I Don’t “DO” Poop...(Crap Produces)

I'm on an afternoon escape break from a two weeks spent at my grandparent's house. (The escape was to internet and not from them, for the record.) I've had fun "pondering" on Gallagher, my faithful computer, while at the g'rents so this will probably be the first of several installments on this, my trusty, blog... :O)



No one ever confuses me with the princess, sissy girl types. Not even on accident. I’m a sturdy-looking girl that lives in jeans and t-shirts. My hair is always thrown up into a messy pony. My make-up is simple. I am just now developing an understanding in my relationship with the color pink. I love to be barefoot and I’m always up for a modest adventure. I am not afraid of hard work. I rake. I mow lawns. I scrape paint. I haul dirt. I am decent at first aid (perhaps because my sturdy look is deceptive and masks “accident prone”) and I’m not afraid of or put off by blood (mine or anyone else’s). I get my hands dirty. I hold my own.

I don’t know if when I sat down to write, I was prepared for the self disclosure which may, in fact, follow, but I my as well start by being honest...

I don’t “do” poop.

This may seem like a minor piece of self disclosure, but I hate admitting it. It ruins my image. Sissy girls run away from poop. Anika doesn’t run.

But I hate it. Absolutely despise poop. The thought of it makes me gag. (This whole vignette is making me queasy, actually...)

Don’t get me wrong, I first and foremost deal with what I have to. I’ve babysat a dozen kids while they were in diapers and I have changed my fair share. But I’m relatively certain they got changed because the idea of sitting with a poopy butt is grosser than wiping one. And if I ever came into a situation where a pile of sissy girls (and boys for that matter) were standing in a circle not dealing with some poop, I would probably scold and step up because that’s what I do. [Not to mention safe-guarding my image for another day.] But I would be cringing on the inside.

So today (what is now several days ago), when my grandpa told me we were going to take some loads of manure down to the hoop house to get ready to mix dirt, I was mentally gearing myself up for such a task. I am not a city girl, I know about manure. Manure is poop. Got it. I can handle it. Grandpa is impressed by the things I take on and if I hesitated, I would never live it down. And we headed to the aviary. Bird poop. My sour stomach churned...

I watched as Grandpa took his trowel and began chunking out some of the nesting squares. I waited for my assignment. I fetched Grandpa a stool and returned as he, with his bare hands, was dusting out the space. Perhaps TMI, (yay self disclosure!), but I started my period today. I am always nauseous, to a fault, for the first three days of Mother Nature’s special blessing. And today just happened to be poop day besides. Awesome. I felt the bile slide up my throat as I gagged and then forced myself to get a grip. I secretly and silently prayed “please have Grandpa tell me to do something that requires the shovel!” at which point he turned around on his stool and said, “how about you do this and then I’ll get started on some of the other pieces.” The insufficient trowel was mine. I swallowed hard, thought about the fact Grandma was working on lunch and tried not to lose my morning coffee, as I proceeded to trowel out 10 gallons of bird poop from nesting squares over the next hour.

At some point in the middle of this, I realized I was disgusted, but not disgruntled. I smirked as I heard the birds chirping happily overhead and my grandpa talk to and razz them. I sarcastically (although not bitterly) half laughed to myself as I tuned in to the mocking songs, “You would get a kick out of me doing this! Crazy birds!” For whatever the reason, the next thing to enter my mind was the beginning of one my life verses: Romans 5:3-5. “Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings...”

I was glad my grandfather was a full 30 feet away and hard of hearing, because I began to laugh out loud. I put a trowel full of manure in the bucket and chuckled under my breath “pretty sure this was not what Paul was talking about in terms of suffering!”

But it made me think about the “crap” in life. Real suffering. The suffering of Christ. A suffering I would like to think I have tasted in part and participated in as the result of living in this falling and breaking world...and know that it is but a nibble in comparison to others, let alone Paul who first penned the words. A suffering which, if we are honest, for as much as our floofy American lifestyle affords, we all know too well. Crap. Life’s crap. Suffering. My mind continued to recite the verse. “Because we know suffering produces...”

I stopped. Suffering produces? Crap grows? Tomorrow, all the manure I hate so much, all of that caked gray bird poop I tried not to gag with as we moved it into the hoop house, will get mixed with fresh muck (a rich, dark dirt) so that my grandpa can begin creating potting soil. Potting soil, even the kind you buy at the store, is a nutrient-rich fertilizer and dirt combination (with some Styrofoam and peat moss, I learned). There is a reason that people buy potting soil and don’t simply try to plant their flower and houseplants in some dirt from under the tree in the backyard. That dusty tree dirt isn’t good enough. It’s missing the substance that sustains.

The fact of the matter remains...

Crap produces.

I am getting a tattoo on my foot within the next couple of months that pretty much sums up the journey God has taken in me on in this thing called life. It will read “Protest to Praise” with a Psalm 30:11 reference. I want it to stand as a testament to the fact I am a work in progress. That for all the times I’ve begged God to show up, He’s already been there. That He stands in midst of my storms, that He carries, He sustains, He heals. “Protest to Praise” (the title of one of my favorite songs) encompasses my story. Part of me thinks that if such is my reasoning in getting inked, I need a second tattoo on my other foot. The two can match. “Protest to Praise” on the one foot with a mirror image on the other reading “Crap Produces”. Yep, pretty much sums that one up...

The fact of the matter remains, whether you are a “no blood, no guts, no vomit, no pee, no poop” sissy or not, I dare say none of us are actually rip-roaring ready to go when it comes to “life crap”, when it comes to suffering. I think we look at the task at hand, the shoveling of manure in our days, and take it on (some of us better than others – some, quite frankly, not well at all) and try not to lose our lunch as the bucket continues to fill. And yet, I, and many of us, can probably attest to the times in our life that we’ve shoveled the most manure also being the times in our life where we’ve seen the most growth. Where Romans 5 gets worked out and we stand somewhere on the other end (perhaps having not even quite left) and see that our suffering has produced things like perseverance, character, hope which doesn’t disappoint...and a richer relationship with the One who sustains and pours love into our hearts and lives.

May I remember, despite my disdain for poop...both in and of life...to never forget that crap produces. Which is reason enough for joy...

Hope

One of my “life words” (you know, those words that by merely being said bring a meaning and direction to all that life holds) is HOPE.

It hasn’t always been. Actually in the scheme of my life, it hasn’t been very long at all.

Hope became one of my life words some 2 ½ years ago. In my first semester as a cancer patient and furthermore, a student with cancer, I can’t say ‘hope’ was really in the forefront of my mind. I don’t know that I had considered the word at all until one of my professors stood in front of our lecture hall class and began telling a personal anecdote. This wasn’t unusual for him and we all settled in for story time. He was explaining how he realized this particular instance of his life was causing him to lose hope and the need for hope and then he said:

“When I think about hope, I think about Anika. I think about all she is going through and experiencing and see someone who has and is hope...”

The whole class turned and looked at me awkwardly and I remember blushing some terrible shade of fluorescent red as I managed a wiry smile.

My insides were screaming! I was intensely frustrated with this professor whom I both appreciated and admired. I was at the season of my experience where I was crippled by supreme exhaustion and a medically induced depression. My smile was painted, pinned on, screwed in tight and so automatic that I no longer knew when it was real. This smile accompanied words that I expected others wanted to hear but I, myself, barely comprehended or heard as they left my mouth. And, I was fighting tirelessly with a God I was convinced wasn’t really doing much. Hope? Me? You’re kidding, right?

Over the next few months, I came to understand that the word hope had more to do with standing in the promise and expectation that God was going to show up. Hoping, at its truest, is standing attest to the fact that God is present, active, involved. Despite the fights I have over and over and over again with the only One in the universe who loves me completely and perfectly and unconditionally, I do tend to stand in the expectation that He is in the business of showing up, revealing Himself, giving reasons to look past where I’m at to see where He is...

Hope reminds me that regardless of where I’m at, life isn’t over yet. God has more in store. He needs to be praised anyway. (Praise is a developing “life word”...I’m just not very good at it).

The last couple months of my life have been characterized by transition. Difficult transition. I can’t say I’ve done a good job of holding onto a life word like “hope”. I get stuck in the drudgery of my days bemoan how much I feel I’m missing and worry about what will or will not be provided... Praise hasn’t come naturally and praise, which is a choice, has not been the choice I have made. I’ve chosen instead to sulk and complain – far too often.

This week as piece after piece seemed to be coming together for a job I was actively pursuing, I rediscovered how much hope (and praise) had been missing from my waiting game. And yet, hope is all about seeking and trusting God to work all things together for the best – and not about what I think I would wish for to happen. As I found myself hoping, I found myself drawn back to the face of Christ and subsequently away from the position I so thought I wanted. God is showing up...just not in the ways I expected. Perhaps I was pulled away (I declined a position before I was offered – although that is where it was headed) because (among other reasons) I feel God has something different and better in store. Hope says God showed up just as much as helping me find peace in rough decisions as He is in leading where the next step is. A God who shows up like that is worthy of praise, always.

1 Peter 1:3-9

Stupid Head

Ummm...

I need a hug.

Probably a long one.

And someone to help me figure out this war that is raging inside of my head!

How can something feel like the best and absolute worst choice all at the same time?? How does something rotate between finding me excited and full of the most intense dread? Why does there seem to be a peace in saying "no"...when the logical answer is to say "yes"? Am I running because I'm afraid? Or am I pursuing for the same reason? Do I step out into the unknown despite fear and anxiety...or do I listen to these 'checks' which seem to be pulling me back?

Needing more answers.

And to feel less overwhelmed.

And probably a decent and potentially long hug.

To Be Known

Working on what is now almost three days ago...

I had a bad day.

Really it was just a bad afternoon which turned into a bad evening. Which subsequently had myself curled up in the corner with my back to the wall, my teddy bear on my lap, and my knees bent up to my chin as I cried quiet, hot, and frustrated tears for almost an hour.

Somewhere in the middle of this...

I wanted to scream.

Not just to release (a good scream will do that for you) but to be heard. I wanted my scream to be intentional. I wanted...

I wanted to be understood.

I was struggling with why I had just successfully had the first teenage fight with my dad since I was well...a teenager. In high school. Why my dad, who typically “gets” me the best when it comes to my parents and my internal frustrations, just...wasn't. Not even close. Why I felt so petty and why it hurt so much...

So I blogged.

I blogged everything I wanted to scream. And then I left it there for the world to read.

The release felt...good. Healthy. Real.

And within hours I was wondering if leaving myself so raw inside my cyber world had been such a good idea. And by the next morning I dreaded the messages from friends who were there to support me in my frustration, anger, and bad day...but not because they were supporting me. The fact that there were so many who found it, read it, told me they loved me...I needed it. Badly.

And yet, I dreaded it. I hated it.

I hated the fact they knew.

Knew that I wasn’t perfect. Knew that I was far from having it all together. I openly admitted to insecurities. I whined and I complained. I was harsh in presentation and willing to allow circumstance to dictate not only my attitude but ultimately how much I wanted to trust, in confidence, who I was in Christ.

And I put it on display like a dejected drama queen. Or so my next morning interpretation said...

I was embarrassed.

I wasn’t willing to openly deny anything I said or felt...because despite the fact the sting was gone, I still felt them. It was still a real conversation. My response (regardless of its appropriateness) was still true.

But the fact I had said it...

My closest friends, at least one or two of whom found my blog; know I’m not one who easily admits to my weaknesses. I hide behind a smile and keep-on-keeping-on when I feel kicked in the face. Some applaud me for ability to keep my chin up regardless (of whether I’m breaking inside) and some hate me for how fake (perhaps legitimately) I sometimes come off. I am “fine”, “good”, “doing alright”, until you ask the right question or prod just enough to get the real answer. And so something about being so open and real on facebook? Scandalous!

I wondered what compelled me to do such a thing, but it didn’t take long to come to an answer.

I had wanted to scream...because I had wanted to be understood.

A friend sent me a link the next morning...to a sermon that talked about how we use things like facebook and blogs to be whoever we want to be, whoever we want to be known as, when in all reality, our deepest desire...is just to be known.

Despite my embarrassment, I think part of me wanted to be known. To be understood. To be validated. Justified. In parts of me that were real...and not just parts I wanted others to see.

I think my fear is that too many blogs stating my day’s woes and too many facebook statuses where it sounds as if the world feels out to get me and I will come to be known by my struggle. I don’t want to be known by the hardest things going on in my life. I don’t want them to define me. They aren’t the truest things about me.

But they are true things about me.

I don’t want to be known BY my struggle, but I think parts of each one of us to want to be known WITH our struggle. We want people to know us for the good, the bad, and yes – even those ugly dark places we want to keep hidden...

And we want them to love us anyway.

We want to know that in somebody else’s eyes, our greatest transgressions, shortcomings, don’t make us less adequate, less human, less deserving of love...but even more so. That somehow grace, mercy, forgiveness and redemption are found in the places of our lives that most hurt.

I decided not to retract my blog. I couldn’t retract it from the 47 people who viewed my page over the next 24 hours and I couldn’t retract it from reality. And I realized for all I wish people didn’t know and assume and assess about me and my life for reading it, there was no reason to disguise and hide reality, merely for its own sake.

It is another lesson in being humble when it comes to admitting weaknesses. But humility comes as part of the cost you pay to be [truly] known...

If I Could Re-Do College...

A few days ago, I “liked” the facebook status of one of my young college-sophomore friends which gave instructions to “like” the status and then the holder of the status would reply with answers to an assortment of listed questions...about me. I was intrigued. Among my reply [which had me as crayon color “purple pizzazz” and that my official animal was “Larry the Cucumber”] was the response (to the probe “something I’ve always wanted to know...”) “if you could redo college over again, what would you do different?” I’ve debated this a considerable amount in the last year (yes, even while I was still in school) and especially in the last few months. I felt this pondering, rightfully, deserved a response. And I decided maybe it was a response for more than just Megan. So I’m posting...



Megan, to answer your question, if I could redo college over again...



I would do more fun things. I would go to Denny’s at 2am or make my first midnight WalMart run before the last week of my college career. I would always run out of my dorm at full speed to take advantage of a time to play in the rain. I would host more dance parties in my room. I would attend random SGA events just because they were offered. I would photo shoot just for the heck of it with friends. I would purposely seek out laughter.



I would sleep more. I don’t think I would do less homework (maybe I should say I would, but I don’t think this would actually change...) But I would change priorities. “It get’s done, it always get’s done” should make time for healthy things like Jesus and people and sleep and eating more than once in four days and not just my so-called “responsibilities”.



I wouldn’t be so afraid. I wouldn’t be so afraid of what people thought of me. I wouldn’t hide in my shadow. I wouldn’t look for excuses to be involved in people’s lives...I just would be. I would seize more opportunities. I would decide that I could wonder for weeks if someone hated me...or I could just continue to love them regardless of the response. I wouldn’t stay awake at night worrying about what tomorrow held...



I would take more initiative. I would call friends for dinner instead of hoping someone would invite me to join them. I would join people I knew (and didn’t know for that matter) at lunch instead of sitting alone, by myself, meal after meal after meal. I would recognize sooner that my “no touch!” bubble was a poor defense mechanism and allow myself to be hugged more than seven times my freshman year. And four years later...I would be the one to lean in for the embrace first.



I would let down my mask occasionally. I would be honest about how hard it was to be a college student with cancer. I would admit that I wasn’t holding up as well as I wanted people to believe. I wouldn’t try to convince people I was a wonder-woman in order to somehow prove God was strong... I would point to my weakness and measure it up to God’s strength and let God speak for Himself. I would surrender more and allow myself to give up control...realizing without control my mask would begin to slip and I would have less to hide behind.



I would ask for help more often. I wouldn’t have tried so hard to do everything by myself. I would have questioned professors for clarity and taken advantage of offers for extensions. I would have looked for people to help me run Bible study during my sophomore year and people to ride with me during my drives back and forth to Ann Arbor during my junior year. I would have not only taken people up on offers for prayer but asked for it. I would have looked to someone, anyone, on my Nashville trip, to grab my backpack, admitting that four days after surgery, it took everything I had to lift it. I would have taken advantage of the offer of my friend who told me she was just across campus and was available whenever I needed her...I would have found her more and spilled my guts and trusted her to keep me safe...seeing as she already offered.



I would have found a mentor. I would have [been not so afraid], {taken more initiative}, (asked for help more often) and looked for someone who could have fed into me on a normal basis. Someone older (like, long out of college), wiser, trustworthy, tuned in to who I was and what I was going through and where God and I were headed. Someone who would have guided and befriended and maybe even slapped me back to reality a time or two...



And, finally (about time, right?), I would try to realize that for every decision I was or wasn’t making...that for as much as I felt like I was or wasn’t living up to the perfect way to go about the life I was living...that God was going to use every step to teach, to lead, to help me grow, and to bring me to where He was and where He wanted me to be...regardless of the pain and seeming disarray of the journey...

So Much for Measuring Up...

“So, what did you do today?”

“Honestly? Not a thing. It’s almost four and I just took a shower....” In all actuality, it has far more to do with the fact I think I’ve been fighting my brother’s flu for the last four or five days, just got home from another busy weekend, and didn’t really want to take on the world than anything else. There is quite a bit I could be doing if I felt up to it today...

Dad didn’t give me a chance to justify my answer or explain. Instead he made quite clear, quite early on, that he was disappointed in me. He had a productive Monday and the fact there was nothing to show for mine was shameful. I spent the rest of our conversation trying to defend myself...because looking into my dad’s eyes and listening to his tone of voice it was obvious, obvious that I didn’t measure up.

I felt so defeated.

“So you did nothing and probably heard nothing from Kentucky, either, huh?” Kentucky referred to my most recent job pursuit and I knew that “Kentucky” was just a piece of dad’s bigger picture. I needed a job. I needed to make money. I needed to do something with my life. My current existence was unacceptable. The remainder of the conversation made that increasingly clear.

In summary, pursuing one job at a time was stupid. That’s not the way the job market goes. You don’t find one job to apply for and put your time and energy into seeing where it might lead, you put feelers out in multiple positions and wait for one to bite and then you take advantage of it. [And if I wasn’t actually interested in those positions?] So what? Somebody has to pay back college loans. Clearly my “heart wasn’t in the right spot” and I would have to “pray about my unrelenting mindset”. I wasn’t even looking at temporary employment for God’s sake. Your sister at least took initiative! [Did I say that? Who said I wasn’t? I just didn’t want to feel committed to a job I hated and not feel able to taking advantage of opportunities that might arise. Temporary or seasonal jobs feel considerably more realistic when you aren’t moving from one to the next to the next...in hopes that they are going to pay enough to help you keep track of your financial obligations. Are there any around? Because they don’t pay enough for me to move out... It would be easier to step into a job I hated knowing it was just filling in the time until I started something legit.] But you can’t wait for something “legit” to decide to look for some sort of employment. Obviously you’re not doing anything with your time or your life; you’d have a fine time convincing someone you wanted a job at all. [So should I just jump at a paycheck? Because there’s nothing like doing something you hate for the rest of your life!] So melodramatic! It wouldn’t be for the rest of my life. I could always get out and do something I actually wanted to do later. Haven’t I ever heard of giving a two weeks notice and quitting? [So I should walk into a job that makes me cringe knowing that I am looking to give my two-week notice at any moment? Because that sounds responsible!”] Stop changing the story. We’re talking about temporary jobs not ones with a contract commitment. You are never going to get a job you want because you don’t know what you’re looking for and so nothing is ever going to satisfy you. It’s about time that you and responsibility get a job and stop sitting around my house all day!

Cool.

Because now I’m feeling so much better about life.

This whole time that I hated my life because I was without a job and immediate obligations for the first two and three and then four week stretch in the last six years? Apparently I was slacking. The hours I spent on my computer until three o’clock in the morning were me...not trying? Every time I tried to redefine my existence in lack of the expectations I so long had allowed to be placed on me by every person I came in contact with...missing? Apparently the only thing I was missing was the fact my parents, and at least my dad, has expectations to which I don’t measure up.

Just as I was settling into a peace about this season of “wait”, just when I thought I was being faithful to seek and to trust, just when I was thinking that I was pursuing the doors I felt had opened for me, just when I realized being so concerned on what I didn’t have made me petty and selfish in light of what I did have, just when I decided not to rush into things and get down on myself for what I wasn’t doing, just when I resolved to not allow the job I did or didn’t have to define me, and just when I was allowing myself to heal from the damage such huge transition always puts on my life...

I’m told I’ve been doing it all wrong. It’s not enough. I’m not my sister. Not Faith who was subbing at least three days a week and teaching a class at the local community college during her “transitional phase”. Faith was actively pursuing things; she had an interview lined up by this point for the job she’s been in for the last two years... She moved out after the first of the year. Do I realize she has all of her school loans paid off right now? Yep. I do. Thanks.

Whatever I’m doing...I’m not measuring up and it’s not enough. Which I have, in the last hour, easily absorbed and interpretted as “Anika, you’re not enough...” I’m not good enough. I don’t measure up. You were that golden child when you were away at school with a maintained cancer diagnosis while pulling a 4-point. But now, now we just point to this girl who lives in our basement and has nothing to show for it.

Cool.

I don’t know what I should be doing. I don’t know what passion I should give up on in order to pursue a job that will somehow make me more of a person, a better daughter. Should I give up all passion and just get a job with a paycheck? I mean, Paul was a tentmaker. My guess is that he would have rather been just doing ministry, but you’ve got to pay the bills somehow... I could just suck up my disdain for the ineffectiveness and logistics of church ministry. Where, if I was a good youth pastor with a growing ministry, I would disciple volunteers and hope they were doing a good job loving on the teens in my so-called care. My list of reasons why I feel un-called to church ministry is extensive...but also removed from capability. I mean probably, technically, God help me, I could run a decent youth ministry and hope that the church was willing to pay me when everything is said and done. I could give up my love for ministry, for talking about Jesus, for conversation that encourages teens to seek the face of Christ more fully and work in a secular community-based youth environment. I could still work with youth but my ministry would have to be my life and that would have to be enough. My passion for theology couldn’t be a defining factor. I could give up both my passion for young people and my passion for ministry and just walk into some dead-end “temporary” position that keeps me living at my parents house forever and leaves me stuck because despite its temporariness, there’s no obvious way out and no better alternative. Why does “job I hate using my degree” vs “job I hate not using my degree” vs “job I can tolerate that removes the reason I chose my degree” seem to be my debate? Why are there no more options?

Maybe I wouldn’t be so upset with the fact that I am letting my dad down; that I managed to disappoint him when all I ever really tried to do was represent him and his legacy well; that I am not good enough and don’t measure up...if it didn’t circle back to how much I disappointed myself; let myself down. Maybe it just hurts to have to encounter the truth you have come to believe about yourself through other peoples’ eyes. Maybe I’ll be good enough for my dad, let alone my Heavenly Father, if in fact I can ever be good enough for me.

Enough?

I'm not enough.

And I know I'm not enough.

My head knows I'm not enough. But my heart hasn't quite caught up.

I want to be enough. To hold my kids and their worlds.

But I'm not...not enough.

I'm called to bear their burdens but I'm not called to be their savior. I can't rescue them from their choices, make their decisions for them, redeem them from hurt and chaos they carry.

There's only one Savior. Only One who can love perfectly when I cannot. One who bears perfectly my burdens and the burdens of those I so desperately just want to hold.

And He holds me.

So despite the fact that I still try to hold the worlds and cannot because I am not enough...I know I am being held. And I know He holds the worlds and the lives of those I so love. He holds us.

I am not enough.

But I can hold on to the only One who is more than enough. Who has proven Himself as the One enough for me and for the ones I wish I was enough for...

Father, help me point to Enough...

I Suck At Life

I suck at life.

Sometimes I say this as a way of expressing just how much I am just not a fan of the way I choose to do this whole living thing. I’m not very good at it. I mess up...a lot. In significant ways. Ways I won’t start by admitting on my blog. Sometimes I say it merely because I messed up. Because, well, I’m human and I’m not perfect. This fact bothers me and I will oft come to the conclusion that I suck at life. When the latter is my basis, when I say it just so, I have certain friends who will contradict my assertion before my next breath can be drawn.

But it’s true.

I suck at life.

I don’t mean to be as self-depreciating as it sounds. But then again, I do.

I suck at life. And so do you.

Let’s face it. When it comes to this whole “living” thing, we are giant screwballs. If you’re half the screwball I know myself to be then, for as much as I love you, you suck.

I’m sorry. But it’s true.

Lately, I’ve found myself especially aware of my shortcomings. Engulfed by the pieces of me that aren’t just “human” and therefore imperfect but are also less than adequate, less than decent, less than human. I find myself consumed by all of the pieces of me I hate. And there is much worth that sort of despising. How is it, I wonder, these hideous pieces can be so clearly in the forefront of my mind and still present? Why is it I don’t usher them out of my heart, soul, mind, and life before they continue to destroy the glory I was created in? Why is it I don’t always feel like I can? How is it that sometimes I don’t feel like I want to?

I’ve spent a significant amount of time in Romans 7 with the Apostle Paul lately. For as often the times where I have thought I couldn’t possibly meet the level of discipleship and servitude and absolute surrender of the early church, the more time I spend in my Bible the more I’m realizing most of them, though dedicated beyond my imagination, sucked at life. And they made into the most popular, longest lasting, most often stolen, widest read book the world has ever kown. I figured, despite the inability to reconcile how much I despised the ugliness inside of me, there was safety in numbers and knowing we were all screwballs and I wasn’t the only one who had seriously messed up life, was comforting. Paul was a mess up. He claimed to be the worst of sinners once, (it’s only because he hadn’t yet personally met me I think). But Paul understood my questions and struggle. How much he knew he sucked at life and how much he hated that.

In Romans 7 (starting with verse 14) Paul starts monologue-ing his plight. “We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin.” How many times I’ve felt like my sin controls me... “I do not understand what I do.” Amen! “For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.” So often I feel as if the pieces of who I am that I hate the most get to become the things which define me because they are the things I act on... [skipping down to vs 18] “I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what it is good, but I cannot carry it out.” Keep preaching Paul, you’re speaking my language... For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do – this I keep on doing.”

You know what that spells? My life. Paul’s struggle. His words defining my life and my struggles. It spells pretty clearly that I suck at life. There’s no doubt about it. A few verses later Paul talks about how his inner being delights in God’s law but that there is a war waging on his mind that makes him a prisoner to sin. That is the recipe of every piece of me that I hate and baked in the oven at 350 for the last, say, 22 years and it has produced a pretty sucky life. One I’m not very good at. One where I never measure up. One where I don’t live in the Spirit who I claim lives in me and I don’t act on the hope I claim to have in Jesus Christ. Instead the sin I so adamantly denounce is the thing I allow to dictate, too often, both my thoughts and my actions. It controls my attitude and steals my joy.

I suck at life.

And so do you. None of us are perfect. So even if you are twice as good at life as me (which isn’t hard), even if you never let anyone down and always wake up and lie down in the hope of the Living Lord and the fruits of the Spirit are oozing from your very being, you probably still suck at life.

What’s funny is that even though I know you suck, the fact I love you will negate my desire to ever see you as a sucky person. Just as the friends who know me and my heart and my shortcomings better than anyone else will stop my declarations of my life of suck-a-tood, so I would probably and most certainly stand in the way of yours. When I see you, I don’t see the fact you suck...love and grace cancel that.

It was a little like a light bulb. Paul cries out at the end of chapter 7: “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God – through Jesus Christ our Lord!” This gave me some hope. Paul sees a rescuer from this paradoxical life that he sucks at through Christ. And chapter 8 follows off by Paul stating that those who claim Christ find no condemnation.

And I wondered...

I wondered if the love Christ has for me meant that when He looks upon me and the way that I suck at life that His love covers over how much, daily, I let Him down. How can He not just see all that’s wrong? I wonder if Paul spent the whole of two huge chapters in the intense book of Romans talking about grace without ever saying the word. This whole idea that God gives good gifts to children who don’t deserve it. That Jesus looks down and sees His beautiful disaster and chooses to identify me by my beauty rather than my disaster.

I hate that I suck at life.

And I know that this realization comes with the call to allow my sinful nature to have the crap stomped out of it by the Spirit who I must give permission to control me. If Christ is in me, then my body, the one that sucks is dead to sin. I get to be alive in righteousness. The parts of me that suck don’t have to.

“But life is still about surrender.”

It’s been my personal assertion for the last couple of months. A declaration with various levels of understanding and undisclosed implications on this life I suck at.

Life is still about surrender.

I won’t measure up. Because I’m human. But if I’m not my own. If the control isn’t mine to have. If Perfection is given the power to dictate this life that I suck at living...

Oh God! Give me the power to surrender this life I suck at before I can no longer find my way back to you...

Mentor

Mentor.

He called me mentor.

As if it were my name. It was the way I was introduced.

We were walking through his dormitory floor when he ran into one of his friends, his good friends. Someone he doesn’t have to try to impress with a word that gives the illusion of seeking “wise counsel”. Someone he chills with and hangs with and checks in with. They were reconnecting and I stood the side, smiling as I watched their encounter.

“So where you headed, man? What are you up to?”

“Oh, I’m just taking off to spend some time talking to my mentor.” He stated matter-of-factly and head pointed towards my direction with a wiry grin.

The acknowledgement on his part caught me off guard and surprised me. I didn’t have time to keep the shock from registering on my face. My charge laughed gently and easily.

“Oh come on! Don’t look so surprised! You know that’s what you are in my life! And I’m very thankful for that. So...” he turned and looked at his friend, “I’ll catch you later.” Turning back to me, “ready, mentor?”

I smirked as we headed down the stairs.

And my mind was caught on this crazy word. What it meant. All that it entailed.

My young friend brought up this concept three more times in the course of our walk and talk. It was clearly not a spur-of-the-moment declaration to his buddy in the hall but something he had been thinking on. He declared, on no uncertain terms, I was his mentor and he did not intend for that to change.

My reaction went from shock to a proud acceptance. For all of the “kids” in my life – my teens that I claim and love – the ones who seek me out as a safe place for guidance and to chat and to feel affirmed and sometimes set straight – most don’t claim me back on such official terms. He chose me to mentor him and I was honored.

But pride soon fell, appropriately, to humility. Knowing I mentor, unofficially, nearly a dozen teens, is one thing. To be seen from their perspective as an official mentor comes with great responsibility. They are looking for direction and anticipating I am going to steer them the right way. They are looking for a listening ear and are hoping I pay attention what is and isn’t being said. They are looking for affirmation and desiring I’ll care enough to talk, to share, to hug. They are looking for authenticity and are praying I care enough to kick them in the face when they need it and admit where my own edges might also be frayed. They are looking for love and for purpose, for relationship and friendship...and the unspoken need is for me to point them to Jesus.

Can I do all of that? Am I called? Am I equipped?

Maybe.

Maybe not.

Either way, I’ve been chosen.

May I continually seek towards the Father so I may say as unashamedly and uninhibited as the Apostle Paul “follow me as I follow Christ”...