The man was dead. Definitely dead, Francis could see as he descended the decrepit stairs and drew closer to the body. He was ancient, and his yellow skin stretched inhumanely across his sharp bones, that seemed to be going in all the wrong directions. Francis forced his eyes to peel away from the motionless figure, and focus on his surroundings. Other sickly, yellow-skinned men were staring at him with curiosity that was dulled with apathy and exhaust. Once they recognized him as the rich merchant's son whom had returned from war completely mad, they dismissed his presence and continued with their work; throwing rubble and scraps on the trash pile, which the old dead man just happened to also be lying on, so discarded.
Francis continued on, unable to now walk away from this discovered horror that he never knew existed. He walked slowly past bunks, which doubled as whole living apartments, stacked on top of each other. The passage was cramped with low ceiling, muddy floors, and a mass of human bodies just as decrepit as the stairway, and exhausted and apathetic as the first men he had encountered. The atmosphere was dank, and water seemed to drip from the walls, eventually accumulating into dirty puddles that seemed to inconveniently be everywhere you stepped.
After the passage lined with hollow eyes and darkness, he found himself in an open room filled with bent workers, dipping strips of cloth in and out of boiling pools of dye. They did this all day. He took in the burns on their aching stained hands, aching stained body. He saw the fabric drying, that would eventually end up in his own father's shop, and oh yeah, on his own body. Through his hallucinations and cloudy thoughts, Francis could finally think clearly again, feel clearly again. And he felt self-conscious...for his own clothes had been manufactured in this place. Wasn't hell supposed to be blindingly bright with consuming flames? After today, he would always think of it as a dark hole under our very homes. With the self-consciousness, came the shame, and then the thought, "This is wrong."
The very next day Francis attended church with his parents along with the entire village of Assisi. Everyone went to church, everyone was a Christian. But not everyone looked the same... The rich, the middle class, Francis and his parents stood close to where the bishop performed Mass. This part of the congregation was heavily adorned with weighty, vibrant robes and caps and gaudy 1500s "bling". There was the rest of the congregation to note, though. They stood in the back, no chairs provided for them, just a cold floor. Their frail bodies wore literal rags, so threadbare that might as well have been transparent. The men clenched their caps in their hands to show respect, so grateful to be clenching their own clothes instead of the fabric that would becomes someone else's fine outfit. "Someone else" being all their brothers and sisters in Christ standing a few yards ahead of them. Even the Jesus on the crucifix in the church was adorned with gaudy, rich robes and a ruby crown. He hung their with his eyes closed, just like the people of his church. Eyes closed to the injustice and pain all around them, the injustice and pain they created.
Francis' eyes were opened, and among all his crazy wanderings, he finally had a purpose, and his mind was finally clear. He threw out all his father's fabric into the streets while he was away one day, and then before the entire village shed everything that had been created unfairly, which happened to be everything he was currently wearing. Absolutely nude and radical before the crowd that had formed, he was no longer just "Francis" in the beggars eyes, he was a Saint.
My best friend and I are kinda weird, so instead of doing normal things to celebrate her sixteenth birthday, we watched Brother Sun Sister Moon, which is a movie all about St. Francis of Assisi. I didn't know much about the dude (now I do, though!), but I know a lot about Shane Claiborne, and I knew Mr. Claiborne thought pretty highly of this saint, so I wanted to give him a chance. The movie soundtrack was a little hippie--and depressing--and the haircuts were weird, but St. Francis had a lot to teach me.
Through his eyes, I saw an ancient sweatshop, which gave me a chance to understand better what our modern-day sweatshops must look like. Oh yeah, because they still exist. In abundance. I'm not going to get into a whole fair-trade vs. non fair-trade speel, that'd just be obnoxious, and I'm not trying to guilt anyone, either. But...I couldn't shake the disturbance that settled, completely uninvited, into my soul after watching it. To see those horrors, those hollow eyes, those hellish conditions--that are absolutely a million times more horrific and hellish now--, and then to immediately see the "Christians" seated in church in all their finery that had been birthed in those sweatshops with just as many cries of pain and much blood and sweat as an actually babe being born. Will those workers always be stuck in the back of our minds? Will our eyes always be closed to them? Will they always suffer just so that we can look nice when we assemble each week to worship together before our God?
Personally, I don't think that I as an individual can anymore. Mother Teresa once said "If I look at the masses, I will never act. If I look at the one, I will." My obsession with clothes has always won out over my conscience and convictions (I mean, let's just be honest here!), but I dreaded the day that I purchased something Made In Thailand. Because I knew when that happened I would not be able to ignore the tags and statistics anymore, I knew it would be personal. Because what...what if while I was in Thailand, being a missionary, an ambassador of God, I met the child that had sweated and bled over the creation of my $20 sweater, which he only ever saw a few cents of.
Well.
I found something Made In Thailand the other day. Now it's personal. And now I know things will never quite be the same again, because nothing quite can be when you open up your eyes and clearly see what was always there to begin with.
"Behold the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, are crying out against you, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts." -James 5:4
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Friday, January 21, 2011
How About a Simon And Peter Encounter?
I've always really liked the individual callings of Jesus' disciples callings to join him, and Jesus has always really liked to these exchanges to inspire, convict, and motivate me. Most likely they knew of Jesus when they were called, surely news had spread of the radical man stirring up trouble and preaching ridiculous parables. But each story gives the impression that they did not by any means know him personally. Yet they would drop everything--their means of living, family, friends, and...everything to follow this man who promised a different life? a different way to live life, more accurately.
I am soundly ashamed after reading the callings of the first disciples, every single time. Perhaps we all should. While I was in Romania, I poured over anything about the apostles, trying to learn more about their journeys. It wasn't like I was anywhere near being a disciple myself while I was in Europe this summer, but as the Lord refined me, and called me away from many things I was attached to, I was motivated by the obedience of the twelve disciples in their immediate response. I didn't want to gnash my teeth and wail--which I was--, I wanted to be more like them, and taste a bit of the radical living that accompanies us when we're walking in the Lord's set path for our life.
Today, however, as I read over the same passages, I got something so different out of it.
Let me set the scene: Not many people moved around in those days ("those days" meaning before A.D.), and usually the village you lived in had also been home to a huge chunk of your families lineage. But not just you lived in this village. So did your entire family (extended a lot of times, too), and friends. And acquaintances. And oh yes, the pesky neighbors who there was no chance of leaving since they had been there for a hundred more years than your own family. Darn. They didn't switch jobs like we do now, they learned a skill at a young age and stuck with it. They didn't get divorced, either; so unless your spouse randomly died, that arrangement wouldn't change either.
Can't you just imagine what it would have been like to be Simon or Andrew? They went to school together every morning, which was at the synagogue. Then they graduated once they were like, what? fifteen? sixteen? They were then apprenticed in catching fish (if you can even be an apprentice in that skill), and soon enough had their own small boat and crew. They lived in the same village their entire life, and probably from their childhood days had learned all the shortcuts and alleyways during games with the other village boys. Their routines probably stayed the same everyday, from their house to the docks, and back. Maybe a stop here and there to talk to an old friend of the family, or off to the markets to sell their days' catch. A lot of people would know them, if not by name, by sight. But everyone knew everyone back in "those days" in those small villages (you can thank the bored, gossipy wives and those pesky neighbors whom will never move for that). Things probably never changed in a drastic way for either brother, and if life had went on in that way, it never would.
It didn't go on that way, though. On one day, just like all the others, while walking the very same streets they did nearly everyday (except the Sabbath), Jesus literally got in the way. They had an encounter...with God's Son made flesh. (Wait, wait, it gets crazier.) And oh yeah, he wanted to talk to them.
As I saw all of this for the first time, this, this unpredictability of Christ and the way he moved, I became so...excited. Maybe that's too understated... Invigorated is closer to it. Yes, invigorated. Here were these two men, just going through the motions of a day that would be exactly like the one before and the one to come. Just walking down the same streets they always did, and then they encountered the Son of God, or the Son of Man as he preferred.
If Simon and Andrew could have such an encounter with Jesus on their way to do what? Catch FISH? How else might God show Himself to us when we least expect it? I can't wipe the smile off my face as I now realize that whenever I step out the door, maybe to go babysit or drive with my dad ("drive" = nearly head-on hit a Jeep and then tree simultaneously; it's not pretty), or go shopping, or play practice, or something just as day-to-day...I could experience God in the flesh. It's kinda radical.
I am soundly ashamed after reading the callings of the first disciples, every single time. Perhaps we all should. While I was in Romania, I poured over anything about the apostles, trying to learn more about their journeys. It wasn't like I was anywhere near being a disciple myself while I was in Europe this summer, but as the Lord refined me, and called me away from many things I was attached to, I was motivated by the obedience of the twelve disciples in their immediate response. I didn't want to gnash my teeth and wail--which I was--, I wanted to be more like them, and taste a bit of the radical living that accompanies us when we're walking in the Lord's set path for our life.
Today, however, as I read over the same passages, I got something so different out of it.
Let me set the scene: Not many people moved around in those days ("those days" meaning before A.D.), and usually the village you lived in had also been home to a huge chunk of your families lineage. But not just you lived in this village. So did your entire family (extended a lot of times, too), and friends. And acquaintances. And oh yes, the pesky neighbors who there was no chance of leaving since they had been there for a hundred more years than your own family. Darn. They didn't switch jobs like we do now, they learned a skill at a young age and stuck with it. They didn't get divorced, either; so unless your spouse randomly died, that arrangement wouldn't change either.
Can't you just imagine what it would have been like to be Simon or Andrew? They went to school together every morning, which was at the synagogue. Then they graduated once they were like, what? fifteen? sixteen? They were then apprenticed in catching fish (if you can even be an apprentice in that skill), and soon enough had their own small boat and crew. They lived in the same village their entire life, and probably from their childhood days had learned all the shortcuts and alleyways during games with the other village boys. Their routines probably stayed the same everyday, from their house to the docks, and back. Maybe a stop here and there to talk to an old friend of the family, or off to the markets to sell their days' catch. A lot of people would know them, if not by name, by sight. But everyone knew everyone back in "those days" in those small villages (you can thank the bored, gossipy wives and those pesky neighbors whom will never move for that). Things probably never changed in a drastic way for either brother, and if life had went on in that way, it never would.
It didn't go on that way, though. On one day, just like all the others, while walking the very same streets they did nearly everyday (except the Sabbath), Jesus literally got in the way. They had an encounter...with God's Son made flesh. (Wait, wait, it gets crazier.) And oh yeah, he wanted to talk to them.
As I saw all of this for the first time, this, this unpredictability of Christ and the way he moved, I became so...excited. Maybe that's too understated... Invigorated is closer to it. Yes, invigorated. Here were these two men, just going through the motions of a day that would be exactly like the one before and the one to come. Just walking down the same streets they always did, and then they encountered the Son of God, or the Son of Man as he preferred.
If Simon and Andrew could have such an encounter with Jesus on their way to do what? Catch FISH? How else might God show Himself to us when we least expect it? I can't wipe the smile off my face as I now realize that whenever I step out the door, maybe to go babysit or drive with my dad ("drive" = nearly head-on hit a Jeep and then tree simultaneously; it's not pretty), or go shopping, or play practice, or something just as day-to-day...I could experience God in the flesh. It's kinda radical.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
It Has A Face
98 days. Only 98 days now. Some days, it feels impossibly far away. And then at other times, I don't know if 198 days, let alone just 98 are enough, are a big enough amount of time for me to be...ready for this.
Two nights ago, I Skyped (don't you just love technology?) with the lady, Mrs. Chrissy, whom I will be living with while in Thailand. And for two hours, she painted a brief glimpse of what I will see, experience, hear, and feel in Chiang Rai, Thailand. She told me about the weather (it will be, on average, 110 degrees during the day while I'm there, not a big deal), products that are very essential for living that they apparently don't sell in Thailand (they don't sell shaving cream?! Wha-aaa?), and the many sub-ministries N.T.I.M. supports that I will be involved with while there. Since I'm most excited about working at the two Children's Homes they run, I asked a lot of questions about them and discovered a few things.
One of them, Baan Oon Raak (<--they like to double their vowels), only currently houses fourteen children: one boy, and thirteen girls. I also discovered that a few of the thirteen girls had actually been rescued from the sex trade and brothels. None of the children are any older than twelve or fourteen. Twelve...or fourteen? When I was twelve, the most important thing on my mind were boys...and, well, not much else. I also played softball and clogged. When I was fourteen, well, that was only five months ago. When I was fourteen, I babysat, went on mission trips, and thought about...boys. (Ah, so ashamed.) Mostly everything I do was so...shallow, and exterior. And pointless. These girls, however, spent their twelfth and fourteenth year losing something so precious underneath the brute, crushing weight of demanding complete strangers. Their dignity, their self-respect, their homes, their families, their life.
Me and my naivety believed that we would be deep enough into the sheltered mountains to miss the very worst Thailand had to offer. In the big cities sex was sold like candy, but surely in the smaller villages and towns, even if it existed, it was a very hush-hush business. In smaller villages and towns where everyone knows each other, surely people would be too ashamed to participate in such a shaming act. So I thought I might go for two whole months living there without once having to face the hideous, rearing heads of Sex Slavery and Child Prostitution. I thought I might be luck enough to avoid witnessing those monsters firsthand. Not that I want to try to ignore something just because it's heartbreaking and ugly, but my heart is already broken for the women and children enslaved by the chains of inhumane lust...and I couldn't possibly be spiritually mature or mature PERIOD enough to see that yet, I'm sure. I'm not presumptuous or arrogant in my abilities.
Obviously, I was wrong to assume so much. I will witness the aftermath of the sex trade. I will see its victims. I'll hang out with them, and maybe, if I'm lucky, eventually call them my friends. The "hideous, and rearing heads of Sex Slavery and Child Prostitution" will take on the sorrowful, beautiful faces of girls with names, with personalities and likes and dislikes. Girls not much younger than myself. Girls, that I will soon meet face-to-face.
P.S. Please be praying for these precious girls, and if you feel called to help them (because they do need help, all of Baan Oon Raak does), please contact me.
“If I look at the mass, I will never act. If I look at the one, I will.” -Mother Teresa
Thursday, December 23, 2010
Psalm 92:12-15
Dec. 23rd (Thursday) 2010
8:03 a.m.
My best friend called me last Saturday--which is not unusual at all--to verbally process/rant some newly formed spiritual questions--which is especially not unusual for us. You know in Mark (or is it Luke?), in the garden, when Jesus specifically prays for himself, his disciples, and his the believers? She told me how it made her think, "Why were the disciples and believers separated? Is there a difference between simply believing and following? Does it only take believing to get you to heaven and to have a relationship with Christ, or do you have to follow, too?"
I agreed with her absolutely in her questioningly, but I couldn't really answer her. (She actually thought I might be able to, hah!) Ever since I could comprehend salvation, I've thought that all it required was one prayer proclaiming a belief in God and His ability to forgive and--basically--erase sins. Who cares if it never goes farther than a prayer induced by guilt on the foot of an altar? The Lord is gracious and loving, after all, He would surely accept it and not reject the poor idiot, condemning him to burn eternally in hell. But, but, but then I read in the gospels how if you didn't change the way you thought and lived and EVERYTHING after "becoming a Christian"--for a lack of better words--it didn't count? So like, do some people have to give up everything to follow Jesus and have a personal relationship with him; but then others can just believe, their life not be impacted by their belief at all, and they still get to heaven, too?! I know that's merciless of me, but... That's...not...fair...
5:37 p.m.
But do I REALLY just want to believe? I know that there's so much more out there than ere acknowledgment; don't I want to live it? Do I want to spend my entire life rereading the adventures that are possible once you leave everything to follow Jesus, as accounted by his TRUE disciples? I can pour over them from the safety of a life I'm in control of, but eventually they would grow stale instead of delicious and I would grow to resent these passionate brothers and sisters in Christ.
Don't I, Betsie, want to be passionate instead of just BELIEVE in passion? Don't I want to go, instead of sitting back and observing others with secret jealousy as they go? Do I want to clutch the steering wheel of my life, knuckles white from gripping too hard, TRYING--and fighting--to keep things as normal and road-most-traveled-on without actually swerving into it? Or would it be worth it to let go, allow someone who knows better than I to take control of EVERYTHING and radical up my life?
I'm already losing in the world's eyes because of Him. Maybe it's finally time I accept it, embrace it, and begin winning victories because of Him...
"Righteous people flourish like palm trees
and grow tall like the cedars in Lebanon.
They are planted in the Lord's house.
They blossom in our God's courtyards.
Even when they are old, they still bear fruit.
They are always healthy and fresh.
They make it known that the Lord is decent.
He is my rock.
He is never unfair.
-Psalm 92:12-15
8:03 a.m.
My best friend called me last Saturday--which is not unusual at all--to verbally process/rant some newly formed spiritual questions--which is especially not unusual for us. You know in Mark (or is it Luke?), in the garden, when Jesus specifically prays for himself, his disciples, and his the believers? She told me how it made her think, "Why were the disciples and believers separated? Is there a difference between simply believing and following? Does it only take believing to get you to heaven and to have a relationship with Christ, or do you have to follow, too?"
I agreed with her absolutely in her questioningly, but I couldn't really answer her. (She actually thought I might be able to, hah!) Ever since I could comprehend salvation, I've thought that all it required was one prayer proclaiming a belief in God and His ability to forgive and--basically--erase sins. Who cares if it never goes farther than a prayer induced by guilt on the foot of an altar? The Lord is gracious and loving, after all, He would surely accept it and not reject the poor idiot, condemning him to burn eternally in hell. But, but, but then I read in the gospels how if you didn't change the way you thought and lived and EVERYTHING after "becoming a Christian"--for a lack of better words--it didn't count? So like, do some people have to give up everything to follow Jesus and have a personal relationship with him; but then others can just believe, their life not be impacted by their belief at all, and they still get to heaven, too?! I know that's merciless of me, but... That's...not...fair...
5:37 p.m.
But do I REALLY just want to believe? I know that there's so much more out there than ere acknowledgment; don't I want to live it? Do I want to spend my entire life rereading the adventures that are possible once you leave everything to follow Jesus, as accounted by his TRUE disciples? I can pour over them from the safety of a life I'm in control of, but eventually they would grow stale instead of delicious and I would grow to resent these passionate brothers and sisters in Christ.
Don't I, Betsie, want to be passionate instead of just BELIEVE in passion? Don't I want to go, instead of sitting back and observing others with secret jealousy as they go? Do I want to clutch the steering wheel of my life, knuckles white from gripping too hard, TRYING--and fighting--to keep things as normal and road-most-traveled-on without actually swerving into it? Or would it be worth it to let go, allow someone who knows better than I to take control of EVERYTHING and radical up my life?
I'm already losing in the world's eyes because of Him. Maybe it's finally time I accept it, embrace it, and begin winning victories because of Him...
"Righteous people flourish like palm trees
and grow tall like the cedars in Lebanon.
They are planted in the Lord's house.
They blossom in our God's courtyards.
Even when they are old, they still bear fruit.
They are always healthy and fresh.
They make it known that the Lord is decent.
He is my rock.
He is never unfair.
-Psalm 92:12-15
Thursday, December 16, 2010
We Were Never Promised Popularity.
Maybe I'm the only one, after all, I can only speak for myself. But was it ridiculously arrogant of me to think that when I truly began to seek God's will for my life, things would get easier? And that I would be happier? And that, oh, I don't know, I would lead like, a million and one people to Christ and have a million and one new bffs? I should have known this was a wrong assumption after reading books like Isaiah and Jeremiah, who were abandoned and rejected because of their passion for the Lord and longing to obey Him. Or even Jesus, the Savior of the world, the only person on earth to live a life of true love and purity, was abandoned...and rejected...and killed. Even Jesus. But I'm not Jesus, and he loves me, so he would never ask me to be alone, right?
Not right, but not exactly right, either.
I will never be alone, because he will always be in my heart. I will never be alone because he is withing everything around me, all around me. I will never be alone because he promised to never forsake or leave me. But he didn't promise me popularity, either, and he only spoke for himself when he said he would never leave me. But he didn't promise me I would be mobbed with friends, either. He promised me unlike many of my peers, filled with more than just beer keg parties and late-night clubbing, but he didn't promise that I would never spend a Friday night at home (or two, or three). Maybe he never promised me these things because he wants me to spend my Friday nights with him, I don't know.
I do know, though, that he never promised me popularity. Just himself.
Not right, but not exactly right, either.
I will never be alone, because he will always be in my heart. I will never be alone because he is withing everything around me, all around me. I will never be alone because he promised to never forsake or leave me. But he didn't promise me popularity, either, and he only spoke for himself when he said he would never leave me. But he didn't promise me I would be mobbed with friends, either. He promised me unlike many of my peers, filled with more than just beer keg parties and late-night clubbing, but he didn't promise that I would never spend a Friday night at home (or two, or three). Maybe he never promised me these things because he wants me to spend my Friday nights with him, I don't know.
I do know, though, that he never promised me popularity. Just himself.
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
"Do it Anyway."
One of my team leaders on my Romania mission trip was this dude (the only other male on our team of eight), Bryan, who looked like Jesus...with an afro...and who shared facial similarities with Alex the lion off of Madagascar. Not even kidding. Bryan's a pretty cool guy.
So my team did this thing where we all wrote each other encouragement letters. (Which were really just letters filled to the brim with ego-boosting compliments, scripture verses, and sometimes taped on pebbles or drawings of...poop--I'm not going into that one. We weren't allowed to read our encouragement letters until the trip was over. Needless to say, someone was appointed to take care of my encouragement letters for me because the temptation was too much. (I spent my time concocting plans like how I would say I needed to get something out of the person's backpack who was "taking care of my letters", snatch the letters, hide them somewhere on my person, and then read them secretly in the airplane bathroom on the flight home. Don't judge, OK!)
When the trip was over and the letters were finally in my rightful possession, I rushed through each of them, simultaneously "awh"ing, laughing, and crying. (It was like The Hills on steroids.) Even though each individual letter was a treasure, Bryan's was one of the most impacting. Even though it's been nearly five months, every time I read it, I'm convicted more and more. He took Mother Teresa's famous "Do it Anyway" prayer and Bryan-fied it. It now happily lives on my mirror and I take it down constantly take it down, lay out my life for examination before me, and then mentally place the letter's message over it and see if things line up. They never do, but the words are wise instructions that help motivate me to strive for a better life and way of living.
The "Do it Anyway" prayer--Bryan-fied:
People are unreasonable, illogical and self-centered.
Love them anyway.
If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives.
Do good anyway.
If your are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies.
Succeed anyway.
The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.
Do good anyway.
Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.
Be honest and frank anyway.
The biggest people with the biggest ideas can be show down by the smallest people with the smallest minds.
Think big anyway.
People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs.
Fight for the underdog anyway.
What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.
Build anyway.
People really need help, but may attack you if you help them.
Help anyway.
Give the world the best you've got and you'll get kicked in the teeth. [Oh Bryan.]
Give the world the best you've got anyway.
So my team did this thing where we all wrote each other encouragement letters. (Which were really just letters filled to the brim with ego-boosting compliments, scripture verses, and sometimes taped on pebbles or drawings of...poop--I'm not going into that one. We weren't allowed to read our encouragement letters until the trip was over. Needless to say, someone was appointed to take care of my encouragement letters for me because the temptation was too much. (I spent my time concocting plans like how I would say I needed to get something out of the person's backpack who was "taking care of my letters", snatch the letters, hide them somewhere on my person, and then read them secretly in the airplane bathroom on the flight home. Don't judge, OK!)
When the trip was over and the letters were finally in my rightful possession, I rushed through each of them, simultaneously "awh"ing, laughing, and crying. (It was like The Hills on steroids.) Even though each individual letter was a treasure, Bryan's was one of the most impacting. Even though it's been nearly five months, every time I read it, I'm convicted more and more. He took Mother Teresa's famous "Do it Anyway" prayer and Bryan-fied it. It now happily lives on my mirror and I take it down constantly take it down, lay out my life for examination before me, and then mentally place the letter's message over it and see if things line up. They never do, but the words are wise instructions that help motivate me to strive for a better life and way of living.
The "Do it Anyway" prayer--Bryan-fied:
People are unreasonable, illogical and self-centered.
Love them anyway.
If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives.
Do good anyway.
If your are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies.
Succeed anyway.
The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.
Do good anyway.
Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.
Be honest and frank anyway.
The biggest people with the biggest ideas can be show down by the smallest people with the smallest minds.
Think big anyway.
People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs.
Fight for the underdog anyway.
What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.
Build anyway.
People really need help, but may attack you if you help them.
Help anyway.
Give the world the best you've got and you'll get kicked in the teeth. [Oh Bryan.]
Give the world the best you've got anyway.
Friday, November 26, 2010
It's a Love Story -- Just Say Yes
On September 26th, at like, 1 a.m., my view of how my relationship with Christ was supposed to be was radically altered. And I wrote a post about it later on that day--in the reasonable hours. The title of that post was "So I'm in Love", and it was a heart confession of my realization that I needed to be in love with Jesus (like He is with me), and that I actually was in the form of four paragraphs.
September 26th, seventy-nine days ago, that was the beginning. The beginning of a more intimate relationship with my Savior, the beginning of learning to trust Him, the beginning of learning how to have faith--I've never really had any before, and the beginning of falling in love...again. Last night I lay in my bed awake way into the night, conducting an interrogation with my heart. (I don't know about anyone else, but I for one never actually know what I really feel or why I feel that way until I sit down with my heart and ask all these very tough questions until I've scrounged the answer out of myself. And that's what I was doing last night.) I was laying there, earbuds in--of course--listening to an instrumental version of Love Story by some Jon Schmidt dude. I wasn't really paying attention, it was just nice background music while I sorted through my thoughts and stared out the window at the bending pine trees in the night wind. I had a lot on my mind.
God, I know you love me. I know you love me in a way that no one else can because you are love and everyone else is just...human. But come on, where's the catch? I don't understand. There must be some days when you don't love me, or some ulterior motive for you loving me. So what is it?
Does this conversation sound sacrilegious to you? Because it does to me! Really, my impertinence towards the frickin' creator of every molecule of my body, of every thousands of leaves, of every mountain range, human organ, and entire universe is appalling! But...I can justify myself--sorta. I'm distrustful, I've been disappointed, I've learned to be wary of people because they usually end up using you. I didn't use to be so jaded, I used to absolutely love and blindly trust everyone, but a few really bad relationships will change that. And it did. God was asking me to fall in love for the second time this year, and after the first time went so awfully wrong, I was hesitant and reluctant at the least. So now my distrustful, bitter, and questioning view of life and any form of relationships with people has influenced my relationship with my Maker, and I'm beginning to ask Him, "Are you really for real?"
I lay there, thinking over these things that have been on my mind for about a month now? two? And I felt like there was an answer, or something I was missing.
Come on, God, say something. I thought in the silence.
Except it wasn't silent. Like I said, I was listening to this instrumental version of Love Story by that Jon Schmidt dude, and I began to focus on it. I remember how this used to be my favorite song, especially the line, "It's a love story/baby just say 'yes'" That was my favorite part because it's like, the peak of the song. There's a decision to make, is the guy going to say yes? He better say yes, he'd be an idiot if he didn't! Hello! Why wouldn't he say yes? Taylor frickin' Swift is telling him she's in love with him, he better not pass up this love story. (Yes, I get very passionate about this kinda thing.) And then, it was as if, I guess you could say the Holy Spirit, but it was as if something inside of me asked--
Why don't you say 'yes'?
Say 'yes'? To what?
There was that voice, that voice of perfect calm and reasoning--so obviously it was God and not me. Say yes because I love you. I love you, but you're afraid. Why don't you love me, and trust me? Say yes because I'm extending my hand to you, I died so that you would take it. If you take it, you will walk hand in hand with me throughout the rest of your life, through everything. Say yes because even though it's frightening and out of your understanding and control, it's worth it. Say yes to believing that I love you and never leave you or hurt you. Because I never, never will. Say yes to giving up your life and your self every single day so that you will love me. Say yes because I have SO much more for you than this. Just say yes.
Of course, when you put it like that God, there's not much else I can say, is there? On September 26th something huge happened, and it forever changed the way I felt about God and how our relationship should be. I realized that He didn't want a partnership with me, He really didn't even need me to begin with. But he wants me. He doesn't need me and I really can't do anything for Him, and yet He still wants me? Even though He had to lose a lot so that I could be with Him? This is crazy love! It is love, but you can't "fall in love" in just one day, reasonably speaking. You can be in love with the way someone looks in one day, but you can't even physically see God without dying because He's SO beautiful, so you can't exactly be in love with God's great looks. (Plus, that's just weird.) He wants something different, deeper. He wants us to genuinely love Him. That love began in me a long time ago, in a very premature way. I knew God loved me, and I liked that He loved me. So I kinda liked Him back and would come to Him whenever I had a problem, and I would tell Him the latest gossip among my circle of friends, but the way I felt about God never changed me. When I fell in love for the first time with an actual boy, I completely changed. I thought about him 24/7, I talked about him 24/7 (that is, whenever I actually talked because usually I was thinking about him too much to even do so), and I smiled whenever I did either. So that was 24/7. People could look at me, and say, "Oh my, you're in love with him."
No one has ever walked up to me, and by just the ridiculous, hopeless expression on my face said, "Oh my, you're in love with Him." No one. But they should have, because I was " in love" with God, right? Right, that's why I totally dumped Him when I was "in love." That's why my dashing Romeo became my god. That's why I convinced myself that it was fine that I never spent time with the Lord--unless it was to talk about Romeo--anymore. I AM SUCH AN IDIOT. THE END.
I don't love God like that yet. But I want to. More than anything now. I want people to look at my face and know, I'm ready to be in love again, but with God only, please. This is a new chapter, this is the point A of this journey. But it's not so much a journey to a place, but rather a journey through a complete life transformation of redemption.
Last night I lay there still awake even after the song had ended (after I had listened to it, like, a bajillion times). I hadn't said anything yet. I wanted to, but what I wanted to say would be a promise that I would need to be willing to follow through with. Not just last night, but tomorrow (now today), and the next day, and the day after that, and so on until my life had no more days. And I don't like commitment, I never have. But if I can't commit to God and this relationship, what will or can I commit to? I know God's love for me will never end (1 Corinthians 13:7-8, anyone?). I know it won't.
So I said yes.
September 26th, seventy-nine days ago, that was the beginning. The beginning of a more intimate relationship with my Savior, the beginning of learning to trust Him, the beginning of learning how to have faith--I've never really had any before, and the beginning of falling in love...again. Last night I lay in my bed awake way into the night, conducting an interrogation with my heart. (I don't know about anyone else, but I for one never actually know what I really feel or why I feel that way until I sit down with my heart and ask all these very tough questions until I've scrounged the answer out of myself. And that's what I was doing last night.) I was laying there, earbuds in--of course--listening to an instrumental version of Love Story by some Jon Schmidt dude. I wasn't really paying attention, it was just nice background music while I sorted through my thoughts and stared out the window at the bending pine trees in the night wind. I had a lot on my mind.
God, I know you love me. I know you love me in a way that no one else can because you are love and everyone else is just...human. But come on, where's the catch? I don't understand. There must be some days when you don't love me, or some ulterior motive for you loving me. So what is it?
Does this conversation sound sacrilegious to you? Because it does to me! Really, my impertinence towards the frickin' creator of every molecule of my body, of every thousands of leaves, of every mountain range, human organ, and entire universe is appalling! But...I can justify myself--sorta. I'm distrustful, I've been disappointed, I've learned to be wary of people because they usually end up using you. I didn't use to be so jaded, I used to absolutely love and blindly trust everyone, but a few really bad relationships will change that. And it did. God was asking me to fall in love for the second time this year, and after the first time went so awfully wrong, I was hesitant and reluctant at the least. So now my distrustful, bitter, and questioning view of life and any form of relationships with people has influenced my relationship with my Maker, and I'm beginning to ask Him, "Are you really for real?"
I lay there, thinking over these things that have been on my mind for about a month now? two? And I felt like there was an answer, or something I was missing.
Come on, God, say something. I thought in the silence.
Except it wasn't silent. Like I said, I was listening to this instrumental version of Love Story by that Jon Schmidt dude, and I began to focus on it. I remember how this used to be my favorite song, especially the line, "It's a love story/baby just say 'yes'" That was my favorite part because it's like, the peak of the song. There's a decision to make, is the guy going to say yes? He better say yes, he'd be an idiot if he didn't! Hello! Why wouldn't he say yes? Taylor frickin' Swift is telling him she's in love with him, he better not pass up this love story. (Yes, I get very passionate about this kinda thing.) And then, it was as if, I guess you could say the Holy Spirit, but it was as if something inside of me asked--
Why don't you say 'yes'?
Say 'yes'? To what?
There was that voice, that voice of perfect calm and reasoning--so obviously it was God and not me. Say yes because I love you. I love you, but you're afraid. Why don't you love me, and trust me? Say yes because I'm extending my hand to you, I died so that you would take it. If you take it, you will walk hand in hand with me throughout the rest of your life, through everything. Say yes because even though it's frightening and out of your understanding and control, it's worth it. Say yes to believing that I love you and never leave you or hurt you. Because I never, never will. Say yes to giving up your life and your self every single day so that you will love me. Say yes because I have SO much more for you than this. Just say yes.
Of course, when you put it like that God, there's not much else I can say, is there? On September 26th something huge happened, and it forever changed the way I felt about God and how our relationship should be. I realized that He didn't want a partnership with me, He really didn't even need me to begin with. But he wants me. He doesn't need me and I really can't do anything for Him, and yet He still wants me? Even though He had to lose a lot so that I could be with Him? This is crazy love! It is love, but you can't "fall in love" in just one day, reasonably speaking. You can be in love with the way someone looks in one day, but you can't even physically see God without dying because He's SO beautiful, so you can't exactly be in love with God's great looks. (Plus, that's just weird.) He wants something different, deeper. He wants us to genuinely love Him. That love began in me a long time ago, in a very premature way. I knew God loved me, and I liked that He loved me. So I kinda liked Him back and would come to Him whenever I had a problem, and I would tell Him the latest gossip among my circle of friends, but the way I felt about God never changed me. When I fell in love for the first time with an actual boy, I completely changed. I thought about him 24/7, I talked about him 24/7 (that is, whenever I actually talked because usually I was thinking about him too much to even do so), and I smiled whenever I did either. So that was 24/7. People could look at me, and say, "Oh my, you're in love with him."
No one has ever walked up to me, and by just the ridiculous, hopeless expression on my face said, "Oh my, you're in love with Him." No one. But they should have, because I was " in love" with God, right? Right, that's why I totally dumped Him when I was "in love." That's why my dashing Romeo became my god. That's why I convinced myself that it was fine that I never spent time with the Lord--unless it was to talk about Romeo--anymore. I AM SUCH AN IDIOT. THE END.
I don't love God like that yet. But I want to. More than anything now. I want people to look at my face and know, I'm ready to be in love again, but with God only, please. This is a new chapter, this is the point A of this journey. But it's not so much a journey to a place, but rather a journey through a complete life transformation of redemption.
Last night I lay there still awake even after the song had ended (after I had listened to it, like, a bajillion times). I hadn't said anything yet. I wanted to, but what I wanted to say would be a promise that I would need to be willing to follow through with. Not just last night, but tomorrow (now today), and the next day, and the day after that, and so on until my life had no more days. And I don't like commitment, I never have. But if I can't commit to God and this relationship, what will or can I commit to? I know God's love for me will never end (1 Corinthians 13:7-8, anyone?). I know it won't.
So I said yes.
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