overwhelmed

Just
simply
overwhelmed.

That seems to be the theme of my life these days. I begin to wonder, “Am I just really easily overwhelmable?” In my efforts to not turn everything into a negative directed towards myself, which contributes to depression and is just unpleasant overall, I’m trying to think of other options for why “overwhelmed” seems to be the most common feeling in my life lately. Perhaps I’ve been overwhelmed a lot because of all the changes that have been happening in life over the past 6 months…like, say: pregnancy (which is rife with changes from day one…and then brings the most wonderful and frightening life change of all…a child!), saying good-bye to friends from the last three years, meeting new friends who we’ll be saying good-bye to in a month, family drama that is resulting in a divorce, bracing ourselves for the most challenging life adjustment thus far—moving to the Philippines (which will have a whole new set of changes and challenges all its own).

I’m trying not to focus on the challenges of the move to the Philippines. Let’s just focus on getting your son into the world, I tell myself. And I am so looking forward to the joy of Josiah. In many ways I see his expected entrance as a happy and welcome break to the monotony of saying good-bye. Finally, my baby, the one I have prayed so long for. The one I have longed for since I could hold a baby doll. He’ll be here in ten weeks (hopefully not before…I’m not ready).

We’re doing this project at CIT called “History Giving.” It’s basically telling your life story. I thought it would be so fun, but as I prepare, I am in a constant state of melancholy. Why? Because I am reminded that my life has been full of good-byes. I have never lived in any one community longer than 5 years, and as an adult that number is even lower: 3 years. Even the three-year experience wasn’t really in one community, because it was during that span that I was married, which comes with a whole new set of refreshing, culture shocking, difficult, rewarding challenges.

Whenever I write something like this I feel as if I have to counter it with positive thinking, like, “With every good-bye there has been a whole new set of adventurous and lovely hellos!” While that’s true, it’s also an almost sickening pill to swallow in my emotional state right now. I picture the words coming out of the mouth of a 1950’s housewife with blond perfect hair and high heels and a poofy skirt, holding a tray of freshly baked cookies and smiling with sparkling clean teeth. I want to slap her.

Breathe. Relax your shoulders. Accept: you will not always feel positive about the changes you’re facing. Accept: you don’t have to find the “Miss Happy” voice every time you’re processing difficult things. Accept: today is today and tomorrow is tomorrow; today does not have to interpret tomorrow, nor tomorrow, today. This is ok. Accept it.

Spiritually, as I process and encounter these emotions, some negative, some positive, some neutral, I am encouraged by the presence of Jesus. When I start to tear up that I really don’t know where “home” is, He reminds me that it’s ok, because I have a Home waiting for me, and it will be the same for eternity. There is a joy I have in the somber thought that while I don’t know an earthly home, neither did my dear Jesus. I’m thankful for the longing that calls me out of staying sedentary and draws me into adventurous things…the very calling that has repeatedly led me to many good-byes, and thus on to people and places I am so thankful to have known.

As I look through my “history,” I am required to see where God has been working. The exercise gives me confidence and faith that forever He’ll me wooing me to something more. And what I have to come to terms with, and deal with each time I find myself in a day like today, is that it is worth it to be called away from the semblances of “home” I create for myself; that living in pursuit of Jesus’ footsteps is well worth the seasons of being overwhelmed. Perhaps I am “overwhelmable,” but that is simply because there is something in that quality that Jesus wants me to see in my relationship with Himself: in being overwhelmable, I am thankfully overwhelmed…by Him.

Jericho

During a recent time in the Word I came across the familiar story of the fall of Jericho. In brief, the unlikely desert-weary people of Israel bring down the walls of Jericho, a city of power that would have threatened God’s people as they settled in the Promised Land. But the conquest happens in a most unusual way, and would have been utterly impossible without the LORD on Israel’s side. In life we can become overwhelmed by our circumstances; sometimes worry over our finances consumes us, or we feel defeated by poor health, or perhaps we are weary of relational issues that never seem to heal. If we try to conquer any trouble without the power of the LORD we will inevitably fail. At best, we will only merely survive. But when the LORD goes before us, as we see in the defeat of Jericho, the victory in Him leads to breakthrough in us.
Before the people of Israel entered the Promised Land, God promised that he would give them the land (Joshua 1:2), and that he would be with them as they went (v 9). But the land was full of pagan peoples who would put up a fight. The first city to be conquered was Jericho, a city with high walls that had been shut up because the people in it feared the God of Israel. Why did these pagan people fear a God they did not worship? They feared him because they had heard of his mighty works (2:10-11). Before Israel even entered the Promised Land, God’s reputation had gone before them.
Before entering Jericho, God instructed Joshua, Israel’s leader, to march around the city once a day for six days. Each march consisted of a fanfare of trumpets that blew in proclamation of the ark of the covenant of the LORD. Priests surrounded the ark, and went forward blowing trumpets, while before and behind them marched the fighting men of Israel. On those six days of marching, no other sounds were heard from Israel except the sounds of the trumpets.
In our American culture, where doing is valued higher than being, we can tend to get ahead of the Lord. We can learn a valuable lesson from the conquest of Jericho. For six days God had Israel doing something that seemed unproductive. But when we step back, we can see the spiritual significance: God was going before the people. In my imagination, I see a vast army of angels chipping away at the walls of Jericho, weakening the defenses of the city. When the power of God goes before us, the “walls” of our lives (health, relationships, finances, spiritual warfare, you fill in the blank…) are weakened in his power, not ours.
On the seventh day God delivered Jericho into the hands of Israel. The people marched around the city the same as the six days before. But this time they marched seven times, and on the seventh time, when the priests blew the trumpets, the people were ordered, “Shout! For the LORD has given you the city” (6:16). At the blast of the trumpets and the shout of the people, the walls fell flat.
In my own life, I have tried and failed repeatedly to solve my own problems and defeat my own enemies. But the lesson of Jericho’s fall teaches me to step back and let God fight my battles. This is counterintuitive, especially in our culture, when we think we know what will “solve” the issue(s) at hand. But prayer is truly the only way to see God’s glory go before us and bring the victory.
Just recently, as Edwin and I have been fundraising to go to the mission field, we were challenged to ask for a specific pledge (I seriously do not write this for pledges but to glorify God in the way he went before for us and provided). We asked boldly for a donor to give $1000 a month! We laughed even as we prayed it (perhaps like Sarah when she found out she would have a child in her old age). We knew no one in our lives could afford such a commitment. Nevertheless, we prayed it. The following Sunday a stranger (to us then) came to our church, heard of our mission, and pledged $1000 a month! We were blown away! Immediately we began praising God for the way he went before us! I am not saying that when we “claim” something we perceive as good (like material things or even health), that we will automatically get that. What I am saying is that when we trust God to go ahead of us, even when that means we don’t do things that may seem productive (like it would have seemed productive for the Israelites to begin attacking Jericho as soon as they approached the city; or it may have seemed productive for Edwin and I to start calling potential $1000 donors after our prayer), then our waiting becomes an opportunity to watch God be who he is, our Savior, Provider, Healer, Friend. Is there somewhere in your life where you need God to go before you? He gives you a command and a promise: “Be strong and courageous! Do not tremble or be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go” (1:9).

bananas

Today I sent my husband off to his ordination “hearing” with a banana. He said he wasn’t hungry and I insisted he have something to feed his brain.

Later, I read that my baby-in-utero is the size of a large banana, at least, that’s what they say 7 inches and 11 ounces compares to. He can also taste what I eat by now, which means he just had some really good cinnamon toast.

Yesterday I bought a maternity swimsuit. I’m still struggling with all this body changing. I love the belly and the boobs, but the rest of the changes are not so welcome. Really, I’m mostly disappointed that my broken foot has kept me from being active enough to be in better shape. I just keep reminding myself that a) the foot is healing and will be better soon and b) you won’t be prego forever and can run and workout like crazy when this baby boy is born. I’m planning to take advantage of the few months with mom and have required exercise time every day. We’ll see how that goes…I also wanted to be one of those pregnant women who ran 3 miles a day througout her pregnancy. That dream wafted away with the first bout of fatigue somewhere around, um, 3 days after finding out I was pregnant.

Overall I’m thoroughly and fully excited to be pregnant. And if told I could only be pregnant under the same circumstances that have kept me inactive I would do it again. I am so grateful and honored to be incubating this little creature of God. I wonder what he’ll look like. No doubt he’ll have more of his father’s features, which is fine with me. When his daddy and I are cuddling and/or when he does one of his childish expressions, my heart does somersaults as I think of the blessing of having another little boy like his father.

I should get some important things done today, like start sorting things to be packed, shipped, or sold for our move which is now only 3 1/2 weeks away. I think I’m in denial. Are we really leaving our home? Yet I am simultaneously thrilled at the adventure that stretches before us. We not only have the adventure of our firstborn, but the adventure of taking him with us to Asia to love people and bring them into the Kingdom of God. Along the way we get to see America (by virtue of driving across it to get to training) and spend a summer with others who are similarly sacrificing and heading to foreign lands themselves. The cherry is that I get to have my firstborn with my parents with me. Thank you, Lord.

I think in many ways some of the feelings of inadequacy have faded. I think some of that is do to the fact that what we’re going into I know how to do: move, drive across country, spend a summer with Christians learning about and loving Jesus, live in Mississippi. That’s all a buffer for what comes after that, but for that I’m excited, too. For the challenge and joy of going somewhere new and foreign is what I’ve always longed to experience. Although I know the test will be hard, I foresee the joys in it, as well. In many ways, I look forward to the closeness it will bring our family. We’ll go through things together that will knit us together even stronger. And I look forward to seeing the fruit of our work, our love, bringing people to Christ and planting churches and loving people. We could do it here, but God has called us there. There’s something He’s got planned for us there…I’m excited about that something.

So today, praying for Edwin and trusting God’s hold on him, praying for baby boy and trusting God’s future for him, looking around at the many things I have to do to prepare my home to be boxed up, sold, or given away, I trust Jesus to fill the banana I gave Edwin with super brain power, and I trust Him also to fill my little “banana” with all the nutrients to grow into a strong and healthy man of God, just like his father.

pregnant soul

Bowing low before the Lord the other day I had an experience that grew my understanding of His love. As an expectant mother, I was praying for the little one. I love him/her already, this tiny baby growing inside of me. And I look forward to the love that will expand when he/she is in my arms, showing me a personality uniquely and beautifully belonging to him/her. It was in that moment of prayer that I realized more deeply and more fully than I ever had before the profundity of our Creator’s love for us. Just as I look forward to loving more fully the baby I already love, God, like a pregnant mother, looks forward to the love that He will share with each person who walks this earth.

From the beginning of time, God knew the people who would inhabit His world. He knew the cultures that would bring variations of music and food and language and clothing and art and architecture to the canvas of His world’s surface. He knew the religions that would form out of our search for Him. Just as in my pregnancy I know that my child will color my world with laughter and stories and precious touches that are not yet, He is and has been pregnant with a whole world’s history’s population of personalities that would communicate to Him, through Him, in Him the joy of living the Life He has given. Perhaps they will be people who turn their love toward Him; perhaps not. Yet they are the creation born of a loving God who gives life because it is intrinsic to His nature. I pray to be a mother who nurtures that way.

All of this makes me anticipate motherhood in a more acute way. I do not merely look forward to having a baby, but I see ahead to the reach such a relationship will bring to my soul as I experience in the life of my child more of what God experiences in His anticipation and enjoyment of the lives He created us to live. I am but one mother in a world of mothers, but to me, this life I’m to steward is extraordinary, if by nothing else than to open up a deeper region of my soul.

window

My window’s not big enough
it has a top and a bottom,
there are sides that keep me in.
There is too much life to see
than my window open wide.

My soul’s not big enough
to hold the love of the universe,
I’m held in by flesh and blood
captive to this body.

But Life flows in and out
capturing pieces of eternality
being breathed and seen,
held and evaporated,
Life outside the window,
and in.

Messiah come

Christ come,
Messiah come.
Holy!
Waiting.
He came through a mess.
Mary was so courageous.
Wait.  Courage.  Wait.
The Holy One was birthed through
blood and pain into a
dirty world.
Waiting.
He grew.
Waiting.
Jesus.
Salvation.
Holy!
He walked and taught.
He trained disciples.
Waiting.
Messiah come!
He had come.
Messiah come!
Holy!
Betrayal sold Him.
Dirty world.
Waiting.
Praying.
He gave:
He gave Himself.
He died.  Sin died.
Salvation.
Holy!
Redemption.
Holy!
Waiting.
Those who loved Him were
three days waiting.
Pain.
Waiting.
He came.
Messiah came.
Resurrection!
Life brought power over death.
Messiah!
Waiting.
Messiah, come.

Immanuel

I’ve been contemplating this glorious message of Christmas, how Jesus is Immanuel, God with us.  GOD WITH US.  Why do we celebrate Christmas?  Not because of family or gifts or giving.  Not because of traditions or music or stories.  These are all ways to celebrate, but they aren’t the reason (although looking around, you’d think that the means of celebrating was the reason).

Christmas is a time of remembering Jesus come to earth to live a life of flesh and bone, heartache and sorrow, relationships and joy.  I’ve been sick this week, my body racked by painful coughing (I’m getting better)…and in the course of being sick, I’ve thought of my Lord, who left eternal health for a moment in time to take on sickness; I imagine he had a few flus, stomach trouble, scratchy sore throats, maybe even a painful cough; perhaps He had a broken arm or an ingrown toenail (after all, these are the things of bodies).  So in my moments of sickness I can think of the God of the universe being sick and understanding the discomfort.  If we are to believe that He truly was Immanuel, God with us, then we accept that the incarnation (God taking on flesh) means he took on the very same flesh that interrupts health.

Jesus, the God I serve, lived like me.  Yet, He didn’t.  Jesus was able to defeat sin for us all because He did not sin.  His ministry in life, His teaching and healing and serving, His sacrifice on the cross, His defeat of death in the resurrection which welcomed into the world Life eternal…these all were possible because He lived the holy life He calls us to.  Jesus lived in the flesh to show us what living perfectly is like, so that when He called us to reflect His holiness, we would see in His life an example to follow.

But He didn’t even leave us there.  None of us, ever, could live holy lives just by an example.  There is nothing in us strong enough to defeat sin simply because we want to.  When Jesus left the earth He left us something incredible.  Jesus left His Spirit…the Holy Spirit, which lives in the spirits of those who tell Jesus they accept Him, they believe in Him, that they’ll follow Him.  Step one.  The Holy Spirit comes in us then and empowers us with the power of God to live those lives of holiness that exemplify who God is.  (Some call this “godliness”; either way, it is reflecting the character of Christ.)  We become Christ’s incarnation in this world…letting Him live through us.

The Gospel message, simply put, is that Jesus came to break the barrier that sin puts between us and God; when He returned to the Father, He left His Spirit, which guides us to live lives that show the character of God.  No law can complete us, although law serves as a guide.  Jesus, Immanuel, God with us, came to earth 2000 years ago to begin an age of people knowing God personally, intimately, beautifully, eternally.

Thank you, Jesus, for doing the unimaginable and leaving perfection on our behalf, taking on the load of sin and shame and guilt that we all deserve to bear, defeating death so that those who follow you might know what true Life without death is intended to be, and leaving Your Spirit so that Your work on earth may be fulfilled through the lives of Your saints.  Oh Jesus, may I look like Christ to someone today?  Will You live through me so that someone might know You better?  Oh Christ, thank you for coming.  Thank you for being Immanuel, God with us.

(Dec 18, 2005)

hand of God

The other night, while running west along a dirt trail, the sun setting looked like the hand of God reaching out to bless the world.  The palm rested on the horizon as the fuscia, orange, and purple fingers reached across the sky.  It was just what I needed after a heavy spirit of late.  Since then, the hand of God has settled onto my heart, and I am at peace.

my hope: I vote but HOPE in the LORD

I just read a great little article in a campus magazine at Fuller.  In it, the writer reminds us of what I’ve been feeling heavily on my heart lately: that the next president is not the hope of the world; Jesus is the hope of the world.  Governments are manmade institutions; the Kingdom of God is His own, and He is the One Ruler of it for all time.

I’m concerned about the election tomorrow.  Not because my hope is in the next president, but because this election feels like a popularity race.  It feels like I’m in high school again and everyone is voting for the suave guy, instead of the guy who’s actually going to do things that help our class.  Sigh.  Really, I don’t love either candidate; supporters of both sides claim that “their” candidate stands for the oppressed.  So then it comes down to who we define as oppressed.  Is it those who are below the poverty line, those who have experienced some sort of discrimination, the unborn…?

So, even though I want McCain to win, my hope is not in him.

My heart is heavy for the morality reflected (or not) in the way we will voite.  I think that the propositions are the greatest tell-tale of where we are morally.  In California, we’re voting on the definition of marriage.  I keep hearing arguments like, “We can’t deny people their rights.”  Our nation is more concerned about rights that it is about what is right. You can’t blame them…they’ve been taught by television.   But Christians who support gay marriage you can blame, because they know which Compass they should be guided by, and they fly in the face of that Compass.  It might sound nice to let gay people marry (and I’m not saying they shouldn’t have rights), but to redefine the biblical covenant of marriage because it’s “what sounds nice,” or even, “what I want,” is not living life according to anything buf self-directed morality.  And self-directed morality is wrong.  If you are a follower of Jesus Christ and you don’t follow His Word, then you are saying you don’t trust His Word, which ultimately would prove you don’t really believe His Word, which would lead me to say something so bold as, are you really a follower of Jesus?

Driving on the freeway north toward Los Angeles today I saw written in the back window of a car, “Don’t hate.  No on 8.”  That shows that those who are against proposition 8 don’t understand those who are behind it.  Ultimately, those for a Yes vote on Prop 8 are for healthy families, those which will give children the proven best situation in which to grow up: with a mother and a father.  Those for Prop 8 are actually acting out of love.  That’s not to say that some people have not turned it into an opportunity to express hate in revolting and unloving ways.  Those are not the ones who stand behind the proposition, although they are the ones who get the most attention.  Ultimately, those who support a biblical definition of marriage act in love because we know, according to God’s Word, homosexuality to be a sin.  To support a sinful lifestyle is to neglect the responsibility we have as followers of Christ to spread His love through His Word; and obeying His Word is not always easy.  Deuteronomy 30:19-20 says, “…choose life in order that you may live, you and your descendants, by loving the LORD your God, by obeying His voice, and by holding fast to Him…”  Loving, obeying, and holding fast to God are not always easy, but they are what He requires.

And then there’s Proposition 4.  The people of this country are so concerned about what we want that we forget, just like with the definition of marriage issue, that choices in life aren’t always easy, and making the right choice is often the hardest choice to make.  Nevertheless, if we are people who stand for the oppressed, then we ought to be people who stand for the unborn.  We should also be people who are willing enough to do the dirty work of ministering to and caring for women with unplanned pregnancies.  No, their lives are not easy, but until you’ve ministered to women who have aborted children and live with the regret, don’t tell me about the right to choose the life or death of a baby. (And DON’T get me started on the fact that MY tax dollars go to support Planned Parenthood.  It makes me physically ill.)

There’s an African proverb that says, “Have your baby, for you never know whose womb holds the chief.”  How many “chiefs” has our country aborted?  Proposition 4 makes it mandatory that an adult family member of a minor is informed when she is going to have an abortion.  Some say this may cause risk to the girl.  What about the risk of her being manipulated or molested and forced to have an abortion without anyone to stand for her, or the risk of her future emotional and spiritual bankruptcy as she deals with the emotional, psychological, and spiritual effects of what she has done (or been done to her)?  The Proposition is not about denying girls their rights, it is about protecting them from making choices alone that they are perhaps not mature enough to make.  To put it in perspective, “In California, a girl under age 18 can’t get a tan at a tanning salon, a cavity filled, or an aspirin dispensed by the school nurse without a parent knowing. But a doctor can perform a surgical or chemical abortion on a young girl without informing a parent” (http://www.yeson4.net/).

My heart is weeping today, not because I put hope in government, but because I see the moral decay and ruin of the people around me.  My heart weeps today because I long for people to make choices based in a saving knowledge of the loving grace of their Creator and Savior, Jesus Christ, who died for their sins even while they sinned (Romans 5:8), so that they might, upon believing in Him and calling Him Lord (Rom 10:9), walk with Him for abundant life on earth (John 10:10) and eternal bliss for eternity (John 3:16).  My heart weeps because I see the world in which my children will live.  My heart weeps because I know the heart of Jesus weeps as we watches the people He made choose anything but True Life, anything but wisdom as it is described and taught in the Bible.  My heart weeps because I see the disdain people have for my Savior, Jesus Christ, the One in whom I place my hope.

bouncing

I was cleaning up my apartment last night and it hit me, this is the longest I’ve lived in any one place since 1999.  Which leads me to think about all the constant transitioning that has been my life for almost ten years.  While during a few of those years I was just moving from dorm to dorm, it was still a different set of walls each year, which I count as moving.

This incessant moving has contributed to a character flaw which is the byproduct of dealing with constant change: I’ve become hardened to friendship.  I love friends.  There is perhaps no greater joy for me than to be silly and vulnerable with my girlfriends.  And through all my previous moves I have never had a problem making and keeping close friends.  It was something I learned how to do during all the moves of my childhood (which could be a whole other blog altogether; the longest we ever stayed in a place during my childhood was five years…still my record).  So why, now, with a community of attractive (in a friendship way) young women, do I have such trouble opening up and feeling at home?

The question remains.  I don’t really have an answer, except to land it in the anticipation of our next move.  I am yet again in the state of flux that comes with every pending move: depending on the speed of support raising, Edwin and I will be picking up stakes in less than a year in order to make it to the Philippines.  Spiritually, I’ve begun to view myself as a transient.  I’m a bedouin for Jesus.  He leads, I follow, and where He leads is often not here, wherever “here” may be at the moment.  Apparently, He’s been training me to keep earthly ties loose so that I might more readily GO.

Which, when I think about the life I have prayed to live for Him, is an answer to prayer.  I have promised Him, “Wherever, Lord, I’ll go.”  I even kept that promise to the point of staying in Mississippi when all I wanted to do was to go to the mission field.  And over time, His time, He has prepared me for that mission field, the one I had no clue I’d be going to: the Philippine Islands (with a filipino husband, no less!  Never saw that coming!).

And I return to contentment.  I am but a sojourner passing through.  I don’t doubt the future existence of deep friendships.  I trust God’s timing and the work He’s been doing on me; there is undoubtedly a reason He has kept me “single” this past year.  In one sense, I’ve been single in friendships so that I might be wholeheartedly married.  And beyond and deeper than that, my roots are pushing past the rough soil that had stunted their growth and they are once again reaching deep into the “soil of God’s marvelous love” (Eph 3:17).

Where I’ve lived since 1999:
99-00: Bacot dorm floor 2, Millsaps College
00-01: Bacot dorm floor 3, Millsaps College
01-02: New South dorm, hall, Millsaps College
02-03: New South dorm, atrium, Millsaps College
03-04: with the parents, Natchez, MS
04-June 05: with roommate in Pearl, MS
June-Dec 05: Wesley Biblical Seminary dorm, Jackson, MS
Jan-Oct 06: New Song Women’s Discipleship house, Oceanside, CA
Oct 06-Oct 07: apartment on my own!  Vista, CA
Oct 07-present: apartment with my husband (He moved in after the wedding!), Vista, CA

planned: present-May 09: our apartment
May-Aug 09: missionary training in North Carolina
Aug 09-?: ???
early 2010-???: Philippines