.what i learn.

(Repost from February 2011. Because it's all still true.)

Throughout college, almost every single prayer I heard Matt pray out loud started with, "God, we thank You that You are all good". He had never noticed this until I pointed it out. I know the exact inflection of how he would voice this phrase, and it was always filled with joy. I heard him pray this through times of deepest pain. Often still, when I don't know how to start praying, from habit if nothing else my voice or pen will start, "God, I thank You that You are all good...".


Mayr and I prayed together on the phone a few nights ago, for a long time. She called Him Father, easily, over and over, through our time together. I hadn't realized how little I do that lately.

She painted Psalm 139 for me before I left for Bolivia. The words slant across the page, her pen and ink flying around the borders. A prayer through her friendship and her art. I find myself praying every time I look at it, instantly, in its words and images and love.


Steve's theory is that an ideal ratio for friendship is two hours praying for someone for each hour you spend with them. He has taught me to pray deeper for other people more than almost anyone ever.

Often when this wise friend prays for me, even if I am with him, he prays silently. He prays for a long time, and when he's done, he will cock his head to one side and smile at me. I am used to people praying out loud when praying together, and this unnerved me; I asked him once, what did you pray? He grinned. Shook his head. "That's for me and Jesus." Months later I told him aching things God was teaching me, wounds that were being re-opened and healed deeper than they had been, love that was growing and pain I was getting more willing to embrace. He grinned wider. "That's what I prayed for."

I now value silent prayers over others more than spoken ones sometimes. The One who needs to hear them still does.


It takes a lot for me to let someone take care of me. I am never scared to call Mary Wolf and ask her to pray. I never feel stupid even if the prayer request seems small and if it reveals my neediness, my insecurities, my sin. She has never judged and she has never been too busy to pray. I sat at a table at Starbucks, alone, a week after my mother was diagnosed with cancer, feeling panic rise to where I wasn't sure how I would stay in my body. I called her at work. "I'm scared. Can you pray for me?" She did, on the phone, immediately, with no other explanation needed. "Thanks. I love you." We got off the phone. It lasted three minutes. I remember exactly where I was sitting, the feel of fighting the pressure in my chest, my hands digging into the phone. I remember biting my lip. I remember that after we hung up, I took a breath and went to class.


For the last year, almost every morning the first thing I hear is my phone buzzing to alert me to a text message. "Hi, Matty," I think. I get this text almost every day: "I just prayed for you. Let God ____"- a wish, a Scripture verse, something I'd asked him to pray for. At first this was sweet. Then this scary year, it was a lifeline. Now I find myself willing to share prayer requests I would never have thought to even ask for prayer for before, because I know someone is committed to praying for them.


"How can we spiritually support you?", Christine and Heath asked. We had prayed together easily and often throughout our years of dorm life, apartment life. I got back from HNGR and I did not know how to pray, and I did not know how to pray with them. So that semester, twice a week, we would find our way to a couch in the reading room. We would lean our heads on each other's shoulders and compliment each other's outfits, we would laugh and talk about our weeks. Then we would open the Bible- to anything- and read it out loud. Sometimes for half an hour, sometimes for five minutes. We heard His word, which is living and active, and it fell on us together. This time was our prayer offered up; we held each other and He held us.


I hear the Mosoj Yan's staffs voices when I think some realities and the theology I want cannot be held in the same cup. "Sí, Señor... sí, Señor". Their heads in their hands, their faces furrowed, their work amazing. Their faith strong.

.christine is here.

it's the best thing in the world.

i wrote this four years ago,

in bolivia,

after our 10-day vacation together in the middle of our HNGR internships.

"...But honestly, I think that had we been staying in a tiny motel room in an alley somewhere and it had rained the whole week,

I still would have been totally happy.

The best part was just being with Christine.

We got to share our hearts, tell some of the stories we've heard here,

laugh together over the joys and goofs of the last few months.

We got to cry over our own failings that we've come face to face with as we've lived out of our comfort zones,

over how much we miss our friends and family back home,

over the injustices and horrors we have seen and heard and not been able to do anything about.

We were able to affirm, enjoy, and pray for each other,

and speak God's truth to each other's hearts-

that He could not love us more

even if we had been "the perfect HNGR interns".

That He is doing more than we can see or imagine,

in the lives of the people that we have grown to love so much here, and in our own.

That there is fruit in both of our hearts and lives from this time,

and there will be more."

i wrote that in an internet cafe in bolivia,

at 21,

homesick and tired and grateful for that time with my friend.

here we are, 25 years old,

a newlyishwed in illinois and a grad student in oregon...

when we are together,

this is still how it is

and what we do.

these days,

we are not usually homesick

and we spend most of our hours speaking our first language...

but it is still what we need.

i am so grateful for this friend who refreshes, reminds, and strengthens my heart.

wine tasting today... i'm working pretty hard to convince her they need to move here

.grateful down to the marrow of my bones.

i spent all morning at a clinic for farm workers

where i will be working one day a week

through this spring and summer.

hearing fast spanish flowing

makes my heart happier than i can say.

sitting in windowless exam rooms

and twenty-minute appointment slots,

all of a sudden

i couldn't breathe for gratitude

at where He has sent me...

for bolivia,

where i learned this language,

where i got this fire in my bones,

where i met the girls whose faces propel me.

for my year with head start,

where i fell in love with this population

and learned how i can serve and know Him in others,

right here.

for grad school,

where i am so privileged

to be learning,

which lets me get to do this work.

yes,

yes,

yes,

yes,

yes.

thank you for every single one.

for the homesickness

and the nightmares

and the faith crisis,

for the times in that wheaton year

that were long and lonely,

for the exhaustion

and frustrations

and my misfit in this academia world,

yes,

all worth it,

i would take them all again,

to be here, now, with them;

for all the places i can't believe i've gotten to be,

i thank you.

.HNGR girls.

Three years later and we're still rocking the stereotype...

matching long flowy skirts today, without even planning it.

Don't miss her Indian-print scarf...

and you can't see them, but I'm totes wearing my Chacos.

.to hold.

I'm in Texas for a week at a training in Trust-Based Relational Interventions for kids coming out of traumatic backgrounds.

Just listen to that title... trust-based, relational interventions.

Can you think of something better?

I'm so thankful to be here for more reasons than I can say

and my heart and mind are exploding all over the place.

(Some of you may be noticing this from the amount of texts you're getting from me hourly or so...

sorry, yall.)

As we learn how to create connection, presence, mindfulness, felt safety, nurture and structure, gentleness and playfulness,

I have been aching for a house of girls and the amazing staff who live out these principles in a city in Bolivia.

A re-post of something I wrote in February 2010,

when I had been back just weeks

and those faces were on my mind every minute of every day.

...I spent the last six months cuddling with 15 Bolivian teenage girls. Really. It is a big joke among my HNGR class that every single one of my twice-monthly assessment letters included at least something about physical touch. But trust me, to leave it out would not have given a good picture of my time. Of course, it makes grad school applications somewhat complicated. "Description of Clinical Experience: Please list job title and responsibilities". Responsibilities... um... is there a way to make "Rubbed backs and braided hair" sound professional?...

I loved it. I loved every minute. Bolivian culture involves a lot of physical touch; these girls in particular were way affectionate. And plus hugging doesn't require perfect Spanish. But, it felt more important than that.

Did, in holding these girls, I get to communicate to them that they were unconditionally accepted?
Touch can say so much more than words sometimes.

To feel held is such a big deal.

Did loving touch from the staff and from me communicate safety to them,

when before, physical contact had been a tool for their pain and harm?

Did they feel loved when we lightly touched their head or rubbed their back?

When we cupped their cheek or tucked their hair behind their ear?

Did they feel known, like they belonged?

Was it easier, then, for them to visualize the love of God that Gonzalo told them about in devotionals every morning,

Tino taught to them as he structured and organized their days, counseled them on work, disciplined them when necessary,

that Gladys led them to in their counseling sessions?

 

One girl I literally spent probably an hour every day just cuddling on the couch with. She was a shyer one. She took awhile to warm up to me. But once we became friends, about half-way in, she wanted to be leaning on my shoulder or laying quietly with my arm around her as I chatted and laughed with everyone in the living room as much as possible. Mosoj Yan threw a goodbye dinner for me two days before I left, but I had forgotten some stuff at the house and had to run back the next day to grab it. I was going to try to make it a really quick trip in because I didn't want to have to see everyone again and start crying... "Yes, that's a good idea, don't let the girls see you. Maria Eugenia cried the whole night after you left." What did I even do that would be that important to her? I held her.

We receive love by having material needs being met: Mosoj Yan gave them good meals, clothing, warm and safe beds. We receive love by having hope and a future: Mosoj Yan teaches them skills, counsels them that they are worthwhile, works to get them education. We receive love through words: encouragement; through memories: laughter, dancing, pizza parties, good conversations.

And, we are bodies. We are physical bodies with physical needs, with needs to be touched and held and loved physically.

At times when my language skills weren't enough

but even more than that my brain and heart failed to be able to communicate to them

how deep God's love for them is,

how much I hated what had been done to them,

every hope and dream I had for them...

I could lovingly touch them.

I could pray that as I held them they could receive that they were hold-able,

acceptable,

worth knowing and loving,

deserving of more than abuse.

What a privilege, to be able to hold.

Don't miss the amazing pictures Tim and Ash have been posting from our time with the girls at Mosoj Yan this summer.

Bolivia "teaser".

This is a two-minute preview video Tim put together from our Bolivia trip. It is absolutely beautiful. This is the house I did my six-month HNGR internship in. More video coming!!

I love all of it, but my favorites are the clips of their beautiful faces, starting at about 1:32.

In the meantime, Tim and Ash are starting to post Bolivia pics on their blog, so make sure to check in over there!!

Mosoj Yan Teaser from Tim and Asharae Kroll on Vimeo.

A reflection on 2009-2010.

In three days I will have lived in Oregon for exactly one year.

I've been pondering how to explain what these last twelve months have been for me.

I realized that without planning to, the last two summers I've done a write-up reflecting on the year before.

As I collect my thoughts and heart on the past year, it is good to reflect also where I was roughly this same time as I finished, first college, and then my first year out of college.

This was written in July 2010, seven months after returning from a six-month, completely life, faith, and self-changing internship in Bolivia, and five months after my mom was diagnosed with advanced and aggressive cancer.

Prayer this semester didn't look anything like what I have known it to look like before. I couldn't journal. I couldn't sit in a coffee shop and follow any train of thought long enough to feel like I was praying. The cheerfully-voiced and neatly patterned prayers I said with friends in the cafeteria before meals bore little to no resemblance to the way God and I were actually talking.

Me and Jesus, the me and Jesus we have been since I was 12, wasn't happening. I didn't know how to talk to Jesus in a world that lets little girls get raped and beaten and abandoned. Not in a fake, "Well, I just don't know how to talk to you if you're going to be like that" haughty way. I mean I literally did not know how to talk to Him in this new world in which I found myself. Sometimes I feel like my entire foundation that I stood on has been taken apart and put back together and I'm standing on something I don't even recognize. Now that I can breathe a little bit more I'm realizing that what I'm standing on is still pretty good. Sometimes I get these tiny glimpses that it might even be better. Stronger. But I had to learn how to do all these things on it that I knew how to do before, but the ways I knew how to do them don't work here. And the main thing that didn't work, was praying.

Praying with the expectation life is going to work out just beautifully didn't work. That sucked, but it was good. That was a wrong foundation I'd had. That's not how God works, and it's not how He's ever said He was going to work. I'm not sure why I thought otherwise, and it's been- it is- painful rearranging that. But it's good.

And, praying with the knowledge that God is good, didn't work. Because I wasn't so sure about that all the time anymore.
That sucked, and it wasn't good.

I didn't know how to pray without knowing that God is good, which means I didn't even know how to pray about the fact that I didn't know God was good. And so praying (and pretty much everything else, actually) felt terrifying.

So prayer this semester felt like it almost never happened. Because it didn't happen in any ways I had known to recognize.

Prayer this semester, instead of feeling like I was "keeping company with God", instead of quiet times in Starbucks or Caribou or long letters to God in my journal, was a lot of long walks, in the snow, by myself, with my iPod. Sometimes if it was cold or too late at night instead of walking it was driving, through my neighborhood, through the campus, going the speed limit and using turn signals, going slowly and mindlessly over the same route again and again as I tried to line my heart back up, in the quiet, for just a minute with the God I was missing.

Prayer was chopping vegetables. Really. So much so that I once heard a housemate confess to her boyfriend that she "kind of love[d] it when Emily gets depressed because we get a good soup". Prayer was hymns playing in the background as I focused on the purpose of peeling and chopping and stirring and found peace in the rhythm and the use of my hands.

Prayer was reading Rilke out loud before bed with my roommate and being able to, yes, line my heart up to these words. It was lighting a candle for five minutes at night as I asked God to bless the girls at Mosoj Yan- candle-lighting is something we did on the HNGR retreat which I found helpful.

Prayer was interceding for others, which I didn't do enough out of sheer laziness, but which by some beautiful miracle did not hold the difficulty that attempts at casual conversation with God did.

Prayer was and is, in an incredible gift of grace, the liturgy. It is going to church and saying and singing the same words every week, and in recent months being blessedly able to affirm them more and more. It is the gratitude that rises up in me that, in my inability to tell God these truths about Himself out of any spontaneity or warmth or even sense of friendship, I can sing them and raise my hands for an hour on Sunday mornings and get to tell Him them in that way. That I can find myself more and more knowing that I do believe these things, and that this liturgy, this church, is providing a way for me to affirm them before my own emotions or abilities are going to let me do so on my own. Oh, how grateful I am to get to praise God through words others have written and songs others are singing when my own heart is so confused and cold.

Prayer has been, greatly, others praying for me. That is something I think I underestimated the power of in these past seven months. People have prayed for me and that has been important.

Mostly as I have looked at myself and my interactions with God in the past seven months I have felt ashamed. Who am I to not pray? To not know how? To be so faithless? Clearly, to feel so far from prayer must mean I am far indeed. And how does this show gratitude to Mosoj Yan and the work they do?

But recently I have been realizing a bit more that it was a good thing for me to learn that prayer that does not look like journaling in a coffee shop and leaving with the feeling of peace, can still be prayer. That crying myself to sleep, God still heard me. That prayers lifted by others on my behalf and the behalf of my girls, do something powerful. And that if walking in the snow and chopping vegetables until my fridge was too full enabled me to be in front of God, then He was happy to meet me there.

I'm not very proud of how I lived the last seven months, but good things came out of them.

Mostly this year I felt like I couldn't pray. But maybe in His great and crazy mercy, He let me go for long walks and chop vegetables and rely on others' prayers, to teach me something about walking on without clarity or feelings of peace or any pride. Maybe He let me rely on the prayers of the church to teach me about the power of community worship, of the history of the big-C Church, of the importance of repetition for our souls, of the power that is in praising Him by choice and even by rote when we feel cold and dry.

I hope and pray that maybe in the long-term, these will be things that will let me see Him more.

Verónica's mom.

"That's Verónica's mom," they murmur to me, as we pull up to a small, garbage-filled park by a traffic circle. They nod at a tiny woman sitting on a bench with a group of men. She is dirty, tired-looking. I know her to be in her early thirties, but her size suggests she could be one of our girls; yet her drug-aged face suggests she has lived through decades more.

Verónica's mom?? Stories flood back to me...

***********

"Why is Verónica here? She's younger than the other girls we normally have."

"She doesn't have anywhere else to go." Gladys explained to me about Verónica's mom: a street girl herself, Verónica born when she was just fourteen. Verónica, as a baby and toddler, sleeping on the sidewalk on the street corners, as traffic screeched by and drunk men called out terrifying things, laughing.

"Verónica was referred to us at ten, and we keep her longer than most... she just doesn't have anywhere else to go."

"Do they have contact?"

"Yes. Sometimes. She's visited."

"Does she love her?"

Gladys paused. Her composure fell a bit.

"Yes. Yes, she loves her." She nodded. "She loves her... but... she doesn't know how to be a mom."

***********

"Hermano, why aren't the girls allowed to get phone calls at the house anymore?"

"We can't screen them all, to make sure they're good for them. Verónica, for instance. Her mom calls, sometimes. We used to let Verónica talk to her. But her mom would be drunk, or on drugs... or, often, she'd have just been beaten up by a boyfriend. And Verónica would cry and cry and want to go to her. She'd say she needed to go take care of her." 

It's our job to protect you, hija. We can't let you go to her. We know you love her, we know you want her to be okay. But it's not your job to protect her. It's our job to protect you. It's our job to keep you safe. Because we love you. We're sorry, hija. We can't let you go to her right now. We're so sorry.

***********

"Verónica, it's your turn to go on a date with me. Just you and me! We can go anywhere in the city you want. Where do you want to go?"

The other girls, on their turns, wanted ice cream, or the park nearby with swings and slides. They were giggly and chatty, excited to be out alone with a worker, excited for attention and a treat.

Verónica was quiet. We got in a taxi and she explained to the driver exactly where to go, in fast Spanish I couldn't follow. We got out in la Cancha, the open air market. Without hesitation, she led me through the stalls, past the stores, to a dark, less populated section I'd never been to before. She pointed to a small, faded sign advertising fried chicken, and we entered the restaurant. "My mom used to take me here when I was little."

It was dim and dank inside. The food was cheap, just pennies for our meal, really, and when it came it was stale and the worker didn't smile, just tossed it on the soiled table and walked away.

I tried to make conversation with her, ask her about school and friends, but, uncharacteristically, she was almost silent, giving me one-word answers. Eventually I gave up, and we just sat together. She ate slowly, staring around her at the surroundings. Drinking them in, I realized suddenly. Given anywhere in the city, she wanted to come back here. Where she used to come often, with her mom.

***********

Verónica, squeezing her eyes shut as she earnestly prayed out loud before a meal, thanking Papito Dios for how He provides for us. Verónica, begging to choose music to play as we did chores in the morning, always campaigning for reggaetón; Verónica, exlaiming, "Hermana! I have red hair dye! Can we streak your hair?".

Verónica, the girl who had been there the longest and who, though they'd never admit it, I think the staff think of most as their real daughter. Verónica, in Albergue the whole time I was on HNGR, and still there last summer when I came to visit. Eleven months ago, the day I flew away from Bolivia for the second time, she pressed a note into my hand at the airport. "Thank you Hermana Emily for spending time with us... I love you so much."

Verónica, now out of the house, working, finishing school. Verónica, living on her own in her very own apartment, but she comes back to visit every Sunday afternoon. Verónica, Gonzalo told me on this visit: "She broke the cycle. She used to want to go back to the streets. Now, when she has time to go 'home', she doesn't go to the streets anymore. When she needs something, she wants to come to Albergue."

***********

"That's Verónica's mom," they murmur to me, as we pull up to a small, dirty park by a traffic circle...

Verónica's mom... and though at our last stop on the streets, interacting with people unbathed and visibly drugged, I had felt uncomfortable and out of place, suddenly I am pushing out of the car, walking up to her, needing to see her face, to connect... Verónica's mom, and  I am suddenly reaching for her, introducing myself, looking deep into her eyes, somehow feeling like I owe her something, like I need to apologize. Most of all... I just want to know her. This woman... Verónica's mom.

I reach her, and then I stumble, falter. "Hola... me llamo Emily... yo conozco tu hija." I know your daughter.

She looks at me, nods. A slight, hazy smile, through a face I know to be aged by drugs, by street life, by more pain and less connection than probably I could imagine.

"Mi hija, conoces? Verónica es."

"Sí... Verónica... ella es muy preciosa a mi." Your daughter is precious to me.

I grab Asharae. "Ash. Can you take a photo of us? I want a photo with Verónica's mom."

Why? I don't know. This woman is the mother of someone I love. Someone I have gotten to have a tiny part in getting to care for. This woman standing in front of me, loves this girl we love... she loves her so much more than my twenty-three-year-old, childless heart can fathom. And yet we were the ones who got to raise her. I, a twenty-one-year-old American college student, got to feed her dinner and laugh with her and hear about her school day. I got to watch her pray before meals and see the results of her experiments with hair dye, got to hear her dancing to pop songs with her friends and giggling as she played tricks on Hermano Gonzalo.

I put my arm around Verónica's mom's shoulders. She grins at the camera, a gap-toothed, stoned smile.

"Gracias," I say to her, "Gracias,"... and I think I am thanking her for her daughter.

I'm sorry, I want to say, though I don't know why.

Because Albergue gets her now, and you don't. Not in the same way.
Because your life is this dirty park and these men who hit you;
because of the opportunities I've had, the life I was born into... someday when I have my babies I will get to raise them myself, but you didn't have anyone to teach you how to do that.

"Ella es muy preciosa a mi..." what else can I say to her? Why should she care what some young, American girl has to say about her child? "...I pray for your daughter."

She looks at me. Then looks away. "Sí... sí. Pray she will get off the streets. Not like me."

 ***********

"Does she love her?"

"...Yes. Yes, she loves her."

"Pray she will get off the streets. Not like me."

Out of a God of abundance...

"What does my faith require of me?

To be vigilant about justice,

to love boundlessly,

never to cease hoping,

and to be actively involved in the work of healing."

-Denise Ackermann,

in one of the books I would

most want for everyone to read

I read this quote at a perfect moment today.

I find both rest and reassurance,

and deep challenge in those words.

Mother.

I'm home maid-of-honoring for the weekend and my mother really, really wanted to spend quality time with me today.

Which, you know, was great just because, yay, quality time is so my love language and I love my mom.

But also.

My mother's version of quality time is:

"Sweetie, PLEASE can we go to REI

so I can buy you lots of things for your camping trip?"

I'm not kidding.

My HNGR self really wants to feel guilty about that,

but my everything-else self kinda thinks I won the parent lottery.

I am fully outfitted in Patagonia everything.

 

(My new Chacos are so.so.so cute. Like I-want-to-be-buried-in-these-shoes-cute. And everyone knows Chacos are the official HNGR footwear, so clearly my HNGR self can calm down.)

Rape.

In the spring of 2010, an event was held at my school: Take Back the Night. Take Back the Night exists to raise awareness of sexual violence, to prevent it, and to decrease shame and isolation among survivors.

In my opinion, to work to remove shame and isolation is a holy calling. It is a picture of who God is, and it is His work. He makes broken things into beautiful. That is who He is.

At that point, I had been home about four months from my internship in Bolivia, where I had spent my days (and nights) hanging out in a group home with fifteen beautiful, hyper, joyful, crazy girls. Beautiful girls who had been hurt, objectified, made to serve others' evil whims, abused, raped. Adrienne, the president of the club organizing the event and a good friend, asked me if I would speak. I prepared and gave a short talk on a few themes of what I had learned: on our calling to watch out for those who are utterly unprotected; on redeeming physical touch.

An important part of the night is an open mike time, where people can step forward and share their stories. Of being hurt, of being objectified, made to serve others' evil whims, abused, raped. It is a safe space, and after each story is finished, together we all shout, "THAT'S NOT OKAY".

My clearest memory from that night, though, is not my talk, and it's not the open mike time. My clearest memory from that night is an upsetting one. It's not a bad memory, exactly. But it was jarringly painful to me when it happened and has been every time I've remembered it since- which, to be honest, has been often.

I walked away from campus after the program with one of my most beloved and respected friends. It had meant a lot to me that she had come, in the middle of the week in a busy semester; I knew it had been mostly because I was speaking and she wanted to support me.

We walked in the dark together, both silent. And then, after a few minutes, she told me that before that night she had not known that it is always not okay.

I do not have words to convey how much I love this girl, or how much I respect her. That day, and today, and every day in between. She has a heart which is more kind and humble than almost any I know. And, perhaps in large part because of my deep love and respect for her, I also cannot put into words how painful that statement was to hear.

The point of this isn't to share anger or shock or even pain. The take away from that interaction was that her information and therefore her opinion had changed. That is exactly the hope and the purpose of Take Back the Night. And, further proving my opinion of her, her life changed- immediately. As in, she went straight to her computer and wrote a letter to a friend conveying compassion.

I don't think I ever thought it was okay. But without Bolivia, would I know?

It is horrifying to me that there could ever, ever, ever be a question in our minds or a bit of indifference in our hearts about beautiful, beloved, image-of-God bodies and souls, and the protection they deserve.

I don't know everyone who reads this blog. I don't know your stories and I don't know if you think it might sometimes be a little bit okay. I don't know if you've ever had someone tell you that it was okay. It is not okay.

Removing shame and isolation is who He is.

(on prostitution.)

.10,000 reasons for my heart to find.

Will I ever ever ever understand why I get these kinds of friends in my life??

Such a sweet week.

"...for all Your goodness i will keep on singing

10,000 reasons for my heart to find..."

That song's been on repeat for me this month. Looking at these faces I love so much, I gave up keeping count. 10,000 sounds about right.

 *************

 

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.how will He not also?.

"God and I,

we've long had trust issues."

-Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts

 

Trusting God has been hard for me the last couple of years.

So often our reasoning for trusting God's faithfulness is based on ways we can see it in our past and our present. "He's been faithful before, He'll be faithful again" sings a popular song on Christian radio these days; "Has thou not seen how thy desires ever have been granted in what He ordaineth?" comfort the lyrics of a hymn from the 1800s. I wrote last year about my struggles with that since HNGR: What about if His providence in the past looks like no definition of the word protection, what if none of their most simple, basic desires have been granted?

I love this book and can read it and learn from it, because the author goes there.
I've been soaking in this chapter this week:


"In an empty pickup truck I hear voices scarred- the voices of people I have long loved and their voices cry pain and I honor them with the listening:
When your memories have an old man groping for your crotch, hot, foul breath on your face, and your skin crawls? Give thanks?
And an ultrasound screen stretches still and you're sent home to wait for the uterine muscles to contract out the dead dreams?
Or the woman you lay down with, shared the naked and unashamed, she beds another man, hands you back the wedding albums, and says she never knew love for you, what then?...

The words sear. I know their voices and I remember their faces...
I wait, just wait. In the wait memories blister.
And in the still, Spirit comes and He whispers a name.
Christ.
And I see a world through His lens: "He who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all- how will He not also, along with Him, graciously give us all things?"
He gave us Jesus. Jesus! Gave Him up for us all.
If we have only one memory, isn't this one enough?

 Why is this the memory I most often take for granted? He cut open the flesh of the God-Man and let the blood. He washed our grime with the bloody grace. He drove the iron ore through His own vein. 

Doesn't that memory alone suffice? Need there be anything more?
If God didn't withhold from us His very own Son, will God withhold anything we need?

If trust must be earned, hasn't God unequivocally earned our trust
with the bark on the raw wounds,
the thorns pressed into the brow,
your name on the cracked lips?...

All gratitude is ultimately gratitude for Christ, all remembering a remembrance of Him.
For in Him all things were created, are sustained, have their being.
Thus Christ is all there is to give thanks for; Christ is all there is to remember.


It is safe to trust."

Only when.

Last week I made a friend turn off a rerun of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, because there was a torture scene and I couldn't handle it.

They were gracious and a little confused. I tried to laugh and make light of it, but was panicking inside a little bit, and was clear that, sorry, but I need to turn this off, now. Her husband pointed out, "Um, I mean this is from the 90s. I don't think they're going to put anything really graphic on..."

I know it probably wasn't going to be graphic. I know that it, honestly, is a silly TV show, and the fact that it was involving vampires and an overly-dramatic David Boreanaz should have meant that I could continue eating my ice cream as I gave the screen my half-attention and chatted with my friends.

But I can't do torture. I can't do a person looking up at someone with fear- even badly-acted, clearly fake, for-the-sake-of-ratings fear. I can't do screams or grimaces or any visual of knowing someone is about to hurt you and being unable to get away.

Those are real girls to me. Those are real faces, and that is real terror. People I know felt that terror and knew that pain. And so I cannot watch it, or listen to it, or think about it.


I can't watch it or listen to it or think about it unless.

Last night, I sat on the phone with a new, precious friend. We talked for over an hour and it was one of those conversations where you're both falling over each other with excitement and shared passion and ideas and understanding.

And at one point, she started a sentence and I knew what I was about to hear.

I felt the familiar clenching in my stomach- that I feel when a friend suggests watching a movie I know has violence in it, when I know I'm about to be in a group situation where there may be kids crying and I won't be able to physically turn and see: they're safe, they're fine, no one is hurting them, they're just crying because they're kids.

Normally I pay attention to that clenching in my stomach as a sign to get myself out of a situation. But I didn't stop her this time. Because she has held so much more than I have, because it was important, because I took a deep breath and knew, I can handle it, when I really have to.

We talked and I heard the stories. And a few minutes later in the conversation I realized something.

Yes, this makes me sick. Yes, I hate this. Yes, this is everything horrible and evil and full of death and the fall, just like my girls' stories are, just like Buffy the Vampire Slayer's producers' lame representations of someone scared are.


But I knew that I wouldn't be waking up in a nightmare... not tonight.


We talked and laughed (only crazy people who understand what it is to have loved street kids can laugh in a conversation that includes rape, by the way) and understood each other and groaned over stories and figured out how we can combine our resources to get more information, more help, more healing, more redemption, more love, to these kids.

We were talking to heal. We were talking to help. We were talking because we want to use our gifts and resources to contribute to His work of bringing all things right: even street kids, even rape, even torture, even terror, even death.

When I'm hearing it then?
My stomach clenches. My heart races and my skin gets clammy. I want to throw up and I want to scream.
But I don't want to hide. I don't need to leave the room.

Not when it's to, in some tiny way, be a part of the redemption.

"And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,
"Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man...

He will wipe every tear from their eyes,
and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning,
nor crying, nor pain anymore,
for the former things have passed away."

And He who was seated on the throne said,

"Behold, I am making all things new."

Revelation 21:3-5

.why Christmas means more to me as an adult.

After HNGR, and cancer, and after a year and a half of post-grad life, and after, I think, a little bit more understanding that, no matter how filled with joy and love my life is (and oh is it!),
this world is not my home and the point of life is not to be happy and without pain.

"The celebration of Advent is possible only to those who are troubled in soul,
who know themselves to be poor and imperfect,
who look forward to something greater to come. 
...the Holy One himself comes down to us,
God in the child in the manger.
God comes.
The Lord Jesus comes.
Christmas comes.
Christians rejoice!...

We are no longer alone. God is with us."

-Bonhoeffer, Christmas Sermons

Such comfort and joy in heartache or fear:

with Christmas everywhere around me, I'm reminded...

not that things are easy or painless, but that in all things:

incarnation, He walked our earth, Emmanuel, God-with-us,

He abides in us.

(HT for Bonhoeffer quote)

On Psalm 95.

"Oh come, let us sing to the Lord; let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation! For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods. In His hand are the depths of the earth; the heights of the mountains are His also. For He is our God, and we are the people of His pasture, and the sheep of His hand. Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, as on the day at Massah in the wilderness, when your fathers put Me to the test and put Me to the proof, though they had seen Me work."  (Psalm 95:1, 3-4, 7-8)

That psalm is prayed every day in the church liturgy. Of all the psalms, when the church fathers chose what to include, what they thought we need to hear and pray daily, they chose that one. Why?

I first heard that question explored at a service at Rez last winter. I remember how Justin showed the place where the voice in the Scripture changes: from about God, to God speaking. Up through verse seven we are speaking of God, but at verse eight, He speaks to us:


"...on the day at Massah, when your fathers put me to the test and put me to the proof, though they had seen me work."

That's a reference to Exodus 17. Verse 7 tells us exactly what God is referring to here, what happened at Meribah and Massah. Moses had just led the Israelites out of Egypt, into freedom...


"[Moses] called the place Massah and Meribah (testing and quarrelling), because the Israelites quarreled and because they tested the Lord saying, 'Is the Lord among us or not?'".

I was literally breathtaken as I read the words of that psalm, the one the church fathers decided out of a hundred and fifty psalms we need to read every day. Breathtaken with conviction as I saw spelled out, by the Israelites, exactly the question my mind and heart wonder so often.


Is the Lord among us or not.

Is God really guiding this decision I have to make... or not.
Did God see my girls... or not.
Was He with them... or not.
Is any work occurring in my heart... or not.
Am I changing and growing... or not.
Did that conversation happen for a reason... or not.
Does He know how she's hurting?
Is He working in his struggle?
Could my flaws and failures screw everything up?
Does good really come from pain?
Did You know that was going to happen?


Are You among us, or not?

Awareness of that question in my heart has changed my prayers since hearing that sermon.
My prayers in fear; my prayers in uncertainty; my prayers in the various new seasons of the last year; my anguished prayers, still, looking at sweet girls whose lives seem so unfair to me.

I don't have answers. I don't like pain. I hate what those girls- what everyone who's known real suffering- have gone through. I still have very little understanding how the whole our-decisions-affect-our-lives vs. God-is-sovereign-and-guiding thing works.

But I have 'seen Him work', and I know that He is among us.


I may not know what You're doing, God.
I may not understand the balance of Your will and my decisions.
I may not like what You're doing,
and sometimes I may not see if You're 'doing' anything at all.
But, when I ask that question, I can answer: yes.
Whatever it is that You're doing-
yes, You are here. You are among us.

"Miracles occur within the rules"- Quote Round-up.

Whenever I read something that I love or want to think more about, but don't have time to journal or blog it, I stick it in my email drafts folder (no idea why). Theoretically this is so I'll go back and reread it later, but generally it takes me a few months to remember to do so. Here's the June-October-ish round-up...

(Certain blogs make frequent re-occurrences) Kisses from Katie:

"And slowly but surely I am learning to trust my Father in the way that my three year old trusts me. Learning to just allow Him to carry me, take me where He wants me and know that I will still wake up in His arms, and in His arms it is safe. Even when I wake up in unfamiliar territory."

"What are you going to do next/with your home/with your children/with your ministry/in five years/when you are older/etc... I am not concerned with what I am going to do. I am interested only in what I am becoming. Each day, I am hoping to become more like the One who created me."

"I believe that this is how He has loved us and I do not pretend to know why. But I know that He who did not spare His own Son will also graciously give us all things we need, and so I cling to believing this is for good."

"...I pray only that they are becoming people who know Him more."

"...And we pray and we pray that we could spill out the grace God has so lavished on us."

Fabs Harford:

"I have traded Him for the fleeting pleasures of this world too many times to count, but He has never traded me.  And He will never trade me.  And He has met me in the pig pen and He has led me home."

  "He doesn’t promise to give me everything I need to never be hungry.  He promises to give me everything I need to not starve to death on the road home to Him."

"There is only one thing I really need.  And it is secure."

Enjoying the Small Things:

"My bottom line in parenting--in special needs, in friendship, in anything--is always this: Most of the time I don't know what the hell I'm doing, but I damn well know how to spend time with my kids--how to have fun."

"It's about deeper relationships with family and friends and creating a loving, caring environment that everyone can flourish in."

Dig This Chick:

"I wonder what firsts will happen today? I wonder... "

"I decided it is a good place to be, excited for next and nostalgic for last."

"So much of diligence is about slowing down and attending to what is in my hand already."

(I actually can't find where I got this quote from, but I think it was here.)

 And then just random others from all over.

"...There are promises connected to everything we experience."

-Urban Servant

"Some people are more interested in knowing God's will than in knowing God."

-Mark Batterson

"The question is not, 'When will we get what we are waiting for?' but 'What will we become as we wait?'"

-Paul Tripp

"The good hostess is the person who makes you feel welcome, relaxed, and part of his or her life." 

-girltalk

"Breathe Him in and let Him exhale from every pore. Aren't we supposed to know Jesus so well that we know ourselves only in Him?"

-In the Heart of My Home

"I’m not saying it’s going to be easy. I don’t have any promises about ease, except: It gets worse. I DO have huge promises about joy."

-John Piper

"We lay our hope, full and tender, into the depths of Him and wait in hope for God to resurrect something good. Good always necessitate long waiting."

-Ann Voskamp 

"He who knows the why for his existence can bear almost any how."

-Victor Frankl

"In working out our callings, we are to perform for one audience, the audience of One."

-Os Guinness

"If you can only remember one thing, this is it: What is legitimate and godly is done in the light, known by others, and doesn't violate biblical standards. Anything you experience that is done furtively, in the dark, and kept secret is nearly always sinful."

 -Carolyn McCulley

"So how do we keep from wasting our trial? We persist in enduring. No matter how long the road. No matter how numerous the setbacks. No matter how deep the disappointment. We must keep before us that glorious destination: "perfect and complete, lacking in nothing." And having done all, we must simply stand." 

-girltalk

"The tricky part is living in the tension without becoming bitter about it. As my last six weeks in Longido approach, I'm trying to be mindful of that; I'm trying to let each day be its own and nothing else, trying not to manufacture experiences but thank God for the ones I have. Thank him for the people I have. Thank him for the sky that seems so much bigger here. Thank him for the dust that covers my feet, and the way the air feels so muggy on my runs at dusk. Thank him for his faithfulness; it's more than enough to make this very-not-Tanzanian-girl very happy in Tanzania for the time she has."

-Sweet Kait, current HNGR intern, Tanzania.

"Also, sorry but you're going to get me started on how much I hate the mobility of the modern world. Because we know such amazing people and have such cool lives and have had the privilege of being a part of amazing communities, we are destined to always miss people and want to be in a million places at once. 100 years ago, people lived in the same places their entire lives, with the same people. But lets be honest, I also love the freedom that modern transportation has afforded us. It has opened us up to incredible relationships and unique learning opportunities. And isn't it better to have this than never step out of our comfort zone? Hmmm the irony of it."

-my beautiful love Hayley, current HNGR intern, Ecuador- via email.
(I looovee her... this made me laugh so much- and I agree.)

"I just feel the present fact that if God weren't petitioning on my behalf, I'd be screwed."

-my dear friend Josh, via g-chat

"This change in the seasons always ushers in one of my favorite family traditions—spending our fall and winter evenings reading books together. Just about every evening we gather in the living room in that time between dinner and bedtime, and for 30 or 40 minutes the family sits while I read to them."
-Tim Challies

"Our rules for the group were to give encouragement as much as we could, and to give advice only once in a great while; we gave rebuke only when absolutely necessary, and we gave condemnation never. This was one of the times when they gave a little advice. They said, "We think you shouldn't pray. We will become your prayer for you."
-Richard Foster

"I believe that prayer truly worked for them, I believe that God heard them, and that even though things didn't necessarily get better, they were at least comforted by the Holy Spirit and that his presence was there with them. I want that, I've wanted that, so I went in search of how to pray like that."

-Foster again- both in a CT interview

"God always does more than we can ask or think."

-Worship Matters

"There is nothing worth living for, unless it is worth dying for."
-Elisabeth Elliot

"After calming the sea he said, “Why are you afraid?” Not because Christians never drown. But they are safe in drowning."
-John Piper again
(wow, I'm fairly verbal about not agreeing with a good amount of his theology, but apparently I do like his one-liners.)

"The essence of the Christian salvation is to say that He is good enough and that I am in Him."
-Martyn Lloyd-Jones

"I can't remember one single regret/
in serving God only/
and trusting His hand..."
-Sara Groves (from whom I got the name of my blog!)

"Today you'll preach to yourself the true Gospel of need and provision or a false gospel of independent righteousness, strength and wisdom."

-Paul Tripp

"The gospel is for tired receivers, not triumphant achievers."

-Tullian Tchidivjian

"Don’t think about what you don’t have or what you can’t do.  Ask yourself, Who can I encourage?  Who can I bless?  Who can I invite to my place for a meal?  Who can I offer to babysit for? ...  But you can be fruitful no matter where you are."
 -The Blazing Center

"Faith is the refusal to panic."

- Martyn Lloyd-Jones
 
"On the day when the weight deadens on your shoulders and you stumble/

may the clay dance to balance you."

-John O'Donohue

And last but not least, from the epic cancelled TV show, Joan of Arcadia: 

Joan: Make Kevin walk, please? I'll just ask this one favor and then I'll never ask for one again.
It's so easy for you. All you have to do is snap your fingers or blink your eyes.
Just let Kevin stand up.
God: People ask me to do things - big things, little things - billions of times, every day. 
Joan: What do you expect? You're God! 
God: I put a lot of thought into the Universe; came up with the rules. It sets a bad example if I break them - not to mention, shows favoritism. Why should one person get a miracle, and not everybody else? Can you imagine the confusion? It's better when we all abide by the rules. 
Joan: No miracles?
God: Miracles happen within the rules.

Holler!

(It's interesting to go back and look at what themes there are- I give basically no thought to it as I do it, just copy and paste something quickly and move on... so it's kind of revealing to see what's been pulling at me instinctively. Lots of trusting God, lots of waiting, and lots of cherishing relationships... the months where I was still working held lots of faithfulness and work ethic. Also, I'm not blogging most of these, but there were lots on adoption and fun homeschooling activities... yeah, maybe not this week.)