Brenda Rodgers

Category: surrender

  • The Third Braid

    Only wrapped around the third braid is my heart at rest. I tried it with two, and sometimes still do, but I always go back to that third braid.

    See, with only two the grip is loose. Where is the other braid? I can’t feel it at all. There is room for movement. There is room for me to get away.

    Wrapped around the third I am held tight. I feel the other two braids around me – overlapped – criss-cross, criss-cross – to a place of no separation.

    The grip on my soul – I cannot break away! By His mercy and grace He keeps holding me, choosing me. I start to get scared! I start to push back – both braids – so that only I am left!

    But He pulls even tighter holding me close to Him and the others.

    He chooses me once more. Has mercy on me once more. Shows me the Cross once more.

    Peace. Comfort. Security. Acceptance. Love.

    Wrapped around the third braid – that’s where I find it.

  • She Looked Perfect . . .

    She caught my eye as I turned the corner of the 40% off rectangular rack of pants – size 0, size 2, size 4, size 6, size 8 – on and on they wrapped around as I followed trying to get another glimpse between the hanging rows without her seeing me.

    She was petite and short – like me.  She had dark brown hair – like me.  She was wearing a baseball cap – like me.

    But envy still rolled over my body starting at the top of my head, going down over my shoulders, through my arms, into my stomach, and throughout my legs.

    The urge to turn and stare was overwhelming.  I could barely help myself.  I turned one more time just to get one last glimpse, one last mental snapshot to etch in my mind – one last chance to compare.

    My mind started racing, “That’s what I want to look like! Look at her arms! Look at her legs!  She is so cute!  She is so little!  Why can’t I be as skinny as she is?  Why can’t I look like that?”

    She looked perfect . . .

    Then it came – the gentle prick to my heart.  It was His prick.  The prick I know all too often.

    Brenda, do you not know how perfect you are to me?  I created you.  I designed you.  I gave you legs that are healthy and arms that help me.  I do not want you to envy others.  That is a sin.  Envy will rot your body, and create confusion and evil.  And you are a new creation in Me.  So turn from envy and be thankful in all things I have given you including your body.  
    I walked slowly out the door, no bags in my hands, but aware of the legs that were carrying me. Whatever the purposes God has for me, He needs this body to accomplish them.  And only this body can do the job.
    How does envy affect you and how does God teach you through it?

  • Head Knowing vs. Heart Feeling

    I sat across from our pastoral counselor giving all the right answers. I knew the depth of God’s love for me. I knew that I was formed in a fearful and wonderful way. I knew that God never will leave me nor forsake me. I knew that God has a divine plan for my life. I knew that Jesus died on the cross for my sins. I knew that I was forgiven.

    I could regurgitate Christian truth like I was regurgitating what I did yesterday. I sounded like an emotionally, mentally, and spiritually healthy Christian.

    Except there was a gap. I knew all of these things, but I did not feel them.

    I sat there with this battle going on inside of me. I know all the answers, so why can’t I feel them? Why can’t I live them? Why aren’t they a part of me?

     “I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.” John 10:10

    Where is the abundant life? Am I spiritually healthy?

    This is when I realized that my relationship with Jesus is a head relationship more than it is a heart relationship.

    My spiritual health cannot be measured by what I know. It can only be measured by taking what I know and through the pathway of my heart looking at my production of Godly fruit.
    I began to break down the process of taking what I know about God’s Word and making it a part of who I am – my core being – so that my life reflects it. The more I read, reread, study, and meditate on God’s Word, the more I know about it. But how does the comprehension – becoming part of the text and the text becoming part of me – take place? I know from being a reading teacher that one key component of comprehending text is the ability to make a connection to it based on previous knowledge or experiences. This is true for comprehending scripture as well.

    Over time what I learn in the Bible and what I experience in life begin to reflect each other. No longer are my knowledge and my experiences isolated. I begin to look for God’s Word in my daily life, and I begin to look for my daily life when reading God’s Word. They are one in the same impacting each other and affecting each other so that I am one with the Word of God and the Word of God is one with me. (Hebrews 4:12)

    That is when I feel the abundant life.

    The abundant life becomes heart feeling and not just head knowing when I allow the Word of God to infiltrate every aspect of my being, working together to create the fruit God has purposed for me.

    What about your relationship with God? Is it more of a head relationship or a heart relationship?

  • Mark Richt is Weird!

    Mark Richt is weird.  I want to be weird, too.

    That is weird in the God way.

    Recently I heard about this new book called Weird: Because Normal Isn’t Working by Pastor Craig Groeschel, but had not read it or heard too much about it.  Then I watched a few video clips on Lysa TerKeurst’s blog featuring Craig Groeschel.  Shortly after that my friend, Laura, told me about his sermon series entitled “Weird” and how it was a must hear.  After that I had to find out more.  So for the next several days I listened to my IPod every chance I got to learn how to become “Weird”.  The longer I listened the weirder I wanted to become and the more secure I became in the ways that I am already considered weird.  I talked about being weird so much that my husband never wanted to hear the word again.
    “If the world hates you, remember that it hated me first. The world would love you as one of its own if you belonged to it, but you are no longer part of the world. I chose you to come out of the world, so it hates you.”
    John 15: 18-19

    This morning as I was reading through Twitter I saw this article about Mark Richt, the head coach of our beloved Georgia Bulldogs football team, and I was inspired to become weird all over again.  In this article, Mark Richt talks about his decision to sell his second home on the lake to use his money for “eternal things”.  From the perspective of the world that is definitely weird.

    Of course some will say that it is to make a decision like that when you have so much money to begin with, but as Christians we know that actually the opposite is true.  The more we have the harder it is to trust God by giving it away.  The more we give away the more we are entrusting to God.  And ultimately the harder it is to be weird in a God way.
    This is not just true of money.  It is also true of all our resources – our time, our intellect, our thoughts.  The more I have of me – what I want, what I think – the less I have of God.  I put myself in God’s place which only leads to unrest.
    “Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.”
    Romans 12:2
    As Christians we also know where the source of our peace comes from – the kind of peace that others wonder about and question.  It comes from this whole idea of being weird and the weirder we become the more of God’s peace we will experience.  When I live by God’s plan I experience what most people in the world do not – peace.  Why would I continue to do the same things I’ve done to be normal when normal has left me no better off – only still questioning how to find peace?
    “Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.”
    Philippians 4:7

  • Perfect Hope

    Every time I walk through the doors I expect to hear, “Everything’s perfect!”  But I always leave throwing my hope into another day.

    John had his monthly heart biopsy at Duke on Monday.  The doctors told us that he has a big (good big – not Cardiomyopathy big), strong heart.  However, his heart is experiencing moderate rejection.

    Then we saw the infectious disease doctor.  John’s heart donor was exposed to a few viruses, and since John is immunosuppressed, we have to keep a close watch on him to make sure the viruses stay dormant and don’t rear their nasty heads.  The news wasn’t “bad”, it just wasn’t “perfect”.

    I don’t know what perfection is really, and I don’t know if I should even hope for perfection. Jesus clearly states, “In this world, you will have trouble.” John 16:31.

    As I walked out the doctor’s office on Monday, I heard myself saying, “Jesus, I trust You.” At that moment I chose to not hope for perfection, but have Perfect Hope.

    I will never experience perfection in my earthly body.  However, my Perfect Hope died for me so that I can experience it in my Heavenly one.

    Praise be to God, for being my Perfect Hope.

    “And if our hope in Christ is only for this life, we are more to be pitied than anyone in the world.”
    1 Corinthians 15:19

  • The Line of Laying It at His Feet

    For a few months now I have been struggling with the line between faith, the faith that Jesus talks about in Matthew 21:21 that moves mountains and casts them into the sea, and total submission like Jesus had in the Garden of Gethsemane when he said,  “Father, if you are willing, please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.” (Luke 22:42).

    The day John was put on life support, I sat in this tiny room next to the waiting room in John’s ICU unit – the room without any windows but with plenty of boxes of Kleenxes where the doctor takes you when the news is bad – and I sobbed big, full endless tears.  The chaplain of the hospital sat next to me, and between gasps of air all I could say was, “My faith wasn’t big enough.  I didn’t have enough.  Deep down in the depths of my being I needed more.”

    I was conflicted.  How could I  have “have faith and not doubt it so that anything I prayed for I would receive” (Matthew 21:21-22) while at the same time submitting to God’s will knowing that “He causes everything to work together for the good of those who love Him and are called according to his purpose for them” (Romans 8:28).

    If I laid John’s life down at God’s feet, surrendered it, and let go, then to me that obviously meant that I had doubt, and Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, if you have faith and don’t doubt, you can do things like this and much more. You can even say to this mountain, ‘May you be lifted up and thrown into the sea,’ and it will happen. You can pray for anything, and if you have faith, you will receive it.” (Matthew 21:21-22)

    But if I wasn’t willing to give John’s life freely and held onto it too tightly, then I would not be surrendering to God’s sovereignty and able to say, “But I trust in you, Lord; I say, “You are my God.” (Psalm 31:14)

    As the chaplain sat beside me she gently said, “But Brenda, don’t you see, you do have faith.  You are showing faith.  You are crying out to God begging for Him to save John because you know that He can.  Through that you are displaying His sovereignty knowing that He is control.”

    It is now September.  A month has past since that conversation.  John has a new heart.  God saved his life.  He is getting stronger every day.

    And ever since I have been contemplating the Line of Laying It at His Feet.  Just now do I feel like I’ve found the line.

    The chaplain was wise and right.  My fervent prayers crying out to God showed my faith in Him.  I knew He was in control.  I knew He was sovereign.  I knew that it was Him and only Him that could save John’s life.  I knew He knew what was best.  And God knew my heart – deep within.  He knew I was not crying out to Him just to get my husband’s life back.  He knew that I truly, fully had faith in Him and trusted Him.  If I didn’t I wouldn’t have repeatedly, whole heartily gone to Him over and over, begging and crying.

    Through my faithfulness of knowing that God in Himself and only Him could save John’s life, I was surrendering to Him.  I was giving John to Him.  I was entrusted John’s future and mine to Him.

    For me, The Line of Laying It at His Feet is knowing that God is capable of doing anything, even the miraculous, but He is also sovereign, and He always does what is best according to His purposes that I will never understand fully until He reveals them to me in Heaven.  More than anything, He wants all of me, uninterrupted, willing and able to believe in Him, trust in Him, and surrender to Him even when I don’t understand.