It has been 5 months since I last posted. I just reread my last two posts. After reading them, I found myself thinking two things: first, "I REALLY chose to share all of those things with others???", and second, I thought "well things have not changed much, I am still such a mess."
If I were the reader of this blog series, I might be wondering "when is she going to get to the 'what He has done for my soul' part of the story?" I will say hang on, and let me tell you all so that you can fully appreciate what God has done.
David Wilcox, a great songwriter put it this way, "if someone wrote a play just to glorify what is stronger than Hate, would he not arrange the stage, to look as if the hero came too late? He is almost in defeat, looking like the evil side will win, so on the edge of every seat, from the moment that the whole thing begins. It is Love that makes the mortar, it is Love that cracks these stones, it is Love that made the stage here, though sometimes it looks like we are alone, in this scene set with shadows, as if the night were here to stay, there is evil all around us, but it is Love who wrote the play." So let me finish setting the stage, so we can fully appreciate our Hero's arrival.
We arrived in Africa, and despite my attitude, God did a good work in our lives. It was an unbelievably mind and spirit altering trip. Our entire family is now committed to a life-time of supporting the ministries we worked with in Uganda as well as to the friends we made while we were there. The spiritual vitality of the Ugandans was truly palpable and contagious. The fact that God used us in ministry there is another example of how God uses our weakness to show his strength. It was a special time, but very hard within our family unit. Life in Uganda, has very clear purpose. Everything takes much more time and energy, so in addition to ministering, living life in basic ways was much more laborious (and we had it easy, because we had help!). Due to life being so full, we had little to no time to deal with the painful issues that were simmering in our family. So on they simmered all the way through our time there and were never discussed. The blessing of this is that we got to spend most of every day serving others in Jesus' name, with little time for ourselves. Being focused on other's needs is so good for the soul. The other side of it though, is that words that needed to be spoken between us were not, which was not glorifying to God and is not living the Gospel in the deepest matters. So when the girls and I arrived back in the States a month later, our lives were turned upside down in every way except that we were still in the same rotten place relationally.
There was 6 weeks between when we arrived home and when Tim would be back in the States. In that time, the girls had finals, I had two girl's birthdays including Hannah's 16th, Hannah sick from something she got in Africa, swim team beginning and then the usual craziness that goes with May. The two weeks in June before Tim arrived, I AGAIN (i obviously don't learn well) was on a mission to "get everything done" so we could have "summer". It was not a pleasant two weeks.
So when we welcome home Tim, I think all of us were hoping that we could just forget all the ugliness and move forward, start a new page, a fresh slate. Well, we failed. We had about 24 hours of "peace" and then the facade came crashing down. This is when I wrote my first posts, God had been kind and showed me the many mistakes and sins I had made while Tim was gone. I saw in a fresh way that I wanted to control my life so much because of the terrible FEAR I had of the many "what ifs" that would result if I were out of control. I needed my husband and children to give me a sense of value, because my sense of value, my identity was wrapped up in them and what they represented about me NOT in my amazing value because I had been made a child of God through Jesus. I not only did not "prove myself" in the ways I had dreamed, but I actually saw the opposite of this happen and again this was painful, because I had to face truths about myself that I did not want to face. But in facing them, I saw freshly the mercy of God to forgive this arrogant, self centered, insecure, demanding, yelling and screaming mess of a person and to then also call me His sister and to promise me that I will one day enjoy the privileges of being one of the members of God's family.
So in July I was relishing this fresh dose of grace and wanting to share it with you, as you had prayed for us and loved us. Because God did a good work in our family while Tim was in Africa (including in Tim), we were reminded again that we need a Savior. The layers of sin that were pulled back during those months were incredible painful. It is so hard to be hurt and hurt others. But if we don't realize how deeply ingrown our sins are, the Beauty, Kindness and Generosity of God in Jesus seems of little importance. But thankfully God pulled back the curtain and showed us what we really were and how much He loves us. This was good news, answered prayers that we needed to share.
So why then, have I waited until 5 months later, on Christmas day no less, to finish this post?
I waited because within days of writing the July post, having the fresh vision of Jesus' love for us, God started peeling NEW layers of our sin back, and we have struggled. We did not reach that moment of triumph over our sin and march into the sunset and live happily ever after. I honestly could not believe that after all we went through, we were having this happen again. I was ashamed. I felt like a failure more than ever. Therefore I could not write another post. I have not known what to say. It seems like so many around me always had the "cherry on top" ending, and we did not.
After all these months, I have had the realization today that I have wanted to enjoy a life that Jesus never lived. His life was filled with shame, hurt, broken friendships, rejection, being taken advantage of, poverty, hunger, homelessness, people thinking He was crazy, hardship, physical weakness and pain, humiliation, loneliness, having His Father remove (even for a short time) his love and favor from Him, being lied to, denied, mocked and finally painful torture and death. He started this life in a stinky, manure filled, cave-stable in the Middle East and on that night, was only praised by animals and the lowest people in their culture of that time, the Shepherds. Even before He was born, his mother was likely scorned for her pregnancy prior to marriage and Joseph likely mocked for his "pregnant bride".
In dreaming up my life story, I would have never written the above paragraph as the hopes and aspirations for my future. I still don't. I want a pretty life. The problem is, that my life (and our families') is messy. We get glimpses of what some would call the "victorious Christian life"-we all get along, our finances are sound, our identities are rooted in the right place, we have our devotions, we pray, everyone does their homework and no one yells. We smile, serve others, don't get offended and drive the speed limit, we might even share. But these glimpses are short. Very short. Most of the time, we are just trudging through the day to day grind, living with the difficulty of a world desecrated by sin. Therefore, we are rarely a pretty picture.
But today, even if it is just for today, I realize that Jesus' life was also a mess. There was nothing pretty about it. It was full of hard work, sleepless nights, misunderstanding and pain. What makes his life different is that when he encountered all of these things, he did not pitch fits, he did not make sarcastic remarks, he did not passively seek to control the people around him, he did not lie, he did not complain, he did not have a pity party, he just faced the sinful mess of our world and His response was to Love. His attitude was joyful. When faced with a problem that needed a solution (our sin), he chose to deny himself and die on our behalf, so that those of us who put our trust in Him, have our sin paid for and then gave us Holy Spirit to help us until we reach home.
What I have been waiting to hope to be able to say to you all is really not what needs to be said at all. What I need to say is thank you Lord, for loving sinners. Thank you for being weak. Thank you that had you lived right now, we would all be looking at you wondering why you couldn't get your life together, and wishing that you would be sensible, go back to carpentry and quit bothering good people with talk about "the Kingdom of God". Thank you for not condemning the adulterous woman or isolating the tax collectors and for the ridicule that brought on you. Thank you for not demonstrating a put-together life, but for perfectly living in an imperfect, messy one.
This tells me that though my life will vary in its levels of chaos, it will probably always be this way, but the difference is, am I going to live the life I am given in the Spirit of Jesus? When I don't, will I repent and seek change by the Holy Spirit? Do I love, serve, repent, forgive, have joy? If not, I am going to just try to come up with another "plan" to get my life "in order". Do I want a hero or do I want to be the hero of this story?
I pray that this Christmas will be another unforgettable chapter in my life. The profundity of Jesus' mess, yet the beauty He made of it. The Hero has arrived.
Merry Christmas.
Andrea
