Crevice

Somewhere tonight there is a girl wanting to die. Somewhere tonight a boy contemplates ways to hurt the pain inside him by hurting himself. I can guarantee it.  I know, because that was me.

I wanted to die so bad, but was so afraid of the process. Then three years passed and I wanted to paint the pain in physical destruction, but I didn’t necessarily want to die, I just wanted to punish myself for being alive.

Today and yesterday the sensations passed through me again. Not the thoughts. Just the numbness. The taste of black or grey in your muscle fiber. The literal ache in your chest. The empty, tight feeling in your stomach.

That feeling that you are more connected with death than alive.

Or the panic. The panic at being alone.

The panic at never being wanted. That maybe no one will ever believe, this F-ing hurts. Only, I never used that word back then when that was everyday. Barely even knew what it meant, actually. It seems appropriate though. For the strength of the pain. Nothing else is visible in those moments.

My beloved reader,

I wrote so many letters to you before I was ready. So many letters to say I know what it is to hurt. The problem was, back then I didn’t know if I was going to survive. And I knew absolutely nothing about living. Well, I knew quite a bit, but I didn’t know how to find it again.

Staying alive is the hardest part. Surviving.

Numbness just sinks into your bones and you feel alone. And whether or not you’re ready to actually go through with the dramatic plans that crop up in the mind, still the sensations roar “I am not alive. It hurts that I am alive. It would be better if I were not alive.”  But, better for who?  See, I was convinced it was better for me and everyone else.

But it wasn’t.  

There is someone out there who loves you. Who needs you. There is something out there that you like or want. Someone out there who can hear the words “This hurts more than I know how to say.” And believe me, we want to know that pain much more than know your grave.

I’ve been on both sides of the suicide game now. They both suck. When I decided to try not to die, I did it because as much as every ounce of my body said I was better dead, the pain of loss in the eyes of my friends said I was better alive.

For me, it was the desperate love of the family I struggle so much with knowing how to love that kept here. The friends who loved me so much, and hated the antics of my trying to die so much they wouldn’t leave my side. The late night simple responses, “I’m praying.” Or “Don’t be stupid. Come back inside.” The sense of walking Gethsemane’s garden with the greatest man in history and the scars he too bears forever.

For me, it’s the soft touch of my dog’s fur that brings me back right now from the numbness. It’s the promise of spring in these dark rainy storms. I don’t want to loose that. I didn’t want to loose the relief of crying.

What about you? As you hold the numb pain that needs to be heard in one hand, what’s the ray of life in the other? The taste of ice cream? Sitting in a dark room listening to music? It doesn’t have to be bright or brilliant or big. You just have to be able to touch the edges of feeling less awful.

When, in the last twenty-four hours did you feel the least dead, the most alive, and the most like the self you want to be? What was happening? What do you feel as you remember?

Dreams to Dust

It was the very end of the process. I'd been working with an editor for a year, then passed on to another as the first editor moved on to a new job. In the last stages of adjusting the final draft, I received an email with my work rewritten out of my words. Through dialogue it became painfully clear, to get the piece published I would have to let go of my voice.

So I withdrew from being published.

You see, to take my story out of my words, takes me out of the dialogue.

So I withdrew from being published and in a sense, I watched my dreams crumble to dust.

I was twelve the day I decided I want to be a published author. It’s been twelve years since Robin McKinley and Gail Carson Levine drew me to imagine my own stories of princesses in tentative positions. Then my mother drilled me in the art of essay and I wrote stories with no plot, and then a novel that was never fully edited, and then more and more and more, until I found myself listening to my work critiqued by a classroom of college students.

But as poured my heart and soul into a degree to learn how to write, I learned something. Writing well is more important than industry opinions or standards. Maybe a poor book (or two) has been published.

Now, don't get me wrong: every author needs an editor. A damn good one.

But a good editor, takes your work to it's best, not takes it into a formula or specific needs. See the editor has the power to safe guard what gets a publisher’s name attached. But the author has the power to decide what and how she or he will say it. It's the way of life, differing opinions, differing goals.

For me, somewhere in the middle of my love affair with stories, I fell in love with the written word and the ability to create a spoken poetry on paper. I valued not just reputation, or fame from the word “published” but the art of painting words into stories. And the dream changed.

I swore any words that went out in my name would be high quality...but always in the back of my mind lingered the question, would I really, if I could be published? Would I really refuse to compromise “show don't tell,” or any other basic pillar of good, dynamic writing? You see, this looks like just a basic difference of values and it is. But it's also question of whether or not I will live by my convictions.

“Will I die for Jesus?” I asked myself over and over as a child. “Will I really give my life up for him?”

I've lived through the strongest desire to die out of loyalty to Him.

And when it comes to being published, it's been so strong a dream. You never quite know what you will compromise for those dreams that run as deep as your blood. This week I found my answer. You see, writing has become a part of me. A part of my worship.

To compromise on my story, my deep faith story, would be to compromise myself, a part of my soul.

It may be a different style, but I see it as less good. And just as I refuse to live my faith halfway, so too I refuse to use my gifts half way.

We were not made to save the world, but to share our stories. In each unique way.

So yes, my dreams turned into dust. I did the stupid move for a writer. I walked away from the dream. And today I am skittish to seek out any recognition of the writing industry. Self publishing no longer looks like the compromise I once saw, but a small way to share my deep love. Being a best seller is off the dream list, well almost. But after a year, I want to sit down with my novel again and just play with my stories. After a year, I've learned to write better… clearer, but still within the edges of my voice. I've learned, again, what I believe in. Because, I never really trust myself until I see what I do.


I lost deeply. But perhaps writing is turning again from task to an element of relationship. Most times I write to God. And if not to God, to people for Him. Writing is about us… not fame, fortune, or having my name on a book cover… even if I may still work towards someday seeing it, today I experience the difference. JJ Heller puts the sense of lost dreams for deeper hope so well.

MK...Not Missionary

I’m sitting across from my missionary brother. He tells me stories of his life balancing two worlds, a home that’s not quite home in either place—details of the other world lingering, from cars, to dog, to how to keep the house safe. This type of information isn’t new for me. I watched Dad deal with it all the time. A call from Alberto about the ministry. Me asking if my golden retriever lemon lover was being fed. But now, a new question lingered as I sat in American restaurant, middle class with a fireplace and view over a field or water that’s been covered in the blanket of snow, this is my world now. These stressors my brother describes are almost foreign to me, a memory of a child hood left behind.

And yet, middle class America isn’t my world. I am still the outsider, looking in. I am the one shaking my head at a culture of “busy is better” and rushing from sports to work to church…I am the one who feels like she almost belongs, but never quite will. Never will have that family of Mom and Dad to spend the weekend, type of world. That is not my story. My story is airplanes and long trips across the country. My story is watching my siblings follow in my parent’s footsteps, painfully aware that I was taken off the ministry playing field by force—I would have lost myself there, my stories gone to waste. I would have never made it on the field, I barely have energy to handle the American work day, never mind disinfecting every vegetable I eat, boiling the water to drink, washing laundry using a hose to fill the washer, boiling water as a constant just for daily cleaning needs. I would never have been the woman who could raise children away from friends, survive away from a community who understood her own culture. Not me. I want to be made that way, but I’m not.

I was taken off the playing field because I couldn’t handle it. In my teenage years I invested everything I had into my parent’s ministry. From doing kids ministry with a fellow church in Latacunga to Sunday school in a church plant that never made it. I worked in an orphanage and tasted ministry not theirs. I was often the one to climb in the car alone with Daddy, or with Daddy and Anita and ride up into the mountains…and yet….that life isn’t mine now.

I have looked poverty in the face, both financial and now spiritual.  And I do not belong. Still.

I had this odd idea that when I moved to the USA and stayed I’d be planting roots. But in a sense in that attempt, I left the roots I had.

I no longer belong to the missionary community and culture. But I don’t belong to USA, quite. I still have the foreign eyes looking in, a hidden immigrant with white skin, privileged because I have the ethnicity of respect with a knowledge to communicate out.  But I don’t belong, and in that I am not privileged. And though I’ve heard calls for Missionary Kids to become the next generatioin of Missionary, I can’t just go back, I don’t think. My mental health struggles won’t just pass like I want them to. If nothing else, I’m probably stuck with some kind of fatigue my whole life. I’ve tried taking the pills. I am excerising. I got a dog who helps so so much. But still my energy does not match my age.  

So I do what I can.

I’ve joined the other side of the missionary table. I’ll pay for the meals, listen to the stories, pray, help be the funding. I DO CARE.

But I can’t go.

Maybe some day I’ll figure out what it means to be the one that stayed in the home country, the one that’s not my passport I mean, not the one that has mountains reaching to the sky and settles me the minute I step into the thin air. To be missionary in the same place I’m paid. To love on the one percent, to see the needs and suffering hidden under social norms and knowledge without experience of relationship. It’s not the same. And we would be cruel to say it was. But for now, for now I will name what has eched a stress in me the minute I started adult life. My heart will never fully be home. Even not travelling, a piece of me was left somewhere else. Another taken by a brother to Costa Rica, a sister to the Chicago’s inner city. I am the missionary’s family. The child who did not play sports or learn to dance. The adult who will work a “paying” job and never raise support, never trek across the country for a livelihood, nor spend half of my work week on what it takes to live in a country “not your own.”

And yet, I stubbornly refuse to leave Grand Rapids. I WILL make a home here. Fight in a country that believes in dog coats and abortion. I will never belong to everyone. But to quote a wall decoration “To the world you may be just one person…but to that one person, you are the world.” I will never belong in a way some will never understand. But if nothing else, I get stories from that. Lots of novel inspiration and fodder for non-fiction. And my loved ones, that family spread across the world, well, maybe just maybe I’m starting to believe that the straggler Hunter is a needed piece of the picture. I have a sister who’s making my puppy mittens. A brother who wanted to have lunch. And parents who would do just about anything to know I’m safe.

My One Comfort

I sit in the summer shade listening to geese, half asleep; then in a comfortable overstuffed couch. I eat three meals a day and am blessed with computers and a full time job. Cars transfer me places and buildings house me. Hot water flows easily from the faucet and I would be foolish not to recognize that I live in a life of comfort. I live in a “first” world country. I am rich, though there are days I certainly don’t feel it, and as I settle into a stable life and find myself in a quandary over questions like whether to attend conferences for one or two days I’ve wondered if I am in danger while in comfort.      

                Is comfort a danger?

                After all, no offense to America, but consumerism is a deep in-set part of culture, and worse is a blindness to the difference between selfishness and self-care. I who have seen the dangers of over extension now sit in the danger of the other and I wonder, what is this?

                I have seen suffering. How can you even consider spending money to go to a writer’s conference when there are people starving?

                It is a first world problem: and they are legitimate. Perhaps.

                What if, my dear friends who are blessed with homes and money and clothes on our backs, our problem is not comfort?

                What if we have forgotten the point of Revelation 3? As John so aptly wrote to our brothers and sisters in Laodacea, we must return to our first love. Just as I could be distracted by questions of so many natures in so many places, the issue is not comfort, but our focus.

                There is a promise that all tears will be gone someday.

                Which means that our battle with sin will be over—thank goodness. Wars will have ceased. Natural disaster will be over. World hunger will no longer be an issue and I imagine that climate change will not be a question since, if we read Revelation literally there will be no sun, it’ll just be God’s light.

                But if my eyes stray from my Lord, then I am in danger of cruelty. Then selfishness can seep into my being and laziness my soul. So Lord, let me seek you, my first love. And follow you to the ends of the earth—wherever that might lead. Ultimately in both life and death our comfort is that we are not our own: we've been bought with blood. We are safe, secure, beloved in Christ's Lordship. Father, draw me closer to your everlasting self. 

A Defense of the “Conservative”

               “I didn’t think the republicans care about the poor.” The words made me swallow as I went on to explain that we hold a difference of philosophy of how to help, not a difference of values towards those in need.

And yet, when I scroll through my facebook page, my heart breaks.

People are angry about the suffering minorities face, and they blame the common man. They say sin, or life effected by sin is what should be allowed, and while we both long for the freedom and well-being of our country, I wonder if we are in danger of creating a new prejudice: against the “majority people” (Which, for the record, really doesn’t exist.)

                If you are a “minority” group person reading this post, I am sorry for the suffering you’ve faced. If you are close to someone of minority groups, you see social objections every day, and I’m sorry. But, I would argue it’s time we be honest.

There are many conservatives out there serving the lower, lesser people, not in facebook posts, but in action. I know people who walk the inner-city streets of Chicago who work with the women who need to be loved, and would still call themselves pro-life.  I know someone who gave up his freedom to protect his people, who defends the right to bear arms. There are those who walk into homes with dirt floors and flickering lights who believe it is through the middle class that the truly poor can gain jobs. I work in a group home that serves the physically disabled, but I still believe the fact that they are disabled is a loss—they are not less because they are disabled, but I do believe that Jesus will give them whole bodies on the final days.

You see, I am pro-life. I believe being gay is wrong, as well as sleeping with your boyfriend before marriage. I am one of the rare Christians of my generation who refuses to drink (and may sometimes wonder if it’s wrong). I am probably the least feminist woman in my family.

But you are wrong if you think that means I don’t love people. You are wrong because one of my biggest heroes was in prison for drug trafficking. Her son (she is single) is my foster brother. You are wrong because my childhood hero suffered from cerebral palsy and yet always taught me to smile. You are wrong because if I had the chance, I would return to my internship with Immigrant Connection at the drop of a hat. I documented many cases of male abuse and told women in tears that they were valuable.

You are wrong because my reason for guidelines comes from my reason for love, and God himself—the extremity of both liberalism and conservativism—did not give up His standards when He chose to love us. He held His standards and chose us at the highest cost to Himself.  

Conservative does not mean hating bigot. Pro-life does not rule out my love for the mother. Straight (versus gay) does not mean I don’t understand the battle against sin or the idea of a sexual desire that may never be met. Conservative means I want to help people help themselves—I want to educate the poor, not give them handouts. I want to disciple them in Christ, and teach each person to give their last penny to God. The question I find myself asking, is if you am brave enough to believe the minorities matter, are you brave enough to believe it is because God created them? Are you brave enough to believe that God love you—so much that He found a way for His standards and His character of love to intermingle? He did this for you and the person sitting behind you, do you believe that too?

In this time of political and physical upheaval around the world, remember God is our king.  When it comes down to it, He will rule the heavens and the earth. Are you on your knees before Him?

Dear Cornerstone University Senior,

Today marks a month out from graduation: those of you counting down can probably tell me the number of hours. It is an exciting time! (And scary, don’t forget scary.)

We are going from “college kid” to “adult.” Some of us will maintain the name of “student,” others will drop that role as well. We will be done with this set of stresses, and, oh, how beautiful that sounds.  

As buried as we are under homework, it is easy to rush to the next thing, hope for the one relief of no-homework, and look forward to whatever it is that is coming next (if you even know what that will be!).

But, I have a challenge for you. Slow down. Live today. If you don’t look, you might miss the beauty and joy of transition.

Yes, the beauty and joy of transition.

This change is good, and necessary. If we were to stay here too much longer, we would be out of place; already I feel my wings preparing to fly. But before we do, it’s important to take a look around.  This change is a chance to recognize our growth.  It is a chance to internalize those things we want to carry with us, and filter through what habits we might not want to continue. And, hardest of all, it is a time to grieve. Leaving Cornerstone includes loss.

Transition is beautiful, but it’s not easy. Why else would we continually rush to the next thing?

This is our last month on campus.

How has school been hard? Is there an attitude you’ve carried you need to confess or something we’ve done wrong that we want to make right?

What are the things of Cornerstone life you love?

What friends have you made here that you will (or already) miss?

What professors have influenced you?

Where are your favorite spots on campus?

Who have you become because of Cornerstone?

Where has God met you here?

            This is the beautiful part about saying goodbye, recognizing what we’ve had. For some of us, this will hurt a lot as good bye is not easy to say, for others, we may not cry at all. I cry during change, it’s part of who I am. I have friends who are ready to move forward.  But if we rush onto the next step, we miss the chance to further internalize and recognize the life and growth at Cornerstone University.

            I probably won’t see you at CU next year, but I hope we both go out with the memory of our lives here. As we look to the excitement of what comes next, let’s thank God for what has been.  

Goodbye Cornerstone, it's been good, it's been hard, you've been home. 

                

Hope

Alaska. I might, possibly, depending on a few unanswered questions, have an opportunity to go to Alaska. Not just to Alaska, but an isolated island to spend the summer helping a well-established author. I would even meet other authors. It’s a childhood dream of going to the frontier as a pioneer mixed with a current dream of connecting with and meeting authors who could guide me. (Did I mention Mountains? I want to be near mountains…). I wasn’t looking for it. It landed in my lap and sent my heart pounding and my mind rolling. Forget the fact that I might not be able to do this, I was excited.

I was excited.

I haven’t been really excited in a long time. Just the idea of something beautiful and filling was making me happy. And just being happy and excited made me more excited because I was dreaming. This could happen in just two months. Forget homework, forget sleep, my mind circled around and around the idea imagining standing by my two favorite sceneries, ocean and mountains, my unedited novel ready to receive some loving care  even as I journalled descriptions for the sequel, which co-incidentally is about people isolated on a small island… I could go to one. Did I mention I had just prayed about that childhood dream of a living museum? This was a dream beyond a dream.

And then I realized. I have a dream… But I have a bigger dream.

We will kneel at our Savior’s feet.

The one whose resurrection just celebrated, the one whose death saved us, the one who made beauty and mountains and stories in the first place. Him. We will get to spend eternity with Him.  As sure as it is that I will graduate (which right now feels very doubtful), no, more sure than the promise I will be handed a diploma on May 7,  the certainty of God’s physical Kingdom covering the Earth is sealed in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

He will come and judge the living and the dead. And in that judgment, for those who confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, repent of their sins and chose to follow God, intimacy will be the result. Not the sometimes emptying kind of intimacy, the filling kind. Our adoption will be complete. We will be family with Christ and we will rule with him.

All beauty deepens in the chance to step into God’s presence. Colors will deepen, the awe of mountains will grow because we will be looking at their creator, who is so, so much bigger. We will be on our knees in worship. I won’t just be in the presence of a man who happens to have intelligence, I will be in the arms of the one who is the source wisdom.

In this hope, we don’t have to say “if God wills it.” He does. This is hope. We have a happy “ending.” It is not a scary one without life or color. It does not mean that we will be bored, no we will finally be satisfied. Our restless days will be calm. Our empty longings will be filled. The definition of intimacy will be found as we settle into who we were supposed to be. We will be, and are today, in the presence of the most holy, famous, powerful person who ever existed.

And we wait, with eager, active expectation for the world to be set right.

This is hope. Not dreams in possibilities, but certainty in the spectacular.

When God provides

“God is telling me He’s got this.” My friend sits behind a desk and computer, a little overwhelmed with the tasks before her.  A little overwhelmed by the fact that she is nowhere near half way to her support due in a few days. There are six dollars in my wallet. Six. My debit card is finally working, and I have no excuse for not going to the ATM machine on campus, but at the moment, I only have six dollars in my wallet. 

                The excitement in her voice as she tells how God’s provided becomes my focus, but my heart is somewhere listening. Give. I try to remember if my laundry card has money on it, will I be able to wash my clothes? Give. I think I can do it later...after the weekend is over, after I get more cash at the store. Give. What about…Give. I remember the woman who took me to lunch yesterday, who spent much more money than I ever would have spent on myself to feed me and challenge me to follow God. Give. I pull out my wallet, find the larger of the two bills and throw it on the keyboard. “Jennifer…that is not why I am telling you this story. No.”

                I shake my head. “I know it wasn’t. But God told me to.” (We will not mention that we just spent the better of two hours in class two days ago discussing whether or not God actually tells us what to do with decisions and just go with the fact that sometimes you know it’s the Holy Spirit and not emotion.)

                She rounds the desk and gives me a hug.

                After I finally got home for my nap, I flipped onto facebook and was surprised to see my co-worker was on campus. I needed to go say hi. As much as I wanted to avoid people or another migraine, or anything of the sort, I knew I needed to go. Sighing, I shade my eyes from the sunlight as I walk back across campus, berating myself for not procuring sunglasses to at least help. I speak with her and her daughter. The eighteen-year-old girl I’m meeting for the first time has my full respect and I wonder if she knows that. Finally,  I can go home to peace and quiet. I say good-bye, give hugs and start to walk away when my co-worker calls me. “Jennifer, wait.” She leads me out of the cafeteria and opens her wallet. “I still wanted to…” I try to protest.

                She had wanted to buy me groceries. I had conveniently forgotten to send her the grocery list. Not so much because I don’t need them…but because her financial state is so much more precarious than mine, and she has to feed three children.  “Nobody knows I’m doing this.” As if that mattered to me. I don’t care if anyone knows, I want her to be safe. I try not to watch what number bills she pulls out, not wanting to know how much, but the bills drop to the ground and I see it is more than I want to accept. I don't really need it and I don't want to admit the fears this is beginning to calm. 

           God doesn’t let us choose who to let help us. He doesn't let us decide whether or not we're in need.  

                A friend’s friend is asking why if he has given faithfully, God has not returned. I don’t know. For three years my parents and I searched for a home appropriate for our family on the mission-field with consistently failed results. Why didn’t God give a house if we were willing to give our lives? I don’t know.

                But why does God give at all?

Is change good?

Change certainly isn’t easy for me. I wouldn’t be up at 11:42 for almost any other reason.

But, this week I realized something absolutely amazing about change.

Change is an opportunity to see meaning in a world that we so often forget how it special is and it is a time to see how you’ve changed and grown since the last big change.

The semester has ended. I will not again take a Bible class in my undergraduate education (I’m not sure capstone counts) and I can see so much that is different in how I see the Bible.

The semester is ended and I’m getting a chance to see just how important some people have become to me, some who were important starting freshman year, and some who slipped into my heart three months ago.

My character is not what it was at the beginning of this semester, I have grown and become a new person—though that person is certainly still growing and evolving in the environments God places me. But change, change can be good. Because without change I might not remember to stop and see how much where I am and who I am with influence who I am and how I think.

Without change, I wouldn’t get a chance to see new things—which according to a friend of mine new is good.

Change is like changing lanes.  This time, you don’t just glance in the rear view mirror, you turn your head look back at your blind spots, and then look forward again and then back once more, just to be sure. So look back catch your blind spot, grasp hold of the person you’ve become, and look forward to a new, and good thing. 

Ending Well

We’re looking at the end of a year coming up, and for some of us an end to a semester. I am 4 weeks away from the end of the semester—the first semester of my senior year. Applications for new worlds have been sent in and now I sit looking at the fast line to the end. And I began to ask, what does ending well look like? And after that, what does ending well look like for me?

                I know ending well has a combination of saying goodbye well, of keeping commitments, of leaving a legacy.

                And it stuck me today, as a fellow student stopped me before I could leave work to come home from work, that right now ending well means being available. Available for fellow students who don’t understand the material or want me to proofread a paper, available for my new friend down the hall, available for my roommates and for my friends “from last year.” Available to freshmen who are adjusting, to sophomores who are finding school is harder than they expected…Available to the person God puts in front of me.

                Ending well means putting work into school, but to be totally honest my classes have begun to be a bit repetitive, and now, what was once taught to me is now being ingrained. Ending well means being thankful for the growth and what I’ve learned.

                Ending well means writing, even though I don’t have a class asking for my next story anymore.

                Ending well means saying thank you for what this school has given me, from beloved friends, to insight, to a deep inlaid fear of God.

                Ending well means looking beyond my world, and praying for France, Lebannon, and Ukraine.

Ending well means leaving a legacy, even perhaps, if that comes with the opportunity cost of performance. Let’s be real, I never was a hard core scholar.

                 Ending well means letting go, saying good bye, and looking forward. Ending well means having a heart in the past, hands in the present and focus on the future. Being fully here. Being there.

I have 4 more weeks to support my classmates and friends before I go home for a break. I have four more weeks to challenge my writing skills and put forth big projects. I four more weeks and a semester...or is it eternity? Time, after all, is inconsistent. 

                What is a beautiful ending? As the days pass, what do you hope to remember? 

                 

Pain

Seconds

Turn into

Hours, no

Millennium,

In the tick

Of a clock

I have

Changed

Into something

Not myself

I cannot

Think

I cannot

Feel

But I feel

Oh! I feel

Hardness

Burning

Freezing

Steel.

Moment,

Minute,

Now.  

A Warning to the Bible Scholar

It’s mid semester of my senior year as I Bible major and I don’t want to read my Bible…to be totally honest I want to run from it. I love God, a lot. But I’m weary of the Bible. I have filled my mind with head knowledge, but my heart is starving. They say the Bible is supposed to change a person’s life…so why in four weeks of intense study of the Bible have I come away with one soul filling lesson? Why only once did the vision of the gospel grasp hold?

                I am in Gospel Literature, but have learned nothing of Jesus.

                I am in the Psalms, but really could stand never to read one again.

There’s something wrong here.

Why is it that the philosophical ideas outside of the Bible are giving me more life than that ancient document written for all of God’s followers?

This is my warning: dear Bible scholars who bless us with your knowledge, don’t forget your soul.

Rationality matters. Understanding the text matters, but if you read the Bible when it’s not about the study or the concepts, but about how God works.

Are we asking the Holy Spirit to work in our hearts?

Are we REALLY letting Him guide us in understanding? In all 4 years of my college I haven’t heard reference to this once in class.

Don’t lose yourself in knowledge, because no matter how many historical arguments there are for Scripture’s validity, no matter if a psalm was written by David or not, no matter if the Christian existence in the world will begin to end with rapture or if there not even be a millennium,  God is looking for those who want HIM not knowledge OF Him.

And so Bible student, I urge you, remember to pray.  Remember that God is God and seek His face. Don’t let the Bible become your idol, and don’t let intensive study drive you from experiencing it. God’s story matters because by it we may more fully know God.

And God is worth knowing.

That’s why we read His Word…because He and His servants co-authored the Bible.  That’s why we study the historical context: so that we can understand how the human author and his audience thought and meant to write. That's why we pray, because His Spirit talks through His word. 

God, please, help us to understand, so that we might know you and love you more. We're hungry to hear you speak. 

Another Day

I stand over the bridge and watch cars go underneath, underneath, underneath…I like watching them: I like the highway.

 The highway feels like home.

I linger to soak in the reminder that I am but a small piece. I take a breath and keep walking, listening to the cars below me  as they still run with their high pitch sound.  

I see a girl running towards me and I wonder if she minds that I stay by the side of the bridge rather than move by the road. She does not move over and I wonder if I should.

            She stops. 

           One earphone is in her ear. 

           “Hey are you okay?” her long blond hair is pulled back in a high ponytail and I recognize her poignant features and Florida blue eyes. We met the other night. She lived under me and had told me that we had some of the bigger classes together. She remembered me because I had asked many questions in those classes and that had helped. 

                 I smile. “Yeah.” I’m not sure what makes her ask.

                “Okay,” She hits my arm lightly as she turns to go. “I don’t like people standing on bridges.”

     And then she is gone. Fast steps take her back to campus.

                My mind follows, even as my feet continue to carry me forward. It’s quite possible that, in another situation, on another day, she would have saved a life.

A Response to How To Love ____ Personality Articles

The other day I stumbled across an article about loving “creative people.” I read it because someone I love dearly often falls into of the many categories they described and I found it interesting. But a friend of mine had a point, when we defend personalities in articles that simply face a defense they can be “a blank check” it can either fall into excuse to leave boot prints on hearts behind us or become tools to navigate the balance beam of relationship. But I think, in order to walk the balance beam of relationship we have to realize two things:

1.       People are different

2.       We can grow and learn from differences.

        The stereotyped logical personality often shakes one's head at the emotional whimsical person who goes off the beaten path and often finds themself lost in a forest of confused emotions. But as long as they insist on staying only on the road of logic, they miss the streams bubbling, the quiet of melancholy, and the passion of anger. On the other side of the picture, the emotional person judges either oneself or the logical person (often both) because the logical person continues walking in a straight line which serves a purpose. 

Neither are necessarily right or wrong, but neither will probably ever land in the same footprint and people are as unique as their finger prints.

To be fair, you must know I write as someone who often operates primarily out of emotion. Purposefully, I do not work on some things when I experience certain emotions, no longer as a lack of self-discipline, but as a choice for the quality of the work, and the quality of my life. But perhaps it is important to understand, some of the people I hope to emulate are quite the opposite. If a task is on the list, it will generally be accomplished, sometimes to the forgetfulness of the emotions, but mostly the logical person might say it is more that the emotions are channeled through a structured road of thought.

Both hold a purpose. 

Roads enable us to get from here to there. Imagine life without any roads, at the least, food would not be transported and jobs could not be worked at. I lived in a country where roads were either filled with holes or were dirt roads. The difference between the pothole filled panamerican thirteen years ago and the one today is the difference between calm nerves, car sickness and at least an hour of driving... But so too emotions serve a purpose, as beautiful as the forest is, it also offers oxygen to all. 

On either side of the spectrum there sits value and detriment. My wandering emotions sometimes cause me to lack trust, to speak out of turn. I forget that whatever this moment holds God still stands as the ultimate reality. On the other hand, my emotions often give me a deep sense of love and affection, the ability to question what I once took for granted, and depth of life that intuition guides me to. I cry tears not just because I often find myself hurt, but because of how deeply I love a person. I dance inside simply because the sun shines and life for me can go anywhere from shouting songs to melancholy satisfaction.

And yet, my way of life is one I struggle to accept. I admire another’s. Discipline can guide some into an organized, smooth moving life filled with accomplishment, focus, and drive.  Logic can lead to strong arguments  and assurance of belief. Logical lives are easy to understand and emotions rarely effect the quality of work performed.  And yet, they too suffer from and enjoy emotion, just as I secretly hold self-discipline. Some of those with organization love with a quiet constancy I do not understand. They may not say “I love you,” as I often as I want to hear, but I’ve watched and seen grace when I did not deserve a second chance. (We harm ourselves when we stereotype for we see only one side of the jewel that people are.)

The “love me as I am” articles hold value in that they state what a person is whilerecognizing that value. But the wording often sounds prejudiced towards that person and against another. (Take for example the fact that I compared roads to oxygen...)

 It is sin, not personality, that is wrong with a person.

Sometimes it proves difficult to discern the difference, but personality is neither sin nor an excuse to sin.

“Be where you’re at,” Part 1

                Almost three years ago, a very dear friend of mine used to shake her head at me and urge “just be where you’re at.” I didn’t know then that when she urged me to “be where I am at” that she urged me toward the core of love. For love, often posed as sacrificially giving rests in a matter of the heart as well as the will and seems to linger on two very big points: presence and acceptance.

           Being present means fully immersing myself in the moments of my life where I am now and the moments of those around me. It is enjoying the rain that is falling on the ground outside the house where I am babysitting. It means actually reading the messages from my friends when I’m skyping and responding first to what they say, stepping into their world, not making a commentary on or demand of their hearts. (Sometimes lessons get learned the hard way.) 

           It means seeing the rain in their hearts, or the sun, and rejoicing with those who rejoice, and weeping with those who weep. We don’t necessarily stay in their weather of emotions and thoughts, but if we never step into the world as far as they let us, we will never really understand. How can we sacrificially love and meet needs if we don’t see them?

      Sometimes this is hard for me. I like my world and all the interesting twists and turns often sing with familiarity. I’d rather judge your weather from a window, and not step in, be it to rain or sunshine. Or, I try to push a new lesson, new words, new clouds into another’s life. I’m missing it. I’m missing that my friend might be going hungry and does not need emotional support, but help to find food. I’m missing that a different friend is graduating and just needs space and grace to adjust. I’m missing that I am pressuring myself to be better and my own emotions and reactions may need attention and maybe I just need to spend a long time talking with God, or talk with a close friend after I talk with God, not before.

       I miss it all because I try to pretend and become something I’m not. I am not talking about growth, or change itself, but a pressure to have grown and have changed.  To be where I am not.

     If I don’t recognize that I am a finite unique human and accept that, how can I let you be one who acts and thinks differently than me? If I am not where I am at, hanging somewhere in a strange mix of Redemption and Fall, then how do I accept that we are both enough and not enough; both good, loving and kind, and selfish and wanting the world to be the way we long to demand; both feeling loved and unloved.

Maybe together we can be where we are at, on this earth, in this moment, be it struggling against sin and its effects or rejoicing in promise, or more likely a strange combination of both.  God is where we are at, and where we have grown. He does not necessarily ask for our performance in the future beyond commitment, nor actually expect us to fix the people around us, but to be where He is at, with His heart that sees and fixes, hands dug into His work, standing beside Him, leaning into Him. In that point where He works in our lives, He asks us to work now, commit now.

 He knows the future, and He is there too, but since we can’t get there, I wonder if being where we are at might help, even as “being here” sometimes gives space for dreaming and preparing for "there" without pressure to pretend to be somewhere else.  

Loss, Loneliness and Looking

The idea of following God is perfect.  A treasure glitters at the end of his path, eternity with Him, eternal security, life everlasting. It’s really the first that delights, but the cost of following the narrow path was higher than many wanted.  I started on this path and ran into red pain. Then loss glittering blue, an ocean of salty tears until finally I found myself buried in a grey loneliness, hating these colors worse than I might have because I had tasted the fresh green of life. The fresh green of life could be many shades,

 love,

happiness,

joy.

The essence of being surrounded by a God who loves me completely.

 But grey? I did not bargain for grey.

In fact, I had thought that God promised that we would never, ever encounter loneliness because He would always be with us. Yet I found myself, standing in the middle of a grey lonely cloud, sinking in a blue ocean. And I said, “God, this is not what I asked for.”

I tried to run, jump off the path into the briers, but I was too buried in the path, I was all in or all out and I knew it. I tried to turn and stop, but really, stopping never did anyone any good. No one stops in the middle of a path. And I tried to close my eyes and keep walking. Peeking them open occasionally for green. There was nothing. Still, steps were taken. One more. One more again. I step out of grey. Then back in. Then out again. Bright colors appear in grey and I fix my eyes on them, laugh at their sparkles. The greyness started to fade away.

Then the sparkles dance moved, these sparkle’s path did not follow mine, and they but call from a distance.

And if I’m not careful, I could allow the grey to consume me, to seep through my skin to all that I am. These grey clouds have so little swirls.  The grey becomes thick so I can barely see just when I start searching for how I can give green to others. It is thick, I cannot see. One minute to the next takes an hour. I keep moving, head held high, one step in front of another. Still, the storm cloud does not pass.

But this time, this time I realize. The promise of presence is not the promise of green because the Fall tainted all colors. The promise of hope is not the promise of sunny skies because I still live in the battle. The promise that I would never ever be alone did not say that grey’s loneliness would not surround me.

It is time I stop running from grey but look into it.

As I squirm to leave it I miss the peaches and blues you can only see in a grey sky. I see that I am not alone, though loneliness lingers. I feel the tears beneath my feet as I walk, and I cry more into them. Loneliness hurts. Loss aches. There are hands I wish to hold, colorful smiles I want to see dance, stories I want to hear.

The tears swish.

We disobeyed.

I don’t know whether or not separation would hurt quite so much without the Fall, but I have been made two promises. I will never be alone, but I will also taste the effects of the Fall. He walks with me, but to where they will call me names. He walks with me but He does not stop them from judging. He walks with me, but He does not keep all special paths together.

            “Will you follow my path?” He asks in the grey. “You have made you commitment once, and again and again. Will you lay down your fists?  At the risk of work you hate the idea of? Into the risk of red pain? Into the promise of it?”

The thing about following this God is that you have to love Him. Because He asks the best, and hardest thing. “Open your eyes to the pain.” The pain He causes so we will put Him first.

Forgive. Let it hurt  more deeply by not pushing the pain into revenge. Accept that you have been pained and surrender to the fact that I made, love and give justice.  

Trust. Risk that the red of pain will return from the ones you forgive, and others, and My path.

Mourn. Open your heart to the loss, cry tears so that you will not drown in them inside.

Make peace. Put yourself in the way of other’s shots.

Give Compassion. Open your eyes to the pain of another. When you really see, then maybe you can really act.

Face persecution. Do you believe in your cause to the point of torture and death? I let the Fall live, will you live with the consequences even I face?

Across continents, or at home, financially, or emotionally, with the risk that you may be called to leave, will we be His followers? With the risk that He may take what you most love and with eyes open to the pain when or if He does, will we walk? The gift He will give is the one for which every human longs, to know true intimacy. But the way in which He will give it, and the pain we will receive differs. I must face the grey clouds without dancing colors because it touches on the ache and grey within, the grey that must turn not to bright colors of friends, nor the black ink of my pen, but to God first and alone. To your deepest love He may very well ask, "Do you love this more than me?"

 For what purpose does He lead us through pain? Whether it be the loneliness of a Sovereign act of friends moving on or the sharp edge of a knife questioning if you will follow Him, He works all things together for our good, not our pleasure, so  that We will become like Him (Rom 8:28ff).

Pure and True Image-bearers.   

We would be like the One who is, who became image, so we could see what we are meant to be. What a Christ follower is already: that he/she, we, will slowly start to become in reality.

Clichés, Beauty, and the Gospel

                I looked out over the sparkling water. The sun shone brightly, but with the exception of the daytime moon, I found myself rather unimpressed despite the knowledge that I should love this beauty. Countless people on my college campus would probably be commenting on the sunny day, but there is nothing mysterious about a sunny day. It’s like the volcano out my front window growing up. It was a snow top mountain, somewhat isolated, and everyone thought it was pretty. So what? I used to ask. It was big, it had its pretty moments, but it looked nothing like the ridges. The ridges held mystery for I could not know if what lay behind them. Sunny days, sunny days ask very few questions. They are the cliché-beautiful. And I realized, in all my ability to find beauty in the ugly: a cloudy day, rain, a hall way with very few pictures, I have lost the specialness of beauty. Yes, there is a bounce in my step as I walk around the pond, watching ducks dunk their heads into the water. Yes, there are smiles on the people around me. Yes, the sky is vast—but it’s almost too bright for me to look up. Now don’t get me wrong, it was incredibly nice to walk outside and not be so cold my head hurt. It was incredibly nice to feel a warm breeze and have a bounce in my step. But it was still too easy.

The assignment in class earlier was simple, in fifteen minutes go out and ask people how they would share the gospel. I asked two poor people who were recruiting on our camps (It’s not just any day someone walks up and says, “if you were sharing the gospel what would you say?”) The Gospel. Words that are about fifteen years cliché for me: “Jesus died for your sins.” Even when I taught it as a young Sunday school teacher I realized the five year olds had eyes glazing. 

What is wrong with them? It always sickened me that I could watch movies, read books, and listen to Adventures in Odyssey countless times over, but the gospel fell dead on my ears. Was not the gospel the most important thing in my life? But even as my brother commented that “All I have is Christ” is a good song, and I agreed with him, I still had a love/hate relationship with it. It was the same words over again. Except, that Jonathan was right. The words are complete. Almost. Countless times we don’t start with the right picture.

So where do we start? At the beginning. In the beginning God. I think it might be good to start there. Do you know God? How do you see Him? Do you know that He is both wrath and grace? Justice and mercy? How? Well let me tell you a story...

Once upon a time, God was the perfect good King. He decided He wanted to make the world. So He made one. He spoke everything into being. The sun and stars, the earth, water, fishes and giraffes, elephants and ostriches.  Everything. Similar Cinderella’s godmother only nothing existed before.  God said “this is good.” And then He decided that He wanted someone to care for these animals of His—so He created images of His. These creatures were different than the others because of the image bearing. And He gave them a few jobs. Adam named the animals. Adam and Eve were supposed to take care of the earth, do things (maybe invent some stuff), and have kids. There was one other thing: they weren’t supposed to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. But then, someone asked them why they shouldn’t and eventually they did. Enter problem. They got kicked out of the garden, to protect them from another tree. When they ate the fruit, they started the process of death. Sin , anything that isn’t good and obedient to God, was passed from person to person. No one was born without it.

Over and over again, God reached out to people in a new way and offered them ways to be close to Him. He gave them sacrifices, but finally, He took another step.  He came Himself. (Enter Trinity Explanation: God is one divine essence in three persons, in other words, God is one and three at the same time. And no, I don’t get it. They are distinct, and the same at the exact same time and it makes no sense in my mind and any more explanation will lead me to heresy.) So, Jesus, the second person of the God-head, came to earth and became a man. He was even born. He lived the perfect life—like perfect, without any sin at all. He loved God first. He was righteous, and loving, and just.

Then He died. For God to be just, someone had to pay the death penalty. Sin was still in the middle of us and God. He had set up a system of killing animals, but it was an over and over again process for each thing that is lost. So Jesus paid the death penalty and God infused all his wrath on what we did wrong (all the inability not to sin we inherited from Satan). End of story right? My sins are paid for. Wrong!

Time passed slowly. Friday night. Saturday. Imagine the memories running through people’s minds. Imagine the tears His mom cried. Did the man who authorized His execution approve of his actiosn still?  Sunday morning. A friend and follower of the God-man went to do traditional burial practices. His tomb was empty. An angel appeared and told her that Jesus was alive. Alive! Jesus had died. No recitation, people had made sure of that. And then He was alive. This has been something I heard so much it sounds cliché. But really, how many people have died completely and come back to life. And how many of these people have already been buried. His disciples saw it. He appeared to a lot of people. Sin is NOW concurred. It was paid for, and it’s control was taken away.

Here’s the really strange thing: when we come to Him and commit to submitting to God as king like we are supposed to, repent (change our mind about doing things that are wrong), we also inherit His righteousness and justice and love. God sees us like that. We become alive at some point in that process. And then, when Jesus left, He sent the third person of the God-head, the Holy Spirit, to come into us and seal us. Now we are in the process of becoming in nature what we are in name. And even while the process is in progress, what Jesus did, and the acceptance of those who choose to recognize that God is well, God, and King, both over the world and individual lives, we get the privilege of being family. And as we are God’s family, we are also each other’s family and we need to love each other, because that’s what Jesus does: we are his followers.

There’s an ending too. And ending that hasn’t happened yet. Jesus is coming back. To reign like He is supposed to. And the world will be remade. All the people who committed to being re-imaged will get rewarded, all the people who didn’t and thus still lived with the guilt of sin on their heads will be punished—forever. How can a loving God do this, you ask? Simple. He’s just. And not He has justice, He is justice. He can’t not be just and punish the wrong things we do. The problem is not God, but our fallen view of sin. Because we do have a messed up view of it: even when we are being re-imaged. God did love them. He let the Trinity be separated and the Son bore the worst punishment in History.

So what does this mean? How is this less cliché to me?

                Sometimes it’s not. But... that might be because it is indeed beautiful. Even with all its brokenness involved, God’s story is perfect. God is perfect, how can He made anything less? It is clear, like sunny day. We’re talking  awesome King, terrible problem, and a hero who dies to save those He loves, climaxed with him coming back to life—only unlike the rest of the stories, it’s not that He didn’t really die.

There is mystery—how can there be trinity—how can a person both fully choose to follow Christ and God choose and elect them at the same time—why in the world would God try again when His perfect humans fell, again and again. What in the world would instill Him with the notion of re-imaging at such a high cost? People die for this around the world. 

Repeated may not always be cliché. God loves you, can be some very cliché words. Jesus died for you probably are too. But  His death and resurrection were anything but. Just like Michigan’s sun, it’s a very abnormal idea. Who do you know who made the world, died in it, came alive again and is gonna come back and rule over the entire world? And you, IF you have or do accept Christ, you get to know this King, personally. 

To Matter...

I have always had a very deep longing. It has shaped how I interacted with people, the choices I made, what I decided to become, how I reacted to anything in life. I have wanted to matter. I have longed to know what it is to be valuable and I have sought it: in thousands of unhealthy methods I have sought to be noticed, to be seen, to be needed...all so that I would matter.

Give me attention, I ask. But it is not attention I seek, it is to know that I am important to you. That I matter to you.

And that is the extravert in me, the person who deep down believed my value must be people-based and not based on accomplishments. Because people matter. People are valuable.

Over Spring Break, someone showed me I mattered to her. In the midst of a world that was already fallen, it spiraled further. That love touched the ache deep in my heart, love from one who might be a little too high on the list of people I want to matter to, love that came offered freely even though in my mind I was messing up. Or it was just because of the pain. It could not have been me.

I believed the need to matter was wrong after so many fallen habits that sprung out of that longing... from keeping long hair to overdependence, from writing because it was unique and no one else had tried it to jealousy, the need to “matter” has practically guided my life. The fear that someday I would wake up and discover that the world would be better without me. And then the day I believed it.

After it hurt people for too long, I crushed the need. I can be accepted by my friends, but it is selfish of me to need to matter. I wrote blogposts and heard no response. I realized there are thousands of books and I said to myself that I write not because it matters, but because I love it.

 But when I tried to crush the longing, I tried to crush myself. Unlike my sister and Emily Dickenson, the idea of being nobody sickens me.. I do not need to stand out at the crowded party anymore, but I do need to know that if I leave it makes a difference to someone in the room. I do need to know that without my story someone’s imagination would be a little bit less rich. I want to be as influential to someone as Gail Carson Levine and Laura Ingles Wilder were to my life. I do need to know that as I withdraw to my room to disappear, or I leave you alone because it is best, that I will still matter to you, that my value won’t simply disappear.

It is not necessarily that you see me, I have been seen by too many people. It is that I matter to you. That me gone would make a difference. That me here makes a difference. This is a longing of my heart. A longing I have tried to suppress. A longing that refuses to be silent. 

No = I love you

No sea malita—don’t be bad. Big brown eyes. A whining tone. Don’t tell me “no.”

I can’t say how many times I’ve heard those words. No, I can’t buy candy from you (I want to, but how do I know it is you it will help, and not some guy who’s beating you up?) I’m not being bad when I say no.

How many times have I wanted to hear the word yes when someone says no?

How many times have I said yes, when I needed to say no? Sure—I can’t tell you that I can’t talk now, that’s unloving. Sure—I can’t tell you I can’t work an extra hour, you really have no solutions. Sure…but I don’t want to, I’m doing it because I have to. Sure, but it’s not really me choosing to love you.

People say that the first word children learn is “no.” (Or “mine” but we’re not dealing with that word today.) And yet, it’s somehow the word we least know how to use, or accept.

                I was eighteen when boundaries in close friendships formed. A dear, dear friend of mine told me I could ask—but only if she could tell me no. No, I can’t read your writing right now, I’ll read it later. No, I can’t come pray. No, you can’t keep saying things like that. No, you can’t do that.

No. No. No.

But then she said yes. Yes, let’s eat breakfast, and when we ate breakfast we both wanted to be there.

Yes, let me hear what you wrote.

Yes, I can pray for you, what for?

Yes, you can text me when you need something.

No… because I want to give you something real.

No—but I still care. No—I think you’re capable and kind enough to respect my boundaries. No— I don’t like hugs; don’t hug me all the time, but when I hug you, it will be a real one.

I love you too much to give you what I can’t.

You are...

When you wake up in the morning and everything is gone, you are loved. When you fall asleep at night and smile at the good day that passed, you are loved. When normality drills a hole into your skull because you are bored, you are loved. You are loved. The cross stands permanently accepting you as you are. If you are like me, if you have heard the story all of your life, it can feel old. Yes, I know, Christ died for me but what about NOW?

Will you step back with me a moment, into a vortex of time, or into a vortex that takes you out of this current reality?

Imagine that you can see God in creation. Do you see, there: Man was made in God’s image with the ability to feel, reason, a sense of morality. There are Adam’s arms, his legs, his full body. Good. No, very good. Then woman appeared, so that man might not be alone. Good.

You are loved, personally, for you. If God is going to hold you personally accountable for your actions does it not make sense that He will also love you and want you personally? Why else would He care?

He made you. He made you finite, with limitations and skin and energy levels. He made you with a unique bent in personality; be that towards art, towards children, towards laughter, or quiet. He made you with the ways that you react and respond to life.

And then they were distorted.

When Adam and Eve sinned, distortions came in and messed up your completeness; your sense of wholeness. You were covered in guilt (be it when you first sinned, or by inheritance, you were covered in guilt and there wasn’t anything you could do about it). But still, you were loved. God did not abandon humans but over and over again as a race He has pursued us, from accepting Abel’s sacrifice to pursuing the Israelites, to the god-man on a cross.

And when the grave became empty, then you became whole and when earth was left without it’s human likeness of God, His spirit  came inside. If you have accepted Christ, you are a new creation. Your name is redeemed, holy, righteous. While you are still sinner, you are only sinner because you sin. And yes, you do still sin. Don’t  just stop when you see it and say “I’ll do better” because sometimes even morality can simply be a disguise of our disgrace. You are loved. You are loved, even when you hit God’s gag-reflex in sin.

You are loved as you are. Distorted image and redeemed image. You were created, distorted, and are accepted. And there is a side of you, an ideal picture of what could have been, and what will be. The perfect image of God. Pieces of it still sneak out on occasion, and in the process of sanctification those occasions grow in frequency. You are loved, not “when,” not “if,” but “now.” Why? Because God made you like He wanted, and He’s not about to desert you. You may be overly talkative, but God gave you words. You may be quiet and withdrawn, but God gave you a sense of hesitancy and caution. You may find yourself in the same sin, the same addiction over and over again. Change may not feel possible. You are accepted. Period. After the period, after that truth, change may be possible but sometimes I think we miss the point. Growth does not give value. Even seeking growth won’t. You are loved.