Inspired by Jen Hatmaker's post, A Broken Hallelujah, our family did something different this Easter. Her words about the last supper and communion challenged me just as they did in her book, Interrupted.
I have always attended churches that take corporate communion about once a month or at least quarterly. Every time, the passage about Jesus at the last supper is read.
19 And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, "This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me." 20 In the same way, after the supper he took the cup, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you. (Luke 22:19-20)
Every time, it is emphasized that taking communion is what we're doing in remembrance of Him. When I was a child, we even had a wooden communion table with the words, "In remembrance of Me," engraved on the front of it.
But Jen makes the argument that Jesus wants us to be broken and poured out in remembrance of Him. It's sacrificing ourselves, our very lives, in service to Him.
My body, broken for you...do this.
My blood, poured out for you...do this.
(Read her post if you are unconvinced or, better yet, buy her book.)
It resonated with me.
It challenged my thinking and all that is in me welled up in response to the questions she posed:
"Perhaps rather than time and energy spent on ourselves, we ask: 'Who can our family serve? Where can we put our hands and hearts to use in Jesus' name?' Who in your city desperately needs hope but won't find their way to the sanctuary Sunday filled by people dressed to the nines?"
My husband and I prayed about it and went to bed. I woke up the next morning with an idea. It seemed kind of silly, but I thought it was from the Lord.
What if we made Easter baskets and gave them to the homeless?
I mentioned it to Shawn and he agreed, but the more I thought about it, the sillier it seemed. I worried about what people would think. I realized that our idea could be seen as a misguided attempt to teach our children a lesson while feeling better about ourselves. And I recognized that there is some truth to that.
I worried about what the homeless themselves would think. "Gee, thanks for the jellybeans, but what I really need is a steady income."
What we were wanting to do wasn't even a band-aid for their problems. For people who have so much stacked against them, who have so many needs, this wouldn't even meet one of them.
I could feel my passion slipping.
We discussed my idea with the kids. We explained about the last supper and the sacrifice of Jesus. We apologized for letting them think that Easter revolved around getting. We told them that they would still get baskets, but scaled down. All were on board (with the exception of five-year-old Zak, but he came around...eventually.)
I became more confident.
It occurred to me that people who spend all day, every day just trying to survive might appreciate something extra. If one person remembered a time when they felt loved, it would be worth it. Maybe this wasn't a terrible idea.
Easter dawned cloudy and chilly.
We spent the morning assembling the Easter baskets in a bag. Each gallon-sized bag contained all the traditional Easter candies, a travel-sized package of wet wipes, and a travel toothbrush and toothpaste. Each kid had a part in the assembly line.
My resolve began to wane, however. How will we even find homeless people?
It wasn't a legitimate fear. Our oldest daughter had the idea for sixteen random acts of kindness for her sixteenth birthday in November. We had no problems finding homeless to pass out sandwiches to for one of the acts. I was just looking for an excuse to stay home.
We heated and consumed the traditional meal my awesome husband had cooked the day before. Then it was naptime.
It was starting to feel like a lazy Sunday afternoon and the thought of venturing out seemed less and less appealing. Getting out the door is a major feat in this family and it's difficult to work up energy for the unknown.
I turned to Jesus.
"Jesus, please forgive me for making this about me. I so want it to be for You. Lead us. Bless our efforts. Help us to see," I sobbed.
We set off. I grabbed a bag of crackers, juice, and Dixie cups, as an afterthought.
This blog post by Jen Hatmaker moved me...to the point where I wanted to stand up and shout, "Hallelujah!" It is a relief when someone can articulate all that's been stirring in your heart.
I grew up in the evangelical church.
I was taught that people would come to Jesus through friendship evangelism...which meant that they would see my clean living and want what I have. I can count on no hands the number of times someone approached me and asked about Jesus after observing my non-alcoholic, G-rated lifestyle.
I was taught that loving people meant, basically, that you got along with the loud-mouth in the next cubicle or you refrained from flipping off the guy who swerved into your lane without signaling.
I was taught to stand up for righteousness. In other words, to vote Republican, call out sin, wage war against immorality in the world around me. Strangely, I've never known any attempt to keep people from sinning that resulted in someone actually being set free from sin.
I was taught that there is blessing in obedience. I was not taught, or at least not taught effectively, that often there is suffering, deep anguish, loss, and even death before the blessing, but that the blessing is far better because of it.
In my opinion, the church is ripe with disillusionment because of its focus on morality, to the detriment of everything else. We have become almost convinced that morality will save us, our families, and our country. Clearly, it will not.
We are a people who shoot our wounded and blame the victim. There is little room to wrestle with matters of faith, to voice a dissenting view, to meld real life with dogma.
People who are hurt or confused don't need platitudes and certainly do not need blame. They need a safe place to struggle. They need to know that they are loved, above all, and that they don't even need to agree to belong. They matter and their fears, their doubts, their confusion, their sin do not make them inferior or weaker. They simply make them human.
In my own church, I often feel that all my questioning (and sometimes dissenting) is looked on as a sign of weakness or immaturity. It is tempting to pretend that I have it all together so that I can be seen as the 43 year-old woman that's been a Christian for 39 years, the former Bible college student, the Baptist middle school graduate, the pastor's daughter, the ardent seeker of Jesus that I am, instead of the weaker sister or thorn in the side that I am perceived to be.
But, I want to be a bridge. I want to put my struggles out there in hopes that my authenticity will resonate with someone and they will find a safe place to be human, themselves.
I think the American church is missing the point.
It's time to stop focusing on ourselves and how "good" we can be. It's time we got off our moral high horse and got our hands dirty. It's time we started loving people because that's just who we are, and not because we want to change them or score another notch on our salvation belt.
It's time to live like Jesus.
He is worthy of so much more than our watered down version of His gospel. He is Emmanuel. God with us...with us in our suffering, with us in our doubts, with us in our need, with us in our struggling. He is not watching from afar, waiting for us to screw up or needing us to please Him with our own efforts at holiness.
He is here.
He is with us now...wanting to show hope through our hearts, wanting to shine light through our eyes, wanting to meet needs through our hands, wanting to share love through our lives.
He is a friend of sinners. Let's start there.
That for which I worked over a year has come to fruition. The adoption is complete and we are home. With that comes a huge sense of relief, but also a lingering anxiety. I feel almost like a PTSD-type reaction, like I can't really relax.
Spiritually, I'm spent.
While I could literally feel the prayers of people when we were in country, I couldn't help but respond to the darkness of the place. We were devoid of any Christian fellowship in a spiritually oppressive environment, going through a huge spiritual battle for the life of our son. Without the prayers of the saints at home, we may not have survived.
Glimpses of "normalcy" are what's keeping me going at present. A Bible study on my shelf that has nothing to do with adoption is beckoning me. A coffee date with my girlfriends in which we can discuss their lives is planned. A return date to work is already on the calendar.
Life goes on. I need it to just go on. I need to rest in the mundane and put the urgent behind me. I need to let the adrenaline seep from my veins. I need to get to a place where fear is not my default emotion.
I'm not sure how to get there, but I believe gratitude is a good place to start.
I don't usually make resolutions. I can't handle the guilt.
But, I sense something stirring in my heart. I think God has some resolutions for me. I think He wants to further change my paradigm. I think He's going to rock our world yet again.
Foolishly, I thought adopting "B" was our big thing for God. Kind of like paying our dues and then we're done. As if God needs our "big thing" and as if we're ever done serving Him.
I see now that He's been slowly changing our perspective and our view of Him and our role in His Kingdom. Adoption is just the beginning.
So, for 2013, I resolve to go with His flow. I resolve to seek Him, to serve Him, and to surrender to Him. I resolve to get out of His way and let Him move in me and through me.
Bring. it. on.
This response to the horrific tragedy in Newport, CT has me reeling, yet, given the white, middle class, American church's propensity for blaming the victim, I'm not surprised.
School shooting? Shouldn't have taken God out of public schools. (Pretty sure the Amish allow Him in their schools, and yet...?)
People feel the need to categorize. If we can find a reason that excludes us, then we can breathe easy that it won't happen here. I understand that, but when Christians are not just falling into that trap, but rather leading the charge, I'm nauseated. How did we get to this place that, instead of simply weeping with those who weep, we feel the need to point the finger? They must have done something wrong.
Because in our current theology, only those who do "wrong" things are subject to tragedy. Morality saves us. We are a group who have elevated morality so high that we equate it with righteousness. We are so focused on living a moral, good life, or appearing to anyway, that we ignore the hurt around us. It's exhausting to worry about yourself and your behavior all the time.
We have convinced ourselves that by living a "pure" life, we have separated ourselves from the world and will win people over by our goodness.
No one will ever be saved because you picketed an abortion clinic or refused to have a beer on a Saturday night! It is simply unhelpful to the lost if you have your radio set to the Christian station and refuse to sit through an r-rated movie.
What if being separate means we care for those no one else will care for? What if it means putting aside our own comfort or future or wants in order to pour into the world around us?
The only way people will be saved is if we get our hands dirty and our hearts broken. If we jump in with those stuck in the mire and begin to lift them out. If we open our homes to the orphan, if we financially support the pregnant teen, if we provide respite to the parents of a child with mental illness, if we look beyond our noses to the wounded world around us.
Someone I know reposted this article, which I love, on facebook and rebutted it, stating that God is a jealous God and that He is just and that He rebuked leaders and didn't worry about "offending."
I would respond that the leaders He rebuked were religious leaders, who were too busy pointing fingers to lend a hand. He is a jealous God. I believe He is jealous that, in our pride, we have exalted our own goodness and morality and placed them on the throne next to Him.
I suspect that it makes Him angry that in a time of unspeakable tragedy, there are those who would sit back in His name and say, "Tsk, tsk. Too bad for you that you brought this on yourself."
Our pride is sickening. But worse, it negates the gospel. If I can be good enough to find favor with God, then why do I need Jesus?
The Bible clearly states that it rains on the just and the unjust. (Matthew 5:45) Jesus said that in the world we will have trouble. (John 16:33) The Apostle Paul was shipwrecked multiple times and imprisoned. The early Christians were burned alive and mauled in coliseums. The cold reality is that this life will, at times, seem unbearable, no matter how "good" we are.
Instead of pointing fingers or pontificating on the "why", can we not just weep and grieve with those whose world has just collapsed? Can we not empathize to the point of gut wrenching sobs? Can we not be vulnerable and humble enough to admit that the only thing that saved our own children was location?
And can we not look beyond our noses and reach out to the broken hearted around us? Instead of invoking the name of Jesus while pointing a finger, can we not just whisper His name while lending a hand?
Sometimes, it's easy to see glimpses of a person's life and erroneously assume that they have it all together. Given that I'm pretty much an open book, I doubt anyone believes that of me, but, in the spirit of humility, I thought I'd post about our birthday celebration for the youngest member of our family. Keturah Joy, affectionately known as KJ, turned two-years-old this week. It is a birthday she shares with her oldest sister, Michaela, who turned sixteen.
My sister happened to come and visit us for the weekend, so we did what any good hosts would do and ditched her with the other kids so we could take the birthday girls out to celebrate. We had a nice dinner at TGIFridays.
Afterward, Michaela went off to meet up with her cousin elsewhere in the mall and we took KJ for her first experience at Build-a-Bear. As we stood there, gawking at the seeming hundreds of animals to choose from, I sniffed something. I tried to ignore it, but as she held and then discarded the eighth or ninth bear, I could barely breathe for the stench.
Knowing we could not subject the workers and other shoppers to the noxious fumes, I told Shawn I needed to change her and confidently reached for the diaper in my purse.
It wasn't there.
No problem. We'll just run back to the kid mobile and retrieve a diaper and wipes from the emergency supply.
Oh, wait. We didn't drive the kid mobile because we only had two of them with us!
Starting to panic a little, I looked to Shawn to magically pull a diaper out of his jacket or something. He didn't.
This is our SEVENTH 2-year-old and we didn't think to bring a diaper and wipes?!?
"Hmmmm. Maybe it's solid and I can just dump it in the toilet and refasten the diaper," I reasoned. "I can use paper towels for wipes." See? I can be adaptable. Clearly, this isn't my first rodeo. So we made tracks to the nearest bathroom.
I walked into the bathroom, paused a bit when I only saw hand dryers on the walls and then actually gasped when there was no paper towel dispenser, and ducked into the nearest stall to rethink my game plan.
I couldn't exactly march her back into the sink area to the diaper changing table without a diaper. But I was loathe to lay my child on the floor of a public bathroom. Ew.
Still hoping for a solid, I lowered her pants and peeked inside the diaper.
Definitely NOT a solid.
Without viable options, I wrapped toilet paper around my hand and wiped the floor as best I could. Then I laid her on it and told her not to move. I unfastened her diaper and wiped as much of the smelly mess off her bum as I could with it.
There was a lot of stink left on that bum, so I took toilet paper and began wiping, only the toilet paper stuck to the mess and balled up until she was now covered in tiny, smelly poop balls.
In an act of total desperation, and after flushing it a dozen or so times, I may have actually dipped some toilet paper into the toilet to wet it and scrub off the bulk of the stink. The details are fuzzy as I think I blacked out a little when I realized I had nothing with which to cover her except her little jeans. (Where in the world was my back-up maxi pad?!? And why did they only sell TAMPONS in the machine?!?)
Poor kid was going commando to Build-a-Bear.
As she sat on the commode singing her potty song, I realized that never had the words mattered more than they did at that moment: (To the tune of "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star")
Tinkle, tinkle little KJ
In the potty where it goes
If you go in your panties
It will run between your knees
Tinkle, tinkle little KJ
In the potty where it goes
Hoping against hope that she took the song to heart, we raced back to Build-a-Bear and rushed her through the choosing of a monkey skin.
We filled the silly thing, rushed the worker through the whole rubbing the heart on every possible spot on your body to make sure you got a nice, funny, loving, kind, responsible, capable, ironic, sensible animal with good athletic abilities, skipped the bath, named the thing for her ("Jumpy"), printed off the stupid birth certificate only to get stuck in a never ending line.
They don't have to have a speedy check out. They know they have you trapped. You are completely at their mercy. You both know you aren't going anywhere without that stuffed animal your kid so lovingly "created." Might as well sit back and scroll through facebook. They are going to take their own sweet time.
Except we were in line with a ticking time bomb. Any second now she could blow and bodily fluids could come oozing out with nothing to contain them but a pair of size 2T jeans.
I tried to distract her. We walked around and looked at all the clothing and accessories that we could've purchased for her monkey, knowing full well they'd be lost before we even got home.
Suddenly, she gasped and her legs went wide. "Noooo!" I whispered loudly as I pushed her legs together so most of it would be absorbed by the jeans. We stood there for a minute until I let her take a tentative step forward. Strangely, her pants didn't really look wet, although there may have been a tiny drop of wet on the floor that I quickly mopped up with an old tissue from my pocket.
Huh. Maybe she was able to stop it.
Finally, they let us leave we checked out and headed for the exit. Noticing that KJ was walking a bit awkwardly, Shawn took her into a bathroom on the way out of the mall. There he found that her pants were remarkably dry...but her shoes were squishy, squeaky, and filled with pee. He threw her socks in the trash, rinsed out her little pink tennis shoes in the sink and dried them with the hand dryer, and then lined her jeans with paper towels. (Really?!? That bathroom had paper towels?!? Go figure.)
We don't appear to be getting any better at this parenting thing. Maybe practice really doesn't make perfect. But we sure do love these kids...and we're pretty good at making memories. Never-mind that they're memories nobody wants to remember...
When I was 18-years-old, I
packed up and moved to Los Angeles, California to attend Bible college. It was
less about wanting to learn more of the Word,
and
more about trying to find a preacher husband like my daddy. I had been
praying for a godly husband for as long as I could remember and I
figured that was a good place to find one.
I
came home after a year, without a husband. It's amazing just how badly
you can do in college when you're not actually there to learn anything.
A few years later, while in school to become an occupational therapist, I met and fell in love with Shawn...decidedly not a preacher, but a really good Christian guy who is very much like my daddy.
While
I had obviously moved on from my desire to be a preacher's wife, I
still had some hang-ups and ideas about what constituted a godly man. He
must be at church every time the doors opened, raise his hands in
worship, rise early in the morning to read the Bible, witness to his
co-workers, listen exclusively to Christian music, etc. I decided my
husband was lacking in these areas, so I set about to change encourage him.
I
set the radio in our shared car to Christian music. I removed his
magazines from the bathroom and replaced them with a Bible. I bought him
family devotionals. If he chose to miss church, I feigned my best
martyr smile and set about readying the children until he guiltily
agreed to go. I was so subtle in my nagging encouragement.
If
you haven't figured it out, Shawn has mastered the long-suffering fruit of the
Spirit. And, he loves me. So, he put up with all my
nonsense and did his best to live up to my ridiculous standards of
spirituality to make me happy.
And
then something happened. After the birth of our fourth child, I
suffered from severe postpartum depression. I found myself in an angry
fog that I could not escape. I was unable to function. I was miserable
and, I'm sure, miserable to live with, as well.
My
husband saw us through. While continuing to work full-time, he cooked
meals for us, changed diapers, bathed and dressed children, and
generally ran the house. Beyond that, though, he took care of me.
I remember him running hot baths for me to soak in and handing me my
Bible and journal and shooing me out the door to the nearest coffee
shop. When I'd walk by him, he'd scoop me into his lap and pray for me and let me cry.
During my depression, he became the hands and feet of Jesus for me. He loved me
as Christ loved the church and gave himself for me. He sacrificed his
own comfort, time, and desires and kept the "in sickness" part of his
marriage vows. Finally, when it looked as if I may never return to "normal", he gently
sent me to my doctor.
After
a six-month course of medication, I did return to my old self, but our
marriage was never the same, thankfully. I finally realized that God had sent me
that godly man I had prayed for. I'd been married to him all along. It was not out of character for him to serve us. He's been doing stuff like that our whole marriage. I was just too thick-headed to see it.
This is what godliness is supposed to look like. How did I get it so wrong?
"The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart." I Samuel 16:7b
Now, seven years later, this man is traveling half-way around the world to become Daddy to a child he's never even seen. He is sacrificing his plans, his security, and his future to care for one of the least of these. He has no idea what awaits us when we get there, and he hates to fly, but he's leading us there anyway because he's good and brave and his heart is broken for children with no one. He is determined to right a grave injustice.
It takes my breath away when I think about it and he is absolutely my hero.....and one of the most godly men I know.
