Faith.

It reads strong.  Beautiful.  Confident.  It’s a word that stands up tall and speak softly but firmly.

Faith can be like that.

But not always.

Sometimes faith is holding on amidst mental and emotional exhaustion.  It’s believing that even the “fallen through the cracks” feeling I carry is part of the Master’s Plan.

It’s waiting longer than you expected.  Living in chaos for more months than you hoped.  And knowing that even the year or two or three ahead won’t be simple, or  straightforward or all that peaceful.  But it might still be really good.

It’s knowing that He’s willing for me to cry, that He doesn’t mind my questions and my confusion.  That even tear-filled eyes: yes, even bloodshot eyes with no tears to cry, can glance into His.  And He will still smile that strengthening smile.  And I will look away from His beauty, His strength.  We can not look long into such eyes.

Battered Belief says that the faith road is not simple to walk or easy to find.  It doesn’t come with clearly delineated signs and highway distance markers.  It comes with precious gifts falling like silver sparkles from the sky.  It comes with fog.  It comes with drizzly, low-visibility days.

This too is testimony.  I state here for The Record, that the ruthless trust path, my choice, is sometimes marvelous, amazing and miraculous.  And sometimes startlingly unclear and overwhelming.

Just for the record.  Just to testify.

May 29th, 2010 = 12 whole years of one-ness

That one-ness leads to a whole lot of joy.  Sometimes a whole lot of pain.  Making two, one, is like getting a broken arm to heal back up.  It’s good, and right, and God’s plan.  But there is pain and restriction of movement and waiting involved.  I’m glad I’m doing it with David.  Cause I don’t know if I could manage with anybody else.

As the Five for Fighting song says:

” I bruise you, you bruise me; we both bruise so easily.

Too easily to let it show.  I love you and that’s all I know.

All my plans keep falling through.

All my plans they depend on you.

Depend on you to help them grow.

I love you and that’s all I know.”

Being one comes at a cost.  It’s precious, and fearful, and hard and good.

“I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine.”  Still.

12 years after the celtic dancing and the antique Rolls Royce.

What can I say?  We’re blessed.

I hold his hand tight.  I cry, many times.  And we keep working our two broken selves into each other.

Becoming One.

Joining the Gratitude Community once more:

From Psalm 89:

“Blessed are the people who know the Passwords of Praise.”

We enter the realm of Presence when give offerings of thanks.

Gratitude changes everything.

I continue to Testify:

#11  The prayers of strangers, wrapping us in His arms

#12 Need for manger . . . Even He did not know where to lay His head . . . .

#13 my little brother; loving on my kids; being himself.  He’s precious.

#14 cousins running, laughing, playing, discovering each other . . . . Blood runs thicker than we remember.

#15 uncertainty and lack of routine leading to real communion with Him in each morning shower . . . . . desperate dependence leading me face to Face

#16  remembering all that we have to Testify to. . . . .remembering our story: Jesus really is ENOUGH. . . . . We continue to demonstrate that!

#17  seeing duos and trios of children gathered around the sweet women I used to pray with . . . . Seeing their dreams have become flesh . . . He answered

#18  finding all of our American possessions neatly packed into a storage facility . . . And remembering the sweetness of The Shrums.  Thank you!

#19  realizing how little we need; and how much we have been given . . . . . Letting more go . . . . .

#20 seeing the generations reach out for hope . . . . . Turn faces toward the Light and the light

#21 watching my children LOVE the children’s ministry I helped to build alongside Yvette those seven years ago . . . Seeing Fruit from our labors . . It is good

#22 compassion for the leaders around us, born out of our own trial by fire in leadership . . . . . We have felt that kind of bright scrutiny and we reach out a hand in tenderness for their bruised and battered hearts

#23 unexpected beach swim, spontaneously sandy-wet clothing, and alighting nearly naked on a friends doorstep . . . We are ALWAYS taken in

#24  dreaming of decorating in Redding, cleaning a countertop that I call my own again, and hanging artwork on a fridge filled with self-chosen foods

#25 being TOGETHER . .. . . . Us four . . . . So grateful for health, our lives, our family, our foursome and HOPE

Sleeping in . . . . . Flowers from my son . . . . Birthday card bouquets . . . . . . The Garden of the Gods in all it’s glory . . . . . 77 degrees and not quite so windy . . . . . Pikes Peak beckoning . . . . . abundant fresh Raspberries and Blackberries . . . . . . International Anglican Church; perhaps the most amazing experience of God in a building, ever . . . . The wonder in Quinn’s eyes as I spoke into his heart , ”YOU, are a saint!” . . . . . Stolen moments of conversation with my oldest friend . . . . . . David’s hand, always strong, holding mine . . . . .meeting precious bitty-bald Asher . . . . . “fallen palm leaf” plates to hold my birthday feast . . . . . Falling asleep skin-to-skin with my totally trustworthy, safe and precious best-friend . . . . .Naomi’s worship music blasting through the car and her voice carrying the tune, “dive in” . . . . . . .quick tears during beautiful worship and His reminder, “ even grief is an offering” . . . . . .days to celebrate . . . . A book of coupons for me to cash-in including “snugs from Quinn” in ten minute increments! . . . . .messages from friends . . . . .a whole year of change and growth and following God to look forward to . . . . . . The knowledge that He is deeper inside of me, closer beside me and so near me  . . . Birthday cake and Izze soda communion service; led by Naomi. . . . The Young Victoria; a beautifully filmed and beautifully lived story . . . . . . And so so so much more.

Some children say their age of three with a tiny trio of fingers and an: “I’m ‘FREE’ now!”.   I declare myself “free” times ten this year.   My year of freedom has begun.  A year of celebration.  A year of saying “yes” to God and the future He has for me.  A year of new beginnings.  God’s promises for me this year amaze and excite me.  I’m so thankful to be here. Now.   With Him.  And with my sweet children and steadfast husband.  Sucking the marrow out of life as best I know how.  And forgiving myself each time I fall short of all I wish to be.  We serve an awesome God.

Sitting around the MTI (Mission Training International) fireplace on gathered couches, we sing worship songs with weary abandon.  It doesn’t matter who’s watching now, only tired hearts pulled up to the throne to fortify ours souls. A few of us participate while around us other missionaries check email, chat with a friend, or stare off into space.  Pre-field we were all ready to join for some singing.  Post-field we barely muster the energy or desire.  I watch a southern pastor amble by, stop, half-turn towards our singing and then  collapse into a nearby couch, eyes shut, to sit in the Presence as we worship.  No energy or heart to sing; but a heart full of need for Him.   My eyes fill with tears.

We are the weary warriors, the fully-limbed heart-amputees, the survivors of terms of missionary service.

And we have begun the long re-hab process.  Grief takes time. Hearts heal slowly.  Edward Tulane shows us the way.

Our “field experience” won’t be “over”, ever.  We are the forever-changed, the always-not-quite-Americans, the world-lovers who have and will pay a price.  And we are grateful.

We’re in Palmer Lake this week, near Colorado Springs.  We’re enjoying snow and sunshine, vast blue skies and gusty winds, mountains and tumbleweed!  We’re also Debriefing and Renewing (DAR) with an organization called Mission Training International (MTI), known in the mission world for amazing missionary care.  We spent five weeks here for pre-field and language training five years ago.  Now we’re here again to talk about what being on the field was like, how we are hurting, how we feel blessed and what comes next.  This is DAR.

There are sixty three of us here this week for a huge “triple DAR” program, including twenty seven kids!  The kids have their own DAR program.  So far this week they have talked about being “green” (combining the “yellow” of their home culture with the “blue” of their host culture makes them neither blue nor yellow but “green” – a third culture kid), being transplanted (complete with a flower project to illustrate the point), and about the paradox (or pair a “ducks” they use!) of life as a missions kid.  It’s pretty amazing and our kids are in heaven and finally opening up and sharing pieces of their Ugandan stories with their new missions friends.  I guess it’s easier to be “green” when others are green around you.

We too are enjoying time with other missionary couples and singles, hearing their stories, sharing ours, crying together and waiting out the discomfort of processing.  We’re a very different bunch than the pre-field crowd; quieter and less demanding.  Slower to warm to each other.  We give each other space and time and ask softer, gentler questions.  We cry even quicker sometimes and struggle to cry at other times.

Debriefing and Renewal is a program that says even being in the center of God’s will we encounter an awful lot of pain and hardship.  Just look at Jesus in the Garden of Gesthemane.  So we remember what hurt.  We sort through the pain and we re-embrace the calling . . . . or walk away towards a new one.

All prayers appreciated.

I catch myself whispering the words to No One as I move about my daily habiliments:  “ I’m sorry.”  Sometimes it’s “I’m sorry I’m so  out of shape.”  Sometimes it’s, “I’m sorry I’m so impatient with the kids.”  Sometimes it’s; “I’m sorry I never, never, never get it right and I never learn.”

Each time I catch myself speaking these “sorry” words, I make amends.  I know I am not supposed to repeat that mantra.  Not to myself; I have no forgiveness to offer.  And not to God; who has already forgiven all.  Yet the depth of my self-distrust, my self-correction is deep.

It is only when I hear my son mutter those same words: “ I’m sorry.  I’m so clumsy.”  “I’m sorry.  I forgot again.”  When I hear from his voice, hear echoing from his heart, that same self-correction; that is when I stop in my tracks.

I am stopped by the heart-pain God feels when I whisper self-hate.   I too am a parent.  And I am grieved, saddened, immeasurably lost by my child’s words.  So He is by mine.

Fernando Ortega sings beautifully the Psalmist’s words:

Let the words of my mouth
Be pleasing to You.
The meditations of my heart
Be pleasing to You.
Oh Lord my Strength and my Redeemer.

And I stop to wonder how much it pains the heart of God to hear words from my mouth that dishonor His priceless creation – me.  How much sadness it brings Him to hear me meditate on my shortcomings instead of his Redemption.

I want my son to believe Truth.  I want him to believe that what I tell him is true and that how I see him is right.  That who he is can not be measured by his extra exacting measuring stick.

Whatever is True.
Whatever is Pure.
Whatever is Lovely
Whatever is Worthy.

Think on these things.

So I choose.  I choose.  I CHOOSE. To think, to mediate, on whatever is worth giving thanks for . . . And to let the rest slip away into the endless forgiveness of eternity.

And I choose to teach my son to do the same.

To look up; not down, or in.

“Trust yourself as one entrusted by God with everything needed to live life to the full.”  - Brendan Manning

Written of our time on retreat in the Smokies . . . . .

After a few days of silence – a few days without radio or phone calls from friends or email or a schedule – it begins to get pretty quiet in my head.  Not that I am really silent.  I am with my two sweet and noisy children, and my husband, after all.  I read and read and read and we listen to Laura Ingalls on CD until we almost hurl it back (Naomi’s choice.)  But still there is a new silence.

And this new silence is the real crucible for me.  I love missions work, meeting challenges, helping, the adventure, the heat, the joy, the tears.  For me I find life in the LIVING sometimes, of missions work.  Silence, however, is a crucible.  I find dross drifting to the top.  A much thicker layer than any of you would imagine.  It doesn’t really surprise me.  Not really.  No.  Not at all.

I find new fear in this silence.  I fear myself and the depths of my own heart and my depravity and my lack of control over anything most especially my own heart and mind.  I fear failing my children.  I lay  stretched in the bed besides Quinn’s sweet soft half naked body as he falls into sleep and I panic at his growing up.  At all I have not given him, at all I have missed, all I have failed to record and recognize.  The many conversations we have not had.  And perhaps I do not yet know how to have.

In this silence I look backward too, look at the beginnings of some of my biggest heartaches.  Look at the the traps Satan set for me long ago that have grown into deep gnarly rooted sin patterns that catch me now.  That trap me and hold me back.  That are a captivity I choose habitually.

Is God really big enough? Yes, I trust ruthlessly, yes.  I believe.  Help me to believe.

Fairhaven’s Lodge has two big maps.  The United States map is dotted with red pin heads; most centering in Florida, Tennessee, North Carolina and Virginia.  These dots represents the homes of their visitors; the pastors and other Christian workers who have sought retreat, rest and refuge in these Smoky Mountain cottages. As we have, this week.

On the opposite wall is a world map, also dotted, though not as thickly.  These are the missionary households who have traveled across continents, seas and time zones before arriving here.  Like us.

I study this map.  Dots cluster thickly in Europe, densely in Papua New Guinea and the bottom of West Africa. Yes, and in Uganda.  These are the places missionaries like to go; or perhaps where God likes to call them.  Mission density is one of those great questions . . . .  Do we choose the places that are simple, receptive, welcoming?  Or does God send us to those places in numbers, for reasons yet unknown?  Northern Sudan, where we are considering, has only one pin head.  Chad; none.  Northern West Africa only one or two.  Egypt two.

And I ponder again . . . To  the unreached?  To the unengageable?  God we are willing to go  . . . . . We are willing to go, though sometimes scared.  Egypt, Northern Sudan, Chad . . . . We are exploring.  And yet Northern Uganda continues to call to us. Surely there are enough missionaries in Uganda???

God’s ways are not our ways, though, are they?  He does not always ask us to go to the places of greatest risk just as he does not always allow us to go to the places that feel “comfortable”.  He does not only call us to the unreached, sometimes he calls us to cities like Annapolis.  And what matters is not statistics or programs, strategies or numbers but our individual calling by a personal God to the individuals He has chosen us to reach.

Once again, God.  Send us.  Wherever, to whomever.  Then give us the courage to go.

“God, the Master; The Holy of Israel,

has this solemn counsel:

Your salvation requires you to turn back to me,

and stop your silly efforts to save yourselves.

Your strength will come from settling down

in complete dependence on me-

The very thing

you’ve been unwilling to do.

You’ve said. ” Nothing doing! We’ll just rush off on horseback!”

You’ll rush off, all right! Just not far enough!

You’ve said: “we’ll ride off on fast horses!”

Do  you think your pursuers ride old nags?

Think again: A thousand of you will scatter before one attacker.

Before a mere five you’ll all run off.

There’ll be nothing left of you-

a flagpole on a hill with no flag.

a signpost on a roadside with the sign torn off.

But God’s not finished.  He’s waiting around to be gracious to you.

He’s gathering strength to show mercy to you.

God takes the time to do everything right – everything.

Those who wait around for him are the lucky ones.

Isaiah 30: 15-17

The verses above make me laugh before I turn somber.  The Message has a way of putting God’s truth that slaps you in the face and wakes you up.  There’s a sense of judgment in these verses; which I don’t feel from God at all.  Yet the last line, the one about waiting on God, feels right where I am.   Being in this waiting place is so counter-cultural that it’s sometimes hard to believe we really are living like this: no home, no car, no keys.  If the five years ago me had met us today I’m sure there would be some seriously judgmental thoughts about irresponsibility and lack of planning.

Now here we are today and enjoying this sweet time.  For the most part we are thrilled and thankful not to be rushing off somewhere on a fast horse and to instead be in a sweet waiting place WITH God (not waiting FOR God, mind you, WITH God.)  So many words have been said about waiting.  The most recent I read commented that the word waiting in the Bible most often has the connotation of “twirling in place, as in the dance.” A focused, passionate, intense “stillness” that isn’t still at all really.   I have often felt tired from this intense focused stillness recently.  A good tired.

The next step of stillness and waiting for us is to head to the Smoky Mountains, to a little retreat center called Fairhaven, where we will spend time in the wilderness, with each other and with him.  To prevent our minds racing off on fast horses  we will be unplugging from phones, email and blogs.  We will be lighting the little candles needed to see into each others eyes.  And we will be waiting on him for news of the future; short and long term.  Most of all we will just BE.  There is no agenda, really.  No need for an answer from God or for something definitive to work out.  Because ” God takes the time to do everything right – everything.”  So for a little while we’re learning to live like Him; taking the time to do relationship right.  And to be quiet in the Beauty.

Pray for us.