The OTHER Other Mary

I don't really want to share this, but I think I'm supposed to. At church yesterday during worship I asked the Lord to make me more open to Him. I suddenly felt He showed me a place inside me that wasn't His. That I didn't even know was there. A place I created as a child where I would hide myself when things got crazy. Sort of like the garden in "Secret Garden," it helped me survive those years and on into the craziness of my young adult life, when the Lord could have helped me more, had I allowed it. But I wasn't ready to give it up, I guess, or to even let myself see it was there.

Then Pastor Jake spoke. For anyone who wasn't there, he talked about the "other Mary," the sister of Lazarus and Martha. I once wrote about becoming more of a Mary than a Martha. But when I hide myself away in my "safe" place, I'm a Martha all the way.

As Jake told us, now is the time for me to learn to "sit and be still in front of Jesus" (Luke 10:38-42). I need learn to "open up my heart to Jesus" (John 11:32-37). And to "worship in a radical/reckless/not safe new way" (John 12:1-8). It was like God was saying, "I gave Jake this message just for you. And I won't ask you to give something up without putting something way better in its place."

So this is what I had to share. It's scary. But I know, as Pastor Jake said, that God deals with us gently. That secret place had to go. It was safe for a while, but like an abscess, it had become walled off and unhealthy, and it just had to go.

Even if NO ONE reads this, it doesn't really matter. I had to share it is if to say, "Yes, Lord. I'm serious about this. I want to be completely Yours." So at the comfortable age of 52 (almost 53), I'm taking a new baby step again.

Thank God for "Youth Pastor Gets To Speak In Big Church Day"!