Over Christmas break, I’ve had a little more time to sit and theoretically smell the roses (except that they’re all under lots of feet of snow right now) and think about life. Sometimes that’s a dangerous thing, but God has been using it to remind me to live out my faith more effectively in some very specific areas. At the end of this past rather introspective week, therefore, my prayer is that thru the years, God would preserve and deepen in me a sense of compassion, of humility, of a willingness to learn and an ability to graciously acknowledge when I am wrong and where I have a responsibility to change.

We do not fight against flesh and blood, and yet we live in a flesh-and-blood universe where we are surrounded by flesh-and-blood individuals like ourselves. And thus in our dealings with people, there is a relational component as well as a spiritual one, and a physical component which accompanies the philosophical. When we hyper-intellectualize and falsely spiritualize the earthiness of the human journey towards sanctification, we often separate the physical, emotional and sexual components of human nature from the philosophical, relational, and spiritual ones, and in so doing, we create a fragmented, disjointed picture of humanness in which no human can fully recognize himself, because not all parts of himself are there reflected.

It’s easy to become disconnected from reality in our philosophizing about spiritual themes and truths. However, truth is effective only when it is firmly grounded in reality and thoroughly applicable to the human experience as it truly is—not how it is in theory. My heart has been especially burdened for those who struggle with same sex attraction, pornography addiction, cutting, depression, and eating disorders, because I feel that all of these are areas where Christians need to buck up and step up and sometimes shut up in order to listen, feel, and learn how they can effectively help their struggling brothers and sisters in Christ gain personal victory on the moral frontlines.

Walking with someone thru their issues is messy. And nasty. And sometimes it just makes you feel grumpy. But it’s worth it. And sometimes I feel like we need to be a lot better about reminding ourselves a lot more often that it IS worth it, and that we have a responsibility to care even when we don’t feel like it. To refuse to get involved or to stand apathetically on the sidelines when we know that people are struggling and that we have the capacity to help them through self-sacrificing friendship is ultimately an expression of selfish indifference and possibly even contempt.

“Yeah, I’ve been blessed by God. I’ve been discipled. I’ve been ministered to. I’ve been redeemed, and God continues to sanctify me. But do I care enough to reach out a hand and pull you with me? Frankly…nah. I don’t see that. I don’t think you’re worth that. Sorry.” Um, really? ‘Cuz God kinda thinks differently on that one.

It’s Christmas time. Again. And there’s much talk of keeping Christ in Christmas, and the reason for the season, and sharing Christmas spirit with everyone you meet, and a whole bunch of other jazz, some of which may have been invented by Hallmark Corporate. Which is awesome—I’m totally a fan of people being nice to each other. But I think as Christians we need to take it further than that…it’s not about spreading feel-good fuzzies and warm smiles—although those are great. It’s about being a friend, sharing your heart, sharing your Savior, and investing in people. Year round. So Merry Christmas. To everyone. And may we be Christ-bearers in dark places at all times of the year. :-)

Thanksgiving has come and gone yet again. (It's this weird thing that the calendar does--it keeps moving. Takes me by surprise every year, I confess). And so, very briefly, while I should be studying for my final on Monday morning, I take a moment to chronicle a few of the things for which I have been and am incredibly grateful:

 My youngest niece and nephew...both of whom are a little obsessed with technology and capes. Although Lauren may be...just practicing her impersonation of Superwoman. They bless my life with their kissableness and their perpetual sense of wonder at the little miracles of human existence.

 Superwoman smile. Fashion sense may come later in life. If it doesn't, hey, smiling makes up for a lot. 

 My oldest--and most verbose--nephew, who is here leading a demonstration on how to cough into one's shirt. He blesses my heart and is the source of many laughs. 

My man--sweet, sensitive, Godly, and funny, with a sizeable sprinkle of mischief-maker. 

Coffee. Sometimes, it's the primary thing that keeps me smiling at the end of the day. 

My awesome siblings. For whatever reason, we don't have a picture of all of six of us at any point in the past...very long time. So here are two of my bestest friends in the whole world, and we'll just pretend the other three are in there too. 

Books. The ability to think. The opportunity to study. Oo, and the fact that studies in the formal sense eventually END?! That is a deeply happifying fact in my life right now. 

 Health. Awesome roommates and hilarious friends. And...the fact that none of us got hit by a car during any of our athletic adventures this year is also something for which I'm grateful. 

Dedicated, patient, incredible mentors. Glenn Ransom has poured more into each of us Varsity students than we may ever truly know, and I am deeply, sincerely grateful for his time, his insight, his guidance and love, and (most days) his quirky sense of humor. 

The list could go on and on, because in all honesty, I serve an awesome heavenly Father who has seen fit to bless me in hundreds of ways that I don't deserve but gratefully accept. But, um, my conscience is speaking to me about that final that I really SHOULD be studying for right now, and thus...I must excuse myself without further ado. 

Most of us, if we were truly honest, would have to admit that most days, we want to be known as someone other than who we truly are. We all have our glory moments and our ugly ones…and we’d prefer not to be remembered for the latter.

I was at the library a week ago, pretending to do homework and actually studying people over the top of my computer. One interaction in particular caught my attention and made me wince…and then made me think.

There was a beautiful young lady with lively brown eyes and bouncy brown hair who was in the library on this particular day—and her vivacious personality was oozing out of her along with her warm heart as she flitted from one friend to the next, reveling in the experience of life with them. She probably wasn’t aware of her volume or of the fact that some adults find it difficult to appreciate the vivacity and the joyful exuberance of youth in the context of the library setting.

Thus, the poor little maiden was taken rather off-guard when one of the elderly female librarians approached her indignantly, and proceeded—with cutting words and an angry tone of voice—to demean the child and publicly embarrass her while demanding that she be quiet in the library.

I winced as I listened, remembering silently what it used to feel like to be that little girl. As the little lady marched past me a moment later with her chin stuck defiantly in the air to hide the fact that her little heart was bleeding, I noticed the tears welling up in the corners of her flashing brown eyes, and I wanted to reach out and hug her, and tell her that she was beautiful, that I loved her precious tender heart, and that passion for life is a gift which is often misunderstood and under-appreciated, but no less a gift.

But then my thoughts turned to the librarian. To be honest, I felt keenly angry with her in that moment for the fact that she had needlessly wounded this young woman with her words. There was quite a lot of the Pharisee in my attitude as I judgmentally wondered to myself whether she feels like a jerk when she looks back on her day before going to bed…cuz, by George, she certainly should!

That’s when it hit me that each one of us takes part in this same self-deception on some level or another. If I were to ask this particular librarian how she thinks of herself, I’m sure she wouldn’t tell me she thinks of herself as a vicious, insensitive nasty old woman who says hurtful things to children. She would probably say that she is a compassionate, caring, warm, loving, patient individual who genuinely strives to better the condition of the human race. And you know what? She probably is all of those things on some level and at certain points. But she’s also other things, at times.

And so it is with each one of us. We would love to be defined by who we are in our best moments. But sometimes, let’s face it: we’re just hateful. We say and do things that we are—rightfully—ashamed to own up to when we consider them in hindsight.

Perhaps one of the biggest marks of maturity and growth, then, is an ever-increasing degree of consistency. Do I consistently demonstrate a Christ-like attitude towards those in my life who demand a little extra measure of grace? Do I consistently respond with discernment and love when I’m tempted to be provoked? Am I consistently the person I am called to be? Do I consistently choose to submit to the call of God in my life—to let Christ work in and through me?

The honest answer is, nope, I’m not consistent yet. And I won’t ever be 100% consistent this side of heaven. But my prayer as I walked out of the library was that God would make me mindful of my inconsistencies…and that He would use this awareness to create in me a passionate, humble commitment to first of all, be willing to take responsibility for and own my failures. But secondly, to always be willing to change and seeking to grow in this area…to be transformed into His likeness and to learn to dream His selfless dream for humanity.

For the past four weeks, most of my clinical hours have been with patients who are suffering from psychiatric illnesses, and for whatever reason, this particular patient population really grips me in the gut like nothing I’ve ever done before.

If you had asked me four weeks ago, I might have admitted to you that I believed that most patients in psychiatric settings aren’t really that sick. But what I’m coming to realize is that sometimes, the most serious wounds that we have—the brain hemorrhages and heart attacks that kill people silently and often without warning—are those that can’t be seen. And I think that one of the things that has been most gripping about these psych patients—especially the little kids—is just how deeply wounded they truly are...many of them so much more so than they will ever know.

There are days when I get back into my car after a clinical and put my head down on the steering wheel and cry—cry for my patients, these precious little kids who are so angry and so bitter and so scared that they can’t cry themselves...cry for their parents, who are often so confused they don’t know what it is to love a child or what it feels like to be loved themselves...cry because it hurts to see so many hurting so deeply in numb silence.

But all of this has made me ponder, sometimes throughout the dark hours of the predawn on the days when sleep has fled, about the different forms of human suffering, and how outsiders normally respond to the suffering of others. I read a fascinating article on Boundless.org called “Let’s Talk.” The author, Christopher Riordan, is speaking about communication, but he also makes some interesting points about the way we as people are wired.

In speaking of communication, he says, “I believe all communication begins with who we are (or who we are becoming) and only then moves into the specific ways we speak and interact with one another. If our hearts are ill or fearful, so too will be our interactions with one another. Am I the kind of person who is willing to trust another? Will I share all of myself or hold back for fear? Can I accept what my loved one shares with me, no matter how hard it is to hear?”

Further on in the same article, Riordan continues, “The truth is that many of us struggle with secrets and the dark places of the heart that we dare not share with another. We find it extremely difficult to trust others because we don't see this modeled well in real life. Instead, we witness (and many of us have experienced) what happens when we reveal too much of ourselves. Our partner flees. Isn't this our deepest relationship fear?

Of all the obstacles to open and honest communication, fear may be the most crippling. We fear not measuring up to society's or our loved one's standards. We fear being revealed as a fraud. We fear rejection and loneliness. So we hide those parts of our lives that we believe would threaten the relationship. We set aside true intimacy, which is to be known and loved, in favor of the cold, shallow comfort of our delusions of safety. We forget that mature love comes not after years of being together, but when we release our fears of rejection, failure, loss, heartache.

In the book Hannah Coulter, Wendell Berry's title character reflects on a lifetime of intimate relationships: "You can't give yourself over to love for somebody without giving yourself over to suffering."

Yet, giving ourselves over to suffering is not what any of us would describe as relational bliss. In fact, many of us get married precisely to end our suffering and loneliness. Henri Nouwen tells us:

Compassion is hard because it requires the inner disposition to go with others to the place where they are weak, vulnerable, lonely and broken. But this is not our spontaneous response to suffering. What we desire most is to do away with suffering by fleeing from it or finding a quick cure for it. And so we ignore our greatest gift, which is our ability to enter into solidarity with those who suffer.”

The sentence that really stuck out to me was Riordan’s comment that “compassion is hard because it requires the inner disposition to go with others to the place where they are weak, vulnerable, lonely and broken.” It was precisely that desire/ability/disposition to go into the messy places of the heart and do major restoration that made Christ an anomaly, a puzzle, and an endless source of delight to the multitudes who followed Him.

I feel like, all too often, that’s the last place in the world that we want to accompany our friends—to hold their hand and go down under the façade and help them to unpack all of their filthiness and uncover the putrid infected wounds of their soul. We hate that because it scares us—it reminds us too much of our own carefully hidden rotting mess.

 As I was driving home from one clinical in particular, I remembered a conversation that I’d had with a friend over the summer. We were talking about friendship, and she made the comment that she had a lot of friends, and that she loved all of them intensely. I asked her if she loved them enough to be willing to challenge them when they were wrong, and put some tension in the relationship at times for the sake of helping each friend grow and mature. She got really quiet for a moment, and then said quietly,

“Well, no, I don’t really do that. I really don’t like that part.”

I nodded.  “Yeah, I hear you. I feel like there are parts of friendship that we all like—the feel-good parts. The parts where we get to encourage each other, and cheer each other on, and tell each other what we appreciate in one another…all the mushy stuff. We love that. But then when it gets tough—when they’re doing something stupid, and we need to tell them, or when we’re doing something stupid, and they need to bring it to our attention, and we know that the conversation is going to hurt, and that it might make us unpopular for a while…we don’t like that part so well. And a lot of times we let our dislike for the process keep us from being a part of the other person’s growth…which is a pretty high price to pay for superficial popularity, when you really think about it…”

The conversation went on from there, but I’ve thought of it many times since when I was in a place where I needed to gently challenge one of my friends with an uncomfortable truth. The reality is that sometimes, I’m right with my friend: I don’t really do it, because I really don’t like that part. And yet we serve a God who modeled, during His time on earth, what it means to have the inner disposition to go with others to the place where they are weak, vulnerable, lonely and broken.

Riordan went on to comment that Christ chose an unfaithful woman to be His bride. That He “surrounded Himself with people who had utterly — and publicly — failed and called them to be His bride, His body on earth” to remind each of us that God is a Father who “accepts us as the broken people we are and transforms us into what we are meant to be.”

At the end of the day, the obvious question that each one of us faces, then, is whether we’re truly willing to give all that it might cost us to follow His example in walking alongside others into the black despair of their weakness, vulnerability, loneliness, and brokenness? Are we willing to face that same blackness in ourselves?

It’s not an easy question to ask, and it’s an even harder question to answer. However, as I work with the broken little ones who surround me in the children’s psychiatric wards and interact with their parents, I’m beginning to see, in the haunted sadness of their empty, pleading eyes, that it’s a question we really can’t afford NOT to ask and answer…and so my prayer is that we—that I—would be willing to go the distance and ready to plumb the depths with each person God calls me to accompany on this journey to wholeness, healing, and divine redemption. 

Wow, so it’s been a while. No, I didn’t die, but yes, I did sort of...fall off the face of the cyber planet for a few months. (This post may therefore qualify as some sort of indication of resurrection. I may celebrate this fact later by taking out the garbage.)

            Part of the reason for this lengthy sabbatical is that, after solemnly promising myself that I wouldn’t be returning to the bookfield ever again after last summer (for mostly wrong reasons), I ended up out on the bookfield this past summer once again, and in looking back, I’m sincerely grateful, both to have had the opportunity to generate some income and for all of the rich lessons that I began to learn during the experience. (Yeah, baby!)

            In the nearly-month-long gap between the end of my time on the bookfield and now, life has been a little bit of a blur, but the experiences and the memories have been a spectacular eclectic mixture.

            At the beginning of the semester, I moved into the parsonage of an ancient Methodist church with four other young women, each of whom is incredibly unique, ridiculously hilarious in her own way, and is a rich addition to the culture and conversation within our little place.

We’re renting the house, and on the inside, it kind of looks like the last people who lived there were hippies. Or maybe they were colorblind. Or maybe they were colorblind hippies. I mean, come on—who paints their bathroom Pepto-Bismol pink and lays puke-yellow carpet throughout the entire house?!

...in an attempt to preserve our sanity, make the house slightly more homey, and build a sense of family spirit, the five of us have undertaken to do some minor remodeling during the past month. (We watch The Property Brothers for inspiration when motivation runs low). Having armed ourselves with plaster, putty knives, paintbrushes, hammers, a miscellaneous assortment of screws and nails, paint trays, and sandpaper, and thus equipped, we have spent the past several weekends pretending to be amateur contractors (we’re doing pretty good at the amateur part. The contractor part, not so much). The results are somewhat amusing, generally happifying (the house didn’t burn down after we re-wired the light fixture—which was a source of much rejoicing), and the process is...probably one that will go on indefinitely. But whatever. We’re learning, and we’re having fun, and we’re not wrecking too many things in the process. (We hope). 

Since every home needs to have a mascot, the hideous little creature pictured below has been lovingly dubbed Mephistopheles, and because looking at him is almost enough visual stimulation to cause one to experience an epileptic seizure, we try to keep him out of sight as much as possible. We accomplish this by hiding him in odd places for discovery by unsuspecting housemates. This particular day, he showed up in the bathtub. He migrated from there to the freezer, standing guard over the frozen strawberries. The next day, he was found strung up in Kristina's closet with a woeful expression on his face. I really want to hang him by his neck from the chandelier one night after everyone's in bed, but the opportunity hasn't presented itself yet. We're also discussing sending him in a care package to a friend of ours in Iraq (we thought he might make a good addition to someone's dog tag). 

It's sure to be an interesting year, and hopefully one filled with as much growth as laughter. I must be off at the moment to spend a few hours administering CPR to plastic men without hearts (I confess, I feel the outlook for this particular patient population to be rather...grim). 

Musings and Muddlings

"It is by the grace of an eternally loving heavenly Father that there is an intolerable inner conflictedness that results from the incongruousness of living with irreconcilable inconsistency in our lives. It is the pain of the tension between what we claim to live by contrasted against the ugly reality of what we actually do that forces us to reexamine our moral and spiritual underpinnings and identify the areas in which we are desperately in need of repentance and renewal.

Do not allow the conflictedness of another to become your own. If you have an answer from Scripture, the fact that another questions its veracity or strives to evade the pain of applying it in their own lives does not make the truth itself less true. You will never save a drowning victim by drowning beside him so that at least he dies in good company."

This is an excerpt from my journal 10 days ago, as I was wrestling deeply with what it means to walk beside someone through difficult circumstances, empathize fully and meaningfully and with compassion, and yet not become entangled in the same web in which they--whether by choice or by happenstance--have become ensnared. For whatever reason, this has always been a tough one for me. It's difficult for me to empathize/sympathize/pray for and with someone without on some level taking personal ownership of their problem and becoming just as distraught--or sometimes more, perhaps--over the situation as they themselves are. Which...is totally not helpful. Yeah. News flash, eh?

What's more, I find that the devil--or is it the weakness of my own heart and mind?--is ever alert for opportunities when I am at my weakest emotionally, physically, and spiritually, and it is usually at these lowest of the low points that I find I am suddenly faced with a series of temptations that brings to light all of the darkest ugliness of my past and present failures with a venomous force that is both frightening and infuriating.

And...it always hits during finals week or the week before. Inevitably, relentlessly, and without fail, there will be a situation that is emotionally and spiritually taxing going on in the backdrop of the academic chaos that already has every nursing student at her wit's end mentally and physically. (Next year, I'm going to start marking these things on my calendar so I can be more fully prepared psychologically).

The past two weeks have been tough, in all honesty. There have been a number of very intense, very draining situations in a number of different friendships that have seemed to demand every ounce of emotional, spiritual, mental, and physical energy that I had...and then just a little bit more. But I'm convinced that frustrated tears, the moments of desperation, and the feelings of helplessness are all ordained by an omniscient Creator to guide each of us--and in this situation, one particular blonde--to realize and accept the fact that we are desperately in need of repentance, renewal, grace, and divine intervention.

May my heart be willing and open to accept and embrace the things that my Father is teaching me through these next several weeks.

What is it to love someone well? I find myself wondering this again as I lean over her bed, trying to help her sit up so I can maneuver her shriveled, crippled body onto the bedside commode, a process which has taken the place of the multiple trips to the bathroom which used to occupy her day.

Do I really care for her—and about her—as I would want someone to care if this were my mother? If this were the body of Christ Himself that I’m touching?

As I’ve witnessed—and gradually become a participant in—this sweet little woman’s journey towards death, I’ve had to ask myself some tough questions about what it means to love someone unconditionally, selflessly, and well.

Do I consistently treat her with respect and courtesy and fight to protect her feelings of personal dignity, regardless of how many times she accidentally pees on the floor, dribbles food all over herself, soils her bedding, or tips over a drinking glass?

I didn’t expect it to be hard to feel the right things in these situations—but sometimes, it IS hard for me. Sometimes, I want to feel impatient…because I forget to remind myself of what it probably feels like to be her right now—to have a mind and a body that are withering away, becoming less capable and less under her control with each passing day. That must be hard. Really hard.

Being in this position—having someone be almost completely dependent—has made me think a lot about friendship, too, and how people are wired.

I feel like it’s a tremendous weakness of human character that would cause us to show less respect for people when they’re physically or mentally incapable of demanding it—and yet I see this. I see this tendency in myself, and I see it in others as well.

And yet, if the measure of a man—or a woman—is determined by what he or she does when no one is there to hold them accountable, then what kind of people are we if we’re less kind, less compassionate, and less considerate when the accountability of answering to a person as capable as we are is removed? Do I provide the same level of care, same kind of compassion, and interact with the same degree of respect for the relational nature of the person for whom I’m caring when they’re unable to respond to me, unable to complain, or express appreciation? Sometimes, I’m ashamed to admit, the answer to that question is no. Which is inconsistent, because for several years, I’ve claimed that I believe that the value of personhood and the sacredness of humanity is in no way diminished by lack of physical or mental capacity. Our actions have a tricky way of betraying what exactly it is that we really believe, regardless of what our mouths say.

Sometimes, the circumstances that make us think, or challenge us to look deeply into the depths of our own character and honestly evaluate what we find there—sometimes these things are part of our own personal journey, which just happens to overlap with someone else’s. And so, in an odd way, I have found that my own personal journey towards exploring—on a new level—the superlative virtue of love has been oddly interlaced with my little landlady’s journey towards meeting the ultimate Lover of her soul face to face.

Over and over again during the past two semesters, I have been brought face to face, in an uncomfortably honest way, with the question of what exactly it means to love someone well.

We live in a generation where it is considered normal—and culturally acceptable—to stand up front and sing in the choir on Sunday and smile in a very spiritual and ever-so-holy fashion at all of the dear parishioners (unless they don’t clap after the choir finishes—then it’s probably acceptable to frown most disagreeably and possibly to send angry glares at certain people), and yet be a completely nasty, ungrateful, whiny and basically dreadful person to be around for six-and-a-half days out of the week.

Yet the Master we claim to be whole-heartedly serving says that men will know us by our fruits…and that we are known not by our words, but by our spiritual power…that the greatest commandment is to love God with all of our heart, soul, and mind, and to love our neighbor as we love ourselves…and that those who are truly sons of God will obey His commandments.

So my question then, is…in a world where we are called to shine as lights—to be counter-cultural, to be different, to be beacons of hope, and life, and love—how are we doing? If we’re failing to be even minimally nice to the homeless guy inconveniently blocking the sidewalk or the annoyingly slow cashier with the crazy hair in the express lane at WalMart, or the waitress who is distracted and distraught and providing rather poor service at Olive Garden, can that really be considered radical, God-inspired supernatural love?

It’s easy for me to point fingers at the ways that Christianity in America has failed—or to get indignant about the fact that the church in America is not living up to her calling. But what I’m brought face to face with over again is that I am a disciple. I am a Christian. I am a part of the church. I am an American. And I have failed to radically show the love of Christ as I’ve been called to do.

Radical change in a nation starts with radical devotion in the heart of one person who submits to the radical calling of a God who demands radical devotion. If I am unwilling to be that person, than I have forfeited my right to criticize anyone else for failing to be that person.

And I guess, what I’m gradually coming to through this journey of the past few months is the realization that each one of us has to deeply want—passionately yearn—to be that person.

While I'm not officially in the same state as this child to lavish him with auntie affection (which would probably cause the poor child to develop a phobia of hugs and kisses), I have been feeling all sorts of mushy things as I flipped through my kid brother's latest photo shoot of my youngest nephew.

The mischievous twinkle in his eye in this one leads me to strongly suspect he may have just done something crazy in his diaper...

"Food? Did someone say...eat?"

Practicing his grandfather pose.

My goodness gracious, this little munchkin gets cuter--and happier--every time I see him. But what on earth is up with children growing up so quickly these days?! Seriously, it feels like yesterday that he was a little urping, squeaking, diaper-filling newborn eating machine who simply blinked dazedly at you and wet his diaper when you smiled in his direction. And now he's eating soup ladles, laughing, and big enough to sit unsupported (a life skill that I still use today, so I'm terribly glad he's developed it).

Every once in a blue moon, you meet one of those incredible people who fall into the category of what Anne of Green Gables would refer to as a “kindred spirit.” It’s an entirely biblical concept, which is dreadfully handy, and in I Samuel 18 we find that David and Jonathan were two average extraordinary guys who had that instant connection to the point where it has been written of them that Jonathan loved David as his own soul, and that their souls were “knit together.” (Which is possibly biblical justification for saying that knitting is superior to crocheting, but check the Greek).

I adore the concept of kindred spirits. It just…tickles my funny bone and makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside—kind of like a moldy peach on a hot day in Georgia.

Lately I’ve been thinking a fair amount about what exactly it IS that makes those kindred spirit friendships everything that they are…because hey, if you have the formula, technically that might be helpful, right? Theoretically.

I’ve been really blessed in that I have more than one of those friendships in my life. There’s something remotely magical about each and every one of them.

But what’s characteristic of those friendships?

Well, for starters, they’re emotionally safe friendships. When you spend time with that individual, you know without asking—from experience and from everything that you’ve observed of the person’s character—that they love you, that you love them, and that what is said or done in the context of that friendship is done honestly. There’s no pressure to try to impress, or to pretend to be who we’re not—there’s freedom to be honest about our insecurities, our fears, our failures, and our doubts, as well as the knowledge that that person will rejoice enthusiastically with us in our joys, our victories, and our successes.

Secondly, they protect confidentiality. They know when it’s appropriate to share things outside of the friendship, and when it’s not, and if they’re not sure, they’re willing to ask.

Thirdly, they accept you just as you are without asking or demanding that you change. But they love you enough to challenge you when you head off in the wrong direction.

Fourthly, they’re passionate about the same things that are close to your own heart as well. Whether it’s a burden for homeless people, or the drive to encourage young Christians to create and maintain discipleship accountability relationships with older men and women in the church, or simply a joyful enthusiasm for smashing spiders with rolled newspapers on the weekend, your fundamental drives—the things that really make you tick—are probably nearly the same.

Fifthly, there’s a willingness to overlook faults and laugh off idiosyncrasies that could otherwise be annoying. Willingness to extend grace is a huge part of every friendship, but in kindred spirit friendships, there’s a tacit understanding that we will look for the best in each other, applaud each other’s strengths, ignore the quirks that don’t matter anyway, be honest with each other about our faults, and be open to accountability.

Sixthly, there’s a selfless love that looks at the other person and chooses to see the things that make them incredible, regardless of whether or not others recognize the same thing.

And seventhly (which may not be a word?), they’re joyful people whose presence is life-giving, whose enthusiasm is contagious, and whose love for God, life, and people exudes from them abundantly.

And for all of the above reasons, when you’re with these people, you feel like you’re a little bit more you and a little bit more alive than you could ever be without them. Which is so awesome that it just kinda makes me want to go joyfully murder some spiders with a rolled-up newspaper.

Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out! –Romans 11:33

But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by a human court. In fact, I do not even judge myself. For I know of nothing against myself, yet I am not justified by this; but He who judges me is the Lord. Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord comes, who will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness and reveal the counsels of the hearts. Then each one’s praise will come from God. –I Corinthians 4:3-5

God as my Judge. What an AWESOME concept it is to know that it is ultimately before an Audience of One that I stand or fall! And that from time immemorial into the boundless infinite of the future, this One is unchanging.

I have been marveling this past week—silently, and sometimes very sleepily late at night over a cup of tea in the kitchen while having stare-down competitions with one of my landlord’s many felines—over the eternal, undying, permanent, life-giving nature of the freedom which is ours in Christ.

If freedom were simply the removal of finite chains, this would be such a poor excuse for liberty, because chains—both mental, physical, and spiritual—are so easily put in place again…sometimes by others, and sometimes by ourselves.

But the freedom which is ours through Christ is so much more than that…something that quietly, insistently, gloriously, permanently transforms us from the inside out, takes all that is dead and broken within and breathes life and health into it again. And we are changed, and made new, and we are given purpose, and meaning, and significance, and worth—because He is the God Who sees, the God Who is there, the God who loves with an undying, transformative, redemptive love that changes and purifies and breathes life into everything it touches…the God who sees us in our insignificance and beckons to us, woos us, draws us, loves us, invites us to be a son, a daughter...to be a part of His worth, to share in His life, to be loved perfectly, to lose our insignificance in the grandeur and splendor of becoming a part of His omnipotent infinite holiness.

To love—and be loved by—such a God is to be changed; to be healed; to be made alive; and to be exceedingly, radically, counter-culturally different for the rest of your life.

I was sitting in the library this morning working intently on a paper when I heard rather loud footsteps coming up behind me. Not loud, actually—more like…clompy footsteps. Like a very small elephant or a very large alligator.

It broke my concentration enough that I looked up from my laptop to see what or who was passing by, and when I did so, I found myself looking straight into the sparkling blue eyes of a completely adorable little man with Downs syndrome.

He paused for a minute, looking me up and down quizzically, and then a smile like the rising of the sun lit up his whole face.

Oh my goodness. I wanted to just grab him up and give him a very big bear hug, but I realized that this probably would have somewhat shocked and frightened the very prim-and-proper looking matron who appeared to be acting the part of caretaker.

So I simply smiled a very big smile, and winked at the little man, which elicited a joyful little chuckle that was the most hilarious thing I’ve heard all day, and he was off on his merry way.

And I was left to ponder the incredible beauty of innocent, childlike emotion freely and trustingly expressed—ah, it gets me every time.

When I feel that who I am is not enough…why, naturally, I must pretend to be someone that I am not…because by carefully doing all that I can to control others’ perceptions of reality, I can determine my own reality…yes? Or perhaps…no.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot in the past two weeks—about the underlying insecurity from which such ideology springs, and about the ways that we perpetuate and encourage this kind of reasoning in our culture.

Even within the church—or maybe especially within the church—it seems to me that perhaps we’ve fallen prey to the world of facades, where the pretense of sophistication and the appearance of wealth and the social standing of our friends are more important to us than the real, vibrant, messy, relational (and sometimes ugly) existence to which we’ve been called.

See, here’s the thing: Christ didn’t come to rescue the person we pretend to be. He actually came to rescue and redeem the person that we ARE.

What I sometimes wonder is if the façade—the pretense of having it all together, or the putting on of airs in order to feel that one is high-class, or the unending and unfulfilling search for respect and popularity that dictates the life-course of many individuals…is this an attempt to hide from ourselves the reality of who we truly are? Are we claiming to find our significance—our worth, our sense of purpose and meaning—in Christ…and yet frantically searching in the meantime to find it elsewhere?

With each passing year, the more firmly I am convinced that there is very little that we can do, say, or train ourselves to think, that can disguise what Francis Schaeffer refers to as the “mannishness” of man. There is an earthy mortality and futility to the way that the human race is naturally inclined to think, perceive, and reason about his world, his fellows, and his God. And it is this earthy mortality which we try to disguise by dressing it in any number of colorful paper hats—success, beauty, lively personality, conversational skills, social finesse. It’s not that these things are pointless. But they are not the point in and of themselves, and I think that too often, we take the means to the end and we put it in the place of the goal itself.

Last week, I was conversing with someone and as I did so, found myself realizing in the back of my mind that I find this person very intimidating. And then I started asking myself why…and I realized that it was because I feel like I don’t measure up when I compare myself to this particular individual. Sometimes you meet someone who’s got you beat in every area: they’re smarter, better looking, more articulate, more educated, can think faster, dress better, and have more money than you do. Oh, and they probably can trace their family tree back to Adam and Eve and happen to be related to every major famous person that one possibly could be, and yes, they are very, very much aware of the fact that they themselves are the embodiment of all of the best and most noble character traits of each and every one of those famous relatives, to be sure. Ok, so maybe not quite. But sometimes it feels like that, and sometimes…I allow that to intimidate me.

Why? Because…I can’t claim any of that. I grew up on a farm, milking dairy goats, feeding chickens, trapping mice, falling out of trees, and getting bucked off of horses. Most of my ideas about relationships, family, and the importance of values come from things I learned from my mom and dad, my five siblings, and my tiny church family. I shop at WalMart, and I absolutely hate having to pay more than $30 for a pair of jeans…or any other article of clothing, for that matter. I am not above eating at McDonalds. I don’t know the names of half of the fancy food items on the menu in an upscale restaurant, and it doesn’t bother me to admit that I don’t know.

I often times feel that those who try hardest to come across as sophisticated, intelligent, high-class, and elite are actually the most insecure, the least “real,” and the most guarded people out there—which isn’t really that attractive if you think about it. Although sometimes, despite the fact that it’s not attractive, it apparently is…still intimidating? I know. Makes no sense to me either.

But in thinking about the whole thing a little this past week, one of the thoughts that popped into my head was that ultimately, we feel intimidated only when we lose sight of the fact that our worth isn’t found in our pocketbook, our manners, our friends, our popularity, or our family tree—it’s rooted and grounded in Christ, who has redeemed us and called us His own.

And the thing that should always impress us more than anything else in the world is someone whose beautiful, genuine, real heart and honest adoration for God and love for people shines through in their countenance, their words, their actions, and their lives—this is truly impressive. There will always be people with brilliant, shiny exteriors—but if the heart doesn’t match that shiny exterior, we often find that these same individuals are shockingly empty on the inside. And life was not meant to be lived by hollow people.

We are saved by grace, made loveable only because of His mercy, forgiven because out of the depths of His compassion He felt pity on the brokenness of our souls and reached down to intervene on our behalf. And that should change our hearts…and our thinking. Which will eventually change our countenances, control our actions, and alter the course of our existences…but probably will never give us a family tree containing all of the most illustrious individuals ever to grace the human race with their presence on planet earth. Why? Oh, because…that doesn’t actually matter. Yeah. Pretty much not.

So I’m sure that millions of dollars in research grant money and thousands of hours of mind-boggling experiments and brilliant studies and brain-frazzling analyzations and graph-making parties have been poured into the study of how humans relate to each other, but today, as I was sneakily pretending to study and actually watching people cleverly out of the corner of my eye (I know, I know…my ingenuity surprises even myself sometimes), I observed something pretty basic that didn’t cost any research dollars (another fact of which, I confess, I am rather proud).

See, here’s the thing: when people—and by people I specifically mean a guy and a girl—like each other? It kinda shows. Even if it’s a super duper masculine burly type of a woman and her skinny white nerdy wussy-looking scruff-muffin of a love interest. And if people (and by people, I now mean socially awkward freshmen boys who are dreadfully and concerningly girl-crazy but have no clue how to go about getting any member of the fairer sex to cast so much as a favorable glance in their direction) would just watch the other people (other people referring to the love-struck duos who populate Liberty’s campus in numbers so large as to be semi-miraculous), Girl-Crazies could perhaps pick up some valuable tips from the Star-struck on how to read (and respond to) body language appropriately.
Just a few of the things I’ve observed in the past 24 hours.

Tip #1: if a girl likes a boy, she will stand close to him. So if a boy approaches a girl, and she looks happy to see him, engages him in conversation, and moves a hand/foot/her whole self towards his general direction during the conversation? That’s a good sign. The Girl-Crazy will probably never get this sign, but normal males could interpret this as an encouraging indicator. The converse is also true, and this is why many Girl-Crazies find that when they approach a girl, the girl will turn around and walk rapidly in the other direction. This is not a sign of affection, and no, she is not inviting you to pursue. She is praying that God will strike you with lightening.

Tip #2: If a girl likes a boy, she will laugh at his jokes. Even if they’re not funny. So if you tell a knock-knock joke and she falls off her chair and laughs for five minutes? That’s another good sign. (Except it may also be an indication of insanity, or a sign that you have a bug on your face). But if you tell a genuinely funny joke and it gets merely a stiff, barely-polite smile in response? That is absolutely not the time to try a second joke, or try to grab her hand playfully. She is on the verge of an emotional eruption, and she may also be seriously PMS-ing. Turn around and walk away.

Tip #3: If a boy likes a girl, or a girl likes a boy (yes, amazingly enough, this one appears to go both ways), they will touch each other. I know, I know, Americans don’t believe in ever physically laying hands on each other if at all avoidable (germaphobes), but friends—and especially lovers—will often breach this social regulation. That’s how you know they actually enjoy each other’s company and aren’t secretly planning to destroy each other at the end of 2012. It may be merely a playful swat on the arm, or a hearty handshake, or a high five, or a hug…but if people genuinely enjoy one another? At some point, they’ll probably touch. And again, the converse is true. If you go to hug someone, and they duck away and don’t respond in kind, or they simply hesitate and look uncomfortable? They probably don’t want to hug you. This is not an invitation to tackle them. It means keep your distance.



Tip #4: this one’s for the boy-crazy girls…because craziness definitely crosses gender lines. If a boy looks at you and smiles? This does not mean that he a) thinks you are the most strikingly gorgeous creature he has ever laid eyes upon, b) understands all of your emotional needs and wants to meet all of them ASAP, and c) is planning to marry you as soon as he can convince his parents that it’s a good idea for them to have both of you living in their basement bedroom. What is MAY mean is that he is 1) friendly, open to conversation, and has a lively personality, 2) just being polite—most people in America smile back if you smile first, 3) knows you already and thinks you’re cool, 4) thinks your mismatched socks and pigtails look ridiculous, or 5) is not even looking at you because he’s actually smiling at his friend, who happens to be standing right behind you, or 6) thinks you’re kinda cute and wants to make friendly conversation for the sake of boosting his male ego while simultaneously petting your feminine sense of importance. Please note that none of these is remotely close to a proposal of marriage and should not be interpreted as such, or he may run very quickly in the other direction next time he sees you coming.

Yesterday evening, as I was flitting down to the second floor of one of the main campus buildings in search of coffee creamer, I came across a cozy little corner filled with mischievously-grinning college students. Two of them were personal friends, and so I felt license to ask them why precisely they were all wearing the I've-got-an-inside-joke grin as they sat around laughing knowingly.

"Well, we were just wondering if you were homeschooled...or if you're a homeschooler," piped up one bright-eyed little sophomore named Ian.

"Um, what?"

"Yeah. There's a difference. Here. You need to see this."

At which point, all of us (because apparently everyone in this little group had been homeschooled), crowded around somebody's laptop to watch this video...which I found amusing enough to share.

It is perhaps one of the singular peculiarities of Christianity that often times when we are most struggling with something, God sends to us another person struggling with the same issue on a deeper level, and through the process of helping and counseling the struggling friend, we ourselves are most deeply reminded of all the answers and truths we already knew.

Two weeks ago, I was home alone one evening, and perhaps my mind had begun to play tricks on me, as it is wont to do when it hasn’t been properly tasked in the first place. I was thinking back over the past several months, and feeling more than a little discouraged over the apparent futility of much of what had taken place. When we’re little children, it’s so easy to have exalted dreams—it’s the living out of those exalted dreams in later years that sometimes leaves you feeling a wee bit brutalized, because you realize that big dreams require big sacrifice.

I was vainly attempting to put together a jigsaw puzzle that night, but my mind was in overdrive and making it rather difficult to concentrate: Why are you really here, Thea? What was the purpose, exactly, of the last 23 years? What are you trying to accomplish, and why is there so little visible progress towards that goal? You’re home on break now—and doing what exactly? Let’s be real—would the world really be any different if you had never lived? You can’t even fix the problems within your own family.

The voice inside was rather ruthless that night, and I was in a poor position to defend myself from the onslaught, having once allowed the questions to begin. Sometimes the overwhelming feeling of the insignificance of everything good we’ve ever said or done really, really gets to me, and in the darkness and the silence, I dropped my head and let the tears fall, feeling suddenly keenly inadequate to answer the charges rising against me in my own mind. Why exactly AM I here? I wondered.

My phone buzzed just then—a text message from a friend several states away. He was feeling discouraged, wondering why God had him where he was, what purpose he was supposed to be fulfilling, and why it seemed that everything he’d ever said or done didn’t matter anyway. Life was kicking him in the teeth, so what was the point of continuing to try? No one was listening to what he had to say, even when he was right—what was the point of this uselessness?

Wow. Ok. So maybe the devil works through isolation, and robs us of our joy and our sense of purpose by catching us alone, when we’re most vulnerable, and beating us over the head with our failures.

As I pointed out to my friend that often times, the ministry we think God has given us to one person may actually be God’s way of helping us to minister to another person entirely, I was pondering the irony of it all—strange that he should be struggling with the same thing, tonight of all nights.

Messages flew back and forth for maybe an hour. I pointed out that wisdom is not made less wise because it is ignored, and that our value as the counselor isn’t determined by the response of the one counseled—that sometimes, God allows us to be ignored, to feel impotent…in order to increase our capacity to trust that His timing is perfect, and force us to realize that we were never in control of the situation in the first place. I reminded him of Jeremiah—that many of the prophets were called to speak to people who not only refused to listen, but also hated the prophet himself and tried to kill him on multiple occasions. Talk about a nasty job with no visible results! And yet the far-reaching impact of Jeremiah’s obedience to God’s command to testify is still impacting the Christians of 21^st century America. Our faithfulness in the little things, like our sin, has the potential to impact untold thousands of men, women, and children in some respect or another.

And as I wrote these things, I realized that God had sent this friend to me tonight because I needed to hear all of the things that I was telling him—I needed to be reminded, and I needed to believe that they were true in my own life. Sometimes God speaks to our hearts through the questions that we ask others: Are you willing to be a Jeremiah of the 21^st century? Are you willing to be faithful even when it’s thankless, and you can’t see the results? Are you willing to believe that the God-honoring decisions that you make on a daily basis may be done on behalf of someone who will read about you in 350 years?

A week later, I was spending a few days with my sister and her husband in the Twin Cities. Somehow, when I spend a lot of time around couples, I become more keenly aware of the fact that I’m very much not a couple—and for me, there’s a natural tendency to begin to wonder why not, and what exactly is God’s timeline, and why isn’t it a little faster?

So all of these vague feelings of discontentment were rankling in the back of my mind, making ugly noises (and uglier attitudes!) when I got a phone call from a friend. She was struggling to believe that God actually had her best in mind—that He could and would make something beautiful out of her broken story, that He could or would prepare her for and give her a God-fearing husband and allow her the privilege of helping that man to raise godly children.

“How do I know, Thea?” she asked, the desperation undisguised in her voice, “and what if He doesn’t? What if I wait, and I do everything right that I know to do, and nothing ever changes? What if the waiting and the being frustrated just goes on forever? It’s not worth it—why not just have kids out of wedlock, because what if the real thing never happens?”

I appreciated her honesty. I think we all wonder those things at one point or another—maybe often, or nearly all the time.

But I asked her if she believed that God actually loves her. There was a pause, and then quietly, she admitted that she believes He does—100% of the time, 100% of His ability, which is infinitely greater than our finite capacity to even comprehend. Sometimes the best way to get through to somebody is just to keep asking questions.

“Do you believe that He controlled your past? That He knows your future? That He holds you right now in the palm of His hand? That He would ever plan something for you that was not ultimately in your best interest? Can you trust Him? Really? How much can you trust Him? Is He a God that’s worthy of our trust? Our love? Are you sure? Why are you sure? Historically, when we look at Scripture, how many times has He let down the human race? Oh really—none?! So what are the odds that His character has drastically changed in the last ten minutes? Look at Abraham—God promises him a son. And then he waits and he waits, and he waits some more—there are 25 long years between the time when God gives that promise and the day when Isaac is born. Were there times when Abraham questioned whether or not God really meant it? Whether or not he could trust God’s word? Whether or not he could trust God’s heart for him? How could there NOT have been times when he questioned all of the above? Where do we think Ishmael came from if there were no times when Abraham questioned? But did God come thru? And was His plan ultimately best the whole time? Is He the same God today as He was then? Can we believe Him when He tells us that He’s an unchanging God? Are you sure? How sure are you? Why do you think that God ordained the institution of marriage? What’s the purpose of marriage, when obviously people can have sex without being married? What if it’s protective—and what if He meant it to protect YOU, to help you grow, to provide an atmosphere in which you can be nurtured and loved, in which your husband can grow, and your children can thrive? What if marriage is God’s way of bringing glory to Himself? Is it worth it to wait, if you know beyond any shadow of a doubt that what God has for you is better than anything that you could ever get for yourself by refusing to wait?...”

By the end of an hour and a half, I wasn’t sure how much I’d gotten thru to her, but I knew that I was now convinced (and I also knew that I was running out of questions)—and again, I marveled at the wisdom of a God who sends someone to us for counsel in the area in which we ourselves are struggling. Crazy. In a genius sort of way.

And suddenly, I was really, really thankful for the fact that God didn’t give me a group of perfect friends, as I’d sometimes jokingly thought would be nice. He gave me a circle of people who are as broken as myself—because He understood from time immemorial that it’s in attempting to apply truth to the cancer of lies in the life of another that the lies in our own lives are most effectively exposed and confronted.