Bloody hope.

"...few of us enter the tragedy of living in a fallen world and simultaneously struggle with God until our hearts bleed with hope. We either give into pain with a hopeless cynicism, or we settle for an artificial resolution that insists that things really aren't too bad and we need not muck around in the "negatives" of life." -The Healing Path by Dan Allendar, p. 5

Every once in awhile I will read something that resonates so deeply with my own life experience that my heart cannot help but be changed. I feel understood when words can be wrapped around what my heart is feeling. To feel understood is to feel known.

Usually feeling known is a source of great joy for me. It's something that happens rarely in my life, thus I deeply long for it. Lately, however, the affects of feeling known have been deeply painful. I'm going through something right now that I don't really feel very understood in. To read Dan Allendar's words encourages me that I'm not completely alone in it. I'm experiencing first-hand that life is full of disappointment. Sometimes God chooses to allow us to experience pain and suffering. Sometimes he doesn't step in when we cry out for Him. Often times life throws us curve balls that we aren't expecting, and the result can be tragically painful. In times when we dare to hope--for healing, or change, or resolution, or reconciliation--we can be left with a feeling of emptiness far deeper than when we first began. In times like this, to continue to bleed with hope feels nothing but foolish. My alternate path to hope tends to be the one of cynicism--I sort of give up on my good feelings and get comfortable in my let downs. But I also know a lot of people who choose an artificial resolution. You all know one (maybe you are one). The person who never has a bad day... who forces the positive out of every drop of life. The problem with both alternatives to real hope is that they either rob us of true joy or deny the reality of pain. Both are cheap imitations.

Hope is painful. It aches. It longs. It desires. It waits.

I don't understand it and I am miserable in it right now. I'm finding myself exhausted as I, for once in my life, am fighting to stay on the true path of hope. How easy it would be to resign to the dismal conclusion that this is as good as God gets. But the easy way is rarely the right way. I don't understand it and I don't like it very much. It doesn't make sense, and it hurts more than the wounds themselves. But because I long for more than this, I let my heart bleed.

...but I'm hurting in this safe place.

Sometimes I feel so dumb.

"Am I really here... again?" I wonder.

"When will I learn? What will it take? This hurts so much. I do not want to feel this. Not now. Not ever again. How do I keep ending up back here? I feel so foolish."

Sin causes my heart to ache. It doesn't matter what kind of sin it is. My heart feels empty, alone, shattered, lost. And I would do anything to not feel those things. At some point in life I learned that if I can stop feeling, my sin won't matter--mine or anyone else's. If I am hard, I won't hurt.

Such is my battle. I battle for my feelings. I won't deny that at times I'd rather reverse the process... go back to the numbness. It gets harder to embrace my heart within me and move forward in this discovery of love. The deeper in I get, the more risk I feel... and, at times, the more pain I experience. To trust others is risky business. To believe the best requires a soft heart. I don't always feel safest with a soft heart, and I always want to feel safe. Lately I've been finding myself in these terribly painful experiences where I literally want to rip my heart out because it's causing me such severe pain. I know that the pain is not isolated to one or even two events in my life... that most of it has really little to do with anything present in my life at all--but that most of it is years and years of anger, sadness, grief, and longing finally pouring itself out of me. Being in a place in life, with people who care, creates a place that is safe to finally let myself feel honestly. It's new, and scary, and I'm not quite sure that I'm sold on it yet. But I am convinced that God wants me to heal--that He wants my heart to be free. And so I hurt.

Homeless

I've been working at the UGM's Crisis shelter for women and children for almost two weeks now. It feels a little bit like an internalized giggle when I think about it, because I would have never dreamed in a million years that I would 1) ever work at a homeless shelter (sad, but true), and 2) LOVE it.

In just one week my eyes have been opened wider than I knew possible to the true and utter brokenness of our world. To be completely honest, God had to fight me on this one. I really didn't want to work there. I knew what kind of people lived in homeless shelters: drug addicts, mentally ill, alcoholics, and so on. I grew up with all of that and I am still healing from the wounds caused by it--why would I ever want to put myself in the middle of "those people?" Thankfully God does not allow us to be lead astray when we truly seek after and follow Him. It was only a few weeks before my first visit to the shelter that I felt the Spirit speak, "My people are here," referring to the city. I shadowed one of the staff before committing to the job, and again, I heard the Spirit within me speak, "I want my daughters here." I knew that God had created this shelter in the middle of a broken city as a refuge for women to go to experience physical and spiritual safety. Whether I ended up working there or not, I felt peace that God was at work in that place.

A little over a week later, in a battle against my very own flesh, I accepted the position at the shelter. Immediately I felt peace. As I have met my entire staff team and begun working with the women, I am in awe of God's provision for me. Not only am I daily encouraged and built up by some of the most amazing people I've ever met, I am humbled by my own narrow-mindedness as I get to love on women who are so much like you and me. Behind the drug addiction, mental illness, domestic abuse, etc., there are so many wounded little girls desperately searching for someone to love and rescue them. I am finding that daily I am repenting of my own sin, saying, "Oh Lord, I struggle with that. Help me, so then I can help her." I am humbled by my realization that I could very easily be one step away from being in their shoes--being victimized by rape, marrying a man who turns out to be someone I didn't know him to be, experiencing a financial crisis, experiencing a physical tragedy that leaves me disabled, taking one small step that could lead me to a downward spiral I would have never chosen to go on had I known the ramifications of my actions, or simply being decieved into believing I could trust someone/something I couldn't. The list is endless... but the truth is that I am just as capable as any of them of making choices that lead me to the same place they are today.

My second day of work I was sitting with a couple of women listening to them talk with my boss about relationships. One of the ladies said (about a man she's been in and out of a relationship with), "I have never felt this for any man before. When I'm with him, I feel home." I couldn't help but think, "No, honey, Jesus keeps taking him from you because He wants to be your home." Jesus is home. Not just for her and for those who don't have a place called home--He is home for me. He is home for you. The truth is, until we really know Jesus, we are just as homeless as all of these women are.

http://www.undertheoverpass.com/uop/video/undertheoverpass_20050930.wmv

Laundry & Life

I haven't done late-night laundry since college. I wonder why late-at-night was usually the time I chose to do laundry in college. Anyway, I'm waiting for load 1 of 3 to finish, so I decided to head over to the blog.

My counselor asked me an interesting question the other day. She said, "If you were put on a spaceship and flown to an uninhabited planet with a bunch of people, and put in charge of creating a new nation on that planet, there would be certain things that would be a given for what would be part of it. But if it were up to you, what would be the one thing you'd make sure was true of that society?"

It was easy for me to answer. I said, "I'm make sure some kind of discipleship was in place--spiritual and emotional development that would include counseling, but also spiritual training and growth."

"This is what you are most passionate about. That is what you need to pursue, and every move you make from now on should be with intention in moving toward that goal."

The answer to the question I've been asking myself for (at least) the last year was suddenly before me! I went instantly from confused to directed and excited, passionate and energized. Now figuring out the first step in the right direction is the tricky part. I know I want to go back to school for some kind of counseling or ministry degree... but that just isn't an option for me for at least a year. Ironically (or not), this conversation was motivated by a job opportunity presented to me last week to work at a Women's Crisis homeless shelter--the Union Gospel Mission's women's crisis shelter. Hmm. I'm not exactly sure where God is going with this, but I at least now know what direction to look for Him!

A friend shared the question, "if you won a million dollars and didn't have to work for the rest of your life, what would you choose to spend your time doing?" I think this question is answered pretty easily by most people... but if not, I think it reveals itself in what we choose to spend our time doing when we have nothing else to do. I go on coffee dates and spend hours on the phone talking to friends. I read self-help books and give people personality tests. I invite people over to my house for dinner and a movie.

I don't think finding our purpose in life is as hard as it seems sometimes. Usually it's what we most enjoy doing. That's why God created us to enjoy it.

The Fragrance of Life

As I got in my car one day to drive to work, it didn't take me very long to notice the lingering scent of a friend who had been in my car the day before. I was caught off guard by how much that smell impacted me. My heart was instantly engaged as I was reminded of that person and the fun conversations we'd had in the car. As I went throughout my day, I kept getting whiffs of their scent, and each time my heart responded. I feel like the Lord was intentional to give me this experience, as it allowed my heart to connect deeply with His word when it was taught on Sunday morning. The passage of scripture talked about was 2 Corinthians 2:14-17:

"But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ and through us spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of him. For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. To the one we are the smell of death; to the other, the fragrance of life. And who is equal to such a task? Unlike so many, we do not peddle the word of God for profit. On the contrary, in Christ we speak before God with sincerity, like men sent from God."

This piece of scripture resonated through my heart as I thought about the impact an aroma has on the heart. To smell the scent of a person I care for and love brings about sentimental emotions that make me smile and long for more depth and intimacy with them. It makes me miss them and wish they were with me in that moment. At the same time, a scent that reminds me of a person who has caused pain in my life can be as equally powerful. It causes me to hurt, withdraw, and seek comfort in something else.

As I think about the impact aroma has on the heart, it makes me wonder what kind of fragrance I spread throughout the world. I think about my friends and my family, my coworkers and my clients, even the tired cranky lady in the grocery line... and wonder how my spiritual fragrance impacts their heart. Does it make them smile and long for more of the Truth and Love I live for? Does it make them bitter and resentful of the pain I have caused them, striking fear and a pursuit of comfort in something other than Christ? Or do they even smell anything at all?

Passion?

I'm struggling with passion for my life. I look around me and see so many people full of vision and excitement for the future and what it holds. They have dreams and goals and stuff they are passionate about. I feel bankrupt when it comes to this. I don't know what I'm passionate about. I don't know what sort of purpose my life will fulfill. I'm a single woman living in a small big town feeling a lot of pressure to pursue success and adventure. My life is supposed to be full of dreams and meaning. But its not. I work a job that I don't enjoy--in reality probably causes more harm for me than I do good for it... I live with four women who are on their way to things bigger--this is only a transitional time of life for them. I don't relate. What I dream about is security and consistency in relationships. I dream about being a wife and a mom and taking care of a home and a yard. Cooking meals and throwing parties. I dream of being involved in my family's community and helping my church. I want to go on family vacations and create traditions. I want to be excited about holidays and not fear a fight or wounds from the family I'm with. I have vision for a me that feels free to be all of me all the time every day with the safest of people--my own family, and to impact the world through my commitment, passion, and desire to love my husband and my children in a way I never experienced growing up.
I guess what I dream of feels small in comparison to those around me... and maybe even misunderstood. What I didn't experience in childhood is what I long for. My problem comes in that I don't feel like I can pursue that dream. It's a passion I have to wait on God to provide for me... one I am not even sure He will ever lead me to. So I am stuck wondering, "What do I do?" I pray for passion for more than those things... and passion for where I am now.

A (single) woman's love.

God used a story to speak powerfully to me today, and I want to share it with you.

The story is the one about the woman who washed Jesus' feet with her tears, her jar of perfume, and her hair. Each Gospel account has a slightly different take on this story, but the basics are the same. Most think she was Mary of Bethany (Martha's sister). She entered this home that was likely full of men and proceeded to risk her dignity, her life, her respect, and her future on this simple extravagent act. She wept over his feet and broke her most prized posession and spilled it's contents over His feet, then washed them with her hair. Some things that are important to know about the context of this--1) She was cleaning the dirtiest part of his body, 2) Her perfume was one of the most expensive oils you could find during the time (worth more than any you could find today), 3) It was socially unacceptable for a woman to take her hair down like that, but most significantly for me is that this perfume was likely her dowry. If in fact she was Mary of Bethany, her parents were already dead, she probably hadn't been married, and her odds were not so good. What grips me about this is that, as a single woman likely hoping and longing for marriage one day, she completely surrendered her odds of marriage to Christ by breaking that alabastar jar and pouring out the contents over his feet. It seems so foolish--complete abandon. As a single woman who longs, probably more deeply than most other things in life (and I say that with the strongest hope that I don't come off as desperate), to be married and raise a family, this passage of scripture hits a deep place for me. I am learning day by day that marriage is a privelege. I am realizing that to love my Savior deeply--to be willing to lay my future down at his feet to the point of sacrifice--that this is enough. If I live my life single, it will not be miserable... I get to live life with Jesus. I get to die and live eternity with Jesus. That is enough to be excited about for the rest of my life. I just think of Mary and am humbled by how far from hers my heart is. It is reluctant to trust like that, fearful to sacrifice in such a complete way. It desires to control and have it's way... I pray for a heart of abandon like her's. I want to be willing to risk it all for him--my dignity, my pride, my safety, my future, my hopes, dreams, and deepest desires.