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?