I wonder as I wander

I've been trying to follow God's leading in what He has planned for this stage in my life. Where do I go - how do I spend my time - what do I say yes to....as I wander in this phase of life, I wonder how God might use me....

I thought I was doing pretty well until I started working on If Prayer. This amazing ministry called If encourages and supports women in discipleship, community building, church growing, Christ following, authentic life living and I am amazed at how a few pastors wives were called together to use their gifts and talents to start a movement in the American church.

I loved being a part of If and when an opportunity came to lead a night of prayer, I jumped in with both feet. I think I prayed about it - maybe a little. Honestly, I can't remember clearly. 

But here's what I didn't do - I didn't bathe the event in my own prayer. I didn't arm myself to lead women into the spiritual battlefield of praying together. I didn't throw myself down into the arms of the Lord and beg for His strength.

I planned. I prayed occasionally. I sent emails and made phone calls and bought food. I coordinated. I photocopied and I arranged furniture. 

And then - as it started to feel forced - as it started to fall apart, I wanted to back out. I started resenting the "maybe" category on the facebook invite. I started grumbling about how I'd rather be watching American Ninja Warrior. I started telling my husband about how bad the timing was and I really never should have said yes. 

And now, as I write this, I can't tell you how it went. I can describe different elements, but my heart was so out of sorts that I don't even trust my impressions of the evening. We were a small gathering, but so were the majority of the If groups meeting around the nation last night. It wasn't even the numbers that got to me - it was the lack of vision.

God had not given me a vision of what He desired when I said yes and I certainly never went back to Him in the planning process. Sure I prayed about it - but not for His leadership - not for His will - not for His purpose. I prayed about logistics and technology and sleep. I prayed about my schedule and my frustrations. 

I don't know what the Spirit did for anyone else last night - but my spirit was convicted. I felt the absence of God in such a stark, sterile way that my skin felt cold. It was a man-made event because praying always please God, right? You don't need to pray for Gods direction about praying, right? Just handle the logistics with your spiritual gift of administration and move on. I felt like Cain bringing a grain offering, but not really having my heart in it. 

This isn't a problem with If, the women who came or the women who stayed home. This was a problem with me treating the worship of a Holy God as a task. 

Forgive me Father. We sang about how You alone are worthy, but I certainly didn't live that out in the planning of our time together. 

Nichole Nordeman has an amazing song "Tremble". She sings "O let me not forget to tremble. face down on the ground do I dare take the liberty to stare at you? O let me not, o let me not forget to tremble."

The priests never entered the Holy of Holies to rearrange the furniture. How dare I treat worship like a chore. O let me not forget to tremble.....

Two years....

Two years ago my grandmother died. 

There is so much that can be said about this amazing woman that I'm not even going to try to explain how rich her faith was and how she lived her life with great wisdom and courage. 

As I have approached the anniversary of her passing there has been a great urge in me to shout up to heaven - "do you see? Do you see all the ways I've grown in the last two years? Are you proud of me?" This isn't about words unsaid - we didn't have any of those. Nana kept short accounts, said I love you often and we had great confidence all the way to the end that Jesus was carrying her home. It's not about trying to prove that I could live up to her standard. First, I wouldn't try - she lived ready to take on anything, at anytime, with bravery that still leaves me breathless. But she didn't measure people against her standard - instead she encouraged her loved ones to live a life of obedience to Gods unique call for them. 

I want her to see that I've been brave enough to live into that change, to redefine my life, to take my pride and indentity issues head on and to walk into the unknown. Like she did.....

I want her to know that her example has been with me more in these past two years than the previous 10 - and not because she is gone - but because of how she lived each day on this earth.  I want her to know that I watched and listened and absorbed her teaching and it has served me well. 

But then again, I think how selfish that view of Heaven is for me to take. She is standing with God Almighty, in the presence of her Savior and the full heavenly hosts - the last thing I want her thinking about is me. In the span of eternity, the difference between when she passed and when I will see her again is just a blink. These days we live missing her can drag on for us, but for her, then sun has yet to set...it's always the first day she arrived. Two years hasn't passed for her - she is now in the infinite time spectrum that we can't even understand. 

In all I read about heaven, it doesn't really make sense for her to be able to look down on us - she is in a place that is free from sin and guilt and earth and pain - why would she look down to watch us slogging through the day to day when her eyes are fixed on the throne of God?

I think we talk about loved ones looking down on us to bring us some sense of comfort and an idea of their presence. But if heaven is all that I think it is - all the Jesus promised to us - then the separation between us and them has to be more than a few puffy white clouds. This is the glory we are waiting for. This is the destination that we sourjourn to. This is that eternal promise land that is WAY beyond the Jordan.

One day I will stand beside her in the glory of the King and we will sing all her favorite hymns together. I have to settle for missing her now - hearing her words in my head and seeing her face in pictures. Hearing her "Nana whistle" come out of my children's mouths when they are concentrating. I have to settle for knowing that all of my days will be influenced by her, no matter how long I live. That's what it means to love and be loved. 

I am forever blessed by her presence in my life - and while I may think to myself "Nana would've loved that" when I watch the Yankees play or watch the leaves begin to turn - she's got the greatest view of all - cause right now, she's seeing Jesus.

Righteous, not correct

I've been having nightmares all week and I don't really know why. The nightmares are really bad - they make me fully wake up and I can remember them long after I'm awake. The images disturb me as I try to fall back asleep and this morning, sleep ended long before 5am.

But once awake, a different thought bothered me. Yesterday I was reprimanded for something I didn't do. A coworker went to my boss's boss and complained about me for something I didn't do. I was professional on the phone, but I was angry in my heart. This morning, awakened by another nightmare, that anger began to stew. I began to practice what I would say to this coworker later today on the phone.

My mom once told me that I had the gift of a quick tongue - I could use it for good and build people up or I could use it to destroy others. I was only 11 or 12 at the time and no idea how many times her words would come back to me. This morning, in my stewing anger, I put all my effort into constructing the most professional venom I could possibly deliver. I crafted a speech that was 100% truthful, 100% professional and absolutely destructive to this individual. I knew what words to say that would linger in their minds long after our conversation was over. I knew how to make them hurt. I could make them feel guilty. I could make them insecure.

And I wanted to.....

God wouldn't give me peace in this state and as I tried to start my to-do list this morning, I felt like I had to begin with a quiet time no matter how long my list was for the day. I knew that God had a word for me. And He did.

Proverbs 15:33 "The fear of the Lord is the instruction for wisdom and before honor comes humility."

Ouch.

The whole proverb focuses on the folly of the wicked and the damage of harsh, angry words. The proverb talks about how "the Lord loves the one who pursues righteousness" and says "a hot tempered man stirs up strife, but the slow to anger calms a dispute" (vs 9b and vs18).

God's word cuts into my heart even more than the horrible speech I was planning to give. It became exceedingly obvious what the issue was - I cared more about being correct than being righteous. I cared more about having others know that I was right, than being right in God's eyes. I cared more about my glory, than living for His.

I was right but my anger was not a righteous anger. It was vicious and mean. It was filled with my hurt and my own insecurity. (How could they not see how right I was? Why would they paint such a false picture of my work, when I've done so well? Are they trying to make me look bad to my superiors?)

Before my honor, needed to come my humility. It was clear God did not want me taking a stand on being correct, but rather pursue His righteousness - a path of peace. I am so thankful that God's word is living and active. It knows the intentions of my heart and reveals the true nature of my sin. And from this place of confession there is great comfort. I can echo with the Psalmist "Return O Lord and rescue my soul, save me because of Your lovingkindness." (Psalm 6:4)

I don't need to stay angry and hurt and insecure. And I don't need to cover myself in sack cloth and ashes when I see my fallen nature rise up within me. I can rest in the comfort of God's love for me and be thankful for His presence, which guides me to a path of righteousness even my feet are trying to wander from Him. His word is not meant to crush, but to revive our souls and bring healing.

"Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path." (Psalm 119:105)

Shine, Jesus, Shine.

Imagination issues

A Mormon, a Roman Catholic and  a Protestant sit down in a  conference room together.....

No, this isn't the start of a joke - this was the situation I was in this past week writing a grant with a few other engineers. We have all different backgrounds and political views and different faith perspectives, but we quickly found a lunch topic we all agreed on - the premature sexualization of our young daughters.

Funny to imagine a bunch of engineers talking about this, but our brains were fried with evaluation metrics and we were just content to talk about our home lives. We discovered we all had multiple kids between grade school and middle school and our single biggest concerns were our daughters and the skewed body image and sexually charged culture. We had all seen the same My Little Pony episodes and were trying to keep Monster High girls out of the TV rotation and toys being purchased. We had shopped for back to school clothes and looked for non-slutty swimwear this past summer. We knew the boys were starting to realize women were something that they would stare at and we all agreed that we were in trouble.

This topic is really hard for me, as I still currently battle my own issues with body image. How do I raise my daughter correctly in the very area I wrestle with? How many conversations can we have about inner beauty before she sees the fraud that resides inside as I wish I were thinner, cuter, trendier, with perfect Nuterogena commercial skin.

This actually came to a head for me as I came very close to quitting CrossFit this summer. While I love our CrossFit community, I had been less consistent than I wanted to be and wasn't seeing a lot of progress on the scale. I realized that I was about to walk away from one of the most positive atmospheres in my life over my own imagination issues - what I imagine other people see when they look at me....

You see, I have been forced when training for a race to run on treadmills in hotel rooms that directly face into a wall of mirrors - seeing my thighs rub up against each other and my waist jiggle as I painfully jog each step. I've looked in the mirror after putting on my bathing suit and seen the back-fat where the straps come across. I've seen myself in a group picture at CrossFit, seeing my muffin top over the top of my shorts (even though I carefully hide it underneath long large t-shirts).

But something else happened this summer. My husband and I started hiking together. We had these amazing mountain-top experiences that feed the soul and have brought us so close together. I knew that I needed to be in shape to experience life - not to fit into a certain jean size. No matter what lie I have said out-loud, deep down I have known that every training regimen of my adult life has actually been about the weight on a scale and the size of the dress. When I failed to see the progress I desired in the first two weeks, motivation became nearly impossible and I begin searching for an excuse to give up. When the event was a race with others - I would keep going until the race was over. And if it was exercise with other people - I would go to please them. But internally, I was discouraged to see my lack of progress in the area that meant something to me - how I thought people saw me.

So back to my original question - how do I raise a daughter in the world of media pressures that I have not yet escaped?

Thanks to some clarity in the thin air on these mountain tops - I found that I enjoyed doing stuff even more than I cared about the potential judging of my appearance. I just had a great day playing in the pool with the kids in my swimsuit. I'm thrilled to be training for a race with my dad. I've got another 5k with friends coming up. And CrossFit remains to be a super-encouraging place. Doing things is more enjoyable that worrying about how other people think I look while I do things.

I can't pretend to be immune to the superficial, sexual nature of our media and culture. But hopefully my daughter will see an example of having fun and living life to the fullest instead of my own insecurities.

I know I usually have some sort of spiritual insight to apply - well the one here is so simple I'm embarrassed to bring it up. If my identity was truly in Christ I wouldn't be caught up in all my image drama. That too is a work in progress - but I'm thankful for the blessing I have to move and run and swim and laugh with family and friends. And the focus on thanksgiving is helping me see life a little more through His eyes than the eyes of the media.