A Memory, Bottled Up...

So, since I have begun writing this blog a group of friends and I have gotten together and formed a 'writing group.'  Because, we are that awesome.  Actually, we are all really quirky mixes of nerdy and awesome and Jesus-loving.  (With maybe a touch of prissy in there?? Shannon Owen, I'm looking at you ;)  So we get together and talk about our writing, and what we want to accomplish with it and how we want to write and what are the important things that merit being written about??

One of the things we have decided to do to stretch our writing has been to write using prompts, and then get together and critique/discuss each other's responses.  So I have been mulling over these prompts for a month now, feeling like I had nothing of interest to write in response to any of them.  When God lead me to start this blog, I told Him from the beginning that it would be a mouthpiece for Him, or nothing at all.  I would write about things He wanted me to write about, say the things He wanted me to say, and shut up the rest the time.  For those of you who know me, you know how very hard that is for me...

One of the writing prompts included a quote from my ALL-TIME favorite fiction book.  Or, at least, my favorite book from adolescence, Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier.  I must have read it 20 times alone in the 7th grade.  Here it is: 

"'If only there could be an invention,' I said impulsively, 'that bottled up a memory like a scent.  And it never faded, never got stale.  And then, when one wanted it, the bottle could be uncorked and it would be like living the moment all over again.'"

The prompt then guides you to discuss which memory you would bottle up and why, and to describe the memory in vivid detail.  

I turned this concept over and over again in my mind for a month.  Nothing stood out to me; of course there are the typical memories that most people would think of:  babies being born, your wedding day, the first time you met your spouse, etc.  But God wasn't speaking to me through any of those memories, so I thought, "Well, if God doesn't give me anything to say, then the deal was I wouldn't say anything at all!"  

Fast forward to this morning.  I was at the YMCA for my kiddos swim lessons, and these were the first lessons ever for my 2-year-old.  The instructor wasn't ready yet, so I told my 2- and 4-year-old that they could sit on the steps of the pool until she came over.  I pulled a chair up to the edge of the pool and sat there watching them splash around with adorable, infectious, small-child enthusiasm.  

After a couple of minutes my littler boy, Graham, stood up on the second step with the water up to his tummy and I guess he lost his balance...he began to float backwards out to the deep water...

He bobbed underneath the water, little arms flailing and little legs kicking.  Little chubby fists desperately grasping for something that would hold, that he could use to pull himself up to air.  So completely helpless.

This probably went on for a flat 2 seconds, but in my mind, this image is burned.  And in my mind, it goes on for an eternity.  If you have seen your child struggle to break the surface of the water, you understand what I mean.

I promptly jumped in, fully clothed, with my shoes on, and scooped him up.

He was completely unfazed, which is an endearing characteristic of his, and the swim teacher came over just after that, so I recovered fairly quickly and we went on to the next task.  

Then this afternoon, the prompt resurfaced in my mind.  But this time, the memory that was fresh on my mind was the memory from this morning.  "Lord, why would I want to bottle that memory up??  That's a terrible memory.  Why would I want to relive that?"  And as I dwelt on those questions, God began to speak.  

"Amy, do you remember how you felt when you watched Graham this morning?"

"Yes, Lord, it was horrible.  I was desperate, I would have done anything to save him."

"Amy, I watch my children drown every day.  I watch them struggle, and flail, and reach out for anything that will save them...and I watch them go under.  I watch my own beloved children drown every single day, helplessly, hopelessly."

Heart-broken.  That feeling that I had to deal with for a sheer couple of seconds, He deals with every day, all the time, as He watches another of His children spend their lives struggling in pain, only to end up eternally separated from Him.

"Bottle it up, Amy.  Relive it.  Remember it.  When you see those around you, my beloved children, when you see them struggling, jump in.  Go all in.  Go in with your clothes, your jewelry, your shoes on.  Don't hesitate for even a second.  Go all in.  Just like you did for Graham.  That is what I have called you to do as Christians.  I will do the saving, you just jump in."

This is the reality of life; they are drowning in a much more consequential way that Graham was.  They are drowning in the currents of a life without Jesus.  A life without hope, meaning, love, comfort.  An unbearable life that will lead to unfathomable pain in the end...

Okay, Lord.  When I need to be reminded of how much you love us, and what our mission is here on Earth, I will uncork that bottle.  I will relive that memory and remember what you said:

Go all in.

How Can They Believe in the One of Whom They Have Not Heard?

Since my last post many things have happened.  Ben, whom I wrote about here, went to heaven.  His widow, Lisa, carries on his legacy and is utterly inspiring.  (Read more about them here.)  I've had some dear friends miscarry since then.  One almost identical to what happened to me.  I was praying so much for them, so much.  I ache for them and grieve with them.

And you know what all these things make me wonder?  

How do people make it through life without Christ?

Because you know what all those events I spoke of are?  Common.  They are all common.  Families grieve over loved ones who lose the battle with cancer every day.  Mamas' and daddies' hearts are broken over never getting to hold their baby every day.  Infertility sears red and  painful wounds in hearts every day.  Sometimes I don't know how people do it with the love of Christ holding them up, but the ones who don't even know it exists?  How do they do it?  It makes me sad.

Which brings me to my next point:  Cam and I are moving to Mexico.

So this was my anything.  Leaving the life I know and love, the friends I love, the family I love, to tell those who don't know Jesus about Him.  So they don't have to suffer in vain anymore.  So they don't have to live a life, that is to the best of their knowledge, cruel and meaningless.

Cam is skyping with a missionary down there right this moment.  

All the things I want to say about this....this process....this sacrifice....this privilege, I can't seem to formulate right now.  I don't know how we'll do it. I'm not sure when.  

But I do know why.  

When those people that we will encounter in Mexico hurt, I want to tell them who the true Comforter is.  When those people wander, I want to tell them who the only Compass is.  When those people struggle, and suffer, and feel pain and realize that this life in ends in Death, and I want to tell them that I have the Cure.

"How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?  And how can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!”

                                         --Romans 10:14-15

I want to bring the good news.  I want them to know Christ.  I want to have beautiful feet.

And For When the Answer Is No

"Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I will depart. 

The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; 

may the name of the LORD be praised."

Job 1:21

Sometimes, in this life, the answer is 'No.'

In the same way that I struggle to teach this to my 2- and 4-year-olds, I believe that God struggles to teach this to us.

I read an amazing book, one of my all-time favorites, last year called 1,000 Gifts by Ann Voskamp.  It was an incredible, life changing book.  The biggest challenge of this book is to look for the goodness of God's hand in all circumstances.  Every single one.  And not in some each-cloud-has-a-silver-lining kind of way.  Not in a trite, generic "Well, at least we aren't as bad off as those people," kind of way.  In a genuine, real, "Wow I can see God's beautiful hand in this and he is wise and he is love," kind of way.

Like seeing the redemption of her own family's story when she was 4 years old and watched her baby sister die.  Like seeing the redemption when her own little boy's hand was mangled in a farming accident.  Seeing the love of God even in situations like this.

I begged God for faith to see things like her.  I wanted to have that gut-level conviction that no matter what may come in this life my love for God and trust in Him would not waver.  And He is granting that request.  Because, that's His will for me.  And that's His will for you.

He is teaching me this in lots of ways, but most recently it was in the loss of a baby.  We prayed and believed and trusted and waited.  He held us in His hand the whole time.  He chose to keep that baby in heaven with Him.  I will bless the name of the Lord.

I will not look for silver linings.  I will look for God.  I will look for the love of Christ holding all things together.  I will receive His answer to our prayers, and trust His plan.  That doesn't mean it's without pain or grief or longing, and it doesn't mean that there haven't been tears shed.  But it does mean there is not despair--there is hope.  There is not only mourning, but there is comfort.  And most of all, there is Him.

Here is  a quote from a funeral I attended a while back when my friend lost her full-term baby:

"The amount of time on earth matters very little: a man can live in greed and pride 90 years and never find God, know Him or accomplish His Plan. A stillborn baby on the other hand, teaches people to love, brings people to the Lord, teaches us the tenuous nature of life and teaches us a faith that those who have not suffered loss can never know. A child not even breathing for an hour, can have an impact greater than a famous preacher. The purpose of a life is not ours to decide nor in our hands: it is brought about by God" 

                                                                                     --author unknown

Even though our baby was not full-term or stillborn, I am asking God to let our little one have that same kind of impact.  Let others who are mourning know where to find comfort through our story. Let those who are doubting see in our story that God's love pursues, no matter where we are, no matter what we are going through, and no matter how angry we are at Him...

Lord, that our loss would point others to You.  That our suffering would make us more like You.  And that we would see the redemption of this story in this life and the next.

Blessed be the name of the Lord.

Tiny, little anythings

(Disclaimer:  I have not even told my friends about the following.  When God told me to write about it this evening, I said, "Um, no. Too raw.  Too recent.  Besides, I haven't even told anyone...."  Truth is, I didn't really even want to tell anyone.  But I've come to realize that there is no use in arguing with God, and that even if there were I don't want to anymore.)

tiny, little anythings

When I wrote about 'anything' in my previous post, I was thinking of big things...Not just big things, but mostly big things.  The big things that people (including me) have a hard time giving to God.  Your house.  Your wealth.  Your life-long dreams.  I didn't realize that maybe one of the hardest things to give up would be tiny...barely the size of a bean.

The other day my mom and I were having a conversation about 'anything.'  She said something along the lines of, "How can you pray 'anything,' Amy? Do you want to give up your kids?"  And I of course said, 'No.'  I said I didn't want to give up my kids.  I hope I never had to.  But if God asked me to walk through that, I would--hopefully with my faith in His goodness and His love for me in tact.

Last week, with much surprise, I found out I was pregnant.  It came as quite a shock, because the timing didn't seem feasible.  It didn't seem like I could be pregnant.  But I was...I had a counter full of pregnancy tests to prove it.  It was such a gift.  Not only for the obvious reasons, but because of the struggle I had been having that same exact week.  

I knew I wanted to adopt for quite a while.  But, I also desperately wanted to have one more biological baby.  The plan had been:  one of each.  One more bio baby, one adopted.  Perfect.  Then last week, I started questioning that.  I said to Cam, "Is it selfish of me to want one more baby when there are so many babies that need mommies right now?  Is it God's will for you and me to create another child, when no one is taking care of those children?"  

I was not making some blanket statement about how everyone needs to quit having children and adopt, but I wondered if God was asking me specifically to make that sacrifice.  Sacrifice the heart-wrenching desire to feel another baby kick from inside of you, to hold the brand-new baby in your arms, to know their every detail from the first breath they take.  Their smell.  Their nose, their lips, their toes.

"Okay, God. We won't try for another one.  I'll sacrifice that.  I'll give that desire to you."  Sadness.  Don't look at baby stuff on Pinterest.  Don't read that friend's birth story.  "You are worth it God, you are worth it.  You are worth it."

Imagine my surprise when three days later, there I am standing mouth agape in the bathroom, staring at a positive pregnancy test that seemed an impossibility.  

But, my joy was short-lived.  There was bleeding.  Dr's office on Monday.  Possibility of miscarriage.  Wait.  Pray.  "God, why give me this miraculous pregnancy, this gift after the struggle, just to take it away?"  Dr's office on Thursday.  99% chance miscarriage.

Flashback to the conversation with my mom.  Would I give my child to God?  Would that be an 'anything' I was willing to walk through?  

"God, I want this baby.  I want THIS baby.  THIS life that is inside me right now.  But I will trust your hand in either outcome...I will pray 'anything' in this."

I have always wondered about the grief felt when someone miscarries early on.  I don't want to sound harsh, but I wondered if it was more for time lost--like wanting a baby immediately, but instead having to start the process over again.  Or was there already a connection between the soul of that baby and that mama?  I have friends who have lost full-term babies.  The grief is real, and huge, and unfathomable.  

But, I found out there was a connection.  I wanted that little life inside me.  I wanted to know that baby, to raise that baby.  I don't care about having to start the process over again--that's my baby, half me and half Cameron and I want it.  I want it, Lord.  I still do.

I have friends who have struggled with infertility for years.  I can't actually imagine anything more heart-breaking than their struggle.  To yearn with all of your broken heart for a child and to have to face defeat and despair every month, every year.

I feel like I can relate to them a very small amount.  I count it is a privilege to share in their suffering.  "Lord, I will share in their suffering...just please let it ease their suffering.  Don't let it be for nothing.  I'll take some of their suffering, take a little off of them and put it on me."  Philippians 3:10-11 says "..that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death,  that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead." 

We are supposed to take joy in suffering.  To take joy in sharing in His sufferings.  And you know, it hasn't been that hard to find joy in this.  I could feel the love of God more tangibly surround me as I drove home from the dr's office yesterday than I ever had before.  I don't wonder if He is a loving God...I wonder at how much He loves me even now.

As far as science is concerned, this baby bean is dead.  As far as science was concerned, Jesus was dead too.  The text I sent from the dr's office said, "Dr. said there is only 1% chance of viable pregnancy.  But our God is the God of the  universe, of babies and of embryos.  He is not hemmed in by percentages given in dr's offices.  I will continue to hope for the best until next week."

Since we are believers in Christ, we are a part of the resurrection.  I wonder if God will show his glory and resurrect this baby bean.  I wonder if when I go in for the final blood work and ultrasound next week if there will be a miraculous little baby in there with it's little baby heart beating.  I hope so, so much.

But if there is not, Lord, I will continue to give you the big 'anythings' and the little, tiny 'anythings.'  I will look forward to holding that baby on the other side of eternity, along with so many of my friends who will be holding theirs for the first time too.

I will not forget your love for me, and how you grieved the loss of your child too.

"For even if the mountains walk away, and the hills fall apart,

 my unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor my covenant of peace be removed," says the LORD, who has compassion on you.

Isaiah 54:10 

Anything...

From the insane amount of issues in the swirling vortex in my head, there is one resounding theme right now--

Anything

 This is the one that always separates itself from the rest, the one that wakes me up in the middle of the night, the one that I see when I open my eyes in the morning.  It has been something that has been presenting itself to me for acceptance or rejection for years now, ever since I got real in my quest to follow Jesus.  

Anything is just another way of saying 'everything.'  If you tell God that he can have anything, then you are telling God he can have everything.  Nothing is off-limits:  your wealth, your family, your comfort....your life.  

Anything was always such a scary concept to me.  I always knew it was what was required of me--the only thing required of me.  God didn't require some skill, he didn't require anything I was able to do for him, he just required that I give him all of me.  Because he knew that if I didn't, I wouldn't really know him.  I wouldn't really know joy. 

And, if we won't give him anything, then there is very little chance that we are going to help others know him.  And that's the only other thing he wants from us:  he wants us to help him rescue everyone else.  So that's two things he wants--he wants us, and he wants everyone else.  

Isn't that just like God?  Sometimes I feel like he is so selfish, wanting me to give him my comfort.  Wanting me to give him my American dream.  Wanting me to give him all my plans.  But really, it's for my benefit.  It's because he knows good and well that my weak heart does not have room for those things and him.  And he knows that as long as those things rule my weak heart, that I will not be able step out on the street and tell another soul about him.  God wants me....but he wants that soul too.  He is willing to sacrifice our comfort so that another of his children can receive his grace.  And we should be willing too.

So when I stumbled upon the book Anything by Jennie Allen I ordered it on the spot.  I read it in a couple of days, mostly over Easter.  It was the struggles of my heart inked on a page.  It was exactly and profoundly what I have been pondering, wrestling with, meditating on for the last few months.

Anything is about the moment Jennie comes to the point in her life and in her relationship with the creator that she tells God he can have anything.  She asks him to just tell her, just point to it--what does he want from her?  He can have it.  It's the moment that she really got real with God, and it tells about everything that led her up to that point.  And the beautiful story that God has written since.  

I loved this beautiful quote from her life before she prayed the 'anything' prayer:

"As I stand back and look at myself as I was, sitting in the counselor's office whining and crying after years of chasing things that were supposed to work for me, that were supposed to make me happy here, that God was supposed to do, I see that my ache was actually his mercy showing me that everything I loved other than him was never going to work.  It was never supposed to work."

Y'all, that's truth.  That's truth wrapped up in grace and tied with a bow.  The reason we feel empty, and the reason this life feels mediocre is because that's what we have filled it with--mediocre, vain pursuits.  Vanities.  And God is so merciful that he doesn't leave us there.  He continues to talk to us in that small aching voice, assuring us there is more.  Not letting us sit content with rubbish.  Reminding us that we will never be fulfilled with anything other than him.

It's funny that one of the things that I read at the beginning of my 'anything' journey, is one of the same things that began Jennie's. It is the story of an amazing girl named Katie who at 18, left her safe, cush, comfortable, well-off life and moved to Uganda.  Alone. Worked at an orphanage, loved on kids.  Then adopted, like, a zillion of them.  By herself.  I seriously have lost of count, I think she has legally adopted something like 14 or 15 little girls.  

Here is a quote from Katie's book Kisses from Katie that I read a couple of years ago, that was also in Jennie's book.  It is a quote from Katie explaining her choices:

"All my life, I had everything this world says is important.  In high school I was class president, homecoming queen, top of my class.  I dated cute boys and drove a cute car.  I had supportive parents who so desired my success that they would pay for me to go to college anywhere my heart desired.  BUT, I loved Jesus.  Jesus says to Nicodemus that in order to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, one must be born again.  Check.  Jesus says to another guy that in order to enter the Kingdom of Heaven one must sell everything they have and give it to the poor and then COME, follow Him.  Oh...I realized that I had loved and admired and worshipped Jesus without doing what He did.  So I quit my life.  Originally it was to be temporary, just a year before I went back to normal Brentwood life and college.  It wasn't possible.  I had seen what life was about and I couldn't pretend I didn't know.  So I quit my life again, but for good this time.  I quit college, I quit my cute designer jeans, and my little yellow convertible.  I quit my boyfriend.  I no longer have everything that the world says is important.  BUT, I have everything that I know is important.  I have never been happier, and I have never been closer to the Lover of my Soul and my Savior.  JESUS wrecked my life, shattered it to put it back together more beautifully.  I am in LOVE with Him.  Period."

There just isn't any arguing with that.   Jesus' plan for our life is SO much more beautiful than which schools our kids get into, than which drapes we decided on, than whose name is on our shoes.  Jesus' plan for our life is more beautiful than the noble things we hold on to, too.  His plan is more beautiful than everything, because his plan gets Him us, and gets Him others.  All of those beautiful little Ugandan girls would not have had a mommy, especially not a mommy that told them about Jesus, if Katie had said 'No.'  If she had said that her car, house, comfort, friends and family were more important than Jesus.

Jennie says in  Anything "Until there is total surrender, there is no vision."  Until we decide Jesus is worth our 'anything' then I don't think we will know his plan for our life. We won't know what ministry he has called us to, we won't know his perfect plan.  He isn't going to give us a sneak peek so we can see if it is worth it.  We have to go all in.  We have to open up our sweaty palms and release the two-year-old-like grasp we have on our stuff.  

Ben and Lisa Morrell are a couple who have been in my Sunday school class for the last few years.  They came to Houston to receive treatment for the cancer he was diagnosed with just a few short weeks after they were married.  A couple of weeks ago, they headed back to Seattle.  They are living the rest of the time that God has given Ben at home.  With hospice.  As of yet, there has been no miraculous healing.  

Their 'anything' is probably the reason that most Christians won't pray it.  Their worst-case scenario has been coming to life in front of our very eyes.  But Ben and Lisa's journey has undoubtedly shown God and his grace to countless unbelievers.  Their stalwart faith in God and his goodness every step of the way has illuminated God and his love for us.  Their positive, yet realistic attitude every day has been....unreal.  I look at their status updates on Facebook and the peace that they have chosen to hold on to during this time points to a God who holds them in His hand, and to a plan that ends gloriously.

I don't know your 'anything.'  I am just beginning to see mine.  But the reality is, that if we are not willing to tell God that he can have anything, then we are settling for a dull, mediocre shell of a life that had nothing to do with God and nothing to do with eternity.  I don't want to go out like that.  I want to chase after what will still be around in eternity.  I want do what the God of the universe wants me to do, because you know what?  He knows more than me.  He knows the pain of giving up mediocre in this life will be miniscule compared to the joy of what we will gain, in this life and eternity.

And on the heels of Easter, it all of the sudden occurs to me that Jesus prayed 'anything' too. In the Garden of Gethsemane.  He cried, and he sweat blood and he prayed 'anything.'  Praise God, he prayed 'anything'.  Now we have the chance to, too.

Ben and Lisa will spend eternity with Jesus, be it in two months from now or fifty years.  And I have faith that they will have brought others there with them because of their love for Jesus and their agreement to his plan, to their 'anything.' Because their 'anything' showed Christ to those who hadn't seen him yet.

Katie will spend eternity with Jesus, and will undoubtedly not just have 14 or 15 beautiful Ugandan girls there with her, but hundreds or thousands of Ugandans AND Americans who were touched by her love and came to know about Jesus through her.

I will spend eternity with Jesus. I hope when I get there, I have more to tell him about than shoes and drapes and how comfortable I was.  I hope I can lay a life of the Gospel lived out at his feet.  I hope there will be others there with me who came to know Jesus because I lost my life and prayed 'anything.'

I hope that for you too.

I have not yet arrived...

Throwing down the grace gauntlet

You know how preachers always say they are tested on the thing that they are preaching on?  Well, I think I made a mistake, a big mistake.  Did I title this blog about grace, Lord?  I meant shoes.  And puppies.  Shoes and puppies and doughnuts.  Definitely not grace, Lord, so feel free to refrain from testing me on it.  Because guess what?  I am not good at doling out grace. 

Case in point:  I get home from HEB today and the first thing out of my mouth to Cam is

"You know who it's hard to give grace to?  Dumb people.  They make it really hard to give them grace."

I tried to return something I bought from HEB that broke within a couple of weeks of purchase.  I take it to the customer service.  I put in on the desk.  I say:

"I bought this several weeks ago. I don't have the box or receipt. It broke within the first couple of times I used it."

The girl behind the desk is so dead-behind-the-eyes that I wonder if her eyes are glass prosthetics.  I want to sway ever-so-subtly back and forth just to see if she can track with me her eyes.  She says:

"Do you have the box?"

Grit teeth.

 "I bought this several weeks ago. I don't have the box or receipt. It broke within the first couple of times I used it."

Blank stare from glass eye girl.

"Do you have the receipt?"

Lord, have mercy on me for the reaction my brain just had to this chick.

"I bought this several weeks ago (long pause, searching for eye contact) I don't have the box or receipt (longer pause, small hand motions) It broke within the first couple of times I used it." 

Guess what?  The stupid thing is still in my car.  No, I was not able to return it ;) 
In case you were wondering, I have not arrived.  I do not know how to live with grace.  And I think God may be getting a kick out of torturing me with this fact?  Throwing down the grace gauntlet, saying, "Here you go Amy!! You wanted to figure out how to live with grace, let me just help ya along here!!"

So, I have been pondering these last few days where my lack of grace comes from.  Why is it so hard to give grace? Why am I so hard on others, and why am I so hard on myself?  I think it comes from my propensity to judge everyone.  I judge everyone, including myself, and find them lacking.  Unworthy of grace.  I am the exact antithesis of what Christ calls me to be.

Okay, so why do I judge everyone?  Why do I feel the need to make myself like God and put everyone below me and judge them?  Well, that's easy.  It's because I'm insecure.  

Have you ever realized that we project the things we don't like in ourselves on to others?  If you take a good, hard look at some of the things that you dislike most in some of your colleagues, family, friends, etc, can you see that it's because deep down you dislike that in yourself?

Sigmund Freud first conceptualized psychological projection as a defense mechanism where a person subconsciously denies his or her own negative attributes by ascribing them to objects or persons in the outside world instead. 

Yup.  Bingo.

Anatomy of a Starbucks conversation

Saturday I was waiting for my iced latte in Starbucks and I noticed a lady having a very animated conversation with some other women nearby, one going on and on about "how expensive Coca-Cola is."  With her Louis Vuittons on her head, her Manolo Blahniks on her feet, and Marc Jacobs everywhere between.  I thought, "This lady wouldn't know expensive if it smacked her in the face."

It roused this sharp criticism, this quick judgement from my very core.  But later that night at home, with just me and God to hear my thoughts, I knew why I had that reaction.  Because sometimes, I want fancy sunglasses.  Every-so-often, I consider highly overpriced pretty shoes.  (I don't actually buy them because they cost more than my car ;)  And now and then, I find myself drifting to the designer section with lust and envy in my heart.  

I hate it in her because I hate it in me.

Reverse racism

My husband and I suffer from something I call "reverse racism."  It isn't actually racism, so don't call the NAACP. What it is, is that we have an infinitely easier time loving and extending grace to people who don't look like us.  It's the privileged, American, moneyed people who deserve no grace in our eyes.  I mean, why should they? They've been given every thing else already, why do they deserve more?  Selfish.  Self-involved.  Unlike Jesus.

We hate it in them because we hate it in us.

I have been blessed in the past few years to minister with a prison ministry called Christ's Reconciliation And Rehabilitation Ministry, (CHARM for short.)  Although I don't have as hard of a time not judging the kind of people I found inside the prison walls, there was still a bit of what I thought was "righteous anger" at times toward those people.  For the things they did.  For the way their actions affected their children.  Putting myself up in God's place again, judging away.

It took just one day with them, with their stories to beg God for forgiveness.  Molested and sexually abused since their first memory.  Out on the streets by 9 years old.  Prostituted by 11 years old.  Emotionally and physically abused.  Treated like trash.  Forced to get abortions. Raped.  Their children, dead in their arms.  Newborns killed in drive-by shootings.  Lord, forgive me.  But, for the grace of God, there go I.

I think the only prescription for me is a good dose of humility, mixed with a shot of gratitude.  Stop 'making myself like the most high,' and feeling the need to judge others just to soothe my insecure soul.  Offering gratitude that God knows my thoughts and STILL loves me.  Gratitude that God knows my thoughts and STILL allows me to minister to others.  Humility to remember who I am, and gratitude that God is who he is.  And when true judgement comes, Jesus will grab my hand before the Father and say, "She's mine."  And that is the real root of grace.

And you know what? I hope with his other hand he grabs ol' Starbucks lady and glass-eyed-chick too.

Somethings I don't understand

I don't understand:

•  math (in college when I worked a coffee shop, I was the only person who accidentally rang people up for a $5,342.00 cup of coffee)
• why there aren't Cadbury egg versions of pumpkins, turkeys, Santas, Valentine's hearts, etc.
• how the humans in my family create so much dust.  If dust is 90% dead skin cells, then we are all going to need skin grafts in  a couple months.  I swear, I dust the furniture in the morning, and there is an inch-deep of dust on the end table by the afternoon.  Mystifying.
• God.  There I said it.  Feel free to un-follow my blog now.

Ok, especially God.  Especially since I watched "The Bible" on the History channel these last few nights.  

Looking forward to sitting down and getting some spiritual insight into some of the dramatic events of the Bible, at the end of each DVRed program I felt mainly one thing:  scared.  

Many times when I am confused the next emotion to follow closely behind is fear.  Anyone tracking with me?  If I don't understand something, I automatically decide it's terrifying.  It's one of my super-awesome coping mechanisms.  I used to feel like I was going to have a panic attack in the third grade when we had to do those 'Minute Math' things--the multiplication tables where you had to do as many as you could in one minute?  I think that was my first brush with dishonest academics.  I'm pretty sure I started copying off of Raymond Sanchez, not caring whether or not the answers were right (I'm thinking they weren't, sorry Raymond) but just trying to avoid the red badge of shame that would be painfully obvious if I carried my paper to the teacher with only 70% of the questions answered.

But, I digress.

So last night at the end of the show, at the end of the many violent and horrific scenes that were shown, my heart was frightened and burdened.  I started volleying questions up at God:  "Why?  Why were those people different than me?  Why was that violence part of your plan?  Was it part of your plan?  How can I trust you with me, with my kids, when that's what happened to those people's kids?"


I knew about the scenes that were shown.  I had of course read them in the Bible before last night.  But man, does seeing them acted out on TV just do a whole other thing for your brain. Seeing babies ripped out of mamas' hands and murdered when Herod was looking for the Christ child.  Seeing all of the Hebrew babies murdered while baby Moses was saved.  How do I reconcile this with the God that I know?  The God that loves me, that loves my children more than I do?  The same God that ordained the rescue of baby Jesus and baby Moses is the God that watched as I delivered my babies.  He's watching them right now as they sleep.

I then flashed back to a few days earlier when I sat amidst hundreds of tiny graves with a friend, mourning the loss of her precious child.  We were commemorating the six months that had passed since his body came into the world, but his spirit was already in Jesus' arms. I sat looking around:  baby boys, baby girls, twins.  All gone up to the father.  All leaving a gaping hole in their mom and dads' hearts and lives.  Behind me were two fresh graves; babies that had been buried mere days before.  Little stuffed animals, toy trucks, candles and flowers.  All sitting around tiny, tiny graves.

The questions to God continue.  See, it's not that I don't know if I can trust God.  I know that I can, I hold unswervingly to that fact.  But sometimes I just don't know why I can trust God.

I heard it said a while back that a hallmark of a mature faith is being able to handle doubts when they come your way.  Being able to hand them back over to God, waiting expectantly for his answers.  (That's not the same as demanding answers, see Job)  God can handle them, you know.  He's not surprised when we feel this way.  

So, I take hold of my doubts.  I take a deep breath, and I chunk them back up to God.  I say, "God, hit me with it.  Who are you really?  Why can I trust you?"  And, I hope, he smiles at my irreverence and says

• Proverbs 3:5 : Trust in the Lord with all your hear, and lean not on your own understanding.

Um, okay God.  Fine, I won't lean on my own understanding.  But that was kinda passive-aggressive, you didn't really answer my question.

• 1 Corinthians 1:25 :  For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength.

So the title of this post was "Somethings I don't understand"....yeah that verbiage is present-tense.  I still don't understand but I have made my peace with it, because it comes down to this:  priorities.  Are your priorities to lose  your life, or to save it?  Are my priorities to preserve myself or to lose it all for the cause?  Because when your priorities totally line up with God's, that's when you really really understand what it is to trust God with everything.  Believe me, that is an endeavor worth striving for and I have only hit the tip the of the iceberg.  But God is patient, that's one of his best qualities in fact.  So I'll keep chunking questions up to heaven and he will keep revealing things to me, and we will keep doing this beautiful thing that he made me for, even if I don't understand it.

Giving God what he wants...

So, I'm not much of a blogger.  I have a few that I read--the holy grail of blogs, if you will.  You know: Jen Hatmaker, Ann Voskamp, the pros.  But recently God and I have been having such interesting conversations...conversations like--

God:  "Amy, give me that."

           Me:  "God, nope."

 God: "Amy.  Did I make you?  Do I know you better than you know yourself?  Do I know what will bring you joy to the very marrow of your bones?  Do I know how sincerely you want to follow me to the deepest places, but how scared you are to do so?'

Me:  "Yep."

God:  "Then give it to me."

Me:  (Sigh.) "Okay, fine God.  But I want it on these terms."

God laughed at me and hung up after that. Then he started leading me to document this journey, this journey of finally giving him what he wants--all of me.  Well that was a whole other conversation in itself.  I told him how I'm not the right person for this job, how I am so apt to say inappropriate things (at bible study no less), and how I am not interesting, and how people will think I am full of myself if I write a blog about nothing but what I think.  

Nevertheless, here I am writing a blog about who-knows-what?? 
Well, I guess we'll find out ;)