But I'm Only Human...

It’s that time of year.

The time of year which comes almost as faithfully as my desire for it to leave. 

It’s that time of year where, quite literally, winter will not end.  That time where it feels as if winter has been here forever and though I long for any temperature which will allow me to be without a shiver and without purple fingers and blue lips…inside, spring seems desperately far away.  The cold remains. 

It’s that time of year where my copious amounts of Vitamin C, my obsessive hand washing in conjunction with my hand sanitizer fetish, and my attempts to drink enough water and maintain healthy habits have finally failed me.  The cold has set in and so has a cold.  My nose runs faster than a track star and my sneezing registers on the Richter Scale.  It’s that time of year where “feeling miserable” feels, well, predictable.

It’s that time of year where I’m just…tired.  The sun has been covered for too long.  My Vitamin D3 is feeling the lag.  My body fights harder to stay warm and to be healthy and to walk on slippery cement and I collapse into bed at night and hope the short hours will be enough.

But the hours are always too short.  Both to sleep and to be awake.  I can never get all the sleep I wish for and I can never complete all my to-do list insists upon.  And let’s not even talk about the things I can only dream of…The things I would complete if I had a second and separate life to live…

This is the reality.  The unfortunate truth.  The likely story in which I am not a lone character.

At one point, this reality would have bothered me.  I was just a cape short of a superhero and there was nothing I was incapable of doing if I didn’t try hard enough…

And I wanted to be the superhero.  Pridefully, I think I wanted to be seen as the superhero as well.  My egotistical side (which I am ashamed to admit I have) wanted to be seen as one who could and would do it all…with the help of Jesus and two cups of coffee or less! I liked better to be told to sit down and rest for a second – told to not carry the weight of the whole world on my shoulders – that I was doing too much and needn’t try so hard.  To be told not to be a superhero than to be asked to try…

But right now?  Right now being a superhero sounds freaking exhausting!  Not only can I not do it all, there is not a glimmer in me wanting to. 

And that’s a blow to my pride if there ever was one.  Not much damages it quicker.  It’s almost embarrassing in my Dutch stubbornness to admit I, in fact, am not capable of it all. 

Yet, it seems almost too easy to admit.  I recall looking at a coworker who came to me with a problem late in the week that I was given the impression I was expected to swoop in and fix.  And all I truly recall about the problem is that something inside of me snapped.  “No.”  I said emphatically (I almost never say “no”…).  “I can’t. If I had known about this sooner I could have tried, if indeed it has been an all week problem, but not on Thursday afternoon.  There is too much else to be done.  And I, I’m only human…”

The response wasn’t a pleasant one but it was my reality.  And the response I was given was one of frustration.  The tug-a-war being placed on my psyche to both swoop in and save the day and feeling completely incapable tore at me until I finally crashed that night.  That night when still the words “I’m only human” radiated through my brain like a scrolling marquee…

It was a helpless admittance of defeat.  To claim I was human was to make me no better than every other pathetic chap and worse than most. 

I have been drawn in the days since to my favorite Michael Jackson song (made my favorite by Free Willy.  Don’t Judge).  The song “Will You Be There?”  The song begs for someone to be there.  To fight for him.  To befriend him.  To love him unconditionally. You can hear the weariness of life in the words.  And then comes this set of lines I tend to remember when I only mumble the words before and after… “But they told me…A man should be faithful…And walk when not able…And fight til the end…But I’m only human…” 

But I’m only human…

Many times I’ve tried to walk when not able and be the last one standing, still fighting.  To somehow prove my faithfulness.  My faithfulness to people.  My faithfulness to my job.  And especially, and most importantly, faithfulness to God.  Yet, my voice and my walk riddles with the weariness life gives and my response is a same helpless but emphatic “I’m only human…”

And sometimes I wonder whether or not God celebrates when I wearily admit “But I’m only human…”  As if he is sitting there throwing up His hands declaring “Finally!  Now that she knows she’s human, maybe she will allow me to be God!”  I’m really good at attempting to take life by the horns and into my own hands.  I see it as being faithful but what it’s not is surrender.  Surrender is being faithful to follow and always allowing God to have the control and the first place in my life.  If God is second (or further down on the list), almost assuredly true faithfulness is as well.    

I forget God created and designed me as a human.  He could have made me anything and he made me, me.  And while I, and others in the world, will sometimes ask what He was thinking… this is what and who I am.  He made me Anika.  A mere mortal.  Which means, drum roll please, He doesn’t need me!  I can attempt to complete the longest to-do list my job has ever known and I can stop to take a bow when the last black line has crossed the bulleted list, yet the applause will be only superficial if I did through my own power alone and for my praise alone…to add another badge to my superhero girl scout troop cape.  No, when working for the kingdom, I am but a tool that God chooses to employ.  A mere mortal which allows Christ to be the increase. Paul reminds me in 2 Corinthians that God’s power is made perfect in my weakness.  Admitting I’m human remains proof that any superhero quality I display is that of a mere clay pot… fantastically ordinary holding the Extraordinary, any greatness not of my own.

I’ve discovered and am discovering too that admitting I’m human comes with its own surrender.  Of arrogance and pride.  Of my desire to be God (Which thankfully I am not!) And as long as I’m laying those aside, I’m not only allowed but invited to ask for help.  Human help is nice (as are the days when their arms can hold and carry) but God’s faithfulness and presence is as sure as mine is riddled with infidelity...

The answer to “Will You be there?” is always “I already am.”  Psalm 145:18 says “The Lord is near to all who call on him…” and Jeremiah 29:13 promises that if we seek we will find when we seek with all of our heart.  Furthermore the Psalmist questions in Psalm 139 where we can go to get away from God’s spirit and how far we would have to flee to get away from God’s presence.  1 John 4 tells us that if we know love, God abides in us and Jesus promises in the book of John to send the Holy Spirit as the “comforter” or "advocate" to be with us always. "Will You be there?"  "Always..."

It’s that time of year again…

The one which I wish would simply leave…

I stumble when I walk and want to give up before the end of the fight…

And it turns out I’m only human. 

May God be given the glory in this life I once again surrender to the Arms which have always been there to carry and to hold…

What’s In A Name?

I have been the health officer for the last two years (and an assistant before that).  In a summer and three (working on four) semesters I have become quite efficient at the art of health forms.  It’s a science.  I start at the bottom and scan for food allergies or other pertinent notations and then move up to medications.  If I see any health related pieces which I would need to attach to a personhood, I THEN look at the name. Due to my position, I come to know campers by their medications, food allergies, and tendencies to wet the bed. (Unfortunate, I know).

So it was odd, almost peculiar really, when I spotted it.  A child with no medications, no allergies, and not a single checked medical history box to speak of.  But there it was. My name.  A camper was coming with my name!  Anika.  Ironically, Anika K.  I was ecstatic!  I love my name and I love that it is a unique name, but it is also exciting to be able find some one else who shares the inability to find monogrammed pencils. (Even if she is merely a fifth grader I will know for only a week).  Yet, I stopped in my ecstatic tracks.  The fact I saw the name amidst my 125 forms seemed odd… it didn’t fit my pattern.

And then it occurred to me.  Oh so simple.  The answer for why I had managed to see her name scrawled against the top of a paper I never would have otherwise stopped to consider seemed obvious…

You come to recognize the name by which you are called.

You know your name.  You recognize your name.  When you see it, you take note.  When you hear it (or, in my case, you think you hear it…) your ears perk up to see who is talking to you or about you.  A name becomes an identifier for your own personhood and when you see it, hear it, you subconsciously and mostly unknowingly attribute it to yourself. 

And I’m coming to realize we do this with our “other names” as well. 

Not other names in that your name is William but you go by Billy.  (Or Mike for that matter!) But the names, the labels, the identifiers…the ones our family calls us, our friends call us.  The names we call ourselves…  The things the world may tell us we are. 

And these we come to recognize, for good or bad, as well.

I talked to a camper once who everyday wore something different which read “Princess” on it.  I mentioned it one day and she replied with a giggle so matter-of-factly “of course! That’s my name!  Or at least that’s what my daddy calls me!” To her, wearing “princess” was like wearing a monogrammed sweatshirt!

Most of us don’t wear our “other names” quite so boldly or proudly, however.  The older I get and the more people I talk to, I mean REALLY talk to, the more I KNOW everyone has a pocket full of nametags they put on the t-shirt, underneath of the sweater so no one will see.  But they have to wear it, because they have come to believe it to be true…

We come to recognize the names by which we are called…

And our ears perk up just the same.  For good, for bad, or for ugly.  We may recognize with a smile or cringe with a frown…but part us hears words, the words both written on the nametags we place on our resumes and hide in our journals.  We hear them and with the rest of the world listening on as if nothing strange was said, our insides are screaming…

“This is me…” 

And yet and still, most of us scoff.  “What is in a name!” we cry.  “It’s just a word!  It doesn’t define them!  It’s not all of who they are!”

Hubert Humphrey once said “In real life, unlike in Shakespeare, the sweetness of the rose depends upon the name it bears.  Things are not only what they are.  The are, in very important respects, what they same to be.”

And I find this to be true.  Not always because it needs to be but because it is claimed.  Often for ones self or if not, by someone else, and so it becomes true.  “I’m not ugly.  But I believe myself to be ugly.  Others believe me to be ugly.  I become ugly.  I am ugly…”  It’s a sorry progression and an unfortunate reality. 

Because you see, whether your name be “Ugly” or “Beautiful”, “Good” or “Bad”, “Leader” or “Follower”, “Self-Starter” or “Couch Potato”…or any number or level of name before, after, or in between, the answer to a question of “what is in a name?”  Can simply be stated: “A lot”.

It’s one of those things we know but often neglect to remember, to recall, to remind.  There is much found in a name and the roots are much deeper than the surface.  We come to claim labels as names and we come to recognize the names by which we’re called. 

It becomes a dangerous reality.  For I know the other “names” I recognize as quickly as “Anika” written a top of a page.  Some of them are names never spoken.  Names I’ve called myself when it is just ‘Myself’ to face.  Some are names I’m not proud of.  A couple are actually quite special in their own right…  But, though I will answer affirmatively if any of them were called, none of them are truly me.  Those names I have come to recognize are not my truest identity…

There is much in a name, not the least of which is power.  Power to build or destroy, to bless or to curse, to leave desolate or to find filled. 

I’m reminded of a sheet full of verses from my old (very old! As I only was in a youth group in 6^th and 7^th grade) reading “Who Am I?” at the top.  The list was filled with labels, with identities, with names.  Names which bore both power and purpose.  Names which claimed me and redeemed me.  “I am a slave of righteousness” (Romans 6:18).  “I am God’s possession” (2 Corinthians 1:21-22).  “I am God’s workmanship” (Ephesians 2:10).  “I have been blessed with every spiritual blessing” (Ephesians 1:3).  “I am not the great ‘I Am’, but by the grace of God I am what I am…” (Exodus 3:14, John 8:24, 28, 58 and 1 Corinthians 15:10).  And the list goes on and on…

Those are names to recognize.  For they are they names by which God calls us.  Calls us to and calls us by.  And what a life and transition the world would make, if we came to recognize that those were the names by which we are called…  

Value, Worth, and Throw-Away People

Ever torn apart your garage?  Or your basement? Or that one space in your attic?  Even if it is relatively organized, it still becomes the catch all for things misplaced and unused, stored and forgotten. Sometimes, really, the more organized it is, the more dangerous it becomes.  If it looks clean and put together, there is no need to sort through boxes of old kid toys, Christmas decorations, magazines, and yarn balls.  But then, sometimes, you must…

Such was a task we took on a couple of weeks ago as a staff.  We tore out every box, misplaced crate of craft supplies, and unconsidered Frisbee from underneath the forum…our “OE basement”.  Typically relatively well maintained with classes in boxes and labeled shelves and corners for most things to belong, it was time.  Time for an overhaul. 

We unpacked boxes to make sure everything had just what it needed and nothing it didn’t…

We created piles of legitimate garbage and others of questionable trash…

We wiped shelves and swept floors and unloaded old plastic milk crates filled with everything no one once-upon-a-time put away correctly.

We reevaluated every box of rocks (Literally.  We run an Outdoor Education program. We have boxes of rocks!) and mocked old posters.

And we fought.

Now, I love my coworkers.  I appreciate their personalities, their work, their dedication, their passions for ministry and their subsequent desires and abilities to feed into lives and to impact beyond the mere scope of their jobs.  But that doesn’t make them perfect.  (Please consult 94% of any of my previous blog postings if you’re looking for me to confess I am also not.  This is a point I will eagerly admit.  Fit me into the mix.)  And so it also doesn’t make us a perfect team. 

We fought. 

And argued. 

And belittled…each other, perspectives, knowledge, opinions.

A team of leaders…many head strong and opinionated…were all right.  And each more right than the others. 

We can be a GREAT team.  We lean and depend on and support each other in impossibly important ways.  But, it turns out if you want true colors of teamwork to show…you ask our team to…sort.

Yes.  Sort.  Organize.  And especially…throw away.  That’s what we fought about.  That was the starting point for every spat.  What did we keep, and what did we throw away?

And it’s here that I, myself, struggled.  I, for one, learned no one sorts the way I do. Sees organizational patterns the way I do, or tackled the project in the way that I saw fit.  However, officially, from a practical standpoint, I’m a moderate.  I sometimes am prone towards saving…but it is almost always for sentimental reasons amidst which rocks, pelts, and old tables had none.  I’m all about throwing away clutter and getting rid of things that have outlived their purpose.  But I also see purpose and value where sometimes others don’t…

And yet, most of my coworkers weren’t so moderate.  Indeed, some of them were quite harsh.  It became a shouting match of “well I have never once used this!  Therefore it has no value!”  What about the fact some one else uses it every week?  And “I don’t know what this is for!  I will never use this!  Therefore no one ever will!” 

To me, the logic seemed flawed.  It frustrated me to no end.  Sometimes personally as the “junk” they had decided was long since useless, was something I used.  Something I saw with a purpose. 

I struggled.  Admittedly some with my coworkers to which this entire story has progressed, but mostly with what went beyond them. 

Far beyond whether someone thought the paint should stay or go or someone else thought that something that took up too much space should just be pitched. Far beyond such things was the innate question of value.

It bothered me that day in a way in which it has continued to bother me since… 

Who gets to decide value?

Who gets to assign worth?  And purpose?  And intention? 

And since when did that get to be me?

Because, see, it isn’t so much about capture the flag poles or the aquatic life ice covers.  These lack lasting bearing… 

And the problem isn’t held in such things or with even with “things”.  It isn’t even held in the frustrations I had with my coworkers those days (although this does eventually come into play in a quite opposite way).  The problem is held with me…

The problems which comes not from what gets thrown away…but who.

To whom do I give value to and whom do I “throw away”, ignore, dismiss?

I’d like to think I’m immune.  Somehow better than the average in seeking out the best in people regardless of whom they are and are not…

But I’m not.  I’m not immune and I’m DEFINITELY not better.  In fact, I may be among the worst. 

I can be terribly judgmental.  Terribly assuming.  I am often swayed by the worst in people and willingly mentally give and take away purpose as if it were my job.  And I’m as head strong as any of my coworkers (I am a Kasper after all!) which means…good luck changing my mind once it’s been set!

On one scale, my coworkers have probably all, at one point, been subject to my decisions of value.  Perhaps not innately as people but their thoughts, their opinions, their knowledge… [Confessing: definitely on sorting day...] I know I’ve made myself the judge in some of those circumstances.  And I know I've allowed those judgments to impact what I determined their value to be.

And embarrassedly in circumstances quite a bit bigger.  When value and purpose hits the “Real World”… which people or people groups have I deemed disposable?  Perhaps, and most likely, not deliberately with my words or a crescendo, but with my actions?  Whom have I decided has not the worth of others?  Whom have I deemed to be “junk” in this world which God looks past my labels and sees with a purpose?  His purpose?

I can see value and purpose and potential in arbitrary objects.  Yet my actions sometimes hold people high in the air proclaiming “I don’t know what this person is good for and so no one ever will! Toss ‘em!”  All the while God is looking at me saying “now hold on just a cotton pickin’ second!  Who are YOU to decide who to throw away?  Who makes you the one to overhaul the world and decide who should stay and who should go?”

Me, another throw away person God has saved from a trash pile for His purposes. 

There is a quote by, of all people, Audrey Hepburn that I love.  She wrote “People, even more than things, have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone.”  In these simple words, the grace of the Father is articulated in an especially poignant way.  They scream “Anika, you have been reclaimed and redeemed.  God is in the continual process of restoring you.  If your value can be revived, who are you to throw away the value of another?  Be part of the process of redemption…”

Redeeming from the clutter the people I and the rest of the world throw away…

“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 hand of those who can hold, because they know, the true worth?  And I think the end of the this query almost always ends not with pennies or things or even ideas or causes…but with people…” 

 - Wheatback Pennies and Worth, October 2012

*I had quite a different end in mind when I first started writing. Same topic, different angle.  Different means of communicating.  Things which convict as I write have a way of eventually being written mostly just for me as it completes.  For this reason it rests somewhat unfinished and open-ended.  If this post was for you as it was for me (in which my head still spins with things unwritten), I imagine you’ll need to write the end for yourself anyway…

I Am The Unfaithful

I am the unfaithful.

These are the words of fierce truth though unspoken reality which have been plaguing at the backside and inside and outside of my mind. 

I am the unfaithful.

When I think about and consider the identifiers that seem, perhaps not the truest but, in fact, the most accurate and honest, only one such rings through.  When I reflect on my inadequacies and insufficiencies (I’m rather gifted in this sort of reflection), when I see myself in light who and what I wish I saw and what and who really stands before me, I see one not nearly so faithful as the one she wishes to so appear...

I am the unfaithful…

After relocating a previous new year’s post, I considered writing a blog to bring in the new year…only to realize I had only blogged nine times in 2013 and one of those was a reposting.  It, in fact, fed into the current stream.  I recognized it fresh and anew... 

I am the unfaithful.

I perused my journal…the free space of my most private thoughts…as I often due at the end of the year.  I read through.  I look for patterns, connections, changes, truths.  I conclude my year and I begin again.  Less than a dozen typed pages were there for me to read.  (Other years had months that were low if I only wrote 12 pages!).  There were no thoughts on my days or my weeks.  There was no exchanged interchange as God and I considered together where we were and what life was about. 

I am the unfaithful.

I repacked my year-long devotional as I gathered pieces from my holiday break.  The one that is still only half read.  And I packed next to it the prayer journal from two years ago.  The one with only the first 23 pages written it…detailing maybe a handful more scattered days. 

I am the unfaithful.

I emptied my bible of the remaining bulletins I had yet to throw away or pass on...from a half of a dozen churches still.  All visited.  All left me dry, longing, wanting, and un-refreshed and unfilled.  All were neglected without a second visit.  All uncommitted to.  All leaving me uncommitted to church as a whole.

I am the unfaithful.

The stacks of books I didn’t read.  The photo album still left undone. With the pictures that were never taken. The letters unwritten and the cards unsent.  The visits that never happened.  The correspondence lost.  The elliptical with only a quarter of the miles I had hoped to put on it.  The 5K I still can’t run. The prayers I forgot to pray and the passages I never read. 

From the petty to the real.  For the intricate to the mundane.  I feel as if I have faithfully completed…nothing.  And it makes me wonder…

Have I faithfully responded to anything at all?

Have I been where God needs me to be?  Have I listened to His still sure voice?  Have I acted out of wisdom and in love?  Have I journeyed with peace and joy and perseverance?  Have I continued with surrender, demonstrated trust?  Was I simply kind without it being an expectation? Was I firm in my convictions and gentle in their outsourcing? Was I patient in affliction?  Faithful in prayer? Where was I faithful?

Or was I faithful at all?

Have I stayed out of fear? Have I led out of pride?  Have I encouraged out of selfish ambition?  Have I given with expectation?  Have I endeavored without humility?  Have I pursued without honesty?  Have I spoken without belief?  Lived without hope?  Have I hidden behind hypocrisy and lies?

After all, I am the unfaithful…

I try hard.  But effort doesn’t always equal faithfulness.  And I think I try hard and want to say I try hard but do I try hard enough? …Or is that also a place where I prove once again that I’m the unfaithful?

Sometimes I look into the mirror and want to echo David in Psalm 12 in stating “Help, Lord, for no one is faithful anymore; those who are loyal have vanished from the human race…”  For surely it is me.

I know Israel’s history.  I know they are the only ones perhaps intrinsically more unfaithful than I am.  And I know God doesn’t tolerate unfaithfulness.  For He IS faithful.  And He calls His people as His own and with His own.  He calls us to respond with faithfulness.  “Be sure to fear the Lord and serve him faithfully with all your heart; consider what great things he has done for you.” (1 Samuel 12:24).  When I reflect on the God who Is...what other choice do I have but to respond?

Except I still manage to be the unfaithful…

Underoath has a song I love and have never quite been able to shake entitled “Some Will Seek Forgiveness, Others Escape”.  And in it I’m ever humbled by these words: “Hey unfaithful I will teach you to be stronger, to be stronger.  Hey unloving, I will love you, I will love you, I will love you…”

I am grateful that even though I am unfaithful, God continues to be faithful (2 Timothy 2:13).  And that His grace is greater than my inadequacies.

I am the unfaithful.  But Lord, find me faithful…

“Teach me your way, Lord, that I may rely on your faithfulness; give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name.”  Psalm 86:11

Silent Expectation

When I was home at Thanksgiving, I found myself watching quite a big of television with my family. (I don’t watch a whole lot of any TV at work and I was sick.  So I mostly basked in this very low key pastime.)  And, because it was Thanksgiving (which may as well be the Christmas shotgun rather than holding its own significant importance, but alas, I digress), watching television came with the infamous addition of Christmas commercials.

I. Hate. Christmas. Commercials.  **

I hate them.  Mostly because they focus on things which don’t matter.  In the slightest.  I blogged about this once before.  More more more for me me me.  I cringe at Christmas commercials because I hate the focus on the commercialism.  We’ve got it all wrong.

So there I was, at home, when a caroling group in red sweaters stands precariously in a kitchen (really?  Because that’s realistic!) singing “go go go go go go go!” and I replied with an irritated and snarky “no no no no no no no no!”  My mother, after an exchange about the commercial’s stupidity replied with a well-intentioned “well mute the sucker!”

Something’s missing from those commercials.  Plenty, I say with my limited recalling from my time as an Advertising and Public Relations student.  But my transition to spending the rest of my college years as a Youth Ministry student leaves me without a doubt.  We’re missing the Christ.  A few years ago I blogged “The ChristmasRemnant”…a conversation between the characters left behind after a Christmas season. The realization the Son was missing.  Glaringly missing.  If we cared, truly cared, the pieces and parts would be missing and just the Son would remain.  He is the missing piece. 

I could and do “mute the sucker” Christmas commercials all day.  But the problem remains.  It’s not the commercials my world (or even, regrettably, my own life) is muting.  It’s the Christ.  We’ve muted the Christ out of Christmas.

Contemplating the ways in which I and we have silenced Christ made me think of something else, however.  It made me think of when God Himself was silent.  In a way the actions of the Israelites, those He called as His own, their lack of obedience and failure to follow became a precursor for this silence.  But God chose to be silent.  For 400 years!  In my Bible, three pages exist between the books of Malachi and Matthew.  A blank page on the backside of Malachi, a new page indicating the start of the New Testament and a blank page before Matthew.  In those three pages exists 400 years.  400 years where no teacher and no prophet brought a word from the Lord. 400 years where no new words or instructions were given to the people God had called to His side and His heart. 400 years of silence…

I think about the times in my life where God has felt silent to me.  Where I couldn’t hear or feel or see Him amidst the garbage and piece of my life.  Unbearable, impossibly, dark.  How hard it was to go seeking for God when I knew His existence and not His presence… 

It made me wonder, a childlike fascinated sense of both wonder and awe, at the realization of Advent.  The church calendar recognizes and celebrates a time of Advent, a season of waiting.  A season of expectation.  A period of preparing our hearts and minds and souls for the coming of the Messiah.  What must have it been like for the remnant of Israel to wait?  What was it like those 400 years?  They had the prophecies, the innumerable mentions of a King and Savior to come.  One of my favorites sits in Isaiah 9: “For unto us a child is born, for unto us a child is given.  And the government shall rest on his shoulders.  And he shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace...” (Isaiah9:6)  So many promises to behold!  To wait in hope and expectation of those promises!  That first Advent…when would the waiting end and with what or whom would it end?

And then the silence ended.

On the first of those three precarious pages reads a self written note:  “400 years…and God was silent.  Anika, you think you grow tired and weary of waiting for God to show up?  I tell you this: if ever you go seeking, you will find.  What comes after these 400 years made it so that “God with us” was a promise fulfilled and sustained. Hold out your hands, hold our your hear.  The cost is great; the pain to be expected.  But the God of Hosts, Lord of Angel’s Armies seek to love and bless you and to love and bless through you. Even when God feels silent with you, may He never be silent through you.  Proclaim the joy and presence of the Emmanuel…”

Silence was ended with Emmanuel.  What came on the end of that silence was “God with us”.  Isaiah 7:14 tells us to expect (and Matthew 1:23 gives proof of fulfillment) that “the virgin will bring forth a son and He shall be call Emmanuel…” 

The magic of Christmas is the transcendence of realizing the perfect love a God for His creation became tangible in a baby boy who grew and lived to die to live.  So that we would never have to know a life where God wasn’t with us.

And not only is He with us but He is in us.  His Spirit is something our imperfect and earthly bodies hold.  One of my favorite “theology degree” terms, which has stuck with me above the rest, is the term “Theotokos”.  It is a Greek term that was used by the very early church to describe Mary.  Theo meaning “God” and tokos meaning “to carry” or “to hold” or “to bear”.  The literal translation is “God Bearer”.  Mary was considered the one who bore God. 

And we are called to be Theotokos’ as well.  To carry Christ that we may bear Him to the world.  2 Corinthians 4:(7-10) was once the heart of my philosophy of ministry.  And it comes with the calling of a Theotokos.  “But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.  We are hard pressed on ever side, but not crushed; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.  We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body…”

But to realize we are to be far more than one known to give good gifts but also as one holding the Greatest Gift ever to have been given!

As we draw nearer and nearer to the day of Christmas, may we embrace the expectation of waiting.  Of true Advent.  May we, however, not be silent in our expectation.  The 400 year wait is long since over.  Emmanuel has come!  Take the mute button off.  Bear Christ to the world!  May He never be silent through you… Proclaim the joy and the presence of the Emmanuel! 

*Admittedly, after a significant absence of posts on my blogs, this wasn’t originally a blog post at all.  Instead, it was the rough construction of notes compiled as pieces came during a church service which I then, 24 hours later, turned into a Monday morning staff devo.  My notes transcribed make up this blog post, instead.  But I’ve managed more Christmas blogs than not, so I felt it was only appropriate to post. 

**Okay, I’ll admit, I do sort of look forward to the one where the Hershey Kisses play Carol of the Bells.  And that one Folder’s commercial where the brother comes home surprisingly.  And this year I saw a Meijer’s ad where a family is lighting a house and admiring it and then they go inside and the viewer assumes its their own house they decorated until the elderly neighbor drives home aghast and a little boy is watching out his window.  That one made my heart smile.  

Stitches, Flaws, Good Intentions

In many ways it was doomed from the beginning.

I am a rather inadequate seamstress with rather adventurous plans.  I enjoy the planning and scheming and designing (and the design) in far greater quantities than proportionally my skills allow…

Then…I get an idea.  Like the fact that the colors would in fact be my sister’s favorites, with no regard to any other details.  In fact, while I surprised my brother with his graduation quilt, I let Faith in on the fabric shopping so that it would be exactly what she wanted in terms of colors.  As fate would have it, we found the entirely obscure shade of deep purple she loves.  In the clearance bin none-the-less.  I bought several yards.  [Of a knit fabric that stretched in multiple directions.]  To match a cream and sage green.  The picture in my head was beautiful.

If you’ve sewn at all then you know that inadequate seamstresses should not sew with knit fabric.  It causes innumerable problems (especially if you hate to pin!  Which I do!). At one point I quit carefully pinning my pattern to the fabric so precisely to cut…as each square came out a slightly different size and shape anyway. 

And then, speaking of cutting, I hate cutting.  It’s tedious and tiresome.  It’s the pre adventure of designing and I would rather just compile the puzzle.  I should have considered this before designing a quilt that literally had a few THOUAND small pieces to be sewn together.  It made the project (which I started in late fall/early winter post her spring graduation) seem tedious and tiresome in and of itself.  It was already months behind schedule and I was bored.

And yet, just about the time I thought I found my rhythm…fail.  Utter fail. Because I messed up the design.  I missed a square somewhere in the process and the whole central system with large pieces already compiled in and around it – no longer fit together.  The perfectly designed intricacies no longer lined up and it looked ridiculous.  I quit.  I couldn’t reconcile the imperfection so I bagged up my fraying squares and folded the finished pieces and quit. 

For years. 

My sister graduated in 2008.  I designed and picked out fabric that summer.  Which means it has been five years.  (Even to write it is embarrassing…)  Oh, I’d picked it up a time or two but it seemed so daunting and I never got very far.  Plus, every time I tried to pick it up again, something more went wrong.  I sewed in the wrong square to the wrong spot (seam ripping to fix a mistake destroyed the fabric so it was of no use. Easier to just begin again).  Or the fact that I had moved it so many times without sewing in the loose ends they were beginning to fray.  Because the purple fabric stretched, even just a little, none of my strips ended up the same size.  So nothing lined up the way it was supposed to.  Which in some ways didn’t matter too much because the pattern already didn’t make any logical sense. 

And then, finally, this fall, I decided to tackle it.  I felt this sense of necessity to not leave projects unfinished.  I vowed to finish it.  Though it would be finished as a twin rather than a queen as first designed.  It wouldn’t match the original framework.  And it would be flawed.  I would just have to settle with the fact it would be… flawed. 

And flawed it was and is.  Because of course I accidentally sewed in that defunct strip (because I wasn’t paying very close attention.  Not until it was too late!) where I had earlier put in the wrong square and sewn over it. And then the tattered edges continued to fray amidst the sewn pieces…because the pieces were just so dang small.  And so I stitched OVER the top of the quilt in order to hold the fabric down.  And instead of trying to fight with cutting and sewing more pathetically inadequate squares, I then also changed the pattern at the ends to complete it. 

I managed to deliver a finished product.  In time to place it between Faith’s second wedding anniversary and her 28^th birthday.  Only four birthdays and four Christmases and five Easters and who knows how many arbitrary changes in time zones and exchanged daylight savings hours.  With much ado and much apology.  I actually think Faith was confused by the gifting as it had been so terribly long since it was once discussed.  And in quite a bit lesser of a condition than I ever would have wanted to gift.

“She’ll love it because you made it!” my best friend tried to promise me.  And indeed it might have been true.  But none-the-less…

I looked at the quilt and looked at Faith.  “Don’t be deceived” (as I might tell you as well) “it looks better than it is.”

And then I quoted Augesten Burroughs (incorrectly; I didn’t remember who it was who had first said it.) “I myself am made entirely of flaws, stitched together with good intentions.”  [He is known for saying.]  It was the epitome of my finished construction.  I meant well, I tried hard, I persevered.  But in the end, the flaws were held together with effort and hope alone and the beauty I had dreamed of and originally designed was lost inside of missed stitches, unmatched corners, faulty patterns, and messy compilation.

Of course I notice and am the first to point out the flaws.  I am, after all, the creator.  No one knows that quilt better than I do.  I know every stitch, every frayed edge, every mended hole, every missed pattern. I can tell you, from the front compilation, approximately which square has a small blood stain on the under side of the fabric from where I stabbed my finger viciously with a pin.  You might not look at it and see everything that’s wrong.  But I do.  I do because I created it.  And I know…

And it’s the thing that baffles me the most about God.  He, who created me perfectly and intricately in my mother’s womb and knows the number of hairs on my head (Psalm 139), is also well aware of the ways in which I have marred His design.  He is the Creator.  No one knows me better than He does! He knows every stitch.  And also every frayed edge, every quirky mismatched piece, every mended hole…  I oft find myself, like Augusten Burroughs, taking a look at my life and knowing I am made entirely of flaws…though I was, in fact, stitched with good intention.  And I wonder.  I wonder how it is God can look at me at not see all that is wrong…

What I think is miraculous (and I know this combines metaphors) is when people see the picture of the quilt their response is always something like “that is so cool!”  There is a little awe.  When Faith first saw the quilt (she took it in with the disclaimers of its imperfections first), her initial response wasn’t to say “Oh, I see what you’re talking about now with the missed pattern and the odd overlapping stitches...”  She said along the lines of “Oh wow!” followed by something near “Neek, this is pretty incredible!”  She, in her appreciation for it and love for me, redeemed it.  Redeemed its inadequacies. Redeemed its flaws.  Redeemed its good intentions.

What I think is even more miraculous is that when God sees me, (and others see me through God’s eyes alone I can’t help but believe…else why not see the things I so easily see?), He doesn’t focus on my missed stitches and mended holes.  He knows about them; He’s my creator!  Instead He sees HIS good intention.  One who is holy and dearly loved (Colossians 3:12).  And His love for me redeems me.  Redeems my inadequacies.  Redeems my flaws.  Redeems me FOR His good intentions.  And claims me.  “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine.  When you pass through the waters; I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze.  For I am the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior…” (Isaiah 43:1b-3a)

There is a DownHere song I love entitled “Here I Am”.  In it there is a line which reads “These broken parts, you redeem.  Become the song that I can sing… [Here I am. Lord, send me.  All my life I make an offering.  Here I am.  Lord, send me.  Somehow my story is part of your plan.  Here I am…]”.  It’s a gift of grace and a response of faithfulness.  Though the road and construction be coarse and mismatched and frayed… To redeem broken pieces makes it so my story (flaws and all) can be part of a bigger plan.  An end beauty.  A Good Intention…

 “Do you look at me and see the one you’re after?  Your daughter, Your princess, Your beautiful disaster…”

Beautiful Disaster

AJK March 2009

A mass of confusion.

Life in utter disarray.

A tragedy of grand design,

Your gifts I’ve tossed away.

No direction, no order.

Only failure of the worst kind.

Falling apart at the seams.

Begging for purpose one last time.

Do you really see beyond my distress?

Do you love me even with my mess?

When you look at me,

How can you not see all that’s wrong?

How do you not just notice

All that doesn’t belong?

I’m not anything close

To what I was created to be... 

Where’s the worth

In this calamity?

What’s beyond

My distorted focus?

Do you smile at what you see?

Is your grace wrapped in

Wonderful chaos?

Brilliant catastrophe?

Do you look upon a storm with the same awe?

The same love?

Is that the same splendor

You’re thinking of?  

Do you look at me and see the one you are after?

Your daughter, your princess,

Your beautiful disaster...

Silly Anika, Trix Are For Kids!

It was the bane of my childhood existence.  The beginnings of the qualms and stirrings of what would scream on my inside to fight for the underdog… 

That silly and stupid rabbit!

It was the Trix commercial of endless story lines with the same depressing conclusion.  Oh! How the rabbit just longed for a bowl of over sugared fruit shaped deliciousness!  (I grew up in the 90’s, yo.  We had Trix shaped like the fruit it was supposedly emulating in flavor.  None of this ball shaped jazz. Psh.)  He would daydream and fantasize.  And he would have that bowl in his clutches.  He would always come so close!  And then, just about the moment when he would ready to take the first coveted bite, some cheery animated child would snatch away the bowl.  Then, with a bit a mockery and perfect correction, the children scold the longing rabbit. 

“Silly Rabbit!  Trix are for Kids!”

Oh, I always hated these commercials! (Much the same way something about the “RoadRunner” cartoons always managed to arise my juvenile angst and anxiety).  I just, one time, just one time…I just wanted one of those snotty nosed smiling children to turn to the rabbit and say “try this!  You’ve worked so hard trying to obtain this bowl.  Please, let me just give it to you! Here, let me share it with you!”  Gah!  How I would have LOVED if the Trix Rabbit could have gotten what he was after just one time. 

Silly Rabbit…

Good ol’ Anika.  Rooting for the underdog.

Sort of. 

But not really.

I truly believe, now years after such a commercial plagued my childhood existence, I just really related to that silly rabbit.  And have ever since.  I wanted the rabbit to obtain what he was after because I wanted to obtain what I was after.  How often and how eager I am for the things which were and are never mine to hold!

My chases have recurring themes.  Lately, for example, I want to KNOW.  My brother and I have had a couple really legit conversations in the last couple of weeks and our convo time has included the facts of the lives we currently know – especially in relationship to the futures we wish knew.  How I envy people with five and ten year plans!  How I envy those with specific dreams and aspirations!  I wish I had a documentable goal.  Those people have road maps!  They don’t always end up where they expected to go.  And if they do they rarely took the route they first intended would get them there.  But in my limited view on the world, at least they know!  They, at the very least, know what they want.

I, I don’t know what I want.  I don’t know that I ever have.  I very honestly wants what God wants.  But He tends to speak in very vague and general categories.  And I, I want to know!

I want to know where to go and where to head.  I want to know what to say and what to do.  I want to know what to plan and how.  I want to know what the future holds or what it could.  I want to know where I should be investing my time and I want to know where I should be using my talents and resources.  I want to know whether to stay or whether to search.  I want to know…

Silly Anika…

I’ve been reading recently in the Old Testament.  Specifically in Exodus.  But the stories have reminded me of other stories and other accounts.  So many times those God called to be a people of His own, sought after things that weren’t theirs to have.  They were a people who want things of His hand and not of His heart.  They were constantly chasing after things God had already said “no” to.  And just about the time they caught whatever they thought they were after, God would reveal to them exactly why He told them “no”.  There had been a reason.  But the Israelites were a disobedient, rebellious, and foolish people. 

Much as I am… 

Trix are for Kids!

Adam and Eve partook of the Tree of Good and Evil.  The temptation which eventually created their demise was to be like God rather than with God.  They chose imitation over intimacy.  The serpent tells them that God has instructed them to never eat of the tree because then they will know… 

Knowing was the first temptation.  Thanks to Adam and Eve, I know the depth of my nakedness, the depth of my shame. The reality of the difference between what is and what should be.  But I am still desperate to know…

I fret and I worry.  I create and I conjure.  I once learned that the best worriers are typically very creative people.  Who else could devise the intricate ridiculousness which is contrived by an expert worrier?  I remember learning such a bit of information, knowing the extent to which I worried, and patted myself on the back and sat a little straighter in the pride of realization at the creativity of which I must be capable!  And then I slouched and sighed at the reality of the actuality…

Worry is based in the want to know.  In the inability to be able to grasp just exactly what is.  Because I don’t know, I worry.  No wonder I chase…

I want to have it all figured out.  People who have it all figured out are given earthly praise and rewards.  But just about the time I think I’ve got it all figured out, God switches it up on me.  Or, more accurately, I tune in to where God’s already got it figured out and realize, once again, the things  thought were in my clutches really weren’t mine to have.

Isaiah 55:7-8 says “‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,’ declares the LORD.  ‘As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher you’re your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts…’”

The things I’ve got all figured out aren’t necessarily the things God’s long since had a handle on.  Sometimes I feel like just about the time I realize I, in fact, know even less than I thought I knew before, I feel like I’m tapped on the shoulder so gently and reminded:  “Silly Anika, Trix are for kids!”  Okay, maybe not the Trix part, exactly.  But simply the subtle implication that what I am holding wasn’t made for me to have.”

I guess that means I keep seeking.  The rote and tired verses of Jeremiah 29:11 gives the confidence that for all I don’t know, God DOES.  “For I know the plans I have for you…” He tells His people after giving them instructions to be faithful in the places where they found themselves.  But His promise comes with instructions that include a promise.  “For when you seek me, I will be found by you when you seek me with all of your heart.”

Seeking accompanies trust.  Oh, it can be done without trust.  But who would dare?  Not this worrier!  They are needed together.  Especially when it comes to knowing.  Proverbs 3:5 and 6 have long since been two of my most favorite and tested life verses.  A book which is about to continue in telling you many things which are to make one wise and live well begins with the greatest of all wisdom and the end to all pursuits.  “Trust in the LORD with all of your heart and lean not on your own understanding.  In all of your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your path straight.” 

Later, in Matthew 6:33, instructions come about worry (ironic, right) and how knowing shouldn’t be the pursuit.  But trust should.  (Trust brings understanding I think.  And maybe understanding more trust?)  And we’re told to continue seeking.  But not for answers.  Instead, mimicking Proverbs and Jeremiah, Jesus says “But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness and all of these things will be given to you as well.”

So the life I want held in my clutches?  The one I want so desperately to be in control of and am ever being asked to let go of?  I’m so close…and yet.  Perhaps after all and still…it isn’t mine to have…

“Silly Anika…This one is for Jesus…”