In my car, the radio is pretty much always on to 94.9 KLTY, a local Christian station. It feels like in different seasons there's a song that plays every time I get in the car, even if it's just my 10-minute commute to work.
Recently, it's been this song:
Initially, I honestly resented this song a bit. The past three years have been challenging for me spiritually, not something I've usually been willing to rejoice & praise God in. And now, with my upcoming (Lord willing) visit to Uganda, all that heart crud that can usually hide beneath the surface is getting stirred up.
But on my way home from ministry group (church small group) this evening, as I got close to my parents' house where I needed to pick up a couple things, this song played again. And this time, Paraclete showered down grace---and I received the song with a heart of hope. As I listened to this song, I found myself hoping and praying. I found myself begging God, "Please let me see that song be true in my life next month!"
But then I wondered why I felt like I needed to beg God for that and plead with Him to make it come to pass. Isn't that exactly what He desires to do, to heal, to redeem?
And so by grace & in faith I intentionally shifted my prayer---"Lord, give me the humility to receive Your healing!" And I knew I needed to dust this blog off and report on what God is doing, the seed He is planting in my heart of positive change.
It's like the chives & hibiscus plant in my garden here at my new place. Last weekend when I went to plant the small hibiscus shrub I had bought several week before, I first cleared the area of weeds, mostly chives that had been allowed to run wild. Or at least I thought I cleared it!!
When I started digging the hole "as deep as and slightly larger than the pot," guess what I found right beneath the surface? A matted, entangled, enmeshed network of chives roots & bulbs. I threw away the top three inches of soil, because I knew I didn't want those roots back in the hole with my poor hibiscus plant!!
The lies I believed They got some roots that run deep
I let em take a hold of my life
I let em take control of my life
The same is true with secreted resentment and bitterness. They're like the chive roots that have already sprung back up all around my hibiscus plant, that parts where I didn't dig those three inches deep to dig them out.
But God.
Standing in Your presence Lord
I can feel You diggin' all the roots up
I can feel Ya healin' all my wounds up
All I can say is hallelujah
Look what You've done
It's my hope and prayer that in the next month, as I spend two weeks with my dearly loved Ugandan sisters (towards whom I hold no hard feelings) and the others (some of whom I have struggled to forgive), that God will do just this.
Will the process be fun? Probably not always.
Will it be worth it? I believe so, definitely.
Please join me in praying the truths of this song over me in the coming four weeks!!!
The first part of this
is something I initially journaled during my commute to work a couple weeks ago.
The latter part fell into place this morning during my extended reflective time
with God.
“Esther, let Me love you.”
Those words from our Triune God have been re-echoing again
and again in my mind since my birthday evening. And Paraclete {my favorite name
for the Holy Spirit} has been helping me realize that, in a way, I don’t even
know how to receive His unconditional love.
So it’s been something I have been praying/meditating about
some. This morning it came back to mind again as I was in my prayer closet, trying
not to fixate on a request I had read that morning via email. Paraclete took me
back, once again, to Jesus’ Valedictory Address {John 13-17} and 1 John.
John 15:9-10 came to mind:
“As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My
love. If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My life, just as I have
kept my Father’s commandments and abide in His love.”
I found myself wishing very much that Jesus hadn’t put that
conditional statement in there!!! Because that’s what ends up becoming a trap
to me, again & again & again—trying to feel like I have earned or
deserve God’s love based on what I DO. It so easily becomes a point of pride
and/or legalism. But there’s another critically important part of that verse! “Just as….”
Jesus’ example and His obedience of the Father are to be our
model! And He doesn’t obey out of fear or because He is trying to earn God’s
love. Jesus obeys because He is in perfect relationship with the Father and
because of all the concepts we read about in Ministry in the Image of God: The Trinitarian Shape of Christian
Service! {The first book we read here as part of the Servant Teams
curriculum – somewhat dense, but really good with lots of practical application
too!}
It’s like the heptapod language—all an interwoven circle.*
So Jesus obeys the Father because He loves Him and because
They are eternally in perfect relationship {with Paraclete too, of course!!}.
So love should be the driving force of our obedience, not fear & torment (1
John 4:18). But why do we love God? The very next verse tells us—because He
first loved us (4:19)! And also 4:10—He showed His love for us by sending Jesus
to be our propitiation (the conciliation, the act of making God favorably
inclined, appeasing Him).
Abba’s love came to me through the death and sacrifice of
Jesus. In my prayer closet this morning, Paraclete showed me that when I’m
trying to earn/prove myself worthy of God’s love—by serving, going overseas,
etc. etc.—I am acting like Jesus’ love & sacrifice were not sufficient…I am
minimalizing the greatest act in all of history and acting like my filthy rags
of righteous deeds (Isaiah 64:6) are better.
Oh Abba, forgive me for that egregious misconstrued view!!!
So we abide in God’s love by keeping His commandments out of
a heart of love for Him, because He first loved us and reconciled us to
Himself. See how it’s like a heptapod* circle??!!! Love is the goal, the means,
and the catalyst!
And it’s all about You, Abba—it’s not about me or anything I
could ever do.
Abba, I don’t know how to practice and apply this! But I
know it is foundational and critically
important—I know it’s a game changer if this lesson could sink deep into my
heart and become my driving force! Again in my prayer closet, Paraclete
reminded me that I can’t give what I haven’t received….
{And at that point I arrived at my destination!}
About a month ago, I joined a small accountability group at
a local church here. We are going through a book called The Genesis Process together. It’s focused on helping people deal
with the root causes behind addictions or other self-destructive coping
behaviors. It keeps on bringing me back to this idea:
And then this morning I started working on the fourth process, and this is how it began:
I definitely learned this lesson the hard way in August
2016. That month, two men who were serving as leaders in both the organization
and the church each had to resign because of moral shortcomings. The first one
was an especially hard blow to me, as I had been welcomed into his home many times
by him and his wife.
I remember crying in the staff meeting when his resignation
was announced. And then I went home and sat on the floor of my room and sobbed
for probably around 10 minutes. Grieving the brokenness of sin. Grieving the
pain I was sure his wife was going through. Grieving my own hurt too. Fighting
feelings of a guilt too complex to explain without sharing details of other
peoples’ stories.
That day I was so tempted to make a vow of sorts—a vow never
again to get so close to another family that I would open myself up to that
kind of pain. A vow never to trust and admire someone as I had allowed myself
to do with him—because such Christian familial love had wounded me deeply.
I thank God that I stopped myself from making that decision.
I knew it was the wrong decision—a decision that would let the enemy win. And
so I continued to grow in relationship with many other sisters and couples. But
that wound still aches when I think of it. I think I allowed that and other
things which began developing around the same time to plant a seed of
hopelessness in my heart. I did my best to process and forgive….but somehow I
think I closed off a little cupboard of bitterness inside my soul.
Fast forward back to today. Later in the morning, as I was
outside processing through some other stuff, my mind made its way back to what
I had read in The Genesis Process.
I wrote:
Love & wounding—both are always two-way streets. Except for with God. He is the only One who loves perfectly and never wounds unjustly—with the one, all-important exception of Jesus on
the cross.
In a strange, miraculous way that only God could plan, that
moment in human history was both the most unjust (towards Jesus, who had done nothing wrong), and yet also the most
merciful & gracious & loving towards us—we who had broken all the
relationships, who have done all the
wounding, who deserve nothing but eternal judgment and yet receive nothing but
unconditional love. Such beauty & brokenness at the same time!!!
Now a few hours later, those words bring to mind Hebrews
12:1-3:
“Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a
cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily
ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking
unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set
before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the
right hand of the throne of God. For consider Him who endured such hostility
from sinners against Himself, lest you become weary and discouraged in your
souls.”
And so I choose to continue opening myself up to love and,
yes, even to the risk of human woundedness, because in so doing I am following
in the footsteps of the most truly Human person who ever lived—our Savior,
Jesus Christ. May His love in and through me glorify and magnify HIS beauty!
*To fully understand this analogy, you have to watch Arrival – it’s an alien film, but I
found it to have deep theological undertones looking at it from a Biblical worldview!
But to semi-explain the circle bit: Basically in that film, the aliens
communicate through a written language made up of circles, with each circle
being a phrase/sentence with multiple words...or something like that! See below
for an example. The circle is formed by smoke from the heptapod's feet, and so
the language is written with foreknowledge of the phrase/sentence as a whole.
The Church is NOT a good works club, it IS a fellowship of grace! It’s NOT about what we do—period!
All we have to do is to receive, openly & vulnerably; to be loved by Jesus. Works-based
Christianity does NOT create sustainable faith!
The above paraphrase was the key point of the sermon I heard
this morning—a sermon so good I sat through it twice! (I’m attending church
with my hostess for the next several months, at Oak Hills Presbyterian Church
here on the outskirts of Portland.)
Currently, the church is going through a sermon series on
Acts, and this morning’s passage was about 4:32-5:11—the story of the early
Church’s lifestyle of radical giving and the death of Ananias and Saphira.
Jeremy (the pastor here) made the case that, at root, this passage is not
really about money or giving. It’s about a deeper lifestyle choice: Pretense or
Vulnerability.
The generous people, including Barnabas, showed their
vulnerability by giving up their earthly security for the sake of others –
demonstrating that the resurrection of Christ (4:33) had set them free from the
self-protective hoarding of resources. The beneficiaries of this generosity
also had to practice vulnerability, admitting to their church family that they
were facing needs that they couldn’t meet on their own.
The power of Christ created a culture of radical openness
and vulnerability for those who found their identity in HIM, rather than in
trying to project a false image of themselves to others. Ananias and Saphira,
however, made a show of spiritual heroism that was a lie – and for that they were severely punished….by death!
Jeremy talked about the word hypocrite, which comes from the Greek word for actor. In Greek
culture, stage actors would wear masks to show their emotions—happy for a
joyful scene, sad for a tragic scene, etc. With the masks, they projected what
the scene required, while hiding what was really going on underneath.
He concluded his sermon, “the only way to receive grace is
by being open and broken, trusting in
God’s grace and being real with one another.”
This sermon really struck a chord with me where I am at
spiritually right now. I have so very much to be thankful for, so very much to
praise God for. But this year, and the past several years before, have each been
the successively hardest year of my life. And so I want to share more about
that here than I have so far. Not to illicit pity. Definitely not to brag on
myself (quite the contrary!). But to testify of God’s Grace.
God has brought the above song to my mind multiple times in
the past few months. This is who I want to be. Real and raw, yes, but for the purpose of allowing God to shine His Glory through my brokenness.
As those close to me know, most of this year has been an
intense spiritual battle for me. In January I returned to my second home in
Uganda, excited for another term…though also with reservations. Before I could
even get back into my job at the office, I was hit simultaneously with insomnia,
depression, and worse.
For the next six plus months, many days it was a struggle
just to get out of bed. It felt like I was constantly fighting a losing battle
with hopelessness. After two months with little maintainable progress, I
resigned from my position in Uganda, said goodbye to the people who had become
my family there, and returned home to Dallas. I’ve become ok over these past
months with naming depression as one of my struggles. There were also other
struggles I’m still not comfortable naming this publicly.....shame can be a
strong enemy. [No physical or emotional harm was maliciously done to me.]
Suffice it to say, the fact that I am currently walking in
relationship with God is in itself a testimony to God’s abundant Grace, lavish
Love, and constant Pursuit towards me. He did this using so many amazing people
both in Uganda, Dallas, and other places who didn’t give up on me…who kept
loving me, praying for me, speaking truth to me, and fighting (spiritually) on
my behalf. If I started naming names I couldn’t quit…so I won’t start, except
to say that my parents are at the top of the list. :)
The fact that a month and a half ago I moved half way across
the country, to a place where I personally knew no one; that I am now in an
intense program of learning and serving, and that I am {mostly**} flourishing
here—that is an unimaginable miracle of Christ’s mercy and transforming power.
When people hear about my life since graduation from college
in May of 2013—most of that time spent rooted in the red soil of East Africa—they
can quickly and easily tend to put me on a pedestal. I’m here to tell you
today, I am NO super hero. I am not applying that title to myself—one well-meaning
person has told me that missionaries, me inclusive, are. On the contrary, I am
just as flawed and broken as anyone else….if not more so (in the spirit of Paul,
expressed in 1 Tim. 1:15). Any good that has come of my life is all God’s Grace.
Yesterday morning, I spent more than three hours journaling…processing…praying…grieving.
My Good Shepherd has led me on a road that has been full of both the very good and the very hard in these past five years, since I first
knocked on the door labelled “Uganda.” But He has been with me every single
step of the way, both on the sunny mountaintops and in the darkest of valleys.
This year’s breakdown didn’t come out of nowhere. It’s seeds
were sown from my personality and character flaws…from circumstances and
situations which affected me…from my failure to name what I needed and ask for
help (at least not until it was too late, humanly speaking)…from organizational
and personnel challenges. The pressure really started building in August of
2016…so it was a long time coming.
So that’s my practice at being open and vulnerable. And
maybe very few people will take the time to read this. But I process best by
writing, and so hopefully composing this blog post will better free my tongue
in personal dialogue. Please feel free to ask me questions. Christ’s healing of
my heart is finally bringing me to a place of being more willing to speak of
these things. But these previous paragraphs are not the whole story.
Here is the “My Story” version:
Hope that wouldn't
let go: My Savior never lost a grip on the wheel of my life, even when it
looked to me like it was chaotically spinning out of control. And HE has restored
my hope in Him, in His time and way.
Love that never gave
up: These past three weeks, my Lover has been calling my heart to be willing
to receive from Him and from others. Not that I should try to earn or deserve
anything, simply to receive…and THEN to give.
Life, but it wasn't
mine: “Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit
who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were
bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which
are God’s” (1 Cor. 6:19-20).
The grace that is
greater than all my sin: If I spoke of God’s Grace—in loving me and
redeeming me from sin—for every hour of the rest of my life, I wouldn’t have
time to tell it all.
When justice was
served: But not to me; to the perfect, sinless Son of God. There are times I
want to call “FOUL!” on my life, times I say I wish there had been justice in a
given situation. But that’s only because I fail to remember what true justice
really demands.
Where mercy wins: Every
single day, every breath of my life, is as a result of the mercy of Christ.
The kindness of Jesus
that draws me in: The opposite of what I in myself deserve…but He showers
His kindness instead.
Victory over the
enemy: The victory has already been won!! It’s not my battle to fight—it’s
a gift the Christ already waged the war for, that I am simply to allow HIM to
apply to and live out in my life.
Freedom that was won
for me: Freedom from fear. Freedom from failure. Freedom to be known and to
know. To be loved and to love. To be served and to serve. Freedom as a gift
from Him, applied by Him, in and through this weak vessel.
Life overcome the
grave: Our Savior is RISEN!!! And that resurrection power is at work in each
and every one of His children!
This is my story,
this is my song,
Praising my Savior
all the day long.
One more thing that is finally getting through my thick skull:
There WILL be more challenges in my future. More twists & turns in the
road. More apparently deep, dark valleys. Maybe even tomorrow. But, Lord help
me, when those times come I want to turn more quickly to Your Truth. To root my
confidence deeply in You, not in my comfort or things going my way. To say with
Mary, “Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to Your
word” (Luke 1:38).
Please join me in praying that for me and, if you dare,
maybe for yourself as well.
**Three weeks ago, I heard I had to leave my initial/temporary
housing by the end of September. And that I couldn’t move into the house down
the street—that I was sure was ideal—because
of a logistical detail. My emotions and insecurities proceeded to throw an internal
hissy fit. A night of zero sleep followed, and for several days the fear and
despair and hopelessness came rolling back over me.
I’m so thankful to our team leaders and my team mates for
supporting me through that. And I can now say I’m thankful it happened, because
God used it as a catalyst to push me out of the comfortable coasting (from two
months of almost all great days) and back onto the road of proactive,
intentional healing. Also, in a stroke of divine irony, the new home I moved
to, where I initially didn’t want to be, has been an amazing fit and a real
gift. So I was fighting God, when of course He knew better all along!!
On Friday I was informed that my presence was needed (as the
minutes taker) at a meeting at our other center starting on Monday. Sunday after
church, I found out that the car I was riding in would be departing at 4 a.m.
the next morning. No, I wasn’t thrilled…as I’m sure you can imagine! But I’m
always excited to spend time with the Kobwin family so I was looking forward to
that.
As my mom says, “expectations will get you every time!” :P
I don’t remember when my cough had started this time. I know
I came down with congestion & a cough on May 13th after
reporting a long event. But thanks to the nasal adjustment my osteotherapist
gave me the next day, lots of vitamins and a few doses of Nyquil, I didn’t feel
too bad during my safari trip that Mon-Wed.
This past Sunday afternoon, I again ended up reporting a
long event. I came home absolutely exhausted, and at some point the cough had
come back. So I took it with me to Kobwin.
In the meantime, one of my sisters here had walked through
the painful loss of her first (early-term) pregnancy. She spent almost a week
in the hospital before the staff confirmed that the baby was no longer alive or
inside. Watching her and her husband walk through that was painful. But in the
last week and a half, I have also been encouraged by their example and
testimony. No, it’s not easy. It’s HARD. But I’ve seen them lean on God, give
their baby back to Him, and grow stronger in their relationship with one
another.
So on Monday of this week, I woke up really early and
boarded the car. It was packed, since
it was also serving as transport for a staff family moving back to that general
area. We ended up making three unplanned stops – two dealing with tires (one
tire went flat) and another for an hour and a half on the side of the road
after a hose pipe busted (or something along those lines). Instead of reaching
our destination at lunch time and starting meetings then, our van didn’t reach
there until around 6 p.m.
I was exhausted and ready to crash, despite having slept
some in the car. But the decision was made to meet from 8-10 p.m. that night.
And I was staying with a Ugandan staff member in her house rather than at the
guesthouse like I expected. Which was good, because otherwise I would have
hardly seen her at all, but it came with its own challenges (namely, bathroom
facilities).
I think it was that night that I felt how inadequate I was
for the situation – and I started praying for God’s grace to sustain me through
the next days. My hostess made apologies for the dust from the roof (papyrus
matting) and for the rats that lived in the roof. Thankfully I really didn’t
notice the latter, but I think the former exacerbated my cough.
A young boy who came with his dad in the van I was riding in
had slept almost all day on Monday. That night, he had a high fever. So as I
went to bed that night, that was my prayer focus – as well as thankfulness for
a very positive update I had heard in the meeting.
The health of my relationship with God has really been under
fire in the past months/year. I’ve kept trying to press through, and I’ve
talked about it with my mentor here. But nothing had seemed to be shifting noticeably.
In the past 2.5 weeks, I’ve been going through a Beth Moore Bible study, “Believing
God,” in preparation for co-leading it with another lady here starting next
week. Both this study and a book my mentor and I are reading through has been
bringing to life the reminders about God that I’ve needed to hear again.
So on Monday night as I prayed for the little boy, I was so
encouraged to notice a difference in my heart’s attitude. There’s not a
concrete way to explain it, but my belief and faith were stronger that God
could and would intervene, in His
time & way. That encouraged my heart, and I know it wasn’t because of ME.
It is God’s grace.
The next morning (yesterday), I was so blessed to hear that
he was doing ok, and that he and his father had slept well (one of my specific
prayer requests).
The meetings started at about 9 a.m. and continued with only
three 45-minute breaks until 9 p.m. The heat at Kobwin (especially inside
buildings during the day) meant that we met outside. Which also meant that my
computer battery life ended up being something of an issue. So during the last
two breaks I had to walk a few minutes away to the office, the only place with sockets
at the center.
By break time (10:30 a.m., which always includes tea and
snacks in Uganda), I noticed that I had a headache. Thankfully I always carry
ibuprofen with me, so I took one. And the rest of the day, I found myself
watching the clock for when I could take one again. Each one gave me about two
hours of relief, enough to carry on my responsibilities, but I was not feeling great.
The meetings finally wrapped up, and I was told we would be
getting up at 5 a.m. to leave for the long drive back home to Kasana. Oh
bother. I was sad that the hectic schedule meant I had barely said three
sentences to any of my friends there other than my hostess. Additionally, one
of the families that I’m closest to wasn’t even around, they were on leave
(vacation).
I went back to the house where I was staying, packed things
up, and got myself to bed as fast as I could since I was once again exhausted.
My cough kept me awake longer than I wanted, until the cough drop I took
started helping. Then just a few hours later, I awoke again. My skin was hot to
my own touch, but I was shivering in violent spurts. I pulled the heavy blanket
over me, and tried to pray and sleep again. Twice, as I prayed for peace, I
immediately felt my tense, shivering body relax. Thankfully it didn’t take too
long to fall back asleep.
We got on the road at around 6 this morning, and thankfully
the trip back was much less eventful. The van was also roomier, since obviously
we weren’t taking back the load we had carried on the way up. So I was able to
stretch out on a bench seat and sleep some. But coughing and the bumpy road
were not kind to my headache, in spite of still being on ibuprofen.
We safely reached home at about 2 p.m. This afternoon was
our weekly staff fellowship, and I went even though I still didn’t feel great.
As I forced myself to unpack to clear off my bed, I couldn’t help but think
about how the last time I felt healthy for an extended period of time was
probably in early March, before my last Kobwin trip and before rainy season
started.
Rainy season here for me brings frequent sneezing fits
(especially in the morning) and a drippy nose. Probably a reaction to the
cooler temperatures and mold.
An example of the latter: I have a pair of sandals I have
worn very frequently over the past year and a half. Recently, I didn’t put them
on for a couple weeks because I needed to do a bit of sewing on them to shorten
the elastic straps. In the meantime, mold started to grow on my sandals.
On Sunday I had given them a good scrubbing (Oh, maybe that’s
why my cough came back??), and they look so clean now! It’s funny how you don’t
fully realize just how dirty something has gradually gotten until you clean it
thoroughly.
Anyway, It’s been a rough three months, full of ups and
downs health-wise. In my room, I have a calendar with the names of God on it. Interestingly,
May’s name was Jehovah Rophe, “The God Who Heals.” As I looked at the calendar
this evening, preparing to flip it, I had just taken my temperature to find
that I have a slight fever for the third or fourth distinct time in the past
three months.
My heart wanted to scoff at the promise I had welcomed so
hopefully at the beginning of May. But then I re-read May’s verse: “Bless the
LORD, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits, who forgives all your
iniquity; who heals all your diseases” (Psalm 103:2-3). I was struck by the
order of that. It’s not God’s physical healing that has priority. No, it’s the spiritual healing that every believer
has received which is primary. And it’s on that basis that I can proclaim God’s
goodness tonight.
So even when I was struck by another fit of shivering as I
wrote this post, even though I still have a fever (101 now), I can and will
continue to proclaim God’s goodness. I can and will choose to be thankful for
the many blessings I have received from God, which are too innumerable to count.
And I can and will rest in my salvation by
grace. On our long journey north on Monday, we witnessed multiple evidences
of what a blessing that is. But that’s too long of a story for an
already-mammoth post. Check out my ministry Facebook page on Friday for that.
As I close tonight, yes I would appreciate your prayers. But
I find in my own heart the courage to pray “God, let Your will be done” rather
than demanding that I feel perfectly fine when I wake up in the morning. First
item on tomorrow’s agenda, sleep in.
Second item, go get a malaria test. For the third time in as many months. If it’s
like the other two times, the test will come back negative, but I’ll still feel
crummy for an unknown length of time. But God is still good, ALL the time.
Thursday evening update: The blood test for malaria did come back positive this time, but that was almost a relief as then the treatment is obvious. I took my second dose this evening, four more to go.
I’ve been reading through the Psalms recently. Yesterday
morning, one of the ones I read was Psalm 53.
The fool has said in his heart, “There is no God.”
They are corrupt, and have done abominable iniquity,
There is none who does good.
God looks down from heaven upon the children of men,
To see if there are any who understand, who seek God.
Every one of them has turned aside;
They have together become corrupt;
There is none who does good, no not one.
Have the workers of iniquity no knowledge,
Who eat up my people as they eat bread,
And do not call upon God?
There they are in great fear where no fear was,
For God has scattered the bones of him who encamps against you;
You have put them to shame,
Because God has despised them.
Oh, that the salvation of Israel would come out of Zion!
When God brings back the captivity of His people,
Let Jacob rejoice and Israel be glad.
At the first read through, this Psalm kind of seemed
disjointed. I didn’t initially see the thread of connection and flow through it
all. But after looking at it for a bit, I could see it. Basically, the summary
of this Psalm could be “Foolish men no match against God’s salvation.”
It made me smile as I saw it, and I thought about how
encouraging that is. So often, we get focused on the rascals who seem to be
able to do whatever they want. And yes, sometimes God allows evil men to have
sway for a while. But in the end, they will be filled with great fear, “For God
has scattered the bones of him who encamps against you.”
Not long after reading that, as I was walking to work, one
of my fellow staff members stopped me. He asked me what other names I go
by…..and I thought I knew where this was headed. When I told him my Luganda
name, he told me that he had met a stranger on our campus – that spot being
only a one minute walk from my house – who was looking for me by that name.
The stranger who talked to me once in the nearby town.
The creeper who has been stalking me.
He had been onsite, and not far from my place.
That was evidently a couple weeks ago. I think before he got
my number and called me, and I told him “Do NOT call me again.”
On Wednesday, my fellow staff member had been in the nearby
town, and three people had walked up to him and blamed him for keeping their
friend (the creeper) from seeing “his friend” at New Hope (me – though I would
NOT call someone “my friend” after one brief encounter).
My fellow staff member made the comment “I didn’t know I had
any enemies in [the nearby town], but now I guess I do.” I explained the
situation to him, and told him I was sorry he had gotten involved in it. And I
did (and do) feel somehow guilty for it. The number of times my mind has tried
to go back through that initial interaction, to see why this creeper thinks he
can be so persistent….
But I have to keep reminding myself that I am not to blame
for his unwarranted actions. My mom always says “you can’t ‘should have’
anything” – but I think it’s just human for us to think that way.
I feel like my privacy has been violated by this creeper.
And now at least two of my staff members have been a bit hassled by the local
people because of it. And yes, it is so tempting to be afraid.
It wasn’t until I lay down to go to sleep last night that my
mind suddenly put two and two together. All day, the worry would try to come
pressing back in. All day, I was waiting to talk to the church elder who has
been walking through this situation with me. All day, I had been trying to
remind myself not to let fear control me. But all day, I had forgotten the
Truth that I read that morning:
“For God has scattered the bones of him who encamps against
you”
And so last night, I finally prayed a Bible-based prayer
about it – for the first time in all the weeks this has been going on. I prayed
that God would scatter these outside ‘enemies’ who seem to be bent on getting
me and this creeper together. That God would place a hedge of protection around
my friends and around me. That God would place a fear of HIM into the heart of
this creeper. I have no idea where he stands spiritually – and I do pray that
God would work in his heart….not only to cause fear, but even to cause
repentance.
So often, I fail to connect what I read in the Bible to real
life. But this morning, as I read a couple more Psalms, the Spirit gave me the
eyes to see it. And so I begin a new day, choosing to rest and trust in the God
of my salvation. The One who can and will hear my prayers; the One who can grant
me deliverance. Selah.
Yesterday was, I am afraid, another one of "those days."
Jill is back in the office with me starting Tuesday, which is wonderful! And I'm going home two weeks from today, which is also wonderful!! But yesterday, thanks to a few other things as well, the emotions started snowballing quickly and early.
I'm so thankful that God reminded me to lean on Him in that moment, because if He hadn't, I am not sure if I would have made it through the day. Without Him, I am so weak!
But I did make it through, all by His Grace.
When we got to our weekly staff fellowship in the evening, one of our staff members came to share with us what she had recently learned at a conference about how to counsel people. But instead of jumping in to a list of things we should do, she went back to the beginning: reminding us that love is the goal of counseling others, and that "We cannot do that unless we are receiving God's love into our hearts regularly."
So instead of talking at us about how to help others, she gave us verses to meditate on as we opened up our hearts to God's love for us. Afterwards, this is what I wrote:
I am a child of God--Beloved and Precious. The child of a Prodigal God,* One who will spare NO expense in redeeming His people. He did it at the time of the Exodus (Deut. 7:7-8), He pursued His people through generations (Jer. 31:3), and He did it again through Jesus (Rom. 5:8).
God spared no expense. He poured out the most precious thing in the entire Universe: the blood of His Son (John 3;16). Because He loved us, because He loved me. Not because of any righteousness I had done or could ever do---my father's father's father's father for generations existed only in God's foreknowledge when Christ chose & pledged to make that ultimate sacrifice (Eph. 2:4-5). It is ALL by grace, all by His lavished love (1 John 3:1).
Lord, open the floodgates of my soul to Your love. Saturate me with You--mind, heart, body & soul--so that when life squeezes me and jostles me, it is Your love which overflows. *This idea comes from Tim Keller's book of the same name, in which he points out that the real meaning of "prodigal" is extravagant, although the "parable of the prodigal son" often makes us think of it in terms of wandering from home. In that book, Tim Keller shows how the parable is really about the Prodigal Father (God) who rejoices so much in us.
Today was one of “those days” – days when one feels
overloaded & overwhelmed.
I travelled back on Tuesday from a week of vacationing out
at Musana Camps, NHU’s beautiful property on the shores of Lake Victoria. But
by this afternoon, any rest during that week seemed hardly worth the piles of
work I came back to.
So many things to do, chiefly reading & processing
300ish letters from our primary & senior students to their sponsors. But so
many other things too, pressing things that I just can’t seem to make time for.
Budgets & emails & new sponsorships, and a pile of Christmas packages
for kids just waiting to be opened & checked.
I was tired and frustrated and on edge this afternoon. One
of my friends had stopped by several times to do various things at the admin
offices. So we had greeted & chatted a bit, and she could see I was tired.
Trying to get some of the letters read, I could just feel my
frustration building. A class where the teacher had written a letter and just
had all the students copy it (true, it’s a young class, but they should still
be able to answer simple questions for themselves). Other things that hadn’t
gone quite like I expected.
I was about ready to throw in the towel and go for a run to
vent my pent up feelings, even though it was 3 p.m. and I was nearly sweating
just sitting still in my office.
Then my friend showed up again. She handed me a manila
envelope, strangely shaped. Inside was a box of cold mango juice she had bought
for me.
Such a seemingly small thing – but to me it was not a small
thing: it was a big thing.
Because as she turned and left before I had even finished
opening it and thanking her, my mind flew back to Tuesday night.
That night, we women here at Kasana had started a
video-based Bible study: “Walking with God in the Desert,” by Ray Vander Laan.
He’s a Bible teacher who takes people out to the Holy Land and creates studies
about Christian history & heritage and lessons to be learned from that.
There have definitely been times in the past year and in the
past months when I have felt the blasting heat of a metaphorical desert wind.
Moving & living half way around the world from everything familiar isn’t
easy. Carrying a lot of responsibility for months can be a draining challenge.
But, as Ray reminded us, it’s in the desert we often are
reminded that it is God who is faithful and sufficient, and it is in the desert
times that we can learn to fall in love with Him all over again.
In the second video lesson we watched, Ray talked about the
concept in the Bible of God being the shade at our right hand. He said the Hebrew
word refers to what we call a broom tree. It’s more like a shrub or a bush:
something which can give relief from the heat, but not like an oak tree that
more completely blocks out the burning sunlight.
God doesn’t promise us that He will magically make all of
our problems disappear! But He does promise us that He will give us the shade
and relief at all times when we need Him. And His grace is sufficient for us to
take the next step, to make it through the next challenge. What’s more, God
often uses the community of His people to bring that shade to one another.
This afternoon, God used my friend to remind me about what I
had already so quickly forgotten. That box of mango juice was my broom tree for
the afternoon. I thank God for my friends here, including this one who’s “small”
act of kindness honestly turned around my whole frame of mind.
The only way to explain it is God. A box of mango juice
doesn’t really turn me from someone who’s frustrated and fed up into someone
who can take the next step and the next step and make progress in reading
letters. It was just a practical object lesson & reminder that God is
enough and He will provide the strength I need. I had written those same words
just a couple hours before, because I knew with my head they were true. But God
in His grace sent my friend with a box of mango juice because He knew I needed
to remember and feel it with my heart this afternoon.
Because of what my friend did for me, I was also able to
reach out to other friends and hopefully be a bit of God’s shade for them too.
That’s how God’s grace works. It’s not just something I take and keep for
myself. It’s something that I receive in order to pass it on to others – for the
glory of our loving Father.
So as you go about your day, maybe think about how you can
be God’s broom tree for others in their struggles. And don’t forget that God is
always there for you in your desert, no farther away than you can reach your
right hand.
I know this is a few months early for my fellow Americans…..
But here at New Hope Uganda, tomorrow we will be having our annual Thanksgiving
Sunday service. And so in that spirit, I wanted to share some of the things I
am so very thankful for in this season of my life.
First of all, I am incredibly thankful for our Abba, Father –
the fact that He is present and active in the lives of His children is an incomprehensible gift!
I am thankful for our Savior, for His patience and undying
love for us. Words utterly fail to describe what He has done and continues to
do for the glory of God, of which we are beneficiaries!
“This is a faithful saying: For if we died with Him, we will
also live with Him. If we endure, we shall also reign with Him. If we deny Him,
He also will deny us. If we are faithless, He remains faithful; He cannot deny
Himself.” 2 Timothy 2:11-13
I’m also thankful for Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, who lives
within God’s beloved sons & daughters and continues working and interceding
for our sanctification.
I’m so thankful that I am never alone, for this is the
Triune God who is ever-present with us.
I’m thankful for my biological family, especially my
parents. Their constant love and care and prayers and support mean more to me
than I can ever say.
I am also thankful for my massive spiritual family –
literally located around the globe. So many names I could mention here – names of
prayer supporters and encouragers, names of friends. Many of whom I have not
seen in recent months, but who I know care nonetheless.
I’m thankful for my New Hope family too – again, so many
names I could pull out of people who have invested in me in ways small and
large. People who have opened their hearts and homes to me; people I have been
able to stand with and work alongside. People who, while not perfect, seek to
serve God through loving His “least of these.”
I am thankful for the gift of fellowshipping for a week in
person with a friend & apartment-mate from college days. Her presence was
such a gift and she is part of the reason I am writing this right now!
I’m thankful for the beauty of God’s creation! For the
birds, the flowers, the stars my friend and I enjoyed during a dark night power
out. This world is so amazing in its variety and ingenious design.
This list could go on and on…..
When I choose gratitude and thankfulness as my glasses, I
see so much that is good and blessing in my life. Yes, there are hardships and
challenges. But I – we! – are called to give thanks in all things. And so this
evening, I praise God for the many gifts He has given me…..above them all,
Himself in relationship.
{I’ve stolen/borrowed this title, as you’ll see later – so I
can’t take credit for it!}
This past Thursday evening, I hit a slump of discouragement.
There are several probable factors that created it, but in the end God used it
to once again remind me how constantly and desperately I need Him. He is
all-sufficient, if only I would have the faith to trust and rely on Him rather
than myself.
Since then, I have spent some time reading Nehemiah 8 and 9.
Those two chapters focus on the reading of the law to the Jews who had returned
after exile, and of their response to it. The people were grieved when the law
was read and explained by the Levites – and though they were encouraged to not
grieve because “the joy of the LORD
is your strength” (Neh. 8:10), they later returned to pour their hearts out in
confession before God.
During this gathering, the Levites stood up before the
people and recounted the history of Israel poetically – but what I found most
interesting as I read it this morning is that they started off by blessing God
and worshipping Him. The tale they told was one of Israelite rebellion and
unfaithfulness, but it was framed and laced throughout with the mercy of God
and His worthiness to be obeyed and praised.
As I closed my Bible and prepared to get ready for church, a
thought flitted through my mind; something about feeling as though I was just
slogging through, trying to do what I knew I should, but often without my heart
fully into it. Little did I know then how that very thought would tie into
church.
I arrived at church a little early. While sitting there
listening to the choir finishing their practice for the service, I watched as a
couple of our church leaders brought out the elements for communion. Somehow,
that simple sight awakened emotion in me, and a tear had to be wiped from my
cheek.
A little later in the service, the Scripture passage for the
day’s sermon was read, Revelations 2:1-7. The meat of those verses hit me right
between the eyes. Christ, speaking to the church in Ephesus, says:
“I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance. I
know that you cannot tolerate wicked people, that you have tested those who
claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them false. You have
persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary.
Yet I hold this against you: have forsaken the love you had at first” (Rev.
2:2-4).
Yes, I thought. Yes, that’s exactly it. That could nearly
just as well be speaking about me.
My mind flashed back to a recent group discussion in which I
was simultaneously frustrated and prideful. I found myself unduly frustrated with
others for not having a working understanding of theological principles which I’ve
had something of a grasp on for almost as long as I can remember. And thus the
pride came into play as well.
I try to work hard and perform well, often for the sake of
giving glory to Christ. I make an effort to hold fast to Scripture, making it my
foundation, learning so that I may I understand truth and discern the lie. I do
my best to press through times of discouragement.
But where is the love in my heart?
Do I do all these things merely because I am supposed to? Or
because my heart is on fire with a love and passion for God and His glory?
While I desire the latter, the former is often more
accurate. Just trying to slog through life, to get through one more day.
I don’t want to live like that.
I want to return to the first love of Christ. The love that
came, not because of anything I had done but because of what He did. The fresh
love, as the preacher put it, that flows from Him through me—of which I am
merely a channel, not a creator.
During the sermon, the pastor for the day clarified and
reechoed many of these thoughts which had recently been swirling, half-formed,
in my mind. In his conclusion, he read 1 Corinthians 13:1-8a. Reminding us that
without love, we are nothing. Reminding us of just what kind of love Christ has
for us.
As we took communion, our worship leader played a song that
had really struck me in church a couple weeks ago.
I munched my small square of bread and drank my small cup of juice, remembering
what Christ has done for me; remembering that all is by grace.
And so a new day continues, a new hour lies before me. May
it be filled with a fresh love for Christ and for others, by His grace.
On Friday afternoon, I received two pieces
of news: one that I had assumed for months was coming eventually and one that
caught me totally off guard. The latter was the conclusion of several weeks of
my choices in interactions with others. I should probably have been expecting
things to come to the point that they did. But I was being optimistic and so
wasn’t considering the potential “worst” outcome. The news left me hurting and
a bit shaken.
This week in Institute class has been all
about “Veritas,” a Bible study method. As I moved about our office block,
trying to let the news sink in and trying to adjust to the new reality thrust
upon me, a verse we had been looking at just before lunch came back to mind:
“Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you
were called to peace” (Col. 3:15).
“All right, God,” I prayed, “This situation
is what You have allowed to happen. And You have called me to peace. Please
teach my heart to trust You and rest in peace today, right now.” And He did! I
went about finishing my day in the office, and on my way home talked to my
mentor a bit about it all, since she’d been walking with me through the
situation the past month.
Last night, some of the young people put on
a concert. In the greeting and fellowshipping afterward, God allowed me to have
a special interaction with a friend. It gave me a glimpse of good things He is
doing through the situation, even though part of the outcome is not what I
would have chosen.
As I continued thinking about it back at my
house, I was reminded that peace is not “everything going my way” – and trust
is likewise not “God doing things my way.” Peace and trust are both choosing to
rest in God’s goodness, knowing that He loves everyone involved so much more
than I do! And that He is working out His plan, even when to my human view it
seems like things are falling apart rather than being renewed. As my mentor
reminded me, “sometimes things have to get worse before they can get better.”
And God is the one directing that process in light of His sovereignty and
omniscience! That is where hope and peace and trust find their truest, deepest
roots.
This morning, I woke up earlier than I
intended to—so even after spending a chunk of time directly in God’s Word it
was too early to get ready and go to church. I thought about writing this post,
but was feeling a bit under the weather so didn’t want to yet. I ended up
deciding to pull out my Kindle version of a women’s devotional, because I
remembered I had one more chapter I hadn’t read yet.
Guess what it was about??? Yep, trusting
God. I took one look at the title (“Does God Deserve Our Trust?”) and almost
laughed. Several things in the chapter—discussing trying to put God in a box,
and God as the Potter from Romans 9, for example—have been on my mind already
the past year-plus. So many good quotes I could put in here from this chapter!
But here’s just a couple:
“The reality is that we often don’t want to
trust God until we’ve tried to fix the problem ourselves first….We really don’t
give God a second thought until something big comes up” (pg. 153).
“I believe that sometimes we are a little
cautious about trusting God because we’re afraid of what He may bring into our
lives in order to teach us something or to test us” (pg. 155).
“Does trusting God mean that everything
will work out just the way we want it to and that we’ll live happily ever
after? No, it doesn’t. That’s a God-box…..Whether you trust God with your life
does not change the fact that you still really have no control over your
circumstances” (pg. 158).
The authors (Beverly LaHaye and her
daughter Lori Scheck) went on to talk about how we must have both a proper view
of ourselves and a proper view of God if we are to grow in our trust for Him. It
was all such a good reminder, especially in light of everything this weekend!
Praise the Lord for His leading and timing :)
So there are no easy answers. I still wish,
and I am still tempted to hope, that things turn out differently in the
situation that instigated this whole post. But God is using these circumstances
that are mostly out of my control to remind me of what trust really means:
Resting in His plan, not because it is the same as mine but because He is good.
To God be the glory.
______
The quotes come from the last chapter of A Woman and Her God, edited by Beth Moore.
This morning, I rode a boda from Kasana all the way to
Luwero (about a 30 minute trip) for the first time. It was still early, and so
the wind was cold. But all the way, there was a song ringing through my mind as
the wind whipped my friend’s hair into my face:
“I am free to run, I am free to dance, I am free to live for You, Yes, I am free."
We sang this song and another similar one
at Envisioning in January, and I loved both songs immediately because they
parallel what God has been speaking into my heart the past couple months. I
talked about it in an internal way in a blog post
early last month.
On the last day of Envisioning, our New Hope staff had
communion together. After we finished, the pastor who had led asked the worship
band to play “Jailbreak” again. He called on one of the men to carry a
medium-sized cross displayed in our church around the outside perimeter of our meeting
area. And he encouraged all of us to parade after it, celebrating the freedom
we have in Christ because of His finished work.
Because of the work God had been doing in my life that week,
I was eager for an opportunity to express my thankfulness. I tried dancing and
singing at the same time, which just made me breathless. For the first time in
my life, I worshipped with true abandon….not caring if I made a fool of myself.
The memory almost brings tears of joy to my eyes :)
So why do I write all of this now, almost two months later?
Because God, in His faithfulness, is continuing to bring home the application
of these glorious truths in my life. A big tool for that has been the Institute
– it is an amazing, challenging, soul-searching journey rightly compared to
heart surgery :) And the past week has been another big step in that process.
Uncle Jonnes, the Ugandan cofounder of New Hope Uganda, did
most of the teaching this week about heart wounds, what causes them, and how to
deal with them. He has been teaching from Isaiah 53 and Mark 15 about how
Christ came to bear and set us free from our sorrows and grief as well as our
sin. Yesterday, the week culminated in a journey to the cross.
During an hour of reflection, we each read through some
Scripture passages Uncle Jonnes had given us and then spent time thinking about
some of the things which have hurt us, the wounds of which we were still carrying.
He told us to write them down, then bring them and nail them to the same cross
I mentioned earlier.
“Don’t keep a copy!”
he instructed. “We’re going to write on each of these papers Jesus’ words: ‘It
is finished,’ and then we are going to do with them what needs to be done.” The
hour flew by too fast, probably because I was writing more detail than he intended
us to. Forgiving a boy for an act of immaturity that I have been subconsciously
letting define me for nearly two decades. Losses that I have never grieved
properly. Wounds which, though I have been processing them, have still been
affecting me. I went onto a second page and was late going back to class. The
tears flowed, sometimes at surprising moments.
Finally I made my way back, and with the others nailed the
folded paper onto a representation of our Savior’s cross. Uncle Jonnes reminded
us that if we keep on carrying these things which Jesus came to put to death with
Himself, then we are acting out a belief that His work is not sufficient. A word
of prayer, and then the papers were removed.
Uncle Jonnes carried them outside, to where a sigiri waited
with hot charcoal on it. And there, as we watched, the papers burned—a sweet
smelling offering to the Lord. Those things do not define us: Christ’s righteousness
and wholeness does. It. Is. FINISHED. And in our Savior, we are FREE.
The peace and quietness dwelling in my heart since yesterday
has been a sweet blessing. Of course, I know there will obviously be more
challenges in my life ahead. Even those things I wrote down may continue to
haunt and shape me…..IF I LET THEM. As Uncle Jonnes reminded us, this is a journey.
And yesterday was just one step of the journey.
But it was a beautiful step, and one I am still rejoicing in
today :)
This morning, shortly after getting up, I put my laundry in
basins to soak for a while before washing it by hand. But before I did, I first
removed the six handmade bracelets from my right wrist so I could wash them
too. Usually, I wear them 24/7 which means I have a “watch tan” on both wrists!
I’ve been meaning to write the story of these bracelets for
a while, and for some reason now seems the right time to do it. I tried to look
back at old blog posts and see what I had mentioned about them before, but didn’t
find much. Maybe it’s been on Facebook that I’ve mentioned a bit about them.
Anyway, here’s the story. I hope it encourages those who
read it somehow.
It started almost two years ago in April of 2013.
No, actually it started before that: in September of 2011
(my junior year of college). We had a visiting chapel speaker who was talking about being a slave of Christ, and the Holy Spirit was really challenging me and
convicting me through his sessions. That same month, someone was selling
handmade beaded jewelry on campus to help raise money for people in Africa. I
had bought a simple black and white choker necklace.
As I thought and prayed about what God was reminding me of
through the chapel speaker, I wanted to wear some physical reminder of Christ’s
call on my life. So I started wearing the necklace each day, and it helped keep
the choice to live my life as Christ’s slave in the forefront of my mind. But
within a couple months, I had lost the necklace. I would guess it slipped off
as I was walking across campus. I was disappointed at the loss, but life went
on.
God had been teaching me and reminding me of so many things
in college, following the spiritual revival He worked in my life in my third
semester. Ever since August of 2011, one of those lessons had been about His
love—especially in light of 1 John 4. You can read more about it here.
Fast forward to April 2013, my last semester of college. One
of our campus ministries hosted an even featuring ballet dancing and some
testimonies to help raise awareness about sexual trafficking. I don’t remember
exactly what was said, but it took me back to the lesson of love, and I felt
God calling me to live my life post-graduation intentionally loving others. Again,
there was jewelry for sale, and so I bought a woven bracelet with pink and
yellow flowers on a blue background as a reminder. I prayed that I would be a
vessel of God’s love to those around me.
Bracelet #1: LOVE, 1 John 4 (esp. vs. 18) & John 13:34-35 – April 2013
After graduation, I had a couple of weeks at home before
heading back up to Arkansas to join a missions trip from JBU to Northern
Ireland. While there, we partnered with the local Youth for Christ in a small
town running a VBS for the kids and doing other kid-focused ministry. We had a
great team, and I still look back on that month as a special time. God knit our
hearts together and to the kids in a unique way, and it was a blessing to be a
part of that. I could see the seed of love growing and bearing fruit—certainly not
perfectly, but it was there.
During our time there, we gals on the team twice invited the
girls from the area to come hang out with us. In our preparation ahead of time,
we had decided to make friendship bracelets with the girls. Trying to get 10
girls simultaneously set up for that activity was rather trying for my
personality, and I ended up allowing it to put me in a bad mood. Later that
night as I sat outside praying through some things, God reminded me that the
character trait we had been teaching at VBS that morning was humility. The
evening had clearly shown me that I needed the Holy Spirit to work the things
we were covering with the kids in my life as well.
Later, possibly all the way in September after my summer
internship, I took some of the extra threads from one of the girls’ bracelet
that I had saved and braided a new bracelet. {Just this year I had to replace
it, because it was a small braid and it wore out. But the colors are the same
:)}
Things didn’t go the way I had expected between June and
September. The internship I had thought I would love proved a lot more
challenging; the job offer I assumed I would want didn’t come through after
all. So I found myself back home with no definite prospects….until a door
opened to come to Uganda for a short-term opportunity that could turn into
something more permanent.
I liked wearing my bracelets as reminders. It made me think
of the altars that God instructed the Israelites to build so that they would
remember God’s work in their lives. So even before departing, I looked forward
to making another bracelet in Uganda.
Within a few weeks, I was at work on one – in the colors and
pattern of the Ugandan flag. This time the lesson was service and sacrifice. It
has not been an easy lesson at all. I say “has” because I am still learning it.
It didn’t take me long to realize that I need these reminders precisely because
the lessons keep coming back around in circles. I haven’t “completed” any one
of these goals—but I trust God that He is continuing to work these in me.
Bracelet
#3: SERVICE/SACRIFICE, John 12:24-26 – Jan/Feb 2014
My time in Uganda was hard in deeper ways that I had thought
it would be. By the time my commitment ended in May, I was so ready to return
home. But at the same time, I looked forward to the offered opportunity to come
back in a different capacity. As I left, I sensed that my next bracelet altar
would be joy, that God would give me opportunity to delight in Him.
I made the bracelet during the drive back from Colorado after
my brother’s graduation, a pink and purple square knot pattern, with tan thread
as the unseen center. I hadn’t planned that, but later on reflection I could
see a correlation. Joy does not mean there are no
disappointing/challenging/blah times (like the tan threads). But it does mean
that we can choose to focus on the joy that we can have in Christ, even in the
midst of the hard times.
Unfortunately, this lesson is not one I lived out well in the
following months. I tried to stuff the hardships rather than dealing with them.
And stuffing doesn’t bring true joy, it just delays the healing. This was a
choice I made, to push God away and to try and find “joy” (the fake sort) in the
gratification of my more fleshly desires. And it is something I have had to
repent of these last couple months. But thanks be to God for His grace &
faithfulness in spite of my weakness!
A couple months later, as I started getting in gear to
return to Uganda, I wrestled some with what I would be giving up in the
process. My hungering desire for a “real job,” one in line with what I studied
and one which actually provided an income, nearly stumbled me one
weekend. But in the process I realized that I knew nothing of sacrifice.
It was also a renewed call to trust in God’s faithfulness.
This was, like love, not something new. It has been a recurring theme for me ever
since that same summer of 2011. A lot of my blog posts on here have dealt with
it in one way or another. But I am learning that it is one thing to agree
intellectually that God is faithful and that I can trust Him. It is another
thing to live it out in the daily walk of life.
And so, I spent several hours knotting a more complicated
bracelet – often praying as I did so. It features orange fish swimming in a
river of various blues.
Bracelet
#5: TRUST & FAITH, Psalm 73:28 – August 2014
Coming back to this beautiful country was exciting, especially
getting to see again the friends I had made before! Of course, it also brought
with it a fair share of challenges. The biggest one has been gaining a more
God-centered perspective (in contrast to Me-centered) regarding some of the
events of my life—especially because that has often meant needing to take
responsibility for the me-centered choices I had made at the time.
In the process, it is easy for me to start berating myself
mentally for my shortcomings and mistakes. To hold that guilt and failure over
my own head. When I turn to Christ in repentance, I found myself met each time
with His acceptance and love and grace. I am learning that for Him, the past is
the past. He does not impute my iniquities against me (Romans 4:8).
And so, when I have placed my past sins under the blood of
Christ, I am FREE from that guilt! Not always immediately freed from the
results of them, but there is no condemnation in Christ (Romans 8:1). Because
of this, I can have hope for the future rather than being bound by the past.
These things came together into my most recent bracelet, an
orange zigzag surrounded by light shades of yellow and green. As I was making
it on a car ride down to Kampala, my fellow travelers were discussing the
difference between guilt and conviction. I couldn’t help but smile at God’s
timing!
So that brings my bracelet story up to date! Looking back, I
can see that for much of this time (especially June 2013-May 2014) I have been
trying to fulfill these lessons in my own strength. Which is rather arrogant
and honestly just silly! In the last couple months, God has been reminding me
that I am called to be His disciple, and to serve for His glory and His kingdom—not
my own. It has been a timely lesson, and I am so thankful to know that He will
continue the good work of transformation which He has begun in my life!
A card from one of my special ladies back home that "just happened" to arrive yesterday, and that I opened this morning after writing this post :)
I actually woke up ahead of my alarm today.
These cool, foggy mornings we have been having here in Uganda recently always
make me think of Arkansas and miss my “family” there.
On Monday, I was thinking of other things
from back in my college days….and yesterday the thoughts kept tumbling around
in my brain….so this morning I am sitting down to put “pen to paper” and break
my blogging silence.
In the past 11 months that I have been
affiliated with New Hope Uganda, the organization has gone through a lot. In my
most recent newsletter, I wrote asking people for prayers as we here seem to be
in the midst of spiritual warfare. Thank you to each one who responded back
with words of encouragement! I really appreciated those.
Yesterday, we saw off one of our staff
members. This year she has been battling cancer, and last month (two days after
we lost a son to kidney failure) she was declared cancer free! But then other
health concerns arose, and more tests revealed tumors….inoperable tumors, which
are seriously affecting her quality of life. Yesterday she returned to Nairobi
(Kenya), where she had previously received radiation, for further tests and
care.
In my personal life, the past 18 months
since graduation have rarely gone as I expected them to. Every season seems to
bring another bend in the road, sometimes sending me on a trajectory I never
expected. While I am so blessed and grateful to have the opportunity to
minister here in this community, it was honestly never in my plans to move to Africa for most of 2014.
During these past months, there have been a
myriad of frustrations and discouragements. While none of them come close to
the struggles of so many of my brothers and sisters, it has still been often
challenging to maintain a proper perspective—eyes fixed on Christ—in these
times. Over and over, I have felt His call to trust Him and surrender my life
to His plan….and maybe, just maybe I am “slowly by slowly” learning that
lesson.
On Monday, it was one of my personal minor
letdowns which got me to thinking. I was tempted to be in a complaining mood
because of something which was not going as I had hoped/wished it might. And I
just felt Paraclete speaking to my heart: “Esther, you need to trust God in
this. To trust that what is happening is the best plan for all involved.”
It took me back to something a staff member
had forwarded the Wednesday before. A week after my supervisor had fallen and
broken her arm so seriously that she returned to her home in England for
surgery, it was a day when I felt totally overwhelmed. I read this devotional
and saw the truth in it, but I still allowed my human circumstances to dictate
my feelings.
The devotional concluded:
Remember this: If any other condition had
been better for you than the one in which you are, divine love would have put
you there. You are placed by God in the most suitable circumstances, and if you
could choose your lot, you would soon cry, "Lord, choose my heritage for
me, for by my self-will I am pierced through with many sorrows." Be
content with the things you have, since the Lord has ordered all things for
your good. Take up your own daily cross; it is the burden best suited for your
shoulder and will prove most effective to make you perfect in every good word
and work to the glory of God. Busy self and proud impatience must be put down;
it is not for them to choose, but for the Lord of Love!1
This idea of trusting the God who works ALL
THINGS for His glory and our sanctification, our good has been a theme in my
life for quite a while. But as I sat thinking and praying through it again on
Monday, another comparison came to mind.
Twice in college I read Candide, a satirical tale written by
Voltaire, an Enlightenment thinker of the 1700s. In it, Voltaire criticizes a
view from that period that this is the “best of all possible worlds” by taking
his characters through a ridiculous amount of challenges and suffering. The
teacher in the group reiterates over and over that even in the face of
everything, this still must be the best of all possible worlds. Even though Candide is a comedy because of the
absurdity of what the characters go through, it felt so much more like a
depressing tragedy to me, because on every page there are tales of woe.
But on Monday as I thought of trusting God
in my petty little problems—and in the bigger, serious concerns facing others I
know—that is the line that came back to me. That this is the “best of all
possible worlds.” Certainly NOT because everything that happens is perfect! Far
from it…there is much hurt and tragedy and brokenness in this world.
This is the best of all possible worlds,
however, because of the HOPE that I and my fellow believers have! We serve a
God who is an incarnational Redeemer—through Christ, He came down to us in our
mess, and He won the victory!!!!!!!!!
And because He rose from the dead, defeating Satan, death, and sin, we
can KNOW that He is able to work everything for good. Even the worst situation
I can imagine He can take that and turn it for His glory.
Of course, this doesn’t make life easy.
Yesterday, as we saw our sister off to Kenya there were tears in many hearts.
We prayed and are praying for a miracle. Last month, as we laid our son to
rest, there were sobs from his family and those close to him. We continue praying
for his widowed mother and his young siblings, who have lost one who could have
helped provide for them if he were still here. But through it all, we can
choose to stake our confidence in our Redeeming, Victorious Father. And we can
thank Him for everything that comes to pass in this, the best of all possible
worlds.
1 Taken from Morning and
Evening by C.H. Spurgeon, revised and updated by Alistair Begg.
Welcome to my musings. I like organization, so they're segregated into four types!
All of the views expressed on these blogs are my own unless otherwise stated. They are not intended to be seen as the view of any organization I work with or have worked with in the past.
