something new

sometimes you just get on this speeding path without ever really thinking about how you got there nor if you really want to be there. sometimes you find yourself up to your neck in things and think, what? why am i doing this?

there are so many opportunities to be disappointed and let down in this work. there are so many plans that fall apart, hard work that doesn't get noticed, time that gets stripped away.

weariness and sheer exhaustion and overworked are all common descriptors for those involved, the growing weight of the need that you see around you smothering, the hunger clawing to be noticed.

but none of these are the worst crisis for someone in some type of service. the real gut-wrencher is when you find yourself with absolutely no more desire to continue. when you find that you could turn it all over to someone else without a second thought of what would happen to those little tummies, those growing minds, those desperate eyes and grasping hands.

it's not even the weariness or heaviness or difficulty of it all that bothers me....its this new, flippant and oh-so willing part that wants to wash her hands of it all.

i sat yesterday, stewing in this and watching the sunlight glisten off the leaves...and just sat. i haven't just sat in a real long time.

and the bottom line is this: there is a need for balance. and rest. and sharing responsibilities. but more than that there is the reality that this work, this thing that i do...it's woven into my soul....its not even the place or the people or the circumstances but the profound knowledge that this is what i was made for. so even though this alarming new sensation is ever present in this moment, i know that it's just a false self, a shadow of who i thought i could be, but nothing like who i really am.

and with that, i could breathe. there is something about being anchored that allows you to hold on in the midst of whatever gust that comes your way. i'm thankful for that.

fingerprints

things that have been leaving their mark lately...in various forms.

one of the 4 year old twins(whose mom just died from a plastic surgery gone wrong...who on earth gets plastic surgery in Nicaragua
??)just bawling because he couldn't get his cut-outs to stay glued down...me kneeling, helping him and seeing that it really has nothing to do with cutouts or glue, but overwhelming loss.

being a mom to a 14-year old. Moises' nephew is living with us. and in the midst of all this is the growing ability to see how He provides. how nothing is impossible. and how there is always enough.

fruits of partnerships and the fullness they bring. there is nothing quite as sweet as seeing your dreams and visions sprout up and reach people, to see them change their lives, to see them overcome and smile at this new place they are coming into.

quietly and carefully tending to my marriage with my husband in the little garden of our lives. seeing him pour into it as much as i do. being united in one purpose.

that place of rest that always finds you when you ask, no matter the to-do list, the projects, the laundry, the whatever.

my soul clings to you; Your right hand upholds me. Psalm 63:8

innovation

have you ever stopped to think about how valuable a sprinkler is? it provides a great way to beat the dry times without waterlogging plants or grass and can be a fun activity for kids to enjoy in the summertime. here, sprinklers, let alone the water with which you would occupy a sprinkler, are scarce. and not really practical.

but today, Moises made a beautiful 3 way sprinkler that gently mists withing a ten - foot radius...with electric tape, a beat-up hose, and an oil bottle. and i got all excited, talking about how useful this could be for farmers dealing with the drought...and he reminded me that they usually don't have water, and when they do, they don't have the pressure necessary to make it work.

sigh. well, it's still beautiful.

resonance

do you remember David, from the Christmas confrontation in 2008? he was murdered last Wednesday, four houses down from where we were staying. i cannot put into words the many emotions we have gone through this week…anger at his choices that would make him vulnerable (drugs, mafia, stealing, all sorts of crime), sadness and compassion for his two children and wife left behind, heaviness for the reality of this small town, lost in a growing number of sins and depravity, restless for the lack of hope or alternative, gratefulness that the Lord pulled my husband out of there 3 years ago (David used to be best buddies with Moises), and just weariness. a touch of what I imagine the Word talks about when it says the earth groans in waiting.

It’s gotten me thinking and churning and there have been some things I'm reading that relate. Donald Miller talks about it like this… “I said his daughter was living a terrible story…I don’t know exactly, but she’s just not living a very good story. She’s caught up in a bad one…A couple months later I ran into Jason and asked about his daughter. ‘She’s better,’ he said to me, smiling. And when I asked why, he told me his family was living a better story.” (excerpted p 50, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years). La Batea, and many, many, MANY people are just living a bad story. And us Christians don’t offer a much better story.

WAIT. how is it possible that we, who have heard the BEST story ever, not be able to offer a better story? this creates a tension and pain that pricks in the stomach and swells to my head. it makes me take a long hard look at what i’m doing, if i’m just like them, but in a glossier-looking package. do all my activities and works and motives invite people into the Story or are they just pretty little vignettes for my own pleasure? if we’re honest, i think we will find that most of us are concerned about making a good story for ourselves, or as Donald Miller said, “My entire life had been designed to make myself more comfortable, to insulate myself from the interruption of my daydreams.” (p 77). we assume that the story is about us, just a tree in the forest, but we are reminded its actually a story about a forest (donald miller).

Amy Carmichael addresses this issue, specifically about comfort, in her book A Gold Cord.

“The Lord calls men with the spirit of Epaphroditus. That spirit will be required, for the life of uttermost service cannot be called comfortable. ‘Comfort, that stealthy thing that enters the house as guest, and then becomes host, and then master. Ay, and it becomes a tamer, and with hook and scourge makes puppets of your larger desires. Though its hands are silken, its heart is of iron. Verily, the lust for comfort murders the passion of the soul, and then walks grinning to the funeral’ (kahil gibran). It is true; but it is one thing to applaud it as truth and quite another to turn from that lust that murders the passion of the soul, for the sake of these for whom Christ died. But no one who has done so would exchange this way of living for any other.” (Amy Carmichael, p 367  A Gold Cord).

This passage cut me through, and I think it relates to what I was writing earlier, that if we focus our story on comfort, or security, or fun, or fame, or power, or whatever else it may be other than Jesus and His story and how our stories are all about the bigger story, we will fall into the same story that La Batea lives….an empty, bored church with souls chained up just outside the doors. we will be ineffective, useless and restless. maybe it won’t be so obvious, but we’ll know, because we will begin to see the mildew cracking through the whitewashing.

To take it a step further, Oswald Chambers speaks not of just a story that points to the larger Story, but of a giving that pours ourselves out. “ The real test of the saint is not preaching the gospel, but washing the disciples’ feet, that is, doing the things that do not count in the actual estimate of men but count everything in the estimate of God. Paul delighted to spend himself out for God’s interests in other people, and he did not care what it cost. We come in with our economical notions –‘Suppose God wants me to go there – what about the salary? What about the climate? How shall I be looked after? A man must consider these things.’ All that is an indication that we are serving God with a reserve. Paul focuses on Jesus Christ’s idea of a New Testament saint in his life, viz. not one who proclaims the gospel merely, but one who becomes the broken bread and poured-out wine in the hands of Jesus Christ for other lives.” (My Utmost for His Highest, February 25.)

Those of you who know the Word will have those verses echoing back to you, the place that all these ideas spring from. Jesus was very clear about the life, the Story that we are called to. There is a need, a DESPERATE NEED, for the children of God to remember what story it is that they are a part of and to fight hard to make their daily story resonate with the larger Story…because we are His ambassadors, His messengers, the ones who take the story to others and invite them in, reminding them that they too are characters in His story. and if my story doesn’t resonate with the Story, people get confused and misled. and they think the Story is about personal fame or power or success or comfort or easy living…and they get bored. and they get caught up and enslaved by the more deceiving and darker stories…where they can’t get out.

So I ask you…what kind of story are you writing? who is the main character of your story? what are the things that move your story along? and if you find that your story isn’t what you hoped for, I leave you with two other story ideas from Miller.

“The oldest book of the Bible is supposedly the book of Job. It is a book about suffering, and it reads as though God is saying to the world, Before we get started, there’s this one thing I have to tell you. Things are going to get bad…God doesn’t explain pain philosophically or even lists its benefits. God says to Job, Job, I know what I am doing, and this whole thing isn’t about you.” p 197

“I don’t ever want to go back to believing life is meaningless. I know there are some biochemical causes for some forms of depression, but I wish people who struggle against dark thoughts would risk their hopes on living a good story – by that I mean finding a team of people doing hard work for a noble cause, and joining them. I think they’d be surprised at how soon their sad thoughts would dissipate, if for no other reason that they didn’t have time to think them anymore. There would too much work to do, too many scenes to write. “ (p 247)

PS. Thanks, Donald Miller, for being honest enough to put all that into writing. For encouraging us to “edit” our lives and start making a meaningful story. You provided a more elegant version of something I’ve been thinking about for awhile.

the reality of truth

so today, as I ate my lunch with some of those chatty 5th grade girls, one began to comment on how she was going to begin baptism classes, kind of cranky about it...and I began to talk to her about baptism and why we do it and i said "baptism is us choosing to die to this life with Christ and being raised again through Him to a new life that we live for Him" and she exclaimed, how beautiful! you should teach us bible!

there is a comfort for me in that, that in both languages, this is beautiful. i guess Truth is just that way.

little things

just a few snapshots from my first week of my second year at NCA Nejapa.

- seeing students come under my loving but firm teacher gaze

- feeling His authority and love behind my words and actions

- David, drawing a picture of Right to Education, using materials his classmates lent to him (David is the first student with a handicap at our school...he has cerebral palsy and is wheelchair bound...but he is intelligent and quick in his mind and has the most beautiful smile...the fact that he is in our school at all says a lot..many children with different capacities have little opportunity for education and the idea of paras, IEPs, and any number of other acronyms we take for granted in the US are nonexistent within the Nica Ministry of Education).

- quiet morning moments before the crazy bus ride down the mountain

- eating breakfast with my husband on my first day...he accompanied me to calm my nerves :)

- thankful, to be in this place.

and though it has nothing to do with NCA, for a dear sister´s farewell to her papa. our language can´t cover what the heart feels in moments like this...how i wish i could be at your side Lauren.

peace to you my friends

hospitality

the cycle of giving and receiving is something i have always been interested in, how it works, how one end affects the other, how expectations and circumstances can warp it...etc. i am a person that enjoys giving, from small to big, in all variety of forms. be it actual gifts, or sharing of resources, or giving of time or money or compassion...there is something in me that God has called out to give...because i believe that the things i have, that anyone has, are simply God's things, and He just chose to give you whatever portion you have so you can manage it. The fun part is seeing how when you use what He's given to bless and support and encourage you find all sorts of delights pouring back in.

living in Nicaragua has changed this a bit. not the desire, but the form in which i express it. and it has taught me how to receive, and graciously. (this i believe to be very important...its extremely uncomfortable to give to someone unwilling to receive). at first, it was embarrassing...humbling, actually, in the midst of a humbling time. and it made me take a look into my reservations about receiving.

in the end, it's this: we all need to receive. and we all need to give. and my husband and i have learned to trust the Lord's provision, always knowing He will meet our needs and obeying when we feel we are to be a part of meeting another's needs.

but this receiving became a deeper thing for me on our trip to the states. the hospitality, generosity and giving in general was a salve to places i didn't know were raw. we were received into a home where the family is struggling through a time of illness, and yet we felt like celebrated guests, made comfortable by each member of the family, all when they could have shut their doors and said, right now we just don't have anything to give.we entered into my home and received there like we had never left, like my husband had always been a son, complete with good talks and great food and precious prayer. we had numerous people invite us to eat a meal, covering the expenses because it was more important to them that we enjoy our time together in sharing life than worry about a few extra dollars. we were received in many a home with hugs and delighted smiles and accepting hearts. we were welcomed into a diverse church and a home, all because we are family in Him. we were carted around Chicago by various people and welcomed into an acquaintance's home, only to leave as friends and truly bound as brothers and sisters. we were given space and invitation into a community, allowing us to see how they strive to live out the gospel together, in all its drafty, messy, interesting and diverse glory. we were given monetary gifts like you wouldn't believe...not because of their quantiy but how they were always quietly given at just the right moment.

what i see in all this is the immense love of my Papa for two of His kids...and how He works through His body to do it. do you ever stop and wonder how your giving (in any shape or form) allows Him to meet His beloved's needs? or how if you don't, that it might hinder? certainly God always finds a way, remember the lilies and sparrows, but wouldn't you like to be a part of that holy giving? i know i do.

i want to thank you, brothers and sisters, who made us feel so welcome, loved, cherished and cared for in our time stateside. your support and prayers and time mean so much to us, and on a very personal note, i so appreciate how you all made my husband feel. i can't thank you enough.

He is always good.