Tindell Baldwin »

I have to confess I have been a bit of a baby lately. I have not gotten what I wanted and this morning I flat out told God I was mad at him. It wasn’t the first time but this time I said it with a passion that surprised even me. The truth is I have broken dreams and I mad about it. I have dreams of living down the street from my parents and siblings instead of 900 miles away. I have dreams of having a 9-5 that will fulfill my need to be someone in this big world. I have a dream of having a marriage with little conflict and lots of butterflies and rainbows and I have a dream of not having depression. I have lots of dreams.

My mom is still sick. For someone who has committed my life to following Jesus that is hard for me. My mom is still sick. My mom loves Jesus and she is still sick. My mom prays daily and she is still sick. My mom loves others and she is still sick. That frustrates me. For a long time I was mad at God, mad that he hadn’t healed my faithful mother because if anyone deserves to be healed it is my mom (what every child thinks). I held this grudge that God didn’t love my family because he didn’t bring healing.  Often I would withhold my love from God because he had with held his healing from my mom.

Jesus came to die so we wouldn’t have to live in sin. Let that soak in. Our wandering is exactly why he came. He came to secure a place next to him. He made us perfect in him so that we wouldn’t have to live apart from him. Yet we do, we choose to put other things before our savior.

I am down at the beach this week and have managed to read 200 pages of a Nicholas Sparks book (that is awesome) but have only managed to read my bible twice. It is sad to me that I can care so strongly about so many things but when it comes to growing in Christ I tend to say, there is always tomorrow. I tend to think that if I haven’t made it to the top of the spirtual totem pole then i’m just drowning. Thats not true though. God doesn’t ask us to be perfect, he did that for us when he came and died, he only ask that we strive towards him. Our striving is a sign that Christ is working in us.

John piper said it well in my devotional this morning when he said, “being on the way is proof that you have arrived.” All Christians are running a race towards Christ and when you get there he is going to tell you how you ran for him. What he says is up to you. Will you strive harder, pray more,  learn, or will you stay stagnant. Will you walk the race stopping along the way? What will Christ say to you when you cross that finish line. I want him to say to me, ” well done my good and faithful servant.”

Last week was Palm Sunday and as I sang hosanna at the top of my lungs, off key, I imagined myself being at Palm Sunday. I could see myself laying down the palm branches and shouting at my savior but at that same moment I could feel God telling me, “but you were also their on good friday.” I am the same fickle woman I have always been, one day laying down palm branches for my savior and the next day walking away, leaving him on the cross to hang.

It pains me to say this, I wish my devotion was pure and constant but in the midst of life I often forget who brought me from ashes to beauty. I tend to forget that from the great heights I have fallen and just remember my glorious return. I often don’t give credit where credit is due.

Yes it was long ago that men praised Jesus and then begged for his death but don’t we do it almost every day. Don’t we lift our hands in praise to his holiness then treat our spouse with resentment and hate. Don’t we have our quiet time and then forget to spread his holy name. Don’t we do so many things that contradict the praise that comes from our lips and the actions we then take. Man is fickle, our preacher said on Sunday, but God is Faithful, how true that is. We change our minds daily but God never changes his. He know’s you will love him then deny him but he never changes his mind about you. He always loves you no matter which part you play this weekend. Whether you are like me and can’t keep our mouths straight or you just standing by watching. Either way this easter is for you. The pain he suffered and the cross he bared is for you and no matter what our mouths say that truth will remain the same.

I have always thought that to succeed you really just need one person believing in you. When you are young it is crucial to have someone in your life speak truth to who you are. When I was sixteen I was consumed with myself and what I could get. I wasn’t adding much to the world except a few F bombs and a large amount of Abercrombie perfume to the already soaked halls of my high school. My point is no one had any reason to believe I would amount to anything. I drank like a fish, talked like a sailor, and wore enough blue eyeshadow to paint a wall. I was a pretty typical a teenager but despite my bad habits and inability to wear makeup my family always believed in me. There wasn’t much to believe in but they always said one day I would come out of this.

My oldest brother and his now wife had the greatest impact on me. I will never forget after another episode of being caught for drinking my brother sat me down and told me, “God is going to use you for great things one day Tindell.” I almost fell out of my chair in laughter. It stayed with me though. His wife would tell me the same thing. Every time I got caught for something I shouldn’t have been doing they would tell me, “God made you for so much better, one day you are going to be used.”

The result, here I sit almost ten years down the road believing that God will used my scarred past for his kingdom. I have written a book and am pursing publishing because years ago my brother, parents, and sister in law told me that God can used even the greatest of sinners. My point is when you are younger or even older, it just takes one person pouring into you to make a difference. Who is God calling you to believe in? Maybe its the slightly awkward kid at youth group, or the rebel in the corner, or maybe you need someone to believe in you. Whatever it is we were made to build each other up and doing so shows the great love of Christ because after all he is your biggest fan.

As I sat and journaled this morning I prayed for so many things. I realized in my praying that obedience to God comes through being obedient and in that you can answer others prayers. Let me explain,

Last week I prayed that God would take over control of my book. I was overwhelmed and underwhelmed and all kinds of whelmed with the publishing process. I sat down in utter frustration and told God “I can’t do this,” to which his reply was simple, “But I can.” So I prayed that he would do it. I told him all my fears and my concerns and told him how terrified I was because this is my heart on paper. He listened knowingly and that night I got a call from my dad.

This is the gist. A literary agent had agreed to read my manuscript (as a favor to my dad) and give me some advice. For those who don’t know the publishing process, like me, a literary agent is the one who gets your book to a publisher. Here’s the problem though I don’t have a lot of money to put into this project. Ben and I are saving for a house and life is expensive and so on and so on. So we put a tiny budget on getting my book ready to be published and asked God to do the rest.

Well this guy was nice enough to read my manuscript and actually liked it. He told me that he and his wife wanted to help me get my book published because he believed in the message. I was in shock. This is someone who has all the right know how to get my message out there. I read my email with the kind of God awe that comes with answered prayers.

I don’t know what will happen in this process but if nothing else God affirmed me that he is with me and he will handle it. This guy was simply there and listened to God and answered my prayer. What is God asking of you today? Whose prayer do you need to answer?

God calls us to be obedient daily and that means tuning in to learn what he wants from us. Even if its not pretty.

As I work to get my book ready to self publish I keep asking myself the same question “am I really ready to put this out there?” And I keep hearing the same answer, “life isn’t about you.” It doesn’t matter how hard I try to get this point through my thick scull I keep forgetting that, whenever God calls you to something its almost always painful but always worth it. Because these pages are filled with my heart, my story, and more importantly my Savior I keep asking myself if this will be worth it. More importantly what if people hate it? Does that mean they hate me?

All these questions keep running through my head and I don’t know how resolve it except to keep reminding myself that this process isn’t for me, about me, or have anything to do with me. These are the words God called me to write, my story that he called me to tell. So I will tell it.

We are all called to tell a story and most of the time your story comes from your greatest struggle. Whatever has caused you pain or made you grow as a person is most likely what God will ask you to use. If you had an absent father he will put you in a situation to minister to those in pain for the same reason. If you have a porn addiction he will ask you to tell your story to a group of men. If you are sick then you will be given people in your situation who need comfort and always need Jesus. As I always say God takes your misery and turns it into your ministry.

Today I met with a woman who was telling me the story of her marriage for one of my jobs. It was great but then she started telling me about how her twelve year old son knows girls that have sex (Dont ask me how). I was intrigued before, but now she had my heart racing. Because of my past I am passionate about teens not having sex until marriage. I got to share with her why I believed parents shouldn’t’ buy their kids condoms and more importantly I got to hear what her thoughts were about the issue. My misery to my ministry. I can only imagine that if ten people read my book I will get to have a few conversations about truth and that to me is worth putting my past out in the open for people to dissect, judge, and possible hate.