Watermelon Eating Contest

Check out Glory and her sweet friend doing the Watermelon Eating Contest!  They've been going to Wednesday Night Youth Group at Church (with kids 5th - 12th grade) and they always sit on the front row and are ready to play with the best of them!  I love it!

A New Found Freedom

Happy INDEPENDENCE DAY - from the Burgins :)

Jon just had inguinal hernia repair and is still recovering; therefore, we had no plans to go out and do anything.  I thought it would be appropriate to start out by reading The Declaration of Independence.  I usually focus in on the most famous and memorized lines which, with power, point to truth, God, equality, and freedom:  "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

But, this year, the first paragraph really stood out: "When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation."

Wow, these guys are preparing to declare their independence and they find it appropriate to tell us why.  As I read on, I see that they do tell us why, and they do so candidly, bluntly and specifically.  The founding fathers actually provide a specific list of the king's evils, abuses, usurpations and injuries.  I began to make my own list in my mind.  I thought I would work on that list today, because this morning, as the 4th of July rolled around, a defiance against my government's evils started to rise up within me as I read the Declaration of Independence.  

But...instead of working on that list, I had a sense in my spirit that that's not exactly what I was supposed to do.  I went downstairs, made a cup of coffee and sat down with Jesus.  What happened next redefined the focus of this year's Independence Day for me.

You see, for weeks, a particular sin has been standing out in my mind and I've been talking to God about it.  I wrote it down on paper in my journal yesterday morning.  Some excerpts are:

"blaming [others]" and "compelled by sinful actions around me. --- Give me freedom!"  
"Lord, help me to gain freedom from my vices - habits.  Where is my heart trembling [worship]?  Show me my vices.  Show me my censures.  Show me my spots."

You see, if someone around me snaps, I snap.  If someone near is grumpy, I get grumpy.  And then, I blame THEM.  My heart has been wrestling with God on this.  I've felt justified in my responses, but, I knew they were wrong.  Yesterday, I so wanted God to show me and help me feel and know the wrongness of my responses.  I needed him to show me because I still felt justification lurking in my being...and where is the worship, fear and trembling, in that?

God answered my prayer.  Later I read the words of St. Augustine of Hippo in his book, City of God:  "But it is a worse and more damnable pride which casts about for the shelter of an excuse even in manifest sins."   Augustine goes on to remind me of Adam and Eve.  Eve offered the fruit and Adam took it.  I've ALWAYS KNOWN Adam sinned in doing so.  And I've NEVER respected his decision to blame Eve.   The Lord spoke to me and I will never be the same.  "Amy, you have behaved like Adam.  And you have respected your decision to blame."

I get it.  I so get it.  When someone snaps, they are "eating the fruit" - maybe they offer to me, or maybe the fruit is just there in my midst.  I do not have to take a bite and to do so is sin on my part.  I truly do not want it.  I truly do not want it.   I am free of the justification and now, when it's in my midst, I see it for what it is and say quietly in my spirit, "no, thank you.  I do not wish to eat that fruit."

And so, this morning, Jesus talks to me about this more - forming it more strongly in my mind.  I shared this beautiful, FREEING, truth with my children.  I told each one separately.  They each received it.  Freedom even said, "Thank you Mom...for helping me."

We now have a new code phrase, "You don't have to take a bite."  Glory and I already had opportunity to use our phrase today - I looked at her with power, wisdom and calm, "You don't have to take a bite."  She smiled at me coolly and conquered easily.  And so today, I declare my and my children's independence from control of false justification and sin.  

Yes, my great country is deteriorating, growing in evils, abuses, usurpations and injuries.  My earthly freedoms might be stripped away, but through Christ I am growing in goodness and freedom and NO ONE can strip away the goodness and freedoms given through Christ.  

My heart has leapt for joy in celebration of my new found freedom all Independence Day long.

Ponderings of a Broken Shoe

Freedom's dirty little feet.  I love them.  

We went to the Dollar Theater last week and on our way home saw a man walking with a considerable limp.  Freedom wondered why he was walking like that.  I looked over and noticed one shoe was cut.  From the small glance I could get while driving, I assumed he had some sort of defect that caused that foot to be large.  I guessed he had cut the shoe so his foot would fit.  I pointed out the purposefully broken shoe.  Freedom wanted to know more about this man.  I shared my guesses that the man was poor and unable to get some sort of shoe that fit properly.

Fast forward 4 days.  Driving home from gymnastics, Freedom and I are the only ones in the car.  "Mom, I know what it feels like to have shoes that don't fit because you are poor," Freedom starts a conversation.

"Really, how do you know?" I ask.

"Well, I put my shoes on in a certain so they didn't fit right.  It makes me think about God.  He is with me where ever I go.  He is not like the shoe that needs to be cut.  If my house gets bombed or something, I will remember that.  I will think about God."

He didn't say it exactly, but I think he's right on.  We might lose our shoes or our homes, but God always fits us and He's always with us.  No one or nothing can separate us from our God.

We talk more.  God gave us shoes and homes.  What are we supposed to do with them?  Freedom thought maybe we were supposed to cut them.  I told him I don't think so.  But then again, when I come home and read this http://www.aholyexperience.com/2013/06/why-you-are-where-you-are-for-such-a-time-as-this/  I think again about what it means to "cut" MY shoes ... to "cut" MY home.

The words of St. Augustine that I read earlier today ring in my ears, "But I had now found the goodly pearl; and I ought to have sold all that I had and bought it -- yet I hesitated." 

Still stuck.  Still seeking.  Still sobbing.