at times, I can be like a vampire, too.<\/strong><\/p>\nIf I\u2019m not careful, I can get my sense of worth, life, identity, and purpose from temporal things.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve always been a vampire, I think<\/p>\n
It started when was a young girl and realized I was conceived from an affair.\u00a0 I would go to church and hear things like \u201cadultery\u201d, \u201csexual immorality\u201d, and \u201csanctity of marriage\u201d and quickly surmised that I was a mistake.\u00a0 At the same time though, I was singing, \u201cJesus Loves the Little Children\u201d and when we got to \u201cred and yellow, brown and white they are precious in his sight\u201d I hoped that somehow Jesus\u2019 divine love can overlook my parent\u2019s human mistake, so I gave my life to him in a little Sunday School room that smelled of Elmer\u2019s glue and donuts.<\/p>\n
For a few years I basked in the \u201cJesus, loves me this I know\u201d glow until around twelve when conflict in my home between my mom and my father\u2019s wife escalated to monthly, sometimes, weekly catfights and I wondered:<\/p>\n
\u2018Would these two be fighting like this, if my mom didn\u2019t get pregnant with me? If I hadn\u2019t been born would my dad and his wife still be happily married?\u00a0 Would his wife have a daughter, a right-fully born daughter, of her own? If God is as big and sovereign as he says he is, then he must have let me, a mistake by all accounts, be born for a reason.\u2019<\/p>\n
And from that train of thought, I concluded that God saved me from my sins and let me live to prove a point.\u00a0 Like Hosea, the prophet and Gomer, the prostitute, I figured God was going to use me like Hosea and Gomer.\u00a0 God asked Hosea to unconditionally love with his\u00a0 trampy wife Gomer as a living illustration of his desire to woo back Israel. I wanted to be a better, more willing participant in God\u2019s great plan to prove his goodness than Gomer.\u00a0 I was going to make sure God didn\u2019t regret letting me be born and I was going to do great, big, immortal things for Jesus\u2014 I was going to be BEST CHRISTIAN EVER!!!!<\/p>\n
And so I threw myself into all the \u201cshoulds\u201d of Christian living.\u00a0 I did my devos twice a day for good measure. I resided in my prayer closest.\u00a0 I carried my Bible to school in my backpack.\u00a0 At fourteen, I was outspoken about true love waiting and doing what Jesus would do.\u00a0 I rallied for \u201cSee you at the Pole\u201d and chased down the Christian teachers to \u00a0get them to sponsor our school\u2019s Christian club. I often received the highest compliment any young believer could ever receive; \u201cYou are on fire for God!\u201d\u00a0 My identity as the Christian girl became my life in high school.<\/p>\n
And with every accomplishment, every \u201csoul won for the Lord\u201d, every ridicule for being a \u201cJesus-girl\u201d, every sanctimonious rant to other Christians that world is going to hell in a hand basket, I sucked in life, worth, and purpose.<\/p>\n
It felt good.\u00a0 And I wanted more.<\/p>\n
But as you\u2019ll learn throughout the week, that type of thinking took me down a heartbreaking path that eventually lead me calling up my pastor\u2019s wife to tell her, \u201cI\u2019m not even sure I believe in God, so maybe I shouldn\u2019t be the accountability leader for the group any longer\u201d.\u00a0 Then when that <\/i>source of life went away, I dove into a spectacular season of promiscuity.<\/p>\n
When I made that phone call, I was dry, desiccated, and thirsty even though I was and had been a Christian leader for over ten years by that point.<\/p>\n
Ironic, no?\u00a0 I lived for Jesus, but didn\u2019t live in Jesus<\/b>.<\/p>\n
This is the problem with attempting to drain created things of their essence instead of drawing life from the Creator, it will always, always, always leave us thirsty.<\/p>\n
Jesus knows this too!\u00a0 He knows we\u2019re pretty little vampires that needs life, which is why he tells us to draw life from him:<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n
\u201cVery truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.<\/i> Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your ancestors ate manna and died, but whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.\u201d John 6:53-58.<\/i><\/p>\n
This is why the Eucharist is so precious to me.\u00a0 When I take the wine and break the bread I\u2019m reminding myself, \u201cOsheta, this is life to you.\u00a0 Jesus\u2019 love shown on Calvary defines your worth. This body was broken for you, this blood was shed for you\u2026not your works, not your beliefs, not your possessions, and not your relationships\u2026for you.\u00a0 Just the way you are and even as you were being knitted in the womb of your unwed, \u201cother woman\u201d mother.\u201d<\/p>\n
This tribe\u2019s first and foremost conviction is that we get our life for Jesus and Jesus alone.\u00a0 Not the rightness of our theology, but Jesus.\u00a0 If Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and The Life<\/i>, then it is nothing short of idolatry when we turn to other things\u2014maybe even good things\u2014for our salvation or sense of worth.<\/p>\n
So, Sister\u2026where do you get our life?<\/p>\n
Do you get it in the veracity of your beliefs? \u00a0What about being\u00a0 a \u201cbiblical woman\u201d? The overall GAP cuteness of your kids?\u00a0 What about your body?\u00a0 Do you feel particularly powerful and capable when your scale registers that \u201cperfect\u201d number?\u00a0 Do you rely on your wit, intelligence, or accomplishments to feed your thirsty soul?<\/p>\n
If so, then you my dear are a pretty little vampire like me, but all is not lost.\u00a0 There is a cure for it. \u00a0And unlike \u201cthe cure\u201d in Vampire Diaries that is only enough to make one person aware of their vulnerabilities, we all have access to The Cure.<\/p>\n
Our Cure is our found with our Good Shepherd Jesus, who calls for the thirsty to come and drink and never thirst again.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ll leave with a song to meditate on your thirst and give it over to Jesus.\u00a0 Find your life in Him and him alone.<\/p>\n
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