Searching for Peace

Let there be no Divisions Among You

2017-01-22T18:12:00.002-06:00

I was so inspired by the unity and messages communicated through the Women’s Marches yesterday across the world. Yes, of course there were some messages at some of the marches that I did not agree with, but by and large I saw hundreds of thousands of people who rejected the negativity and hatred we have seen far too much of. Yesterday, women and men gathered together to proclaim tolerance, life, inclusion, love, unity, equality, justice, mercy, respect, diversity, kindness, and peace.

People marched for so many reasons. Some people showed up because they want to ensure their daughters and granddaughters continue to have the rights women have fought for in our country over the past couple of centuries. Some marchers went to be a voice for those who fear daily discrimination, abuse, deportation, and being marginalized. Some were motivated by their faith in Jesus who taught us to love our neighbor (especially the neighbors who are different from us), welcome the stranger, and show hospitality to all.

This morning, one of the readings we read in church was from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians in which Paul urges the Corinthians to stop their disagreements and focus on the unity they share in belonging to Jesus and sharing the good news of Jesus’ sacrificial love. Paul wrote, “Now I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you be in agreement and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same purpose” (1 Corinthians 1:10). Friends, there is far more that unites us than divides us!

Whether or not you agree with the messages or the tactics of the Women’s Marches, I hope we can all agree that each of us needs to be more active in bringing about the kind of world we want to see. Let’s spend less time complaining on social media about our political leaders, the media, the protestors, etc., and more time loving our neighbors, trying to understand the perspective of someone different than us, caring for those who are in need in our communities, and taking action to create systemic and sustainable changes in our communities, our country, and around the world.

I have some concrete things in mind that I’m planning to do in the upcoming weeks and months- things to try to fill the world with the love, grace, and compassion Jesus showed everyone. I encourage you to make a list of actions you can take to make a difference in issues that are important to you.

May we keep gathering together.

Be a voice for those who don't have a voice in our society.

Show acceptance, grace, and mercy to everyone no matter who they are, what they look like, what they believe, or where they are from.

Take action. Keep moving forward.

And most of all, keep loving everyone.

30 Brave Things

2016-09-11T19:23:00.000-05:00

I’m officially 30 years old now. It’s one of those big milestone birthdays but rather than being freaked out that I’m getting old I’m actually really excited for this next year. It promises to be filled with wonderful, challenging, and new experiences. And on top of that I’m really grateful for the experience, wisdom, and growth I have gained in my first 30 years of life. While there are times I wish I could go back to a simpler time in life, in reality I wouldn’t if it meant losing the knowledge, perspective, and maturity I have now.

For 2016 in lieu of making New Year’s resolutions I chose the word “brave” to focus on for the year with the intention of bringing bravery in to areas of my life in which I want and need to do hard and challenging things (see my post from earlier this year: A Year of Being Brave).

As I reflected on the year so far and my milestone birthday I wanted a way to mark this year. Rather than just celebrating one day I wanted a way to challenge myself to continue to grow, to embrace this new decade, and to ensure I carry out the adventures I have planned. And the idea that resulted was doing 30 brave things this year to honor my 30 years of life so far.

My list isn’t complete yet. As I have found so far this year doing one brave thing often results in needing to do another brave thing. Either it goes well and then I have a chance to take things a step further or doing the brave thing doesn’t go well and I need to continue be brave to repair or adjust to what happened when I did the brave thing.

In no particular order here’s the start of my list of 30 brave things to celebrate 30 years of life:

Don't get caught up in worry or excitement for the future-stay put and grounded in the present
Do two days of silent retreats at some point this year
Engage in prayer, reflection, and evaluating seminaries to decide which one I will attend
Apply to seminaries
Start seminary!
Take the first steps of becoming an ordained pastor within the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
Ride my bike across the United States
Go on some dates with some guys
Move away from home
Travel someplace new (Costa Rica?)
Set and accomplish some fitness goals
Let more people be a part of my journey
Write more often and share my writing with others
Live more deeply into this truth: I am a deeply loved by God.

Being brave is at the same time messy and beautiful and necessary. I can’t wait to see the beautiful mess of this next year!

Inner and Outer Journey

2016-09-08T11:27:00.000-05:00

A little over a year ago a friend and I walked through the Morton Arboretum on a warm summer day. As we walked and took in the sights and sounds of the flora and fauna, this very new yet wise friend started gently asking me some questions. They were questions that had long been at the back of my mind but questions that I never allowed myself to really answer. He challenged me in the most encouraging and empowering way to find a way to answer this question that I had asked myself perhaps hundreds of time over the previous 15 years: Is God calling me to be a pastor?

As I have reflected, the outer and the inner journey to this place have become clear. It is the inner journey that made the outer journey possible and made it make sense.

The outward journey included so much of my life experiences culminating in getting to try out ministry- working in a church, teaching, learning about theology, engaging in work that allowed me to both show the Gospel to those in need and share the Gospel in words with those who needed to hear it.

While so much of these experiences and ministry shaped me ultimately it was seeing a deep brokenness in another person that unveiled my own deep brokenness. My brokenness isn’t as physically evident and hasn’t manifested itself in quite the same way as I saw in this person, but at the end of the day we are all broken. While grasping my own brokenness I leaned into the tension created by the hope, life, and transformation I have experienced in my own life through my faith in and love of God.

And I was left longing for more, to go deeper, to partner with God in a new way in bringing this life to others. But so many barriers stood in the way.

This is where the outer journey joins with the inner journey.

Over the past year many people have joined in my journey of answering if God is calling me to be a pastor. Friends, co-workers, family, mentors, pastors, and new acquaintances have contributed in small and large ways to removing the barriers that had prevented me from answering this question for so many years.

Some days it felt like those barriers were 15-foot thick cement walls that I was chipping away with a toothpick and other days those barriers came down like drywall with a bulldozer.

In the past year I have learned a lot about discernment, I have been given abundant opportunities to learn to listen and to wait, and I have been shown so much grace and love.

Many of you who are reading this have been pillars of hope and encouragement. You helped me better understand God’s love for me. I felt God’s love and understood it was not dependent on anything I did, any work I completed, nor what job position I held. God simply delights in me. You helped me embrace and understand the ways God has both equipped and prepared me to go to seminary and become a pastor.

As I more fully accepted my identity as a beloved daughter of God my fear become courage, uncertainty become clarity, and limitation became freedom. The forming and strengthening foundation of my identity as a beloved daughter of God allowed me to set aside the fear of disappointing those I love, the sadness of being separated from a community of people who have become like family, and the trepidation of stepping away from what had become so comfortable.

A beautiful friend shared this picture with me to represent my journey to all that is possible with God.

Slowly my response to God has become a very confident “yes.” My response to God is less an answer to a specific question and more a response to God’s love for me.

This is obviously the very short version of the internal and external journey I have been on the past year. And by no means is this journey over. For all of us, discernment is a constant process of listening to God and responding to God. I plan to share more about my process of discernment on this blog in the coming months. But for now I ask for your prayers (and any advice you might offer!) as I try to figure out which seminary I’ll attend next fall.

Easter Seems so Far Away

2016-03-24T12:51:00.002-05:00

There are so many thoughts and threads going through my mind today. As usual I’d like to try to tie them up all in a neat little package but the world is far more complex than this.

I’m remembering a year ago when I was in Haiti. An experience that I still don’t really have the words to describe or capture. A year later I still struggle with the scenes of desperation and despair I witnessed. And I have no hope of working out the tension between the glimpses of hope and the unmistakable hold death still has. I constantly remember the smiles of the children receiving lunch at school as well as the pleas of the children waiting outside the school to see if there would be any leftovers for them.

On today’s date in 1980, the Archbishop of San Salvador, Oscar Romero, was martyred for speaking out against the violence, poverty, and social injustice in El Salvador. The legacy and stories of this man have shaped me and so many others. As I remember his death, I also remember Romero’s remarkable faith and courage that were formed and displayed so vividly in his work of showing God’s love in word and action.

And today is also my favorite day of the church year: Maundy Thursday. It is the day in which we remember the last supper Jesus had with his disciples in which he began the sacrament of communion. It’s a day marked by a celebration of community, grace, and the connection we will forever have with Jesus and our fellow members of the Church. After supper Jesus gave his followers a new commandment: “Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another” (John 13:34). I love the messages Jesus shared with his disciples and with us even as he knew his death on the cross was coming the next day.

With all this remembering I’m finding it difficult to move forward today. It’s so frustrating to recognize that in the grand scheme of things, not much has changed since these events 1 year ago, 36 years ago, and nearly 2000 years ago. The world is still heavy with pain, suffering, evil, and death. In Haiti, instability and extreme poverty remain. While there are certainly pockets of hope these oases are fragile and could be destroyed so easily. In El Salvador the gang violence has reached an all time high, and so many of my friends and acquaintances there are forced to live in constant fear. In our world, we continue to see more and more examples of people being divided rather unified. We see this in our politics, on social media, in our culture, and most devastatingly in the Church. There are an infinite amount of examples of how we fail to love our neighbors as Jesus loved us.

Even though Easter is only three days away, today it seems unbearably far away.

A Garlic (and Life) Update

2016-02-28T10:57:00.000-06:00

In the fall a little over a year ago I planted garlic in the community garden at Our Savior Lutheran Church (read my blog post about it if you don’t remember: Doing a Dumb Thing).

When I planted the garlic I was so worried it wouldn’t make it through the winter. I thought the garlic would just have to make it through the winter and then I would be able to take care of it and I would be able to ensure it would grow and turn out well. But plans change. I left my staff position at Our Savior last spring, which meant to a certain extent I was around to take care of it, but I wasn’t able to give the garlic the attention I thought I would be able to give it.

Other people are now in charge of the garden and the care of the garlic and all the other wonderful things that grow in that garden.

Planting the garlic in the fall required a lot of trust that everything would turn out ok. Then I found myself in the spring when I thought I would be able to regain some control actually having even less control.

I had to trust that other people would take care of the garlic. Above all I had to trust that what I planted was not planted in vain.

The garlic is perhaps the most physically evident part of the work at Our Savior that I started and then entrusted to other people. Ministries I started or deeply invested in have and will continue to morph, change, and end.

We all know change is hard. For so many reasons and in so many ways life usually doesn’t go as we thought it might or imagined it could. We are given the choice then to defiantly grasp on to what might have been, or we can release that and learn to embrace all the blessings that are to come.

I would be lying if I didn’t admit that it was SO HARD to release what I had given so much of my time, energy, and passion to. It was so hard to concede that I couldn’t do everything. To come to terms with the fact that I won’t always be able to see the harvest (literally and figuratively). To accept that this season of my life was ending.

But as time as went on I realized that by no means was it an end…more of a transition than anything.

I have seen the building of ministry continue at Our Savior. I have seen people rise and take on new or bigger roles. I have seen the love and compassion of Christ continually displayed in and through people at Our Savior.

Through mourning and releasing what was and what could have been, I have found so much freedom and joy in discovering what God has in store for me in this next season of my journey!

And as far as I know, the garlic did well.

The garlic in late May growing!

A Year of Being Brave

2016-02-21T16:16:00.000-06:00

It’s been quite a while since I have written for this space. Sorry dear reader. It hasn’t been for a lack of things to write about but it’s just been hard to find the words to write here.

But here’s a start:

I’ve never really been one to make New Year’s resolutions. For most people it seems to be a futile effort of having the best of intentions and then powerlessly watching those intentions fade rapidly in the face of challenges to those intentions. January 1 also seems like an arbitrary point in time to start or stop something. Why would you wait until January 1^st to make a change in your life when you know on May 17^th that you need to make changes? And is there really something to gain by hastily making up some goals so you have something by January 1?

While I’m skeptical of the whole New Year’s resolution thing, this year I decided to choose a word that I want to focus on for these 366 days. It’s something I’ve heard of others doing and I love the simplicity and the power of this practice.

After much thought, prayer, and Pinterest quote reading, I settled on the word brave. A word that I hope by the end of the year I will more fully embody. A word that people might use to describe my heart and my actions.

Sure, by many standards I have done brave things. There have certainly been areas of my life where I would consider myself to be brave.

But in general brave is not a word I would use to describe myself. There are so many really important parts and aspects of my life in which I need to be brave. These are the areas of my life in which I desperately want to be brave and to do the things that require really, really, hard work and large doses of bravery.

Doing brave things is scary and just thinking about doing them brings about much anxiety and fear in me. I want people’s approval of the things I do and say. I’m afraid of sharing the truest things about myself. I worry I will not have the support I need and want from the people who have meant so much to me. I don’t know if I’ll be good enough or right or even ok.

And these are the things that make being brave so hard and yet so necessary.

Brené Brown says, “Owning our story and loving ourselves through that process is the bravest thing that we’ll ever do.” Over the past year I’ve discovered how true this is as I’ve been figuring out my story and learning to confidently live into it while loving myself!

But I’ve come to see just how much power and freedom there is in my relationship with God that there is no real reason not to be brave. There is no real reason to not live fully as the person God created me to be without shame. There is no real reason to feel guilty for the things I cannot do today or the things I cannot do ever. There is no real reason not to ask for the things I need. There is no real reason to not listen to that voice and those nudges that so firmly guide me. There is no real reason not to be vulnerable, honest, and full of joy because of all God has done and will do in and through me.

2015 was a year of discerning my next steps in life’s journey and as 2016 progresses I am so excited to live more fully into what I have learned about myself while continuing to take the next brave steps.

Here’s to a year of being brave!

God in Haiti

2015-04-20T22:03:00.000-05:00

As I prepared to go to Haiti I was considerably worried that God might use this experience to ask me to do something new, big, and scary (like move to Haiti and be a missionary or adopt a few Haitian children). I’ve prayed some pretty bold prayers over the past year or so and God had started to provide some bold answers to my prayers. And I was scared the rest of the answers would be in a form that required me to step way out of my comfort zone.

While I was in Haiti and in the few weeks I’ve been back from Haiti, God has provided me with undeniable peace and reassurance that I am doing what I’m supposed to be doing in this season of my life. No need to buy a one-way plane ticket to Haiti and start learning Creole. Whew.

BUT, I’m not off the hook that easily.

God often does ask us to do things, but I have come to understand that God is much more concerned about who we are rather than what we do. What we do will please God if we are the people God wants us to be. Our actions follow from who we are.

God didn’t ask me to make a radical life change and do something different, but God did use my experience in Haiti to start to teach me to be someone different: someone who more fully recognizes and rests in God’s unceasing presence.

I have problem with control. I wish I could control every detail of my life and have every last detail planned out, and boy do I try. As you might guess, trying to control every aspect of my life doesn’t work out very well for me because life just doesn’t work that way. I’m often left grasping, worried, anxious, and frustrated.

But God has something better in mind for me, and God is using my experience in Haiti to help me become more like the person God intended me to be.

Since I returned from Haiti, I have been overwhelmed (in a good way) by all the places, situations, and people I have seen God’s abundant hope, grace, and love. Almost literally everywhere I turn, in every circumstance, in so many of my interactions with other people I have been overwhelmed by seeing and being aware of God’s presence. I’ve seen God working out the details. I’ve seen God transforming people. I’ve seen God taking care of the minor and the major issues.

Maybe it was because of all the evil, death, and desperation I saw in Haiti that I HAD to look for God to have something to hold on to so that I didn’t lose all faith and hope in God. In a place where living conditions are so bad you think God wouldn’t and couldn’t be present, God was indeed present when I looked. Something “clicked” through my intentional act of looking in Haiti that has allowed me to better notice God in every person, every situation, every part of Creation.

As my awareness of God’s presence has grown, something shifted in me: I’m not bothered that I can’t control everything. God is here and God is moving in powerful ways. I’m just along for the ride. Recognizing this has allowed me to rest and trust in God’s presence.

And it is so good.

Unambiguous

2015-04-12T21:58:00.000-05:00

In Haiti, the newness and extremes of everything we were seeing, learning, and doing made it difficult to keep everything straight in my mind. So much ran together in my brain. Who said what. Where we went. What day it was. Names of people we met and places we visited.

But there are also images and situations that are ingrained in my brain. Carved into my heart. Embedded in my soul. Moments that I can still see and feel so vividly.

One of those moments was the feel of a little boy sitting on my lap.

On our last evening in Haiti our group got to attend the worship service at the Love A Child orphanage. Just like kids at my church, many of the kids at the orphanage struggled to stay focused and sit still. They whispered to each other. They wiggled in their seats. Two girls across from me temporarily switched sandals with each other. Their eyes drifted around the room when they should have been praying or singing.

(Thanks to Alyssa for capturing the moment!)

One little boy wandered over near where I was sitting and he climbed up on my lap.

I don’t know his name. I don’t know his story. I don’t know how old he is. The only thing I do know is that I was given the privilege of holding that sweet little boy for a few minutes.

He settled in, leaned against me, and started sucking his thumb. As he sat on my lap I was so aware of all that was around me. The warm but cooling breeze coming in the open windows. The quickly fading light of the setting sun. The warm colors of the sky framing the mountains in the distance. The wind rustling the leaves of the palm trees just outside the window. The faces of the beautiful children of all ages throughout the room. The compassionate “moms” seated with the children. The sound of foreign and familiar words being sung and spoken. How comfortable this little boy was sitting on the lap of a complete stranger. The warmth of his body.

I can describe it no other way than to say it just felt right. To be there in that room, surrounded by those people, with that little boy on my lap, praising God and praying. So much had come together to make that moment possible and I knew there was nowhere else I was supposed to be. There were no other people I should have been with. There was nothing different that I should have been doing.

The assurance and peace I felt were unambiguous.

I am more than familiar with uncertainty and feeling like I have no idea what I’m doing in life. For all the days and months when I have felt so unsure of the next step to take, I have grown used to the feeling but still wish and pray I didn’t have to feel it so often.

As I considered that certainty I felt in that moment in Haiti, I thought back over everything that brought me there. Things I said “yes” to. Opportunities I said “no” to. Relationships I carefully nurtured. Relationships I had to let go.

It’s not to say that I managed to get myself to the one “right” place. There may have an infinite number of “right” moments like that I could have taken a path to. But in that moment God reassured me that all I need to do is continue to take the next step and trust. God will take care of the rest.

And then someone or something at the other end of the room caught the little boy’s attention and he slid down off my lap. The acute certainly and peace faded, but it left a remnant that I hope to hold on to even when the uncertainly overwhelms me.

Especially in Haiti

2015-04-04T21:30:00.001-05:00

Last week I got to travel to Haiti with a group of 12 other Feed My Starving Children staff and supporters. We spent the week with one of FMSC’s partner organizations, Love A Child, and saw the many ways God is working through Feed My Starving Children food.

I hadn’t even been in Haiti a full day and I was already trying to figure out what I was going to tell people about my trip when I returned home. It’s always difficult trying to summarize a trip like this in a succinct way that will convey the significance of the trip. I’ve been home a week and I still haven’t really figured out what to tell people about my trip.

The trouble is the message I want to convey about my trip isn’t a cohesive message.

I want to tell people how wonderful it was to see so many kids and families who are doing so much better because they have received nutritious food and other help through Love A Child. Kids are now able to be kids because they don’t have to worry about where their next meal is coming from. To see kids laughing and running with joy was beautiful.

But I also need to tell people about the heartbreaking situations most of us would rather not hear about. We saw far too many children and families who are malnourished and desperate for food and other resources. There was the mom who brought her two year old to the malnutrition clinic- the little boy could barely stand and weighed only 17 pounds and I don’t have much hope that his two younger siblings at home were better off. The nuns who must decide if they can continue to risk their own lives and their physical safety in order to care for orphans and others in great need. The isolated villages that have yet to be reached with the clean water, medical care, and food they so desperately need.

There is the tension between hope and despair. The message I want share about my trip is somewhere in the tension between celebrating the truly incredible ways that God is transforming lives in Haiti and lamenting the hold that evil and death still have in Haiti.

But this is a tension we live in everyday. It’s just not always as evident as it is in Haiti.

We live all the time in the tension between good and evil, the tension between life and death. No day, no person, no situation is completely good or bad. Nearly everything is somewhere in between and knowing what to do with this “in-between-ness” is challenging to say the least.

Today is Holy Saturday (or Awkward Saturday as I like to think of it)- the day in between Good Friday and Easter. On Good Friday we remember the most horrific death of Jesus. On Easter we celebrate with incredible joy Jesus’ triumphant victory over death. And on Holy Saturday we have to wait in the tension between death and life.

On that first Holy Saturday, most of Jesus’ followers had lost all hope. In despair they hid out in fear because they thought it was all over. But a few of Jesus’ followers kept their eyes open for signs of new life. They waited trusting that even in this unbearably horrible situation God was working. And God sure was at work.

We must recognize the brokenness of the world we live in. Just like Jesus’ suffering and death on the cross were real, the suffering and death in Haiti and so many places around the world are real. While we often find it so difficult to see beyond the suffering and death, we cannot let them cloud our vision forever.

Just like life was imminent on that first Easter morning, new life is at hand if we look carefully for it in our world.

Hope is looking actively looking for glimpses of new life. There is still hope, especially in Haiti.

The Inn Keeper

2015-01-18T21:42:00.002-06:00

On Christmas Eve I came up with this fantastic idea for a blog post. I was going to write about imagining who in the nativity story I am most like and who in the Christmas story I should be more like. And then I was going to encourage my readers to do the same.

If I had written this blog post I would have written about how I am most like the inn keeper- the one who said there was no room in the inn for Mary, Joseph, and their about-to-be-born baby. I would have drawn the parallels between me and the inn keeper: I don’t leave “room” for Jesus, I’m too busy or occupied to be open to God’s imminent plans, and I’m reluctant to say “yes” to things that I know will be “messy” and difficult.

And then I would have written about how I would like to be more Mary who so quickly and willingly accepted the seemingly bizarre and difficult role God laid out for her. I would have written about how I desire to be more like the shepherds and the wise men who dropped everything to go find and worship Jesus.

While this is all true and good to think about, what I realized as I formulated the blog post in my head is that I would have been writing a blog post about trying to be someone I’m not.

In the birth of Jesus, God created the inn keeper to play a necessary part in this story. Without the inn keeper doing what the inn keeper did, the birth of Jesus would not have occurred in the way it was prophesied and meant to be. While in our human minds we may view the inn keeper as rude and not very hospitable, but in God’s master plan without that inn keeper turning Mary and Joseph away, Jesus would not have been born in the stable and placed in the manger.

Likewise, God created me for a specific role in God’s story. It certainly isn’t exactly the role that I would have picked for myself. I look at myself and see my role as that of an “extra” on the set, while I’d really like to play that staring role. I desire to be someone else who is accomplishing bigger and better things. I’m unhappy with waiting for things to happen in my life that I see happening so quickly for others.

But here’s the thing: God created me to be me. God created me for a specific and wonderful purpose.

While I need to stop trying to be someone I’m not, I do need to strive to live more fully as the person God created me to be. To trust that God knew exactly what he was doing when he created me just as I am. God trusts me in the role he created for me. My role is a vital role, just as your role is a vital role. We have a responsibility to play the roles we were created to play. If we don’t play our role the story won’t happen as God intended it to happen and we will miss out on so much.

So may we all have the courage to be the people who God created us to be. May we turn to God and trust that God knows exactly what God is doing even when we think we have a way better plan. And may we rejoice as we see the Kingdom of God unveiled around and through us.

Festering

2014-12-28T21:30:00.003-06:00

Up until a few weeks ago I thought I didn’t have a problem with forgiveness.

As a rule I am easy going. My unofficial motto is “It’s all good”. I don’t take things personally. I don’t hold things against people. We don’t need to dwell on the past. I’m quickly ready to move on and move forward in my relationships.

There have been very few people who have done anything wrong to me and really nothing majorly wrong has been done to me. Whenever forgiveness has been the topic of a sermon or Bible study I have tuned it out for the most part thinking, “I don’t need to hear this. I forgive people easily.”

But as it turns out I do have a problem with forgiveness. It’s only taken me 28 years to realize it, but now that I’ve realized it I see how I have let my unforgiveness fester.

It’s been little, relatively insignificant things that I’m struggling to forgive. And it’s primarily one person that I’m having a difficult time forgiving right now. I keep waiting for this person to change. To stop hurting me, to stop doing the things that drive me absolutely insane, to stop disrespecting me, to stop making me feel insignificant.

I pent up my anger, my frustration, my pain.

Anne Lamott has said “Not forgiving is like drinking rat poison and then waiting for the rat to die.”

Yep, that’s about what it feels like.

Up until the moment when I realized I wasn’t forgiving, I thought the situation was due to his flaws. It’s his fault for acting that way and not changing. But in reality it’s my fault for not addressing the issue and for holding on to what has hurt me. He probably does not even know what he is doing is harming and frustrating me to the extent it is.

I’ve been going about the situation in all the wrong ways. When it comes down to the anger, frustration, and pain I’m feeling it’s ultimately up to me to release them through forgiveness.

Dang. It seemed so much easier when it was his shortcomings and not my own. But now at least I feel I have more control in the situation.

My mentor told me I should pray for the people who I am angry with and from whom I am withholding forgiveness. Seems like a good first step, but it is SO hard to pray for him. For a week I persistently tried to pray for him but as soon as I started to pray even a simple blessing for him I couldn’t get much more than a couple of words in before my anger and frustration prohibited me from going any further.

So I turned to Anne Lamott’s wisdom (she seems to know a lot about the whole forgiveness thing) and I have been praying one of her favorite prayers: Help me. Help me. Help me….

In the very slightest way I feel my clenched fists, my anger, and my frustration starting to release. It is the tiniest bit of release but it is indeed a step toward restoring this relationship.

Baby steps are all I can take right now and that’s ok.

Doing a Dumb Thing

2014-10-12T21:45:00.000-05:00

Today I may have done one of the dumbest things I’ve done in a while. I planted garlic.

I’ve never grown garlic before but they say the way to grow garlic in northern climates is to plant it in the fall before the ground is frozen. You plant the cloves about 6 inches deep in the soil and then cover it with dead leaves or other mulch and let it be over winter. In the spring you remove the mulch and the garlic will sprout and then the bulbs of garlic can be harvested in the summer.

If this winter in the Midwest is going to be anything like “they” are saying it’s going to be (worse than last year), I’m pretty sure that garlic doesn’t have a chance. Why did I just put perfectly good cloves of garlic into the soil? This goes against all common sense and logic. Put something into soil that is going to freeze very soon, be covered with inches and inches of snow for months, and then expect it will grow and flourish in the spring? Yeah right.

There is so much going up against the garlic: bugs and worms and other critters that may disturb the garlic over the winter, the soon to be frozen ground, feet of snow, sub-zero temperatures for weeks. And then there are all the challenges the garlic will face in the spring and summer: making sure no one accidently plants something else where the garlic is before it sprouts, getting the right amount of water and sun, weeds, being harvested at the right time, more bugs and other pests.

And to top it all off, the garlic has absolutely no control over any of these external factors. It can only do what it can with the environment it is put in. Honestly I feel really bad for that poor garlic.

And yet garlic was created to do exactly what good sense would tell us it cannot do. Garlic was designed to withstand and overcome all of what we think would prevent it from growing and developing beautifully. It was made for this.

This may sound weird, but I realized as I was putting the garlic into the soil that I have far more in common with that garlic than I ever would have thought: the immense obstacles, patiently waiting for the right time, not being in control, doing what may seem illogical, needing so much and yet so little to develop. I was made for this.

I really, really hope this garlic story has a happy ending.

Hope Like Nothing Else

2014-10-05T21:27:00.000-05:00

Today I experienced Church, the capital "C" kind of Church. I don’t mean the buildings where many people gather on Sundays to worship. Yes, I did spend time in what people think of when they think of “church”, but we don’t always find the “Church” in these buildings and in these buildings is not the only place where we find the “Church.”

What we should think of when we hear “Church” is the vast and hodgepodge group of people around the world who are followers of Jesus.

Today I saw the Church manifest itself as:

People who stand up and reach out to support each other when it means getting nothing in return and even if it means giving up so much more than they ever bargained for.
The men and women who preach Truth. Those people who help us to remember our salvation and challenge us to discover how to respond with abundant love.
The children who participate in a different yet just as vital role in the Church. The young ones who more often than not understand better than adults the grace, love, and surrender God asks of God's people.
The people who aren’t willing to let their relationship with God decay, who seek out every opportunity to enter into a deeper relationship with God, even doing what our culture tells us is not “cool” to do.
The people who know that Church is not one hour a week, rather they daily and hourly live a life of being available to say “yes” to what God calls them to be and do.
Groups of people who work together and in the end accomplish far more of God’s will than anyone thought was possible.
People who are willing to be vulnerable, to share the profound pain and joy of God working in their lives.
The individuals spending their lives passionately spreading the word about how God’s love is being manifested in our world.
The leaders who acknowledge they do not have all the answers and are willing to submit to God’s leading.
People willing to sit in silence, to listen to God, to be honest about what they hear.

I wish more people would think of what I experienced today when they hear the word “Church.” As a collective group of people we have too often failed to be what God intended God’s people to be. However, when we are able to push aside all the wreckage of our sin and failure and see glimpses like I saw today, the Church gives me hope like nothing else in this world.

Baggage

2014-08-18T20:47:00.001-05:00

Lately I’ve been carrying around what feels like a lot of baggage. Things weighing on my mind, things I wish I didn’t have to deal with, things that I wish the answers to would just become abundantly clear, trying to figure next steps to take. Nothing major. Just the challenges of trying to figure out how to live as a Christian and how to live as an adult (I’m seeing more and more that we are all just trying to make it up as we go along though…no one really knows…which is actually slightly reassuring).

As I packed my suitcases to go to El Salvador a month ago, I hoped that I would be able to leave some of my figurative baggage behind in El Salvador. I was looking forward to an experience that would help put things in perspective. I was eager for God to speak through my experiences in El Salvador and through the Salvadorans. I was praying for a revelation, for things to be made clear. I wasn’t looking for a audible voice from heaven, but I was hoping some time away from home and work and being among some incredible people would help we sort things out. Through past trips to El Salvador I have gained clarity and direction in living life.

But as it turned out, I left El Salvador with more questions than I came with, less clarity, and even a little more frustration.

Really it was foolish to think seven days in a foreign country could help me figure out life.

The only thing that seems to becoming clearer is that I may never have as much clarity as I would like about most things. My life will never be mapped out for me, there will always be something else to deal with, and I will always have more questions than answers.

As a control freak it drives me crazy to not know and not have the answers. I keep trying to gain knowledge and wisdom and I keep trying to find the answers, but it seems that as soon as I get one situation sorted out there’s something else to discern.

I live in the tension. Perhaps life will never be settled and will always be unresolved.

But even though it often feels like heavy baggage, what if what seems like the burden of trying to figure life out is actually the proof that life is open-ended? What if we looked at all these questions and situations to figure out as signs of the freedom we have to answer those questions and act in ways that make us feel alive? The minute we stop asking questions or the minute we feel like everything is set and figured out is the minute we give up our opportunity to truly live.

August

2014-08-05T20:49:00.001-05:00

For the month of August I’m only going to have one full-time job (rather than a full-time job and a part-time job). There are some major renovations going on at Feed My Starving Children in Aurora so the site will be closed. The renovations will create more office space, more volunteers will be able to come, and we’ll be able to pack more food to feed kids around the world (that’s the best reason!). I was on the brink of tears when I left last week because I will miss my co-workers, the volunteers, and the incredible part I get to play in feeding thousands of children around the world.

But at the same time I’m really looking forward a month with a little more time to do things that I usually don’t have time to do.

Time to read good books (I’m starting by re-reading Harry Potter)
Time to cook and eat good food, especially with all the veggies that are coming out of my garden.
Time to enjoy the summer evenings
Time to write and reflect
Time for some extra sleep
Time to make a campfire in the backyard (and look at the pitiful amount of stars that are visible in the western suburbs of Chicago)
Time to ride my bike
Time to be with family and friends

Basically time to slow down and do the things that leave me feeling refreshed and I'm really, really looking forward to it all.

Here it goes!

Just Walk Away

2014-07-29T20:05:00.000-05:00

Often when we think about being a better person or more specifically a better Christian we think about things we have to do better or things we have to do more of. We are supposed to go to church, pray regularly, give thanks and to praise God, ask for forgiveness, forgive others, give a portion of what we earn back to God, read and study the Bible, tell others about Jesus, serve at church and love and serve people in the community.

This isn’t an all-inclusive list, but even just thinking about what I have failed to do on this list and what I need to do better on this list leaves me feeling like a failure. I feel guilty that I don’t do what I know I should. I want to do better and often I make a conscious effort to do better but it seems like I rarely make any progress. It’s a vicious cycle of guilt, failure, and feeling unworthy of being called a Christian.

There is nothing inherently wrong with these things and we should do them. I strongly believe and have often taught others that our faith must result in action. The Bible tells us “faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead” James 2:17. No one with true faith will sit idly. The action of loving God and our neighbor naturally follow being loved by God and having faith in God. These actions and practices strengthen our faith and likewise our faith strengthens these practices.

But the truth is these actions were never meant to be a burden.

Through Christ, God has set me free to be the person God intended me to be. This should create a sense of freedom and joy. But I am often left with feeling the burden because I am weighed down by things that are not of God.

In order to do I must first be. I cannot do what Christ has called me to do if I am not the person Christ has called me to be.

And in order to be the person who God sees me as, I need to let go of all that is not what God intended. It’s not about doing more. For me right now the things I need to chip away at are frustration, the anxiety of not being in control, unworthiness, and uncertainty. They are consuming me. Yes, it’s a process, but every day I’d like to take at least one tiny step toward walking away from these things.

God has set you free too. Think about what is it that you need to get rid of. Just shake it off or set it down or cut it out or whatever else you need to do. You don’t have to hold onto all those things. You are free to walk away and never look back.

A Different Kind of Tithe

2014-06-30T20:48:00.003-05:00

Churches often talk about tithing the money we earn. It’s a common practice for Christina to give 10% of their income to the church. For many of us, myself included, writing a check is relatively easy. Yes, it takes a lot to earn that money and it may require cutting back on spending in other areas, but we write the check, drop it in the offering plate (or give online), and we are done.

But the purpose of tithing is not really about the number of what we give or about crossing something off the “Christian to do list.” It’s about giving to God what is God’s, giving something significant to God.

As we become more and more busy as a society, it is our time that has become our most precious resource. I schedule my activities one after the other, I have very little wiggle room in my schedule for any last minute changes, and I have a hard time dealing with anything that requires me to give my time to something else.

And so I wonder: why do we put so much emphasis on tithing our money when in many cases our time is our most precious resource?

What if we tithed our time? After all, the time we have here on earth is just time we have been given by God, why not give that back to God?

A tithe of time could be spent strengthening our faith through praying, reading and studying the Bible, joining with others in a small group Bible study, or worshiping. Our tithing time could be spent serving at our church or serving people in need in our community. This time could be spent on a mission trip, mentoring a young person, building a relationship with someone in need, or taking a Sabbath day.

If we took 10% of a day that would be about 2.5 hours each day. That adds up to be 17.5 hours a week... 910 hours a year! Can you imagine how much God could do through people who make that sort of commitment to serving God, to building the Kingdom?

Yes, the tithe of our wages is important and vital, but I wonder how much good could be accomplished and how much we would grow in our relationship with God if we also tithed our time.

Of course, tithing our time would require sacrifices. Maybe it might mean watching less TV, playing less golf, spending less time relaxing at home. Maybe it will mean quitting something we enjoy doing. Tithing our time will also certainly mean entering into some messy and difficult situations- working with God to build the Kingdom of God is really messy and painful. It will mean putting ourselves out there. It will require stepping out of our comfort zones day after day while putting our trust in God.

This, much more than dropping a piece of paper in to a plate, is what God has asked us to do.

One of Those Times

2014-05-06T22:43:00.004-05:00

Do you ever have those times when you fall into a funk? Something happens or maybe something doesn’t happen, but somehow you fall into this state of being where your world doesn’t feel like it used to.

And you desperately want to get back to normal (whatever the heck that is or was).

But as you try to figure out how to get back to normal, you have no idea what to do to get back there because you don’t even know exactly it was or why things got un-normal.

You do things in your routine like you normally would. You eat good food. You exercise. You hang out with and talk with good people who you trust. You try to do those things that usually made you normal.

But nothing seems to work.

Then you come to realize that so much has changed that you fear what was once normal will never be normal again. What was once that comfortable state, where you had things figured out, where it wasn’t always perfect but at least you understood things…you knew who you were and what your purpose was…that “normal” is no longer even remotely possible.

There are times when you realize that life doesn’t always bring you down the path of least resistance. When you can’t take the easy way out. When what you are meant to do isn’t what you thought you wanted. There are times when people need you to do and be what you’d prefer not to. When God needs you to do the really hard work. When God wants you to grow and be more than you thought you could be. When God asks you to trust. When God asks you to be the person God meant you to be even though it requires sacrifice and patience and perseverance and lots of other virtues you would rather not practice.

Now is one of those times.

Usually when I write, I gain some perspective on the experiences I’m writing about as I write. Through writing things become clearer for me and I find the words to express what is going on in the chaos of my mind and my soul. There have been many times when I have a moment of insight and I’m able to understand whatever circumstance I’m writing about and I’m able to sum it up in a clear way with a tidy conclusion.

Now is not one of those times.

A Slammed Door

2014-04-27T20:05:00.001-05:00

There’s the cliché metaphor about God opening and closing doors. I’m not entirely sure how theologically accurate it is to think that God opens doors (provides opportunities for us by smoothing out the way to get to those opportunities) and closes doors (God actively prevents us from doing something). There are some situations where I think God does actively work like this but there are other situations where we may use the metaphor as a way to cover up other factors or forces that are actually working.

Whatever theological limitations there are on this metaphor it has been helpful to make sense of a difficult situation.

God closed a door on an opportunity I was pursuing.

When I tried to enter the door, God slammed that door right in my face and sternly yelled from the other side of the door something to the effect of “Melissa, what did you think you were doing? Was I not clear that this was not where I wanted you to go??? Why are you so unhappy with what I have given you right now?? Stay where you are!” A huge door slammed directly in my face. A loud slamming door with God on the other side of that door leaving me alone in a pitch-dark hallway with absolutely nowhere to go and no path leading me to whatever was next. This hallway was scary and terrifying and confusing. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. I had begged God to be with me through all this because I didn’t know how to do it alone. I didn’t even have a clue where or how to pick up and begin again once the door closed. All I could focus on was that closed door and the harsh loud sound it made when it slammed shut.

But after a while the sound of the door slamming faded. Or maybe I had imagined the sound all along. Yes, a door definitely closed, but maybe it was closed in a different manner than I had first imagined. Maybe it was more like God closing the door while gently saying, “No, Melissa, not right now. Come back later.” Or maybe God softly closed the door because God knows it just wasn’t a door I should be going through even though that’s what I thought I wanted. Or maybe God opened that door so I could look in and see it but then God is trying to tell me, “Melissa, you see how wonderful and beautiful that is? Well, I’ve got something planned for you that is even better.”

As I was able to think about the door closing in a different way it eased the pain but not completely. When you see so much beauty and possibility behind a door, it is impossible to forget it. You cannot erase the thoughts of what might have been.

When people use the metaphor about God closing doors, a closed door almost always means God is opening another door for you, and I think that’s true.

However, I don’t yet see the open door and it really stinks right now (to put it nicely). But what I didn’t realize when I was focusing on a slammed door is that there are at least nightlights in the hallway. And I’m not alone in the hallway. I’ve got the best Guide in the universe walking with me who will help me knock on doors. And there are some really amazing cheerleaders cheering me on and supporting me in the hallway.

Awkward Saturday

2014-04-19T20:02:00.002-05:00

The proper term for today in the church year is “Holy Saturday”, but if they had asked me I would have called it “Awkward Saturday.” It’s awkward because it is the day in between the greatest tragedy in history and the most triumphant event in history and it leaves me trying to figure out how one is supposed to feel and act on such a day.

We are supposed to be in mourning because Jesus was crucified on the cross, a horrific painful undeserved death that we remember each Good Friday. But I know that tomorrow I won’t have to mourn because Christians around the world will be celebrating Jesus’ resurrection from the dead. So why waste time and emotion mourning? Why bother feeling the guilt and pain of knowing that I and my sins are the reason Jesus had to die? It would be so much easier to just bypass that sorrow and celebrate but then I feel guilty for not recognizing the sorrow of the crucifixion.

Even if I could figure out some sort of compromise between mourning and rejoicing, doing anything besides mourning and doing anything besides rejoicing would tarnish either extreme. It’s awkward.

And so on Awkward Saturday I am forced to embrace the tension between Friday and Sunday, to struggle to find a balance, to consider all that the tension means.

But what really frustrates me is that the awkwardness doesn’t stop on Easter Sunday. In reality, an awkwardness on a whole deeper level began that first Easter Sunday. It is the awkward period of time in history, that in-between period when we know Jesus is coming back some day to restore the world to the perfect creation that God created in the beginning but we still have to wait for an unknown amount of time in this mess of a world for him to come back.

It’s not just awkward like an uncomfortable awkward conversation you have with someone you just met. It’s an acute tension between now and what is to come. The tension between the complete brokenness of humanity and the earth and a world of perfection on a level we cannot even comprehend.

Humanity has been waiting for about 2000 years and I’ve often felt impatient waiting while there is so much suffering, brokenness, and anguish. I know I should continue to have hope and look forward to what is to come, but I often can’t see past the suffering and our feeble attempts to repair the brokenness of our world.

We must live in the awkwardness and the tension. It is the longing for restoration that drives us to work for restoration, to turn to God and seek what we can do to be a part of God’s plan for restoration.

Just like the resurrection means nothing without the crucifixion, the restoration of creation means nothing without experiencing the brokenness of it, without struggling to understand, without so many failed and some successful attempts to create a better world.

What I Didn't Learn about Myself from Surfing: Part 2

2014-04-08T17:26:00.001-05:00

In my last post I wrote about learning to surf in San Diego and some of the things about myself that prevented me from surfing well. In the end, I realized I already knew these things about myself but I also came to appreciate some of my strengths in my surfing experience:

I’m not afraid of learning new things or experiencing new things (even sometimes scary things). I had traveled across the country by myself, to a city I had never been to, where I knew no one. I was in the Pacific Ocean with a surfboard and a surf instructor I had just met. As Randy and I were about knee deep in the water, he told me about the jellyfish. Apparently sometimes there are jellyfish in the water by the sandbar we were on, and they sting. So Randy showed me how to do the “Jellyfish shuffle” by more slowly moving my feet forward rather than taking big steps in order to allow the critters to move out of the way before stepping on them. Randy told me a few other people learning how to surf had gotten stung.

I don’t give up easily. I don’t even know how many dozens of times I fell off that surfboard. Sometime I barely even managed to get going forward in a wave. But time after time I forced my way back out against the waves to try again. When I failed to get up using one method of getting up on the board I tried another way. I was determined to surf and my actions reflected it.

I’m not afraid to fail. While I had visions in my mind of me surfing like the professional surfers, I had a pretty good idea that this wouldn’t be the reality. I knew learning to surf would be hard and I knew I wouldn’t be an instant success, but I did it anyway. Also, I wasn’t afraid to fail big. I’m really glad there weren’t many people on the beach that day because I’m sure some of my falls were some of the most ungraceful things I’ve done in my life.

I’m not afraid to dream and do what it takes to make my dream a reality. As far as dreams go, learning to surf isn’t a huge or important dream, but it is something that I’ve wanted to do for a while so I made the plans and figured out a way to make it happen.

I know when it’s time to rest and renew. This is something I’m still learning to be good at, but when I was surfing I demonstrated the skill well. When I had tried my best, I had fallen more times that I could count, and I was just plain tired and hungry, I got some seriously delicious nachos and ate them on the beach while watching the clouds roll by and listening to the waves.

What I Didn’t Learn About Myself from Surfing: Part 1

2014-03-09T18:17:00.002-05:00

I was in San Diego last weekend in part to cross something off my bucket list: learning how to surf. I sort of learned how to surf. I had a few decent surf rides, but I won’t be entering any surf competitions any time soon.

My surfing instructor, Randy, told me I was a challenge to teach. He didn’t mean it in a bad way (although I immediately took it as an insult). He meant that he was grateful for the challenge of trying to figure out the puzzle of the way my brain does/doesn’t communicate with my body and help me surf.

Randy kept telling me that I needed to stop thinking about certain things and thinking in certain ways because this thinking was preventing me from standing up on the board and surfing. However, I can assure you that there wasn’t much consciously going on in my brain other than wanting to be a cool surfer. After I had returned the surfboard I continued to think about what Randy had told me about my thinking. Maybe if I wasn’t actively thinking about the things Randy told me not to think about, perhaps it was on an unconscious level that I was thinking things that prevented me from succeeding. This makes sense because the things that Randy told me were preventing me from surfing were the same things that I know I struggle with in life.

I’m afraid of failure and I think about failure too much. Randy kept telling that I was thinking about falling. He me that as long as I was looking to the side of the board rather than straight ahead toward the shore I was going to fall. If I was looking to where I would fall, I would fall.

I am slow and too deliberate. Randy wanted me to stop thinking about it as a bunch of different steps and just quickly push up, get my feet in the right position on the board, and stand up. Instead I took things slowly, one step at a time.

I need to feel in control all the time. I was taking it one step at a time because pausing at each step allowed me to make sure I was completely balanced before I went on to the next step.

I hold on to what I know rather than letting go of what is holding me back. Even when I did manage to get my feet close to the right places on the surfboard and get into a somewhat upright position, often I failed to stand up all the way because I was left hanging onto the side of the board for stability. I knew the board, I knew I was safe when I was holding on to the board, so I held on in an awkward half crouched position. Randy told me to stop thinking about being unbalanced and just let go.

I didn’t learn anything new about myself. I knew all this already and I was super frustrated that it prevented me from surfing well. While my character flaws were evident in my struggle to surf, some of my character strengths came out too. Wait for What I Didn’t Learn About Myself from Surfing: Part 2.

If Trees Worried

2013-10-28T22:23:00.001-05:00

Fall is my favorite season. Besides the fact that I love pumpkin everything (and for the record, I loved pumpkin everything before it was trendy to love pumpkin everything), I love what happens with the trees in fall. I love the brilliant reds, orange, and yellow of the leaves as they change color. I love the way the fallen leaves fill my senses as I walk or bike along the tree lined paths- the crunching and rustling sounds as I move over the leaves, the musty, earthy smell of the leaves as they start to decay, the way the leaves fall from the trees and the way the wind makes them dance on the ground.

But for all the beauty in fall, there is also death. Plants die, the grass and plants start to lose their green, and the trees shed their leaves leaving just the lifeless looking branches.

And here’s the thing: Donald Miller once wrote, “All the trees are losing their leaves, and not one of them is worried.”

I can’t say for sure that trees actually feel emotion, but if we can imagine for a few minutes that trees do indeed feel emotions we can learn something radical.

Leaves are the life source for trees. Without leaves trees would have no way of gathering in the power of the sun in order to turn that sunlight into food to help the tree survive and grow. So for a tree to lose its leaves means the loss of its ability to generate food and therefore is essentially a death sentence.

I can imagine the first fall for a baby tree is pretty traumatic.

However, the trees don’t worry. They put up no fight as their leaves gradually drop one by one to the ground. The trees do not selfishly try to hold on to the leaves that are destined to break from the trees.

Perhaps the trees know their worrying will do nothing to change the weather or the fact that their leaves are going to fall off. Maybe they aren’t worried because they trust that spring will come again just like it has every other year. The leaves fall and the leaves return. It’s a cycle. The leaves have to fall in order for them to grow in the spring and the leaves have to grow in the spring in order for them to fall. Even though it seems completely illogical and terrifying in the fall, the trees know the cycle and they trust.

Here’s the real lesson though: trees do more than simply accept what could be viewed as a tragedy, they transform it into a spectacular display of color.

It is this stunning autumn spectacle that teaches me year after year that acceptance and trust are significant but it is through choosing to use our energy to bring about transformation that worry is truly defeated.

Thank You

2013-10-20T15:28:00.002-05:00

Congress has gotten a lot of criticism lately, and I'd like to get on that bandwagon even though I may be a little late. What made them think that they could just close things down when they couldn’t get along, when they couldn’t figure out a solution, when they couldn’t act like adults and compromise? Did they not realize that their actions had awful consequences for so many people in our country and around the world?

Most of us don't have the option to do what Congress did. Most of us can't just say, "Well, this is too hard. We can't figure out an easy answer or compromise, so we'll just shut things down for a while and wait for the other guys to give in or figure out an answer." Yes, I know this is a huge simplification of the whole situation, but the real point here isn't to dis congress, but rather it is to thank all those people who don't close things down when the going gets tough.

The truth is we all have to deal with the tough stuff. We have to do things that are extremely difficult, we have to engage with the pain and brokenness of this world, we have to live in an imperfect world where some days one thing after the other goes wrong.

And it’s hard. It’s really hard.

But you do it. Day after day. Some days you may question why we must keep going, why it must be so difficult, but if you keep going please know that you are doing something spectacular.

There are the teachers who patiently care for and teach their students even when they don't have the resources they need, their students and parents aren’t always the most cooperative, and the system doesn’t lean toward doing what is best for the students.

There are the pastors who are on call 24/7, counsel people through grief and crises, preach the Truth, and care for their congregation in so many ways through much sacrifice.

There are the non-profit organization leaders who make the most of few resources to do incredible work to solve some of the world's biggest problems and who help people who many would consider to be beyond help.

There are the lawyers who fight for their clients and for justice in a system that isn't always on the side of justice.

There are the doctors who relentlessly search for the best treatment for their patients even after so treatments many have proven ineffective.

There are the parents who continue to love their children even when exhaustion sets in and who give second chances and show “tough love” to help their children become the people they are meant to be.

There are early mornings, long days, late nights, disappointment, tears, stress, pain, heartache, moments of panic, days of grief, fear, loss, injustice, anxiety, financial struggles, insecurity, disasters, horrific accidents, devastation, illness, and rejection.

With all this, it takes great courage to keep going. It requires an enormous amount of endurance and patience to not give up. Most of all it demands hope. And for as long as you don’t give up somewhere inside of you are courage, endurance, patience, and hope.

Thank you to all of you who keep going. Thank you to everyone who has the courage, the endurance, the patience, and ultimately the hope it takes to say, “Yes, this is really awful and I want to give up, but I will not let all that is difficult stop me from trying to bring about what is beautiful.”

You give me hope. Thank you.

The Mess

2013-10-06T21:15:00.001-05:00

I’m a pretty calm person. People notice this about me. I can control my emotions, I’m pretty level headed in difficult situations, I take things as they come, I can roll with the punches.

But lately on the inside I’ve been freaking out a little and sometimes more than a little because I’m struggling with Jesus’ teaching to “love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:39) and to care for people in need because Jesus told us “whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me” (Matthew 25:40).

I’ve stepped way out of my comfort zone and I’ve really tried to live these words out. I have poured my heart, my soul, and my energy into it.

I’ve loved and tried to care for people who are difficult to love and care for. I’ve gone deep- I’ve tried to get to the root of the problems rather than just dealing with the surface struggles. As soon as I think I have made some progress in helping someone or making the world a better place, things just get so much more complicated and the severity of the issue seems to amplify.

And all I see is more and more complex issues. More pain. More brokenness.

I took steps of faith, and now all I find myself with is a mess that I have no idea what to do with. It’s the mess of a broken world. It’s the mess of that comes with a broken person trying to love broken people.

So what do I do with disappointment? With heartbreak? With exhaustion? With the temptation to give up? What are we to do when things are just so overwhelming and success or progress seem to be completely out of the picture?

What does it mean that I am trying to live how Jesus said we should live and it feels like Jesus is farther away from me as I see more and more brokenness? Did God really intend for me to be in situations where my lack of experience and knowledge leave me feeling completely inadequate and I have no idea how the reign of God will ever be present?

All these questions and concerns are going around and around in my mind and it leaves me feeling more and more anxious, overwhelmed, and unsure about what it means to live as a Christian.

I remember a time when I was younger when my mom sent me to clean my bedroom. After some time my mom came to check on my progress, and what she saw completely horrified her. My bedroom may have been a little messy before, but now the president might have declared it a disaster area. Clothes taken out of my dresser and closet, papers and supplies taken out of my desk, toys taken out of their places, and books removed the book shelf- piles of stuff everywhere and I was in the middle of the mess. My mom naturally questioned what on earth I was doing and firmly reminded me that I was supposed to be cleaning my room.

What I then tried to explain to my mom was that in order to really clean my room it needed to get messier before it could get clean. I was rearranging and reorganizing everything in order to make my room as clean and tidy as possible. My mom was skeptical but the explanation pacified her. It took me a long time to clean my room, but in the end it truly was clean.

I’m hoping the mess of life is like the mess of my bedroom. We can see that the world is a mess on the surface. We can bring in a dust rag and a vacuum and things might look better. Or we can open the closet, pull out the desk and dresser drawers, empty out the storage baskets and really deal with the mess. This may require being knee-deep or even deeper in the mess for a while, but eventually the world will be restored.

In the meantime I sit here and try to make sense of the piles of mess around me, I try to figure out how the mess was created in the first place and what I can possibly do to fix the profound brokenness in the world.

I wish there was a simple checklist to loving our neighbor, eliminating injustice, and restoring wholeness. But it’s not a neat and straightforward 5-step process. It’s messy and I hate the mess.