Becoming

It's pushing the year mark since I chose to move back to Lancaster, something I was absolutely sure I would never do.
More recently, I've been quite certain that I'm ready to "do" something again.
It has occupied and consumed a lot of my time and thoughts and energy.

What Jesus strongly impressed on my heart recently is this: Right now it's not so much about what He wants me to do, but rather who He wants me to become.

I'll blame it on the culture I live in, the ideas I surround myself with, or the books I read. Everywhere I go, I am called upon to "Do something."
Doing and action are absolutely vital to my life.
But I quickly put the cart before the horse, so to speak.
Somehow, doing is more important than becoming.

I have been convicted of the Truth of Scripture in this area, because while commands are given to go and do, the same emphasis, if not more, is placed on this: He wants us to become more like Him. Without that foundation, I am so very ineffective.
^"Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me." [John 15]

"If I speak in the tongues of men and angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging symbol..." [1 Corinthians 13]
He wants me to become all that Love is.
"Alicia is patient, Alicia is kind..."
Ouch. There is so much more I need to learn. 


Right now, He has placed me here in Lancaster.

If I can't learn the lessons He has placed in front of me right here, what guarantee is there that I will learn said lessons somewhere else?
If I'm honest, sometimes I would much rather be anywhere else in the world instead of Lancaster. It is as if I think my spiritual life will suddenly move in great leaps and bounds, life will magically make more sense, I will be less selfish, and the temptation to buy cute clothes or overpriced lattes will be obsolete.
While that could be the case, it doesn't change the fact that lasting growth and change usually involve a thousand little baby steps. Maybe it started with a grandiose vision or calling. Maybe it started with an old-fashioned altar call or words spoken by a friend or inspirational speaker.
No matter how we start, I'm realizing it's how I continue that counts. No matter where I live, growth doesn't just "happen." Doing is not always the answer to growth. It can occasionally mean the exact opposite, because maybe I know how to do, but am I wanting to become more like Him?

It's a painful process, and Jesus is incredibly patient in my weakness and failures.
He doesn't give up on us, on me. It makes no earthly sense at all.
As messy as I think I am, if I focus on my messiness, that's all I am going to see.

If I focus on who He wants me to become, and Who He is, I can actually thrive no matter where I live, no matter what I do.

Maybe the biggest lesson I am learning right now is that it's not so much about what and where, it's more about embracing the right now. This isn't so I can immerse myself in the right now, but in preparation for a deeper tomorrow.

If there was a tidy way to end these thoughts, I would most likely try it.
The best part of learning to become is that it never ends. 
As such, this post will never end (just kidding).


 "My goal is God himself. Not joy or peace or even blessing, but Himself, my God."                [Leonard Ravenhill]

"This is the very place meant by God to turn our eyes on Him." [Elisabeth Elliot] 

Searching for Hidden Treasure

[[Just a short, previously unpublished post from camp days- because it was a good reminder for me today. And maybe it will be so for you, too.]]
 
One of my favorite activities as a kid (which, I suppose, wasn't so long ago) was to dig through dumpster-like garbage sheds in our trailer court with my best friend. They were probably stinky and smelly and gross, full of dirt and grime and other unmentionable things.
But all we saw and all that I remember was the potential for hidden treasure.
Gift bags with leftover pennies on the bottom, an old medicine cabinet, a bag of flour half-full... Simple, ordinary things, but to the imaginary mind, GOLD.

{Yes, there is an object lesson here}

You see, now that I'm no longer a child, there are big-girl problems (or whatever the equivalent is). I lock the keys in the car, forget to wash the very filthy floor, become frustrated with people that I think just don't know how to communicate the right way, and miss deadlines by a day or more.  

The other day found us doing our weekly unloading of camp trash at the local dump. Noticing some random items sitting off to the side, we asked the man in charge if we could take it with us.
"One man's junk is another man's treasure"? Of course.
Even though the free items were simple and ordinary, I felt like a giddy 7-year old all over again. We had found treasure in junk.

{And here comes the object lesson...}
Sometimes living in a big-person world, I get distracted by the "junk" of life: my junk and other people's junk. Sometimes it's all I see, and it sure does stink. And the more it piles up, the more it stinks. It can seem like a never-ending mountain of stench and mess.

I want to reach a place where I am more earnestly looking for treasure than getting so distracted by the junk. To reach for the moments that I am reminded to look for beauty in the most unlikely places.
Jesus tells me to look beyond the "big people problems," and search for treasure, because there is a delight in the unexpected.
Imagine walking into a store full of beautiful, shimmering diamonds. There may be excitement at seeing such beauty, but not the kind of delight one would feel if they found a beautiful, perfect diamond in the middle of a trash pile.
It has to do with finding the unexpected in the ordinary, and finding that it is good.
It has to do with finding Jesus in the ordinary, and finding that He is good.

I want to be a 7 year-old prairie girl again.
Delighting in the little, unexpected things that come because there is treasure, and there is hope. 

Post-Ministry Burn Out & Rest

////This post was started soon after I moved back home... er, back to PA. God has showed me so much since then, but in the process of moving back and choosing to rest I am sharing this because maybe there are others who need to know that there IS life and purpose and hope in the middle of exhaustion.///

Ministry is HARD WORK.
It's exhausting and excruciating and painful and glorious and fulfilling and has the potential to be chocked full of joy and sorrow simultaneously.

The past 2 years have been some of the most painful and most beautiful years of my short life thus far.
They have been the most exhausting 2 years of my life thus far.

I didn't go into full-time missionary life expecting to come out so soon and so...tired.

It feels rather raw to write such personal details when all the feelings of burn out and vision-less-ness still make their presence known.

It's not disappointment in the different ministries I worked under, though I know very deeply that ministry has an imperfect human side to it. It's not disappointment in the people I spent hours and days and months with. It's not disappointment in the daily and not-so-daily tasks I did.

I found I was disappointed with me.

There was this expectation placed on my heart that I should be all things to all people. I began to believe that people only like me or look up to me based on what I do and how well I perform and....
I began to live out of this idea.

So maybe I didn't "begin" to do this, because somehow I looked back and realized I had been doing this performance-based thing for a very long time.

It's just that I never had to notice it before now- before your character is tested, and you are responsible for things you know nothing about, and patience turns threadbare.

Living a performance-based life only gives you a stage and an audience.
Acting is hard work.
At some point you have to get off the stage and hide in the dressing room, because you see what a mess you really are.

I wanted to stay behind the facade of performance. It's comfortable.
Jesus gently nudges me to leave the performance behind.
I want to stay because it's easier, I think.

He uses a friend to ask, "What do you want?"
I want Him.
But it's anything but easy.

Life is hard.
Not because I am a pessimist, but because accusations hurt and God doesn't always give you nice cars and the soup always seems to burn sticky, black goo on the bottom of the kettle no matter how much I stir it.

I copied the following words of Amy Carmichael into my journal at the beginning of the year. They gave me this ridiculous hope for mankind, for myself.

"Looking back there is so much to grieve over. We can see nothing at all in ourselves to praise, but so much in our Savior. He has never given up hope for us. There is something very heartening in this. All that we see as sin, He sees, He saw, and far, far more. But "Thou knewest me before I was," so nothing can surprise Him out of loving me... The Cross covers, the Blood cleanses, and His eternal love will keep that which we have committed unto Him, until that day..."

"That day" is beholding the glorious-ness of heaven.

I'm so glad my story, your story, doesn't end with burn out and exhaustion and the feeling of hopelessness.

He never gives up on us when He would have every reason to.

These days of raw searching and vision refining don't become easier.
They were never meant to be easy in the first place.

But Jesus is somehow, unexplicably, giving hope- that the story is far from over, and He DOES restore and He IS good.

YES.

///I do want to clarify that if you are burnt out, it does not mean you're not spiritual enough or strong enough or ____ enough. I'm learning to take it as a signal to my mind, body, and soul that it's time to rest, because work and rest are both biblical and I believe they hold equal value. I have spent a lot of time in the past week gazing at the picture below- It embodies what I believe He delights in- us being content to rest in His presence.///   

Apron DIY, Soap Suds, and Obedience

I'll admit I am not much of a sewing-type nor much of a DIY type.
Sewing takes too much meticulous concentration. DIY is too trendy {insert cough}.

(The beginnings of the apron: I bought a XL men's shirt, mostly cause it was cheap and I like the fabric. 
And mostly because I thought maybe, perhaps, it would make a cool apron. I added the lace hoping it would add a nice, feminine touch.)

However, considering the next step before me, I braved the unknown.

 (it was rather simple. Chop off the sleeves, hem up the edges...)

                                                         
Actually, God's been teaching me this past year to brave the unknown not once, but twice.
You see, almost exactly a year ago He sent me to the little town of Honeybrook.
He called me to be a schoolteacher {official title}
Unofficially, I learned that teaching in a DIY mode is absolutely impossible.
I learned that being a front-line missionary is HARD WORK, but when dependent on Him, SO FULL OF JOY.

Halfway through the school year, He decided to use a little humor and give me an unusual opportunity. Because of a mishap involving a pogo stick (see pogo stick post here if you want to know how it happened), God showed me a new place.
I went back home and He kept pressing it... not letting me forget it.
And so it brings me to today.
Leaving teacher-hood, with all its ups and downs, behind. And embarking on the new adventure of... camp cook.

(It worked! Lace added a very pleasant touch.)

I know, it's a pretty far shot from being a teacher. What do they have in common anyways??
Not much save the fact that He never wastes each moment, each season of life.
Whether doing something "great" like teaching middle school girls, or something "insignificant" like cooking at a residential girls camp.

(natural evening light and a nautical, almost taylored look)

"...we ought not to be weary of doing little things for the love of God, who regards not the greatness of the work, but the love with which it is performed..." -Brother Lawrence

All this to say, you now know where I will be for the next year... or 2 or 3.
While my ideas and dreams of travels to places like inner-city Paris and the slums of India have not materialized yet, He is teaching me that the best place to be is the place He puts me.
It doesn't require a fancy calling or a glamorous idea.
It requires obedience and hard work and simple faith. {All of which I'm still learning, by the way}

So yes, I will spend my next year making food, washing dishes, and making more food for 25 girls (all in a kitchen in the backwoods of South Carolina).
But I know God calls a person to more than just "be."

"That the end we ought to propose to ourselves is to become, in this life, the most perfect worshipers of God we can possibly be, as we hope to be through all eternity."

I hope to be, like Brother Lawrence (a dishwashing monk in the 1500's), one who practices His presence, no matter where I am or what I do.
It sounds high and spiritual and unattainable.
With His help, I want it to be a daily, livable reality.
{Even awash in soap suds and wearing a DIY apron.}

On Being Poured Out and Filled Up

pour [verb]:
1. to send flowing or falling, as from one container to another, or into, over, or on something
2. to emit or propel, especially continuously or rapidly
3. to produce or utter in or as in a stream or flood

fill [verb]:

1. to make full; put as much as can be held into

2. to supply to an extreme degree or plentifully: to fill a house with furniture; to fill the heart with joy.

3. to satisfy fully the hunger of; satiate
  
I don't mean to make this a long, drawn-out post. 
However, the understanding of these words as they relate to life, specifically the life of a Christian, has taken a long, drawn-out walk. 

If I am honest, I used to believe it was glamorous and exciting and a thrill to be "poured out." You get to love on orphans, feed the hungry, hang out with city kids on dangerous streets, buy the homeless person lunch. And then you walk away, patting yourself on the back for being such a good Christian and thinking to yourself, "Hey God, did you see what I just did there? You totally used ME to show that child YOU! That's so cool!"
And it is. 
However, it never required a lot of me aside from time and a little bit of energy. In reality, it wasn't pouring out because I really wasn't denying myself. I was helping my spiritual ego. 
And because I was doing such, I never really thought much of being filled up.

God took me to a season of life where I had to pour out every single day no matter if I felt like it or wanted to. It appeared to be fun and exciting and challenging... for a while. When pouring out becomes a daily thing, it ceases to be a glamorous and an easy, pat-yourself-on-the-back moment.  It actually becomes hard because the human nature in you doesn't like giving all the time. It hates denying itself of its comforts and privileges. It dislikes giving on the days when your head throbs and your "pouring out" isn't even noticed. It yells for attention when a situation arises that would be so nice to run away from.

And so, when you are pouring out every single day, something else that you never realized was so important suddenly becomes of the utmost importance: being filled up. 
Now, the secular and the even the Christian world told me that being filled up involves relaxing- pull your feet up, watch a pointless movie, maybe do your nails or read some easy fiction. Don't forget some chocolate or a good coffee drink. Ta-da! You're filled up. 
I tried this method for a while... It didn't work.
It took me a while to see that actually being "filled up" involves none of those things.
I found myself complaining to my mother about burn-out the one day.

She gave an illustration: "You're like a bucket with a hole in the bottom. You're bucket is full of water, but it's constantly draining out of the bottom of the bucket. You need to allow yourself to fill up, so you don't run dry."
Ah, the Source of the water.

To put it simply, if we are being "poured out" because of Christ, guess where we are going to be filled up?

Once again, human nature (more commonly known as self), doesn't like this idea. It wants to find it's own source. It wants to be self-sufficient or even deceiving.
"A dry bucket? Pawsh. Of course my bucket isn't dry. Granted, it's a lot emptier than it used to be, but look, it's still kind of pouring out... if you tip it on it's side you can get a couple good drops."
"Let myself be filled up? But isn't that selfish?"

No, my friend. Selfish is when you refuse to see that you need to be filled up. 
It appears to be self-explanatory. Fill means to "supply plentifully..." and that's what He does if we let Him. If we gorge, feast, delight in the Presence of God and ask Him to fill us up with more of Himself when there is nothing of us left.
(And as an added bonus- when you are filled up His way, He ends up filling you with so much joy that even though it doesn't always become easier, it does become an honor, a divine privilege, instead of a burden.)

"Come, all who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat!.. Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare." -Isa. 55

 

The Problem with Believing in Yourself

 "One of the most common problems with individuals today is that they do not believe in themselves.
Many people constantly doubt their abilities, skills, talents, opinions, and numerous other aspects that makes them who they are. For these individuals, a lot of precious time is wasted on this demeaning method of thinking.
If you are looking to improve yourself, your life, the way that others see you, and the way that you see yourself, it is important to understand the importance of believing in yourself. If you miss the opportunity of accomplishing this very important goal, you will continue to miss opportunities all through your life..."

Ah, yes. I do believe the beginning of this inspiring article was just meant for me. I want to find out if I have a good self-image. Maybe if I realize I don't I'll move onto the solution.
What's the solution? Better self-confidence. aka. Believing in myself.

The first thing they recommend is writing a list of goals and dreams... hmm. Already did that. Funny... I've accomplished maybe one or two of my somewhat outlandish dreams and ideas. And what I'm doing now wasn't even on that list and yet I'm still fulfilled in it.

Moving on... the second part to believing in yourself is finding out what my gifts and talents are. Looking at my career test, spiritual gifts test, and love language test, I probably shouldn't have even attempted the job(s) I have now.

(So far, I think this means I don't believe in myself every much)

Next step... overcoming the obstacle of fear. Ah. Well I've conquered that... I mean I think I have... I mean, well, I don't get scared by certain things anymore... of course, if a snake were to slither its way beside me, I'd... oh never mind.

Last method... challenge yourself. So, once I write down my dreams and goals, find out what my gifts and talents are, and overcome the obstacle of fear, I'm supposed to challenge myself?
Considering that I'm no longer afraid of anything, this should be a piece of cake. Right. And challenging myself is always a piece of cake.

Pardon my sarcastic rant, but I firmly believe that believing in yourself will not create the kind of belief in yourself that you really think you'll have. 

Let me use myself as an example.

People will come up to me occasionally and tell me they hear what a good teacher I am.
I often grin when I hear that, because actually, if I base it on human effort I'm not a very good teacher. I've switched up schedules, said things I shouldn't have, stuttered through many weeks of History lectures, have had moments of confusion over 6th grade Math, and become stumped over the many questions I'm asked.

Now, to the self-esteem promoters, the above paragraph would be saddening. I'm not believing in myself! I'm also speaking negatively about my actions! Horrors!

To the Christ-followers, the above paragraph should be an example of the grace of God. He led me to where I am, was so faithful in calling me to His strength when I felt weak, and has showed off so much of His power because I can't even take credit for answered prayer anyways.

If I had believed in my abilities as a teacher (even though I'd never taught before), and if I had overcome the obstacle of fear I feel when I have to confront, I would have no need for Jesus. After all, if I believe in myself, I don't need anyone else. And THAT, unfortunately, is the core of what believing in yourself really is. It leaves no room for the need of a Savior and Deliverer.
Jesus calls us to deny ourselves, not believe in ourselves.  

All this to say, you can believe in yourself as much as you like.
But I'd rather believe in a God who heals the sick, moves mountains, forgives, restores, redeems, and provides for His pitifully weak children.

"O Lord Almighty, blessed is the man who trusts in you." -Ps. 84:12

"If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it." -Matt. 16:24-25     

When Life Hands You a Pogo Stick

"Fate is like a strange, unpopular restaurant filled with odd little waiters who bring you things you never asked for and don't always like." -Lemony Snicket

It was only a simple choice. A pogo stick just calling my name.
A split second decision.
I found myself flat on my back, the wind momentarily knocked out of me.
I try forcing a laugh.
Minutes later my body is going into shock: chills, clamminess, a rush of pain. 

Simple and seemingly pointless decisions can sometimes alter the course of your life.
At least, it can alter the course of your immediate life.
The alterations can sometimes happen for the better... but there may be painful side effects.
Attempting to ride a pogo stick and landing on your tailbone may be a cheesy example.
But it quite literally makes you slow down.
You walk behind the cute old ladies in the grocery store instead of passing them.
Your daily decisions are based on whether or not it is too painful to bend over or if it's too far to walk.  Sometimes you sit and imagine what it would be like to have no stiffness in your neck.

But sometimes... sometimes these little painful incidents are reminders. Reminders that God can work ALL things for our good.
It's easy to breeze through life hoping good things will happen all the time.
It's harder to walk slowly and somehow understand that pain always has a purpose.

I want healing, I want wholeness.
But if I am to hobble around in pain for a few weeks, then I want it to be a pain that makes me want Him more.
If I am granted healing and a release from pain, then I want it to be a healing that makes me want Him more.
  
It's a matter of perspective, really.
It's a daily choice- and today I choose to live dependent on Him.

{In the meantime, pogo sticks are no longer on my list of things-to-do}