Om nom nom nom nom!!!

 "Your words were found, and I ate them, 

and your words became to me a joy and the delight of my heart...."

Jeremiah 15:16 

Every time I think of this bible verse, which I refer to often as I'm reminded of it each time I pick up my bible or hear from God's word via sermon or teaching, I can't help but think of Cookie Monster. Yes, I said Cookie Monster.  I don't necessarily picture the fuzzy, blue, googly eyed muppet messily devouring his food as much as I do the sound he makes as he eats: "Om nom nom nom nom!"   Strange? Yes, but can I help that I have been created to walk around with seemingly inappropriate sound bites in my head? 

We all know that Cookie Monster enjoys cookies a lot (he also enjoys alphabet letters and phones and other inanimate objects, which I think makes him funny and likable.)  In essence though, this guy is all about eating cookies. His main motivation is cookies. He's constantly thinking about and longing for cookies.  He spends most of his time on Sesame Street waiting to get his hands on cookies to eat so that he can enjoy and delight in them. 

I've been enjoying the Cookie Monster sound imagery so much lately that I decided to look up some videos of him eating.   In my research I came across this little video where cookie monster teaches the correct way to eat a cookie.  I honestly thought that cookie monster was a little careless in his eating of cookies and other objects, cause let's face it the dude lacks some major self control, but I think I may have judged him too soon.  Here he teaches a wise, thoughtful, intentional way to eat a cookie.   Maybe this muppet is onto something... who would have thought that one could indirectly learn something from Cookie Monster about ways to devour the word of God!

http://youtu.be/Cqz9ZXUoUcE

Cookie Monster's Way to Eat a cookie:

1. Look at Cookie 2. Identify cookie  3. Smell cookie  4. Eat it!!  "om, nom nom nom nom" 5.  Eat the crumbs so to not let any of it go to waste.

Revival

"The stone that has been encasing my heart has been cracked.  
The Lord took a chisel and a hammer and when I asked, He did His work."
- Jan 23, 2000

This is a picture that I drew 11 years ago.  I'll never claim to be any sort of visual artist, but I drew it in my journal at the time when God got a hold of my heart and lead me to become a Christ follower, so for me it's significant. 

Lately God has been working on my heart in what feels like the same way.  Over the past few years I have slowly rebuilt that cold hard stone casing around my heart.  A casing that would eventually confine and constrict my heart.  Bottom line, I allowed my life circumstances and my experiences to stir up an ugly cold concrete composed of the grit and shale of hurt, pain, resentment, unforgiveness, disappointment, and discouragement.  I dumped that concrete around my heart, walked away, and let it harden.   It just seemed easier to let the dingy, gunky, cold, hard stone remain.  Despite the fact that I knew the One with the chisel and hammer, I gave up. I resisted that swift hard blow that could have shattered that stone in an instant.  I ran away from God.  I was so tired of failing,  so tired of fighting and so tired of holding on that I made the decision to let go.  I CHOSE to let go of my God and in doing so I was plunged into quite a scary place of darkness.   Not the kind of darkness I knew before knowing Christ because this time I was constantly aware of a light that radiated a glare that hurt my eyes as I huddled in the dark... My God was there waiting with the chisel and hammer, but I rebelled and refused Him.    I let go of Him and like a child I closed my eyes, plugged my ears and sang out loudly "la la la la la!" hoping not to hear or see Him.

The amazing thing is that He certainly didn't let go of,  lose sight of , or stop listening to me.  He wouldn't shatter the stone around my heart until I asked Him, but He certainly held on tight to me.  He pursued and pursued and ceaselessly pursued me.  He poked.  He prodded.  He convicted. He opened my eyes and He gently removed my hands from my ears.  But most importantly, He simply just loved me.  He allowed me to fall and fail but was determined to constantly remind me that I was His forever.

And the most beautiful thing?  When I finally allowed Him to shatter the stone, He forgave me.  The thought of such amazing grace truly overwhelms my liberated heart. 

"The stone that has been encasing my heart has been cracked.  

The Lord took a chisel and a hammer and when I asked, He did His work again."

- July 20,2011

It's been a while huh?

Well... I guess it's fair to say that I can't really consider myself a blogger anymore, seeing that it's been well over a year since my last post.  There are a lot of reasons why I stopped blogging,but I feel a little like this blog is incomplete.... like it needs one final post before I can pack it up, put it away in the attic and move on.  So I suppose one more is on it's way.