words that float

I recently saw a friend at a soccer match. She had slipped and hurt her leg badly and was having trouble getting around, doing the stuff she normally did. She had a huge brace on her leg and might have to have surgery. She had a great attitude but was still struggling with everyday tasks like driving kids to stuff and doing laundry and walking up stairs and things that you take for granted with two good legs.

As I listened to her story, I realized that I personally had nothing for her. I had no solutions, no advice. I couldn’t fix her problems. I couldn’t make it all better, make it all go away. I found myself saying that I was sorry that she was going through this. But I know somehow that’s not enough. Even if I had unlimited time to help her in her situation, it still wouldn’t be enough.

So I keep finding in these types of situations that I hear this little voice in my head that says to pray with them. Not later, but right then, right there. Out loud. In those few short seconds, I argue with God about doing this. I argue that I can pray in my head, and I promise Him that I will pray later. But I realize that this may or may not happen since I am so out of sight out of mind. I argue that this is weird and will make the person uncomfortable, not to mention my uncomfortability in all of it. I used to think it was not okay to assert myself, and here I am praying out loud for another person to God about that person’s needs. And I worry that someone will mistake it for a goody-goody, holier-than-thou attitude.

But I do it anyway (most of the time); I pray out loud. I pray using gestures because that’s how I talk. And sometimes it’s loud and it’s long (I don’t mean to be; I just keep thinking of stuff). I pray touching them with my arms around them or grabbing a hand. I want them desperately to feel God’s arms around them, and His love for them.

I find as I pray, my prayers come back to what we all essentially need: faith, hope, peace and love in something much bigger than ourselves and our situations. And I’m no longer thinking about myself and my own insecurities or even the other person’s uncomfortability, but something happens within me, and I have this feeling of freedom and understanding and falling into hands that are much larger than my own. And I hope that the other person will fall with me.

The prayer itself is not a solution, but I’m finding that the words or sighs or groans that float up to God are more than the requests themselves or even the answers; prayer is about connection, relationship, awareness of Someone outside ourselves and also something between each one of us. Prayer is the connecting point that ties us to God and to each other. The kingdom of God truly is among us…between us.

Who’s Willing to Carry You?

In Mark 2, Jesus taught at someone’s house, and the house was so packed with people that no one else could squeeze in to hear what Jesus was saying. Even the doorway was crowded with people. But there were four men that day on a mission. They knew they had to get their paralytic friend to Jesus because their friend needed what Jesus had. And so, these men figured out what they had to do in order to get this dependent, needy person to Jesus for healing, body and soul.

But it struck me, that there had to be four people who were not just willing to carry this man to Jesus, but people who cared enough about him not to be deterred in their mission and who also came up with a plan to get him in when it looked impossible. They could have gotten to the door of the house, realized there wasn’t any more room, especially room enough for a person lying on a stretcher, turned around and made their way back home. But they didn’t. They took the roof off of the house and lowered him down to Jesus. They did what it took. And seeing their faith, Jesus forgave the paralytic man’s sins, and then He healed his body. This man was healed because of their faith, their persistence, their love. They were willing to carry their friend to Jesus.

And the question I ask myself– Are there people willing to carry me? Are there people willing to carry you? I’ m not talking about family here. I’m talking about the people we’re in community with. That means that we have to allow people into our lives so that they can see our needs, and we also have to be willing to let these people help. This means putting away our independent, self-sufficient attitude and pride and allowing ourselves in humility to be loved, to be helped.

The paralytic’s problem was obvious. His friends knew what He needed. But do the people around me know what I need? Do yours know what you need? It’s hard asking for help when pride and fear of rejection get in the way, when we’re so afraid we might inconvenience someone, or that they might not want to really help but feel that they have to out of obligation or duty. It also means we have to reveal ourselves and open ourselves up to the people around us and identify our struggles. We have to admit weakness. And in doing that, we’re admitting that we don’t have it figured out.

The flip question can also be asked. Am I willing to carry others? Once again, this means that I have to be in community with people. I have to be close enough to see people’s needs and be involved in their lives. Not only so that I can know what the needs are, but also so that those people could feel the freedom to ask. I don’t know if the paralytic man asked his friends to take him to Jesus or if these men volunteered, but  Jesus recognized their faith and healed their friend.

In carrying their friend to Jesus, these men demonstrated sacrificial love. They bore his burden. We all need community that can help carry us to Jesus at times…to bear our burdens; we need those people to show up and love us the way Jesus would, not just in word or speech but in truth and action. (I John)

overflowing

I cannot believe where God has brought me. I cannot believe He’s using me. I don’t bring gifts and talents to the table. I don’t sing, lead, counsel, yet in my weakness He’s strong. I’m humbled and beyond grateful that God IS. And I just can’t even fathom this at times. In my wildest dreams, I had no idea that this, this community life centered solely on Jesus is what it’s all about. I mean, people say these words, but I’ve never really seen it walked out.

All around me, every day I see His kingdom breaking open and shaking loose. It’s beyond exciting. Last night at midnight after spending the entire day with people who desire Him and are seeking Him, I had this crazy desire to gallop around my yard shouting praise to His name. I’m serious.  But I imagined myself twisting an ankle in the dark, so I settled for the three hours of sleep I got and awoke to think and pray and laugh and sigh and cry and hardly contain myself over the things, kingdom things, that are happening in front of my very eyes.

As a former teacher of fourth and fifth grade students, many times I watched the light bulb click on in some of my students’ eyes as they grasped what a verb was or learned how to do long division. But this, this is way better than long division or English. This is a shot of pure joy to watch people in my community latch on to Jesus and not because of anything I did or said. It’s Him; it’s all Him. He is doing this work in us and through us. And I’m able to share in this…His kingdom stuff, and I’m overjoyed. If words could jump off the page in praise and joy, my own would be flying at every person reading this.

Jesus is real. And as we lay our stuff down in front of each other and ask for prayer and seek a Father who loves and understands us, I see some beginning to hold hands open to the things He has, and words cannot describe this. I’m beginning to see why His disciples laid down their lives for Him. Unspeakable, indescribable joy to be His.

I’ve never really been driven to do stuff, like have a career. I enjoyed teaching, but it wasn’t like it was my purpose in life. Teaching was available, so I just kind of fell into it. I enjoyed my students. But if you asked me what my dreams were, I couldn’t really answer that. I knew I wanted to have a family which is a calling in itself and one of the most important things,  but I didn’t have other dreams, as such.

And it’s God’s kindness that after 41 years, I realize I am walking in exactly what God has called me to with my family and also with other people. And I cannot even express the utter peace and joy and overwhelming desire I have to walk with others toward Jesus. This is it. This is my calling, to walk this out with Jeff, with my children, with women, with families.

Jesus said, come and die. I get it…following Him is worth my one wild and crazy life.

Do you feel the darkness tremble
When all the saints join in one song
And all the streams flow as one river
To wash away our brokenness

And here we see that, God, You’re moving
A time of jubilee is coming
When young and old return to Jesus
Fling wide, you heavenly gates
Prepare the way of the risen Lord

-Matt Redman

Hands Wide Open

I’ve been gone. Away. Not Here. Please Do Not Disturb.

I had lapses of faith this winter. I had questions of “Why are we in this situation?” and “Where is God in all of this?”.  Questions that I know other people contemplate but maybe don’t admit to others. Perhaps not even to themselves. I tried desperately to get over it, to mask my restlessness by reading one more book, watching one more movie, walking one more mile. It didn’t work.

In this process of my restless questioning, I hit the pause button on faith, hope, and love. I became kind of a hermit, did not want to see all that many people, realized that I didn’t really have all that much to offer anyone (not that anyone was expecting anything out of me).  But who wants to be around someone whose cup is empty most of the time? And all I had was resentment and bitterness. About a lot of things.

My downward spiral began when I started focusing on things that were beyond my control. But the lie was that I could control them. The enemy is sneaky in that way. I believed that I could make my own way and do my own thing and be okay, be better actually.  I soon lost hope and began to despair. Faith and love quickly fled out the back door as well. And some might question if they were really true in the first place if they can leave so easily. Maybe. Maybe not. I just know I was dry and brittle inside. And when I wasn’t angry, I was numb.

I don’t know what triggered release from all of that. If there is one moment or many moments of realization that draw a person back to God, to reality.  Or if my fingers had to be pried open from the idea of control I had grasped onto. I just know a few things happened to me lately that made me gaze up instead of in.

I recently saw an old friend. And she looked so beautiful…and I realized I wanted what she had. I could see it in her eyes. I could hear it in her story. And it’s what I’d been missing but had so desperately needed. And it’s something no medication of any kind will ever bring. Peace…The kind that goes beyond human comprehension…The kind that when the situation looks its darkest, there is still that. And, I realize  it’s not something I can strive for or buy or grasp at. It’s something I receive when everything else falls away. When hands are held up, not in despair, but in gratitude and release.

A while back, Jeff couldn’t sleep one night, and he felt like the Holy Spirit was giving him a word for me and for each of our children…the things that we needed. And the word for me was, “IT will be there.” At the time, I assumed that the IT was money, because that always seemed to be the most pressing need, the thing that I worried about the most, and for some reason, I always seemed to think that money would solve the problem and be the answer, even though I never would say that out loud. Convinced that money was the IT that the Holy Spirit was talking about, I was confused and resentful when the money wasn’t always there when we needed it.

But money wasn’t the IT at all. I didn’t realize that until a good deal later that the IT was peace. “Peace will be there.” And that no matter what happened to me or my family or my friends or my belongings, now or in the future, peace can always be there.

For me, peace is like letting go and twirling in a field on a sunny day with wildflowers all about, face looking up to a cloudless sky with hands and arms that are held out that go higher and higher and become lighter and lighter until I feel like I could touch the face of Abba. And laughter, of course…wild, silly, hopeful laughter.