I continue to find myself involved in a rather tense situation, involving a great number of close friends, and our church. Unfortunately, as much as I would like to write a pages long rant, detailing the situation and naming names, it would be both unfair to the people involved, and less than fruitful at this moment.
Every time I think the situation is beginning to smooth or resolve, it gets stirred yet again.
This afternoon I sat with a very close friend, someone who I would have never expected to say the things she did about this situation. In fact, a couple of months ago when I said similar things to her, she to some extent dismissed my concerns. But, they've come home and begun to affect her personally, and she has made a very difficult decision. After more than three years, she's moving on - not completely out of our church, but out of a community within the church that we've both been part of for those three years. If this shift doesn't go well for her, if it turns out that what she's been experiencing is endemic to the whole church and not just one community, then she will leave entirely.
I just don't know what to do anymore. I've expressed my concerns to someone in leadership, only to have them glossed over, assumed that they were someone else's concerns, or not responded to at all. I've prayed and prayed and prayed. I've told myself to be patient, that change doesn't happen immediately. I've even taken what feels like some big risks in sharing very personal parts of my journey. I still don't feel completely released to follow my friend and switch communities. And yet, I feel at times that I am slowly strangling in the place where I am at present. I'm watching close friends - heart friends - get hurt, or make painful decisions, or simply walk away from a church community that has in the past brought great healing to all of us.
How do you make a decision about this kind of thing? I don't even know anymore how to pray... God, help.
Thursday, May 11, 2006
Wednesday, May 10, 2006
Inadvertent Offense
I was thinking this morning about the fact that I've removed a lot of the filters between my brain and my mouth over the last while. And that I think this gets me in trouble at times. I manage to inadvertently offend people because I am blunt.
I was talking with a friend last night about a mutual friend who I'm having a very hard time relating to at the moment. I think it's because this mutual friend is very "boxy" - things in her world are very well contained.
I don't do contained all that well - I've spent too long waiting for the kind of freedom I'm experiencing right now.
And I'll say things that other people might be thinking, but that I've never heard anyone admit to out loud. Things like (this is what I said last night), "I don't really care all that much about Islam." Now here's the thing. This is a loaded statement. I'm not saying I don't care about Muslims, or that I don't believe that people should be researching ways to reach Muslims with Christ, or anything along those lines. I'm simply saying that topics like "Islam and Terrorism" or "Radical Islam" aren't all that interesting to me. I'd rather focus on the many things we have in common with an Islamic believer. I'd rather hang out with someone who is a Muslim, and find out what they believe and why. I'd rather cultivate friendship than focus on how Islam is threatening Christianity, or how Muslims are persecuting Christians. Yes, these things are happening, and they are important, but they are not particularly where my passion lies.
See, it works like this for me. I'm very relational. My heart, the mission God has called me to is in North America, and specifically to the broken within the church corporate. So, I don't really care about the nation of Liberia, but I really do care about my friend who leaves next week to work for Samaritan's Purse doing relief work in Liberia and East Africa. Because I care about her, I care about Liberia. I don't really care about the nation of Ghana, but I care about the many friends and ministry partners of my family in that nation, and because I care about them, I care about Ghana. The same is true for any number of other locations around the world.
My next major overseas trip may be a mission trip, but at this point it seems far more likely that it will be a pilgrimage. There are places that have unique spiritual significance to me in Europe in particular -places that I have studied, where the things I learned spoke into deep places in my soul, marked stages in my journey, and I simply want to see and hang out in those places. A friend invited me on the weekend to come visit her in India. I'd love to see India - I've been warned to not make that my "first" mission trip - too overwhelming, too much heat, too many smells, too much poverty. But I've been fascinated by India ever since taking a class in Indian history. But again, I don't really want to go as a "missionary." I just want to go and hang out with some people I know, see some of the things I've studied, experience the culture a bit, pray and meet God. I think I could travel for the rest of my life (with long stops at home in between) as a pilgrim... simply wandering to places and meeting God there - with no particular agenda but His.
I was talking with a friend last night about a mutual friend who I'm having a very hard time relating to at the moment. I think it's because this mutual friend is very "boxy" - things in her world are very well contained.
I don't do contained all that well - I've spent too long waiting for the kind of freedom I'm experiencing right now.
And I'll say things that other people might be thinking, but that I've never heard anyone admit to out loud. Things like (this is what I said last night), "I don't really care all that much about Islam." Now here's the thing. This is a loaded statement. I'm not saying I don't care about Muslims, or that I don't believe that people should be researching ways to reach Muslims with Christ, or anything along those lines. I'm simply saying that topics like "Islam and Terrorism" or "Radical Islam" aren't all that interesting to me. I'd rather focus on the many things we have in common with an Islamic believer. I'd rather hang out with someone who is a Muslim, and find out what they believe and why. I'd rather cultivate friendship than focus on how Islam is threatening Christianity, or how Muslims are persecuting Christians. Yes, these things are happening, and they are important, but they are not particularly where my passion lies.
See, it works like this for me. I'm very relational. My heart, the mission God has called me to is in North America, and specifically to the broken within the church corporate. So, I don't really care about the nation of Liberia, but I really do care about my friend who leaves next week to work for Samaritan's Purse doing relief work in Liberia and East Africa. Because I care about her, I care about Liberia. I don't really care about the nation of Ghana, but I care about the many friends and ministry partners of my family in that nation, and because I care about them, I care about Ghana. The same is true for any number of other locations around the world.
My next major overseas trip may be a mission trip, but at this point it seems far more likely that it will be a pilgrimage. There are places that have unique spiritual significance to me in Europe in particular -places that I have studied, where the things I learned spoke into deep places in my soul, marked stages in my journey, and I simply want to see and hang out in those places. A friend invited me on the weekend to come visit her in India. I'd love to see India - I've been warned to not make that my "first" mission trip - too overwhelming, too much heat, too many smells, too much poverty. But I've been fascinated by India ever since taking a class in Indian history. But again, I don't really want to go as a "missionary." I just want to go and hang out with some people I know, see some of the things I've studied, experience the culture a bit, pray and meet God. I think I could travel for the rest of my life (with long stops at home in between) as a pilgrim... simply wandering to places and meeting God there - with no particular agenda but His.
Tuesday, May 09, 2006
Whew...
I think I'm still catching my breath. Waiting for my brain to catch up with my body. Waiting for my soul to settle.
It was just that kind of weekend, and it seems to be spreading into my week. I've had crazy dreams - ones that leave strong impressions of their significance every night since the weekend. I don't know what to do about dreams. In fact, I sent someone an email this morning with the (slightly) tongue in cheek comment that after years of nightmares and insomnia during the time I was depressed, I was hoping that God would confine His comments to me to my waking hours!
I was thinking too, about how important it is at times to hear something. My housechurch has been working our way through a book titled "Naturally Supernatural" by a guy named Gary Best, and I was having a very difficult time reading the book. Gary writes like a speaker, and I just couldn't get into his writing style at all. I'd spent at least a month trying to read the 30 pages of the first chapter, and I couldn't do it. But then, I heard Gary teach the material from the book all weekend. He's a dynamic communicator in person. So I tried reading his book again today, and it's going somewhat more smoothly. Reminds me of my experience with Tony Campolo - a great speaker, who writes as if he was speaking. This makes it hard to read. But, once you've heard Tony speak a few times, you can read Him more easily, because you can tell when He's joking or exaggerating. You can "hear" him telling the story. That's what happened with Gary's book for me. I've heard him teach the material, so it plays in my head as I read it, and makes it flow much more smoothly.
It's a busy week, and I must be off. I need to email off some more resumes today...
It was just that kind of weekend, and it seems to be spreading into my week. I've had crazy dreams - ones that leave strong impressions of their significance every night since the weekend. I don't know what to do about dreams. In fact, I sent someone an email this morning with the (slightly) tongue in cheek comment that after years of nightmares and insomnia during the time I was depressed, I was hoping that God would confine His comments to me to my waking hours!
I was thinking too, about how important it is at times to hear something. My housechurch has been working our way through a book titled "Naturally Supernatural" by a guy named Gary Best, and I was having a very difficult time reading the book. Gary writes like a speaker, and I just couldn't get into his writing style at all. I'd spent at least a month trying to read the 30 pages of the first chapter, and I couldn't do it. But then, I heard Gary teach the material from the book all weekend. He's a dynamic communicator in person. So I tried reading his book again today, and it's going somewhat more smoothly. Reminds me of my experience with Tony Campolo - a great speaker, who writes as if he was speaking. This makes it hard to read. But, once you've heard Tony speak a few times, you can read Him more easily, because you can tell when He's joking or exaggerating. You can "hear" him telling the story. That's what happened with Gary's book for me. I've heard him teach the material, so it plays in my head as I read it, and makes it flow much more smoothly.
It's a busy week, and I must be off. I need to email off some more resumes today...
Monday, May 08, 2006
Not Alone
I've sat down to write this post several times in the last couple of weeks, and the timing has never seemed quite right. But, as I've been reflecting on the events of the last week, it seems like the timing to write out these thoughts might be now.
I woke up this morning and the first thought that crossed my brain (after the "I can't believe I slept that rough again!" thought) was, "Wow. A lot has happened in the last week."
And it's true. Last Tuesday I spoke for an hour and a bit, telling a chunk of my life story, sharing how God has been working and how I've fallen in love with Him again. And that night was also a breakthrough of sorts, a taking back of ground moment, because the place in which I was asked to speak these things is not a place that has traditionally been at all safe for that kind of expression. In fact, it has been a place where I have felt incredibly silenced, hidden and inadequate. But God was so faithful, and I came away from it with such peace and joy.
I moved on through the week, working some shifts at the Bay, going for a few more job interviews, and attending the conference.
Ah, yes, the conference. It was a good experience - something powerful but also quite fuzzy in my mind. But God was there, powerfully at times. Saturday in particular. I admit to finding it almost scary how powerfully He was there. I remember at one point Saturday night, as I was laying on my face, crying, my whole left side shaking and trembling, with a good friend holding me and praying over me, thinking, "God, I want more, but I'm also afraid. Take that fear..."
But perhaps, the biggest thing that was played out in tangible ways in my life over the course of the last week was a message that God has been speaking for the past several weeks, that I have struggled, and still struggle at times to absorb. "You are not alone."
Because I have felt very alone in a number of arenas of my life. I have felt terribly alone as I have journeyed with a couple of really broken friends, praying, supporting, caring for them. I have felt terribly alone in facing some of my own wounds. I have felt terribly alone as I have sought deeper understanding of these new and seemingly weird things God has been doing in my life over the course of the last six months.
Probably two or three weeks ago now, my friend Kari sent me an email. She said that she had been sitting at her piano, playing and praying, and God brought me to her mind. She said she had prayed a Jason Upton song for me, gave me a couple of the lyrics, and the name of the CD it was found on. I looked up the rest of the lyrics, and went out and bought the CD. I've been listening to it nearly every day since.
Look beyond the window there
To the sky above to the open air
Look beyond what you can see
Close your eyes and just believe
The lion roars and the lamb lays down
The live together in a whole new town
They're calling me and they're calling you
From the cold hard facts that we're on our own
To the age old truth that we're not alone
Don't be afraid little warrior bride
Your victory's on the other side
You're not alone you're not alone
I have laid in bed nearly every night for the last couple weeks and listened to Jason Upton sing the words God was trying so hard to get me to hear. But there was an event over the course of the weekend that God used to tangibly demonstrate this message.
I attended the conference with a good friend from a very conservative background. She was somewhat concerned about attending this particular conference, and made that quite clear to me. On the Friday night, she left the conference spitting mad. She was so angry it was hilarious, and we talked for quite some time in her car about the events of the evening. On Saturday, I knew once again that she was struggling. She shared a little bit of the struggles with some others over the lunch break, and in the afternoon two women from our community came to her and asked to pray for her. But it was the evening session where things finally got a bit crazy. I knew that I needed to sit with one particular friend for the session. I didn't know why, just that I needed to be there. That means that I left my "angry" friend on her own. And then stuff started happening, and I was worried about my friend and what she was thinking, but couldn't go to her because I was focusing my attention on the friend I was sitting with. And then, suddenly I was on my face, and I definitely couldn't go to my friend. But here's the thing - someone else from our community could and did. One of the women who had prayed for her in the afternoon saw what was going on, and immediately went to her.
And afterwards, God just spoke to me again about how I didn't have to carry the burdens of all of my friends alone. I honored where He was asking me to be, and He provided for the situation where I could not be. He used this woman from our community to minister to my friend in a way I couldn't have. And because of it, He worked in both my life, and the life of the friend who I couldn't be with. Driving home with her was such a totally opposite experience that night. She was bubbling joy - overflowing with an experience of freedom.
They're calling me and they're calling you
From the cold hard facts that we're on our own
To the age old truth that we're not alone.
Don't be afraid little warrior bride
Your victory's on the other side
You're not alone you're not alone.
I woke up this morning and the first thought that crossed my brain (after the "I can't believe I slept that rough again!" thought) was, "Wow. A lot has happened in the last week."
And it's true. Last Tuesday I spoke for an hour and a bit, telling a chunk of my life story, sharing how God has been working and how I've fallen in love with Him again. And that night was also a breakthrough of sorts, a taking back of ground moment, because the place in which I was asked to speak these things is not a place that has traditionally been at all safe for that kind of expression. In fact, it has been a place where I have felt incredibly silenced, hidden and inadequate. But God was so faithful, and I came away from it with such peace and joy.
I moved on through the week, working some shifts at the Bay, going for a few more job interviews, and attending the conference.
Ah, yes, the conference. It was a good experience - something powerful but also quite fuzzy in my mind. But God was there, powerfully at times. Saturday in particular. I admit to finding it almost scary how powerfully He was there. I remember at one point Saturday night, as I was laying on my face, crying, my whole left side shaking and trembling, with a good friend holding me and praying over me, thinking, "God, I want more, but I'm also afraid. Take that fear..."
But perhaps, the biggest thing that was played out in tangible ways in my life over the course of the last week was a message that God has been speaking for the past several weeks, that I have struggled, and still struggle at times to absorb. "You are not alone."
Because I have felt very alone in a number of arenas of my life. I have felt terribly alone as I have journeyed with a couple of really broken friends, praying, supporting, caring for them. I have felt terribly alone in facing some of my own wounds. I have felt terribly alone as I have sought deeper understanding of these new and seemingly weird things God has been doing in my life over the course of the last six months.
Probably two or three weeks ago now, my friend Kari sent me an email. She said that she had been sitting at her piano, playing and praying, and God brought me to her mind. She said she had prayed a Jason Upton song for me, gave me a couple of the lyrics, and the name of the CD it was found on. I looked up the rest of the lyrics, and went out and bought the CD. I've been listening to it nearly every day since.
Look beyond the window there
To the sky above to the open air
Look beyond what you can see
Close your eyes and just believe
The lion roars and the lamb lays down
The live together in a whole new town
They're calling me and they're calling you
From the cold hard facts that we're on our own
To the age old truth that we're not alone
Don't be afraid little warrior bride
Your victory's on the other side
You're not alone you're not alone
I have laid in bed nearly every night for the last couple weeks and listened to Jason Upton sing the words God was trying so hard to get me to hear. But there was an event over the course of the weekend that God used to tangibly demonstrate this message.
I attended the conference with a good friend from a very conservative background. She was somewhat concerned about attending this particular conference, and made that quite clear to me. On the Friday night, she left the conference spitting mad. She was so angry it was hilarious, and we talked for quite some time in her car about the events of the evening. On Saturday, I knew once again that she was struggling. She shared a little bit of the struggles with some others over the lunch break, and in the afternoon two women from our community came to her and asked to pray for her. But it was the evening session where things finally got a bit crazy. I knew that I needed to sit with one particular friend for the session. I didn't know why, just that I needed to be there. That means that I left my "angry" friend on her own. And then stuff started happening, and I was worried about my friend and what she was thinking, but couldn't go to her because I was focusing my attention on the friend I was sitting with. And then, suddenly I was on my face, and I definitely couldn't go to my friend. But here's the thing - someone else from our community could and did. One of the women who had prayed for her in the afternoon saw what was going on, and immediately went to her.
And afterwards, God just spoke to me again about how I didn't have to carry the burdens of all of my friends alone. I honored where He was asking me to be, and He provided for the situation where I could not be. He used this woman from our community to minister to my friend in a way I couldn't have. And because of it, He worked in both my life, and the life of the friend who I couldn't be with. Driving home with her was such a totally opposite experience that night. She was bubbling joy - overflowing with an experience of freedom.
They're calling me and they're calling you
From the cold hard facts that we're on our own
To the age old truth that we're not alone.
Don't be afraid little warrior bride
Your victory's on the other side
You're not alone you're not alone.
Friday, May 05, 2006
Conference and other thoughts
Another bullet point type update for you all.
These (in no particular order) are the things I'm thinking about at the moment:
These (in no particular order) are the things I'm thinking about at the moment:
- I love my hairdresser. I had my hair cut today, and my hairdresser straightened it for me. I won't have to do anything with it for the next couple days, and it'll look really good to boot.
- I'm at a conference most of this weekend. It's a vineyard conference - seems that there's going to be a lot of praying over people, trying to listen for God, that kind of thing.
- This is probably good, but also a bit odd at times.
- I enjoyed the speaker last night, but wasn't sure what to make of the practical application time.
- I have the best person in the world to debrief after sessions like that, and she's the one giving me rides. I love that she is struggling hugely with charismatic "stuff" even hates it at times, but keeps coming back, keeps pursuing God, keeps wanting more, keeps being willing to learn, keeps trying to be open to new things. I love her honesty the second we get in her car after a session.
- Because of the conference I'm going to be away from my computer and not really blogging this weekend.
- I turned down both job offers. Neither one was quite was I was looking for, and I didn't have any peace about accepting either offer. So, I'm still at the Bay (which is not that good a piece of news) but I interviewed at a temp/placement agency yesterday, and they think that they can find me work starting around $13 an hour, which is more than either of the offers I turned down.
- I bought a couple new tops today, and I'm excited to wear them out and around.
- I applied for several more jobs this morning, and am hoping some of them call me for interviews.
- I'm making dinner tonight for my mom and one of my friends, and I don't know what I'm cooking yet, so I should probably go make that decision now!
And with that, I'm off.
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