Matthew

I write this to those compassionate hearts who want to help those in need instead of arguing about whether they deserve it or not. If the notion of deservedness is your concern, I ask that you don’t read on, because I am one of those who does not deserve your patronage.

The first time I saw Matthew I liked him immediately. He was young, 30 perhaps, maybe younger. Dressed in baggy blue jeans, a heavy coat, and a canvas backpack, he had a beanie on to cover his mangy long hair. He reminded me of someone I went to high school with, one of the boys I hung around my sophomore and junior years. I could imagine myself hanging out with him: playing hack or going to lunch, everyone piling into the back of my car like we used to every day. I immediately saw his face in my rear view mirror, laughing just like he had been there. As soon as I saw Matthew, he was my friend.

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For a long time I watched Matthew with a strange sense of affection, but I never talked to him. He walked down the aisle of the Blue Line train every night with a Burger King cup and a sign taped to it, asking for change. Unlike the other Metro salesman with clever catch-phrases to sell their candy and pens (50 cents a piece or a dollar for three, candy even sweeter than me! Don’t be shy ladies and gentlemen!), or the persistent men on the street that dish out compliments to get change (That’s quite a sexy haircut, ma’am. Spare a dollar?), Matthew never said anything. He stared straight ahead at the other end of the railcar and walked slowly with his hand barely extended to receive whatever spare dollars or cents might make it into the cup by chance. No gimmicks, no announcements, not even any eye contact. Just a slow shuffle and a blank stare to the other side. He looked just like a person who had lost all hope.

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I saw my friend when I looked at Matthew, like I was gazing into some horrible prediction of the future. It was like seeing my laughing, joyous teenage companion at our high school reunion, and he didn’t have a home or cent to his name, and all of the light had gone out of his face. All I wanted to ask was, “What happened?” And how could I have let this happen to you?

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I finally got to ask him one night when my roommate Kim and I were waiting for the train and Matthew shuffled onto the platform to wait as well. All Kim and I had between us was a five dollar bill and a Ziploc bag half full of almonds and cranberries. So I approached Matthew with my meager offering in hopes of striking up a conversation with him.

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It was the first of several conversations in which Matthew looked to the side as he talked, never meeting my face for more than a second. Something always kept him from looking at my face. But he did talk. He talked about how he got there, and why. He assured me he was going to get out, assured me that he wasn’t “like this” before. But when he came from Seattle to be with his girlfriend who was with child, she disappeared. And when he was robbed and left with no money or I.D., that was it. Now here he was, without a home or a friend or an identity, as far as the state was concerned. A full year had passed and Matthew was still on the street.

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To make matters worse, he had health problems. The next few times I saw Matthew, I noticed that he was in pain. He grimaced each time the train turned and he bumped up against the rails. Nerve problems, he said simply. Lots of pain. I asked him once if he knew anyone in L.A. that he could stay with. He said yes, he is a musician and has some friends here who are musicians also. But he is afraid they would look down on him for being homeless if he went to them for help. Maybe someday, when he got onto his feet again, he would give them a call. He would start playing again. He would play for money instead of beg for it. He would live life without a constant, unavoidable stigma that made him an exception to almost every opportunity. Maybe someday he could live life for real again. Someday, outside of this temporary hell where has no name and no purpose outside of the struggle to survive.

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When it came down to it, I was just another sympathetic passer-by in Matthew’s life, one of the many who will come and go, dropping dollars and cents into his story. No matter how I wanted to help, my presence in his life was temporary and fleeting, only of enough significance to provide a few meals and a few conversations. I’m sure he forgot me the moment I stepped off the train, for $5 and open ears were not enough to give Matthew his life back again. And who knows if I would have, given the chance?  I hope that in the grand scheme of things, from the kind of perspective God has, my role in Matthew’s life did have some significance. I think that it did. But compared to what he needed, I was helpless indeed. When it came down to it, I could not save my friend. I could not give him a home or a job or a committed friendship that would see him through to stability. But someday I will be able to.

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Someday I will be at a place in my life where I am stable, God-willing. I might have a home of my own, or an apartment with an extra bed. And I might have money for extra food and some time away from work. And I hope and pray, I deeply wish, that when that day comes I will see Matthew again, in the face of someone else who needs a little help. I hope that when God asks me if I am ready to be hospitable I answer, “Yes.” I hope that when I am faced with the long, hard task of radical love of the stranger and Biblical hospitality, I rise to the challenge. I hope that I remember my Father’s open arms when I came running home, ready to accept and celebrate a daughter who had squandered her inheritance. I hope this for the whole Church: that we would invest ourselves in others, that we would be generous beyond the reaches of our immediate family and hold nothing back. Because there are so many people who need more than our spare change. When their mothers and fathers fail to, or are not able to, open their arms and their whole lives to them, I believe that it is our job to step into the gap and provide that love, as far as we are able.

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I understand, and I honor, the wish of so many to help those without a home by offering food or money. These are necessary acts of love and they make a difference, they fill the bellies of the hungry in our nation. They bring hope. But $5 a day, spread across the many homeless men and women one may encounter in a day, is a band-aid. I know there are too many hurting people. I know it is impossible to help them all as an individual. But I believe that all of us will have an opportunity in our lives to give more. If Matthew had a room to stay in for free, with a shower and new clothes and three meals a day, an opportunity to look for a job... if only the circumstances of his life would align with another’s in just the right way, I can imagine him being free. This is what I call a miracle. All of us have chances to participate in miracles. Sometimes it’s filling a hungry belly. Someday it might be saving someone’s life by letting God use our resources (His resources) for the good of another. I hope that when my time comes, I am less selfish than I am now.

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At the end of the semester I made Matthew a Christmas card. I saw him on the Blue Line the last time I ever rode it and I gave it to him. He looked at the card through his broken glasses, only one lens, and then he smiled at me, and said “Thank you.” I told him to have a good night and to stay warm, and then I walked home. It was the last time he saw me, but I know it will not be the last time I see him.

For those who want to be new...

I’ve felt very far from God lately. Very far from everything. I’m in a strange place where nothing makes sense, like another world completely separate from my own. Nothing is finished. Nothing is familiar. Nothing is old.
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I realized that I’ve often put God on hold these days, just like everything else, because I’m waiting for things to make sense again, putting everything off until life starts  and I can focus. Where am I? I don’t know this place, this house, these people. Everything is new.
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I find myself coming to the end of what I knew was My year. A year filled with change and growth and crazy adventures with the Lord. It’s been marked by intense joy and heartbreak, and it followed a year filled with the same. I had expected something to be complete by the end of this year. But now here I am, Christmas day, and I don’t feel like I’m at the end of anything. I feel, rather, like I’m in-between things, with nothing but time to discover this new life that has somehow unfolded around me.
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A little over two years ago I had my life figured out, a plan and a dream and someone to share it with. I had two lives: one at APU, new and exciting and terrifying, and my comfortable life in Elko to fall back on: friends, family, boyfriend, job. Home. And then everything started changing.
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Exactly two years ago I was in Elko, helping my mom with Christmas dinner, and I stopped and turned to her with tears in my eyes: “It’s Christmas, mom. It’s Christmas and he’s still not here.” Suddenly home was filled with pain, a place marked with memories like fingerprints on a dirty glass, no space left without a painful memory. My mind reflected that glass, the fingerprints covering my thoughts. Everything was old.
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Over the next year I felt God cutting my ties to Elko, wiping clean those fingerprints that covered my life, and I thought it was so I could branch out more, maybe stay in California after I graduated. And then I met the 9 most wonderful people I could imagine and went to India for a month, and I felt God taking the broken pieces of my life and sewing them together. God healed me, and I felt so new, like a child. And as I was gone, my dad transferred to a new job in Arizona to start a brand new life for our family.
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These past few months I felt rocked, broken, challenged. Those things God spoke to me through my team at APU and abroad were reinforced, dramatically, and I felt myself more humbled than ever. I felt heartbreak, that old familiar feeling, but it was not for myself this time. It was the most overwhelming few months of my life. And then I packed up all my things, left LA, moved most of my stuff into a new apartment at APU, and brought the rest to a brand new town and a strange home where my parents now live.
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In all this moving and changing, I hadn’t realized just how much was different until I came here to Kingman. I think it’s just now settling in... I’m not going back to Elko. I’m not going back home. I’m thankful that God cut so many ties there now, thankful that this isn’t as painful as it could be. But it’s my mind that has to cut it’s ties now.
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For those of you who know me, especially my friends from college, it’s clear how dearly I hold home in my heart while I’m away. I define myself partly by where I come from; Nevada is in my blood, it’s my culture, my heritage. The desert raised me, taught me how to be human and how to be quiet. Elko is where I grew up, became a woman, met Jesus.
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But all of the most dramatic transformation in my life has come from out of my element. My first semester of college with no friends in a new place... A semester in the mountains of Yosemite... A journey to the other side of the world with new friends... Los Angeles, almost more foreign to me than India was. These are the places God broke my heart to make room for more of Him. These are the places I discovered what I was made to be.
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And so now I am in Kingman and I am in a period of rest... nothing mind-blowing is happening at the moment, and so I step back and look around me to realize that this place is not familiar, and it is not temporary either. There is no lifeline home anymore. Everything is new.
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And I’m scared. Sometimes, in moments of realization like this one, I’m afraid of where this journey is going to take me, and if I’ll be prepared when I get there, with nothing old and familiar to fall back on. I’m afraid that I’ll end up somewhere and be only a mix of different parts incapable of doing anything for God’s Kingdom. My crutches are all of the sudden gone, my lifelines broken, my regrets unimportant, my mistakes behind me, and my past... past.
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And so there’s only one constant to fall on, the One who’s brought me through this journey and to this crucial point in it. I find myself needing to be reassured, to hear that every ounce of this instability is in His hands, every possibility under His control. I’m going over the past year in my mind to remind myself of what He has done, and that it was real, and it was beautiful. And I’m starting to see this time in life with new eyes... everything is new.
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Instead of emptiness where there used to be something, there is something new. I haven’t simply lost my crutches; I’ve been given the strength to walk. I’ve lost old friends, yes... but new ones take their place. And I know that I am a different person in so many ways. But my mind hasn’t fully settled into the idea yet. I am in-between two people right now... I am shedding the old, saying goodbye, coming to terms... so that I can fully walk into the new, embrace it, believe it.
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It is faith that tells me God will finish what He has started in me. And then He’ll start something new, because He is always moving, always creating. I feel distant right now, but I know that He is not distant. I feel lost, but I really am not. I’m just taking in the scene before me, floating above it until it becomes more real, and praying for encouragement from those who have seen me bloom this year.

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Life, the big journey, is full of little journeys. Periods of growth and change, mountains and valleys, in-between periods and culmination points. It’s ok to be in those places. It’s ok to be in a different place in life than what you are used to, to shed the old and embrace the new, to have your heart broken or ripped out, and to accept the healing that comes only from our precious Lord. This is what life is about, all of it. All of the joy, all of the pain, all of the hard decisions and miraculous moments; life wouldn’t be the same without every little bit of it, big and small, easy and difficult. And it’s not our choice to opt of out it. Sure, we didn’t exactly sign on. But here we are, and it’s not going to change for us. All we can do is be thankful to have a God who knows what He is doing and who is fully good at the very center of His being. He won’t give us stones. He’ll never give us stones.

Healing as Reversal

In thinking of how God is continuing to teach me who I am this semester (and making me more ok with that every day!) I thought of something I posted on Facebook a few months ago that I thought was appropriate to re-post here. It was after I got a letter to myself from my missions retreat last Spring. Here's a quote from the letter:


"Every one of [your team members], with their individual laughs and smiles and hugs are gifts to you... I think by now you'll have seen the impact God chose them to have on your life. Already, they have shown me (or are beginning to show me) the okay-ness and rightness of my own laughter. They are showing me the okay-ness in my own voice, my own prayer, my own body, and hands, and my own way of having fun. I haven't felt like a child in a long time, but I feel like one now... You know, when you were told you can't play, it was a lie. When you were told you can't act, it was a lie. When you were told you can't dance, it was a lie. [God] loves to see you laugh. He loves your voice. He loves your quietness. He just loves." 

Not only did I read this right after a conversation with my mom about being able to be a child while I'm at home (woah!) but it immediately made me think of a prayer that I wrote in Darjeeling, a prayer I believe was not possible until this trip with those 9 wonderful friends: 

Precious Lord, 
You are a reminder of my non-invisibility. 
You show me how right and ok it is to be loved. 
You are the One whose mark of love I wish to be upon me 
And whose love I trust will never leave. 
You teach me the right kind of laughter, 
the kind that doesn't necessarily turn into tears. 
You are the hand that holds me above my enemies 
And you lock my gaze so that I do not see their faces any longer. 
You are my fortress! 
And the company that I keep there. 
You are full of good conversations and hilarious jokes. 
You are the light that beckons me thru the darkness. 
I don't see the darkness any longer, because 
You are my healer. 
No other healer would I rather have than You, 
For You are my God. 
You are the overarching and all-encompassing sky that I look into, and cannot see the end of. 
You have made me with skillful hands 
And You have made a universe to hold us. 
You are holding us. 
You are reaching to us. 
And you are among us, 
The love that knits us together. 
Amen. 
(6-10-10) 

Maybe when God heals us, it is a process of making us children again. Maybe when He saves us, it is the process of remembering our first love, the love that all of us had as little children, when our eyes weren't clouded with pain and disappointment and lies. God is making me remember who I knew Him to be as a child, because He is making me into a child again. Praise God for friends that we can be children with. I am so amazed at His healing hand.


I have a feeling that from here on out I'll be free to get excited about my life, and what I want to do with it. Like I could run up to God and get really excited about my new plans, like I did to my parents when I was little and decided I wanted to write a book, or go to India and feed hungry children, or be a famous singer. I really really hope that's true. I know I still have a long way to go, but I am so encouraged to see how FAR He has brought me in His freedom and love!! Praise the Lord. :)

Little Girl Shoes

Since I was a little girl, I’ve been telling my dad that when I grow up, I’m going to save the world. I would look at him incredulously when he would reply that Sure, I could change my little part of it. “No, dad, I’m going to save the whole world.” And I was serious about that. As a child it didn’t seem very hard. The world’s “problems” seemed simple and somewhat romanticized, not large, messy, and complicated as I now know them to be.

But even as I grew up, I held onto a piece of my optimism no matter what the world told me. Even as I learned about the complex nature of suffering, poverty, and oppression, somewhere inside I still heard the ten-year-old inside of me echoing, “I’m going to save the world, dad. The whole world.” Problem was, I was taking into my small hands a world that doesn’t belong to me, and it was a matter of time before I realized how small I truly am.

I wouldn’t say that I have learned exponentially more about oppression this semester, factually, than I knew previously. I have definitely learned more than I knew, but not enough to knock me into the despair that I’ve experienced at times. I think it was seeing it up close and not being able to escape that really did it for me. All of the sudden the little girl inside of me looked down for a moment and saw the size of her shoes, and they were not God-sized. They were the shoes of a little child, and they were trembling under the weight of what I thought I could carry.

It has been hard for me to accept my humanity. For some reason, one of the biggest lies I believe is that I am utterly responsible. Responsible for my family, my friends, society... and I feel like a failure if I can’t do something to help. These past few months I have seen and felt so much pain and oppression that I have had to admit, finally, painfully: I can’t fix it.

Now before I make myself out to sound like some sort of suffering servant, much of the responsibility I feel comes from selfishness as well as from compassion. In coming to LA, I thought that I would learn something directly applicable to what I would do with the rest of my life. That’s because I thought the rest of my life would consist of what I thought to be a glamourous career, organizing some movement or helping thousands of people. Part of it was so I could go back home and say “Look! Look at what I’m doing with my life!” I wanted to feel validated, worth something.

But the bottom line is, I thought for sure that I was strong enough to do this. No matter how much I learned about my own gifts and capacities, I resisted them with all my might because they didn’t seem important enough to me. I just couldn’t justify doing something with my life that I might doubt at certain times was helping anyone. So I came into this semester overly-confident in my ability to handle whatever it was that came my way. 

But rather than feeling validated in my desire to “save the world,” whether for compassion’s sake or for vanity’s sake, I instead found myself secretly dreading the rest of my life and what I thought that I would have to do. I could hear God telling me to let it go, but I held on with all my might to my sense of responsibility, clinging to my anxiety like a security blanket that was suffocating me. I wanted to play God, because I didn’t have enough faith to believe that God’s work would continue, with or without me.

I then came to a point similar to Rob Bell’s story in The Gods Aren’t Angry, when a friend sat with him and repeated the words, “You don’t have to live like this,” over and over, until he finally believed it. God told me a long time ago who I was. He’s been telling me over and over, and I believed Him, but I didn’t truly hear the words until this semester: “You don’t have to live like this.” And then it all came together.

I am not the savior. I am not organizer, founder, visionary, or activist. I don’t know who told me that in order for my education to mean something, I have to rock the foundations of society, but I bought it. And I put enormous pressure on myself that was never mine to own in the first place.

I got burnt out so quickly because I was trying to operate in gifts that the Lord has not given me, and I wasn’t trusting Him to take care of His people. Part of the beauty of the body of Christ is that we don’t all serve the same function; we’d be quite an odd creature if that were true. Thank God for the community organizers, activists, non-profit managers, and politicians. I think I can finally be ok now in saying that I am not one of them.

I have extraordinary gifts. I know this because I was created by an extraordinary God who loves me, and He has taught me who I am. I know He’ll use me somewhere, and I pray He gives me the faith to know that He is constantly working, and He doesn’t really need me to help Him run things.  He is awesome enough to want me to work alongside Him though. 

I can’t save the whole world. I say this now, not with the heartbreak and defeat I felt at first, but with relief. Lord knows that I can only do my part in saving my little piece of it, always relying on Him to work through me. I’ve said it before: I am so thankful to serve a God that doesn’t expect me to be the savior.

So now I continue on in this semester and I hope and pray that I can see it with new eyes. All that I’m learning I wouldn’t trade for the world, and it is sometimes heartbreaking, but now I see it as a gift rather than a burden. My optimism has unfortunately run out, but hope now takes its place as I walk through life, proudly sporting the shoes of a child-- the child of a God that truly can change the world.

From the Mountaintops

I wonder how Ezekiel felt when God led him through the valley of bones. Confused, I think. I bet he wondered why God was leading him through a valley of bones. Ezekiel had surely felt the Lord’s presence, heard His voice, and seen Him move. Yet when God asked him the big important question: “Can these bones live?” he still answered with “O Sovereign Lord, You alone know.” Earlier this semester I thought that if I were Ezekiel I would have answered more positively, with an answer like “Of course, Lord! Anything is possible with You!” But now I think I understand why Ezekiel answered how he did.

It’s confusing going from the mountain to the valley. There is the obvious: the scenery is different. Rather than a perspective from up high, closer to God’s perspective, one is thrown right into the thick of it, whatever “it” is, and it is not quite as beautiful at first. Furthermore, it isn’t quite as easy to answer “yes” to questions about the miraculous in the face of thousands of dry bones that have been sitting the way they are for who knows how long. It’s much easier to wonder things like, “Why am I here?” and “What could I possibly do about all these bones?”

This year I have been on the mountaintops, both literally and figuratively. God took me to a higher place than I had ever been this year, where I could see a little more of His perspective. In that place I could hear His voice more clearly. In that place I could see His hand move without distraction. It was in that place He healed me, He moved me, and He changed me into a new person. I spent part of my summer in the Himalayan Mountains with 9 incredible people, literally on the mountaintops, encountering the Lord in new ways and falling so much deeper in love with Him. And then I came back. And God brought me to LA.

It has been a confusing experience, to say the least. Overwhelming, to put it lightly. I’ve asked the questions: “Why am I here?” and God said, “To be made complete.” “What could I possibly do about all these bones?” and God said, “Nothing.” There is a pressure when one comes down from the mountain to immediately put into practice what God showed you. There is a temptation to do something, when perhaps that is not what God intended by bringing you to the mountain. Rather, sometimes God brings us to the mountain to make us into a new person. And so when we come down to the valley, the task is not necessarily to do a whole lot; rather, the challenge is to be the person God formed on the mountain. 

I was reminded of this after struggling intensely with the revelation that evil is big, and I am small. I shared with a few friends of mine that this semester I have come face to face with problems that I once naively thought I could stand against. I now see that on my own, I am much too small to even start. I have always been an optimist, so this news was hard for me to take. I felt restless and unsatisfied with God’s insistence that I am to do nothing this semester, save persevere. The night I shared this struggle I went to a small group with some friends where an entry from Oswald Chambers’ My Utmost for His Highest was read; it was about coming down from the mountaintop.

I was reminded that night that we are not meant to live on the mountaintops. The mountaintop is where God brings us for a little while to experience Him and be changed into new people. But every lover of God that is brought to the mountaintop has had to go back down. Because the valley, though not as desirable, is where we live. It is where we move. The task when we go back down is not necessarily to do anything, because we know that in reality, we can’t do much. Ezekiel couldn’t possibly bring those bones to life, and I can’t bring this city to life. But this year in the mountains, God made me love Him more, and that love makes me cling to Him in this valley. In the mountains God healed me and my new wholeness gives me strength and confidence in this valley. In the mountains God gave me family to support me and cry with me in this valley. In the mountains I saw God’s powerful love move, and that knowledge gives me just enough hope to say, in the face of death itself, “O sovereign Lord, You alone know.”

In the end it is He alone that knows, and He alone that brings life. Ezekiel had the incredible opportunity at this point to stand back and watch the Lord move the way He said He would.  “Then you will know that I the LORD have spoken, and I have done it, declares the LORD.” (Ezekiel 37:14b)

I know that this semester God is completing the work He started in me this year by teaching me how to live, move, and seek after Him in the valley. Sometimes I just want to run back to the mountaintops and stay there forever. But that is not where I belong, at least not now. Right now I am in the valley, confused, overwhelmed, and waiting for my God to answer “Yes” to the question I simply cannot answer with much assurance from the valley floor.

Why I Cut My Hair.

So for those of you who hadn't noticed yet, I cut all of my hair off. It was a recent decision, but a very thought out one. I'd like to put it on the record why I did what I did, because it wasn't just for a change. And maybe if you don't like how it looks you'll be ok with that after reading. Or not. I don't really care.

   Lately I've been thinking a lot about culture and identity, my culture and identity specifically. Not just as an American, but as Nevadan, as a Sanders woman, as me. Over the past few years I have seen myself changing my outside to fit what I think will be best received by others. I can remember a time in my life, during high school specifically, where I felt totally comfortable with who I was. I didn't answer to anyone, I didn't try to fit in, and I didn't try to be pretty. My close friends knew who I was and where I stood, and that was all I needed. Other people judged me immediately from my appearance, but to be honest, I kind of liked ruining their expectations of who I was. It was a time where I felt truly abandoned to the Lord, nothing and no one holding me back. I was so free.
   But slowly that changed, whether it was a boyfriend who preferred me to look a certain way, or other people that I knew would judge me by my looks. And then I came to Southern California! I didn't realize until this semester how much pressure there is to look a certain  way here. I remember being so comfortable in Nevada just wearing jeans and a t shirt every day, but here I constantly feel the pressure of making an appearance, and I finally had enough of it.
   I need to get back to who I am. I've found myself in the shoes of some girl that I don't really know, which is why I think I feel so uncomfortable with my looks sometimes. I am not this girl that keeps up appearances. I'm the girl who dyed polka dots in her hair, just 'cause. I'm the girl who hates expectations based on my looks or my gender. I'm not the girl who molds herself into those expectations. Cutting off my hair was a way of running away from that girl that I don't know. It's a way of rebelling against that pressure. It's a feeble attempt at freedom, with the hope that God will go the rest of the way in freeing me from the temptation to simply please other people.

   A lot of my friends tried to convince me not to cut off my hair again, but really that made me want to do it more, just to prove that I can without feeling like a disappointment. So, I'm kind of saying... "I'm a girl. I have short hair. Deal with it." My heart's desire is to not be concerned with anyone's opinion but the Lord's. I did this all on my own, not in response to anyone telling me this is how I'm supposed to be, and it felt really good. I want to be free again, and for me, this is a step in the right direction.

   So, there. If you don't think it looks good... big deal. Tell me. It's something I want to be ok with. I want to live life with arms open wide to the Lord and whatever He brings my way, instead of hoping and praying that I'm doing things right. I know it's a superficial thing... but I'm hoping that somehow the short-haired, relaxed, joyful Nevada girl inside me will come out in response to my outward change.

May it be so.

Perseverance

We went back to Azusa this weekend, a much needed sabbatical, for me at least. I feel like the last few weeks have been an emotional roller coaster ride, so up and down. When I got to APU, I had no clue what I was feeling or if it was ok to feel that way.
I confess that I am a victim of the popular myth that depression is always a negative thing. Pain has a stigma in our society that does enormous injustice to the real value and purpose of heartbreak, what I believe to be the purest form of pain. It sits above disappointment and bitterness in my mind because true heartbreak comes from the shock of an event or circumstance that is fundamentally opposite of how life was intended to be: broken relationships, addiction, injustice...
The problem was that I didn't know if that was what I was feeling, or if it was just some odd mixture of self-pity and bitterness. So the first night at APU, alone in my best friend's apartment, I used my first alone time with the Lord in weeks to weep and cry out before Him, looking to the Scriptures for some sort of guidance.
I found myself asking God, "If this is where You have called me, why is it so hard?" None of this fits with my perfect year. I know this year is my year, a phenomenal year, and thus far it has been filled with joy, community, growth, and above all, healing. I had a feeling at the beginning of the semester that the role LA term would play in my perfect year would be unlike the previous 8 months, but I didn't know to what purpose.
In my crying out, God spoke the question of joy to me-- "Do you still have joy?" And after some thought, I decided that I do. Thankfully, I am still able to rejoice when others rejoice and bring praise when I see the Lord's hand move, which is often. I thank God that He has given me His eyes these few weeks to see where He is.
But I am not happy. No, I thought, I am quite decidedly unhappy. "Why?" God asked. And I said, "Because I see no reason to be right now." And He said, "That's ok."
James chapter 1 is where He led me:

"Consider it pure joy, Sarah, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything."

And so He answered my question- "Why is it so hard? Because it's supposed to be, at least for you. I've done incredible things in your life this year, but I'm not finished yet. You are not complete until you pass through this valley with your faith still intact."

Instead of filling me with dread, this promise of trials gave me comfort. Comfort that the Lord understands my sorrow, and He doesn't blame me for it. And comfort that He is not asking me to save the world right now, or even to do anything remotely "big." For now, He is simply asking me to put one foot in front of the other in His direction, to persevere. I'm being exposed to pain and oppression in forms I wasn't prepared to encounter face to face. My heart is indeed breaking for this city, and I've been putting entirely too much pressure on myself to do something about it. To fix it. To save it.

But it is clear to me that, at this point in my life, I can't. And that is hard for me. But God has given me permission, in fact He has told me, to rest right now. To slow, to lean into Him as the evil in the world seems to lean into me. This is a time of preparation and learning, not so much one of action- yet. And He will take care of the rest in His own timing, not mine.

I am so relieved to have a Savior that doesn't expect me to be a savior as well, but simply to go where He leads me. Praise be to the God who sees, the God who hears, and the God who speaks. Amen.

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I'm also incredibly thankful for the friends on main campus that lent an ear to my experiences on LA Term so far and who provided enormous comfort just by their presence. If you're reading, know that I love you. Thanks.

Here's some pictures of LA Term so far. I LOVE the people in this cohort. They help sustain me through this crazy transition with their contagious joy and love and curiousity. Love you guys :)


Everybody, with Steph, in front of Blossom Vietnamese downtown





City Hall



Kim and I laughing at Melanie 'cause she didn't want us to see her toes. :)

Bones

My passage of the semester (part of it):

The hand of the LORD was upon me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the LORD and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. ² He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. ³ He asked me, "Son of man, can these bones live?" I said, "O Sovereign LORD, you alone know."

 ⁴ Then he said to me, "Prophesy to these bones and say to them, 'Dry bones, hear the word of the LORD! ⁵ This is what the Sovereign LORD says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. ⁶ I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the LORD.' "

 ⁷ So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone. ⁸ I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them.

 ⁹ Then he said to me, "Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to it, 'This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe into these slain, that they may live.' " ¹⁰ So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet—a vast army.

Ezekiel 37:1-10



Can These Bones Live?



Romans 4:17 says that Abraham believed in "the God who gives life to the dead and calls things that are not as though they were." God sees us present-future, not present-past. He called Abraham the "Father of all nations" before his son Isaac was born. He called Sarah "princess" before she was part of this royal family that would be created through Isaac. Abraham knew that he was "as good as dead-- since he was about a hundred years old-- and Sarah's womb was also dead (v.19)." Sarah was just a bag of bones, if you will. And yet God insisted that she would have a child. Abraham was an old childless man, and yet God continued to call him a father.

Really, God's question to Ezekiel was a silly one. But it's the questions in the Bible that I think are the most intriguing parts of Scripture, because they are questions to all of us. They are challenges. We all have bones in our life, and God asks each of us the same question concerning these dry valleys.

"Sarah, can these bones live?" God asks me, stretching His hand out over the booming metropolis of LA.

I know enough now to realize that God wouldn't ask if He didn't already see flesh and tendons on every one. The problem is my own eyes. What do I do with God's vision of life for my valley of bones? Well, He didn't tell Ezekiel to pray for life. He didn't tell him to hope for life. He told him to prophesy; to proclaim life, to speak it forth, to insist it.

"Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed, and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, 'So shall your offspring be.'" (Romans 4:18).

Abraham conformed to God's vision of himself and lived as though he were the father of many nations, knowing that God could do what He had promised. My goal is to live this semester as if I truly am beloved of the Lord, to act is if this city is filled with living, breathing, vibrant souls instead of bones. I refuse to walk through this place in fear and disdain, condemning the bones to their grim fate. Instead, I pray for the strength to proclaim life over the lifeless parts of this city until it is true, even if I never get to see it.

"Can these bones live?"

Why yes, I believe they can.