Month: May 2019

I’ve been here before. A seed in the soil, surrounded by darkness and a stillness infused with change and activity but no movement. There’s some heat from the sun but no light and mostly it’s cold. Breaking apart. Unsure of which direction to send the roots and which direction to sprout. Feeling out of control. Alone. A bit dizzy.

I cried in the shower the other day. No reason. It felt good, though. Like when you’re nauseated so you try to puke. The violent twisting of the stomach into a knot hurts, but the nausea stops. Crying was like that, but for the lungs. Expelling a grief without substance.

I spend a lot of time now looking at my organizer calendar wondering what to do. I like structure and to-do lists. I love plans. It calms me to know what’s coming – when and what to expect to eat, to rest, to get excited about, to complete. Today, though, I don’t have that. Today I will practice following. Listening. Abiding. Waiting. Sticking close to Jesus in constant prayer and seeing where the day goes. I think I’m gonna be sick.

In my last small group, we studied the armor of God in Ephesians 6. Putting on our identity in Christ in order to battle the evil one who lies to us about ourselves and about God. It’s been surprisingly helpful to see and say the truth of who I am, to start with identity. I am a child of God. I am forgiven. I am chosen by God. So when the lies, I’m not important, I’m not lovable, I’m not doing enough, are whispered in my ear and spread like creeping ivy over my heart, the truth helps me fight back. To not live out of fear or shame, but to make choices from a place of love and peace. But living in the truth, I still wonder what to do. In response, the Bible says things like “abide,” and “pray” and “love.” These make terrible entries on a to-do list. Yet here we are.

The last time I was here I was a new mom. My life was radically and forever changed. There is joy and beauty and love and divinity, but I also remember the loneliness and pain. I am not eager to do this again. I know new life is coming, but it doesn’t make the disorientation that must come first any more comfortable or palatable. I am just a mess. One star. Do not recommend.

I think a lot about this quote from Richard Rohr’s, Falling Upward,

“St. John of the Cross taught that God has to work in the soul in secret and in darkness, because if we fully knew what was happening, and what God/grace will eventually ask of us, we would either try to take charge or stop the whole process. No one oversees his or her own demise willingly, even when it is the false self that is dying. God has to undo our illusions secretly, as it were, when we are not watching and not in perfect control, say the mystics. … We move forward in ways that we do not even understand and through the quiet workings of time and grace. When we get there, we are never sure just how it happened, and God does not seem to care who gets the credit, as long as our growth continues.”

I notified my students I will no longer be a piano teacher. In our last month together, I’m focused on ending our relationships well and preparing for our final recital. I should be more nervous. I’m giving up my last source of stable income, my justification for my college education and answer to “What do you do?” Will God provide a new job? How will I cut more expenses? How much will it hurt to change? A more normal person would be really concerned about these questions. I keep expecting fear and its pal indigestion, overeating with its buddy heartburn, depression, insomnia. Not this time. It’s an absolute cliché to say I trust God will provide a way through, but I do. I believe God knows exactly what we need and will provide it. I have Scriptural promises asserting that, whatever comes of this decision, God is with me. Faithfulness means acting on what I believe. The call on my life and yours remains the same – to love God and to love others. I can do that as a piano teacher and I can do that as a stay-at-home-parent; I can do that with less money and I can do it with more.

I recently read a book by Christopher M. Hays, Renouncing Everything: Money and Discipleship in Luke. It’s a quick read, especially for a theology book, about the wealth ethics of the Gospel of Luke and The Acts of the Apostles, two books of the Bible likely written by the same author. Luke’s Gospel recalls Jesus saying,
“You cannot become my disciple without giving up everything you own.” (Luke 14:33)

On any list of The Hard Sayings of Jesus, this one easily makes the top 3 cut. It’s one of those verses in which suddenly everyone is a theological scholar parsing the original Greek text and caring a lot about context. Instinctively, we want to dismiss this as something Jesus only asked of the rich, young ruler. The thought that he says this to me, too, is terrifying.

You can’t be a Jesus disciple without giving up everything you own.

Hays explores how this extreme idea plays out in the life of Jesus, his disciples and the early Christian followers. Luke’s Jesus isn’t being hyperbolic only for effect. All Christians are called to actually give up everything for Jesus. To be sure, not everyone is called to itinerate ministry, dependent on the hospitality of others. Some are called to renounce everything and provide hospitality for the itinerant ministers. Owning something isn’t the problem. Failing to give what you own to Jesus’ purposes (in loving others and praising God) is the real problem.

I wonder, How do I renounce everything? What does that look like in my context, generally, and in my life, specifically? Giving up my job was an act of faith because it was my backup plan, my way of not truly depending on God. Sure, I was using this job to do good work and earn a living, but also to protect my reputation and assuage my insecurities. I kept at it long after I felt I needed to move on because I couldn’t see how my life would work without it. I still don’t, but I guess I’m renouncing my fear too.

Believing God provides doesn’t mean God will provide what I think I need. I am well aware that God will provide what I actually need, as determined by God, and my opinion on the matter is amusing at best. Renouncing everything feels like loss. Pruning is painful. (Please remind me of this when I start to doubt because life is hard and evil is pernicious.) However, this is the same God “who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us.” (Ephesians 3:20) And “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” (John 10:10) I mean, there’s a chance that renouncing everything will be easier than I could imagine and I will wonder why it took me so long to trust God to see me through. Right? I know where this ends – closer to Christ. I just don’t know how living with less gets me there. Yet.

My thoughts are swirly. I wish I could communicate clearly the discombobulation and calm and questions and static that fills my mind these days. I feel like a snow globe. Easily disturbed into chaos, floating in the same spaces, falling to rest momentarily onto the fake permanence below. Maybe a little different but mostly still stuck.

I’ve written at least two, three drafts now about how to think about money. I’ve been reading about what makes a healthy mindset or philosophy or Christian theology regarding money. How we think about money determines how we act with money. I’m trying to figure out what I think, what I feel, what I hope. I feel I must clarify what I believe so I might discern how I should act. Meanwhile, life keeps happening and the snow globe gets jostled. I notified my students I would no longer teach piano. Flit flit flutter flutter. Spent the weekend at a Women’s Retreat trying to get comfortable answering, “So now what?” with “I don’t know.” Spin turn spin. Rachel Held Evans dies and whoosh! There goes everything.

I overcommitted myself this year and many of these commitments end soon and I am notifying people what I will not continue. “Oh, okay. So what are you doing?” “I don’t know.” Awkward silence. Swirly brain.

For months now, when I see friends and we chat about what’s going on, I will genuinely forget large portions of my life. How are you? Good. Busy. I’ve been helping out our MOPS group and taking care of the kids as usual. I’m serving with our church’s children’s ministry and doing some DoTERRA stuff. Then, after 15 minutes of me rambling on they’ll ask, So are you still teaching piano? Oh! Yeah, I am. I forgot. Also, I’m writing now. Oh, geez, and I’m gonna be commissioned as a Stephen Minister. I forgot. I forgot. And the snow globe snow churns around and I wonder if I’ve forgotten something or someone important. I also have this niggling suspicion that the distractions are intentional and that right thought is not a mandatory prerequisite for right action.

I never met Rachel Held Evans, often referred to online as RHE. I’ve read some of her books and much of her blog and followed her on Twitter. I’m surprised at how much it hurts to know she died. Others have written much better than I about how and why she spoke for a generation. Her writing, her advocacy, her speaking, her generosity, her character impacted thousands. Maybe millions. Twitter trended with #becauseofRHE and we wept, us unknown women and men whom she inspired. She made us feel beloved. She spoke words I was afraid to say and to trust. She asked questions with no easy answers. She loved when it was risky to do so.

Because of her I want to write well, be bolder, to speak love into the dark places. I want my life to be about loving others so that we might all be a little more free, a little more kind.

I was reading Psalm 23 and heard v. 3b-4a a little differently this time. “He leads me in right paths for his name’s sake. Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil; for you are with me.” In the past, this has always sounded like God guides us to right paths, and we associate those paths with the green pastures and still waters of verse 2, not the difficulty of verse 4. The path through the darkest valleys always seems like where we wander, away from the right path, but never fear, God is near. This time I see that sometimes the right path is the one through the darkest valley. The valley of the shadow of death.

In John 10, Jesus says he is the gate and the good shepherd. He leads and we follow His voice. The thief comes to steal and kill and destroy, but the voice of Jesus, the life of Jesus, the way of Jesus, leads to life, abundant. Through him, we may go out. And we may come in. We may find pasture. This kind of life, listening to the voice of God, makes Psalm 23:6 happen. The result, the benefit of keeping our eyes on Jesus, of obedience to his voice means goodness and mercy shall follow me like the wake of a boat. RHE had a wide wake and the world is a better place because of her. May the goodness and mercy her life produced ripple out through the generations.