Well.
It's been awhile.
After my last attempt at a post (see Thrashing, but don't read past paragraph three...it's quite lame), I concluded that I would do best to lay my creative flow aside, as, well, I didn't have much of an option given that the orange was squeezed to its max and i was left looking like a shriveled old lady.
But today as I was watching a Subway worker (as in sandwich artist) feed some geese in the field of sorts across the street from our house, next to the interstate, I thought that perhaps it was time to write. After all, how desperate must I be to have been inspired by geese. It's just that they were rushing to this man, like they were starving. And the sun was setting and it was my favorite hour of the day because things were getting all orange and the trees were getting all black. And I had a McDonald's Diet Coke in hand. And I was thinking about Africa. About a very dear family we know there. I was thinking about how I just got an e-mail from the woman who was humbly asking for money because they didn't have any and their son had recently been chased home from school because he didn't have black shoes.
And I was alone. Talking to Jesus. Thinking to myself that I should probably write.
I was asked for the hundredth time today when we are leaving (for Italy that is). I wish I knew that answer. I sometimes wish I was one of those people who made these very solid plans and actually saw the whole thing unfold just as I had dreamed and planned it would. But alas, this has never been the case in my life. And as much as I'm up for adventure (i.e. I was dumb enough to ride the Diamondback at King's Island last week despite the post-three-children-nausea factor), sometimes I just wish I could know how it's all going to play out. At least how the next few months are going to play out. Living in limbo is not fun. And what's worse, sometimes, rarely but too often...too often as in a few hours ago, I get the dreaded question:
"So what will happen if you don't raise all the money???"
I really don't like this question. It really makes me feel kinda sick when someone asks me this. And I mean sick, like to my stomach.
And then I pause. Deep breaths, I tell myself. I can handle this. After all, we are living a life that is a lot different than the get a good job, have 2.5 kids, move further out of the city (where it's safe you know), eventually get a puppy, and put down some roots, kind of life...
Not that this is bad. In fact, some days it sounds pretty darn good. And if I ever do live in one of those neighborhoods, gosh darnit, I will find one with a neighborhood pool.
There. I said it.
A couple of deep breaths later, I found myself answering with my standard answer. It goes something like "Well, if God has brought us this far, I don't think He's going to just drop the ball. I can't even think like that because it takes away from everything He has done and has called us to do. Eventually, we just have to get out the boat."
And in the pit of my sick stomach, the six year-old in me begs Jesus to not let that answer be in vain. To not let us be put to shame. In that moment, I cling subconciously to David's words, the ones about God's favor. About not letting him be put to shame.
Shame and guilt have very unequivocally become my brain-mates over my lifetime. So any time I am risking them being enlarged like a helium balloon in the confines of my small brain, I am tempted to jump off of a ledge. I think this could perhaps be the reason as to why I feel sick to my stomach when faced with rejection or harsh tones, or mean people or the idea that what we thought God was leading us to was just some whim of the imagination and that surely we are losing our minds, thinking God would actually speak to us, lead us and guide us, and work out all the details so that we could follow Him to wherever it is that He has asked us to go.
Oh, that's a little deep. But since I started...
When I'm honest with myself, I'm not so sure I'm living the reality of truly following Jesus...not when I know there is a man in India who has prayed for a bicycle for ten years so that He can go tell people about this Jesus who didn't remove him from the burden of living in poverty but who gave Him eternal life and who is a best friend to Him. That's a reality that I will probably never know. But I do know that even though I am a privelaged white girl from the suburbs of the Midwest in the richest country in the world, my reality of following Jesus carries a sort of heaviness to it. When you are given more, there's more to abandon. There's more to risk. And with risk, there's a sort of impending shame that haunts me like an evening shadow.
But then, I look back. Beyond the shadow. Into the darkest moments of my life. The moments in seventh grade when I really wanted to die. The moments when I was sure my marriage would end. Moments when relationships lay in shambles. Moments when I prayed to find money on the ground. Moments when I just didn't know how it would work out.
And I see it all. Like a movie. Like a good movie.
I see the light creeping slowly into the picture. And I see Jesus sorting through the muck, finding something beautiful to make out of this mess. I see Him taking it all...the harsh words, the depression, the loneliness, the fear, the shame, the guilt, the desperation over finances, my marriage, my future, my children, my relationships... and gently kneading it all together, leaving it alone for a bit...letting it settle into just the right texture.
And then, when the time is right, usually about the time I've given up, he picks up the big messy clump of clay and sprinkles some water on it. He takes it back and forth between his hands, sorting out all the lumps, softening it just so. He puts it on the wheel and very slowly, very gently, begins to spin it, holding that clump in a way that looks as if it would just slip out of his damp hands and onto the floor, adding to the mess it is already.
His hands are cupped around the clay now, as it cautiously makes its way into what simply resembles an okay-looking bowl.
He holds the bowl, like he's holding a baby, and he lifts its sides, moving so slowly that I don't even realize he's doing anything at all.
The wheel continues to spin. The bowl is getting taller. And much more delicate. A few times I think that it will surely fall to the ground. But it continues to grow. Upward. Outward. With a rim that looks as if it's reaching to the heavens. Every piece of what is now a rounded vase is perfect. Every ounce of every lump has been smoothed into this piece of art that now has the capabiity of holding its own. Holding something else even.
And perhaps in that redemption of all things broken is the capability of holding those who are broken. Holding people who are withering. Dying. Those who are hopeless. Ashamed. Abandoned. In need of Light.
This is my vase. It's the beatuiful mess I have to offer. It's the willingness to be broken and formed into something new. Even if it's not as delicate.
Because it's not my life.
I do not have the answers. But something tells me that's a good thing. That this "not knowing" is preparing us for something greater.
And for that reason, I'll find the rest I need. I won't stop begging Him to not be put to shame. I won't stop pleading with Him to make this calling a reality.
But I will find hope in how he redeems it all. How he forms it into something more beautiful, more useful, than we could ever have imagined.
