Messy

I survived the annual family vacation. It was absolutely exhausting this year. Normally, we spend a few days at a cottage, but also get some time camping. Not so this year. I didn't realize how much I counted on those days completely unlocked from electronic devices (like you don't even have cell service) - where you spend half the trip running, biking, swimming, or hiking, and the other half staring at the forest, playing boggle, and sleeping as soon as the sun disappears. :) Not to mention the fighting and screaming which was often over who got to sit next to/play with me. I seriously need an uncle to balance the equation. Ha. Just kidding. I'm pretty self-sufficient. But I would ask for prayer for my niece and nephew. I found the bible I gave my niece with it's cover completely ripped off. I feel like there's a metaphor somewhere in there. But anyway, they need so much more of the Holy Spirit... and I feel like I'm failing them as a model.

Sometimes I fear I've been erased. Post-college, I worry that I am nothing of the Christ-centered, joyful, encouraging person that I once was. I've been doing one of those life overhauls - like balancing the checkbook, only re-centering the soul. So many things crop up to steal my heart, soul, strength away from God. Honestly, when you're a nurse, you barely have time to eat, so it's hard to cultivate a mind that craves, seeks, and follows God moment by moment. And when that's your lifestyle for so long... combined with a competitive academic life and topped with social media - I feel like a ruin. I just want to curl up in someone's arms who will speak truth and love to me. And I know God is sufficient and he does just that... but sometimes I need the communal reinforcement. I've gotten better at asking for help, but I still feel like a beggar. Many of you have been wonderful, so don't feel like I'm bemoaning you. It's just that women are very rarely allowed to say they need help without sounding needy - and I'm sensitive to that. As an emotional writer, I'm careful to screen almost everything I communicate.

Anyway, as I've been advancing in my scripture reading... I've come to the thought that the bible proves life is horribly messy. It gives me peace to realize that things in this life will simply not be pure. While sin is never admirable, the amount of it in one's life will never be balanced out by holiness. Yes we flee sin, but we are never invincible. In this bloody world, it will catch up with us. The man after God's own heart was a murderer and adulterer. You can do everything right and fail miserably. I've broken from a very legalistic mindset and still struggle to remember this. There is only one way to make it through this life - lean not on your own understanding and trust your life to Jesus. Trust Jesus. Break the bread and remember. Remember.

Love to all,

Katie

Storytime: An excerpt

Perhaps helpful. Perhaps heretical... But I find the truth remains whether you call it magic or miracle. For everyone needs a little bit of impossible.

The day started off as normally as any, but then a gnat flew in from the window. It tormented her at length until suddenly she found she was hoarse from shouting at the enormous THING over her. Somehow the meddlesome memory gnat of hurt had contorted to a gruesome dragon of despair. Its ferocious fire tore at her - trying to strip her down to nothing. She gasped and choked as it poured down her lungs. There was a roaring in her ears and a faint tapping. No wait. Knocking. Was someone at the door? No matter, she couldn’t answer it with a dragon sitting on her. Were her limbs still attached? She sent a cautious thought toward her pinkie. It curled in response. With her last fiber of strength she hurled the dragon away and flung open the door. Her brother stood at the door looking very knightly and very annoyed.

“You know I can’t help you unless you open the barking door!” he howled through the roaring in her ears as he plunged his sword through the dragon’s heart and it shrunk back into a gnat. “And you also know that this is not just a physical door I’m talking about.” he added more gently, tossing the sword away and tucking her into a hug. He pressed his forehead against her and she looked up into his eyes and saw all the love of the world in them. “Goose” he said at last, “You have to learn to ask for help or we’re never going to make it. I can plunge swords into dragons all day. But you have to be able to as well.” He handed her the sword. She shuddered slightly. “I know it’s unwieldy. And I know you want all dragons to be princesses. But the truth is sometimes dragons are dragons. They want only to devour you and they will use every deception to do so.

Damn them!” He broke off viciously; and she started, not at the language, but at the blatancy since he had already done exactly that. Her eyes must have asked the question. “Damned, but free to roam” he growled. Then he shrugged. “I trust Father, and anyway the important thing is getting you trained. You cannot let yourself be overcome.” He shook her gently for emphasis. “And more importantly you do not EVER need to heave off any dragons to get to me. All you need to do is ask and I will be there. Do you understand?”

She looked at him wearily. “I thought I could…” and trailed off.

“Not without truth” She raised the sword at him. He nodded. “If you take to unraveling a lie without it, you will only become more entangled. But if you call upon the truth, you may not even need me” She made a face.

“You are the truth”

He smirked. “Precisely. You’ll have asked me for help without even trying”

“You’re impossible”

“Indubitably” he said slyly.

“Do you always have to have the last word?”

“Well, I was the first W…”

“Don’t even!” She cut him off and started to stomp away. “Impossible!”  

“Everyone needs the impossible” he said quietly. And though she huffed, she had to admit he was right.

“Fine! You win. You win every time. You cheated death. You stomped on the father of all dragons. I concede!” But her fierce grin belayed the crabbiness of the words.

For life might be full of dragons. But it was not without hope, truth, or a Savior of a brother who defied impossibility.

Scholarly ramblings about grace

On Thanksgiving, my pastor, being the pastor he is, always brings up the joy of giving. I'm pretty sure one year he pulled up some scientific studies about awesome health benefits from giving - things you can measure by looking at a brain MRI (which somehow makes me giggle... probably the doctoral student in me) Anyway, this Thanksgiving he offered to fill in the role for spiritual guidance for a few people. My starving heart capered about in great joy as I very timidly asked if I could be one of those people. I hate asking for things... not because I think it will make me look weak... but because I usually don't think I deserve them. But I dove off the cliff for this one because I could seriously feel myself wasting away and intuition/the Holy Spirit were beckoning. For 3-4 years I've been battered about between license and legalism, and I knew I needed some roots... back into the life of God I used to flourish in.

I blubbered through the first call. It's been so long since I've had anyone spiritually available to minister to me... all I wanted to do was cry in relief. Thankfully I had a terrible cold, so I hoped my poor pastor attributed most of my sniveling to that effect. I tried to pile things into a plan so that I would stay on track. *Cue Mulan soundtrack... Let's get down to business! Luckily it's my pastor we're talking about. That's why I entrusted him with being the guide to plug me back into the life of God. He gave me the verse "Are you tired, worn out, burned out from religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you'll recover your life. (I felt like shouting with joy after that one verse) and it continued... "I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace." So he left me to ask myself, "What would it look like to take a real rest?" and "What practices if any would help you enter into the unforced rhythms of grace?" with a side admonition of "It should be something that sounds sort of fun, if not outright fun!"

The next call he managed to convince me to read a fantasy book every day as sort of a spiritual discipline and left me to meditate on John 1:1-18. Here was my brainblurb. "Word is cerebral, but grace is spirit/soulish. And grace came first, but through the Word. So Word is grace and came first, and Jesus is grace and truth. We worship in spirit and truth. Grace may come through the spirit. Jesus had the Holy Spirit on him (later verses in John). Perhaps we best experience grace through the Holy Spirit? But what does it look like practically? We follow some general guidelines for being shalomy, and trust the Spirit will enter and fill in the rest of the space with spontaneous grace and fullness? What does grace mean again in the Greek? Isn't it related to thanksgiving and charis deo... something Ann Voskamp wrote about?

"Charis" from graciousness (as gratifying) of manner or act (esp the divine influence upon the heart and its reflection the life including gratitude) God's tender sense of our misery (and here I dissolved into tears again) displays itself in his efforts to lessen and entirely remove it - efforts that are hindered and defeated only by man's continued perverseness. Grace removes guilt. Mercy removes misery. It has various uses "that which bestows or occasions pleasure, delight, or causes favorable regard"

What I remember most about the life I lived before the Zoloft debacle, before feeling like I had to constantly perform to fit in, before I wondered if it was better to fast and be miserable but be doing the "right thing" or to not fast and be miserable out of guilt that I wasn't doing anything to be closer to God like everyone else... is that I was happy with myself and I caused a lot of happiness. I think that I was born full of grace. To put it more humbly, I'm pretty certain God dumped the gift of grace on me as an infant. Even my Korean name Eunjee has grace in it! I bestowed a lot of pleasure and delight as an baby without ever trying to. My mom always had women at the grocery store coming up to her and wanting to hold me. I posted a picture of little me on facebook on a whim for "TBT" or "throw back Thursday" and I was completely astounded that I got over 60 likes. I was less surprised when I realized its because everyone needs more grace... more delight and less misery.

Anyway, this long haul to say... grace is probably more than you think it is. There is a richness missing from the traditional churchy understanding of grace. I wish everyone could share in it's truth. God tenderly senses our misery... ironically often caused by trying to please him or getting caught up in the religion of trying to do right by him... and he wants to entirely remove it! It's personal. It's mindboggling. God cares! And God is active. And God is delightful.

Please believe it.