Monuments to Him

Perusing through old emails today and found something cool. This blog was written July 19, 2006 while I was still in China: If it seems oddly written that is because there is not freedom of religion in China and it is masked in simple code.

I am confessing to you all today, that I have forgotten Dad. I have forgotten what He has done for me and I have become a spoiled, hard, bitter, self-centered woman. I am also making a public record of the things that I should not have forgotten. If I dare forget again, you will yet still know His deeds and might restore me to repentance, thus bringing Him glory.

I confess that the last three years of my life, struggle as I might, I have lacked the intimacy that I had with the Father when I was young. All service to my Master has been merely cerebral, following His orders yet feeling little or no affection for Him. Even when He called me to China, my obedience in coming was more out of an employer/ employee relationship rather than a husband/ wife or father/ daughter relationship.

This lack of passion has greatly increased my struggle with sin and more often than ever, I have gratified that sinful nature. I have been cerebrally perturbed at myself for cheating on the greatest lover of all ages, while at the same time mindlessly falling into the same sins over and over, feeling no strong emotion of guilt. The young Nikki who was intimate with her Father would never even have thought of doing the things I have done. She would have shuddered at the mere mention of the evil acts I've commited.

Early this morning, I was fellowshipping with my brother Matt and relaying to him my plight. I am jealous for the passion I had when I was young. I am thirsty to effortlessly stomp on evil and fervently fight for purity with the same joy I once had. I am homesick for the intimacy I once had with the wildest lover I have ever known.

Matt wisely reminded me of an important truth and one that is dangerous to forget. It is widely shown throughout the good book such as in the parts that chronicle the histories of the leaders of Dad's people. Often a leader would be following Dad whole-heartedly as a youth but later in life this same man would forget the One and Only Lord. Over and over the good book tells us to, "proclaim His mighty deeds!" and "never forget what the Lord has done!" Dad even told the people to make big piles of rocks so that everytime people saw the piles of rocks, they would remember something amazing that Dad had done.

In some English versions of the good Book, the fancy word for those piles of rocks is ebenezer. I have forgotten to build any ebenezers and I am long past due. I can't really pile any rocks up anywhere because in this age you need a permit for everything (haha), so instead I am making this confession and public record of Dad's mighty deeds my Ebenezer.

--------- To Be Continued----------

August 30, 2006

This is an Ebenezer to remember what my greatest hero has brought me through. Just as the Israelites went through an exodus from Egypt, we all have exoduses (exodi?) in our own lives. Things have held us prisoner whether it be sin or poverty or abuse or oppression. We all have things the great deliverer has delivered us from. We must raise these Ebenezer stones in memory of the great things he has done for us.

Some of you may well know my upbringing was wrought with poverty and abuse. I did not always have a bed at night or heat in the winter. I did not always have shoes. I remember clearly my face burning got with embarrassment as Nick Watkins drew to the attention of Mrs. Getti's entire algebra class that my only pair of shoes no longer served a purpose. My stomach lurched as I tried to hide the tattered shoes behind a book-bag. It was of no use. This chubby, black Texan had a comical yet charming smile, was never lacking in crude humor and was widely respected among the teens at Shackelford Jr. High. Now he was announcing to everyone as if over an intercom to get a good look at my feet.

These shoes had walked with me for perhaps merely a year, but oh how they had walked! Much of this time they walked with me homeless on the streets of Dallas, Texas. The only thing that separated my person from miles and miles of hot, black pavement, they had become unbelievably threadbare. Large cracks in the soles would allow rain or sand or grass to become intimate with calluses. Still growing 14 year old toes had pushed through the worn threads on the edges of these $6.00 Payless Keds making themselves visible. To this day, I have never been lacking in in-grown toenails.

Someone in my family had accidentally discarded the rest of my shoes to make more living space in the Pinto for our family of four. This same person had also discarded most of my clothing. I was always nervous when girls like my stout, black friend Moesha asked me, "Girl! Why you always wear a shirt tied 'round yo' waste!? I hoped they woudn't guess that it was to hide the holes in my jeans where it is most necessary to not have holes.

Now the entire class was staring. Some laughed. Some looked disbelieving and uncomfortable. Some looked sorry for me. "When are you gonna get new ones?" asked Dylan Connely. He, most of all, I did not want to pity or laugh at me. Afflicted with glasses and acne, he was not the sterotypical junior high school heart throb. Even still, I had gained great pleasure during our rare, minuscule and awkward conversations and always looked forward to the classes Dylan and I shared. "I have other shoes," I lied. "I just like these. . .they're comfortable." I couldn't look him in the eye.

Seventy year old Mrs. Getti finally attempted to control the uproariousness. She said something like, "What seems to be the problem Nick Watkins and Nikki Reed?" Try as I might to appear unhurt, I burst into tears and spoke out of blind emotion, "Mrs. Getti, Nick Watkins is being an asshole!"

Sweet little old Mrs. Getti didn't want to, but the only just thing was to give me in-house-suspension for a week. For those of you who never got into trouble in school (I only did a little), in-house-suspension is when a student is deemed unwelcome to join class but instead is detained in a room with other offenders and permitted to perform schoolwork independently.

As ashamed as I was of being suspended (I had always tried to be a good student), I was relieved at not having to see my peers for a whole week. I had hoped that it would give their fourteen year old brains time to find alternative entertainment and consequently forget my embarrassment. I think it worked.

In the course of our homelessness, we were able to trade in the tiny, temperamental Pinto for an ever spacious, more dependable Oldsmobile. Sonny, my step-father was able to sell enough blood-plasma to save enough gas money to get to some construction jobs such as dry-wall or sheetrock, without the car breaking down too often. This enabled us to move into a motel which we shared with our roommates the cockroaches as well as other insects and rodents. The motel yard contained a swimming pool but no one was permitted to swim on account of too many tenants had contracted Hepatitis. My sister and I tried to play with the other children living in the motel, but after nine year old Frances was jumped for being one of the four white kids in the whole neighborhood, we decided to just keep each other company insead.

That evening I harvested the courage to ask my mother for a new pair of shoes. I even did research before I plead my case so that I was able to show her the Payless ads for some very inexpensive shoes on sale. She looked in deep thought and compassionate. She also looked a little sad. "We'll try," my mother genuinely promised, "but don't get your hopes up." She was honest about the fact that our chances of even making the rent were looking grim, much less being able to afford staples such as gasoline, food, coffee and cigarettes. After these, there might not be anything left.

Many of you now are probably scoffing to think that a woman would actually put cigarettes before a pair of shoes for her kid. I want to warn you to be careful of the standard by which you judge. You will be judged by that same standard (thats in the sermon on the mount somewhere between Matthew 5-7). If you had survived as many difficulties through Christ's strength as my mother has, you might have needed a cigarette as well.

In my mother's defense, with all the stress and extreme circumstances in her life, including a severe heart condition which required temperamental medications, she was advised by doctors not to add any changes to her life that were not beyond her control. This included giving up cigarettes. Not only would an added change heighten her stress and anxiety, but the sudden lack of nicotine in her system could actually throw off her heart medications.

I don't remember how or when, but I eventually acquired a new pair of shoes. Perhaps I was able to purchase them one of the few times our neighbor the crack-whore paid me for babysitting rather than skipping the bill. Perhaps I found them at one of those places where they give clothes to poor people.

Why am I telling you all this? Like I said at the beginning of this blog, I'm on this kick where I want to remember everything mighty Dad has brought me through in the same way the Israelites built up piles of rocks to remember important things the creator had done in their time. Those of you who know me today know that my life is no longer anything like the life of the fourteen year old girl I wrote about in this blog. If you have read whats going on in my life through my other blogs or just know what is going on in my life cause we're friends, you know that I can say with absolute certainty, "God works all things for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose."

I also have had this really annoying habit the last couple years of distancing myself from His intimacy and forgetting why I should be completely head over heels in love with Him! He walked by and saw me naked and covered in blood. He washed me off and anointed me with oil. He gave me the finest clothes and jewelry and fed me the choicest food (Ezekiel 16:6-14 Nikki version). Though I had nothing to offer Him but my utter poverty the King chose to make me royalty by choosing me as His own. Everything I have is to His credit! Yet I have forgotten the days of my youth, when I was naked and bare and bloody and have begun to trust in myself (Ezekiel 16:15, 22 Nikki version). I've run around on God with weak lovers and have reaped no benefit from those things in which I'm now ashamed (Romans 6). Regardless of my blaring blemishes, He has remained faithful to the promises He has made and has granted me with immeasurable forgiveness (Ezekiel 16:60-63). I can only pray that He grant my selfish heart the ability to love Him more and rely on His grace when I know that my clumsy attempts at passion will never be a match for the love He has shared with me.

One more thing, if you are reading this and we are friends and there ever comes a time (it could be as early as today) when you notice me forgetting what He has done for me. . .would you please take time to remind me of the great things He has done? If you notice me lacking passion and lacking zeal, could you remind me of what He has delivered me from? Would you remember these ebenezers when I am so prone to forgetting? I am ever thankful to our Dad for His body and that it is strong when I by myself am so weak.

Grace out, Nikki.