Grace

Tonight God woke me up with a specific memory: my father singing. Because He Lives to be exact. I sang the song in my head and I knew I needed to get up and write this.

God sent his son, they called him Jesus
He came to love, heal, and forgive
He lived and died to buy my pardon
An empty grave is there to prove my Savior Lives

Because he lives I can face tomorrow
Because he lives all fear is gone
Because I knooow he holds the future
And life is worth the living just because he lives

My dad used to sing that in front of the church I grew up in. I used to squirm in my seat from a young age because I was nervous for him to get up in front of so many people and be vulnerable. Yet at the same time, his singing poured peace all over me. I felt the realness of God in his melody and his tears. I loved him for that. Everyone got to witness this true picture of devotion. It was a stamp of authenticity on his relationship with God.

I wanted that. I wanted to know this love affair with a God who seemed so far beyond me. I think that's why I carried my bible to school and I didn't go to parties and I didn't curse and I wore a promise ring, which meant I would wait until marriage to have sex and I respected my parents the way I thought I should and I didn't hang out with the "bad crowd" and I memorized bible verses and wrote them on my folders and I memorized the song Jesus Freak and I admired martyrs and I hoped someday I could find what true believers had found - like my Dad and my Mom and Corrie ten Boom and Pastor Davis and dctalk. I would spend hours in my bedroom writing in my journal and praying for God to forgive me and reading my Bible. But that was all wrong. As they used to say at church camp and youth conventions, I was "missing the mark".

You see, I believed in something which I found out later is called a works philosophy. I believed that if I behaved myself and was a good little girl, teenager, woman, that God would forgive me and bless me. I believed that I was right and so many others were just WRONG. I passed judgment on everyone - I mean everyone - except myself. I despised anyone who wasn't trying to be this perfect little person like me. I thought that God must be so proud of me except for all the times I screwed up, in which case I would pray fervantly for forgiveness and I feared Hell in such a real way.

I was missing the mark.

It wasn't until I was 19 that I heard not just with my head, oh but with my heart, the truth of grace. Pastor Brad at Two Rivers preached a series called the Relentless Pursuit and the day I truly "got it" he preached about the prodigal son. He preached it differently than I'd ever heard it. He said the son who stayed home and kept his responsibility by his father and didn't spend his inheritance on whores and cheap pleasures didn't realize that he was just as sinful and needy as his irreverent brother. He said that son thought he was protected or even promoted to higher standing because of all his good deeds, but he couldn't see his own forever need for grace. Pow. The word of God is sharper than any two-edged sword and man, sometimes God can cut through you like a chef butterflying a steak. And it's so beautiful.

I can't portray to you the power of God's grace. I cannot give him the praise and honor and glory he deserves. But I will try! Today at 3:44 am on Christmas day, God reminded me of his relentless pursuit of me and the world. He reminded me of how he brought me to my knees over and over again to show me my desperate need for him. He reminded me of how he tore my life apart - every perfectly laid out plan - and made me reach out to him in trust. He held me in my lowest moments when I hated myself and wished I were dead and he whispered to me that He will never leave me or forsake me and that He was going to give me strength and dignity so that I could laugh at the days to come. He showed me the rainy day I sat in my cabin when all my cabinmates just happened to be at work and it rained and rained and rained as I cried while writing a letter - and it felt like he cried with me. He put a picture in my head of all the friends who led me to grace. He showed me what the family of God looks like through my young life family. He put me in ministry and let me talk and listen to girls about their hurts, their mistakes, their failures, their fears - and I got to share mine and relate with them. He watched me make really bad decisions and party with people who need him just like me. He allowed me to reunite with the man I always loved most and forgive him and forgive myself and he even let me marry him. He taught me that He doesn't want me to be perfect - He wants me to be real. And that entails acknowledging I need him more than anyone or anything and letting him change me. He showed me the difference between having to carry my Bible everywhere to make sure everyone knows I'm a Christian and actually wearing the love of God in my actions and my words. He changed me and He's still changing me. I've found the fire that burns in the sinning saints. And I will never be the same.

This is my story. This is my song.

You cannot hear about this man they called Jesus and believe he was just a good prophet. As C.S. Lewis said (paraphrasing) you have to believe Jesus was either a freaking lunatic or the actual God of the Universe in the flesh. I don't know which one you pick, but please don't pick the post-modern crap of tolerance and believing there's truth in every religion and Jesus must have just been a really good guy. Call him a lunatic or call him God. Historically, those are the only two conclusions you can draw.

This day is more than just a day for giving presents to each other and putting up Christmas trees and lights. It's more than egg nog and Christmas carols. It's more than the Grinch who Stole Christmas, A Christmas Story, Christmas Vacation, and Elf. It's the most importanct annual communion we take other than Easter, metaphorically speaking. This is the day we remember that God sent his son and they called him Jesus. We remember he came to love, heal, and forgive - not judge, condemn, and scoff at people who don't live as perfectly. We remember he lived and died to buy our pardon - not sit on a throne and overthrow the government. We remember an empty grave is there to prove He still lives. My friends, what a gift we have. God's grace is overwhelming. This is the day we celebrate God's relentless pursuit of us and remember the hope he has deposited in our hearts that we will one day trade in for reality.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qtcqwYO2E4 - Because He Lives
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEhSk7bfbK8 - Cornerstone
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dy9nwe9_xzw - Oceans
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGgX_oqdib4 - Revelation Song
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WlRt8z5bHA - In the Light

Thank you thank you thank you, my Lord and my God.

Merry Christmas!

The I in Me

Devotion Today read:
"At every moment you choose yourself. But do you choose your self? Body and soul contain a thousand possibilities out of which you can build many I's. But in only one of them is there a congruence of the elector and the elected. Only one--which you will never find until you have excluded all those superficial and fleeting possibilities of being and doing with which you toy, out of curiosity or wonder or greed, and which hinder you from casting anchor in the experience of mystery of life, and the consciousness of the talent entrusted to you which is your I." (Markings by Dag Hammarskjold)

Starting college, I had no idea who I wanted to be. My advisor, Dave Powell, would laugh every time I came into his office because my major changed so frequently and so diversely (Kindergarten Teacher to Outdoor Recreation major to English to Nursing to Sociology to International Studies to ...). I loved the thought that I could be anyone I wanted. I could imagine myself in all these different roles. What I didn't love was choosing just one "me" to be. That was the part that was painful.

To this day I still grasp on to something my advisor told me. He said the beautiful part is that our calling will change throughout life. We don't have to pick one career path and stick to it until the day we die, unless of course we find that is exactly what we were made to be.

And that person I am made to be - well she will change too.

This made it easier to pick my major when I realized my major wouldn't chisel my life into stone. I wish so badly I could go back even now and let myself know how much that major didn't matter for my life now. I wish I could go back and tell her to take more art classes and to actually muster up the guts to join choir and sing for the fun of it. Not that I regret my college experience - it probably happened exactly like it was supposed to happen. In fact, I know it did. I just wish I could have told myself how much my God-given interests, hopes, and dreams would have driven me in my real life.

Fast forward to now. I live in Arizona with my husband in a sweet little apartment. We just moved here a little over a month ago (that's enough for a whole other blog post), and I don't have a job yet. On the one hand, I'm bored out of my mind. On the other hand, I'm thinking this is the time I get to dig deep and ask God who I'm supposed to be right now. Not what. Who.

Soon we will have kids (Lord willing) and I will probably have a job (hopefully one that makes me feel fulfilled), and I won't have time to sit and ask myself, "Who am I?" But now I have loads of it. I have time to find I. Like the quote above says, I toy with who I am out of so many different places but I never have truly stopped to ask who I am.

So here goes. I will ask myself questions. I will try new things. I will take classes and read books and join a gym. I will pray and read the word and will look deep within. And I will find myself...for now.