Metamorphosis Mondays

Join me here every Monday, where I'll share some words that are changing me for the better...

I stumbled across this by accident while online the other day...

When I no more can stir my soul to move,
And life is but the ashes of a fire;
When I can but remember that my heart
Once used to live and love, long and aspire --
Oh, be thou then the first, the one thou art;
Be thou the calling, before all answering love,
And in me wake hope, fear, boundless desire.
          -George Macdonald, "The Diary of an Old Soul"

From the highlight of every Monday...

Your real life IS your spiritual life, and both are going to be awful until you realize they're not two separate things!

And last but certainly not least, will you head over here and read this post by a wonderful woman named Micha?  Or listen to this incredible song by the talented Catherine Prewitt?


That's all for now, friends.  Hope to see you again next week!

Bare

I admit that I'm timid about posting this one.  And that timidity is the reason I've procrastinated about posting for so long.  See, I wrote this last month in my journal and I didn't put it through the refining process of what is acceptable to say or write publically, so what you have here is some very raw heart-material.  And I feel very vulnerable saying all this...
I guess what I'm asking for is grace, dear friend. 

Is this how I'm meant to survive, Lord?  Not standing tall, filled with divine confidence, invincible against all pain?  I thought You were going to make me strong, but instead You have peeled away layers of my heart until, naked, shamed, my pathetic weakness is laid bare.  Is this how it should be?  Am I, fully aware of my own inability, to come all the more trembling to You, pleading with You for completion?  Can You still speak light out of darkness?  Can You build a universe out of empty space?  Can You still breathe humanity into a cold heap of dust?

God, I love so imperfectly I cringe to even use the word.  There is unspeakable evil inside of me, and though I have concealed it with every facade I can fathom, it still lives within me, threatening to overcome everything I love with everything I hate.

And now...now You're speaking.  You tell me these words don't reflect the heart of the redeemed.  You remind me that you paid the ransom to set me free, and you say that now I am using the speech of slaves.  You say that, yes, it is impossible for me to overcome the monster that is myself, but in the same breath You whisper that You are in the business of slaying serpents.  And in a way that I cannot fathom, You hold my naked, weak, terrified self and whisper fierce love.

I have never before now known what You meant when You said Your power is made perfect in weakness and Your grace is enough.

I think I'm starting to understand now.

A Table in the Wilderness

"Cast your cares on him, for he cares for you."
We stood before a roomful of kids, kindergarten to sixth grade depending on the day, chanting the verse over and over and over again.  Each word was coupled with a motion to cement it in the child's mind: swing both hands away from you like you're casting a fishing rod, circle one scissor-fingered hand on the other like you're stirring in a bowl (sign language for "cares"), point upward for "him" and "he," four fingers for a "for," crossed arms covering your heart for "cares," and a final emphatic, Uncle Sam finger jabbed out for "you."  We varied the volume occasionally - "Which side of the room can be louder?" leading to an up-and-down rhythm in the words (CAST your CARES on HIM, for HE CARES for YOU!!!!!!!!), and "Which side of the room can be quieter" sounding like silver mountain breezes whispering through aspen leaves. 

There are no aspens here, though.  The scrub oak, cottonwoods, ponderosas, and other mountain trees are still about a thousand miles to the west.  Instead of spiky yucca and coarse grass with hardy roots for survival in the dry soil, cornfields compete with natural undergrowth for a place in the rich loam.  And the air!  Far from the Colorado "Got Oxygen?" quips, the air in Sterling, Illinois feels a little bit like the rush of wet air on your face when you lift the lid from a pan of boiling water. 

We've been here five days now, and we only expected to stay for one night in the sweet little farmhouse just outside the sweet little town.  But last Saturday morning, barely a mile onto the interstate, our fifteen-passenger van went kaput and we headed back to town while the vehicle was towed to the shop.  The next day, the embarassed mechanic admitted that after an entire day of tests and examinations, he couldn't find anything wrong and suggested we have it towed on Monday to a dealership. 

"Perfect!"  Valorey, the temporary caretaker of the farmhouse said with her lively grandma grin.  "You guys wanna come to church with me tomorrow?"

(Valorey bought us dinner twice, introduced us to her chubby-cheeked and brilliant-blue-eyed grandsons, and lent us her 8-seater suburban for the duration of our stay.)

At church, Carolyn, Katie, Elizabeth, Tiffani, Alax, Joel, Micah, PJ, Jason called George, and others surrounded us with instant friendship and gave us a home among strangers. 

"Come to youth group tonight, guys!"  As if we needed any persuasion!  At youth group, they begged us to join them for Go Loco, a week of VBS volunteering and community service around town. 

"If we're still here, we definitely will!"  We said. That became our answer to any invitation for the next three days. 

At Go Loco, three friends and I volunteered to help an elderly lady who had recently lost her husband of over sixty years.  Ms. Wanda spoke tearfully of the her loneliness and helplessness and gently kissed the picture of the uniformed man on the dresser.  We hugged her and gave the word-comfort we could.  At the end of each day, she came smiling with a box of ice cream bars and said that she'd eventually get all our names down in her mind (she was disappointed because she couldn't remember speeches she'd memorized in elementary school anymore). 

Today, they found and fixed the problem with our van (something about a timing belt?  I don't speak car.).  We're headed back to the Springs, and Sterling is fading behind us.  But in the time we've been here, God has shown us more of his infinite love by providing for our every single need - from basic shelter and food in the farmhouse and delightful homemade meals given to us by gracious friends from the church, to giving us kind friends and allowing us to serve others in our time here. 

Why?
For he cares for you.

Bread, and Always Christmas if Not Now Winter

We have a bread machine that works like Rumplestiltskin, turning basic ingredients into warm, golden bread with no more human involvement than is required to put things in and take things out.  We have a KitchenAid mixer that works nearly the same way, with a hook that kneads dough twice as effectively in half the time it takes me.  But today when I make bread, I want to make bread.

I take down the thick cookbook we never use.  I gather the huge white bowl, the wooden spoon, and the measuring cups.  I mix two tablespoons of yeast and half a cup of lukewarm water and while they are growing foamy, I heat three tablespoons of butter and a cup and a half of buttermilk in a pan until the butter dissolves.  The double-butter milk cools to lukewarm, and the house is quiet.  My family is gone, running errands, and I am the only one home, baking bread after a scholarship essay is polished and submitted.  Silence warmly invites me to sing, and to my surprise, the song that bubbles from my lips is not one that reflects the nearly-100-degree weather outside the window.  Instead...

Oh come, oh come, Emmanuel

And ransom captive Israel

That mourns in lonely exile here

Until the Son of God appear

Rejoice!  Rejoice! 

Emmanuel shall come to thee, oh Israel.

I mix flour and liquid with my hands, dough coating my arms almost to my elbows, and think on the words that came from me and came from nowhere.  One of my two favorite Christmas songs, yes...but in June?  The rhythmic kneading of the dough beneath my hands beats the tempo of the song, and I sing the lyrics again. 

Oh come, oh come, Emmanuel...

"Emmanuel," meaning "God who is with us." 

I grease the bowl - cheating this time, with a can of Pam oil spray - and the kneaded dough lands splot in the bottom, where it grows for an hour and ten minutes.  And I sing carols that are relevant year-round. 

Christmas marked the beginning of God's dwelling with us, and that time has not ended. 

And the Presence that arrived announced by angels and stars and shepherds and a scandalized couple gloriously invades my kitchen and my heart and my neighbors probably think I'm crazy for Rejoice!  Rejoice!  nearly shouted in the middle of June.

Sometimes I wish my name was Barnabas

Barnabas was one cool guy.  He hung out mostly in Antioch, was mistaken for Zeus, and had sweet hobbies like getting beat up and thrown in prison.  He vouched for Saul/Paul when the other apostles were too afraid to accept him, sang songs that literally rocked, and argued with Paul over whether or not to give John Mark a second chance.  But what I like most about Barnabas is that his name isn't really Barnabas.  Acts 4:36 calls him, "Joseph, a Levite from Cyprus, whom the apostles called Barnabas (which means 'son of encouragement')." 

The encouragement of Barnabas was so much his defining characteristic that the apostles gave it to him as a name.  Barnabas's identity was wrapped around his gift to build up those around him, filling them with courage and strength.  He had an ability to call out the gold from within people, even when nobody else (or even the individuals themselves) couldn't see anything shining. 

I want to be like that. 

I want to build up the people around me rather than tear them down, to see the best in them and call it out, to comfort and counsel and summon courage inside them - not so much to create something, but rather to point out what was always there. 

I want to be a daughter of encouragement.

Awe like Lightning

I like feeling small.

And last night I stood wind-whipped, with the porch planks as amphitheater seats, and heard a colossal concert that dwarfed the assumed largeness of myself.  Crickets hummed like violins, strong wind blew flute song through my ponytailed hair, and the percussive thunder punctuating the symphony matched the pounding of my awestruck heart.

I thought I may as well be struck by lightning because the excitement pulsed through every synapse and left me glowing and electrified.


What if we stood up and took notice when we say “wow”? Awe is an integral Christian “disposition of the soul,” [Herbert] Anderson* contends. It leads us into and disposes us toward faith. Luther himself said, “Wonder brings faith.” Such a disposition is what actually connects belief and practice. Without an outlook titled toward awe, belief becomes a hallow platitude and practice turns into empty habit. Builidng on Luther, Anderson emphasizes, “We will be more disposed toward moments of extraordinary awe if we have been attending all along to wonder and awe in the ordinary.”
-In the Midst of Chaos, Bonnie J. Miller-McLemore

Desperation and Cold Water

As of today, I've read Ecclesiastes 3 times.  The first time was when I read the Bible straight through because reading the Bible straight through is like a rite of passage for all good Christians, just having dc Talk's "Jesus Freak" on your iPod or being a rabid Tim Tebow fan.  It's just what we do.  I didn't get much out of Ecclesiastes that time, most likely because I was 11 years old and the Bible is a very long book and, to an 11-year-old, Ecclesiastes is pretty forgettable.

The second time was last fall on a whim.  I realized that I didn't remember a thing Ecclesiastes said and figured I should probably read it again because, being the Word of God and all, it might have some important things to say.  I read the 12 chapters in a day (which is the only way that book can be read...suicide is likely if you stop before the end) and decided it was one of the best things I've ever read.  We blitzed through the book again this morning in Awesome (if you're not a FEFC-goer, Awesome is what we call Sunday School, because seriously, who wants to go to school on Sunday?!  And Awesome is a pretty good description of everyone and everything there, so it didn't take long for us to pick that name instead.), and I was reminded why I like this book so much.
See, I spend a lot of time around desperate people.  The majority of my friends aren't content with the mediocre existence offered by society, many come from difficult family situations, and quite a few struggle with depression of one form or another.  So they, we, look for something to quench our soul-thirst, to satisfy the yearning we have, to give us a sense of purpose.

That's pretty much what Solomon covers in the first 11 chapters of Ecclesiastes.  I envision him as a knight on a quest, hunting for anything that will give meaning to his life.  Through eleven chapters he searches, looking first to wisdom, then to pleasures, to work, to advancements, to wealth, to everything he can think of that might possibly offer him a reason to live.  Each experiment ends the same way, though: "This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind."  Solomon echoes the bumper sticker maxim, "He who dies with the most toys still dies."  He goes so far as to say that it's better to never even be born than to see the oppression and wickedness in the world.  For eleven chapters, it seems that the end of his quest is the conclusion that the best anyone can hope to do is to work hard and enjoy the life they have while it lasts.  YOLO?
But
(There's always a but when things look hopeless)
But then chapter 12 happens and Solomon remembers God. 
"Remember your Creator in the days of your youth...Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man."
"The whole duty of man."
Our entire purpose.
Seems almost like a letdown.  That's it?

But to desperately thirsty souls on a quest for Abundant Life, it's like a long drink of cold water. 

And the commandment to keep commandments?  It's not a heavy, burdensome demand.  Really, there are only two commandments: to love God and love people.  These aren't rules; they're relationships. 

In the end, Solomon discovered what Jesus would sum up thousands of years later...

"Anyone who drinks from this well will be thirsty again, (we run to wells we know won't satisfy), but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst.  Indeed, the water I give them will become a spring of water welling up to eternal life."