Pray

            As I mentioned in my last post, the D.C. high school mission trip was filled with highs and lows.  One of the lows was a particular situation our youth minister had to deal with.  I wasn't in his ministry group, so I didn't know the full extent of the situation until the end of the trip.  But, about midway through the week I did know that something wasn't quite right.  Then, on Friday before my group left for our mission work, I was having a conversation with the youth minister.  At the end of the conversation, he looked me in the eye and said, “I know you don’t know everything that is going on, but pray, please.”  In the past, I've had people share prayer requests with me and I've been in situations where I have prayed with urgency about something, but I have never had someone ask me so insistently to pray with so few details.  I've known this youth minister for a very long time, and I've never heard that kind of urgency in his voice before.  So that whole day I prayed.  I prayed for him.  I prayed for the people I suspected were involved in the situation.  And I also asked the Holy Spirit to intercede for me because I didn't have the words or knowledge about the situation.  It was a really powerful experience for me to have someone ask me so directly to pray for them.  And it was really humbling to know that I didn't have all the information but that God would respond to my prayers anyways. 

            In fact, God knew everything about the situation, and He was working in it long before I knew anything about it.  His handprints were all over friendships that were formed that were a positive part of this situation.  He was making beautiful things out of the dust of a situation influenced by the choices of sinful humans.  And that’s what He does all of the time in all of our lives.  That’s why we need His grace.  Because there is the choice between sin and God’s way, and all of us, repeatedly, choose sin.  When we realize our mistakes, God is waiting there to offer us grace, mercy, love, peace, and healing.  We all need it, and He offers it to us no matter how many times or to what degree we mess up!  Isn't God amazing?!

At the Corner of 10th and G Street

            In June, I had the opportunity to chaperone a high school mission trip.  We spent a week in Washington D.C. serving others in many different contexts.  The week was filled with highs and lows.  I have many memories from this trip, but there is one, in particular, that I want to remember.

            On Thursday my group had the opportunity to participate in an experience called Urban Plunge.  For an afternoon, we were sent out to an area of the city (Chinatown) with a list of activities to complete and information to find.  All of the activities and information we gathered were supposed to help us learn about the lifestyle of the homeless.  Some of the tasks were as simple as noticing our environment and the people around us.  Others, such as buying dinner for our whole group and another person with only two dollars per person, seemed a little more difficult.

            This experience stretched me because the adults were supposed to step back and let the kids take charge and make the decisions about how we would accomplish our tasks.  It was really difficult to not share all of the things I was noticing with the whole group as we walked the streets of Chinatown, but it was a blessing to see the students step up and take charge!  We spent the first part of our time trying to find a particular ministry in the area that ministers to homeless people.  We never did find the ministry, but as we searched, our students discovered churches that minster to the homeless. We also had a conversation with a man who was traveling through D.C. trying to get back to his home.  As we walked the streets of Chinatown, one of our main priorities was buying dinner for eleven people with only twenty dollars and finding a homeless person with whom to share our dinner.  As we walked, we discovered a public library and its uses for homeless people (shelter, bathrooms, water fountain, computers and newspapers to look for jobs, entertainment).  We left the library and headed to find a McDonalds to buy our dinner.  There were many homeless people outside of the library, but we knew we didn't have enough money to feed all of them, so we chose not to ask any of them to share our dinner.  As we walked on down the sidewalk, there was a homeless man sitting by a building at the corner down from the library.  As we walked by, he said he would take a hand-out of money or he would eat our left overs if we brought them to him.  We told him that we might be back to see him later.  At that point, I think we all knew that we had found our friend with whom to share our dinner!  For me, it was his willingness and resourcefulness to mention taking left overs that told me he was the right person with whom to share dinner.

            We spent a bit of our time deciding what to get at McDonalds to make our money stretch as far as possible.  Our students were so generous and took less food so that they could buy our friend a meal instead of just a sandwich.  God provided in unexpected ways!  The McDonalds was running a buy one get one free deal on Big Macs that ended that day.  This deal allowed us to buy two sandwiches instead of one! We left McDonalds with hamburgers for everyone in our group, two Big Macs, French fries, and a drink. As we walked back to the corner down from the library, we saw that our friend had another friend sitting next to him.  It might have been awkward, but God had already provided!  We introduced ourselves and explained that we wanted to eat dinner with them.  We learned that our original friend’s name is Tony and his friend’s name is George.  We passed out our sandwiches and all sat down on the sidewalk right there on the corner of 10^th and G Street to eat dinner!  It worked out that I was sitting so that I could see people as they walked past us.  There were some priceless reactions!  People took pictures, talked about us, and stopped and stared at us!

            As we began to eat, another man wandered over, and Tony introduced him as his brother, Donald.  George was kind and gave Donald his Big Mac because he hadn't eaten it yet and everyone else had already begun eating!  As we ate, the three men told us about their lives and gave us advice on everything from relating to other people to what a wife will do for your life! (Tony thinks a wife would tie him down!)  At one point in our conversation, Tony stopped and said, “Y’all are wreckin this world right now sitting and eating with a bum!”  And he was exactly right!  I am so thankful I was sitting in a place that let me see the reaction of the people passing by so I could fully appreciate Tony’s statement!  We didn't even have to talk to the people for them to know we were doing something unusual!  I pray that those people could see Christ’s love flowing between those three men and a group of teenagers.  That’s what Christ’s love does: it changes complete strangers into friends in forty-five minutes!  It wrecks the world of the people actively participating in that change and the people who witness that change!  That was probably one of the best meals I will ever have in my life, and it had absolutely nothing to do with the food I ate!

            I think we all would have stayed there all night long talking and laughing with our new friends, but, unfortunately, we did have to get back to our residence for the week.  As we finished our conversation, we asked if we could pray for Tony and Donald.  (George had left to get his dinner from an organization handing out meals for the homeless!)  Tony asked if we could pray “Our Father.”  So the main leader of our group prayed for Tony and Donald, and then we all prayed The Lord’s Prayer together.  It was one of the most amazing prayers of my life!  As we hugged and said good-bye, Tony got teary eyed and he told us that many people have told him that they would come back, but they never did.  He was grateful that we had followed through on our promise to come back.  For Tony, it was a powerful experience to have people be true to their word!  I hope that we were able to give Tony restored faith in the people around him.  It reinforced to me how important it is to honor the commitments you make and to simply notice what is right in front of your eyes!  Hundreds and maybe thousands of people have walked by Tony, Donald and George, and they all missed out on meeting amazing men who are God’s wonderful creations full of wisdom and joy!  The people who never came back missed out on being part of God’s provision for these men.

            The irony of this whole story is that I dreaded this activity the whole week before it happened!  I was worried about not getting enough to eat and talking to strangers who might be rough around the edges.  I have worked with homeless people before and had amazing experiences, so I don’t know why I was so worried, but I was.  At the corner of 10^th and G Street, I learned that my God is greater than all of our fears, worries, past experiences, and self-absorbed actions!  He works through us and uses us in ways we can’t imagine!  And there is so much joy in doing His work!

Beautiful!

Today, I am thankful for actors who pursue roles that challenge them to think about others and who are willing to tell the truth about what they've learned!  This is for all of the guys who have missed the opportunity of getting to know me because they have been brainwashed by our culture's standard of beauty!

Shattered with Hope

Tonight, my heart is full of grief and joy.  It is the oddest feeling. The cause of this mix of feelings is an organization I am a part of. It is a student-led, student-directed choir on my college campus.  It is a group that seeks to glorify God through singing, service, and fellowship.  I have been a member since my freshman year, and some of my dearest friends are in the group!  I am a junior now and had the privilege of serving this group as president this school year.  I have learned many things as a member and as a leader in this group. 
One of the most important things I have learned is the joy of singing and leading worship!  I've always loved music and singing, but never really took the opportunity to be in a choral group.  (I was always too scared to sing by myself in an audition!)  But when I got to college, I knew this was a group I wanted to be a part of!  It is not a large group, so I had to quickly get used to hearing myself sing.  It was intimidating and wasn't always easy to sing with people more experienced than I was.  But the struggles were worth it, because I have truly been blessed by the opportunity to lead others in worship!  I used to be the person saying, "I could never sing in front of others," but now, I want to tell people how easy it is when you forget that people are watching and simply sing for the Lord, our audience of one!  There have been a number of times where our choir was leading a church or another group in worship and I truly felt like we were experiencing heaven on earth!
One time we were giving a concert at a church, and we didn't have the words to all of our songs memorized.  Our director asked that the words be put on the screen, and then she invited people to join in with us.  They did, and it was the most amazing time of worship!  It was so neat to watch others worship in their own way and add their voices to ours!
Another thing I learned is that being a student leader is hard, especially in a tight knit group that considers itself family!  The people you are leading are your friends, and you have to be very careful with what you say and do as a leader.  You also have very little leverage to make people come to rehearsals or events, so the people who come are the people who truly want to be a part of the group and community.  I think this is one of the issues our choir ran into.  At one point in time, our choir was so large they had to have auditions to limit the number of people in the group for space reasons!  But even by the time I became a part of the group, the number of people started to dwindle.  Many of our members enjoyed the choir and community, but it was the first activity they dropped when schedules got busy or school got challenging.  We also had trouble recruiting new members because the idea of a ministry choir was unfamiliar to people, and as I've already mentioned, singing in public is unattractive to many people.
I became an officer of the group my sophomore year, and we spent many hours discussing how to re-energize the group and attract new members, but by the end of the year, the group had not grown despite our many efforts.  Many of the leaders were tired of the task of leading.  (As I've come to find out, it is very wearing to consistently get little response to efforts you make.)  Some of the leaders and other members were also making decisions about the communities they would choose to be a part of for their last years in college.  Unfortunately, the chose to grow deeper relationships in other communities.  And since they made that decision, I have seen them flourish in their chosen community!
But this is where the shattered part comes in.  For me, it was heartbreaking to watch my friends willingly leave the community that had brought us together.  Most of them left without even looking back or checking in on the group which hurt me even more.  It seemed like they just didn't care what happened to our group or to me.  God has used this situation to teach me so much about forgiveness and truly praying that the best comes for people who have hurt you.  God has also taught me about loving people no matter what.
Some people chose to leave, and I do think that hurt our choir.  BUT others chose to stay and a few committed people joined!  Our group has had a beautiful year of fellowship, worship, and service.  I am so thankful for the friendship of the people in this group.  I am also thankful for the dedication and faithfulness shown by these old and new friends.  We have a beautiful community!
And here is the grief, our choir will not continue to be a choir next year.  Despite the efforts and faithfulness of the people in choir, there are not enough of us to continue it.  Those of us who will be at school next year are making plans to meet and continue to have our community, but I know it won't be quite the same.  It is an organization that has meant a lot to me, and it has meant a lot to many other people who have gone to my school in past years.  I am heartbroken that it will no longer be around to be a place of belonging for people who might not fit anywhere else.  I am sad that over the past few years my greater faith and school community missed the work God was doing through our choir and could not help us continue this work.  I am sad that there will be one less group of singers praising the Lord.  However, I am expecting God to work through our members in other ways.  They all have a passion for the Lord which needs to be shared with others.  I know God will use them in great ways!
While my memories of choir will always be tinged with sadness and regret, I will choose to remember this group with joy.  I will remember the laughter and love we shared!  I will remember the way we supported one another in tough situations!  I will remember the joy of singing for the Lord!  I will remember brokenness and the restorative beauty of the presence of God!

Renewal

            Losing my grandmother was really tough.  I had never had anybody that close to me or special to me pass away before.  Her stroke was unexpected, and it was almost a year before she finally passed away.  Watching the body of a person who was vibrant and kind become a twisted, unresponsive mess was difficult.  It was also difficult to see what it did to my grandfather and my mom.  In my mind and to other people, I told myself I was trying to depend on God to get me through that tough time.  But at the same time, I had a tough time with a roommate, some feelings for multiple guys that I was trying to work through, a tough class load, and a difficult situation in an organization I was a part of.  Looking back, none of these things seem too terrible in the grand scheme of things, but for me, at that time in my life, it was awful.  And instead of drawing closer to God like I knew I should, I pushed away and chose to be angry at Him.  I was just trying to survive, and I didn’t want God challenging me to be a better person during this time, so I pushed really hard away from Him.  I really questioned whether a relationship with God was really worth it.  That spring semester felt like it would never end. 

            But it did.  And I went to London to study abroad.  I didn’t automatically draw closer to God by reading the bible or attending church services in London.  In London, there wasn’t any pressure to be a “good” Christian like there sometimes is at my college and in other parts of my life.  I knew I had the opportunity to be somebody completely different.  I knew I could go out and party and meet guys and drink and no one would judge me for that or even have to know.  In fact, some of my traveling companions did just that.  But I discovered that, even when presented with a situation where there is no pressure or standards or people watching me and judging me, I still choose to live my quiet life and enjoy things in a calm, steady manner!  I learned that I truly desire to be helpful and that I am a person who picks up the slack for other people.  I don’t have to be with a large group of people to enjoy myself, and those times when I am by myself are perfect times to savor a precious moment just between God and me. 

            I arrived back in the States feeling refreshed after my busy spring semester.  Later in the summer I had the opportunity to chaperone a youth group trip to church camp focused on mission.  It was with the church I attend while I am at school, and I hadn’t had much interaction with the youth.  I wasn’t sure how they would respond to me.  I was overwhelmed by the kindness and respect they showed me!  They included me in their group in an appropriate way for an adult.  On that trip, I was placed in a group that worked alongside an intentional community which was a type of organization I had been exploring with my community involvement committee at school.  It was a blessing to see one in action and to partner with them and help them.  I just felt God’s presence in an incredible way that week!  I sensed His forgiveness of my sins, His love for me, and a sense of renewal provided by Him. 

            Since that time, I haven’t come rushing back to the way I used to relate to God, but I haven’t pushed Him away either.  I sought Him and His presence more often during the fall semester.  And I felt healing begin to occur in many areas of my life.  I am at a stage in my life where I am very busy, and I am learning to be very thankful for the foundation in His word He helped me create during my middle and high school years because it is seeing me through.  I am also thankful for my church family and my Sunday School teachers who impart wisdom to me every Sunday.  Knowing I will learn something new about God or my relationship with Him from them pulls me out of bed every Sunday morning. Our campus worship service is also fundamental in growing my relationship with the Lord, and it is an essential part of my week.

            We have a large campus event at the beginning of each spring semester, and I have another busy semester, so I started off my semester tired and discouraged.  Situations occurred that began to get me frustrated with God again, but in the last week, I have been amazed and totally blessed by Him.  My group for this campus event came together in a way that was powerful and such a blessing!  And I once again felt this sense of forgiveness, love, and renewal!  God has taught me that my relationship with Him has the power to draw me close to others in a way that I can’t manufacture on my own.  He has shown me that at this point in my life, friendship is the most important relationship I can offer or receive from someone.  God has reminded me that relationships are more powerful and lasting than trophies, titles, or prizes!  And finally, God has reminded me that “this is not the end!” And that even if I am separated from people I love, if they believe in the healing power of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, we will all come together once again to praise Him for eternity!

JOY

I’ve got the JOY, JOY, JOY, JOY down in my heart, down in my heart, down in my heart!  I’ve got the JOY, JOY, JOY, JOY down in my heart, down in my heart to stay!

            I don’t know whether it’s because it’s the end of the semester or whether I’m remembering how blessed I am or what, but over the past few days, I’ve just had this amazing feeling of JOY!  I know it’s from God because there isn’t anything particularly happy or amazing going on in my life right now.  In fact, since exams are next week, I should probably be stressed to the max!  But I’m not.  This past spring was a really low point for me.  I was dealing with losing my Grandmother and some other things going on in my life, and they just really made me question some things about my life and who I am.  I could feel something change this summer, and God provided me with a since of renewal.  There were moments in this semester that were really tough, but I survived all of it!  Having just had such a low point makes me want to just savor these joyful moments.  I want to store up this feeling and be able to pull it out when the times get rough again because I know they will.  I am thankful to have a relationship with the giver of ultimate joy and peace!

A Special Person

            One year ago today, my family lost a very special person.  My Grandmother was a woman who loved quietly, but fiercely.  She was so kind and always took the time to listen to others.  She had a smile that could light up a room.  I loved sitting next to her in church on Sunday mornings.  When I was younger, she helped me sew dresses for my dolls.  She tried to teach me to knit, but that didn’t last very long!  There are so many memories I could share, and I know she touched many lives in addition to mine.  She was just a special woman!

            I don’t think I realized how special and important she was to me until she passed away.  She and my Granddad lived in the same town as me when I was growing up.  I loved seeing them and spending time with them, but as I got older, eating with them after church sometimes felt like a chore.  I now wish I had treasured those moments. I  am blessed because I have known all four of my grandparents.  In my teenage years, I knew that losing them was becoming a real possibility, and I told myself that  when they passed away, I would be thankful for the time I had with them.  I imagined I wouldn’t be too saddened by their deaths because I had the opportunity to know them for so long. 

            My Grandmother was the first one of my grandparents to die, and I was so wrong.  My Grandmother’s death threw my world into a tale spin.  It crushed me.  Maybe letting her go has been so hard because of the circumstances surrounding her death.  In December 2010, my Grandmother had a stroke.  Other than a few minor health problems, she was a perfectly healthy woman.  There was nothing to indicate that she would have a stroke.  It was an aneurysm, so there really would have been no way to predict it.  The stroke was completely unexpected.  Although she had surgery soon after the stroke happened and she could breathe on her own, it fully crippled her body.  She spent the last eleven months of her life in a bed and she didn’t’ speak, walk, or interact.  She did open her eyes and she did occasionally move her mouth as though she were trying to say something.  There were those moments where she seemed like she connected with people.  But we were never able to do anything to really restore her to any semblance of her old self.  My Grandfather sat faithfully be her side everyday.  My mom split her time between taking care of her parents in our old hometown and taking care of her husband and home in a new city. 

            In the beginning, we had hope.  The surgeon thought the original surgery had gone well.  There was brain activity.  As the months passed, most of my family began to realize that she was not going to get better.  Unfortunately, my Granddad could not seem to see this reality.  He always seemed to believe that she would get better.  Looking back now, I think deep down I shared that hope.  I didn’t even realize it until after she was gone, but as long as my Grandmother was alive, God could work a miracle and heal her.  Once she passed away, she was gone forever.  Although, I am thankful that she believed in the saving love of Christ because I now have the hope that I will see her again in heaven!

            Even as the hope that she would get better faded, I imagined that I was prepared to face the separation caused by death.  Seeing her crippled and unresponsive was horrible.  The woman lying in that bed was not my Grandmother.  I believed in my heart that dying was the only way for her to truly be healed, and I thought that belief would make handling her death easier.  God’s plan was to heal her in the best way possible, but once again I was wrong about how I would handle it. 

            When she died, I hadn’t hugged her or talked to her in almost a year.  The last time I heard her voice was four days before her stroke.  There was no final good-bye.  I didn’t get to say one last I love you.  I don’t even really remember the last time I saw her.  If I had known that was going to be the last weekend I had with her, I would have made it count.  I would have been sure to remember every moment, and to give her a big hug and tell her I loved her.  But I didn’t know and I didn’t do those things.  I think those regrets have haunted me as I’ve dealt with her loss. 

            Also, I didn’t realize how important she was to me or other people until she was gone.  I was amazed at her visitation by the people who came and the genuine love they had for her.  Their love for her didn’t surprise me, but I could tell that part of the reason they loved her was because of the love she showed them.  Now, that I realize her amazing ability to love, I wish she were here for me to tell her how amazing she was.  I also wish she were here to continue to give me her wisdom.  I never imagined my life without her, and now I’ve had to begin to picture the future without her.  I so wish that me or my siblings or my cousins had been at the point in our lives to have children because she would have loved meeting her great-grandchildren.  There have been a number of repercussions to her death that have changed me that I won’t go into now, but her death has changed my life and the lives of my family.

            I have learned so many things in dealing with my grief over my Grandmother.  There are two lessons that are evident to me in this post.  First, I will be much more cautious in telling myself I’m ready to handle any situation, but especially the loss of a person dear to me.  I had a vague idea of what I thought grief would look like, and I was completely unprepared for what it would be like.  Now I’ve experienced it, and I see how hard it is to let people I care about leave my life.  There have been times in the past year where I’ve thought about loving the people who are currently in my life, but not adding new people to the list of those I love.  But that goes against the other lesson I’ve learned.  As far as I can tell, my Grandmother had loved almost every person she encountered.  I want to be like her.  I want to show God’s love to as many people as I can.  And I want to be sure that the people I already love know how much I love them.  I don’t want to miss an opportunity to make someone else feel special because my Grandmother certainly made the most of all her opportunities.  She will always be a part of my life, and I hope I can pass on her legacy of love to everyone I encounter!