Just As I Am...

Last weekend I was so blessed to attend the 2014 Faith and Culture Writer's Conference at George Fox University in Newberg, Oregon.  I have just started identifying myself as a writer, and I guess because I am writing about my faith and my experience I (sort-of) identify myself as a Christian writer.

I heard so much from so many Writer/Speakers that I had identified with - so many of us are wounded by the church in it's various forms and so many of us are unsure where we fit in the church as it stands.

I have been thinking about that a bit lately - after my own 15 year church hiatus and return - where do I fit in?  Do I?  If so, how?  I still really don't have the answer there but I have a few thought about being away and how not to forsake the gathering of the saints (Paul's note to the early church).

In my mid-20s, I was really lucky to be a part of a group of Christians who wanted to reach the under-served alternative culture in Minneapolis.  The ministry was loosely tied to Y.W.A.M. (Youth with a Mission) and the loosely affiliated offshoot Steiger Ministries and NoLongerMusic.  I was the 'normal' looking girl in a crowd of alternatives.  I fit in at 'regular church' on the outside, but not on the inside.  In the early 90s, Christians didn't shave their heads, have tattoos, pierce things other than women's ears - and those things were indicative of a different way of thinking and a outward way to show how different we felt.  We were on the edge.  For me, this group of people were looking for an authenticity they weren't seeing in the 'regular' church.  They wanted something more.

In a way, I am glad to see that being 'not regular' and not looking normal has become a bit more accepted in Christian Culture, but I'm dismayed to see that the problem still exists that people who aren't regular still question where they fit in the Church.  We're missing it somewhere.

Ok, I'm 20 years older, and yeah, I'm still the 'normal' looking girl whenever I am among the alternative - but I don't think that my heart has changed.  I want a level of authenticity that I am so excited to say I find in the church body I am a part of... but I wonder after hearing so many stories last weekend of how people are questioning their place, if I am unusual in finding this here.

And, if we're not finding it, why aren't we CREATING it?  Why aren't we creating the kind of community that questions?  One of my favorite Christian leaders used to say that if you see a problem, God is calling you to pray for the situation and then to DO something about it.  I agree with that. 

Maybe the problem isn't with the 'regular' church, but the problem is that those of us who feel differently aren't creating the kind of community we need.  Clearly we are not alone.  I sat in community with a whole room full of people who felt like they fit in... finally... in that community.  I loved watching the agreement and unity I saw there.  My heart was healed a bit more because of that experience.

I don't know a whole lot for absolute certain.  I don't.  When it comes to my faith, I know Christ and Him crucified.  I do not have it together.  I often swear in my prayers.  I get frustrated and talk to God like I talk to my closest friends, with words that have impact.  The first time my Nuke heard me pray that way out of frustration, his eyebrows met his hairline.  After our prayer, I asked him if he was offended by it.  He said he was surprised more than offended.  We talked about why I felt comfortable praying like that, and I told him that God heard me talk to everyone else, and he already KNEW I used that kind of language (I do so love ALL the words), so why wouldn't I pray the way I talk to my best friend - if I really do want Him to be my best friend?  

Perhaps that's just it.  We put on the dog for God.  We have this idea of who we're supposed to be, this Godly person who has stuff together, or we feel we must wrap our doubt and faithlessness in a very Christian bow of "God's will" or "The Lord will provide" or whatever Christian truism that feels appropriate for the momentary situation and appears to give either comfort or surety (in my opinion, often falsely). 

I don't want to be that kind of Christian.  If I am struggling, I am going to be honest about it.  I am going to be honest with God who knows anyway, and can hear me and will act on me as he sees fit.  He can change my heart or he can change my circumstance.  He is GOD, after all.

This is the type of community I want to foster.  This real, ugly sometimes, happy sometimes, blessed all the time type of Christian community that struggles with faith but rests in the fact that a LOVING God gave everything to have authentic relationships with us.

I WANT TO CONTINUE TO STRUGGLE WITH MY CHRISTIANITY.  How's that!  I don't want to have it all together.  I don't want to be comfortable.  I want God to be challenging me all the time so that I feel off-kilter, stressed, concerned, working out my faith with fear and trembling and in the middle of all of that, I want to rest in the Peace that Passes All Understanding.  I want to be in the kind of relationship that causes me to communicate with God, to seek Jesus, to have him find me Just As I Am.

The Miracle of a Virtual Orange

Life is hard.

I know that's not at all a profound statement, except that it is.  It's just under a month until two years past David's death.  They have not been an easy two years, but they haven't been impossible to go through... well, looking backward I can say that, but there were days in the depths of my despair that I could not see the light.  There were days I never thought I would know happiness, let alone finding it with another person again.  There were days I was pretty sure that the only person in the world who could love me was gone forever - and (remember I am at the depth of despair here) that he chose to leave me.  There were a lot of those days.  I'll admit that there were a lot more of those days than there were days of any kind of hope.

A few weeks ago now, there was something that happened which made me think that I might not be alone in the world forever.  I shared a virtual orange.  

Somehow, out of nowhere there is hope, somehow I see a future.  There is a man who has been wooing me in the way that I have been praying that God would bring about - through Bible study and prayer (see my October 10 - Hope Into Faith post).  He is consistent, deep, peaceful, soulful, funny, irritating, and tender... and all of it is wrapped up in this man who is seeking God in a way that is challenging and familiar.    

I am sure that I'll talk a lot about this relationship and it's significance to me in the future.  Already this friendship with my Nuke has changed my view, my heart, my life.  Like every good thing, it's not going to be simple - though it's been surprisingly easy.  

Trusting God for these things, the small things and the huge things, seem so often like a mountain we have to climb.  And in the moment, they are mountains.  Maybe better though, it's like Joan says - where we think that the challenge of trusting God is that we just have to jump off of an impossibly high cliff knowing that he will catch us in our faith - and then when we jump to discover that the ledge is really only six inches off the ground, that the act of stepping out in faith is the challenge and the reward is that we discover trusting isn't as impossible as we think.

Each day, when my Nuke and I are doing our Bible study/devotions and praying I am so aware of the gift of this relationship.  This morning in our general conversation, where my Nuke asked me if I was ready to have a wonderful day, I answered with an enthusiastic, "Yes"; then I asked him to define what a wonderful day was; he said, "A wonderful day is a day that was full, and entirely awesome. Not perfect, but nothing to change about it.".  To which I responded that each day was wonderful then, even the difficult things that happen bring us to a new place of redemption or understanding of myself and/or others.  I expressed that even the days and weeks of tears and grief have brought me to here, this place where I am currently blessed.  

When David was so newly gone, and I was newly widowed, I questioned "WHY, GOD!?!?!?!" so often, as we do in those situations that make no sense to us.  I'm not saying that the horrible things in our life happen because God wants them to, but it seems that God works all things together for good of those who love him.  I am pretty sure I've read that in some book, somewhere (see Romans 8 for a decent reference).  

I couldn't fathom that I'd be where I am today 22 months ago.  I couldn't imagine it even four months ago.  I am fairly sure that I can't imagine what my life is going to be like in a year, or two, from this vantage point.  I just know that whatever happens here, it will come about because my Nuke and I have put this relationship in God's hands and continue to submit it to him together and separately.  As it is now - we are going forward slowly, building the friendship and the foundation in our separate and joined relationship in Jesus, I feel confident in God's direction and directing both of us.  

And I am forever grateful for the miracle a virtual orange.



(Also?  In the event anyone wonders?  My Nuke is aware of and approves of me writing this and has/will preview any post that includes him.)

So Where Do I Fit and What Is Next?

It's not my favorite way to do a blog post, not having a neatly wrapped up conclusion.  This post meanders, but I think it's where I am right now, in a meandering kind of space.  You've been warned.

When I first started attending the church I am currently attending, I was really hard on the pastor, and on the congregation.  I was an outsider who was viewing from the outside, and because I was such a mess I viewed it from messy eyes and with a messy heart.  Fast forward now over nine months, and I have fallen in love with these people and just simply think the world of my pastor, the associate pastor, my mentor, and the friends these people have become.

I suppose like most human beings (gosh, I hope I'm not so different), I judge.  I don't think I saw people for who they were because I just couldn't.  The limitation was in me.  Now, I see a lot of subtlety that was lost when I could only see the surface.  Now I see the grace of these people who have been called together, who worship together, who serve together.  Grace is a marvelous thing.

Now?  I find myself being thoughtful on how to join this community.  Am I called to be more than a participant?  Am I called to give more?  How can my gifts be utilized here?  I don't have the answer yet.

I have an inkling as to what it is that God wants to do with me, in me, in my life.  I have a few ideas, but... even in having the ideas I have, I feel like I'm hearing "wait". 

Interestingly, or maybe not - as this might be the most disjointed and unfocused blog post ever - it's not just in the realm of ministry that I am hearing God say "wait".  I'm also hearing this "wait and patience" in other areas in my life.  I think I am in development time.  Gaah.  Development time.

I am the type of person who when God is leading me in a direction I spend some time in prayer, if I find the direction Biblically aligned, and if I feel peace about it - even if it scares me - I jump off that cliff (truthfully, the timing on all of this can be surprisingly quick).  God asks me for things and I'm all in.  I am an action kind of girl.  But hearing "wait", hearing "patience", hearing "not yet, daughter" frustrates the snot out of me.  I am not a "wait" kind of girl.  And yet, knowing this?  Knowing how God created me to be this woman of action, God still asks for my patience, he still asks me to wait.

I know, too, that waiting is my choice.  I know that I don't really have to wait.  I can choose to go my own way and he'll make something of that, he'll let me go and do my own deal.  The thing is, I know he'll have to do some work to get me back on HIS path and it just means a delay in getting there.  Somehow I think that the delay would be more painful than just waiting for now.

So, why does he ask me to wait?  I'm not sure.  Maybe there are lessons for me in the waiting.  Perhaps I am waiting for someone to join me who is not ready yet.  It could be that the situation I am in has not been prepared for me.  Most likely, I have some growing up to do.  The nice thing about being a child of God and waiting for his voice is that I don't need to know all of the whys, though knowing would make me happy (I think).  I know I need to trust.

Isaiah 40:31

King James Version (KJV)

But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.

So, teach me, Lord... to wait.