Sunday, March 15, 2015
Saturday, October 18, 2014
"What are Your Plans When You Graduate?"
Today I sat down with my Bible and my journal to talk to God.
But instead, I found myself reading back over old prayers that I've
scribbled over countless pages in the past two years. As I read over what
is essentially a record of my relationship with Jesus, I could not help but see
His faithfulness to me. I saw His provision in the face of uncertainty.
I saw His forgiveness in the face of my sin. I saw His call and His
vision for me in the face of my typical 20-something crisis of WHAT DO I DO
WITH MY LIFE!?!
After all that nice reflecting, I tried to
continue with my quiet time, because, let’s be serious, I have OTHER things
I need to do today. Nope. Not happening. My heart started to get that uncomfortable
itchy feeling most commonly known as conviction, and I could feel myself
starting to squirm. It suddenly occurred
to me the extent to which I have kept this journey with Jesus to myself. I mean, I’ve talked to anyone who would
listen to me about my struggles, my fears, my insecurities, my personal and
family hardships…..But have I really told people, Christian or otherwise, what
God has been up to in me? Honestly? Not really.
I’ve hedged. I’ve stuttered. I’ve whispered and mumbled, all while doing
my very best to please the people around me and to appear as normal and
acceptable as possible. As my graduation
from college draws near, exactly two months from today, I am realizing that
this is no longer acceptable. That’s why
I couldn’t have a quiet time today. The
time for being quiet, the time for keeping things just between me and God, has
passed. At some point I’m going to have
to own Christ and own the vision He has given me, in spite of the fact that I
fear what people will think of me. Um. So yeah.
I guess….here we go.
On December 18, 2014 I will graduate from North Carolina State
University with a Masters in Teaching Social Studies to complement my Bachelors
in History. Many of you have asked, and
will continue to ask, what I am doing after that. My answer to you has varied. Usually, I vaguely mention something about teaching
overseas, “maybe”, “If God works it out” but “I might stay here if I get a job
right away”, “You know, we’ll just see what God does….” If people push, I might mention a school in
Spain where I have some “connections”.
In these conversations I have done my best to remain non-committal, and
frankly rather wishy-washy. In reality,
I’m not at all unsure about what this all looks like, I’m just nervous to REALLY tell
you about it. So let me give you the
real answer to the question, “What are your plans for after you graduate?”
I’m going to be a missionary.
I have already gone through an extensive application process with a
missions organization called One Mission Society (OMS). I have flown to their headquarters, I have
been interviewed, I have been accepted, and even gone through some preliminary
training. I have told many of you about
some school in Spain where I am interested in teaching. Let me explain what that actually means. Just outside of Madrid, in a small village
called Camarma de Esteruelas, there is a school called Evangelical Christian
Academy, or ECA for short. It is a school
that primarily educates the children of missionaries, and I have officially accepted
a position with them as a high school history teacher, where I will most likely be teaching
World History and Psychology.
Spain is a country of atheists and Muslims, and the Lord has been
calling Missionaries from all over the world to go and spread His Gospel
there. Having traveled to Spain about a
year and a half ago, I have spent time with these missionaries and seen up
close what their lives are like on a day to day basis. I have watched as they walked up and down the
back streets of Madrid offering water, sandwiches, and prayer to the thousands
of prostitutes and homeless that populate the city. I have listened to them boldly preaching the
Gospel in Spanish and English to both the local and the tourist as they pass by the
city square. I have sat with them in
house churches as they teach Spaniards what it means that God knows and loves
them. But I saw more than just their
ministry; I saw their worries, and their
burdens. Spain’s economy has never
recovered from the most recent recession.
Jobs are scarce, and the education system is in shambles. Spaniards often treat foreigners with racism
and open contempt for fear that they have come to steal the few positions
available. As these missionaries pour
out their lives in service of the Lord, they pray, “Lord what about my
children? How do I educate my children
in this place?” Christian missionary
teachers are the answer to those prayers.
ECA functions as a ministry to missionaries and as such, it cannot pay its
teachers, primarily because missionaries cannot afford to pay tuition for their children
to attend there. We, the current and future teachers at ECA, must be sent,
supported and prayed for, because we too are missionaries. Missionaries and their children are our
primary ministry. As soon as I graduate,
I will start support raising, and my goal is to be in Spain ready to teach by
August of 2015. I can no longer act as if this
is a might or a maybe or some far off pipe dream.
It is a vision for ministry and it is my true passion- God forgive me
for all the times I have tried to squelch this into something impossible
because it seemed too big, too hard, and too far away, for someone like me. God is faithful, and even though this
overwhelms me at times, I am confident, that “He who began a good work in me
will carry it on to completion”
Thank you all so much for taking the time to read this! Please keep me in your prayers as I continue
to take the necessary steps forward. You
will be receiving more information and updates from me in the future, but in
the meantime, below are some links and videos that will tell you more about ECA and it's ministry as well as my missions agency OMS!
Friday, August 1, 2014
The Perfume (Short Story)
I guess all of us have the same preconceived notions about
what a visit to a shrink will be like.
Even though it sounds silly, I think I really was anticipating being
asked to lay down on a long couch while some man older than God peered at me
over spectacles and asked personal questions about my childhood. Needless to say, none of that happened. I slid into the appointment five minutes
late. Partially because I’m generally
late to everything, and partially because, up until the last minute, I was
trying to decide if this was worth it.
“I really don’t NEED to talk to anyone about this,” I said to my
rear view mirror while sitting in the parking lot. “I’m perfectly capable of working this out
myself.” I swing between
self-sufficiency and the underlying whisper that tells me I need some help
here.
It’s a she, not a he, and she is neither ancient nor
intimidating. She’s, well, she’s very
normal seeming. This room we are in is bright yellow. She has pictures on her desk of two little
boys giggling at something. There is no
couch for me to lay on, just two chairs for us to sit. I sink into mine, hoping that it will absorb some
of my nervous energy. I am expecting
pleasantries and small talk. I hate
small talk when I’m fully at ease and comfortable, but at this moment in time,
I suddenly have the feeling that if she starts benignly asking me about what I
do for a living and what my dog’s name is, I might jump out of her smudge-free
window. Before the poor woman can get a
word out, I rapidly launch into a monologue that lacks introductions. “I need
to talk about my husband. Things are not
going well, and if something doesn't change I’m afraid that we are going to
lose our marriage.” There. Cat out of the bag.
This woman, my counselor, she does not seem thrown by this outburst
in the slightest. She smiles at me- and
I can tell that with that smile she is seeking to be both comforting and
reassuring. Against my better judgment,
I feel myself relax a little bit. She
does not reach for a note pad, and she does not begin a lecture. She just says, “I’m glad you’re here. Won’t you tell me about your husband?”
My husband. I begin
to nervously twist the wedding ring on my finger, that band that I love with
all of my heart, but sometimes resent, if I am honest. I begin.
“My husband is….wonderful. He’s
wonderful in every way. He loves me so
well. He cannot wait to come home to me
every day. He encourages my passions,
and… He’s so proud of me. And…and I love
him very much….” I sound rehearsed. Everything I just said is true. I know it to be true. Do I believe it to be true?
The woman across from me, nods encouragingly after a beat of
silence, and says, “He sounds like a very good man.” My response bursts forth quickly, louder than
I meant, “Oh He is! He is the best man I
have ever known!” With that statement
comes what I have been dreading. Guilt,
settled in my stomach, begins curling up into the back of my throat and closing
my mouth with tears. I’ve only been here
for five minutes. It’s too early to
start crying.
Again the nod of encouragement. Again, a soft question, “Hmm. Tell me what the trouble is then.”
Breathe. In. Out.
You can talk about this. You can.
That is why you are here. “He just. He just expects too much of me. I can’t do it. I’m always….upsetting him. It’s so stupid too because I feel like he
gets hurt by the tiniest little things.
And I don’t really understand why they are such a big deal. It’s not like I’m doing anything that
catastrophically horrible you know? I’m
not off sleeping with other men, I’m not lying to him, or sneaking off spending
all of his money on shoes and purses (I know wives that do that- I’m not that
kind of wife). I just wish he wasn’t so
sensitive!” The guilt and the tears that
had hovered on my voice a moment ago have been vaporized by a rush of indignation,
and perhaps even anger. This is really
why I’m here isn’t it? To have someone
affirm how I feel?
“Is there one specific thing that is upsetting him do you think?” She’s leaning in now, with her chin in her
hand, a contemplative look on her face.
Did she have to practice that listening look when she was studying to be
a counselor? I bet she did.
“There are a few things, but they are always so small and
insignificant. Like, for example, I
won’t wear the perfume he bought me.”
Her eyebrows raise quizzically in surprise. “Yeah right?
It’s completely ridiculous! He gave
it to me when we got married. And it’s
not that it doesn't smell pretty because it does. It’s, well it’s exquisite, and it was very
expensive. I don’t think I've ever owned
anything so expensive. And it sits on my
dresser in this huge gorgeous glass bottle.
I think I could spray it on every day of my life and never run out of
it. I’ve worn it a few times, but it
just is not a scent I’m used to. It’s
too nice for me. And the few times I’ve
worn it around my friends, they make comments about it. Some of them don’t even like it, but all of
them say things like, ‘Wow- that’s really different.’“ I’m feeling much better
now. She just looks so sympathetic. My vindication seems forthcoming.
“Different from what exactly?” She asks.
“Oh, just really different from the scent I used to wear
every day. It’s just SO up-scale. Almost pretentious.”
“What scent did you used to wear?”
“You know, something a bit more normal, not as nice. I forget the name of it honestly.” I am being evasive. I know I’m being evasive. Surely she’ll move on, right? Wrong.
“Well do you still have it? You’re old perfume I mean?”
Dang it. “Um. Well yeah I do.”
“And do you still wear it?
Since you don’t like the perfume that your husband bought you?”
In my head I know that these innocuous questions should not
bother me, but I can feel myself getting defensive. “I never said that I didn’t like the perfume
that my husband got me. It’s not that I
don’t like it, I just…it’s just….not me.
And yeah, I do still wear the old perfume sometimes, it’s not like I
flaunt it or anything. I just like to
wear it occasionally because it’s more comfortable for me. And I don’t understand why that should be
such a big deal.”
Wouldn’t you know, this woman has another damn question,
“How do you know that your husband is upset when you wear your old
perfume? Does he yell at you? Storm out?
Threaten to leave you?”
“Um. Well no. Nothing like that. He just….He just gets really sad. And quiet.
He doesn’t really want to be around me when I wear it. I always know to, he comes in the house, and
he’s happy and he’s himself and he can’t wait to see me and then he hugs me and
when I look at him there is this hurt in his eyes, and it’s awful. Like I’ve wounded him terribly. And I try to talk to him about it and I try
to reason with him. I’ve calmly and
kindly explained that he really needs to get over it. This kind of thing would never bother any of
my friend’s husbands. It’s just this
small thing that makes me feel better after a long day, because it’s familiar. Then he makes me feel guilty that I’ve hurt
him. But I should not have to feel
guilty about this!”
The ache that the
anger numbed temporarily has returned full force. This is what I cannot face. This is what I cannot swallow. Admitting to myself that I have hurt the man
who loves me, the man I claim I love.
There’s another stretching pause. She is letting my last speech just kind of
hang in the air between us for a while.
Dangling. Now I wish she would
ask another question. I wish she would
stop letting me listen to my own words like that.
“But is this such a small, insignificant, issue if you are
ready to leave him over it?”
“HE is the one who is making it such a colossal problem!” And
now even I can hear that I am lashing out, though to be honest I don’t know if
I’m lashing out at me, or her, or him.
“I don’t want to leave him. And
we can still be friends, I’m just not sure I can be his wife anymore. He wants me to forget who I was before we got
married. He wants me to just accept his
love and be this secure and joyful person, and maybe he can forget who I was
when we first met, but I can’t. And I
think maybe we would all be better off I just went back to the way things were
before.”
“Before? Were you
happy and secure before?”
Memories wash over me, flooding me, overwhelming me,
irritating wounds that have not quite yet faded to scars. It occurs to me now why I have never tried
this counseling thing up till now.
“No,” I finally manage.
Words seem inadequate at this point.
I do not elaborate.
“And how does your husband feel about the time before you
were married? Does he blame you? Shame you?
Does he bring up things from the past?”
The past. My shadow. Always gripping and biting at my heels
wherever I find myself. “He never talks
about my past. It’s like in his mind it
never happened. Sometimes I genuinely
think that he has amnesia. To him I have
never been anyone other than the wife that he loves.” Without meaning to, my voice has gone soft
and quavering. And in this moment I see
what the woman across from me must think is hugely obvious. My husband does not dredge up my past with
its explicit content. He does not splash
my failures on the canvas of our life together.
I do that.
I cut off her next question.
“So you see that’s why I just don’t see how things are going
to work out for us. He wants me to trust
him, he wants me to see myself the way he sees me, but I’m terrified that I
will never be able to. I just, I just
can’t wear his perfume, ok? I just
can’t. I've tried and I can’t. His expectations are entirely unrealistic.” I've rubbed my ring finger raw from tugging
at my wedding band.
She is strangely calm in the face of my ranting. I keep waiting for something profound, full
of psychological wisdom. Maybe some
advice about divorce proceedings? But I
don’t get it.
“Zoe,” She says. (And
I’m startled because she hasn’t used my name until now) “Who gave you the perfume that you wear every
day?”
I close my eyes involuntarily. I shut out the woman and the office and the
photograph with the smiling children.
But his face is there, painted on the back of my eyelids. I cannot see him without seeing myself. How I used to live and breathe both in need
and in fear of him. My heart shakes and
quivers, reliving the words that once sliced my organs to ribbons, recalling
losing all that I was to his all-consuming appetites. Do we have to talk about him? I hate him.
Don’t I?
“Oh,” I shrug, a little too flippantly to be convincing,
“Just an ex-boyfriend of mine.”
“And did he love you, this old boyfriend of yours?”
I shrug again. “He
called it love I guess.” I am done. This has not gone as planned. I have another appointment. I really do have to go. These words are on my tongue. I am standing up to leave. She is still sitting. She seems unperturbed. She has just one final question.
“So. Will you turn
your back on your marriage because the memory of an ex-lover is more
comfortable than the unconditional love of your husband?”
I am standing at the door of her office with the yellow
walls, my ring clinking against the knob as I grip it with all the strength I
have. Which isn't much.
Will I indeed?
For your Maker is
your husband- The Lord Almighty is His name- The Holy One of Israel is your
Redeemer; he is called the God of all the earth. The Lord will call you back as if you were a
wife deserted and distressed in spirit, a wife who married young and was rejected.
Isaiah 54:5
Sunday, April 20, 2014
Cling to the Crucified
[Jesus traveled about from one town and village to another, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God. The Twelve were with Him, and also some women who had been cured of evil spirits and diseases: Mary (called Magdalene) from whom seven demons had come out] Luke 8:2[Then the disciples went back to their homes, but Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus' body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot.
They asked her, "Woman, why are you crying?"
"They have taken my LORD away," she said, "and I don't know where they have put Him."
At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus.
"Woman," he said, "why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?"
Thinking he was the gardener, she said, "Sir, if you have carried Him away, tell me where you have put Him, and I will get Him."
Jesus said to her, "Mary."
She turned toward Him and cried out in Aramaic, "Rabboni!" (Which means Teacher).
Jesus said, "Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet returned to the the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, 'I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.'"
Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: "I have seen the Lord!" And she told them that He had said these things to her.] John 20:10-18
What would it be like to be possessed by seven demons? I wonder what Mary's life was like before she met Jesus. Scripture does not tell us. But I think my imagination can fill in the gaps. A life consumed by lust, anxiety, and self-loathing. Despair. A life without hope and without a future. She would have been an outcast, considered unclean and outside the reach of God, deserving only of His wrath and condemnation. How did Mary spend her days before Jesus? Was she constantly running from the voices in her head? Did she try to do little acts of kindness, little good deeds, to try in desperation to even out the scale a bit in the face of the crushing weight of her own failures? Did she wake up some mornings next to a stranger that she did not remember from the night before? Did she try to buy her way into the temple in a frenzied attempt to make some kind of atonement for herself? Had the devils that haunted her shredded her soul to the point where death seemed a blessed relief? When I think of her wandering through the unsavory back streets of Jerusalem, I see a woman hovering between death and life, a woman plagued by Satan to the point of insanity. I pity this fallen possessed woman, this Mary Magdalene. This woman with whom I have nothing in common.
Jesus saw Mary. He saw her. When everyone else saw her sin and her bizarre behavior and the fact that she was unclean, Jesus saw HER. He looked upon her ravaged heart and chose to heal and restore her. She could do nothing to commend herself to Him. She would never have come to Him on her own. She had only received condemnation and hatred from the religious leaders and teachers in the past, why should this Rabbi from Nazareth be any different? And yet, this Jesus. This man. This God. This Savior. He whose presence made the demons in her head shudder fear and respond in obedience. What did she feel that first moment when she discovered silence? The voices had ceased to rage, and, perhaps for the first time in her life, Mary knew Peace. And He had a name. Jesus. The Christ. He would be her Messiah from that day forward. In the presence of the God-man the demons had fled, and as long as she followed after Him, the Joy that He offered her kept the lust and fear and the bitterness at bay. He was her Freedom. He was her Hope. On second thought, maybe Mary and I have more in common than I want to admit.
Mary Magdalene was the first person to see the Risen Christ. She was at the tomb first thing on Sunday morning. I can only imagine her anguish. Hope had died. How could the Sun have risen that morning? How could light be shining? The Creator had bled and breathed His last, how dare the birds sing? How dare the dew glisten on every blade of grass? I picture her indignation and her blazing anger at the sight of the empty tomb. How dare they touch the body of her Lord! How dare they desecrate He whom they had already scourged beyond recognition! This was to be her last moment with Him, her last chance to honor in death the One who had given her life. No doubt she turned on the gardener in blinding pain and righteous anger. But then. Then He said her name.
And then I remember. My God is not dead. He is surely alive. The right that Mary Magdalene had to worship at the feet of the Risen Savior on that Easter Morning is my right as well, both this morning and every morning.
My sins have been washed away. I will cling to the Hope I profess. His name is Jesus. And He is Alive!
Wednesday, December 18, 2013
Unsteady Shoulders
Interestingly enough, what that verse about bearing burdens that I mentioned earlier actually says is, "Brothers and Sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently. But watch yourselves, or you may be tempted. Carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ" (Its Galatians 6:1-3 by the way. Yes, I just googled it.) Here's the catch about that whole carrying burdens thing. I'm supposed to help bear burdens, but I'm ALSO supposed to allow other people into my life to help me bear mine. I'm not just supposed to give godly advice, I'm supposed to learn how to humbly receive it. It is true that I'm supposed to love the people in my life, care for them, hold them when they cry, pray for them, listen to them, and ultimately I'm supposed to lead them back to the God who can sustain them in the midst of their pain. But I'm also supposed to let other people do that for me too. Kind of scary. To be totally honest. All that vulnerability, it takes courage, and more than a little bit of humility.
The reason I'm writing about this right now is because this past semester I have been learning just what exactly this looks like. I have an incredible community of friends in my life who love me and who love Jesus. We've all been friends for a while now, but, well, it has just been one of those semesters. We have all been through a lot of various difficult things. There's been a lot of pain and a lot of late night talks and a lot of tears and tissues and chocolate. Now normally, I would have followed my old pattern, which is to absorb everyone else's hurt and share none of my own. To try and fix everyone and put a good face on it and convince everyone that I have got it all together. But this semester, with this group of beautiful people, I have (started?) taking off the perfection mask. I have started to let people in, and it has been harder than I have been willing to admit. I do not like people seeing my sin and my mess. I do not like admitting when I am struggling with things. I hate it when people see me cry.
But in the past weeks and months I have discovered something extraordinary. These friends of mine have seen me as I really am. They have heard my rantings and my frustrations. They have seen my tears, and they have not turned away. I have received so much love and hugs and truth. Truth, spoken in love, but spoken none the less. These are the kinds of people who ask me how I'm doing and when I say "I'm fine," they look me straight in the eyes, in that awkward uncomfortable way that only works with friends who already spend way too much time together and go, "No. You're not. Tell me all about it." You know what's crazy? I DO! And they listen! The blessing of it all overwhelms my soul.
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
There Are No Orphans of God
........and yet.......
I am.
I'm just too proud to admit it.
So how did this bold, brash, almost 22 year old, finally get around to admitting all these fears? Well, as soon as finals finished the first week of May, I found myself in Panama City, Florida with some of my best friends for a Christian Conference with RUF. I never wanted to leave that bubble of sand, and ocean, and hours upon hours of time with my Lord, something I desperately needed. One of the seminars that I attended was entitled "Adoption: Living Under the Smile of Your Father", and at first it was all stuff I had heard. If you're a Christian you are an adopted daughter or son of God, and He is your Father. Right. Got it. But then the speaker went down a route that I wasn't expecting. He started to talk about what it looks like to live as a Spiritual Orphan, and what happens when a son or daughter refuses to live as God's child. The speaker asked us to listen as he listed the qualities that characterize the Spiritual Orphan and to prayerfully consider if perhaps that condition was true of our lives. The Spiritual Orphan lives as if God has not risked everything to bring them into His family of love, acceptance, and compassion. The Spiritual Orphan does not believe that God loves her unconditionally. Instead, the Spiritual Orphan lives in perpetual mistrust and fear of the Father who loves her.
Now for most people in the room, that idea probably seemed like a nice analogy, one of those great metaphors meant to simply assist in the grasping of a theological concept. But for me it was so much more graphic than that. For me, loving an orphan who does not love you back is not just an idea and it's not just an analogy. It's been a daily part of my life for the past eight years. And for that reason, as I found myself identifying more and more with the description of the Spiritual Orphan, I began to feel like I had swallowed a rock.
My parents chose my little brother Peter before he even knew they existed. Before he was Peter he was Vitya, living cold and hungry and miserable in an orphanage on the other side of the world. He had never known love, or plenty, or compassion, or joy, or family. There was nothing particularly noteworthy or impressive about him. My parents did not choose to adopt him because he was the brightest, or the most handsome, or the kindest of all the orphans in the world. In fact, quite the opposite, when my mom and dad arrived in the orphanage in Kazakhstan the workers at the orphanage tried to persuade them to choose another more intelligent child. But they had come for Peter. They had come for Peter because God had chosen Peter, and my parents, despite all the unknowns and the "What-ifs", decided to risk it all and obey.
Peter became my little brother when I was fourteen and he was six. He literally went from nothing to everything. Suddenly he had his own room, a brother, two sisters, a mom and a dad. He had three meals a day, hugs, kisses, grandparents, a bike, and a puppy. My parents lavished all these things on him and more, not out of obligation, but because it was their joy to do so. He was in paradise. But despite all the love and the the blessings that have been showered down upon him, my little brother still spends much of his life in petrified fear and anxiety, with a desperate need for control. Peter has been given so many good things, and yet he cannot trust them. He cannot be thankful for them. The wounds from his childhood, the abandonment, the despair, and the loss, all go so deep that they have inhibited his ability to experience anything good. Peter will be happy for a brief moment, or let love slip in for just a blink of an eye, and then immediately sabotage it out of fear. Fear that if he loves it will destroy him. Fear that if he lets us in, we would hurt him. For so many years I have watched him and wondered how on earth he could manage to not know how to trust the family that has unconditionally loved and served him for so many years. Does he not realize all that my parents sacrificed to rescue him? Does he not know that we want the best for him? Is he blind to the pain in my mother's eyes every time he rejects her? Has he no concept of the fact that my parents saw a stranger and willingly chose to give him a new name, and a new life, and to call him son, even when he did nothing to deserve it? No. No he does not. And there are no adequate words to really describe what it is like to live with someone for whom you have sacrificed everything, who remains willfully afraid of you. So while others in that seminar down in Florida sat jotting down notes about whether or not they were a Spiritual Orphan, I found myself struggling to keep it together. Suddenly the pain that I have seen my parents go through with my little brother became the hurt of my Lord and Savior. Suddenly I was identifying with Peter, my brother who I claim that I cannot understand and with whom I have often thought that I had nothing in common. In that moment I think that I grasped, in some small way, the deep ache that I cause my Father God every time I refuse to trust Him. The speaker did not have to tell me that when I live as a Spiritual Orphan that I break the heart of God. I already knew that part. I know, because I've watched my parent's hearts break. The speaker also did not have to tell me that no matter how many times I fail to accept my Father's love, no matter how many times I reject Him and grasp for control of my own life, He will never stop choosing to love me. He will never stop calling me daughter. I know, because my parents will never stop choosing to love Peter, and they will never stop calling him son, because that is what he is, whether he ever fully appreciates what that means or not.
1 John 4:18 says, "There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear" My Savior loves me with a perfect, unending, undying love. He loves my lost little brother with that same love. And in that love, I must believe, that there is hope. Hope for me. Hope for Peter. Hope that every day is a new opportunity for us to live, not as fearful orphans, but as the son and daughter that we were created to be, purchased by the blood of Jesus for the glory our everlasting Father.
Tuesday, January 1, 2013
Cuan Grande es Mi Dios- Remembering 2012
Corrie Ten Boom once said, "Hold everything in your hands lightly, otherwise it hurts when God pries your fingers open." Coming from a woman who lost everything and everyone she loved as a result of obeying God, those words hold considerable weight for me. At the beginning of January last year I was one among over 45,000 college students that packed the Georgia dome for Passion 2012. Looking out over the sea of faces on the first night of the conference, my heart pulsing along with the beat of the music and my eyes blinking at the flashing strobe lights, I remembered Corrie Ten Booms words. I remembered as I watched all of the hands raised high in worship and then felt a sharp pain run up my arm. Looking down, I saw that I was clenching my hands so hard that my nails were digging into my palms. I did not even bother to open them in order to wipe away the tears that was running in rivulets down my face. Many people had come to Passion overflowing with joy and excitement, looking forward to a week of rejuvenation, incredible worship, and amazing speakers. But I was not one of them. I came with heavy burdens, I came with a heart that was raw and bleeding, but above all I came with hands clenched tight and no desire to open them.
God has made me a lot of promises. There's this one, that goes something like, "In all things, God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose". At that moment in the Georgia Dome, I didn't know a whole lot for sure, but one thing I did know was that I definitely loved Him. That hadn't changed. But the God that I loved did not feel very good. Maybe at one point in time I had felt called according to His purpose, but my pain was so overwhelming right then that any such calling felt irrelevant. God had given me a gift for a time, and now He wanted it back because I had started to clutch too tightly. The problem? I did not know who I was without it, and it felt like God was asking me to rip myself in two. I knew what He wanted from me, but I was afraid of the prying. I was afraid of the hurt.
It took me a while. It took some incredible friends who prayed with me, and let me cry, and loved me in the midst of my mess before I finally got to a place where I could meekly relax my grip, wipe my scratched palms on my jeans, and timidly raise them in supplication to the God whom I knew to be faithful. The God I knew to be trustworthy. The God I knew to be good- even when my feelings added up to the contrary. What Corrie Ten Boom's quote doesn't mention is what it feels like after you let God go to work on your clenched fists with a sledge hammer. With nothing to grasp onto, I was left empty handed. And the emptiness was worse than the pain.
It was one of the last nights of Passion and Francis Chan was going to be speaking. My friends and I wanted to get as close as we possibly could, so as soon as the doors to the Dome were open we ran to the entrance to the floor seats. I tried to feel their excitement, desperately trying to conjure up all the enthusiasm that everyone else in that massive arena seemed to be feeling. We made it to the floor and ended up only a couple rows back from the stage. As the worship began, I bowed my head under a weight that was becoming familiar, the weight of emptiness. And while I preferred this weight to the burden of anger that I had been dragging behind me when I first got to Passion, I found it almost impossible to worship when the silence in my soul was drowning out the drums pounding just a few feet from me. When Chris Tomlin came out and first began to sing how Great is Our God, I hardly noticed. It is a song that I have heard so many times that I can sing it in my sleep. But this was different.
Suddenly, there was another voice. And then another. All of us in the audience had stopped singing, riveted by the group of men on the stage, singing the lyrics of "How Great is Our God" in several different languages while images of other nations flashed on the screens. I stood with open, trembling hands, and finally, at last, The God of the Universe, who is indeed very Great, spoke into my emptiness. Would I surrender? Would I trust Him? Would I believe that He was Great? This God who was known, proclaimed, and worshiped in every nation and in every language as King, would I bow the knee and acknowledge His supremacy once more? As I looked up into the faces of the singers on that stage, as I saw the joy brimming and overflowing on the faces of the African children singing in the choir, I remembered. I remembered that God was Good. I remembered that I had been called according to His purpose. And I remembered another promise, "He satisfies the thirsty and fills the hungry with good things". He could handle my emptiness. If I would let Him, He would fill me with good things. On that day, my Lord rekindled the ember in my heart for a lost and hurting world. He flooded my emptiness with love, a love for other people and a passion for a life of ministry that I had forgotten. How Great is my God? Indescribably Great.
I cannot say that this moment changed much of anything in any physical or practical terms. I still had to let go of some things that I did not want to go of, and I still had to hurt. A lot. And God still had to pry open my hands every time I tried to snatch back what I believed to be rightfully mine. But my Lord did not abandon me. In my moment of great pain and loneliness, He got down on my level, He spoke to me in a way I could understand, and above all He granted me the grace to endure what He asked of me. When I look back on 2012, there have been many such difficult times of all shapes, sizes and varieties, but when I have been tempted to grow bitter, this is the moment I have returned to again and again- me standing at the foot of that stage listening to God's name being praised in every tongue and knowing without a shadow of doubt that the same God being worshiped there by so many would never leave me and would never forsake me. On that promise, I have placed my hope, and on that promise I will rely as I step with joy into 2013. Happy New Year to All- Cuan Grande es Mi Dios!
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