An Honest Post

Just now, I thought about updating my facebook status and I desperately wanted to write the words “I miss Jesus...” into the little text box. 

“Why?” you might be asking...

Well, because of all of the things going through my mind and heart and life right now, that is the truest description.  I miss Jesus. It was the only thing I felt compelled to write.

And so now you might be asking “so why not post it then if it compels you so?”

Because, if we’re going to be honest, I probably care too much what others think.  And I have this feeling that if I had posted just that, someone would probably think I was down in the dumps or needed to be encouraged or reassured...or something. 

Something tells me, based on my past experiences, that I couldn’t write those three words without facebook messages asking me what was wrong or comments about how close Jesus was – I just needed to remember and find myself wrapped in His presence.  How much He loved me.  How much others loved me.  How I needed to take the time to connect to my Savior. 

Yep. I know.  I know all of those things. They would have all been well-meaning and true reminders.  But also not enough and not the point. 

The truth is, despite what I know and what others could remind me of, the sum whole of the situation is simply that I miss Jesus.  The statement is what it is and for the most part, it stands alone.

I miss Jesus.  I KNOW He is active and present in my life. I KNOW He loves me. I KNOW that He promised to never leave me or forsake me and so He is not really so far away.  I KNOW lots of things.  But, I still just miss Him.

I feel distant.  And He feels far away. I know He is near and I’ve watched Him bat from my corner and I’ve watched as He has shown up quite clearly through the hands and voices and ears and faces of others in my life over the last few weeks.  And still...

I miss Jesus.

Whenever I get to a point of this honest admittance, I know it is my fault.  I think about the last time I made an honest effort to meaningfully connect to the God I love and the Savior I claim...the one whom I now so desperately wish for...  I think and I know.  I know that if I’m really honest... 

If I’m honest, I can’t remember the last time I sat down with my Bible to simply connect. Not to look something up or double check a reference or do a quick bit of research but to just read the words from the One that loves me best. 

If I’m honest, I can’t remember the last time I prayed the conversational prayer that used to remind me that Christ was my best friend.  The prayer time where I could spend a two hour drive in an empty car telling Him everything in my life and the lives of all those I knew and cared about.  Where I could pause and bask in the silence and wait for His whisper.  A natural and comfortable time to talk and listen.  Instead my prayers feel like rushed attempts to beg Jesus not to leave, to show up, to hold me as I feel incapable of making it through the day.

If I’m honest, my journal – my previous default when other areas of connecting to my Jesus seemed lacking – sits nearly empty and the existing entries matter little.  Writing is dull and lacking the passion of the girl who used to figure out where God was working in her life...through her fingers.

If I’m honest, I spent some time this morning reading through some old journals and blog posts and being a little amazed and embarrassed knowing they were my words and words I couldn’t have written if I were not intentionally connected to the source.  Connected to where Jesus was at in my life. Embarrassed because I don’t think I could have written those things this morning if I tried...

If I’m honest, it is Sunday...just after noon and I am sitting in my living room in my pajamas.  David Crowder is playing from my iPod and speakers but the words seem hollow.  Worship music seems superficial.  I didn’t go to church – or make the effort to.  And if I’m really being honest, I haven’t made the effort towards church attendance since returning to the Doh this fall.  I spent a while looking for a church last spring and came up short and unimpressed.  I got it into my mind that going to a church where I left with the dry taste of stale bread crumbs...served to me in the company of strangers who didn’t care one way or the other that I was sitting next them... instead of feeling fed, was useless.  If I was only going because I felt I had to and because others thought I should, obligation wasn’t reason enough.

If I’m honest, I have a few incredible and meaningful friendships.  People who remind me verbally and physically that they love me, care for me, are proud of me, will be there for me.  But if I’m being honest, I haven’t had an incredible or meaningful conversation about matters of faith in weeks with any of them.  Jesus comes up.  But He’s not the topic or the endeavor.  I haven’t prayed with another person in as long or longer.  With church attendance all but non-existent, the meeting together of believers to encourage and propel one another in the faith and to press on toward the goal of Christ Jesus seems to also leave a gaping hole. 

If I’m honest, I know that at the root, I’m too busy.  I work long days with long hours and struggle to make time for other things that should probably matter... like sleep and laundry.  Let alone things that are really important.  I work hard to go out of my way to love and to serve and to be invested and intentional in the lives of others.  And I wake up realizing that if I were doing it for anyone but Jesus, it would be worthless – and far too exhausting – to continue.  And yet I’m reminded of a quote that states “It is possible to be so busy in service to Christ as to forget to love Him”...

If I’m honest, I’d have to admit that I’m not really trying. Quality time is my highest love language.  If I feel loved, someone has given me quality time.  If I give love – it is either a direct act or an exact outsourcing of my time.  I miss Jesus but none of my time goes to the actual pursuit of spending time together.  Of growing our relationship.

If I’m honest...I have no idea why I am being so honest or why I am about to post it.  If I’m honest, I hate the fact that this honest post will give a chance for my interested or curious world to know that not only am I not perfect (big shocker there) but that somehow I’m even less perfect than what I would hope them to think and know.  If I’m honest I would have rather have thought of something meaningful to say that might have alluded to the fact that Jesus and I are just fine.  Blossoming even.  Than have you know that I feel...stuck.

If I’m honest, I desperately don’t want to be reminded of cliché and rote answers about God’s presence and His faithfulness.  Not about things I already know.  Because I do know them – beyond a shadow of a doubt.  Jesus and I aren’t fighting.  We’re just not close.  I hate it but it is what it is as I sit and I type.  If I’m honest, I don’t desire to feel this far away from Christ but I also want it to be okay to admit that I am...without feeling like the only solution is for the distance to be immediately fixed with another easy answer. 

If I’m honest, I don’t have anything else to say but this seems like a useless way to end a spiel of so many words...

If I’m honest, really honest, I miss Jesus.  I simply miss Him.  And if I’m honest, I don’t know where to start doing anything about it...

Counter-Cultural?

The other day I made a quick run to the store after work.  Having the night off, I wanted to endeavor a quick baking project and decided to pick up my items at the local Save-A-Lot. 

I was rounding aisle seven with my cart full of four items, (My mom always taught me to start with a cart as you just never knew. Thanks Mom!), when I encountered an Amish couple...in very traditional Amish garb and with distinctive haircuts, caps, features, etc.  I’ll admit I was a little surprised but smiled kindly and politely before embarking onto aisle eight. 

I thought little of my encounter in front of the cheese and breakfast sausage section until I went to check out (now with seven items total...just enough to make the cart worth it.  See! Mom, IS always right!).  Just in front of me at checkout was the Amish couple. I fear my face registered immediately perplexed and befuddled.  I don’t suppose I stopped to consider what you might purchase if you were Amish and shopping at a Save-A-Lot in downtown Hillsdale.  But I know I wasn’t expecting to see the cashier scanning through (easily) a dozen or more bags of potato chips, four cases of soda, and a few packages of Mrs. Freshley’s brand (like Little Debbie’s) packaged baked goods. 

I am not anywhere near kidding.

As I checked out and went to my car I found myself puzzled in a strange amusement.  In my mind the equivalent and sum total of a counter-cultural people is the Amish.  In a world of technology and fashion, sex, drugs, and rock and roll – the Amish have stayed amazingly close to what they believe to be truth.  And yet, getting in my car, all I could think was “well, you don’t get much more submersed in current culture than ho-hos, ding-dongs, potato chips, cheese puffs, and off brand Mt. Dew!”

And the whole scenario has had me thinking. 

Thinking about what it really means to be counter cultural. 

If you really want to look and be different than the world...what does it look like?  Sound like? Act like?  How will the world know?  Is it really so important at all?

Romans 12:2 has the oft quoted but, I feel, poorly executed (by myself most certainly included) instructions “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of the world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind...”  To be in the world, but not of it.  Paul is pretty obvious about the fact your mind will need to be renewed.  To be counter-cultural is, after all, a whole new way of thinking. 

And Paul never implies being different from the world is going to be easy.  A verse before he “urges” his readers to offer themselves as living sacrifices, offerings of worship before God (Romans 12:1).  It will take the whole of who you are, yourself set completely aside, no longer shaped by the world around you – if ever the world is to be shaped.

Can I be counter-cultural?  Am I physically capable and spiritually willing to continually lay myself down...not so that I don’t look like the cultural around me, but so that I look more and more like the God I love?  Not just in word and claim (of course it is my desire!  But anyone can say that!), but honestly ready to live a life that is a whole new way of thinking...  Later in Philippians 4, Paul admonishes to think about whatever is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, and praiseworthy.  It’s a start... Or the start.  Where the things I choose to think about become my way of doing life...  

My mom used to have a small plaque on the wall that read: "Watch your thoughts, for they become words.  Watch your words, for they become actions. Watch your actions, for they become habits.  Watch your habits, for they become character.  Watch your character, for it becomes your destiny." 

I would dare to take the word “destiny” at the end and change it to “legacy”.  It will become the legacy.  The legacy you leave, the mark you place...when you leave the world, leave that job, leave a class, leave a party, leave a room.  What will the world you worked and lived among remember about you when for one reason or another, you are no longer there?

Can I live a life where I become known for my peace?  My joy?  My forgiveness? My truth?  My kindness?  My purity? My reality? My love?  Will it look anything different from the world’s claims on each?

If I really want to look and be different than the world...what does it look like?  Sound like? Act like?  How will the world know?  Is it really so important at all?

“Live in such a way that the world will be glad you did.”  -- Max Lucado


"So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life - your sleeping, eating going-to-work, and walking-around life - and place it before God as an offering.  Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking.  Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out..." 

Romans 12:1-2a The Message

The Epicenter

I love the word “epicenter”.  I think it is fantastic.  The word epicenter just sounds like it has power, has energy, has intensity.  It should.

Today, I went looking for the word “epicenter”.  I realized for as many times as we talk about a certain office being the “epicenter” of a company or how a store is the “epicenter” of the mall, no one really defines it.  It is a word everyone knows – and no one can really harness.  I liked its inability to be harnessed. Because, in looking for a definition, I had a goal: I wanted to know if I could, if it was possible, to put parameters on what it might mean to be in the epicenter of where God is...

My dictionary results made my blood flow with anticipation.  Casually, any focal point of activity can be an epicenter.  The office in the company, the store in the mall...if that is where the activity is focused, it can be called the epicenter.  What would it look like to ensure I lived in such a way as to always be where God was the busiest?

However, I was soon to learn something different, something more.  The word “epicenter” is a geology term.  It refers most appropriately to the point on the earth’s surface directly above the focus of an earthquake.  Woah...How can I be connected to where the power of God is shaking the whole world?  I wanted to be where God was propelling the biggest activity – where the whole world was quaking because of the way He was hitting the surface of the earth.  I wanted to be in the middle.  I had come to a point where I found myself writing constantly, uncontrollably.  I decided it wasn’t anywhere near my answer but instead was my means to get to my Answer.  Anything to get me closer to where God was, is....  

My online dictionary research concluded with a “usage note”.  It said the geological usage was the most correct and the “figurative extensions” of the word should always be used in dangerous, destructive, or negative contexts.  Oh...

I did not want to find myself in the middle of something negative and destructive!  And yet, what I was really looking for, was the unmistakable and irreplaceable intensity of what it meant to truly follow Christ.  “He who wants to save his life will lose it...”  Sounds destructive.  “If any one would come after me, he must deny himself...”  Sounds negative.  “In this world, you will have trouble...”  Sounds dangerous.   Jesus promised things that were not all daisies and rainbows and said “this is what it means to be part of what I’m doing”?  Scary right?

I truly believe God is working inside the world I don’t understand.  Where my life is experiencing the earthquakes I cannot comprehend and leave me unable to get up off of the floor I am on, perhaps God is about to use me to be in the middle something so big, only God could have done it.  Perhaps the hurts and pains and uncertainties of this thing I think I’m living...are pieces and parts of what it means to be in the destructive and dangerous calling of what it means to be a Christ follower. 

I can be stuck on a word – legitimately or not – but in the end, it is the idea of following Christ with dangerous abandon that has my blood flowing with anticipation.  So I guess I am going to continue to be on a mission to discover.  Discover what it means to be me...to find me...to find that me caught in the epicenter...  

Forgiving Superman

When I was a young’n, watching “The Adventures of Lois and Clark” was a family affair.  Caleb loved the superhero interchange (it was about Superman...in case you are unfamiliar) and Faith and I (especially – although Amelia as the fourth was forced to join) would be swept into the continuous story and drama line.  Superhero or unfolding plot line as a secondary realization, however, years after my last episode and some clips still sit familiar as if the memory was fresh and new.

It seems curious...the clips a memory revives long after it first registers it.  The clips that would have made a strange impression as a child that now seem to be recalled with familiarity and truth.  There was one episode – late in the series – where Lois (now knowing Clark’s true identity) and Clark were married.  They were vacationing or something of the like when Clark heard something.  Off in a distance was a cry for help.  He was stuck.  Did he respond to the call because he knew, because he could, because he should?  Or did he stay back with his wife?  After all, he just wanted to be Clark Kent.  But he was also Superman...so was there any choice to be made at all?  Who would most need to forgive Superman?

It was this short clip from my memory and these and similar questions which plagued me this week.  Because, suddenly, the answers could be personal. 

You see, it all started when I was having an off Monday (which flowed into an especially busy week with days which were not 'off' just over-full). I don’t let myself have “off days” and I was increasingly grumpy not at the day but at my own bad attitude.  I was mad at the fact I couldn’t force myself into a better mood, that I was letting (and had let...) people down, that in my need to have someone come in allow me to have an off day...I couldn’t be the strong shoulders to lift up someone else. Two of my coworkers who know me best and whom I worked most closely with this last week challenged my inability to get a grip on my world.  Separately of each other both coworkers looked my directly in the eyes stating “No one expects you to be Superman, Anika...” 

Except, well, except I do... 

I have long since been accused of having a superman complex.  I have a desire to save the world.  Most specifically, yours.  If I know you...then I literally mean your world.  I’ll admit I’m a fixer but much more than a desire to come in and solve what is wrong, mostly I just want to answer your cry for help.  I care, I try, I invest, I want to be there for you – if at all I can be, no questions asked.  People need people in their lives who can be superman for them from time to time.  Argue as you well, but you know it is true.  I’ve wanted to be a superman for the proverbial or literal you. Regardless of the time of day or the time it would take.  Regardless of what I had to put aside or move out of the way...I’ve tried to prove to you that you are important, that you matter to me, that you are worth whatever I have to give...whenever you need it most.  Work, mentorees, a family wedding, friends, plans, dreams, investments, the human race...bring it on. 

All of this typically means I expect more out of myself on others’ accounts than anyone actually expects out of me.  But I’ve set myself up for the kill...because I like being Superman. I like rushing in to save the day.  I like to be the servant and the encourager – I think God wired me this way and so it’s okay to like to act out of that wiring.  And, furthermore, I don’t know how I can hear or see a cry for help and not do what I can if at all I’m able.  I can’t just “sit there” if there is an opportunity to stand. A piece of me, for better or worse, is Super[wo]man. 

But with such come the questions.  And the problems...

If you’re Superman, don’t you have to do whatever you can if at all you are able?  [What about when I want to save the day...and can’t?] Do the people who know you best as most human forgive your absence and unusually distant tendencies?  [Those who only know me only as Anika shake their head and chuckle at my need to take off at a moment’s notice, to sleep less to accomplish more, to be all – all of the time.  They don’t understand.] Do those who only see you as their superman...if you were missing when they needed you most, would they ever forgive you for needing to be human?  [There are some who only know me as the Anika who comes in to save the day, whatever that might mean.  Whether they intend to or not – they make me their superhero.  And they are the most let down when my inability to actually do all and be all leaves them wondering where I’ve been...] Do those who see and understand the pull between the two sides...are they the ones most lost and most hurt by the fact you feel unable to be their hero – but also unable to be their human, their you, their friend?  [And perhaps this question hurts the greatest.  The people I want to be there for the most I often feel are caught in the crossfire...left behind my by inability to be their hero or their friend...]

And what about when I just can’t be Superman any more?  When working 15-hour days followed by more work is too much?  When I’m weeks behind on the correspondence that used to be consistent and intentional? When I can’t send all of the emails or make all of the calls?  When I can’t run the errands, schedule the plans, devise another idea, make one more stop or drive one more hour?  When I can’t check in, when I can’t counsel, when I can’t advise, when I can’t be simply the listening ear?  When I can’t finish the project or a book or remember if I have hobbies? When I’m not sleeping and I’m not eating and I’m not releasing and I’m still leaving the world disappointed by my inability to be the conqueror?  What about then?  Will I be allowed to be Anika?  Will I be allowed to step out and to step back?  To hole away in hiding where I read and write and sleep and run but talk to no one until I can handle life again? 

Because regardless of what I want to be and what I am some times convinced others expect me to be...I’m not actually Superman. 

What if I just want to be Anika?  The human.  The normal.  The kind of kid that has bad days occasionally where she doesn’t want to be around people or at work.  The kind of kid who wants to be selfish and take time for herself.  The kind of kid who actually only knows how to and feels like she should say ‘yes’ but says ‘no’ when she wants to.  The kind of kid who wants to just step back and step out and not feel guilty about whether she’s had time to be intentional and the initiator. What if...?

And what then?

Would the world, my world, be able to forgive superman?  Should they have to?