A humble post

 

I had a beautiful post about humility almost finished and ready to post a couple weeks ago. Unfortunately it had a flaw: it was beautiful. It was poetic. But in the moment that humility is needed, nothing about it is beautiful or poetic. It’s raw. It’s ugly. Often it hurts. It means admitting that the things I like the least about myself exist, and allowing them to be visible. At least that’s been my experience of humility.

And I’m stuck here. I’ve been sitting looking humility in the eye for months now, sometimes choosing it, sometimes not, but always staring right at it. The Bible has so many good things to say about it. Humility is a doorway to grace. That sounds great. Humility is the fastest way to look like Jesus. Wow, that sounds beautiful. Humility makes space and basically invites God into your circumstances and life. I think most of us would say that sounds like a great deal.

And yet.

And yet that one word is so hard for me to grasp. It means laying down my rights and my opinions. It means looking for spaces to serve even when I feel spent, or looking for places to rest at Jesus’ feet when I know that today is the day the servants are going to be honored publicly. It means placing so much value on people around me that it almost tangibly hurts, but not taking on that burden because I know it isn’t mine to bear.

Whew, this thing called humility. It’s complicated, right? But it’s so very simple. Look for Jesus. He was a servant to all. He poured out his life even to the point of the ugliest death imaginable in his day. He loved even when faced with betrayal and judgments. When I find Jesus and do the things He did and the things He is doing, I will naturally be in a place of humility.  So that’s what I’m trying to do. And some days it hurts. And some days it is so ugly. And most days I fall oh so short of humility as the flesh flares up and tries to convince me to let it have a shot. But that doorway to grace is undeniable and I couldn’t live without Gods grace every moment of every day.

So if you’ve never tried it, sit a while with humility, see what you can glean from its wisdom. And if you have already learned from humility please share your experience, because if there's anything that humility has taught me, it is that I have so much more to learn from others.

Favorite Names

 Today, during noontime prayer, Tullio asked us to take a moment to pray and praise the names of God.  I couldn't help but think on my favorite name for God: El Roi - the God who sees [me].  You see I'm a fairly low maintenance person.  I also don't like the spotlight.  So between the two things of me not needing a lot of attention and me not wanting a lot of attention, sometimes it can feel like I'm downright invisible.  Don't get me wrong, some days being practically invisible has its perks.  But some days feeling invisible is gut wrenching.  And in the middle of the pandemic, when I'm not even physically visible to most of the world, it can be hard to not feel invisible.  

But, El Roi.  God sees me.  He sees the days I'm struggling and no one knows.  He sees the days that I draw up all of my courage to whisper a request of someone and I'm passed over because my ask isn't loud enough and the person expects me to be self-sufficient, because normally I am.  He sees the days my heart is breaking for seemingly no reason.  And what I love most about El Roi is that he doesn't just see me and move on.  He sees me and He sits with me there in the discomfort and pain.  Some days we just sit, because this world is hard and things happen that aren't all that God would have wanted for us because sin has tainted the world.  Some days He tells me "Talitha cumi" - "Little girl, get up!" and He takes me by the hand and resurrects a place in my heart that I thought had been killed by the ugliness of sin and death in this world.  Some days He tells me it's time to move on, to forgive someone who has hurt me or to let go of a sin that was bringing me comfort.  And some days He is the Redeemer and He takes that hurt or sadness and He flips it on its head like He flipped the tables in the temple to bring beauty from ashes and a garment of praise for heaviness.  

You see El Roi doesn't just stop at seeing, He sees and He acts.  And that is why El Roi will always be one of my favorite names.  If you've read this far, please share your favorite name of God...and why! :) 

New Year, New Language

Is anyone else like me and already need a refresh on your New Years goals? (I don't really do resolutions).  One of my biggest goals this year was to remove lack language from my vocabulary.

What is lack language? It's those tiny but insidious phrases that sneak their way past our brains through our lips and bind deficiency to our lives.  Simple phrases like: "There aren't enough hours in the day," or "I didn't sleep enough last night," or "I need more time, sleep, energy, friends, caffeine, etc." or "if I only had xyz I could finally do the thing I want or the thing you're asking of me".  In small quantities these phrases seem innocuous but in large enough doses the effect is quick and deadly.  I can see it in my own life.  Places where I constantly confess the lack I experience never get better, the insufficiency only seems to grow.  And in a year where I have a toddler and a newborn, it is easier than ever to speak, and believe, the lack but also deadly than ever to do so.

Maybe you deal with that feeling of scarcity better than I do.  But I usually respond to it by grabbing on for dear life to anything that I think could quell the shrinking of what I perceive to be my limited supply of that need, be it sleep, energy, time, what have you. So this year I'm trying something new.  I'm calling it the tongue of trust.  Instead of confessing what I lack, I'm trying to speak what I have in the Lord.  And lucky for me, there's a plethora of Scriptures available for just such occasions.  Here are just a few that speak to me when I'm feeling drained, in short supply, weary, powerless, or otherwise lacking.

His divine power has granted to us EVERYTHING pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence. - 2 Peter 1:3 (emphasis added)

Not that I am speaking from being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content.  I can do all things through Him who strengthens me. -Philippians 4:11, 13

And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus. - Philippians 4:19

The young lions suffer want and hunger, but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing. - Psalm 34"10

For he satisfies the longing soul, and the hungry soul he fills with good things. - Psalm 107:9

And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work. - 2 Corinthians 9:8

~

So today I'm going to try to get back into my goal and choose to speak life.  Because I may not have everything I want (like 8 hours of sleep, can you see a theme here?), but by the grace of God, I have all that I need.

Prepositions

Today's blog has a little something in it for the English lovers among us.  I recall as a middle schooler learning how to diagram sentences.  Now I can't tell you what gets underlined and what gets a box around it or anything like that, but I can remember that I was taught to strike through prepositional phrases.  Those are the phrases that come after words like after, among, beside, above, etc.  And I can't say for sure that this is what I was actually taught, but what I remember is that we strike through them because they are not critical to the core of the sentence.  That idea never really made sense to me.  And today I'm thinking of two sentences that change profoundly as you change the prepositional phrase at the end: "God saves us through this trial" or "God saves us from this trial".

You see, when I was young, I always thought God was in heaven to save us from trials.  Look at the Israelites in Egypt.  God heard their cry for help.  He sent Moses.  He saved them out of slavery to the Egyptians and out of their cruel labors into a land flowing with milk and honey (whatever that means).  And with that perspective, I looked for God to save me from trials.  Hard relationships, God will take me out of it.  Sickness, clearly healing is the answer.  Everything hard or ugly was to be removed because God saves us from trials.

As I've gotten older, my perspective has shifted toward the God saves us through trials lens.  Look at Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.  God didn't take them out of the fiery furnace, but Jesus got up in that furnace with them until the king ordered them to be taken out.  Look at Paul.  Three times he pleaded with the Lord to take away the thorn in his flesh (again, whatever that means), but God told him that His grace was sufficient and that He would use that pain and weakness to bring His power and glory on the earth.  So with that perspective, I stopped waiting for God to take me out of trials and started looking for how God was shifting me through the trial.  Hard relationship, what can I do better?  Sickness, how can I learn to be content in this?  Everything hard or ugly was sticking around because that's how God was shaping my character.

In the last few days though I've started to think that maybe the answer isn't one perspective or the other.  It's more situational.  If I'm in a God saves us from situation, a God saves us through mentality will make me hopeless.  If I'm in a God saves us through situation, a God saves us from mentality will keep me from seeing what God is trying to teach me.  So then in every situation, there is a directive to pray to find which perspective is going to bring life in that moment.  Or perhaps the more simple answer is to just focus on God and know that whether He saves from or through, He's going to save and all things will work out for our good because that is His promise.  Hmmm I guess that strike through method works after all.  God saves through trials.  God saves from trials.  God saves.

Legacy

I've been thinking about these beautiful people a lot lately.  It's hard to imagine that they've both been on the other side of heaven for over 10 years now.  I still think about them often.  I wonder what they would think of the person I've become.  I wonder if they would be proud. 

Donald and Fannie won't be found in any history book for Donald's long years working at Mars or Fannie's skill at raising four daughters in the tumultuous 60's, 70's and 80's.  But we, their family, can't forget them.  For the first time in my life, I questioned the exact reason why it is that I am so inspired by them.  The world's standards certainly wouldn't place them on the list of the 10 most inspirational people of the 20th Century, but I would.  I believe it is because they demonstrated a life well lived.  These strong people lived what they believed, every day.  Sure they made mistakes, as all people do.  But the evidence of their faithfulness is demonstrated in the four courageous daughters they raised and the seventeen grandchildren their daughters raised in turn.  

I often find myself striving toward some great feat, a project, or a movement, in the hopes that by doing this I will change the world.  I admit, I sometimes look at my life and wonder what I am doing, that I must be wasting the potential within.  But then I thought about Donald and Fannie.  They never accomplished one "great" task but not a single fiber of my being thinks they missed their potential.  In fact, I do think that they were world changers.  I am constantly inspired by their faithfulness in the every day.  I often wonder how much world missions were affected by the time they spent on their knees and the sacrificial giving they poured out.  They loved with everything they had, they gave more than they had to spare, and they lived with integrity throughout their lives.  If this is a life to be inspired by, then perhaps my goals have been wrong.  Perhaps the goal is not a great feat or movement, perhaps instead the greatest life is the one lived faithfully in the small moments, it is the life that moves with the leading of the Holy Spirit, not the trend of the day.  

(baby Rose here)

And that brings me to these beautiful people right here.  If I take stock of who I am as an individual, what most people would call my personality, much of it traces to these wonderful people.  That efficiency, mind for processes, and love of the outdoors - that was passed down from them.  They raised five incredible children, who in turn had thirteen children themselves.  In each of us, the grandchildren, you can catch a picture of what Erhard and Nancy look like.  We have a thirst for adventure.  We have a heart for service.  We yearn to change the world.  Erhard was and Nancy is one of the strongest people I've ever met.  Their lives were not always easy, but they too knew the power of being faithful in the small things, in persevering especially when obstacles came up in their way, in loving with their whole hearts throughout their whole lives.  They also taught us that in the game of life there are no "gimme's", but that victory is the sweetest when you've truly earned it.

I could go on and on about the people that have written the legacy that I have the privilege of walking in, but I should stop, for now.  Instead, think of the beautiful legacy that you have received from those that came before you.  What's your favorite piece?  What has that taught you about living your best life?

The Sound of Silence

There is a roar rising up in my belly.  There is a movement stirring up in my bones.  It's coming out when I least expect it.  It feels like I'm coming to life again.  I have been known and have known myself to be a quiet, non-charismatic type of person.  But I'm finding it difficult to still the roar within.  The roar began unexpectedly though.  It didn't start with me seeking a shout.  It started when I sought silence.  And in the silence I've heard a sound that I cannot forsake.

Silence seems so innocuous, so inconsequential.  But there is a deep power in it.  Scripture says, "Be still and know that I am God", in the silence is the knowing.  In the silence a deep faith rises.  One that says, I can let go of my sense of control, I can let go of my need to do, I will trust that God is on the throne.  Scripture also says, "In repentance and rest will you be saved, in quietness and trust will be your strength".  I knew all of this, but last year when I was reading a book (Emotionally Healthy Spirituality by Peter Scazzero, I can't over-recommend this book) it came to life for me.  The author suggests to begin practicing silence daily by setting a short timer for before and after your devotional.  I started with a two minute timer two to four times a day.  Even that is difficult for me most days.  The swirling of the world around me draws me in.  The religion I get stuck in tries to pull me away.  It says that my time would be better spent praying for someone or doing something.  But God has never failed to meet me in the silence.  He is never silent.  He has accomplished more in me and in my circumstances in two minutes than I have accomplished by fighting tooth and nail for months.  In taking an action of faith to believe that God is on the throne, I have experienced His reign.

Oh my dear friends, I wish this meant that I've arrived.  Instead it has only made the tax-collector's prayer more real to me, "Have mercy on me, a sinner."  In the presence of the One who is holier than I can comprehend, I find that I am more in need of His great mercy than I could understand.  And He gives it so freely.  And it is in that place of my being coming undone that the roar of heaven overtakes me.  The merciful, glorious roar that rises up to a King worthy of all praise and honor and glory.  The powerful roar coming from the Lion of Judah's lips that He allows me to share in, as His voice shakes the foundations of the earth, breaks off every chain, and rips open every grave.  The mercy of God alone permits me to share this wonder, because I fall so short so often from this magnificent call.  And before you say, well Rose, I know you and you're totally not there, let me say that I know that so much better than you will ever know.  Please share with me places where you've seen the goodness of God manifest in your life recently or share the desire of your heart to see Him in certain places in your life.

Oh the Humanity

Today I'm reflecting on the extreme grace and wisdom of God.  He knows when to come to us with humor, when to be what I would term harsh, when to be gentle and gracious.  He knows each situation is different and each individual unique and He speaks to each one individually as they can receive.  That's why I think the Lord knew what he was doing when He started speaking a phrase to me in December whenever someone did something rude, inconsiderate, or offensive, "Oh my gosh, it's almost like they're human!" or "Oh my gosh, they aren't perfect!"  The humor in it disarmed me every time and I had to chuckle.  It is as if in my mind I expect that no one else has a bad day and is just short on patience, or that we all have it all together, or even that other people should be perfect.  Lord knows I'm not.  I suppose that's why He started saying that to me. 

It's about how I look at people, not instantly equating what they are doing with who they are or making assumptions about their motives because of their actions.  It's about even when it's clear as day that the action was hurtful, making the conscious choice to admit that I don't know what led them to that action but I will release them from it; whether it was made from a place of hurt, frustration, exhaustion or malicious intent is not mine to decide any more nor should that weigh into my decision to forgive.

 

Prior to about a year or two ago I thought that I was a very non-judgmental person.  And in some ways I am.  I've heard people share some messy or dark things without batting an eye because the Lord has shown me that thing isn't who they are, even if that's where they are.  But still, I have notions in my mind about how things should be.  Some of those notions are even grounded in the realities of what is right and what is wrong.  But there is a place in me that is coming to understand the phrase: "First remove the log from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye."  It doesn't negate that there's a speck.  It doesn't negate that when someone cuts me off in traffic in a way that jeopardizes both of our safety, it is wrong.  It simply means that instead of slamming on my horn and shouting "IDIOT!" in my head, I can give grace (and maybe a little love tap on my horn...okay, so I haven't mastered this one yet).

The crazy part of it all is that during the period of time that I've heard that phrase, "It's almost like they're human", deep places of bitterness that I've been working to dislodge have begun to shake.  Mercy truly does triumph over judgement. One of the other highlights to me was the other night, when I messed up (as I so often do), when the guilt of my failure was beginning to well up (as it often does), I heard that same hyperbole deep in my spirit: "Oh my gosh, it's almost like you're human!"  The tables had turned.  And as I had begun to show mercy to those who had/were wronging me, the Lord also invited me to show mercy to myself.

I wish I could say that I'm all the way "there" with this mercy thing but I'm not.  The beauty of it is that I don't have to be.  God never asked us to have it altogether.  In fact, the gospel is the story of how when we were at our darkest, our lowest, God loved us and paid the price for us anyway.  So I'm feeling pretty I'm excited for this next season.  I'm excited because I know that I don't have it all together.  I know that I'm more than a mere mortal through Christ (it's in the Word).  But I also know that God is still working in me to will and to work for His good pleasure.  And so I'm rejoicing in my weaknesses, because I know that through them God can make His power known (also in the Word).  Because y'all that know me know that I'm a mess without Him!  Thanks for being on this journey with me, until next time.

Peace!

Expectations and Hope

In the last week or two I started to notice that a joy leak had sprung up in my heart; I had let a sneaky thief in through a back door and I was (still am) paying for it.  A couple of dear friends helped me pinpoint its name in just a few minutes but the eviction process is taking much longer than that.  Expectations.  In my younger years I used to say that if you don't have expectations you can't be disappointed, and in some ways that worked, but in many ways I hadn't actually let go my expectations, I just started expecting the worst.  In more recent years, in my quest to be "more spiritual" I had decided that it was holy to have expectations, and in that way I fell prey to the common confusion between expectations and expectancy (more on that in a moment).

To be real, I hadn't realized just how many expectations had risen up in my life.  They created a landscape of unholy mountains for myself and my loved ones to climb.  And each time that one of these monuments to perfection proved to be insurmountable, my heart was left open to disappointment and bitterness.  Over the course of years, the ruins of these expectations left scars that would send ripples of pain through my soul each time I would think of the situations that led to them.  And what I'm learning is that the only way to overcome these scars is to allow myself to mourn the loss of those dreams.  The dreams of how things could be, of how things "should" be.  Because the pain of a broken dream is a real pain.  But for true healing to occur I can't stay there, and neither can you.  We have to clear the landscape.  Not only of our broken dreams, but of every vision, realized and far off, of what life should be like.  For me, I had to even clear away the things I believe are going to be God things in the future, because anytime I focus my heart on the gift of God rather than God Himself I fall hard.  (There's a tiny story in the Bible about that too, if you want to read about Abraham and Ishmael).

But here's where the beauty and joy begins to make its return.  I can't leave the landscape of my heart empty.  I must fill it.  So instead of expectations I choose to fill it with expectancy, or a word I like better: hope.  I don't hope for the gift of God.  I hope because God is giver.  He is good.  He is faithful.  He will come through.  He has great plans for me.  And I know that not everyone is like me.  Some people God gives extremely specific plans and they see the map of their life and they follow it and their perseverance is rewarded.  I've practically begged God to do this for me.  I've been gently prodded by people to make this map for my life so I can be more godly.  But that isn't how God speaks to me.  He asks me to trust.  To sit quietly and let Him be God and wait on Him to open the doors.  And when I receive that, I feel such a flood of peace and joy.  And when I surrender to God's will, I see those things that I walked in, that didn't work out, truly were places God had led me, He just used them in a different way than I expected.  He used them to make me who I am, to bring me to where I am.  And in that moment, hope brings new hope. 

As always, I am a work in progress.  Every day is a challenge to choose hope over expectations.  Every day I make the wrong choice.  But I'm starting to choose right sometimes.  And God has more than enough grace for me.  What about you?  How does God speak to you?  Does He use long winding maps or does He ask you to take step waiting for the next to be revealed?

Be-You-tiful

At their core, a person, or take it one step further...at your core, you, before the fall or after Christ's redemption, are good. You are created in God's image and were never meant to "lose yourself".  How do those statements make you feel?  To me, those statements feel like heresy.

But it is no heresy, the secret is the tiny phrase "in Christ".  In Christ I am new (2 Cor 5).  In Christ the person I was created to be is the real me.  God created each of us uniquely.  He created us wonderfully (Ps 139).  We were meant to be seen because we, the real us, reflect the glory of Christ (2 Cor 3).  A phrase I've heard over and over again that sounds so godly is: "I don't want people to see me, I want people to see Christ".  But this is a lie.  If you are in Christ then when people see you, they'll see Christ.

After my last blog post, I've been on the journey of learning about how to feel emotions rightly.  Not to shut down but also not to listen to every whim of my heart.  To be healthy and grounded.  And so when my sweet coworker told me about the book study her entire church is doing, "Emotionally Healthy Spirituality", I wanted in.  The questions above were inspired by this book as I wrestled with the chapter, "Finding yourself to find God".  The idea that God doesn't desire us to continually die to ourselves, but that our old self died with Christ already and that our new self, the self created in God's image was meant to be discovered and nurtured was a hard pill for me to swallow.  As usual, I decided to take this up with Holy Spirit and Scripture and what I found surprised me.  While we will lose our lives if we seek them, Scripture did seem to back up this concept of "our new self" rather than the understanding I had of my "self" being lost in Christ and that anytime that "self" popped up it was getting in the way of His glory.  Our new self is created in the image of Christ, it is immersed in the depths of Christ and it is growing into His image.  Would God want to hide something that looks like Him?  Would He want to hide something that brings Him glory?  The answer that I'm finding is no, He wouldn't.

So that begs the question, who are you in Christ?  To answer that question, I'll ask another.  What are your favorite parts of Christ, what is it about Him that draws you?  Because those will give you a clue to who you are.  For me it's these: Always there. Faithful.  Rich in MERCY.  Abounding in steadfast love.  Beautiful, the One who paints the sky in shades of pink, purple and blue.  Delightful. Glorious.  Your personality is from Him.  It isn't something that needs to be changed or overcome.

This journey is far from over (same with the book, I've only read 3 chapters so far!)  But I'm excited to take it, and I hope that you too find the strength and support you need to take on the journey before you.  Feel free to reach out to me to talk about your own journey or with Scriptures you love about this subject!  And thanks for your patience with my thought jumble.

The Journey Back to Self

You probably think this post is going to be about how I lost myself after the birth of my first child, all the work of diaper changes and feedings and the eternal nights, because according to society my son is a terrible sleeper (p.s. according to me he's just a baby who loves his mom and is not so great at the sleeping bit).  That is not what this post is about.  In fact, it is the opposite.  Surprisingly, the Bible is right when it says when you lose your life you will find it.  This is the story of how almost 12 months ago now I began to find myself again. 

You see, about 6 years ago I began facing some formative moments in my life.  They could have made me, but instead I let them break me and I haven't felt like myself ever since.  It began when I had to leave Africa because I just couldn't stop getting sick.  Oh, nothing major or terrible.  But a staph infection here and strep throat there and before I knew it I was missing so much of the work I was there to do to be sequestered in my room trying to recover but the relief just never came.  So I, along with the leadership there, made one of the toughest decisions of my life and I "came home" a couple months early.  It didn't feel like home.  I thought that was going to be the springboard to the rest of my life.  I loved the work so much.  I loved the people so much.  I didn't want to be in America, I wanted to be in Africa.  It felt like a resounding defeat.  And I left it as that.  When I arrived home, I was welcomed with a barrage of rumors.  The most well-meaning, kindest people I know were asking if I'd "left my calling" so that I could be with my boyfriend.  Out of respect for the wonderful people involved I won't belabor this part of the story, except to say that I faced the devastating destruction of relationships over the course of the next few years.  Perhaps the reason it haunted me for so long was because I wasn't an innocent victim in all of it.  I was as much responsible for causing these beautiful people pain as they were responsible to me.  In what I was sure was supposed to be the happiest time in my life, I struggled with deep depression, sobbing on the bathroom floor, begging God to take the pain away, and swearing that inasmuch as it fell to me I would never hurt anyone like that again and I would never be hurt like that again.

And this profoundly emotional and intuitive soul did just that, I didn't hurt like that anymore.  I didn't feel at that level.  I didn't speak my mind at that level.  I restricted myself from judging any action of anyone else and slowly my ability to discern what was happening around me faded away.  I constantly carried with me the weight of shame and failure.  I hadn't been enough for Africa.  I hadn't been enough for the ones I loved.  I failed them and I failed myself.  And no matter how I fought to lose the numbness of it all, I couldn't.  Don't get me wrong.  In the last 6 years, God has been incredibly good and faithful to me.  I married an amazing man, I achieved my goal of finishing my bachelors, I've been surrounded by many friends both new and old, and I experienced the wonders of new cities, beaches, and the majesty of forests and mountains.  But in the midst of it all, I've longed to truly know who I am again.

One of the biggest signals to me that there was something out of place in my personality came a couple of years ago when I took a personality training at work.  The pre-training assessment told me that I was a pure, unwavering analyzer.  According to this, I'm closed off and prefer to focus on problems and solutions than on people.  I would prefer no one talk about themselves to me but instead get to the issue at hand and leave my personal life in the mysterious shadows.  I was shocked.  I have a good dose of German efficiency in my soul, don't get me wrong.  I also like to solve problems, but mostly because problems effect people and I want people to have the best.  I knew something was amiss.  But I still couldn't put my finger on what was going on or how to fix it.

Then came Elijah.  There was something sacred about that immediate post-partum phase.  Maybe it was the extreme exhaustion or the roller-coaster of hormones, but I felt again.  I cried every week at church for a month or two.  I sat in silent wonder at the immense responsibility that Josh and I had taken on.  Suddenly, the things that happened years ago didn't seem to matter anymore, what mattered was the new weight of raising this little baby, whose destiny I can feel on him just as strongly as I can smell those wonderful presents he leaves for me to clean up.  Y'all I'm a mess.  100%.  But I love it.  I love it because life is meant to be messy.  Our emotions were never meant to be bottled up and kept hidden from the world.  Perfection isn't something to be achieved, it's who we already are.  And so I'm taking this next step of raw vulnerability to be more honest with you than I've probably been in years, because we weren't meant to live in the shadows.  We were created, I was created, to shine bright. 

If you feel so bold, please join me in this journey to be who we truly are.  Share with me what's going on in your life.  The people who walked with me during this time in spite of my distance are precious to me and I would love to walk with you as well in the reality of who you are.

Let it go.

I know I'm about a year late getting onto the Frozen blogpost train, so please forgive me.  I have to be honest, I don't get Christians hating on Frozen.  I'll be the first to admit that Elsa doesn't act very heroic in the movie that she is marketed to be a hero in.  But I think that the movie is something that Christians should watch and learn from because I've watched it play out before inside of churches.
Elsa is a beautiful talented young person who has been blessed with an incredible gift.  The problem is that the gift, if used without maturity, can harm those around her.  Those around her have never seen it before, they don't know how to react or how to help her; all they know is that while she uses her gift she is dangerous.  So they teach her to "conceal, don't feel"; to hide her gift, to hide parts of who she is, to shut down to everyone and everything around her.  So she does.  The problem is that she isolates herself because she has been taught that parts of who she is are completely unacceptable, only that doesn't weaken her gift, it's part of who she is so separating herself out cannot remove it.  Enter "Let it go".  Was this reaction to her isolation and fear of hurting others wrong?  Yes.  And no.  *Shocked Silence*  The truth is, it was right for her to let go of other people's opinions of her.  It was right for her to let go of the man-made rules that had been imposed on her.  It was right for her to explore the beauty of the way she was created to be.  It was right for her to finally receive the wonder of who she was.  Incredible.  Beautiful.  Unique.  Strong.
Does this narrative sound familiar?  It did to me.  There are so many beautiful and unique people walking through our church doors and so often we don't know what to do with them.  Perhaps they're so loud that they're disruptive.  Perhaps they border on controlling.  Perhaps their imagination runs away with them.  Perhaps they are just too emotional.  Or perhaps we are meeting future evangelists, administrators, prophets and seers that have not yet learned how to operate in maturity.  Instead of trying to shut down what we see as a problem perhaps we should be celebrating the God-given gifts within them.  Perhaps you have been Elsa.  I have been.
Luckily, running off and wreaking mayhem or isolating submissively for our whole lives are not our only two options.  We have rock trolls (bear with me), people who have lived and experienced many things and can teach us how to navigate what we are experiencing.  These people have the maturity we need; and often to reach a point where we can operate in our gifts in a way that uplifts our whole community we will need to submit ourselves to their guidance.  We also have our family in Christ, brothers and sisters like Anna, who will fight for us and fight with us.  These people will love us through our flaws and failures, many times they will accept us even before we accept ourselves.  They will show us one of the most important things we  will ever need to walk in our giftings and our lives: love.  And we have one more amazing resource that Elsa never had: the Holy Spirit living inside of us, the very voice of God to lead and guide us, teaching the way we should go, creating life for others through our humble movements of obedience.
So be yourself!  Each part of you was fashioned by God.  You were fearfully and wonderfully made.  You are altogether beautiful.  There are good works that were created in advance just for you that you can simply walk in.  Just remember, love is key to walking out your gift.  "Whoever loves his brother abides in the light, and in him there is no cause for stumbling" 1 John 2:10.  And the God who created you and your gifts leads you by the hand as you make this incredible journey called life.
...Oh and those things that were holding you back...let them go...

Fire with Fire

Fight fire with fire is a phrase I often hear people say, but I don't think they understand what it means.  You see, in fire prone areas sometimes to prevent a devastating wildfire people use controlled burns to keep flammable brush under tabs so that if wildfire does break out it won't be able to spread since it won't have the fuel necessary.  I personally have never seen a firefighter out at a house fire with a flame thrower trying to tame the flames.  But that's how we use the phrase often.  If you don't believe me just take a look at the body image debate currently occurring.  It saddens me to hear body shaming going on both ways, overweight and underweight, too much make-up and too plain.  Inasmuch as it is true that no matter what your body type you are beautiful, I think that this is still missing the point.  The point is that we cannot defeat body shaming through focus on the body, fighting flesh with flesh.  The only way to defeat it is to look beyond the flesh to the true nature of each person, the God-given, intricately woven beauty in the depths, once you catch sight of that beauty you cannot help but see beauty in every body you see, skin and bones or extra curvy, pimpled, short, tall, mediocre, short hair, frizzy hair, no hair, each one will exude beauty to you and when you catch this beauty you transmit it to others through your words and actions.  Another contemporary example is the ISIS crisis, people who spread fear, anger, and hate so vehemently that it cannot help but touch the depths of our souls.  The response I have seen has sadly often been fighting fire with fire.  Articles posted left and right about the danger of Muslims in America, hate spewed forth against these men and women, fear about how this is the end of time and we will be destroyed gruesomely by them if we do not first destroy them.  Fear, anger, hate.  But we are never told to take an eye for an eye, we are told to forgive as our Father forgave.  We are told to love.  We will never defeat hate by hate, we will only replace it, we will never defeat fear with fear, we only strengthen it, we will never defeat anger with anger, we will only multiply it.  But we can love.  Love is the antithesis of hate and fear.  We can forgive, anger cannot occupy a space that forgiveness inhabits.  We can listen to the words of our Teacher, who prayed "Father forgive them for they know not what they do" even as he died at the hands of evil men, and we can pray for our enemies.  Our struggle is not against flesh and blood but against rulers, principalities and powers of this dark world, so why do we continue to try to fight with fleshly weapons?  Today I challenge you, and I challenge myself, to ask what is the spiritual response to the fleshly circumstances that are rising against you today.  And I challenge you to fight fire with water, with a fire extinguisher, by smothering, by kicking dirt, by whatever means necessary, but for goodness sake, stop trying to fight fire with fire.

Faith, Trust, and Pixie Dust

I've been chewing on a thought for a while now and I think it's time to share it with you my friends.  In Song of Solomon it says that "He has brought me to His banqueting table and His banner over me is love" and in Psalm "He prepares a table for me in the presence of my enemies, He anoints my head with oil, my cup overflows".  But to be honest, I don't always feel like I'm at a banqueting table, a lot of times I just feel hungry.  As I pondered this phenomenon one day, I remembered a picture of another banquet table.  In the movie Hook, after Peter has had a long hard day of  trying to remember how to be Peter Pan, he sits down at a huge banqueting table, but to his dismay it is covered from end to end with empty dishes.  Like Peter we are often brought to the banqueting table but see nothing but emptiness.  It is only when we begin to believe in the truths God has spoken, when we begin to trust that He will fill us, when we choose to live in joy and love in the moment in which we are, that we, like Peter, suddenly see a table filled with every delight imaginable, a table filled with enough for everyone at the table with more to spare for whoever we could desire to invite.  And every time we believe, we hear that same sweet voice in our hearts that says proudly "You're doing it, child!"  So don't wait to see the feast set before you to dig in today, take a huge bite of that ribeye or cake or donut and you will find that it is indeed there and that it will fill both your need and your desire.  Oh taste and see that the Lord is good!  A good practical step to start with?  Pray this, "Lord I thank You that Jesus Christ came to be the bread of life, I thank You that He gave His life that I might be filled with the goodness of God.  I believe that You are more than enough for my every need.  I believe that You are good and that You give good gifts to Your children.  I believe that You provide for me and I place myself in alignment with Your word that whoever hungers and thirsts for righteousness will be satisfied and that whoever believes in You and eats Your words will never hunger, and I say that I am hungry for You and Your words and Your righteousness."  Dig in.  This is the best meal you'll ever have.

Two are better

For my first post-wedding blog, I think it is only fitting for me to talk about a lesson learned from marriage.  You see, I haven't been willing to write for a while because I've felt like such a mess.  For the past 5 months or so I've been slowly picking up the pieces of my heart that have fallen around me due to various circumstances and each time I can't help but wonder how I got to a place that circumstances could break me like that.  I consider myself a strong person.  I consider myself a grounded person.  But the past two years have felt like a crushing weight to my soul.  So much loss.  So much fear.  So much loneliness.  So much that didn't go according to plan.
And then I got married.  You see there's this little thing in marriage called proximity.  If you get overwhelmed or peopled-out during the day, you still get to sleep next to a person.  You're around this person 24/7, and the funny thing is you care about them so you don't really want to give them crap just because you feel like crap. The first few months we were married, I was about to be done with myself.  I was trying so hard not to let all these negative emotions out on my husband and my feeble attempts failed.  I tried to deal with everything at once; again fail.  But little by little, day by day, my anguish was washing away.  Each time, I saw where these hurts came from and I asked myself, how did it get so far?  How did I fall like that?
And to be honest, I started to get a little scared.  If I could fall like that once, what was to keep me from falling like that again?  And to be honest, it could happen.  But God is faithful to pick me up and brush me off and set me back on the path of righteousness.  Along with that though, God spoke to me again one of the passages from our wedding vows, "Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil.  For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow.  But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up!" (Ecclesiastes 4:9-10 ESV).  I have found it a lot harder to fall now that I have Josh.  First off, he calls me out when I have something against someone, and I may not acknowledge his call out at first but I do end up dealing with it.  Second, it is a lot easier to tell when something in me is off when I'm constantly around another person and when isolation for the sake of isolation is so glaringly obvious.  Third, I love Josh too much to let him take the brunt of my bad moods because I need to deal with something, so I just deal with it.  Yes, it's a lot more work than I may have bargained for.  But oh yes, two are definitely better than one!

Enough of Enough

One question has seemed to plague my mind since my arrival back from Zambia.  In fact, it is the question that has plagued me for quite a while: Am I enough?  I have no doubt that we have all asked this question in one form or another.  Am I good enough?  Was that kind enough?  Did I do enough?  We complete an assignment and we ask if we tried hard enough.  A relationship fails and we ask if we loved enough.  Someone rejects us and, if we are insecure, we ask if we are good enough.  When I returned to the States I found myself asking if I had done enough while I was gone.  I quickly dismissed this since I knew that I had given my whole heart while away.  But then another was raised, am I doing enough now?  In fact, is who I am good enough?  Do I somehow have to prove my worth by what I do or say or how I love? It is easy for me to dismiss this question with the ingrained truth: of course I don’t have to prove anything.  But still, in the depths of me it nagged, pulling at my heartstrings incessantly.  Do I love people enough?  Do I love God enough?  Am I enough?  Then one night I heard that gentle voice (oh I love that voice!) whispering a variation of the ever popular phrase “enough is enough!”  Instead He said, “Enough of enough.”  Enough asking if I am or ever could be enough.  Enough saying the words not enough or more than enough.  Instead speak the word: complete.  Full.  Scripture says that in Him we have been made complete.  Have you ever noticed that if something is complete there is simultaneously no lack and no space for addition?  It is not more than enough, nor is it not enough; it simply is complete.  In Him I am complete, lacking nothing, full; take your pick; I’ll take any of those any day of the week.  But the awesome part is that I am all of those, every day of the week!  There is rest for me in completion.  It takes the work out of, well, everything.   I pray that you also find rest in the completion/fullness Christ gave you through His work on the cross.  And with that, dear friends, I do believe this post is…well…complete.  ;)

Grace and Peace

More to Come

Even though I graduated from college four years ago I still remember that day clearly.  We all sat in the gym which they had converted that day to be a sort of a stage for us and we listened to the president of the SGA quote Dr. Seuss, "Oh, the Places You'll Go!"  I still remember the atmosphere filling with a slightly sarcastic air; we were graduating from community college, what places would we go?  We were from a tiny town in rural Maryland, what things would we see?  To be honest, not many of us had grand aspirations, most were just there to get a slightly better job and live a quiet life, not a bad thing, but really what people would we meet?  Even then her proclamation stayed with me, "Oh, the places you'll go!"  I've thought of her words many times recently, of how right she was.  Who would have expected the beauty or the wonder of the places God has graced me to go or the people he has honored me to meet?  Oh, the places I've gone!  The urban center of Cape Town with the beauty of Table Mountain and the bright blue ocean always in view.  The breathtaking Zambezi flood plain, painted in hues of blue and green and wrapped in the golden light of the rouge setting sun.  The pulsing city of Belgrade with its amazing Eastern European vibe.  Oh, the people I've met!  What an honor to meet such and amazing and eclectic group of people all over the world with a heart to see God's Kingdom come no matter the cost to themselves!  The Van Collers who gave up their lives in South Africa to speak the gospel to the hurting and unreached in Zambia.  The teachers at the VOH school in Mongu who lay down their lives everyday to see the most vulnerable children in Zambia protected and taken care of.  The pastors and members of New Horizons Church in Belgrade who fight the spiritual battle everyday for their city and their nation, who seek out the most hurting and addicted in their community rather than shying away from the pain they know that it could bring to their own lives.  The leaders at my own church in Christiansburg and all those around them who willingly lay down their lives to help anyone who asks them.  These are the people I've been privileged and honored to meet; and that's just been in the four years since I graduated from college.  And my question in this is always, "God how could you be so good?"  His answer comes softly every time I look at the words carefully pasted on my journal: But my child, just wait, there's still "More to Come."

Hope and Humility

I once heard humility defined as seeing oneself in proper perspective to God and man.  To me that fits.  What could be more humbling than knowing how desperately you need God or how much you need your fellow man?  When I see in proper perspective I see how utterly hopeless my life 
would be if it was not for God's moment by moment intervention.  This revelation brings me to my knees, sometimes it puts me on my face in tears.  But it does not end at how hopeless I would be without God; no, this perspective carries on to how much hope my life contains because God is in my life.  He has said, "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble."  As I look at the situations and circumstances in my life, my need for grace is so apparent.  The sadness of leaving my friends and students in Zambia; the strange circumstances I found upon my return; and now the search for a job, not knowing what direction to look.  Yes, grace is what I need in this moment.  But here is my hope, that God's grace is sufficient for my every need.  That I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.  That He will give me the grace I need even as I humble myself to ask for it.  That though I cannot carry on in Zambia, there is no gap left by my absence because God cares for those He loves.  Those are the thoughts that cause an inadvertent smile to begin to form on my lips even as I ponder the decisions and paths before me as well as the things that I have left behind.  And so I hope in humility that God's plans and purposes in this time will prevail.  And I hope and pray that you too find hope in whatever circumstances you find yourself in today.  God is faithful.  His love will never end.  Selah.

The Wonders of the World

As many of you may have already heard, the past two weeks I’ve been on a sort of expedition or adventure.  At the suggestion of one of the head missionaries at the Zambia Project, I left Mongu for a couple weeks for a time of refreshment and rest in Cape Town, South Africa.  During this time, I was to attend a women’s conference put on by Hillsong and to do my very best to rest up for the rest of my journey in Mongu.  On April 8^th, I and three other missionaries embarked on what turned out to be a five day drive to Cape Town from Mongu.  We had some unexpected occurrences, including but not limited to: four tire changes (or maybe it was five, I honestly lost count), three elephants crossing the road while we drove at night, a stop by Victoria Falls in Livingstone, and some awesome Afrikaans folk in Southern Namibia.  To say that it was an adventure would be an understatement.  But the adventures did not stop there as we arrived Cape Town and we had a daily view of the beautiful Table Mountain, named last year as one of the ten natural wonders of the world.  I also had a glimpse of the culture shock which many missionaries endure when crossing from a place of such desolate poverty into a place which sometimes has such posh lifestyles.  Even amidst all this beauty and strange emotion, I encountered yet another wonder: the soothing and gentle whisper of God, reassuring me of who I am.  Reassuring me of who He is.  Reminding me of His heart for the orphan and the widow.  Reminding me of my purpose and my value.  This truly was a wonder to my dry heart; as streams in a desert, His words watered my soul daily, bringing peace in what seemed to be a world of chaos.  His gentle voice began to wash away the hardness that had begun to develop in my heart, not hardness against those in need, but hardness against the attacks the enemy has waged against me since I arrived in Zambia.  So many days in Cape Town I sat…just sat…in wonder.  In wonder of His love.  In wonder of His grace.  In wonder of Him.  His Presence is the greatest wonder that I could encounter on this journey and the one which brings me the most peace.  And so I drank in the beauty and refreshment that He sweetly lavished on me.  As I return to Mongu this week it is my deep desire and hope that the wonder I have experienced in His presence will not be a fleeting moment as when one looks at a natural wonder, you see and then it is gone when you walk away, but instead that these wonders would carry with me as one who lives at the foot of Table Mountain, drinking in its wonder day by day never loosing that sense of awe.  

Welcome to My Day

It’s still dark when my alarm goes off.  I quickly hit it to make that obnoxious noise stop.  Then, as I do every day, I lie in bed and think about my day.  What will happen at school today?  Do I have what it takes to teach these kids?  At VOH school we take our roles as educators very seriously.  Young Katongo tells us that he has no one to talk to at home so school is the place where he has an outlet to speak his mind.  Mubila has positive affirmation and two guaranteed meals a day at school, which is not something that is necessarily always true at home.  Little Joseph feeds on every word we say to him, nourishing his mind on each morsel of information he can grab a hold of.  Naomi is learning how to receive adult interaction not only on a regular basis but also without being the center of our attention at all times that she is with us.  Each day at school is vitally important.  And each morning that weighs heavy on my mind, keeping me in bed all the longer.  When I finally roll out of bed and get ready I make the trek up our immense hill to school.  Immediately I am met by children wanting to talk or to get a high five.  I go and talk to my fellow teachers about what is going on in Mongu or about the children or about our weekends, whatever is the most interesting that day.  After we spend some time together, it’s off to work.  We spend the day playing games, singing songs, and teaching the children everything we think they need to learn.  It’s loud and chaotic and fun and wonderful.  At the end of the day, I leave school exhausted, hoping that I find enough energy to complete whatever evening activities lay before me.  I collapse onto my bed, waiting for the noise in my head to stop before moving on to my evening activities.  I look forward to my times in the evenings with the other medium term missionaries and catching up with people over Skype.   Then I prepare myself to start again tomorrow.  

On Leadership

Recently we've been having many discussions about leadership at Hope Church.  What does it look like to be a leader and what does service to the Lord really entail?  I know many of you have much more wisdom on the subject than I do, but I thought I would share some of the conversations that we've had.  Leadership is meant to influence.  Some of the most valuable things we can influence others with is hope.  Leaders know that every move they make is watched by others and they seek to make each move to glorify God to influence others to walk with the Lord, to bring hope into their lives.  They must be people of integrity, who speak words of life because people listen when they speak.  Leaders take responsibility, they don't cop out when the people they are leading mess up.  I mean check out Moses when the Israelites made the golden calf, he says to God, "if you don't forgive them, please blot my name out of your book."  How is that for leadership?  He wasn't even there when they sinned and yet he takes responsibility for it.  He stands in the gap for them and puts his own life on the line to defend them even when they've royally screwed up.  Leaders stand their ground when things get hard.  They persevere under trial because they know that the testing of their faith produces endurance.  They find their strength in the Lord and they know that they must be refreshed in Him daily if they want to survive in the positions they have been assigned.  Leaders don't lord it over the people they lead but instead seek to serve them.  They know that "Whoever seeks to save his life shall lose it, but whoever loses his life for my [Jesus'] sake shall find it."  They don't seek a title or a position but push others toward greatness and seek to be surpassed by their peers and the ones they mentor.  So are you really a leader?  Am I?  I think by the grace of God we all are called to be and by His strength we all can be.
Grace and Peace.
Rose