Among Us

Do you think of Sunday as the first or last day of the week?

I've been making the conscious effort to consider Sunday the first day of the week so that I feel like I'm starting off relaxed. Because, you know, it's relaxing getting four kids ready to go to church.

This Sunday I woke up to a kid who needed his bottom wiped. He asked so sweetly I couldn't pretend to be asleep. The dark outside gave the illusion of it being much earlier than 6:30 - my body was certain it was 3 a.m. The cold had creeped into the house, my knees were stiff and my feet already aching. My eyes were like cotton balls;  dry, puffy, and unable to focus. My only thought was 'coffee, coffee now'.

That's actually my first thought every morning.

My second thought depends on where I set my sight.

Some days I choose resentment. Some days I think, "I can't dig any deeper." Some days I think that being an adult is a really stupid goal and that being a parent shouldn't be this hard.

Some days I just want all the noise and the need to stop.

Some days have been coming a little too regularly for me.

Sundays, though, are a weekly miracle.

I choose, on Sundays, to be refreshed, to drink deep of the living water.

Yesterday I was particularly weary and worn. The o'dark thirty wake up call didn't help, but other things had me twisted up. Things like the news, and choices for my kids, and so many changes, and jobs, and laundry - always laundry.

Then I cracked my bible open and read from Matthew 21:25-28:

But Jesus called them together and said, "You know that the rulers in this world lord it over their people, and officials flaunt their authority over those under them. but among you it will be different. Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you must become your slave. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve others and to give his life as ransom for many." (emphasis mine)

But among you it will be different.

Sundays are the day to gather with brothers and sisters, when we claim the truth that among us it will be different. Then we take that truth and live it at home first and then out in the world.

At our home this week, right now, forever,  I am desperate for the motto to be "Among you it will be different."

I want our lives to be marked by a different way of life.

It's too easy to fall into the trap of animosity and annoyance, to begin to treat one another with disrespect and to make excuses for that behavior.

"Oh, I just need a break."

"We've been so busy."

"I'm not sleeping well."

These are just anchors keeping us in the choppy waters of poor excuses, because among us it should be different. Among us the world should fall away and the Kingdom of God should reign. Among us serving should be our natural instinct and excuses should be few.

I've thought about this much for the last 24 hours. I've always known our family was different (no one should talk about bodily functions as much as we do), but I want to make sure our different is  because of Jesus. I want to know that the root of our upside-downess is because Jesus came in and made it so. I need to be certain that we are each seeking relationship with Christ and each other in an authentic way so that when we go out into the world our faith is credible. I know that it is not all on me, but I know that it begins with me. 

Some days Sunday's carry me through, some days I have to fake it, some days I don't and I mess up and I have to apologize. 

Today when I found weariness and exasperation shrugging around my shoulders like an old friend I repeated 'among us it will be different' in my head, as a prayer and plea. I tell you I could feel the transformation take place, feel my shoulders flinging free, feel resentment being replaced by willingness. 

I felt different, and I knew, at least, that kind of different was right.

#TellHisStory

I was 18, almost 19, and had just started college. Coffee shops were a new, very cool thing in the early 90's, and a friend had asked me to join her at one. A youth minister, a guy who visited us in high school, had kept up with her and wanted to meet and I tagged along.

I was in a phase that year, as most young people are during that time of life. I was experimenting with  clothes and make up. I had discovered that my curves had power. I had discovered liquid eyeliner. I wasn't great at applying it, but I liked feeling different in my own skin.  I had never been one to wear a lot of make up - mascara and lip gloss were about it.

We were sitting at the table with our coffee when he came in. I can't remember his name, maybe Rich, but I could be wrong. He came in and sat down across from us and ordered his coffee. We chatted a little, then he asked what we'd been up to.

I don't know if I fumbled as I answered or what. I was not making the best choices and I was certainly not proud of it, but I also didn't see a way out. I had been feeling not only directionless and out of control, the perfect combo for messing up royally. I'm sure I was giving off I'm-flaking-out vibes all over the place.

What happened next, though, was soul crushing.

"Look at you, Kara,"  he said, "What are you doing? You're dressing different. Now you're wearing make up on. Eyeliner or something that's smeared more on one eye than the other...."

I felt like I had been slapped in the face.

I think it may have been the first time I felt real shame for who I was. Yes, I had certainly felt shame over  actions as a child, but up until that very moment I had never felt ashamed of who I was, of the person I was. I left that coffee house humiliated.

I thought I was going to meet a friend and instead ended up feeling like I was in enemy territory.

I felt condemned, and I embraced the condemnation. I figured that I must have deserved it and I just jumped into it. I am by no means blaming my choices on this man, they were my own and I long ago accepted the consequences of those choices (hello, goofy tattoo around my ankle). But I will always wonder what would have happened if he had just loved me, smudged liquid eyeliner and all.

This guy, whatever his name was, was the only person outside of my parents who was speaking up for Jesus.  In one rash statement Jesus went from being a guy I thought I could trust to a finger wagger who only loved me if I fit the mold.  I wonder if I had thought that there were loving arms waiting to embrace me rather than a pointing finger if my choices would have been harder to make.

I can't believe that after 20 years that memory is still crystal clear. It makes me sad for my younger self. I  was so young.  I was just trying to feel my way through a really difficult turn. I was a mess but I was also really open to something and it could have been the message that 'Rich' was carrying. The message that guy was sending, though, was 'You are not welcome in your current state.'

Why do we do that to each other? It baffles my brain that in Christian circles shaming has become commonplace. We should know better. We should do better. Our churches should be filled to the brim with people who don't belong, who don't fit the mold. The minute they walk through the doors they should be showered with the kind of love that causes their heads to lift up - the kind of love that lifted us up.

No one should feel ashamed of where they're at, and certainly no person should be shamed by a another who claims Christ. Life is hard enough without making it more difficult for one another.

I am thankful for the memory of that day, though. It was an excellent what-not-to-do lesson. I believe it has equipped me to love my people, and even people who aren't mine yet,  right where they're at. I'm not perfect at it. I mess it all up. A. Lot. I try to drive home to my children, more than anything, that the voice of Christ is never critical.

"I will fail,"  I tell them. "I will mess up big. But the One who loves you more than I ever could will never mess up. Let his voice be bigger than mine."

Let his voice be bigger.

Linking up at jenniferdukeslee.com 

Choose Trust

I have a dirty secret.

I often read the last page(s) of a novel before I have even started it. Or sometimes after I'm a couple of chapters in. I just want to make certain that the commitment is going to be worth it. I don't want to become emotionally invested in characters who will just disappoint me. I absolutely do not want to think that I'm following a story line that is tired and overdone. So I just peek, make sure it's ending in a way that will feel resolved.

I so wish I could do that in real life.

I am a born-again Christian.  Jesus walked into my life 14 years ago when I said, "I do," and he has never left my side. I can recount time upon time when his love rescued me, sometimes from myself, sometimes from others who had left me wounded. He has never failed me. 

Yet, there are still times that I find it hard to trust him. There are times that I want to read the last page.

I mean, I know how THE story ends but I want to know how my story ends. I want to know what kinds of twists and turns it will take, I want to know that my commitment is worth it. I want to know that the characters I am emotionally invested will not disappoint me. I want to be certain that the storyline will be exciting (but not too exciting) and that it won't be tired and overdone. I want the assurance that my story will come to a peaceful close around my 100th birthday after a long day in my garden with my kin gathered around singing "I'll Fly Away".

God, though, in his infinite wisdom does not want me to know the end of the story. He desires that I live that story trusting in him. My God desires that I not know the twists and turns of my story or where it will take me. The God that I serve asks  that I embrace the characters he places in my life, that I accept the fact that I most certainly will be disappointed, and that I accept that I will do a fair amount of disappointing myself.

 Fortunately God never says that trusting him looks serene and holy.

The education of the Christian is not passive, it's not easy, and it's not neat and tidy. Point A rarely leads directly to Point B. The education of the Christian involves a healthy combination of work and failure - with an emphasis on the failure. Learning from mistakes is part of it,  but even more than that is learning to trust God in the midst of what looks like a  failure to to the world. For me, the heart of Christian education is learning that is not our happiness that God desires, but our holiness. He will do what needs to be done to get us to that place. 

It baffles my brain that I have struggled so much with trust because I have never been given any reason not to trust Jesus. I was been born in a country where freedom comes easily, in a family where love is in abundance, and in a life where hard work is a choice. I have met people from other countries where the best meal of the day is a piece of bread with a smear of peanut butter on it and yet they seem to have the whole trust thing down really well. 

I have to wonder if it is all of the choices that I have at my disposal that muddle my mind and make difficult the most important decision: to trust Jesus. 

That's just it, though, isn't it? Trust is our choice, every time, every day. 

So maybe that's the secret.

Give yourself no other choice.

It's totally worth the commitment of not knowing the end of the story. 

Choose trust.