Faith - Narrow Paths to Higher Places

Five Minute Friday: Identity

It’s Friday. You know what that means. Five minutes fast and furious and uncut. This week’s word: Identity

“Define yourself radically as one beloved by God. This is the true self. Every other identity is illusion.” – Brennan Manning

The letters are slanted slashing violently across the page. All sharp edges and fury. I’ve kept boxes full of journals stacking year upon year. So many pages of why, scribbled in rants all pointing at a God I could not trust. A God who never gave me a tidy answer to the wounds I bore in shame.

Why didn’t I get a chance at innocence? Why did that get robbed from me at such a tender age, behind closed doors? Would I ever be clean?

And when I could find no fair answer as to why the image in the mirror looked back at me defiled and filthy, guilty and wretched, I raged all the more. This war with God, this heart turned hard and phobic.

How could He not protect me? Why if all they say is true, do these scars remain? Why does this world suffer and groan and tremble with pain? Doesn’t He claim to be a God who heals? Who redeems?

But this mess that I am, how can there be beauty in that?

Where is the glory of the frail and broken?

And when nothing smoked, drank, bought, or accomplished would quell the pain, I fell to my knees in years of alter call pleadings for salvation that never seemed to come. For a redemption moment that never took hold. I could convince my mind to believe but my heart still beat out that I did not belong. That I didn’t feel any different.

I dug in and worked this Christianity harder. I would pray prayers with big theological words and scripture, I would check off the list of bible reading and journaling happy God thoughts, I would behave. I would try hard to make God love me. I would join small groups and even lead them, spout theology and witness, all while silently repeating salvation prayers like a transaction that kept getting denied.

I still don’t have a moment. There was no one prayer that finally took hold. No lightbulb came on or foreign language burst from my lips.

Instead, my story is one of minute moments strung together over my life, each drawing me further out. Years being stacked, not orderly or linear but beautiful as a masterpiece chiseled rough but worn smooth as cool marble. Steps ascending to the heavens, not attempted by my feet, which so often fall but a staircase for Jesus to come low and touch me.

To give me a new identity. To call my name, beloved.

On Fridays over at The Gypsy Mama, a group of people who love to throw caution to the wind and just write gather to share what five minutes buys them. Just five minutes. Unscripted. Unedited. Real.

Your words. This shared feast. Hop over and share your five minutes on Identity

Comments: 15 Comments Category: Blogging, Faith, Suffering Tags: blogging, faith, five minute Fridays, God, hurt, stripped

Getting Real (in)RL

Incourage inRL In the interest of being “real,” I must say that my meetup was not what I expected. I thought my follow-up post would be different than this. But this is real, and so here goes.

I wish I could say that it was life changing and I forged ahead with new friendships that would carry on and someday we would look back at that exact moment in time when we first clicked the meetup link and know that is where our bosom friendship began but in all honesty I highly doubt that will be the case. Although, you never know.

Sometimes, there are pivotal moments only seen in retrospect.

But sometimes life is just, life. Sometimes people come and go and they don’t connect on a super deep intimate level. Sometimes there is an instant attraction and bond and people go on to form those friendships and sometimes they don’t. Some of the attendees I’ve known for years, and some I’m just beginning to know, some I just met. But that’s ok.

If I’ve learned anything over the years after being in varying degrees of relationship with other women it’s this, we’re not all meant to be BFF’s. There are numerous women I admire, I enjoy, or I have things in common with that will never be my BFF by no fault on anyone’s part.

Jesus had 12. And out of those, he had three who he was the closest to. He didn’t exclude others and he obviously reached out to community, everywhere he went he was drawing people but he walked with those 12. He served with those 12.

I have a small handful that I am walking with.

That’s ok. As women, we’re all still part of the body of Christ. We may not all be exchanging friendship bracelets and learning super secret handshakes but we all need to know that we belong. And we do, we all belong. Because of who binds us.

Whether we blog or not. Whether we homeschool our children or work outside of the home. Whether we are married or single. Old or young. We are His people. As Anne Voskamp says, the Jesus women. And I’m here, fully in. Fully open to whatever He brings. But sometimes what he brings is a process.

I faced some discouragement as the number of attendees dwindled due to scheduling conflicts and I wondered why I was bothering with all of this. I would’ve been just as happy to tune in alone in my pj’s. So why did I feel this conviction to host when it’s the last thing I enjoy?

When my router broke the day before the meetup and I couldn’t get the wireless signal to broadcast without glitching out the video every few seconds, I was near tears.

The only computer working was the one connected to the modem upstairs. Short of us all gathering on my bed in my room, the video was not going to work. And with the state my room was in, I wasn’t willing to be that real. There are limits, people.

It was a Friday and we couldn’t get it fixed until Monday. I had a meetup at my house in less than 24 hours.

Why God? This isn’t how it’s supposed to go. I’m trying to be obedient here and you are not helping me out, Lord!

I sent out a tweet for prayer and I know it was heard. Dayspring contacted me immediately and offered to overnight the videos so the show could go on. To me, it was God saying, “I’ve got this.”

I am open to new friendships and I want to be available for anything God wants me to do, like hosting this meetup. But I have to leave the results of anything I do in his hands. I’ve learned from blogging and from this event that I can’t manufacture movement. If no one shows up, if no one reads my words, if no one tunes in, that’s ok. Because he’s got it. I just show up.

I can’t speak for the other attendees but in many ways, this meetup was a testing of my obedience and willingness to step out in faith in an area where I am weak. Hospitality and cleaning. I think I succeeded in the hospitality, and failed miserably in the cleaning but hey, no one can do it all, remember? Lisa Jo said so.

So while my meetup downstairs looked like that, my upstairs looked like this. Keepin it real, gals. Can you see why hosting from my room was out of the question?

Messy room

Was it worth it? Yes. The content spoke deeply to my heart and my desire to serve all out, to choose joy, to reach beyond myself, to minister with my whole life. To use my voice no matter how small. And we did laugh. And eat yummy treats.

It may or may not have touched others in the same way or at the same place, but I leave all of it in His trusted care.

He’s the one who meets us in real life. He always shows up.

Comments: 22 Comments Category: Blogging, Faith, Relationship Tags: blogging, community, faith, friends, moms

A Book That Changed My Life

As a semi-crazed book lover who gets euphoric over stacks of beautifully shelved rows of word filled pages, I was immediately drawn to my friend Anne’s Book Carnival.

Write about a book that changed your life.

I knew immediately which book I would pick. It has truly changed my life and helped shape who I am, even down to the direction and vision for portions of this blog.

I was sixteen, bitter and angry at my parents for moving us to what I considered the 2nd circle of hell, the first being church functions. I wanted nothing to do with Christians and church. I had been hurt too much. We had moved from Albuquerque to Hawaii and while most would think it a dream, I resented everything about being pulled away from my friends and life during the middle of my junior year in high school.

I spent high school in total rebellion against God. I was angry and bitter, and could not fathom a loving God allowing so much hurt into my life. My rational mind never doubted that God existed but I interpreted everything I had grown up with in the church to reveal a mean judging God awaiting my next mistake so he could crush me. To me, he was a power hungry being that was full of himself all the while being impotent to help alleviate any actual pain or suffering.

He was a remote, cruel master and I wanted nothing to do with him. But I don’t always get what I want.

God brought about repentance in my heart but I still struggled with the nagging questions of His goodness.

I found hope and comfort about the goodness of God in an unlikely place, a book about suffering and martyrdom.

A Distant Grief by F. Kefa Sempangi chronicles the true story behind the martyrdom of Christians in Uganda under the rule of Idi Amin during the early 70′s when over 300,000 people were killed in brutal and terrible ways. Sempangi’s story weaves his own personal tale of ministry and persecution while seeing thousands come to saving grace by God’s demonstrative power.

This book does not tone it down and make it pretty. The causes for suffering remain and are not explained away in neat sound bites. But the joy that can only come from God shines through. God doesn’t always eliminate the evil and injustice in the world. But we know we are not made for this world and our hope and actions remain.

Kefa’s own humanity is seen in his struggles yet we also see a man who was obedient and faithful. What is seen throughout this story is how God shows up, in the midst of the worst kinds of evil. In the midst of pain and suffering beyond my imaginations.

This story was not an intellectual response to suffering and evil in the world but a telling of God’s presence in Uganda. I didn’t want to read someone’s philosophical comeback to why he allows the horrific and brutal and wrong. I wanted to see His hand move and know that He is not only powerful but compassionate.

Along the way, there are insights into poverty, giving, and missions but they don’t hold the preachy tones that some books on these subjects tend towards.

I lay in my bed sobbing through the chapters as God worked in me. I had made the commitment to follow Christ but I still had so much hurt and confusion. This book made me realize the power of prayer, the power of a body, the power of my own brokenness, and my heart for missions. For the first time, I wanted to lose my life, not out of despair or depression but out of hope.

My heart for Africa was birthed by the words of this book and although I have never stepped foot on African soil, my heart stirs at the mention. I believe I will minister there whether it’s through the ministries I champion from this computer screen, the kids I sponsor, or the crossing of oceans to call it my home.

My heart resonates with it and it all started here in the pages of this book that changed my life.

If you love books and are looking for some great ones to add to your reading list be sure to check out the link above to see which books have affected others. I have hundreds, from picture books to fiction to autobiographies and I’m looking forward to sharing them here with you on an ongoing basis.