All
who sincerely embrace Christ
by
faith
are
living in the rarefied air
of
the resurrected life of Christ.
Jesus said,
" . . . I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will
live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never
die. Do you believe this" (John 11:25 NIV)?
Believers
and unbelievers alike may or may not understand the difference the resurrection
of Christ makes in our ordinary every day lives. After all, that was 2,000
years ago. Right? Or we might even say to ourselves, "I know what resurrection
means. It means Christ conquered death, and because I believe in Him, I'm
going to heaven." And that would be correct. But there is more to resurrection
than what happens when we die.
The resurrection of Christ is always impacting us and will as long
as we live, and that will be forever. Even those who do not believe in
Christ experience the blessings of His resurrection in this life. Just
think what the world would be like without it! The holocaust and Russia
during Stalin's reign of terror would have been a small blip on the radar
screen. Instead of one-time events here and there, death and destruction
would be constant and ongoing without relief—a Mad Max movie that never
ended, only there would be no Mad Max to avenge and protect. There would
be no one at all to help much less care. Fyodor Dostoyevski put it this
way. "If God didn't exist, everything would be permissible." And,
I will add, nothing would be forbidden.
If
God didn't exist,
everything
would be permissible.
Fyodor Dostoyevski
But Christ, who was always Plan A and never Plan B, did live, die
and rise from the dead according to the eternal plan of God. Though creation
would not exist at all were it not for God's desire and pre-existent plan
of redemption before the foundations of the world were in place, think
what this world would be like if Christ had never been born, lived, died
and risen from the dead and the world actually did exist—if there
were
no God—if the evolutionists were correct. We would all be nothing
more than corrupt brutes without the prevailing redemptive grace of God
to restrain us—if the image of God—marred and fallen as we all are were
not in each of us. In fact, I dare to say that without God's eternal plan
of redemption, this world would not have lasted beyond the first generation
of barbarians that emerged from the sludge. Everyone would have been eliminated
by someone until there was no one remaining to procreate the next generation.
That "window of opportunity" would have fizzled out. It would have been
but a brief moment of darkness and despair.
"For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver
or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to
you from your forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb
without blemish or defect. He was chosen before the creation of the
world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake. Through
him you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him,
and so your faith and hope are in God." (1 Peter 1:18-21 NIV).
If you question the reality of this, please listen to how His life,
death and resurrection have changed and continue to change my life. It
is His story. It is an ever-present mystery unfolding in every redeemed
life and this is the mystery. The crucified, resurrected Christ dwells
in
me and is always working on me, within me and through
me for the purpose of glorifying and making Himself known to others.
"I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ
lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of
God, who loved me and gave himself for me" (Galatians 2:20 NIV).
Before I surrendered my life to the Lord, in every way but physically
I was dead and often wished I were physically dead. Now I'm thrillingly
alive and thrilled to be living in His resurrect life and power. And one
day I will be resurrected along with all believers of all ages, some whom
will still be living but most of whom will have been long dead and buried
or scattered. Here is my resurrection story. Actually, it is not my resurrection
story but His lived through my imperfect life. Take a look at the difference
the resurrected Christ has made in one very lost woman's life. Mine.
My Mother
was Seriously Mentally Ill
My torment
started early. I am told it was as if I didn't want to be born. I refused
to breathe. I'm convinced I didn't want to be born to the mother God chose
for me. I had been in her womb for ten months, and I believe I somehow
knew what I was doomed for. The doctors had to pound on me for a very long
time before I finally succumbed to life.
My mother
was seriously mentally ill and extremely abusive to everyone who crossed
her path, which was the unfortunate and unavoidable plight of her entire
family. She was a very disturbed woman. Her behavior was very much like
that of the character played by Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction. I say
these things with love and compassion for her now. It was very hard for
me to have love and compassion for her while she was alive, because she
never stopped tormenting her family.
She threatened
to kill us, to kill our children, to have our children taken away from
us. She vindictively undermined every relationship we ever had. She called
our employers and harassed them, trying to get us fired from our jobs by
telling them terrible lies about us. When I was a young girl, she locked
me out of the house in my pajamas in freezing weather. Why? Because I tried
to stop her from breaking every dish in the house against the fireplace.
I failed. At the age of fourteen she had me driving her to the package
store to buy liquor. The last memory my daughter has of my mother is hiding
behind me as she held a pot of boiling water over her head. This awful
list of her tyranny is long, yet there is another list. When she was wonderful,
she
was really, really wonderful—magically wonderful. She was a brilliant scholar
with a master’s degree in English literature. She was a poet and published
author. She was a gifted story teller and a survivor. I still remember
her joyful laughter. She instilled in me a love for reading, classical
and non-classical music, theater, a fascination for metaphor and the mystery
and wonder of God, even when she was not yet a Christian.
Those
things that hurt
instruct.
A Tormented
Woman
I grew up
a tormented young woman. Early in my life, I made a conscious decision
that as soon as I could get out of the house, I would. I also made the
decision that I was never, ever going to suffer like that again. And that
was the single most destructive decision I ever made in my entire life.
The commitment to avoid suffering is a devastating one, for it is through
pain and suffering that we grow.
I am not
saying we should stay in situations dangerous to our physical and emotional
safety. Those decisions must be left up to the one involved, but we can
never resolve our resolvable dilemmas when we are running away from them.
In the words of Scott Peck, "It is through the pain of confronting and
resolving problems that we learn." Benjamin Franklin also wrote, "Those
things that hurt, instruct." It is for this reason that wise people learn
not to dread problems but to accept them for the learning, growing experiences
that they are meant to be.
James instructed
that "When all kinds of trials and temptations crowd into your lives, my
brothers, don't resent them as intruders, but welcome them as friends!
Realize that they come to test your faith and to produce in you the quality
of endurance. But let the process go on until that endurance is fully developed,
and you will find you have become men [and women] of mature character,
men of integrity with no weak spots" (vv. 2-4 Phillips Version).
Carl Jung
wrote that "Neurosis is always a substitute for legitimate suffering. But
the substitute itself ultimately becomes more painful than the legitimate
suffering it was designed to avoid . . . When we avoid the legitimate suffering
that results from dealing with problems, we also avoid the growth that
problems demand from us." Peck adds that the avoidance of legitimate suffering
is the reason we stop growing. We become stuck.
I hope you
will forgive the expression, but it is the best way to describe it, and
I fully intend for it to have a Biblical context. I was stuck, and I was
neurotic as hell, and I lived a hellish life.
Defiantly
I swore,
"I
will never endure this kind of torment once I am old enough to leave".
The
seed later germinated into a lifestyle. It drove me blindly down
the
destructive path that became my life.
Running,
Running, Running
Alcoholism.
Mental illness. Physical abuse between my parents. Emotional and mental
abuse toward me and my sister. This describes our home. The fantasy began
early. It resonated just above subconscious level. Defiantly I swore, "I
will never endure this kind of torment once I am old enough to leave".
The seed later germinated into a lifestyle. It drove me blindly down the
destructive path that became my life.
I did not
know the Lord until I was thirty-five years old. By that time I had already
been divorced three times and married for a fourth time. I was busy running
from my pain. Running, running, running. This husband was a problem. Get
rid of him! That husband was a creep. Dump him! And the tragedy is that
I was dragging two precious little children through the muck and mire of
my selfish life. I was guilty of abusing my children through neglect, a
different kind of abuse than my parent's. I have cried buckets of tears
over those years about the lifestyle I led. I have asked for their forgiveness
many times. They have told me over and over again, "Mom, we turned out
okay." Well they are fine people, but it is not because of anything I did
or did not do. It is only because of the grace and resurrection power of
the Lord!
At the age
of sixteen, I found myself expecting a baby out of wedlock. It was 1957.
This was something that didn't happen often in 1957. In fact, it was very
frowned upon.
My father
was also a very abusive parent. He was harsh, rigid and severe in his constant
murderous criticisms of the rest of the family. When he learned that I
was pregnant, he practically disowned me. But pregnancy was my way of escaping
the terrible abuse between my parents toward one another and the abuse
that they heaped upon me and my sister. But my unresolved pain and suffering
were about to get worse.
Somewhere
along the way
we
have to stop and unravel
the
knots in our lives.
First
Marriage
I married
the father of my son, but we were only married four years, because of my
decision not to suffer. I don't know. If you know another human being,
you are going to suffer. We can stay together and work on our relationships
or we can run like I did. And we can get married again like I did . . .
and leave again like I did. And we can get married again and leave again
like I did; but somewhere along the way, to do more than barely survive
we have to stop and unravel the knots in our lives.
Raised
in Church
Though I
wasn't a Christian, I was raised in church. I was in the pews and sang
in the choir every Sunday, but I didn't know Jesus, because I had not been
properly introduced to Him. I would like to say I wish I had become a Christian
a whole lot sooner, but I didn't. I have to trust that it was in God's
timing that I came to know Him. And I have to believe that He has used
my story to bring hope to many others over the years.
I always
said, "When I get my life the way I want it, then I'll get right with God."
Never mind that I didn't know what it meant to get my life right much less
what it meant to get right with God! But that thought was always in the
back of my mind.
Marriage
to Clint
Running
from pain serves no one well because unresolved pain is always with us
and only compounds pain upon pain. By the time I was 35 years old, I had
been married four times. In 1975 I married Clint Murchison, Jr. It was
a mystery to everyone why Clint proposed to me. Clint could have had almost
anyone he wanted. He certainly could have chosen from more glamorous women,
more sophisticated women, more beautiful women. He certainly could have
found many more women who would have better fit into the level of society
in which he lived. To say the least, I was a total misfit. I actually think
that is part of what he liked about me, because I later learned that he
was a misfit too. Neither one of us was very good at pretending we were
someone we weren't.
Clint Murchison,
Jr., according to the Dallas Morning News, was at one time one of the twenty
most influential people in the City of Dallas in the 20th century. He was
viewed by many to be the most powerful man in Texas because of his
ownership of the very prestigious high profile Dallas Cowboys Football
Team. In the late 70's Clint was considered by many to be one of the last
great entrepreneurs. That was, of course, because no one foresaw the internet,
and the incredible explosion of technological advances being made today.
At
one time Clint alone
owned
$500,000,000
worth
of stock in Centex Corporation.
In the mid-seventies,
Clint and his brother John were listed in Forbes Magazine as the fourth
wealthiest family in the nation at $400,000,000. At one time Clint alone
owned $500,000,000 worth of stock in Centex Corporation. In today's terms,
that would have put him in the high echelon of multi-billionaires.
Our home
was 44,000 square feet, not counting 20,000 square feet of basement. In
1985, our air-conditioning bill in the summer was $10,000 a month. We had
a four-car garage with four Mercedes Benz's parked inside. We lived on
26 acres of perfectly manicured grounds that looked like the Garden of
Eden. In the Spring, 5,000 azalea bushes bloomed profusely. Adding to the
splendor, there were 25,000 daffodils and 10,000 tulips and wisteria dripping
from every imaginable place. We had two swimming pools, a football field
and a tennis court. We owned a private island in the Bahamas with a pristine
white sandy beach, a penthouse on Park Avenue in the Big Apple and jet
planes to take us anywhere we wanted anytime we wanted to go. And I couldn't
find peace anywhere. I was a dead woman walking around, and I met my tormented
self everywhere I turned.
Though our
estate may have looked like the Garden of Eden, our lives closely resembled
those of Adam and Eve after the fall.
No
amount of designer clothes
could
heal my aching heart.
I had thought
that marriage to Clint would make me feel better about myself—more accepted—but
it didn't. Instead, I felt worse. If living a story book life didn't bring
me happiness, what possibly could? I certainly found no sympathy among
my friends. They too had bought the lie that fame and fortune bring contentment
and joy. With a budget of $100,000 a year for clothes alone, no amount
of designer garments could heal my aching heart. It wasn't just an ache.
It was a misery that never ended. I don't know how to explain it any other
way. I only know that I hurt desperately all the time.
I didn't
smoke, drink or use drugs, but I had other ways of running to avoid my
pain that were just as destructive. I never found anything or anyone that
gave me hope that things could change until I met the Lord.
Born
Again
Exactly
nine months after my wedding to Clint, a friend of mine invited me to go
to Christian Women's Club. The moment I accepted her invitation, I knew
I was going to get right with God, even though I had not the foggiest notion
what getting right with God meant. I think I actually thought that it meant
I would start going to church on Sundays and that I would become a better
person. I had no idea that my life was going to be totally revolutionized.
I didn't know that my life was going to be turned upside down and inside
out by the resurrection power of God, but that's exactly what happened.
I am not
the person I was before I surrendered my life to the Lordship of Jesus
Christ. I am not the person who said "yes!" to my friend when she invited
me to Christian Women's Club. If you had told me in 1976 that I was going
to feel as wonderful, as peaceful, as joyful, as content, as caring for
others as the Lord has made me today, I would have said, "no way". I became
a new creature in Christ. Born again by the Spirit of God.
I
did not know that my life
was
going to be turned
upside
down
and
inside out.
The woman
who led me to the Lord, Janis Coffee, discipled me for eighteen months.
She held a Bible study in my home every week and also prayed with me every
day. I was that fragile. She later told me that she felt it was the call
of God on her life. She had never before poured so much of herself into
anyone outside her own family. She started me out on a strong foundation
of Bible study, prayer and Christian devotion and is one of my dearest
friends today.
My Son
Frank
In 1978,
I gave my first testimony at the very place I was saved—Christian Women's
Club. Right before that, my twenty-year-old son was diagnosed with paranoid
schizophrenia—the most serious of all mental illnesses. I was devastated
and I was also in denial. I believed that God would heal him and I prayed
for it. I took him to people who claimed to know how to cast out devils.
We laid hands on him and prayed, but he did not get better. I eventually
had to
accept that my son had what is now called a neurobiological illness. At
that time schizophrenia was considered incurable. Though it still is, the
new frontiers of technology are on the edge of developing a complete cure
for it.
Clint's
Illness and Bankruptcy
This was
just the beginning of the thunder jolts in my life. A year later, Clint
was diagnosed with cerebellar atrophy, an illness similar to Lou Gehrig's
disease, of which he would die eight years later. Two years after Clint
was diagnosed, my mother died of heart failure. In spite of our history
together, her death left a horrible hole in my soul for months and months.
What I had hoped we would somehow one day be able to have, was now an impossibility.
In 1985,
adding insult to injury, because of his illness, Clint was forced to take
bankruptcy. Had he not been ill, he would have been able to get his financial
struggles worked out, but that was not to be.
Clint's
bankruptcy sent shock waves throughout the community,
the
state, the nation
and
many parts of the world.
Bankruptcy
is humiliating in itself, but Clint's was the largest personal bankruptcy
in the history of the nation at that time. Because of the Dallas Cowboys,
Clint was a very high profile person, and his bankruptcy sent shock waves
throughout the community, the state, the nation and many parts of the world.
For weeks, helicopters roared above us filming our home and our property.
Every detail of our personal lives was spread across the pages of the local
and national papers and magazines. The nightly news carried the story for
months. I felt raped and exposed by the invasiveness of the press. The
daily struggles with our own attorneys, the attorneys of the creditors
and the judge were an unending nightmare. And all of this was taking place
in the lifeof a woman losing her husband and a man losing his life. Every
day Clint became more incapacitated. Unable to feed himself, dress himself,
wipe his own nose or even turn himself over in bed, we faced more loss—that
of our personal privacy. Clint needed round-the-clock care. There were
never any quiet moments alone—never a place to hide from the pain or to
grieve it all. At the time it was very painful that the last years
of Clint's life were the most sorrowful. Now I realize that they were also
the most triumphant of any he had ever known.
My Daughter
Wendy
At the same
time that my life was falling apart, my beautiful daughter Wendy was giving
birth. My first grandson, Bradley West, Jr., was born in 1981, the year
my mother died. My only granddaughter, Lauren West, was born twenty months
later. And my youngest grandson, Ryan West, was born in March of 1984.
Wendy has expressed her relief more than once that my mother was not around
when her children were born.
Just after
Ryan was born, my daughter was diagnosed with lupus, an illness that has
for intermittent protracted periods of time deeply affected her life and
the life of her family. She was in and out of intensive care in 1984 with
perio- carditis—an inflammation of the lining of the heart.
To say things
were tough all the way around would be a gross understatement.
Early
in my Christian walk I prayed,
"Whatever
it takes, Lord,
for
you to make me and my family
what
you want us to be."
Radical
Prayers
I was a
radical Christian—a joke among Clint's buddies. And I prayed radical
prayers. Early in my walk with the Lord I prayed, "Whatever it takes, Lord,
for you to make me and my family all you want us to be. Whatever it takes."
When I first prayed this prayer, a shiver went down my spine. I had no
idea what lay ahead of me, but I completely trusted God with all I knew
how to trust Him at the time. I even started abbreviating this prayer.
W-I-T, Lord. WIT.
I guess
some would say, "Well, the devil really got old Clint Murchison." No, I
am 100% convinced that God got him. "I-T-W-I-T." It took what it took.
We were both very tough nuts to crack. The pressure it took for Clint Murchison
is what it took to bow his heart and bend his knee. And the pressure it
took to bow my heart and bend my knee is what it took. But much of my story
is yet to be told. We will get to that later.
We
go through the eye of the needle
by
forsaking all other gods—
those
things we think
we
cannot live without
that
are not of and from God.
The Eye
of the Needle
Sometime
while reading our Bible together, Clint and I came across the parable of
the rich man. The fact that it is harder for a camel to go through the
eye of the needle than it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God
caught Clint's attention. As a result, early on in his illness and bankruptcy,
Clint asked our pastor, "Will you teach me how to go through the eye of
the needle?"
What we
both learned is that we go through the eye of the needle by forsaking all
other gods—those things that we think we cannot live without that are not
of and from God. Or they are from God and have become more important to
us than God.
We learned
that to go through the eye of that needle Jesus was talking about, we had
to "shrink" as much as we possibly could. We learned that we had to lay
down everything we cared about and everything we didn't care about to go
through the eye of the needle. And that's what happened to Clint Murchison.
He got smaller and smaller—literally and spiritually. Each day he grew
more humble and more broken.
Crush the petals of a rose and its fragrance fills the air. Clint
was getting sweeter and sweeter too. Asking to learn how to go through
the eye of the needle was Clint's way of saying, W-I-T. "Whatever it takes,
Lord. Whatever it takes." This is how I knew Clint was serious with God.
Little
House on the Prairie
I watched
Clint being transformed before my very eyes. Every night at 5:00, this
man who had done business all over the world, feted kings, presidents,
senators and congressmen, could not wait for Little House on the Prairie
to come on television. Every night, he watched and wept. As he watched
the example of a real home, tears flowed down his cheeks for the childhood
and the family life he had missed as a child growing up without a mother—for
the family life he had failed to give his first wife and their four children
and for the family life he had failed to give me and my children. Clint
went through months of godly sorrow and repentance for the life he had
lived, and, from an eternal perspective, the life he had wasted.
I now know
why Clint married me. It was because God knew that together we would come
to know and love Him.
Clint
went through months
of
godly sorrow and repentance
for
the life he had lived,
and
in many ways,
for
the life he had wasted.
Anger
with God
Well, at
this time, Clint was doing better than I was. I wasn't getting smaller
and smaller—more humble and more broken. I was doing what I always did
when things weren't going my way. I was becoming angrier and angrier with
Clint for getting us into this mess and with God for not getting us out.
After all, hadn't I served Him with all my heart? Hadn't we gone through
our Bibles and searched for every possible sin to confess? Hadn't we gone
to those closest to us and repented of our sins? Hadn't we repented of
our sins against one another? Hadn't we more than tithed? Hadn't we destroyed
over a hundred thousand dollars worth of idolatrous art? Hadn't the elders
of our church anointed him with oil and prayed for his healing? Well! Then
why wasn't God turning our situation around? Why wasn't God healing my
husband?
I really
believe irrational anger is an unhealthy, unholy reaction to fear. Just
think about it. When someone almost causes you to have an accident on a
busy freeway, what is the first reaction you have? As sanctified as I am,
and I still have a long way to go, I still get furious when some
pulls out in front of me on a freeway and nearly causes an accident! But
after the adrenalin settles down, I am actually shaking all over from the
fear of what just happened and what might have happened. And I was terrified
of my husband dying. I was terrified of being left alone. I didn't know
what I was going to do. How was I going to unravel all of the mess? So
my reaction was to get angry—really angry at God.
What I am
about to tell you is a shameful thing. I am not proud of my reaction, but
I am amazed at God. It is a shameful thing to tell you about my anger at
God, but it is an awesome thing to tell you about God's love for a wretched
sinner.
I
was more than angry.
En-raged!
Out-Raged!
These
words more adequately describe
my
temper toward God at that time.
Angry is
not exactly the right word either. En-raged! Out-raged! These words more
adequately describe my temper at that time. I was shaking my fist in God's
face all day every day. I could not have been more irreverent nor more
insulting if I had tried. I screamed at Him day and night. "Get out of
my life, God!" "Get out of my face, God!" "Just leave me alone, God!"
I reverted
to my old ways of handling things. I wanted to run. And I wanted a divorce
from God and He wouldn't give me one!
We all want
to run from pain, and we find many ways to do it. Even Christians! Before
becoming a Christian, I was out traipsing around with men and marrying
and divorcing some of them. Whatever! Though Christians can lapse back
into their old ways in the world, we also find other ways to run from our
pain. We get religious and self-righteous. After all, legalism is quite
a respectable addiction in the church. We also eat chocolate. We go shopping.
We get busy working around the house, in the yard, in the church or on
the job. But our old companion pain is always there gnawing away at us,
because nothing gets resolved this way. Nothing gets resolved when we are
running. And so we stay stuck.
Running
With No Place to Go
I was mad
at God because I wanted to run and I knew I couldn't. That's what I was
really
mad about. I wanted to run and I was a Christian. I was a Christian writer,
speaker and teacher and everyone else knew it. What would happen if I left
my sick, dying and broke husband? Well, that would not be why I left, if
I had left. My unbearable pain and my old ways of coping with it would
have been the reason. Just let me find some thing, some place, some one
to relieve my pain. I was shaking my fist in the face of God everyday and
telling Him to get out of my life. But you know what? God wouldn't budge.
Instead of making me grateful and humble, I became more arrogant and more
angry at God.
I
was shaking my fist in the face of God everyday and telling Him
to
get out of my life.
Abandonment
Now I believe
that God knew that this is what it was going to take for me. He knew that
what I was going through with my husband and children was what it was going
to take for me to go through the eye of the needle too. And He knew what
it was going to take to heal me of my unbrokenness. All my life everyone
either abandoned me or I abandoned them. We all have that fear of abandonment
we incurred as the result of abandoning God at the fall rumbling around
inside of us somewhere. We have just forgotten why it's there. And our
arrogance won't allow us to admit to ourselves that had not Eve been the
first to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, we would have.
All day
every day, in my arrogance, I shook my fist in the face of God and ordered
Him to leave me alone. But He wouldn't. And I began to realize a surprising
thing. The more angry I became with God, the more loving He became with
me. The more I shouted, the softer and more gentle His voice became. In
fact, He began to whisper loving things in my ear. "Come unto me." This
was the last thing I wanted to hear!
"Come unto
me."
"Come unto
you!"I screamed.
Oh, I was
obnoxious.
"Come unto
me."
"Come unto
You? All You do is hurt people!"
"Come unto
me."
"Get out
of my life! Get out of my life, God!"
The words
resounded endlessly in my head.
"Come unto
me."
"Come unto
You? And just exactly why would I want to do that, God?
"Just go
on and send me to hell, God, because I cannot possibly hurt
any worse that I do right now! It's all I've ever known and I cannot
bear it anymore." I screamed.
"Come unto
me," whispered the gentle voice of God.
"Let me
alone, God!!! I just want to run. I want to feel good."
"Come unto
me," He said once again.
My anger
continued to escalate, but God's love also escalated—and He upped the ante
every time.
"Come let
me love you."
"Love!
If this is your idea of love, I don't want any part of it. This can't be
love!!! Love doesn't hurt like this."
Yes,
it does! Absolutely!
Love
sometimes hurts like this!
Yes, it
does! Absolutely! The truth is that love sometimes hurts like this! Sometimes
love hurts all the time. When you love someone, you're going to hurt sometimes.
And I loved Clint. And I didn't want him to die.
Love hurt
on the cross. Love hurt our Lord before the cross. Kevin Connor, in his
wonderful teaching on the cross, said that Jesus was born and lived all
his life with an inner cross. He bore the cross from the foundation of
the world until the day of His death.
We have
all these fairy tale beliefs that things are supposed to be wonderful when
we become Christians. Well, they are! They are wonderful! But there is
also an inner cross in the life of every believer. It is a gift if we will
only embrace it. But I didn't understand this yet, and God continued to
say to me, "Come closer to me. Come get in my lap and let me love you."
There is
a verse in a wonderful old hymn entitled Come, Thou Fount of Many Blessings,
by Robert Robinson, that fills my eyes with tears, for I deeply understand
the reality of its words:
"O to grace,
how great a debtor,
Daily I'm
constrained to be!
Let Thy
grace, Lord, like a fetter,
Bind my
wand'ring heart to Thee.
Prone to
wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to
leave the God I love;
Here's
my heart, Lord, take and seal it,
Seal it
for Thy courts above."
Let
Thy grace, Lord, like a fetter,
Bind
my wand'ring heart to Thee.
Prone
to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone
to leave the God I love.
God's
Sovereignty
I have to
believe that the pressure was part of God's plan for my life. He knew the
burning rage within me. He knew the potential was always there for me to
explode in rebellion. And He knew that I desperately needed to see His
palpable, unfathomable, unfailing, everlasting love for me in the midst
of it. So when He finally said, "Come get in my lap and let me hold you,"
I broke. My heart broke. And I wept. And I didn't stop weeping for months
over the longsuffering love, grace, mercy and forgiveness of God. He was
not at all Who I thought He was, and I have never been the same since.
My theology changed. The way I saw the Word of God changed. The way I embraced
all of life changed. I finally stopped running away. Instead I ran into
the arms of God to stay.
Clint died
in 1987. He died broke. Not totally, but close. It was almost as if God
was saying, "Anne, I'm getting ready to show you more about Myself."
Almost everything
my husband did vanished into thin air. I believe God did that. I believe
my husband's life is a parable for you and me. And my life is a parable
too. All of his businesses were bankrupt and most of them were shut down.
Only the Cowboys survived and they were sold and resold. Our 44,000 square
home was torn down to the basement beneath the ground.
My
name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look
on my works,
ye
Mighty, and despair!
Ozymandias
There is
a poem about Ozymandias of Egypt that expresses a vivid and ironic moral.
Clint used to quote it, often with a Mona Lisa smile upon his face. Looking
back, it seems prophetic. It is an ode to a shattered stone statue with
only the legs and head remaining in the middle of a windswept desert. The
face is proud and arrogant. On the pedestal of the statue are carved these
words. "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty,
and despair!" The word "Mighty" is capitalized. I presume this means he
was arrogantly addressing God. The poem goes on to say that centuries later,
all that surrounds the windblown, sandblasted remnants of that statue is
a bleak and barren desert.
This poem
says simply that wealth, power and prestige do not represent immortality.
Ironically, the king who seemed to think that his kingdom would remain
under his statue's haughty gaze forever teaches us this through his epitaph.
"Look on my works, ye Mighty and despair!" becomes good advice, though
in the opposite way that Ozymandias intended. Despite all the power and
might one acquires in the course of one's life, material possessions and
powerful positions will not last forever. In the end, the King's "works"
are nothing, and the lines inscribed upon his statue are a sermon to those
who read it. And Clint's and my life is a sermon to those who heed it.
All that man does will turn to dust. No matter how great we are—and my
husband was a great man in many ways—Clint Murchison and I both needed
to be broken and humbled to even approach the eye of the needle. We needed
to go through what we went through so that we might glorify God with our
lives. Even if we had been able to straighten up our outward behavior,
only the Lord knew the darkness in our souls and what it would take to
bring us to brokenness.
The Jesus
I know today is not the Jesus I knew fifteen years ago when I was shaking
my fist in His face. I knew Him as omnipotent ruler, but I did not know
Him as gentle shepherd. The Jesus I know today is the same royal ruler
of my life that He has always been. I trust Him with my life. I trust Him
with those I love most dearly. I have nothing else more dear to give Him.
Life
Without Clint
Somewhere
along the way, Clint had bought ten million dollars worth of life insurance
in my name, but I had not paid the premiums, so the creditors got the right
to the death benefits. As part of the bankruptcy settlement, I was granted
$1,000,000 of those proceeds. After Clint's death, when I went to collect
the funds I learned that the insurance company was bankrupt. I ended up
having to settle for considerably less than the face value of the policy.
Looking back now I realize that God was saying, "Those insurance proceeds
are not your source, Anne. They are not your source."
I
Am your source.
The home
and twenty-six acres Clint lived on for over thirty years was a valuable
piece of property in North Dallas. At one time during the bankruptcy, the
court received an offer for $11,500,000 for it, which the creditors turned
down. We begged them to take it but they refused. They later sold the property
for a little over $5,000,000. I was to get a small percentage of the proceeds
of the sale. Needless to say, a small percentage of $11,500,000 would have
been a lot more than a small percent of $5,000,000. Once again, I realize
God was saying, "That property is not your source, Anne. It is not your
source."
I did get
a company out of bankruptcy. It had $30,000,000 of debt against it, so
the creditors were glad to get rid of it. It was making $4,000,000 a year
and a friend and financial officer in several of Clint's companies saw
a way to renegotiate the debt with the bank and pay it off with the income
and tax write-offs of the company. The bank would gain more this way, and
I would have a modest income. And the company would be worth quite a lot
after its debts were paid.
Well, almost
immediately after Clint died, the company began to lose money. After a
year or two it was losing $4,000,000 a year instead of making $4,000,000
a year. God's still small voice whispered in my ear once again, "This company
is not your source, Anne. It is not your source."
Through
all of this I learned
to
walk in total trust and
to
surrender all of my rights
to
the Lord.
"Millions
and millions of people work," I told myself. "It will not kill me to work!"
If I had to rent a back room in someone's home, I would do it. If I had
to ride the bus to work every day I would do it. "Millions of people ride
the bus to work everyday, Anne!" I could do it too. I was willing for God
to do whatever it took to make me what He wanted me to be. "Lord, I lay
down my life for you. Not my will but thine." Again I said, "I don't want
what you haven't given me, Lord." John the Baptist said that we can receive
nothing of eternal value that isn't given to us from heaven. Nothing. "Lord
I only want what comes from heaven. Don't let me have anything that does
not flow from your throne. Nothing. I don't want it." These day-by-day
surrenders were not made without much weeping and tears, because my heart
was in ministry to the Lord and to women.
Well, things
continued to grow worse and worse. It was a large company—a national company
involved in convention business. We were number one in the field. We had
a good reputation, we just had too much debt. When we tried to sell the
company, people would simply laugh.
We
can receive nothing
of
eternal value
that
isn't given to us from heaven..
About five
years after Clint's death, the company that was number two in the business
came to the head of my company and said, "We want to buy your company.
We think we can make you an offer that will please everyone involved."
I didn't get my hopes up about this. I never get my hopes up about anything
to do with this world anymore. Nothing. My hope was then and still is in
Jesus Christ, because this life is not about "stuff". It's about our hearts
and our relationship with Him.
Well, we
had the company appraised and it was appraised at "zero". Fat chance anyone
was going to buy our enormous debt. And fat chance I would end up with
anything if they did.
But do you
know what? The company that bought us out paid off the debt, and I ended
up with enough money in the bank to dedicate the rest of my life to serving
the Lord—teaching Bible studies, speaking at conferences around the country,
supporting my church, other ministries and taking short missions trips
to places like India, Africa, Japan, Norway and Germany.
It was given
from heaven. Wealth without sorrow. There is no way that we should have
gotten anything for that company. The company that bought my company has
been every bit as blessed as I have. So God made a believer out of me,
but He had to make me a broken woman first. As long as I tried holding
him by the scruff of His neck saying, "You owe me, God," I don't believe
this would have happened. He made me willing to be broken. I am incapable
of being willing. If we will only let Him, He'll make us willing. But it's
costly. And sometimes it hurts. But it hurts a lot worse if we do not welcome
brokenness into our lives. A lot worse.
Grieving
Here's one
of the most important lessons I learned out of all I went through. We lost
everything we had. I was still in a lot of emotional pain and didn't know
what to do with it. I was still in the pain I had been in since I drew
my first breath. I came into this world not wanting to come into this world.
Through all the pain of growing up with a seriously mentally ill mother
and seriously abusive father, going through three divorces, a son diagnosed
with a major mental illness, bankruptcy, a husband dying, later a granddaughter
who was nearly killed by two dogs, and the death of her first boyfriend
at the tender age of seventeen, I learned what to do with it. I finally
learned what to do with my pain and unbrokenness.
We
cannot be healed
of
the pain of loss
without
mourning.
It all began
with a secular book on grieving, because I couldn't find any Christian
books on the subject. This book said that we cannot be healed of the pain
of loss without mourning. As I read this book, I began to think of all
the things I had read in the Bible about mourning.
2 Cor. 7:10
says, "Godly sorrow produces repentance . . . ".
This scripture
is about repentance, and it says that godly sorrow produces repentance.
The word sorrow used here means "mourning". Repentance is the fruit of
godly sorrow. Let me say this another way. Repentance is a fruit not a
decision. Godly sorrow is the root, repentance is the fruit. We have a
lot of dry-eyed repentance going on in our churches today. In the Bible
they wept, and out of that weeping God brought repentance. I believe the
Bible consistently teaches that we are not truly repentant when we are
unbroken over our sin.
Repentance
is not just turning from sin. It is turning to God. And every
time we turn to God we encounter His resurrection power, and we are never
the same.
But there
is yet more fruit from godly sorrow!
"Godly sorrow
produces repentance without regret."
There well
may be lingering consequences over our sin, but there will be no lingering
pain over our sin. And 2 Corintians 7:10 also promises that our repentance
will lead to salvation. This word salvation does not just refer to being
born again. It is a word that is pregnant with promise. It means "healing,
wholeness and deliverance".
Let me say
this again. When we mourn—when we weep and wail, as we turn our hearts
toward the Lord, it will produce repentance in us, and that repent- ance
will lead to what everyone longs for—the continuing day-to-day out- working
of the salvation of the Lord—healing, wholeness and deliverance from the
heartaches, disappointments and broken dreams of this world.
Henry Cloud
and John Townsend say that grief is the one pain that heals all other pain.
I completely agree with them.
Is there
any mystery about why there is so little healing of our sin-marred souls
when there are so few tears shed in the presence of God in this present
day and time?
Grief
is the one pain
that
heals all other pain.
Henry Cloud
and John Townsend
When God
brought me to repentance over my sin and anger with Him and everyone else,
I cried every day for months. I didn't say I cried all day. I said I cried
every day—actually for four years, and it was so healing! Jesus said, "Blessed
are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted." Weeping is such a healing
place that I longed to turn there for the comfort and love of God I always
found there and still do. It was and is a place of great blessing! I am
beneath the shadow of God's wings at these special times like no other.
Today I am a healed woman. Today I am highly energized by the love of God
to serve Him wherever He takes me. As a friend once said to me, "The sweetest
thing about brokenness is loving it." And I do, because God joins me there
in a very special way. No wonder the old puritans used to pray for the
gift of tears.
Will I always
need healing? Yes, because we live in a sinful world; but the massive wounds
of my life are healed. All of the deep pain I carried for most of my life
is gone. Totally gone. Any emotional pain I have today is because of today's
pain. It is not compounded by over sixty-five years worth of pain.
I occasionally
have my moments. Sometimes my mind gets flooded with negative racing condemnation
against myself. Racing humiliating thoughts. When this happens, I know
it is time to get out my crying towel and fall down on my face on my bed.
There I empty myself of my pride and pain in repentance in the comforting
presence of the Lord. Every time I do this, when my tears are gone, I feel
like a new person. And I am, because I'm a little more broken.
Have you
ever noticed how much better life looks after you weep? More important,
have you ever noticed the nearness of God when you weep? Psalm 31:18 promises
that He draws near the brokenhearted and saves and delivers those of a
humble (broken) and contrite spirit. Psalm 51:17 promises that the truee
sacrifices are a broken heart and a contrite spirit and He will not look
upon them in disdain. Why would He since these are heartfelt sacrifices
offered to Him?
So why do we put it off? For the
sake of our makeup? For you men reading this, is it for the sake of your
machismo? Is it because of what people will think? Even I, who teach this
message of mourning and brokenness find myself waiting for a right time—a
better time.
Psalm 56:8
says that God puts our tears in a bottle and writes each one in a book.
Do you wonder why God cares so much about our tears? I believe it is because
our tears tell of every step of brokenness we take. This is what repentance
is. It is sorrow for sin and the forsaking of our will for His. It is laying
every hope, dream and expectation we have ever had at God's feet waiting
for Him to resurrect them and trusting Him when He doesn't.
Mourning
is God's open secret to finding everlasting joy. Psalm 30:11 says that
He will turn our mourning into dancing (joy). This means that mourning
is not a bad thing as some are so ready to believe. Conversely, it means
that mourning makes room for biblical joy. Those who have little biblical
joy have allowed themselves little time to mourn—freely—with hope and without
condemnation. Psalm 34:18 promises that He draws near to the broken- hearted
and saves those who are crushed in spirit. How can we resist a promise
like this? But we do.
Mourning
is God's open secret
to
finding everlasting joy.
Henri Nouwen
wrote, "It is often difficult to believe that there is much to think, speak
or write about other than brokenness".
Do not be
deceived into telling yourself that your life hasn't been as tough as mine
and, therefore, you don't need brokenness. Your life doesn't have to be
filled with tragedy to need brokenness and repentance. We are all born
unbroken and the wretchedness of unbrokenness is healed through the grieving
process.
Anxieties,
negative thoughts and feelings and almost all fear vanish in a few moments
of weeping in the presence of Almighty God. I was an angry, impetuous,
moody woman. Next to being born again February 12, 1976, this one truth
of God has impacted my life more than any other. We can cry all night and
all day, but if we are not turning our broken hearts toward God in these
times, we will not find the healing, wholeness and deliverance we so desperately
need.
We are all
born unbroken and the wretchedness of unbrokenness is only healed through
the grieving process.
To learn more about brokenness, click
here.
To learn about God's brokenness, click
here.
East
Texas
It was when
I moved to northern California to live with my sister in 1992 that I learned
to freely weep in the presence of God. It was there that God began the
great healing and transformation in my soul. When I returned to Texas in
1995, I knew I didn't want to live in Dallas again. I had fallen in love
with rural living, so I moved to East Texas.
It had been
my dream for many years to live in Texas on a lake nestled beneath tall
pines trees. Dear friends of mine had retired in Frankston during those
years that I was in California. In 1992 when I first visited them there,
I fell in love with the area. There were some very beautiful lots for sale,
and I immediately began the process of purchasing them. When I returned
from California I began construction on my home.
Frank
But my life
didn't turn out quite the way I had planned. I thought when I returned
from California I would spend lots of time with family and friends. I hoped
to travel, attend the theater, maybe meet a godly man and get married.
I longed to get back into full-time ministry. Instead, I found that my
son needed me more than ever. His condition had deteriorated, and he could
no longer live on his own. He desperately needed me. And I didn't know
how desperately I needed him. He has lived with me ever since I returned
to Texas. And he has become my hero and one of my greatest blessings. He
is a courageous, noble and faithful young man facing great loss with much
dignity.
My
son is my hero
and
my greatest blessing.
Every day
is a terrible day for my son, yet he always tells me, "Mom, it's a good
day." God has used him in my life. You see, I hadn't quite lain everything
down—my hopes, my dreams and my expectations. I still had my own plans
for my life. I was still planning the "good life" for myself. I just hadn't
consulted God about those plans.
If you are
wondering, he has been through deliverance, eaten an organic diet and has
always had tons of prayers—not just mine but the prayers of a multitude
of people.
The Cross
If you are
a parent, you know you would rather suffer than watch your children suffer.
I'll never forget one night a few years ago. I was crying over my son's
pain and he turned to me and said, "Mom, it's the cross."
A friend
of mine once said to me, "I'm sick of the cross. I just want to get on
with living." My friends, yes, there is death in the cross—painful death.
But there is also life in the cross—the resurrection of every lost, dark
moment of our lives.
The cross
is the only place we will ever find true life. This is what God has done
in my life the past eleven years. He has taken those last strongholds of
selfishness and my "me, me, me" mentality and nailed them to the cross.
I'm not saying selfishness doesn't creep up in my life, but it no longer
consumes me. Today I live with gratitude for my darling son, my family,
my incredible friends, my wonderful church and my loving community. I have
several best friends and tons of nearly best friends. I'm so grateful the
Lord has given me the capacity for intimate friendship with almost everyone
I meet. There is nothing I want that I don't have except my son's healing,
and I cannot complain that he isn't healed, because he and I both have
been so transformed by the struggle. And sincerely, every day is a good
day for us in the Lord.
There
is life in the cross—
the
resurrection of every lost,
dark
moment of our lives.
This kind
of transformation only comes through death. Death to ourselves and our
selfishness. And resurrection never fails to follow.
I would
like to leave you with a few things to consider. First, the crux of sin
is not morality or immorality but our claim to our right to ourselves.
Sin originated from our claim to our right to ourselves. And it will always
be so.
We are not
our own. We have been bought with a very high price. The blood of God Himself.
And I am humbled and grateful for every drop.
I will pray
in faith for my son's healing until the day I die. And I will trust God
for my life where I am every day until I die. Through the tough times and
the good times, I will trust Him, but I have learned that it is in the
painful times—NOT the fun times—that we grow. And I thank God for the cross—for
His cross and for my cross—for it is my only hope for resurrection in this
life and in the one to come. It is my only hope to be made more like Him
every day that I live.
I want you
to know that when you are so tender and so injured that you cannot bear
to be touched, God is holding you tight. I want you to know that you can
trust God with every hope, every dream, every expectation and every loss.
You can trust Him for His very best for your life. If it doesn't look like
His best to you at the moment, pray for what you think is best and yield
to what He thinks is best and sit back and watch. I'm not saying give up.
I'm saying believe the promises of God and trust for whatever He allows
to come your way.
In 2 Corinthians
12, Paul said that he sought the Lord three times that He would remove
an unidentified thorn from his flesh. God's reply was that His grace is
sufficient—that it is in weakness that we are made strong, that His power
is perfected in our weakness, and we are never more weak than when we are
weeping brokenly at the feet of Jesus. Satan's greatest injuries to us
are transformed by God's grace into God's greatest triumphs when we are
trusting Him. Don't believe me? Just look at the cross. And look at the
empty tomb.
When we
resist brokenness, we become hardened, embittered and more unbroken. Never
forget that in Christ there is resurrection after every death in our lives,
from the smallest to the greatest.
Satan's
greatest injuries to us are transformed by God's grace into God's greatest
triumphs when we are trusting in Him.
So now you
understand the title of this booklet. It is also the title of a great old
hymn.
The first
verse tells my entire testimony in just four little lines.
O Love,
that wilt not let me go,
I rest
my weary soul in Thee;
I give
Thee back the life I owe,
That in
Thine ocean depths its flow may richer fuller be.
No matter
how hard I tried to free myself from the clutch of the Lord's hand, His
unfathomable love would not let me go. Trying as hard as I could to turn
God into a mean, angry God, not even I could pluck myself from His gracious,
loving hand. Instead, he overwhelmed me with His love. Amazing isn't it?
It so validates John 10:28-29 (NIV) for me.
"I give
them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them
out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all;
no one can snatch them out of my Father's hand."
I am not
even close to the same woman I was on February 12, 1976, the day I accepted
Christ as my Lord and Savior. By the grace of God alone, I am a living
testimony to His mercy and grace and to the life, death and resurrection
of Christ. I am happier and more fulfilled than I have ever been. And I
pray that He will be more glorified in and by my life every day.
Below are the rest of the verses of "O Love that Wilt Not Let Me
Go". They so perfectly say what the Lord has done for me. He will do the
same for you.
O Light
that followest all my way,
I yield
my flickering torch to Thee;
My heart
restores its borrowed ray,
That in
Thy sunshine's blaze its day may brighter, fairer be.
O joy that
seekest me through pain,
I cannot
close my heart to Thee;
I trace
the rainbow through the rain,
And feel
the promise is not vain that morn shall tearless be.
O Cross
that liftest up my head,
I dare
not ask to fly from Thee;
I lay in
dust life's glory dead,
And from
the ground there blossoms red life that shall endless be.
Lord, how
can we ever thank you for Calvary? How can we thank you, Father, for bearing
the pain of your Son's physical death on the cross. Even more, thank you
for bearing the pain it must have caused you both to pour out your wrath
against sin upon Jesus your Son, the spotless Lamb of God. We look forward
to the time when we will see you face to face. Then and only then will
we fully grasp the gravity, joy and purpose of it all. For now, please
look into our feeble hearts and know how very grateful we are with the
very little understanding we have.
Do you know
Jesus? Would you like to? Open your heart and let Him have it. Ask Him
to forgive you for your claim to your right to yourself. Let Him take control
of your life. He will do a much better job with it than you ever dreamed
possible. He always does, even when it doesn't immediately look like it.
You can count on it. More important, you can count on Him.
To read
more on resurrection click
here.
And
click here too.
I
have been crucified with Christ;
and
it is no longer I who live,
but
Christ lives in me.
"I have
been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ
lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith
in the Son of God, who loved me, and delivered Himself up for me" (Galatians
2:20 NAS).
Glory to
God in the highest! Amen!
Copyright
2002 by Anne Murchison
Not
for commercial use.
Please feel free to copy for for personal use.
Please
credit the author.
