Portrait of Jesus {it happened on a sunday} Day 4

When I was in elementary school, my family switched churches.  It was something that would continue to happen every few years, precipitated by some sort of divisive policy or personal affront.  We began to spend our Sundays at a Nazarene church, and I would only later realize, due to our brief time there, that my parents were using it as a place to hide out and rest before finding a community they genuinely liked.

This church was different from the last.  The smells of wooden pews and musty carpets were replaced by air fresheners and fresh paint.  There was a modern-looking auditorium in place of a stained-glass sanctuary.  And what stands out in my memory so many years later is the portrait hanging in the hall where we lined up to use the bathroom during Sunday School.

I can't remember if someone told me it was a picture of Jesus or if I somehow intuited it, but it was the first time I'd seen a visual representation of the man who told Zaccheus to come out of his tree, who walked on water, who died so we could have candy on Easter.  And it blew my poor literal 7 year old mind.

There were so many questions.  If Jesus lived thousands of years ago, did that mean the portrait was thousands of years old?  If so, how did our church acquire it?  Who painted it?  How had it been preserved for so long?  And, even more disconcerting, if it wasn't thousands of years old, if the Son of God hadn't spent part of his time on earth posing for oil paintings, then how did the artist know what he looked like?  How could we be sure that was Jesus?

I can remember staring so hard at the painting each week, hoping to gain some insight.  I hoped that I could solve the great mysteries that this artwork initiated.  Instead, it joined a growing list of things that confused me about church.  Why did we call Communion "the blood of Jesus"?  Imagine my surprise the first Sunday I was allowed to partake of the sacrament, holding the tiny plastic cup and hearing the pastor announce what we were all about to drink!  My eyes popped open, despite the solemn prayer that was coming from the front of the room.  I checked the grown ups' faces, freaking out that none of them seemed even the least bit concerned that we were apparently part of a vampiric cult.  This produced more questions.  The human body only contains so much blood, right?  And Jesus has been gone for a long, long time.  So where did this blood come from?  I couldn't wait for the prayer to conclude, I had to know right away what was in this cup, and so I drank it with a tentative sip and exclaimed, "OH!  It's just grape juice!"  Why didn't the pastor just say that?

It was probably about 10 years after I first saw the Jesus portrait that I learned a few things.  One, that artists create likenesses, that in painting historic figures for whom there is no recorded image they will often use their friends, family, even themselves as the model.  This is certainly what had happened in the image that my youth group friends referred to as "Swedish Jesus".  He looked so European and suave, like someone on his way to pick up Haagen Daaz wearing a thick cable knit sweater.

Medical artist Richard Neave drew this
image of Jesus based on forensic
anthropological research

I also learned the general physical characteristics of different racial groups, that hair texture and nose shape and skin color varied across a huge spectrum among human beings, and the Jesus born in Bethlehem under the authority of the Roman Empire probably looked more like the guys flying planes into buildings on September 11th than the man smiling benevolently outside my church's bathrooms.

All my previous questions were replaced by one pretty big concern.  Since the Bible tells us that Jesus is the physical representation of an invisible God, that those who saw Jesus in the flesh saw the glory of God revealed, why did Christian churches in the Western world (and maybe just the USA) choose to display portraits that were so obviously made in their own image, instead of the image of God?  If God created each of us, red, yellow, black, and white, and we were precious in his sight, then why were we so uncomfortable looking at a Jewish guy from the Middle East when we went to worship him?

Unlike my previous questions, whose answers had eluded me for years, this one seemed pretty obvious.  All I had to do was look around the auditorium, or sanctuary, or sancti-nasium (yes, that's a thing) on a Sunday morning to realize that very few people, if any at all, were painted with a darker shade of skin pigment than Sun-Kissed Honey.  The white men and women who made up the churches of my youth, and, sadly, still make up the churches I've been to as an adult, weren't interested in cultural diversity or ethnic accuracy.

Why is this?  Why in North America is Sunday the most segregated day of the week?  Why haven't we figured out how to integrate black and white and Latino and Asian and everything in between?  Why have we allowed the cultural institution of race to infiltrate our spiritual institution?  And what are we doing today, this very Sunday, to correct it?

**I feel the need to add that the second image from medical artist Richard Neave lends more truth to the prophecy from Isaiah 53: "He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him."  If Jesus looked like the white dude in a crowd of Israelites, I'm pretty sure they would have found his appearance both surprising and note-worthy.

Am I Enough?

It is a new season of life for me, as school is starting up and I have the time and the opportunity to stretch beyond the home I've tended for the past eight years.  I have had lots of time to take in, to learn, to read and study, to prepare, but now it's time to go and do and step in front.  And I'm scared.

The question that haunts me most is this: Am I enough?  Am I smart enough?  No matter how many times I ask myself the question, I always get the same answer.  No.  I'm not.  Sure, I'm intelligent, and I can take in and remember new information.  I know quite a bit about some things.  But what I know is just a small sliver of what is knowable.  I keep encountering people who know so much about things that I am completely ignorant of.  And then there is the unknowable.  The stuff that none of us know, nor will any of us in our lifetime.  Stephen Hawking, genius that he is, doesn't know if space and time are bendable; he only has an idea, a theory.  Albert Einstein, likewise, came up with a theory of relativity, which is unable to be proved or disproved with our finite human understanding.  None of us know how the world came to be, whether it was from a big bang or the creation of a supreme being, or if it has merely existed always.  There's no way we can know these things.  So when I come face to face with this question of am I smart enough, the answer is no.  Neither in terms of what can be known and what will forever be unknown.

In Christ alone, my hope is found, he is my light, my strength, my song;
This cornerstone, this solid ground, firm through the fiercest drought and storm.
What heights of love, what depths of peace, when fears are stilled, when strivings cease.
My comforter, my all in all, here in the love of Christ I stand.

But perhaps I can make up for my lack of knowledge by being good enough.  And so I examine all that I have ever done, all that has been done to me, the way I respond in times of stress, my motivations, my deepest, darkest secrets.  Once again, I have to answer in the negative.  I am not good enough.  Of course I'm not!  What person, in a moment of honesty, can claim to be good enough on their own?  There are times when I stumble upon the right thing, the moral thing, the kind thing, but there are far more times when I act out of my impatience, my insecurity, my selfishness.  There are some days when goodness seems to be the very opposite of what I am capable of.

In Christ alone, who took on flesh, fullness of God in helpless babe;
This gift of love and righteousness, scorned by the ones he came to save.
Til on that Cross, as Jesus died, the wrath of God was satisfied.
For every sin on Him was laid, here in the death of Christ I live.

A new question springs up, especially lately, in the rooms that I have been in, the people I have sat across from, the places I have stood:  Am I qualified enough?  This is followed by hysterical laughter in my mind, and sometimes even escaping into an audible form.  Absolutely not!  I have NO qualifications for what I am doing.  I do not have the experience, the credentials, the titles that would qualify me for any of it.  I am a stay at home mother with an unused degree in International Relations and an unimpressive CV.  Almost anyone is more qualified than me, I think.

There in the ground his body lay, light of the world by darkness slain.
Then bursting forth in glorious day, up from the grave he rose again!
And as he stands in victory, sin's curse has lost its grip on me;
For I am his and he is mine, bought with the precious blood of Christ.

And so, as shallow and inconsequential as it may be, I wonder if I'm pretty enough?  Even though I don't know enough, don't have the goodness needed or the qualifications that are preferred, maybe I can convince people to listen to me and follow me if only I am pretty enough or charming enough to distract them from what I lack.  Human beauty is defined by the symmetry and striking contrast between features.  Consequently, I am not pretty enough.  My face is crooked, my eyes different sizes, my lips barely a shade darker than the skin surrounding them, my belly still soft from carrying children years ago, my hair both limp and frizzy.  No, my looks will not be my saving grace.

No guilt in life, no fear in death, this is the power of Christ in me.
From life's first cry to final breath, Jesus commands my destiny.
No power of hell, no scheme of man, can ever pluck me from his hand;
Til he returns or calls me home, here in the power of Christ I'll stand.

Therefore, I am certain of the answer to my question.  I am not enough.  As it turns out, that is fine, and actually, quite expected.  I don't think any of us will ever find that we feel like enough on our own.  But I don't do this alone, these new ventures, these uncharted waters.  If you couldn't guess from the song lyrics, it is by following Jesus that my path presents itself.  So it isn't my abilities or self-sufficiency that need to be enough; it is HIS.  Jesus qualifies me, Jesus covers my blind spots and Jesus' goodness more than fills in where mine is lacking.  It is Jesus' sacrifice that saves me, Jesus who sits next to the throne of God in heaven and beckons me to take refuge in him.

The question then becomes not about what I possess but about where I stand.  Do I stand in the power of Christ?  Do I live as one who has been bought with his blood?  Do I accept the love that he so freely gives?  Do I shine a light, not so that others can see me, but so they can see him?

On Breaking Things

I never knew just how breakable the world is until I became a mother of boys.  It began with their births, the way my body had to break open to get them out, the stitches and staples and other random office supplies used to piece me back together.  There were a few months to recover, with noisy and greedy nursing being their primary activity each day and the occasional diaper blowout the only mess I had to clean up.  But then they got mobile.  Before their first birthdays they were pulling down the Christmas tree and chewing on books, throwing toys and falling down.  Then there were the shoes that went missing, never a whole pair, but just one shoe gone.  There were toothbrushes flushed down the toilet and bars kicked out of the crib.  There were broken dishes and broken furniture and makeup that was chewed and spit out.  I fully expect that one of these days our house will just collapse in on itself like a dying star from all the breaking.

What a shock to the woman who still has clothes from high school (and middle school), whose books appear pristine after decades of reading, who tenderly places photographs in albums to preserve her memories.  What unexpected chaos and destruction when we added these little monsters people to our family.  We agreed on a saying, "Nothing we buy is worth more than our kids," (also "Never be worth more dead than alive" see A Perfect Murder with Michael Douglas and Gwyneth Paltrow.  These are words to live by, people.), but sometimes I forget that when I see them throwing toys near the tv or playing with my computer.  Money is tight from replacing the essentials, not leaving much to replace our grown-up toys.  Or when a carton of eggs accidentally (or not so accidentally) gets broken on the kitchen floor and I find myself on hands and knees mopping up goopy membranes and multicolored shells.  Or when a body slams into a wall and a picture comes crashing to the floor, shattering glass and ruining the frame.  Then it seems harder to remember that these little people are the greatest blessing in my life and raising them will be my greatest accomplishment, hands down.

Jesus teaches his followers not to store up treasures where moths and rust can destroy, where thieves can break in and steal.  He should have added a special note for parents:  just don't love any thing because your children will break it.  This includes your body.  This includes their bodies.  Because they are just as careless with themselves as they are with everything else.  They run into walls and trip over imaginary obstacles.  They come within an inch of death on a good day just by moving around and living in this dangerous world.  Perfection and wholeness are not going to be part of our lives as we parent our sons.  There has to be something else, some other treasure worth building.  "But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven....for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." (Matthew 6:20-21)

What is a heavenly treasure?  How can I acquire something in this life that will be waiting for me on the other side?  That's all Jesus has to say before moving on to other instructions.  He warns people to serve God instead of money and not to worry about what you wear or what you eat.  So here's what I think:  it's not about our stuff, it's about our people.  The purpose of life isn't to build a great house and decorate it with the fashionable and expensive things money can buy.  The purpose of life is to build a home, a place of refuge and protection, a welcome to anyone who passes through the door.  I shouldn't focus on accumulating more stuff, better stuff, because stuff will go out of style (if my kids leave it alone long enough).  I should be collecting people, seeing the hearts beating underneath the clothes and loving the crap out of them.  I should be inviting them over, not worrying about wear and tear on the couch or how much food they will eat.  And I should start with my boys.  Nothing they can break will cost as much as breaking their hearts or breaking their spirits with harsh words and hurtful hands.

So go ahead.  Jump on the couch.  Spill your drink.  Slam the door.  Break a toy.  I will roll my eyes and be thankful that you are here, thankful for each reminder that none of us is perfect.

Scabs, Wounds, and Healing

Michael fell a few weeks ago.  He was running barefoot at the pool (insert lifeguard whistle) and tripped on a little ledge and went sprawling.  I hurried over, knowing he would need me even before the cries began.  I held him and patted his back, I inspected his knees and hands, I kissed his and head and "I got ya, it's going to be okay".  He kept crying, which was strange, because I didn't see any blood.  It seemed like too much for just a bump.  Then I shifted his body and I saw it: a giant bloody toe.  I had looked in all the expected places for an injury, but it was his toe that had been scraped of skin and was bright red.  I took him to the lifeguard station and we did the usual, antiseptic wipe, pressure to slow the bleeding, a band aid.  I kept holding him for several more minutes, then he was ready to get back down and play with his friends.  We changed the band aid when we got home, applied some Neosporin, covered the foot with a sock so he wouldn't mess with it.

About a week later, he came to sit beside me.  His feet were bare again, and he was looking intently at his injured toe.  He touched it gently, and I noticed that a huge scab had formed over the cut.  "Does it still hurt?" I asked him.  He nodded, still looking at the toe.  "That's called a scab," I explained.  "The scab grows over your cut like a natural band aid and it stays there while the skin heals underneath.  Then, when it's ready, your scab falls off."  I was about to say, "And it'll be like it never happened," but I stopped myself.  That's not accurate, I thought.  I mean, he still remembers the fall and the pain a week later, and while he might forget about it over the course of his life, it's not going to go away.  It was a big enough cut that he'll probably have a scar , a silvery patch of new skin to remind him of the fall.  So instead I said, "When it's ready, your scab falls off and you'll have a little scar where you got hurt.  But once it's healed, it won't hurt you anymore."  He looked at me then.  "It won't hurt no more?"  Nope, it won't hurt no more.

I thought some more about wounds and hurts.  I thought of James, who hits his bruises, hoping it will make them go away.  I thought of my sister, who would pick her scabs too soon and bleed, who would pour nail polish remover over her cuts.  Thankfully she learned better wound care in med school, and when she performs surgery, she stitches and glues and pieces her patients back together.  But it's not just our physical wounds that we mistreat, that we run dirt into or pretend they don't exist. We do this in our wounded hearts, we use crude, ineffective means to cover and hide and our hearts just get mangled in the process.  There is only one way to wholeness, one course of treatment in our bodies AND our hearts to fully heal.  We have to flush our wounds, treat with antiseptic, cover with clean bandages, and we have to let our bodies do the hard work of rebuilding.  We need new skin, new nerves, new connections to grow under our scabs.  And we have to wait, to allow the healing process to complete itself.  Only then can our scabs fall off, our bandages be removed, our bodies and hearts be free to live fully.  Not as pristine as the original, but whole as our scars entwine us and help us to move again.

http://desertstream.org/living-waters/

At Just the Right Time...

I'm on the left, 18 and ready to take the world by storm

Who has two thumbs and a 10 year plan?  THIS LADY.  I am a planner and a serial list-maker.  I like for everything to be prepped and laid out and ready to go well ahead of time.  (This is the point when Reality sticks its head in and asks, "How's that going for you?" To which I reply, "Shut up, Reality.  My lists and plans have nothing to do with you.")  I know my capabilities and I know my limits, and I have sought repeatedly to arrange my life accordingly.  It doesn't happen.

My plans leave no room for error.  My plans leave no room for other people.  (Just ask the man to whom I showed my 10 year plan, who gently pointed out that it left no room for him.  That man is now my husband.  Honey, I'm sorry it took me SO LONG to abandon that list.)  My plans are made to fit me, and me alone.

Prom 2001, Smiling because we are oblivious to the future

All my adult life, my plans have been disrupted and subsequently abandoned.  This used to throw me into a tailspin.  I would sit in the dust of my unfulfilled goal and wail.  At 22, as I was planning a wedding and preparing to marry the man who didn't fit into my plans, I was also returning to church.  I was coming back with fresh eyes and an open heart and the message I heard was one of surrender.  Stop trying to force my way and my vision (it wasn't working anyway), and join God's plan.  Connect in my time and place with the Way that has spanned all of human history.  Learn God's heart and see God's vision of what life is all about.

Romans 5:6 "When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners."

This is one thing I've learned about God:  He's an "at just the right time" kind of guy.  He's not a "plan ahead" fellow.  He's not a "10 Steps to a Better You" list maker.  He is the Creator of the Universe and He reveals Himself along the way.  And for good reason.  If I could see my entire life played out at the age of 16 or 20 or even now, I would run and hide and scream and cry.  I wouldn't want to go through the hard times.  I wouldn't want to bury the loved ones.  I wouldn't want to open myself up.  The life I live now would have terrified me at 16.  Everything needed to happen at just the right time.

My plan: Family picture
Reality: Tears and Gnashing teeth

At just the right time...I opened up.

At just the right time...love came in.

At just the right time...I became a wife.

At just the right time...I became a mother.

At just the right time...I realized my purpose.

At just the right time...I was called out of the pew and into the front.

God's timing is NOT my timing.  But God's plan is becoming my plan.  God's heart is becoming my heart.  And He is calling not just me, but YOU.  He is ready if you are willing.  He will meet you...at just the right time.

IF: LoveCanton

Sweetly Broken

I've been spending time revisiting the past.  It was my choice to go back to those places that I had walled off and tried to forget, but it hasn't been easy.  It isn't easy to be a child in this world, to be vulnerable in every sense of the word, because we live in a harsh world.  We break our children through cruelty and abandonment, through our words and our touch.  All it takes is one adult to violate a child's sense of safety, her sense of self.  One moment of selfishness, one moment of anger, and WHACK!  Life breaks her with force, with no concern for what comes next, and she clutches desperately at the pieces, tries to put herself back together before anybody sees.  She tries to go through life pretending that she doesn't limp, that her jagged exterior doesn't reveal what is inside.  But her attempts to fix herself don't really work.  She has been mangled, like a broken limb that isn't correctly reset.

And we can continue in this way.  We can finish school and get jobs and maybe even start a family.  We can buy a house in the suburbs and join the PTA and fill our days with Pinterest projects.  But just like the broken arm that didn't set right, the human heart won't do everything it is capable of without an intervention, without REAL healing.  How do we fix something that happened years ago, decades ago?  How do we repair not only the damage, but the way she's been carrying herself ever since to hide her weakness?  She has to be broken again.  Not with the baseball bat.  Not blindsided and bewildered.  No, this time it will be her choice.  This time she will be a willing participant.  This time she won't break in the dark, in secret, but in the light.  And she won't break alone.  He will be there with her this time.  He will make sure the broken pieces fit back together, that the fractures will heal completely.

Courtesy of FreeFoto.com

As the song goes: "At the cross you beckon me.  You draw me gently to my knees.  And I am lost for words, so lost in love.  I'm sweetly broken, wholly surrendered." (emphasis mine)  Not every break is bad.  Sometimes we need to break, to repair, to build again, because in the process we are refined and made new.  And this is where I find myself, sweetly breaking, becoming vulnerable once again, allowing the cleansing waters to penetrate and flush out all the bitterness and shame, letting go of all the ways I tried to cope, and allowing myself to be bandaged, and waiting nervously for the final result.  It's all new for me, and I ask that you all be tender with me in the process.

"The Lord your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves.  He will take great delight in you; in his love he will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing." Zephaniah 3:17

Our Scars

One night, we were at church talking with some friends long after the service was over.  Somehow we began talking about surgeries, and my husband pulled up his shirt.  Chris was born premature, with a host of issues going on inside him, and very early in his life he was cut open from his neck to his belly button.  A scar is there to this day.  Chris and I had only been married a year, maybe two? and I was embarrassed.  I didn't want people to see his scar, that jagged pale white line that divides his torso into two hemispheres.  But Chris feels no shame at his appearance.

I have scars too.  The little one on my forehead from when I was a child and running through the house with my sister; our fun ended when I fell and split my head open on a heating grate.  On my calf is an indentation; I had a mother and older sister who shaved their legs, so when I was 8, I decided to be a grown up lady too, and ended up removing quite a bit of skin along with the hair.  The scar of which I'm most proud is across my abdomen, and it is the result of the two c-sections that brought my oldest boys into the world.  It's funny though, how much I feared that scar, how it seemed that any chance at achieving physical perfection was ruined as the scalpel opened me up.  (I think the undignified way we bring our children into this world is only a taste of the many indignities a mother must experience while raising them.)  My scars tell a story, about who I was, who I wanted to be, and who I became.

Then there are the other scars, the invisible ones.  We have a choice, to keep them hidden or to show them off.  About three years ago, we began attending a church called LoveCanton, and I noticed there is quite a bit of scar showing.  The people who stand up to preach have no fear or shame about their scars; they put them on display.  And it's shown me something about who Jesus is.  Have you ever seen an image of Jesus with his hands clasped behind his back?  Do artists ever render him in a position where his wrists are hidden?  Instead, we depict him with arms extended, open for all to come close and bear witness to his scars.  I have a question for those of you who preach and teach:  how often do you stand at your pulpit and tell people what to do with their sin, the hurt they inflict on other people?  And how many times have you preached about what to do with the wounds that other people give us?  Do you spend each week telling people to repent but forget to tell them to take off their shame?

Recently, our founding pastor said, "Our scars give us credibility."  It made me think.  Why is that?  Why do our jagged, bumpy parts give us an authority that a perfect, unblemished past can't?  I think it's this: our scars show that we've been wounded; they announce to the world that we have experienced.  But it's not because we walk around gushing blood that makes us remarkable...it's that we have healed.  When I talk to other women about my c-section, their first question is always: "What's the recovery like?  How soon can you walk, eat solids, use the stairs, drive a car?"  They want to know from someone who has been through it just what to expect after the surgery is over.  When your heart is broken, when your body is aching, you don't want to hear from the person who's never been there.  You want to see the scars, and know that there is something beyond the pain. 

And lucky for us that we worship one who has endured the pain, who bled for each of us.  It's the same, whether you have been hurt or done the hurting...you bring it to the cross.  We lay down our weighted vests of shame at the scarred feet, we pass our burdened hearts to his wounded hands.  Once we have removed the darkness, only our scars remain, to bear witness to our resurrection.

Lent 4: How Deep the Father's Love

How deep the Father's love for us
How vast beyond all measure
That He should give His only Son
To make a wretch His Treasure

As I spent the past few weeks in preparation for Easter, observing Lent and challenging myself to extend more grace to my children, song lyrics began to fill my mind.  They would come unbidden in quiet moments, they were strong enough to drown out the Frozen soundtrack which has played on repeat since March.  Not the whole song, but sections of it.

How great the pain of searing loss
The Father turns his face away
As wounds which mar the chosen one
Bring many sons to glory

I am not perfect--far from it.  And this is the ultimate point of the Lenten season, to highlight just how far short I fall of the glorious standard.  I can't even go for a week without raising my voice, without snapping at a child's incessant repetition of a song (especially sung incorrectly, grr!), without grabbing a wrist or a shirt just a bit too roughly.  How different I am from the One who died.

Behold the man upon the cross
My sin upon his shoulders
Ashamed, I hear my mocking voice
Call out among the scoffers

I cannot tell you how many times I choked up during prayer, how frequently I opened my mouth and just sighed, because God, I am so unworthy.  Of your love, of this life you have given me, of the people who look at me and think they see you.

It was my sin that held Him there
Until it was accomplished
His dying breath has brought me life
I know that it is finished.

And I remember, in these moments of failure, WHY I believe as I do, WHY I live this way.  I remember that Jesus paid it all, all to HIM I owe.  Because sin had left a crimson stain (and as head laundress for a family of six, I know just how difficult the red stains are), HE washed it white as snow.  I remember how it is that I can wake up each day and start new, how each moment is another chance to get it right.

I will not boast in anything
No gifts no powers no wisdom
But I will boast in Jesus Christ
His death and resurrection

I BELIEVE IN JESUS.  When all else around me disappoints, HE remains.  Eternal, unchanging, full of love and mercy.  When confusion and despair seem to have won, I remember that victory lies at the foot of the cross.

Why should I gain from His reward?
I cannot give an answer
But this I know with all my heart
His wounds have paid my ransom.

Let's stop trying so hard to be perfect.  Let's give up this control we imagine we possess.  Let's stop comparing ourselves to each other.  Let's stop thinking we have the answer.  Let's bow our heads and thank Jesus for being the Lamb of sacrifice, and get on with the business of loving and caring for each other.

Happy Easter.

Lent 1: Ash Wednesday

Let me tell you a little secret...I don't like Lent.  Just because I love Jesus doesn't mean I love everything about following Him.  I don't like that the Bible can be unclear and vague, and that we spend our time arguing about what it could possibly mean instead of accepting that life has mysteries.  I don't like this practice of intentionally depressing ourselves, of fasting for six weeks before Easter.  I don't like fasting at all.  In the words of my three year old foster daughter, "I want somethin' that I want."  But it works, this Lenten season.  Because giving up Dr. Pepper or ice cream for six weeks is hard enough.  What if I actually gave up speaking harshly to my loved ones or gossiping about that lady I don't really like who has the bra-strap-fat-roll?  Jesus says in Matthew 25:40 "When you did it to the least of these, my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me!"  And usually we talk about this verse as we pat ourselves on the back, I fed the hungry, I took care of the sick, but what if we flip it around?  When I judged that woman with all the different colored kids or turned my back on a hurting friend, I did it to Jesus too.  It has brought me to tears on Good Friday, wondering how we could have done that to Him, how we all collectively could have hung that man on the cross and hammered in his nails daily, hourly.  And then I remember on Easter morning why it was necessary, why He came and why He died...to be the blood sacrifice to fulfill the law.  So that I wouldn't have to face the consequences of my misdeeds.

And so we begin with Ash Wednesday and the word REPENT.  Turn away from the sin that entangles you.  Come to the foot of the cross, not as part of the mocking crowd, but "turning to the Lord God, pleading in earnest prayer, with fasting, sackcloth, and ashes." (Daniel 9:3)  Confess to one another, because once we bring light into the dark places of our lives and our hearts, the darkness no longer has power over us.  And we can all agree that this world needs more light.  That whatever can bring peace and truth and love is something to praise, something to follow, something to humble ourselves before.  I know what I'm "doing for Lent" this year.

"Let us pray.

Almighty and everlasting God, you hate nothing you have

made and forgive the sins of all who are penitent: Create and

make in us new and contrite hearts, that we, worthily

lamenting our sins and acknowledging our wretchedness,

may obtain of you, the God of all mercy, perfect remission

and forgiveness; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives

and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and 

ever.  Amen."

From the Book of Common Prayer

On Dreaming

A few years ago, as our Family Village was beginning and we were getting to know our leaders, Joe and Mandy, better, I began to read her blog.  It was a great way to learn more about her and her family, because she writes about funny things her kids say, her relationships, the crazy things she does at home (like throwing water on her husband or wearing underwear on her head), and most frequently, about following Jesus.  I remember one post in particular, in which she said that she and Joe were up late dreaming big dreams.  This post struck me because I realized I've lost the ability to dream.  I don't stay up late talking about my dreams because I don't have any.  When did that stop?  When did limits and shortcomings replace the "We Girls Can Do Anything Like Barbie" mentality that I was raised on?

I think its that I used to dream for me, my imagination running wild with what I would do, where I would go, how I would matter.  And some of those dreams came true, and some didn't, and I learned that I can't do everything.  I will never win American Idol or pilot a plane around the world (although I did fly one for about 15 minutes).  Some of my dreams were cast aside to make room for a new reality, and at this point in my life, I'm happy to be the mom of three beautiful boys instead of US Ambassador to France.  But there were no new dreams, no goals to reach.  I didn't think much of the future beyond what the weather would be like the next day or if we would be able to afford a vacation the next summer.  My life and my focus became so...narrow.  When I heard terms like "vision-casting", I just rolled my eyes and cynically thought, If it hasn't happened before, its not likely to happen now either.  Feeding the hungry, eradicating poverty, changing the world...it sounded like a children's story, with an ending wrapped in a nice little bow.

At this same time, as I was losing faith in myself and life became monotonous, a new hope was also taking root in my heart.  A hope in Someone greater than myself.  A Someone who wasn't limited by time, space, or ability.  And its that same Someone who enables Joe and Mandy to dream big about their mission, the people they lead and the way they live.  And I was reminded this past weekend at the IF: Gathering that following God (the One True God, the God of the Universe, the Alpha and Omega) means living with a purpose, a calling that is from Him.  "Your calling is where your talents and your burden collide," Rebecca Lyons declared.

Last night, I lay in bed with my husband, and we dreamed big dreams.  We talked about our burdens, the people that are never far from our thoughts, the ones we are broken-hearted for.  We talked about actually doing something, acting soon (immediately even) to reach them.  We talked about real things we can do by the end of this month to follow through.  And maybe those small steps, those quiet little Yes's will grow and blossom and become formal programs or big events.  But when we ask God to show us where we fit in His plan, instead of trying to get Him to show up in the ways we think best, it doesn't matter.  We dream, and He turns it into a beautiful reality.