Rethinking Everything
Living and enjoying NOW
is the fulfillment!
Waiting on another event,
another revelation,
another time or another place,
another advancement or
another location,
puts your hope in “another.”
It is now, not another!
It is found in the I Am, not the other.
Do you believe it?
Wynema Clark – 5/9/2019
There are so many things that I want to tell young people. That time in life when you are searching for meaning, looking for your place, trying to fit in. If you will give me your ear, I promise I will not judge. Here are a few suggestions that may make the journey a little less painful.
1. Pain is normal. Everyone feels it. Don’t run from pain, lean into it and allow yourself to take shape. Life is a series of ups and downs, without the downs you wouldn’t appreciate the ups and it’s the ride that will color your life and make you strong. This idea that you are the only one feeling what your feeling is common. Those feelings are very real and in some cases frightening, it’s ok. You are not in this fight alone. It is in these times that you reach beyond yourself, beyond your reasoning and your age to something higher. It’s now that you begin to lean on and trust your creator. God equipped you with everything you need and even when you can’t see it or feel it, trust Him. He has got you, just trust Him. Tell Him you trust Him, give the pain to Him, give the confusion, the heartache, the fear to Him and trust that He has you.
2. You will make mistakes, it’s a part of the growing process. No one on the planet can do it all right. Be willing to acknowledge your need for help. There is nothing shameful or weak in needing help with things. Anyone that tells you that you shouldn’t ask questions and get help is doing damage, don’t listen, don’t be a part of the lie. It is this very willingness to admit your weakness that brings you your greatest strength. When you are weak He is strong. God isn’t afraid of your weakness, He knows you are imperfect, He is cool with that. He made you so you will trust Him, not so you will do it all yourself. Trust Him and at the same time allow others to be used by Him to help you.
3. Your identity is not found in labels. No matter what label you have been given, whether good or bad, whether positive or negative. You may be gifted and talented, you may have ADHD, you may be athletic, you may be musical, and you may have no idea at all what you are. These things do not identify you. What identifies you comes from where you get your life. As a believer your life is not music, athletics, sexuality, diagnosis, these are not your life. These are things your life deals with, but who you are is who Christ is. Who you are is loved, forgiven, new and right, just to name a few. In fact, Christ is your life. Recognize that, acknowledge that and the labels and the diagnosis are just a part of your journey. Enjoy the journey, but don’t mistake those things for your life. Someday the athletics will end, the talent will fade, the diagnosis will not be such a burden, but Christ will always be your life, allow Him to live through you.
4. If you are in a situation and something doesn’t feel right, listen to that and act on it. Trust your heart. Listen to the still small voice in your heart and allow it to guide you. It will save you from mistakes, hurt and disappointment. Listen to those who have had this journey already, people like your grandparents. Respect their knowledge and their years. They may have different views than you, but try and see the world through their eyes. You don’t have to agree, but listen, respect and give them your time. Theirs is limited.
5. Finally, when you are laying in your bed at night with the lights out and your eyes closed, think about Christ life moving through your hormones and your veins. See His light transforming you, see yourself swimming around in it. Drink it in. Try and imagine the depth of the love that He has for you, with no regard for faults, or labels. Accept that love, see yourself running in a wide-open field of it. Then wake up knowing that His life is your life, His strength is your strength, His peace is your peace, His mind is your mind and go conquer the day!
Wynema I Clark – 4/24/2017
It is in my alone-ness that God and I communicate the best. In the quiet of my evening, when my day has unfolded and my concerns or request are raw and laid bare. As I finish up my day, we talk all while I clean the kitchen or wash my face.
I also like to walk either alone or with my pups in tow. No music or podcast or sermons. Nothing to place my concentration on or distract me from where my thoughts are. Maybe family concerns or things happening with my friends and we talk about it. Even my own personal anxieties or feelings of inadequacy I notice in the quiet. Those I share with Him and He often reminds me of the truth or highlights a lie that I’ve allowed in.
In the quiet I can really focus on where my thoughts and feelings are settling. If I am emotional in certain thoughts and why that particular thought elicits such emotion, the Holy Spirit gently and quietly points out the truth and where it fits or doesn’t fit with who I am.
Sometimes my feelings are strictly based on lack of sleep or hormones. In these I am given grace. Those are physical and may not be based on a lie, but physiology. I remember the difference between eternal and temporary and I am thankful for the temporary and I allow myself to feel it and then let go.
Sometimes I even embrace the highs and lows for a time, to enjoy the range of emotions associated with being alive. It allows me a healthy, honest physiological experience in the moment.
I am thankful for a full range of emotions. I am thankful to my Father for being a woman.
Wynema I Clark
Love doesn’t highlight mistakes,
it redeemed them.
Love doesn’t point fingers at brokenness,
it embraced the broken.
Love doesn’t avoid the hurting,
It entered into it.
For God so loved the WORLD.
Not just our best and brightest
But our dirty and broken,
Our hidden and covered,
Our embarrassed, our shy
Our exposed and ashamed.
And leads us out into the wide open spaces of love and grace.
Where our eyes are opened
Where life is known
Where the lights comes on
Love is shown.
We over theologize. It’s actually really simple. I think it is us who require proof, explanation and experience. We spend lots of time and money to understand. We travel, we read, we study. Maybe it’s an American thing and it’s a good thing, but it’s really not necessary.
What if you don’t have access to all the resources or education? What if you can’t read or maybe you live in a country without religious freedom?
I’ve seen people in dire straights, desperate for help, who simple tell God I can’t, I give it to you, and He takes it and loves them as they slowly begin to see the light at the end of the tunnel. People with no formal education and no means except for the simple ability to believe and they are transformed.
I’m convinced that it’s about relationship with a loving God who meets us where we are, we don’t have to find Him in an elaborate building or a well dressed speaker on a platform. Jesus made the way that simple. Do you believe?
We Americanized believers question our faith, our forgiveness, our walk, our church attendance, our clothing, when the heavenly standard was met in Christ, do you believe it? Then relax, have relationship and stop measuring God’s ability to love you by external measurements and open your eyes to see that He has been all along. Just live!
Jesus can revolutionize your life and world view. The idea of grace in its fullness characterizes the very nature of Jesus and changes our concept of the worth of humanity. Our world view in the past has been filtered through religion, which tainted our ability to accept those that would not qualify to be a part of our family. All the while hoping that the outcast and the freaks would conform to our image so that we would be more comfortable with them among us. After all we don’t want that kind of person to representing us, right? How ugly is that, how sad, bland, boring and comfortable.
In the old covenant only the high priest could go into the holy of holies in the presence of God. The high priest were the very upper crust, the closest to perfect that existed. They were the only ones worthy to even attempt to meet with God and even they would drop dead if they did not fully qualify. How frightening, how intimidating, how confident, how self assured would you have to be to attempt a journey into the presence of God?
The magnificent exchange was that the very God that the high priest feared, the God that reigned down manna from heaven and whose presence lived in the form of Shekinah glory behind the veil had a plan all along to come to us. To go to the darkest places and the deepest earth to identify with us. The very God we feared became one with those who would never qualify. Because what we failed to admit is that no matter how hard any of us try, none of us can ever qualify. It is only by grace through faith in this man Jesus Christ.
So you see, it’s not a matter of qualifying to get to God, it’s a matter of God qualifying to get to us. Who am I to disqualify anyone? Who am I to claim Christ death returns insufficient on anyone’s behalf. God wanted us all along. He wanted us to admit our dependence on him all along. So if you are an outcast, freak or classified weirdo Jesus came to you, identified with you and brought you freedom, grace, and love. Not freedom from who you are, but freedom from having to be who you’re not. We are all dependent on him, we require him, we thirst for him and in him we find our life. Run to him, don’t be afraid!
Hebrews 4:14-16, Romans 5:8, 2 Corinthians 12:9, 2 Corinthians 5:19, Ephesians 3:19
The reason the world is turned off by Christianity isn’t because we, as Christians, aren’t good enough. It’s because we are very flawed but we present ourselves as if we are perfect, so we are fake. Glorified actors, who really have no idea who they are or what they really have to offer. Going through the motions. Doing what we believe looks like what a good Christian should be doing, what is acceptable in the religious community but to the world looks like fakery. Religion has essentially bound us to expectations and perfectionism. In some cases since early childhood. So much so, that our creativity and individual expression havent been allowed to blossom. The problem is that the world sees through it, teenagers see through it and anyone who thinks sees straight through this act. How are we as believers freed from expectations, preconceived ideas, perfectionism and being fake? Actually the message of the New Covenant authenticates the reality of our Christian walk. Grace frees you to be very real, because you see that it’s all about Jesus anyway, and now you can relax. Then you are faced with “now what” because for so long your actions have been determined by religion and now you are free to be you. All that you are left with is the expression of life that Christ can live through you and only you. Are you good with that if it looks different or if it sounds foreign to the religious ear? You are His workmanship, not the the religious establishment. What would that even look like? It’s a great big surprise but I can promise you that He will be seen. This is what the world groans for, not our fake smiles and politics. The world craves Jesus.
What is real,
Would you take
What you know,
If it was fake?
Would you take it
In a sack
And bring it home
Or take it back?
Can you stand
In those shoes,
If they are different
Than what you choose.
Open wide your arms
to real,
No matter what
it is you feel!
It is your gift
To be authentic,
So be proudly
Photogenic!
Life Without Definition 