Wipe that Glass

The first thing we know about God is He is Creator. He takes nothing and makes something. He makes many somethings. More somethings than any one of us will ever see in our entire lifetime. Staggering.

I understand God as Creator, but if He is Creator, that means He is infinitely creative—and that is something I will never be able to grasp or understand.

He is involved in every iota, every molecule, every atom, every gene, every thought, every action—and He is infinitely creative, which means He never stops creating.

Just thinking about that for three minutes staggers me.

But it becomes so real, so personal, when I think about all the ways He has been creative with me—and the accompanying realization that He isn't finished with me yet. He is still creating, still teaching, still growing, still perfecting, still forming.

So an infinitely creative God, constantly creating and recreating His people, is a God who can be trusted to not make mistakes. Every scrap of my spectacular story, every rag of my richest rich, every moment of my mind—these form who I am and who I am becoming. He knew the washed up, backwards, inside-out, upside-down story He'd bring me through and He knew that through the mess I'd see Him.

And I'd see Him through a glass dimly, but that dirt and grime, that's mine. I own that grime. God let me have that grime because otherwise I'd never understand His holiness, His set-apartness. Now all I can do is never stop asking Him to wipe that glass clean.

I love that.

I really love that.

I love it because it's my hope, more than anything, that we'd spend our lives helping others to clean that grime. To take a rag and say, "You too? Me too. Let's clean it together. Let's see Him more clearly, love Him more for Who He truly is."

I don't know what your grime is, but I know God knows it. He made it, every atom and molecule. He knows your issues with fundamentalism, gender roles, abuse, theology, culture, suffering, depression, death, divorce, fear. He knows it all. And He's so creative that He knows how to draw you in, grime covered you, and show you Himself, holy and splendid, majestic and clean.

It's spectacular.

Sleeping Through a Year

My word for 2013 was rest and it wasn't until yesterday that I saw the humor in it. I came into 2013 sleep deprived and exhausted. By the time I finished the year long theological training program in May (in which I needed to rise by 4:30am to make it to class on time), I wanted to swear off middle of the nights for the rest of time. This year sleep has been my elusive friend and favorite companion. In other years I'd have said I was depressed, but this year was different. I honestly was tired. I was soul tired, heart tired, mind tired. I wanted emotional rest, yes, but really, I just wanted to rest.

There were so many times this year when I resented the sleep I craved. "What is wrong with me," I'd ask myself. I've never been a snooze-button pusher and I would press it three, four, five times every morning. I'd keep myself up later than I needed, simply because the thought of more than seven hours of sleep sounded lazy, unnecessary, and entitled.

I know there are some of you who may roll your eyes at the luxury of being able to press the snooze button at all; your alarm clocks cry themselves awake intermittently through the night and early into the morning. It's okay, there are other things you get that I don't that are much nicer, so we're even-steven.

As I reviewed my year, asking myself a dozen questions I ask every January 1st, I realized I've been given exactly what I asked for, rest, but I hadn't seen it for what it was. God gives his beloved rest and sometimes that's just plain shut eye. Sometimes what we seek is a haven, a quietness, a trust, and strength, thinking that will bring us rest, and rightfully so:

In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength. Isaiah 30:15

But sometimes we just need to trust the times and sunlight and darkness, and just go to sleep.

I'm grateful I slept through 2013. It wasn't the rest I thought I wanted, or craved, but at the end of the year it was the rest I needed. I can trust that because God never sleeps, never slumbers, always keeps watch over His children.

He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber. Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.

The Lord is your keeper; the Lord is your shade on your right hand. The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night. Psalm 121

My word for 2014 is work. Let's see how this one turns out ;)

The Promise of Place

Grey Texas days are my favorite. Because they are so rare, or because I love grey more than blue, I don't know. Back home trees enclose me and so I feel safe. Here there are no towering pines or old maples, so I take the clouds instead and find a haven in them. Being away for a month was good for me. I did not miss Texas, but I missed place.

The truth is I feel misplaced these days. Misplaced by God, misplaced by men, misplaced, mostly, by myself. I have never felt comfortable in my own skin, but these past months I have felt a foreigner even to myself.

Who is this person? I ask as I roll over awake in the morning, when I hug a friend, when I try to explain myself, excuse myself, examine myself. I feel a stranger to her and estranged from her. As though I've forgotten how to take my own pulse, as though I am unsure I have a pulse.

That sounds hyperbole and I know it, but I feel it all the same. The creeping darkness of discouragement snatches away courage, not its opposite, affirmation, as it might seem.

It is a dark day outside and there are dark days all around us. Have you felt it? I am not prone to pessimism except when I am.

I am reading Hebrews this morning, about Abraham and the promise, and I remember the promises God gave him: land, east and west and north and south; descendants as many as the stars; a son, a babe, just one. Just one.

God put Abraham in his place and gave him place and then gave him a place in history. We know him because of his son, and his son's son, and his son's son's son and so on. Because God took a man on a mountainside, an old man, and gave him place.

I wonder sometimes if Abraham knew the gift of place on that day. If he knew he was destined for good things, a forefather of faith and many mentions in the canon. Or if he only stood there and just believed what God told him.

Romans says that Abraham's faith was credited to him as righteousness (Rom. 4.22). The truth is my righteous anything has felt like a failure this year, but faith? Faith, not in the promise itself, but the giver of the promise? The promise of place, not for place's sake, but for the promise-giver? Faith I can muster up, if I try.

He said He's prepared good works for us (Eph. 2.10) and I have to believe that. When good anything feels very far off and very impossible today. He has prepared a place for us (John 14.2) and whether that is here, in this home, or in a new heaven and new earth, God said it.

Father, help me to know my place. That the very safest place for me is at the foot of the cross, as a temple of the Holy Spirit, as your daughter, as a discipler and learner, a friend. Most of all, help me to see Christ in His place, high and lifted up, seated on the throne, parenting a world, and following the direction of His Father, wholly unconcerned with His place even while He prepares a place for us.

The Long Way Home

I drive home tonight with the snow coming full at me, like swimming in the solar system. You know it if you've driven in it, coming down fast, coming down full, laying thick. It's so beautiful it takes my breath away, I get dizzy at its beauty. But the road is ahead and it slinks long and dark and the snow lays thicker and my tires take me home to the stone house over the bridge on the hill by the river. I grew up driving on these roads.

Not really. I grew up in southeastern Pennsylvania. That's where first steps and lost teeth and history tests and high school graduation happened. But it was on these roads that I grew up, that I came into my adulthood, that I lost faith in everyone and God, Him too. And it is these roads that I find myself back on, so at home, so full of faith in God and still not in everyone, or anyone.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

A friend and I drove on these roads for so many hours today. Heated seats in a snow ready Suburu made the drive more than bearable, almost enjoyable. We talked about the kingdom and the gospel and faith and planting churches and love and life and hard conversations and good ones. He dropped me off at my car in Potsdam tonight and hugged me tight and I nearly cried and I'm nearly crying now.

This place is so known to me and I am so known here. I know its cracks and crevices, its hills and valleys, real and metaphorical. I know its roads and turns and I anticipate them by rote. The anatomy of here is home and my anatomy is home here.

I am not homesick for here anymore than I am homesick right now for my very own bed or home in Texas, or anymore than I am homesick for heaven, really. Heaven is just the place where we are surrounded by those who love most—and it is not us that they love most, but this is why it is the safest place of all. That kind of love transcends this horizontal home.

But I leave my friend and weep on the way home, diving headfirst into the Milky Way of snow, gulping up the north country air that smells of woodsmoke and cold and snow—which is a scent I cannot describe even if I try. I weep because coming here reminds me to set my sights on something better than the flurries in front of me, but on the long road before me.

It is a long way home and we are all so far away still.

Maranatha.

Sweetest Frame

There are sweet idols in my life. Tempered steel overlaid with silver. Carved wood overlaid with gold (Isaiah 30:22). These are the things that bid for my time, my affections, my joy, and even my mourning. They care not what kind of attention I give to them, only that my whole attention is given. This past week we finished 11 weeks of studying 1, 2, & 3 John. We gathered one last evening in the sanctuary and a friend led us singing through The Solid Rock. My favorite line from the hymn comes in the first verse: I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly lean on Jesus name.

It is my favorite line, but most times I cannot bring myself to sing it. It simply isn't true, and most of the time I doubt even my desire for it to be true.

The sweet frames in my life seem not so sordid as they really are when held against the surpassing beauty of Christ alone—and yet, oh how they make such palatable feasts.

Once someone told me my faith seemed like a crutch, a way to deal with a broken family, untimely death of my brother, and a move away from all familiar things. I carried those words with me for a decade, asking myself if this faith was less paramount and more crutch, something to buffer me while all around me the world gave sway.

It wasn't until the past few years I began to see, though, that if my faith was a crutch (and I believe it is), it was because without it I could not walk or stand at all. The sweet idols walk beside me but crumble when the slightest weight is laid on them—these cannot carry me through to the beloved face of Christ. Only He can do that and He promises He does—and will.

I can trust the sweetest frame, but that frame will falter without fail. But to wholly trust in Jesus name? It may be a crutch for a limping me, but it leads to the ultimate Healer and I limp gladly, trusting in the Sweetest Name.

Three Things I'm Glad I've Done in My Singleness

I suppose I don't know very much about being married, or even being engaged, or being in a relationship, but I know a pretty good amount about being single. And I'm knowing it from a different angle than ever before. The past few weeks I've been thinking about a few things I'm so grateful I've done in my singleness that will prepare me for the seasons to come. I'm grateful I never lived alone. Since 2000 I have had 34 roommates. That's not because I'm a bad roommate either, I promise! It was just life circumstances, the nature of moving often, having roommates who married, graduated, or moved on. I'm grateful for every woman with whom I've lived. Each of them came from vastly different lifestyles, the daughter of missionaries, the daughter of hippies, the daughter of a broken family, the nearly-perfect family. Girls who struggled with mental illness, spiritual brokenness, had strong faith or weak faith. I do not have a single regret from living with each of these women. The person I am today is in part due to each of them.

Singles, live with roommates. I understand you want to have your things just as you want them, have your own space, and more, but there has been no better preparation for the season of dying to self I'm in now than living with so many different people.

I'm grateful I wasn't friends with only singles. In this season I find myself running often to my married friends for advice, counsel, accountability, and more. If I had isolated myself to only being friends with those in a similar season of singleness, I would not have a cache of married men and women to seek help from. Being in a relationship is a joyful thing, but it is also a hard thing. There are things in this season I never expected to struggle with. Having someone who's been there take my face in their hands and say, "Hey, this is normal," is so good.

Singles, seek out married friends. Do not isolate yourself or relegate your friendships to other singles. Do not seek out only friendship of those in the same exact season as you. This is hard and will take sacrifice on your part, but I promise you: someday they will be the ones sacrificing for you.

I'm grateful I learned to embrace this gift for this day. Years ago I read a quote by Elisabeth Elliot,

"This gift for this day. The life of faith is lived one day at a time, and it has to be lived-not always looked forward to as though the "real" living were around the next corner. It is for today we are responsible. God still owns tomorrow."

I never forgot those words. I longed for years to really see each day as a gift and I can honestly say that in the months and years leading up to the most recent season, I did see my singleness as a gift. As I prepared to move into my present house this past summer, I was excited because I saw it as an opportunity to have some girls live with me in a discipleship context. There's a natural discipleship that comes from living with one another, but I had intentions to do it even more deeply as I moved into this season—even for the rest of my life. I couldn't wait. Why? Because I was learning more deeply what it means to ask myself, "What's in my hand?" The most obvious answer was my singleness and I wanted to use it as fully as possible. I do not regret a second of that redeemed time. Did I do it perfectly? No. But I did (and do!) treasure my singleness.

Singles, what is in your hand? This is your gift for today and it is only for today. God still owns tomorrow. Embrace that.

Next

One thing I have never wanted to do on Sayable is be gimmicky. I don't want to sell things (those ads to the right were a long time in coming and I debate whether I'll keep them or not). I don't want you to feel pressure to comment, contact me, follow me, subscribe to me, or have anything to do with me. I want Sayable to be about the gospel and Jesus. Because it is written by me there's going to be a lot about me here. But I like to keep it as deflective as possible. I hope you know that. Because of that personal preference, I have hesitated to write much about something near and dear to my heart. My day job.

I love my job. If you had asked me in college to craft my dream job, this is it. If you had asked me four years ago what I wanted to be doing in four years, this is it. If you had asked me what demographic of people I felt burdened most for, it's the people we get to help every day. If you had asked me what kind of co-workers and employers I'd want to spend the most of my time with, these are the people.

I love my job.

So it was with much hesitation this year when I felt the Lord nudging me toward other things. I balked, I meandered, I argued, I asked again and again and again: Are you sure, Lord? Because this? This I love. But again and again the answer was yes. The opportunities to do things out of my comfort zone, but within my gift-set were rising and I was having to say no or not yet to so many of them.

Proverbs 18:10 has been a verse I've set before me as my trust barometer: A man's gift makes room for him and brings him before kings. God has been faithful to make room for me and bring opportunities into my life, I needed to trust the room and kings were good and of Him.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

In the next month I will be phasing out of my position in the creative department at Sower of Seeds International Ministries. I will leave knowing I have been faithful to work hard, work deep, rebrand, set a standard for the design department here. I will also leave with so many unfinished projects and unseen dreams done. I love this place. Not just because it's my job, but because in my time here I have seen many other ministries doing what we're doing in the world, and I honestly haven't seen the kind of integrity and faithfulness to the local church and gospel I see here.

SOS is not about gimmicks and the social gospel. The men and women who work here are not out for fame, fortune, or their own futures. They do not sell a product or raise money for personal gain. We love the gospel and seeing dead bones come to life.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The purpose of this post is two-fold.

One, I wanted to let you know what the next phase of life looks like for me. I'll be working on some large writing projects, speaking to women with some women I love (more on both of those things soon), preparing for marriage, picking up graphic design jobs (hire me if you need book covers, branding, invitations, etc. I'm game for anything.), blogging more regularly, and just generally making a go of it as a freelancer again. You are my network, so if you think of something you think I'd be perfect for, let me know! Sky's the limit.

But second, I wanted to just point you to an amazing non-profit doing on-the-ground work in a local church context. Every well we dig, every girl who is rescued from the red light district, every child who is fed—all this happens in connection to the local church in India and north Texas. We believe the gospel is the hope of every person and the most effective way to give the gospel to someone is to meet their felt need and connect them with people who will walk with them. If you're looking for a place to invest your time, finances, or resources, consider Sower of Seeds International Ministries. There's nothing in that for me. Just want to leave this place commending them and recommending them to you.

Here's a short sample of one thing we get to do:

Thanks for indulging in this little post about me.

The Enemy of Good

I'm no liar so when someone asks how I am I rarely say, "Fine." My go-to answer, though, is just as distasteful: "Busy." It's been a season of life, going on a year now, where I've felt under the laundry pile of the life. I think to myself, "I really need to get out from under this stuff," but the truth is I've hardly had three days in a row to stop and take stock of what's keeping me busy.

This fall in particular I'm juggling four things that could be full-time jobs in themselves. And this morning I cracked a little bit.

Because I am not enough.

I cannot be a good friend, minister, writer, fiancee, blogger, thinker, designer, sister, daughter, and Christian. I pulled into my parking spot at work this morning, took a deep breath, tried to mentally prepare for another busy day at the office—and I cracked.

When I crack I don't make a scene, I don't cry, I don't get angry or shout. When I crack I shut down, I slump over, I feel defeated and want to quit everything but know I never will. I'm an internal processor so when I don't have time to internally process life, life processes me and it doesn't go well.

Charles Spurgeon wisely said, “Learn to say no. It will be of more use to you than to be able to read Latin.” And I not so wisely have turned myself into a pretzel trying to learn Latin. Not actually read Latin, of course, just do the mental equivalent of it. It takes its toll on my energy, my spiritual growth, my relationships, and my ability to do anything well.

I don't see life slowing down anytime in the next weeks or months. In fact, I know I'm on the threshold of what could be one of the busiest or deepest growth seasons of my life. I want to be faithful with the time, to redeem it, to rest in it, to rely on the Father through it. But this is my confession—busy is the other four-letter word for me. I hate busy. It is just as much a thief of my soul as being "fine."

I'm spending some time in the word this week specifically asking the Lord to refresh the right spirit in me, to remind me how to rest, even amidst the busyness of this next months. I'm asking Him to break the things in me that keep me running in my own strength and to restore to me the joy of simple salvation. Salvation that is not dependent on doing anything well or even doing it at all.

What refreshes you in seasons of busyness?

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Matthew 11:28

Believey

When I was in my early twenties I had someone in my life who was *believey for me, for all the things about myself she knew to be true and all the things I doubted. I knew if I could ever get over the funk that was my life in my twenties, I wanted to be that sort of believey for someone else. That someone else lives in the bedroom next to mine now and she is in her early twenties and she has been a lot of things to me in the past seven years. But today she is one of my very favorite persons in the world. I believe all sorts of crazy things for her and sometimes I crawl into bed with her in the early morning hours to tell her all the things I believe for her. She grunts and groans. But sometimes she writes things like this and I bust with belief.

When you’ve lived in so many different houses and so few homes, its tempting to stay on the sidelines. Sometimes a house doesn’t feel like a home because it just doesn’t. Sometimes a house doesn’t feel like a home because I hesitate to let it. Just about the time a place gets the comfortable pulls and tugs of home, life always seems to send me somewhere else. Which is always easier when you're leaving a house and not a home.

Read the whole thing. It's a beaut.

I guess I want to share this with you today because maybe you're in your early twenties and life is a funk. Or maybe you're in your forties and you know someone in a funk. I'm not into psycho-mumbo-jumbo "Believe in yourself, achieve anything," garbage. But I do think there's something beautiful about believing the promises of God on behalf of someone. I was the half saying, "Help my unbelief!" but my person was the half saying, "I believe." And at some point in the past three years I could say both with confidence.

Don't underestimate the significance of encouragement, of saying to someone, "With God in you, I think you can do it."

*Nan's word, not mine.

The Love of Laundry

I used to dream of canning peaches and hanging laundry on lines, letting it billow in the northern breeze. I was set on a life of simplicity, kneading bread dough by hand, peeling apples at a wooden table marked and scarred by time and use. Reading storybooks aloud to calico-clad babies and lighting candles every night on the dinner table. This was the life of which I dreamed and felt within my grasp. It never materialized and I felt the ache of that deep in my gut years over and over. Sand slips more easily through fingers than through an hourglass and it is so very hard to hold time for long. I signed leases and moved houses and states and tables. I forgot those dreams or buried them beneath convenience and the fear of missing out on real life while I waited for dream life to happen.

I spent years placing my hand over the ache of want, stilling my heart of its desires, trying to live well in today. Aren't we such foolish creatures? To think we can capture a vapor and own it for any measure of time?

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

No bridal showers would bring me the things that made a home so I dove deep into thrift stores and bargain bins, my home made of second-hands and hand-me-downs. It feels lived in but I wonder how well I have lived in it? Someone else marred my table-top, someone else chipped my favorite bowl, someone else created my art.

But this is the life I love. This reusable life. It reminds me life is a vapor and time is short and things are falling apart and I am too.

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Richard Wilbur wrote,

The soul shrinks

From all that is about to remember, From the punctual rape of every blessed day, And cries, "Oh, let there be nothing on earth but laundry, Nothing but rosy hands in the rising steam And clear dances done in the sight of heaven."

I have never forgotten that poem or the autumn day in college when I first read it. Love Calls Us to the Things of This World and it means we must love the vapor too because it is the stuff of life—the laundry, the rising steam, the clear dances done only in the sight of heaven. We love the marred table and the calico clothes and the lit candles because these are not the meaning of life, but they help us remember the work, the dirt, the mess, the grit of life.

Convenience is not our friend, my brother and my sister, ease is not our aim.

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A threshold waits in front of me, a coming home of sorts. Marriage and life with a man so wholly different than me and so wholly loving to me, it makes me wonder how you start fresh with so many years behind you. So many scars and mars, chips and cracks—how do you make new with so much old?

I don't have an answer to that friends, but I know love does call me to the things of this world. It is an angst I wrestle with daily in these months. How to be distracted, my attentions divided by good things? Without love I am a clanging symbol, a noisy gong. And love is work. All of love is work. Beautiful work, like canned peaches and billowing laundry, rising steam, lit candles, but still work.

Let there be nothing on earth but the work of love, even if some days it looks only like laundry.

Delivering Hope: What being saved through childbearing can mean for the unmarried

I woke a few mornings ago and felt the familiar void. It is no stranger to me and I know it acutely. I feel the angst of it in my belly, the fear of it in my heart, and the curse of it every moment.

A friend sent me a link to an old sermon in which the pastor preached a strong and stalwart message about women being saved through childbearing (II Timothy 2:15), and I turned it off five minutes before its conclusion. “Why did you send it to me?” I asked my friend because we have been having ongoing conversations about these subjects and my soul balks at the customary consolation prizes of womanhood. For one who grew up hearing a woman’s highest calling was to be a wife and a mother, yet finds herself as single as the day she came squalling into the world, a future swaddled in babies sounds bleak.

This is my call? To bear what I cannot bear? To hold up a bargain as impossible as Sarah’s to her husband. As impossible as God’s to Abraham? This womb is dead, or feels dead. Oh, I have plenty of years until it is pronounced medically dead, but the hope has died. It has died seventy times over and dies each day a little more.

It is 2013 and most of my good-church-girl friends married a decade ago. They are all declaring the babes in their wombs, “The last!” and I barely hope for a first. To them two or three is enough, the curse lasts far beyond pain in childbirth (Genesis 3:16) and they have seen enough of life to know promises about babies on schedules or Sunday-School attendance stars will not guarantee the safe arrival of their little ones to spiritual-adulthood. So it appears neither of us are saved through childbearing after all. We both limp with one hand held to God our helper and one hand anchored to earth our friend. Where is our salvation?

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

In an early morning class last week we read Romans 4 and I wept tears in the second row. I felt them coming on again in this coffee shop on a Saturday afternoon. A thorough study of Romans is not for the faint of heart, and not for those who feel they have somehow escaped the curse by either perfect children or singleness.

The end of Romans 4 is about Abraham’s body, his circumcision of flesh, and calling into existence things that do not exist: his seed. God, who is the only author of life and the only bider of time, has made a promise that even with hope against hope still seems impossible. A father of many nations? A boy from these loins? From the barrenness of Sarah’s womb? If pain in childbirth was the curse on all daughters of Eve, it would seem Sarah’s only curse was she would never feel the twisting beautiful pain of birthing anything.

Anything but hope.

My friend was also in class that morning and I sent a text to him: “This is it!” I wrote. “Maybe this is part of how we are saved through childbearing!”

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Even if we never birth a child, we birth hope. We are built to birth hope. It lies restless in our womb, expectant in our hearts, and unlimited in its gestation. We are crafted to see the future, to look at what is not and believe God will still do what He said He would do. We are made to birth hope into impossibilities. I think about my sisters, those whose deepest desires are to take broken places and make them whole; who have been hurt, neglected, broken, and cast away, and who still come back strong and desperate to see wholeness birthed in dark places.

I can’t stop thinking about it all week. And I think about it when I wake early a few mornings ago, feeling the familiar ache of the barrenness accompanying singleness.

Abraham’s faith was credited to him as righteousness. Faith in the hope against hope God was who He said He was and would do what He said He would do. Sarah, our barren sister, laughed at the promise and so Laughter was given to her for the rest of her days, a reminder that sometimes the only pain in childbirth we experience is 80 years without childbirth. A reminder that God is a God who saves and He saves by bringing life from dead things, hope from hopelessness.

Penned sometime this past spring. 

Silent Sanctification

I've written here for 13 years, about doubts, fears, concerns, questions, deaths, divorces, heartbreak, joy, moving, lessons, and learnings. In many ways this place is the very public working out of my salvation. Were you to peruse the archives you would find much poor theology and even more straight up narcissism. This page was my heart splayed out for anyone to read and I bled myself dry for it.

Last night I said to one of my closest friends that sometimes silence is the best sanctification, and I gave her a numbered list of all the things happening in my life right now that I can't talk about publicly. At least not this publicly.

There's so much of the blogosphere that lauds transparency and authenticity, but even that is rife with trophy stories and humble brags and I am strangled by the fear that I will join their ranks if I so much as whisper the numbers aloud. The truth is that even good things bring with them deep breaths and open palms. I do not know how this or that will turn out and I can't even guess. And I don't want to give you the opportunity to guess. Because I am selfish? Perhaps. Because I am fearful? For sure. But also because some things are best worked out in quiet, gentle, and still ways. Sometimes our rest is found there, in the stillness, in the mind's sleep.

Sometimes writing in this place has been the best sanctification for me. But today silence might be my best sanctification.

In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength. Isaiah 30:15

All of Us Strangers Sitting on a Footstool

Somewhere along the way I forgot I had a story. It is more accurate to say somewhere along the way I forgot I was living a story.

There's so much noise these days and I don't know how to shut it out and down and over and out. Our home is a quiet place, filled with simple things, but it is a small place, and there is no hiding from life's noise. The coming and going, the phone calls with family, the boyfriends, the dishes piling, and the laundry. Some have said the single life is simple, but I dare anyone to say that to me who has had 32 roommates in a dozen years. As soon as I learn the rhythms and graces of one, she marries or moves and I plunge into another lesson with another girl. I cannot complain and do not: these girls have been family to me, each one of them slipping into her new life while I mourn her leaving, she has been family to me.

One and I are walking yesterday and the sun is setting, "You're going to move with me?" I ask her, because we will close up shop on this house soon I think. She tells me she doesn't know how to process the invitation that I would want her to meld her life with mine. I feel a sense of Naomi in that moment and she my Ruth: where you go, I'll go; only I am the one saying to her: where I go, you come. (Ruth 1:16)

It is foreign to us both, the togethering that happens with strange people in a strange land. And we are all strangers, I think, we just haven't awakened to its reality yet. Or life has been kinder to you than to me. Or perhaps, after all, it has been kinder to me than to you. We shouldn't bother ourselves with such things.

I am scrubbing the laundry room floor tonight and I know I ought to feel at home in this place, but it feels more a placeholder to me, a dog-eared page, a bookmark: Don't Forget What God Has Done Here. And I don't know if He means this house or Texas or this world, but it could be any and is all. We are all so enamored with making a place for ourselves when it is He who has made a place for all of us. His thumbnail is the sliver of moon, heaven is His home, the earth is His footstool, dare we even imagine we could build a place for Him? (Isaiah 66:1)

The air catches beneath the tablecloth as it settles centered, dust particles float, and I put the broom in the corner. The dishwasher and the washer both run, their steady hum sounding steady with the air-conditioner. It smells like lemon furniture polish and maybe the grapefruit in the bowl on the table. We have made a home here, placed ourselves in the center of our story. The doors revolve around us, the world revolves around us, and I wonder sometimes how little idea we have of His grandness and this home a vapor, our lives a breath, our whole story His.

A Few Thoughts on SGM, Silence, & Sayable

I'm loathe to take a camp, step off the fence, call my cards, or slap a label on myself, but all it takes is one quick glance through Sayable, a brief perusal of the publications for which I write, and the local church I call home for others to safely land me in with the neo-reformed. I won't reject the title, but in normal fashion, I will not lay claim to it. However, there's been something rotten in the state of Denmark recently and all fingers are pointing back at, well, I'll say "us" for the sake of this post. If you have no idea what rotten piecemeal is being bandied about, I have no interest in educating you. Others have done so much more thoroughly than I, with much more anger than I, with many more bones in the game than I. I weigh in today because May was supposed to be my sabbatical month and instead I have been peppered with more questions than ever on why I haven't written on the SGM civil suit.

Here are the main reasons:

1. I am not affiliated in any way with SGM. Though I may be affiliated with those who are affiliated with them, we can play that game all day in every which way. Kevin Bacon anybody? These days everyone knows everyone somehow. It is a small world after all.

2. I am not a lawyer, but I think I am a fairly intelligent person, and even I had a bit of trouble getting my mind around the legal jargon of all the documents. And I've been in my share of courtrooms, with my share of lawyers spouting legal jargon—two can play that game. All I'm saying is, someone wants to win and so it's hard to trust a system where winning is the goal. Last shall be first and all that.

3. I'm one of those fools who trusts the men who keep watch over my soul. Maybe that play isn't for everybody, but I figure the Bible spent a lot of time talking about it, so nuff said.

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Just because I didn't say anything about it, though, doesn't mean I didn't feel complicit in the alleged ongoing silence by "us." I was a bit confused as to why men and women I respected within the Church at large weren't weighing in on the suit at all, save from a post by Tim Challies. It is good to be slow to speak, yes, but not speak at all? It didn't seem right. I knew I didn't have anything to add to the civil suit conversation, but surely something could be said to acknowledge the situation period?

(Adding my voice to the cacophony of the Christian blogosphere wouldn't assuage those out for an admission of guilt, though, if you're wondering why I didn't say anything. I'm under no illusions—I might be affiliated with those affiliated with SGM, but I'm no Kevin Bacon, if you get my drift.)

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In the light of more recent occurrences, though, and now that some of "us" have issued a public statement, I thought a few things might be said. Take them for what they're worth to you. Remember comments aren't open on Sayable ever so I'm not shutting you down and there's no need to respond. They're just my simple thoughts for those who might need them.

If you are a pastor:

Please protect your sheep. I meant what I said above about trusting those who keep watch over my soul. I mean that because the Bible says it and I trust the words of God. However, you, by nature of your position and your God-given authority, help illuminate those words for your sheep. You can use or abuse your authority and position, and you can, unknowingly, be the voice of the accuser to people—even in your silence. Always protect your sheep. If one of your talented, seemingly godly, charismatic sheep turns out to be a wolf, go after him. If one of your sheep leaves the fold, go find her. Pastor your people, don't just preach at them.

If you were abused:

This case feels like the nail in the coffin, trust me, I know. Even if it wasn't the same as your experience, you can easily relive your experience every time someone dismisses the concerns of the victims, every time someone seems complicit with their silence. Your heart means well here. The grace of God for you takes a horrific experience and gives you the tools to minister to these issues in a way those higher-up might never be able to do. That is not your blight or your stain, that is the precious work of grace to take the broken and make beautiful. Now is your time to speak in and with grace.

If you were an abuser:

You did wrong and you know this. You ought to make recompense for what is considered a crime in the eyes of God and the judicial system. But this does not mean forgiveness is withheld from you, or should be withheld until you "pay for what you did." Forgiveness doesn't work that way. I pray you know the fullness of the gospel covers your crimes, but does not blot them from history. Repent, accept the judicial punishment, and if you are His Child, look forward to a lifetime of His grace and an eternity in His presence.

If you want to leave the church because of this:

Part of me wants to say, please do, and trust me, there's no snark in that statement. I'm fully convinced that no matter how far you run, you cannot outrun the wild, ferocious, loving heart of our God. If leaving the Church for a while helps you clear yourself of the clutter of its underbelly, please do. You have the freedom to leave abusive situations, Christ sets us free to do that, and you should. But I will also say this, as a child who has seen her fair share of the underbelly, if you're His? You're grafted in. You're knit so tightly into His body and flesh, his scars and blood-bought redemption that you can't leave the Church because you are part of it. And it's beautiful. Really beautiful when you see it like that.

If you are neo-reformed (or whatever it is called these days), but embarrassed by the silence or complicit responses:

Can I implore you to press in close to your leaders, your elders, your editors, and your pastors. Sometimes they know things about a situation that you don't know, isn't public knowledge, isn't on some legal document, and isn't widely known. Sometimes they're withholding comment because it could actually make it worse for the most helpless of the situation. You don't know. There's a lot of speculation, regardless of who you are and who you know and who you know who knows someone else. You aren't Kevin Bacon, you just saw one of his movies once or twice. Reserve judgement.

If you know someone who knows someone (who was abused, who went to an SGM church, or anyone at all):

One of the things I love about the Bible is there are all these portions where it's just one man or one woman and God (or the enemy). There are no eye-witnesses, it's just Moses and the burning bush, Daniel and the lions, David and the bears, Jesus and the enemy. We get this birds-eye view into the situation, but really, when it happened it was just them there.

So we have perceptions of how things looked or played out, but I'll bet you could poll any thirty of us and we'd all have a different setting in mind for Moses and his burning bush. There would be similarities, of course, but it would be different. This is how it is to hear any story second hand. We can know that some things are true, but some things are simply perceptions. Because of this, it is almost always better to reserve your own words about another person's experience. There may be truth to it (and in this case specifically, it seems like there is definitely much truth to it), but the retelling of it multiple times will never end well. Mourn with those who mourn, bring it to the authorities if need be, but keep silent about the specific matter unless you know you speak the canonized truth.

If you are a mere onlooker:

If you're just a casual reader, a blog reader, a curious atheist, a questioning agnostic, I am sorry. This entire situation, from twenty years ago until today is unfortunate and shameful. This is not becoming to the Church and I deeply regret it happened. However, let me say this, I am firmly convinced the Church tries to keep its wedding dress too squeaky clean, and this case is a perfect example of it. The reality is we're blemished and broken, spotted and wrinkled, and Christ is the only way we're getting presented cleansed. He's it. It's not through a denomination, a pastor, a friend, a court system, or a blog post that the resolution of all things comes, it's Him. Him alone. Be encouraged, there's room at the table and we don't mind if you're messed up. Really. We're messed up too.

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That's all. I know this is long, and I'm breaking sabbath to share it, but I couldn't sleep and I love to sleep.

Go in peace, brothers and sisters, pastors and sheep, abused and abusers, doubters and finders, He is faithful to complete His work. He seals it with His spirit.

Polished Pearls and Unfinished Everything

I have always wanted to sell everything I own and buy the field. I have been the man who would give property, possessions, and pride to find the pearl of greatest price. A few years ago I did it. I sold everything I owned, packed what was left in my two-door Honda Civic and drove to Texas with no home, plan, or purpose. I found the pearl and nothing was worth more. When my best friend and I were young we made for ourselves a time-capsule. We put in it special mementos, notes from boys we liked, school pictures, concert tickets—junk to anyone else. We dug a hole in her back yard and planted it deep enough to let our friendship grow. When we dug it up in our junior or senior year it was covered in dirt, crusted with mud. Inside was safe and we have continued to treasure this tradition.

I think sometimes we are caught up in the idea that our pearl will come out polished and pristine. That we will have done the work, sold our belongings, bought the field, dug down deep, and the reward is something beautiful at first sight. But dirt isn't beautiful. And dirt-encrusted treasures are not beautiful.

The pearl we have sorted through mud and sand and tall grass and rocks for will not come out looking like it was worth any of the work at all.

There will be a time when we take the treasure home, rub it over with a soft cloth, wash it over with water, clean it up, and determine its worth. But we must not be selfish in our rush to determine the worth of what only looks like just another rock.

Today I am looking at the pile of stones before me. I asked—I asked for bread. I asked for sustenance and warm bread, and He has given me a pile of dirt-encrusted rocks. Friendships wrought with pain and surprise—not wrong, simply in process. Half-baked theological conclusions—not incorrect, simply unfinished. Relationships that never bloom—not trampled on, simply unopened. Ideas subject to time and space—not false, simply not full to fruition. To my eye this treasure has not been worth what I have given to get it.

The Lord is teaching me the process to a perfect pearl, a finely cut diamond, a shaped gold-piece, does not come without pain and it does not come without a grain of sand, a piece of rock, and a yellow vein in a dark cavern. The treasure is Christ and He wept in a garden, felt forsaken on the cross, and still has not come to take us home. We are his unfinished pearl and, in some ways, He is ours. He is already come and not yet.

Maybe none of this makes sense to you, and in some ways, I'm okay if it doesn't. This is my unfinished treasure, covered over with mud, stuffed full of meaning for me but junk to you. We are all standing behind dark and dim glasses, waiting to see face to face our dearest Treasure, and I never want to pretend my pearls are more polished than yours until that day.