Even When I was Dead, He Made Me Alive

I have now official preached my first sermon, gone to my first Husker game, and eaten my first Runza all in my first two months in Ceresco.  As I talk to family and friends I am blessed to be able to say that I have fallen in love with Nebraska!  The people, the farm country, even the Lincoln hipsters add to my adoration for this place.

There is also the sense that for the first time I am fully living into the call God has put on my life.  To have a church call me pastor, to walk beside parishioners in sickness, to teach and welcome in new members, and to learn from an amazing mentor have all been formative in this season of internship.

Yet, there is a juxtaposition of life and death that I allow to be at war within myself in the midst of this season of blessing.  I feel like it has been my hobby horse to continuously write on health and the choice of health that is before each of us.  But I write on it because every Friday is my Sabbath and I am forced to examine my past week and the choices that have brought me closer to God and those choices that have brought me further away.  I would love to say, “I figured it out!  Life is perfect and I completely understand a life of faith!”  But that is not the case, and that will never be the case this side of the Eschaton.   I know that in my head, but in my heart and in my flesh I continue to wrestle with the desire to be god of my own life and figure everything out for myself.

How stupid can I be?  How many times can I make the same mistakes and the same choices that war against my sanity and my relationship with God?  Am I seriously that foolish?  Or seriously that stubborn?  I know it is a bit of both.  I have been reading through Psalms and Ephesians this week and I am reminded of two things:  1) David demonstrates what it looks like to call out to God from where we are at (no pretense, no prerequisite, nothing to bring but our honest state of being); and 2) when we were dead in our sins, living into the ways of the world that do not bring health and healing and life, God came in and made us ALIVE! (Ephesians 2:5).  And it is out of this life that was given, in God’s love, mercy, and truth, that we are able to live a life of health and freedom from the bondage of sin.

God has made us alive, so why do I continue to choose death?  To choose the things that do not recognize the life and blessing that is all around me?  It comes from a place where I fail to realize the life and change that is found in relationship with God.  A relationship that is a gift that I must embrace every day.  So, once again, that is my hope, my prayer, and my choice:  “For we are God’s craftsmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” (Ephesians 2:10)

Hope: My Perspective

In the past two months, heck, for the last year, I have been attempting to seek health for my life and my current and future ministry.  The challenge being: what does it look like to be healthier at the end than the beginning?  Long them?  Short term?  This question has many levels, but while I am seeking God and seeking health, I also feel bombarded by the topic! 

In some ways I am healthier now than I have ever been, but in others it is just the opposite.  Seriously, WHAT THE HECK!  As I seek health, take classes on biblical perspectives of health and healing (best class ever by the way you all should read Jim Bruckner’s book: Healthy Human Life), and even now I am in a spiritual formation class on health, I feel lost and desperate for hope.

But there is hope, there is always hope!  Because we believe in a live and faithful God.  And I have hope for God’s work, direction, and guidance.  Like David cried out to God in Psalm 5 “Make Your way straight before my face!”  I like that.  Direct David, thanks!  That is what I need so why not ask.

Off of something I say on a friend’s facebook page I thought I would put some positive direction STRAIGHT BEFORE MY FACE!  Plus it was fun to spend an afternoon being crafty!    Here is my wall of motivation, my wall of truth.  My hope and my prayer is that I would not loss perspective and while some days seem hopeless, there is always hope.

The process:

The project:

The completed product:

Ramblings from an incomplete idiot!

About six years ago I said something really stupid to a friend.  Shocking I know.  I mean, I’m sure that is the only time I said something stupid in the last six year.  Truth be told, I know I have said many stupid things and some of them probably brought great pain.  Others not even a second thought.  I do not know if this friend even remembers our discussion about women as pastors, (this particular conversation was about women as worship pastors), but to her this blog post is dedicated!  This is my penance, my sincere apology, and an omission of my extreme stupidity and lack of tacked!  I hope you enjoy!

The conversation that I write of?  A simple passing banter at camp.  My friend asked what I thought of female worship pastors?  My comments:  “I don’t know.  I have always had male leaders.  I think they lead better.  And, well, I like the sound of their voices more.  It is easier for a congregation to follow a male worship leader.”  I’m calling bull sh*t on myself!  WHAT THE HECK!?  If I was my friend, who by the way is a talented and gifted singer and guitar player, I would have walked away discouraged and judged.  In my naiveté and lack of theological understanding of women as leaders, a made some stupid comment that here, six years later, I am still thinking about.

Why am I still thinking about it?  To tell you where I am today, I must tell you where I have been.  I really came to own my faith in Jesus as a college student.  I was a part of Campus Crusade for Christ and I got involved in an amazing church movement called Newfrontiers.  Both these organizations support a complementarian view of women in ministry.  That means that they believe that while both sexes are equal, they have been created differently and for different purposes.  Therefore women can serve in all capacities except head leadership, (as pastor).  I knew the biblical support for this view, I had never been limited in my call to ministry, if anything I had been encouraged.  Therefore I did not think much about whether or not I supported this view of women and hence, why I made idiotic comments in passing that in all reality put limitations on my fellow sisters in Christ.

Well, after careful study of the Bible, after a lot of prayer, and sadly after an experience where I was overlooked because of my gender I finally repented of this view of women.  It is crazy to think that as a woman I would limit other women.  But that is often the case.  It finally took my own season of pain and heartache and a questioning of the call God has put on my life that finally brought this all into perspective.  I know why some Christians hold this view of women.  There are people I love very deeply that do.  But what I never understood is how comments like the ones I made to my friend and other comments that come out of a complementarian view do not demonstrate God’s love.  That comment spoke condemnation.  It placed my understanding as a judgment over my friend’s call to ministry.  That is NEVER the point of a theological view.  But, lived out, that is exactly what it is sometimes.  For that, I am sorry.  

I hope to live out my faith in such a way that empowers other and points them towards Christ: which is the way to love, freedom, and anything but condemnation!

Life, ministry, school, and a personal walk with Jesus

It has been an interesting week in Ceresco.  I am finding that God is teaching me a lot about balance and grace as I seek after Him and seek to do his will.  In some regards this week has been a roller-coaster as I continue to seek wisdom in terms of what it looks like to be a pastor, to be a student, and to be a disciple of Christ.

As a pastor I had the opportunity to walk alongside a family who has been struggling with sickness and disease.  One of the parishioners has liver cancer and late Wednesday night he got the news that he was going to receive a new liver.  This is a miracle!  It continues to be a miracle as God is present and at work in the life of this family.  I have never experienced anything like this.  To see the joy and the hope as healing begins.  I continue to pray for healing and for cure as the long road of recovery lies ahead for this family.  Yet God is present and in that all hope lies.

In life I have struggles as I am far away from people I love in Chicago.  Dear dear friends like Kim and Mike Thomas, (see picture), bless me with their intentional friendship.  I have been blessed beyond belief with friends and family that demonstrate love for me every day.  This past week I had the opportunity to catch up with a college roommate and played phone tag with three other college roommates.  Again, the blessing of friends like Beena, Kelly, Grace, Kelly, and Annicka bring tears to my eyes because I feel so loved.  But it is hard to reflect on my current state of singleness and the reality that at the end of the day I come home to an empty apartment.  As always I am wrestling with the difference between solitude and loneliness and seeking wisdom.  To know that I am so blessed with community, yet so far away from people I love it a hard truth.

Which brings me to my final reflect of the week on my walk with Jesus.  In school, in ministry, and in life all aspects come back to my identity as a disciple of Christ.  I live this life not out of my own strength but out of God’s.  My identity is founded on who He has made me to be and in the hope for where He is directing me.  It is hard.  I am rebellious and seek to be my own god and be the one in control of all circumstances.  Yet, it is the promise of life and the good news of Christ that I do not HAVE to be god!  God is God!!  And daily I have the freedom to turn to Him and give Him my burdens.  He is my hope for today, my hope for tomorrow, and in that truth I find rest.