Anything

The last few months I've started blog post after blog post after blog post without finishing any of them.  I've been wrestling with something for the last year that I couldn't really put into words, and I am not sure that I have them now.  Please bear with because I am determined to publish this today.

I don't want a comfortable Christian life.

I've done that, a comfortable Christian life.  I believe in Jesus.  I have accepted salvation.  I have served my church in ministry capacity.  I am fairly well versed in the Bible, I can have conversations about my beliefs.  I have the appearance of someone who has it together.  I had a comfortable Christian life, and I walked away from it because it wasn't enough.

When life got hard, as it does, it was easy to walk away from the church, easy to figure out my own way of doing it, of living life.  I had this. I made choices, went by my feelings, I could use my intuition to make a fairly comfortable life.  It was a good life.  I was a good person.

Then my world fell apart, and all of this self-constructed life imploded.  It was just over a year from that point that I returned to my faith.  Something changed in me.

I'd lived this safe comfortable, happy Christian life.  I knew it was not enough.  I grew up in the church, I knew how to behave, how to appear.  I knew the rules of that life and I knew it wasn't enough because as much as it had changed my heart and had granted me salvation, my life really had not changed.

I determined last Fall that I didn't ever want to get comfortable in my Christianity, that I always wanted to ache and be aware of the depth of salvation.  I would express this desire and very few people understood what I was trying to say, I don't even know if *I* understood what was in my heart.  I'm not sure if I understand it now.  But it's been burning in me for a year, and like an infected pimple I cannot stop scratching at it and picking it.

Today was reading in this in a book called, "Anything: The Prayer That Unlocked My God And My Soul", and here is a short excerpt that really impacted me:

"I remember the first time it occurred to me that my life looked more like the lives of the people Jesus rebuked than the people Jesus drew near to.  I was reading his words to the religious in Matthew, "So you outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness" (23:28).
  
Ugh.  I felt that way.  I knew deep down I was screwed up.  I also knew nobody really knew it, and I liked it that way.  I did not want to be facedown in the sand like all the sinners Jesus healed.  I wanted to stay bright and shiny and good, and comfortably on my feet.  Yet when I read the words of Christ, I felt this call.  A call to fall on my face.

It physically hurts to see our pride, to see our sin, to quit playing good, to feel broken and to need God. And it hurts even more to let others see it.  So we run from falling; we choose large fig leaves to cover up with and not God.  We run from that vulnerable feeling that we may not measure up, all while aching to measure up.

Throughout the history of humanity, this has been how we engage God.  First we ask, is he real?  And second, do we really need him?

What if the thing we are trying to impress him with was the very thing keeping us from him?"

I'm rocked to my heels.  I need this.  I want God to get ahold of me and shake me to my core.  I want to be His girl, the one He uses... in whatever small or large way He has.  I don't want to need this, but I do.  I'm scared.  If I really trust God with my life, if I really let Him have control of it?  What will He ask of me?  What will I lose out on?  What is in store?  Because I DO want to have a comfortable life. I DO want to be cherished and have a happy and simple existence, I do.  I do, I do, I do.

But what I have with God right now is not enough, and I feel drawn to let go and to trust God and say, "Yes" to His call.  I want a reckless faith that says yes.

I have no idea what is in store, perhaps it is a 'normal' and comfortable life.  I have no idea.  But the thing in the depth of my heart wants more of God and less of me (and I absolutely understand how holier-than-thou and churchy this all must sound).  I'm asking for prayer for this journey.  I welcome any companions on this journey, but I can't tell you how it's going to turn out.  I guess I just have this faith that God is going to meet me, and I pray He does.  I know He promises to do that over and over.

So, here I am and the prayer in my heart is, "Oh God of second chances and new beginnings, Here I Am, again today.  I will do anything.  Anything."  

I find myself

I find myself aching again.

In light of Robin Williams' suicide yesterday, I find myself aching for a man I didn't know aside from a very public persona and for the man I knew so very intimately and couldn't save.

(As as aside, I know it wasn't my job to save him, but the thought remains none the less.)

I find myself aching for those of us who have lost loved ones to the heartache of suicide.

I see people talking about suicide as the ultimate selfish act and I just want to throttle them.  Actually, throttle is a kind word for what I'd like to do, but I digress.  I see these people who speak as Christians, use their faith as a weapon of shame and cutting, elevating their opinion, airing their self-righteousness and I ache for the people who they hurt - intentionally or not.  I'd really like to think that they are just so entirely self-focused that they can't imagine how their words might land on someone who struggles.

Then I see other writers, who speak as seekers of Jesus.  Writers who's voices I identify with - not knowing but seeking, who encourage people to get help - and suggest that help beyond prayer might be needed, and I am thankful.  Writers who offer understanding and honesty, salve to the wounds of the disheartened and I too, am encouraged.

I don't have the answers.  If you are hurting and aching, please reach out.  Know that there IS help, seek it.  Take the help and find peace.

In which I remind myself...

The following verse has been a favorite of mine for the last six months:

Jeremiah 29:11 - 13 (New International Version)

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.  Then you will call on me and come and pray to me and I will listen to you.  You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart."

I love the first bit, and for the longest time, that's as far as I read or referred.  God had a plan and it was to prosper and not to harm me.  That was what I clung to after David's suicide, when I questioned why would God put me in this situation, why would God make me go through these horrible feelings.  It's a scripture that my dear little sister gave to me - the reference is tattooed on her wrist - and I clung to it for over a year.

That scripture helped me breathe when I thought my heart would come out of my body, on the weekend that I was so grief stricken and stressed out that I thought I was having a heart attack, went to the E.R. and was told my pressure was something like 210/150 and I was given nitroglycerin.  (I wasn't having a heart attack, I was having a panic attack because of not sleeping and not eating for days - my pressure is fine now, this was two years ago - in the event that the above has raised your own blood pressure.)  I was still so angry at God, I couldn't really acknowledge my need of him yet, but somehow his having a plan helped me out.

It wasn't for over a year that I was trying to find scriptures to write down and remind myself of how far I'd come that I looked that verse up in my Bible.  At the time, I was just starting to really seek a deeper, connected relationship with God.  I knew that my simple salvation was not enough.  I knew that God was calling me to a deeper relationship with him.  

I had no idea what that meant, nor what I was in for.

It was about this time that I met Joan.  We were the 'snark sisters' at the Women's Bible Study at church.  Maybe we weren't really snarky, but somehow we questioned the same things, our viewpoints were similar.  She (blessedly) wasn't a 'church lady', and despite our difference in age, she was hip to me being my messy, authentic, searching self.  She wasn't even offended when I slipped up and used 'language'.  Because Joan just saw me as a like-minded seeker of Jesus, she just accepted me though that is her character and nature to love and accept people - and I am SURE she prayed a lot for me.  (Hello, rabbit trail)

I started going through what Joan described as a desert experience.  She talked about her own, and it seemed to me to be that place that matures our faith from needing spiritual milk to spiritual meat (1 Peter 2:2-3 Like newborn babies, crave spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.).  

For me, the milk phase was short.  The phase where salvation seemed to be enough lasted for about four months.  I was seeking forgiveness for years of having run away from my relationship with God.  It wasn't till I was seeking God for a relationship that I realized that I wasn't nearly prepared because I didn't have much to give.  Therein entered the desert.

Ah, the desert of one's faith.  Joan said that I would look back on that (this) difficult time with fondness, and I did (do).  When it started and every time I entered church I would cry, because I was so moved.  I was SO challenged to give God more of the stuff I held onto, so challenged to be obedient to submit to his will, so broken and in need of him (and willingly having submitted to this deeper challenge).  I cried so often that people at church didn't even give me a second glance.  I wish I were kidding, but Joan used to tease me that people might be concerned if I ever made it through a service without crying!

Anyway, I started feeling like I would never get to that point of spiritual health that I wasn't always aching in my bones to be near to God*.  To comfort myself I started seeking scriptures about God redeeming people.  Mostly, it was about God redeeming Israel/the Jews.  (Do you know how often God does that?  Seriously, it's amazing how many times Israel/the Jews run from God.  It started to give me hope that I was not SO messed up and broken that God wouldn't do just about anything to draw me back to him.)  I read a lot of Isaiah, Jeremiah.  I was comforted with the story of Peter's betrayal of Jesus before his death and then Peter's restoration after the resurrection.  I was blessed by Joan's Bible study of the book of Nehemiah - the rebuilding of Jerusalem.  

But the scripture that encouraged me the most was Jeremiah 29:11 - 13  God having plans for me gave me peace, but what excited me the most was the statement in verses 12 - 13: "Then you will call on me and come and pray to me and I will listen to you.  You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart."

I could believe easily that God had plans for a hope and a future, but that I could call on God, I could come and pray to him... and he would listen.  My friends,  HE PROMISED TO LISTEN!  He said I would find him when I sought him with all of my heart.  I WOULD find him.  I don't know about you, but some days I feel like I am praying to the ceiling (or in my case, literally a computer screen, as I tend to write out my prayers).  And I know what the problem is... the problem is that bit at the end of that verse: all my heart.

That's when I sigh, and let go of my pride, and open myself up and am honest about where my heart hurts and what's going on.  When my whole heart is involved, he lets me find him.  Him who my heart so desperately wants, allows me to find him.  A Most Holy God allows this human; flawed, broken, sinful, messed up human to know him.

Dearest friend, he wants to you to know him like that too.

*Adding this:  I still ache to be nearer and nearer to God, but many of the impediments are cleared and it doesn't feel horrible. 

Falling in Love, Part 2...

I nearly wrote this as my Facebook status tonight:

If I had known the Jesus I know now, I don't think I would have fallen away for 15 years.  If I had fallen in love with Jesus the way I am now, how different life would have been.

The truth is, I don't know that for sure.  Of course I don't know that for sure.  Of course, no one knows where they would be or who they would be based on the choices they make.  That's my disclaimer, and not at all the point of this post.

The point of this post is this:  Why didn't I meet that Jesus when I was young?

I've been reading a few different blogs and bloggers.  This week Micah Murray talked about being enough for God (here: http://redemptionpictures.com/2014/05/13/dear-god-am-i-good-enough-for-you-yet/ ) and the post resonated with me.

There are so many things that I thought were required from me as a Christian and I think that getting away from the 'ought to' of Christianity was helpful.  I'm not recommending that path to anyone however.  I'm just looking at it from the perspective that God did work that distance out for my good.

Last Autumn, after having my too tender heart hurt by someone who presented himself with an interest in me, I prayed to have the experience of falling in love with Jesus.  The experience of being so enamored of him, of who he is, that my heart was satisfied.

In a conversation/prayer about something unrelated today, I realized that I was talking to God as a best friend, as someone I loved and trusted implicitly - and I don't know how this changed.  Time?  Exposure? Desire?  Prayer?  Reading the Bible?  All of it together, probably.

But I wish I had found this Jesus.  I wish this Jesus was the one who had been shown to me... where it wasn't obligation that drove the relationship, but that relationship and the obsession of knowing someone you are fascinated by drives the desire to read the Bible, to pray, to change, to know more, to have more depth.

How do I convey that?  How is that passion taught to others?  I don't want anyone to be stuck in legalism of the should do and ought to...

In Need of Help...

Here I am again.

Dear Lord, I am such a mess.

Help.

Countless days after countless days after countless days my prayers start like this.  I don't know what I am doing.  I am lost, and broken, and messy.  I am frustrated, and alone, and hurting.  I am not enough and I will never, ever be enough.  I need your help again, God.  I need... what ever you have for me today.

Why do I think that I can do it on my own?  Why have I bought the bill of goods that Bible teachers have told me since I was small that relationship with you, God, makes everything ok?  Why do I think that if I have salvation, life will be easier?  Why do I think I won't struggle with pain or suffer loss because of my relationship with you?  Why DON'T you make everything in my life better like a magic pill or an incantation of some kind that gives me all of what I want and none of what I don't?

Why am I still alone?  Why haven't you brought someone to love me, someone for me to love?

Why do I feel messy inside?  Aren't you supposed to bring peace to me all the time?  Aren't I supposed to feel ok?  Isn't my life supposed to be better?

I just want to not hurt.  I just want to feel important again.  I want to be held and cherished - to hold and to cherish too.

Fix my life... fix my life so I don't need to cling desperately for you for every breath.

Sigh... that's the point though, isn't it?  I need to cling to you desperately for every breath.  The reason you've not miraculously fixed my circumstance is because you want relationship with me.  The reason... my life is messy, that I am messy is so I am aware of how much I need you.

Reading in Nehemiah 9 today.  The Israelites repent, turn to you, get comfortable in themselves and think they've got this, and turn away.... again and again.  And I do the same.

I don't WANT to be in a desperate place of need of you.  It's not comfortable for me.  I am self sufficient.  I can do it my way.  Things go well that way for awhile and then I realize that it's not going so well, or something happens that hurts me deeply and to the quick.

I turn to the things that I have found that can bring me comfort, or distraction, a temporary peace.  Then I realize that those things aren't working and so I run away from them and I am angry at you for not taking that distraction from me so that I don't feel the pain of what I am running from.  That anger puts a barrier in front of us again too. Oh, this cycle.

When will I realize that I just need to need you every day, God?  When will relationship with you be my habitat, my solace, my comfort?

When will I remember that even though I go through things, when things are hard, when I am stuck, you turn those circumstances into good things for me, or for others - even when I can't see it in the moment.  Help me to see?

I believe.  Help my unbelief.

Two Are Better Than One

Life, I am convinced, is full of struggle.

This last week, I sat with my head against the chest of the man who has rapidly become my dearest and closest friend and wept.  We'd been talking about stuff.  My stuff.  David's death-anniversary was a few days from then.  When I tried to apologize and deep breathe my way to no tears, he said, "No Babe, just let them out."  So I did, and dissolved into a puddle for a good few minutes.

I am not sure what I did to deserve this friend, but I will be completely honest - whatever it is/was, I want to do it a lot.  This man, my friend, gives me more than I think I deserve (and upon reading this, he'll be irritated at me for thinking that).

The beautiful thing is that he allows me to be someone he can rely on too.  The give-and-take here is a wonder for me.  The relationship with David left me very little room to come unglued, especially in the last few years.  Maybe I could have, but I didn't feel that it was safe for him if I weren't the strong person he needed.  At the same time, I knew he hid is stuff from me because the enormity of his pain was killing me just as it was killing me.  It's a relief to not be the strong one for a moment with my stuff and in the same breath, maybe not even ten minutes later, be the one who can be the supporter.

In the middle of Ecclesiastes, where the author is going on about everything being pointless and meaningless, there is this surprising item:

Ecclesiastes 4:9-12

New King James Version (NKJV)

The Value of a Friend

9 Two are better than one,
Because they have a good reward for their labor.
10 For if they fall, one will lift up his companion.
But woe to him who is alone when he falls,
For he has no one to help him up.
11 Again, if two lie down together, they will keep warm;
But how can one be warm alone?
12 Though one may be overpowered by another, two can withstand him.
And a threefold cord is not quickly broken.

I know that I am ridiculously blessed with this friend.  Here is someone who prays for me, for my happiness and fulfillment.  I pray the same for him.  However God is working within each of us, however we as individuals are being led in our lives, however the path of growth, I am blessed with this.  I'm so glad that he is here to pick me up when I fall, that we can lean on each other.  I am glad that our friendship is founded on our individual relationships with God, and that we rest together in our relationship with Him.

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.