When a step of faith feels like a dive into the abyss

I didn't go to work today. Yes, that was planned and no, I am not playing hooky. Today is my step of faith.

A couple months ago, I was working over 80 hours a week between my "day job" and my ministry with Safe Families. I was physically exhausted and emotionally spent, and God whispered into my heart, "It's time." Time to cut back my hours at work, time to make myself more available to the needs of others. Time to take a step of faith.

It really is just a step. A tiny one, actually. A leap would have been quitting my job, and I am only going to part time hours. But not going to work today feels a little like falling, like I'm diving into the unknown.

As I sit here, sipping my coffee and listening to the sound of the washing machine running, I'm not sure what all this means. I know I'm losing benefits, a significant portion of my salary, and the luxury of security. I know I will be relying on God's provision more than ever now. I know that I am available and ready for whatever is to come. But I have no idea what that is or what it will look like. Thus, the abyss.

Do you ever feel like a couch potato when it comes to matters of faith? Like a tiny step takes every mustered ounce of your strength? I know I much prefer what is comfortable and familiar. It would be so much easier if I quit my ministry, not my job. And believe me, I think about that kind of quitting just about, um, every day. I keep inching forward on wobbly legs not because it is easy or fun, but because that whisper compels me.

"When it grew late, his disciples came to him and said, 'This is a desolate place, and the hour is now late. Send them away to go into the surrounding countryside and villages and buy themselves something to eat.' But he answered them, 'You give them something to eat'" (From Mark 6).

You give them something to eat.

Why the bread and fish? After all, the people could have easily found a meal elsewhere. Or had empty stomachs for a night. No harm, no foul. At first glance, this seems like kind of a "small" miracle to me, nestled between accounts of Jesus healing the sick, raising the dead, and calming storms. But then I notice...Jesus was inviting his friends into the miraculous. He didn't say, "Poof! Come get your grub, people!" He had the disciples take inventory of what was there, and he had the disciples distribute the food to the people. He blessed the food and multiplied it; they did everything else.

Do you think he was letting them practice their small faith? To flex the same muscle of trust and obedience that would one day become strong enough to do things like build the early church and write what would become Biblical cannon and sacrifice their very lives for the sake of the call? Jesus didn't need his friends' help, but he invited them participate in what he was already doing. He gave them an opportunity to get up off the proverbial couch and take a wobbly step of faith.

What is your wobbly step of faith today? For me, it is not going to work. It is making myself available for what is to come, even though I don't yet know what that is. And today, I am going to whisper thanks to a God who allows me to practice taking wobbly steps of trust and obedience on this journey of faith.

We are not that different, she and I.

I see her life and my gut aches. We are not that different, she and I. Separated by social class and education, but bound together by our humanity, by our grit-your-teeth-and-go passions. She for the sake of her babies...me for the sake of babies like hers, whose mamas have fought until they have no fight left to give. She is desperate, and my gut aches. Where can my hands serve her, when systemic injustice and racial disparities heap the mound she is buried under ever higher? I see her frantic thoughts and decisions, and my gut aches. How is she supposed to get from here to there? "They" make it sound so easy..."Get a job!" {but how can she when she can't afford daycare?} "Clean up your filthy house!" {but how can she with kids splattering food and her own sanity splattering too?} "Save your money so you can move into a safer neighborhood!" {but how can she with mouths to feed and school clothes to buy and the scrounged together pennies just don't add up??}

I see her life and my gut aches. Maybe the ache is why so few people understand. The ache is not comfortable, so we stay far away and instead lob impossibly simple solutions across the chasm to feel like we are helping in all our better-than-you-ness. I think to myself, Jesus loved people by meeting them in their mess. He shared meals with outcasts. He touched the filthy and diseased. He embraced children and was scolded for doing so. He got down into the dirt and sat in the ache of broken humanity. When was the last time you ate with the outcast, or embraced the diseased and bug-infested, or scooped up a snotty-faced little one craving the consistent love and affection of an adult?

I look at her life and my gut aches. But I try to remember that she and I, we are not so different. I can't fix her life. But I can get down in the dirt, look into her tired, desperate, lonely, beautiful eyes...and whisper that she is not alone. I don't know how to fix her life, but I do know how to listen and say "I'm so sorry," how to clean dirty kitchens and scoop up an attention-starved little one. Maybe, in sitting together under the heaping mound, we will figure it out.

The Fear Monster...has He consumed you?

I barely enter the room and he starts wailing, throwing himself down on the ground and screaming irrational things about how he is gonna run away and his dad is cruel and the world as he knows it is no longer going to spin around the sun. He is scared of a needle, and that fear has hijacked any capability he might possess under normal circumstances to negotiate or even engage in conversation. He is afraid. Terrified. Consideration for others, rational thought, even public decency have suddenly been replaced by the Fear Monster, only to be regained when the monster is temporarily appeased or dumped in a deep grave.  

He is dozens of kids I run into every week at work. But he is also men and women in our homes and workplaces and gyms and restaurants. He is the face behind Facebook posts I read every day. He is the policitians, the reporters, the political bloggers. He is you and I. 

Fear is a powerful motivator. The Fear Monster can entirely consume, devour, then clothe a person in different attire: The Coat of Defensiveness, the Sarcasm belt, or even the trousers of Politicism. The Fear Monster can shut down conversation, taking creative thinkers and problem solvers and turning them into foaming-at-the-mouth lunatics. The Fear Monster can erase beliefs and values we have held and practiced for decades, replacing them with politic-shrouded rhetoric and shuttering the gate of compassion with a thud of finality. The Fear Monster does not listen to rationality, nor does he respond to the voice of grace. He is untamed, and he is powerful in his attempts to control men and women and children. Fear is the most powerful of motivators, and has found a home in the hearts of many over the last week. I declare he is no longer welcome, and I invite you to bid him adieu, too. 

I have quietly watched in the last several days as fear has consumed and eaten and transformed men and women into irrational, terror-driven, foaming-at-the-figurative-mouth lunatics. I have quietly sighed and shaken my head as I scroll past Facebook post after Facebook post of fear-informed mumbo-jumbo. I recognize the Monster because I, too, have faced him. I have been chewed up and spit out by him, only to realize he never gets the final word anyway. 

Friends, what the heck are we doing?! What voices are we listening to, that leave us so shaken and defensive that we lose the lense of compassion and creativity and problem solving so desperately needed in today's world?! I expect the Fear Monster to reign in the world, but not in Jesus-loving hearts! We have been freed from such badgering, no longer captive to (or captivated by) the philosophies of this world! You and I? Do we need a reminder of our past? We were orphans, the filthiest of the filthy, lost and hopeless. We were destitute, until Jesus brought us near by hanging on a cross and suffering unimaginable pain (and inconvenience, and loss of dignity, and relinquishment of position...) so that we could be called children of God. This same Jesus says we are strangers and aliens in this world, called to live in a way that is heaven-worthy and heaven-bound. As former orphans and current aliens, we have no reason to allow the Fear Monster to gut us of God-given love, compassion, and hands-and-feet-of-Jesus service. Fear is a powerful motivator (believe me...been there, done that control mind-game). But the Jesus that lives in you and I is victorious, not subject to the brokenness of this world. I don't know where you stand politically, and I honestly don't really care. I care about the voices to which you are choosing to listen. Are you informed by fear, or by confidence in your identity as a chosen, called, and kept child of God? Let's remember our heritage, the war Jesus already won, and the Home toward which we are headed. Friends, let's stand on the solid ground of our identity as adopted children of God, not wavering in the face of an enemy Jesus already defeated. 

I beg of you...Let's not let the Fear Monster give us spiritual amnesia, okay? 

On finding joy in a joy-drained world

I have found myself in a joy-drain lately. You know...when the devastating rupture of Eden seems to invade the spaces we call "work" and "home" and even "recreation." The bleeding has drowned my soul, and the joy has swirled away. I grasp at fleeting moments, hoping to take hold of some kind of joy that lingers, but what of the moments that simply slip away? What are we to do, when "Kingdom come" evades and all we can muster is making it through?

"He tried to kill himself twice last week."

"Their marriage is over."

"The death toll is up to four."

"She can barely get out of bed anymore."

These words, they dump and pour and spill through my heart--a drain, taking the joy with them. How do we count joy, when it seems our lives are only tallying tragedies? 

I looked into her eyes, felt the fingers of her story wrap around my own. She was not immune to tragedy, having endured trial after trial under the added weight of mothering through it all. Single. Carrying the...gift? Burden?....of six precious souls. Without home. Without hope. Joy was a foreign concept, a distant dream. And yet...the pressing on, the pressing in. The searching for joy, for faithfulness that does not seem real. 

I've learned that sometimes the faithfulness we recount is not that which we have experienced. It's borrowed. Because we journey together, we recount faithfulness together. And when you can't find faithfulness, you can borrow some of mine. When my joy leaks out, sometimes I need to sit next to yours. 

She fell into the arms of someone else's recounted faithfulness. It planted tiny, tender roots of joy in her life. She gleaned from those she chose to trust, and received the gift of a seed. It grows. Slowly, fragile in ground once drained of life. But it grows. She has a home, a place to gather her precious brood, and purpose with which to construct each day. And I call her "Hero," for recounting borrowed faithfulness. For digging deep to make way for that minuscule little seed, that will surely produce the fruit of joy-tales she can one day lend to someone else. 

Me? On the days when my joy-drain seems especially large, when the tragedies tally longer than faithful moments...I might borrow your own proclamation of joy, your account of God's faithful, steadfast love. Because sometimes I need to recount "kingdom come," even when I cannot find it in my story. 

Friend, let's lend and borrow joy, okay?

Love Anyway

We got the call today, the one that we don't ever want to get. The one that says our most valiant efforts are not enough. The one that says we have to let go and entrust precious ones into the hands that entrusted them to us in the first place. 

The ache comes...slowly, then building, building, building. Like waves crashing, beating against the shore. What do we do? What do we say when our best is not enough? When our greatest efforts to protect and love cannot keep the storm at bay?

"Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you" (Psalm 63:3).

I kissed his sweet cheek the other day, praying over him the promises of God. May you be loved and cherished, knowing how precious you are to the Most High God. As I hear of his departure, I whisper the same prayer, trusting that he and his chubby little brother will know this love that is better than life. 

I cannot weather the storms he is about to face for him. I can, however, hand him to the One who calms the storms with a word of spoken power and authority. I cannot stand in the way of the danger that might come his way, but I can release him to the One whose body broke for all mankind. I cannot sing over him at night when he struggles to fall asleep, but I can entrust him to the cradling arms of the One who "will rejoice over [him] with singing," the One who "takes great delight in [him]" (Zephaniah 3:17). 

I did not look for this passionate fervor that God breathed into my bones. Rather, it found me. Days like today only serve to throw gasoline on the fire, no matter how much I wish it could be extinguished with the ache. I know this One whose love is better than life, though, and I know of little ones who need such a love. I press on, then, as one driven by the fury of a forest-fire-sized passion. 

What do we do when our greatest efforts to love and protect are not enough? We love and protect anyway, because we have been called by the One who loves bigger and protects better than we ever could. 

Enough is enough

My blood boils deep and my fingers burn on this keyboard with the steam from it all. My little sister gets married Saturday, and on that day, with microphone in hand, I will tell her things about the sacredness of sisterhood and family. But today I question the truth of it all. Because sisters stand up for each other, and families link arms against forces that oppose them. And yet, the life blood drained from family last night, and a little sister was forced to play dead to keep hers. Meanwhile, we get up and sip coffee and are able to live as if nothing happened because I don't have to fear evil hatred against my pale skin. 

A girl is thrown to the ground and sat upon while she cries for her mama. Meanwhile, we make excuses and say "well, maybe we don't know the whole story." I agree, we don't. How could we possibly understand a world where little boys have to be taught to fear the ones charged with protecting us? We know nothing of the oppression, and we choose to live in ignorance. 

Enough is enough. We are family, and families fight for each other. Desmond Tutu said, "If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor." We are oppressing family...sisters and brothers. We are turning a blind eye to injustice against family, even making excuses and justifying the injustice. Enough is enough.

I'll admit...I don't always know how to fight for family. I have watched siblings hurt while I wept because I was helpless and did not know how to alleviate their pain. But I wept. I ached with everything inside me, praying and longing for a day when all that is wrong will be made right. Today, I don't know how to fight for my brothers and sisters with brown skin. But I will weep. I will ache with everything inside me, praying and longing for a day when evil hatred will be defeated forever by the One who is making all things new. I will stand up against the oppressors and say enough is enough. 

Jesus ushered in a kingdom that declared, "There is neither Jew nor Greek, neither slave nor free, nor is there male or female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Galatians 3:28). #blacklivesmatter because we are family, and families link arms against forces that oppose them. 

Either join the fight...weep and pray and speak up against injustice...or stay silent and know you are standing with the oppressors. 

Hard does not mean wrong

I think it was around mile seven that I very clearly remember thinking, "This is going to be HARD." I remember thinking how funny it was that I was thinking that. I mean, I don't know that I ever thought running the 13.1 miles would be a piece of cake. But I found myself reassured, almost as if someone was yelling the truth of it over me from the sidelines, that the last six miles would be a battle. 

There is a certain monotony to running. That study cadence, the motion that repeats for minutes and hours and...well, as long as you tell it to continue. Toward the end of that race, every muscle in my body hurt, and no amount of adrenaline or fear could have forced me to speed up. I was done. And yet, I couldn't quit, so I lost myself in the cadence. Left, right, left, right, thump thump thump. 

As I waddled across the finish line, I thought of Paul's comparison of the Christian life to a race. It is an easy analogy to make...so many parallels to be drawn. The one that stuck with me that day, though, was the HARDNESS of it all. The moments of aching until you think you won't be able to go on, the weariness that leaves you dreaming of the nap that will most definitely follow, the  watching other runners zoom past you and longing to have the kind of endurance and energy they seem to possess in immeasurable quantities...the race is just flat out HARD. And so is following Jesus. He didn't try to sugarcoat it, and I won't either. It is HARD. There are moments of physically or emotionally aching until I don't think I can go on. There is often a weariness that leaves me dreaming and longing for eternity...for eternal rest. There are the times when I get caught up watching others seemingly fly by with success and ease I cannot find. It's hard. 

But the hardness does not make it wrong. In fact, I wonder if ease is an indicator that something might be out of balance. Because carrying a cross is certainly not easy, and yet that is exactly what Jesus tells us to do. 

For the last year, I have been laboring and dreaming and planning and working toward a vision I believe in to the core of who I am. I believe in the vision of Safe Families for Children. I believe in keeping families together where possible. I believe in coming alongside parents who are struggling. I believe in loving and folding kids into families. I believe in it. But don't misunderstand me...it is HARD. It is hard to share the vision with others in a way they will understand. It is hard to empower and equip families to join the call and open their homes to kids who need a temporary home. It is hard to look around and wonder why other ministries seem to be finding so much more response and success. It is hard to have meeting after meeting and vision cast until I am blue in the face, but have people trickle into ministry rather than pour. It is hard. 

If I am gut-level honest, I sometimes (often?) question if the mission is worth it. I ask myself, "How much do I give before it is too much?" Tonight, as I have prayed over this weariness that blankets my soul, Jesus convicted me to my toes. I want the easy life. I want the quick fix, the cheap solution. 

I say I am willing...but I define the parameters. 

I say I will be patient...within the confines of my time table. 

I say I will take big risks...as long as I control what they are. 

I say I will give up my dreams...if I can have something better. 

I operate on conditions I name, and call it  following Jesus. And yet...that's not how it works. Jesus defines the parameters, and they are usually far beyond any we would set for ourselves. 

What about you...are you living in the comfort and ease of your own parameters? Or are you allowing Jesus to define the call and set the pace? The race is never easy...but it was never supposed to be either.