My hands grip things tight.

They aren't fluid, my fingers.  They grasp, and they hold -- fierce and unrelenting, until contractures start forming and they couldn't be pried open, even if I wanted them to be.

A person.  A thing.  A place.  A season.

Those leave and they end, but the hand still holds tight, gripping as though I have the power to make seasons last and people stay -- but no matter the strength of the grip, they still leave and they still end, and my weary, contracted hand finds that it's violently clinging to dust and air and a whole lot of nothing.

We are made to hold, to cling, to refuse to let go.

But we hold and cling and never let go of the wrong things.

This generation has an obsession with throwing yourself into life, feeling everything to the nth degree, and that kind of emotional roller coaster will drive you right insane.

Unless you have a Rock.

Unless the thing we hold onto the fiercest, the sanctuary of our souls, our "happy place," our source of identity and joy will never, ever leave or end, happen what may to the rest of our world, we will constantly be rewriting ourselves after the latest thing we've been holding onto is gone.

Everything ends.  Seasons change -- cliché, but true, and none the less painful for being such a routine part of being human.

Everything ends.

"I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End" (Rev. 22:13).

Well then…perhaps not everything.

"But from everlasting to everlasting the Lord's love is with those who fear Him" (Ps. 103:17).

The only rest, the only peace, the only pure joy can ever come from holding onto the only One who can hold us right back.

Bring the scraps and the broken with you -- when He's holding you tighter than you could ever hold anything, all is redeemed, and nothing is wasted.  When He is your constant, the endings cannot crush you and the beginnings cannot faze you, because no matter where you are in life, you are always right in the middle of Him.

Starting Over

4:10 am.

The clock blinks it bright and the alarm blares it loud, and it's entirely too early for normal human beings to leave their tangled blankets and face the not-yet-lit world.

Fifty questions.

The top of the test says it, and life will ask many more questions -- many harder questions -- than these fifty, but somehow those fifty small questions claim hours upon hours of life in preparation for their asking.

Seven days.

The turning of the planner pages taunts that it's been a week -- one hundred and sixty-eight hours, ten thousand and eighty minutes, six hundred and four thousand, eight hundred seconds -- and it's Sunday again and the Bible is still in the same bag it was put in for church last Sunday.

But you can't just jump back into it, can you?

After you've let the busyness spin your sanity further out of reach than it normally is, after morning devotionals are missed more often than they're not, after prayer stagnates -- can you just start back up?

Don't you need some sort of powerful revelation?  A "come-to-Jesus" moment, as it were, a really good worship song, a rock-bottom breakdown?

As though somehow I'd "lost" Jesus, misplaced Him, stuck Him in a dusty corner where He needs to be coddled to come out.

But where do I start?

When you've read the entire Bible cover-to-cover more than once, how do you remind yourself that this isn't a normal book, that the words are alive and are life, that the thousandth time you read it is the thousandth time that piece of truth is pressed into your soul -- and that no matter how well you think you know it, you desperately need it pressed in just one more time?

How do you convince yourself that this is one Book in the world you can open anywhere, no matter where you left off, no matter how many times you've read that part or not read it?  How do you teach yourself to not feel guilty for loving some parts a little harder, clinging to some portions a little more strongly than the others?

But does He still remember me?

Have I become less of a Christian?  Is there such a thing?  Do I need to start over, re-pray "the prayer," "rededicate," walk down the proverbial aisle once more?

Can He whose love is fiercer than death have His love shaken by my closed Bible?

Never.

Perhaps I remember it a little less, but if neither death nor life, angels nor demons, present nor future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth nor anything else in all creation can separate us, somehow I don't think my faltering devotionals breaks that bond.

4:00 am.

If that's what it takes.

One question.

Where do your priorities lie?

Seven days.

Each one a chance to start over, without having to go back to square one.

Servant King

"Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under His power, and that He had come from God and was returning to God; so He got up from the meal…wrapped a towel around His waist…and began to wash His disciples feet."

The feet are dusty.  They have trekked many miles in pursuit of the Master.  They are calloused and wrinkled, tanned and roughened.  They smell.  Maybe John or Andrew had especially ticklish feet, and they couldn't help but break the intensity of the moment with a suppressed giggle.

But their faces soon melt.  Tears track down their leathery cheeks and gather in their beards as they see their Master, a mere thirty-three years old, kneeling and taking in His hands the feet that have left all to be covered in the same dirt that cakes His own.

I wonder if He thought about the nails that would pierce His feet mere hours later.  Did He whisper a prayer of thanks to the Father for this beautiful, ridiculous, messy plan of redemption that would save His disciples from the searing pain of the nails as they tore through flesh and bone?

Simon Peter draws his feet away, leaving that peculiar loving ache in the heart of the Savior; He is especially fond of Peter, just as He is uniquely and especially fond of each of the others.  "Lord," Peter stammers, "are You going to wash my feet?"

Did the tears spill over?  "You don't understand now," He tells him, "but one day you will."

"No," Peter shakes his head, hanging it, acutely aware that he is unworthy.  "You shall never wash my feet."  Yet when told that unless he is washed -- unless he allows his Master, Teacher, his Lord, his dearest Friend to bend and serve him -- he has no part with Jesus, he stretches out his arms, begging to be washed head to toe.

The Master smiles.  Dear Peter, he does not understand.  "You are clean," He assures him, then turns to His betrayer, "though not all of you."

He has known all along.  From the moment Judas left everything to become His follower, He knew the man's heart.  But that did not make it any easier, now that the time had come.

And the Messiah, having been given all power, having all things placed under His feet, knowing full well what the next twenty-four hours would bring -- even with all this, Jehovah Sabaoth, the Lord of Hosts, knelt that night to wash the feet of His betrayer.

The words He speaks are cryptic to the others, but they are not spoken maliciously.  There is a deep anguish in His tone for the one who is lost, the one who is not chosen, for he did not choose aright.  Yet Jesus rests, confident that the Father knows best, assured that He is in the best of hands.  And so He kneels.

He knelt that night, and He kneels still, to wash the feet of the wayward daughter, the unworthy son.  Everywhere His people bow their knees to follow in His steps and wash the feet of brothers and enemies alike.  "Unless I wash you, you have no part with Me," He says, bending to serve you, taking your dirty and bleeding feet gently in His hands.  He heals them, cleanses them, commissions them; the feet washed by the Almighty are perfectly prepared for service.  In that service they will be torn, and bruised, and scarred; but He waits, a towel around His waist, garbed as a servant, to show once more the full extent of His love; to love you, who are His own, until the last.

(read the whole story in John 13)

Lost and Found

One time I got lost in church.

I was five years old and shipped off to children's church to have fun and learn about Jesus and do some crafts.  Instead, I got horribly, horribly confused when we broke up into our smaller age groups.  I guess I just followed a crowd of nice-looking kids, because I ended up in a classroom that wasn't my classroom, with a teacher who wasn't my teacher, doing some paper-weaving craft to make a "basket" for Moses.  My basket for the boy who would grow up to take part in the splitting of the Red Sea was, of course, pink and purple.

And then the parents started coming and my parents didn't come, which for a little one is about the equivalent of the solar apocalypse.

Of course a Sunday school building is, in reality, much smaller than it appears to five-year-old eyes, and my mommy and daddy found me eventually (after I had cried my eyes out).  I was whisked off in our van, safe and sound, with the promise of green mint ice cream to make up for the trauma of this misadventure.

Sixteen years later, I don't remember ANY other days in that Sunday school building.  But I have very vivid flashes of the day I got lost.

It doesn't feel good, being lost.  You know someone has to be looking for you -- they have to be -- well, don't they? -- but you have no idea if or when they'll find you.  A once-safe place suddenly looms large and feels rather threatening when you're lost inside of it.  The kind, well-meaning people who stay with you until you are found are clearly heaven-sent angels, but even they can only do so much against the huge, shapeless terror that is the word lost.

One time Jesus got lost in church.

Annual family vacation up to Jerusalem, and they left without Jesus.  It took them a whole day for them to notice He was missing (how many times does it take us much longer than that?), and three more days to actually find Him (poor Mary).

And here's twelve-year-old Jesus, whom they probably expect to be huddled in a corner somewhere crying, confused, feeling downright lost.  And instead, He's chillin' in the the church and says, "Why were you searching for me?  Didn't you know I had to be in my Father's house?"

Naturally that didn't go over so well with His frantic parents.

I don't know if Jesus planned to stay behind, or just got so caught up in being in His Father's house that He missed the caravan.  Whatever the reason, and despite what His family thought, He was never lost at all.

And in Christ, the same goes for us.

"If I say, 'Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,' even the darkness will not be dark to You; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to You." | Psalm 139:11-12

Surely I've gone beyond anyone's reach.

Surely this darkness is too dark for anyone to see me.

Surely this time I'm too far, too hidden, too lost.

Whether the darkness is of our own creation, or we were dragged into it kicking and screaming; whether we are lost because we wandered off the path, or because those who walked with us suddenly left, or because some dark shadow stole our map and our light and our breath; we are not, in truth, lost. Not to Him who sees in the dark and guides the blind.  He sees us clawing about, and He isn't baffled.  He created light out of nothing; who are we to think that our darkness is too dark for Him?

"Even there Your hand will guide me, Your right hand will hold me fast" (Psalm 139:10).

When our hand cannot hold on any longer; when our eyes cannot see more than an inch in front of our face; when we've wandered in circles and lost our true North, we are not lost to El Roi -- the God who sees.  His hand holds us fast, and we can never really be lost at all.

"Lift your eyes and look to the heavens: Who created all these?  He who brings out the starry host one by one, and calls them each by name.  Because of His great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing." | Isaiah 40:26

Immeasurably More

I'm not BFFs with my doctor.

I don't share my life secrets with the cashier.

I don't expect my friends to clean my teeth and I don't expect my dentist to remember my name without a chart.

There's these things called "social boundaries" and I'm not that great at observing them (I'm a pretty casual person), but I am aware of their existence.  I'm aware of the different roles that people maintain in my life, and I try to not force those people out of their respective roles.

Maybe that's why over the past few months I wrote God a job description and forgot that He has about a million different roles that I was completely ignoring.

I don't have any problem admitting that I struggle with anxiety and panic.  If you've read this blog for any amount of time you probably know that already, but just in case you didn't, I'll tell you: I struggle with fear in a more life-interrupting way than the average person.

In the approximately two years that this has been going on, I've probably talked to Jesus a lot more than I used to.  But that wasn't healthy, because I only talked about one thing: My current problem.

Not that praying about fear (or whatever your major struggle is) is bad, but I almost think it made me dwell on the problem more.  Has He answered my prayers anyway?  Absolutely.  I can point to several times that Jesus came through for me, conquered fear, made me courageous.

But I think all along He was looking at me with a confused look (though not a confused mind -- He is God, after all) saying, "Um, you know I'm here when you're not afraid…right?"

Here's a few problems I discovered with only "giving" God one job (more accurately, only taking advantage of one aspect of His character):

I directly related how well I was doing anxiety-wise with how well I loved Jesus.
If I was struggling, in my mind, it meant I didn't love Him as well right then.  Because if I loved Him, I would trust Him.  If I trusted Him, I wouldn't be afraid.  And there we have the vicious cycle of Christians facing anxiety and depression -- in the time we are at our worst, in most need of closeness with Christ, we feel the most guilt and the most separation.

I directly related how well I was doing anxiety-wise with how well Jesus loved me.
Because Jesus was God of my fear and nothing else, if I had a particularly nasty amount of fear, He must not want to heal me.  He must not love me.  He must not want me to be free.  Is it even worth it to ask His help?  He must be angry that I'm scared right now -- so angry that He won't help me through it.

I lost sight of the whole picture.
Wanting God to only help me get through fear is like going to the doctor with all of your internal organs shutting down and only asking him to give you something for the pain.  I can't find a single time in the Bible where He just made someone's death more comfortable; He brought them back to life.  But what if someone had come to Him and simply said, "Would you please make my pain go away?  You can leave the disease there, I just don't want to feel it anymore."

Jesus is here for more than just dealing with fear.  He's here for more than dealing with my sin.  He's here because I am His beloved, and His desire is for me (Song of Songs 7:10).  He didn't have to make me.  He didn't have to make people at all.  He did it because He wanted someone in the world like me, and someone in the world like you, to love and cherish and be close to.

That relationship, that closeness, is what precedes courage.

I am more than my fear, and so is He.

I think, if I were to let Him out of the Fear-Conqueror box and just let Him be God and Friend and All-in-all to me, He'd be all that I need and so much more.  If our conversations were about everything, instead of only about worry, worry would be on my mind less.  And He would be on it more.

"Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever!  Amen." | Ephesians 3:20-21

The Road to Courage: Forever Alone

I'm a little young to be despairing of permanent singleness.  It's a good thing I'm not, but of course, being in my twenties and boyfriendless in the twenty-first century (a rare phenomenon indeed), it has crossed my mind.

Ever since I started this blog, my most popular posts have been about singleness.  Not, I think, because I am any sort of particularly-gifted when it comes to this topic, but more because it is a topic near and dear to the Christian subculture.  Many people have written more eloquently, more profoundly, more wittily on the topic than I ever could.

But I have something to say.  Blog after blog, book after book has told me to be thankful for this "season of singleness," because all too soon it will be over, and I need to take advantage of it while it's still here.

And that's where the fear creeps in, because maybe just maybe, it won't ever be over and I won't be grateful that I took advantage of my single years.  I'll be jaded and bitter, because that blogger and that author and that pastor told me that if I'd be content, seize the day, and become a little bit more like Jesus, the Marriage Fairy would leave a boy (er, excuse me, a man) under my pillow.

Maybe I shouldn't be thankful for this season of singleness because it's going to be over before I know it.

Maybe I should just be thankful for today.

Today I happen to be single.  Tomorrow I'll probably happen to be single, too (I mean, it'll take at least twenty-four hours for Tim Tebow to get here, so I've got that long).  And I can be thankful for singleness, but why not choose to just be thankful for life -- a life that currently involves singleness?

It is not a choice that is made once for all.  Thanksgiving…hope…joy…surrender…  "Relying on God has to begin all over again every day as if nothing had yet been done" (C.S. Lewis).  So when I wake up single and I wake up married, I have to choose again for that day, knowing I'll choose again tomorrow.

And we grow frustrated, frustrated that life is not like buying a toaster oven that takes one day and hopefully lasts for years to come, but even there, there is grace.  Even there, there is something else to be thankful for.  Because every day is a new start.  Every day is a chance to begin fresh, to live thankful, live joyful, live hopeful, live surrendered.

So we live thankful for the sweet moments: For the loud conversation in a room full of friends, the spontaneous adventures, the unexpected words of encouragement.  The Mommy-cuddles and banter with Daddy, the comfort you feel around your siblings, the laughter shared by tight-knit families.  The crisp breezes that feel like home, the fingers that fit perfectly between yours, the secret smiles and shared jokes, the goofy grins when you're happy for no reason.

And we live thankful for the hard days: The tear-soaked pillows.  The slamming of your fist into the wall when you just can't handle it anymore, but somehow have to make it through one more day.  The heartbreaking, agonized questions and the lack of answers.  The hardships that just keep piling up, because difficulty doesn't come single-serve, it comes in a baker's dozen.

These things happen, with or without a significant relationship.  These are the things that make up life.  If there's a man, he'll make it into the sweet moments and the hard days alike, but that doesn't change the fact that I need a heart that whispers thank you, no matter the circumstances.

We do not become more like Jesus because one day that will make us better husbands or wives.  We become more like Jesus, because that's what loving Jesus does to you.

We do not seize today because one day we'll have the 'ole ball and chain preventing us from doing fun stuff.  We seize today because our life -- the whole, the long and short and every season of it -- was purchased by Christ for abundance and freedom and adventure.

We don't live thankful because our single days are going to be over one day.  We reach out and we grasp each moment, each day, because we live thankful for now.  This moment.  This breath.  This season, no matter how hard, no matter how lonely, we are thankful because it is ours and it never will be again.

Not just singleness.

Today.  Today is yours, and never will be again.

The Road to Courage: Walking Into the Unknown

We live on the edge of the uncharted.

Even the quietest of us crave adventure.  It's why we fall in love with Narnia as soon as we crack open the first book.  It's why the end of The Lord of the Rings leaves us with a funny little ache in the center of our chest.  It's why pirates make us swoon.

Danger and excitement and epic music preferably written by Hans Zimmer.  Our spirit hungers for it.

But we never quite get to it, even though we live on the edge of it.

  

We can't even walk into a room full of people we don't know without trepidation.  How are we supposed to take up our cross, abandon a life we know, and follow Christ into the unknown?  We crave the uncharted and think we would seize upon the opportunity to step off the edge of the map if it presented itself, but the truth is, the edge of the map is right in front of us.  We sail uncharted waters every day, and until we can learn to navigate the uncharted calm with courage, how can we expect to leap at the opportunity to sail into waters both uncharted and tumultuous?

How can we move halfway across the world if we can't talk to a stranger?  How can we be ready for that job if we can't courageously face the one we're in?  How can we presume to be missionaries if we can't tell our next-door neighbor about Jesus?

My goal here is not to revisit the "faithful in little" principle.  My goal here is to get you to view every tiny, unfamiliar event as an opportunity to live uncharted.

Live uncharted.  It's been my phrase this past month as I began full-blown clinical nursing classes.  Walking to a test, I remind myself that it is an opportunity to live uncharted.  Walking into clinical, I smile at the adventure of sailing unfamiliar waters.  Every new, scary, anxiety-inducing thing I face, the Lord is turning from a chore and fear to an adventure, and somehow, that makes all the difference.  My heart can beat out of my chest and my respirations can increase to borderline hyperventilation levels, but that's okay -- it's only happening because I'm on an adventure.

Live uncharted.  Certainly, the waters I am sailing I may end up naming "Lily Pad Lake" and "Sleepy River" once I've been through them and they're no longer uncharted, but even the most experienced sailors glide through untroubled territory before journeying onto the part of the map reading "Here There Be Monsters."

The unknown is difficult because I can't even identify a specific "what if" for you.  There's too many.  But when that "what if" starts playing in your head, follow it through.

What would happen if you walked into this new situation and everybody ignored you?  What would happen if you made a complete idiot of yourself?  What would happen if nobody wanted to answer your questions, if your new boss is awful, if your teacher is mean?  What would happen if you do something wrong because you've never done it before?

I can't answer those questions for you, so you do it.  Gut reaction, what would happen?  Then find the true answer to that question. This is kind of like that "positive visualization" stuff that people say works, but I've never really found saying anything like, "You will be successful, you will do well on this test, you will be confident" to be very helpful, because honestly, I don't know that.  It's more likely that there will be a positive outcome, but that is not rock-solid, 100% truth.  I can't stand on that and live my life by positive thinking about what I will do, because sometimes, I screw up.

This is truth: "When I called, You answered me; You made me bold and stouthearted" (Psalm 138:3).  "Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord, the Lord, is the Rock eternal" (Isaiah 26:4).  "Surely this is our God; we trusted in Him, and He saved us" (Isaiah 25:9).

"For I am the Lord, your God, who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, Do not fear; I will help you."  (Isaiah 41:13)

"Do not tremble, do not be afraid.  Did I not proclaim this and foretell it long ago?  You are my witnesses.  Is there any God besides me?  No, there is no other Rock; I know not one." (Isaiah 44:8)

Truth is not based upon what everyone else thinks about you, or even what you think about yourself.  Truth is based upon who God is, and all that He is for you.  You are not your own, and that is perhaps one of the most comforting truths out there.

You don't have a clue what you're walking into, but He does.  You don't have any idea how you're going to react, but He already saw it.  Maybe He even chuckled at it.  But He's also already dealt with it.

He knows where He wants you and He knows how to get you there.  He knows your heart is beating out of your chest, and He knows how to slow it down when it's time.  He knows how to take control of your fear if only you'll ask Him.  There is no "what if" He cannot answer, no unknown situation that is not yet fully known by One who loves you completely.

We follow the Master because He is good.  We step where His sandals stepped because in His wake is healing and freedom and an adventure we didn't know was possible.  We follow Him on land so that we can step out onto the water knowing His character.

Imagine Peter's "what ifs" as he stood on the edge of the boat.

What if I do exactly what I really should do and sink right off?


Peter's prior experiences told him that the Lord would not set him up for failure.

What if I start to drown?


Peter's knowledge of the Healer told him that even if he died pursuing Christ, there was nothing to stop a miraculous resuscitation.

What if I don't have what it takes to walk on the water?


Peter knew quite, quite well that success was completely independent of his own qualifications and entirely dependent on Christ.

And sweet reader, should your worst fears come to pass, you aren't left out to dry (or drown).  "Immediately Jesus reached out His hand and caught him" (Matthew 14:31).  He could have left Peter to flail.  He could have taught him a lesson about the importance of having faith.  He could have let him sputter and choke and regret his decision to come but that is not what He does.  He rescues and redeems.  When your worst-case scenarios come true and your grand plans for success go south, He immediately reaches out and catches you so that even a situation that has gone horribly awry becomes a purposeful, miraculous thread in a tapestry of His unfailing grace and goodness, the whole of which we may not see until we are with Him in glory.

Walking on the water, looking at the churning waves and wondering what on earth he was thinking, Peter was quite safe, for he was in the presence of a heavenly Friend who had invited him to come.  When he began to fall, he was no less safe; in fact, out on the water with Jesus, he was safer than he would have been in the boat.  Where the Lord calls is always safest.

So, my friend, do not be foolish.  Don't get out of the boat unless Jesus asks you to (what if all the other disciples decided to throw themselves off the edge of the boat?).  Get out because He extends His hand and says, "Come."  There's no safer place than the uncharted waters where He stands defying the very laws of physics He created.

But what if there really are monsters? comes the whisper in the back of our mind.

Well then…won't that be an adventure?