Don't let another man beat you to it

In honor of my daddy, whose birthday is today.  This is just one example of how great a dad you are.  I love you and thank God for you all the time!

            “You’re beautiful.”  I used to hear these words a lot, not from cute boys, but from my dad.  I would always roll my eyes and whine, “Daaaaaaad.”

            He was just saying it because I was his daughter.  His declaration of my beauty was worthless.  Because my beauty didn’t make him love me any more or less and he would love me just the same if I were an obese, buck-tooth, squinty-eyed kid, I shrugged it off.

            He told me other things too.  He praised me for my hard work, my loving heart, the care I showed others.  These comments I valued a little bit more, but I still viewed them as biased.

Now as a single nineteen year-old far from home and family, I can’t thank my dad enough for letting me know I was beautiful and valued.  Because of the many miles that separate us, I don’t always get a chance to talk to my dad, and I miss the love he gave me, those little affirmations he’d offer.  Many days, I want someone to tell me, “You’re beautiful.  You’re lovely.  I love you.”  Scratch that.  Every day, I want to hear that.  But many days, I don’t.  My girl friends are nice sources of affirmation, but sometimes my heart tells me that doesn’t cut it.  I want a guy to tell me I’m beautiful.  And then I take it a step farther.  I want that guy over there to tell me that.  I want to pull a compliment out of him.  I want attention.  My heart whispers, You need attention.

But something stops me.  Part of it is that I know that the way in which I want to gratify my desires is wrong and selfish.  But then there’s this other thing that tips the scale, because knowledge of my incorrect desires isn’t enough.  I know my dad still loves me and thinks I’m beautiful.  One thousand, nine hundred sixty-one miles aren’t enough to change that.  Sure, he may exaggerate my skills and beauty a little, but in the end, he’s still right.  I am valued.  I am worthwhile.  I don’t need to weasel a compliment out of some guy by the way I dress or the way I laugh at his jokes.  I am precious whether he chooses to tell me or not.

Seeing that, as of right now, not a single guy my age has chosen to tell me as much—that I am beautiful—I can’t thank my dad enough for telling me ever since I can remember that I am beautiful and more than beautiful.  If he hadn’t told me so repeatedly, so assuredly, that I am beautiful and that I am valued for more than my beauty, I don’t know if I’d be able to resist aggressively seeking attention from guys.  I’m not sure if I would have the discernment to distinguish others’ appraisals of my hair, face, and body from my identity.

And it matters that it was my dad.  Because I think all girls recognize the deep-seated desire to be praised, we praise each other (if sometimes a little too often and insincerely).  But most guys, especially respectable guys, are quite stingy with their compliments.  Be it that they just don’t notice beauty as much as girls or they just feel uncomfortable expressing their appreciation or what you will, I hear fewer appraisals of beauty come out of guys’ mouths.  So when my dad said I was beautiful, it had to be at least a little true because he took the effort to say it.  And when he said it a lot, it must mean that it’s not the pretty of a good hair do, it’s an inerasable beauty.  When he took time to express love for my responsibility, my generosity, my love for others, it meant that men value and desire these traits in women as well as beauty.

So, father, brother, uncle, cousin, do you want to protect the women in your life that you love from the self-inflicted heartache of looking for love in all the wrong places?  Tell her she is beautiful.  Tell her she is loved and valued for more than her beauty.  Name the qualities that make her unique personality so lovely.  Don’t let another man beat you to it, because the sweet taste of the words rolling off the first man’s lips into her eager ear may be too compelling for her to discern his care or lack thereof for her.

waiting

            I opened my door to find a four year old boy raising his hand to knock.

            “What do you need, J—?”

            “I wa a cooie,” he replied, leaving out a few consonants.

            “A cookie?  No, I can’t give you one, sweetie.  Did your mom come today?”

            “No,” he said and glanced at the ground.

I sighed and changed the subject.

            He’s been waiting for his mom to come for longer than any four year old boy should have to wait.  He wants a good thing—what could be better than a young boy seeing his loving mother?—but right now it’s being denied him.  He doesn’t know why.  I don’t know why.  It’s so hard to watch him wait.

            I, too, am waiting for things.  I have desires tucked deep inside my heart, good ones that I remember daily and don’t see fulfilled.  I don’t know why.  Others around me don’t know why.  It’s so hard to wait.

Neither of us knows how long.  Will his mother come this week?  Will I get what I want this month?  This week passes.  This month passes.  And nothing.  And we wonder why.

But as I review my ponderings, I’ve found them to be a source of deeper discontentment.  If I only peppers my thoughts.  My future becomes solely dependent upon my actions; I am the master of my fate.  But as I change things, set up the chain of events correctly on my end and what I want still doesn’t come around, I’m left in despair.  I come to the realization that I can’t make myself happy.  And if I can’t make myself happy, what then?

I’m forced to learn contentment or wallow in misery.  I can’t control my circumstances, but I can control my reactions.

Years ago, I heard someone say, “The point of our trials is not for us to understand why, but rather for us to be made more like Christ.”  All the time I ask why, I’m looking for the answers in the wrong places.  My “why” is not searching for the purpose, but the problem.  My question assumes a flaw, not a function.  And that tiny speck of perspective, it multiplies and grows until it is all I can see.  God’s goodness disappears as I close my eyes to convince myself that there is only darkness.  Sure, there’s only darkness, because that’s all I’ve chosen to see.

When I finally tire of my created darkness, I peek out onto the world.  Light.  The first sign of God’s goodness.  My trials have a purpose: my joy.  What could be better than being like Christ, the incarnation of God himself?

Although I now see the light, I don’t see the future clearly.  That’s why I turn my head over my shoulder.  I know what I’ve been through.  I have stories of God’s faithfulness.  And if I’m too tired to recount them, others have stories too.  The centuries are bursting with them.  So I listen to them over and over again.  I whisper them to myself as I fall asleep.  I draw them in my notebook.  If my God is the definition of faithfulness and I have overflowing proof of the fact, I can find no reason to declare him guilty.  I cannot rationally review the evidence, the fingerprints and the proof that declare my God faithful and me unfaithful, and slam my mallet and yell, “Guilty!  God you are guilty of unfaithfulness.  Maybe you haven’t been unfaithful yet, but you will be.  I just know it.  Lock him up.”  To do so is to attempt to trap God, force him to bribe me to let him go.  When I sew the evidence into my day, scribble it on the moments with permanent marker, I get caught in my own trap and my fraud can’t help but whither.

I’m still waiting.  Little J— is still waiting.  Who knows how long we’ll wait?  We may spend the rest of our lives waiting.  But if we wait with a purpose in view instead of a problem, we will find the pain of waiting grow paler as we reap the product of waiting with a purpose: joy as the purpose is fulfilled and we are made more like Christ.

(No, I don't believe in motivational photos.  I'm just tired of my link thumbnail being jalapeno peppers.)

Sojourning in the land of "I don't know"

Last winter, I made the decision to not attend nursing school, but that left me with the question, “What now?”  The answer was simple, but one that was a little hard to swallow: “I don’t know.”  Having two parents who are renowned for their skill in planning and having always prided myself on having purpose and direction, “I don’t know” was a bit of a scary move.  Was it okay to not know?

After grappling with that question, I concluded that, yes, it is okay to not know.  It’s human and it’s humble.  I am not God.  I simply do not know sometimes and if I believe I do, I’m only playing a cruel joke on myself.  I discovered that “I don’t know” is actually the land in which I had been living all along, I just had never admitted it, instead choosing to speak the language of pride when  the country I was inhabiting spoke the language of humility.

Accepting this position of bewilderment can be a mature act.  The way in which I walk forward changes from a confident swagger that results in many stumbles to a humble following that sometimes requires me to run, sometimes walk, more often than not, crawl, and always stick my feet forward hoping with assurance that the ground will rise up to meet the soles of my feet even though I can’t see it.

But only recently have I found out that “I don’t know” is never supposed to be a place of residence.  I thought that maybe I could stay put in “I don’t know” and eventually find my way, but that’s not what God intends.  God hasn’t left me clueless in this world, but rather, “[His] word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.”  (Psalm 119:105)  Sometimes, I can see just my feet and the ground underneath, and other times the light reaches just a little farther ahead of where I’m treading.  I may not be able to see far into the future, or even into the future at all, but that does not mean that I should stop walking intentionally forward, because God has illuminated the part of the path I need to see.

“I don’t know” is a sojourn, a dose of humility to help us on our way to following God with our whole heart and the time comes round when God calls us to move on and arrive somewhere.

When I think of this “new” concept, I think of Abram.  God called him to “I don’t know.”  Literally.

He said, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you.”  (Genesis 12:1)

Abram had no clue where he was going.  His life was suddenly a big “I don’t know.”  But he didn’t plop down his tent and say, “Sorry, God, until you show me the final destination, we’re not going anywhere.”  Instead, he followed, camping at one place, then another.  Sometimes, it was time to rest for a while, but no camp sight was ever his home.

I may live in a constant state of not knowing what will happen, but that doesn’t mean I need to stay there forever.  After a time, I need to pick up my bags and start walking.  My new destination may be another city in the land of “I don’t’ know,” but I’m called to keep moving.  Because, if I don’t, if I stay put at a camp sight, I run the risk of “doing” a decision without ever responsibly making it.  And that is simply not what God has asked me to do.  I am responsible for my time and my actions, and therefore, I need to take them by the horns.  That is, I need to prayerfully, obediently, confidently, and faithfully live my life in full accordance with God’s Word.

With all that said, I’m sure you’ve guessed by now that I have a few decisions that I need to make in my life right now.  And I don’t yet know what they will be.  I just know that I need to make them.  Form them, labor over them.  And in this time of evaluating and planning, I would appreciate any prayers, because I recognize that ultimately, I’m not forging a new path.  Rather, I’m discovering one that’s been laid out for me by a living, loving God, and I and those around me need wisdom, discernment, and obedience to recognize God’s voice, listen to it, and obey it.

It’s time for me to move ahead in the land of “I don’t know.”

The simplest command: stay.

            The urgent desire to leave came suddenly, like a breeze stirring a peaceful room.  I was surrounded by all of the school’s teacher, who were animatedly discussing some point or other that had nothing to do with me, and in my boredom I had let my mind wander.  The thing that slipped up to the surface without even a thought was one word: leave.  I had half a mind to bolt out of the room and just keep running; to run until I had escaped the fence that encloses me daily, run until I had seen a fresh face, run until I had left behind the various projects and problems that nibble away all of my minutes, run until I had abandoned the schedule that rules my never-changing life.

            But, in accordance to my goody-two-shoes complex, I didn’t.  Instead, I jiggled my foot impatiently and imagined the gratifying feeling of running past all boundaries, going somewhere new, seeing something novel.  I started to count the weeks that had passed since I had left my schedule, and then I stopped.  I didn’t want to know how long or short it had been.  Either way it was depressing because nothing would happen today to reset the tally.

            As the meeting ended, I watched as all the other teachers passed through the gate.  And then the last one wrapped the chain around the posts and clicked the bolt.  Their cars left the parking lot one by one, free to follow whichever winding, dusty road their heart chose.  I turned and followed the path that I walk twenty times a day.

            I slipped into my room and locked the door.  More walls and locks within fences and closed gates.  I sighed and picked up my Bible, ruffled through the pages until I found Philippians, and read the whole book.

            “Only that in every way…Christ is proclaimed.”

            “Do all things without grumbling or questioning…”

            “Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord.”

“Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.”

“…I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content…I can do all things through him who strengthens me.”

            “I can do all things through him who strengthens me…”  Familiar words, rolled and crinkled like a wad of old Benjamins.  But just as a bunch of Benjamins tucked in a wallet have the appearance of wealth, but carry no intrinsic value, so these words appear valiant, but do not make me strong.

            I pulled the words out, not with flash and fanfare, but more like a homeless person scrounging their pockets for change to pay for the $1 burger.  For the words to do me any good, I had to exchange them, hoping in faith that the promise they held would be made good.

            As I read the words and believed, I wasn’t using this promise to buy an impressive story of God’s faithfulness; all I wanted was strength for today to follow the simplest of commands: stay.  I had always imagined that the power of the promise came with the complexity of the request.  This promise would shine most brilliantly when I asked God to help me do the utterly impossible, when I asked him to move a mountain into the sea.

            But today, I’m using the promise to ask God to keep the mountain rooted to its foundations.  Today, the command is: stay.  Tomorrow, the command will probably be: stay.  And the day after and the day after, until who knows when.  It’s the simplest command; it doesn’t require me to learn a new skill, go somewhere new, or meet new people.  It doesn’t present me with the unknown.  It presents me with the familiar, old, and mundane.

But the simplest command requires the hardest work.  As I remain immobile, it requests my patience, my faithfulness, my endurance, my faith, my hope, my joy.  The simplest command requires me to literally do nothing, but rather to become something.

How to enchilar yourself in honor of Mexican Independence Day

Tomorrow is September 16, otherwise known as Mexican Independence Day.  Yeah, you got that right, it’s not el cinco de mayo, like we all thought.  El cinco de mayo is actually the anniversary of the battle of Puebla and nobody celebrates it.  Like, nobody at all.  Tomorrow is the big party and in honor of el dieciseis de septiembre, I thought I’d take some time to teach you all how to make one version of classic Mexican chile.

            This is a recipe that my friend Juanis taught me without ever teaching me.  I just know how to do it after seeing her do it so many times as I sat in the baby home kitchen with her, talking away.  She is a wonderful friend and a delight to be around.  I have spent so many times laughing with her and just passing time.

            So, here’s how you make it.  Take four jalapeños and sit them on top of your stove burner with the heat on medium low and let them cook, turning them over until they’re nice and burnt on the outside.  (Note: it actually should be about 6 or 8 jalapeños, but this way it’ll be less spicy.)

Meanwhile, dice up two Roma tomatoes and cut a white onion into thin half-circle slivers (Note: they’d also use less onion too, but this, again, will make it less spicy.  Few Americans appreciate spice like the Mexicans do!).  Stick them in a pan and salt generously.

When the jalapeños are done cooking and look like this, tear off the stems and peels and stick them into a bowl and start mashing them with the bottom of a glass or ceramic cup.  

If you’re not in for too much spice, you can also pause to take out some of the seeds.  But you shouldn’t.  Come on, be adventurous, your life could use a little spice.

Once finished, add them to your onions and tomatoes, pause and admire how one of Mexico’s most popular foods has all the colors of the Mexican flag, pour in just a little bit of oil and let cook for about 15 minutes.

For an extra splash of fun, add in some cubes of menonite cheese.

Now, stick it on top of your favorite Mexican dish (or really any food, for that matter) and eat and be happy.

Oh, and don't forget to eat so much chile that you enchilar yourself.  Enchilarse is a Spanish verb that means to eat so much chile that your mouth is on fire.

Boxes and crosses

            I woke up. Uggggggghhh.  My head. My throat.  All of me.  I considered rolling over and sleeping some more, but there was work to be done.  Always work.  And so I marched dutifully into my day.

I took some cold medicine.  Maybe then I’d feel better.

I got some work done.  At least I felt productive.

I did some unexpected, hard work.  Hey, I didn’t complain.  Go me.  Renee has an agenda, and she’s going to get it done.  I kept on going.

            Moving onto my next task, I dropped a bag of stuff off with a friend.  But she didn’t let me move straight on to the following chore.  She stopped me and we talked.  And thank goodness.  It’s like she knew.  She saw me marching out to battle, but noticed I was battling the wrong things and had grabbed the wrong weapons.  My enemies: time and tasks.  My weapons:                .  That’s right.  Nothing.  I had no weapons.

            “Renee,” she said to me.  “If we watch the children, but we don’t have Christ, our work is nothing.  More than anything, more than everything, we need to receive the love of Christ and give the love of Christ.  Daily.  Without it, our work is nothing.”

            In my mind I perused my day.  Christ?  Nope, hadn’t been there.  I forgot to invite him.

I woke up sick, I took medicine.

I had work to do, Renee did it alone.

Unexpected jobs?  I bucked up and dealt with them.

I had reduced my work to a list of defined tasks that I thought I, in my puny power, could accomplish.  And from my human perspective, I did them.

            But my friend challenged me.  Was my work really a list of finite jobs and chores that I could box up and then check off?  Or am I called every day to take up an awkward, bulky cross and follow Christ?

            How many times do I see the cross Jesus asks me to carry and say, “I can take that, I’m strong enough.  But first, let me simplify.  We’ll rearrange the cross and reduce it to a box, because that’s easier to carry.”  But in chopping off the limbs of the cross and bundling them up, I’ve missed the point.  Christ not only took on the weight of my sin, he carried the shape too.  He absorbed the wrath of God and he addresses my heart.  It would have been easier, I’m sure, for him to just have been my propitiation.  But he’s more; he’s my sanctification.  He’s sent his Spirit to abide in and work through me.

            And so the cross that Jesus asks me to carry is a cross that requires loving the children, not merely watching them.  Such a cross includes cheerfulness, not simply dutiful doing.  Such a cross calls for submitting my circumstances to God, not taking some cold medicine.  Such a cross insists upon Christ’s presence every moment of the day.

            Humanly speaking, yesterday I seemed to be winning my battle.  I was slashing and slaying tasks left and right, charging ahead dauntlessly though wounded and ragged.  But I doubt that’s the way God saw my day.  I’m sure a looked like a child with a feather for a sword and a piece of paper as a shield, charging into a dandelion field “slaying” my foes and watching the white tops fall to the ground in satisfaction.
            And to this naïve warrior, my friend came, calling sweetly, “Renee, look to Christ.  He blesses your work, he gives it meaning.  He bestows wisdom and power for the complicated range of emotions for which he asks you to care.  He gives rest to the weary and the sick.  Come, abide in him.”

            I walked away from that encounter humbled.  My checked off to do list was now rubbish, because it was no longer the enemy.  My new enemy, my attitude, was a little more shadowy, and a lot less defined.

But my new weapons, they are so much better.  In one hand, I grasp the Word of God, and in the other, I hold his hand.

Plans

The plan was so simple: read facebook statuses for a few minutes and then head to bed early to catch up on my growing sleep deficit.  As I sat down to accomplish my plan, a flash of lighting darted in my window followed by a boom of thunder that shook my kitchen walls.  Ahhhhh, a storm.  I stood up and went to my kitchen door to enjoy the storm that surrounded the ranch from every side.  And as I watched, it came closer until the rain began to parade noisily on my tin roof.  I sighed and listened to the cannoning thunder.  As I listened, a different thud made its way to my ears.  Someone was knocking on my door that connects to the girls’ dorm.

            Not excited in the least about this development, I went to see what was up.  I opened the door to find two girls about eleven or ten years old wrapped in their blankets and looking at me with scared eyes.

            “We can’t sleep, Renee.  The lights keep on flickering on and off and the thunder is so loud and scary.”

            My plan for an early bedtime had not foreseen this, but I thought I might be able to salvage the situation.

            “Aw, I’m sorry.  You know what, though?  I love thunder storms because God is showing his power and if God’s on my side and that’s how powerful he is, I know I don’t have to be afraid.  He’ll protect me.”

            They blinked back at me, completely unappeased with my half-hearted attempt to comfort them and something in my heart whispered that this wasn’t a time to dismiss their fears and send them back to bed.  This meant that my early bedtime plan was now on life support.  My only hope was that the storm would pass quickly.

            I let them in my room and we sat on my floor and began to talk.  They explained to me all the things they were afraid of; the figures they saw in dark corners, the tales that haunted their sleep, the imaginings that kept them awake at night.  And they asked.  They asked why I wasn’t afraid, they asked if the things they feared were real, and what they could do when they were afraid.

            And as the storm outside slowly quieted, I told them.  I told them that I was afraid sometimes, I told them that the things they feared were real sometimes, but that we have a shelter in the storm always, a God to whom even the darkness is not dark.  We talked about the devil, his limited power, and his desire to make us fear him instead of God.  But I got to tell them with confidence that my God is greater than this devil who tries to make us tremble in fear.  My God wants us to tremble in awe and worship at his great love that envelops us when he could and should smite us.

            As I told them about my God, they asked more questions.  How was I patient with them?  How could they learn to be patient with others?  How come I didn’t seem to get very angry, but when they promised themselves they would curb their temper, they couldn’t?

            We sat in my room, talking as it grew later.  And when the storm had finally abated and when all of our eyelids began slipping down our eyes, we sank into our beds.

Right before I fell asleep, I looked at the time.  Definitely much later than I had planned to go to bed.

But when I thought about it, I realized I had just gained something better than a few hours of sleep.  I just had the chance to talk to two of the girls personally about my great God.  And this time, unlike so many others, I wasn’t the one starting the conversation, they were.  They wanted to know more about this God.  They wanted to know how he touches their lives.  And if my plans have to be derailed for that to happen, it’s more than okay with me.

"Even the darkness is not dark to you;

the night is as bright as day,

for darkness is as light with you."

-Psalm 139:12

on self-pity and showers

When I woke up this morning, I swear something was staring me down.  Gorged as all get out and terribly lethargic, self-pity’s tear drop eyes steadily gazed at me.  I squirmed in my bed and I could just feel it.  Yup, today was going to be a battle.  Like any good soldier, I drilled in preparation, reading the Bible and praying, but my heart wasn’t engaged.  The enemy was staring me down from his dark corner in my heart and my soul trembled.

Why such a heaping dose of self-pity?  No reason, no reason at all.  It was just sprinkled in my day like sugar in coffee.

As if my life were a crossword puzzle, I peered around, looking backwards, sideways, diagonal, upside down, searching for all those little “mistakes,” the things that ticked me off.  Once found, I circled them with bright red complaining.  To my trained eye, the day was beginning to look as red as a traffic light.  And self-pity, sitting in his corner, smiled.

I’m a professional pity-partier, and as such, I know better than to voice my woes.  If you voice them, one of two things can happen: an optimist will come and point out all the little rainbows and daisies and hearts and completely ignore your incredibly legitimate sorrows, or a better pity-partier will come and steal the show.  Either way, your pity party is ruined.  So I let my gloomy thoughts chase their tales in my head and self-pity take a light snooze as I did the work for him.

In the afternoon, my pity party reached a high-point as I extolled my virtues and pondered why my greatness wasn’t more widely recognized.  In fact, I even began planning this blog post as a sarcastic piece on that very subject that I could either try to redeem at the end with some sort of something about how Jesus is better, or I could entirely give up and let the piece stand as a full fledged pity party (the latter being the preferred option).

Then, the most amazing thing happened.

I took a shower.

Yes, you read that right.  I took a shower.  It was a profound theological moment as I realized my self-centeredness and Christ’s cleansing work on the cross that has the power to wash away my self-pity.

No, just kidding.  It was simply a shower.  It wasn’t even a nice long shower, it was a military shower.  But by the time it was over, I didn’t want to complain any more.  I sat down to right this blog post, and all the perfectly witty quips about my self-pity fled.

As I’ve been writing this, I’ve been trying to understand why my self-pity disappeared.  I can’t say that it was shame over revealing my sin; my family knows that I have no problem doing that.  It definitely wasn’t an epiphany.  I think it was gratefulness.

I couldn’t find anything wrong with my shower.  It was perfectly refreshing.  The only “complaint” I can think of was that it was making me take a break from my hard core pity partying, but even that was perfectly refreshing.  Once I found that thing that made me truly thankful, I didn’t want to ruin that beautiful feeling of thankfulness with a pity party.  I just wanted to revel in it.

God, in his kindness, sent me that shower.  I wasn’t looking to be delighted; I was grasping for shadows of discontentment, yet God chose to delight me anyway.  How perfectly loving he is.

In their unexaggerated forms, all of those less-than-perfect things are still present in my life, but I don’t want to focus on them.  I want to spend my time rejoicing in the only perfect thing, my God, and treasuring every gift he sends.

On fear

Early one morning this week I received a frantic knock on my door.  I haphazardly fell out of bed and opened the door to find one of the girls sobbing in the hallway.

            “What’s wrong?”

            “I had a bad dream and I’m scared of monsters,” she managed between sobs.

            I gave her a hug and began to walk her back to bed.  I sat on the edge and began to talk to her.

            “You know what, L—?  Those monsters you’re afraid of, they aren’t real.  The devil wants you to think of them and be afraid because he loves it when you’re scared.  But God doesn’t want you to be scared.  That’s why he sent Jesus to conquer the devil and your fear.  Because Jesus came, we don’t have to be afraid anymore because he loves us and will protect us.  So let’s pray and ask God to give you peace and help you to sleep.”

            We prayed, I lent her a teddy bear to sleep with and then crawled back in bed myself.

            Since I’ve been back, fear has been popping up fairly frequently.  A little girl wanting to shimmy up the tether ball pole, but afraid of falling; one girl afraid of drowning in the pool; me being afraid that if the girls leave and I’m not there to watch them, they won’t be cared for; all of us being afraid of being left alone as teams and children come and go and a few of us stay behind.  As each of us encounters fears, we decide how to react, either to become paralyzed or to move forward in love by faith.

            I’ve noticed that most times our fears aren’t completely ridiculous, and as I work with the girls, I love letting them know that and showing them how to move forward even though their fears are real.  Take for example the girl who was afraid of drowning.  She didn’t know how to swim and the pool went over her head in a few spots.  Her fear of drowning was legitimate.  While I talked to her, I never said that her fear was silly and it was impossible for her to drown, but I reminded her that I, who knows how to swim, would be by her side the whole time, watching her.  This reassured her enough that she hopped in the pool and eventually even dared to join her friends who were a little farther away from me.

            As I look back at this example, I can’t help but think that God likes to treat us similarly.  My worries are many and various, and when I read my Bible and pray to God, I never hear him say, “These are unfounded fears, they couldn’t possibly happen.”  I hear him softly whisper in my ear, “Cast your burdens on me; I will never permit the righteous to be moved.”  He affirms their weight, but asks me to trust more in his power.  When he does this, he’s not simply asking me to believe that trials aren’t difficult or that they won’t come at all; he’s asking me to trust that his redeeming purpose in the midst of difficult circumstances can lend a sweetness to the bitter, a sweetness that surpasses and outlasts all bitterness.  God recognizes my susceptibility to fear and addresses it, not by dismissing it, but by encouraging me to grow through it.

            I won’t lie; recently watching seventeen kids leave the ranch over a two day period brought a plethora of fear into my life.  Some fears were new, some were old, but all were weighed and cared for by my God.  I can’t be sure that the kids will be safe and taught truth.  I have no way of knowing the exact details of their lives.  But I do know the One who ordains their lives, and I know that he is unfailingly good.  One day I may even have the chance to see or hear about these kids, and I know that even then, I may not be able to say, “Ahah!  I’ve found God’s goodness in this situation.”  The undeniable truth is that I am not God.  I will never be able to understand his ways or fathom his wisdom.  But that does not negate his goodness.

Letters from home and long ago

February 19, 2014

True to the way of this world, this week has brought a few more cares and trials along.  In an effort to "lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely" so that I may "run with endurance the race that is set before [me], looking to Jesus the founder and perfecter of our faith," (Hebrews 12:1-2), I've been reviewing old letters.

Last fall when I ventured across the pond, some of my dear friends wrote me letters of encouragement in a journal, which I also brought with me to Mexico.  I've been rereading these precious words like a thriller novel because they're so full of encouragement that seemed to be written for these days of hardship.  Don't you just love how God inspires ordinary people to write things that will provide encouragement in a myriad of situations?  Such a joy is God's truth that it applies to all situations of life.  These letters addressed to some distant Renee that used to exist what seems like eons ago (every day lasts a year in Mexico, people.  I'm now an old lady.) apply to this frail Renee who can't bear to think about tomorrow, but who prays to God literally to just live through the day, even the next five minutes.

Today, I want to share with you all some encouragement I rediscovered in a letter from my dear friend, Abby.  I love every words of it.


"Dear Renee,

"This entry comes from something I wrote in my journal back in June while at the beach.  I was watching a dad with his little boys.  One was probably around 6 or 7 and the other 4 or 5.  The younger child clung to his dad as they played in the waves, but the older let go of his dad's hand after a few moments.  When they were both holding dad's hand, they were safe from the crashing waves.  The moment that the older boy let go he was unsteady on his feet and was [k]nocked around by the waves.  After a couple times of coming up spluttering, the boy reached for his dad.  The dad's hand was right there waiting for the boy to take it, wait[ing] so that he could take hold of the boy and finally lead him safely out of the water.

"I thought this was a cool picture of how God cares for us even when we try and do it ourselves.  Sometimes we can think that we can take the waves ourselves.  We can't.  We need to hold God's hand and he will bare us up with his everlasting strength.  I want to encourage you, Renee, to hold God's hand while you are here in France.  He will guide you.

"Proverbs 3:5-8 says: 'Trust in  the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.  In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make straight your paths.  Be not wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord, and turn away from evil.  It will be healing to your flesh and refreshment to your bones.'

"Know that the hand you hold is the Lord your God.  The one you fear and trust.  He will hold you against the waves.  He knows the waves you can handle and he will protect you from the ones that are too big.

"I am praying for you my dear friend!

"Abby"


"He knows the waves you can handle and he will protect you from the ones that are too big."  I love this sentence so much.  I feel as if the waves are battering me constantly, some old, some new.  I haven't drowned yet, but sometimes I wonder if I will soon.  Will a wave come that holds me under until I have no breath?  Or will the water shoved in my mouth with every wave finally fill my lungs?  I've found grace for yesterday and today, but can I make it through tomorrow?  What about the 98 tomorrows that will follow?

How easily have I forgotten the 6,977 yesterdays!  Each of those yesterdays, God was there, sustaining my every breath, sometimes lifting me above the waves, at other times holding my hand through the waves.

And what of the millions of yesterdays before I even existed?  The innumerable saints who have gone before me?  The God who escorted them by his divine hand into their eternal rest is grasping mine with an unrelenting grip!  No, the waves will not overtake me.

En francais:

Oui, je suis horrible.  Je n'ai pas traduit mes mise-a-jours il y a trop de temps et aujourd'hui ne va pas etre different.  Je n'avais pas de temps, et c'est tres difficile de parler en francais.  Peut-etre un jour, je le ferrai.  Peut-etre non.  Mais je suis vraiment desolee aujourd'hui.  S'il ous plait, pardonnez-moi!

"WARNING:

All words spoken in prayer will be taken as sincere, even if they're not."

I've started to think God should just include that warning every time we pray.

I often think of prayer as a comforting thing.  You can talk to the infinite holy God and he listens!  You can pour out your anguish to an ever-listening ear who can do something about it!  But I forget all too soon who exactly he is.  He's the God who sent his only Son to die on a cross for rubbish like me.  He's the God who consumed Nadab and Abihu with holy fire for getting a little fancy with the incense.  He's the God who commanded Hosea to marry a prostitute.  He's not confinable, but he reigns supreme over everything, and his ways are radical.  His ways are certainly not my ways, they're higher and much more humble.

I'm sitting here looking at my life right now and scratching my head,  How on earth did I get here?  And why am I even sticking around?  I think the answer has everything to do with that prayer warning I mentioned above.

You see, more than a few times over the years, I've read an amazing story, or sung an inspiring song, and thought, "Why doesn't God seem to my as close as he did to the person who lived or wrote this?"  And then I'd get the brilliant idea to pray and ask God to make him the most precious thing to me, whatever the cost.  I just forgot to mention in my prayer the fine print, excluding everything I hold dear from that "whatever the cost" phrase.  And I didn't pray this just once, I prayed at many, many times.  I had no clue how heavy those words would weigh into my life later.  Even if I didn't mean them all, God took them oh-so seriously (and the scary thing is I'm only nineteen).

Without getting into too many of the grubby details, my life's pretty tough right now, with no signs of getting easier within a bearable amount of time.  Put on paper, my trials look smaller than they feel.  Living at work, having no social life whatsoever, working over fifty hours a week, having just about zero fellowship, feeling so, so, so, alone, attempting to raise kids coming from difficult backgrounds with people who have different parenting principles.  The list goes on.  Put in such definable terms, I find it easy to imagine grace when I separate these circumstances from myself. The person going through all this just has to cast themself on Christ and boom! joy will abound and they will conquer all the giants staring them in the face.  It's just so easy, trials are no big deal.  Trust God, it'll all be better!

But when it comes to living every day under all of these weights, grace looks a lot different from the imagined flowing cheerfulness and strength.  The grace given looks a lot less like Superman and a lot more like the ragged dogs that wander around down here looking for trash to eat.  It's a grace that allows me to see my utter helplessness in all of this and pushes me to cry out to God to make it through the next five minutes.  It's a grace that dries my many, many tears and helps me get back up on my feet to receive the next blow.  And I honestly don't think that last sentence is an understatement, because it feels like as soon as I've come to a place of faith to face the next day under this set of circumstances, a few more complications are added.

For a while, I was, quite frankly, mad at God for this.  My life's already hard.  Why did he have to add another thing?  And then another and another?  I was only timidly sure that I could live with all of those burdens, and here's a new and even heavier one!  But thinking about it a little more, I'm a little more at peace with this pattern.  I can't help but think that God is actually delaying the added trials until I've wrestled and found his grace for the original ones.  I am most definitely constantly breaking, but I've not yet broken.  It's a beautiful balance of pain and grace.  Just enough misery that I am so aware of my need for God and so full of worship for his sustenance, but never enough hardship that I collapse.  My hands are increasingly raised in praise, but never thrown up in despair.

Every day, I'm living those prayers I prayed.

"Jesus, be my all!"

"Fashion in me the same character found in Christ!"

"Make me a servant for your glory!"

The words sounded so sweet, so noble; the realities are so bittersweet, so lowly.  But the grace given.  Ahhh, it's so much richer, so much deeper than anything my comfort-saturated soul could have invented through imagination.

So, when you pray, offer it all, even though you don't really mean it.  God will take you at your word and when your prayers are half-forgotten, he'll begin to answer them.  If you're anything like me, you'll watch with initial horror as your treasures are tugged from your tight fist, but you'll rejoice as they're replaced with unspeakable beauty and unending grace.

And don't say I didn't warn you.

NOTE:  I wrote this sometime last week, when things in my life were really hard.  And then, after I wrote it, they, no surprise, got even harder.  And I just believe it's worth saying that, even as troubles pile miles high in your life, if your hope is in Christ, the sweetness of fellowship you will gain with him through trials is worth all of the painful sacrifices. Though my life is harder than it was when I wrote these words, God's grace is still sweeter.  Sweeter than my trials, sweeter than the comforts lost.