A Prayer and Other Thoughts

"O Lord, by all Thy dealings with us,
whether of joy or pain,
of light or darkness,
let us be brought to Thee.
Let us value no treatment of Thy grace
simply because it makes us happy
or because it makes us sad,
because it gives us or denies us what we want;
but may all that Thou sendest us bring us to Thee,
that, knowing Thy perfectness,
we may be sure in every disappointment that Thou art still loving us,
and in every darkness that Thou art still enlightening us,
and in every enforced idleness that Thou are still using us;
yea, in every death that Thou art still giving us life,
as in His death Thou didst give to Thy Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen."

~ Phillips Brooks

This prayer came to mind the other day and I found it amidst scraps of other prayers and "inspiration" which I've collected over the years. I don't know why I thought of it, only maybe the Lord knows I need a reminder during this season: a reminder to submit to all that He brings into my life and not judge circumstances too quickly, as I am often prone to do. I find myself constantly saying 'well, this happy thing happened, so God must love me" or "this is painful, God must be unhappy with me". I know this is spiritual immaturity in it's most basic form, and I know better than to start with me. I must start with God and His truth (first, He loves me in Christ Jesus, then, because of this, He causes all things to work together for my good) and view my circumstances through that lens. Really, I just need a reminder that His chief goal for my life is not my happiness, and that I will have painful times as He conforms me to His purposes and plans for my life.

Tomorrow I start working with CEF of Greater St. Louis as a Summer Ministry Assistant (it sounds more important than it really is). I am unprepared in just about every way. I am so bone tired. My biggest concern is that I am not spiritually ready for a summer of ministry. I thought I had more time to prepare, but the beginning of May is here already. I bought a plant for my desk today, but I haven't prayed. Oh, so typical. Perhaps if you think about it you can pray that I will seek the Kingdom first and worry about how I look to others later (or not at all).

Yay Books!

Books are my obsession: I love them. When I go over to a friend's house you can usually find me lurking somewhere near his or her bookshelf. One friend says I only love her for her books, which is not true (but maybe a little). Yesterday I found a fabulous site for fellow book lovers. When I explained to my seventeen year-old sister that the premise for the website involved, not buying books from others but trading them, she snidely said: "is the website called 'trade-my-lame-books-dot-com'"?

She will never understand.

Anyway, I wanted to alert those interested to the existence of this website. I put up fourteen of my books for trade (snide little sister: "I don't even own fourteen books! You are so lame!") and already I have requests for seven of them. Although now I have to send those seven to different parts of the US. Hm. Well, the good news is I have one of my book requests coming from Greece! So, if you have the cash to send your old books to others (you don't have to send them overseas), I would recommend this site. Postage is so much cheaper than a trip to Borders!

Although maybe not for the guy in Greece...

My Little Church Family

As I think about "leaving" there are several areas in my life that I am loathed to give up. One of them, surprisingly, is teaching Sunday School class. I teach a group of fifteen kindergartners. At first I was reluctant to take on this additional ministry in my church but now I'm glad I did. The children in my class are an intense bunch. Somehow I ended up with several strong first-born personalities (my mother would say that the phenomenon is sweet retribution for my own childhood) and just a few sweetly demure ones. The group dynamics wear me out and give me great joy in the process.

This week we planted potatoes in celebration of our new church building project (admittedly strange) and I taught an awkward lesson on reaping and sowing. We sang a few dozen rounds of "The Butterfly Song" which I foolishly introduced and now can never stop singing. Halfway through the morning we trouped outside where I gracefully face-planted on the side of a hill as I tried (unsuccessfully) to race a group of boys up to the top. We played hopscotch and colored with sidewalk chalk and played a noisy game of Red Light/Green Light replete with "Miss Jeanne! Kyle is CHEATING!" and "Kyle, I saw you that time! Stop cheating!"

When I was younger I loved to go to Sunday School class. I remember my first grade teacher always let us reenact our Bible lessons. My second grade teacher gave us Bible drills every week (I was extremely competitive with the boys, especially Ty Merrick, my arch-enemy and secret crush), and one beloved teacher took us on nature walks around the church grounds. I hope I'm the kind of teacher whose memory will stick with the kids after they've moved onto first grade (if nothing else my graceful fall this morning probably will). I've decided I will miss my "little" church family when I move to Arkansas.

I'll miss the slightly spastic little girl who, when asked what the dark fuzzy on our Wordless Book caterpillar meant, said "it means you'll go straight to hell!", as she gave a rather graphic accompanying gesture as the other children look on in wide-eyed horror. I will miss the little boy who breaks out in random song in the middle of class and invites everyone to "dance NOW!" as I try to manage the ensuing chaos. I'll miss the little girl who, when asked to name helpers God has placed in their lives, shyly said "Sunday School class teachers" and then looked at me with admiring eyes (which prompted me to start crying). I'll even miss the little girl who threw a fit for ten minutes because I wouldn't give into her demands for pink play-doh (maybe).

I find that I am mentally saying goodbye to people and experiences as I prepare for Little Rock. I think this is a good thing because I'm not taking them for granted; maybe I'll be doing those things there, but I won't be doing them with the same people here. I'm grateful for this time to build into the life of a community that I will soon leave behind. It's a gift, knowing you're going to leave before you do. It's a gift.

Pet Theology

I've been convicted lately of my tendency to point out error instead of pointing out Truth. It seems that I am one of those whom Jude spoke of as constantly "finding fault". I think this is a matter of focus. When I focus on ways I can "get rid" of sin this tendency only seems to lead me deeper into it. When I lift my eyes from sin to fix them on the Cross I find the truth of 1 John 1:7: "...the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin." It's not that I am unaware of sin when this shift in focus comes. Indeed, I am all the more aware that in me and others "no good thing dwells", but a fixed gaze on the Cross seems to accomplish more than any act of mine ever could.

As I find myself constantly frustrated at the state of apostasy in Christendom I have two options: come in with both guns of my "right" theology blazing or point to the Cross. I am more often guilty of the former, than the later. It is easier to hold up my own "pet" theology as the standard for everyone else's behavior then it is to hold up the Cross which, as I do, reveals my own very real inadequacies. It would seem that sometimes my pet theology is only pride masking itself so I won't recognize it. I may be over-simplifying important truths, but today my heart just cries out for the sufficiency of the Cross over and above those less important (not unimportant) issues.

"Rid me of myself, I belong to You..."

Tilling the Land

I love to till the land. Now, when I say I love to "till the land", what I really mean is I love the idea of tilling the land (probably a hangover from my Little House on the Prairie days). A few weeks ago my friend Karen and I hatched a plan to turn her backyard into our very own vegetable garden. I was envisioning us kneeling in the dirt weeding, patting the head of our adorable garden gnome, throwing our heads back with laughter as we picked our bountiful harvest, and finally turning our efforts into delicious dishes which we would serve with obvious pride and delight to our admiring friends.

It turns out that while I was envisioning this dream world of gardening paradise, Karen was planning it out and she expected me to do actual work, which included dirt under my fingernails, sweat on my brow, and finally - the greatest insult - she expected me to do all of this completely gnome-less. This weekend when we were at Lowe's picking up our vegetables, Aaron ponder the purchase of a plastic owl, but an actual gnome has yet to materialize (unconscionable!). What follows is a picture journal of our journey to garden-dom (you will notice the decided lack of gnomes).

Karen's dad breaking ground. I didn't get there early enough to help with this part which was highly disappointing to me because I love to till. Still, lookin' good Mr. B!
















Karen and her family are planners; left to my own devices I would have just aimed the rotor-tiller and gone to town. Karen's mom is pictured here surveying their good orderly work.















Finally! Our beautiful garden plot! We emptied forty bags of topsoil and mushroom compost into this little garden, but at the end of the day we could stand back and view our labors with pride.












The above pictures are from the first weekend alone. This last weekend found me, Aaron, and Joanna piling into my car for the trip into Illinois (the home of the venerable Karen). When we go to her house for the day we usually call out "not it" and scurry to someone else's car. This weekend was my weekend to drive however, and I didn't really mind at all. It was the perfect excuse to unleash Mark Driscoll onto a completely captive audience. At the end of the day Joanna was begging for more of his sermons and I was feeling pretty satisfied with myself.

This last weekend was a bit less sunnier than the previous one, although this weekend we didn't have to face THE IVY, that leafy-green bane of my existence. Last weekend I almost lost my life yanking out a stubborn bit of it. Funny story: Karen's dad was still measuring the garden and with nothing to do but watch (boring) Karen decided to put us to work de-ivying her back fence. We set to work and I soon decided it wasn't for me. I began to half-heartedly pull at the ivy-covered fence and talk to my neighbors.

Joanna didn't engage me as she clipped away at the ivy with her shears, Aaron was breaking up a large tree-branch and couldn't be bothered, and Karen was going back and forth from the garden plot to the fence. I was the only one talking, or singing, as the mood struck me, but pretty soon I became intent on pulling out this extremely stubborn ivy root. I yanked and yanked and yanked and finally it came loose, sending me sprawling onto my back, almost head-over-heels into the neighbor's lowered concrete driveway. I jumped up and pointed out to Aaron that I had almost been killed. I think he rolled his eyes at me. I looked around for additional sympathy, but there was none to be had. So much for friends...

Anyway, this weekend went a lot smoother. No near death experiences. Here are the pictures from this weekend for your viewing pleasure.

Poor Aaron spent a decidedly long time planting the onions after Joanna and I plopped the lettuce, zucchini, peppers, and tomatoes in the ground and blithely went off to other projects.















The other project Joanna and I tackled was hosta-planting (whatever those are)! Karen was like "act like you're digging a hole" and I'm like "I am digging a hole!" all nine of them. Joanna is in the background, serenely looking on. Her job was compost-mixer. Lucky...




















These are all the pictures I have at present (until I can steal more from Karen's Flickr account). The garden is my summer project and it has been a tremendous amount of fun. After a day of gardening we hole up in Karen's cozy living room and talk about theology, relationships, patriotism, C.S. Lewis, and Canadian citizenship while drinking tea and eating brownies. Sometimes Joanna serenades us with piano sonatas (or tries to drowned out the theology talk, no one really knows) and sometimes we pile back into the car and go to Annie's for custard. We are a happy little lot. The only thing that could possibly make this anymore enjoyable would be the addition of a garden gnome.

We'll see what next weekend holds...

Some other beginning's end...

I am marching resolutely (or not, as the case sometimes is) toward the end of this season in my life. Now I know that an ending is only the beginning of something else, even death is only the beginning of eternity, but endings for me have always been difficult. This particular season in my life has been so sweet that it is hard to let it go, but the inner restlessness which I have been experiencing for quite awhile now assures me that with this new adventure I am headed in the right direction.

And it is an adventure. As I was considering moving to Little Rock in order to serve full-time with Child Evangelism Fellowship I consulted my family. The female population of my family began to point out all the potential risks involved and as I listened I became more and more convinced that this was a "bad idea". In fact, most women with whom I've shared my plan consider it a "bad idea". One lady from my church actually started crying when I told her about it. Yes, my female friends (mostly) are full of caution and concern.

However, when I told my brother about the opportunity he was all for it. When my resolve began to waver he told me that I had better keep up my end of the deal. The deal was, I told God, that if He opened the doors I would walk right through. In hindsight I probably would have taken the cautious advice of the women in my life if it hadn't been for those piercing words. I'm glad I didn't take their advice, well-intentioned though it was, because this has already been an exciting adventure as I've seen God's hand leading and guiding me through the entire process.

I never thought I would be considering full-time service with CEF again. I bailed (which is exactly the right word) after a few years with this organization and I knew then, as I know now, that God wasn't finished with the work He started in me during my time with CEF. I ran anyway. I ran as far and as fast as I could and it was only a few years ago that I realized my grave mistake. I still remember sitting bereft in a stairwell as my two best friends tried to console me. I wondered if God could, or would, restore the years that I had allowed the locust to eat. God began a work in my heart that night stemming from my true brokenness. The work has continued in various ways during the past few years, but seriously ya'll (I'm just practicing!), I never imagined that the call would come again for full-time service. Not until a month ago.

If you're reading this you know the story, so I won't bother to recount it here, but I will say that I am amazed at the patience of God with which He waits until we, by His grace, get back in step with Him. Over the last few weeks I have been impressed with two things: God has a purpose for my life and it will be accomplished (so don't bother running - it takes too long!) and a burning desire to fully be what God has made me to be. As I see it, God has given me three distinction in my life so far: Christ-follower, woman (daughter, sister, friend go along with this distinction), and, for this season in my life, missionary.

I don't know how long this season of being a missionary will last. Tentatively only a year, and, of course, the time it takes to raise support. I have wrestled with Him about this. I don't want to be a missionary my whole life, or rather more to the point, a single missionary my whole life. Yes, God and I have wrestled about this issue and, as always, He won. I know that if I want to save my life (or anything precious), I have to lose it first, and maybe, finally, forever. It's a sobering thought for me, but frankly, just a part of counting the cost and to gain Christ, no price is too high to pay.

That's why I've entitled this blog Confessions of a Reluctant Missionary. I am reluctant mainly because I don't know what's ahead and it scares me, and yet, I don't know what's ahead and it delights me. I find this duality in all of life and I figure I've wasted enough time being who I'm not and as a by-product, missing the tremendous blessings that God had/has for me (I trust that He's been saving them for me, just like the Prodigal Son). My hope is that the title won't turn you off.

But my greatest hope is this: that God would get the glory He so richly deserves from my life, and this small part of my life: Confessions of a Reluctant Missionary. I want to leave you with this exhortation from the Psalms:

Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good;
Blessed is the man who trusts in Him!
Oh, fear the LORD, you His saints!
There is no want to those who fear Him.

Amen, and amen.