I am not my own…

I have completed my first full year of church ministry, weird.

I’m still getting used to actually knowing people in the town I occupy. I don’t pay too much attention to people around me when I’m out and about, not because I don’t care but because I don’t expect to recognize anyone.

It is that feeling of isolation amidst the masses, like feeling alone in a crowded room. My tendencies to hibernate and be a homebody have been fostered out of grieving for the community I had in college. The people I hung out with in school always varied, but community was always found.  Somehow I allowed myself to believe that once I left campus I would not find community again, but God has built us for community and He has transplanted me into one that is loving and supportive. The thing that keeps me from melding into this community and from forming new communities is the idea that I am my own and I am on my own.

“I am on my own. I am my own.” This sentiment is felt stronger still since I have moved away from family, friends and all that is familiar. I set out on my own. See even there, “on my own”. It is so engrained that I have come on this venture “on my own”, but it is a false engraving on my mindset. I have done nothing “on my own” and never will.

God goes before me and makes the path.

I have become entrenched amidst the independent population and have taken pride in being an “independent individual”.  But humans are made for relationship and so cannot sanely carry on by themselves for long. It cripples the individual by creating  a self made prison within their independence. When you don’t need anyone or their help, you trap yourself without anyone or their help to help you out. Ironic, no?

Vulnerability is the key. God uses the weak things to shame the strong, the foolish things to shame the proud.

Nothing says shame to independence like vulnerability. In fact vulnerability is viewed as a weakness. Why would any independent person become vulnerable? Why would they begin to tear down their own stronghold? Because I am not my own and neither are you.

Vulnerability is an ugly matter. It comes in the form of tears, weepy voices, snotty noses and puffy eyes. Vulnerability comes in the moments when I want to batten down the hatches and weather whatever storm is ahead in independent silence. It comes when I don’t want the chinks or weaknesses in my armor to show. It comes when keeping a firm and calm resolve would gain me much more ground. It comes because God isn’t concerned with me looking pretty, toughing out the storm, being bullet proof or getting ahead.

God is concerned with being glorified and with taking care of His children. He doesn’t need me to be tear free and have an unblotchy, red face. He needs me to have a tender and gentle heart so that I might hear His voice and understand His priorities. God doesn’t need me to tough out the storm because He is as present in the hurricane as He is in the calm and my strength won’t change the outcome of either. God doesn’t need me to be bullet proof because He will defend me and protect me. He doesn’t need me to get ahead or gain more ground because all too often it is falling off the mountain top that transforms my life more than reaching the summit does.

It is in realizing that I am not my own that I understand more of who I am.

I got a beautiful chance to get alone with God a few weeks ago. It was a cool stormy night that was free of obligations. I decided to go walk on the beach which was almost deserted because of the weather. I started out standing in the receding tide just waiting to hear God’s voice. I rarely take the opportunity to sit in the silence and wait on the Lord. It was beautiful. The way a storm paints the sky when the sun sets always mesmerizes me. What followed was an outpouring of wounds both fresh and scarred. All of it came from this underlining thought that “I am my own”. God tore through that and showed me what I really believe. It was humbling and devastating, but healing as well.

I have been blessed with opportunities to mentor some of our young girls and I recently met with one over tacos. As we shared our weeks with each other I shared some frustrations of life. She wisely reminded me that these frustrations are far from over and that I will need to reside in God even more this next year. It is always a process and one that currently feels like a snail’s pace. I am the new person and even as I close the first year of being new I feel like it will never end. I will always be out of the loop and years behind the long history of our students and our church. That is just how a small town is and it has both benefits and negatives. The biggest negatives is that I am coming from a strong community where everyone started fresh together, where there was no history to be set up against and so quirks and habits were accepted because there was no established “norm” with which to compare. The community before that was one in which I grew up in and so the history there was shared. It is a difficult trade: roots to being uprooted.

Here I am jumping into a position with no history and no roots and so a lot of my quirks and habits are completely different and strange. Most of the time I don’t mind the differences being noted and I know I don’t help myself out (I like to knit and sew, cook, bake, make things, wander and sit at coffee shops). If I’m not careful I might even slip into becoming a filthy hipster (a reference for the college friends). The biggest thing that hurts is that I don’t have a soul near by with whom I share a common history and so the days where I am teased and joked with (all in love), I stand alone.

And there it is again! “I stand alone.” God is breaking me of my dependency on familiarity. I need to be known and I ignorantly choose to find that in family and friends when the only way to be known is to be known by God. He has surrounded me with ample opportunity to be known by Him, but these habits are hard to break. I have never lived alone and yet this past year God placed me in a rental apartment in a retirement like community that is really only used by the elderly who visit during the winter months! No wonder I knit.

Still in all the silence an elderly community brings I struggle with seeking God out in the quiet places. I pump up the music and bring out the distractions waiting for the perfect community to find me. God’s answer?

Hosea 2:6&14-15  ”Therefore I will block her path with thornbushes; I will wall her in so that she cannot find her way…. Therefore I am now going to allure her; I will lead her into the dessert and speak tenderly to her. There I will give her back her vineyards, and will make the Valley of Achor a door of hope. There she will sing as in the days of her youth, as in the day she came up out of Egypt.”

He has taken me far from a place that was my own and from family and friends so that I will remember my first love and hold tightly to His promise. He is removing independence and lies I have held onto and He is reminding me of who I am.

I pray that as this second year begins I remember that I am not alone or on my own and when I feel battered and bruised with no roots to hold me down that I will cling to the God who is mighty to save, the One who transplanted me here with a plan in mind and that I will “remember even in the darkness what He has shown me in the light” (thank you mama and Mumford & Sons).

The danger with reminiscing through someone else’s eyes

I’m moving again, a habit I just can’t seem to shake. I’ve been moving ever since I first left the nest in 2007. I have yet to live in one building/room/house/apartment/cupboard/what-have-you for more than a year. In fact I have yet to live a full year in any domicile.

I wonder what that says about my life. I’ll have to save the addressing of my “commitment issues” for another posting, possibly. (see what I did there?)

Anyway, in my process of change and habitual movement I have once more weeded through all of my belongings to discard or save all that I have acquired since the last move. I have a great many books, but I have come to realize that I often love the idea of my books instead of the books themselves as many of them are not attended to nor are they read until the time of transportation comes. A tragedy, I know, one that I am planing to remedy.

It was upon the realization of this tragedy that I stumbled upon my  Senior year Yearbook from the college I attended. Reminiscing two years ago sounds pathetic, but oh so much has happened in these past two years that it felt more like a decade had passed and so remembering was perfectly in order.

And so began the trouble….

Flipping through the pages of The Forrester, the title of the Toccoa Falls College Yearbook, I found myself depressed. Subtlety and almost unknowingly I began to play the how-many-times-can-I-find-myself-in-this-book game.
Don’t pretend like you’ve never played, we all do.
Now this particular year of The Forrester had met with quite a lot of calamity as a hard drive had crashed and many photos had been lost, but that did not factor into my game. I sunk deeper and deeper into morose remembrance as page after page I noted moments in which I had never been a part of and I knew exactly that the fault was my own.
I had chosen to not be a part of these moments.
I had chosen to catalogue my years at college in a completely different fashion and yet knowing that did not abate the pangs of regret, the feeling of loss and the overwhelming sense that I had wasted my years in such a strong community.

And then I came to the Graduation section of the yearbook and it was my turn to be a bit embarrassed at all the ridiculous poses and faces I was making in the camera’s view, which did not help to lift my sullen mood. Even though now I was doing well at the ridiculous game I allowed the feeling of missing out turned to frustration. Not only had I missed out on events and community I had purposely chosen to be absent from those moments.

Many of my friends could back the fact that I hid when it came to photos, for some it became a game to see how many times they could get a snap shot of me. It was all in good fun, but I still don’t enjoy being photographed (reason #15 why I plan to never become famous and so have kept all of my mad skills on the down low).
Knowing this fact about myself I still allowed myself to become frustrated when I couldn’t locate my Kodak moments within the pages of The Forrester. I internally told myself that recorded moments translated to value.
I was not valued in college because there are no photos of me.

I believe we all do this in multiple areas of life.

We allow others to assert value through Twitter followers, Facebook likes and shares, blog readers and Instagram photos. The lie we believe is that the more hype  our lives generate via social media increases our worth.
This reminds me of another lie I jokingly and oftentimes seriously battled in college: the lie that the contents of my P.O. Box reflected my value as a person and that if I was not receiving mail then no one cared. I was not alone in this lie and even when I didn’t believe the words I would repeat ”Your worth as a person is not defined by the contents of your mail box.”  to every student who dejectedly closed their empty P.O. Box.

This lie, like so many others is how Satan works, how he distracts and attacks us. He convinces us that we are alone and should abandon all hope. He shakes our memories to recall only the times we have been ignored or overlooked and all those memories willingly come forward. And why? Because we are built for community and so when community is lacking or our idea of it is threatened we close ranks and throw away fellowship all together.

The danger with my reminiscing through someone else’s eyes is that I allow them to interpret moments, moments in which they have no insight.

Why did I miss those events?
It wasn’t because I was sulking in my room, it was because I was creating community, making memories and having fellowship away from the lens of the camera.

I do wish I had participated in more college activities, but I am so very grateful for the moments  and times I had with friends even when I can’t flip through a book to remind myself of those moments. My memories of life are not often captured in still images, but rather they are found in the relationships and stories those memories created. Images and photos are fantastic, but they are limited. A picture may be worth a thousand words, but stories and experiences change lives. Photos will fade, be lost or discarded. Many things will be forgotten, but only that which was done to glorify the Father will endure and it was with that goal that my best memories are founded.

My most cherished times are the times that my faith was tested, my relationship with God was strengthened and I was used to glorify Him. The best memories I have are the days when I was overwhelmed with the presence of God and when He revealed His love, when I was left sitting in stunned awe of Him.

There is a danger with reminiscing through someone else’s eyes, even my own, but there is no danger in reminiscing through the eyes of God. Allowing Him to remind me of all that He has brought me through is the best part of remembering, for then the purpose is not to prove what I have done, but rather what has been done for me.

The mighty fall

How can might be right?   And why do we buy into that idea?

No wonder we have such a problem with bulling in schools and on playgrounds. We teach children this lie in almost every area of life. Even the smallest child realizes that his heroes must be bigger or stronger than the monsters in order to conquer the menacing foe. Our schools, colleges and universities teach that in order to prove how smart or educated one is they must have a bigger knowledge base and a verbose vocabulary with which to establish educational dominance. Even those who cheat, lie and steal know that the competition is found in the size of the swindle, the fool, the take.

Bigger is the logical best.
Might is the manipulating right.

Could it be that we have misunderstood what might is right? Whose might is right?
But then who would dare argue with the big looming logical giant? Even in the political and legal arena the stronger argument wins, the majority vote takes the victory. And so it is with that argument that we have accepted whichever side is bigger in attendance must be right.

Not only does might seem to be right, but it also must beat down and pound out every shred of hidden doubt or questioning rebellion. You see the might of the right is shakily insecure and only breeds discontent. Any whispered comment or sideways glance welcomes a fight that shouts,

“I will beat you until you understand how right I am. I will bludgeon and blind you until you see my side of things.”

For might with all it’s insecurities brings a blindness of its own, a shutting out of the light and the truth.
Oh how quickly the mighty fall and only too quickly they are replaced by a new might.
Will it ever end, our terrible thirst to step on the bodies of those below us in our quest for greatness, power and the individual’s way?
How many times must we tear down our brothers?
How often need we devastate their strength and God given identity?
And as for the outcast, the wounded, the ones in need of aid, why must they be trampled upon?
That is where the “might is right” logic leads, to trodding upon the downtrodden, attacking the defenseless, abandoning those who seek our shelter, hurting those who need our protection.
Why do the “mighty” attack the disgraced, the abused and the misused?
Why do they seek validation in other’s humiliation?
How many lives must be degraded, disillusioned and dismissed in our efforts to keep our images clean?
How far mislead we all have been!
What lies we have believed and now stand upon as principles for life!
It in these lies that we have been sold into a slavery of our own making, one that will never end until we recognize how entrapped we have become by our own lies, the lies we sold the victims of our pride. That is the lie that we must sully another so that our own misfortunes and mistakes will be forgotten or overlooked. The idea that if I throw enough blood and dirt on my neighbor, no one will see the condition of my hands, dripping with guilt.

There was a time I believed all life’s problems to be solved by the bashing of heads together to slam the brains into gear. I was always armed with verbal assaults, razor sharp wit and a double edged tongue with which to lash the common idiot to shreds.
When I was a child I thought like a child and I acted like a child, a child who sees might as right.
So I held ready my right to prove my might and woe to any who stood in my way.

Thankfully God is gracious, patient and slow to anger. His wisdom stays the hand of the reckless young who vow to redeem the lost world with or without God’s help. They have their own plans for salvation and they don’t include any part of long-suffering, service, humility or grace. Those attributes are for the pious old ladies who sit in the church pews and know nothing of change or progress, the very ladies who do more with their patient prayers for the lost than many evangelists do with their misconstrued radicle ways of “loving” and “saving”.

I don’t claim to be where I know I should on the path towards holiness. I only strive towards the goal set before me as I struggle through my own selfish ambitions. I fight to keep my hands from attempting to direct the chisel God holds in His palm as He chips away the rough edges and shatters the form I’ve made for myself.

Oh that I would cloak myself with humility and grace rather than the verbal cape and mace of “might”. For it is with humility and grace that great and true changes are made. It is in the steady constant character of prayer and submission to the ultimate Authority that lives are saved.

It is time to let go of the worded weapons with which we seek to wound one another. It is time to release our plans and designs for control. It is time to still the tongue and ready the heart for softening. It is time to take ourselves off the throne and relinquish the imagined status of might and power we believed to have held.

It is time to see the true Might do what is truly right.

Forgiving Criminals no matter the offence

Maggie Barankitse dubbed the “Angel Of Burundi” and founder of The House of Peace talks about forgiving the man who killed her family.

This is what we are all called to do, if only we could be as honest, brave and true to Christ as Maggie.

The world is falling apart Chicken Little…

The world is falling apart quickly.
News headlines of deaths, bombings, diseases, hunger and hurting cry out in one defeated voice, “All is lost, abandon hope.”
All does seem lost by the time the ink hits the page. Too much destruction for anything to be saved and too many lives lost for any to be won.
Or so it seems….

The world is falling apart publicly.
The media will never stop bringing bad news around, dropping their headlines like little bombs at our feet.
Death and ruin are everywhere at once.
The desolation abounds and nothing shows any sign of mending.
The temptation is to turn a deaf ear and blind eye to all the madness.
One could pretend that life is fine and the world will always spin round.
But what happens when the world stops spinning?
What will we do when we are thrown from our peaceful perch of illusion into the dark, unforgiving world writhing below our feet that seeks any bit of light or hope to destroy?
For “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not understood it.” (John 1:5) and the world tends to attack that which it doesn’t understand.
Who could understand a God who loves unconditionally?
A Father who loved us first while we sat in the muck and mire of selfish ruin?
No, the world will not believe that such a being  exists and so it seeks to destroy and devourer all who reflect the image of this loving Creator.
We are told to reflect the One who is light in a world gone dark, a world filled with people who have forgotten that they are loved.

The world is falling apart, as will those living in it unless we cling to the One who saves that which is lost, more specifically, that which lost itself.
That lost thing the Savior came to save is us. We are the lost child who has wandered away into the dark and now cries desperately to be found.
We are not left alone, even in the dark. God brings light to the dark places and hope to the broken: Micah 7:8 says, “Do not gloat over me,  my enemy! Though I have fallen, I will rise. Though I sit in darkness the LORD will be my light.”

So here we sit at the tipping point with the darkness closing in faster and faster. Though the days ahead are treacherous and alarming we must still bring light to the dark places.

The world is falling apart, but God holds all things together and He is not done with any of us: “Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. ” (2 Cor 1:9)

What need we fear when the God we serve raises the dead to life?

The silent wonders

I quickly forget how amazing the beach is, which is what happened with the mountains in Georgia. I find myself seeking out these places only when I need to be overwhelmed with something bigger than me and my troubles. I am never disappointed with seeking God in the silent glory of His creation and it never goes how I planned.

Some days I seek the silent works of God when those are the days He desires to show me His living work, His children. Some days I am surrounded and distracted with comparing myself, my needs and my worries with the worries, needs and people around me. Those are the days God draws me out into the wilderness and reminds me of just how elegant and intricate He has made His silent wonders.

My favorite memories with my dad include the nights that we would go star gazing and watch meteor showers raining down from the sky. There just happened to be a meteor shower of some sort every time we went camping which just added to the atmosphere of camping.

I remember him waking my sister and I up for a meteor shower in the middle of winter and us layering on warm clothes so that we wouldn’t miss a single moment worrying about the freezing cold. There was something so surreal about star gazing in the middle of a winter night, something so mystical and phantom like that would mesmerize even the sleepiest of gazers. Those were times when I watched and realized how fantastic God’s creation is and how very small and insignificant I am.The stars will forever hold me captive, those silent glowing wonders. They stand in the heavens burning brightly and I need only look up…

 
Take a gander for yourself and see:

*all images have been taken from hubblesite.org

So I’d like to build myself a telescope, in fact I’ve already drawn up plans. I’m going to take it up as a hobby seeing as the only other feasible previous suggestion was to get my concealed weapons permit. The only thing I’m going to do with a gun is shoot the huge wolf spiders that I see creeping about my house, so telescope building it is! I know my telescope will be nothing compared to Hubble or even the one that comes in 3rd place in a 7th grade science fair, but still I’m really really excited!

Maybe my nerd is showing a little bit more these days but I can’t stop sitting and staring at the images. They both frighten and overwhelm me. They frighten me because they remind me of how wicked big God’s creation is and they overwhelm me because He keeps all of this going in motion yet still finds the time to comfort me when I’m wounded. The fact that He still cares about my small, silly problems when he births new stars and galaxies causes my head to spin.

Who am I that you should worry for me God?
Who am I that you should take notice of me?
Who am I that you should seek relationship with me and seek to save me?
Who am I?
I am God’s child and hopefully a silent wonder….

Better plans

I love the way that God works and that He disrupts my plans to include me in His.

I was headed to the beach the other day to enjoy some sunshine, something I tend to view as a luxury and one in which I rarely engage even though I have been in Florida for several months. As I was driving I saw a semi-familiar face sitting under the South causeway. I had decided to stop and grab some food before I hit the beach, so after grabbing two sandwiches at Mon Delice (my favorite beach side venue which is a small, nicely priced, French bakery) I headed back towards the causeway. I was a tad bit unsure of how this all was going to work out or if the face I saw did belong to someone I knew and so I tossed up a quick prayer and continued to follow where God was leading.

What I thought would be a spiritual respite on the beach soaking up some sunshine and reading some books turned into a conversation under a bridge. I parked my car at a deli and crossed the road. As I walked over to the man I wasn’t sure if he was who I was looking for and as I got closer to him, he wasn’t sure he knew me. Then recognition hit and a smile crossed both of our faces. It was Bobby.

I had gotten a call the night before from one of the guys in the church who was looking for Bobby and wondered if I knew of any hot meal programs going on where he might find him. I called around with no luck so when I saw Bobby the next day I knew I needed to stop.

Turns out God knows what He is doing, go figure right?

Bobby had been in the hospital for the past three days and was supposed to get together with some of the men in the church to prepare for the missions trip going on this next week. He felt terrible that he had missed a meeting and wanted to get a hold of the guys, but didn’t have a way to do so. I happened to have their numbers and so phone calls were made.

While Bobby was on the phone a few other guys came over and started to hassle us a bit. I wasn’t too worried as we were in broad daylight in a busy intersection. One of the guys was saying something about this being his spot, but was talking only to Bobby. The man asked if I had any cash on me (I didn’t) and made a comment on my lanyard, which is a Marine Core promotional item I picked up a few years ago at an air show.

When I was working at the boarding school the boys saw the lanyard and assumed that I was an ex-Marine. For those of you who know me don’t laugh so hard, you might choke.

I told him where I had gotten it and he mentioned something about being in the military and being “disavowed”. While he was talking I looked over at Bobby who just rolled his eyes and shook his head. I made some comment about how that was unfortunate and then I let the conversation die. The guy moved on, looking for a better prospect.

After Bobby’s calls were through and connections were made with the mission team he warned me about the other two guys. He made a comment about how he wasn’t worried about them, but to keep my guard up when they came around. I told him that I knew God was watching my back and that I figured Bobby was too. He agreed and then launched into what would be an hour long conversation on God and His work.

We had done this before.
When I first met Bobby it was at a Cold Weather Shelter program for the homeless when the temperature drops below 40. We had two days in a row of cold weather and I didn’t get to know any of the homeless until the second day. The first night was consumed with all of the volunteers figuring out how this whole thing was going to work, what to do and what not to do. We had a female volunteer who, bless her soul, offered to tuck some of our guests in and her service was accepted with at least one guest. Her attitude was completely service oriented and pure in nature. The reception of her “tucking in” was not malicious or devious in any way. Even so I could not help but make a mental note to advise against such interactions in the future and stand agog as the exchange happened before my eyes.

The next night the same men showed up and even though we had different volunteers from the previous night, an easy rapport was built. Conversation started off with conspiracies and politics which actually didn’t lead to a powder keg explosion at the dinner table. After dinner and while our guests were settling down, the theology talks began. That is when I got to know Bobby. He had been burned by the church and had lost faith in the Bride of Christ doing any actual good in the world. As he shared his experiences he learned that he was not the only one among us to be hurt by fellow believers. Each one of us shared stories of wounds and forgiveness, of God’s grace and redemption in each and every one of our lives. When new volunteers came, both shifts were sitting at the table encouraging and speaking truth into this good old Mississippi boy’s life. None of us wanted to leave even when the night drew to a close. God had been present and had shown us the love that He has for His children.

Two of our guy volunteers began plugging into Bobby’s life, bringing him to their home, bringing him food, inviting him to church and making sure he had a seat right with their family. I tried to keep an eye out for him amidst the masses of some 600 people on Sunday mornings, but to no avail.

When I saw him under the causeway on my way to the beautiful beach I was unsure if I should stop, but I’m so very grateful that God’s plans are not my own and that they are so much better.

Who would have thought that a hour under a bridge talking with a wounded man about God’s love would have topped a peaceful day at the beach?

Who would have thought that this man’s life and words would display God’s glory even more than the ocean?

The ocean pulls and tugs at the earth, but the lives of people pull and tug on the heart of God.

Why am I so often too busy to hear that?