the good fight

Battered and torn
still I can see the Light
tattered and worn
but I must kneel to fight.
....Ben Harper


why do they say, "fight the good fight?" is that a cliche? i know it's mentioned in timothy somewhere but it has been used so much that it hasn't meant a darn thing to me ever...not until now.

ok, ok...i just now looked it up..the phrase is from the context of scripture in timothy 6:12-

"but you, man of God, flee from all of this, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness. fight the good fight of the faith. take hold of the eternal life to which you were called when you made your confession in the presence of many witnesses."

my study bible says "Paul uses active and forceful verbs to describe the Christian life: flee, pursue, fight, take hold. some think Christianity is a passive religion that advocates waiting for God to act. but we must have an ACTIVE faith, obeying God with courage and doing what we know is right..."

i have lived a lot of my life as a passive person but it makes sense when i put my faith walk in those terms...i have been passive as well in that area. somehow it has felt safer to be passive. but in reality it is more dangerous than i imagined. it leaves me idling in fear and cynicism.

on my drive to santa fe last week, i was blown away with ben harpers music, once again. i love his stuff. i can listen to it in different seasons of my life and have it speak to me in different ways, it's always great!

i was listening to "better way" (i hear that obama might have chosen this song for his campaign for change) and i was literally pumped up, my heart was racing and i was screaming the words out the window as i drove down the highway...there is a part in the middle of the song where he screams in a primal, raw gut wrenching rant...it gave me chill bumps.

Reality is sharp
It cuts at me like a knife
Everyone i know
Is in the fight of their life

yes, yes. i thought, this is so true. there are soooo many people i know that seem to be "in the fight of their life" right now...close friends here, other friends miles away, even some family too....fighting for marriages, fighting for financial freedom, children's health issues, crazy career schedules that affect family life, legal disputes (argh), discipline training with toddlers, fighting depression or anxiety and illness...so many people, including me and ian..fighting, barely holding on some days but weathering the storm....yes, ben harper, right on, i thought...man, can i relate to harper's screaming that line...i am screaming that line, so many i love are living daily screaming that line inside their souls....it was liberating to scream it outloud along with harper, even if it was in my car..i was putting it out there...

but it's so hard. fighting anything is such hard work. it takes such emotional strength for certain situations, physical power and mental endurance as well. losing weight is hard. patching a strained relationship, saving a marriage is so draining and heart taxing. fighting illness and health problems are so exhausting and defeating. fighting a legal battle when you know you are in the right but nothing seems on your side is angering and hopeless feeling. how do we fight? how do we keep on fighting everyday? we have to KNEEL to FIGHT. we must kneel to fight. get on our faces and pray.

then the thought of the saying, "if it's not worth the hard work or effort, than it's not worth having...if you aren't willing to put in the hard work, you really don't deserve the reward in the end..." and quite frankly, i have learned that if you aren't willing to fight for something than maybe in some cases you might not really really really want it that bad..(obviously there are exclusions in cases maybe like terminal illnesses or justice systems that fail us in which we have no control ) but other things like weight, a desired job, a friendship or marriage-think about it. our culture lives in this fast paced scene where we want quick fixes to everything. we want fast food now. we don't want to take the time to prepare meals sometimes. we want to take pills to lose weight now. we don't want to have exercise or ache or sweat to see results. we want to take a happy little blue pill to make our sadness go away. we don't want to have to deal with sharing or opening up with a therapist or humbly seeking God for our healing; the mind might need the meds at times but the heart needs its own remedy that can only be found in spiritual awakening, i have come to learn in my own situation this year. (aside: i know many need meds to help at times, i have been one of those, so i am not judging, just saying it's more complex than just a pill)..if things don't go the way we like, we want to bail..we want to quit. our selfish desires tell us, we deserve to be happy NOW and we feel we can't possibly wait for help to come at a different pace. so we drink, we take pills, we shop, we eat and eat and eat (my sad therapy for 6 months, that's for a later post), some may turn to drugs, gambling, sex or a bad relationship or a completely different lifestyle all together. whatever we can do to make the pain go away NOW. to work and wait and wade through all of our emotional baggage we carry on the train ride in this lifetime is overwhelming, sometimes too much in some seasons of life it seems...the fight seems too hard, too impossible. so we just lay down in whatever vice we pick up to soothe ourselves and carry on...thinking we are healing, patting ourselves on the back for "doing soooo well" and being soooo "strong"...who are we fooling?

so back to the drive: i am driving and listening to this ben harper song, playing it and replaying it..and i think, yes. damn straight. i want to fight. this life is worth fighting for. my marriage is worth fighting tooth and nail for, even on the days it seems hard and satan wants to destroy it. my dream of another baby and a bigger family is worth fighting for. my pursuit of joy in ALL things, not just happiness is worth the fight. and to think of the word fight, being a verb means ACTIVE....anyone who had mrs. gorman in 7th grade english at north junior high knows how to diagram a sentence blindfolded. i kept thinking about the verb fight and how action is shown with the word, not passiveness, not sitting around waiting for another verb to take it's place and you CANNOT replace a verb with a noun that just sits there and does nothing....no way. a verb is a verb is a verb.

another harper song i listened to in the car was "i shall not walk alone.." the blind boys of alabama do a version of it and that is what my bro put on my mix. harper wrote it but the boys seriously bring it home, it's amazing! some of the lyrics are below:

Beauty that
we left behind
how shall we
tomorrow find

Set aside
our weight in sin
so that we
can live again

Battered and torn
still I can see the Light
tattered and worn
but I must kneel to fight.

i must kneel to fight. i must kneel to fight...

the other day a sweet close friend told me how blessed she was to have me in her life right now...i am not bragging one bit, because i laughed at her and said, "really, because i am a mess and don't feel i contribute to much at all, i feel like i let friends and family down all the time drenched in grief like i am sometimes and i figured most people are "sick" of me and ian and our "drama"..seems like that sometimes anyway.." she was so sweet to reassure me and tell me that she was actually honored to have friends like us who she knows are fighting each day like her and her husband for joy and Truth...she said it helps to have a friend, another believer, who is fighting right now and seeking God so desperately instead of coasting....i never had looked at it that way...but it made sense. seriously, if you aren't fighting the good fight of the faith than you are either self-medicating with various options or you are coasting...fighting the good fight of faith is humbling and hard, tiring and monotonous and continual but so rewarding..but seriously, it's a job in itself, it takes an active choice, not a passive one...i appreciated what she shared with me so much...it really made sense to me what might have separated me from others lately...i guess in blunt words, i don't have patience right now for coasters or fakers or passive believers..i can't identify with those sitting in the stands because i am on the field fighting and am empathetic to those who want to fight for their lives as well. i was a passive believer and coaster of the faith for a long time, before sydney's death and even after...even recently and i will struggle with falling back into both realms more than i would like in the future i imagine but for now, my eyes are wide open and i am fighting like hell for my life, for my faith to be REAL to me and for life to have the purpose God created it for. i am fighting for my marriage to Honor the Lord and to stay complete, not broken, i am fighting like hell to kick the enemy and his darkness he brings to the curb and remember Christ already paid for my victory anyway and i have nothing to fear. i am fighting the good fight of the faith, the fight for my life also for my child. i want our son to grow up seeing ACTIVE FAITH lived out in front of him, a faith that will save him, one that he will need to turn to and cling to for the rest of his life, a faith that will free him and a faith that he must fight for and it worth fighting for.


so with this eye opener i realized that i have A LOT of work to do in many areas of my life. no one, no pill, no special drink is going to lose the weight for me that i need gone. i have to do it and fight each day to remember that, not only for my own well-being and self esteem, but remember that this hard work is for a larger purpose, to train for a new baby, a new body to aid in sustaining a new life inside me and conquer the ugly high risk factors that come with pregnancy for me. it HAS to be work and i want it bad enough that i will fight for it...i must actively work and not sit around waiting for God to heal me...my marriage that seems so comfy at times, to just be who i "feel" like being, deserves the hard work of being what God wants of me instead and what my husband needs of me and deserves of me. it is worth the hard work and progress that ian and i are making to throw away our selfish ways and prideful days, to put the other first, to give grace and mercy, to forgive and to love through ALL things and be there for each other in our painful season...my family deserves a nice house, a clean and comfy place to live in and to come home to, that hard work in making it so is worth it, anything else is selfish on my end. my battle for sanity and peace following sydney's death is a fight, daily. i must remember that, so when the bad days come blasting in, i know to fight for joy and not just give in to the cloud of dark death the enemy would rather smother me in. i must fight for everything in my life...daily, because if i sit in selfishness, then laziness and idleness become my co-pilots and steer me in a total different direction that i want. if you know to be prepared to fight, than you have a totally different outlook. you know the work and sweat and tears ahead, so you aren't surprised when the mountains come that you have to climb. you don't have to sit there and pitifully stare at how big the mountain is, you CAN focus instead on the Mover of those mountains and get up off your butt, stand on your feet and get to steppin, get to helping the Mover make the pathway easier for you...

there is a better way, people...a better way out of the pain and a better way to God-centered living..i know, there are seasons...and life will throw huge obstacles at you....death, illness, debt, infidelity, loss of a job, cancer..and so much more...but if you want life abudant you have to FIGHT- kneeling...you have to fight on your knees..not with words, not with replacing hurt with temporary fixes that cripple us more in the process, but fight kneeling humbly on your face and offer Him all the broken pieces in your hands and trust Him to take care of you, to trust that He wants a better way for you...it hurts, it's hard..it can be scary and powerless feeling- it's supposed to. it is not a comfortable place to be to be humble and broken and you don't always feel like you are making progress but when you keep walking and fighting for God's will over your own, He WILL bless it, He WILL honor it...there is a better way, there has to be...He has a better way for us....and thanks to ben harper for reminding me about it....with some awesome music. and thanks God for rad music and the gift of music.

i have a sweet friend in a fight right now...for her marriage. i told her how hard it must be to deal with the things that have happened, choices that were made..pain that was caused. i told her how many friends i have seen that have lost the battle this last year, how many marriages i have seen lately that have been destroyed and broken. you know what she told me. "satan won't destroy this marriage or my family if i have anything to do with it." she is fighting. even with odds and painful choices and our cultures disposable ideals of marriage against her, she is choosing grace, mercy and forgiveness. she is fighting with dirt in her nails for the life she wants. i was so proud of her. never so proud of her or amazed by her strength to put aside selfishness and fight for God's victory in that situation. it gave me chills, it made me want to squeeze her and it reminded me that WE have choices and WE can decide to fight things out and endure and persevere and withstand really, REALLy crappy seasons in our lives if want we want on the other end of it is God's will. it doesn't come overnight, but i promise you i see glimpses of it...hope and restoration and Joy in the future. i see shimmers of it now, each day...i cling to it. yes, obama. i cling to it. like a crutch you say? well, a crutch is simply a temporary aid in helping you until you get back on your feet, until you can support yourself fully again once you are healed. walking and living as a believer is not like that. honestly, God's children won't be completely healed until there is a new heaven on earth..so my crutch, my dependence is not temporary. it is more like a permanent fixture with me. it is my life-vest everyday and everywhere. isn't that why God sent us His Holy Spirit? to be our "crutch" until His kingdom comes and we can finally walk without needing it anymore because we will walk with Him instead. until that time comes, i am not letting go of my crutch. i walk much better with It than without.

i know this was a log read. but i am trying to purge my thoughts from that drive, from that teaching moment and apply it to my life. i want to remember how i felt that sun-shiny day and how the words, the music and the Lord all inspired me feverishly to fight. to fight the good fight of the faith. to fight for my life...i pray deeper than you know, that you will fight too. certain situations that seem hopeless or forever-ongoing with madness and pain...fight for them. even if the outcome is not what you had hoped for in the end, the fighting made you tougher with strength but softer in heart because you allowed God to direct your steps...i know that even as i fight for this next baby that we so desire, even if we lose another child...the fighting for our dreams and our future was well worth it and that child deserves someone to fight for them, no matter what. i know that fighting for my marriage takes supernatural strength and help, because on our own, we give up too easily.

so this song is kind of an anthem for me right now. here are the lyrics.

Better Way

I'm a living sunset
Lightning in my bones
Push me to the edge
But my will is stone

Fools will be fools
And wise will be wise
But i will look this world
Straight in the eyes

What good is a man
Who won't take a stand
What good is a cynic
With no better plan

Reality is sharp
It cuts at me like a knife
Everyone i know
Is in the fight of their life

Take your face out of your hands
And clear your eyes
You have a right to your dreams
And don't be denied

I believe in a better way

then, go to this video, to watch harper's video of this song to hear the music with the words!