no prejudice or preference to His affections.

God

Is

Love.

Sometimes the friction feels like restriction, but that’s our perception; it doesn’t have to bring crisis. As long as I live in the flesh and have the Spirit of God living in me, there will be friction, same for you. Like Paul said, “What I want to do I do not do and what I do not want to do this is what I do.” I’m no different, or better, but when I do mess up (as I have), I know He hasn’t forsaken me. Like the loving caring Father that He is, He beckons me to try again. And, when I realize that His love isn’t asking anything of me that He won’t hold my hand through, I find myself willing, longing, and desperate to do it right. His LOVE compels me because He loves me regardless! I can’t define myself by my failures…because He never has. The greatest thing that we can learn, the greatest Truth that we can take into our hearts is this: God loves us, enough to die for us, so that we might LIVE! Then the question in our heart rises up not in frustration that God is holding out on us, “Is this all there is?” But in expectation that we what we have glimpsed is just the start of what He has for us, and squeals, “Is this all there is?!?!” knowing there is more!

A couple weeks ago I posted, “Glee is my guilty pleasure” on my facebook page. For all the world to see, for all my friends to read, in a way I stamped it with my approval. Therein lies my guilt…but not the greatest of it.

My daughter was sick that week and I was giving round the clock treatments, my husband was gone a lot, and whereas my watching television is usually RARE in our house, it had become almost habitual…a much needed break.

I love music! I was in choir and ensemble and did musicals in High School (The King and I was by far my favorite!), and in college I took voice lessons and helped in the theatre department, so a show with as much pizazz and music as Glee was just a matter of turning it on to get sucked in.

If you’ve never seen Glee you might not understand this post, but if you have, maybe you’ve struggled with some of the same themes. I don’t have an issue with the young boy that struggles as a homosexual. I naturally root for the underdog, and his is a sad story, a sad life, and I know a few that have had to walk in his shoes. “Poor Kurt,” I agreed.

My older daughter asked to watch it with me, I hesitated, but tired as I was when she used the argument, “All my friends watch it!” I gave in. Well, if ALL her friends watch it…?  So, we sat through a pretty tame episode. It was obvious that Kurt was gay, it didn’t take a genius to see through the “I adore fashion and shopping” comments, so I let her keep watching. Then, there was a show about a bigger girl and how this football player had a thing for her…but it wasn’t her time and her attention he wanted, it was her tongue and her touch. It was obvious, and I was hesitant. I suppose at this point, when sex became the focal point, I should have turned the show off…but no. I needed to learn my lesson.

I already knew that I was treading some pretty rocky ground, to the point that I made my daughter promise that she wouldn’t turn that show on without me. She agreed and she is fairly compliant so I felt I was “Safe”. As I had promised her earlier that day, I finished up some work, got us all ready for bed, and grabbed the remote to watch another episode of Glee. I should mention that my “Work” was ministry…and one of my ministries that night involved talking to a teen girl about her struggle with homosexuality. I was doing my best to assure her that she wasn’t a disappointment and that I loved her, but that I desperately believed that she was setting herself up for another heartache, girl or boy, if she didn’t learn that no human love would fill the needs that a missing father, a verbally abusive mother, and a conflicted heart had left her.

My heart was still processing that conversation when the show started, as usual with a dynamic song – well sung, well performed, and yet it was heated with sexual tension, between two guys. I looked over at my daughter and she was playing with the dog so I let it go. The next scene was two girls standing at their lockers…one was a typically mean girl, I was prepared for some slang to come out of her mouth, but then she started talking about the other girl and how they had been in love and she had looked over her for another guy. My mommy juices started to churn, this wasn’t cool. Wasn’t I just talking to a REAL girl about this very painful and disturbing issue?!

I was about to turn the television off, when I hesitated for a moment, a moment too long. Before I could stop it, (well, if I you don’t consider the million and one warning signs that I had just dismissed), the screen ignited with two guys full on kissing. My daughter’s eyes got big, I dropped the remote, groping desperately in the dark I wrestled to get it held the right way and flipped everything off.

“OFF,” I yelled in some kind of “Mommy is back to her senses, what was I thinking?!” flamboyant announcement! Then I sat there. Dumbfounded. Guilt-stricken. WHAT had I done? I looked over at Maddie, still in shock, I think, staring at a black screen,  and said, “I’m so sorry, love.” She looked at me. “No more Glee.” She nodded her head. I continued, “No more Glee for you and no more Glee for me; from now on this house is Glee free!”

But that wasn’t the end, because I had to acknowledge what I had allowed into my home…I had to talk about what they had just seen and heard, and I had to share it in a way that would not seem hateful but wise. It is one thing to happen upon these issues in life – my daughters already know that people are gay… it is another thing to show them what that means, and to explain that it is unnatural but that we are called to love them and be gracious and not speak hate or condemnation.

I was wrestling through what to say in a span of about 3 seconds when the words, “But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” I wish I had been wise enough to hear those words a couple days earlier. I wish I had served the Lord in my viewing choice, tired or not. How quickly the pleasure of a musical number and some teen angst was replaced with unbelievable guilt. I did that. I couldn’t blame Glee or the actors or anyone else in that situation. The finger pointed squarely at me. I know one picture can sit in your mind forever, that try as we might the things we long to see disappear are the visions that remain. I KNOW that. And yet, I invited that image straight into my daughter’s head.. invited it, sat down on the couch with it, and let it corrupt my daughter’s mind.

Yeah, she might forget. Yeah, it might have affected me far worse than it affected her. I pray that is the case. But, it has left with this thought, this challenge: In this battle of light and dark, where will I draw the line?  I lost one battle, but I have not even started the war… many more battles lay before me… So, Glee is no longer a pleasure but a guilt. I am sorry that I ever gave it a sloppy stamp of approval, and I realize that is just me, others might like it…I just can’t continue to blur the line of right and wrong. I can’t be ok with a show that is so blatantly different than the standards of holiness Christ has laid out for us… I remain affirmed, “BUT as for me and MY HOUSE, we will serve the LORD.”