Understanding

We live in an old home.  According to the best records we can find it was built around 1875.  There is something interesting about living in an older home.  If you let it, you learn about the value of investing intentionally.  

In the time we have lived here, my husband and I have both made the observation that the construction is vastly different from the houses built today.  The walls in the original portion of our home are about 2-3 bricks deep and covered with plaster, that's the interior walls.  The house could literally burn down and we would just need to replace flooring, plaster and paint.  This house is probably one of the tiniest of the historic homes on our street.  What it might lack in size, however, it more than makes up for in sturdiness.  Whoever built this house 140+ years ago, built it to last.  They invested in good materials that have stood the test of time.  They invested in a style that has curb appeal and it unique.  There isn't another house in town quite like it.  

We actually have come to love our little home with all of its quirks and oddities.  It has become a metaphor for our lives.  In its own way it is a work of art.  It takes an expert to address any portion of the issues in our home because of it's age and our desire to honor what it has been while adapting it for our family of four.  My husband searched for months interviewing and researching just the right person to address the tuck pointing that the exterior brick required.  You see finding someone who understood the nature of the age of our brick was incredibly important if we wanted to maintain the integrity of the craftsmanship that created our home. 

Therein, lies the metaphor.

Understanding...

This week I have found myself reflecting a lot on where I have been and where I am headed.  Not just once, but twice this week I have found myself sharing with friends the exact area that I genuinely believe God is calling me to ultimately do ministry.  I am more sure of this than I have ever been anything in my life.  But the reality is I am worshipping with a community that is 30 minutes away from where I am called.  So what does it mean?  

The comparison of David living with the Philistines after he was anointed king, but was exiled due to Saul's choices and actions comes to mind....  But the tribe I am with right now is anything but the Philistines.  In fact they are reminding me of something I desperately need to hear right now.  It's ok to be the beautiful, broken mess that I so often feel like.  God uses that.  I am learning what it looks like to love deeply.  What it looks like to partner with the community around you.  I am learning.  It makes me think...  The Philistines were one of the most powerful nations of David's time.  Despite the fact they did not worship Israel's God, they had to have some impressive leadership structure.  Was that God's reason for allowing David's exile?  To learn leadership principles and structure from the best of his time?  Maybe it was learning to live in peace with those he didn't completely agree or feel comfortable around (after all, David was the one a few years earlier who had taken out the best and brightest warrior).  I am definitely learning that!  I am thrilled to be raising my daughters in a culture that makes me question and challenge my preconceived ideas every week!

I also find myself reflecting on some of the painful moments that led to this place in my life.  I think one of the most potent memories I find myself reliving this week is the moment I began to recognize the truth behind the facade I was trying to embrace.  Anytime you remove x from an equation and insert y you change the result.  When you add not only y, but also z you exponentially alter the results you were attempting with x in the equation.  In fact you create an entirely different equation.  It creates an equation that no longer welcomes the x's of the world.  But it is no longer the same equation either.  You have now changed what you are pursing.  Of course it becomes very confusing for those that think the equation is suppose to be the same.  I think that is where I fall....  I didn't understand the new equation.  I thought I was coming back to a bigger better equation built on the first one.  But it was not the same equation.  My x no longer had a place.  

I have struggled with understanding why my relationships with friends have changed.  I have cried when those I use to be so close to, no longer have space for me in their lives.  When I look at the new math equation though, I understand it is not so different from my experience of church during my high school years.  While we want to believe that things are different as an adult, those experiences are often preparing us for what it coming.  We cannot get along with everyone.  It is the reality of our broken world.  However, there are those relationships that when we choose to pursue them, they break deep friendships that we might have taken for granted.  Friendship that made us think nothing could happen to them because they were grounded and the other person "understood" us.  

Understanding....

What does it really mean to understand?

For me right now it means learning to move on with life when my x is no longer needed in someone's equation.  Actually, this one is familiar...  I know how to do this.  It hurts and it's painful, but it is not the unknown.

It also means, that my x has been moved to an equation that I can learn my value.  The value of x is always unknown until you start to work it into the equation the way it was meant to be.  

Understanding means that by seeing how I fit into the equation of the tribe I am in right now, I know the value that my x brings to the next equation to which I move.  

Just like our house needed someone who understood the quirks of it's construction and materials, my x needs to be around those who will help me understand its value and what it contributes to the equations.  

Understanding....  

In my case it means to be with a tribe, to develop friendships that help me discover the value of my x....

The Exhale in Emotion

Emotions are difficult. 

 Emotions are messy.  

Having emotions has gotten me reprimanded more than once.

On the other hand....

Emotions are complex.  

They are an intricate creation designed by an amazingly creative God.

Emotions are reminders.

They symbolize that we are alive, we can feel.

Emotions are connection.

They have the ability to redirect us to the loving, caring God, who holds our past and our future in his hands.

Today, I'm full of emotions.

I am so excited at the direction my tribe known as Southeast Project is headed!

I have emotions I cannot even name as I see the journey that God has lead this group of people on even before our family joined them and where we are headed with them.

I feel happiness at watching my two year old insist that she needed to go say hello to Jared, our worship pastor, before she would go to the nursery.

I felt amusement as after service she proceeded to run around the worship space calling to his fiancée, Shelby.

I feel connected as I walk through the various areas and realize I can celebrate with many other people the amazing things that are happening in their lives.

At the same time I feel sadness.

I am not really a fan of that emotion.  

I realized today that whatever myself and others that have been in my life might think; my daughters will not really know most of the people I thought they would grow up knowing two years ago.

I feel loss as I look at the people I used to know, but who no longer are a part of our life.

I feel anger at those, who are responsible for the circumstances that led to that separation.

I really don't feel comfortable with the anger.

I feel like it is an emotion I am not allowed to express.

But it doesn't exactly go away....

I feel tension as I live in the reality that I feel the happiness, the sadness, the connection, the loss, but  the anger leaves me living in the tension the most.

In the past I have always stuffed the anger pretending that I could spiritualize it and "pray" for those that have hurt me.  I think I am realizing like many things in my life, spiritualizing and "praying" really does not do much but connect me more deeply with the Pharisees.  You see, even though I am not typically quite as impulsive as Peter; I feel much more like cutting someone's ear off when I am experiencing anger.  

So the tension is there in the anger.  It often feels like every day is lived in the tension of will I blast the object of my anger?  Or will I hand it to God and say "I can't do this. Help me."  The tension remains as right now the anger has lessons it is teaching me.

Ephesians 4:26 tells us "Do not sin in your anger.  Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry,".  The part we often fail to read on to see is verse 27, "and do not give the devil a foothold."  When I focus on not letting the sun go down while I'm angry, I feel like a major failure.  I have been experiencing anger for nearly 3 years now whether I have admitted to it or not.  My husband was the one to bring my attention to the first part of the verse, "Do not sin in your anger."  When I move on to the next verse and realize that not giving the devil a foothold is part of the instruction I start to look at the whole concept to this anger thing.  

My anger is an emotion.  God created every one of my complex, messy, connected emotions.  This makes every single one of them beautiful.  

Yes, even anger....

If I let it my anger teaches me that I can try with all my might to check off the right boxes, but this emotion of anger is like corralling cats.  I do not have the ability to manage it on my own.  If I try to handle it, it is going to run all over the place!  So my anger serves as a tool that God can use to draw me closer to him.  If I am not to sin in my anger and I cannot control said anger on my own forever, then the only way to manage it is to continually bring it to him for help.  

And therein lies the exhale...

Anger does not have to be a bad thing. 

It can be a powerful tool in God's box to build relationship with me.

I can breath....

I can let go...

I can exhale...

Will I experience it tomorrow?

Maybe...

You cannot heal what you do not acknowledge,
and what you do not consciously acknowledge will remain in control of you from within,
festering and destroying you and those around you.
~Richard Rohr

Today I realized that acknowledging the emotion of anger give that opportunity to heal.  

When I name it and acknowledge it I deny it the power to fester and destroy.

Healing never happens if we ignore the very thing preventing it.

So I might experience the anger tomorrow or the next day or the next.

But owning that it exists prevents that foothold from being established and acknowledging it invites God into my story to start the healing process.

A Terrible, Impossible Thing

"The terrible thing, the almost impossible thing, is to hand over your whole self--all your wishes and precautions--to Christ."

~C.S. Lewis

I find lately that I am at a crossroads.  It is an odd sort of place.  It does not look anything like I expected it to look.  It is a crossroads where my desire to avoid conflict comes in direct contact with the call that God has placed on my life.  It is a call I successfully have avoided sharing with many while still pursuing it in a secret sort of way.  I could refer to pieces of it and find a way to actually avoid ever owning up to the truth that lay behind the partial story I shared.  

I have a gift.  I told some friends lately it's a blessing and a curse, but my gift is the ability to read people.  My first read of someone is seldom wrong.  It scares me sometimes when I start to see those first impressions I get of a person begin to prove true.  

Lately I have begun to realize how much I have been using this gift to avoid conflict.  See I can get a really good idea of whether my bigger secret is safe to say around you without creating the conflict I fear.  I have used this gift, which has amazing potential as a barrier between myself and hurt, shunning and isolation.  I learned at a young age that to be accepted you say the right things around the right people.  That's just the way life works.

And so I hide the most import piece of myself away from most of the world.

I hide it from friends and family.

I make the "right" people happy by not saying the words out loud.

And in doing so I stifle a piece of myself more and more.

As my excitement grows at the endless potential I see around me, at the direction my life is headed.  I find myself wanting to share my excitement with others.  But I wait and find the "safe" spots.  The places where I am guaranteed that I will not experience that conflict.  Where I run no risk of being shamed or put down because of what I have to say.

So I find mentors and meet with them, while avoiding actually mentioning to very many others why I pursue the relationship.  I take classes and still manage to avoid actually saying the words that describe the job for which I am preparing.  

You see, there is a part of me that fears even God will not be able to repair the damage if I say the words.  But the truth is still there even when I shadow it in vague descriptions.  I think that is the crossroads I find myself at.  It is becoming harder and harder to "hide" my truth.  It is becoming more central to who I am than ever.  

And then there are my two little girls.  I look at them and realize.... I do not want them to be like this version of me.  The person, who hides a key part of who God created them to be out of fear.  

So the truth.... My role as student is temporary.  A sort of training for the longer journey ahead.  My role as Volunteer Director at our church.  More extensive real life experience, a chance to learn from an incredibly gifted pastor, who shares his wins as well as his screw ups and makes me realize that I will be able to live out that calling if I surround myself with the right people to support me and challenge me.

I do know the role of a pastor is not an easy one.  Honestly, it's probably not what I would have picked if God had handed me a huge book and said pick your ideal career.  I would have picked something safe like librarian...  No one can really tell you you should not have that position...  There is no end to the debate of whether women should be in pulpits or not.  I know....  I have heard the arguments most of my life.

But my crossroads has brought me to that moment when I can listen to the arguments for all the reasons I should not pursue this path God is leading me down.  Or I can follow.  It really is as terrible and impossible as Lewis implies...  To hand over one's whole self... all your precautions to Christ.  It feel a little like jumping out of a plane without a parachute waiting for someone else to catch you.  But is that not the life God calls us to lead?  We admire Abraham for packing up and following God to a land that he did not know, but we often opt for safety in our own choices.

So I exhale....

And finally own publicly the reality that my Bachelors of Biblical Studies degree is to prepare for ministry.  

To follow a call from God to lead.

And yes.... 

That would be to lead from a pulpit one day.