Weird Like Jesus, Unapologetically.

Jesus shouted to the crowds, “If you trust me, you are trusting not only me, but also God who sent me. I have come as light to shine in this dark world, so that all who put their trust in me will no longer remain in the dark.” John 12:44-46

After deep reflection on the tumultuous course God had me on in a few years ago, I looked at my husband and said, “Jesus is weird.” A few following Sunday’s as I sat in church, our pastor said the same words, “Jesus is weird man!” It was right then I knew I was on to something… 

Full disclosure, I am not a theologian. I am just a woman who reads the Bible and is madly in love with the one who came to rescue me from myself. 

Have you ever read the book of Genesis? It is the first book in the Bible which explains how God created all things on Earth. In the beginning, God created… Such a beautiful way our imagination can open up and see the power behind God’s wondrous works as He explains in detail how he strategically placed all things good, here and there, like so. I swear, whenever I read Genesis, I can actually see the blank slate come to life; birds chirping, flowers blooming, trees growing, mountains looming, and the waves crashing on the shore. I feel the warmth from the sun radiate across my face and the cool moon glow upon me in the dark of night. His great images blossom like a bouquet of wild flowers as I visualize every animal come to life, even those that scurry across the ground. 

What a remarkable story. Adam roaming aimlessly throughout the garden alone and in need of  a woman. God knew this and created Eve from Adam’s rib. Eve came alongside her man to help build a community for themselves, until the serpent appeared causing ruins on the entire plan of living peaceably in the Garden of Eden. Ultimately man would have to work his fingers to the bone for the fruit God was freely willing to give him, if only he hadn’t let his bride Eve sway him into eating off the forbidden tree. Oh Eve, how many words I shall have for you when we meet, girl! From painful childbearing, menstrual cramps, and now menopause…All you had to do was follow a simple command. It’s no wonder God exiled both of them from the garden entirely, I wouldn’t trust them after that either.

I was further intrigued when God cut our lifespan triply, it didn’t take long for God to be spent by us.

“My Spirit will not put up with humans for such a long time. For they are only mortal flesh. In the future, their normal lifespan will be no more than 120 years.” Genesis 6:3 

And if that wasn’t enough, our insistent wickedness was so awful, God was sorry he took the time to make us in the first place,

The Lord observed the extent of human wickedness on the earth, and he saw that everything they thought or imagined was consistently and totally evil. So the Lord was sorry he ever made them and put them on earth. It broke his heart. Genesis 6:5-6

The saga continues to where God throws his hands up and literally floods the earth until everyone dies. We were such a mess, even the animals didn’t stand a chance. Those who were spared was Noah who found favor in the Lord where he was instructed to take his family along with two of every animal inside the Ark he was ordered to build. They would procreate after the disaster expired in hopes to make the world the way God saw it when he breathed air into Adam’s lungs. 

Mega fast forward, God proclaims his weariness through the prophet Malachi. God doesn’t disguise his blatant anger for the people he created who refused to turn from their sinful ways. Whining over things not going in their favor, the mockery, and detestable disrespect they have shown God was enough to make Him remain silent for four hundred years. If I were God, I’d be seriously reconsidering repeating the flood, but that’s just me. Only this time, with no Noah, no ark, nothing more. It would’ve been a complete wrap.

But God is better than me. In comes sweet baby Jesus born in squalor to his mother who is a virgin engaged to a man named Joseph. I do believe Joseph really thought Mary was suspect after she got pregnant but not by him. Thankfully an angel came to reassure Joseph that Marry was just as pure as ever and he was to stay with her. They married, but did not consummate their marriage until she gave birth. They were going to be parents to the Messiah! Jesus was the embodiment of all our hope. Our Father being born in the flesh. 

In the Old Testament, God’s dissatisfaction over the people He created to take occupancy in His wondrous world didn’t remove the love He had and still has for us. I’m intrigued that during those four hundred years, God literally went back to the drawing board and came up with a perfect plan for us. God knew we needed to set eyes on His perfection in real time, so He brought his only begotten son to earth in order to be an example for us. 

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believeth in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life.” John 3:16 

Yes, God’s wrath was real over our sin, but His love was greater. Jesus was the human form of God. And in Jesus’ life, he too was ridiculed, mocked, tried, scoffed at, laughed at. Jesus didn’t even have a home to call his own. You would think being the heir of God, his only begotten Son, Jesus would have had red carpet treatment. He did not.

Knowing his Father could make any miracle he wanted happen, Jesus stayed obedient while doing without the luxuries he knew God could bless him with. What a testament of faith and will! I’d bet we would all have sidebar requests if we were Jesus. But Jesus stayed faithful to God never conforming to this dredful world. Jesus dealt with life in perfect patience, love, and peace even when tempted by Satan. Things we are faced with today, in real time. Blasphemy, defamation, hurts by family and friends, many setbacks, sickness, hunger is exactly what Jesus encountered. We were born into this manger of a world in sink or swim fashion. Born straight into sin and as sinners.

Everything is weird about these stories. It doesn’t make me a bad Christian to think so either. How could God love us so much when our ancestors in the past (Adam and Eve, etc), and we now in the present prove time over time that we simply don’t deserve such grace? How could Jesus follow through with God’s plan knowing he was going to be sacrificed in such a horrific way in order to set us free from sin. Where on earth do we deserve such love as His? Jesus’ unconditional love for us is weird and what’s even more strange, is when we decide to follow Him, we become just as weird.

I invite you to read on to see how being Weird Like Jesus has truly changed my outlook on life and how I will never apologize for sharing weird likeness with the One who was born to change the world entirely.

I had no time to truly acknowledge the 2020 pandemic having the world locked inside their homes with limited places to go for entertainment let alone provisions. I had an entire pandemic happening inside my home called extramarital affairs. I found out in July 2020 that my what I thought straight - laced white bread husband whose entertainment outside of working was watching Mountain Men and an assortment of shows in that category, that I am replaceable.

It was an innocent ask to see his phone in order to look something up on the internet. When the dropdown popped up with queries on what sites offer picture and video exchanges, it didn’t take long for me to figure out what was happening. As you can imagine, all hell broke loose inside the cab of his pickup truck as I shot a round of bullet questions in his direction. After my fury and his admittance to talking to women online, I went blind mad numb. The world past the windshield went blurry before me. It was as if I left my body and was now staring at the two of us staring straight ahead, one full of rage, the other nervously embarrassed. My life became funeral quiet just as our state had when the government shut everything down.

The despair I felt couldn’t compare to any pain I had ever felt. I did what we as scorned women are taught to do, I screamed at my husband obscenities and scathingly instructed him to leave our home. By right, our kids were confused, so we sat them down while my husband shared what he had done. It was the most saddest day of my life seeing our then ten year old daughter cry as her dad walked out of our home. It felt as if my best friend of over twenty years died, as if I’d never see him again.

I needed to know more. I needed to know what kind of conversations happened, what pictures were exchanged, who were these women who talked to my husband for hours on end? I couldn’t sleep, eat, think, function. All that circled my thoughts was the how and the why’s this could happen to us. To me. To our children. I hated him. I loved him. I wanted him home. I wanted nothing to do with him.

The next morning, one of our pastors from our church called me. He told me Michael contacted him and confessed everything. Through my anguish I was astonished because my husband was never one to admit his flaws, especially to a God-fearing man as our pastor who helped our family with other issues in the past. My pastor was checking in on me, letting me know that he had already set Michael up with a Christian Psychologist, then referred me to one as well. My pastor assured me that he and another pastor Michael reached out to was going to hold him accountable. That this wasn’t to be taken lightly, this isn’t a time to be passive aggressive, and I should if at all possible, bring Michael home so we could work on this together.

That was the kicker right there. Bring him home? The husband who shattered my heart into a million pieces. The man I married who now had a “girlfriend” who was replacing me and her children he wanted to exchange for ours. The man who caused an earthquake in our hearts due to his weaknesses. Bring him home… I couldn’t fathom this. I was the woman who always said, “If my husband cheats on me, I’m out, it’s a wrap!” But here I was being gently directed by our pastor who had loved on our family through a lot of things. I trusted him, but I didn’t want to. 

As I sat on my best friend’s couch two weeks later, I still hadn’t slept, eaten much, or thought clearly on anything. She was patient as I cried and cried and cried some more. I felt electrocuting heartache ripple all throughout my body. I felt alone in the world as if I could be swallowed up by all the bad things in it. Michael and I had never spent this much time apart unless it was when he was in the military on his two week training one summer per year. This was a level of torture, not having my man I loved for over two decades there by my side. It was intimidating to see her husband in their own home when mine wasn’t in ours.

Then I heard the instruction again, bring him home. 

“Wait, what did you say?” 

She said, “My mom told me to tell you to bring Michael home.” 

I loved my best friend’s mother and had deep respect for her and her Christian values. This request hit deeper than when my pastor instructed it. I had a lot of thinking to do which included a ton of prayer. I prayed harder than I think I ever prayed, asking, seeking, listening until I finally after two weeks, called Michael home. 

In the quiet of the night as I sat with God one final time before accepting I wanted my husband back, God’s explanation of sin was just so. “Let's take the word infidelity out of it and call it what it is; sin. Just like the abortion you had was a sin, so is this. A sin is a sin. Are you going to leave him out there or show him grace like I’ve shown you?” I was like what in the hell, that is not remotely fair!

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of god.

Romans 3:23

But that was the only argument I could muster, which wasn’t much. God was right, per the norm, he had redeemed my decision to abort mine and Michael’s twins almost to the day twenty five years ago. I had no rebuttal. What could seem like God was punishing me was him gently reminding me of the shape he met me in many years prior. It was a much humbling moment. A moment that would prepare me for the worst to come, but the knowledge on where to go when the waters got really rough, which they indeed did. 

For the past four years, God has worked many miracles within me. Forgiving my husband and meeting him in his most brokenness was one the the most difficult things I’ve had to do. Even though he broke my heart and crushed my soul, I was able to see him as our Father saw both of us, a whole lot of a hot mess. What I thought I was doing right in my marriage wasn’t.  My husband and I were on even terrain in God’s eyes. I needed work, he needed work. Period.

Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.

Colossians 3:13

This blog is just a tad bit of my journey. A journey with many downs, but the upside is the freedom I feel from God’s grace not only for me but for Michael and our children as well. The world would have told us to leave one another, to move on, to hate and not forgive the hurts done to us. But God, his instructions were crystal clear to the both of us, love as I have loved you and watch miracles happen in your life that will blow your mind. That’s weird right?

This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and onlySon into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

1 John 4:9-11

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

Isaiah 55:8-9

God’s plans are better than ours, his ways are better than ours, and his timing is better than ours. He doesn’t seem to quite come through at the exact moment we need him, but when he does it is right on time. When we are in our most deepest distress, that is when he works the hardest. When we want something to work in our favor, seems we have some leg work to do, called obedience. When we cry out for help, that is when he seems to be the most quiet.  In essence, his ways are weird. And to think that all things can be turned around for His greater good, no matter how uncomfortable it is to succumb to His instructions. Our flesh tends to stay in fight or flight mode, but when we turn to Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior, he is able to keep us in the moment no matter how disastrous it seems. 

We are born into sin our world exhibiting greed, deceit, hatred, familial divide, abortion, addictions, infidelity, divorce, and many more pitfalls which can leave us swimming in utter distress while trying to make sense in the midst of chaos. We are all broken people in a broken world so how are we supposed to aid one another when we are all suffering in similar ways? We are incapable, ill equipped, ultimately helpless. Where does our help come from? 

I lift my eyes up to the mountains - where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth.

Psalm 121:1-2 

The Bible is filled with truthful powerful scripture. Words that speak directly into the hurting hearts of those seeking peace; a resolution to any situations. We think if these words are true, my prayers will definitely be answered. Then we wait. We pray and we wait. The wait may seem insufferable, but again God is like no other. He doesn’t do what we think is right for ourselves, family, friends, or other pressing circumstances. He does what is great and pleasing to him that always works in His favor.

Our God’s love for us out measures anyones on this earth. He knows us more than we could possibly know ourselves right in that dark place where he created us.  He has always known what we needed, when, how, and why. Our pains and triumphs are not unforeseen to God. He is the only one who knows what is best for our wellbeing.

For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Marvelous are your works and I know this very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there were none of them.

Psalm 139:13-16

Through my Weird Like Jesus blogs, I look forward to sharing my journey with you, many testimonies where God pressed upon this weird idea that the things that caused me great pain in this life was worth every breath in order to receive his redemption over me. My tumultuous yet thrilling upbringing, the abortion of my twins, my prodigal child, my husband’s infidelity, idolatry over myself, angst on not having the family I expected and so much more. Areas in my life that were so bleak, only God was able to shed light through all my uncertainties.

These testimonies are not too brag, but to give a glimmer of light into any darkness you may be encountering. That just something as simple as surrendering our entire life to God is worth every discomfort in order to be transformed into a new person, by his grace. God brought Jesus to walk this earth as an example of his love. Jesus, just like us had to endure much suffering even being born in a filthy manger all the way to his violent death as he asked his Father to have mercy on us after he was nailed viciously to the cross.

Then Jesus said, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.”

Luke 23:34

It is wild to think we can be as forgiving and loving as Jesus, but we can. We can meet others just how God met us where we are, with grace and unconditional love. That’s pretty weird especially when cynicism, judgement, and hatred run rampant in this world. God’s love supersedes all negativity. If we turn to him , repent, surrender, trust, and know, He can begin to transform us. We cannot change on our own, we don’t have that kind of power. God’s transformation is subtle, gentle, loving, and necessary. A transformation that will have people asking, ‘How do you do it?’ In which you will Godfidently answer, it’s not me it’s HIm.

Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me. If you had really known me, you would know who my Father is. From now on, you do know him and have seen him!”

John 14:6-7

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

~Tasha 

1/3/24

Weird Like Jesus (WLJ)