I have a love-hate relationship with seeing and/or interacting with people from the past. The “hate” portion is more of a heavy dislike. It’s often awkward, especially if we haven’t communicated in 10+ years. And, if I’m being honest, it likely stems from insecurity – just how did I present myself in middle school? In my mid-twenties, was I really a decent human to those around me? Past people force me to face and own up to who I was, choices I made, how I treated others… and I have no control of how my actions or words are remembered, or how they made people feel.
But, I also LOVE getting to take a trip down memory lane with someone from my past. You, friends, validate certain pieces of my memories. Certain pieces of me.
I tend to parcel my life into different “lives lived”. There are significant markers, seasons, moments – usually divided out by places I’ve lived. Growing up in Columbia, Missouri. College at Truman State University. Summers and years working full-time at Camp Eagle in Texas. A brief stint in Beverly, Massachusetts at seminary. More years at Glorieta, New Mexico. A new discovery of life back in my hometown – now for three years (wild!)! Each can feel like a different life. At times, a different Debbie.
But now, living back home, it’s inevitable that I run into people from the past. And while I’ve remained largely absent from the social media scene that connects me to many from alllll of those places and significant seasons in my life, there have been moments, interactions, and conversations lately that piece me back together. One Debbie with one life, not 6 Debbies with 6 lives. After all, we are whole beings… not divided, try as I may.
So, when I get the chance, I relish the moments to conjure up memories with others. Those times remind me that those moments were real that they actually happened. That I was who I was (even if those weren’t my favorite or best versions of myself)… and those things all work together to make me who I am, in this one life. Your role is significant – not just in my life, but the many others you have known and journeyed with.
And so now, a trip down memory lane… because maybe it does for you what it does for me. Maybe it will serve as a reminder that in the worst, hardest, best, happiest moments/relationships/situations – we are being shaped. Molded. Becoming. Not stuck in who we were, but embracing that we are people in motion. When we validate the memories, we remember that we are never alone in this journey. So many folks have been along for the ride, even if we no longer share the same zip code.
I decided to participate in City of Refuge’s first ever Poem-a-thon. All participants commit to writing every day during the month of April. 30 days of poems. The goal is to raise support for each day of the month (hope is at least $30/sponsor, $1/day/poem) that goes directly to City of Refuge’s refugee care and programs.
I’m no poet, but I have a thing for writing. I’m no poet, but I have a growing love for refugees and newcomers that are coming to us from around the world. Beautiful souls who are changing my entire view of what matters in this life.
I decided to get some practice in today. Here is a pre poem-a-thon original. If you’re up for sponsoring me (which really just means supporting our work with refugees), head to cityofrefugecolumbia.org/poemathon, click “Donate to a Participant” and find my name. I’d love to have your support.
Is it safe here?
Safe enough to share, safe enough to listen, safe enough to stay?
Our hearts beg to know the answer: do I have a place where I belong?
Is there a place where I can be fully me, fully imperfect, fully different? A place where I can admit when I am hurting, when I am lonely, when I am selfishly longing for more? Is there a place safe enough to hold all my thoughts, all my tears, all my dreams?
Is it safe here?
I hear my daughter asking. She’s only 3, but her question strikes a chord – maybe it’s something we’re all desperately wanting to know. Are we safe? Do we fit? Will you stay or will you go? If I close my eyes, will you be there when I wake? Will you help keep the scary things away, or will I have to hide, defending myself alone?
Of course I know the answer… yes and no. It depends on what we mean by “safe”, it depends on where we place our hope. Safe, but only sort of… this life holds no guarantee. Are we talking about our lungs’ ability to breathe, are we thinking about our figurative hearts’ ability to cope, are we wondering if our soul will withstand the journey from here to there?
Is it safe here?
We stand resolutely in the middle.
Safe, not in the temporary … safe, only in the eternal.
Safe beyond what our eyes can see, beyond what our hearts can fathom.
A perspective that supersedes today’s realities.
Here may always be unsafe.
But we live, we laugh, we love… fiercely, selflessly, willingly…because our hope is in the eternal.
Not here, but there. And there is what we live for.
Falls in New Mexico were always pretty dreamy. I remember being immersed in a golden grove of Aspens on a mountain somewhere near Santa Fe thinking, “I wish everyone could experience this right now.” There were never words to attach to those moments, but something about those hikes stilled my soul. It was a vibrant beauty that none of my photos could capture, it was encapsulating of the whole self. As sunlight streamed through the quaking leaves, my heart burst with an unchained melody. Thin spaces – where heaven and earth seem to merge into one, for only a brief moment in time.
For the seven falls that I lived there, escaping into the green-turned-yellow mountains was always a priority. Some years were better than others, but there was always that same feeling: everyone should get to bear witness to how beautiful this is.
Up until last weekend, I hadn’t felt like that in a long while. Not with the same intensity, the same earnestness. This time, however, my surroundings had nothing to do with beautiful mountain scenes, or changing leaves, or the brisk fall breeze.
Instead, I was seated between a woman from Ethiopia and a woman from Rwanda. Across from several men and women from Burma – representing their tribes: Karen, Karenni, Chin, Rawang. A pastor from the Democratic Republic of the Congo was also there. We had gathered a handful of refugees and former refugees that we know in Columbia so we could begin to directly hear from them about their needs and needs of their communities.
I mostly listened as they introduced themselves in English, all with thick, rich accents. Some have only lived in Columbia a few years, while one has been resettled and helping others who continue to come for the last 28 years. And while, for many of them, their native tongue isn’t the same, they have found ways to communicate with their second or third language. Many from Africa can speak Swahili, even if their first language is different. Many from Burma can speak Burmese, even though every tribe has a different language. And, for this particular meeting, they all spoke English.
I saw nods of agreement as they shared some of their similar, but very different experiences. Living in refugee camps, acclimating to life in America, taking care of each other as they navigated this new world. One gentleman shared about moving here from a jungle and how learning to drive had been a challenge. There was a lot of laughter in their shared journeys. Their joy was powerfully contagious.
“It doesn’t take a language to help someone. It takes a heart”. One woman insisted on this, remembering the connection she had shared with one of our staff when language wasn’t something they could yet share. Beyond the ability to audibly understand each other, there was an alternative language being communicated: compassion, love, a desire to know the other, a longing to help.
I marveled at the beauty I was seeing in my new friends – a soul-level, no words for it, type of gratitude. Again thinking, “I wish everyone could be here, I wish everyone could hear what I’m hearing, see what I’m seeing, know the people I am getting to know.” I felt deeply honored to be sitting there, among men and women who have known loss in ways I can’t begin to fathom and who are choosing every single day to not only put one foot forward, but who are actively working to help others. Many who are still aiding their families and friends who stayed behind. Many of them work hard to help those like themselves who have resettled in America. One man from Burma, readily opens up his home to more families who have no place to immediately reside.
Among this culturally diverse group there was another common thread that stuck out to me: faith. The communities they spoke of were rooted in their churches, in a common belief system. God is real, alive, and moving deeply in their hearts and in their communities. He is who they find hope in.
I could hear the echoes of my seminary classes on missions – to listen to my fellow believers from across the world. That they most likely have more to teach me about following Jesus than I have to teach them.
My new friends laughed about their long church services, knowing full well the contradiction between American churches and theirs. Many of us Americans likely don’t have the time, or the patience, or the desire to be in church all day. But for them, it’s different. A man from the DRC told me recently about how his church service the previous weekend had felt a lot like “home” (Africa). These church services start in the early evening and go long into a Saturday night/early Sunday AM – every single week.
The more this group chatted, the more I longed to hear more. I could have sat there for hours, honestly. My heart was swelling, longing for everyone to know. To know that within miles of their homes there may be people from Africa, Asia, Central America, South America, Europe … people who had to come here because staying wasn’t safe for their families. People who often don’t speak English, not because they haven’t tried or because they don’t want to… but because it’s hard or they are too busy trying to work so their families have enough to eat. People who possess a type of joy that is contagious and authentic. People who know a simplicity of life without all the distractions.
People who have a lot to teach you and me.
If only we listen. If only we desire to learn.
Everyone should get to bear witness to the type of beauty that only comes about in the bringing together of many tribes, tongues, and nations. It’s where we will find ourselves together in the end (Rev 7)… and when you get the chance to experience a little bit of heaven on earth, you can’t help but want others to have that same opportunity as well.
Tears welled in my eyes this morning as we sang the lyrics at church.
I had to take a minute to process why the flood of emotions had attached themselves to this simple declaration that I had made thousands of times.
The words have never been untrue, and at times, that’s been hard for my doubter-of-a-heart to believe.
God, you’re so good.
Even when…
My mom was diagnosed with breast cancer. Or when my brother and sister-in-law gave birth to our stillborn first nephew after finding out he had Trisomy 13. Or when I struggled through years of singleness and then infertility. Or when we lost our jobs, our home, our community; an identity. Or when we found out that my barely 2-year-old niece had leukemia. Or when it took years to adopt the little girl who had quickly become our daughter. Or when my brother became the 1% of complications and lay open all night on an operating table because of an allergic reaction during open heart surgery.
As I recounted God’s faithfulness through the valleys of uncertainty, fear, and heartbreak I have faced, I was alarmingly aware of his unwavering goodness.
Today, I have the gift of perspective and time. Where I can look back and see how God has been good and present, even in some pretty bleak moments.
He never changed.
My circumstances may have, but His character has remained the same. He is steadfast.
I think it’s why we are asked to REMEMBER a lot.
Deuteronomy is filled with Moses pleading for the Isrealites to remember.
Remember what God has done, how He brought you out of slavery, through a sea (what!), how He rained food from the sky – He took care of you in the lowest, hardest places. Your feet didn’t swell, your clothes didn’t wear out.
You, God, are sogood.
How can we forget?
And yet, sometimes, I do.
We peer into a future of uncertainty, filled with fear and worry. We can’t see the other side of the sea and so we fret constantly about how we will get from here to there. How can we possibly make it out of this mess? How will we ever survive? There’s no way to escape – we are surrounded on all sides. It feels helpless. Our efforts get us nowhere – working through every human possibility, coming up empty-handed, coming up defeated.
But then the sea is literally parted. A way forward now, when there was no way.
When we remember, we can’t help but come face to face with the God who can do immeasurably more than all we ask for or imagine. The God who knows our hearts better than we do. The One in whom we find refuge, strength, and comfort.
The gift of time and perspective remind me that my plans, my hopes & dreams… they must be held loosely. Because God, in His goodness, has shown me over and over again that His ways are better. His ways are the ways that my human brain can’t even begin to fathom.
He will get me from here to there.
I don’t have to know how. I don’t even really need to know where “there” is… because His destination will always be better.
Where I think I may want to go isn’t actually where I need to go.
When I thought I needed to be married by a certain age, God showed me that it was infinitely better to wait. When I thought I must have biological children to be a successful woman, God showed me that His plan for our family would surpass my wildest dreams – a little girl that has radically transformed my world in some of the best ways.
Scripture reminds me of the larger narrative.
The truth of God’s goodness isn’t limited to me and what I have experienced.
It expands beyond time, weaving its way into human hearts and souls since the very beginning. It’s a story we are invited into – over and over again.
God, in His goodness, bringing to life what was dead, what was lost… because of how much He loves us.
God, you’re so good.
I pray that, no matter how many times I sing or say it, that this truth dwells deep in my soul. That I would be a person who remembers, who declares it, who trusts it – despite the highest highs and the lowest lows. Even when I’m walking in the valleys of the unknown.
His goodness may look different than what I anticipate in the moment, but He is still good.
We just walked out of a restaurant with K screaming and crying. I wanted to assure all the other patrons that she’s not normally like this… she’s really delightful, usually. Disregard the tears, the yelling, and the snot, please. And Kathryn, please stop making a scene – everyone is looking.
Let’s live our lives according to the script our culture has created for us. Or, at least the one that “looks” good. You know, the one that makes us look like we’re parents who have it all together and are doing a phenomenal job at raising our one child (I am still impressed by parents with multiple children who are able to get anywhere on time). It’s the scene where our daughter quietly and neatly eats her food, stays seated until we are ready to leave, and smiles sweetly at the elderly women sitting at the table next to us.
Fit the part.
I’ve never been really good at this.
In some ways, Kathryn’s breakdown can feel a lot like how I want to live my life. A little like, “Listen people… I’m tired. I haven’t taken my nap all week, I don’t really understand the world yet or why things happen the way they do, and I just want what I want when I want it.”
It’s sometimes alarming how often I can relate to an almost-three-year-old.
But we carry on. As we get older, we get better at concealing the things the world tells us to hide. We get better at showing only what we think they want to see, what they’ll accept. Our audience grows larger and impossibly hard to please, because somewhere, somehow…there’s always a critic. And, perhaps over time, our largest critic becomes ourselves.
She teaches me something about owning our messiness, our rawness. She reminds me that maybe it’s okay to not have it all together… to be human. That even 38-year-olds don’t really understand the world yet or why things happen the way they do. And sometimes, when things don’t go how we expected or planned, it’s pretty normal to be upset about it.
And together, we get to learn that life goes on. Even when we don’t get to listen to Cocomelon in the car again, or when we have to put on our shoes to ride a bike. Perspectives shift when we get a glimpse of what is around the corner, when time passes, when the world isn’t actually over.
I was watching Kathryn the other day laugh and play, unaware and unconcerned with how her body looks. Instead, she marvels about how “big girl” she is and what her body can do. She can jump far, ride her bike with training wheels, stand on her head, run so very fast… She laughs with joy when she catches a glimpse of herself in the mirror.
In these ways, I wish I were more like my three-year-old. It’s how I think we’re meant to be. Less bothered by the deepening wrinkles, more carefree about how I present myself each day.
It pains my heart to know there will come a day when the simplicity and purity of her worldview will become convoluted and broken. Instead of a great appreciation for all that her body is capable of, she will instead (if history is any indication) be deeply consumed by how it looks, convinced it’s the thing that matters most about herself. Again, the script of our culture will eventually write itself onto the heart of an unassuming child, robbing her of an innocence she will never get back. She makes me want to fight against the current, to swim upstream despite the river’s force.
When her little mind doesn’t know how to find the words to say what she wants or needs, I often wonder what I do when I feel the same way. I’m past the point where hitting or yelling will suffice, but what do I do when we can’t verbalize all that lies just below the surface? How do we, as adults, cope? How do we interact with those around us? What did we learn was a safe way to process? Did we ever learn how to process, how to communicate?
There is a lot to be gleaned in these days of toddler-hood.
Lots that I can learn about myself and my own views of the world. Lots she can teach me about and remind me of – ways I can be more confident and sure of myself in a way that models the same for this little shadow of mine. Ways to reflect on my own coping mechanisms and processing of the events that unfold around me.
It’s a cyclical pattern, of course.
I learn by watching her discover the world, and she learns by watching how I respond, hearing how I talk.
It’s a beautiful dance, this dance of motherhood.
Infuriatingly mesmerizing.
One step at a time, figuring out a mother-daughter sequence that works for us, in an unknown world. Defined by love, one million (and more) of those second chances, and a whole lot of grace.
I get asked this question a lot… and it’s hard for me to want to answer the question with a casual “good” that most people who ask are probably expecting. It’s like when someone asks how you are. How often do they really, R-E-A-L-L-Y want to know?
To adequately answer the question, I have to back up several years. Because, when you take a job it doesn’t really ever start when your offer letter says that you start. There’s been a preparing that’s taken place – usually when you didn’t even know that’s what was going on.
So rewind to a time when I’m working full-time in camp ministry while simultaneously chipping away at Master’s. It was a season filled with abundant learning; some of it practical and some of it theoretical. Topics surrounding leadership, management, the Bible, callings, shortcomings, passions, spiritual formation, and community. Some I was learning because I was in school, some I was learning because of my job, and some of it I was learning (quickly) because I was in seminary while also in ministry. (I’d highly actually recommend that pursuit — immediate application helps it stick a little more).
God’s Heart
While there had always been things in Scripture that caused some stirrings in my heart, at this juncture there was no denying them. I couldn’t escape the passages, the central themes, the very character of God’s heart that circled around His love for all people… especially the orphan, the poor, the widow, the foreigner. The more I studied, the more sure I was that this was a trait of God’s character that I needed to be more diligent in emulating. And while camp ministry as a whole provided me some opportunity for this in some ways, I was feeling called to it a little more directly.
In my quest, we embarked upon various attempts to incorporate this in our lives. It’s a huge part of why we did foster care. It’s why we started serving food at the homeless shelter in Santa Fe once a month. It’s why I invited a homeless woman to live with us for a few weeks. It’s why we considered a drastic move to Costa Rica.
Our why was deeply rooted in a desire to carry out this call to care for those who have historically been left behind, forgotten. I wanted to do more, but I wasn’t ever sure how, or what. Suffice it to say that during that season I was often engaged in an internal battle, a growing dissatisfaction with an unclear idea of what actually needed to change.
We left camp almost 2 years ago exactly.
Not because we wanted to, not because we chose to… but, we are now assured even more in hindsight, it was time. Due to a mix of COVID-19, massive lay-offs, and probably a million other reasons we won’t ever know the answers to – we packed our camp-life up and blindly took steps into whatever was next. God was most evidently sovereign in our being let go, bringing us to Missouri, and giving us a season to be. All of it had been preparation – of that I am certain.
It wasn’t until 1.5 years later that I came across a job that tugged at those slightly rusty heartstrings. I had, after all, been spending all of my time taking care of our sweet little one (an orphan – in almost every sense of the word). In reality, I knew taking any job – spending any hours away from K – would mean that the job had to be something I was deeply excited about. The why had to coincide with those urgings God had begun stirring in me several years prior.
New Neighbors
Crazily enough, it’s already been 10 months of working at City of Refuge. My every day is filled with the unexpected… and every day we are coming alongside the foreigners who now reside in our town. They are our new neighbors.
They are people who had to leave everything behind because their lives were being threatened by war or persecution. People who had to leave quickly – sometimes with nothing more than a backpack. People who have lived in refugee camps for years and years before finally making it out. People who struggled to get on airplanes out of Kabul as the Taliban advanced in Afghanistan last August. They were teachers, or doctors, or farmers, or directors of organizations – and now they are putting one foot in front of the other, longing to thrive; working hard to start over.
The hurdles are enormous.
Learning a new language is hard, especially as an adult. American culture is very different from the many countries our new friends are coming from in almost every way. The things we value are different. Our individualism, compared to their community/family-centered way of life, is confusing.
My world gets bigger – every single day.
Because, even when gas costs almost $100 to fill a tank, I remember that I can still afford to fill the tank. That I have a car to fill a tank. That I have a car that will reliably get me from home to work and back every day. I know how to drive. The street signs are written in my language. I know that a stoplight means I should stop. I know when a police officer pulls me over, I should stay in my car and not get out. If my car were to break down, I would know who to call and that I would easily be able to communicate with whomever I’d call. I’d know how to call an insurance agent and file a claim.
There are a billion small examples wrapped up in the idea of transportation that most Americans don’t think twice about. At least I didn’t. I’m alerted to new challenges each day – partially because I still feel “new”, partially because each individual has a unique set of circumstances that might require an entirely new thing to figure out (like one of our staff being named an executor of a will), and partially because every culture has different approaches or things about it that mean a sharp learning curve.
The People We Meet
And the people we get to meet and know are exceptionally kind and generous. Our office has been filled with random delicious foods – Eritrean and Burmese cuisine at our fingertips. Our team is filled with radically selfless people — the kind who jump in to help each other out in a pinch, the ones who throw on some gloves and pick up all the trash outside the dumpster that was misplaced over the weekend. Our city is filled with incredibly generous people – the ones who give when we share needs.
My days are filled with a random assortment of tasks – sometimes it’s calling the fire department, or managing a conflict, or meeting with a donor or a staff member, or chatting with a refugee or getting them an item from the basic needs closet, or working with developers on a database, or submitting payroll, or sending invoices, or reconciling the monthly budget, or prepping for a Board Meeting, or strategically figuring out how we can more efficiently and effectively meet more needs while still holding true to our core values of relationship and truly caring for others. Today, an Afghan friend walked in looking for me to help his cousin fill out an application to work at the McDonald’s down the street. And… there’s a lot more to actually add to that list, but you get the idea.
It’s fulfilling, rewarding work.
So when I get asked how the job is going, I want to be able to quickly sum up all of the above and more. Because without a context for how I got here, some of the “good” feels lost.
The reason it’s good is because the Lord was putting this very work on my heart years ago without me ever knowing City of Refuge existed. The reason it’s good is because I can see the multitude of ways that my previous experiences and jobs have prepared me for this role – and that is really humbling and beautiful to me. The reason it’s good is because I feel like I’m living out a calling that seems close to God’s heart. The reason it’s good is because we are helping real people while simultaneously being blessed by them in the process. The reason it’s good is because only God could have put me in this role at this exact time, for such a time as this.
I’ll try to share more as we continually grow and seek to meet the needs of more people. I grow increasingly more convinced that part of my role as a believer is to simply bear witness to all that God is doing. This is a way for me to do that: to write, to share.
If you’re interested in receiving bi-weekly updates from City of Refuge, sign up here! OR, follow along on our social media pages (Facebook, Instagram).
Maybe your world will get bigger, too.
Our staff had a little off-site meeting last fall to discuss WHY we do what we do and HOW we do it. I generated a “word cloud” of the most common words that were used, and have loved seeing this visual of the exercise.
I used to not care about Advent. Honestly, I didn’t really even understand it. All I knew was that at church before the sermon, some family would get up on stage, read a section in Scripture about the birth of Jesus, and light a candle. Or that there were little calendars with candy pieces for each day prior to Christmas that we would open.
I didn’t realize how Advent could prepare me. Or remind me. Or change me.
I missed a lot growing up… I missed a lot in my twenties. I wonder often what I’m still missing in my thirties. I’d like to think that I’ve now wholly embraced the fullness of Advent, but I know there’s still much to learn.
Join Me?
I’m wondering if you’d consider joining me in the quest to learn and grow. If you’d be willing to engage with Advent in a way that alters our daily choices, be it ever-so-slightly.
For the past few years, this has been a conscious decision that coincides with my longing for new habits (maybe yours, too?). These are the habits that recenter me and remind me that Jesus is King. Habits that make me pause, slow down, shift my focus. They don’t have to be lifelong habits, either. Maybe they are just habits that you adopt for the few weeks of Advent (but maybe they become habits that transform the things we truly long for…). Wouldn’t that be something?
There are tons of resources for this. Resources that help us choose to be people who are willing to change/add/subtract one thing so that Jesus reigns a little more in our hearts this holiday season.
Maybe we choose to read Scripture before jumping on social media for the next four weeks. Or perhaps we commit to prayer in ways we haven’t in a long while. Or what if we actively approach life – people, circumstances, current events – with a desire to first understand instead of assuming we know all, or know best? What if we gave… and what if that giving actually cost us something?
2020 Advent
Last year, Kel and I chose to engage with Advent in a bit of a different way. We used many of these basic elements, lighting a candle each evening while playing Matt Maher’s “Hope for Everyone” (a song we had seen him perform live a few years back that has stuck with us through Advent every since). We are waiting on the promise. For the one who lights the darkness. Bending low to be among us. We swayed to those lyrics for weeks before dinner each night. Pausing. Remembering. Waiting.
2020 had been a hard year. Probably for all of us. 2021 might not be that much different. These little shifts and acknowledgements through those weeks leading up to Christmas served a “re-setting” of sorts, though.
Reminders of hope. Reminders that my circumstances don’t define me – neither does my job, my marital status, my ability to bear children biologically, or the accolades of others.
I got to be reminded every day that we are still waiting, still anticipating the fullness of the Gospel realized. Iwas reminded that Jesus came, when He didn’t have to…. when I don’t deserve for Him to. That He chose us, chooses us, when we still choose other things over Him daily. It brings out awe and wonder. It draws forth tears.
It makes me pause.
It helps create a little of that space. ‘Thin places’ where heaven and earth collide for a mere instant. Hope is found. Not in our humanity, of course. Despite our humanity. Despite the division, the despair, the loneliness, the inability to reconcile, the unwillingness to look past ourselves… our needs, our wounds, our being ‘right’.
Throughout Advent, we readily acknowledge the ‘already but not yet’. That Jesus has come, He has conquered, the work has been finished, and we readily await His return. We exist in our broken day-to-day of miscommunication, taking things too personally, feeling inadequate, wanting to quit… and we simultaneously take a deep breath to remember The Promise. We are waiting on The Promise.
A day when all that is wrong will be righted. Where justice will reign. Where tears will be wiped away. Where death is defeated.
Will you wait with me?
Will you exist in the tension with me? Coming, broken, but holding tightly to the hope that we have? Will you declare the goodness of God, even when it can feel like He has turned away? Can you celebrate in His provision,even if it can feel like he lead you out of Egypt into the wilderness of wandering? Can we trust His timing, His ways, His views that are so much higher…?
Sometimes I forget to wait with expectation. To wait with hope. Anticipation. Sometimes I wait with anger, with defeat, with insecurity and despair.
Come with me this Advent. Let’s wait with crazy anticipation. Let’s believe the promises of our King. Let’s share what we learning, let’s rejoice together.
Change/add/subtract one thing these next 4 weeks with the intent of refocusing, re-centering, remembering, drawing near to the Father… waiting on The Promise.
Maybe it will change us. Maybe it can change even those around us. There’s hope for everyone.
Kel and I were driving home from a musical a while back, chatting away for the hour ride on the dark highway. He was sharing about his high school days, hurts long forgotten but readily accessible (you know- those hurts that are maybe not as forgotten as we pretend to think).
It felt a little like a conversation you might have when you’re dating. Getting-to-know-you conversations vs. we’ve-been-married-for-seven-years conversations. Times where you really listen to what the other person is saying. Moments when you try to actually care about how that has shaped them into the person they are today. We are sometimes really bad at this. Or, at least, I am. Sometimes it feels easier to pick up my phone and disengage.
But instead of distracting ourselves away from each other, we chose to press in. We talked about our angsty teenage moments where we pondered the deeper complexities of life and what our purpose was in this world. Things we felt with earnest intensity and passion. Things we processed on drives alone late at night (him) or soaking in a bubble bath while “writing” songs that gave a preview of the state of my heart (me).
“I don’t have those types of moments anymore… not with the depth in which I did, anyway…” He confessed to me.
I got the chance to tell him that just the other day, after I had dropped K off at preschool, that I had been struck deeply, profoundly on my way to work. It was “picture” day at work, too (read: updating headshots for our website). And here I was, a blubbering fool — moved beyond words by God’s love for our daughter. That He had known her, loved her before I did. He had always been with her… when I have not.
It was felt deep within my soul. A comfort, almost. No matter what may come, I hope I can communicate this to her as she continues to grow. The depth of love for her extends far beyond what my human, sinful self can offer or provide. Patient, slow to anger, abounding in love. This is the character of God.
My very foggy and faint reflection of Him is only able to move forward when I remember His mercy and grace. Offered to her. Offered to me. The gospel, this good news, lest I forget it.
I need the space to remember.
Otherwise, I do forget. And when I forget, my life is driven by things that don’t matter. Like kittens on Craigslist or the NYT daily crossword puzzle or house-hunting on Zillow. Because even when I eradicate the things I’ve deemed “unhealthy” for me (like social media or binge watching television shows), I still easily fill my time with pointless things. Or, things that I justify as “most important” (like work or reading or more bubble baths).
Instead of sitting in the quiet. Instead of really listening to the people right next to me.
But when I put my phone down… when I turn the music off…. when I shut my computer… when I make space for others, for Jesus…
Life feels a little different. A little more like it should. Mundane maybe, yes. But real. My real. Nothing glamorous or glitzy. I engage more with the 2-year-old given to me, I listen to the husband who committed to live life alongside me, or I more fully worship the God who created me. There’s less to distract me. I’m less consumed by the million things I can’t control (but want to), and more concerned with being in the moment I’m in.
I wish it were easier
And maybe eventually it will be. But I have to actively choose it- multiple times a day. I have to choose to be present… I have to choose to make the space. It won’t just… “happen”. The space changes my perspective, it broadens my worldview. In that space, I catch glimpses of how deep the Father’s love really is… and that inevitably changes how I view (and then treat) my husband, my child, my family… my neighbor.
This space reminds me what actually matters. It reminds me that I can’t possibly reflect the image of the One whom I long to look like if I’m not convening with Him often. I can’t possibly care for others in the way that I long to, in the way that He asks me to, in the way that HE does… if I’m not ever with Him. I don’t just want to look a certain way, or act a part… I want it embedded deep within. So much so, that I can’t help but….
Maybe you’ll journey with me?
Moment-by-moment, wading into the grace that goes before us and picks up after us. Maybe we can help each other remember to slow, to make space, to listen. To remember that our allegiance lies beyond the scope of our temporary here and nows. It’s a re-setting of sorts. A being, that maybe we’ve forgotten how to make time for.
It’s nothing I can do alone. So I’ll try to write more in the process. Maybe you’ll write back. Or maybe we’ll have coffee or Marco Polo or connect through the inter-webs. I’d like that. We need the depth of other humans, we other perspectives and experiences. We need to share together in such a way that reminds us to look heavenward, and to live faithfully in the ‘already but not yet’. To really engage with the people next to us, with the God who created us.
