It Cuts Like a Knife.

I just returned home from a trip to the grocery store.  I went to get bread for dinner. Here is what I managed to bring home:

1. Garlic Bread.
2. Blueberry Bagels.
3. Box of Buttermilk Waffles.
4. Loaf of Multigrain Bread.
5. Package of Bakery Cake Slices.

Okay, I did get some eggs, too.  But y’all, I promise you, that cake was not on my list and I didn’t even realize I had it till I was unpacking the grocery bag! Besides, the cake, though, is anyone detecting a theme here?

I won’t lie; I think I’m feeding my feelings a heavy dose of carb-love tonight.  Anyone else do that?  I have had a rough day.  We have had a rough day.  Less than one month into our new lives here in Texas, and we have been dealt our first big blow.  It’s a big one.  Texas-sized, you might say.  We are really feeling it, too.  It’s not like we thought that once we got here everything was going to be smooth sailing.  But this situation sort of showed up unannounced and knocked us off our feet.

I’m not sure what’s worse: living in a state of near-constant frustration and disappointment or riding a high of peace, contentedness, and hope and have a situation come along that disrupts that.  On the one hand, who wants to be constantly frustrated and disappointed and feel as though there is little you can do but accept it and work on your own outlook.  I mean, that’s pretty sucky; let’s be honest.  But when you’re in that space, a big heartbreak is just part of the journey.  You’re used to it.  You’re numb to it.  You are already in coping mode, so you cope.

On the other hand, I cannot think of a feeling worse than the pound of your heart slamming to the ground from a mile high.  But, hey, you were riding high for a moment, so there’s that.

Anyway, here we are.  And I am reminded again just how feeble we are.  I am reminded of how people can let you down over and over.  I am reminded of how we fail others and ourselves more times than we’d like to admit.  I am reminded that we are broken as people.  We make decisions that are based in fear, selfishness, and carelessness and often guise them as “prayerful” ones.  We look to ourselves for insight when we should be looking above.  And when we should be ashamed and remorseful, we rest in our own pride.  I’ve done it.  So it takes one to know one, you see.  But it really hurts to be on the other side of that pain.

This is the point where I am tempted to spit out a bunch of clichés about God and His goodness and faithfulness to us.  You know the ones.  We’ve all heard them before.

God is good; all the time. 

God is faithful to finish what He started. 

What God brought you to, He’ll bring you through. 

And you know what.  They are true.  All of them.  But they are not enough.  Clichés are not enough.

What I am really thinking about tonight is me.  I know God.  But what I’m realizing is that I don’t really know me.  I think I have my eyes on Him.  I think I walk by faith.  I think that I rely on Him.  I am wrong.  I don’t.  And the evidence of that is all over circumstances like the one we are currently experiencing and how deep it cuts.

So tonight, I am soothing this cut with a carb-bandaid and taking a hard look at whether my actions match my words.  I am asking God to dig in even deeper and show me what I’m really made of.  That’s scary because I can see clearly that the more I ask that of Him, the more He does so, and it. is. painful.

I see now that regardless of what has happened, it’s the depth of pain that I am experiencing that is revealing to me where my heart lies.  He is showing me that it is the precise level of pain which shows me just how much I have allowed myself to rely upon anything and everything more than I rely on Him.

Lord, this pain is deep. But use it to give me a deeper strength to let go of anything which captures my heart more than You…
…and also the strength to stop after just one slice of my Walmart cake.

-jewels

It’s So Hard to Say Goodbye…

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Allow me some personal reflections. 

Today is bittersweet. Today is the day that I say goodbye to something that has been part of me my entire adult life. This is my last year directing VBS (summer kids week) at Midwest Bible Church.  Technically speaking, I am not the director this year, I am transitioning the new team. Nevertheless, it is my last year in this capacity. I have been at this since the summer of 2000 when our then-pastor’s wife, Mrs. Powell, enthusiastically encouraged me to run with it. Aside from a two-year hiatus while we were in Nebraska trying our hand parenting teens and having our own baby, that makes 15 years this year. Now here I am, turning the page on that chapter and so many thoughts are rushing in, that it is kind of hard to process.

It has been a true joy and pleasure.

I have young adults who work with the ministry now who were attending as little guys my first couple of years. Because we have done this project “family-style,” my own kids have grown up with this ministry as a set part of their summer repetoir as well. My Elias was on the volunteer team for the first time this year and has been coming since he was 1. Sebastian was just an infant when he had his first VBS experience. And Isaac, well he was practically born on that stage with me! (No really, I’m not kidding!) Riaz & I have painstakingly poured our summers into making this all the Lord would have it be. But tonight…tonight is our last family night as the family who does VBS, so to speak, and then it’s done.  I know the reigns are in good and capable hands.  It’s just hard to let them go.

I think what makes this so hard is that this is the first project in my life that I have had a vision and purpose poured deep within my gut and, on nothing more than some paint and foam insulation board, fleshed it out…and seen its success.  And it was hard. It was tiring.  There were a lot of tears.  There were so many personal missteps and flat-out screw-ups.  But God was SO good.  He sustained it.  He grew it into everything He set in my heart that it could be.  And now that all the chiseling, crafting, and sloughing off of the edges has happend…for both the ministry and me…God has asked me to walk away from it into something new.  It took three years of undoing, but now it’s done.

I am so thankful for this ministry. I have seen countless children know, grow, and mature in the Lord over these years and families find a church home as result of attending VBS. I have had a front-row seat to witness how a handful of well-written songs, some zany games, and some very powerful words written centuries before have the power to impact and shape the lives of our kids as they bounce through their childhood.

It will, indeed, be hard to say goodbye. I know, however, that there are many more wonderful years to come for Midwest VBS and lives that will continue to be impacted for eternity through this amazing ministry.

So thank you Jeff Slaughter for your wicked good music and your sweet motions. Thank you spray paint and foam insulation board for being the medium to bring my crazy to life. Thank you to the hundreds of volunteers who have taken this ride with me. Thank you to the literal thousand+  kids who have brought so much joy to my summers. Thank you to my sister-in-love, Lisa, for being my steady, detailed, and organized partner for so long I can’t remember.  Thank you to my husband, the true unsung hero and master of all interpretive movement now and forever more.  You drove me to achieve more than even I thought possible. And thank you to Midwest, for your support, encouragement, and faith.  You have allowed me to follow the Lord and trust Him and grow in ways I never imagined.  So, goodbye, Midwest VBS, in the words of Glinda & Elphaba:

Because I knew you, I have been changed for good…

desperately seeking…

// speak the truth, even if your voice shakes //

lightstock_313743_small_user_2800281A few days ago, a dear old friend of mine posted an article that immediately got my attention.  It was written about a particular state of affairs within the church.  A tendency to look at the culture we live in and lament, “Sure wish things were like the good ol’ days.  These days we’re going to hell in a hand basket.” Well, those weren’t his exact words, but that was the sentiment.  That we as a church need to stop using fear of the culture and America’s moral decline as a means of spreading the Gospel and actually start living the Gospel.  At least that’s what I took from it.  And I agree. Wholeheartedly. And wish I had written it myself.

Of course, I reposted it, and as things tend to do, a discussion followed on my Facebook wall.  All in all it was interesting and thought provoking and essentially challenging from the standpoint of others putting in their 2 cents and having a healthy discussion.  But the conversation that I had with my husband after reading him some of the comments is what really got me thinking.

I started to think about this blog, in fact.  The fact that it has taken me well over 3 years to restart blogging.

First, I stopped because I really hated how my old blog looked (vanity of all vanities). 

Then I went back to school (I think that was my way of procrastinating from restarting my blog…I earned a degree, though!)

Then I had another kid (again…here with the intentional writing distractions).

Then I went back to school…again (Grad school, you know. Mommy’s gotta be educated too!)

And then you want to know what happened? I started to be afraid.  I started to wonder why I ever started writing in the first place.  I started thinking that there was nothing that I could say that hadn’t already been said (probably still true). I started listening to a seed of doubt deep, down inside that at some point in all the procrastinating had started to grow up.  I started to believe that my voice didn’t matter. And so I would write…but never hit publish.

I know this is the point where I am supposed to tell you that I have had some grand epiphany.  But that part’s not coming.  There is no grand epiphany.  Not really.  There’s just a simple conversation with my husband and a realization that I don’t know it all.  That’s it.  I don’t know all there is to know under the sun.  I don’t know all there is to know about raising kids. I don’t know all there is to know about being married.  I don’t know all there is to know about the Bible and I certainly do not know all there is to know about God.

But I do know Jesus. 

I do know that He is the way, the truth, and the life. Period. 

Me? I get things twisted sometimes.  I love the Church and I love people.  I get frustrated when people complicate things.  I get frustrated when people start making peripheral issues, central.  I get frustrated when my Starbucks isn’t right and a whole host of other things!  I’m not perfect. Not even close.  And I don’t know all there is to know.  But I must write.

God has wired me a particular way.  I work things out as I talk them out…or write them out.  But not knowing everything is scary.  Thinking differently about particular subjects that I used to feel very confident about is scary.  Knowing that others may not agree with me is scary.  I’m not a person who likes to be scared.  But I am a person who likes to write.

And though my voice may shake, I will speak.  And I will be okay with everyone not agreeing with me all the time, or any of the time.  We don’t have to always agree. I am not writing to make you happy (although, if you’ve made it this far, I do thank you for sticking with me!)  So here it is. A blog with my name on it. My blog. In just a moment, I will hit “publish” and that will be scary. But’s that’s okay, too.

I am writing because I must.  I am writing because even if I have nothing to say that hasn’t been said, that’s okay. Someone once said, “Truth is truth regardless of man’s attitude towards it or understanding of it.”  Even if I don’t know everything there is to know, that doesn’t change that there is truth to be known.

So I’m writing to speak truth and I’m writing to seek truth.

Make me to know your ways, O Lord;
    teach me your paths.
Lead me in your truth and teach me,
    for you are the God of my salvation;
    for you I wait all the day long. -Psalm 25:4-5

jewels