“I’m Not Afraid of Who You Are”
Jeff and I feel “the call” to do a church in Goodlettsville, not because Nashville is hurting for churches, because it’s really not. But for a while, Abba has put the church thing in both of our hearts, and so we’re pursuing it. Jeff’s been gifted with teaching and counseling, and I’ve been gifted with quality time. And, yes, I know that quality time is not technically a gift; it’s a love language, but I’m claiming it as my gift.
One of my favorite things to do in the world is to sit down with someone and share journeys…and just see where they connect. Because I think that’s what we’re called to do…connect with each other…share each others other’s burdens.
I’m really open about my own story. But someone just recently told me that I shouldn’t be as open as I am with people, that I should only have a couple friends who really know me who I can trust to not repeat the things I share. Because, I was told, if I reveal myself, especially the ugly stuff, then what I say might get misconstrued…that someone might say something bad about me. And, yes, that’s already happened. That’s even happened with my blog. And that’s ok. Because there are always going to be those people who want to throw stones. They’ve got their ugly stuff too…they’re just not willing to admit it or share it yet.
In the Bible, when the Pharisees caught the woman in the act of adultery and brought her to Jesus to stone, Jesus told them that those who were without sin could be the first ones to throw a stone at her. They didn’t throw any stones that day. Instead, they left. The Bible points out that the older men were the first to walk away. Interesting…maybe once they began recalling their own sin, they could no longer condemn her…and they knew that they didn’t want their sin revealed.
I believe we’re called to share not only our victories but also our struggles. When we admit our struggles, the struggles don’t magically vanish, but they also don’t hold the same power that they once did. That’s what happens when you bring things to the light. James 5:16 says to pray for each other but also to confess our sins to each other so that you can live together whole and healed.
But the longer we keep our junk to ourselves…the longer we keep putting our masks back over our faces…the longer we pretend to have it all together, the more we allow Satan to come in and perpetuate his lies. Satan wants us to hide from each other and become isolated and not live in real Christian community by either trying to make us think that our junk is worse than other people’s junk, or if you’re stuck in the pride of legalism that your junk isn’t nearly as bad as anyone else’s. But both are lies from the enemy, and both lies cause isolation.
For years, I was afraid to be who I really was…afraid and ashamed to honestly reveal my struggles with the people around me. And you may be in that place where you feel it isn’t safe to reveal your stuff. Because you know if you were to reveal who you really are, you won’t be accepted and loved. It’ll be just the opposite. You’ll be rejected and judged. And that’s a hard place to be. If you’re in that spot, all I have to say is, “Run!” Run into the arms of your loving Abba who knows all your junk and loves you anyway. And He will show you the path out of the legalism and bondage. He will set you free.
I invite people to join me in my story…the good and the bad…the struggles and the victories. I hope you’ll share your story with someone. We all have a story to share. Our stories help other people know that they are not alone…that they don’t have to be afraid or ashamed…that we are all human…that we all struggle and that it’s ok.
And so I guess that’s what I want. I want to be involved in a church…in a community where people are not afraid to reveal who they really are…where maybe the people who have been hurt by the church can come and share where they are…where can lick their wounds and start over. That’s where Jeff and I were eight years ago. And we’ve been called to share that story with others.
Let’s fling open wide the closet doors. I’m not afraid of the skeletons in your closet, and I’m not afraid of those in mine. Find someone to share your story with. They need to hear it, and you need to share it. Be real. Be honest. Be open. It’s freeing for everyone.
The Princess and the Process
We spent our summer remodeling our kitchen…well, it’s still not done yet, but it’s close. I didn’t actually do much of the work…other than paint the cabinets at the very beginning of the project. I mainly just tried to stay out of the way while my husband and father-in-law did the work. I was doing pretty well until they put the drywall in, and then I thought I would lose my mind. I walked around huffing and sighing and huffing about the drywall dust that covered everything in the downstairs of my house. In the middle of this mess, we started home schooling. Since I’m a single focused girl, a seriously NON-multi-tasker, I had a really, really hard time.
About one-fourth of the way into the process, I had had enough and took the kids and went to stay with my brother and his family in Indiana for a few days and was secretly hoping that when I got back the kitchen would be mostly completed. It wasn’t. I came back and didn’t have a sink for over a week (we ate a lot of burritos, corn dogs, and PBJ’s on paper plates). I threatened Jeff to go stay with someone else while he and his dad continued to work. I think he would have loved for me to go away again…I was just not that nice to live with.
Now, as we’re nearing the end of it all, I’m kind of sad…NOT because it’s almost over, but because I really thought I would be able to handle the inconveniences of remodeling the kitchen better than I did…I really thought that it wasn’t going to be that big of a deal and that I would handle it reasonably well…I kind of pictured myself like one of those tough, enduring pioneer women…HAH! What I did learn about myself is that I’m not a process kind of gal when it comes to home improvement. Next time there’s a remodeling thing, I want to go to Disney World and let other people come in and do it for me. You know, a “move that bus” kind of thing.
Safety?
On our end of the year field trip to an amusement park, I found myself on a roller coaster with one of the 4th grade students. This roller coaster was rickety and jerky as only old wooden roller coasters can be. But I was happy to see that not only did this roller coaster have the safety bar across our laps, it also had seatbelts. I felt safer. I think that’s the part about roller coasters that makes me nervous…that the bar just might come unlocked and my body sent flying through the air. I’m not so concerned about death, just the part before death where the intense pain might be.
My friend Shelly recently told me about an experience she and her brother had had on a roller coaster as children. As she was telling me this story, I felt the panic and horror rising in the pit of my stomach for them. Their safety bar didn’t lock, but before they could climb out or tell anyone, the roller coaster started. She and her brother madly scrambled for the floorboard and somehow managed to remain there until the ride reached its stopping point. They were ok, and to my surprise, she still rides roller coasters. I think my roller coaster riding days would be over after that. That would be the story that I would have shaped my entire life around…”let me tell you about the time I got on the roller coaster, and the bar didn’t lock…”
In my life, sometimes it feels like the safety bar doesn’t catch…that I’m going to be thrown out…flung beyond my capacity to trust. And sometimes I am.
Right now happens to be one of those times when I’m waffling back and forth between panic and trust. But I honestly think Jesus is ok with that. In the garden, right before Jesus died, He asked His Abba three times to have “this cup” of death taken from Him. But then, He turned around and completely submitted to His Father and released everything…even His own life. I’m glad Jesus showed us such a clear picture of His own struggling humanness. I think His prayer in the garden was for those of us who wrestle with being able to release everything, even down to our own illusions of safety.
That’s where I am today…praying for the willingness to be able to release everything…everything but Him…
Isaiah 41 says, “Don’t panic. I’m with you. There’s no need to fear for I’m your God…I’ll hold you steady, keep a firm grip on you.”
Does Jesus Care About a School? (Part 2)
Pioneer Christian Academy (see Does Jesus Care About a School?) is closing at the end of this school year. After being open for 39 years, it’s over. It’s the school my husband graduated from, and the school he’s been the headmaster of for the last two years. It’s where my own children have felt at home and have made good friends, and it’s the school I now work at due to default (the 5th grade teacher quitting in early December).
But Pioneer’s closing is a done deal. We prayed for God’s will, and this is it. Sometimes, it’s hard to see the greater good in it all, but I know that Abba is in control, He loves each one of us, and He is good. So this is good, even though at times it doesn’t feel like it. I’m not going to lie and say it’s been easy because it hasn’t. In fact, it’s been downright hard and ugly at times. And there are times when I just want to bang my head against the wall in frustration…frustration that there’s nothing anyone can do about all this…
It’s been painful having to watch my co-workers, who have become my friends try to find other jobs when there’s a shortage of teaching jobs and to watch my students be sad about not seeing each other anymore. This has been the school where some of them have been since kindergarten…It’s not easy for them to walk away and have to find another school and new friends where they might not feel as loved and accepted. There’s just a lot of uncertainty and instability for everyone right now. We, too, have no idea what the next thing is for our family either. But I’m clinging to the fact that Abba is still in all this…and some moments that’s all I’ve got.
A couple months ago, Jeff and I both woke up mad…angry that we had to deal with all the stuff that’s involved in a school closing. There are so many emotions…just wanting to be done with it all and then just wanting to hang on just a little while longer but then in the very next breath just wanting it to be over already…it makes me crazy at times.
But on this particular morning, Jeff and I went around and around about how difficult this has been. I went from trying to be supportive to wanting to chuck my hairdryer across the room (not at him, just against the wall, and I really wasn’t angry at him…I was just frustrated about the seemingly stupid situation I’m in.) And then I proceeded to tell Jeff, “I quit. I cannot deal with this any longer.” I put my jeans on and threw myself down on the bed. Jeff told me that I couldn’t abandon my students and started listing off the names of the kids in my class…I thought that his calling out the names of the kids in my class was a pretty low-down dirty trick, but it worked because I began picturing their faces…those kids who have been through so much in the last couple of years…such legalism and then such freedom… and now the loss of a place where they finally feel loved and accepted…and that some see as a haven.
After my temper tantrum, I agreed to go back to school but was still very much struggling to get a grip. After Jeff left our bedroom, I began to cry. I stood at the ironing board in my room and cried to Abba, sobbing out loud, “I can’t hear you anymore. I just can’t hear you over there, at that place.” And He said to me very, very clearly, “Take care of My sheep.”
So I finished getting ready and went in to school and did as I was told. I took care of His sheep for one more day. And that’s what I’ve been doing. But some days are just really hard…I can’t help but feel like we’re on our own version of the Titanic…one that’s been in the process of sinking for a long, long time. Most days, Jeff prefers to see Pioneer closing as a launching pad…where each one of us is being launched off in a different direction…to other places to be the hands and feet of Jesus to other people. And that’s a great way to look at it, but most days it still really feels like the Titanic to me.
I guess one of the hard things is that there have been some who have already left…parents, students, staff…, and it feels sometimes like those who have left have taken the lifeboats and the lifejackets and have left us to keep pitching water at the bottom of the ship, which is pretty hopeless at this point, and everyone knows it.
As some have left and said their goodbyes, I have had the crazy urge to cling to their legs like a little kid who won’t let go of his mom, the kid whose arms have to be pried from around her legs. I can sometimes picture myself as that little kid, wailing, “Please don’t go. Please don’t leave us. It’s not fair.” But on the other hand, I feel a little giddy for them because they got out…they got out in one piece, and I may not…well, at least it feels that way at times.
And I know it’s what Abba wants them to do, but I still can’t help but feel gut-punched at times…abandoned even. But this is what I’m supposed to do…It’s what I’ve been clearly told to do…”Take care of His sheep”…so that’s it …that’s all I can do. And I look around at the faces in my class, and I know it’s where I’m supposed to be. I have to see this thing through…finish it out. A friend of ours says that sometimes it’s necessary to “hold the hand of a dying ministry.” So, I guess in essence that’s what we’re all really doing.
As I was lamenting to a friend about being in the bottom of the Titanic bailing water, she said, “Oh no, you’re not bailing water…you’re the musicians…you’re playing the music.” So, for those of us who are left, for those who have stayed on board…we’re the musicians, playing the music as the ship goes down…making sure everyone doesn’t panic…helping quiet the terror that rages within when change happens…playing the music that lifts the soul and takes a person beyond what their present circumstances are…helping everyone see the beauty around them…helping everyone hear the voice of God…”Peace…Peace be to you.”
Love and Forgiveness…Again?
I found out that someone mistook what I said and let other people know about her misunderstanding of me. I was enraged. I hate being misunderstood…being judged. I found myself wanting to scratch her eyeballs out. Why did I let this affect me so badly? In part, because once a month for about a week, some crazy lunatic woman comes to live at my house, sleep in my bed, wear my clothes, and take my children to school. But, I have to admit, even though I would like to totally blame it on “crazy lunatic woman” who has only really shown up in the last few years, it’s more than just this…it’s my pride and my attitude of “How dare this woman offend me and judge me…” So, at three in the morning I was beginning to wonder where Abba was in all this hormone dysfunction and anger and pride and injustice. And how do I get His peace and refrain from letting the air out of this woman’s car tires?
I was teaching my 5th graders Bible the very next morning, and I was reciting this verse with my students… “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood…” The light bulb suddenly came on for me…my fight is not against other people, even those that misjudge me and talk about me in negative ways.
In Bible, we’ve also been talking about the Passion of Jesus. I had just taught my students that Jesus was in the midst of His false accusers, and He didn’t speak a word, not one word in defense of Himself. And that’s when I realized how agonizingly difficult this must have been…to just keep His mouth shut when these people were lying about Him. I suddenly realized how quick I am to defend myself over something stupid. Here, Jesus was on trial for His life, and people were saying things that were clearly untrue, and He didn’t stand up for Himself…didn’t defend His honor…He just stood there and took it…the God of the universe took it.
And if that wasn’t enough, as He was hanging on the cross, He says, “Father, forgive them (the ones who were in the process of crucifying Him) for they know not what they do.” He clearly knew His struggle wasn’t with the people around Him and didn’t hold it to their account. But this is not me…I hear one small word against me, and I am quick to defend myself and even quicker to lash out in anger and frustration.
So, I have to come back to the fact that my struggle is not with the people around me…at least it shouldn’t be, but that seems to be one of Satan’s biggest lies for me…to get me fighting with some of the people around me…to get me to really believe that my struggle is with other people…especially other believers. I look like the biggest idiot to a world of non-believers, when I’m supposed to have The Answer (Jesus) and cannot even get along with other believers. Why would the world possibly want what I have when I’m so busy taking offense over stupid things because my pride gets wounded?
Jesus says, “Love one another.” And it’s clearly not supposed to be conditional, based on the other person’s actions…what she did, what she said. But, then again, forgiveness is stinking hard, because I want to be right…I want justice. But I also want mercy…I also want love and grace and peace, and I cannot truly feel (I have them…I just won’t feel) these things if I hang on to my pride and my anger. I still have to release and forgive and love regardless of whether “lunatic woman” is in the midst of her visit or not. And it doesn’t really matter whether the one who has offended me gets it or doesn’t ever get it…whether the light bulb comes on for her or not. Jesus loves everyone…even her…just as much as He loves me.
Sometimes, forgiveness comes in an instant, and sometimes it takes quite a bit longer and sometimes even the words have to be repeated and wrestled with again and again, “I forgive her…I forgive her…I forgive her…Abba, please, please help me forgive her.” I noticed this particular time that it was one of those in between things…I didn’t have to ask 100 times, but it also didn’t come in an instant either. But, when forgiveness did eventually come, compassion came shortly thereafter…and I was grateful because both were a gift.
25 Not So Random Things About Me
Ok, so this is that “25 random things about me” list that some people on facebook are doing. And even though I’m not much of a bandwagon kind of gal, I thought it might be interesting to write these things down…
1. I don’t have time to do this. I should be in bed or doing something useful like cleaning my house or something.
2. I dislike cleaning.
3. I love to write, but I only discovered this a year ago.
4. I really like the Nashville library loan system. I can get whatever I want sent to me at my little po-dunk Goodlettsville branch. This makes me very happy in a nerdy kinda way.
5. I always like living wherever I am…happens to be Nashville now, and I hope we stay, but I’ve found it’s not really up to me where we are.
6. I like one on one deep conversations…can’t stand small talk…I’ll show you mine if… 
7. I find songs for each time in my life or maybe they find me…and I will play them 100 times in a row (drives Jeff, Jesse, and Jake crazy…sometimes Jake won’t ride with me to school because he knows I’m playing the same song.)
8. My favorite ice cream is still chocolate peanut butter ice cream. The summer I spent as a camp counselor in New Hampshire, Mary (my best friend from college) and I tried all of New Hampshire’s chocolate peanut butter ice cream.
9. The last two years have been really hard, and I’ve fallen into my share of pits only to be rescued again and again, but I’ve found that Jesus’ love never fails. So it’s been worth the pain and frustration to grow and truly experience Him.
10. I really like my nose ring. I like to see people’s reaction, especially those who still have issues with stuff like that…lol…yes, Jesus loves me too…even with the nose ring.
11. My kids are digging BIG holes in the back yard (I think it’s almost to the point where a body can fit in some of them), and I find it amusing…I told Jeff he should have built them a sandbox.
12. I love being outdoors, walking up my hill, sitting in my swing, lying in my hammock, watching the things Abba’s created for me to enjoy, talking with friends.
13. I have a streak of white hair that I’ve had since I was 12 due to a sunspot that I got the summer I became a believer…coincidence? maybe.
14. I’ve been listening to the song “Traveling Light” by Joel Hansen and Sara Groves for an hour now.
15. I like laughing. And I also like to be laughed at. You’re automatically my friend if you laugh at my quirkiness.
16. I am very much “out of sight, out of mind.”
17. I don’t plan on ever dyeing my hair…I’m way too cheap, and I know it would just look like a bad bottle of shoe polish with 2 inch gray roots.
18. My whole life up till now, I thought that I was like my dad, only to find out that I’m not at all like him…my dad is probably horrified that I would even compare myself to him, especially with the condition my house is always in…lol
19. I want to enjoy the ride…every day…”The glory of God is man fully alive.”
20. Jeff , Jesse, Jonah, Jake, Julia, and Jeremiah are Abba’s gifts to me…I wish I could remember and appreciate this all the time.
21. I have a lot of fear still, but I’m wrestling with that…His perfect love casts out fear.
22. I sometimes compare myself to trees…there’s one in the middle of a field that is all broken apart, and it reminds me of me. It’s also dead…yeah, so I can go a little too far metaphorically with these things.
23. I love the beach…I think it’s the feeling of freedom and the wide open spaces and sand between my toes and salty water and watching my kids dig large holes….hmmm…this seems to be a pastime with them.
24. “I don’t want to lead and I don’t want to be led”…a description from my newfound personality type that fits me perfectly…when it comes to legalistic kind of junk, I will most certainly not do what I’m told or expected to do…for six years when we lived in Alabama, there was nothing and no one to rebel against…in Nashville, it’s becoming almost non-existent…I’m grateful.
25. I’m really trying to live in the present, not yearn for or mourn the past, and not worry about the future…I’m just not interested in picking up any more stones along the way…wanna travel light from now on.
Finding Strength in Weakness
In the Bible, Paul asked three times for a certain affliction to be taken away, to which Jesus responded, “My grace is enough, because my strength is perfected in your weakness.” In a way I think He was saying, “Hey buddy, you’re going to be weak because I want to be your strength.” That’s what He’s been saying to me lately anyway. But being weak is hard…it’s admitting self-defeat, which I’m pretty sure Jesus is in favor of me doing. When I’m forced to be weak, there are only two choices, as I see it…to kick and scream and try to claw my way to independence and miss seeing all that Abba is doing in the middle of it…or to accept my weakness as a gift, knowing that Abba is working some greater good, scraping off a little more of the gunk of life, more of the selfishness, more of the greed that’s become encrusted over my true self…the person Jesus is in the process of making.
Last semester, I had a life of relative ease. Well, as much ease as a person who has 5 children can have. I had ten hours a week all to myself, to do whatever I wanted while all the kids were at school and Jeremiah was at preschool. But all that changed right after Thanksgiving. Jeff had a teacher quit, the one I had been subbing for every Wednesday morning. So I stepped into the 5th grade position two weeks before Christmas break. I should have known back in October that I was in for something when I was in the class picture, which seemed very odd to me at the time, but Abba’s sense of humor and foreshadowing is always really funny to me. I love my students, and I love the people I work with, and I have a serious crush on my boss Jeff. My son Jonah is in my class as well as my nephew Eli. But, honestly, working full-time was kicking my butt with our family of seven. Many nights, I came home and went to bed with Julia and Jeremiah around 8, never to get back up again until the following morning. But I knew that that was what Abba had called me to do, and somehow he was giving me the strength to do it.
A couple weeks after Christmas break was over, there was a situation at school where we felt Abba was leading us to provide a temporary home for a couple of the boys in the school which was, I might add, way, way beyond our comfort zone as a family. And not only that, but one of these children has diabetes, which requires counting carbs and giving shots after each meal. Honestly, for two weeks, I cried every day I was so overwhelmed with all the stuff that had to be done. I’m such a low maintenance person that this was way beyond me and my capacity to cope. The funny thing is that I would usually start crying out of frustration and selfishness and just general pity-party kind of junk, but my cries ended up as a sacrifice, in a sense, that I offered up to Abba each day, throwing my hands up, admitting my weakness and begging for His strength. And in the process I found Him unbelievably strong. One day, He told me, “Get on your knees now.” I refused for a little while, trying so hard to hang on to my own strength, but when I finally gave in, I dropped to my knees and my junk erupted out of me, like a volcano spewing lava. And then there was a calm again, because I had once again been emptied of myself.
The phrase “God won’t give you anything you can’t handle” makes me guffaw and almost fall in the floor because I’m laughing so hard. I mean, who came up with that anyway? Apparently that person was either delusional or lying. Why wouldn’t Abba give us more than we can handle? If He never gives me more than I can handle, then that makes whatever I am given in life do-able. So, then, who really needs Jesus anyway?
I’m hear to say that God gives us way more than we can handle and then some, and then sometimes, gives some more. But Abba keeps reminding me that this is not a time to endure but rather a time to embrace and to love…love the people and the life I’ve been given…even on those mornings when I think, “I really don’t want to do this today…any of it.” But admitting it, embracing Him, and moving on in His strength is when I realize He’s right there walking this path with me. He created it for me. Two weeks ago, the day the two boys came to live with us, I was driving Jonah to choir practice, and in front of me there was a car with a license plate that said, “Unity 9.” For me, Abba couldn’t have been any more lovingly clearer.
“To step out of my comfort zone
Into the realm of the unknown
Where Jesus is,
And He’s holding out His hand…”
And What Was the Reason for the Season Again?
We, too, don’t realize what we have. Just like 2,000 years ago when Jesus came into the world, people were too busy and too frazzled and too worried about governments and taxes and being in the right place at the right time to realize what had come…God in skin and flesh and bone.
We’ve lost the meaning of Christmas in the same way that the little town of Bethlehem never had it. We’ve lost sight of Christ and replaced Him with shopping and Christmas cards and trees and lights and cantatas about Him and a whole multitude of other things that ultimately don’t amount to much.
Yesterday, as I was folding laundry and listening to Christmas music and trying to hear Him, hoping, praying He would give me a word, give me some relief in my struggle to see Him clearly…it was then when I realized I’d gotten really cluttered, and that I hadn’t heard from Him in a while…at least I don’t think I have. But, honestly, when I don’t seem to see Him, it’s because I’m not really looking. And I haven’t really been looking lately…even though this is the season we’re supposed to notice Him the most.
And then it hit me that every Christmas ends up being the same…as much as I vow that each Christmas season will be different from the last, that I won’t be busy doing pointless things…but that Christmas for me will be about focusing on Christ and who He is and about family hanging out and merging those two together. But somehow, I veer from this each year and always end up doing the something that has to be done…the something that has to be planned…there always seems to be that some thing that seems so important at the time.
This year, I haven’t really been bustling about at the last minute…ok, well, not as much as usual…all the gifts were bought a few weeks back. This year, I have done better with the whole gift thing. I think I finally came to the conclusion that there is no perfect gift for everyone, and that that’s ok.
But even though I wasn’t out buying gifts, this year’s low for me was sitting in the Sam’s Club parking lot a couple days ago folding and stuffing pictures and Christmas letters inside envelopes for over an hour and asking myself the whole time why I was even going to all this trouble three days before Christmas, why I was spending this time away from my family and questioning where Jesus was in the middle of this…I had managed to squeeze Him into a few lines in my Christmas brag letter about how His grace had once again been very real in my life and how I wouldn’t have made it without Him this year…but then…were those just words?
I certainly don’t stand in judgment of a certain innkeeper who didn’t have any room in his inn because I’m afraid I’m that same innkeeper, and I too have somehow managed to not have room for Jesus as well. But, maybe I’m even worse than that notorious innkeeper because I’ve actually invited Jesus in, only to push Him out later when things get a little crazy.
But today was when His grace reached down and His mercy once again overwhelmed me and I got why He came in the first place. He sneaked up on me, and then I realized just how much I missed Him. He is home for me, and when I fail to see Him, to really see Him…is when I feel the most lost. But I’m not lost and I’m not alone…ever.
I just want to get it though…really get it…get it in the way that the shepherds and wise men got it…to realize that His sacrifice wasn’t just in dying…it was in coming to earth to be one of us…
She Didn’t Even Hesitate
As I was driving home tonight after hanging out with some friends, I was thinking about how the last year and a half has been a struggle in so many ways. I’ve wrestled with Abba through my various issues, but He is giving me victory in areas that I never thought possible. It’s Him…it’s all Him. More than ever before, the frantic prayers I’ve cried out again and again over the last year have been “Help me, help me, help me.”
But late tonight, as I drove to the top of my hill in the rain and saw the lights of Nashville, my prayer changed to “Thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you for stripping away everything that was comfortable. Thank you for lovingly placing me in this city, even though I’m still struggling to figure out how the interstates intersect with each other. Thank you for the struggles. But thank you most of all for letting me see You.”
Right now, Jeff and I are in the middle of what a lot of people think is a horrible mess with our work/school situation, because as so many non-profits are struggling financially, so is Pioneer (see “Does Jesus Care About a School?”), but I’m beginning to see the sun shining through the clouds in small rays…rays that stream all the way from the sky down to the earth, the way I imagine it will be when Jesus comes back to take His own away to be with Him forever. And that gives me hope, not hope in a school or in a church or in someone giving a large amount of money but a renewed hope in Christ, that He is with us in the middle of this “wonderful mess” and that He is at work but maybe not in the way that we think, and that that’s ok too.
Lately, I’ve been smacked in the face with how comfortable I want my life to be…And convicted that I get so easily agitated when things don’t go the way I think they should. I don’t think Jesus called me to live a comfortable life. Which brings me to Mary…Because her life was anything but comfortable. I’ve been rather in awe of her lately. Not worship, of course, just awe.
In one short meeting with the angel Gabriel, Mary was told that she, who had kept herself from having sex before marriage, was going to have a baby. And her only question was, “But how? I’ve never slept with a man.”
Denise Levertov says it best when she writes this about Mary,
“She did not cry, ‘I cannot, I am not worthy,’
Nor, ‘I have not the strength.’
She did not submit with gritted teeth,
Raging, coerced.
Bravest of all humans,
Consent illumined her.”
As Anne Lamott says, “This is so, so not me.”
Mary clearly didn’t have the victim status that I drag along behind me in a rather large suitcase and am ready to open and share every opportunity I get. Mary did not rage and fling things across the room and worry about how everyone would think she’d already had sex. She didn’t seem to worry that there would be those women whispering behind her back. She also didn’t seem to worry that Joseph would be angry and would think she’d been fooling around on him. As a young teenage, Jewish peasant girl, the repercussions of being pregnant out of wedlock were huge.
I think if it had been me, I might have asked for a few days to think about it and throw out a few fleeces, just to make sure this whole pregnancy thing was actually God’s will. But, no, Mary immediately responded, “I am the Lord’s servant. May it be to me as you have said.” And God graced her with Himself, because that’s what He does. And somehow, Mary saw beyond her confusion and her fear and realized how blessed she would be to carry her own Savior…Consent truly illumined her.
Many times, I think we have this unrealistic view of Jesus’ birth, and we sing pretty little songs about how the “Virgin Mary had a Baby Boy.” I’ve been listening a lot to Andrew Peterson’s CD “Behold the Lamb of God.” On it is a song entitled, “Labor of Love.” The song is a vivid picture of Mary giving birth. It’s not the cleaned up version of Mary having baby Jesus, but a rather authentic one, where there is pain and blood and neediness…but there is also God.
So, this Christmas season, as we celebrate Jesus’ birth, I’m also thanking Abba for that teenage girl and her brave response to an angel over 2,000 years ago, to give birth to Emmanuel…God with us…He really is here.
