A Journey of Grace: Lost in Translation©

Part Three: Lost in Translation:

I continued to disguise my shame, putting all my efforts into being a hard working woman. As I entered into Christianity I was given a “to do” list pretty quick. Words like “if you love God you’ll spend at least 30 min. a day in quiet time, preferably in the morning” were spoken frequently. I was encouraged to do more, be more, give more. As a woman who found value in striving those words were music to my ears. I was always up for the challenge. I strove to be the best of the best.

I began studying God. Maybe if I did enough Bible studies I would learn enough about Him to find that place in His heart. The desire was good, but twisted in the mix was this need. Maybe if I did enough I could be loved.

I took a break from men. The dating scene had done it’s damage on me. I wanted the next man I gave my heart to to be the one I married. A year and a half later I met my husband. We married 9 months after that first meeting.

I waited for the other shoe to drop. I wondered when he would wake up and realize the mistake he had made. Even though I had been chosen, I couldn’t grasp that he could really want me.

When David got me, he got my brokenness and my striving. Not only was I going to be the best for God I was going to take my husband with me. We’d be spiritual together. I became a dominant, controlling, manipulative, aggressive woman. What I wasn’t receiving from God I began to demand from my husband.

Four years into the marriage we began to have children. I poured most of what I had into them. They were after all ready to love me. In fact they thought I hung the moon. I began to forward the expectations I felt for myself onto them. I wanted to make them the best they can be too. After all, what mother doesn’t want her children to be successful?

My studies of God increased. I believed that the more you knew the more mature you became. Knowledge became my friend. It became another covering. After all, knowledge accompanied by performance and striving looked good on the spiritual resume.

Eight years into our marriage the foundation fell apart. In the process, I was exposed for who I was, an unsubmissive, controlling, woman who didn’t have a clue how to honor or respect. I began to pour my efforts into learning to be a better wife. If I could just be better maybe things would change. Something had to change.

No matter how much I studied, strived, performed, I found myself living Romans 7: “the things I don’t want to do I still do.” “The things I want to do I don’t do.” The more I tried the more it became apparent I would never do enough to free myself.

Performance based acceptance and conditional love were the only things I knew. For you see I had entered into the doorway of salvation by grace, but once in, grace became lost.

Grace is about receiving something you don’t deserve freely. I had lost the ability to receive. LIfe had become more about me giving and doing. Truth is I was more comfortable there. It made me feel better. What I didn't know was that you can't really give until you receive.

This went on for years. No one in the “church” knew how to free me. In fact, the answer was often “do more” which wasn’t an answer for me. I’d tried that.

I had a friend tell me once, “you are dead in Christ.” My answer to her was, “and I’m going to be the best dead in Christ I can be.” I’ll never forget her response, “Julie, there’s something wrong with that.” What? What could be wrong with wanting to be the best dead in Christ? I had no clue.

But God did.

©copyrighted: 2009; Julie L. Todd

Next up: Part Four: Let Freedom Ring:

Part One: In the Beginning:

Part Two: My Fig Leaves:

A Journey of Grace: My Fig Leaves©

Part Two: My Fig Leaves:

Once I entered this world the first people I looked to to give me love were my parents. I didn’t understand how sin had distorted everything. I just wanted to feel good about myself... to know that I was wanted, loved, needed. It was a natural response to the broken world I had entered.

Being a parent myself as I write those words I feel their weight. What a burdensome expectation to put on others. It’s another one of sin’s misrepresentations brought onto this world. No one can give me love. People can only be expressions of love. God is the giver of love. As a child, I didn’t understand that therefore I looked to many different sources to find something that only God could give.

Once we get out in the world around us it’s easy to look at how others respond. It didn’t take long for me to turn to my peers. Moving into my late elementary school years I began a gradual move towards boys. Maybe one of them would find me pretty. Possibly one would like me. Believe it or not I had a steady boyfriend at 10 years old.

For years men became the outlet that I ran to for the love I so desperately longed for. At the core of every woman’s heart is a longing to be desired. I took my desire to men.

With each failed attempt at finding love I believed things about myself, things that were far from truth, yet I had no clue. Messages were woven into the fiber of my being. After all a child can only reason through the mind of a child, interpreting actions and reactions. With each negative reaction of unfulfilled desire I believed it must be me.

You don’t realize the traps that are set in your path you just get caught up in them. Many traps were set along my way. It seemed one thing after another spoke a resounding message. “You’re not what people want.” It became the programming of my mind.

I grew up in the church, praying a prayer in the third grade out of fear that I would end up in hell. I was the queen of Bible drills, memorized scriptures, attended church faithfully. I knew about God, yet I was far from Him. I remember an old pastor of mine saying to me once, “Just let God be God.” I didn’t have a clue what that meant.

One dating relationship after another left me more rejected than the one before. Would anyone in this world ever want me? I couldn’t see how that could ever be. Alone and empty at age 22 I felt as if I had reached the end of life. Desperate to be loved I knew that if I did not find it, I would surely die. I cried out to the One who is love. He came for me.

At that moment He covered my shame. He exchanged my life for Christ's, giving me a new identity, but I was oblivious. I entered into the relationship with Him much like I did everyone else. Surely I was His Cinderella. He had to take me because I wanted Him. Full of shame, feeling like damaged goods, I felt pity for Him that He was stuck with someone like me. Maybe if I did enough, worked hard enough, somehow He would grow to want me. It became the hope I held to.

We all make our coverings in life. Much like Adam & Eve we turn to things to hide our nakedness and shame. I covered my shame with fig leaves of performance and striving. I became a hard worker for the Kingdom of God and I was good at it. I did things well. I did them fast. You could count on me.

Finally I believed I had found my niche. After all everyone wanted a hard working, religious woman. Maybe now God would be pleased with me. Maybe now I would find a place in His heart. Little did I know it would be the beginning of my demise.

©copyrighted: 2010; Julie L. Todd

To start at the beginning go to : Part One: In The Beginning:

Next up: Part Three: Lost in Translation

A Journey of Grace: In the beginning ©

In the beginning:

I was born October 25, 1957 in Tennessee. Before I tell you more of my story I have to go back to the real beginning; you know, before the earth began.

In the beginning; before all time; there was a fellowship of three. Father, Son and Holy Spirit were together in relationship. In the shadow of the Trinity, the earth was formed.

A command was declared and the earth began it’s existence. Dark and void of life, another word was exhaled and the most brilliant light danced across the universe, invading the darkness.

Each day brought a different gift, preparing the stage for the grand finale. At the beginning of the sixth day, the music of heaven swelled as something astounding happened. God set His image onto the earth.

In the midst of a fellowship of love, God breathed the breath of life into Adam. I can see the image so clearly in my head. After all how close does one have to get to breathe into one's nostrils? Could it be that mankind’s first breath started with a kiss? After all God IS love.

God breathed and man became a living being. He saw that it was not good for man to be alone so He created woman. They were placed in the garden He had prepared especially for them. It was filled with everything they would need for life. They walked in perfect communion with God and each other. They were naked and they were known, for there was no shame. It was meant to be that way forever.

But something went terribly wrong. Evil infiltrated the garden. Man and woman turned away from the One who is love. Sin penetrated a perfect world. Life would be altered from that point on for all who would enter the earth.

Man & woman, now covered in shame, covered themselves with fig leaves and hid from God. Surely God is disappointed now.

But God in His love, knowing fully well what they had done, went after them. After all His heart had not changed.

It was love that caused Him to find them in their sin. He asked them what they had done. Blame became the game of earth. Eve blamed the serpent. Adam blamed Eve.

God saw their attempts to cover their shame with fig leaves. Out of love He sacrificed the first animal, covering them with it's skin. It would be a shadow of what was to come. A plan of redemption would be set in motion. One would come, to shed His blood to cover mankind's shame forever.

Once He had covered their nakedness, He knew they had to leave His beautiful garden. For in the center, the tree of Life was planted. If they stayed in the garden and ate of it's fruit, they would live in their state of sin and shame forever. He couldn't bear it. He loved them too much to leave them there, so He sent them out, and closed the garden forever. It wasn't anger that banished Adam & Eve from Eden. It was love.

From this point on they would face the thorns and thistles of life. The moment sin pierced into the world, the heart of God became misrepresented. A level of doubt now filled the earth. Can you really trust the heart of God?

Something has gone desperately wrong. God's original plan was that I would enter into a world where Perfect love was expressed. People living in perfect love would invite me into living as one who is loved. But that didn't happen. Sin had changed the course of God's original design. Sin had changed the course for my life.

This is the story behind the story of my life. On October 25, 1957, I entered a world covered in sin and shame.

Next up: Part Two: My Fig Leaves

©copyrighted: 2010; Julie L. Todd

*Note: I will be writing my journey of grace in stages. If you want to know when I post you can subscribe to this blog. You will see the subscription link on the side. Once you subscribe you will receive a confirmation email. Reply to the confirmation email and you will be signed up to receive emails when my blog is updated.

I am absolutely complete

As a year ends it’s common to hear the phrase “out with the old, in with the new.” Even though I know God does not measure time in my life by the turning of a calendar page, it always feels to me as if a new day is dawning.

At the end of each year I reflect by reviewing my journals for the year. I then contemplate the year to come as I hear Him ask me, "What do you want me to do for you this year, Jewel?"

It does my heart good to remember all that God has said and done. This time I felt the tug to do something a little different. I heard the Spirit prompting me to go back to 2004 and read forward. So I did. Those who know me, know that's alot of reading as I am quite the journaler. My family often teases me in regards to my many journals.

By the time I got to the end of 2009 I knew what He was asking of me. I could not hold onto the data that filled the sheets of paper any longer. The words rang out clearly inside my head, "forget the former things, I'm doing something new."

I had journals from as far back as the 1990's full of data. It was time to lay them aside and remove all records of wrongs. God keeps no record of wrongs, He was asking me to let mine go too.

Filtered throughout the pages of each journal were accounts of offenses that had been done by me, and to me. It was time to give myself and those who had offended me a clean slate. I had at some level done that as I had forgiven the injustices long before. But dwelling between the covers of each book were well kept documentations that brought the memories back to life. They would continue to dwell there until they were destroyed. Christ beckoned me to let go.

In the wee hours of the morning of New Year’s Eve I knew it was time. I gathered several up and began the process of turning the sheets of pages into ashes as I began to burn each journal.

As the ashes filled the fireplace I knew it was symbolic of what He had repetitively told me through the pages I had just read. He was turning my ashes into beauty.

As the fire burned I pondered the year to come. I decided to look up the Jewish meaning of the number ten, as numbers carried meaning to the Hebrews. Ten means absolute completion.

Suddenly I could see something I'd missed for years. There planted in John, between two tens was my promise for the new year. “The thief comes only to steal, kill and destroy, but I have come that they might have life and have it to the full," (John 10:10). The thief has tried to steal me away from my reality. Jesus has come to dwell inside me to make me absolutely complete. Just like my journals, He has burned my past into ashes. It is no more. His life in me realized will be my completion.

As I watched the pages of my life burn my heart cried out. "Beauty for ashes, dear Jesus." "Take the ashes and turn them into the beauty of your life in me realized completely.

The "it is finished" life of Christ dwells in me richly replacing the ashes of the past. His life is my beauty.

On this new day of this new year, my heart cries out. Oh that I might live my reality. I am absolutely complete.

©copyrighted: 2010, Julie L. Todd

The Misunderstood God

I was given the privilege of reviewing the book by Darin Hufford, "The Misunderstood God". To be honest with you I knew by the title that this would be one of those books that I would not only enjoy but find myself agreeing with. It did not disappoint.

He starts out at the beginning of the book describing the God presented to him in church growing up. He says, "The God they told me about was not someone I would want to be friends with."

He then begins to paint a portrait of the God of Love. Each chapter takes a facet of love described in I Corinthians 13 and reveals how it is displayed in the heart of the One who is Love.. Darin exposes how the heart of God has been not only misinterpreted but misunderstood. The God many of us have known is not the God of I Corinthians 13:

Darin brings home the revelation of the effects of love. He says, "We spend more time trying to perform the effects of love than we do loving."

Many of us have been confused by God's true nature. Darin has taken the mess that religion has made and exposed a clear, beautiful revelation that God is love itself.

I loved reading this book and highly recommend it. If you desire a greater revelation into knowing what true love looks like, pick up Darin's book. You won't be disappointed.

You can find it here: The Misunderstood God

A Journey Into Grace

It's hard to believe that it's been 2 years since I fully entered the world of blogging. This little website has opened up my world in ways I never dreamed possible.

I recently rented the movie, "Julie & Julia" and I absolutely loved it. There was something about Julie's journey that spoke to a deep place in my soul. I felt a kindred spirit with her in some crazy sort of way. She was lost in her world until one day she decided to venture into the world of blogging. With each post written something began to be unearthed inside her. She found her voice. She found a love for writing. She became a writer.

It was almost 7 years ago that I first heard Him call me away to the desert. "Jewel, I am alluring you into the desert where I will speak tenderly to you. I will take you door of sorrow and turn it into a door of hope. You will no longer call me Master, you will now call me, husband" Hosea 2:14-16

Little did I know that in that moment He was inviting me into my transformation. He has been removing the rubble of my life and restoring what has been lost to me. He's been unearthing ME.

He has held true to those words. No longer am I bound to the shackles of the law. I am now living as one who is loved. It's a far cry from where I started. I live to tell. It is why I write.

This little blog has opened up something inside of me. I have found a love for writing. I am becoming a writer. I am finding my voice. I wasn't expecting that. In fact I actually signed up for this blog by accident. Or at least I thought it was by accident.

The truth is, God knew I had many words inside me begging to get out. I was spiritually constipated. He was pouring so much into me, yet there was no place of release. Words piled up inside my head and then He invited me here. This place has become an oasis, where I get to release His heart inside me that has been aching to get out.

As of late I feel the winds of the Spirit stirring me to step in a little deeper. I believe He is asking me to tell my story. It is the account of my journey into grace. I will begin after Christmas. I'd love to have you travel back with me.

Thank you to all who have walked with me this far. You have held my hand, brushed away my tears, encouraged me forward and loved my heart. For this I am truly grateful!

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, ²¹to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. Eph. 3:20-21

©copyrighted: 2009 Julie L. Todd

*NOTE: Check back after Christmas for the beginning of my posts on my Journey into Grace.

The Transformation of Love

The more I learn about the butterfly, the more captivated I become. I love the picture it paints. I love the story it tells. It speaks to a deep place in my soul.

When it’s time for a caterpillar to shed it’s final skin it finds an isolated place where it can metamorphose. The outer skin of the pupa then hardens forming a chrysalis which protects and hides it while it transforms.

When I moved to this small rural town almost three years ago now I came sporting my credentials. I had just finished teaching a 12 week class on the book “Captivating” at a former church. I had seen a gifting that I had not known was inside me. It exhilarated me. I was chomping at the bit to be used for God. Truth be told I was chomping at the bit to be of value.

His words came to me clearly one day. “Stop promoting yourself. I will promote you if I want you to be used.” It became clear He was up to something.

Relationships that I thought would take off didn’t. Ministry opportunities that I volunteered for were filled by others. I’d been here before. I knew it was an “invitation of God”. I knew He was calling me away to the stillness, where the gentle whispers could become loud in my ears. For the busyness of ministry often drowned out that still small voice.

These last 2 years have been filled with something I never saw coming. God began to teach me how to find my value in Him alone. He began to change me from the inside out. He invited me to live as one who is loved. He guided me into loving myself as He loves me.

This week He pulled back the curtains and revealed more of the masterpiece He’s been sculpting with my heart. Given an unexpected invitation to speak at a women’s tea exposed the work of His hands.

Instead of jumping at the opportunity, I tried to run. It was the opposite of what I had done before.

He wouldn’t let me run. It was His door opened for me. So I went, I spoke.

As I sat down in my seat after speaking I realized something. I’ve changed. The desire to promote myself has vanished. I no longer need to speak to have value. I have no desire to seek to have a ministry or a gifting. I have found my place in His heart. I am absolutely and completely content living as one who is loved.

I stand amazed as I look at where I once was and where I now stand. A woman who for a time found great value in striving, performance, busyness, and knowledge no longer has a desire for those things. The heart of the father has won my heart... I have been transformed.

Our reality is we are fused with Christ. God cannot tell where one life ends and the other begins. When we get that, really get that, there will be no need to find value anywhere else.

The God of the universe chose to tabernacle in us. Would that we could see the value He places on us. That He would choose to dwell within us. It’s astounding when you consider it.

He wants you to know and live in your reality, so He comes. He invites you to enter into the metamorphose of the life of Christ which dwells within. In the shelter of grace He will love away your insecurities and teach you how to love yourself. For He's known you for a long time. He's loved you forever.

As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; remain in my love. John 15: 9

©copyrighted:2009 Julie L. Todd