It would never have been in my plans to make an international move pregnant, but that is exactly what I did in the fall of ‘99. When I was thrown into the newness of being a first time mama six months later, I was still wrestling to grasp a language as different from English as possible, learning how to lead a ministry alongside my husband, and finding my place in a new culture.
I was swimming in transition.
My love for our host country, coupled with a deep need for external validation, drove me through the spring to squeeze life out of every hour: studying the language while our son napped, taking him with me to meet students, our team passing him around as we met and planned. I once nursed him with one arm while wiping a poop explosion off the wall with baby wipes so I could finish in time to meet a student for discipleship.
I wanted to do it all. Six months later, I was overwhelmed.
To read the rest of the story, and how God used this verse from Jeremiah to minister to me, go to my guest post at (in)courage here:Stand at the Crossroads
“All children mythologize their birth. It is a universal trait. You want to know someone? Heart, mind and soul? Ask him to tell you about when he was born. What you get won’t be the truth; it will be a story. And nothing is more telling than a story.” – The Thirteenth Tale, by Diane Setterfield
In the last few years, I’ve thought a lot more about my story. Partly this is from coaching others to know their stories, partly through reading To Be Told by Dan Allender, and partly it’s just the way God is leading me.
Many people think the past is just the past-over and done, let’s move on. But the past is part of us.
We are a composite of our stories and how they shaped us.
There are messages on our hearts from every moment we have lived-messages about who we are, what it takes for us to find love and belonging, and how to safeguard our hearts.
The problem is that those messages are often fuzzy versions of truth.
They lead us to seek ways of saving ourselves rather than calling us to rest in God. It’s unlikely we will change those messages and the behavior that stems from them unless we really examine the stories that shaped us.
And more importantly, we can’t know our stories well on our own.
The last spring we lived overseas, a group of us met every other week to watch a video series by Dan Allender called Learning to Love Your Story. Afterward, we broke into groups and reflected on what we heard. In the process, we told our stories to each other.
It’s interesting when you tell a story from your life to someone else. You think you know it and understand it, but until you tell it to someone else, you don’t see it for what it is.
I’ve had people tell me incredible sad stories, but they laugh while they tell them, not realizing their laughter helps them avoid feeling the pain of what happened.
I have told others stories, heard them say, “That must have been so hard,” and until that moment, I didn’t see it that way. We see our stories through a certain lens; we need help to zoom out and see them more clearly.
When we tell our stories, others can ask questions and help us connect the dots to who we are in the present because of our past. We need their reflection to help us see how what happened to us in the past still shapes us now, for good or harm. They can point us to wounds that need healing, sin that needs redeeming, lies that need the truth.
One of the greatest gifts is someone listening to your story, feeling it with you, and loving you in it.
It opens the door for healing and transformation. In telling our stories, others wipe the film from them to reveal the truth, to recognize the lies and vows we have embraced to help us save ourselves.
They can give us the grace and compassion many of us missed in our stories the first go around. This is the power of story.
Two days into the New Year, and I whined to my husband, “I have too much to DO!”
“Like what?” he reasonably asked.
“I don’t know. EVERYTHING,” I told him (let me have this dramatic moment, mister). I have big plans this year, and those big plans are looming.
It didn’t help that I spent most of the last week and a half sick and fairly inactive. New Year’s Eve I was in bed by 9 pm (oh, who am I kidding? I’m always in bed by 9 pm, even on New Year’s Eve. A night owl I am not). After all that laying around, I came into 2017 like a racehorse fresh out of the box, like Pac Man ready to gobble down all the pac-dots and level up.
In all that down time, I was able to reflect on last year and dream big for this one. I filled that new planner with goals I want to accomplish and habits I hope to keep and books to read and ponies to ask for. I even added an extra page to capture the other roles and responsibilities I know God’s put on my plate for this year (I’ll send my planner 2.0 version to subscribers soon!). I immediately found myself wanting to chase down every goal, check every box, fulfill every hope that sprang to mind as I thought about this new year. And I wanted to do it before the end of the week.
It’s good and right to look ahead and hope for bigger and better, to plan for change and set our hearts in new directions. We want to lift our eyes from the path we’re on to see the next mountain we could climb. The problem is: mountain climbing is hard. Where to even begin?
Some of us look at that mountain and think, “What was I thinking? I can’t mountain climb,” and we give up. Others, like yours truly, think, “Well, if I run, I’ll get to the top faster.” Moron. You can’t run up a mountain.
It’s no secret I’m not the best at pacing myself. This may be why so many resolutions fall by the wayside: we who are so accustomed to instant results struggle to see the mountain and know how to conquer it a little at a time. We don’t know how to do the long journey. We have seen what could be, and we want it now. We see how hard the journey will be, and we doubt our ability to endure. It’s easier to decide not to climb.
The Chinese have a saying, “千里之行，始於足下.” (Qiān lĭ zhī xíng, shĭ yú zú xià for those of you who are familiar with Mandarin, or who just want to have a slighter better chance of reading it) We know it as, “The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”
It’s important to lift our eyes, to dream of what could be. We must keep it in mind, as we live with the reality that today, maybe I only inch toward it. Tomorrow, maybe I leap. Tomorrow, maybe I check a box, or I accomplish something big. Then the next day, maybe I rest, or I go back and do the same step again. We keep our eyes on the top while we take the next step.
This morning as I walked, I prayed about this. I was reminded that I want to hold goals and dreams and hopes that are God-honoring, that are from Him. I want to do what He has called me to do, nothing more, nothing less. So if these are the mountains He has given me to climb, He can help me climb them, one step at at time. He can guide my pace, give me grace for the days when not much happens, and strength for the days I need to push through.
So I ask Him, “What step should I take today?” Do that, and it is enough. Remember: we don’t just have all year. We have our lives to keep moving in the direction He’s leading. The journey continues each day, one step at a time.
This has been a divisive year. Lines have been drawn and ugliness has risen to the surface in many places. Sometimes the darkness feels all too strong.
Jesus understands that kind of world.
When he entered it, the Jewish people had endured 400 years of silence from God. They lived under the oppressive rule of Rome. Soldiers walked the streets. Riots were not uncommon. Even within Judaism, there was division, as four sects fought for control. Shortly after he was born, Jesus and his family were forced to flee to a new country to avoid Herod’s massacre of children under 2. Dark times, indeed.
The Jews wanted someone to take away the darkness. They wanted a Savior, but their idea of how they would be saved and from what was misguided. Jesus didn’t come as a military or political leader. He didn’t free them from Rome. He wasn’t about conforming governments to his will. He didn’t erase dividing lines between people. He didn’t make everything easy, or pave a straight, conflict free path for us. He didn’t eradicate evil. Instead, he shone a light into it.
He was light in the darkness.
That light sets hearts free. He stepped into the darkness to make room for joy, peace, hope, mercy and grace. His light was life and love, come into the world, to transform us, rather than transforming our worlds to suit us.
We are not called to look at the darkness and be afraid. We are not meant to see it and complain and argue about what it all means. We don’t shake our heads and give up. We don’t wring our hands in despair.
We turn on the light.
We move into the world as people who know joy, peace, hope, grace, mercy, and above all, love. This is what we are about. We are about shining his light brighter and brighter. So this Christmas season, how can we remember to shine his light in the world?
We shine the light of hope. Our hope is in a person, not an outcome. We do not hope in government. We do not hope in society conforming to our standards. We hope in what he can do. We hope in what will be.
We shine the light of peace. Peace is not merely an emotion, but a state of reconciliation brought about through him. So where there is division and unrest, we speak peace. In the midst of chaos, we breathe peace.
We shine the light of joy. He gives us joy beyond circumstances, the joy of knowing him and being loved by him. That joy ought to show on our faces, in our spirits, in how we move through this world.
We shine the light of mercy and grace. Jesus came for the outcast, the downtrodden, the poor, weak and weary. We declare that the gospel is for the ragamuffin, for those who are not too proud to receive what they need. That starts with recognizing we are counted among the needy.
We shine the light of love. Most of all, the light that shines in the darkness declares that love overcomes. It overcomes the darkness in our hearts and opens the door for us to receive all that he offers us. Christmas is God’s shout of love to the world, a shout that makes the darkness flee. Let’s simmer in this reality long enough for it to show up in our actions, in our words.
Yes, the world is dark, but we know the light.
This Christmas, let’s seek ways to make the light brighter in what we say, how we treat others, how we make room for them, where we look for life. Let us be people who reflect the light to a dark world.
“for he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the son he loves.” Colossians 1:13
Every fall, kids make wish lists of all that they want for Christmas. When our kids were young, I feared Toys-R-Us. I was terrified they’d set their hearts on something huge we couldn’t afford. One year there was a giant toy pony that kids could actually ride. I think it cost $400. Ridiculous.
Years ago, my friend’s son was celebrating his 4th birthday. Just before he blew out the candles, we said, “Make a wish, Luke.” Without skipping a beat, he took a breath and said, “I wish I could fly,” then blew.
That’s how kids think. I want the pony. I want to fly.
Somewhere along the way, we make our lists more reasonable. More practical. We stick to the budget. That’s good in some respects, but there’s an aspect of how kids ask that we aren’t meant to lose.
What are children like?
They are weak, needy, and unashamed. Boldly they bring their needs and make them known. They’re trusting. They don’t analyze whether or not the ask is too much or out of line-they’re just honest with desire. Faith that their parents will take care of them drives their asks.
In the gospels, I see Jesus inviting this kind of boldness in our relationship with God. He’s always asking people to come closer, calling out their desire, “What do you want me to do for you?” Jesus honors faith, even when it’s just a desperate grab at his cloak. He makes space for children, calling us to be like them. We too are invited to come and ask.
So why don’t we? Why don’t we go to God with all our hopes and dreams and wishes and ask big?
The vulnerability of audacity
Prayer is vulnerable. It’s a raw and scary prospect to bring all our desires before someone who could choose not to fulfill them in the way we hope. We are tempted to hedge our prayers and only ask for what we think he’s willing to do, what’s in the budget. We wonder if we’re asking for the right things in the right ways so much that we end up asking for nothing at all. It’s easier not to ask than to ask and be disappointed.
But prayer is about so much more than getting what we want. It’s about drawing closer in trust to our father, letting him have our whole hearts, and in the process being shaped to his will. He can’t do that when we hold back.
Be childlike
I now try to be more childlike in my prayers. I go to God bare hearted, telling him everything I wish were true, everything I hope will happen, everything I want. Go honest, raw, angry, scared, confused, hopeful, searching. We don’t have to censor ourselves, but instead, trust that he can see through our aching.
As we do, he sorts out the aching. He is at work in these areas. Listen to him remind us of what’s true. We will feel his delight. He pours out peace and comfort. When we bring our whole hearts, he can fully sift them and give us the right perspective. It leads to gratitude and worship.
What’s on your list today?
Be audacious, bold, needy, honest. Be childlike in your faith and your trust. Ask for the pony. Tell him you want to fly. Bring your whole heart to your father who loves you more than life and trust that he will give you what is good.
“Which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” -Matthew 7:9-11
This is the month of the year when we are reminded to be thankful. Pinterest is cluttered with suggestions for ways to count our blessings. At work one year, someone put up a thankfulness tree, and a sign inviting others to write on a leaf and add to it. Among the turkey and pilgrim decorations are plates and napkins and signs bearing the word, “Thanks.” But the fact is, sometimes, it’s hard to feel thankful.
Sometimes we have seasons when the blessings are hard to see. The job is stressful, and you wonder if it’s even where you belong. Your kids are struggling in school. The loneliness lingers, or your marriage feels old and empty. Depression is a cloud you can’t shake. The test is positive, or negative. Sometimes the hard is so overwhelming the thought of looking for the good feels beyond our reach.
At times like that, when we don’t feel grateful, what do we do?
We pan for gold.
Now I’ve never actually panned for gold, but I imagine that it is hard work. Time-consuming. It requires great focus and a trained eye to look for the smallest bits of gold in the mud. All your energy goes into finding that precious metal. Those willing to look harder found more.
So when I’m in a season where it doesn’t feel like the gold nuggets are right there for the taking, I imagine myself as a gold miner (side note: I HATE the word nugget. Hate. It.). I take more time to look a little harder, sift my life around a little more, asking where I do see Him at work. I look for the smallest blessings. Sometimes I start with, “I am alive today.”
And then I thank Him for them. I thank Him for food, clothes, shelter, health and all that I take for granted every day. It’s good to start there.
The more we pan for gold, the better we become at finding it. We see gold in a kind word, a safe drive, a quiet moment. It’s found in sunrises, fresh air, and every day we get to start again.
We are not asked to give thanks for every circumstance but in every circumstance. Whatever the season brings, there’s gold in them there hills. We can be grateful people in the midst of trial, heartache, pain.
Seek out the evidence of goodness mixed in with the dirt of hardship. Search for the reminders that we are never forsaken, even when the road is rough. His blessings carry us. Pan for gold, friends. Our lives are rich.
On Wednesday, November 9th, we will wake up to a new president. Lord, have mercy. However the chips fall, the next four years will encompass a reality most of us probably would not have chosen. It’s easy to feel helpless in light of the future, but there’s still much that we can, and should, do.
We can pray. I’ll be honest-I put off voting because I didn’t want to vote for either major party candidate. I have serious issues with both of them. But here’s what I know about both of them-God loves them, and he can redeem them. To say otherwise is to deny his power. Their souls are more important to Him than anything else about them, and they desperately need our prayers. So we can pray for our new president. We can pray for wisdom, guidance, humility, wise counsel, strength, and peace. We can pray for a heart responsive to His Spirit.
We can respect our leader. Like I said, not a fan of either candidate, but I also recognize that being the president of the United States has to be the toughest job in the whole world. God asks us to respect everyone, especially our leaders (1 Peter 2:17), and that includes people we disagree with. We are called to love even our enemies, and love includes speaking well. So we can speak with the same respect and grace about the president as we would if that person were with us face to face, because it glorifies God.
We can love our neighbors. This election cycle has caused so much division. Shame and vilification have happened left and right, even between people who claim to care for each other. I have hovered over the “hide this person’s posts” button on Facebook more than once. But at the end of the day, our call to love is greater than anything. So we can keep moving toward people who have offended us and see differently than we do, especially when they are fellow believers. Christ declared that the world would know we are Christians by our love. We can prove that true.
We can be like Christ to the world. I’ve been immersed in the gospels lately, and what strikes me about Jesus’ interactions with this world is that non-religious people really liked him. And he really liked them. He went to where they were. He ate with them, accepted them, and then called them to something greater. His lead foot was love. We as the church have focused so much energy on changing laws instead of changing hearts. We can choose instead to imitate Christ. We can move toward people with grace, invite them to the one who loves them more than life, and trust him to change them in a way no law ever could.
We can trust God. He never wrings his hands during election time, hoping we’ll choose the right leader. He uses all of this. He doesn’t need America to be a “Christian” nation for Him to work. In fact, the church is growing the most in places where the government doesn’t recognize religious rights at all. We can live not by fear but by faith and trust that his power and his Spirit are indomitable. We can rest in hope that whichever way this goes, His purpose for our world will continue.
This is an opportunity for us to respond differently than the world. And isn’t that what we are called to do? We can glorify God, love Him, and love others regardless of the outcome of this election. In fact, there may never have been a more opportune time for us to live this way. Let’s make the most of it.
I’ve always thought it was wrong to focus on the “what if’s” in life. It seems like a recipe for anxiety to imagine all that could go wrong, all that could be hiding in the darkness of “what if.” We could spend a lot of unnecessary energy trying to manage the “what if” scenarios.
But I’ve found that if I just try to ignore the “what if’s,” they don’t go away. They linger in my mind as nebulous possibilities with the power to hold back my hand from being brave. They hide in the darkness just out of sight, allowing the potential threat to grow. I’ve been discovering that there’s a lot of power to demolish lies and face the fears that grip us when we let ourselves get curious about the “what if” questions.
It started for me like this: One night this spring, as I was wrestling with my fear of failure (one of my go-to fears), I felt like God prompted me to ask, “What if you do fail?”
Which, honestly, felt like kind of a mean question. God, you’re supposed to tell me I won’t fail. You’re supposed to tell me everything will be fine.
But the truth is, it might not be. I will acknowledge that failure is a possibility, as much as I would like it not to be.
So I asked the question, “What if I fail? What’s the worst that could happen?”
If I fail, people might see. They might be disappointed. They might turn away. I might feel like an idiot (oh please, anything but that. Seriously).
“OK, well, what if they do see? What if they are disappointed? Will they really think differently of you? Probably not. They’ll probably be glad to see that you’re human. Does that define your value? No, it does not. Are you still loved? Oh yes, so very, very much. And not just by God, but most likely by those same people who have seen you fail.”
Asking myself these worst case scenario questions was not an attempt to build up my defenses to protect from the pain of experiencing them. Instead, it helped me see where I am trying to rest in others for life and love. As I overlaid God’s grace and truth on it, I realize I would survive a “what if.” Would it be painful? Maybe. Probably. But would he walk with me through it? Yes. And I have hope that I would come out better on the other side. More human. Less self-protective. Braver. More restful.
So much energy in life is expended in avoiding the “what ifs.”We try to ward off the evil, the painful, the uncomfortable, instead of trusting that a) God will walk with us through it and b) however hard it is, God can redeem.
Since then, I’ve been making a more regular practice of facing the “what ifs” head on. Confronting them is like pulling back the curtain on the Wizard of Oz and finding he’s not nearly as imposing as he’s making himself out to be. In fact, he might even be able to teach me something about what it is I want, what I fear, and how to look to God for provision and protection instead of to myself.
So ask the “what ifs.” What if I fail? What if I don’t get this job? What if things don’t turn out the way I hope? What if this situation never changes? What if my needs aren’t met? What if I don’t know what to do? What if I make a mistake? What if people see it happen?
Ask them not to guard from what could happen (or isn’t happening), but to remind yourself that whatever comes, he’s going to walk with you through it. He will help you see what is true about him, you, and others. Each time we do, we gain more courage to step with faith into the unknown.
People often tell me I’m authentic. I hope so, but I know it hasn’t always been the case. My journey of understanding what it means to be real, and learning to embrace it, began years ago.
When I was a youngster, I was a drama geek. I had no idea how uncool that was, but it didn’t matter because I loved it. One of my favorite plays was the Velveteen Rabbit in which I played “Crazed Jack in the Box” as well as “Real Rabbit #2.” I know. So, so utterly uncool.
But there’s a beautiful scene where the Velveteen Rabbit is speaking with the Skin Horse, the oldest toy in the nursery. This is their conversation:
“Real isn’t how you are made,’ said the Skin Horse. ‘It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.’
‘Does it hurt?’ asked the Rabbit.
‘Sometimes,’ said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. ‘When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.’
‘Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,’ he asked, ‘or bit by bit?’
‘It doesn’t happen all at once,’ said the Skin Horse. ‘You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”
For much of my life, I lived in fear of moving close enough to people to let them love all of me. I feared they might reject the weaker, less appealing parts that I saw. I believed the lie that I had to be a certain kind of person, not too much, not too little, in order to be loved.
For me, the journey to being authentic started with accepting that I am deeply, unreservedly loved by God and I have done nothing to earn it or deserve it. It is in letting him bring out all that I believe is unlovely in me and hearing, “yes, I love even this” that I have begun to allow others to see it as well.
Paula Reinhart in Strong Women, Soft Hearts, says, [ictt-tweet-inline]“You can’t really love people well unless you are at home in your own soul. You will simply be too afraid.” [/ictt-tweet-inline] It is still a terrifying prospect to be simply me with others, and to waver in the hope that they will accept me just as I am. But when I come from a place of love, it gives me courage to truly be myself.
And it’s a beautiful thing, to be truly real with others. It is an opportunity for us to love others with his love, to be open and vulnerable and known. Yes, sometimes it hurts a little, and we get a little shabby in the process. But when we are REALLY loved, then we are free to become real.
Velveteen Rabbits and Skin Horses
Wonder at the miracle
of offering in trembling hands
pieces of yourself
to have them taken
oh so softly, gently,
with a smile.
The greater awe
of trust and faith
as pieces are returned
you hold and treasure them
and it does your soul
such good.
Roots sink deeper
hearts grow closer
as pieces show the truth
of who you are
and who they are
and how you learn to love
first the good
the bright and fun and healthy
parts exchanged
but soon, exposed, so nothing’s left
but worn and battered–
wish–they–were-not–there pieces
Quaking, wrapped in
hopeful prayers then growing joy
as we’re caught with “even this” acceptance
Oh sweet relief
this experience
of being worn but known
warm arms embracing
all your cracks and rips
and feeble, ugly ways
the miracle, the glorious one
of being loved
and loving back
And becoming real.
