Seized by Hope

That piece of road.

Yesterday afternoon I sat at the kitchen table with a lovely young woman I most often refer to as "daughter number 5".  Daughter number 5 was driving home from the town where she attends college and went off the road into a drainage ditch, which was filled with water and quickly sucked her car under.  She escaped from her car with her very wet wallet and cell phone, everything else was lost.  Car totaled.

As we sat chatting I asked her how she was doing and as she found the words to describe all of what she feeling her eyes would fill with tears, and then the tears would disappear, only to re-appear a few moments later.  Gratitude for God's protection and provision in the midst of what happened.  Concern for how she will navigate her life back at school without a car until the insurance money comes through.  Fear. 

We offered her our 3rd car to use for the next month.  Her eyes filled up with tears she could no longer contain.  I asked her if she was fearful to get back into the drivers seat.  "I don't know.  No, not really...but I think it will be really hard to drive that piece of road again."

How true.

There are some "pieces of road" that I think will be hard to drive again.

Packing up all our stuff....I've done that a few times before.  When telling a friend about my packing plan she said, "how long do you think it will take you?"  I quickly replied, "oh, a few days, I am really a machine when it comes to packing, I've done it so many times."  A machine.  hm-mm. 

Driving the road of the unknown outcome....the tension that feels palpable in friendships as we wonder if God is taking us away from San Antonio.  I can feel the push-pull inside of myself and with others as we all try to handle our hearts and the possibility that we will leave here.

Dropping Allison at school in another month.....I remember the knot in my throat as Mark and I left Katy her freshman year. 

A new church....oh my, the unknowns and the "knowns" of re-attaching to a new church body. 

Yes, daughter number 5 put it well, "it will be really hard to drive that piece of road again".  I find it interesting that giving her the "gift" of our car was what provoked the tears and naming her fear.  If we hadn't offered the car she wouldn't have had to face the thought of driving that piece of road again for awhile.  Our offer was unexpected and bit wild and crazy, and lavish.

Our God does unexpected, wild, crazy and lavish things for us.  Things like providing a job 5 minutes from our house 2 years ago when we so wanted to stay in San Antonio for Allison to finish high school here, and having that job end the week after she graduated.  Laying it heavily on our hearts to put our house up for sale, before Mark was laid off.  Selling the house after just 12 days on the market.  Providing unexpected financial aid for Allison, as we sat wondering how we'd make the first payment for school with Mark unemployed.

His lavish, wild, crazy, unexpected grace poured out invites me to receive and trust Him...and get back on the road, wherever it may lead.

End of the Year Thoughts.....

Today we awoke to cold and rain.  The older kids were supposed to go on day hike and instead spent the day at home playing games in front of the fireplace with their friends.

I put on my warmest sweater, wool socks and settled in with my computer and calendar for 2010 to begin emailing people about upcoming dates for the start up of some things beginning in January.

I have promised myself that I will not overload my schedule, that I will be intentional about what I am giving my time to.  That I will value my need for times of quiet and reflection.

A couple of days ago I went back and read through some of what I blogged about this past year.  Some of the entries surprised me, I had forgotten some of what I'd written about.  Other entries were still vivid in my memory.

Today I sat down with my calendar from last year.  As I turned the pages I saw the names of the women I've spent time with in 2009.  I saw where friendships have grown from what was only an acquaintance a year ago.  I noticed the couples we saw repeatedly.  I saw my trips to Utah, Michigan, North Carolina, Maine, Arizona, Colorado, Europe.  I saw the kids schedules...4 different schools, including Katy away at college.

I also noticed that there were virtually no days that were "blank", until we left for Europe, and very few after we returned until December 19th when the blank spaces returned again.  The space of that trip and the subsequent time in Colorado upon returning from Europe stood out because the calendar was blank. 

I don't know what this next year will hold for sure.  I do know it will include Allison's graduation from High School, and starting college, Katy will finish college, Steven will get his drivers permit, the little girls will continue to play and color, learn to read and write and provide a reminder to me that time is precious and goes much faster than we often realize. 

I also know that 2010 will include empty days on my calendar, many of them.

I want to look back a year from now and wonder about what I did on those days that had nothing written on them. 

 

Life Rises out of Death

Over the weekend Paula Rinehart had many wonderful and stirring things to say to the women gathered to listen to her.  I spent some time this morning going over my notes, wondering what I would choose to post about today.

"Life rises out of death.  As women we tend to die in all the WRONG ways.  We are to die to our own agenda, to what we believe would bring us life."

Powerful words to ponder.

She asked us to consider what deaths in our lives are that are the back to door to life.  That sent my thoughts in two directions, where I have experienced the death of something and where did/do I find "life".

Finding places that have felt like death are not hard for me. Remembering how I sought to find life following those times of death was revealing.

We can all give the churchy answer that "life is found with God, but what we know and what we believe often are very different.  We LIVE our beliefs. 

If life is found in success, then death would propel me to work harder and become successful.

If life is found in leadership, then death would propel me to find something or someone to lead.

If life is found in my family, then death would send me looking to my family to be everything to me.

If life is found in my spouse, then I will spend myself trying to create closeness with them.

If life is found in approval of others, then I will live forever working to hear words of approval.

If life is found in my friends, then I will always have to fell on the inner circle of those I count close.

If life is found in my appearance, then I will work hard to keep myself looking perfect.

If life is found in believing I am a good christian, then I will work hard be whatever my church wants.

If life is found in my ministry, then death will propel me to create or find a new ministry.

As I sat and thought about where I find life I could remember places where all of the above have been places I have run in the past to find life.

None of those things bring life, they only bring the illusion and life and will always lead us once again to feeling the sting of death.  After death has come again and again from trying to find life in these places I believe we begin to lose hope and grow bitter.

Life is found Jesus.  Death is the back door to life with Him. 

Paula told a story about young woman who'd grown up being sexually abused by her grandfather.  After years of abuse she finally left for college determined to leave that horror behind her and start a new life.  At college a friend invited her to a revival.  As she listened to the speaker she could hardly wait to give her life to Jesus.  When the invitation to to do so came she wholeheartedly prayed for Jesus to come into her life.  On the ride home she fell asleep in the car and began to dream.  She dreamed she was once again in her bedroom and her grandfather had come.  She could feel herself giving in to him again when suddenly a door in the corner of the room opened and Jesus was standing on the other side of it.  He called out to her, "Come home, Come home, Come home."  She jumped out of her bed and ran to His arms, safe at last.

Death is the back door to life with Him. 

We were all invited to come home this weekend.

Seized by Hope

To be Seized by Hope is to know desperation.

To be Seized by Hope is to name your desperation.

To be Seized by Hope is to know pain and not numb it.

To be Seized by Hope is to name where you are living small and feel the desire for more.

To be Seized by Hope is to know betrayal.

To be Seized by Hope is to feel the betrayal and cry out to God for His life giving presence in the pain.

To be Seized by Hope is to know powerlessness.

To be Seized by Hope is to surrender to the powerlessness and experience glorious rest in the surrender.

To be Seized by Hope is to have felt abandoned.

To be Seized by Hope is to name the impact of the abandonment and open your heart to feel cared for again.

To be Seized by Hope is to live in the moments of each day relinquishing control second by second.

To be Seized by Hope is to live by faith that when you have blown it all so badly that you want to give up and crawl in a hole instead you reach out for a friend.

To be Seized by Hope to feel gratitude when gracious gifts you weren't expecting find their way to you.

To be Seized by Hope is to sit across the table from someone being crushed by their own feelings of desperation and offer them your face and your heart, and lend them some hope.

To be Seized by Hope is to laugh, loudly, often and with others or by yourself, but to laugh.

To be Seized by Hope is to awake unsure of what the day will hold and smile in anticipation.

To be Seized by Hope is to disrupt the status quo.

To be Seized by Hope is to live with risk.

To be Seized by Hope is to live with desire, not small crumbs of it but lavish, extravagant, over the top, expensive, spilling out, unmanaged desire.

To be Seized by Hope is to believe that less is NOT more, more is more.

To be Seized by Hope is to name the glory of what God has laid in your heart and write about on your blog.

I am Seized by Hope.

Mercy and Remembering

Ten years ago I met Judy.  Judy was eclectic, unusual, one of a kind, creative, engaging, mysterious and inspiring.  I remember the first time I saw her in the back of the sanctuary during the college night meeting at our church.  It was our first Sunday and we came to check out the college group after someone mentioned it to us Sunday morning.  Judy was standing in the back of the room.  She had long curly brown hair that swept across her forehead, her face was kind and showed her 60+ years in warm and inviting ways.  She was wearing a "mountain hardware" polar fleece vest, jeans and hiking boots.  Her hands were in the air and her eyes closed as she sang along with the worship band.

She gave me a hug that night, welcomed me to the church and invited me out for coffee that week.  Our friendship began over cups of hot coffee at the local coffee shop near her home, where she was a regular customer.  She invited me to her studio, where she worked as a stained glass artist.  Her stained glass windows were featured in buildings throughout the state.  Her creativity was stunning.

After a few meetings I asked Judy if she would be willing to mentor me.  I remember her laugh and the creases around her eyes and she replied, "Well no, I won't mentor you...but I'll meet with you and we can mentor each other."  I didn't know what to do with that response.  Everything inside me wanted to protest, "No, No, I must have an older woman mentoring me, that's the way it's done."  There was nothing status quo about Judy.

We decided we would do a study on "mercy", having determined that we both lacked it.  (This determination was made independent of our friendship and came from multiple sources in both our lives who'd communicated the lack of mercy they'd experienced with us.)  We searched for some book we could work through and found none.  We opted for studying mercy verses found in scripture.  As we studied together we came to find that mercy goes along with the gift of prophecy/discernment.  This felt like a revelation to me and cast a vision for where my heart needed to grow.

Much of my relationship with Judy was vision casting, in ways I've only come to identify in retrospect. 

Merciful people have tender hearts.

Recently, I was asked a question to which I responded that my heart and soul are tender, something I lived for a long time doubting. 

This morning while straightening my hair and pondering my life, my thoughts made their way back to that recent conversation and my response that my heart and soul are tender...then I recalled Judy and our study on mercy.  I stood in front of the mirror looking at my face and remembering all that God has done in my life in the past ten years, since Judy and I mentored each other.

Remembering is good.

Mercy is valuable.

Witness

Who have you witnessed to today?  When was the last time you witnessed to someone?  How is your Christian witness?

I know a group of young people who go downtown weekly to witness.  They take banners and talk about startling things to garner attention. 

When I was in collegee we would take "tracks" with us and go witness to people.  I always hated it.  I found myself constantly aware that I don't want to be stopped by people on the street peddling things...whether it be items for purchasing or words to be listened to.  It bugs me and feels intrusive.  They have no credibility with me, so why would stop and interrupt my day to listen to them?

I read a quote on "witnessing" that I really enjoyed,

"To be a witness does not consist in engaging in propaganda, nor even in stirring people up, but in being a living mystery.  It means to live in such a way that one's life would not make sense if God did not exist."

                                                                                           Cardinal Emmanuel Suhard

This feels inspiring-ly true to me.  It says that your life story and how you have engaged it matter and are the most compelling canvas for the message of the gospel.

As I pondered this quote a face came to my mind, the face of man who is a living mystery, a witness to the existence of God. 

His story is complex and the assault of evil on his life began when he was very small.  His home was marked by a well manicured lawn, a father who left daily for a prestigious job and the outward signs that all was well.  Inside his home was a war zone tainted with alcoholism, neglect, confusion, anxiety and silence.  His bright mind was tormented with too much understanding for a boy his age, and not enough understanding to make sense of the chaos that defined each day.  This nightmare of a childhood also included neighborhood friends who provided a solace from all that was contained within the walls of his home.  The solace of their friendship would turn and be used by evil as the ground for introducing a sexual predator into his life.  A wickedly resourceful man who would intertwine the gift of time and words and life giving involvement with soul ravaging abuse.

Today this man's life is a living, mysterious witness.  He speaks the truth of this story to people from across the world as he sits with them in small groups hearing their stories.  He offers hope that is mysterious and wild.  His life makes no sense.  He should not be a successful businessman, faithful husband, engaging friend, lover of God, and warrior for the hearts of those who have known the heinous impact of abuse.  I cannot imagine this man ever handing anyone a booklet explaining the gospel.  He is a living picture of the gospel, the good news that Jesus came to redeem the assault of evil on our lives and offer us eternal life with Him, life that begins the day we put our trust in Him.

There are others, many others who I could write something similar about, precious brave souls who's lives are a mysterious gift testifying to the goodness of God.  They lead quiet lives, go to work, mow their lawns, take their kids to school, go to dinner with friends, and pay their bills.  

They are living mysteries.

They are Witnesses.

Anger

I taught on anger this week.  Somewhere over the past couple of years I have become a bit of an expert on anger, no, not really.  Still, I have dug into my own anger, dug some more and the digging continues.

A couple of weeks ago I sat with a beautiful friend who is willing to talk about her anger, and we found ourselves noticing something.  Our anger allows us to disconnect from what is happening.  You might call this type of disconnecting disassociation....when you don't want what is happening to be happening and you don't want to stay present, so you find a way to leave.

I have been mindful of this since my talk with her and I've been watching for when I find myself just wanting to get angry.  I've been doing pretty good at making the choice to fore-go my anger and feel whatever is really stirring in me.

Of course it was only a matter of time until something would happen that would leave me choosing my anger.

It happened yesterday.  I sat listening to some friends talk about trying a new church on sunday.  They began talking about how great the pastor was and then they shared who all they'd seen there.  I could feel the anger starting to build up....inviting me to leave my heart and the scene they were painting.  I could sense my options of what to be angry about lining up in my head.  It all seemed so warm and welcoming, much like the "HOT NOW" sign at Krispy Kreme...beckoning to me...stop, pull your car over here, come in, have a donut, get some coffee. 

I wanted to pull my soul into the HOT NOW parking lot and rush into the warmth of my anger, I knew that soothing relief from the uncomfortable presence of disappointment, loss and grief was ready and waiting.

I'd love to tell you that I was victorious is this battle.  While it wasn't a total loss, I did pull in and park my car for several minutes in the parking lot underneath the HOT NOW sign on my anger.  I managed to stay partially in touch with what I was really feeling and then I rejoiced when someone changed the subject and we moved on.

I wonder what it would have looked like for me to be honest in the moment about what I was feeling.  It felt big and undone and certainly messy.  Being honest would have meant trusting them, they deserve my trust, they've earned it.  Why is it that even in the presence of those I trust it is still so hard sometimes to be in the moment with my undone feelings.

Recovery

What do you think of when you read the word "recovery"? 

If you google "recovery" you will find recovery.gov at the top of the page.  Apparently we are in enough of a mess that the government has an entire entity devoted to recovery.  You can broaden your search and find that recovery usually is offered in 12 steps.

A pastor told me once that he doesn't believe in recovery, he only believes in healing...you get healed and then its done. 

That hasn't been my experience, and doesn't feel consistent with what I read in scripture.  Recovery is about addressing the impact and damage that sin has had in your life.  It's about getting honest that everything isn't ok and that you want more out of your relationships, with God and with people and with yourself.  Recovery certainly includes healing, and often involves miraculous things happening.  Recovery is ongoing and will continue as long as we walk on the face of the earth and wait to go "home" to heaven...where ultimate and complete healing will take place.

Recently I heard a woman say, " I am trying to recover from seeing Jesus as an expression of judgment instead of seeing him as an expression of love."

Her words echoed the experience of so many "church-ed" people that I encounter.  Her bravery in voicing the truth about her recovery was refreshing. 

12 step programs have some great things associated with them, however I haven't found 12 steps that work for the recovery of my heart and the life Jesus promised in John 10:10 "I came that you might have life, and have it abundantly".  You can 'celebrate recovery' at many churches, it comes in 12 steps....concluding with celebration.

For me, recovery is about living in the midst of authentic, life giving community.  It's about being honest about what really lies in my heart and inviting people to walk into the mess of things with me.  It's about continuing to hope for more and more of the abundant life Jesus promised, understanding that the enemy of my soul is working hard to rob me from it and leave me believing there isn't anymore than what I can conjure up for myself.

Recovery is what happens when you start to believe that sin does damage and the damage leaves us in need of help, in need of recovery.  

Castles, Rain and Being Feminine

It rained the day I visited my first "real" castle.  The castle that Cinderella's castle is modeled after at Disneyland, the castle from Chitty-Chitty Bang-Bang, the castle I've seen in pictures many times.  The castle that looks like something from a childhood dream.

I love the rain, it doesn't bother me, I don't tire of it, something about rain feels soothing and often refreshing to me.  I welcomed it the day we went to the castle.

I would have loved to curl up with some coffee, my journal and my thoughts and sit in this window for a few hours ....

It's raining here today.  It's been months since we've had "measurable" rain.  The sound of the rain woke me this morning and invited me to hope that it might last for more than 15 minutes.  It poured on us as I drove the kids to school and I loved every drop and the sound of windshield wipers on high trying to keep up with the deluge.

I've set the day aside to write and I am sitting up in K's room with the window open (and the a/c is running...it is an extravagance I am indulging in because I want to hear the sound of the rain hitting the roof.)

I need to write about my femininity, about what I emerged from my youth believing about women, about how I felt in the presence of men and women, about where God was and is in the midst of it all.

This isn't new territory, but it always feels difficult to dive into it.

I am grateful for the rain today, for the pre-determined solitude I am living in for a few hours, for the possibility of encountering God in these places my heart is resisting to go.

I am remembering the window in the castle in Germany, the rain, and the reality of God's pursuit of me.

Path to Solitude

I came upon these stairs one afternoon when we were in Germany.  Mark and I decided to go for a walk in the "woods" behind the conference center.  The stairs looked inviting to me, although I couldn't see where they would lead.

We started down the stairs, which clearly had lead to a path once upon a time.  As we came to the end of the stairs we found a narrow path that was overgrown with foliage.  We walked down it for a while and then realized that it had become so overgrown that to continue on it would require a bit of forging through the brush and steadying ourselves on the side on the mountain.  Time didn't permit this type of adventure that afternoon and returned the way we had come and found a wider path to make our way into the woods.

These stairs have come to my mind frequently over the past few days. 

I could unpack all the metaphors for you of how these stairs seem to stir something in my soul and remind of things that are important.

Instead, I will leave you ponder them for yourselves and wonder about the metaphors for your life.