When What Resonates With You Looks Ridiculous to Others. For Sheloves Magazine.
Have you ever felt a connection to a place without yet visiting it? A kinship with a people you’ve never met?
That’s the way I felt when I first dreamed of going to South Asia. Tiny glimpses of a vibrant culture ignited a fire inside that didn’t make any sense, but wouldn’t let go of me. Friends and family thought it was absurd. I feared they might be right, but I had to see for myself.
For two months I lived in a land I’d only known in my dreams. But the moment the sticky heat of that crowded city hit my skin on the tarmac, I felt connected. It was like a physical weight settled over my body and the presence of a place felt like home even though I had never known it outside of stories and photographs.
Now I find myself back at that strange avenue between worlds again. My family has been working towards moving to South Asia for over a year. When the door to the city we had been planning to move, slammed shut a few months ago, we were left scrambling and asking God what it all meant.
A place was suggested and we resisted at first. But then the power of a story entered in, that mysterious feeling of belonging tugging at our hearts. We watched a video of a woman who had been a child-bride. She had complications in childbirth that had stripped her of her child, her husband and her dignity. She received the care she needed and training in a skill. She had a hope and a future again and her face beamed. Her joy crossed the miles between us and drew me to a sister I might never meet but who is changing the destiny of my entire family with her story.
We watched video after video, read stories and talked to people who live there. We made the decision to move to a city we have never visited, a country that is foreign to us. Ridiculous? Maybe.
Sure? We couldn’t be more certain.
When we tell people we want to move to a developing nation, we get those looks...
We Will Not Be Shaken. Lessons from the Wilderness.
As the soaking rains seeped through our thick hiking socks, our boots felt heavier the longer we splashed through the South Missouri mud. We had been in the wilderness two days at this point but the stabbing cold made it feel much longer as we continued towards an unknown destination. We followed behind leaders who silently guided us, topographic map and compass in hand. As we slipped through the brush, not able to avoid the briars, we knew we weren't just off the trail. We were lost.
We had only gone a few feet off the trail, feet slipping in the mud, when we stopped as a team to discuss our best direction. Dark was quickly closing in and we weren't sure which ridge we were actually on. We needed to find somewhere to camp soon after hiking all day in the pouring rain. Packs that were already heavy grew in weight by the moment and none of us had dry clothes left. Empty stomachs were grumbling and our spirits were as drenched as the Ozark Trail we couldn't seem to find.
We backtracked up to the last place we saw the trail, decided to follow it until we could better determine where we were. One teammate stooped down to pull our anxious eight-year-old daughter close as we prayed. We asked God to stop the rain, to heal our littlest team members' aching backs and ankles, to continue to heal my husband, Lee, who had been unable to keep any food down in two days, to show us where to camp. We cried out—lost, wet, desperate.
We followed the trail until we saw a clearing, hopeful that it was the valley we were looking for but unsure we were willing to let down our guard yet and hope. As I tried to hold it together for the kids, my son's cries growing louder, another sound broke through my prayers for relief.
"I will not be shaken. I will not be shaken." Her tiny ankles were quaking and the rain wasn't subsiding. There was no end in sight. But as we walked through that clearing, my daughter was speaking the Truth out loud, holding onto His promises to be with her. Barely a whisper, she was clinging to them like they were her very life. As we walked we were memorizing Psalm 62:5-8 and the words we had repeated throughout the day were sinking deep into her heart: "He alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I will not be shaken."
I wiped away my tears as I straightened my pack and kept walking. The two weakest and tiniest members of our group of twelve were teaching us what it meant to have the faith of a child, to cling to the truth and to trust that He will not let us down. As we rounded a corner in the forest trail, we heard the sounds of the river and the crunching of rocks under our feet. We turned our headlamps towards the sounds, sobs catching in our throats as we saw the fire ring on the beach. We were at our destination at last.
This is a tiny glimpse into the lessons I am still meditating on that I learned in the wilderness this Spring. We intentionally placed ourselves in a place of total unknown as we entered a two-week cross-cultural training that would help prepare us for the international move we've been working towards for over a year now. The first part of the training consisted of a multi-day (of undetermined length so that we were always wading through the unknown) period backpacking through the Ozarks with eight other people on similar journeys as us.
We were also unintentionally placed in another wilderness when our plans to move to one location in South Asia fell through and we were completely in limbo, trusting God to show us just the next step. The kids were talking about what they learned following our five days of hiking over 20 miles up mountains and across swift flowing rivers, building our shelters, building a fire and cooking over it, and so many more physically and emotionally stretching moments. Our daughter who saw God answer every prayer for healing, for the rain to stop, for guidance, said it made her want to pray more. "God provides even in the wilderness," she said. She won't understand the full impact of the seed that was planted in her little life for many years. But the courage her words of complete trust in His goodness are growing deeper places of faith in my own soul.
We are about out of the unknown. We have a new destination in South Asia and a goal to get there by fall. But we know there is still much wilderness ahead. We set out on the next leg of our trek knowing it is on solid ground that we step, declaring boldly, "we will not be shaken!"
The Weight of Our Words. For the Mudroom.
“Some words are elegant, some can wound and destroy, but all are written with the same letters.” – Paulo Coelho
The laughing ceased as I walked into the room, turning to piercing eyes and whispers hidden behind folders. I inhaled deeply, trying to hold back the tears stinging my eyes. I wouldn’t let them know how they injured me with their thinly veiled gossip.
I had been so proud to go pick up my copy of the literary magazine that had printed my first poem that day. My friends knew me by my constant flow of words. Whether notes folded into shapes that might pass for origami or poems scribbled on the back of a math assignment I half-paid attention to, my words were frequent and plentiful. Angst beyond my years and teenage over exaggerations characterized my writing back then but all emotions feel like they hold the power of life and death when you are fifteen, don’t they?
I had several teachers that encouraged me to turn my writing into something more than poetry about the boy I was currently obsessing over (this week). Even though the magazine only contained entries from our school, I was emboldened by what felt like a big accomplishment—until the whispers came.
It became apparent whom I had written the poem about when word quickly spread that my boyfriend of months had dumped me over the phone the weekend before. To his popular senior friends, my broken sophomore heart was the fodder of laughter by lockers. My words may have been juvenile, loftily speaking of what I had no business calling love in my naiveté, but they came from the tender places I hadn’t yet learned to hide, from a vulnerability I would thereafter conceal. My own words were used as a weapon against me, to bring shame.
My first publication—poisoned by wounds to an insecure little girl’s heart, like the first scars of youth that inspired them. Words meant for life brought a little piece of death.
***
Many scars and lost loves later, I scribbled words in haste at the end of a journal I had kept for over two years. I had filled it lovingly with the deepest desires of my heart and letters to give one day to the guy I believed I would marry. We had parted ways with tears but not anger, God taking us in different directions. But when he quickly launched into another relationship, that wounded girl from the hallways of my youth fought back in the way I had learned held power—with my words.
Words I had intended as a record of our relationship to be given to him in love were thrust at him as a weapon. I wanted to wound him the way he had wounded me by moving on so quickly and not honoring what I thought we’d had. I twisted something meant for good into a poison I wanted him to choke down. “Look what you destroyed,” I said with my vindictive act. I used my words against him, to bring shame.
My first adult relationship—poisoned by wounds to an insecure little girl’s heart, like the first scars of youth that inspired them. Words meant for life brought a little piece of death.
***
I have long since destroyed most of the journals of my youth and cringe when I read my early poetry. I’d like to say I didn’t know the power of words back then, that I was a foolhardy child. But I knew early on the way words could rescue or wreck, heal or destroy.
Holding Space for Home. {Guest post for Jen Pollock Michel}.
Flat 402
Wara Alkulliat Alharbia
Masr Gadida, Egypt
The miniature plastic house hung limply between two pine branches, the words “Our First Home” engraved on the side. We had brought the Christmas ornament with us to the first home we rented after a year and a half of marriage in which we lived with a friend.
The tree looked like it came straight out of Charlie Brown’s Christmas and the only other signs of celebration in our fourth-floor flat was a bright red poinsettia. Nothing about the day felt like Christmas because even though the Coptic minority celebrated the holiday, the Orthodox Christmas occurred later in January.
After we opened a couple gifts to each other—an onyx encrusted hand drum purchased from the tourist market and a grey flowing robe that local men wore called a gallabaya—we caught a cab to a nearby café that felt a bit like home.
The ancient culture had called to us back when we were living in the Southern United States. We imagined living in the land of the Pharaohs as this thrilling adventure and weren’t disappointed as the melodic Arabic call to prayer became the first soundtrack of our new lives.
In country for three months, the newness had worn off. We learned to say “we aren’t tourists; we live here” in Arabic to street vendors who tried to charge us more than we knew items were worth. But the truth is the dusty landscape didn’t feel much like home yet. We huddled in the cafe, isolated from those around us as we sipped our lattes and nibbled tomato and mozzarella sandwiches that Christmas afternoon, longing for the comfort of something familiar...
Join me at Jen Pollock Michel's blog today as I join the series “Home: Musings and Memories" about search for home—and the God who makes its hope possible.
The Home series is a reflection on Jen's newly released Keeping Place: Reflections on the Meaning of Home (IVP, May 2017).
Home is something that is on my mind daily in this season of my life, something that holds deep meaning and intense longing. As we pack up our home of six years, as we look towards a new home overseas, as we say good bye to those things that anchor us to what home has meant for most of our lives ... we are constantly reminded that God gave us a longing for place and how to find home in this world and long for it in the next.
Jen Pollock Michel's new book Keeping Place couldn't have been more timely for me and I believe it will be for you as well.
"Home is our most fundamental longing. And for many of us homesickness is a nagging place of grief. This book connects that desire and disappointment with the story of the Bible, helping us to see that there is a homemaking God with wide arms of welcome – and a church commissioned with this same work..."
- Jen Pollock Michel
Until We Are All Free. For Sheloves Magazine.
There’s been this growing sentiment in the world of social media and online writing over the past couple years. There is a feeling that whether we speak up or are silent, either way is losing. If we are vocal about an issue outside of our social context we risk being called out for a “white savoir complex” or jumping on the social justice bandwagon. If we are don’t speak up about a growing injustice in our country, then we are called careless and complicit in our silence.
Solidarity is a hard line to walk in today’s world. Do words on social media really mean we are standing with another anyway? They are just words, so easy to toss up on a screen without much effect to our lives. On the other hand, there are those that call us to speak up for them with the influence we have and there is a feeling we have to tread lightly, afraid to bring down ridicule, scared into silence. I think of a friend who has been the loving hands of Jesus to a local refugee community and who recently felt afraid to let her all-white community know of her passion.
Issues of justice weigh heavily on my heart and I’ve struggled to know how to use my words and my life to answer God’s call to be a peacemaker. Slavery, oppression of whole people groups, the needs of refugees—these things are more than token issues to me. I have lived in places where my neighbors live these realities, put myself in the way of these issues so that they had a face.
I have wrapped my arms around a beautiful South Asian child whose face beamed with joy despite his disability and homelessness. When I asked about him later I couldn’t even name the grief that washed over me when my friends told me he was missing, likely sold into slavery bringing a good price as a deaf beggar.
My heart has ached over the anxiety in my new friend’s eyes as I tried to teach her to make chocolate chip cookies. Everything in an American kitchen was foreign to her. She finally had to leave the room because, between the language barrier and not understanding anything in her new country, she was just too overwhelmed.
Yet I, too, have been afraid to speak out sometimes.
More and more I am convicted about the way solidarity is more than words, how we need to act on the needs we see. We can’t say we love if we hoard the cup of water we have access to while our neighbor goes thirsty. But we also can’t say we love if we don’t use our voices to speak truth into the dark places where justice is denied. Standing with someone means using our hands and our voices to support them. Solidarity means both speaking and acting.
One of my favorite quotes when I speak to groups about the slavery I have seen in South Asia and the ways we can stand in solidarity with those who are denied their basic human rights is, “We are none of us free if we are not all free.” An American poet named Emma Lazarus wrote these words. You’ve probably never heard her name though I guarantee almost all Americans, and many around the world know these words of her most famous sonnet, The New Colossus:
Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…
I hadn’t heard of her until, wanting to attribute the quote to the right person in a presentation I was making, I looked up who said it and started reading about Emma Lazarus. I couldn’t stop...
My Story of Transformation. {Deeply Rooted and Transformed Series}.
I am honored to have my voice included in the release of Everbloom {Available TODAY from Paraclete Press}. Together we are journeying through the book's sections: Roots, Trunk, Branches, Blossoms. The beautiful thing about this book is that it is not meant to just be read. Become part of the story. Journey with me. Read along as I share a piece from each section, respond, and ask you to respond with me....
Today I am sharing an excerpt from my own piece in Everbloom
{Read} Beyond September 11th by Yours Truly (click the title to read the excerpt)
{My response} my story of transformation
My story of transformation is still being written.
September 12th was a pivotal day for me. The rest of my story in Everbloom tells of how God used that moment to launch me into a wide world that is still teaching me daily about love and compassion. I have lived in the Middle East and Asia since, have known the joy of helping welcoming refugee families to America, and have just begun to glimpse the beauty of diversity that this messy, colorful, noisy world has to offer if we will see it. Out of that moment and all the moments since I have found my voice and felt the call to tell the stories of all I have seen.
And I believe that this is just the beginning. I have barely begun to grasp the love God has for His Creation, for all His children. And I am still struggling to know how I can extend a welcoming hand to my neighbor, to seek justice and love mercy. But I am committed continuing to find ways for my life to be a sheltering place for others.
"I write to tell stories of the transformation I know is possible. I know because I’ve lived it—once full of fear and striving, knowing nothing of grace. God taught me how to love without borders, and my life was never the same. Those seeds planted years ago have transformed into what I daily pray is a sheltering place for others to grow." (from Beyond September 11th, Everbloom)
These stories of transformation in Everbloom aren't our complete stories. They are just glimpses into how God has worked and we hope they launch conversations and journeys into deeper transformation. So, join the conversation and share your story. Mine isn't finished yet and neither is yours.
{Now share your story} Imagine a person whom you might extend a welcoming hand to, and describe your actions.
Read the rest of the Deeply Rooted and Transformed Series and enter to win your own copy of Everbloom! Drawing at the end of the day on May 8th!
Praying Open Handed. {Deeply Rooted and Transformed Series}.
I am honored to have my voice included in the release of Everbloom {Available TODAY from Paraclete Press}. Together we are journeying through the book's sections: Roots, Trunk, Branches, Blossoms. The beautiful thing about this book is that it is not meant to just be read. Become part of the story. Journey with me. Read along as I share a piece from each section, respond, and ask you to respond with me....
{Read} A FINE DAY for you to be God BY RONNE ROCK (click the title to read the excerpt)
{My response} praying open handed
Nothing turned out like I expected it would but everything turned out exactly as it should have. I went into our first international move with dreams and plans, a heart full of hopes for a life planted deep into the ancient soil of that bustling city. I thought we would stay there for years but we left after six months. I dreamed of speaking fluent Arabic and six years later when my Palestinian bus driver learned I had lived in the Middle East and started trying to converse with me I just shrugged and said "shawaya arabi," meaning "I speak only a little Arabic."
Now in the throws of our second international move, two children in tow this time, I keep reminding them and myself to hold onto our dreams loosely. We write our prayers and wants on a big piece of paper taped to the living room wall because we know God cares about our hopes and dreams. He wants to hear what is in our hearts and it is a beautiful practice to lay them out honestly and see how He answers our prayers. It's also a beautiful practice in surrender when we see how He answers them by saying "no" or in a way that is not what we expected. I want to expect the unexpected this time, to see God show me how His plans are better than what I could ask for in my limited view.
I pray with open hands these days, surrendering all I want to God, asking Him to give me His will instead. Palms up. Trying to let go. Asking Him to make me ready to receive. When my daughter asks why I tell her a story about our move ten years ago.
I had pictures in my head of what our flat would look like when we moved to Egypt. I had heard not to expect to find a place quickly, to be open to looking at lots of flats. I didn't have high hopes but had two things that were non-negotiable. I wanted an elevator and a balcony. The elevator was for the days when the temperatures reached 120 degrFahrenheitheit and climbing flights of stairs seemed an impossible task. The balcony I dreamed of was a window into the beautiful city and it's people. I had these images in my mind of hanging the clothes to dry amidst children playing next door, of sitting out on the balcony, the noise of the city rising all around me while I wrote and studied.
The first place we looked at had both of those things but something just didn't feel right. I stood on that big balcony and just didn't believe this was the one. We kept it in mind but looked at other flats. We braced ourselves for weeks of searching. The next day we climbed four flights inside the sweltering concrete stairwell. No elevator. The heavy wooden door opened into the cool flat, the air conditioner straining against the heat. The landlady introduced herself as Samiha and accompanied us around the little flat, proudly showing us how it had everything we would need. It was fully furnished and she promised a second air conditioner in the bedroom, a new washing machine in the kitchen. Internet could easily be installed (though as we soon learned easily means something a little different in Egyptian terms). The close line was stretched outside the kitchen window where you had to precariously hang out to reach the clothes. The wide bedroom windows looked out over a busy street but there was no balcony.
It didn't have the things I had hoped for but we just knew this was the one. The next few hours were a blur or finding an ATM to get the deposit and signing a lease in a language we didn't yet understand. A friend's realtor negotiated for us and Samiha smiled widely as she handed us the keys. We had a new home in just a few days and after the whirlwind was over and we trudged up those stairs we wondered if we'd done the right thing.
It wasn't until months later we could look back and see how that flat was handpicked for us, how it was exactly where we were supposed to be. Samiha became a dear friend, which our local friends said was quite odd. "You don't get to know your landlady, that's a business relationship," they said. But she became family to us in a foreign land. Countless hours were spent at her little basement apartment nearby, practicing our Arabic poorly and watching Egyptian soap operas as she told us stories about her acting days. We broke the fast during Ramadan at that dining room table, learned to cook bechemel sauce in that kitchen. We were close enough to her to talk about faith and pray for each other, to ask the deep questions and bare our souls.
And as we climbed that hot stairwell back home, dodging the stray cats and bags of trash left to be picked up by the doorman, we met the neighbors that invited us into their homes, too. Some days we smiled and kept going but most often if their doors were open, we were going to be stopping in for tea, at least. We would finally make it home after hours spent in conversation with new friends, our minds tired from trying to navigate two languages. The click of the air conditioner was a welcome sound as we collapsed onto the couches and finally rested.
I didn't get the flat I hoped for; my dreams of a balcony to overlook the city weren't fulfilled. We got something so much more important. We had asked God to let us find a home, not just a flat. We wanted to become a real part of the community, to find a family there. As we walked up the stairs, we got to know the people. As we spent time with Samiha, we were known. God didn't want me sitting there on a balcony looking out over the beautiful city. He wanted me out there living in it. And that's what I really wanted all along, too.
I still wear the brightly colored bangles Samiha gave me as a gift when she found out we were returning to America. They are a reminder of my friend but also of the way God's will is so much better than our own plans, how eternity broke into our world in the community we built in Egypt that will remain a part of us all our lives.
So, I keep my hands open these days. I ask God to help me see past this fleeting, temporary world and all the things I think I have figured out. I ask Him to let eternity break into my little world, break open my heart, and exceed my expectations.
{Now share your story} How could you commune with and serve the desperate in your community? Describe where you have seen Eternity break into your world.
Join me for the rest of the Deeply Rooted and Transformed Series and enter to win your own copy of Everbloom! Enter until May 8th.
He Is Enough. {Deeply Rooted and Transformed Series}.
I am honored to have my voice included in the release of Everbloom {Available TODAY from Paraclete Press}. Together we are journeying through the book's sections: Roots, Trunk, Branches, Blossoms. The beautiful thing about this book is that it is not meant to just be read. Become part of the story. Journey with me. Read along as I share a piece from each section, respond, and ask you to respond with me....
{Read} Encasing My Fear by Johanna reardon (click the title to read the excerpt)
{My response} he is enough
Though it has been fourteen years since I graduated college I still have the same frightening dream on occasion. I'm back in college and a few weeks into the semester, I look again at my class schedule to find there was a class I missed. It is too late to drop the class but I have missed weeks of lectures. I enter the class to find everyone else chatting and laughing and I feel naked, exposed. I know there is no way to catch up. I have let something drop and it's too late to fix it.
The feeling in that dream creeps into my everyday life all too often. The tightness in my chest, the air feeling like it is being wrung from my lungs, reminds me that I fear losing control. Dropping something. Letting someone down. Not being enough. The feeling became all too real last fall when the responsibilities were piling up like a stack of bricks on my chest. Two jobs, two kids, and getting ready for an international move crowded my schedule and overwhelmed my spirit.
I remember the moment I knew I couldn't run from it anymore. Between work and church, kids scrambling for my attention, the to-do list a mile long—there wasn't a moment to stop. But I physically couldn't keep going anymore. I laid on the bed staring at the rocking back and forth of the ceiling fan above me, willing my breath to find that same regular rhythm. I placed my hand on my racing heart, begging it to slow down. Each inhale felt like a knife turning inside my chest, my lungs like a leaky balloon that spurted the air out as soon as it entered them. I had spent years saying I could handle my own anxiety and it felt like a defeat when I admitted I couldn't anymore.
***
"I find myself doing things out of character these days," I told her as I took another sip of overly sweet tea, feeling the sugary film build up on my teeth. The conversation at those monthly dinners with my oldest friend who has been a counselor and Myers-Briggs practitioner always find their way to personality or anxiety. Knowing her has made me think about who I am and how I relate to others and I tell her how I feel different than I used to. Orderly, structured, a planner to a fault. That has always been me. So afraid to drop something, I make sure to have a plan and follow it to ensure everything gets done.
Last year when I had two international trips only weeks apart, those traveling with me couldn't believe I had two sets of bags packed weeks in advance and a detailed list of all I had to wash and repack in the two-week window between trips. A year later, after my realization that fear had overtaken me and I needed to do something about it, my husband looked at me with disbelief.
"Your flight leaves tomorrow," he said in a questioning tone. "And you're not packed?"
"No, I have time in the morning, " I shrugged and laughed when he said, "Never in twelve years have I ever known you to do that."
I told this kind of thing to my friend, explained to her how I've changed and I didn't understand how I could go against my nature like that. She looked at me and said something that changed the way I saw who I am: "A lot of what you think is your nature, is actually your nurture. Did you do those things you always used to because they were who you really were or because you learned them, felt like you had to do them? Could it be that you are finally becoming who you should be?"
***
I have always known fear is a problem for me, that my anxiety had deep roots in feelings of control and perfectionism. But I never really dealt with it, felt more comfortable running from it and pushing it deeper. If I could just keep everything calm, could just act like it wasn't there, then everything would be okay. As I read JoHanna Reardon's No More Fear each day I saw myself in the pages and God showed me just how deeply rooted this sin of fear was in my heart.
I saw the way I have taught myself over the years to be in constant motion, bought the lie that there is no time to rest. My fear of not being good enough had made me try hard to do it all and, like a juggler, keep every ball in the air all the time. When one drops, as it is going to do sometimes, my perfect world shatters. Not that planning is bad. I will always be a schedule maker. But the obsessing over the plans is the sin of not trusting the God who tells me to come to Him and rest. Jesus rested and modeled the holiness of just doing the next thing the Father asked of Him but I have to do all the things, all the time. And it was tearing me apart.
I have been intentional about resting and practicing sabbath over the last few months, of letting go and trusting Him for just the next step. I have felt like these things are so out of character. But I am seeing that they are who I was meant to be all along. My fear was defining who I was, making me twisted into something God never intended. As I am slowly finding freedom from the fear, I am finding ways to bring my burdens to Him and trust that what I have to offer is enough. For Him. For my family. For myself. The strong arms of God are holding me up when I choose to take a break and let myself rest on them. I can let go every now and then. They will be there to sustain me. It isn't about me being enough after all. It is about Him being enough for me.
{Now share your story} what do you fear most? where do you see the strong arms of god?
Join me for the rest of the Deeply Rooted and Transformed Series and enter to win your own copy of Everbloom! Enter until May 8th.
Traces of Faith. {Deeply Rooted and Transformed Series}.
I am honored to have my voice included in the forthcoming release of Everbloom {Coming April 25, 2017 from Paraclete Press, Preorder now available}. Over the next four weeks, I will be journeying through the book's sections: Roots, Trunk, Branches, Blossoms. The beautiful thing about this book is that it is not meant to just be read. Become part of the story. Journey with me. Read along as I share a piece from each section, respond, and ask you to respond with me.
Through the pain, loss, beauty and redemption in these pages, you'll find freedom in Christ and the courage to embrace your own story. The women of Redbud know the importance of spiritual shelter, and how easy it is to feel alone and misunderstood. In the Everbloom collection they offer essays, stories and poetry: intensely personal accounts of transformation, and the journeys to find their own voices. Best of all, they invite you to join them, with writing prompts that encourage a response of honesty, faith and imagination. Accept the invitation: set out on the journey to find your own voice....
{Read} This Tree by Sarah Finch (click the title to read the excerpt)
{My response} Traces of Faith
I think about it all the time. What am I leaving behind for them? What am I leading them into? Am I messing it all up for them? Will they see something in my faith worth pursuing? Will they cling to God when the winds start to blow?
Becoming a mother brought into sharp focus that my faith isn’t all about me. My relationship with Christ is my own but it is lived out in community and it is on display for the world to see. As a writer, this reality is even more magnified. Each word I write is a window into the work of Jesus in my life. Am I guiding others towards a loving God or elevating self? It feels like a heavy responsibility sometimes.
But it wasn’t when I became a mother or when people started following my blog that my legacy started to matter. It started the moment I fumbled through a prayer to give my life to someone who gave His life for me. That’s when I was transplanted into a life of faith and my roots began to grow into the only solid ground that remains when everything else shifts around us.
I started this year gazing at the gnarled roots of the bonsai lovingly curated by the brothers of the Monastery of the Holy Spirit. God has brought to mind the thought of those trees often this year as I think about roots and transplants, as my family explores the international move we hope for. In the desert of transition this year I have prayed for deep roots that allow me to bear fruit:
But blessed is the man who trusts me, God,
the woman who sticks with God.
They’re like trees replanted in Eden, putting down roots near rivers –
never a worry through the hottest of summers,
never dropping a leaf, serene and calm through droughts,
bearing fruit in every season.
(Jeremiah 17.8, The Message)
My focus has been all wrong though. I have struggled to be the strong woman I want my children to see. I have begged God to make me more disciplined when my body is heavy with anxiety and I just can’t drag myself out of bed to meet with Him. I have cried out, God, why can’t I be that tree that never has a worry in the hottest of summers? Is my faith not strong enough? Are my roots not deep enough? I want to be stronger than I am. I want to be more consistent. I want to feel His peace and know that “quenching of [my] soul.”
I. Me.
When I think about my spiritual formation as a solitary pursuit, as something for my own benefit, my energy is depleted. My efforts fall flat. But when I focus on the seeds to come, remembering the traces of faith I want to leave behind, something shifts in me. It’s not about me. I will be cut down. My life is a breath, a vapor. But I can plant seeds that will long outlive me.
At the very foundation of the life I want to live is the benefit to others. In the Rule of Life God has been working out in me over the past couple years, these words of Robert Mulholland have been part every draft and version I have written: “Being conformed to the image of Christ for the sake of others.”
I don’t want my life to be about my growth for the sake of growth, for the sake of being a mighty tree others look at in awe. I want my roots to grow deep so that I can bear fruit for the hungry, so that my branches become shade for those who are weary. I want to grow strong so that when I am cut down mightier shoots may take my place.
I am asking God to shift my focus, off of my own growth and onto the growth of others because of my life. I am asking different questions:
Am I welcoming the outsider? Do I love the unlovable? Do I seek justice and mercy?
Do I magnify Him in my grief, show peace when the world was falling apart around me?
Do I guide my kids in Truth, point them to a crucified life, a life more about Him than themselves?
Am I allowing the work of faith that began in me to do more than take root; Am I allowing the work of faith in me to spread to others?
“Lord, help me leave a legacy of grace. Help me weather the storms that you have sent so that my words and actions will withstand the temptations and trials of this earth, so that I will not lose hope in your faithfulness. I pray that the work of faith you have begun in me will take root and spread. Amen.” –Sarah Finch
{Now share your story} Describe the seeds you will leave behind.
Join me for the rest of the Deeply Rooted and Transformed Series and watch for a giveaway starting on April 25. Win a copy of Everbloom!
Knowing You’re God’s Masterpiece. For Sheloves Magazine.
“A sacrifice to be real must cost, must hurt, and must empty ourselves. Give yourself fully to God. He will use you to accomplish great things on the condition that you believe much more in his love than in your weakness.” —Saint Teresa of Calcutta
After the tears finally stopped flowing, I scooped him up in my lap and looked him straight in the eyes. “You are wonderfully made,” I tell him. “You think mommy loves you? God loves you so much more. You are His masterpiece.”
It was only a small incident at school that set off my son’s meltdown. He was having trouble with personal space, as active five-year-old boys tend to do. But when he saw me, he melted into the tears of one grieved by a great failure, insisting he was bad. My heart broke as I saw shame in those heavily lashed chestnut eyes.
We talked a few minutes and he accepted the consequence of no technology with a, “yep, I deserved that” nod. He turned to go but I returned his gaze to me and said, “Now what are you to God?” He fidgeted and squirmed, suddenly uncomfortable in my arms. “No, I’m not a masterpiece,” he insisted. Finally, he conceded, repeated what he knew he should have said and ran off to play.
Left alone in the silence, I felt raw and exposed. I want to shelter him from the years I have spent shrouded in guilt and doubt. I want him to be firmly established in who God is and who he is as His child. Only a few years old, the world is already teaching him the same lessons it taught me: You are too weak to be good; You not enough; You’re not worthy. Were these tears that stung my eyes for him—or for me?
I devour the stories I read with my kids about God’s “never stopping, never giving up, unbreaking, always and forever love,” which are so different than the King James Bible I read as a child. I tell them about grace and love, trying to focus more on the motive than the behavior. But each time I tell them these things, I am telling myself. I have to preach grace to myself every day. Because my own weakness is all I have believed in for so very long ...
Welcome
Featured On:
Follow Nicole
Nicole T. Walters
1569 friends
1625 followers
2236 tweets
Recent Comments