Love everlasting

This post is dedicated to my simply amazing junior high life group - I think they teach me more than I teach them most of the time!!

We've been working through a series describing and exploring the week before Jesus' death in church for about a month. We picked up the story at the triumphal entry, discussing his peaceful entry, followed it through his accusing the Pharisees to stop being hypocrites, through being honest and genuine, and this week touched on forgiveness in the form of an intense narrative of Peter's last days with Jesus.

After these lessons, we had discussion as a group of what the girls' had learned in the past few weeks.

A couple of girls presented some incredibly deep thoughts. One in particular described a bit that the pastor had said in his monologue:

"When Peter denied Christ the third time, he said that Jesus looked right at him when he swore to God that he'd never known the man before, and Jesus' eyes weren't full of disappointment, hate, or anger. They were full of love."

I have no words for that. because she captured the essence of grace in that moment. The story that we live every day. We make the wrong choice. We choose to undermine, to not give our best, to look to ourselves instead of to Christ. And He looks back at us, even in the moment when he was bleeding, failing from pain, dying, falling. and He sees his child, His beautiful one. He loves in the midst of betrayal. He extends mercy in the moment of blackest sin. He looks right at us, and there is not one trace of rejection in His eyes.

Sam, you brought it to the table. you opened my eyes, and probably several others. Way to be like Jesus.

Relaxi cab

Anyone get the reference of the title? Okay, I'm a friends fanatic. Anyway.

I don't actually have too much to post about, except the ongoing miracles of God's grace. As usual:)

I discovered two things on my recent vacation: 1) it takes at least 48 hours until I can actually relax. EVEN on a vacation with nothing else to do BUT relax. 2) it takes me 48 hours to stop freaking out once I've relaxed and then have to go back to real life.

In the first instance, I couldn't calm my mind or body from my constantly moving, reading, list-making, task-checking-off, communicating, chore-doing, errand-running, idea-shooting, deadline-writing self. The entire first day, on an empty beach, with a dos equis, in Mexico, for crying out loud, all I could think about was how I needed to find an atm, maybe cash in those travelers checks, figure out what we were having for dinner, make sure to remember to take pictures, etc. I'm not even kidding here.

With the help of my husband, some Mexican tequila, and the sweetness that is God's spirit saying hold on my daughter, i really didn't design a life to be sprinted through, I figured it out.

However, the entire day of traveling back, I began to get more and more nervous. I have two jobs, one self-employed job, and a lot of friends and responsibilities to keep up with. Though anyone I regularly interact with knew I'd be gone, I still knew that all three of my inboxes would be simply overrun. and with a 12 hour workday starting at seven a.m., I was not anxious to plunge into that. Much less including the fact that I didn't fall asleep until after 1 a.m., there is nothing in the house to eat, no laundry has been done, and so on. I literally couldn't sleep because I was stressing so much about this. Granted the day that began with very few hours of sleep, and then 18 hours of travel probably didn't help my anxiety levels.

All that to say. God works in both earth-shattering and tiny, nearly imperceptible ways. I managed to both sleep in, calling in to my first job of the day, and also go through the emails in two of my inboxes in less than 8 hours - in between other projects. But still. I figured I'd have days of follow-up ahead of me.

I should add the silly note that I also tried to cook a conventional oven frozen pizza in the microwave today. I put it on high for four minutes, and though it didn't explode or anything, it was nearly inedible. Which is why I had a backup muffin :)

Sometimes i start to think that God doesn't care about the pathetic teeny details of my life that seem to be the biggest stresses to me. But then, I see His hand doing exactly what needs to be done. Not erasing pain, highlighting my faults, or displaying my shortcomings. Rather, holding my hand. And, as I discovered on a rather seasick-tinged boat ride, often, holding someones hand (particularly, I might add, either your husband's, father's or the Creator of the Universe's), makes all the difference in the world.

P.S. for photos of our trip - feel free to take a look at my facebook page. though you should probably wait until later this evening when I finally get off work :)

drowning in ignorance

‘Faith is believing God and asking no questions,” reads a letter to the editor written in to the newspaper I work at.
When I called the gentleman who penned it to inquire about the source of the quote, which he had indicated was from the Bible, he explained that he read a book on faith years ago and he carries that quote around with him.

Pardon me while I scream and slam down the phone.

Now, I don’t know the name of the book, or of the idiot author who is either very messed up or does not know how to communicate well. Either way, please, please, please, never fall into this blind conservatism trap (or stay in Lancaster County, Pa. For too long).

Close consideration and exploration, the only kind, really, needs to be delved into in the scriptures. Not some book. Not some biased, self-shoving beliefs un-based in scripture book.

Lets take a look at a couple of stories. Some logically provided by my brilliant-as-ever husband.

First, my favorite: Abraham. Great Guy. Went from a two-syllable name to a three-syllable name, very significant with the whole God changing your name/identity bit there. God hung out with him, appeared randomly to him, promised him basically the world.
And yet, repeatedly, Abe questions. And not even the philosophical, debating, weighing options type of questions, shouting at the sky and all that (though I’m sure much of that was involved). He openly acted in doubt. He impregnated a concubine, doubting the very word of God from the Dude’s own lips! And this is not some stranger who God freaked out by appearing in a long-forgotten dream. This is a guy who knew God, personally, conversed with him, was hand-selected to build an entire nation of the world by Him. Seriously.

Next example: Joseph. Poor dude, this guy’s life story is rife with conflict, muckyness, and downright depression. Now, the moral of the story is that he trusted God to do what was best for him. The reality of the moral? You better believe when he was thrown down the well, left for dead, sold into slavery, sent to prison, etc., that he had some shouting matches with God. Joseph, though young and apparently colorful, was no pushover, he rose to be the second greatest commander in Egypt, a very power-hungry place! There is NO WAY Joseph didn’t question God’s plan. Not one iota of way there.

Lets skip to the new testament. What better example than Jesus himself? He trusted God, absolutely. He had faith. But he did not live his life as a door mat (pacifist, but not doormat). He literally said to his own father “please take this cup from me,” Hows that for questioning. Hey, the one thing you want me to do in this world? I’d be okay if you would just leave off, lets not and say we did. Wha…?! Yes, Jesus himself, man and God, questions his own destiny, his own faith in his own mission, the only mission to ever be able to save the world!

I am abstaining from the fourteen exclamation points now.

And those are just the stories with examples. That’s not even considering the directions specifically stated in scripture, like 1 Thess. 5:21, “prove all things; hold fast to that which is good.” Or Acts chapter 17, when it talks about the church searching the scriptures to find proof for what they were being told.

People. Faith is trusting without concrete, tangible evidence, yes, but faith is not, and is not meant to be, trusting without conversation. Without asking, without exploring, without THINKING about what you believe. Heavens no, as my mother would say.

Faith is real. And real is dirty, gritty, doubtful, joyful, painful, fearful, triumphant. Faith is not believing and asking no questions. Faith is believing amidst the questions.

Hold my Hand

This has come up a lot recently in my devotional-esque thoughts. Holding Jesus’ hand.

So often, and I’m chatting with God throughout the day, the very needy and fearful thought returns to my mind again and again – hold my hand, Jesus. I know I’ll fall, I know I’ll fail, but if you just hold my hand, you can pull me back up and we can keep on walking down this road together.

I wrote a short devotional about this in my journal sometime in college. The story goes something like this:

A man and a little girl are walking through a slippery, crowded street. She is in her best dress, with her hair done up and shiny new shoes on her feet. She is ready to put her best foot forward.
Next to her, her dad holds out his hand, ready to hold hers as they push through the crowd.
At first, she doesn’t need his hand. She walks carefully, looking down, making sure her new shoes don’t get scuffed up, dodging knees and pants.
Then, she falls on her rear.
Tearing up a bit, and panicking because of all of the people around her, she squeeks a little and cries. She’s afraid her dad walked on, didn’t notice that she fell, or thought to himself “serves her right for showing off her new shoes and not paying attention.”
But she blindly, hoping, throws out her hand anyway, reaching as high as she can with fingers outstretched.
He grabs her hand with his big, solid warm ones. They are calloused and scarred, but they’re the strongest, most gentle hands she knows, and she trusts them.
He pulls her up, murmering and wiping away her tears.
They keep on walking.
This time, she holds his hand tightly.
But then, she starts getting impatient and uncomfortable. Repeatedly, she begs him to lift her up on his shoulder so she can see what’s ahead, and take the weight off of her feet for awhile.
Gently, he says no, he cannot do that. Not because he is incapable, but because that’s not what’s best for her, what his plan of their time includes.
She stomps her feet in frusteration and lets go of his hand, almost immediately flying face-first into the ground.


You see the point.

I was entertained by this as I listened to a sermon I had missed at church by John Wilkenson, our teen pastor, and possibly one of the greatest speakers I’ve ever heard. He told the story of how he went to a big farm shor in PA (because that’s what we do for fun here), and he and his family with three children got stuck in a bottle-necked crowd heading out of one section of the event. While there, a lady started screaming about how she had lost her son in the crowd, and she was shoving and yelling in desperation. At the same time, about every ten seconds, his son was asking, “where are we going? What’s up ahead? Can you see? What’s going on?” and John just held on tight to his boy, not letting him go, but not taking the time to explain every thing, just saying, sit tight, it’ll be all right.

Then, this morning, I was reading a devotional by my favorite Christian author, Max Lucado. He is discussing the phrase “lead us not into temptation, and deliver us from evil” in the Lord’s prayer. Here’s what he has to say:

“Imagine a father and son walking down an icy street. The father cautions the boy to be careful, but the boy is too excited to slow down. He hits the first patch of ice. Up go the feet and down plops the bottom. Dad comes along and helps him to his feet. The boy apologizes for disregarding the warning and then, tightly holding his father’s big hand, he asks, “Keep me from the slippery spots. Don’t let me fall again.”

This example, to me, never gets old. It helps that I have a great relationship with my dad, and can perfectly picture these examples as they were played out in my own life. But I cannot think of a more simple, clear, and touching way to depict our relationship with Christ. All theological intricacies aside: we are children, holding the hand of the Father, trusting him to hold on tight, not leave us behind, and to be tall enough to see what’s ahead and be with us through it.

For better or for worse

Have you ever turned your back on Christ?

This was a question at our small group this week. I didn’t say this then, so as not to offend anyone gathered, but here’s what I think is tied in with anyone’s answer to that question.

Personal relationship. (see RGB)

I know several people who’ve turned their back on God, because He didn’t take care of them like they wanted, because He ‘let’ someone suffer and/or die, etc. Some have come back, some have not.

But the deciding factor of those who either come back, or don’t turn away in the first place, seems to me to be the personal relationship.

Why do I think this? Well, because of some examples that were given. Friends of a couple in our small group had their 5-month-old daughter die from a rare heart disease. They don’t hate God: they hold on to Him more strongly. I’ve seen people lose children, be diagnosed with cancer, live through their parents dying in a shocking or degrading manner, and though they may be angry, express doubts, and really wrestle with their faith, it just makes them cling to Him more closely.

This is true in my life. In answer to the original question, I think: no. Whenever crap happens in my life, I look up at the sky and say two things: Bring it on.
And, You’d better know what’s going on up there, because I don’t, but I’m going to have to trust You through this pain.

Why? Because I have a personal relationship with my God.

I think of two examples of people close to me who have turned their back on God. And I think, though I cannot know for sure, that it was because their relationship with God was piggyback-style. Based on someone else’s relationship. Based on what they were told they should believe, but never discovered for themselves. Based on knowledge or upbringing, not a relationship.

Talking about this in bed last night, Tim, my smart-as-heck husband, brought up a good point. We often think of God as doing things in reaction to what we do. Which may sometimes be true – but not in the way we think of it. We see our kid get sick, crash our car, get our gps stolen, and we think “what did I do that God decided I deserve this?”

That, my friends, is entirely wrong. God is a constant, not a wobbly reaction chemical. He doesn’t wait for us to act and then magically make a decision based on what we’ve said or done. He’s got the rules of the universe already in place: His Grace and Mercy (and Justice).

However, this is so often what we project. I think it’s partly because of literally centuries of this weird, ingrained thought process. Remember in medieval times, and in early American puritan times, when if you got sick it was because you did something and God decided to punish you? Rough way of life I think.

And, in a flip-flop view, to take what Tim said a step further, I think this is what we ourselves project onto our relationship with God, if and when we decide to turn away from him. We act in a reactionary way. We say: if you’re going to treat me (or x person) like this, then I’m done with you.

Now, lets be honest, that’s just being human. That’s how we respond with our sense of justice, and perhaps our training on consumerism and customer service laws. If I don’t get what I deserve, then I’m done with you.

But again, this forgets the aspect of a steady, personal relationship. God is not a yo-yo. We should not react to him as if we don’t have a relationship with Him, as if he were some vending machine that we kick because it doesn’t give the correct change. We should react like we should to a friend or mentor that we trust. I don’t know why you’re doing this, or why this situation is unfolding like this, but I figure you’ve got it under control. Yell if you need help. I’m here, I don’t understand what’s going on or why, but we’re together on this.

That’s the way it should be.

Safe?

I think we all have levels of our lives that we need to consider to be "safe."

X dollars in the bank

school loans paid off

car loans paid off

gas costing less than $2/gallon

not fighting with your spouse

knowing your kids can go to college

good smoke detectors

cars that don't break all the time

jobs that pay enough to save some money

good health

medicine/doctors when health isn't so good.

good insurance (life, health, home, etc.)

neighborhoods/cities low in crime



The list goes on and on. And, to be fair, I made up this list because these are some of the things that make me feel safe - not just other people.

But here's the thing - safe is not a state of consumer peace. We think it is. We somehow get sucked up into the tornadoe of endless dissatisfaction with the state of "safety" in our lives. As my husband says, "we always need a back-up, get out of here quick plan," in case your current life patter/situation/trajectory doesn't work out.

Jesus never said all of those things would bring us peace.

Jesus never said any of those things was even remotely important. not to our physical bodies, our mental bodies, our emotional frames, and especially our spiritual temples.

Jesus. is safe.

"Come to me, those who are weary and laden, for I will give you rest."

Jesus doesn't keep us safe from all that we fear in our every day lives. Jesus keeps us safe, "in the shadow of his wings," about everything that matters. Eternity. Eternally safe. There will be no more tears, pain, or grinding of teeth.

Safe. is Jesus.

P P & E

Emptied.

So often, I cautiously admit to God that I would be okay if he taught me to be more patient. I am always scared of this, partly because I’m a rather impatient person in general, and partly because I am an incredibly decisive, driven and passionate person. Often, to me, patience = doing nothing. Patience means losing that drive, falling into apathy, giving up emotional connection and basically sitting on my hands, humming to myself in an effort to be entertained.

I can’t deal with that kind of patience. I see those of you who know me well smiling at that sentence.

So. Recently, I had a job interview for pretty much my dream job. Cons were it was a 45 minute commute each way, was only evening hours, and some of the benefits were kind of sucky (2 vacation days for the first 12 months). That aside, best job possibility I’ve come up against in two years. Not even joking.

Interviewed on a Tuesday. Though this was quicker turnaround than most, I was told I’d hear back by the following Monday at the latest. In the meantime, I spent literally hours agonizing over how to adjust my life to evening hours, working a part time job during the day, when I’d go to the gym, how I’d manage my time especially with a commute suddenly going from two hours or less/week to almost ten, especially with a part time job added. How to rearrange our budget with current salary, etc.

Wednesday went by. Lots of emails back and forth with my husband. Thursday went by with them calling me to check the phone number of a reference, so I know I’m still in the running. My references love me, so shouldn’t be a problem there. Friday comes and goes Saturday comes and goes. At this point, I’m somehow growing more and less sure that I’ll be offered the job. I have an entire speech prepared if I am offered it. I have no idea what I’ll say if I’m not.

This whole time, I think to myself: be patient, be patient.

And, surprisingly, instead of getting more and more tense, I do start to relax. I’m still ridiculously anxious, but not at bursting levels. I’m still just as passionate about the opportunity, but not so much that thinking about it makes me want to cry.

That’s my kind of patience. Within the excruciating desire to find, know, succeed NOW, a peace. Not that changes my drive or personality, but that blends with it. Is patience the same quality as peace?


Sunday comes and is on the way out. I get the phone call with “we went in another direction.” They say they really liked me and they’ll keep my resume at the front of the file. Good news in some ways.

Only problem now is that I don’t know how to combat the emptiness that’s left behind.