Awake and Thankful

I have let my life get so over-scheduled that I've been ignoring this blog for way too long. I've told myself too many times "I should blog about that" and then I forget. Well, as exhausted as I am right now, I need to blog this. 

I had a very close flirtation with death today. I was sitting at a traffic light waiting for the green arrow so I could turn left. I was in a hurry to get to my son's first soccer practice, especially because I'm the assistant coach and I knew my husband, the coach, would want my help. The left turn arrow turned green and it was my turn to go. I tried to gun it through the intersection, but my car lagged for a moment and I was instantly irritated. I actually said out loud to myself "Car, can't you have some more power?" and in that half second that I wasn't able to accelerate as fast as I wanted to, I suddenly looked up to see an enormous white truck barreling through the intersection right toward me. He swerved around me and continued to run the light which had been red on his end for a very long time. I heard myself cry out in fear, thinking he was going to hit me, and then when he didn't, I shakily continued through the intersection. I called my husband to tell him what happened, still headed to soccer, and as soon as we hung up, my nerves gave way and the floodgates opened. If my car had performed the way I'd wanted it to, I'd be dead right now. My little car and I wouldn't have stood a chance against the driver's side impact that would have happened from that massive truck. Hours later, I still can't believe I'm lucky enough to be sitting here alive. I cried tears of panic, fear, joy, and most of all, thanks. Thanks to God for saving me. I feel it in my bones as surely as I feel the sun will rise tomorrow that God made my car not work correctly...in order to save my life. My son's birthday is in four days. I reflect in horror at how his life could have been permanently damaged had that scene played out differently today. But God is making His presence known, and He is reminding me of His protective and loving hand with this amazing gift of being here another day.

Ironically, I had planned to blog yesterday about a different circumstance that happened. Irony of ironies,  I was driving to the office and deep in prayer when I suddenly saw the police lights flash behind me. A cop pulled me over and told me I had been speeding. I honestly had no idea; I had been so lost in thought and prayer that I wasn't paying attention to how fast I was going. I apologized and waited for him to write up the ticket, dreading the thought of calling my husband to tell him I just got a ticket that would likely cost many hundreds of dollars to pay off. And then the cop walked back to my car...and let me go with a warning. I have never been the person who gets off with a warning. Cops usually love to write me tickets! I was so pleasantly shocked that I didn't know what to do, except thank God. God was showing me his grace as I was reminded to drive better, and to slow down. So much to be thankful for.

So I am now going to take this evening to revel in how much I love God, and how thankful I am for His love of me and the countless ways He shows it. I'm alive. I get to live another day. I get to look in on my son sleeping soundly right now because he didn't lose his mom today. I get to enjoy the simple pleasures of a comfortable bed and the chorus of crickets singing through the night. I get to pet my cat as she knocks her head against me and purrs. I get to kiss my husband goodnight and see the look of relief in his eyes that we're all here together and safe for another day. Who knows what tomorrow will bring. But I have today. And I have this awareness of God's presence and His relationship with me. I've taken it so for granted and I have not given Him the time He deserves. I've let the chaos of my life and all its responsibilities get in the way. Thank you, God, for this wake-up call. 

Psalm 136

¹ Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good.
His love endures forever.
² Give thanks to the God of gods.
His love endures forever.
³ Give thanks to the Lord of lords:
His love endures forever.

⁴ to him who alone does great wonders,
His love endures forever.

 

Easter as a Recovered Atheist

This is just a quick post to say that I am split down the middle on how today, Good Friday, is affecting me. On one hand, I have never been more thankful for finding Christ, and for becoming a Christian. Yesterday, today, and Sunday have such a power to them that I never knew before, as I now actually understand their significance, and their impact on the human race. It felt weird not to attend Maundy Thursday service lastnight, since we're so used to attending every year. But we spent it acknowledging Christ in our own way, Tex by watching The Passion of the Christ, and me by practicing cello for Sunday's upcoming musical festivities at church. I am so looking forward to Sunday with my church family, where I know I am surrounded by friends who accept me for the loud-mouthed sinner that I am. I heard this song yesterday that sums up my journey so far really well:

I'm looking forward to being in a place where I know my kid's energetic firecracker personality is greeted with delight and encouragement by our parish, and my husband is revered for the emerging leader that he is. I love the conversations I get to have with my Christian brothers and sisters, and I love the message that gets preached by our pastors with such incredible exuberance. It all makes me want to leap out of my pew and shout a hearty "PRAISE JESUS!"  All of these wonderful blessings are on account of God patiently encouraging me to take my former blinders of arrogance and pride off, so that my heart would be open enough to really learn what Christianity is, and that Jesus was so much more than "a great teacher".

Conversely though, now that I am on the other side of this Christian coin, I find myself really struggling to relate to my atheist friends. I know my calling is to bend their ear and pray for their hearts to soften. I know my blessing is in the fact that I once thought like them, debated like them, and pushed back like them, so I do know what their language is and how to speak it. And I surely have a fire in my belly to walk with them and be both ear and encourager as they hopefully open themselves to God's message as I finally did seven years ago. But the closer I get to Christ, the more their approach to these sacred holidays gets under my skin, and the more irritation I feel burning under the surface. I'm bracing myself for Sunday's inevitable, snarky, disgusting, tasteless "Happy Jesus Zombie Day" posts which will make me so mad that I'll want to punch my fist through the computer screen. Funny how jokes that never phased me 10 years ago make my blood boil now.

I did a social experiment on Facebook this week. A few days ago, I posted about upcoming Easter services and why church is so awesome. There were so few responses to that post, I might as well have heard crickets. Today, I posted a picture of a Cadbury Egg with the caption #EasterIsComing, and it was soon greeted by likes and chatter from a handful of my atheist and Christian-light (those friends who call themselves Christians, only as long as it means they don't have to change) friends. I was dismayed to see that something so trite, so trivial and completely unconnected to Easter, got a more quantitative response. Sometimes I wonder if there's any hope at all for them. And I realize that through all of this frustration, I need to try to put on my WWJD hat and pray for them. Calling them wrong or lecturing them about how ignorant and rude they are won't change them. So I will just keep praying and waiting. Waiting for that moment when the door cracks open just wide enough for us to have an organic and pressure-free conversation about it. Waiting for their hearts to soften. Maybe they never will. But all I can do is try.

And in the meantime, it makes me all the more grateful for my church family. It makes me so very thankful for the astounding level of grace Jesus showed on this day 2000 years ago when he washed the feet of the man he knew would betray him, then experienced so much pain that there wasn't a word for it yet...all for me and you. I truly am not worthy. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, God. I owe you everything.

Until We Meet Again, Friend...

It's 4am and I have to go to work in a few hours, but I can't seem to stop thinking about my friend. My mind is wide awake, so I think it's time to get it out in writing, just what this woman meant to me.

I got the call from my husband yesterday afternoon while I was out hiking with our little boy amidst a spectacularly beautiful backdrop, vivid burnt orange rocks towering over us against the kind of brilliant closer-to-the-sun azure sky that only Colorado can deliver.  I picked up my husband's call, greeting him with the same excitement and exuberance of our boy who had been steadily chattering away for the duration of the hike about this being "the best hike ever" and "full of so many beautiful things".  My greeting was met with silence on the other end of the line.  Now, my husband is single-handedly the most confident man I know, able to exude it with a quiet grace and humility that clearly differentiates it from arrogance.  And yet here he was, speechless.  He started to stammer and I felt the anxiety well up inside of me like a vice closing around my lungs until I begged him to tell me what's wrong, that he was scaring me.  He finally blurted out that our pastor had emailed everyone the news that our friend, Mary, had died that morning.  The rest of the call probably lasted two or so minutes, but I couldn't tell you exactly what either of us said.  I was scanning the snow-packed meadows and rolling foothills before us, only half-processing what was being said, occasionally glancing over at our son who was happily playing in the snow and wearing an expression of utter delight, completely unaware that an entire community had just been rocked to its knees over this news.  I wanted to hug and console my husband who was clearly upset on the other end of the line, and I simultaneously felt guilty for sounding like an emotionless robot, myself.  He had broken the news to me mid-hike because he knew I would want to be out in nature where I could process and pray more clearheadedly.  

We hung up and my boy looked at me quizzically until I told him what happened, that our dear friend from church, Mary, had died that morning.  Without a moment's hesitation, he dropped his snowball, ran over to me and bear-hugged me, uttering, "I'm sorry, Mama."  And the robot was gone.  I sobbed, choking out explanations to him on why this woman was so special to me, to all of us.  We slowly resumed our hike, which had now taken a completely different tone from not five minutes before when we had been reveling over the jaw-dropping beauty of the scenery around us.  My tears flowed, making it harder to talk, but I managed to share with him some stories about why Mary was so special, and why this news is such a blow.  He then shifted his caretaker mode from me to Mary, picking up a clump of snow, throwing it to the sky, and announcing, "God, can you please turn this snow into water and give it to Mary in heaven so she has something to drink?"  Then he ran over to another snowy spot, fell to his knees, and started to build a snowman.  "I think she'll like this," he explained soberly, "Mary, here is a snowman for you!"  Then we walked a bit further and he laid down in the snow, flapping his arms and legs.  "This is a snow angel for Mary!" he said, "And she'll like this because now she's an angel in heaven!"  He shaped his hands into a heart and pointed it to the sky.  "We love you, Mary!" he exclaimed.  I just stared at him in awe.  What an amazing heart our young man has.  I would have expected a typical six year old's response, a three-word acknowledgement of the news, followed by complete indifference and the return to his former play.  After all, empathy is not a quality that comes to kids until they're older.  But instead, he went back and forth between hugging and consoling me, making little tributes to Mary, and shouting prayer-like requests to God up in the sky.  I was floored.  What a wonderful and perfect experience it was to grieve through the innocent and fearless eyes of a six year old.  And everything he said was accurate.  She is an angel in heaven.  We do love her.  She would certainly like that snow angel.  And as I surveyed him and the scenery around me on our slow, steady trek, it provided the perfect opportunity for me to reflect on Mary.

I had heard about her before actually meeting her.  Some of our church veterans had already known her before and they were excited to see her return to our church as the music director.  Her reputation preceded her, as I heard nothing but ravings and excitement over her anticipated return.  And when I met her, I was fascinated by her.  She was this terrific blend of a no-nonsense personality, yet incredibly warm and loving.  I got to know her when I was part of the church choir, and I was impressed with how she led and guided us.  She was clearly exceptionally talented in music, able to hone in on the smallest details that made the difference between a good performance and a great one.  But the single theme she always brought us home to was why we were singing.  It was not about singing the notes perfectly, because we weren't just singing.  We were worshipping.  And she reminded us of that repeatedly, turning it into a far more powerful experience.

Throughout time and the little sidebar conversations that I so enjoyed having with her, she learned that I was a cellist.  "You should play for the church," she said matter of factly.  "Oh, I don't know....maybe?" I countered, "I'm not very good anymore.  I lost my chops when I got pregnant and moved to Colorado, and my technique is pretty weak now...."  I had a convincing list of very reasonable excuses all lined up for her, all of these reasons why I might not be able to play for a crowd, let alone for God.  And Mary being Mary basically called that out for the horse dung that it was. (smiling as I type this) And she made me realize that - doy! - it doesn't work like that.  God knows when I play sharp or flat, but guess what.  He doesn't care!  Once again, it's about why I'm playing, not what I'm playing, as Mary reminded me.

So next thing you know, I was playing cello for the church.  I got to play with accompanying pianists, choirs, handbells, and I even played a solo.  And I was frayed with nerves every time, although I tried my best to hide it.  But something happened as my cello journey at the church continued.  As time passed, I continued my deep-dive into Christianity, enthralled with how much there was to learn, inspired by my peers during discipleship hours, excited by the missionaries who allowed me to be a part of their action plans, and delighted by the children I got to help teach during Sunday school.  And as Jesus' big picture message continued to sink into my head and heart, I found that playing the cello at church became more fun.  In the beginning, it was technique this and notes that.  It was worrying whether I'm getting these dynamics right, listening for tempos, double-checking my left hand position, relaxing my right wrist, watching my bow on the string to make sure it doesn't ride too high on the fingerboard, and on and on and on.  At rehearsals, I made sure to squeeze in as many self-deprecating jokes as possible and point out my wrong notes to anyone who missed them, all of which Mary dismissed with an eye roll.  Amazingly, she would instead encourage everyone to give me a round of applause at the end of the rehearsals, thanking me for my help.  (Which often left me thinking, They're applauding that?  Seriously?)

But as time marched on, Mary kept believing in me and encouraging me, no matter how hard I tried to get in my own way.  She kept reminding me, in her ever graceful and warm style, of the real reason we're here playing this music.  Then, I started paying more attention to the words of the songs I was playing.  And more and more, the "worship" element of it started to sink in.  And Mary's message was always in the back of my mind: You are worshipping God.  You are giving Him and your fellow worshippers joy through your music.  Bear in mind, the woman was battling cancer throughout.  Never mind that she was neck-deep in combat with one of the cruelest diseases known to man, and fighting for another day with her husband and three children.  Never mind all that; she was helping me be confident.  This is what amazed me about her.  When I try to imagine myself in her situation, I see my potential to become enmeshed in total selfishness.  I see potential for self-pity, fear, and anxiety.  What I don't see is me helping a grown woman work through some trivial musical confidence issue while I'm literally fighting for my life.  And yet that's Mary.  Sound like anyone we know?  (Luke 23:34)

The last few times that I was privileged enough to work with Mary on a piece, she mentioned that my playing had become much stronger and more confident.  And she was right; it had, thanks to her.  And of all of the performances I've ever given in my 10+ years of playing cello, accepting her invitation to play at last year's Maundy Thursday service was absolutely the highlight of my journey.  

I suspect I'm not the only one who found this past December to be bittersweet for all of us who played for the church (or anyone who knew her, for that matter).  On one hand, I felt like I was floating on an island a little bit, with no Mary to lead us.  Her health was declining and she was back and forth between home and hospital.  On the other hand, when my musical help was asked for, the hesitation that I had once known was absolutely gone.  We all knew we had a job to do, and we were doing it for God and our church, because that's what Mary would want us to do.  I watched people gracefully and humbly step into incredibly time-consuming, demanding, and stressful new roles to fill in for Mary's absence and make her proud.  I watched musicians come together to pull off beautiful musical arrangements, despite their insane schedules of juggling parenting with work with the usual holiday madness.  I watched our congregation inspire each other, and become an even closer church family.  And I watched the pain in their faces mirror my own as we all wept during yesterday's first church service without Mary in this material world.  She will always be a part of our church, because she will always be a part of our hearts.  She left a mark.  She stamped the world around her with beauty, and wisdom, and laughter, and kindness....but most of all with faith.  I have never seen such a display of faith.  I have never seen someone look the next chapter in the eye with such beautiful calm and assurance that she is a part of God's great plan, and that she is safe in the palm of His hand.  Mary, I miss you terribly, and I know our church will never be the same without you.  But I also know that our church isn't without you.  Not really.  For you are always with us.  And you've instilled a little of your rock-solid faith into us, which makes us all better Christians.  Thank you for the gift of being you, my dear sister, and until we meet again, friend...

Joshua 1:9

Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.

"Crazy Love" Review

I just finished Francis Chan's Crazy Love: Overwhelmed by a Relentless God, and I'll be honest.  I found it downright disturbing.  Although I suspect that Chan's intentions are good, his delivery is judgemental, arrogant, and shame-inducing. He seems to have a very different interpretation of the Bible than mine, and he's sharing that interpretation with the world in this book, which strikes me as a little dangerous and irresponsible.  If I had read this book back when I was an atheist, its shame-mongering "You'll never be good enough" tone would have sent me running from Christianity, never to look back.

Finishing this book was a true challenge because, as a Christian, I found it offensive. If I were to review the entire book, this blog would go on forever, so I'll just focus here on Chapter 4, "Profile of the Lukewarm".

According to Chan, here are some of the characteristics that he thinks "lukewarm people" possess, followed by my concerns.  I'm not listing all of them, just the ones I take issue with:

The LUKEWARM PERSON:

1. attends church regularly.  Then Chan quotes Isaiah 29:13, which begs the question: Is he implying that my choice to attend church regularly means I'm only honoring God with my words and that my heart is far from God? Because if not for attending church, I would not be a Christian today. When I am at church, I am listening intently to that sermon, soaking it in and processing it afterwards. I am praying about it. I am communing with other Christians and learning from them. And all of this has strengthened my personal relationship with God. So no, my heart is not far from God just because I choose to attend church regularly. Is Chan suggesting that we don't go to church?
2. gives money to charity and to the church, as long as it doesn't impede her standard of living.  So what is he suggesting, that we drain our savings and give it all to charity?  That we take our child and go live under a bridge somewhere in complete poverty?  That we donate to the point that we do impede our standard of living?  I don't see Chan choosing the poverty that he would have us commit to.
3. doesn't want to be saved from her sin, but only from the penalty of it.  This implies that I'm incapable of having a conscience, and that I don't sincerely feel remorse after I've sinned.  It implies that I'm incapable of true repentance when I pray.  It's insulting and shortsighted.
4. rarely shares her faith with her neighbors, coworkers or friends.  I regularly encourage and welcome conversations about my faith with my friends and neighbors, where appropriate.  But no, I don't greet the new neighbor down the street with, "Hi! Is Jesus your Lord and savior?" Why?  Because that would scare the person off instead of welcoming him.  It pushes my agenda on him instead of taking the time to learn about him and thus learn how best to introduce him to a relationship with Christ.  And I definitely do not discuss my faith with my colleagues or I'd be fired in a hot second.  Is he implying that I'm less of a Christian because I choose not to be unprofessional and get myself fired?  When I was an atheist, one of the biggest mistakes I saw Christians repeating in their attempts to "reach" me was using their language instead of mine.  As an atheist, expressions like "Christ, our Lord and Savior" or "the Holy Spirit", or even just the full name "Jesus Christ" made me extremely uncomfortable and caused me to instantly turn a deaf ear to them as I searched for the nearest exit.  Now as a Christian, I often speak to atheists using vernacular that some Christians consider disrespectful, like "the man upstairs", but I'm not doing that because I respect God any less or consider him any less holy.  I do that because my goal is to reach the person I'm speaking with, by using expressions that are less "in your face", and make him feel more comfortable.  I feel like Chan's die-hard radical approach suggests that we brazenly share our faith with everyone without first thinking through a strategy that would achieve the ultimate goal of lessening the gap between them and God.  I also get the impression that he has worked in the church for so long that he might be forgetting what the rest of the world is like.
5. will serve God and others, but has limits to how much time, money, or energy she'll give.  As for money, see argument #2 above.  As for my time, is he suggesting that I take on more than I can handle and overschedule myself to the point of exhaustion and burnout?  Should I make myself sick just giving and giving and giving to everyone who needs it, and destroy any chance of a balanced life?  Because it is my balanced life that allows me to give what I do give. I do give my time. I do give my energy. But I won't over give either of those at the expense of my mental/physical health or my family's.  And that does not make me less of a Christian. I have a very hard time believing that Chan himself never sets any limits to his giving.
6. thinks about life on Earth more than about eternity in heaven.  He talks about our to-do lists as if they're a bad thing. So instead of taking my child to school, getting my work done, or tending to my husband, is he suggesting that I drop all of those activities and spend all of my time praying and thinking about the afterlife?  Life is to-do lists. There's no way to get around that.  Again, he doesn't seem to understand the real world. Chan fails to take into account how different things are now than 2000 years ago, and he doesn't draw the contemporary analogy between scripture and today's world.
7. does whatever is necessary from allowing herself to feel too guilty. Chan is implying that we should allow and encourage ourselves to feel guilt. This is very disturbing, considering that guilt is not "of" God, but quite the opposite. Granted, I have a lot to learn about the Bible and God's word, but one thing I have gathered from it is that God definitely does not want us to feel guilt.  We can feel repentant, but guilt? No. Guilt is from a place of evil, which Chan seems to be suggesting we embrace.  This is just wrong. When we feel sorry for our sins and we repent, that's how we rid ourselves of guilt the honest way. 
8. is concerned with playing it safe.  I could have a field day with this one. Chan sounds like he's implying here that we should intentionally put ourselves (and our loved ones) in dangerous situations because our bodies don't really matter, only our souls. What about the Bible's reference to our bodies as temples? God wants us to take care of our bodies.  Again, Chan is taking his own interpretation of scripture and twisting it into a message that, in my opinion, is the opposite of what the Bible teaches. 
9. feels secure because she attends church, professed her faith while young, was baptized, comes from a Christian family, is Republican and lives in America.  Huh? I've never heard any Christian reference any of these things as proof of their being Christian. I don't even know what Chan's talking about here. This one is just bizarre.

Anyway, the book continues its downward spiral after this chapter and the overall feeling I'm left with is that Chan is taking some amazing (read "blasphemous") liberties in his style of execution.  There are sections in the subsequent chapters where he talks about his parishioners asking him whether they'll go to heaven or hell.  The fact that they're asking him this implies that he has conditioned them to believe that he has those answers.  Jesus himself said he didn't have those answers.  (Matthew 20:23 Jesus said to them, "You will indeed drink from my cup, but to sit at my right or left is not for me to grant. These places belong to those for whom they have been prepared by my Father.")  In another section, Chan mentions how hard it is for us to love someone who we "know" is going to hell, which again implies that he thinks he knows who is going to hell.  There is only One who knows who is going to heaven or hell, and it's certainly not Francis Chan.

The one chapter that I did like was the chapter full of testimonies about people who were living the message....right up until Chan started bragging about his own church.  Maybe he was trying to personalize it by using his church as a reference, but considering he was the pastor of that church, it came off as boastful...again.

I thought maybe I was being too harsh with these opinions until I shared them with my study group and learned that many of my peers felt the exact same way.  I know I speak for many when I say Crazy Love doesn't make me feel good about Christianity; it makes me feel shamed.  It makes me feel judged.  It makes me feel unworthy.  And it makes me burn with a fierce desire to defend God's message with what I know in my heart to be true and right.  God is forgiving, full of grace, and all powerful....and those incredibly important factors seem to be brushed aside in this book.  There's a section of this book where Chan quotes Jesus warning us against false prophets.  The ironic part of that is Chan himself comes off as the very false prophet that we're warned against, with his "playing God" tone throughout.  

In fairness, I did like the ending of the book.  It finally got to a point of reminding us of the good side.  I know there are others in my group who loved this book.  When we got into a discussion about it, several points were brought up, like Chan's decision to leave his church because he felt his congregation just wasn't getting "it".  To that, I say success trickles from the top down.  If your church isn't getting the message of God that you as a pastor are trying to convey, that is a failure on your part, not theirs.  What bothered me more was to learn that Chan's response to this crisis was to abandon his own parish.  I know he positions it as if he couldn't help them anymore, and he wanted to follow God's calling.  But it's sure hard not to read that situation as him leaving his people in their greatest time of need.  The other point that's been raised is that Chan didn't mean it that way - as in, the offensive way that I took it.  And to that, I say this subject matter is way too important to risk misinterpretation.  If Chan meant something other than what I read, he should have written it more clearly and with less room for interpretation and more explanation.  If the entire purpose of this book is to ignite our crazy love for God, Chan should take to heart that many readers walked away from it with an opinion like mine.  My greatest fear concerning this book is that on-the-fence believers will get a hold of it and be scared away from Christianity as a result.  I know many non-Christians who, if they read this book, would likely feel it perpetuates the negative labels that we as Christians are so often given: judgemental, hypocritical, boastful, condemning

I have discovered that one of my own callings is to introduce atheists to Christianity (Matthew 28:19-20) in a way that is non-threatening and in a way that lets them know that I hear them, that I don't judge them, and that I truly understand where they are because I was there once, too.  And I feel that this book is an affront to that effort.  I know many call Chan a radical, but I call him careless.  I prefer methods that inspire hope, like The Case for Christ, by Lee Strobel. 

However, if there's one silver lining to all of this, it's that 10 years ago, I never would have imagined myself vehemently defending God, Jesus, and the Bible in the form of a book review.  How angry I am about this book only speaks to how much I care about getting God's message right. Sorry, Chan, but I guess I'm taking your advice to not be quiet about it, and to get loud in the name of God's message.

God-bonks

It's been entirely too long since I've blogged, but...life.  We have been getting our church on and then some, what with all the extra discipleship classes we've been taking.  And although it's a little overwhelming and exhausting, it continues to trigger that spark of curiosity that helps me to stay close to God, that endless need for questions answered.  I love getting other people's take because it always gives me a chance to ask questions and seek answers.  But we got into a quick discussion today about "God-bonks".  You know, that moment when God bonks you on the head with the reminder of his presence.  Other people refer to them as "God-winks" but in my case, God tends to work with less subtlety, knowing that I'm too dense to catch on to a wink, and likely only able to actually notice a bonk.  Well, as we recited story after story, I realized just how lucky I am to have so many God-bonk stories.  If I were to recap my most profound ones in order of occurrence, they would go something like this:

1. having recurring nightmares for six months after my grandfather's wake, with macabre visions of his lifeless body - only for him to visit me in a dream to inform me that heaven is real and he is in it
2. anaphylactic shock as a teenager due to sudden penicillin allergy - the realization of something greater out there and the official end of my days of atheism
3. speeding on the highway on a college night when a raccoon runs in front of my car, and I do a 180 trying to avoid him, while going over 75mph...but I somehow manage to bring the car to a safe stop without crashing it or hitting the median, and all of the traffic behind me stops safely, as well.  And the raccoon got away safely.
4. reading the medical portion of The Case For Christ in my parked car, and breaking down completely into tears from it, with the epiphany that this whole Jesus thing is not actually complete BS
5. a redwood tree falling just across the river from us during our wedding reception - 'nuff said
6. realizing that, after the months of tears, phone calls, research, work, and worry, our son will indeed get the help he needs in order to thrive - standing next to the car, bawling with relief, unable to even call my husband yet with the good news because I'm crying so hard, I can't talk
7. and this picture below. A day that I was in a bit of spiritual turmoil and God, in his not-so-subtle manner, showed me that he's got me covered and everything is alright.

I know there are dozens and dozens that I'm forgetting, but these are some of the big ones.  And I'm just taking a moment tonight to thank God for the fact that He knows me so well, He knows the only way to get me to listen is to bonk me over the head with it.  My life is full of more riches than I deserve.  What a beautiful thing, to be aware of Him, and full with gratitude.

Treasure Hunting

Aaaaaand we're back...six months later.  It seems the more time passed, the more awkward it felt to come back to this blog.  Even now, I have this sense of writer's block, like I really don't have anything to say.  I have nothing to say, and I have too much to say.  And so I have no idea how to begin.  I've had countless post-church moments of inspiration where I've thought to myself, "Oooooh, I need to blog about that tonight."  But then I got in my own way and here we are half a year later.

We had a late night lastnight and I've had sleep issues for a few months now, so I honestly didn't know if we would make it to early church service this morning.  But to my surprise, I woke of my own accord - blessedly not by an alarm for once - and at an early enough time that we could still make it.  It was just late enough that I knew we wouldn't be on time to church per se, but there was an unspoken, comfortable sense of leisure this morning between Tex and I, where we just got ourselves and Wee Man out the door as soon as we could, without our usual "We're late!" freakout, also a welcome change.  Yes, we were :15 late.  But yes, Wee Man still got to go to Sunday school, and I still got to enjoy another awesome sermon, and the earth still got to keep spinning on its axis.  We went to discipleship hour for the first time in months after church and once again, I was amazed at the instant sense of intimacy and camaraderie that happens in that room with friends new and old. Scripture was shared and discussed along with tearful, personal stories and words of encouragement to those who were down and out.  And laughter.  Always laughter, no matter how intense and serious we allow ourselves to get.  That's one of the things that I love about these discipleship groups the most.  At the end of the hour, one woman reminded us to "journal" our walk with Christ, and I thought, "Ooooh, I should blog tonight and that would be my journal."  And now tonight is here and I find myself thinking Maybe I should actually do it this time instead of just thinking about it.  But the general feeling in my heart today matched the theme of this morning's sermon: joy.

Our pastor shared scripture comparing our discovery of heaven to finding treasure in a field, the "treasure" in this case being God.  But honestly, the first thing I thought of when he mentioned "treasure" was not God, but my husband, the person who led me to God.   The pastor talked about the value in giving up everything superficial for this treasure, about taking risks for this treasure, and that's exactly what I know Tex and I did.  Tex uprooted himself from his very home, and moved three states over to be with me.  I risked uprooting myself from all that was safe, and stable, and predictable, and secure.  I experienced profound losses: betrayal by longtime friends, the destruction of my name and reputation, and the invasion of my privacy.  Terror and exhilaration walked arm in arm with me wherever I went, and a steady hum of anxiety accompanied my every step.  But through all of the unknown, Tex was my rock.  He was my new beginning, and the one who would show me what life could be if I chose to take a chance and live it the way I wanted, not the way everyone expected me to.  And so we walked the plank hand in hand, jumped off together, and took the plunge of our lives.  And what a wonderful deep dive that turned out to be.  Gone was the negativity, drama, and obligation, replaced now by a hopeful and relentless pursuit of truth.  I was taking a sizable gamble by leaving my former life behind to be with Tex.  But Tex was taking a gamble of epic proportions to be with me, an agnostic who scoffed at Christianity with an arrogance that still makes me wince to recall.

But through Tex's subtle influence, my heart began to open to God.  Granted, I didn't know it was happening at the time because I was still too busy being right.  Pride is such an insidious captor, isn't it?  It's amazing how full of it we can become without even realizing it, and that's what makes it so dangerous.  I really do see why pride is referred to as "the root of all evil".  It's such an easy thing to justify, and to pardon.  And yet it really is the root of all that is broken in the world.  But regardless of my own colossal shortcomings, Tex just continued to be himself, teaching through example, never through words.  In retrospect, if he had tried to teach me about Christ through words, we would probably not be together today.  We would have fought and debated, and one of us would have given up.  But that's what makes God's plan so cool; he knew that I was stubborn and proud, and that it would be a man of big actions - not big words - that would make me think.

And so my fascination with how Tex viewed and interacted with the world grew, and my door had been cracked open.  Then, in finding our church, reading Lee Strobel's works, forging discipleship friends, and soaking up bone-chillingly powerful sermons given by our Holy Spirit-infused pastor, my door had been kicked completely open and I was on my way to understanding what that amazing man, Jesus Christ, was really all about.

And so this morning's sermon discussed joy, and I went to discipleship hour full of it, and I picked up my son from Sunday school, full of it.  And Tex, Wee Man and I went sledding on this spectacularly gorgeous day, the snow sparkling off the pine branches against a cobalt blue sky, and I felt joy.  I watched my son and my husband play together in the snow: joy.  We had lunch at one of our favorite restaurants, and Tex and I got into a discussion so deep that we talked for fifteen more minutes after paying the check: joy.  We took a family walk together in the crisp, cold air at dusk: joy.  Now, the feelings that held me arm in arm as I went throughout my day were peace and exuberance, and the steady hum that accompanied my every step was hope.  For I have never felt such profound awareness of the blessings that blanket me as I do now.  I know what I have, and I know how lucky I am to have it.  And I know none of it would be possible without God.  And I know my newfound relationship with God would not have been possible without my husband, my treasure, to introduce me.  Yes, I had believed in "a" God through most of my life.  But until I learned about Jesus, God had not taken on the form for me that he does now.  Now, he is my friend.  He has a personality and a sense of humor.  Now, he has a face and a message and a clear path for me to follow.  And on the days that his path feels less clear, he patiently waits for me to find it again.  He is my ultimate treasure.  And I thank him every day for guiding me closer to him through the remarkable people in my life, most notably, my husband.

Matthew 13:44-46 (NIV)

44| “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field. 45| “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. 46| When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it. 

The Domino Effect

I used to not be a very good person. Not a horrible person, but not a very good one. If you had asked me in that chapter of my life though whether I was a good person, I would have adamantly insisted that I was. Mainly because my definition of good was completely different than what it is today. To me, being a good person simply meant not blatantly hurting anyone, following the rules, and not breaking any laws. Sure, there were the occasional times that I did something nice for someone else, but they were way too few and far between. Usually, the only person I was doing nice things for was myself. Ironically, the most good I did during that chapter was not for humans at all, but for animals, volunteering at a pet shelter with lots of cat and dog orphans.

But my life back then was in the pursuit of pleasure. Hedonism at its finest. And hedonism always seems to lend itself to narcissism, doesn't it? I was that, too. I took it upon myself to set up all the social plans for my group of friends who were also self-absorbed pleasure seekers by nature. I surrounded myself with these people for 14 years, never seeing many of them for the emotional vampires that they were. They took and took, they reached out when it served their means, they gossiped about each other, and I eagerly followed suit, proving to be just as two-faced as they were. I was not a good person.

It took a nasty divorce to realize that many of those people were not and never had been my friends. Since my ex-husband and I were at the center of this colossal social circle, our friends saw our divorce as the equivalent of breaking up the band. Many of them were quick to toss me out like so much trash and join him in his hatred of me.  And as gutted as I was to learn how few friends I actually had, I was also deeply humbled and grateful for those others who refused to pick sides and instead affirmed that they would always love me. That was my darkest chapter and they stuck with me through it, without judgment, without condemnation, and with unconditional love. I am friends with them still and I will always be thankful for their kindness then. My family held me up as well, and ironically, they were strangely relieved to learn of my divorce. They saw through my marital charade long before I did, recognizing that I was a bird in a gilded cage, not a free, happy, or respected woman.

But through all of that drama, through the highs and lows of gaining independence, and the small victory of moving into my tiny one bedroom apartment which was far from the most glamorous place I had ever lived but definitely the most exciting, because it was mine and mine alone, there was one thing missing. The most important thing. My relationship with God.

Sure, I believed in God to some vague extent and was one of those people who only bothered to pray to him when the sky was falling, when I needed something from him. Looking back, my one-sided relationship with him was not so different from the one I had experienced with my now ex-friends. But my relationship with him was always based on my terms and my timing, and I deluded myself with the idea that I was still in control of every part of my life.

Having grown up in a house whose only form of Christian practice was the hour we spent at church every Sunday (and with only one parent, as the other one was an atheist), I had never really practiced Christianity. We had never prayed outside of church or discussed it unless it was in jest. I don't recall us doing volunteer work or helping others. We were our own little self-sustaining island of four, and that was fine with us. When we did do good for others, I don't remember us focusing on whose message we were really living out, or who the real root of all the goodness was. So I fell farther away from any slight influence from Christianity, and gravitated towards the comforts of science, launching into an atheist's mentality and deciding as a teenager that we all switch off like lights at the end, and that's just fine. And then one of the greatest human beings I had ever known, my grandfather, had died when I was 16, and I was forced to look upon his lifeless body - against my will - during the open casket viewing, and I caught but the slightest glimpse of his head and face before fainting in response. It was all too much and too terrible. I remember my godfather's fury at my family for forcing me to look at such a thing, and I now understand why he felt that way. That experience drove me farther into atheism, farther into that ice cold sense of hopelessness.

There had been undeniable correspondences from God that should have acted as the catalysts for launching me straight into Christianity, real Christianity. Like that same grandfather visiting me in a dream after six straight months of nightmares, and telling me point blank that there was a heaven and he was in it, and a God who ran it. Like my heartbeat and breathing stopping for two minutes after an allergic reaction when I was 18, and me having an out of body experience that showed me the slightest glimpse of the afterlife, a peaceful and euphoric place. (But that's another post for another time, once I work up the courage to write about it.) Yes, these were less than subtle communications from God that should have launched me straight into Christianity, if I had bothered to actually listen. But instead, they only nudged me from being an atheist into being at least an agnostic. A step in the right direction for sure, but still a thousand steps away from where I needed to be.

No, the real change happened when I met my now husband (who I have so affectionately referred to in prior blog posts as "Tex") and we started to go to random church services. We church-surfed for a few years and the need to find the right church became more urgent once I was pregnant and we realized we wanted to raise our baby Christian, even though I still didn't know exactly what that meant yet.  And then one Sunday morning, we stumbled upon a new church where the music was terrific, the sermon was mind-bending, and the congregation greeted us, two total strangers, as if we were long lost friends who they had been waiting for years to see. We were enchanted. And so we found ourselves returning Sunday after Sunday. And then I started to experience what I think of now as the domino effect. The more sermons we attended, the more sermons we wanted to hear. I had developed a thirst for the epiphanies that came from these sermons, and I couldn't wait to see which of my mental horizons would be broadened each week. And with the repeated visits to this church came the growing friendships we developed with this congregation who we now refer to as our "church family". When our son was born, our pastor made a point to meet him right away, and to check on us in the hospital. And after we got out of the hospital, our church family was leaving meals on our doorstep as we adjusted to being new parents. I started reading more and more about Jesus and what he was really all about, until I had a breakthrough amidst Lee Strobel's "The Case For Christ", during which my mind was changed, and I accepted that Jesus is divine. So I had multiple influences, between our pastor, our church family, what I was reading, and the steady and quiet guidance of my husband. Our music director invited me to play cello for the church, and to sing with the choir. Our nursery director worked tirelessly with us to ensure that our little boy was in the best possible care during Sunday school. Our elders recruited Tex to help with ushering, giving readings, and delivering meals to poverty stricken children. We took workshops, we went on mini-retreats, we celebrated holidays; we did so much with our church family all in the name of Christ, and the power of good just got stronger and stronger. 

And the domino effect continued, as I realized that after I was changed by my influencers, I unknowingly became one, myself. I sent my dad the Strobel book and after a lifetime of atheism, he started to believe, and to open his mind to it. Now he is a follower of Christ. Suddenly, my brother was attending church regularly and when I asked him what inspired him, he said it was seeing the change in me. My mom and stepdad started attending church regularly, too. I don't mean to sound like I'm crediting myself for any of this. It was all God's doing, of course, and I was merely His instrument. But what an honor to get that opportunity. And as our associate pastor said in today's sermon, keeping an eye out for those opportunities is what it's all about. Now we have several new friends who have been through tremendous tragedies of their own, people who we want to help through this painful time, who have reached out after we kept the lines of communication open, and asked if they could come to church with us sometime. I have a friend who used to take great offense to the expression "I'll pray for you", but in time, started asking for prayers when times got tough. So there are all of these little - but not so little - amazing moments where we have chances to spread the word, to help our fellow mankind, to do true good, and to remember who is at the center of it. I love watching God's domino effect as he uses us to reach others. Powerful, powerful stuff.

Matthew 9:35-10:1 (NIV)

35| Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. 36| When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. 37| Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few.        38| Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”