A Decade ... And God

Ten years ago today, I sat in the exact coffee shop I am in right now, in the exact seat that I sit in as I drink my coffee, and, wearing the exact necklace actually. A story was unfolding for me then, a brilliant story. It had been unfolding for a while, but it was getting to the ‘good’ part.

Some thought my being in the coffee shop that day was about a boy. Some thought my story in general at that time was about a boy. I get that. If I’m honest, I have to admit that I had my doubts. I knew my convictions. I knew my reality. But I also knew enough to know that I couldn’t always trust myself.

The coffee shop wasn’t about a boy though, much less the story as a whole. The story was about a girl, actually. It was about a girl and the God who had made her and was pursuing her fiercely. There she was, this girl, sick as a dog, unable to speak a word her voice was so hoarse. And she was about to head to an interview for a job that on paper looked like it had been written SPECIFICALLY for her. But she knew her odds at getting the job were one-in-a-million. She was young. She was fresh out of school, not seasoned. She was white. The job was at a Chinese church, reaching Chinese youth. She couldn’t speak Chinese. And let’s be honest, despite her credentials on her paper (i.e. her resume), she was completely unprepared, and completely unaware as to how much about herself and how to live life she still had to learn.

Nonetheless, she purchased her hot tea, and headed up the street, toward the church where she would interview. Scared… timid…. but ready to fake it till she made it and put on a show that presented a self-assured, well-composed, young woman who was anything but as ridiculous inside her heart and mind as she knew she was. Head held high, looking confident, she pressed forward, and then, there it was, as she walked, right in her path, literally right. in. front. of. her. The Mahayana Buddhist Temple. I can’t remember, but I think she paused, literally stopping cold in her tracks and taking a surprised breath as something in her soul, in her mind, and in her heart, registered deeply….and clicked. It clicked as surely as when she would try to get something to fit into a hole, or get a lever to clasp, and she would utilize all her might, pushing it and forcing it, and FINALLY, sighing in relief, she’d fall back, as it clicked. Her muscles would relax, and she’d rest. That’s what she felt like when she saw the temple, like she had finally gotten something to fit together that she KNEW was meant to fit together but was giving her a heck of a time. Life ‘clicked,’ and her next steps were obvious and completely assured to her. Everything that was ‘before’ fell into a place and made sense. There were plenty of unknowns in life still, but there was something solid and assured in her soul despite what was left to figure out.  She wasn’t in control of her life, but she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt Who was, and she had just been given a glimpse into what He was doing…and HAD been doing.

 

The girl knew that this place, this city was where she was meant to be. In fact, she wrote it down in her journal later that day, in between worship service and her formal interview. She recorded it as a note to the boy people came to think the story was about. “I can explain in detail when I can talk- but I am supposed to be here, Steve. Chinatown NYC- I don’t know where or how or why- but HERE. I really just know it, and the Holy Spirit is like SCREAMING it at @ me. Pray for my voice,” (remember, she couldn’t speak).

Getting back to that moment on the street though. Her soul was invigorated, peaceful, scared of the unknown, but at rest. She hadn’t even BEEN to the formal interview yet, but attached to the restful sensation she felt in that moment when she saw the temple, was a conviction so solid, not necessarily a ‘feeling,’ but a truth, a logical construct that she believed was sent specifically to her by God. Her feelings were WILD, every which way. Good. Bad. Sad. Worried. Confused. Excited. Eager. All at once. So the ‘specifics’ did not necessarily make sense. But the construct inside, THAT made sense. All the passion in her soul and the feelings of being at home when she would serve in China and Hong Kong with ELIC during college and seminary, all the passion and desire for understanding cultural anthropology and how it relates to sharing the Gospel, all the passion for learning how to do apologetics with different world religions, especially Buddhism, all the passion for investing into young people and teaching them things she wished she’d known at their age or understood about God at their age, ALL OF IT CLICKED as COMPLETELY purposeful. God hadn’t wasted any of that on her. And He DID have a plan for her life. He planned to utilize all of her giftings, experience, and even pain, all of her feelings and desires and convictions. And she finally knew where… NOT in Asia, NOT in Boston, NOT back in Georgia, but THERE… in Chinatown, New York…. somehow.

So she went to the church. She worshiped in the worship service. She sat next to a kind lady who welcomed her even though she could barely speak a word to her. The lady didn’t mind the girl’s venti tea or obvious appearance that she was out of her element. Let’s be honest: the girl stood out in the service like a sore thumb. It was no hard task to find the Waldo. You couldn’t miss her. And her appearance was even a bit confusing to those around her… dressed so nice? Wearing make up? Looking so formal? SO BLONDE? Why? It was not what they were used to. She was not the most obvious choice. No one would have assumed her or predicted her, and she did not even realize fully how ‘out of place’ she was at the moment. Yet she was completely IN place. But no one would have known it yet… just like no one, including the girl herself, would have ever assumed the kind woman who greeted her would one day be her mother-in-law. So much in store… and no one knew it…

But at the same time that this new chapter was unfolding in the girl’s life, another chapter was closing, and she knew that JUST as solidly and definitely. We’ll get back to the boy now. She had to tell him goodbye later that day. After all the interviews, she had to let him go. He was headed to Chicago, and then onto the plans God had for him. Ironically, those plans were going to bring him back to New York City in a few short months, but that didn’t matter. The girl knew that even though they were going to be in the same city, and even though she wished and hoped and prayed for the opposite, that God did not intend for that boy to be a part of her life anymore… or her a part of his, not after that day. That was a chapter that He was closing. And she was sad.

You’ve obviously realized by this point that the girl in this story is me. And if you knew me 10 years ago, you know exactly who the guy is. So I’ll transition back to first person now, and share a bit of my heart. When we parted that day, I can still remember exactly our posture and his words. I stood on the sidewalk about to get on the Lucky Star bus back to Boston. He hugged me and told me not to cry, that we’d see each other again. I knew we wouldn’t, at least not in the same way or atmosphere we were seeing each other that day. So I said, “how do you know?” I remember clear as day that he responded, “By faith. I have faith we will.” I remember those words haunted me for a while because I looked up to him and respected him, thus assuming if he had faith in something, it was probably the right thing and WOULD be. But at the same time, I also had a different kind of faith. Or, perhaps not faith, but discernment. And my discernment told me what was reality. This was it. There were many reasons, but that’s another story, and a story that wasn’t going to make a whole lot of sense to me for a long time.

I got on the bus and cried like a baby because of the chapter closing. And I let myself be driven back to Boston, where I would prepare for future interviews. And then I packed up to spend a portion of the summer resting in Georgia and helping my sister who was about to have a baby, her first. Within two months, the interviews and trips back and forth between Boston, New York, and Georgia had been numerous. I had been offered the position and had accepted it. I was helping my sister prepare for birth and then helping her take care of her newborn baby, and I was looking for a place to live in New York City. I was figuring out when my start date for ‘work’ would be….and how I was actually going to DO the job they’d hired me to do!

I had also cut off the boy. I had cut off all communication with him because I knew allowing contact with him wasn’t good for me. We weren’t going to be dating officially. We were just going to be ‘friends’ once I moved to NY and spend time together as time allotted, but I knew that was too dangerous and that my heart couldn’t take it. I couldn’t take seeing him with other girls or hearing if he got a new girlfriend, which I knew he would. Yes, he was one of my three friends or acquaintances in the city, but it couldn’t be. I knew so surely that God was calling me to Chinatown and the position at the church, that I knew I couldn’t continue on another year, another month, the way I had for the past year. It would detract from my ministry. It would consume my thoughts and energy. It would be disobedient and unhealthy. I asked him not to talk to me or reach out to me as a friend again unless he was going to marry me. It took a few weeks, but it sunk in, and we didn’t speak again.

So I had done something I didn’t want to do. I had done what Jesus commands in the bible when he says “If your hand causes you to stumble, cut if off.” I cut off my hand. The boy, if you can’t follow my analogy, was my hand, so to speak. It was ridiculously confusing because I knew so much beyond a shadow of a doubt that God was calling me to New York, and so I didn’t get why He would be calling me also to cut off my hand when my hand was going to be right there in New York too and I felt like my hand and I made the best couple. It made NO SENSE. It was like he was asking me to cut off my hand but then stand next to my hand, while dripping blood, and NOT pay any attention to my hand. HOW THE HECK WAS I SUPPOSED TO DO THAT GOD? His answer? Trust me. Can you trust me? Do you trust me? Do you remember who I have shown you that I am? My answer was “Yes. I can trust You. I know you withhold no GOOD thing. I know how much you love me. And I know how much you have pursued my soul and pursued a very intimate relationship with me. I know how much you have provided for everything I actually have needed. And I know how you have sat with me as I weathered the awful, terrible storms, in agony and pain. I know that.”

My friends, however, didn’t really know all that. How could they? They couldn’t be in my head, and if I tried to explain it, obviously it was going to sound like a bunch of crap, a bunch of rationalization from a girl who wanted to follow the boy she thought she was in love with. And like I said, I get that. I doubted myself too. That’s why I’m thankful for the solid construct in my soul that God gave me, and the way He pursued me. That is what enabled me to move and follow Him even though I knew I looked like a dog pining after some guy… and even though it hurt more than I could ever have imagined when I had to say goodbye to my newborn nephew, Franklin, in August. I’d never experienced completely natural, unconditional love flood in my soul the way it had when he was born. And then I had spent so much time caring for his needs. Leaving him, honestly, felt like cutting off a hand too.

So as I sit here today, 10 years later, one doesn’t even need to say the words “a lot has happened since then.” It’s obvious. And so many ‘’reasons’’ for certain things could be offered up and given. But ultimately, I think what speaks to me the most, is just how the whole thing was all about God pursuing me and having a relationship with me. It wasn’t about “what” I was going to do, or “who” I was going to be with, or “why” I was going to do it, or even “how” I was going to do it. John Piper says God is much more interested in who you become than what you do. And the entire situation, the entire confusing debacle (as it ended up feeling at times), the entire crazy story was about His specific building of our relationship and shaping me into the person He created me to be. About Him making me fall in love with Him… And yes, He is all about everyone else in the story too! He was all about the boy and the story of the boy’s life. He was all about the church I would work at and the people in the church and the people who would come to the church through the programs we’d create. He was all about the family I would leave behind in Georgia….and all about the tiny baby I loved more than life at the moment. He was and IS all about all those people. Yes, God wants His glory, but he doesn’t want soldiers who serve Him out of fear. God pursues our hearts, and when we fall in love with Him, He uses us to accomplish His purposes and glory…. It just isn’t always in the ways that are obvious to us. Our job, though, is to be in love with him. When we are there, we will seek Him and obey Him, and THEN He will bring about ALLLLL He wants naturally, not necessarily through some huge construct WE ENVISION and understand and plan from beginning to end. God is all about people, pursuing people for Himself. That’s what He has done from day one when He put Adam and Eve in the garden.

So I sit here today, June 10^th 2017, and it makes perfect sense that my life is actually very much in parallel to what it was 10 years ago. That seems VERY much like how God works. I’ve recently been through a season of darkness and pain, a time where I wanted God so badly but could not sense Him. A time I disappointed myself that my faith wasn’t stronger. I had just been through the same season 10 years ago. What’s more, I’ve recently been through a season of counseling and being broken and learning so very much about who God is and how I have come to feel and operate the way I do. Once again, the same thing was happening 10  years ago at this time. I am once again IN THE MIDST of a season where I feel ridiculously strong in God. I sense Him almost all the time. This hasn’t been the case the ENTIRE past 10 years. But it is the case now. I desire to be in His presence every moment. I’m getting up at 5:00 a.m. just to pray and read and journal and BE with my Father. It’s insanity, and I love it! And that’s where I was at 10 years ago at this time. In addition, Jesse and I are taking on new ‘roles,’ at GFC now, just like I was taking on a new ‘job’ or role back then in my life. We are stepping into a position that feels much bigger than us and, in a way, flying blind. Yes, we have training. Yes, we have support. We have resources. God has prepared us, but we are not so dumb as to think that “we got this!” We know that every second is going to require us looking to GOD. We cannot steer this ship and figure out where to take it. We are at the mercy of seeking our Savior just like I was 10 years ago. As well, Jesse and I are insanely confident that THIS is where He’s asking us to work out our life, even more fully in the midst of Chinatown NY and GFC. This is where He is calling us if people will have us. And even if they won’t, somehow, THIS is where we need to be at this second… we’re walking by faith… just like I was then…. I knew the job was right, but I hadn’t been offered it. I knew Chinatown was it, but I didn’t have a place to live and an income… I was walking just by faith and trusting God would show what His plans were. Currently we are trying to move into the city. It hasn’t happened yet, but we are searching diligently, and we are getting close, and we have confidence in our Big God.

Oh, and my sister, SHE’S PREGNANT AGAIN! Can you believe that? Take that for parallel circumstance! She’s having a girl this time. God is being very generous to our desires and giving us a baby girl since we have sooo many baby boys already. But in all honesty, I actually don’t think He is giving us a girl just because we want it. Rather, it is because He has a plan, a purpose, for a new life, that will be here in October… right around my birthday actually. This baby girl and I will share close birthdays…

In reality, we will share something much more incredible than a birthday, though. This baby girl my sister is having will share with me the same God, the same Father, and I believe she will share with me a similar testimony one day of how that God, that Father, pursued her life and caused her to fall in love with Him. I wonder what she’ll be like, how He’ll create her? It will be beautiful to see… because whatever it is… it is with great intention and purpose…. Just like He created me. It took so many years for me to fully understand that He created me with purpose, with goodness, with meaning, with value, with beauty, outside of what I looked like or what others thought of me or what boy loved me or what my family thought of me or what gifts and talents I had, how good I was at anything I did…school…music… It took forever for me to understand that. And I can’t say I’m there. I really don’t think any of us are. I think we are all ALWAYS learning more about how our identity is not in this world…or anything in this world…or in our relationships. But our identity is secure completely and totally in our God… that’s how we know who we are and what we are worth and if we are of worth and what will be our stable construct through all the unstable circumstances of life.

So I guess I will close this story, this novel-sized journal entry, with an invitation. I used to look at Christians who had incredible testimonies, and I was envious. I wished I had an amazing story that would demonstrate HOW REAL God was in my life, that would prove to me He cared about me, and that could be used to draw others near to Him. So I actually prayed for it. I asked Him for it, for a long time, always trying to figure out if any of the pain or brokenness from my family of origin or past could be it…. When I first prayed for this, I was in college. What I didn’t realize, however, was that the people who had those stories had also had to weather through circumstances that caused them to FEEL just awful feelings and endure terribly hard situations. They’d becomes saints by the sweat of their brow, and the sweat was costly and exhausting. If I’d known just how costly and exhausting, I might not have prayed to be like them, or for God to make me into one of his saints by the time He took me home to Him in my old age. But I get now that THAT is how saints are made. They are made through the trial of the fire. They are formed no other way. And in the end, they don’t mind it. They are thankful, even greatful for the fire. They can assuredly proclaim that God never did anything TO them that He didn’t first do FOR them. They can confidently promise that God is a GOOD God who withholds NO good thing. They can rest assured He is completely present even when life is awful and they cannot feel Him at all. They are completely aware that not feeling God isn’t even a sin. It’s a part of life. One day, it won’t be anymore. In our new world, for which we have been created, we will be in CONSTANT communion with God.

So my invitation for you is to ask God to meet you in this way if you haven’t experienced it, or to ask God to meet you in this way AGAIN if you have experienced it- to meet you in this real way, to intersect your reality, whatever it is today. Whether it makes sense to you or doesn’t, whether it’s a dramatic circumstance or something that seems mundane, ask God to bring His Spirit home to clean house and make a home again and pursue you. Luke 11 tells us that our Good Father would NEVER withhold the Holy Spirit from us when we ask… If you ask for the Holy Spirit, He won’t give you a snake. Yes, you may go through trials. But honestly, 99.9999999% …. Or actually 100% chance, you are going to go through trials at some point in your life anyway. So you might as well go through trials that you are aware God is using to shape you and press you and form you into what He wants. You might as well press into the trials and meet Him there. He promises He will meet you. He promises. It’s how He operates. It’s His M.O. And in the end, it is the sweetest thing any of us will ever taste or feel or contemplate or see…. In the end, we finally SEE the God about whom before we have only heard.

Let me finish by going back to the boy, since a lot of people thought it was about a boy in the first place. It literally took me five years before I understood for SURE why God closed the chapter of my life with that guy. -Five years before all the questions and confusions clicked and made sense. The assurance came, in the end, through a very, VERY chance encounter which I could tell you about in another story. And then further understanding continued to come through the years that followed as I learned more and more about myself and how God had created me and what He wanted to do for me and heal in me. That guy, yeah, he was actually the epitome of the absolute worst choice for me. I had no clue. Sure, I had ridiculously strong emotions and care for him, but he was in no way good for me at all. Let me clarify, HE himself wasn’t/isn’t ‘the worst.’ I just mean, FOR ME. And remember, God was all about me! The story was about a girl. And let’s be honest, I bet that guy can say today that he knows how I was the worst choice for him too, because I think that is true as well. But yeah, God knew what I needed. I wanted that boy. I wanted it to work. And I was super sad. God understood that. And He wasn’t angry at me for it. He let me tell Him all my confusions and sadness and anger through the years. He was strong enough to handle my disappointment and my questioning of Him. But in the end, as I grew up, I also realized what He knew all along, about what was GOOD for me, what type of person was good for me to journey through life with, down to the details. Now, don’t get me wrong. I by no means am saying Jesse is an angel or perfect. Umm, no. Let’s make that clear. I would say there is a large portion of the time that Jesse is driving me crazy (and vice versa). And we have to work work work work to understand each other and communicate with each other and figure out how to love and appreciate each other. BUT, we really are exactly the type of person that the other needs. We really are. And we actually are each built so that we can handle and bear with the ridiculous deficiencies and weaknesses of the other person as well. I can bear Jesse’s ‘load’ of hard stuff without withering under the burden… and he can bear mine (with God’s help, obviously). But there are plenty of guys and gals out there whose burdens would have crushed and withered each of us… God knew what He was doing. And I have to remind myself of that when my husband makes me mad or really hurts my feelings or just annoys me. I have to remember that the ‘story’ is really all about me, for me…. God is about pursuing me so that I am entirely HIS and in love with HIM! It’s not about a love story and perfect life with Jesse and this world. It’s about a love story and relationship with JESUS. Because when THAT is in place, THEN He accomplishes whatever He likes. And let’s be honest, when we feel IN LOVE with someone, we do anything for them. So when we’re in love with God, we move into small apartments even though we’d rather have a big house with somewhere to park our car. And we move to strange, overwhelming cities even though we want to stay with tiny babies we love. And we cut off our hands, and stand next to them, and do our very best not to look at them, because we trust Him and He said “look at me,” not that.

And the story is really all about you, whoever you are reading this, and how much God is pursuing you, even through you reading this maybe. How much He knows JUST what your heart needs, what your mind needs, what your body needs, what your life needs. I do not mean that your circumstances make sense to you, or make any sense to anyone even… They may be completely horrendous, in which case I am desperately sorry and have the utmost sympathy and empathy for you… and actually give me a call and reach out! I don’t mind one bit. Life can just be terrible sometimes. I would be glad to bear the load with you.

But underneath it, God is still there. He never left. You may not feel Him. I may not feel Him. But He is right there… ready at any and every second to reach in and change everything, rescue us, provide for us, amaze us, meet us face-to-face… because that’s what God is about… He’s about us… It’s really just too good to be true. The Gospel of Jesus is too good to be true. Yet it is true. And that’s why we have all of eternity to wonder in it…. Like He said “angels long to look at it….” The beauty. The wonder. The awe. The Good News. That there is a God who redeems sinners through no merits of their own, and says “I will be their God, and they will be my people.” “Come unto me all ye who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” “Come all who are thirsty and weak, come and drink, without cost, without money.” Come.  Amen