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    Among the many pitfalls of my perfectionist personality is the fact that I can never seem to get over things.  I will be in the shower and then all of a sudden Drew will hear me in the other room yelling, “Ugggggghhhhhh!”

     He will usually peek his head in the bathroom and ask, “What did you remember this time?”  

     It is pretty scary when your husband starts understanding your noises!

     I’ll go back and forth with him about how I can’t tell him it’s too embarrassing. Finally, I’ll give up and let him in on the trifle thing that I said ten years ago.  I get so ashamed over some of the things my big mouth says that I have actually prayed for people’s memories to be wiped!  What can I say? I have issues.

     This hang-up has been in full force recently. It seems I could barely get through a day this week where I wasn’t slapping my hand on my forehead and letting out a guttural ‘ugh’. My prayer has been continually “Lord, please just take away my shame.”

      Try as we might to coach ourselves out of our humiliation it does not give up easily. Those who know what incessant shame feels like can attest to the fact that God is the only one who can take away our shame.

      The study I’m doing right now shows that there is a strong correlation between the Garden of Eden and the Old Testament tabernacle. The same Hebrew word is used to describe God walking in the Garden of Eden (Gen 3:8) and God’s presence in the holy of holies (Leviticus 26:11-12).

      The Garden before sin had perfect communion between man and God, yet the Lord commanded Adam to cultivate and keep it. Similarly, the Lord also commanded the priests to serve and keep the tabernacle (Numbers 3:7-8)

      “Then the Lord God took the man and put him into the Garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it.” Genesis 2:15

      This connection was so profound to me because Adam was charged with protecting the garden. Adam was supposed to keep Satan from ever entering!

      This reminded me about how we are the temple of the Holy Spirit. We need to cultivate and protect our hearts because it is sacred. Our hearts are sacred! When we accept Christ as our Savior, He dwells in us….walks with us.

     Genesis 2 talks about how after they had sinned, Adam and Eve’s eyes were opened and they knew they were naked. They hid from the Lord.

      I know what that feels like. I know what it feels like to feel such shame you want to hide. I know what it’s like to hear Satan hissing in your ear, “You know what you did….how can you worship God when you know what you did? How can you possibly be used by God when you know what you did?

      The amazing thing is….God covered Adam and Eve. He covered them not because they needed to be covered, but because love covers sin. He took away their shame.

      Isn’t that beautiful? We don’t have to hide from our Savior…..he will cover us and take away the shame. The next time the enemy comes at us with his evil lies we can boldly say, “Back the heck off!!! In Christ, I am SHAME-LESS!”

      Our hearts are sacred because Christ covers them. We have a safe place to feel vulnerable.

      This is slightly off point but I feel like I should add that you should never feel shame for loving someone….even if that love was rejected. Love is a blessing.


 
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Congratulations to Kera Barrigar! She won the Sanity Breaks Valentine's Giveaway! 

I will be doing more giveaways soon so stay tuned. :) Thanks everyone for participating!!

 
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   This morning I just happened across this story I wrote over ten years ago. I had just returned from a mission trip from Africa. 

    I can't tell you how many things the Lord did in my heart during that trip! The following is just one of them. (I'm going to try not change all of my writing mistakes. lol)

    

     I found myself on the red, clay floor of an African village. The heat of the day wrapped around me like a wet blanket. Conversation was flowing freely between my teammate and I. 

     The Beninoise children were playing duck-duck-goose with reckless abandon. Shaded by a mango tree, my teammate sat and held closely a young boy covered with scabies.

     Disgusted by their closeness and the reality of her susceptibility to the boy's contagious I kept a safe distance. Not far enough to make my discomfort noticeable, but the distance between our hearts was miles. 

     Pained by the conviction of my false compassion I became aware of my insensitivity. I started comparing my attributes with my teammates.

     Once again I pulled out my mental checklist of virtues. After a thorough beating on my self-esteem, I calculated our Christian virtues were neck-to-neck considering my fresh taste of humility.

     Turning my attention back to my teammate at she chattered on the conviction didn't release. For a second time I sought to clear my conscience of its incessant pestering.

     Without further question I received more than I could have asked for! At once my mind's eye saw a vision of an idol. This idol was beautiful with attributes floating around it.

     I saw the words peace, love, humility, meekness, righteousness, etc. Trying to make out what I was seeing I blinked a couple of times. Yes, it was what I thought it was....me!

     Puzzled by what I was seeing I questioned the Lord. Before I received an answer I understood. I had spent my whole life trying to measure up to this 'perfect' person. This meek and quiet woman that 'ministers' to the hurting. All the while thinking that that was who God wanted me to be.

     For years, I pulled out my 'checklist of virtues' to see how close or far I had come to arriving. In a moment I heard my Savior say to me, 'This perfect Audrey has become an idol you have set before me! Tear it down and don't ever raise it back up. I have never asked you to be that. I want you to be who you are right now...weaknesses and all.'

      Blown away by the strong rebuke and revelation I repented and renounced my once beloved 'perfect Audrey.' 

     Returning to the conversation I had so briefly yet eternally abandoned, I reveled in God's greatness. To think he would give me a place in his courts to be my weak, poor, confused, frustrated little self and just 'BE'! 

 
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This post has been so hard to write.  I have sat down four times to write what God has been speaking to me, but every time I was overcome by doubt. I can relate to what Eve felt like in the Garden of Eden when Satan asked, “Did God really say that?”

Sometimes it takes faith just to believe that God is speaking to you, doesn’t it? I wrote this post last Thursday and didn’t publish it because I struggled with whether it was truth or not. We went to church on Sunday, and the sermon was on the exact same thing! I’m not talking about a loose interpretation, but the SAME message. 

This was such a confirmation to my heart. It was just a reminder that if the Lord is speaking something to you, chances are He is speaking the same thing to someone else. 

This week I have been working through Beth Moore’s study The Inheritance. She said something that knocked me right between the eyes.  

            “If we are bored, we are out of the will of God.” – Beth Moore

I had to laugh because I recently told my husband that I was bored! I’m not talking about the type of boredom that a pre-teen tweets about. Believe me, I stay busy. I’m referring to the type of boredom that emerges from a lack of purpose.

Leo Tolstoy describes boredom as a desire for desires. Isn’t it, though? Don’t we all want to be supremely passionate about something? 

I thought about that remark for a long time before I came to the conclusion that my boredom was a result of not stepping into the promises (or calling) of God.

Do you remember the story about the Israelites before they entered into their Promised Land? The first generation never received their inheritance because they were disobedient and afraid. 

They took one look at the fortified city of Jericho and said, ‘Thanks but no thanks….we’ll just park right here.  It’s better to wander in the desert for forty years than to die at the hand of giants!’

It wasn’t until Joshua took over the leadership that the Israelites decided to trust the Lord and cross the Jordan into the Promised Land (Joshua 3).

The Lord told Joshua to have the priests stand in the middle of the Jordan River (at flood stage, mind you) with the Ark. Can’t you just hear them asking, “You want us to do what? Are you sure God told you that?” 

I can just picture their astonishment as the river parted as soon as their feet touched the water (Joshua 3:15).  Knowing myself, I probably would have told Joshua to take a hike and started building a boat!

 I don’t know where Christians got the idea that self-sufficiency is the same thing as spiritual maturity. I can’t tell you how many times I have heard the phrase, ‘when I get my life back on track, then I’ll _____”

Spiritual maturity is not characterized by self-sufficiency but rather God-dependency. 

Somehow we have convinced ourselves that the Lord’s calling on our lives is supposed to be easy. It’s not! It’s going to be more difficult and complex. If you are looking at the calling on your life and thinking to yourself, “I can’t do this.” You are absolutely right!

You cannot get through it alone. God’s calling is exactly that…God’s. It requires Him, and if it requires Him, then it requires us to be dependent on Him.

The more powerful the ministry…the deeper the waters. The Lord is beckoning us to conquer Jericho, but first we need to step into the river to get there.

The Israelites were camping out at the edge of their inheritance because they were afraid of what it would require to claim it. What they didn’t realize was that an inheritance isn’t an inheritance until it is possessed. 

We, like the Israelites, settle for boring manna when the Lord has planned a feast in the Promised Land!

I don’t know about you, but I struggle with stepping into my calling  because I am afraid of what it will cost to claim it.  Am I the only one out there that is scared to really love their husband or kids because they are afraid that God will take them if I do? This goes back to what we were talking about before in the misconception that God is a taker rather than a giver. He’s a giver! He Loves us and has good things for us!

I have also told myself that if I step into my inheritance I will be bored.  The world would have us believe that holiness is synonymous with boredom. Was Christ boring?

While the disciples followed Jesus, He walked on water, raised the dead, turned water into wine, healed the sick, fed the five thousand, transfigured on a mountain, took a coin out of a fish’s mouth, cast out demons, and conquered death, hell and the devil. 

I’d say those disciples had a pretty wild ride! Holiness is anything but boring.

The third reason I believe we as Christians do not possess the ministry that God has called us to is that we are afraid of looking foolish. We think to ourselves that the Israelites had it easier. They had the Ark of the Covenant, Moses, and miracles. 

As I was thinking this, I came across this passage in Exodus.

            "Moses answered, “What if they do not believe me or listen to me and say, ‘The Lord did not appear to you’? 
            Then, the LORD said to him, 'What is in your hand?'
            'A staff,' he replied.
            The LORD said, 'Throw it on the ground.' Moses threw it on the ground and it became a snake, and he ran from it." (Exodus 4:4)
            

Not much has changed, has it? We are still worried about what people will think of us 6,000 years later.  Just this week I was fretting about what people would think about my stupid blog post!  We think that it would be easier if we have some physical representation of God’s power. 

Then, we could chant like children, “See, I told you so.” I realized this week that the Israelites didn’t have it easier because of the miracles. They had the same struggles with faith that we do, and we cannot follow the Lord without faith.

The difference is, we have the Holy Spirit and that is infinitely better than any shadow of God those miracles could offer.

We may look foolish to the world when we declare what God has told us, called us to, or commanded us to do. You can imagine the Israelite's felt a little foolish carrying that big Ark into the river.

I’d rather be a fool for God than a fool who misses out on God’s presence and purpose because they are too worried about what people would think.

I love what Joshua tells the Israelite's the night before the parting of the Jordan.

            “Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the LORD will do amazing things among you.’” Joshua 3:5

God’s calling on our life may look difficult, complex, and scary, but do not fear…the waters part.




This is getting kind of long so I’m continuing on Friday the 10th


    About the Author

    Hi, My name is Audrey Frazier. Thank you for visiting. I am a wife and mother of two (2yr & newborn). I love my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I hope to share my thoughts, experiences and embarrassments with anyone brave enough to read them!

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