The Pumpkin Spice Latte Updates

I dedicate this blog to my fellow ragtag pilgrims and dearest friends back home, traveling life with messy hair, paradoxical theology, and coffee stain journals. My life has been enriched deeply by our friendship. I feel your prayers even 3,092 miles away. Xoxo HJ

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Life as an Errant Pilgrim:

I can still remember the smell of the blackened ash remains of the Bible I hurled in the campfire that night laying in it’s semi-survived condition on the bedside table, my scattered prayers of a brave and afraid pilgrim, the soft light of the flickering Christ candle, and the dangerously unstable stack of boxes in the corner of my room—the vibrantly ingrained images of my last night home.

I had found myself at the beginning of a life-altering journey. Newly twenty, with a fancy Christian University diploma to my name and the crazy determination to walk straight into the Great and Beautiful Unknown because I had already risked and sacrificed so much to arrive at this thrilling place on my journey.

I don’t believe it was possible for me to understand the sheer magnitude of what was unfolding in my life.  How my pilgrimage to Durham, NC, my first month as a survivor of Divinity School, three weeks of Residence Life training, and a cross-country displacement would change me. The journey has been a lonely whirlwind, filled with sacred bewilderment, and yet absolutely exhilarating.

I now have a cozy little “bungalow” that I call home in the midst of a strange dorm where Brownies are people instead of comfort food. Each weekday I take a ten minute bus ride to an academic world where brilliant minds spend hours upon hours discussing the correct approach to resolving the unresolvable. And it is safe to say I am equally bewildered and enchanted by it all.

The more time I spend at Duke Divinity the less I am impressed by ideas and doctrine and instead drawn to messy, creative, faithful, wounded people and community.  Can God’s love for the world be taught, dissected, and made into doctrines? Or is it something that must be faithfully and relentlessly lived into together. Maybe that’s what it truly means to be apart of the one, holy, unified, catholic church. A bunch of ragtag, broken, set-apart, people stumbling through life trying to comprehend what it means to be faithful and live faithfully. Discovering together the art of being human in the light of being created and made in the image of God.

In the boldness of my call and the confidence of my faith heritage, I can admit to being an errant pilgrim: finite and fragile: flawed and faithful. Funny how it’s not until we are lost and bewildered that we finally begin to understand ourselves. I am a determined, young, smart, strong, sassy-mouthed woman. Who I am is made in the image of God. I realize that is problematic and disrupting and uncomfortable for many people. But I will make no apologies for who I am. I am a woman and I am called to pastor. I will no longer keep apologizing because who I am and my story doesn’t fit neatly into other’s narrow narrative of the world and God. I have been sent to Duke to become a pastor by my beloved church family established on a heritage of grace and the most beautiful paradoxical theology. They taught me how to live well in the complex, grey-ness of the world. We navigate grey through grace, faith, love and each other.

 

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The Curtain of Sacred Bewilderment:

I don’t think there is anything like cozy, quiet Sunday mornings after a full nine hours of sleep.  The feeling of my bare feet touching the cold, worn hardwood floors of my tiny apartment as I awkwardly wobble my way to make the first cup of coffee for the day. I hate to say it, but it almost feels like home. Durham, North Carolina is becoming not so foreign to me anymore.

I am starting to recognize the sights, sounds and smells of this land as my new normal. I can drive around without using my GPS (most of the time). I can smell and taste the difference between the two main coffee bean roasters used at the local coffee shops. I have stopped describing the type of rainfall as misty, drizzling, raining, drenching, showering, or pouring. Apparently, the locals just call it rain if water is falling from the sky. How odd and un-whimsical. I have come to terms with the horrid fact that the closest stand alone Starbucks is a fifteen-minute drive away. It’s no longer some sort of bad dream when in Hebrew class the 2^nd masculine or feminine plural pronoun is referred to as “y’all” instead of “you guys.” And the other day, I actually wrote in an email “y’all”. Assimilation at it’s finest. The days of bewilderment are slowly slipping away from me. And that makes me sad and a tiny bit afraid.

My experiences and stories here are stabilizing. I came to this realization when I was Skype-ing my friend and member of my RA staff from last year and who eagerly asked me to share my outrageous “Duke Residence Life Stories.”  And surprisingly it was difficult for me because for so long it has been my experience at SPU being labeled “different, outrageous, nonsensical.” For the past two months I have been sharing SPU Residence Life stories that have been laughed at, gawked at, and kept Duke RA’s entertained.  It was a disorienting moment to now have my SPU friend want to be amazed at the “different” approaches Duke believes is the proper way to do life and community. How quickly a new life—a new way of doing life and seeing the world becomes normal.

When I close my eyes and listen, I can sense how this landscape is shaping me. How the journey is expanding me.  How returning to the ancient liturgy is blooming my faith by providing the courage needed for this restless seeking heart of mine by re-working my errant pilgrim personality to feel safe and secure enough to lie down in Divine mystery.

I knew when I left my beloved homeland that this obedience to God’s soft, consistent, nudging of a call would demand more of me than I was ever willing to give…

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The Wrestling Wilderness:

Wrestling wilderness transitions can be difficult, stretching, and challenging. My time in this space has been freshly rewarding amongst the ugly hard. Transitions into the Great Unknown plunge me into waters far outside my comfort zone. I am forced to come face-to-face with who I am and what is important to me. Everything I have ever known about the world and ministry is being turned upside down and tested.

Adventures, traveling, re-rooting, and seasons in the wrestling wilderness open my eyes to the glorious diversity of humanity and God. There is so much I learn from encountering and engaging people who live “faithful” out in a different way than I do, who see the world from a different perspective, who see and hear God differently than I do. 

In the wrestling wilderness you cannot run away from yourself. The good, the bad, the ugly that knit together your holistic self. And it’s here that I learn I cannot say I am knit together with good-intentions because not all my intentions are good.  Sometimes the evil and broken in the world is calling from within us. And that is a type of scary beyond what I want to come to terms with.  Because I deeply yearn to be good and whole and new. Therefore, I tend to want to cover up or ignore the ugly, wrong, and evil within me. But the only way to be good and whole and new is to look straight into the darkness within and go through the messy painful process of death and resurrection. For too long I have been longing for resurrection and refusing to go through the first steps of death. You cannot shy or run away from death in the wrestling wilderness.

In the spaces where we feel the farthest from ourselves, our world, and everything that we know is when we stumble upon holy ground able to engage with the Divine. The heart-tearing loss of missing out on watching my little sister experiencing the art of gracefully surviving high school, or the daily embodied comfort of my mother’s love and father’s wisdom, or watching my college friends life and love stories grow and develop without me is shattering. It is a loss and sacrifice that thrusts you into a deep aloneness and homesickness that you never knew existed. This is the landscape of wilderness that allows for wrestle and encounter with God.

Please, don’t get me wrong I have had lovely moments of overwhelming kindness, savored the pureness of belonging and the newness of budding friendships, experienced love that told me on the sincerest level that I belonged here and was supposed to be here, even if for a ephemeral glimpse. But I would be lying and romanticizing my pilgrimage experience to say the journey has been easy and without hard, lonely, wrestling nights. If you want to experience adventure, growth, and resurrection you have to come to terms that what comes before is wilderness, breakdowns, and death.

God does not just call us to welcome the stranger into our homes but also to BE the stranger—to travel the lonely, harsh, barren, unfamiliar landscapes to come in contact with your own vulnerability and faith in the profoundest way. The stranger’s travels demands surrender and letting go on how we want God to move, work, and show up in our lives and instead simply welcome the presence of God. This has been my journey and I know I will never arrive. Because the journey has never been about the arrival, but about the process. Transformation has always been the goal.

And I honor the ways in which the wrestling wilderness causes me to intentionally encounter my brokenness and vulnerability over and over again. Because in the barren, wrestling, death-filled, lonely wilderness is the holy ground for God to craft new life into these weary, dry bones. I cannot keep myself safe and comfortable, or stop loving others out of fear for the unbearable pain of loss when I am called to pick up and leave once again. Faith is courage to choose to love anyways, to pilgrimage on, endlessly, bravely, undaunted. Faith in the wilderness is courage to move through fear, pain, change, and uncertainty. Faith is vulnerable courage able to trust the ugly hard process.

No flower experiencing winter in the wilderness is worried about blooming or producing fruit, but surrenders itself to death, trusting in the earth’s gentle strength to resurrect blooming life in the spring. I have been trying to bloom in the wilderness. I am wrestling God in the winter wilderness because I want to bloom not undergo death. I didn’t come here to die, Lord. I came to Divinity School to be transformed by the renewing of my mind. That’s what it boldly declares engraved on the thick stone above the first portal archway of my fancy Divinity School. I want transformation not death. And nowhere on the welcome or admissions packet for Divinity School does it have a warning label that in order to experience transformation you must endure death first. Nowhere does it say that leaving, displacement, bareness, and death are the conditions for God’s promises. 

I glimpse the path before me and know there are battles and struggles ahead because that is the journey of the wanders, sojourners and pilgrims. The story of God’s people.  I learned in my Old Testament class that water in the Torah is a typology for life and provision in the wilderness. And I can’t help but remember the service during orientation week when we were all called up to dip water on our foreheads to remember our baptism. The Divinity School faculty knew. They knew we were entering into the wilderness. And they also must have known that the waters of our baptism would sustain us as marked reminders of the life and provision of God in the wilderness.

 

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The Faith of the Wet and Limping:

My nascent theology of encounter has been developing at Duke through my studies and purposeful wanders through the wilderness. The word for Israel in Hebrew means “they will wrestle with God”

The heart of what it means to be Israel, God’s people, is to wrestle and struggle in relationship with God. And that is oddly beautiful and comforting.. In the dirt and dust of the wrestle, we refuse to let go of God and discover God’s presence and protection that has always been ours.

Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done that of which I have spoken to you ~Genesis 28:15

God got in the dirt with Jacob to wrestle through the doubts and fears and promises and struggles and neither of them won. Because the wrestling wilderness isn’t about winning or surviving, but encounter and engaging a God who is real, powerful, and near. God is wrestling along side us in the struggle. We cannot leave a wrestling encounter with God unchanged. Jacob leaves with a dislocated hip, which will affect the way he walks for the rest of his life. He will forever walk the earth limping from this encounter with God.

As a tiny, helpless, baby, God’s love plunged me in the waters of baptism, the un-chosen encounter forever left me walking life wet with the promises of God’s unconditional love and the unrelenting prayers of a faith community and heritage of grace that covers me always. And now far from my home, I am not only wet, but also limped from my constant wrestling with God in the wilderness. Longing for home, but knowing displacement is where God’s promises and blessings take root and flourish. I fearfully acknowledging that after the wrestling wilderness comes the unavoidable death of some kind and then maybe–just maybe—I will graduate Duke Divinity School in May 2016 with a transformed mind and resurrected life walking across the graduation stage wet and limped.

Remember your baptism. Remember your encounters in the wrestling wilderness. Remember death and resurrection are juxtaposed. Take heart as you walk wet and limped through the earth. God is always near.

Trailing Wild Sunflowers

The purposeful wanderer’s journey is never done. Her veins race thick with the hope of discovery and the longing of exploration. Heavy words like fear and shame, unknowns and courage, faith and home might cloud her judgment even her view of the world—but never the rhythmic thump of her steps on the ground. Always seeking. Always moving.

I’ve always been fond of sunflowers—the tall thick stocks that grew a couple miles from my childhood home. Grandma adored sunflowers, too. The source of my admiration and deep spiritual connection with the sun following flower is simply a reflection of her fascination with them. And maybe I became a true “flower child” when I learned there were small and dainty sunflowers that were delicate enough to wear in my abundant and wavy chestnut brown hair. Then came that crisp September day came when dust became dust again and my beloved Grandma was laid in the ground. All I was left with was a shaken, struggling flame of hope that love might just be strong enough to conquer death one day…and the sunflowers. Since the whole town knew Grandma loved sunflowers rapidly her eerily empty presence was awkwardly filled with sunflowers from sympathetic and grieving friends and family.

It’s always comes down to faith and sunflowers for me. Always. Maybe I shouldn’t have been so caught off guard—so taken aback when the greatest confrontation between dreams and fears I have ever experienced as I drove 3,092 miles from Portland, OR to Durham, NC was guided by a trail of the small, precious sunflowers.

They say I have a tenacious faith. I have become so numb to hearing and reading words directed to me like “amazing, awesome, inspiring, and incredible.” I can’t help but laugh and be a little puzzled. I have never felt like I choose to trust God.  The words of John 6:68 melodically and constantly resound in the depths of my soul; “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” This Great I AM has the words that breathe life into my dead bones. The breath of Love that awakens me to life once again.

I have witness God move mountains in my life and in the stories of beautiful, imperfect people all over the world. Maybe now that I have made my home on the other side of the country I can admit that I have never been seeking after God. I use to say that because it sounded nice and it was the only vocabulary I knew to express what I was searching after. How silly are we to think we need to seek or find or chase after God. Dear friends and fellow humans it is indeed God who is seeking and relentlessly following after us. In reality I have been a purposeful wanderer, explorer, traveler, seeker, wayfaring pilgrim desperately trying to discover truth, beauty, and the art of being human. God, this Great Love that fills the world, has been my magical friend on this journey.

God found me, drenched me in the waters as a crying, helpless infant, called me beloved, and has refused to leave. I don’t actively trust God or welcome God. God has just always kind of been there. Maybe it better to say I tolerate God, the Great Love who refuses to leave me alone. And before long I learned to actually enjoy the company; that sometimes difficult and challenging presence in my life.

The words or semantics of “God” and “Jesus” are not as important to me anymore—it’s what these words, these beings, these persons stand for and mean to me. Truth should always be beautiful. And beauty without truth is ugly and destructive. I have always been connected to this source of pure love, and sweet peace, and abundant joy, and unending grace, and brilliant truth, and soul-aching beauty. For some reason I know with every fiber of my being that every stumbling, struggling, beautiful and imperfect human on this planet is deficiently trying to connect with each other. All while being whispered an identity of beloved by the Great and Holy Love.

There is a Greater Power beyond myself that has been guiding me, protecting me, and constantly drawing near to me. And it all comes down to connection for me. Maybe what I am seeking for is to be connected with the beautiful and imperfect people around me and to be connected to this Great Power and Love that surrounds me. And it’s a lot more complicated and messy then you may think.

It always looks simple on paper. For over two weeks, I have been participating in Duke Residence Life Graduate Resident training and then helping lead and facilitate the Resident Assistant training and slowly working my way through the required reading book for Duke Divinity School, “Living into Community.” Let me tell you, loving your neighbor as yourself and creating an inclusive, intentional, beloved community is not easy.

Or what about that verse I was raised and fed on “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength”. It seems so easy but when I have been told I am broken, when I know that I am surrounded by struggle it is hard to know how and what it means to be connected ( and love) the Mother and Source of All things Good and Beautiful, True and Lovely in the world. I know this Great Love took on flesh and walked among us relentlessly loving and gently teaching us into a new way of being human. A new way of life in order to truly be connected beings—connected to ourselves, to Love, and to each other.  But it difficult because in order to walk in the new way we have to let go of the old ways, the known ways, the comfortable ways.

Repentance is a scary word. The church has turned it into an ugly word. But repentance means to return home and to change the way we think and see the world. There is much I have to unlearn at Duke Divinity School before I can fully learn all that God has for me to learn in this new holy space. The art of being human not just in the state we are in, and not just in the state of where we are going. What about the spaces between broken and shalom? That is question. And so maybe a bit stereotypically I journey onwards with a mind filled with stumbling faith, a heart of stubborn grace and tiny, delicate sunflowers in my hair.

It is hard and it is good my friends. Come and join this wanderer down this sacred, love-stained path.  Because I don’t believe the journey is ever over. Not so long as there are trails of sunflowers to follow.

Because sometimes you need to write yourself a letter….

On May 31, 2013, part of the initiation to become a Peer Advisor at Seattle Pacific University was to write a letter to yourself that you would open on the last day of being a Peer Advisor. June 10, 2013 at 5pm sharp was the end of my PA contract. I opened the letter I wrote to myself and one of the things I asked my future self was that I was overwhelmed and nervous and I wished my “future me” could take current me out to coffee. Well Heidi, I cannot go back in time and take you out to coffee but I went to one of our favorite little coffee shop on Queen Anne Hill, bought a 16 oz. latte, and wrote you a letter.

June 11, 2013

Dearest Sweet One and Beloved Heidi~

I will honor your nervous and overwhelmed heart by writing you a letter to testify that God has your fragile, impatient, go-getter, and adventurous little heart in his hands. Simply put: trust on dear one.  I know you are overwhelmed about much more than just the Peer Advisor events and feeling unqualified and over your head in accepting this position. I know you are also anxious beyond what you would ever admit to anyone about your future and your biggest dreams. Darling, I know you dream big. Know that your ability to dream big is a GIFT. Repeat after me: “My ability to dream big is a gift NOT a curse”. You wouldn’t believe how many people this year have gone as far as saying our ability to dream big is a “spiritual gift.” Sweet Pea, I am well aware that you believe the lie that your ability to dream big and your ability to envision what it would look like to live into God’s promise of an abundant life in the here and now is the cause of a lot of pain and anxiety in your life. But it is not. That is not the source of your anxiety and fears. The ugly truth is that you are scared of God not following through on these dreams he has so intentionally knitted in the deepest parts of your heart.

 

You will fully understand me when I say this to you: I do not believe our dreams and our longings are the same things. You know that—you just refuse to let yourself accept it. Allow this truth to take root in your heart. It is okay. It will be okay. All will be well. Promise! It isn’t that our longings are bad or cannot eventually become reality but there is a season for everything. Our longings are usually not in the present or “the here and now” like our dreams. But longings have the potential to become dreams in their good and perfect time. I know that is a hard truth for you to swallow right now but give yourself the space to accept this truth.

 

What if I was tell you that not only does God go above and beyond following through on every single dream and crazy vision you had of what it would look like to live an abundant life, but also led you like a silly, vulnerable sheep through it all by placing people in your life who point out the path and even go as far as carrying you during parts of the journey when you are too tired to take one more step. You are blessed and dripping in God’s grace, love, and favor Miss. Heidi. I cannot explain it. I do not know why. The only peace or answer that I have been able to find this year as I wrestle with it all is that we have been “blessed to be a blessing” (Genesis 12:2).

 

I know you are worried about coming in and breathing new life into the 5^th East Ashton community. I will be straightforward, they’re unsure about you. But don’t worry, they will come around—just be your genuine self and let yourself be vulnerable. You don’t have to have it all together for them. The best leaders are the ones that don’t have it all together and invite people into the mess of community.

 

Here is a verse to hold on to during this season….

You’ll be known as those who can fix anything,
restore old ruins, rebuild and renovate,
make the community livable again.” Isaiah 58:9-12 (The Message)

You will finish your senior year at Seattle Pacific with every dream fully planted in reality but you’re also leaving feeling extremely weary, tired, and worn out. Like your favorite childhood book the Velveteen Rabbit—it’s only because loving and being loved can wear you out…but it also makes you more REAL!

“Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.”

“Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit.

“Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.”

“…By the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.” ~From the Velveteen Rabbit

You will leave this year feeling REAL, truly alive, more able to reclaim your Belovedness as a Daughter of God. This crazy, whimsical, beautiful year has worn you out and that is okay. That is good! You are going to question if you were enough for all of your 46 residents, your 13 other staff members and supervisors, and your friends. You are going to question if you did enough in your short two years at SPU. Was I enough eventually turns into Am I enough? Am I enough is a dangerous question. Stay far, far, FAR way from that question. Most of your deepest issues with your big dreams and struggles with your age boil down to you not believing you are enough.

Always questioning if you are enough will make you afraid to take the necessary risks and crazy, massive leaps to make your big dreams reality. It will steal your peace and joy and completely disconnect you from your identity as Beloved. You have a couple major identity breakdowns this year because of that pesky lie of not feeling/being enough.

Lucky for you, your beautiful year is filled with people that are FOR you. Did you hear that? The people in your life are FOR you. Trust them, let them in, be vulnerable with them, you can bring them into your big dreams they won’t be overwhelmed—they will be excited and empowered to dream big themselves. They will remind you of your Belovedness and teach you that LOVE makes us enough. They will love your enoughness, goodness and Belovedness back into you. Crazy how that works! I am still in awe and processing this astonishing truth.

Heidi, we are relentless, restless sojourners on our spiritual journey. Our story already is riddled with paradoxes—one of those being brief-visits, hard and painful goodbyes and yet still being eager and ready for the next adventure. You will soon discover waiting, abiding, resting, and pausing are not apart of our organic vocabulary. Unfortunately for us they are apart of God’s vocabulary. I am about to enter into a 6-week season of Selah. Selah is a Hebrew word-meaning wait, rest, and pause. You’ve probably heard the word before but never took the time to look up what it means. And even if you did—you would just write off this little word because why would you ever enter into a season of Selah: of waiting, resting and pausing. However, Selah is apart of God’s vocabulary and wants it to be apart of ours too and the only way to do that is to have it painfully and forcefully…learned. So currently this restless, wanderlust sojourner is entering a season of Selah before the next adventure and I already feel uncomfortable just writing about it.

I am telling you this to encourage you to begin investing in yourself early on—investing in the process of becoming. Invest in Selah now. Because the “plan” is the process. Surrender yourself to the process happening in your life. All of these challenges and callings I am convinced are to guide you along the process of becoming more and more like Jesus—a full citizen of God’s kingdom—a lovely state of Shalom.

Well my beloved dreamer, I hope this letter helps guide you along the journey before you. I am so excited for you to experience this year that I just experienced. You will leave SPU a better person. Above all SPU will love you, mold you, believe in you, stretch and challenge you into a woman of valor.

All is Grace,

“Future” Heidi

Sometimes Blessings are a Burden

I Facebook stalked myself this morning.

No Shame.

I went through every precious picture from September to April and realized I don’t quite understand everything that has happened to me the past eight months. It is all so much greater than my comprehension but maybe it’s a sure sign that I have experienced and worshipped God with all my heart. My sweetest time of worship when I experience the presence and love of the Lord in a powerful way usually ends with me stumbling out of the worship service proclaiming, “Did that just happen?”

I sit gazing at the last picture in my Facebook album and the words from one of the pastors I follow on Twitter from North Carolina popped in my head…

“It’s not just burdens that have weight, but blessings. In fact, some of the most beautiful blessings are also the heaviest to carry.” ~Jonathan Martin 

It resonates with every bone in my body. I feel the weight, the heaviness of all the blessings that I have been entrusted with this year. The empower-er and Mama Chief to 46 beautiful, talented, capable, full of passion and life woman of 5E Ashton, an official pastoral candidate of the ELCA Lutheran church, the scholarship recipient to attend Duke Divinity School for the next three years, a Graduate Resident at Duke University this August where I will get to lead and mentor a freshman dorm, RA’s and Hall Council. And Genesis 12:2 is the anchor that keeps me from drowning in all these incredible opportunities.

“Blessed to be a Blessing…”

Sometimes blessings can be a burden.

Somewhere between the unstoppable downpours of blessings I lost my footing in my Belovedness. Somewhere between the “why is this happening to me” and then the attitude switch of expecting these blessings I stopped embracing the grace of God.  And sometime between the blessings, attitude switch, and the lost identity was when the control, fears, and anxiety kicked in.

I became afraid of loosing the blessings that were never mine to claim or own in the first place. Pure grace. Pure gifts. Not about me but about the people that I could be a testimony to and bless.

I got caught up in advancing my own kingdom instead of the Kingdom of God. 

I quickly realized that living up to my potential and living up to my calling are two very different things. Jesus never lived up to his potential but humbled and submitted himself to the calling God had placed upon his life.

I fight HARD against that truth.

I am wired by MY kingdom to live up to my potential. All the while the Spirit is moving and whispering to me to be empowered and drawn to my calling for the Kingdom of God instead.

“Don’t be afraid, my love is stronger, my love is stronger than your fear…and I have promised to be always near.” ~IONA Community Hymn

I have to hear the transforming gospel, the GOOD NEWS that Jesus gave to the world over and over and over again to have it continue to take root in my stubborn heart. Trust, mystery, yielding, relenting, following, and accepting are really hard things for controlling, type A, always-running-towards-my-potential-instead-of-calling, me.

Deeper and deeper into the spiraling abyss of heartache. All seems to be falling apart, broken and dark. I cry out “Where is God?” And I find him on a cross. The sponge of God hanging on the tree soaking up all the brokenness of humanity and me. Squeezing out crimson love for all who long to be set free. The only transaction that night on the lonely tree was a deposit of love, grace, and shalom into the depths of my being. Thankful the story didn’t end there and resurrection gives us hope that a new way of living is possible. A new creation and kingdom is near. Brokenness will not get the final word in MY life or in this world God is so dearly invested in. The love, grace, and shalom that was deposited into MY life has the power to transform me from the inside out. I am still a work in progress. I am on my way to becoming who I was originally created to be. 

I don’t understand the cross. Yet, I find myself growing into it. I love how Jesus continually reveals the Father’s heart to me while the Holy Spirit leads me along this journey. I don’t want to have a monopoly over or own the truth. I would rather have the truth own me. If the truth is Jesus then I can never own him, control him, or put him in a box. But I want him to own me. I want him to hold me. I don’t want my life to be defined by my dogma, creeds, beliefs, or ideas.  But instead by my love, living wisdom, mercy, and compassion.

Truth without love is fundamentalism but love without truth is a lack of substance. I love freely because my truth is found in Jesus—Emmanuel. The Good News, the Gospel, the TRUTH is that God came. That God is with us. That God is so invested in our world he is willing to walk in the midst of the chaos and mess of the world. That is what gives substance to my life of love.

I never want to become a slave to the Bible. The Bible has always been an open box to inspire me to give new expression to how I may love God in our broken world. How God is still interested in using me as a heroine in his unfolding story even in my “still-in-progress” state.

This year I re-learned how to experience God in an open minded way. I read from Catholic monks and Easter Orthodox bishops who opened up a whole new way of thinking about God, seeing his beauty, and resting in the mystery of it all.

I learned how to humble myself before the stories and experiences of others. Which led me to have to lay down my pride, tradition, prejudice, and assumptions about God. What I discovered was a deeper experience of God’s truth, love and beauty. It is easy to dismiss someone’s theology or dogma about God. It’s nearly impossible to dismiss someone’s genuine experience and story of God in their life.

For my entire life I have been trying to fit Jesus in the neat, pock sized box the church has given me to place him in. This year I discovered that when I stopped trying to fit Jesus in the box the church had given me—when I let it go along with my fear and desire to control God I was able to receive and experience God in ways that have been blowing my mind. Because in reality when we try to fit God in a box, when we try to protect our idea of God, our theology of the cross, we are actually protecting ourselves…not God.

We are protecting ourselves from others opinions and judgment. But most of all we are protecting ourselves from our worst fear…

A God that cannot be contained, controlled or manipulated

When we spend our time protecting our theology instead of engaging it we have no time to create, explore, discover, dream, discuss, worship or consider. We have to let go to be able to create and receive new things. That is one lesson I learned from Jesus on the cross. It wasn’t until he laid down his life that he was able to set in motion a new creation of people who are defined by love.

You don’t have to engage with my theological ponderings or consistently evolving critiques on atonement but please engage my story. 

I will take Jesus’ confusing, ambiguous parables over Paul’s systematic theological epistles any day. There is a time to be pragmatic and there is a time to dwell and rest in the mystery of God and be open to consider other peoples stories and view points.

This much is certain, that we have no theological right to set any sort of limits to the loving-kindness of God, which has appeared in Jesus Christ. Our theological duty is to see and understand it as being still greater than we had seen it before. ~Karl Barth

This year I have held my heart wide open and engage in so many wonderful conversations about God.

However, right now I feel a desperate and deep sense of being called to nurture and cultivate myself for what is to come. This season of in-between of transition is extremely uncomfortable and anxious-filled time for me. I am listening to this invitation of calling carefully, learning how I might offer myself additional times of rest, reflection, and renewal in preparation for the many new things blossoming and developing, so that I will be ready to greet this next unfolding season with fullness of heart and soul…and an open mind.

Walking God of Love,

 May we all live into our callings instead of our potential. May we always be about advancing YOUR Kingdom on earth instead of our own. May we always be blown away, nearly drowning in your love and grace. May we never loose touch of our Belovedness. Keep our minds open to experiencing you in new and powerful ways.

 Lord, hear our prayer.

In which I feel utterly and completely screwed…

And don’t we all, with fierce hunger, crave a cave of solitude a space of deep listening—full of quiet darkness and stars, until finally we hear a syllable of God echoing in the cave of our hearts?

~Macrina Wiederkehr

Sometimes, even right before Lent really begins, you know how it is going to go. Jesus in the rare moment where I didn’t have a million different thoughts or requests of prayers as I laid in bed two nights ago made one quick sassy statement, “You never give me any space to speak to you!”

Sh*t.

The next day my friend was praying over me and asked God to give me the strength and courage to listen and be quiet more.

Sh*t

Sometimes the way God’s Spirit moves in my life I have to let my inner dialogue swear monkey out. I have to speak the truth, even if it’s just in my mind or out loud to myself even if the words sound unholy and unacceptable. There is the time when the four-letter words are the right words, and I believe God can handle my impolite, wildness, spiritual temper tantrums.

Jesus has placed on my heart to abandon my “daughter of thunder” personality for Lent and instead pick up a spirit of silence, contemplative meditation, and stillness. To quiet my constant dialogue with God, which has never given God the space to speak to me. The ashes placed on my forehead today during our campus Ash Wednesday service better be filled with magic because if you know me at all—you know I have an impossible time keeping my mouth shut and my opinions in my head. Which is why my blog post is so appropriately titled, “In which I feel utterly and completely screwed.”

Lent is a season of reflection and preparation. The 40 days of Lent refers to Jesus 40 days in the wilderness being tempted by Satan. The Greek word for wilderness means lone, desolation, and desert. Lent is the coming of spring. A season when there are new beginnings happening and you switch over into preparation time. Lent is a time to reflect on who you are and who are you becoming. I think of Jesus being in the wilderness, hungry and completely dependent on God. His hungriness sets the stage for his temptation. What will Jesus chase after when he is hungry? Satan enters the scene and tempts him with material possessions, power and status, and twisted truth on the nature of God. But Jesus chooses and chases after God’s not yet fulfilled promises in his hunger instead of the temptations. Jesus chooses to live by faith even when the data or reason of the world would say otherwise.

For Lent this year I took to Scripture and what I’ve felt the Holy Spirit nudging me towards to seek answers. When I wake up on Easter Sunday to the truth of Jesus resurrection, how will I be different? Is there a steady temptation that I choose instead of trusting God? I think this year more then material possession (which is why I usually give up chocolate, coffee, or shopping) I have been tempted more then ever before in Power and Status. I have been connecting the dots and realized part of my “daughter of thunder personality” and making sure everyone in the room knows how I feel about a particular subject is a power play instead of advancing the kingdom of God. I think of other sons of thunder talked about in the Gospels—James and John (Mark 3:17). Here Jesus is pointing out James and John fiery passion, bold and zealous personalities. Also, thunder makes lots of loud, “I AM PRESENT LOOK AT ME” noise. However, I do not think this nickname is a negative but this specific personality can have negative symptoms if not rebuked and molded by Jesus. James and John were successful and powerhouse leaders for the early church and boldly preached and lead many people to become followers of Jesus. But they didn’t always use their sons of thunder personality for the upside-kingdom of God. Remember when they wanted to call down fire and sulfur on a Samaritan town? Jesus hardcore rebuked them on that one. Or how about when they asked their mother to ask Jesus if they could sit at his right and left hand in the Kingdom? Sons and daughter of thunder as Jesus calls them usually struggle with power and status issues which manifest itself in trying to advance your own kingdom instead of the kingdom of God.

God didn’t specifically ask me to set down my “daughter of thunder” personality for Lent. He asked me to pick up a Spirit of silence and stillness so that I could hear God’s voice over the loud, thunderous voice that was my own. Most times when we feel God nudging us to “pick up” something it also leads to discernment on what we should “put down” in this case my daughter of thunder personality in order to fully embrace this spirit of silence and stillness God is asking me to wear the next 40 days. This Lent God will reveal to me how to listen well. That when I am alone with God to learn to be comfortable dwelling and waiting in the silence until he speaks rather then talking to fill the emptiness. To see silence as full instead of empty–full of God’s presence, full of possibility, full of shalom, full of stillness. Because maybe it is not the THINGS we do for God but the WAY we do things for God.

My friend was right when he prayed specifically for courage to listen and dwell in the silence. I am scared out my mind. To hold my tongue and options seems like caging them in. I hate anything that seems like a cage. My favorite scene in Lord of the Rings Trilogy is when Aragorn asks Arwen what she is afraid of and she replies, “A cage”. Preach it sister—I feel you. But perfect love drives out all fear and the unconditional love of Jesus is nudging me to do this.

This Ash Wednesday even in the paralyzing fear of what God is asking me to do for 40 days I choose to embrace the dust and ashes. I choose to cling on God’s promises instead of the temptation of power and status. Because it’s out of dust and ashes that God grows the impossible. The promise of Resurrection, what we are preparing our hearts for during Lent, is that God can exchange dust and ashes for beauty and miracles and new LIFE. This Jesus who calls me to pick up and put down this Lent raises whole people out of ashes and writes mysterious grace in dust that sets captive women like myself into freedom and with dust and spit and muddied things can give blind people like me sight. And even though I am so aware of my brokenness and mortal frailty, though everything I may know or personality traits I hold on too so dearly may be burnt to ashes, fears scattered to the wind—there is a God who can re-collect me, remake me, resurrect me, and revive me with eternity.

To dust you were made and to dust you shall return.

Wait on the Lord, whose day is near

Wait on the Lord, keep watch, take heart

See, I am near says the Lord

See, I make all things new

 

Old Soul

https://vimeo.com/27151745

Happy Friday to my fellow seekers and those surrendered to the process of becoming what God created us to be.

Downton Abbey, Westminster Abbey, and the Kingdom of God

Recently, I have been obsessed with everything British. My residents have taken an particular interest in watching Downton Abbey and movies about Kate and Prince William’s love story with me. I must admit I have spent a good handful of minutes everyday searching “London” or “everything British” on my Pinterest search bar. Last night one of the pins that popped up was a gorgeous picture of Westminster Abbey in London and a link to a short article on the history of the building. I had no idea this stately and commanding abbey embodies nearly one thousand years of history, worship, and art. It’s a cemetery, a museum, and a story of church and state priorities throughout the years. Being one of the people who watched the Royal Wedding almost two years ago, I believe the world witnessed this abbey’s history, which is still in process, with new possibilities in each generation.

Henry of Reyns is recognized as the earliest architect of Westminster Abbey, working as master architect for King Henry III as the project began in 1245. Many kings, cardinals, and abbots managed the building of Westminster Abbey—some did so with profound faith and worshipful purposes. Yet some did so as an exercise of power, arrogance, and control.

Welcome to the messy, yet chosen, structure called the church, right?

The abbey was not completed in the lifetimes of Henry III and Henry of Reyns. Neither of them expected that it would. The sheer greatness and splendor of the design would demand lifetimes of work for kings, cardinals, masons, builders, and common laborers, so they started something they knew would take HUNDREDS and HUNDREDS of years to complete. Only one, yes ONE, nave (the central approach to the high altar) had been completed by the time Henry III died.

Through the years, there were stops and starts, achievements and catastrophes. But along the way, work continued on the cathedral, and pretty miraculously, through all those hundreds of years of work, the original design of Henry of Reyns and King Henry III was followed. Westminster Abbey is considered one of the most flawless buildings ever constructed in England. To imagine builders giving their entire lives contributing to the abbey’s construction. The article I read on Pinterest said, “Men apprenticed their sons who apprenticed their sons who apprenticed their sons, and through all their work and time and patience the abbey became an awe-inspiring combination of stone and light that points to God.” I am struck by that sentence—that men (and I am sure countless women as well) were willing to contribute to something whose end they knew they would never see. All while believe and trusting that their unique contributions toward the creation of the abbey would contribute in pointing others towards God.

Maybe my calling as a citizen of the Kingdom of God is a lot like the laborers in the cathedral. Maybe my calling is simply a builder of God’s Kingdom here on earth? My lifetime contribution is to the creation of the Kingdom of God I will never see completed in my lifetime—something so much bigger than my own personal story. As a Kingdom-builder, I’m part of something that began long before me, is now, and will be brought to completion in ways I will never be able to fully grasp. In the midst of contemplating all this I happen to stumble upon Hebrews 11…

Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. 2 This is what the ancients were commended for….(Verse after verse of bible character after bible character who were Kingdom builders in their generations)… All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth. 14 People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. 15 If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. 16 Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them… (I don’t have space to quote all of Hebrews 11 but you should read it!)… These people were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised, 40 since God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.

The Westminster Abbey builders and the Kingdom builders found in Hebrews 11 died knowing their work was incomplete, they left holding out the torch of faith, the design plans to God’s Kingdom in their hands. They trusted the next generation to continue where they left off, to pick up the torch and keep running the good race, to keep building upon the greatest foundation the world has ever known: King Jesus. The master architect of the Kingdom: Creator God. The helpful manager, advocate, and present overseer of the project: the Holy Spirit.

“According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation and someone else is building upon it. Each builder must choose with care how to build upon it. For no one can lay any foundation other than the one that has been laid; that foundation is Jesus Christ.” ~1 Corinthians 3:10-12

On this foundation, I discover my unique contributions to a project that calls us to actively participate, build, develop and as time goes on, always expecting new and exciting developments given by the present overseer—The Holy Spirit. As followers of Jesus we are asked to participate in the building projects Jesus has started in the world. Where and what is God moving, doing, building, redeeming, reconciling, saving and setting right? Perhaps my unique contribution to the building of God’s kingdom on earth is less about contructing walls but destroying and shattering the barriers that separate God’s children from each other. In order to bring about one humanity–one Kingdom of peace and reconciliation.

I think my unique and specific job is to be the construction worker in God’s kingdom to operate the bulldozer. The powerful machine used to knock buildings down and push the rubble into a pile. Knocking down the structures and buildings built by some of the Kingdom builders before me who lost sight of the original design given by God, laid down by Jesus, and being overseen by the Holy Spirit. Because if God’s Kingdom builders are creating structures that are enforcing divisions instead of unity and inclusiveness then we have strayed from the original master design of God’s Kingdom.

“Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with King Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built TOGETHER to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit. “ ~Ephesians 2:19-22

What would happen if Henry of 1245 could visit Westminster Abbey of 2013? Would he be impressed? Could he recognize it? Would he be confused or disappointed if elements of the cathedral diverted from the original design? I like to imagine that he would sit, completely awestruck and ask to be told the continuing story of the cathedral that began so long ago. I also wonder when the long awaited and glorious day Heaven and Earth become one and God’s Kingdom is fully here and competed on earth. When I enter into this new creation in it’s completed state would I be able to recognize parts of it? Would I be able to walk around and name the parts of the Kingdom that I contributed too?

“God, you remember when there was that ugly wall there in the corner separating people from being full participants in your Kingdom because of gender or sexuality? Remember how I spent my life tirelessly trying to bulldoze that wall down? Look at this place—so beautiful, united, inclusive, reconciled, redeemed. I can’t believe I got to partner with you and billions of saints before and after me in the building of this new creation. “

It’s funny, how something as simple as gazing at a picture of Westminster Abbey and reading a short article—can cause you to stumble upon your calling in life. That must be how the present overseer of the master project of God’s Kingdom works. A Spirit always gently nudging and reminding the workers to get back to work, “Come now Heidi, there are walls of divisions and exclusivity that I need you to bulldozer down…

Be Born in Me

I feel like I am always the one still mediating and contemplating Christmas when everyone has packed up the Christmas boxes and moved on. When all the other bloggers in blog-world have written and posted their thoughtful reflections on advent and Christmas I have just begun. Thankfully, liturgical tradition is in my favor because Christmas in liturgical churches is celebrated for 12 days! And since it is only the end of the fifth day of Christmas I do not feel bad whatsoever to finally publish what I have discovered on my spiritual journey this Christmas.

I have come to the conclusion this Christmas break that I have a Lutheran heart and a Catholic soul.

 

I have always felt profoundly connected and fulfilled by my Catholicism heritage. My Mom’s entire family is Catholic and my Dad’s family is Lutheran. Being raised in a Lutheran church has brought my faith foundations to have “Luther” written all over it. Fortunately, I was still exposed to Catholic mass, prayers, traditions, theology, and stories. And so with growing up partially Catholic I have always had a love and drawn towards Mother Mary.

When I was a very young girl, I would attend Mass with my Grandpa and Grandma. I remember I loved lighting candles for people I was praying for—and at that age that usually meant praying for the mean kid at Elementary school, my little sister who was SO annoying, and my parents who wouldn’t buy me the latest toy I wanted. After I would look up at this beautiful life-size sculpture of a young Mother Mary holding baby Jesus settled above the candle lighting corner. She looked so holy and radiant. Yet, with eyes that reflected the deep sadness and brokenness and heartache she witnessed in her lifetime.

Mary gave birth to Jesus in a world that was desperate for a Savior. A messy, haunted and bruised world. What an incredible privilege to be chosen to birth the Messiah into the world. It didn’t come with out hardships. And I can’ help but wonder this Christmas, as I returned to that same nostalgic childhood spot and stare at the sculpture of Mary so many years later…

What if God is calling us all to the same task as Mary? What if God is asking all of us to allow God’s presence to come inside us? What if God is asking US if we would smuggle the Christ child in ourselves and birth him into our messy worlds?

I have many friends who are missionaries around the world. And isn’t that what they are doing? They have accepted the Holy Spirit to come dwell within them (scripture says that Mary conceived Jesus through the Holy Spirit…hmmm very interesting parallel) go to places where Jesus is not known or not wanted and they “birth” Jesus presence into cultures and countries that need the Good News…who need to see Emmanuel. The Missionary life doesn’t come without hardships or dangers.

And this isn’t just a truth for missionaries. What if God is asking YOU to smuggle and birth Jesus into your school or community? What if Mary was only the beginning? What if God’s plan was to be born into every single Christ follower?

What if Christmas is happening all over the world every single day, thousands of times a day?

Jesus being born into messy situations by faithful obedient followers who say yes to God? What if we have the incredible opportunity to have the same calling that Mary had? I can almost hear God whispering, “Heidi, I have chosen YOU. Will you let me smuggle My Presence inside of you? Will you be willing and obedient and go wherever I lead you to birth me daily into this broken world so that I can bring peace, restoration, and salvation?

For my male friends reading this, I know this birthing metaphor is most likely not your cup of tea. But I have spent many Sunday’s listening to sermons about how I should be more like Paul, Luther, and Peter. So, I honestly don’t feel that bad for you that I am asking you to be more like Mary. However, I do get really upset about overlooked women characters in the bible, which leads me to have a deep pity for an overlooked Christmas story character–Joseph.

Joseph was crucial in making sure Jesus made it safely into this world that Christmas night. He helped with the labor and birth of Jesus. His obedience is incredible. Poor guy is so over his head, he doesn’t even have a single dialogue in this story or in the Bible. I always picture Joseph being so overwhelmed that he is just speechless the entire time. Yet his actions speak louder than words. He is the significant, silent and almost invisible character in the Christmas story. Joseph could have turned and walked away when Mary told him she was pregnant (and he almost did). But instead, he willingly and obediently undertook what could arguably have been the most impossible task in the universe…to be the stepfather to the Son of God.

 

It is my biggest prayer this Christmas that God moves in more men to be like Joseph who partners with the women in their life and empower and help them to accomplish God’s high calling on their life—no matter how crazy it may be or sound to the world!

The unedited and un-photo-shopped world Jesus was born into was anything but silent and holy—much like our world is today. But I can sing and lift my hands to the ancient and classic Christmas songs because Christmas night was holy because Jesus is holy.

On Christmas Holiness took on flesh and dwelled within corruption. Jesus is peace. On Christmas Peace took on flesh and dwelled with chaos. Jesus is light.  On Christmas Light took on flesh and dwelled with the darkness. Jesus is good. On Christmas Goodness took on flesh and dwelled among evil desires, plans and motives that plague the human heart. Jesus is truth. On Christmas Truth took on flesh and dwelled with the lies. Jesus is HOPE. On Christmas the HOPE for a world restored and made-new took on flesh and dwelled in a broken messy world—a world so far from what it was originally created to be.

One of the popular Christmas songs is Silent Night? But was Christmas really a silent night? With the echoes of murdered baby boys and crying mourning mothers haunt the air of Bethlehem.  Were the mother’s cries drown out by the singing of Gloria’s by a choir of Angels? Deep Suffering and Great Joy juxtaposed.  Jesus silently enters into all of this. First day here on Earth and Jesus comes face to face with the mess we have made of the world we were entrusted with. Welcome to Our World Baby Jesus-as you can probably tell we are DESPERATE for you to save us!

I don’t think Jesus birth was meant to drown out or take the attention away from the hurting people in Bethlehem that night but to fill their gaze and swell their hearts with hope and peace. A Savior has been born to us, FOR us. Not to judge us but to SAVE us. To wipe away the tears, to restore the world, to make things right, to fix and heal or bruised world. The Son of God has come to turn our mourning into dancing. To give us a NEW song to sing. When sin departs before God’s grace then life and freedom come in its place. Come and see the Christ Child born to take away the sins of the world, a gift for you. Hold the child in your arms. The child born to one-day hold YOU.

Lover of Our Soul, Healer of Our Scars

Grace—a winsome, four-letter word. It flows from my mouth so easily. It is one of the most delightful words in my vocabulary. I have never tasted the sweet waters of a tangible grace like I did Fall Quarter. I experienced an abundance of different shades of God’s grace. This grace that sets free, that strengthens, that empowers, that walks with me. Time and time again I failed as a leader—as a beloved daughter of the Star Breather. Yet, even in my obvious brokenness and failures I was choking under the weight of God’s loving grace in my life. Most days, by noon I would already feel like I was at the end of my rope. Mercifully, God empowered me, inspired me, and strengthened me. This life I am called to is so, so vibrant and remarkable, but audaciously hard and messy. Through it all, the stumbling, in the midst of my weakness—God’s love and grace remain. A constant downpour in my life I could always count on.

And although I didn’t realize it at the time, My Sweet Jesus was bringing about my own healing by drawing me into the healing of others. God was breathing new life to the dead places in my heart. And that is how fall quarter began; a season I thought was for healing others, but God instead was healing me. God doesn’t comfort me just so that I can be comfortable. God comforts me so that I may become a comforter. At the end of the day, I discovered the greatest comfort I’ll ever have is comforting others.

God comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. When they are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us. ~ 2 Corinthians 1:4

 

I found that God and I are the finest tag team in the world for loving the heck out of people, not loosing hope, and always thinking and seeing the best in others. I’m just a sassy and stubborn woman and God is relentless. God uses my sass and stubbornness (what I would consider my greatest weakness) to advance the Kingdom of God. Crazy. Mind-Blowing. Incredible. Grace.  Juxtapose with me experiencing different shades of grace was severe examination of beliefs and placing my theology and ideas about God in boiling hot water.

What do you do when your life experiences challenges your theology??

I see her out the window and I watch the tears pour down her cheeks and I am devastated for her. I know she must be crying because of the pain in her heart or because of the pain of living in a broken world of imperfect love. I walk outside and just hold her and my eyes beckon her to share her sorrow, her discombobulated heart with me. And so she pours out her heart to me. All her hurt, and pain, and anger, and questions pierce through my own heart. I pray for her because I don’t know what else to do. Sure, I could tell her that God works all things for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purposes. Regardless, that didn’t seem proper or the most comforting option because the pain and anger was real and raw. We pray.

And the hurt doesn’t stop…

I get a text in the wee hours of the morning from a precious friend who has been the most supportive and wonderful friend in my life saying that her mother’s penetrating mental illness is the worst it has ever been. Her family will most likely have to put her into a hospital. The thought of this was crippling her family.  I can barely type out the words on my cell to say that my heart is so heavy for her. I decide to call her instead, right then and there and cry as I tell her I will carry this burden with her family in prayer. I am blown away by her confidence in the Lord and her gumption, and I feel extremely un-encouraging. We pray.

And the pain doesn’t stop…

A kind and authentically caring young soul wonders into my room with a defeated and hurting look on her face. She’s making small talk and I can tell that she wants to ask or tell me something.

She looking at the various different books on my bookshelf when her question finally breaks through, “How do you love people that have hurt you so badly? What do I do when I have so much hate in my heart towards someone who has hurt me?”

My heart breaks right then and there. Ah, one of Jesus’ hardest and seemingly crazy commandments. Love your enemies. Pray for those who hurt you. I could tell her that through prayer something transformative happens in our hearts that our eyes are opened and in time we realize that there is no such thing as enemies and we are all friends because we all have been hurt and have inflict pain on others. But instead I let the plump silence fill the room with an unspoken comfort—that I too, wrestle with these same questions. We pray.

And the brokenness doesn’t stop…

And then there was the woman with the question that nearly destroyed my faith and possibly my soul along with it.  The abominable and dreadful story is being spoken in my room—a story about innocence and humanity being stolen in the most selfish, evil action. She sits and tells me the story stone-faced and I feel the hot tears roll down my face because I can’t conceive someone doing something that horrendous to the beautiful, talented, radiant, wonderful, made in the very image of God woman sitting before me.

And then she says, “So I guess why I am telling you this is because I want to know–Where was God when I was being raped?”

The question that sucker-punched my faith into the ground. I had no answers. Not even one that I choose not to say. I literally sat there asking God the same question in my head. Lord, how could you let this happen? Where were you?” I didn’t want to pray to this God who didn’t intervene to save this woman from the tragedy she had to endure. And the silence and soul-groans was our prayer that night. Because who can put words to such questions and evil?

And I wish it ended there—but it didn’t….

One person after another started inviting me into their stories, sharing with me all the funny, beautiful, good, resplendent, bad, scary, horrible evil, and the sick, twisted story plots in their life. And from there they would give me a glance into their precious and lovely heart—all their fears, joys, passions, dreams, hopes, and desires. Some of these people opening up begin to question everything I said and what they had heard about God’s goodness and sovereignty. Members of my staff and I would spend hours grappling with this. I know as I was answering these questions—I was always answering myself, too.

The Lord, made me testify to some of the darkest stories I have ever heard in my life. Stories that had been stained and torn with pure evil and to boldly speak into those stories what I knew God to be even in the darkness. The Working-All-For-Good-God. The-Still-and-Always-Faithful-God. Emmanuel-God: The-God-Walking-with-Us. The God who sees who we are and uses all the broken places to make us who we are becoming.

That God’s hand does not bring the evil or brokenness, but God’s hand can use it and transform it into something beautiful. I spoke these certainties out loud and I watched on nervously. Except I witnessed God make these truths come to life. These truth words, these healing life promises, took on flesh all over again and met us where we were.

I have a friend who was a cutter. She hasn’t inflicted harm on herself in over year (Praise the LORD!) I remember a dream she told me when she was in her first week of recovery. In her dream, she was walking down our favorite hometown trail in the whimsy woods when she met Jesus there. He started strolling the trail with her and she was enjoying the presence of her Savior. When all of a sudden, Jesus turns to her and asked if she could stop hurting herself because it was really hurting him too.

My friend furious turns to Jesus and screams, “What do YOU know about my pain, my hurt, my struggles.”

Jesus simply opens out his arms and she sees his forearms are covered in scars. The same location and exact cutting scars that were on her arms.

“Every time you hurt yourself, you hurt and cut me as well”, Jesus said, “Your pain, your heartache, your scars…. are MY scars too.”

I have to believe that when we hurt, when people wound us deeply that Jesus is wounded too. I also have to believe that when we hurt and inflict pain on others that we are hurting Jesus too. We are all made in God’s image.

This doesn’t answer all the questions. And I would be an ignorant fool if I declare I have all the answers instead of being honest and saying this is a theology I daily wrestle and push against and doubt. Yet this “Emmanuel Theology” has also been what has sustained me throughout all the questions, darkness, confusion, and doubt. Jesus speaks to us as if we are all brokenhearted. I think we would do well to trust his perspective on this. Because even in the darkest, most evilest moments God’s presence, love, and grace remain. And though most of my unanswered questions remain too. Oddly, I am at peace with God’s answer to every one of my questions: Emmanuel. God with us. God with you. You never walk alone. I never walk alone. Even when the pain is all encompassing and the road is dark and difficult and our stories take twisted plot turns we never wanted, and our hearts seem shattered beyond compared. God is there. God—the lover of our soul and healer of our scars. Emmanuel.

Scripture and Tea

https://vimeo.com/26872383

Lovely. I simply adore N.T Wright.