Woman, Why are you Weeping?

At any given moment there are a million reasons to cry. Amirite?

Sometimes we cry and sometimes we overreact a little. Especially women. Hormones are the devil's work. 

Not that men can't be emotional or overreact. This isn't a gender issue. I better throw that in for good measure. 

Jesus wept and once he overturned tables in the temple. Point: He also experienced emotion.

I'm off topic and I've just begun. Hang on, I'm coming back around. 

When Jesus was crucified, He was put in a tomb, a cave, if you will. They rolled a gigantic stone in front of the door to seal it. I figure it took several big strong men to seal that bad boy up. There was no chance someone was taking the body of the "King of the Jews." But there was a twist. There's always a twist.

In John 20 we are told about an emotionally distraught woman who loved her King fiercely. 

Mary Magdalene went to Jesus’ tomb and found the stone rolled away. She frantically went to find the disciples and tell them that “they” took Jesus’ body and she doesn’t know where it is. She assumed that someone had gathered enough people to unseal the tomb and take Jesus' body. She had to find Him and she needed everyone who loved Jesus to help her.

They all ran back to where Jesus had been laid and found His burial linens folded in the tomb. With that discovery, everyone left except Mary. She faithfully sat outside and wept. She felt like she had lost Jesus. She was grieving and confused. 

Once again, she looked inside the tomb again where she saw two angels. That would be a shock wouldn’t it? She's in denial so she keeps looking thinking that her mind is decieving her. That He will be there next time she looks up, but instead she sees angels. They asked her why she was crying, to which she replied, “Because they have taken away my Lord and I do not know where they have laid Him.” 

She can’t find Jesus, y’all. And that is a distressing thought. She lost her Savior, her Lord, her Love. 

There are lost people in this world desperate for Jesus. They are trying to fill that void with anything. It is a black hole of nothingness aching to be filled. That void has one puzzle piece that fits and until they find it, the hole remains. You can try to fill a hole like that with addiction, with people, with anger, lust, hate, false hope, but it is all consuming and it will not be fully satisfied without the one piece that fits it. That piece is Jesus Christ.

There are saved people in this world desperate for Jesus. They’ve lost Him. They’ve lost sight of their Savior because of grief, sadness, depression, sin. This home away from home has cast a shadow too deep to see. Too much focus on the world has distracted them. 

As Mary turns, Jesus is standing there, asking why she is crying. And in her shadow of fear, grief, and confusion she thinks He is the gardner. She begins to beg Him to tell her where they’ve taken Jesus.
He says, “Mary!” And as the shadow lifts. Her Jesus is before her, raised from the dead. 

How often are we desperate for Jesus? We’re searching high and low, and yet He stands before us. We just can’t see Him for all the junk we have going on in our lives. We blame people for "taking" Him. We are angry with Him for leaving. We need a little reflection to see that He's not gone anywhere. We are letting our emotion and love for all the wrong things cast a deep shadow.

Jesus is right in front of us. He never left. We just got confused and a little lost but if we clear our own thoughts, the world's lies, we will see Him. 

Have you lost Jesus in your life? Been there, done that. But I found him. I found him in the little things, in the big things, in His word, and on my knees, I found Him. He’s waiting for you to realize he isn’t the gardner, He’s the Savior that never left you.

Finding My Identity In A Dry Desert

Change.


Let’s talk about it. I didn’t want to at first. I am getting old and set in my ways, but I realize that the only thing that stays the same is that everything changes. Well mostly everything.


I’ve changed. I started Diary of a Dairy wife in March of 2014. This was my first post, "In the Beginning..." and I kind of laid out my insecurity and lack of direction. The truth is, I felt God telling me to write. He was telling me to just put my toes in the water and He would be right there with me. At the time I was chin deep in agvocating. I was trying to be a good farmer’s wife, a good mom, a good Christian, and an excellent advocate for agriculture. I was taking opportunities to grow my communication skills and learning more about agriculture everyday, beyond being immersed in the dairy at home. I felt God telling me to write for other people. After years of insecurities and telling God that I wasn’t cut out for public writing, I gave in and started.


At the time I had a hard time identifying myself. My identity was totally tied up in who I was to everyone around me. Don’t get me wrong, it still is, so is yours and everyone else’s. The problem was that I was “just” a farmer’s wife, “just” a mom, “just” trying to be a blogger, and out of that, Diary of a Dairy Wife was born.

The mistake I made wasn’t in my “justs” it was in what God was calling me to do. He was telling me that beyond all of those lowly titles, I was His. He wanted me to write for more than agriculture. My mistake was in the negotiation of who I was and where I was going.

I’ve never been a consistent writer. Try as I may, I haven’t found the balance. A few weeks ago I found myself in a place where I was sad, angry, broken, scared, defeated, discouraged, and I had totally lost who I was supposed to be. You see, I’ve spent the last couple of years seeking God more. In His word, in words He’s given others, and just in my heart, I’ve searched. When I found myself in this desert, I knew that God hadn’t brought me there, I had stumbled there on my own. When God asked me to start writing and stick my toes in the water, I did, but I did it my way. I did what I wanted and over the next almost 4 years the water that I had stuck my toes in, was slowly drying up to become dehydrated. It was my desert.

As I trod through my self-made sand dunes I could hear Him calling. It was like walking into a dark, uninhabited house, feeling my way through the total absence of light, chasing a voice coming from a closet in a back room. As I got closer I could see a sliver of light, also known as hope, a drop of water on a parched tongue, coming from under a closed door. I knew what I was headed for, but I didn’t know how to get there or what would be waiting for me. I heard the call and felt desperate to find the source. I prayed and pleaded for some sort of revelation. That revelation came the day I talked about earlier. It came through all of those negative emotions and touched my heart and at the same moment, I reached the light.

God asked me to write for Him, not for myself, not my way or the highway and that selfishness took me straight down the path of dryness. I finally got so dehydrated and desperate that I, somewhat angrily, asked Him, “What do you want from me?!” And He said, “To do what I asked you to do in the beginning. To write for Me. To be who you are for my glory.” And so here I am.

That’s not to say that I won’t continue to write about agriculture or my family or my farm. I will, but I will do it His way. I understand that some of my readers are here because I’m a “farm” blogger, and I still am a dairy farmer and a dairy farmer’s wife, this just isn’t that girl’s diary anymore. I hope y'all don’t tuck tail and head for the hills, but I’ll understand if this isn’t your journey.

It’ll take me some time to develop. I’m winging it. I'm Googling and YouTubing how to do all this in my free time...whenever that is.

I’ve been trying to figure out exactly how to do this. What to name this. How to tell y'all. It’s been brain numbing in a way. I think I know, then I second guess myself. Then I pray. I got some motivation today, though.

This morning I was reading in Galatians. Paul wrote that book. Do you just love him? I do. He is a favorite. Paul was Saul and he was a terror. He thought he was doing right, but he was doing it all wrong. God came to him in a literal vision of blindness, and straightened Saul right out, and becoming a new man in Christ, Saul became Paul. He was a sinner saved by great grace, just like me. Saul walked through the dark house and found the light. He was a hot mess that God turned into a hot mess with a bad history and a bright future. Paul, in his brokenness from his past, became a great leader that God used to influence the masses. I can’t get enough Paul, y'all.

Anyhow, in Galatians 1:10-13 Paul says, “For do I now persuade men, or God? Or do I seek to please men? For if I still pleased men, I would not be a bondservant of Christ. But I make known to you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man. For I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but it came through the revelation of Jesus Christ.”

I am no longer "just" the dairy wife. I have grown my identity and I will will do my best to be a diary wife that is a bondservant of Christ. I will write with the words given to me. I won’t seek to please men or myself, but I will seek to please God.

I want to add something to my already lengthy post. I am not scholarly, nor am I theological. I’ve never formally studied religion and I don’t read every commentary that anyone has ever written. I read God’s word and God speaks to me through his words. When I desire better understanding, I will research what a verse means. I will read commentary. But guys, God reveals to me what I need to know. He shows me how His words apply to my life. And anytime I write, I ask Him to guide me, to lead me, and to speak through me. I want to be a tool for Him. Not my will, not my way, not my words, but His.

I’m going to fail. I’ve already failed at this. I’m not perfect. I’m not the “go to” expert on anything Jesus. I’m just a sinner saved by God’s grace. I’m just a person trying to let God pour into me so much that He overflows into the words that I write.

I’m probably doing this “rebranding” thing all wrong, all out of order, but like in life, I’m just winging it. You’ll see my name change (hopefully) in a short time.  I don’t know what will show up in your news feed after facebook changes algorithms, but if you want to keep up with me you can click to follow my page as well as “like” it. Until the change is approved, on facebook I will be “Diary of a Dairy Wife.” If all goes as planned, you’ll get a handy notification that says, “A page you follow has changed its name.”

****UPDATE: Facebook would not allow my name change as it might "mislead current followers who have liked your page." While I have no intention of misleading anyone, I will just continue to use Diary of a Dairy Wife page name and this blog address until I make further decisions about how to move forward. I'm just gonna continue to do what I do on here. I apologize for putting the cart before the horse. I just got a little too excited. ****


I hope you’ll travel this journey with me and take the fork in my blogger road that I should have walked four years ago. I don’t know how much it’ll change, but I wanted to lay it out for those of you who take the time to read. I’m prayerful that your life and spirit are touched even though I’m stumbling around like a lost toddler. Change is hard, but this is one I look forward to.

Bless y'all for putting up with me!