Before Christ vs. After Christ

Its easy to forget who I was before I knew Christ. Especially easy for me because I moved away from the town I grew up in and have little or no contact with the people who knew me then. There's really no one in my life now who reminds me of who I was before I knew Christ and, quite honestly, that's  kinda nice.  It's easy to forget that I wasn't always "the preacher's wife". 

 

I think that most days I like who I am, for the most part anyway. I certainly like me now much more than I liked me before I knew Christ. I guess another reason it is easy to forget who I  once was is that I simply don't like who I was then. I don't WANT to remember what it was like before Christ changed me.

 

Every now and then, I bump into someone who knew me "back when" and I am reminded of who I was. Sometimes a song, a movie, or a picture, will remind me of who I was before Christ changed me and I am filled with a flood of memories and mixed emotions. In the past, Satan used these memories against me. In the past, Satan whispered his lies to me, filling me with guilt and pain. Satan likes to remind me of  who I was, of the terrible choices I made, of my pride and arrogance, of all the times I was disobedient, disrespectful, and, well, just bad. So, for a long time, I worked hard to forget who I once was and to focus instead on who I am in Christ.

 

But not remembering is a very dangerous thing.

 

The longer I am a Christian, the more I realize that it is important to remember who I was, because when I forget who I was without Christ, several things happen...

I become judgmental

I become impatient

I lose compassion

I become prideful and pious

I become harsh and rigid in my expectation of what others "should" be doing

I, in essence, become a Pharisee

 

When I remember who I was without Christ, I am immediately reminded of all Christ has done and is doing in me. When I remember how wretched and undeserving of Salvation I was, I am reminded that the only good in me is the Goodness of Christ and without Him I am nothing. When I remember what it was like to not have Christ in my life, my heart breaks and I am filled with compassion for those who do not know Him. When I remember what it was like to be a new Christian, my lofty  expectations of other Christians are replaced with understanding, patience, encouragement and grace. 

 

I don't like to dwell on my life before Christ. It is much more fun to talk of all the many ways Christ changed everything about who I am. Over the years He has gradually removed the things that did not reflect His love to make room for the things about me that DO reflect Him to grow. So, while I am not proud of who I was and do not want to glorify my life before Christ, remembering who I was without Christ reminds me of how much of who I am now is dependent on Christ in me.

 

And

Remembering who I was without Christ reminds me of how much others need Him.

 

 

8 Rules for Bible Study

 

 

I've been making a conscious effort to read my Bible thru from Genesis to Revelation. At the same time I've been trying to figure out things for myself, 2 other women in my life have presented me with their own confusion about the interpretation and application of what they are reading. (On a side note, I am so excited that I have friends to discuss this sort of thing with! YAY!) This prompted me to look for a list or SOMETHING containing good advice on how to interpret and apply God's Word.

 

I found a pretty decent list of things. I am glad that I have this list of "Rules" to go back to. I wish I'd had this in print years ago!

 

  Introduction
"Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth" (2 Timothy 2:15). Here, Paul tells Timothy how important it is to study God's word. This leads to an understanding of what God wants from us so we can be approved in his sight. The following is a list of rules that should be followed when studying the Bible so that we can divide the word of truth correctly.

1. Be objective -- seek the truth.
If we read the bible with preconceived ideas, or with the purpose of proving our own beliefs, we will not find the truth. The purpose of our study, therefore, must be to seek the truth.

2. Reach a conclusion only after you have studied what the entire Bible says about the subject.
Much error has been taught concerning salvation because people have failed to follow this rule.

3. Determine who is speaking.
Inspired men wrote the Bible, but they sometimes quoted uninspired men.

5. Determine to whom it is spoken.
God's command to Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac on an altar (Genesis 22:2) is obviously not binding upon us today. Let us make sure that God is talking to us.

6. Interpret each passage in the light of its context.
For example, in 1 Corinthians 7:7, Paul says, "For I would that all men are even as myself" (i.e. unmarried). Does Paul command that we should be unmarried? A reading of the surrounding verses explains why he made such a statement. In verse 26, he says, "I suppose therefore that this is good because of the present distress." The present distress was the severe persecution that existed then. So, if we just read the context we will avoid many misunderstandings.

7. Never interpret a passage so as to contradict another passage.
 If your interpretation of a passage contradicts another, then you know that your interpretation is wrong.

8. Use standard helps in understanding the Bible.
The following things will help:
• A good English dictionary will help us understand the meaning of words today.
• A good Bible dictionary will help us understand the meaning of Bible words.
• A concordance is helpful in looking up passages on the same topic.
• Another translation will help. Comparing the King James Version with the American Standard or the Revised Standard translation helps our understanding.

 

 Hope this helps!

Post-Cancer Life

It's been a while since I posted anything about cancer. That's a good thing. I guess I am finally fully recovered. Now that I am working on 4 years cancer free, I can honestly say that I have accepted my post cancer body and all that goes along with it. I have made peace with my mind's irrational fears of recurrence. I have come to grips with things that will never be what they were before cancer. I have accepted and become somewhat comfortable with my new, post-cancer, "normal".

 

But it wasn't always this way.

 

Looking back on it, I realize more than ever that the first 2 years post cancer were really, really difficult. Until now, I thought that I was just a bit crazy during that time. I didn't reach out to other cancer survivors to see if what I was experiencing was normal. I wish I had looked for help and advice to help me deal with it all back then. But I didn't. Recently, a friend reached out to me because she is struggling with her post cancer reality and I realize now that maybe I wasn't crazy after all. Maybe the things I experienced are just part of recovery.

That being said, here are some things that they don't tell you about surviving cancer.

 

• Being a cancer survivor isn't the same as never having had cancer. I know that sounds silly, but it needs to be said. There is no "getting BACK to 'normal'" because "normal" is different post-cancer. For me, physically, I wanted my pre-cancer voice, my pre-cancer neck and throat. Emotionally, I wanted...gosh, I don't even know how to put this into words...I wanted my pre cancer life; I wanted to not freak out if my neck had a weird lump in it, if my voice acted funny, if I had a headache or if I had a nagging cough. I didn't want a migraine to warrant an MRI and CT to rule out a brain tumor. I didn't want to have chest x-rays every so many months to make sure that the cancer wasn't in my lungs. I didn't want my neck to be stiff and achy. I didn't want my voice to be hoarse.

• Fear is real, constant, and overwhelming. The biggest fears I had were of the treatments not killing all the cancer and of recurrence and metastasis. I imagine that these are not unique to me and that others may have more fears depending on their emotional state and their type of cancer. It really didn't have anything to do with whether or not I trusted God to take care of me. It wasn't an issue of faith. I knew God has everything under control, I just didn't (don't) want to go through all that again. It didn't matter that my fears were irrational. Even when I knew that I was being irrational, I could not just dismiss the fears. They had to be dealt with. Thankfully, Doc understood and prescribed meds to help me cope until my brain could recover. Another thing that I learned at this point in my journey is that the emotional, physical, and spiritual support so readily available to the cancer patient is not available to the cancer survivor.

• Well meaning people unknowingly heap on guilt and add to anxiety. For me, the worst thing I could hear was, "Well, at least you don't have cancer." Even now, I feel like this is dismissive of what I was experiencing at the time. Just because I no longer have cancer does not mean that I am not struggling. This little phrase hit my heart with "You should be more thankful. You are ungrateful for God's healing," which is so untrue. I was and am thankful to be healed, but healed is not the same as having never had cancer. Even today, I feel like this phrase and others similar to it were a dismissal of what I was going through at the time.  I felt like, since I didn't have cancer anymore, I "should" not need support and that made me feel ...well...bad...because I DID need support. To almost every person who has not walked this road themselves, the battle ends when cancer treatments ends. They do not realize the need for emotional support, encouragement, and understanding post cancer.

 

I spent 2-3 years suffering and miserable because I wanted things to go back to the way they were before I had cancer, and so did the people around me. I had to accept that "healed" is not "good as new". "Healed" is simply "healed". Cancer and cancer treatment leave physical scars you can see, and physical damage you can feel. They also leave emotional scars and damage. Post-cancer me is very different from pre-cancer me. That's just the way it is. NOW, I realize that accepting my post cancer voice, my post cancer neck and throat, and my post cancer life with all the scars, aches, pains, and fears was the turning point in getting "back to normal". I had to accept that my new "normal" is quite different from the old normal... and that's okay. After time passed, I was able to get off the anti-anxiety meds and was able to deal with all the fears and what not pretty well, but it took a few years to get to that place.

 

I've realized over time that post-cancer life is not so different from post-divorce life, maybe even post-military deployment life. Just because I don't have cancer now does not mean that I am the same as I was before I had cancer. Similarly, my friend who is divorced is not the same woman she was before she married, even though, technically, she is single again. I have heard it said that those who fight for our country bring the war back with them. In all these cases, though each is very different, the thing we want most is the one thing we cannot have...for things to go back to the way they were before.

 

As I've said many times about traumatic events, it is bad enough that it happened; it is a complete tragedy to let Satan use it to keep you in bondage.  I believe that this is one way that Satan keeps us in bondage after a traumatic event. He creates in our heart a longing for the one thing we cannot have...the life we had before the trauma. In longing for what we had (and cannot have again), we miss out on what we have.

 

I wish I'd understood this 3 years ago....