And Today Marks Twenty-Five Years of Life

[**Just a few days after drafting this post, my dad passed away unexpectedly and I forgot about having written it. Tonight as I read this post for the first time since then, it is so hard to trust the Lord's timing in all of this! But, I WILL wait on Him and hope in Him and trust Him and am SO thankful for this Truth, even in this hard season.]

Isn't it funny, how a quarter of the way into this thing, I am convinced I know less then I did when I first began. As I reflected on my post from a year ago, tears streamed heavy and thick. Honestly, that about sums up this past year of life over here.

Really, really hard. And really, really glorious.

James tells us about a joy we can choose through trials that produces a steadfastness within us. The Lord has been truly gracious to supply ample opportunities to practice this in my life this year, in ways I never would have asked for nor expected.
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So for a rambling snapshot of the year--

The new year began with a brokenness quite unlike any I had ever known, when the man who pursued me to the point of marriage chose to step away from the relationship quite unexpectedly. The pain and questions ran deep, and for months all I could muster up was a resounding, "And if not, the Lord is still good." It wasn't what I ever would have expected for my story, but Jesus has taught me to walk with Him in a way I hadn't before, and through that season He really has become more precious to me then my daily bread.

With the spring, sprung a new job! After two sweet and exhausting years of nannying for a dear family, I said my final goodbye as I transitioned into a job that God had been preparing me for for several years, long before it even became a "dream job" for me. A season of inviting others to partner with me in this new job both financially and prayerfully, brought the greatest joy of glimpsing the Kingdom come here on earth and deepened my faith. God provided quite boldly and allowed over sixty families & individuals to transition into this new role right alongside me!

The fall brought hundreds of new students to good 'ole Fayetteville from all the corners of the world and  now I got the great privilege of helping them transition into life here at the University of Arkansas while also casting vision for others to come join me and do likewise!

By far the absolute greatest joy of this twenty-fourth year of life has been getting to pour my life into these beloved students who have become very dear to me. As you can imagine leaving your family, friends, culture, language and all that is familiar behind and coming to a brand new place on your own can be so overwhelming. Our Monday night "Village" in the dorm and Thursday night "Supper and Seeking" at my house have become a refuge of sorts, where some of these friends can unload before one another and a Father many don't yet know--time I so cherish each week. I have learned more about God's heart through these who He's made dear to me and am so blessed to be entrusted by Him as an ambassador of reconciliation among them.

This year took me overseas again, this time to a Desert in Africa where a woman who had never heard of Jesus trusted in Him for the very first time. During that time, God solidified a desire He put in me years ago, to give my life to a group of people in this area of the world who have also never heard. Now, onto tackling the Arabic language this year!

My adopted family welcomed another miracle baby girl (and she is precious!) and next month the oldest of my "lil sisters" says "I do!" God's great grace and faithfulness has been on display so boldly in this family and I am humbled and grateful for the way He brought them into my life FOUR crazy years ago!

My own dad continues to fight his alcoholism as several serious health risks seem to be catching up to him. There's no communication between us these days, though we did have lunch when I was home this summer which further confirmed his inability to play a healthy role in my life right now. Last month (while in Africa) my grandpa passed away unexpectedly which has brought great pain for my sweet momma and our family. And even today, it's strange to think I won't be getting a phone call from him to celebrate. The sting of death lingers some, but we know those in Christ grieve as those with a greater hope.

I'm so thankful for my church body and how dear they continue to be to me. Getting to work between the church and a campus ministry has brought SO much learning this year, and I'm grateful. I'm blessed to do life with some amazing families and beloved friends. Tuesday nights have become my time of refuge, rejoicing, and realness before the Father and among some whom are more then just good friends--they are my people in this season and I praise God for them.
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Another year come and gone and now here I am twenty-five and Facebook just informed that this is the year the human body begins to die. The past few weeks of life have left me continually faced with that reality, as I groan inwardly waiting eagerly for that final adoption and redemption of this [dying] body!

Of course, hope that is seen is not hope. But, if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. Truthfully, my patience is wearing down. So of course, going into this twenty-fifth year, the Lord says: WAIT.

Wait for me. Wait for the pain of your broken heart to ease. Wait for the morning to come after that sleepless night. Wait for the season of darkness and oppression to lift. Wait for God to provide. Wait for the fall semester to close and a new one to begin. Wait for Him to point out people of peace. Wait for dear friends to accept the Truth of the Gospel as you share. [yes, even week after week, month after month, year after year.] Wait for the man I have set apart just for you. [and don't settle because you are MINE.] Wait for the day of raising up babies that belong to you. Wait on your call to go overseas. Wait on my provision of community and heart-friends. Wait until the day you will fully know your belonging. Wait and you will see my face. Wait, for I am still good. Wait for full on redemption. Waiting, waiting, waiting.

Last year I shared God's promise found is Psalm 52, and I claimed it going into my twenty-fourth year of life.

8  But I am like a green olive tree

in the house of God.

I trust in the steadfast love of God

forever and ever.

9  I will thank you forever,

because you have done it.

I will wait for your name, for it is good,

in the presence of the godly.
                                   [Psalm 52]

Little did I know, He wasn't planning to use it the way I thought. But looking back now, I'm tearful over His faithfulness that even when I had no idea waiting would become such an enormous part of this year, I know I will WAIT for His name, for it is GOOD. So, I wait with eyes on what I don't yet see, the eternal, because I know this thing doesn't end with what I can see (and praise God for that, right?!) This doesn't end with me waiting forever. You and me--we're being prepared for an eternal weight of glory in fact.

For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. [2 cor. 4:17-18]

 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. [Rom. 8:18-19]

But as for me, I will look to the Lord; I will wait for the God of my salvation; my God will hear me. Rejoice not over me, O my enemy; when I fall, I shall rise; when I sit in darkness, the Lord will be a light to me! [Micah 7:7-8]

Therefore, the Lord waits to be gracious to you, and therefore He exalts Himself to show mercy to you. For the Lord is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for Him. [Isa. 30:18]

I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in His word I hope. [ps. 130:5]

I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the Lord in the land of the lving! Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage and wait for the Lord! [Ps. 27:13-14]

My prayer for this year--that His Word will continue to be alive and active and I will hunger for it more then anything else. Oh Lord, help me to be so fully satisfied in you as I wait, and please be my LIGHT in this season!

And a word of encouragement from Piper--"So take these truths and PREACH them to your mind until your heart sings with confidence that you are new and cared for."

On Level Ground & My Dad

I saw him this Christmas and it never became this big deal. It's been a couple years since we've stepped into a room together and I am not the same. He's been sober for awhile now and for that I do rejoice (after I question that this could really be true, of course).

A few people have asked lately, so I started to think about it.

I don't really think about him much anymore, my dad that is. Sometimes I will wonder about all the could haves and would haves long lost. I catch myself dreaming up the past all pretty and perfect. I stop myself  because it's a silly waste of a future, I think. And more often I dream of my wedding day, but it is never him there beside me.

And it's okay. 

God has made Himself known to me. We're walking this thing out and my eyes don't see Him so skewed any more. He has offered up a handful of faithful fatherly figures who take great intention with my life, and I know the love more today then I ever have. And I need it less. What grace, ya'll. What unfathomable grace. 

It's okay to be free, right? To not doubt or fear or condemn?

Because over these years, I pictured this dramatic slow-mo scene of me running into his arms. I think there were daisies too. And green grass. And the sun, the blue sky of course. But in reality, it was frigid and dark outside as I wondered up the sidewalk with an armload of presents. It was Christmas Eve and the whole fam was gathered. I didn't see him at first. And he didn't rush right in for an embrace.

I got situated and then made the rounds. I hugged him and he trailed behind much of the night, asking for glimpses into what has been my life and where it is headed. It got a bit frustrating at one point, so I plopped down between sisters on the couch and soaked it all up.

Here we are celebrating this God birthed into flesh and knowing Him more greatly then the father of my own flesh had indeed set me free. Glory to God alone, for He really has molded my heart to love and trust Him most. And in the process, He's put pieces once shattered back together. He has redeemed.  He still is!

This has just been a season of level ground concerning these daddy issues and I don't quite know what to do with it. The past decade or so has certainly been a roller coaster of mountains so high and valleys so deep. Straight and narrow suddenly doesn't seem nearly as enticing. 

Teach me your way, O Lord, and lead me on a level path.

That's been a life verse that's finally taking on flesh and I'm praying for joy to follow. He promises it will in Him. 

You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore. 

We wrestle in these completely unbearable (apart from that little detail of grace) and unfair circumstances, and we claim He is fighting and our faith becomes our eyes and its the hardest thing ever but we put one foot in front of the other and claim the victory. Some days thats enough. Others we wallow and wait and beg Jesus to show Himself and whisk us away already. These last years have brought majority of the latter.

Today, I am thankful for a Lord who redeems and repairs and makes me new--and for level ground.

And a brief side note---I am so incredibly thankful for and blessed by my brothers (and bro-in-law) who have sought after, confronted, directed, cared for and loved the heck outa our dad through these past several years. What a sweet blessing from the Lord that He would position these men to intercede for me and bear the brunt of the burden of our dad for me (and my sister) as I just needed time and space--and Jesus.

And by His grace, they actually showed me all three.

In Him alone is great joy found.

When All I Have is Love [India]

We sat in that little living room for hours, it had to have been. This was the first home we had visited where the conversation was fluent, minor a few snags in pronunciation of course. He is the dad to two boys attending the school where we teach, and his own duties of research and school inspection and teaching English qualify him to communicate well. His dreams of studying in America came to life in our midst, and upon the discovery Syd’s dad is indeed a teacher his grin could not stretch itself far enough. It won’t surprise me when he calls Sydney’s dad, asking for the job.

They fed us salty cake and when we’d had our fill, more cake appeared. We drank sprite and later on some Chai. We laughed a lot. And yet there was a grieving stirred inside too. This day off for us from teaching at the school was a celebration of just one of the millions of God’s worshiped by our Hindi friends; and this family had been completely sold into the deception with no glance back.

As he gawked at us, mouth open wide, when we explained that our parents are not married, our moms are re-married, our siblings are also a more complicated web to explain than English meeting Hindi can make sense of. 

Does your dad love you, sister? He kept asking, as he couldn’t reconcile the love of a man defined by leaving our moms and not supporting us completely until marriage. And in the moment, we assured him of our parents love for us, despite brokenness. But I won't forget his words. We told him that we hope to offer a different legacy to our future kids. We explained that because of Christ in our lives, there is much love we hope to offer. He nodded and smiled, yes sister, I think you will. 

continue reading over here...

Thank you friends, for your prayers. 

In Which the [midnight of] The Fatherless Generation Find Hope

 Long before any of us came to identify with this "fatherless generation," the prophet Malachi warned us  of the curse that would follow should fathers choose to reject their children.

Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction. [Mal. 4:5-6] 

And then, boom, the Old Testament closes. It does seem we should heed attention to the final words that walk us into centuries of silence. And it is so interesting that these are in fact the words God chooses to close with. I don't think I have ever paid quite enough attention to them in fact, until I began reading John Sowers' The Fatherless Generation. 

Perhaps, in this twentieth century, we are in fact experiencing the harsh reality of that prophecy, says John Sowers. Can it be that we are experiencing the kind of fallout Malachi warned against some twenty-five hundred years ago? The hearts of the fathers are not turned to their children nor are the hearts of the children turned to the fathers. Can it be we now bear the full weight of this fatherless curse?

In Luke we see Jesus identifies Malachi's "Elijah" as John the Baptist. John's mission was to "make straight" and prepare the way for Christ by calling people to turn to God and by turning the hearts of the fathers to their children. So in this sense, Malachi's prophecy was specifically fulfilled in time and history in the person of John. 

At the same time, there is the over-arching backdrop of "that great and dreadful day of the Lord" offering up some end-time significance. So even though the prophecy was fulfilled, suggests Sowers, it is still of current and ongoing relevance. There is a current, divine expectation for its fulfillment, which is the reconciliation between fathers and their children. According to the prophecy, this generational reconciliation prepares the way--as John the Baptist did--for the coming day of the Lord. 

That's crazy to think about huh? That as this blackest midnight gives way to the light of day and reconciliation among fathers and children regulates back to the norm [whatever that might mean], we know the way is being more deeply paved into eternity and Christ's return coming. After all, His reconciliation to us is only manifest through love for His own Son, who has made a way for us to relate rightly to Him as Father. I am in awe of this image of fathers reconciling to sons and daughters being indicative of His coming, if that is indeed the case, because it could be starting here and now with us, the midnight fatherless bound to see the light of Christ sooner or later.

What a testimony to His glory, that He'd chose to us, the worst of the worst, the nearly 50% growing up without dad--to actually usher in His coming through the reconciliation of us to our fathers. What a picture. What grace & mercy to be found at His throne. 

Commentary on Malachi's prophecy by Gordon Dalbey says:
Healing between fathers and children is not simply a psychological exercise to bring greater peace of mind; in fact, it's the essential pre-requisite to fulfilling God's purposes on earth. When fathers are reconciled with sons and daughters, God's saving power is released among us; conversely, when fathers and children remain at odds with one another, powers of destruction are beckoned.

We are witnessing the midnight of this generation, claims Sowers. And I'd have to agree. It's both a personal tragedy for so many of us and also a widespread epidemic which in some form often effects every single one of us--a fatherless generation determined to devour itself. Prophecy being fulfilled. 

As we see, this epidemic plays out in the rage and violence of our fatherless sons and the decay and promiscuity of our fatherless daughters. The heart of this generation is being ripped out and left bleeding on the ground. Seeds of shame and despair have been sown into the gaping wound. And we are reaping a bitter harvest. 

As I hear the stats rolling through my head of the suicides and prison populations and drug use and teen pregnancy and abuse cases that are all at least two to three times (often much MORE) higher for the boy or girl growing up without a dad, it just seems such a simple solution and yet the complexity of it all is overwhelming.

I hear my own story in these numbers and I remember being one. A nameless, worthless, predestined statistic on the clipboard in their hands. My behavior fell in line flawlessly with their calculations and projections for my life. I remember one doctor telling my mom to just admit me now, as it would save her much hassle later, as my life was irreversible and the damage done. Now, simply a case to be maintained by the state, a clipboard that scribed my identity (and lack there of).

I don't have it all figured out. I see the need to raise up men that know how to be men and I am thankful to see glimpses of it around me. Then there is the rescue of the ones, like myself, upon whom the fathers have already turned away. That's one reason I am so thankful for organizations such as The Mentoring Project and the body of Christ itself, just operating in it's fulness to pull in and care for those otherwise cast out, an experience that has largely been the catalyst to Christ's redemption in my own life. I also see the need for the curse to be broken in the next generation, the ones to be raised up by the midnight of the fatherless. A bit of a scary thought, huh?

I don't fully know where the wrestling ends and the action spurs to transformation but I do know that Christ is coming and so is reconciliation, eternally for each of us who have accepted Christ as Lord.

There is of course, no promise each of us will see it in our lifetimes, but what about our babies...and theirs? That's us ya'll. That's the darkness we're in now leading into the light of day for His glory. And I don't know about you, but that is the hope in which I must be anchored. 

In the same way we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world. But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son,born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!”⁷ So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.

And a few stats:
63% of youth suicides are from fatherless homes (US Dept. Of Health/Census) – 5 times the average.
90% of all homeless and runaway children are from fatherless homes – 32 times the average.
85% of all children who show behavior disorders come from fatherless homes – 20 times the average.  (Center for Disease Control)
80% of rapists with anger problems come from fatherless homes –14 times the average.  (Justice & Behavior, Vol 14, p. 403-26)
71% of all high school dropouts come from fatherless homes – 9 times the average.  (National Principals Association Report)
85% of all youths in prison come from fatherless homes – 20 times the average.  (Fulton Co. Georgia, Texas Dept. of Correction)
71% of pregnant teenagers lack a father. [U.S. Department of Health and Human Services press release, Friday, March 26, 1999]

In Which We Celebrate Father's Day

I spent most of this day before the day in the midst of my friends who come to this little town from oceans far away. They study and we do life together--we talk a lot and eat even more. Several times throughout the day's festivities the topic of Father's Day has popped up. I've kept my responses simple and when asked what I will do to celebrate my dad, I found myself seeking joy from a Father that doesn't change because let's just face it--mine is always up and down.

As I graciously broke the silence that often follows my response of the fact that I actually don't have relationship with my dad at this point, I pushed these girls from Egypt, Vietnam, and Indonesia to tell me more about their traditions. Well, we actually only celebrate Mother's day in my country, the first replied. Yeah, me too. We also do not celebrate the day of the father, the second and third chimed in.

The obvious follow up--well why do they only celebrate the mother in all three of these countries?

Their answers were a bit incomplete and it's left me thinking. I guess knowing this day was coming, hasn't left me exactly looking forward to it this week. But every single time the topic comes up, God is binding up these wounds and all I can see is grace written across my wall.

A year ago, I remember weeping through this day and retreating to the privacy of four walls that separated me from any possible joy that could touch me for these twenty-four hours. Celebrating would be wrong--I should feel really bad today, really sad, I remember thinking. At the time, I was in the home of a man who I was learning to trust as father figure and the wounds were oozing steady at that point. I remember feeling like I could never see past the pain, like it would never let up. And you know what, feeling the pain made me feel like he was experiencing it too. Like my somber attitude would make him hurt, make him pay. And that was only gift I wanted to offer up to him that day. Let's just make that clear.

I remember hearing the flip of the calendar would heal and counting it rubbish. But a year later, I know so intimately the perfect Father and His love is redeeming this charred, broken one.

A powerful conversation happened this week, with the dad of the kiddos I nanny for. He spoke of his life, the journey to here and now, and I listened to him share of a road I have watched my own dad wonder on down so many years of his life. The difference between the two men so small on the surface, after all what is two years without a drink when it comes to choosing your family? I only wish my dad could have also "gotten it" when I was an infant as he has done for his boys. I told him what a blessing it is that he could be fully present and engaged with his boys, the way his decision to choose them over the bottle will set them apart from most of their peers. All day through I found myself reminding the boys every chance I got how awesome their daddy is and they soaked it up with such joy.

And now as I wrestle with this concept of only celebrating the mother's in the world abroad, my flesh longs to move to a nation where this is the norm. To not have to have a day dedicated to remembering all that my dad is not and all that I wish he were. It's like Father's Day offers the pull to remember the pain he has caused as I witness the scars rise up on my arms in the process. But today, I realize just how off I am in that mindset, unbiblical even.

In fact, I think we don't honor the father's in our culture enough--the ones that are seeing the call. They are broken and they mess up, they are humbled by their role and in continual pursuit of fulfilling it. They are the warriors that find strength in the working of Christ in their weaknesses. These are the men that gown me in redemption and crown me in grace. They are the ones through whom I know Christ is all sufficient in my life, not by their words as much as the sharpening they offer and the trust they guard well.

On this Father's day I worship with arms raised high amidst the body, because keeping them down seems to rob Him of the glory He is due and work on the cross that is setting me free to more joyfully surrender my heart to Him as abba Father. Lord, I surrender all. God has opened up my house and table to two dads [and families] that have truly fulfilled the call before their wives and kiddos, pulling me up under their arm as well. What a blessing it was to honor them today, as small and insufficient as it might have been. I see redemption this year, in the body of Christ before Jesus is even back. It is both humbling and joy-filled. A gift that not many girls in my shoes have been offered. And today, it is changing the way I interact with this day of celebration. I would do this every week, if I could, because these men in our lives, they need to be reminded. They need to be encouraged and challenged by the call.

We need not over-simplify the day with golf balls and hats [or in my case Duck Dynasty paraphernalia and ping-pong awesomeness], as these temporal items could never inscribe the greatness of a dad fulfilling His God-given role to lead his home, honor his wife, discipline his children, maintain his position as provider and protector. The way both of these men have allowed me to partake in various degrees and portions of that is an experience that words fall short of expressing. My heart is softer this year, my wounds are sealing and these men, well, God's used them in countless details of the process.

As it stands, I probably won't call dad today. It's passing by the year mark of no words spoken and I just see Jesus more. There is guilt and sadness that lingers into these later hours, and yet I don't really want to give this day to him, because when I look at the legacy implanted as of late, it's not his to celebrate. And for now, that is where God has me and by His gracious leading, I have to be okay with that. There is still a significance to the day, one that I feel I have fulfilled in honoring the men that have guarded me and graciously walked with me, both physically here in Fayetteville and lovingly, prayerfully back in St. Louis.

Friends, I know many of you can relate on various levels to the short-comings and absences of your own dads in your life. I know the pain and guilt can seen overbearing in seasons, especially on this one day each year as your every glance is met with laughter and rejoicing of those around you. And maybe, it just makes you more angry and grievous. We are a generation that wants to be found. There is a grieving anytime there is a loss. And for so many of us, Father's Day becomes symbolic of the loss. So our natural response, of course, is withdrawing into grief and shame even.

Fatherlessness creates an appetite in the soul that demands fulfillment. -Josh Sowers [The Fatherless Generation]

But today, I say the Fatherless Generation reclaims this day, so to speak. Because through the loss we are found. And in the finding there is an appetite fulfilled in Christ's perfection as Father. And my level of belonging to the man that gave birth to me is just not long-lasting enough to anchor my soul anyhow. And ya'll, I need to be anchored!

There is one hope in all of this, one promise that so far exceeds our belonging to the fatherless generation--and that is the royal priesthood, the adoption as sons and daughters, the title of co-hair, the all together beautiful, the bride, the one in whom He is well pleased. The cross should point us heavenbound, as the Perfect Father must remain set apart in our earthly yearnings and belonging unmet.  He is enough.

So let's celebrate that, on this Father's Day. 

On Why I am Rich [and What it Means for India]

I have these three kids fifty hours a week and I drive the fancy country-club car, pull up to that big ole' house beyond the gate and have money thrown my every direction for the sake of entertainment. The countless activities and new shoes and camps and often bi-weekly lunches at Chickfila. Sometimes I leave the sunglasses on even as it begins to sink behind the hills as I drive southbound in my twenty year old set a wheels.

I pull up to my little brick house and Toby [my car] squeals [quite loudly] to a stop, I lift up the shades to see a different reality. Mine. At 6pm my little dream world pauses as dinner, dishes, studying, cleaning and bills take over again. Stress always brings out the ugly. And money, well I never feel like there's enough.

I grew up with little but mom always hid the lesser reality behind gifts wrapped in bows and a purple couch centered on the living room wall. My dad always owed her (us...me) money and some of it will never be seen. It was his job to protect and provide, neither of which he could offer. So I think at some point in teenagerdom when I walked to my first job at the ice cream store up the road while my friends hung out at the pool and went shopping at the mall, well that's about when the purple accessories began to give way to white walls and that stupid purple couch started looking pretty hollow. 

I felt entitled to more. I wanted to have it easier and I darn well deserved it, after all it wasn't as though I ever had the option of chosing that dead-beat dad or credit-card enslaved mom. I excelled in school and played hard in sports and bought my first car and have school debt and it just isn't fair. Mom taught me money meant happiness and peace, and without it, well, what a miserable life?

In recent years, by unfathomable grace alone, Christ has supplied eternal joy beyond the temporal happiness and the peace in the midst of trial and fear which transcends. I know where my riches are being stored up and yet this generational curse seeps deep. I want my store visible on earth too, most days. And I guess I still consider myself poor in the day to day, maybe even the victim?

But the ugly truth rears it's head in my textbook this week:  "On the basis of global comparisons, it might be argued that very few people in North America are poor in absolute terms--it is the relative deprivation that is morally and socially degrading." Last night I read that in India, 76% of the population lives on $2.00 a day. That's not even enough to cover a single ice cream. Something of which I have been eating several times a week , at least. [The poverty line in the US is over $30 a day for perspective, a fortune for most of the world.]

And then the holy spirit prompts:  How much of your money is going to further my Kingdom and how much is going to further your own?

I know it's all groaning and I hear it louder these days. I joke more about seeing flames and Christ all at once and the accessories in my house probably won't matter so much on that day.

I'm leaving for India in four weeks and the two dollars a day will be over-whleming. For a while. And then I'll be back in this house with these clothes and this stuff. I might sell half of it within that first week or two. And before the year's up I'll have gained it all back and then some. It's sin in my heart when I feel like I need it, when it continually furthers this kingdom of self.

I think it's more common then we admit, at least it is for me. I returned the rug and hid the credit card for a season. We have a house warming party in a week and I wish I were more excited about the gospel pouring forth. But all I can think of is that darn rug that's missing and the thrift store that has taken up residence in my living room. God is allowing me to wrestle for His glory.

And that's where I'm feeling the accuser of guilt and condemnation. But the Truth is, there's none of that in Christ. So rather then feeling worldly sorrow over the furtherance of our own kingdom, it's time we set our eyes on His Kingdom and soon enough, I think our money will follow. 

From a bible standpoint, it's virtually impossible to remember God and forget the poor. It's not about feeling guilty, though. It's about giving. It's that we have and someone else needs. It's about humbling ourselves as Christ. 

For there will never cease to be poor in the land. Therefore I command you, ‘You shall open wide your hand to your brother, to the needy and to the poor, in your land.’ Duet. 15:11

We see as well, from Mark's words that the poor had always been among them just as they will always be among us. And in this case, their situation was dire enough for Paul to spread the word all over the growing Christian world that the believers in Jerusalem needed help. And they gave the help!

"If scarcity of goods inherently improves ones spirituality, no biblical text would ever command us to help the poor." -Beth Moore

Let the lowly brother boast in his exaltation, and the rich in his humiliation, because like a flower of the grass he will pass away. For the sun rises with its scorching heat and withers the grass; its flower falls, and its beauty perishes. So also will the rich man fade away in the midst of his pursuits. Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him. -James 1

According to Moore, "James called both extremes to take stock of what they had coming. Interestingly, one is in the long-term and the other in the short. He called the poor to look BEYOND this life toward their ultimate position in Christ. He called the rich to look TOWARD the end of this life and the futility of earthly riches."

Open your mouth for the mute, for the rights of all who are destitute. Open your mouth, judge righteously, defend the rights of the poor and needy.    -Prov. 31:8-9

It's my job to defend and provide for the poor, and I am grateful to be sent to India. I'm grateful to flesh it out on American soil too. As much as I am to speak gospel and this is an imperative part of living it, because I am the rich one being sanded away by this house and car and silly rug as I'm yanked through that needle head with a sinful heart cleansed white and check book being scribed out to Kingdom come.

It's fading, right? Just in front of these eyes. It's all fading fast as that rug on my kitchen floor. 

And He is coming. Hallelujah! 

In Which I am Not a Victim of My Dad's Sin

Over the weekend I saw the latest Christian movie "Home Run" which details the story of an infamous baseball player with an alcohol addiction--and the mess that trails him as he clashes with grace.

At one point in the movie he has screwed up for the upteenth time, but this time it effects his very own son. He is sitting in a barn after drinking too much and he calls his Celebrate Recovery leader. He looks up at him with a face painted in shame and breath tinged with liquor, "I have an alcohol problem and I just don't know how to stop."

"I know" his friend replies, nodding his head, "I know."

Dad, I needed space this year and it was right and it has freed me up. You needed to sober up too, because let's face it, I can't make you stop--and I accept it now. I needed the space to learn it, and to wrestle some too. But I'm sorry for the way I have set up these unspoken requirements for you, completely conditional and biased in my offerings.

As though you should be punished. Held to a higher standard because you've messed up too much. Because your mess-ups have seeped over into my life too. 

If he finishes a year in that program, then you can call him. I remember thinking. He has to make it at least a year. Don't waste your time on him--or your thoughts. He won't make it a year. Once an alcoholic, always one. How many times have we been here, anyhow? He is never going to change.

Dad, I don't know why I have so selfishly decided you weren't worthy of my time until you earned it. 

Perhaps it happens as I remember what you stole from me, how you crushed my innocence and my dream, and I just hate you. I want to make you suffer. But the truth is, it's me drinking the suffrage overflowing with a heaping spoon of unforgiveness on top, whether you're lifting the glass or not.

As the pedestal bearing the gravity of my daddy issues continues to sink, I am finding myself so acutely aware of my own sinful heart, the sin that so far exceeds the label of abused. 

Your know, I have been hiding under the victim shell and pelting rocks your way every painful thought that crosses my mind. And a few years later, well those rocks have piled up into a flat out wall. Even when it is my sin. Like the night I gave myself permission to throw up a lot of food that I ate because you chose to leave rehab prematurely and it was my heart you left out in the dust of once again. Thinking of yourself before your family, again. Nothing has changed, I remember thinking. Or the way a few nightmares landed me in a heap on the floor when they ended with you and your sin against me. The way I spent the next week depressed and alone. Rightfully so, I rationalized. I am the victim here. 

That was my choice and it's time I own up. I have been labeled my whole life and now I do it to myself? Maybe it feels safe. Maybe it makes everyone else feel for me, justifies the darkness somehow. Maybe it puts makeup on the sin as it suddenly dwells in disguise. 

So I recall the countless times I have said those exact same words--I just don't know how to stop. 

I didn't know how to stop throwing up or cutting my skin. How to stop wanting to be loved. I had no idea what to do with the thoughts that reminded me of the used rag I measured up to be after I lost something most pure. I didn't know how to press through the darkness. Heck, I couldn't even stand up more or less run with perseverance.

Two bombs went off and it could have been anywhere, anyone. Sin is becoming a church word that no one really has time to think about, even down here in the bible belt, because it makes us feel uncomfortable. Best not step on any toes yells the postmods. I go to bed some days expecting to see Jesus before the alarm. And I weep because I'm not ready, yet my worship extends such bold words that echo come Lord Jesus, come. I know I mean it, it's just my heart is so ugly and dark.

Dad, you screwed up. But just because you hurt me does not validate my sin, it doesn't justify it. Nor does it justify the deep down conditional love I've mustered up towards you in my heart.

I am tired of living enslaved to this once-abused-girl mindset. 

No poor creature stands in need of divine grace more then I do, and yet none abuses it more then I have done, and still do. And it is all beyond me. 

So dad, I guess we have more in common then I'd like to admit. At the end of the day, sin is sin. There is no ranking. This truth defines us both, you know? It is setting us free when we choose.

Lately, my lips are ready to confess, but my heart is slow to feel, and my ways recluctant to amend. I bring my soul to thee; break it, bend it, wound it, mould it. Unmask to me sin's deformity, that I may hate it, abhor it, flee from it.

I hate the way I hate you. The way I hold the grudge. The way I still want you to love me the most.

I have been reluctant to amend, slow to acknowledge the breaking and bending. The mask always feels better, doesn't it? It's coming off now and hating it isn't enough. Dad, I just don't know how to stop blaming you for my dark days, how to stop seeing you only in light of your sin. 

I longed for a love you just don't have to give. God used an incredible fatherly figure to step in and guard me and guide me into more intimate understanding of His own love for me. As I see even that fatherly figure let me down, I realize all the more God is the only perfect one, the only one who offers me something unconditional and everlasting and redeems through it. The one who give us a new name.

Ya'll, I am not a victim or a bulimic. Dad, you're not an abuser or an addict. We are children of God. And He commands us to forgive, just as He has done for us. There is nothing radical about it.

Lord, help me to unmask my sin and flee to obedience that your glory might be magnified in my brokenness. 

Dad, I don't need anything from you. But, I still want it.

And I believe God is opening the door after just over a year of Him locking it shut. For now, I will write you a letter.

I look forward to seeing His glory on display in whatever way He would [or wouldn't] allow us to pursue relationship in the months & years to come. 

On My Dad Coming Home & Learning to See Eternal

My dad is in the same town as me. It's been years since I've found myself here and I thought I was ready. I thought wrong. 

He came back from rehab about four months too soon but it sounds like my brother knew it would happen about now. My sister calls to tell me he is back just a day into my trip back home. My best friend birthed two boys and this kind of love always leaves me speechless. The week has been a blur of baby bliss and gazing starry eyed into these itty bitty faces, so perhaps that's why it's taken so long to get here--to begin wrestling with this odd reality. 

My hometown is big, a cluster of dots packed tight on the map. My whole life, he has lived an episode of my favorite sitcom away--at least. This time, he decides to live a stone's throw from my mom's house. With a buddy of his. Who also happens to be an alcoholic. In good company, why not have a sip--or two?

They tell me he's changed. That he is not the same man we grew up with. That it is for real this time. 

I feel my heart grow harder with each roll of these eyes as these words callouss my ears.

I've heard it all before. I really have. Even a couple years ago he "got saved" and sobered up for nearly a year. I remember he would call me almost daily that year. One night he listened to me rant about my roommates. And then he asked me how he could pray for them--and for me? I remember the silence that followed because I never thought I'd hear those words. I never thought he would care about much of anything beyond himself--especially me. Especially Jesus. 

He called every night that week just to tell me he had prayed. He told me to remember God was working and to be patient and trust Him. Trust is hard girl, I remember him explaining, you just have to remember it's more then what we see with our eyes. 

At twnety-two years old trust is the hardest. 

In life in general:  I have no idea where I will be living, what I will be doing, or where my provision will come from in the weeks and months to come. 

This man is minutes from my life here in this town. So I hold my breath walking into the local breakfast place with a friend because I just don't know what will happen if I see him. I don't know if I will run and hide or cuss him out and slap him across the cheek. And I sort of want to do both. 

Trust was annihilated over and over again and I'm cracked. 

A friend asks me why I'm stressed when I call her whining. Perhaps this job loss and financial burden with a side of no clue what is next, what city to live in, where to sign a lease for the fall, or what obedience even means at this point, I tell her. "Courtney, that shouldn't be stressful--it should be exciting!" she tells me, "Are you trusting the Lord?"

Well, no. No, I'm not. It's too hard. I can't. I already failed. 

I knew I would be a disappointment and sure enough both mom and granny have had a few things to say. And as these crazy women in my life make manipulative threats left and right, these wounds fester and inflame as my trust issues ooze to the cement surface.

I'm here seeping through these cracks and I blame you, dad. I still stinkin' blame you. 

I look at you and I see the sword that pierced deepest when you stripped off my covering of white. I see you giving up and not finishing something you started. I see you saying all of the right things to make up for the studpid ones that you have done. I see you living with an alcoholic because your son warned you he couldn't house you if you came home early. But you didn't think that through, did you? You just ran on back with the lust of your flesh a guide in the night. Maybe you're still sober. I hope you are. But as I listen to him telling me how you've changed--how you are not the man we grew up with, I just remember trust is hard. 

I want to shake you. I want to give you a piece of my mind. You think you can deceive him the way you have me? Those are my thoughts at the moment, dad.

It's more then what we see with our eyes, right? Trust is hard, man.

As I sit back in the shadow watching this new daddy gaze into his newborn sons' eyes, I just think you never looked at me like that. Not really. Your eyes never saw into eternity. You never offered your life for mine. You lived yours and let it suck up bits of mine along the way.

And it is hard. I still see you like that. And I don't trust you. 

See, the chasm you erected has made me hard and cracked. So when life thickens the cracks,  I want to crumble. And I don't trust you and it makes it so darn hard to trust the Lord. And I am blinded by these eyes of mine. These eyes that are so fixated on the seen and temporal ways of this world.

So dad, when the time comes and I see you around this town and I don't fall into your arms in rejoicing, well, you just have to know--

Trust is learning to see with eternal eyes and mine are focusing, but I might just need some time. 

So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. 
For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.    
                                                                   -2 Corinthians 4:18

On Why I Want{ed} to See My Dad & Belonging

I spent the morning on the treadmill chasing my own feet for several miles and talking to myself {not out-loud of course because that would just be weird}.

This weekend I guarded and I tried so hard to keep it quiet. Life's pace has been as fast as you can these days and reprieve called. I've needed this time just to remember how to breathe slow and stay in bed after the sun comes up. It is good for all of us I think, to just bask in the natural rays as they glare through the crack in the curtains. It warms something in me that the heater just can't reach beneath this winter chill.

A Saturday night spent alone had been a dream in the chaos but sitting there in the quiet and hearing the girls beneath me laughing made it all seem lonely. My grandma had made me this little album and snuck it into my bag when I was home visiting. I've glanced through it with friends a couple times since coming back, but as I cleaned my room to the sound of my own voice I stumbled upon it again.

Grandma always tells me of the day I was born, how the nurses said I was the most beautiful baby they'd ever seen. I'm sure they say that a lot {like everyday}—but no use bursting her bubble. Ya'll, I really was a cute kid {see below}. And as the album nears the end a few more faces come into play—mom and dad. It's funny to see them together, her resting in his arms with flowers and mushy eyes that fool even me.

I gaze at him holding me close and playing with me by the pool and I really have to work to convince myself that is me in those images because none of those memories exist no matter how hard I think back. And I wish they did. I long for just some sense of claiming him as mine and that being something to rejoice in. I remember wishing I could wear him on my arm to the daddy-daughter dances, showing all my friends how great. And now, now I wish I had tears to cry when he walks me down the aisle into the the arms of my husband, I wish I had a loss to grieve in leaving my father's house and yet reality makes it not so. A grandfather to love and spoil my babies lost yet here.

He is still in rehab an hour north and his year there is more then half way up now. I don't know what is keeping him there this time as opposed to the hundreds before, but I don't ask much anymore I just give thanks.

I decided a month ago I was ready to see him and then I changed my mind. Daily for a week.

The truth is, I feel ready to see him. Some days, I actually want to see him. Like something in the actual meeting of my eyes with his will cause the divine. Okay, I don't even know what that means. But I know the root is I want his love even still. I want to claim him as my dad and beneath his protection I want to belong.

Sometimes I can feel my creation imperfect by sin groaning to be whole again. 

My brother took dad his car a couple weeks ago. It sounds like he is the big shot on campus now, the popular jock, homecoming king and all. His big Saturday night out, driving his friends to Blockbuster and ice cream has left him bragging on the phone to my brother and that is hilarious! He's re-building a life long devastated and it is slow but he is enduring. He has been there longer then most, beat the odds against him. He's watched his friends wimp out of their commitment, watched them go back to the chains. I hope he is learning perspective. I sure am. He is still sober and the newbies look up to him. He belongs. 

Maybe that's why he stays...

I flip through the album and I see my parents and I remember the first "whos" to whom I belonged and I want to rest there safe between them again. To feel whole again, even if I'm not. I want them to belong to each other too, I want to stop the searching and the empty answers that have left them hurting over the years. Life with a dozen made me belong as the twelfth and in life without them so close I've wavered some too, just trying to remember my place set apart.

I've made some friends at church and they are in the same life-stage as me—the waiting for the next grown-up step and secretly longing for a glimpse of the whole plan. When we study the Word together I see the church differently and I need it so much more. I love the body right through her sin and I don't think I ever have until now.

She {the church} teaches me about belonging and I feel whole inside of her and I think it's just a foretaste of what's coming, a sweet gift to hold near in the waiting. 

As I finish my three miles and settle into a steady strut, I decide I just really want to fit into the puzzle somewhere and I have no idea where I go. Waiting is painful sometimes and eventually tiresome, kind of like running. Oh, and seeing my dad can wait.

I gaze off ahead looking across the same scene as every other morning. I don't know if I was blind before or they did a quick paint job in the middle of the night, but I never noticed these big yellow letters plastered on the wall ahead and they jump off and read...

I think in time He will bring me into some tangible, physical belonging too. Maybe it's within His Bride here or on the other side of the world. Maybe it's in my dream of wifehood and discple-maker of my babies. Maybe it's in restoration with my dad one day and maybe he will always be a memory I just can't find. Pray with me, won't you?

We all wrestle here, right? All of us desperate to fit somewhere, to be known and loved?

In the groaning and the wanting to belong in his arms, I have to remember I really groan for more then he can satisfy—and surely those arms can't hold all twenty-two years of me for long. 

Even if my dad failed to protect and the generations before have searched for it and come up empty and chained, even if I never 'belong' to another earthly man for the rest of my life, and I have no clue where my puzzle piece meshes in, I do indeed belong to one—and that belonging triumphs all.

"But you belong to God, my dear children. You have already won a victory over those people, because the Spirit who lives in you is greater than the spirit who lives in the world." -1 John4:4

Focus on Your Pain, Your Past, & Your Parents

So, this world is pretty messed up. 

Everyone I know has some kind of hurt in their life which still opens fire every once in a while. Or every day. There are those deep waves beneath which we toss and turn, those wires that feel mismatched sometimes. I think we all feel it—this underlying brokenness that was never supposed to be. 

We all fight to attain the image in which we were originally fashioned, though often times we cannot articulate it just so. And sometimes, the battle in the waiting isn't so pretty. 

How do you fight when you don't know just what you're fighting for? And how do you know that you're not the only one when we all keep quiet in our searching and tell ourselves it's just us longing and no one will relate?

My growing up years were plagued in pain and hurts that still send me flailing about into adulthood. My past is ugly and shameful and dark. I screwed up and lot. My parents both love me but it has taken years to believe it because they didn't show it. I blame a lot of the pain on them and some of that is fair. 

I have friends that had amazing parents. Some who grew up rooted in purpose and established in love. Others who had an unnatural peace with their purpose in this world and they lived it intentionally. Not everyone has flopped around so much, but each of us has more pain. Even the most loving parents screw up. And I have never met one person to claim life-long perfection. So here we are, all of us focusing our attention on something. 

I remember the midnight searches that defined my youth, in the basement sitting behind that lit up screen, desperately scrolling through page after page trying to find any indication that I wan't the only one. Anything to tell me who I was because I heard who I wasn't all day long. That someone else was messed up too. I remember spending Friday nights at Border's, hours consumed in the self-help shelves, just searching. 

Was there was another girl anywhere in the world that didn't feel loved and hated herself for it? Desperate to know someone else tried to fill the void with food. Someone that thought to cut themselves to numb the pain before I did?Anyone who doesn't have it all figured out? Anyone? Knowing someone else was hurting too gave me hope, this odd confirmation that it wasn't over for me, this sense of belonging. We all want to. 

Soon enough, I belonged. An unknowing victim led astray via the self-help of the world. 

Our solution:  pile the shelves floor to ceiling with self-help books, just give her a pill (we can figure out what's wrong later), and maybe you should go to a counselor—for the next twenty years-ish. 

I still have a shelf or two of those books, I've been on pills for the pills over the years, and I sometimes I think I was raised talking to strangers on those couches that always seem to smell like grandma's. 

And truthfully, I dream of writing books that help girls and studied several years away in pursuit my very own smelly couch. I have a best friend that is about to go for her Master's in counseling and I encourage it because it's not all bad. 

And so we hunger for answers, fixes, and wholeness. In our desperation, we blame because it makes more sense that someone caused it then it does that it's just this abstract feeling that we can't get a grasp of, that something is broken but what? We are an instant gratification society and we want answers. We want quick fixes. And we want to be on top of the next best. We want to save the world and ourselves too. Today or tomorrow. If this is gunna make me feel even less, I'll take it. If reliving those years of his abuse will make it hurt less, I'll do it. If telling her I forgive will erase the memory, I forgive!

In counseling all those years it was most often breath spent focusing on these three. It's a funny triad, a three tiered web of intertwined madness. Especially when I focus on it, I go crazy. 

It's been four years this month—four years since I walked through the doors of Mercy, the place that really challenged me to think about what I think about. Does that make sense? 

I had spent nearly two decades focused on my pain, my past and my parents. Generally (with a few exceptions of course) every website, every book, every counselor and doctor—their approaches differed yet their solutions coincided—look deeper within yourself because that's the only way you'll overcome the pain, relive your past until it explains why you do the things you do now, oh and most of it is your parents fault, but you should forgive them just never forget. 

In other treatment programs and hospital stays, I had always been encouraged to share the depths of my darkness from the past and present. I can remember being reprimanded in one inpatient stay for saying that I didn't think my bulimia was all my mom's fault. We bonded over our issues in treatment, and competed. I never would have known how to abuse laxatives if it weren't for another girl in treatment teaching me. I called them friends but we all just used each other to prove who could be better at dying. I don't think I ever would have come that close if they hadn't paved the way, encouraged me deeper into myself, my very messed up self.

But now this place was telling me I couldn't bond with the others over my past sin. In fact, we were encouraged not to tell one another why we were there until graduation, a day of celebrating God's redemption of the pain. Living in a home for young women with life controlling issues would make it so easy to find hope in others' brokenness, the way I had much of my life, to go down together, so to speak. I think this is one huge reason for Mercy's 93% success rate. They simply change the focus. There is a time and a place for wrestling through the pain, the past, and parents. But that time comes once a week in the wisdom of a counselor with a different focus. 

This idea that we must look deeper into ourselves to find strength needed to overcome is actually quite contradictory if you think about it. If I am born with a sinful nature (no one ever has to teach me how to lie), then would it really make sense that the strength to overcome could come from somewhere deeper down? Personally, I don't think so. I don't know about you, but the deeper down I get into myself, the more I realize just how messed up I am! Strength to overcome myself has to come from something greater, someone bigger then me. Someone not so messed up like me. Reliving the pain over and over again just makes me hurt more. And focusing on the past only keeps me from experiencing God's grace which is sufficient only for today. And truthfully, dwelling back there makes me forget to live now—it makes me forget who I am now and the way that God is redeeming. The past can blind us.

I came home from St. Louis last week really obsessed with food again. I tried a few days down that road too—well, it still didn't work. This was all after my mom paraded my slimmer body around and told me how jealous she was. After she told my step-dad to look at me and marvel. All I heard was how ugly I must have been before I lost some weight. It was a man admiring my beauty that made me want to eat it away. It set something off in me, something engrained in my deepest pain, my past, and both of my parents. 

These days, freedom for me is coming in "forgetting" my pain, my past, and my parents and "focusing" on the only one bigger then myself, the only perfect one—the one who formed my inners in the darkness and has been light ever since. 

It's not that I never think about this triad or will forget it all together. I talk about it when I need to, but not like I used to. Thinking too much is always destructive, I'm learning. Sometimes we just have to stop thinking and proclaim what is true. The Truth is active now, no matter what used to be so we have to fix our eyes on something more because the past isn't changing—it might never hurt less and your parents might always have something to do with it and yet there is a way out. 

When the Israelites were headed to the promise land, they got mad and cursed God. Why have you brought us out of Egypt to die in the desert where there is no food? They cried out. So God sent venomous snakes among them and many died. Moses prayed for the people and God told him to make a snake and put it on a pole. Then anyone who got bitten can look at it and live.

When this journey out of the past seems hopeless and when your parents spew venom that stings, fix your eyes upon the man nailed to the pole. When you look at Him, you will live.