Insight

It's funny how a moment of insight can just hit you out of no where.  I was listening to an old worship CD this morning and as the song said "rise up women of the truth" it took me back to when we sang that at our church in Gig Harbor.  I loved our church.  It was an awesome community and helped me grow so much in my relationship with Christ.  I also developed deep friendships.  In my memory, that was an amazing time in my walk with Christ.  Everything felt brand new.  I felt like my love for Christ was at this new level and every aspect of my Christian walk felt exciting and energizing.  I was happy to have my church family and wanted to be in their company as often as possible.  I wanted my kids to play with my friends' kids.  It felt like such a perfect world.  Which was why the phrase from the song struck me this morning.  One of the things that felt so important at that point in my life was to have the identity of "woman of truth."  I wanted people to know I was a Christian.  I wanted people to know that my faith was more important than anything and that my relationship with Christ trumped every other relationship.  I wanted them to know how different my faith made me from the rest of the world.  I wanted to be able to speak the language of Christianese and fit in with other Christians.  


When we moved to California I wanted to find a church clone of my home church.  I wanted the smallness, the community, the charismatic bent with people dancing in worship.  I wanted the intimate fellowship with other believers and a tight group of good Christian kids for my kids to grow up with.  And so God answered my prayers...in the way he always does...by providing exactly what I needed to grow more.  He led us to a big church--it was huge in my opinion.  People raised their hands in worship but no one danced.  I didn't feel a sense of community because there were 8 different service times instead of just one.  They used movie clips and clips from TV shows that were popular rather than focusing on being different from the world.  And the first week that my 8th grader went to Wednesday night youth services one of the other girls talked about having sex.   Wait, this wasn't what I prayed for.  As I wondered and worried that we were in the wrong place my family felt like this was it.  They all knew we had found our church home...but I was still pining for what we had left in Washington.  


But I plugged in, found friends, found community, and grew to love my new church.  I learned that there were reasons for using clips relevant to the culture and learned that my kids could survive with friends who weren't always making the best choices.  And I felt like I needed to unlearn the Christianese that I had tried so hard to learn.  I felt like I needed to make sure that I didn't stand out and seem "churchy" to the people in my community who we were trying to help find Jesus.  


So this morning's insight was that both of those views that I held are completely off base.  When you look at them from the surface, they look fine.  I am a woman of the truth.  I believe in the truth of Jesus, his death and resurrection. But trying to mold myself into this image that I created in my head wasn't a God inspired thing.  It was me, trying to please people.  I am also a person who needs to be able to interact with regular people who don't know Christ and don't go to church and hopefully they will see Christ's love in me and be drawn to it.  But again, trying to mold myself into the image of "relevant" that I had created in my head also wasn't God inspired.  


The thing is, both of these churches, while they are so different, are really awesome churches.  I have grown by leaps and bounds in both environments and I truly believe that God called us to the first church and now has called us to our current church.  My feelings of what I needed to do were never put on me from people in my church or church leadership.  They were put on me by that familiar burden of wanting to do anything to fit in.    


And that's where the insight flash comes in.  I was so off base because in both instances I was forgetting the truth that God had called me to serve him as me.  He didn't tell me to become a different person, he just wanted me to grow to be more like him.  He wanted to use my unique giftings, my unique experiences, my unique flaws, and my unique personality to love on all kinds of people in his name.  


I often think that I would love to be a person who doesn't care what other people think of me.  But the truth is, I do.  I want to be liked and accepted and understood.  But no one is liked, accepted, and understood by everyone.  As I walk out this life with Christ, there will be people who will judge me.  There will be people who look at my life, my family, my past, and my current behavior and look down on it.  There will be people who will misunderstand my motives and my heart.  There will be people who just flat out are bothered by my personality.   And it will bug the hell out of me that they don't get me or like me.  


However, going back to my insight, I need to remember that I am living this life for God.  If I am confident that I am walking in obedience to Christ, then it doesn't matter what people think.  If I continue to have deep friendships with people who hold me accountable and know when I'm slipping off that path, I can ditch the worry about what kind of a Christian I look like.  


I need to keep my eyes fixed on the one whose approval is the only approval I need and continue growing to be more like him.  

Where's My Concern?

An old friend of mine posted a heartbreaking video on bullying this week on facebook.  And in the comments one of his friends remarked about how different high school would have been if we could have all just been ourselves.   The post and conversations got me thinking about bullying and the pain of high school.  Not so much reflecting on my own experience but more about reflecting on my cluelessness. 

I think I’m clueless because I don’t have any memories of my friend being bullied.  All I remember is that he was such a nice guy.  I remember that he wasn’t ever mean to me.  I remember liking him so much and I just assumed everyone felt the same way.  And I think that’s why there’s so much pain when you’re bullied.  It’s usually completely undeserved.   You’re just a person who doesn't fit the mold in some way and that makes you a target.  For me, it was that I was tall and skinny and got good grades.  (Or maybe it was because I was a nerd and didn’t know it—ha-ha)  The other thing that I thought about was that part of what was so painful about not fitting in and being picked on is that it always seems like everyone is in on it but you.  Everyone else is cool, everyone feels the way the bully feels about you.  My cluelessness shows that this isn’t always the case.  It makes me think that there were lots of times when I felt like everyone was in on some meanness when in reality most of the school was completely unaware of the target on my back. 

Another friend posted the other day about her son being bullied.  Kids are stealing his things, hiding his school supplies.  Who knows why he’s the target.  And the emphasis was on teaching our children to be kind.  But teaching kindness isn’t enough.   We can teach kindness until we’re blue in the face but without the ability to empathize, it falls on deaf ears.  This takes me back to my cluelessness and the grief I feel about that.    I feel like I’m a pretty empathetic person and this shows that I completely missed some big clues.  So if empathy isn’t the key, and kindness isn't the key, what is?  I don’t have a simple answer.  I remember the pain of my daughter being excluded from a clique for the first time and all of these girls were kind, empathetic girls, one on one.  They had nice parents who taught them the right way to treat people.  But they still specifically excluded her.  I’ve seen my son on both sides of the equation, being labeled or excluded because he didn’t fit someone’s idea of who he should be and I’ve also known how painful it is to watch your child single another child out as the object of his taunting.  He was taught over and over that it was wrong.  It was addressed every time it happened.  Yet he did it anyway.  And if I’m honest I know I’ve done it…I think most of us could remember a time when we joined the crowd and someone else walked away hurting.

Philippians 2:3-5 says, “Don’t be selfish; don’t try to impress others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves. Don’t look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others, too. You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had." (NLT)

I was clueless about my friend being bullied because I was so concerned about myself.  But beyond my selfishness there was one other part (just one—yeah right) part of Jesus’ attitude that I didn’t have and I think it’s absent every time we see cruelty or bullying.  Jesus suspended judgment as he interacted with the world.  Yes, he called people, especially the Pharisees, on their wrongs.  But he knew everyone's heart and he could have walked around excluding everyone who was different from what he KNEW was right, but he didn’t.  He decided instead to walk in love and embrace people right where they were at.  He knew that this kind of genuine love can do far more than bullying can even pretend to accomplish.  He didn’t hang out with a particular type of person; he had friends from every social group.  He didn’t care what other people thought of him because of who he chose to hang around.   I cared.  The opinions of the very people who were mean to me still mattered.  And this concern captured more of my attention and energy than what was going on in the lives of my friends. 

I wish I knew of a simple way to teach this to children, but I don’t.  I guess it needs to start with me.  Really, it needs to start with all of us.  I need to take my eyes off of MY life, MY issues, MYself, and really start seeing others with Jesus’ eyes.  Eyes that are humble, full of love, full of empathy and full of compassion.  I need to drop my attitude and take on Jesus’ attitude that only God’s opinion and priorities matter. 

And to my friend, I’m sorry that I didn’t see when others were bullying you.  If I could go back I would see with new eyes and be a better friend who was aware of what was going on in your life because you matter—both to me and to God. 

The 4 friends

It's almost been a week since I found out that my pleural effusion is caused by a CSF leak.  To say that I've been overwhelmed with the information is probably a huge understatement.  Part of me is validated that finally I have proof that what I've been suggesting to my doctors for years is actually happening.  Part of me is relieved that the effusion isn't the result of some rare form of cancer.  But I'm not sure what this means for my life and I'm not sure how or even if they'll treat it.  I know that my dural ectasia complicates things significantly.  I have an appointment on October 27th with a neurosurgeon and until that time I'm resting and trying to process and cope.  So since I'm resting I've had lots of time to think.  

One of the things that has been on my mind a lot in the last few weeks is the story from Mark 2  where the 4 men carry their paralyzed friend to Jesus.  One day I was overwhelmed with anxiety as we were waiting for the results to the latest round of tests. I felt weepy and I called my friend and told her I needed prayer.  I shared all of my worries with her and she prayed for me right then.  She also said that she was with a few of our other friends and could ask them to pray too.  That was when I first started thinking about the 4 friends.  I know prayer is the quickest cure to anxiety.  But sometimes my anxiety is so high that I can't seem to think clearly, let alone pray.  After I hung up I felt my heart rate slow back to normal and the anxious fluttering in my stomach subside.  I needed my friends to carry me to Jesus because at that time I wasn't able to get there on my own.  

The other reason that this has been on my mind is because I'm not really that good at letting my friends carry me.  I want to be the strong one.  I want my friends to be wowed by how faith-filled I am in the face of hard circumstances.  I want to be the comforter, not the comforted.  I want to be the one reminding someone of truths from scripture, not the one being reminded.  Truth is, I hate being needy.  But right now, I do need my circle.  I was imagining what it would have been like if I was the guy in scripture.  I can see myself saying "seriously you guys, I can get to Jesus on my own.  You don't need to carry me."  And then what?  Try to drag myself there even though I actually can't make it alone?  Or I can imagine telling them not to mess up the roof to the house because I didn't want to be that much trouble.  As I imagine these things I think of how life would have been different for those 4 friends if they hadn't been allowed to carry their friend to Jesus.  Those 4 men got to witness a miracle firsthand.  They got to be commended by the Son of God for their great faith.  They got to be a part of something huge, something eternal.  

Maybe these things come to my mind because it makes me feel better to hope that my friends are getting something out of helping me.  Maybe it's still the result of my pride that just won't allow me to accept help unless I see it doing something good for someone else.  But I know that something big happens when we carry our friends to Jesus.  Something bigger than any of us can do on our own.  I know that hearts are bonded when we walk through trials with a friend.  I know that relationships are deepened when I strip away my defenses enough to admit my needs.  

God designed us for relationship and some of us (ahem--you know who you are because I know I'm not the only one) like to think that we're ok on our own; that we do fine doing life and faith and relationships on our own terms.  For whatever reason, God won't let me stay in that place of solitude and independence.   

So if you're helping someone out, or offering to help out and your friend seems irritated, just know that it's not you.  It's just your friend having some rough edges ground off and sometimes that doesn't feel so good.   Thanks for the help.