by Melody Paris

​Why can’t I learn from my mistakes? Why do I insist on doing the same stupid things? Why does God keep loving on me when I can’t seem to get past my “evil deeds”

This year has been rough on me. I describe my circumstances as chaotic and myself as stuck. Just about every aspect of my life has changed, from home to family to job to much more. Yet, I seem to be standing still in the midst of my chaos. A friend suggested that this was a time of growth, that God was using this as an opportunity to draw me closer. The problem with that plan is me. I continually find myself choosing avoidance. The distractions around me (TV, books, friends, internet, social networking) are getting plenty of my attention. Actually, they get most of my attention outside of work or family obligations. Where is there room for God?

These are mistakes I thought I’d learned from years ago. Yet, when life became harrowing, instead of turning to God, I turned to distraction. I continue in my distracted deeds instead of facing and dealing with my life and embracing God. Once again, I find myself making the same mistakes over and over again. When does the cycle end?

It is in my frailty and weakness where God’s true essence can be seen. He loves, encourages and embraces me despite my sin. I feel His presence even now hoping that I’ll respond today. Maybe one day I will once and for all let Him break my repetitive chains. Maybe today I’ll open up and feel embraced by His grace, because I am loved, I am redeemed and I have been forgiven.
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What are you struggling with that you keep repeating over and over again? Have you asked God to help you let it go? Are you trusting Him to be the one to break your repetitive chains? I encourage you to learn from my mistakes and let Him step into your struggles. Believe that any true and lasting change in our lives must first come from the changes He makes in our hearts.

by Melody Paris

I’m a Christian mystic.

I have a query for you: does that statement bother you? It bothered me. A year ago I would never have proclaimed or even thought about being a mystic. In fact, when I read the words “Christian mystic” in a book last summer, I immediately felt uncomfortable and a bit hostile toward the author and his message. In that moment I found myself wading through years of religious fundamentalism that I didn’t even realize I had been holding onto.

That launched me into a time of research and prayer. My first goal was to understand the word “mystic” and then to understand why it bothered me so. What I discovered was a well of fear that had been instilled in me as a child. My parents and grandparents experience in a religion that was very rigid in its beliefs and practices, left them stymied in their faith and relationship with God. They passed that onto us kids. In the words of the Church Lady, “well, isn’t that special.”

What I’m discovering within myself is a need to examine my own rigid religiosity and see if I can find some healing. This quote from Janet Hagberg and Robert Guelich’s book The Critical Journey: Stages in the Life of Faith has been a good reminder of this need:

by Melody Paris

In my rush, my need to convey the message we’d been given, and with adrenaline and fear coursing through my body, I stumbled over a rock and fell to my knees. Mary Magdalene grabbed my arm, and pulled me quickly to my feet. Both of us lost in the message we had just been given, and not worrying about anything as insignificant as an injury, we rushed on. Nothing was going to slow us down.

As we turned a corner a short distance from the tomb, Mary Magdalene came to a sudden halt in front of me, my mind was reeling from what the angel had said so I was not paying attention, and I slammed into the back of her. We lost our balance and had to grab onto one another to steady ourselves. It took me a moment to focus, but soon my eyes fell upon the figure before us. No words can describe the feeling, no song could ever evoke the emotion I felt in that moment. My heart was pounding, my breath gone like a bunch to the gut and every fiber of my being was shaking from excitement and fear. When I was finally able to look into His eyes…that was it, I was lost. All anxiety, all thought was gone and only joy remained. Jesus!

When He spoke, it was as if a warm breeze had brushed it’s gentle hand against my cheek. “Greetings,” He said…one word was all it took and I could no longer hold back my tears and I let them wash down my face freely. Beside me, I vaguely noticed Mary Magdalene falling to her knees and grasping onto His feet. My body betrayed my heart as I followed her example, ripping my gaze from His loving eyes. My heart, my mind and my voice all cried out in worship. My savior is alive!

​My goal in this exercise was to live out this encounter between Jesus and the two Mary’s. This wasn’t about trying to place myself in the historic setting, it was about trying to encounter Jesus in a personal and unique way. By living this experience as one of these women who loved Jesus so much, I had the opportunity to be in His presence in a unique way. When I looked at Jesus, the longing within me to just stay in His presence forever was entoxicating. Jesus was looking at me with delight in His eyes! The feeling of joy and peace from this experience continues to linger with me days later. I’m excited to see where my imagination will take me with Jesus next.

by Melody Paris

​I wish I could say that I know myself. The farther and deeper I look inside, the less I seem to know and understand. Recently, God revealed to me how tired I was. Not just tired, but an overwhelming exhaustion where not even sleep could bring relief. The funny thing about this revelation is that the day before I had discussed how wonderful I felt, how bright life had been lately and how I was enjoying all of my challenges – and I believed every word I said. How utterly clueless of myself I was.

My revelation came during an art project in my Spiritual Direction class. For forty-five minutes I sat quietly with God, letting Him peal back some of my layers and then translating that experience into a picture. He showed me that my tiredness came from the pressures I’d been putting on myself -- pressures to perform and be transformed. I had been trying to maintain some ideal of a perfect Christian, or at least a perfect Melody. Doing that all the time was weighing down my soul. An eye-opening revelation that I’m still wrestling with.

As I had this time with God, I was surrounded by eleven other students, each one praying, drawing, and writing about their journey with God and uniquely communicating with and being inspired by Him. “God is relational at the core - and so whatever is said, whatever is revealed, whatever is received is also personal and relational. There is nothing impersonal, nothing merely functional, everything from beginning to end and in between is personal. God is inherently and inclusively personal,” stated Eugene Peterson.

​Some of the students loved this artistic opportunity while others struggled, but each communing with God in their own way. By making it personal, He revealed His deep love and understanding of each of us. Margaret Silf expressed this kind of love when she wrote, “What unseen powers are these, in wind and water, all sunshine dappled and charged with an energy that is capable of setting a universe in motion, but also with a love that is able — and desiring — to touch my heart into peace?”
I’m so grateful that when I’m struggling to know me, God is already there. He loves and desires me, all of me, and walks my respective path with me.

by Melody Paris

​As the bunco ladies can attest, I am loud, bold, rude, funny, cocky, stubborn and much more. All of crazy Melody is put on full display when I’m playing games. There is something about the relaxed social atmosphere of gaming that brings out a truer version of me.

According to David Benner, “We are called to live the truth of our uniqueness.” I don’t always do that. Actually, I rarely do that. The person you see on Sunday mornings is more reserved, calm and fully armed with my personal facades. Truth is, I live in fear and shame of who I really am. Deep down in the dark depths of my being is a locked up and scared little girl with dirt and muck all around her. Nobody wants to see that, let alone me. We are taught from a young age how to hide. Punishment and reward for our behavior teaches us what society expects from us and we conform. In doing so, we hide who we are instead of dealing with our truth.

Last week, Rick talked about kids and how important it is to let them be kids…let them be free. What a wonderful idea, but then we are left with this question: are we free? After so many years of societal molding, can we ever be free? Can we ever face the truth enough for a little light to shine in the dungeons of our own making?

​It’s hard to accept that all of our faults, our secrets, our dirty shameful truths are fully and completely loved by anyone, especially the perfect and almighty God. “To truly know love, we must receive it in an undefended state—in the vulnerability of a “just as I am” encounter,” stated Benner. When I was a kid, I screwed up big time. I was terrified to tell my parents what I had done and feared the punishment that awaited me. To this day I don’t remember what I had done, but how my father reacted to it stands out. I finally fessed up to my parents about my mistake and was punished, but that afternoon my father gave me a gift for being honest. He loved me even in my shame and guilt and rewarded me for living in truth. I’ve never forgotten that moment and I still have his gift to this day.

by Melody Paris

​For years I lived an isolate life. My independence and stubbornness kept people at bay, and I had convinced myself that I wanted to be alone. When I started working here at CTK, life was very transient. That was also the case for my job. I mostly worked from home staring at a computer. The transient state of the church and my job tricked me into believing that I would simply have tasks to check off, and all would be right in my world. How wrong I was. In my very first meeting with Rick, he explained how a part of the job was going to be people. I shrugged it off. After all, I didn’t even have a desk. 

I’m a very task oriented person, and too often, I don’t see people, only the task at hand. A few months into my job, Rick sat me down to discuss something he’d heard me say. I had been talking to a volunteer and had apparently been a bit brusk. He pointed out to me how my whole conversation with that volunteer had been about the task at hand and that at no point in time did I actually talk with that person. He asked me to work on it. Reluctantly, I decided to try and my trying became a task. At the beginning of all my conversations I would inquire about the person. Once the inquiry was checked off, I could then move onto the task at hand. I had turned a whole person into a line on my to do list.

For the next few months I continued to start my conversations with a personal inquiry, and they would respond. Most of the time the requisite answer, “I’m fine,” would be given, and I could move on. But, sometimes I would get real answers. In the real answers, I started to learn people’s stories. The more I learned, the more I wanted to know. I was getting to know them, and in this process I was also getting to know Jesus. He would show me His love for His people; He opened my heart and mind to love them as well.

Somewhere along the line, I stopped worrying about the tasks. I still have a to do list that I write out each week, but it has become secondary to the opportunities around me to connect with people. It hasn’t been easy and I still have to work on making people first, but I also now seek people out. I hear their stories, and I appreciate their companionship. I understand what Rick was telling me in that first meeting, my job -- my life -- really is all about people.

by Melody Paris

​This week someone asked me to recount my God story. It took me approximately twenty minutes to tell her of my hardships, my pains, and my Creator’s redeeming love. After I was done she sat there for a few moments with a big smile on her face. When she finally spoke her response surprised me: she found it inspiring how God has vigorously pursued me all my life.

I spend a great deal of my time trying to figure out what I need to do to seek God and then implementing what I come up with. I read books about God, study and memorize the Bible, listen to Christian music, spend time in prayer, and talk to fellow believers and non-believers about my Jesus. What had not occurred to me before that moment was that God has been pursuing me all along. All my time and energy is a drop in the bucket to all God has been putting into me. When I am running from Him, He is doggedly pursuing me and when I embrace Him, He is still racing after me.

Jim Feiker said, “God has been revealing this astounding balancing truth to me – that God is and has been pursuing me with His radical love all my life.” This simple and yet breathtaking truth is vital and life-changing. Our journey with God isn’t about chasing after Him, it’s about responding to His love for us. I am so excited for what God is going to reveal to me as I pursue more and more of this truth: God is pursing me!

by Melody Paris
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I was baptized on July 28th, 2013 at Gilbert Lake by Pastor Rick Snodgrass and I have no memory of my baptism. I’ve looked over the pictures from that day, hoping to spark something, but it hasn’t happened yet. My memories from that whole day are few and far between.

Pastor Chip recently asked me how I felt about this lacking. An odd question I thought, but it did get me thinking: What did I want from my baptism? What was the purpose? Was it inauthentic? Was it a poor attempt at ritual? Or a rite of passage that I some how missed? 

Many paintings, pictures and film depict the great and life altering moments of baptism; those moments we have come to associate with baptism. The image of a person rising from the water, arms outstretched, water raining down from them and splashing dramatically into the water with light shining all around and doves descending. We are given the impression that our baptism will be a big, emotional experience. Going into my own baptism, there were thoughts running around my head of rising up out the water to blinding light and a choir of angels. Shockingly, that did not happen. 

So, how do I feel about my baptism? I’m at peace. I spent many years, nearly two decades, refusing to be baptized, so just making the choice was significant. I did not make that choice to experience something, I made it because I believed God wanted me too. It was an act of obedience. My lack of memories do not negate what happened. I did it for Jesus, and like so many things, this comes back to relationship. How do I feel? I feel like a child of God and worshipper of my precious Jesus. I feel joy in knowing Him and I’m glad that I pushed aside my stubbornness to follow Him into the water.

​Whether it is a beautiful and moving experience - or something else - baptism is an act of faith. I acted in faith and I continue to walk everyday the way I walked into the water - following Him.

by Melody Paris

In his book Divine Obsession, Rob Hensser asks the question: “Why is it so easy to believe that God loves the person next to you, your friends and your family, yet so hard to accept it for yourself?” Sometimes we can fully perceive the truth and simply not accept it.

Earlier this week I was having a conversation with my mother about how hard it is for some people to accept that God loves them. She is one such person. Raised to believe that she had to earn her way to into God’s good graces, she’s realized over the years that it is impossible. She struggles between her feelings of inadequacy and the knowledge that God’s loves her just as she is. She is not alone in these struggles. Accepting God’s love and grace is one of the hardest things for humans to do. One of the number one reasons we struggle with receiving love is that we don’t love ourselves. We don’t believe that we deserve nor can we ever truly be loved.

Are you trudging along out of habit and fear, inwardly wondering if God loves you, if He even likes you? Rob Hensser goes on to ask,

by Melody Paris

I am not perfect. That is not an easy statement to admit to myself, even more difficult to put into writing and share with others. Everyday my goal is to be perfect. Everyday I fail. This uphill battle to be better, to be more, to be...perfect, well frankly, it’s exhausting. Thank God, I’m not alone.

Euodia and Syntyche, sisters in the struggle, knew what it was like to expect more of yourself and have the world expect it too (Philippians 4:2). They were just two Christian women contending in the “cause of the gospel” along with the other leaders in Philippi. They loved the Lord and their church. They were also struggling to get along and it was affecting the rest of their church. Not much more is known about them, but I know them. I am them. I contend for the gospel at the side of other church leaders. I love CTK and everyone I get to meet through my time here. I am temperamental, difficult, stubborn, and highly opinionated. Conflicts with other people do crop up from time to time and they are conflicts that tend to affect everyone in the general blast radius. I am not perfect.

I am grateful to Paul for mentioning these women. Although the public forum he chose to call them out on seems odd, it did open up an opportunity to discuss conflict management and relationship goals. But, it is also important because we get to see in these women that even a Christian leader can screw up. Christians are only human. We are not perfect. On my first day as the assistant to a certain cowboy boot wearing preacher, I was warned that I would screw up in this job. It was a warning to me not to be too hard on myself, but to hear that I had failed before I had even started was tough. It was honest. It was true. But, it was hard. I have fought to not fulfill that prediction and failed miserably. I am a failure. I am not perfect.

Hallelujah, God does not expect perfect. He knew before I was even conceived just how badly I would stumble and fall over my lifetime. Yet, He chose to save me anyways. He knew that I’d give Him my heart one day and sin the next. That I would praise Him in the morning only to deny Him by nightfall. He knew it all. He is perfect. He still loves me. He gave me these two women of the Bible to be reminded that I don’t have to be perfect, I just have to be His. He gave me two heroes who fought hard for Him and were still human.

I’m allowed to be human. God meets me right where I am every single day, every single moment. Thank You God for Your amazing grace!