Immaturity

Dear Blogging Audience,

When I was little, I struggled with feeling accepted in my immaturity. I didn't think people could really enjoy me when I was acting silly or if I made a mistake. That's just what happens in a broken and fallen world when you are surrounded by people who are broken. From the time I was little, I remember feeling this pressure to get it right or not try, be perfect or stay away. Because I thought that's how people around me perceived me, I pushed that onto God.

I went through a phase in my teenage years where I was afraid to read the bible because I didn't want to read it and not understand it. There were things I wouldn't pray about right away because I felt like I needed to figure it all out. There are times when I feel like I finally catch the hang of things and then, boom, I fall flat on my face again. "Don't look, God!" I always think as I try to figure out what the heck I did wrong. "Just a second, I'll get myself all fixed up in a minute."
 I had heard the phrase, "God hates insincerity, not immaturity." and I didn't believe it. How could He really enjoy me if I didn't understand things or figure everything out? I forget that God isn't like man. He isn't like me.

During an assignment where we focused on the Father's Heart, I spent time reading the story of the Prodigal Son. That boy was immature, no question about that, but when he came back to his father he was sincere and his father knew that. I had to really look at my heart and realize I didn't believe that. I didn't believe that God rejoiced and threw a party when I came back from feeding pigs after wasting all of His money.

I can't look a child in the eye and tell them that God is a good Father who rejoices over them if I don't believe that about myself. Sure, I believed He loved me but enjoyed me? No. I wasn't convinced. That's when I began to write down truths in my journal. "Forget what I think." I told myself. "I need to know what is really true."

It was in that time of reading verses, meditating on them and declaring them over myself that my heart began to believe truth.

"Everyday I am beautiful and accepted in my immaturity."

Children are immature. That's just how it is. But God wants us to be like them. Another thing about children is that they are sincere.  Instead of hiding myself because of something that I think is immaturity inside of me, I can embrace the fact that God is still smiling over me and that He loves my sincerity, no matter how immature it may be.

Love,
Me

Good Father

Dear Blogging Audience,

So, the Fellowship has started. When I explain the name to people I always say, "It's like the Fellowship Of The Ring except there are no hobbits." Then they understand.
I could go on about all the amazing things that I have been doing and the teaching and the girls but I wanted to write about something that God is pounding into my heart at the moment. It's about His goodness. It's about his Father's heart for me. It's about the fact that He really does have good plans for me.

At the moment I need $2,500 dollars to pay off the Fellowship and buy my plane ticket for Thailand. I need this money by the end of September. I don't know where this money is going to come from.

Oh yeah, I'm still single. I really want that upstanding young man who is supposed to be my husband to be in my life right about now.

My mom got very sick a week or so ago. She's doing better but she's still not 100%

Money for my family has been extremely tight. This summer has been difficult for me as I watched us struggle through trying to buy groceries, pay bills and say no to things because the money just isn't there.

I look at all these things and I think, "I have all these needs, there is so much that I don't have." And the lie sneaks into my thought process, "God isn't good."

When I come down to it, the main problem isn't that I don't think God isn't BIG enough to give me the money I need or provide for my family or heal my mom or bring me a husband, it's that I don't think He's GOOD enough. Sure, God has all the money in the world and is sovereign over all of creation, but does He see my weary heart as I cry out for my husband or as I worry about my mom or finances? Does He care? Does He see my tears and then go and weep because I've moved His heart?

One of the most powerful stories in my life right now is John 11 about Jesus, Lazarus, Mary and Martha. Jesus knew about Lazarus' sickness BEFORE Lazarus died. Mary and Martha sent the message and sat and waited, knowing that Jesus was their only hope of keeping their brother from dying. One day passes. Lazarus gets worse. Two day. They're not sure if their brother is going to make it. Three days. And he dies...

Overwhelming sorrow, anger, brokenness, fear, hopelessness, and confusion fill the sisters. Why didn't Jesus come? Didn't he love them? Didn't he know? Wasn't he good?

Four days of wrestling with questions and emotions and finally, Jesus comes. Martha goes out to him and she receives a theology lesson. Mary goes out to him and he weeps. Jesus saw Mary's tears, Mary's doubts and fears, Mary's burden of sorrow. Her tears moved His heart.

Right now I feel like I'm Mary and Martha in the middle of the 4 days between the time when Lazarus died and Jesus comes and brings him back to life. I've sent my message to Jesus, I know what happens to me matters to him but... where is he? Why isn't he doing anything? Is he really good?

As I have wrestled through yet-to-be-answered prayers, I have found myself being brought back into the truth that, YES! MY GOD IS GOOD!
He is a God that sees the ache in my heart and gives me joy to be my strength. He is a God that picks me up and holds me close to His Father's heart. He is a God that wrote down amazing plans and dreams for me before I was even born that go above and beyond all that I could ask or imagine.

Out of His great love for me...
Yes. My God is good.

Love,
Me

I'm just used to it

Dear Blogging Audience,

This is my fourth attempt of starting this blog. The other starts were wonderful and were full of exactly what I was trying to say except... Not really. See, what I'm trying to convey is the feeling of tension I have right now. I still don't know how to write about it.

Do you know how hard it is to be faced with how empty your heart really is when you had just reached a point where you were getting used to things? I've gotten used to living in America around monolingual people who love their monocultural lives. I've gotten used to not having time to keep in touch with my best friends. I've gotten used to be so isolated from my past because I have no one to remember with or talk with. People look at the pictures on my bedroom wall and get overwhelmed as I rattle off who is who and why I love them so much. Two minutes later they're moving onto a new subject and I'm just getting started with talking about how precious those people and places are to me. I don't like the feeling of showing someone the most beautiful thing I can think of sharing with them and them not seeing it as beautiful. It stings. So I have gotten used to just sharing the bare minimum. And I've been okay with that. But was I really okay with it, or did I just get used to it? Was I really as restored and my heart as healed as I thought it was or was I simply numb to my underlying emotions? And this is where I feel the tension. I am still in pain over leaving but I am also at a healthy place of moving on. Don't ask me to explain this. The best way I can is me, sitting on my bed, reading my old journal from March of 2010, crying because I can still feel that same emptiness and because I'm so grateful for where God has brought me since then. The tears were most definitely because I was grieving and they were most definitely because I was so thankful. This is my life. This is my tension.
This month marks 2 years since we left. That plus seeing Krista has opened my eyes to the fact that I'm not as over it as I thought I was. I didn't feel this tension just a few weeks ago. I had a pang of homesickness every once in a while but not like this. Not the constant tug-of-war. I could look at the hundreds of pictures I have from Morocco and not feel anything and when I did start to feel something, I would just turn it off. Part of the cut-off in communication was me preserving my last bit of sanity. I couldn't say, "I miss you" anymore. I just couldn't handle it. So was I really fully processing my emotions or was I just used to the numbness? I think it's both.

Some things are good things to get used to. Like being a big sister, eating healthy food, journaling... They are all aspects of my life that I'm used to. That I'm comfortable with. It would be strange for me to go home and see that my mom had gotten us McDonald's for lunch or for me to just stop writing in my journal every day or if suddenly my little brothers weren't a part of my life. But I don't really think about those things, they just are. I've gotten used to them and that's fine. It is my life and part of life is having certain things that are so much a part of you, you don't have to think about it. You just live accordingly.

Other things I don't think I should be used to. Like pain.  Not just emotional pain but pain from the Arthritis too. Most days I don't even notice it because I'm so used to it. But is that what it should be like? It has been 20 years so I was 1st diagnosed and I remember laying on the examining table with the doctor making silly sound effects for me as he moved my joints. When he was done I went out into the waiting room and looked into the fish tanks at the  hundreds of fish. This might be my earliest memory of my life. That was the day the doctors told my parents what was wrong with me. I don't know how I know that because I wasn't in the room when he told them but I just remember that day being the day we found out. That doctors visit has shaped my life every day since then and I've had to come up with ways to do the same things as everyone else does without thinking. I've grown used to my limitations over the course of my life, how could I not be be used to it? But I wasn't made to live in pain with body parts that don't work and constantly worrying about whether I can do something or not. I don't want to be used to this disease, I want to be used to expecting God to heal me at any moment.

And this is my tension. Being used to things. Becoming unused to things again. This is what it means to live as a stranger on the earth, waiting for Jesus to come back and make all things new. Hallelujah. Come, Lord Jesus, come!

Love,
Me