Daddy's Girl... Head on His Chest

I’m a “daddy’s girl”. 

I’m not embarrassed by the fact. [I’m also a “mamma’s girl” and have a great relationship with my mom.] 

But I do have a special relationship with my dad.  We’re wired in similar ways and he “gets” the way my brain ticks better than most.  When I need to whine and vent or I’m sick, I call my mom.  When I need someone to understand where I’m coming from, I call my dad. The story goes that as a babe, it was my dad alone who could get me to sleep when I was really fussy. There is more than one picture with me napping with him as a wee one...Dad asleep in the chair and me sound asleep with him, curled up on his chest. 

It’s not really surprising or really all that ironic (at least to me), that as an adult, when standing next to my dad, my height next to his, my head lays perfectly on his chest.  If I lean into him or he pulls me in for a hug, my head falls perfectly on his chest.  And when I’m having a bad day or a hard day that’s exactly where I want to be...held by my dad, with my head next to his heart.

And I know I am blessed to have a dad who loves and takes care of me so...even as an adult.  I’ve mentored girls with dads who should have stopped contributing after the sperm (because they’ve literally sucked up everything since in every imaginable way).  I have friends who have dads that are decent men...notable members of society...but nothing special or notable in the father department...they can’t and don’t hug or communicate or interact and never really have.   My siblings and I have never had to doubt how much our father loves us.  (Heck as “Papa John”, friends young and old have been given tastes of a father’s love through my own dad.) My dad is a good dad.   

He reminds me often of the love a father is supposed to have for a child.  And he reminds me of, because he mimics, the love of the Father. 

Throughout scripture, and in especially meaningful ways in the New Testament as Christ defines the relationship with Yaweh by referring to Him as “Abba” – a tender term for father (similar to the way I will still occasionally refer to my father as “daddy”) – the love of God for His children is made evident. 

1 John 3:1, in one of my many favorite verses, states “See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!” 

My Heavenly Father is a known good God, but also a good father, a good dad.  Both in Matthew (7:11) and Luke (11:13) the words of Jesus are recounted that say that if evil fathers can give good gifts to their children, how much greater the gifts the Father will give to those who ask!  These verses are found in direct context of Jesus telling his disciples to come to the Father and to seek and to ask and come boldly.  I don’t feel as if it is impertinent to translate this to know that if imperfect fathers can love their children in imperfect but good ways (giving good gifts), God can only love in perfect and good ways... He is a good dad.

Admittedly, when I think of my own dad and think of how this is a reflection of the love God has demonstrated to me, I think of an old Carpenter’s Tools song.  A song that recounts the story of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15) and in the chorus the words reiterate “And then He ran to me; He took me in His arms and held my head to His chest...”  In fact scripture (depending on the translation) says that the father ran and “threw his arms around” his son or “embraced” him. (vs. 20).  I know the full theology behind this parable.  I know Jesus was speaking to the Pharisees about their role in the story.  But still, in midst of it all, I see the simple truth: God loves His children and calls them to Himself. 

Some times, when the days are long and life feels hard...when I’m struggling with the pieces in parts, it is this image of God I need to come to.  I know His love and His faithfulness and presence.  I do my best (although fail often) to rely steadily on the One who Is regardless of the day or situation.  And I am thankful and blessed that when life doesn’t make sense...when I can’t fix the pain or the hurt; when I just need One to understand where my heart is sitting, my God knows me as His child and allows me to know Him as a father. There are many pieces of life that don’t make sense right now.  Pieces that hurt.  Pieces of the world that I can’t fix and can’t hold.  I’m thankful that the world has the same opportunity to be held and to be known. That God takes care of His world far better than I can or ever will (turns out, I’m still not God! Hallelujah!).  I am terribly blessed to have a Father God, that much like my daddy, when I come to seek Him; He takes me in His arms and holds my head to His chest...

“What marvelous love the Father has extended to us!  Just look at it – we’re called children of God!  That’s who we really are.  But that’s also why the world doesn’t recognize us or take us seriously, because it has no idea who he is or what he’s up to.  But friends, that’s exactly who we are: children of God.  And that’s only the beginning. Who knows how we’ll end up!  What we know is that when Christ is openely revealed, we’ll see him – and in seeing him, become like him...”  

1 John 3:1-2 [The Message] 

I See You

I see you.

You’re not hidden to me.

I see the parts...

You don’t want me to see.

I see things that are real,

Things that are true.

I see you...

I do.

I see the pieces battered.

The places that hurt and cause shame.

I see you with them...

And I love you the same.

Off in the corner you stand alone,

You question what it’s like to be both loved and known.

Will anyone claim the one with no one to claim?

Or will “not fitting in” be your only grasp on fame?

Know that I see you.

You’re not hidden to me.

I see the parts...

You don’t want me to see.

I see things that are real,

Things that are true.

I see you...

I do.

I see the pieces battered.

The places that hurt and cause shame.

I see you with them...

And I love you the same.

Under the covers you stay...

Sleeping though life and most of your day.

Wishing the clouds would lift and the pain would go away

And you wonder if anyone has noticed you’re not really “okay”.

I noticed; I see you.

You’re not hidden to me.

I see the parts...

You don’t want me to see.

I see things that are real,

Things that are true.

I see you...

I do.

I see the pieces battered.

The places that hurt and cause shame.

I see you with them...

And I love you the same.

You look in the mirror and you sigh.

Though anyone else would question why.

You primp and you fuss and you look on with disgust

Hoping the rest of the world approves of you today. 

My approval came before your sigh because I see you.

You’re not hidden to me.

I see the parts...

You don’t want me to see.

I see things that are real,

Things that are true.

I see you...

I do.

I see the pieces battered.

The places that hurt and cause shame.

I see you with them...

And I love you the same.

The scale is your critic and your judge. 

You base your worth on whether your jeans fit too snug.

You skip a meal and make an excuse,

You’ll be “enough” when there is nothing left to lose...

You’re only losing yourself...but I see you.

You’re not hidden to me.

I see the parts...

You don’t want me to see.

I see things that are real,

Things that are true.

I see you...

I do.

I see the pieces battered.

The places that hurt and cause shame.

I see you with them...

And I love you the same.

Scars line the inside of your wrists, your stomach, your thighs.

The remnants of the hurt and pain you couldn’t cry.

When it became more than you could bear, you turned to your knife.

Bleeding the means and release to saving your life.

The life you grasp for as I see you.

You’re not hidden to me.

I see the parts...

You don’t want me to see.

I see things that are real,

Things that are true.

I see you...

I do.

I see the pieces battered.

The places that hurt and cause shame.

I see you with them...

And I love you the same.

You feel like no one would believe your story so real.

Wouldn’t understand the wounds you still feel.

A body and life violated, disregarded, abused...

Who could ever again love someone marred and used?

I would. And I see you.

You’re not hidden to me.

I see the parts...

You don’t want me to see.

I see things that are real,

Things that are true.

I see you...

I do.

I see the pieces battered.

The places that hurt and cause shame.

I see you with them...

And I love you the same.

Don’t you dare think no one cares.

Don’t you dare think no one’s there.

Lean on me, I’ll hold you tight.

Together we’ll set the world to right...

Because I see you.

You’re not hidden to me.

I see the parts...

You don’t want me to see.

I see things that are real,

Things that are true.

I see you...

I do.

I see the pieces battered.

The places that hurt and cause shame.

I see you with them...

And I love you the same.

AK November 2012

Wheatback Pennies and Worth

I was cleaning up my room this weekend...as I try to do every weekend.   Despite being immaculate at the week’s beginnings, something always happens.  I suspect a series of tornadoes caused by the quickly changing pressure systems in my apartment (aka: the more stressful things are, the more my life has this tendency to spiral and things just sort of fly through the air and land where they may...). 

But, alas, I digress.

Needless, upon picking up, I placed some odds and ends in a small wooden bowl where I tend to keep, well, odd and ends.  At the bottom, however, I noticed a penny.  I thought this interesting.  Pennies have a very particular place in an old Jone’s Soda bottle in my room.  I picked it up, ready to place it in its proper spot, when I realized why I had placed it to the side.  It wasn’t just a normal brown penny. It was, in fact, a 1953 minted Wheatback Penny.

Admittedly, to me, though fascinating (I love “old” things)...still it is worth just about, well, one cent.  Not worthless – I do keep collecting my jar of pennies which I know currently contains several dollars because they add up – but lets face it, no one really misses them when they’re gone.  And my wheat penny?  Had I realized it was missing (not likely as I had forgotten I had it to begin with), its loss would have probably been met with a “bummer” and that, that would have been it.

So, other than the fact it was “cool”, why did I keep it around?  Caleb.  My younger brother Caleb enjoys coins.  He collected/s the state quarters and has a mass assortment of varying coins from varying countries. Initially I had set this penny aside because I knew Caleb would probably appreciate it and see in it a worth that wasn’t in my line of vision or understanding.

Because Caleb appreciates coins, there would have an inherent value in the coin itself, although it wouldn’t surprise me to find he was also well aware of its extended monetary value as well.  In fact, I did a little quick research and discovered that my 1953 S mint wheatback penny is worth, *drum roll please*...

$0.03!

Alright, so despite the fact my penny has increased in value by 300%, it still not worth much... but my brief research also confirmed that depending on the year and rarity potential a wheatback penny, very much like mine, could be worth as much as $1,000,000!!   WHAT???? 

Mind. Blown.

Mostly, because, had I picked up, say, the 1914 D mint penny valued at a much less $1500...I still would have thought its worth to be somewhere around, well, one cent.  Its value would have meant little in the wrong hands.

It makes me wonder, contemplate, and become intrigued by the ideas of “value” and “worth”.  What things have little worth or value in the wrong hands but are of infinite value in the hands of those who can hold, because they know, the true worth?   And I think the end of this query almost always ends not with pennies or things or even ideas or causes...but people. 

It’s not really a new contemplation.  I, admittedly, struggle greatly with the idea of my own worth.  That I have some sort of intrinsic value.  And I have to be reminded of Whose hands I’m in and how my value increases exponentially in the eyes of the One who not only made me but desires me. 

And I have to remind others of the same.  If I truly believe they have worth and value (which I do) – then I should be communicating it. 

Sometimes it’s not so much taking a kid by the shoulders and shaking him/her and proclaiming that their lives mean something.  As a “quality time” person myself, I find time and attention go the longest way with the deepest impact to communicate truth.  Especially to the otherwise “forgotten” in a group or situation.  The forgotten will always look a little different for each person, in each individual’s sphere of influence...teens, old people, babies, marginalized, racially diverse, minorities, special needs (to give very broad categories)...

This was reinforced this morning at church. I, in conjunction and assistance to my best friend, have taken on a youth group at her home church.  Started because, well, Liz saw an unmet need.  A need for the teens to feel like they had a place to connect to feel like they mattered.  So, drenched in prayer we attempted uncharted and uncertain waters...asking for six months to see what would happen...

In the last two months, I’ve grown quite attached to my kids.  Our group of teenagers is a gangly bunch – more closely resembling “The Sandlot” in terms of dynamic personalities and gawky misfits than an expected small-town Sunday School class.  And yet...a half hour after church when we were still chatting with teen six and seven it became apparent.  Apparent how much they blossom over the attention.  We see it every week.  After six weeks, our teens are now excited to see us.  And when they come in quiet and withdrawn, it doesn’t often take us long to draw them out.  Over the last month or two we’ve watched our most consistent teens blossom in little ways...off of shoots and branches others had presumed dead and told us not to expect to much from.  I’m going to be honest and tell you that Liz and I are nothing special as youth leaders...but we are intentional.  And we’ve strove to make sure our group knows they’re important to us. We will go back and smirk and laugh a little when other adults approach us with shock and surprise.  “How did you get B to...??”  “How did you know...??”  “Did they really tell you/show you/joke with you about...??”  “We had no idea!” 

And so comes the answer to the reason Liz started youth group in the first place...because though you held them, you couldn’t see their worth or their value.  Sometimes...it just takes the right set of hands.  The right set of eyes.  The right heart.  The right mission.  Sometimes Liz and I just want to scream.  “Don’t you see it!?  How could you miss it?!  They are so ready, so eager, of so much worth and value.  They just need someone to remind them they are worth valuing; that they shouldn’t be tossed to the side or forgotten; that they would go searching if to go missing not disregarded with a ‘bummer’ if it was noticed they were present or gone at all...” 

What are you holding or what do you have the potential to hold with an immeasurable value that you’ve almost disregarded?  What, or who, when placed in the right hands suddenly has to be seen with a completely different perspective and significance? What do you hold that God already values as of immeasurable worth? (The parable of the lost coin seems especially applicable here...) Do you see it holding the same value?  Is it a friend? Acquaintance? Stranger? Is it you?  On any account...now what?

"But now, God's Message, the God who made you in the first place, Jacob, the One who got you started, Israel: 'Don't be afraid, I've redeemed you.  I've called your name.  You're mine.  When you're in over your head, I'll be there with you. When you're in rough waters, you will not go down. When you're between a roach and a hard place, it won't be a dead end - Because I am God, your personal God, the Holy of Israel, your Savior.  I paid a huge price for you: all of Egypt, wit rich Cush and Seba thrown in!  That's how much you mean to me!  That's how much I love you!  I'd sell off the whole world to get you back, trade the creation just for you..."  Isaiah 43:1-4 MSG

The Mystery of Tie-Dye...

I work at a camp.  One of the classes offered is...tiedye.  As an instructor I taught my fair share of this magical and colorful class and now, as health officer, I have taken on the task of untying them, sending them down to laundry, and sorting them once they come back.  This latter task is new for me and interesting...because now I see the shirts both before...and after.

I’ll admit...the “before” picture is always a little intimidating.  T-shirts in bag still dripping in dye of a brownish-orange-green with clearly arbitrary spots of blue and red speckled through in spiral formation...  My gloved hands attempt to squeeze out some of the pooling mess and I think (and sometimes verbalize) a statement of “Really?  Really???  Did you even try at all??”  A couple weeks ago I looked at blotchy, runny, wadded shirt and, as I pulled off the rubber band and tossed it into the bag to go to laundry I, out loud, proclaimed “I’m sorry all of the other kids are going to make fun of you because you have a terribly ugly shirt!”  

I looked for that shirt as I sorted them into their appropriate cabins a couple days later.  I couldn’t find it.  That always happens.  And in so lies the mystery of tiedye...

Sure, when the campers walk around with their shirts on Thursday night, you can see that some are better than others. Some bolder, some with the colors blended better, some impressively executed.  But you can never tell which ones started out the ugliest.  In fact, some of the best...start off as some of the worst.  I know this...as once I untied a disgusting looking shirt that was a complete hot mess and decide to open it completely to examine before placing it inside the bag to be washed.  Some incredible blend of purples and greens and blues and even some remaining yellow left in an impressive spiral design.  Beautiful in terms of tiedye in fact.  Or, the dripping red intestinal looking (before unbinding) bull’s-eye pattern which came out with an awesome purple bursting design with red and pink-white rings.  Who would of thought?  Not me. 

It frustrates me...which I realize is silly.  But it’s just these 5^th and 6^th grade little monsters aren’t even really trying and look at the outcome!  I think about my own tiedye shirts I have made and wear as part of staff.  I think of how meticulously I planned the design and colors.  How carefully I applied the dye and mixed shades.  How adequate but unimpressive my shirts look in the end. Why did I try so hard??  Once last week I pulled open a t-shirt and fantasized about giving a blank, white shirt to a 6^th grader and letting them go to town to create for me one of their disastrous masterpieces. The irony of it all! 

And some part of me can’t help but think this is real life.  A disastrous masterpiece.  And because the “connector” in me loves to see parallels, there are some bits of truth in this tiedye mystery... 

1. Planning doesn’t necessarily dictate outcome.  Don’t get me wrong...you can always tell the kids that put in a lot of time and effort and tried hard.  Their shirts often look great.  But just because it looked great wound up, won’t mean it ends up looking awesome.  It, in fact, doesn’t even guarantee that it will look better than one that started off as a hot mess.  And, perhaps more importantly, just because it looks like a hot mess doesn’t mean it’s destined to be forever ridiculed as ugly.  This can be frustrating.  Everyone knows someone who “does nothing” but whose life seems to be so flawlessly perfect or everything goes their way while those who try and sweat and plan wonder what’s going wrong.  As one who needs control I want to be able to do something with intention and expect a given result.  But not all of life is in my control.  Even if I want it.  Life is still about surrender...

2. “Don’t judge a book(/shirt) by its cover(/prewashed wad)” gets proven yet again.  Beautiful things come from incredibly disastrous things.  I shouldn’t need to be reminded of this.  Much of my life is a testimony to the fact God works in and through the ugly to provide something of incredible splendor...even if I’m slow to realize it.  Sometimes one has to wait and see how things come out in the wash.  Literally. Sometimes stains and scars are the best witness to God’s grace and faithfulness in the midst of life and its storms. 

3. Beauty is the eye of the beholder.  I can smile and nod at the green/brown blotchy result as I tell a student their t-shirt is very unique when they ask me excitedly what I think....all the while trying to hide an inside cringe... And yet he is pumped and proclaiming “this is exactly what I was hoping it would look like!”  ‘A bowel movement?’ I want to question (but don’t of course).  I don’t make others’ shirts for them.  And I don’t live lives for others either.  Although sometimes I want to do both!  But in the end, it’s probably a good thing. I’m not them. I would botch their design.  Every shirt will be unique as the student who designed it; no two shirts will ever be the same... Diversity is beautiful. 

4. You might be surprised by what you find in the folds.  Just this week someone made what was really an innocent comment.  I smiled and nodded and thought “you never would have said that if you really knew me...”  What looks like an exceptional dyed shirt could be merely so-so or less than such...or beautiful on the surface and white underneath – shallow.  And, on the same token, an otherwise ugly shirt can surprise everyone with deep hues and bold designs.  It just depends...on what is revealed when the shirt is unfolded.  People are like that.  And everyone has folds, layers.  Piece hidden beneath the surface.  Everyone encountered has a story.  Some of them will be harder to stomach than one’s own.  

5. If you’re completely clean, you probably did it wrong.  The instructors on our staff who create the best tiedye and arguably the best instructors of it, rarely leave unscathed.  Their hands are dyed...despite gloves.  There are speckles on their face and a blotch on their jeans. (One coworker once proclaimed that she no longer owned a pair of jeans without a hint of tiedye).  Tiedying can be done “respectfully” (as we tell our students) but it is messy!  Intrinsically messy.  The more involved you get, the messier you get.  And you’re going to end up stained.  But it’s almost always worth it.  Life's messy.  And those who "do life" well are often marked by the journey.  There is something said to be living life to it’s fullest...

And there is something to be said for every disastrous masterpiece...

Imitation vs. Intimacy

I spent time recently working on some curriculum for my youth around the idea of “Storyline”...this whole idea that the story of Christ feeds in and through scripture and we have been grafted into the story.  Our story becomes part of Christ’s story and Christ’s story gets lived out through our lives, our stories.  And I decided to start the story at the beginning (a very good place to start).  Genesis.  Where the scene is set, the setting established, key characters named (aka: God and, for my purposes, generic man and woman made in the image of God – as generic man and woman created in the image of God are the continuing although ever changing characters in God’s ongoing narrative), and the plot alluded to in every meaningful way. 

I was working out my outline and got to Genesis 3.  Where Satan (the behind-the-scenes antagonist) enters the picture.  Here are Adam and Eve in perfect, naked bliss.  And Satan, disguised as the serpent, throws them a curve ball with a temptation.  A bite from the tree of good and evil.  He tempts them with the one thing they don’t have.  And the ironic thing is...they don’t have it because without that choice, it doesn’t exist!  Pefect.naked.bliss. Perfection!  They can’t know the difference between good and evil because there is no evil!  There is no difference!  God knows.  And Adam and Eve choose that to know what God knows would be better than what they now have...an existence where God walks with them in the garden in the cool of the day.  In in a moment, in a bite, they choose imitation over intimacy. 

 . 

Imitation over intimacy.

They choose to be like God instead of to be with God.  They were made for relationship with the Almighty.  WE were made for relationship with the Almighty!  Built into the core of who we are is a craving and longing for connection with the supernatural because it was wired into the purpose of existence!  But perfect relationship was traded for imperfect knowledge.  Before Genesis 3 even comes to an end, we see God hint to a bigger plan.  The plan that, in retrospect, we can see alluding to the coming of Christ, the coming of a Messiah.  One who would save humankind from their sins and *drum roll please* restore relationship! 

Seems basic.  Maybe even “old school” theology.  Not real deep.  Not above the obvious for a sub par biblical scholar.  So what’s the point?  It seems basic but it caught me profoundly and new though the story be told hundreds of times.  I have always taken the basic reality of the actuality and attributed my post-New-Testament choice...  “I have Jesus,” I’ve always thought – far too easily, “I made a choice to accept the price, the mercy, the grace, and the conquering over the grave and therefore I have restored relationship.  It’s come full circle.”  Wrong.

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

Wrong.

Wrong because there is no full circle. (Unless the circle starts back over with me destroying restored relationship.)  Wrong because I almost daily fall into the old but new pattern of choosing imitation over intimacy.   I choose to be like God instead to be with Him.  I choose to be my own god (isn’t that what Adam and Eve wanted, to be on par with their creator?) and make my own choices and seal my own demise while doing things just so and so rather than live inside of restored relationship.  I want to know things I shouldn’t know...I worry instead of trust and harbor instead of forgive (both instances where I know the difference between good and evil and still live outside of relationship...).  I have Jesus but in a moment, I push aside the intimacy I was created for.  I choose to be like God instead...a temptation with no real fulfillment. 

Oh, sure, it looks different now.  I call myself a Christian, you know.  I believe that my attitude should be the same as Christ Jesus (Philippians 2) and that whatever I do, I should for the glory of God (1 Corinthians 10).  I am a firm believer that asking yourself honestly “What Would Jesus Do?” and responding accordingly is without question necessary.  James says faith without works is dead.  Absolutely. Actions matter.  Looking the part - not without merit.  And yet I think I need to be reminded that works without faith is flattery on the verge of mockery.  Imitation crab.  Cheap, processed, substitute lacking any of the reality.  Oh, yes, I want to look and act like Jesus. Truly. But I’m not in relationship in such a way as to know how He would have me mirror Him. And that's the problem.  

I am still trading intimacy for imitation.  I want to look like Jesus, but I don’t really even “carve” out the time for the One who should be infiltrating my every moment.  I end up little more than a white-washed tomb and goody-goody Pharisee of Jesus’ day...convinced I’m closer to God because I look the part.  But I really do want to look like Jesus! I want you to look at me and see Jesus. I want you to know that I’m a Christian because of my love (John 13).  I want you to know the power of Christ over death in the resurrection (Romans 1).  I want you to know me to be merciful and gracious and humble and a servant and...  That’s all well and good.  It is.  But looking like Jesus and being intimately connected to the God of the universe?  Oh, those are two separate things.

The interesting part is that intimacy breeds imitation. (Imitation will almost never intrinsically breed intimacy – “who cares? I basically look the part anyway?”)  It doesn’t take an Einstein to figure this out.  Just look at couples who have been married for 20 years... Long before they get to the matching jogging suit stage, they physically start to resemble each other.  Science has actually proved this!  And that is just one off handed example. 

For another basic personal anecdote...my best friend, Liz, has an eyebrow. Two actually.  But when she seeks to show her displeasure, disdain, or overall unsatisfied confusion with whatever is being displayed before her eyes (often something I’ve said), she raises just one eyebrow.  And purses her lips.  And brings her chin to the side as if to make eye contact more specifically and to say “Really?  REALLY?”   If you know Liz, you know exactly what I’m talking about.  She does this.  And now, because I spend quite a bit of time with her, I do it too.  I didn’t start making faces in the mirror and practicing before leaving the house one morning.  I didn’t think “I would like to claim that face she makes”.  In fact, I hadn’t even realized I had picked it up until I was with Liz and proceeded to give something her own wiry look and she declared “That’s my face!  That’s my look!  I do that!” A

The more time you spend with someone; the more intimately you’re connected to someone; the more you begin to pick up on his or her isms.  Habits.  Character.  Nature.  It’s just the same with God.  How could it not be?  Intimacy is the original design.  A design where the key secondary characters were made in the very likeness of God.  Made to resemble God.  (And so the greatest spawns the lesser).  And such is the time spent abiding in intimate relationship with the only One who both knows and loves me fully. 

Today will I choose to imitate or be intimate?  To hide or to abide?  

"So come with me, I'll show you life even better than this. Come with me, I'll show you love, you didn't know could exist. Better than your first crush; better than your first kiss.  I'll show you how to live..."
 - Sanctus Real

The Middle of the Cinnamon Roll...

Summer Ponderings - July/August 2012

The skies were beginning to grow dark despite the fact that dusk was still a few hours away.  And the winds were picking up...with just a little drizzle in their sharp breezes. A single rumble of thunder was just close enough to recognize and just far enough away to question.  After weeks of near drought, a storm was brewing.

I closed my eyes and allowed a contented smile to find its way across my tired face and reach a small piece of my weary soul.  A storm.  Something about a good storm seems to put my world to right...

The new, young friend sitting beside openly expressed the antithesis of my moment of internal pleasure.  She was eager to escape the deep, dark skies, powerful winds and crashing rain of an approaching storm.  To escape the terror.  I, I myself was still caught in the impending wonder.

Such a realization is never truly lost on me.  Not even on the worst of days in the hardest of weeks.  A storm will forever and always catch my sense of both terror and wonder.  For years now, I’ve been gripped by the wonder.  The wonder of a storm. 

It was during an incredible January thunderstorm with rain cascading down and flooding the streets and thunder rattling the building and lightening crashing through the dark sky in vibrant hues...which I watched from a third floor hospital room...that I first became conscious of this gripping.  Of the way it captured not only my attention and imagination but also my heart.  From the hospital room without a voice, several new scars – including a painful one across my throat – and a fresh and raw cancer diagnosis, I found myself in my own storm.  One where I was scared to admit even my fear...and I was desperate to see the beloved beauty and wonder of the storm I loved and saw outside my window...inside of my own.  Inside of my own storm.  I found it in me.  The me I was in Christ. The unique way I was designed wasn’t at the hands of cancer or the life surrounding.  I was still there somewhere. Who I was and who I was created to be was locked in something both terrifying and wonderful. 

I clung to that identity.  With the ferociousness of one who watched the rest of life cascading between her grasp and spiraling out of control.  And spiral out of control it did.  For another four years.  And after four years I opened my clasped fists and looked at the shell of who I once thought myself to be.  For everything I thought I was clinging to, there was nothing left.  Little by little the things of life had stolen the life out of me.  Some pieces I know I conceded willingly – though for some I traded riches for rags.  Other pieces life snatched out from underneath of me when I least expected it and far without my permission.

I woke up some mornings ago and realized I had no idea who I was anymore.  It was a terrifying realization.  Jesus was still in the midst of things but I could only see where my relationship with Him gave purpose and not definition.  Nothing made me excited or got my blood flowing.  Things that used to make my eyes light up or my pulse quicken seemed silly in some cases, juvenile in others, not applicable would be saying a lot, and all of them a million miles away.  

But that didn’t and doesn’t make me a shell.  Just like making my way to the middle of a cinnamon roll (the best part)...there has to be more to what I’m seeing.  The best and truest pieces are yet uncovered.  If I can just get to the core...  Because I’m not who I want to be... And not who I could be....  And there are glaring pieces missing from my definition... And I find it hard to dream a dream or place myself inside a reality where life will truly play out.  There are some wires that need to be connected and adjusted in order to really plug into the power.  But I am still wired. Uniquely wired...designed, formed, and created.  With all I struggle with in the midst of identity, I have to trust that the God who knit me together in my mother’s womb, wasn’t a novice...but knit me together with a plan and purpose, intricately and expertly.  And in the midst of recognizing a new definition, I have been clinging to the promise of Philippians which tells me that He who began a good work in me, will also be faithful to complete it.  For all I am and all I’m not, I am not finished yet...

“My name is Anika.  I have a dozen pet names and nicknames and mispronunciations...almost all of which will make me smile or at least smirk in a reluctant acknowledgment that you are trying. But a piece of me melts when you use my name correctly and intentionally.  Anika.  Anika Joy.  No one really uses or knows my middle name but those who do challenge me to live out of it.  And one of my greatest joys is to see and experience the joy in others.  I love watching people smile; seeing the things that fill them and their faces with pieces of real joy.  Perhaps, ironically, because it is the hardest thing to find in myself.  Past their smiles, I simply love people.  Though I try to deny it, I very much love those in the world around me.  I love loving on people for no reason at all and finding ways to remind them of their worth and value.  I love rich conversation with friend and friend to be...talking and listening and solving the world one word at a time.  And I ache and I break but I am filled with such a compassion and desire to hold and so love when I am trusted with others’ worlds.  I love being sought out for wisdom and advice and a listening ear and the confirmation that who they are and what they’re feeling, that they’re feeling, isn’t stupid.  I love helping them live out of the identity...the one as the Beloved...the one I myself often struggle to claim...

But somewhere, somewhere in that identity is me.  Simply me.  And I love simple pleasures.  I love eating around the outside of a cinnamon roll and savoring the middle...I love the middle.  I love a good cup of coffee and smooth dark chocolate.  I love hot baths where I can soak until the water cools and instrumental piano music and homemade bread...making homemade bread.  I love heavy blankets when the weather is cool (and when the bedroom is just cool enough to justify turning on my electric blanket to sleep snug under the covers even when it is sweltering outside).  I love being genuinely hugged – long and tight – by family and friends...the people that mean the most.  I love long letters to and from those friends and I love time simply spent doing life with them.  I love seeing the world through their eyes and the way they make normal moments an adventure. 

I love adventures – big and small. I love pausing and drinking in the fullness and richness of life wherever it is to be found.  I love the excitement and fear in my stomach as a plane arrives in a land I’ve never been.  But I also love basic road trips with the radio up and my sunglasses on.  And I love long walks and the feeling after a run – though the experience itself is often painful and slow.  I love swing sets and flying through the sky and living in the moments where I feel completely free.  I love being free to experience the world around me...especially barefoot and from between my toes.  I love sunsets and lying out on damp grass to stare into a black night with stars that shine with a light breaking through the darkness in a way which can’t be understood.  And I love sitting on the beach and listening as waves crash against the shore.  I love driving down a road where the trees cover as a canopy...with the branches cloaked in ice during the winter and the colors of the fall and the flowers and buds of blooming spring and the rich green shade of summer.  But most of all, I love spring.  I love the newness.  I love opening a window with soft breezes and warm sun just as the world is becoming alive again. 

I love when the world, my world, feels the most alive. I love teenagers and the way they are their own but not yet...and still need someone to help show them the way, still want to be someone worth investing in.  I love camp and watching young people of all ages and kinds come out of their shells to experience life.  I love when camp includes Jesus and suddenly the kids encounter a God who loves them in the midst of a place they love with people who love them and things like faith begin to become real.  I love doing life with my family and the time spent with my siblings...Caleb’s shoulder rubs or goofy way he’ll insist on calling his sisters beautiful in pajamas and a pony.  Or Gabe’s gentle giant approach to life and the way he’ll sneak in for a hug before telling me he misses me.  Or Amelia’s compassion for the world and our conversations where we’re out to solve its problems over a gas station donut.  Or Faith’s quirky humor but intentional nature...all in the midst of the fact she will always be my big sister and the one I still rely on for advice and a perspective shift. 

But part of me, admittedly loves when my perspective – or at least my mindset – can’t be shifted.  I love doing things that people tell me I can’t...and then blaming it on my stubborn Dutch heritage and pride when I’ve proved them wrong.  I love doing things out of the ordinary... things that surprise people.  Pretending to live fearlessly.  I love random facts and strange information and the look of amusement on faces when I share it precariously.  I love getting lost in a good book and captured by someone else’s story.  I love stories.  I love hearing stories.  I love telling stories, sharing stories, writing stories.  I love the sound my fingers make as they fly against a key board barely able to keep up with the thoughts I haven’t paused to consider. 

I love the way that Jesus has a way of showing up in the words which are left when I do stop to consider.  And I love the way that Jesus is in the habit of showing up when I least expect it.  I am overwhelmed by God’s faithfulness in light of my infidelity.  The way in which He is always there, waiting, on the other end of my protest...reminding me He has never left.  That praise is a choice.  That joy and trust and obedience and repentance and love are all choices.  Choices I am called to make in the midst of all I don’t understand and all life sends...and in so doing never removing myself from His presence.  I can’t comprehend or fathom the how and the why of the fact He loves me but God’s love never fails. He is the middle to my cinnamon roll, the best part at the core of who I am.  And He continues to reveal Himself in ways He knows I’ll understand...in pictures and analogies...the reminders of that faithfulness in those ways are never lacking.  And because of it, I will always love thunderstorms with strong winds and crashing thunder and magic lightening and watching it from my window until sleep claims me again.  Or and most definitely way the sun breaks through the clouds on a dreary day...creating just a glimpse of the light behind the darkness but showering everything it touches with golden rays.  Proof that there is more behind what I now see.  I still choose to see beauty in every scar...

Because scars are the reminder of pain but the appearance of healing.  Every scar tells a story.  May all of my scars eventually go back to tell not my story...but how my story fits into the Greater Story.  The Greatest Story.  May my identity first and foremost be found in Christ.  Found in that story.  And may that be enough...”  

I’ll Take My Heart Back

Who is this?

This reflection that I see?

Who am I?

With these empty eyes staring back at me?

What happened?

To the passions burning deep?

Is there life left behind

The death in these shallow heart beats?

Time to claim it before I lose it

Snatch it back before it’s gone.

I can no longer keep this treasure in your clutches.

I refuse to be the devil’s pawn. 

If you don’t mind, I’ll take my heart back.

It was never yours to keep.

It’s bruised and shattered now...

But what I sow, I guess also reap.

Don’t make me beg and please don’t make me plead.

Just give my heart back...

I’ll take it though it bleeds.

Who said...

It was yours for the having?

I don’t remember...ever giving it away.

What made you...

Think you could use it as you wanted?

Smeared and smudged, broken and undone, trashed and tossed away.

When were you...

Intending to come and ask me?

Permission never granted for the pulse you took away. 

Why would you...

Leave me here wanting?

Wanting for the life caught in those beats you’ve locked away.

So I’ll take my heart back.

It was never yours to keep.

It’s bruised and shattered now...

But what I sow, I guess also reap.

Don’t make me beg and please don’t make me plead.

Just give my heart back...

I’ll take it though it bleeds.

I never should have trusted

Hands that cannot hold.

I traded my heart strings...

A wellspring that shouldn’t have been sold.

I couldn’t deal with

All of its breaking mess.

I didn’t realize...

I needed nothing less.

Give me its shattered pieces.

The parts that rip and drip and bleed.

I’m here to take my heart back.

It’s time I am alive and I am free...

I’ll take my heart back

Because it was never yours to keep.

It’s bruised and shattered now...

But what I sow, I guess also reap.

Don’t make me beg and please don’t make me plead.

Just give me my heart back.

I’ve got nothing left...

And I’ll take it though it bleeds.

 AK July 2012 

Up to my Elbows in Bowel Explosion.

This summer, at Michindoh, I am the Health Officer.  I am Wilderness and Remote Location First Responder trained and certified.  Therefore I meet the minimal requirements of the state of Michigan to do basic triage and dispense medication in a camp setting.  It makes me, in short, a professional drug dealer (as my counseling staff has so informed me).  But it is far from the extent of my job description... [Despite being told once, on an unofficial and definitely ignorant level, that I didn’t really have a lot to do. I laughed a little in attempt to cover up my inner weep.]  It is true that on a good day, my office can be quiet if my campers are involved in activity without injury, but I rarely pause for significant periods of time...and never long enough to truly get bored.  I wake up before the campers and go to bed long after they do.  I am doing paperwork, and filing old forms, and pouring medication and dispensing medication and double-checking health forms and making phone calls to parents to let them know their daughter was stepped on by a goat and no longer has a toenail on her left most big toe.  I am a dedicated boo-boo bandager, official homesick whisperer, tear wiper, complaint listener, water nazi, and sunblock enforcer.  I carry a radio and am on call 24 hours to anyone who needs me to fly at a moment’s notice to reach in and save the day.  And I do my best.

But my job comes with added bonuses.  Like the title “Health Officer” makes me the most qualified member of camp staff to deal with anything gross.  Like vomit.  In the Nature Center.  All over the coat closet.  And when a camper wets the bed...his clothes and sleeping bag end up in my biohazard bag and often my wash machine.  I put on my personal protection equipment (or PPE’s as the Red Cross likes to call them...aka: gloves) and hold my breath, pray for a strong stomach and smile while letting counselors and campers know that it isn’t a problem or an inconvenience and its part of the job and I’m happy to serve.  I’ll admit I don’t always take on these endeavors with a joyful heart and sometimes the smile is very forced.  [I’ll even admit that after dealing with a suitcase of clothes and bedding that had been peed on three nights in a row but not noticed until they had sat in 100+ degree weather... made me throw up.] But it is part of my job and onward I go...

And yet, nothing could have prepared me for the radio message I received this week.  The one with ominous cues forewarning me about the situation at hand.

“Andy to Anika”

“This is Anika.  Go ahead.”

“Anika...What is your location?”

“Main lodge.  What’s up?”

“We have a...situation...down at the teepee’s.  Could you bring down a biohazard bag?  Some one had an...accident.”

“Well, I’m waiting for a camper to return from her t-ball game.  Dad should be arriving within the next 10 minutes.  Is the situation contained?”

“Oh, it’s contained.  In the second port-a-potty.  I could take care of it but you have the bag and the gloves.  And, you’re going to need gloves...  You might want to come sooner than later...”

Needless to say, before the conversation was done we had verified this as a “Number 2” situation of rather intense proportions.  Bless Andy for trying to be so discreet over the radio but nothing could have prepared me for the moment I opened up “port-a-john, second from the right”... 

With a pile of fecal matter in a happy pile in the middle of the floor...and the rest splattered and covering the seat and walls and four articles of clothing and also a towel left behind, I was quite taken aback.  I do what I have to do – always. But I don’t “do poop”.  I hate poop.  I removed the clothing, tied it into the biohazard bag, turned to go back in with my bottle of bleach, and turned back out to gag.  I went green in the gills and pale in the face.  To the day camp counselor who had accompanied just to laugh from 10 feet away, I looked out and proclaimed “I’m going to need more bleach!” 

It was just as I finished removing the cowpie in the middle of the floor that my radio bleeped.  Andy again.  I emerged from the port-a-potty with my gloved but brown hands in the air as I looked despairingly at the black talking box.  My laughing accomplice brought the box to my face and pushed the button so I could talk.  Bless her.  10 minutes in to this cleaning endeavor and Andy had a new idea “Anika, if you want to just take care of the clothes...I’ll call [our boss] and have the company come out and clean the outhouse professionally....”  I started to laugh.  Laughter that came as the outcry of my uncomfortable and unfortunate position.  My accomplice kept trying to hold down the button with failure as it moved further and further from my mouth as our bodies convulsed.  Really?  You couldn’t have thought of that 10 minutes ago? Finally, regaining composure, I replied.  “I’m up to my elbows in a bowel explosion!  That would be great!”  [Despite being so far into the project, I was nothing short of ecstatic not to have to finish it].  As I cleaned up the basic mess and removed my PPE’s, I turned to my counselor friend and replied “Is it okay to say bowel explosion over the radio?”  Neither of us were sure and I was pretty sure the answer was “no”.  Oh well.  It was the truth.  And sometimes the truth hurts.

Needless, it has been the ongoing and retold story of the week...akin to much laughter and faces of shock, disgust, and horror.  And it has also made me an involuntary superhero.  [“Anika, I appreciate you!” has been a recurring exclamation.  Apparently there are others in the world who “do poop” worse than I do]. 

And yet, it’s made me reflective, as life often does.  Because it’s not the first time I’ve been up to my elbows in bowel explosion.  [“Crap happens” might be a registered and trademarked family expression, actually...] Sometimes you find yourself in the middle of life that stinks.  Is gross.  Unwarranted.  And not your problem. You didn’t cause it; it wasn’t you who pooped on the lid of a port-a-john!  But it has become your problem and is now somehow your responsibility. 

And somehow, in someway, it has to be dealt with.  It seems unfair and quite unfortunate but there is a rarely a team of professionals to come and clean up the mess.  And referencing a bowel explosion out loud?  Rarely acceptable.  We keep our own crap a secret (although we’re often too willing to express others’) and we go on because it is life and our job and part of the price we pay for being alive in an ever falling and breaking world.

The question then becomes whether or not bowel explosions can be prevented or whether they must simply be dealt with? 

Sometimes I don’t feel like we recognize our ability to start from the front end. To be proactive in eliminating what’s causing the problem from the beginning.  I honestly feel at loss with the tragic occurrence of Port-a-John #2 but what about the rest of life?  Where are we, in some ways, responsible (either directly or by sheer apathy), for the crap that results? Or where, at minimum, can we step in and step up instead of stepping back?

On the other hand, too often I think we assume crap must be simply dealt with.  And for the most part, I feel like that’s true.  But we “deal” with it the wrong way...by merely putting up with it.  Accepting it.  Almost like walking in, seeing the crap, stepping to the side, and completing our business. Sometimes we have to be willing to dive into the crap and do something about it.  Not for the accolades or the superhero status but because if not you, then who?  We see the crap, suck up our pride, put on our PPEs and dive into the world’s bowel explosions up to our elbows and try to rectify the problem and hope that leaving the situation better than we found it will somehow be enough... 

Crap happens and bowel explosions do too.  But that doesn’t mean the world has to stink...

 [...and other unfinished thoughts and incomplete conclusions.]

Thirsty

It is a dry summer.

Even dryer than last summer if even if it is possible and if at all I had to guess.

And not only is it dry, I would dare say it is painfully dry. 

It’s one thing to be hot and sticky... But the sun-scorched grass, which is sharp as rocks, beginning to fall away to a dusty plain...somehow that is another story all together.

It hurts almost to look out at a season which should be teaming with life and instead see such an array of near death. 

You can almost see creation pleading for water.  Longing for refreshment.  Begging to be fulfilled that they may grow and produce as it was created to.  It is so...thirsty.

I am too.

It’s a dry season for me.

Endlessly dry.  Or perhaps just an endless season. 

And perhaps I would muddle through a simple dry season – they do come, this I know. But I’m not only dry; I would dare say I’m painfully dry.

It’s one thing to have a spell.  To have the reality of “dry” in place.  But somehow to have dry not move into restoration but to a life that’s falling away... seems like a whole another story all together.

It hurts; it confuses, to recognize a season which should be teaming with life... and instead be terrified of the reality of impending death.

I can see, I can feel, my soul pleading for water.  Longing for refreshment.  Begging to be fulfilled so that I can grow and produce as I was created to.  I am just, so...thirsty. 

How can I recognize such thirst, such longing, and still be so dry?  So unsatisfied?  Where is the passion, excitement, and joy of a life characterized by the presence of God and the reality of his streams of mercy and graces which fall like rain?  I am thirsty for God-alive (Psalm 42:1 – MSG).  So thirsty.  Where does one go to be filled? 


Psalm 42

To Be Held...

I’ll admit it. 

I confess. 

I sleep with a teddy bear every night.

Or most nights. 

Occasionally she just gets in the way and I choose to leave her out of my arms.  And other mornings I awake to find I’ve chucked her four feet to the floor in my sleep.  It’s nothing personal.  Really. I would honestly rather have her with me and I miss her when she’s gone. 

“Sophie” is a great companion...  Given to me my junior year in college just after the beginning of cancer round 2 by my aunt and uncle, (“when you hug it, take it as a hug from us and know we love you”), Sophie became just the thing I needed...a perfect, huggable sized bear, to curl up and cuddle and cry with when the days got to be too much or too long. 

The fact I now sleep with a stuffed animal sounds innocent when you realize I, at the age of 20 and 21, never went anywhere without her.  If I had to be in the car for more than a half an hour by myself, she came too.  Which means she accompanied me to all of my cancer appointments in Ann Arbor and every one of the many trips I made home. I buckled her into the front seat and we would talk as I drove.  I would debrief with her as I got out of an appointment – getting out in the open what was good, bad, frightening or frustrating about my latest check in with my doctors.  And I would tell her about classes and homework and professors.  I would complain about my ill-matched roommate and how much I missed having my sister at school with me and how lonely my days had become.  I once realized that spilling my day to Sophie was the first time I had spoken aloud in close to three days... 

Granted she never said much back (probably a good thing to admit if I would like to maintain claims that I haven’t lost quite all of my marbles...) but she listened.  Or I imagined she would.  It made me feel as if I weren’t quite so alone and not quite so crazy for talking to myself.  And sometimes I got the impression she would answer me.  Okay, more likely what I anticipated you she would say in response if she had more that stuffing for a brain.  And I would argue with her perceived response.  “Oh!  So you just think I’m whining!  Am I not allowed to whine sometimes? Even my stuffed bear doesn’t want to listen!”  “Yeah, well, maybe I’m sick of being nice to her!  Why can’t she just act like a normal human?!”  “You’re not saying much.  I’m sorry I do all of the talking...You’re right, sometimes I do just need to feel heard.” (I always said she said pretty profound things for being a stuffed bear... “Sophie” after all does come from the Greek “Sophia” meaning “wisdom”...)

Three years later and I’m growing up.  I talk to real people occasionally and even invite real people on long car rides I’d rather not have to make by myself.  I rely on their wisdom and insight far more than my teddy bear’s.  (*Gasp!*) Sophie still will get buckled into the backseat on trips where she is a worthwhile accomplice...but she doesn’t have to come everywhere and I can leave her to guard my bed for a night or two without me. 

But after a long day or a hard day...I still will curl up in bed in a fetal position and hold Sophie tight in my arms...wishing sleep to come and the world to go away.  And somehow having my bear as a tear threatens to make its way down my face makes everything okay or at least better... 

There is something about holding and being held. 

Because if I’m being honest, the nights where I am most prone to grab my bear and curl tightly, are the nights I most want to be held.  The nights where I imagine what it must feel like to be picked up while curled in that fetal position and be cradled.  Held tightly and close and against the chest of someone who loves me most.  Realizing the only arms in the universe big enough to cradle me belong to Christ...

There are other things to say.  Connections I wanted to parallel at one point.  But they stop prematurely tonight.  Because tonight is a “curl up tight and hold onto Sophie for all she’s worth” sort of night.  And it makes one wonder if someone is holding me like that too...  

Cheese and Crackers...and Surrender

When I was 13, I ate almost only cheese and crackers for the entirety of a summer.  Just cheese and crackers.

Now significantly lactose intolerant, I find this bit of personal trivia a little ironic and somewhat hilarious though completely true. 

I ate cheese and crackers.  For breakfast and lunch.  And dinner if I had a choice.  I don’t remember complaining about sitting down to normal food with the family at dinner time so I must not have been a brat about it. I just remember eating a lot of cheese and lot of crackers. 

I was constantly making requests and my mother will attest to the sheer volume of block cheese and boxes of crackers – both bought in nearly every imaginable variety – she purchased on my behalf summer of 2001.  (This also makes me believe I wasn’t a brat about it – my mom never would have simply bought things because I demanded it.  Ever.)

It was the summer of a difficult move (and let’s be honest, any move at 13 is a difficult one – although this one was particularly unbolting for this particular teenager).  As near as I have been able to deduce and conclude in my time working though pieces of my past, this was very much some subconscious way for me to gain control over the world I felt was slipping.  It was a coping mechanism. 

When the summer ended and school started, I still brought and ate cheese and crackers for lunch most days.  But soon “cheese and crackers” faded.  Probably as I became super obsessed with homework and grades and the other things I know I held onto and fought for fiercely in the absence of other pursuits; pieces of my life I felt like I had control over.  Whatever I felt I had the most control over, I gripped onto the hardest.  Whatever pieces I felt the safest in or the pieces I felt defined me most I would kick and scream to keep in the midst of life spinning out of control...with other pieces slipping through my fingers.   

The funniest part now is looking back at my “cheese and crackers” and realizing the oddity of the choices I made.  Whether it be this appetizer turned meal or my educational endeavors or the fact I currently need my socks/underwear/t-shirts to be in some sort of matching agreement at any given time...or any of the other ‘control’ choices I’ve made...none of them have been of substantial value.  None of them were/are life giving choices.  You can’t hear me laugh but I am, in fact, releasing, a moment of maniacal laughter to consider how some of these pieces of life I held onto so vigorously just about did me in.  Some life!

My cheese and cracker memories came full circle for me this weekend...  You see, I was asked a few months ago to prepare a message to give during summer camp.  And, specifically, I was asked to speak on the topic of surrender.  To elementary students.  No easy task.  For high schoolers or college kids?  Sure! But 8-12 year olds?  How does one communicate the depth of surrender to student who just doesn’t cognitively process there yet?   

I’ve been working diligently but with little fruit and so I did what I’ve always done – I talked it over with my dad (a pastor).  I mentioned a couple ideas and then noted how one friend thought maybe I should take it from the angle that “surrender is actually about trust”.  My dad shook his head and made his scrunched “thoughtful but confused” eyebrows and lip curl.  “No...” he said slowly.  “That’s what I was thinking,” I said, unintentionally cutting my him off. “I mean, it is but it’s not.  Surrender, in my mind...”  Our voices found the same moment of air and our words came out in surprising unison: “...is about letting go.”  Surrender, in the essence of what it is, is about letting go...

With it came several thoughts for the message I intend to give over the course of the summer and the pieces and parts for what it might mean to communicate and challenge little folk towards “surrender”.  But it also came with some pieces and parts for me.  Surrender is a good topic for me.  Perhaps because my life has demanded so much of it...again and again and again.  I’m just not actually all that good at it.

Because, well, the thing about surrender – is letting go.  And it seems beneficial to note that the things being held on to aren’t really that sustaining or life giving. It is often just what we feel is “all we’ve got left” or, at the very least, the thing we feel we have control over.  “You may be able to destroy everything else, but at the end of the day I still had cheese and crackers for lunch!”  Well...good.for.me. 

But surrender isn’t about being forced into a situation where everything you have decided important is taken away.  And it’s not a “letting loose”.  Surrender is always voluntary and it is a full release.  True surrender...it’s a life thing.  A whole life thing. 

I think part of me has always felt I could have Jesus and my control issues too.  “I will go ahead and love Jesus and I will also have high anxiety when my socks don’t match my shirt. That is fine.”  I do in fact realize how ridiculous this sounds but it truly does cause me anxiety and I am well aware that I use it as a way to grasp hold of control.  It’s not that Jesus isn’t going to see me through my...deals.  I am just also realizing that for as long as I hold onto socks or cheese and crackers or any number of other things, I’ve made them my idols, more important than God.  And I am never actually trusting who Christ wishes to be in my life.  My number one.  My first thing.  And so I never let go. 

I have to surrender.  I have to let go.  See, I can surrender with trusting but I can’t trust without surrender.  Surrender so often comes with so much fear because there is no ability to trust that letting go won’t also cause one to fall.  Yet trust, within itself, is surrender.  Because trust says I can let go because it’s not about what I’m holding it’s about who has always been holding on to me...    

“My help and glory are in God – granite-strength and safe-harbor-God – So trust him absolutelyk people; lay your lives on the line for him.  God is a safe place to be.” (Psalm 62:7-8 – MSG)

 “That’s right, Because I, your God, have a firm grip on you and I’m not letting go...” (Isaiah 41:13a – MSG).