Lauren Sparks

The Sparks Notes

When Your Busted Flip-Flop Speaks to You

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I had a sandal blow out.  While my youngest attended an end of school soiree, my husband and I decided to take Shelby, our special needs daughter, to see Dumbo.  A circus tent with a flying elephant is right up her alley.  Well, if I’m being honest, she doesn’t care what movie we take her to as long as she has popcorn and a soda.  But on the way into the theater, a well-loved flip-flop flipped it’s last flop.  There was no keeping it on my foot with any kind of regular gait.  So I started shuffling – maintaining contact between my feet and the ground at all times to keep from losing the dilapidated shoe all together.  But we didn’t have much time to buy our tickets and hit concessions (#priorities), so my husband requested that I just take the shoe off so I could move at normal speed.

 

I complied and picked up my sandal, walking across the asphalt with no protective barrier.  Yuck.  I held the shoe in my hand so that anyone who saw me would know I had a mishap and did not choose to come to a public place with only one (What?!?).  I don’t know.  There is really no good way to explain the inner workings of my mind.  We make our way inside the theater and I start wondering about that “No shoes, no service” rule.  Does it still apply if you are wearing at least one?  I digress.  We get our movie snacks and I am now forced to put my shoe in my purse so I can carry my drink and still hold Shelby’s hand and help her along.  To heck with appearances.  That battle is long lost.

 

Once inside our theater of choice, I help Shelby to her seat and set our tasty treats down before announcing to Chuck that I must empty my bladder before the movie starts.  I’m 45 and have a large Diet Coke.  There is no way.  I grabbed my raggedy shoe back out of my purse, but not for appearance sake this time.

The parking lot is one thing, the theater carpet is another, but there is NO WAY in Dallas, Texas in July (that’s pretty close to the temperature of hell), that I was stepping on a public bathroom floor without something covering the flesh of my foot.

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 So at the door of the ladies room, I threw that shoe down on the threshold and placed my now-dirty foot upon it to commence with the broken shoe shuffle into the stall and back.

 

Since God has been dealing with me on the issue of obedience, we are kinda in the middle of an accidental series on the topic (although last week’s post was not about obedience or the week before because I’m not that organized – but whatever).  I saw some correlations between my footwear escapades and obeying God.  I want to preface this by saying that I IN NO WAY believe God requires or even desires a works-based relationship with us.  He loves us and sent his Son Jesus to die as payment for our sins so that we can be in relationship with Him by believing in Jesus and His sacrificial death.  Because Jesus took the punishment for my sins before they even happen, they are all forgiven.  This is a huge load off my mind and something I am eternally grateful for, but it does not remove the responsibility of obedience from you or me.  “What shall we say, then?  Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?  By no means!  We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?”  Romans 6:1-2 NIV  

 

 

Salvation is so much more than a get-out-of-hell-free card.  Once we are brought into relationship with God, we obey from a place of gratitude, and also from a place of trust.  Once we get to know Him, we understand that His guidelines lead to what is best for us and walking in them keeps us under the umbrella of His protection.  Look at these verses:

Observe what the Lord your God requires:  Walk in obedience to him, and keep his decrees and commands, his laws and regulations, as written in the law of Moses.  Do this so that you may prosper in all you do and wherever you go.  1 Kings 2:3 NIV

Keep the Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it.  Then you will be prosperous and successful.  Joshua 1:8 NIV

Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it.  Luke 11:28 NIV

But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it – not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it – they will be blessed in what they do.    James 1:25 NIV

The Lord makes firm the steps of the one who delights in him.  Psalm 37:23 NIV

For he guards the course of the just and protects the way of his faithful ones.  Proverbs 2:8 NIV

 

If you are looking for a full-proof plan for your life here on earth to work out exactly as you wish, this is not it.  God never promises us material wealth, convenience or pain-free leisure.  But what He does want for us is abundant living, freedom from bondage and blessings we may never fully understand this side of heaven.  And it’s clear to me from scripture that obedience to Him is a key to unlock all of these things.

 

Walking through a public bathroom in my bare feet is like stepping into a new day in willful disobedience to God.  It’s unwise and leaves me vulnerable to more scum and filth than I care to imagine.  And while in this human body my obedience won’t be perfect (sometimes it will look more like the busted sandal shuffle than a victory lap), the effort to stand in God’s will and under His protection is worth it.

 

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And look up these great writers I link up with every week:

InstaEncouragements, Literacy Musing Mondays, Hello…Monday,

Dream Team link up, The Good. The Random. The Fun.

BloggerClubUK, Tea and Word Tuesday, Purposeful Faith,

GraceFull Tuesday Link-Up, Different Dream,

Let’s Have Coffee, Welcome Wednesday, Recharge Wednesday,

Worth Beyond Rubies, #TellHisStory Link Up, Porch Stories,

Encouraging Word Wednesday, Tune In Thursday,

Stories of Hope, Moments of Hope, IHeart Verse Link Party,

A Blogging Good Time, Fresh Market Friday, Feature Friday Time,

Friendship Friday Blog Hop, Faith on Fire, Traffic Jam Weekend,

Faith ‘n Friends, Dancing with Jesus, Grace & Truth, Booknificent

 

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One Verse, One Resolution and Hope

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Photo by Ana Tavares on Unsplash

Although I kinda tried to avoid it, I think I have to do a New Year’s resolution adjacent post.  It’s not really a resolution post because it has been years since I’ve set those (mostly due to lousy follow-thru on my part).  But God and I are working on some things, and in the spirit of authenticity and my own ability to process, I think I need to write about it.  Let me begin by saying that this is all very much a work in progress and I’ve cried many tears already this very day.  I am as tender as the incisions from my recent surgery.  My physical and emotional wounds are painful, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t promoting healing.  I think the waterworks are a sign that my hard heart is softening.

 

I should probably back up a bit.  If you have been reading my blog for any length of time (or you are an IRL friend), you know that the last two years have been tough for my family.  The dark tunnel has seemed darker the last couple of months because I had much hope at the end of last year that we were putting hard times behind us and launching into a fabulous new year.  But 2018 was NOT fabulous and the light at the end of this tunnel looks farther away than ever.  While lots of my friends and fellow authors have picked a word for the year to be their focus and inspiration, I relate to Jami Amerine from Sacred Ground, Sticky Floors when she said, “If I picked a word for the year, it would be obscene, and I try not to cuss.”

 

While swimming the butterfly in a pool of self-pity, I questioned myself  about why my kicks and strokes were drowning me.  And the honest thought I had was, “Well, up until now we’ve lead a pretty charmed life.”  And as soon as that thought crossed over the pathways and synapses of my brain, I said out loud, “WHAT?!  Are you serious?  Charmed?”  From the beginning of our marriage, my husband and I have battled through the fall-out that broken marriages inevitably leave.  We have a severely mentally and physically handicapped adult daughter who will forever be dependent on us.  We dealt with financial woes, life-threatening seizures, my sub-clinical eating disorder and chronic pain.  And yet…I honestly meant that my life, until 2 years ago, was charmed.  But certainly no one else would agree.  How can I really believe that the sum of all those problems equaled roses, but now I have thorns?

 

The only conclusion that makes any sense in this, is that things really haven’t changed.  Some of the individual situations have changed, but in the big picture of our lives, I have trouble now and I had trouble then.  So what is different?  Sigh.  I got tired.  And I allowed my circumstances to change how I viewed God.  I’ve never lost my faith.  I made a decision a long time ago to give my life to God because He gave everything for me.  I’ve never second guessed it.  But somewhere along the way, I let my feelings cloud my vision of what is true.  I stopped feeling in my heart that God showed kindness to me, even when my head knew the truth that He loves me in ways and volumes that I may NEVER understand.

 

A couple of Sundays ago in church, one of our staff ministers quoted 2 Timothy 4:5 NASB “But you, be sober in all things, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.”  This verse hit me between the eyes – right where my two eyebrows want to become one.  I’ve stalled myself.  I’ve been waiting (and way too focused, I might add) for our situations to improve.  I don’t think there is anything wrong with praying for that…and hoping for that.  But with the end of hardship and suffering, and not the finished work of Jesus Christ, as the nucleus of my hope, I bought a one-way ticket to personal disappointment and ineffectual ministry.  The passage says I am to “endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.”  In my efforts to ESCAPE, rather than endure, hardship, I have neglected the latter two.  And so this becomes my verse for 2019.

 

There’s an old joke about an old couple who saw a much younger couple drive by in a pickup truck.  The pretty girl was sitting in the middle of the truck – as close to the boy as she could get.  The older woman wistfully looks at the space between her husband and herself, saying, “Remember when we used to sit like that?”  Her husband’s response?  “I haven’t moved.” 

God is wooing me with, “I haven’t moved.” “I haven’t changed.”  “I am as kind as I have always been.” 

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In previous efforts to extricate myself from a funk, I picked up the discipline of gratitude journaling.  I still think it’s a good idea, but I think I need to tweak it a little.  Along with writing out 2 Timothy 4:5 every day, I have decided to write about the sweetness of God.  Every day I plan to record one way that God is sweet to me.  Because I need reminding.  I don’t know if, at the end of 2019, I will find my circumstances significantly improved; but I know that if I rehearse God’s word and remind myself how good and kind He is, that by December 31st I’ll be sitting closer to Him than I have in a long time.  That’s a better goal than any other I could dream up.

 

“There’s a private place reserved for the lovers of God, where they sit near him and receive the revelation-secrets of his promises.”  Psalm 25:14 The Passion Translation

 

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