A Servant's Life

"It's not about you." 

It's become my mantra. 

"I don't feel like doing laundry."  It's not about you.  "I REALLY don't want to cook dinner tonight."  It's not about you.  "I don't want to be a teacher today."  It's not about you. 

Selfishness.  We live in a world that esteems self and stresses the importance of "taking care of you."  Even Christian leaders today fuel the idea that you must take time to invest in yourself.  I simply cannot find this advice anywhere in scripture.  The world says to take care of yourself.  Jesus says to take care of the orphans and widows.  The world says you are entitled to down time.  Jesus says lay down your life.  The world says to follow your heart.  The Bible says to take every thought captive.  The world says live for yourself.  The Bible says you have been crucified with Christ.  The world tells you your children are a burden.  The Bible says they are a blessing.  The kings of this world sit in a palace and are protected by servants.  Our King washed dirty feet, dined with thieves, touched lepers and healed prostitutes. 

Selfishness rears its ugly head in all of us.  It's the pride of self...the voice that tells us we are entitled to something.  It's easy to see it in someone else...a little harder to pinpoint in ourselves. 

My daughter yelled at her little sister today...over a lost toy she let her borrow.  My response? "What's more important: the toy or your sister's heart?" 

Ouch.

"I've told you a hundred times not to do that!"  What's more important?  "Why don't you listen to me?" Making your point? "Stop touching that!"  Demanding blind obedience? "Come here right now!"  Or their hearts?

Speak kindly.  Serve wholly.  Admonish gently.  Shepherd lovingly.  This is the life of a servant.  A life modeled after a King who came to show us what selflessness really looks like. 

We serve our families...and thus serve Jesus.  This is what turns our children's hearts toward the Savior.  This is what opens their soul to the loving, corrective wisdom that comes from the heart of God. 

Harsh words and selfish desire never won anyone to the Kingdom.

I pray God will bless me with a lap that is open, ears that are keen, eyes that are loving, and a smile that is turned toward the blessings in my home.  I pray for tireless hands, a selfless spirit, a pure heart, bent knees and raised hands.  

Thank goodness it's not about me.  I am sin and I forget all too often the call of selflessness.  I never want to forget the way it feels to look into the eyes of my Savior and say, "I will."  I will teach these children what it means to follow you.  I will love them every day.  I will lay down my life for the least of these.  I will work tirelessly doing Your work until You come back.  Because none of this is about me.  It's about You.  Redeemer.  King.  Messiah.  Servant.

The Lord Speaks

"Hosanna!  Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!"  The people yell it and praise the King riding into town on a donkey.

We praise the same King in a pew on Sunday morning...with our hearts cleansed and our heads turned upward, we worship.

A short time later, the same crowd that waved the palm branches now shake their fists and cry, "Crucify Him!"

And hours after we leave our House of Worship, we blaspheme our God with our tongues and our actions.

We weep at the Cross and we mourn the tragic death of a King.  We rejoice in His resurrection and gaze deep into the eyes of the women at the empty tomb. 

Then we live like He's dead and we hammer the nails further and deeper as we serve ourselves and defile the empty tomb with our tongues of malice.

We crumble under the pressure and we cry out to a God we reject over and over.  We scream "Crucify Him!" and sing "Hosanna!" all in the same breath.  We look in the mirror and weep.

Then...the Lord speaks.  The nails can go no deeper.  The tomb cannot be defiled.  This is why I've come.  You can't.  I can.  It's not about you.  It's about Me.

We fall on our knees, weep...and give thanks.

 

 

The Beauty That Heals

We enjoyed a great day outside today.  The fresh air was soothing and the leaves crunching under my feet were therapeutic.  After a day (week) of failing, I finally feel refreshed and motivated. 

There is something about being outside that nourishes me.  It is essential for my growth and survival.  The air blows past me and carries with it my frustration and anxieties.  The birds chirp, echo my song and the stress dissipates.  The trees rustle in the wind and their music soothes.  The sun shines and reminds of all that is right in my life....the warmth covers me and I soar once more. 

And my grass is green.  In the midst of the gray...in the midst of an approaching winter...in the midst of a life of sacrifice...in the midst of the storms...I see Jesus.  His sun shines and His wind blows and His birds sing...and I am caught up in the beauty of it all.  I hold my children and give thanks.

Growing Up...Part One

Earlier this month, I felt a stirring in my heart.  The one I feel when God is calling me to tell a story.  I argued.  Then relented.  I began the story and couldn't get it out fast enough.  Then it sat in my drafts for two weeks.  Obedience.  I'm learning.  I cannot figure out, for the life of me, why anyone else would want to read this.  Maybe it's the therapy for me...getting the story out.  But here it is.  Published.  Part one...

We grabbed our Bibles out of the backseat and began walking.  Slowly, deliberately we ambled into a large, old brick building.  We were greeted, given bulletins and a handshake.  In front of us, the entryway opened up into a large room full of men, women and children.  Strangers.  The plaster was separated from the brick walls and the stability of the building, in general, seemed...shaky.  People from all walks of life milled about.  They walked, talked and congregated together.  A congregation.  A family.  The first one I would know as an adult.

There were two aisles, both sloping downward toward the stage.  The room, having been built in a time when teachers taught with no sound equipment, echoed.  The walking, talking and clamoring for seats filled my ears.  Something behind the pulpit caught my eye.  A dove.  Wooden and mounted on the wall.  I made a mental note to look into its meaning.  Two, now archaic, tv screens sat on opposite ends of the 100-year-old sanctuary, where the lyrics to worship songs would scroll.  The pews were shallow, the seats of which had recently been upholstered with green.  The aisle creaked when we walked upon it...down to an arbitrarily chosen pew.  I opened my bulletin and the words stared back at me...black and printed...etched from this day forward onto the surface of my heart:

• We are not a denominational church, nor are we opposed to denominations as such, only their over-emphasis of the doctrinal differences that have led to the division of the Body of Christ.


• We believe that the only true basis of Christian fellowship is His (Agape) love, which is greater than any differences we possess and without which we have no right to claim ourselves Christians.


• We believe worship of God should be spiritual. Therefore, we remain flexible and yielded to the leading of the Holy Spirit to direct our worship.


• We believe worship of God should be inspirational. Therefore, we give a great place to music in our worship.


• We believe worship of God should be intelligent. Therefore, our services are designed with great emphasis upon teaching the Word of God that He might instruct us how He should be worshiped.


• We believe worship of God is fruitful. Therefore, we look for His love in our lives as the supreme manifestation that we have truly been worshiping Him.

My breath caught.  My heart lurched.  Tears welled.  As a new believer, I didn't know much.  But I knew these disctinctives were Biblical Truth.  I knew God was here.  This old building with the uncomfortable seats and the echoing and the amazingly wonderful beliefs printed...it felt right.  It felt real.  It felt like home.  We sang.  We worshipped.  Spirit-filled worship, complete with an acoustic guitar.  (I'm of the belief that NO worship is worthy of the name unless it includes an acoustic guitar.)  We opened our Bibles and I was taught the Word of God differently than I had been taught anywhere else.  The book of Matthew...one verse at a time.  Deeper.  A sinner teacher...not perfect...but gifted.  And my new husband and I...sinners...not perfect...but touched.  I began to sprout.

The strangers became family.  Some of them, close family.  We became fixtures in this delapitating church and we grew together.

Things changed throughout the next couple of years.  The tv screens were replaced with a big screen on the wall above the pulpit and speakers and a projector were suspended from the very high ceiling.  I worried about the safety of such a placement until someone informed me that a brave soul had hung from it and, therefore, it had to be perfectly safe.  I was never fully convinced but as far as I know, it has never fallen.  Two small buildings were purchased across the street for further use and we were working on obtaining an FM radio station to take the gospel to people who couldn't come to us.

I loved my church.  I loved everything we stood for, everything we were about, everything that was so much different from the more "traditional" churches in town.  I loved that a man could walk in off the street in flip-flops and cut off jeans and hear the gospel.  I loved that the tattooed sat with the straight-laced and that the redeemed drug addict was no different from the redeemed man of pride.  I loved seeing the alcoholic rub elbows with the counselor and the business man shake hands with the prison inmate.  I loved to see the evidence of a redemptive God at every turn.  I loved the worship.  I loved how alive my Bible was becoming.  And I loved my family.

Through a series of events, it all began to unravel.  The believers were at odds with each other.  People were angry.  Hurt.  Sad.  Frustrated.  The family began to split up.  Finding new homes.  New families.  It felt like divorce to me.  And I, desperate to cling to what I knew to be true and real, hung on for dear life.  My husband, who is steadfast in his demeanor and scarcely quits anything, hung on for dear life.  We prayed.  And prayed.

One rainy morning, we grabbed our Bibles from the backseat along with the children I had birthed in the last 5 years.  We walked up the sidewalk...into the old building...through the entryway and into the large room with all the people.  We marched down the oh-so-familiar staircase, transporting two girls to Sunday School.  We climbed the stairs again.  Back into the room...we sat down...third baby in my arms...and a lump in my throat.  We glanced around the room and were faced with a stunning realization.  This place...the creaks, the smell, the speakers hanging from the ceiling, the uncomfortable 100-year-old pews...it was home.  Here we sat...in our home filled with people.  But our family was gone.  Almost entirely gone.  Divorced from this place as we still sat waiting, in futility, for someone to come home.

The Gift

A dear friend of mine is in Africa this week.  I have been in contact with her via email and she has shared some of her stories.  One such story is of a village where the families make a living by running a primitive rock quarry.  The feelings it erupted in me are fire-like in intensity and crushing in their empathy.  I am reading Ann Voskamp's 1000 Gifts and have been steadfast in searching for beauty in everything as I turn the pages of this transformative narrative.  Then I read the story of my friend.  Of the quarry.  Of the hungry children.  And I balk at presumed beauty and inside I scream at my Savior, "Where is the beauty?!"  Almost audibly, He whispers into my soul, "It's in the gift." 

This is her story.  His story.

A family sits at the bottom of a mountain.  Their skin dark as night and their hands etched with the scars of a wounded life.  A small boy rises and begins the long trek up the mountain...and then down he comes, slowly...deliberately.  He stumbles.  The rock he is balancing on his head almost brings him to his knees.  He steadies himself...thinks of his hungry sister...and continues down the mountain. 

At the bottom, his mother breaks the rock into pieces.  No fancy equipment...just the resolve of a woman determined to feed the hungry mouths that stare at her wonderingly every morning. 

The father.  He peddles.  Please buy our rock...take what we have to offer...it's not much but it's all we have and it's hope.  My son carried it himself...my wife perfected it and my daughter is starving. 

A sale...relief...gratefulness.  One dollar and it's enough to feed the mouths today. 

The sun sets.  The family sleeps.  And they awake to the picturesque view of the sun rising over a mountain of glory...but the glory whimpers under the crush of empty stomachs and souls searching for hope.

The boy gathers his resolve and begins again...up the mountain...down the mountain...stumbling but always balancing and marching forward.  The rock is smashed and the mother carries it down the gravel road to the father.  She limps as the fabric tightens around her foot bleeding with the cuts of the glorious mountain.  A stranger approaches her and she stops.  A white woman dressed peculiarly inquires about the fabric tied around her aching foot.  She tells her story.  The story of her life...the cuts of the mountain...the paradox of the beauty cutting deep into her as she survives on its sustenance. 

The white woman listens and the wounds of the black woman cut deep into her own soul.  She takes off her own shoes and gingerly hands them to the mother.  The woman stares, incredulously at the gift.  For me?  For free?  Every day I work tirelessly alongside my family to survive and you are offering me that which carried you into my world?  For nothing?  No work?  Her eyes steady.  The disbelief of it all melds with the grace and the sacrifice and she takes them.

She walks towards her husband.  Stiffly...oddly...her toes scrunched and crowded.  Her eyes gleaming and her heart rejoicing.  Not in the day.  Not in the mountain, full of glory in the twilight.  Not in the dollar made.  Not in the shoes.  But in the gift.  She rejoices in the story of a stranger bestowing a gift and ambling through the rest of the village barefoot.  Just like the natives.  Forsaking comfort and entering into the world of the meek and forsaken.  Inspiring hope in a hopeless land.  Just like Jesus.

"Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me."  - Matthew 25:40

Redemption

Remembering the power of our God...

I stand in my kitchen, dinner unplanned, a heavy dose of bad parenting under my belt and fatigued beyond the point of no return.  Schoolwork is done, but barely.  And the aftermath of it all, intermingled with other various ill-placed items, is strewn about my house.  I watch my kids playing outside the kitchen window and sigh.

I start to unravel the mess.  School papers first.  Checklists are piled up by the computer for later entry.  I open the refrigerator and start to rummage around for something (anything!) to throw together.  I contemplate.  How did I get here? How in the world did I blow it...again? 

I hear a little girl yell my name and walk outside.  My middle daughter is reaching into the tree for more pieces of whatever-it-is-she-is-creating-with today.  She asks, "What's it called again when you take something ugly and turn it into something beautiful?"  She pulls hard and the thing pops off the tree.  My eyes well up.  I say it first in my mind. Redemption. 

"You mean to redeem something?"  I ask.  She smiles wide.  "Yes!  I'm redeeming these little balls."  I praise her for her efforts and snap her picture.

I walk back inside as the tears spill out and over.  I say it again, softly.  Redemption.  I wipe my eyes and walk back into my kitchen.  I have a Redeemer.  Today, tomorrow...every day.  Redemption.

I've spent a lot of time talking to my children about redemption.  About the God we serve.  The God of second chances. The God of new beginnings.  The God of rebirth.  Yet, here I stood, moments before, lamenting the loss of a day...the loss of my resolve.  Is anything beyond the redemptive power of our Savior?

Sin.  Today I am girded with many mistakes...but the truest balk at my Lord was the failure of my spirit to embrace His power.  This day was not ruined when I snapped at my daughter.  It was not lost the moment I ceased to plan dinner.  It wasn't even destroyed when I hurried through lessons, not patient enough to savor the moments.  Sinful moments, yes.  But to participate in the of the desecration of a day by ignoring the power of a God who has redeemed me a thousand times over?  To shun the ability of Christ to redeem it...redeem me?  That is the sin that has corrupted this day and nearly crushed my spirit.

We serve a God who was resurrected from beyond the grave.  He walked on water, calmed the storms and made the blind man see.

Lord, help me see.

Waffles.  I make the decision.  I get out the waffle maker.  I put the house back together.  I pray without ceasing...for forgiveness...for redemption.  I walk outside to see what my daughter has created (redeemed.)  She has braided the stems of the little "balls" and created bundles of beauty, nature inspired. The weather is beautiful.  The sun is slowly sinking, but it's not gone.  The day is still present.  It is present and hope and joy abound as I shift my paradigm and consider the power of our God.

My husband pulls into the driveway.  The kids run and jump and he asks what is for dinner.  They screech it joyfully.  He asks how our day was.  I smile.  The kids smile. The child in the middle shows him her creations.  He oohs and ahhs and praises.  She beams.

I feel my chest expand as the scent of fall permeates.  The sun sinks lower.  I thank God for second chances.  And third chances.  And a million chances to serve Him.  I thank Him for redemption.  And for the children who opened my eyes to its power today.

Beauty for Ashes

"You have taken me to a place of self-sacrifice I didn't know existed."

I wrote this in my oldest daughter's baby book several years ago.  Any mother can attest to the truth of the above statement.  We sacrifice everything to care for our children...our sleep, our priorities, our clean house.  Something to ponder:  Are these sacrifices truly for the benefit of our children?  Or are they put in place to mold us?

This week I received two entirely separate emails from two different friends who live on opposite ends of the state.  They both held the same epiphany:  "Perhaps God placed me in this place, at home with my children, for the sake of my growth and spirituality more than for the that of my children's?  Maybe...just maybe...God is using my children to perfect me?" 

I think about where motherhood has taken me thus far.  Through an endless succession of sleepless nights...through days of crankiness, messiness and frustration...through weeks of feeling inadequate...through agonizing bouts of decision making...through an ocean of unending sacrifice.  And I think about where I am now in comparison with where I was 8 years ago.

I turned 30 last year.  Someone asked me how I felt to be turning 30.  I contemplated for a moment (which I don't always do before I speak, unfortunately) and concluded the following.  "Would I like to be 24 again?  Maybe.  But do I want to go back to being who I was at 24?  A new mother with no experience?  Being unsure of every decision I was making?  Being immature in my faith?  No.  I'll take 30." 

Motherhood, while the most joyous journey I've known, has taken me to the depths of sacrifice and back again.  It has molded me into who I am and has grown my faith tremendously.  Let's face it.  I have not had ample time to study my Bible in recent years.  I have not been on a plethora of Women's Retreats where I have been "recharged."  Truth be told, I even spent most of the last 8 years of Sunday mornings in the cry room, listening to the sermon from afar when I could.  You would think my faith would be weak with so little to feed it.  Yet I feel strong. 

I find this an amazing picture of God's grace.  Why?  Because it means that I am being perfected by God, not only during the most obvious times, but during the minutes I almost thought were wasted. 

Sacrifice.  It's the sole avenue by which we can become like Christ.

While walking my baby back and forth across the floor, God was weeding out self-service.  While getting up again to nurse, the Lord was molding my heart.  While holding a sleeping girl, Jesus was teaching me to slow down.  While the laundry piled up, God was showing me what is important.  He was, in these moments and many more to come, teaching me to be, as Ann Voskamp states in her book, all here.  Right now.  All here, right now, anchored to this moment.  Anchored to a moment while an ocean of self-fullment, chaos and busyness torrent around me. 

How many moments do I lose every day?  How many life lessons am I missing as I busily go about my day, "serving my family" while I overlook their true needs in a given moment?  

I strive to never miss a moment to be perfected.  As we busily teach and care for our children, I have to think my two friends may be right.  We think God placed them in our lives so we could teach them how to be selfless, forgiving, patient and humble.  But maybe we are raising them so God can teach us how to be selfless, forgiving, patient and humble.  And maybe...just maybe...that's how our children learn.  That's how they grow.  As we walk this path of Godliness, choosing to deny ourselves for their sake (for His sake...for our sake), our children walk beside us, look up into our eyes and see an ocean of sacrifice that is deep with joy.  They see.  And they internalize, embrace it and swim in it until they have their own babies.  And they are perfected. 

And such is the way of our Lord...using what we think is wasted, lost or insignificant and redeeming it for His glory.