tasting and seeing and snowfalls

I am Lorelai Gilmore from Gilmore Girls about snow.

I love it. We’re involved. I’m the annoying person who wishes for it, even now when I have no school to get a snow day from. I think it’s magic. It is easily my favorite form of precipitation.

And it always seems to show up just when I need a reminder of how good Jesus is.

Yesterday was no different. The winter semester can get pretty dicey up here. Not just with ice and cold, but with people’s attitudes and tempers. The weather gets rough, there’s no real breaks, and we’re in the thick of things day in and day out.

Ministry gets hard.

I was talking to one of my friends the other day about our jobs, and how great and fulfilling they are. But we both realized they’re also expensive (and I’m not talking about our salaries).

We’re only human. We get tired and worn down. We love people and youth, and they don’t love us back. We lose sight of things. We get a little hopeless. We feel a little helpless. We forget why we’re doing what we’re doing. What’s the point, we think

This isn’t exclusive to ministry work.

Maybe you feel like this too.

Maybe you’re in the midst of something God has called you to and you think, why am I doing this? It’s to hard. The harvest seems too slim for all the time you’re putting in. You wonder if you’ve misread the signs, thought you were doing what you’re meant to, but hey, maybe you were wrong. Maybe that Jesus guy seems really far away, and you can’t remember what it felt like when He was close.

It’s in moments like that when I need something tangible. I look to God and say, “I know You’re already here, but will You just show me? I know I don’t deserve a sign, but will You give me one anyways? The road You have me on is hard and confusing, but I’m trying here. Can you remind me of you again? Can You show me something? Can you show me You?”

There’s a word for what I’m asking Him for- and it’s grace. Something I don’t deserve, but He graciously gives anyways.

And then,
out of nowhere,
it snows.

“It’s snowing,” a simple text. I glanced out my thin window pane, that’s always radiating cold, and sure enough, there it was. For a second, I didn’t even register it. Then I remembered.

My dear Malawian friend, Sweet Lou (yes, that is his name), had never seen snow before. 

Ever.

I bounded down the wooden steps, shouting, “Sweet Lou! Sweet Lou! Come and see! Hurry! Come and see!”

Sweet Lou ran out of the kitchen into the front room, as I flung wide the flimsy front door and pointed frantically.

“Ahh. Ahh!” Sweet Lou stood shocked still in the doorframe. He held his hands to his chest. I ushered him closer, arm around his shoulder, out the door, into the night. Looking back and forth from his face to the swirling miracle in front of me.

Now some of you might scoff. Saying, “Mickensie, be realistic. Snow is weather. Weather is not a miracle. Especially not snow. Snow is an annoyance. Snow is dangerous. Snow is mundane.”

And to you I would say, you didn’t see the face of a man who had lived 33 long years never witnessing that miracle once.

You didn’t see it, and I can’t describe it except to tell you, it led me to worship.

I stood there and thought, “How good are You, Jesus? So much better than I ever imagine.”

Sweet Lou took pictures and smiled and laughed. He looked up in a kind of awe and whispered, “I wanted it to snow today.”

Grace.

Snow, in my humble opinion, is grace in precipitation form. Because it comes to me when I need it most. It covers up the world, with all its imperfections, with all its brokenness, with all its hurt. It makes it pure and good and beautiful.

Snow can be annoying, or it can be an opportunity to worship.

Snow can be dangerous, but there are so many uglier things that are dangerous. That may be a childish view, but don’t we all desire something beautiful now and again?

Snow can be mundane, or it can be sacred. The line between secular and sacred is so very, very thin. Like a veil, it can be lifted. And through it we can glimpse the eternal.

Sweet Lou commented on a picture of us I posted online and said,  “Finally, I have seen snow. Now I have a story to tell about snow. The apostle John said we testify what we have seen. I really wonder how a kid born and raised in Ibanda village, box 25, T/A Mwalambia, Chitipa, Malawi can come to Camden and finally see snow for the first time. That is me. God, you are amazing. Thank you UPI. I want to go back and tell kids in my village that anything is possible because my eyes have seen it.”

“The life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us…” (1 John 1:2)

We have seen The Life. We have seen it and it fills us up until we can’t help but run downstairs, grab our friends by their lapels, and pull them out into it. Pointing up with tears streaming down our faces and crying out, “Look. Look, taste, and see. Life and life to the full. Grace and grace upon grace. Hope is still there even when all seems hopeless.”

Praise God for snow and seeing.

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“Well, I know now. I know a little more how much a simple thing like a snowfall can mean to a person” -Sylvia Plath

Taste and see that the Lord is good.
    Oh, the joys of those who take refuge in him! – Psalm 34:8

“Snow was falling,
so much like stars
filling the dark trees
that one could easily imagine
its reason for being was nothing more
than prettiness.” -Mary Oliver

He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? -Romans 8:32

a manifesto for days like today.

There are days when you wake up with the weight of the world on your shoulders. And as a child, no one warned you of this phenomenon. There was no video shown in class, no posters with cute animals, no kindly old mentor-figure, pulling you aside to give you the 4-1-1.

You just wake up one morning, and it’s happened.

You’ve become aware of all the tragedy, all the hurt, all the brokenness and bloodshed. You’re so aware of it, it is as if your skin is alight with all the sensations of feeling people’s pain for them. You’re hurt by every unkind word, every insanely brutal notion, every person twisting the truth into lies. No one warned you of the cost of empathy. No one told you it would feel like this, or that somedays, it would hurt so bad you couldn’t breath.

That every breath would feel like bombs dropped.

That every laugh would pierce your side like a spear.

That every internet comment and hateful piece of rhetoric would burn at something on your insides.

No one warned you, and how could they have the words to?

When everyone’s afraid, when everyone has their backs to walls bringing out the worst sides of themselves, when everyone has all but given up hope-

Brothers & Sisters, it is now our time to shine.

Hopelessness is not a word for those the Son has set free. Or Fear. Or Hate. Or Discord.

But Bravery is. And Joy. And Victory. And Unity.

And Love. Love. Always and forever and more abundant than you can possibly imagine.

So here’s my prayer:

Let us answer every moment of hate with unmeasurable love.

Let our streets resound with the anthems of the redeemed. Anthems that shout acceptance of the widow, the alien, the orphan. That sing of adoption, proclaim us as undeserving heirs. Let us extend that same mercy to others.

Let our churches be known as refuges; for the weak, the weary, the downtrodden, the oppressed. Let us recognize ways in which we have sided with the oppressors and let us humbly repent. Let us extend fellowship to those unlike ourselves.

Let us stop bickering over red cups and Christmas decorations, and start speaking up for the voiceless. Let us stop ignoring the hard, uncomfortable things, and start speaking up for the things that matter.

Let us become a fearless people in the midst of a fear-mongering world. Let us refuse to have our humanity defrauded. Let us remind ourselves that our Savior was an outcast. He and His people were often strangers in a strange land.

Let us remember that yes, love is costly. But let us not forget that Jesus said to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. Let us remember that compared to many, we face very little persecution. That Jesus said, “Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples,” and that that love has to extend to everyone. Especially those we find impossible to love.

Let us stop yelling and start lending an ear to those being yelled at. Let us be the ones offering them our hands.

Let us become beacons of righteousness. Let us become rivers of justice.
Let us become oceans of love.

Let us look more like Him. Every second of every day, let us look more like the image of Love itself.

Jesus, forgive us and guide us as we choose the path of peace
Extend Your grace and remind us who we’re living for.
Let the weight of the world not crush us,
for you have overcome the world,
but let it propel us forward into Your Kingdom Come.

Amen, amen, amen.

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Returning violence for violence multiplies violence,
adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness:
only light can do that.
Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.  – Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

 ^“Don’t just pretend to love others. Really love them. Hate what is wrong. Hold tightly to what is good.  Love each other with genuine affection, and take delight in honoring each other. Never be lazy, but work hard and serve the Lord enthusiastically. Rejoice in our confident hope. Be patient in trouble, and keep on praying.  When God’s people are in need, be ready to help them. Always be eager to practice hospitality.

 Bless those who persecute you. Don’t curse them; pray that God will bless them.  Be happy with those who are happy, and weep with those who weep.  

Never pay back evil with more evil. Do things in such a way that everyone can see you are honorable.  Do all that you can to live in peace with everyone.

Dear friends, never take revenge. Leave that to the righteous anger of God. For the Scriptures say,

“I will take revenge;
    I will pay them back,”^[c]
    says the Lord.

 Instead,

“If your enemies are hungry, feed them.
    If they are thirsty, give them something to drink.
In doing this, you will heap
    burning coals of shame on their heads.”^[d]

Don’t let evil conquer you, but conquer evil by doing good.” – Romans 12:9-15;17-21

A Bedtime Prayer for Terrorists -Mandy Smith

cooking, cleaning, and clearing up humility

Have you ever made 21-lbs of fettuccine noodles?

I have.

My goal of bi-weekly updates has quickly flown out the window, only to be replaced, at world record speeds by: art class projects, so many power-points (that I was convinced graduating college excluded me from ever needing again), Walmart runs, praise nights with my Ugandan, Malawian, Zambian, Kenyan, and American housemates,

and of course, the all important, Camp Family Night Dinners.

Family dinners are a tradition at Urban Promise. Interns and fellows do them. Streetleaders do them.

Once a week, on Tuesdays, all 6 camps host them.

Being an intern, there are moments you get, what I like to lovingly call, voluntold into positions. This was one of those. I was told that the meals had to be prepared, and we (after our supervisor asked, in her bruskest New Jersey accent, “You can boil water, right?”), were deemed just the able bodies to accomplish the task.

So, picture me, and my not-so-merry band of coworkers, trudging across campus, lugging pots and pans and lids, and the all important 21 boxes of fettuccine noodles. The gas stove in the blue house has a spacious 6 burners. Perfect for intern cooking class. We filled the pots, and began the process.

I can now confirm that it is true:

watched pots NEVER boil.

As I spent two hours on that kitchen stool, straining noodles and salting water, I realized that Jesus has been teaching me a lot about humility.

I spend 4 afternoons a week with 50+ preteens who could care less that I’m spending time with them. I teach Bible and Cell-Phone Photography, one of which, up until recently, I never thought I’d have to teach. Guess which one. They don’t care that I struggled with crippling insecurity over my ability in photography. They don’t know how much my pride had to take a backseat when my director asked me to do it. They don’t know and it’s not important. In fact, they’d probably just as soon I left, letting them get back to playing basketball in the gym and not doing their homework. They don’t care that I love them. They don’t even care that Jesus loves them.

That’s humbling. Humility is a hard lesson to learn.

Let me confess that I have trouble with the term. Following Jesus is It’s not to be confused with the false, fake, contrived humility, that unfortunately, I’ve noticed a lot of Christians praising and falling prey to.

That humility looks like the compliment dodge – “Oh no, I’m not really good at XYZ…” or the compliment search- “Man, I am really blessed with XYZ. So lucky that God allows me  to do XYZ so well.” The list goes on. You know these people, and frankly, you probably are those people. I know I am.

Christ-like humility is much more nuanced, and by nature, much, MUCH more confusing and elusive. I spent years thinking that humility was hating myself. That being humble as Jesus was humble meant smacking down affirmations like flies. Meant ignoring parts of me that are good. Meant not aspiring to great deeds. Meant focusing so much energy on not thinking about me.

But you know what they say about elephants in the room. Eventually, they get their notice.

Jesus has been patiently leading me to the truth that humility is about becoming so much like Him, that thinking about myself is all but impossible.

It means I don’t consider whether or not one of my talents is worth using. He gets to make that call. It means I don’t get to decide whether or not something is fair. He gets to show me the meaning of justice. It means I’m not seeking to be praised or acclaimed (although God is a Father that loves bragging on His kids. And P.S. Church, we need to get better at allowing God to speak Truth into our lives through His people. Like. Accept a compliment. {I’m preaching to myself now}). He gains glory and renown through the ways He’s equipped me and the places He’s set my feet to dancing in.

I wrote a 9 page paper about selflessness in the Pauline epistles, that I won’t make you read (but I got an A and it was so awesome I cried about it), but in it I penned a new definition for the Christian ideal of Humility and Selflessness. It is not about hating yourself.

It’s a proper estimation of oneself, in light of being Imago Dei, in God’s image, and simultaneously being under the grace of Christ’s death and resurrection.

You are more marvelous and powerful than you can possibly imagine.  Our situation was more desperate and Christ’s intercession on our behalf was greater than you will ever manage to conceive.

We have to live in the wake of both of those earth shattering truths.

Let me bring all this theology and junk home: this means that there is no task too high and lofty for you to accomplish with Christ, and there is also no task too lowly or mundane.

This scene from John popped into my head while I was fishing for cooked noodles out of a huge pot filled with steaming water:

After breakfast Jesus asked Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?“
“Yes, Lord,” Peter replied, “you know I love you.”
“Then feed my lambs,” Jesus told him.
Jesus repeated the question: “Simon son of John, do you love me?”
“Yes, Lord,” Peter said, “you know I love you.”
“Then take care of my sheep,” Jesus said.
A third time he asked him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?”
Peter was hurt that Jesus asked the question a third time. He said, “Lord, you know everything.You know that I love you.”
Jesus said, “Then feed my sheep.” (John 21:15-17)

Read it again. Replace Peter’s name with your’s. See where I’m going with this?

Jen Hatmaker’s book Interrupted deals with the idea that Jesus actually meant what He said:

Feed.

My.

Sheep.

And here I was, making 21 pounds of fettuccine noodle for hundreds of hungry little mouths in one of the poorest cities in the United States.

I’m not saying this for a pat on the back. I’m telling you what being humbled can look like.

Jesus was literally allowing me the opportunity to feed his sheep.

Where is He giving you that opportunity? I pray for each of you, the joy and terrible trembling revelation of being made humble as Christ is humble. Cleaning dishes, mowing lawns, preaching sermons, directing short films, working that 9 to 5, finishing school work.

Every last bit of all of it. To the Glory of God.

Know the depth of your mistakes and the heights of your confidence in Christ. Let that knowledge free you from yourself.

Go and do good, friends. Go and feed some hungry sheep however God is telling you to do it.

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“Towels and dishes and sandals, all the ordinary sordid things of our lives, reveal more quickly than anything what we are made of.” – Oswald Chambers

“But if you participate in God in the sense that you let yourself be penetrated by him you will go to the cross like him, you will go to work like him, you will clean shoes, do the washing up and the cooking, all like Him. You cannot do otherwise because you will have become part of Him. You will do what He loves.” -Louis Evely

“So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.”
-1 Corinthians 10:31

“The proper way to become humble is not to run myself down trying to belittle myself. Rather, I need to stand straight and tall, recognizing my strengths and abilities, but standing next to the Lord Jesus so that I can see myself in true perspective. It was William Temple who wrote, “Humility does not mean thinking less of yourself than of other people, nor does it mean having a low opinion of your own gifts. It means freedom from thinking about yourself one way or the other at all.” That is true, but it stops short of telling us how not to think of ourselves. The answer is that we are to fill our minds with the Lord Jesus. It is worship that drives out arrogance and pours in love.” -Gary Inrig

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Read THIS article by the incomparable Jen Hatmaker and you’ll get a glimpse of what I’ve been working through over the past three months. 

Urban Promise is where I’m at. Check it out. Donate or come see what we’re about!

being brave, being terrified, and where the two meet

I am sitting (as close to the air-conditioner as humanly possible) in my newly minted room, firmly located on the Camden side of the Urban Promise campus. It’s been a whirlwind couple of days! I was in 5 states in two days, drove roughly 9-1/2 hours, and packed a years worth of living into a room with two other girls (who I’ll refer to as J & M).

Here’s a couple of updates:

It’s hot.

Like really hot.

My roommates are sweet.

I’ll be rocking life with Camp Spirit for the next year!

My wall is a gorgeous shade of orange.

And I’ve learned so much new information in the past day and a half my brain hurts.

But I’m getting settled! I can already feel the steady humming of the city’s heart: the tonality to my new friend’s voices; the way the roar of buses passing my window and the way they rattle my windows; the african dubstep coming from my housemate’s room; the slow to start but quick to move rhythm of the day here.

I’m just ready to jump in.

But my week did not start that way. On Monday, I was terrified. Before you say it, yes, I do realize that I just posted an article about not worrying or being anxious, but this writer is real enough to admit when their Writer hat is a little too big for their head and heart.

On the before side of the before/after picture, I rolled up to Urban and held back tears. I was thinking, not for the last time I’m sure, “What am I doing here? This is all a big mistake.”

OF COURSE I WAS SCARED. Everything I knew I was leaving behind for the hint of a whisper of something that God maybe wanted me to do.

I wrote a poem (long before the #thebraveyear was a thing) with a line that is currently hanging on my brand new orange wall:

“Be whatever Brave is…”

Here’s what I didn’t know when I first penned that infamous line, Brave is a lot of different things! Brave is saying something, out loud that you’ve been holding onto and you know will hurt to admit. Brave is up and moving to a place you’ve never been to because you googled “urban internships,” and Camden was a top result (a REAL THING that M did. For real, brave). Brave is admitting your weakness and, as Paul tells us to, literally reveling in it. Brave can be doing a thing, and knowing when to acknowledge that you can’t right now. Brave is a many-splendored thing!

Jesus hit me with this mind-blowing truth-bomb last night:

Fear is a powerful form of vulnerability.

Okay, read that, repeat it out loud to yourself. Humor me.

Fear is a raw emotion. When you’re afraid, you’re showing a raw, unadulterated, unmasked version of yourself. That’s important. Because in this day and age that we live in (as well as probably every other day and age in the history of man) we don’t like people to see us without our guard up. We want to come off polished and sure and under control.

In Jesus’s kingdom, however, that uncomfortable place is precisely where the real work is done. When we’re not too busy pretending. When we let people in.

Here’s the next part of that Jesus-nugget:

Fear is a powerful form of vulnerability when combined with absurd courage.

I know I’m a self-proclaimed poet, but those words had to have come from the Lord, because that is quite a combo. Absurd Courage.

I think in a way, all courage and bravery is absurd, because the odds are never in bravery’s favor. The Fear, or the Foe, are always bigger and badder. There’s no outrunning being scared!

Courage and bravery are not the lack of fear.

It’s not awesome that Aragorn is rallying the troops before the very gates of Mordor, and is absent of all fear in the face of his enemy. It’s the coolest, most hardcore speech in the history of speeches, because you know he knows every one of his men is afraid, and he is too. But they have a purpose and a truth that they are determined to through to the very end.

That’s how Jesus finished up our little truth-telling-shesh last night. By telling me that courage isn’t the absence of fear, but the consistent presence of it, combined with the living out the truth of who our God is and how much He loves and values us.

He loves and values us enough to put our value of comfort and safety where it belongs, behind our desire to follow Him. To calmly listen to our fears, acknowledge them, and then tell them exactly where they can go. To whisper in our ears, louder than all the voices screaming at us that we can never make it, that it’s not about us, and it never was. 

Because of all that, I can confidently admit to you , my friends, family, and the internet, that I, Mickensie Neely, am afraid.

But because of who my savior is,

I am also very, very brave.

I pray that you begin to realize that you are too.

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Follow my #thebraveyear here, as I chronicle my school year at Urban Promise!
I’ll be updating bi-weekly, and you can catch up on past posts under the category heading:

“A Hipster’s Adventures in NJ“

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^” But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”
                                                                                                                                    -2 Corinthians 12:9-10

“I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me. The day may come when the courage of Men fails; when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship; but it is not this day!”                                        -Aragorn, son of Arathorn, coolest bro to ever bro

“I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.” – Nelson Mandela

the uselessness of worry and the joy of uncertainty

The future freaks me out. Doesn’t it freak you out, though? Not the Jetson’s, flying cars, spacey uniforms -future. Or even robot-apocalypse (looking at you Siri users…) or self-aware computers-future. I’m just talking in generalities.

The Future. 

The big, scary thing that sits at the end of every set period of time in your life and threatens to consume you with no shred of you left in its wake.

I mean, if you sit and think about the fact that you have no idea what you’re going to be doing this time next year, or in the next 20 minutes for that matter…it tends to send one into panic mode. Not to mention if you let yourself dwell on it and in it for extended gaps of time.

Like I do.

Worry is something I practically have a college degree in (I feel that most of us with college degrees have an asterisk on our diplomas noting that we picked up at least a minor in worrying during our stints in university.)

On my latest trip to one of the top ten places on my heart, Camden, NJ, Jesus and I had a real discussion about dropping the worry-wart act I’ve been toting around. The problem with that is that to actively stop worrying is like trying not to think of an elephant after you just read this sentence telling you to stop thinking about elephants.

Worry creates a multitude of sins. But what exactly does it mean to “worry.”

Here’s the definition:

Verb:

1. give way to anxiety or unease; allow one’s mind to dwell on difficulty or troubles.
2. (of a dog or other carnivorous animal) tear at, gnaw on, or drag around with the teeth.

Noun:

1. a state of anxiety and uncertainty over actual or potential problems.

Let me break that down for you.

Definition numero uno seems pretty straight forward: you’re anxious. Anxiety has this nasty way of making everything about itself. When you’re anxious, suddenly everything is a cause for anxiety! Homework, phone calls, time with friends. Good or bad things become open invitations to Worry. He’s that friend that you mention ONE TIME that he’s welcome, and he’s at your door 24/7.

Because you continue to let him in.

The first definition says to “give way to anxiety or unease; allow.” That means you have the power to control what enters your mind, and you’re exercising it to grant access to something that doesn’t belong there.

Then there’s the second option, that starts off with the promising epithet, “of a dog or other carnivorous animal.” Now, unless you happen to be Ron “I-know-what-I’m-about-son ” Swanson, you probably wouldn’t file yourself in the category of “carnivorous animal.” Fair enough

.

But look closer. This definition is the one that’s maybe stuck with me the most. When my parents give my ferocious house-dog a bone, he doesn’t consume it all at once. He carries it around. He shows it to everyone in the room. He nestles it in between his paws. He chews, then stops, then gnaws some more.

He worries at it.

I have more in common with my 10 year old german shepherd than I’d like to admit. Because this is what I do with the bones I have to pick. I hold them close, let my teeth sink into them, draw out the kill. Maybe a cat with a mouse would be a better example. Except I’d be both the cat and the mouse.

I let the worry gnaw at my bones. I let it get under my skin. I like to keep it close. My eyes are always on it.

I don’t think I’m the only one.

The noun version of worry is a big one. The term “state” does not bode well. A state is something a little more permanent than a momentary lapse in vigilance or picking at the leftovers.

A state implies a change in the very nature of something. If the country is in a state of emergency, that means the way it functions has to shift to accommodate that. What state water finds itself in changes the way it operates. Ice, water, or steam. When we worry, something in us changes in a profound way into something that I think we might not recognize if it looked at us back in the mirror.

I come by it honest, honestly. My papa is a world-class-worrier. He’d win gold medals at the Worrier Olympics in at least four different categories. That being said, it’s definitely my sin, as I’ve stated before. I’ve been in a pretty consistent state of worry for as long as I can remember.

Back in Camden, the little worry that I’d been trying to ignore in the back burner of my mind, caught on fire and threatened to burn my whole house down. I couldn’t stop thinking of that big, looming storm on the horizon of my life known as The Future. None of my plans were coming together. None of the roads branching off of the one I stood on looked like good paths to me. None of the skills I’d developed felt adequate to anything I thought I wanted to be doing.

The worrying I was participating in was world-class. I was worrying that I wouldn’t find a job. I was worrying that if and when I did find a job, that I’d bomb so miserably at it that they’d play videos of me failing as a warning to other post-grads, “don’t be like this sad, sad girl.” I was worrying that I’d miss the boat on something HUGE God wanted me to do.

I voiced these concerns, to people around me and to Jesus, and He responded in kind.

Dan, our fearless leader, asked me what I was afraid of. I contemplated saying “Everything,” but I didn’t think Dan would appreciate the sarcasm. So I tried something new for me, I was brutally honest. “I’m afraid of being a failure. I’m afraid of getting knee-deep into something, and then realizing I’m way out of my depth.”

Then Dan said something that pretty much changed how I approach every life-changing decision from then on:

“You’re going to feel like a failure. No matter what.”

Real words of encouragement, from Dan the Man.

No, but really. This is a weight off our shoulders, friends. Whatever and wherever we find ourselves next, we’re going to feel like we’re a real outside bet. A real long-shot. Like we might not make it, and anyone who thinks we will is in for a real letdown.

And that’s exactly where Jesus wants us to be. When we think we’ve got it all together, the sailing seems pretty smooth, and we’re sure of ourselves, we become unsure of our dependency on Him. God is a God who desires our reliance on Him. God likes us on the edge of our seat, unsure of what comes next or how in the great-wide-world we’re gonna make it through. Oswald Chambers says that a life of Christ-following is a life “full of spontaneous and joyful uncertainty.”

Yet when we are unsure, instead of leaning into the peace of God, we waste away in worry. Having created us, Jesus knew we’d inevitably fall victim to worry, so He gently chides us back into His ways:

“Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life ? Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest?” -Luke 12: 25-26

“If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” -Matthew 6: 30-34 (emphasis added)

I think Jesus is inviting us to relax into Him. I think Jesus is just waiting on us to give up, admit our fear, and then allow Him to make us fearless. I think Jesus wants us Kingdom-minded at all costs, even the cost of giving up our worry. I think Jesus is waiting in the wings, holding the curtain in His hands, wanting to reveal what’s behind it, the surprises He has in store, the next act.

Let’s let Him. Let’s repent of the endless cycle of worrying. Let’s decide, though we don’t know what’s around the next bend, that we trust the one who does.

Let’s “take every thought captive” to Christ. Every time worry worries its way into our minds, let’s kick it to the curb and replace it with Truth. Remind it that it doesn’t get to change our state, that we are in the image of Christ and that’s who we intend to be modeled after. Let’s retrain these fallen brains to remember who’s in charge.

Let’s put worry to bed, and walk with reckless abandon into the future our God has for us.

I’m game if you are.

***************************************

Follow my next step here, as I journey to Camden, New Jersey to work at Urban Promise for a school year! I’ll be updating bi-weekly and my adventures will be chronicled in category labeled:
“A Hipster’s Adventures in NJ.”

Feedback welcome. Prayers desperately needed.

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“My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.” – Thomas Merton

“We destroy every proud obstacle that keeps people from knowing God. We capture their rebellious thoughts and teach them to obey Christ.”
-2 Corinthians 10:5

“Certainty is the mark of the common-sense life; gracious uncertainty is the mark of the spiritual life. To be certain of God means we are uncertain in all our ways, we do not know what a day may bring forth…But when we are rightly related to God, life is full of spontaneous joyful uncertainty and expectancy.” -Oswald Chambers

lessons in dirt, pruning, and leaving.

Two things occurred to me as I sat indian style on my bedroom floor, barefoot in dew-drenched capris: my hands reeked of soil and I am staying with possibly the sweetest human beings alive.

I’m serious! I am beyond blessed by the couple hosting me this summer, just outside of Nashville. Driving 30+ minutes is a small price to pay for 65+ acres and two 68 year-young individuals who already love me better than I deserve. I love being out here, with the river a stones throw away and my heart awakened to the constant presence of our savior.

Lately, I’ve been obsessed with dirt. And as my poetry teacher exclaimed, if that isn’t a poem right there, I don’t know what is.

It started during a Lectio Divina in the downstairs of Tadlock Hall on King’s campus. A Lectio Divina is latin for “divine reading.” Basically, it consists of someone reading a passage of scripture, aloud, repeatedly, slowly and with intent. The listeners then zone in on a particular symbol, word, or idea within the Word. This practice dates back to the early church tradition, and though it may not be stylish or flashy, it is an incredibly powerful and moving method of connecting with God.

Our Lectio Divina on this occasion came from Matthew 13: the parable of the sower. More on that in a minute.

Back to my hands and the earthy smell radiating off of them. I arrived home in the afternoon to discover my host parents in the labor intensive process of weeding. I quickly offered to help in this endeavor, mostly because I was itching to do something with my hands. So I jumped into my Chacos and out the door. Ms. Sherrie handed me the clippers and I was set upon the task of pruning the Japanese Maple. Due to my “artistic eye,” I was deemed suitable for the job.

Pruning is the process of removing limbs, twigs, buds, blooms, leaves, you name it, you can clip it, from a plant in order that it may become healthier and more productive. It’s a wildly interesting production. I quickly became entranced in the act: pull a limb, assess its health, clip, snip, pull, snap, throw, repeat. 

I started thinking about all the factors involved in that little sapling this tree had started out as becoming a full-fledged tree. There’s the root system, the water intake, the amount and quality of sunlight is important. This particular tree already had some things going against it: Ms. Sherrie informed me the poor tree had had several bouts with disease and insect infestations. 

I was frustrated at first: clipping, seemingly at random, my pile of leaves steadily growing, and not much measurable improvement able to be seen.

Then I stepped back and I felt a familiar fluttering in my chest. 

Beauty. 

The tree was losing leaves and branches left and right. But it was gaining in exchange.

Symmetry. Definition. Health. The promise of future growth.

Addition by subtraction.

This is the object of pruning: to make things better by taking things away.

Back to the Lectio Divina and my obsession with soil: The goal of the third read through of this parable that night was to picture Jesus as the gardener and the soil as our hearts. I pictured Jesus and his measured way of moving. His carpenter hands, calloused but gentle, sifting through the dirt. I imagined the cadence of His walk, the movement of his arms as He weeded, the look on His face as He planted.

I was moved in ways I cannot possibly express. My words are feeble and failing in comparison to what Jesus did in my heart at that moment. He was beginning to teach me how much goes into preparing my heart to be useful.

To be good.

To be like His heart.

Jesus was cultivating good soil for planting. But after planting comes,

you guessed it,

pruning.

As I was participating in the act of pruning, I began to let my thoughts wander (not too far or for too long because, sharp things, in my hand). I started thinking about what Jesus said about His father being the Good Gardner:

Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. -John 15:2

Matt Chandler says God wounds like a  surgeon, not a criminal. Meaning his injury is precise and intended for good, not evil. He’ll never take more than is needed, or cut out unnecessarily.

“You know what’ll just break your heart is when you have to cut out all this good, living stuff.” Ms. Sherrie pointed to what was honestly my favorite part of the tree. 

“This part?” I was taken aback. Surely she meant that part, back there, waaaay behind all this good stuff.

“You have to cut away some of the good stuff so it’ll remain healthy and grow even more.”

Ms.Sherrie did what she so often does without even knowing it, and named an unnamed worry in my anxious heart – What happens when I leave?  What happens when my time here is done, and my lessons are learned, and my three months in Nashvegas are all packed up in the Silver Bullet headed back home? I have friends here (really, really good ones). I have a “home” and an adopted fam. I have places that speak truth into my heart and banish lies. I have things that challenge me and comfort me in equal measure. The soil of my heart has been cultivated in this place.

It’s been good for me, here.

This feeling was feeling eerily familiar. Too close for comfort were the memories of less than 4 months prior, lying in my empty college apartment and weeping for what I was losing. Friends down the hall, professors like family, church communities varied and wild, conversations delving deep into soul searching questions or silent companionship dismissing fears. The soil of my heart had been prepared in that place. I was leaving all of it and oh no, things would never be the same.

And I’d been right about that.

But in moving on, in moving here, in preparing to move on once more (my life is beginning to feel like one big montage quick hellos and drawn out goodbyes), Jesus has begun proving to me something I’ve been learning for months and months, in small non-intrusive ways, now lit up like a neon sign of hope:

God sometimes takes away the good in our lives in order to give us the better.

Sometimes it’s like we’re fighting God tooth and nail, hanging on to what we think is best for us. “No, you don’t understand. I need that. It’s so good. Why would you take it away just as I was beginning to love it?” I think Jesus looks at us as a dad looks at their child, clinging onto something so fragile, frail, and fleetingly wonderful, as He seeks to give us a future, forever-lasting, and breathtakingly phenomenal.

I had the pleasure of sitting under Kim Clayton, of Columbia Theological Seminary, for two blissfully full weeks at Montreat, NC. In one of her sermons, she emphatically, sometimes reverently repeated the mantra of “With Jesus, there is always more and better.” This (as well as moments from all of her incredible sermons), has stuck with me. There is a deep truth that my spirit sought to recognize in that. I think there’s something in that for all of us.

There’s an opportunity to trust Christ with the seasons of our life. To hand over the pruning shears and say “have thine own way, Lord.” To trust that He is shaping us into something new, and more beautiful, and healthier. That He is seeking to make our roots go deep, to allow our souls to soak up His love, to allow our branches to climb high and bear much fruit for the Kingdom.

And yes, sometimes the “good” we’re exchanging seems perfect, while the “better” Christ is offering seems harder, scarier, and sometimes downright impossible. In those moments, we have to remind ourselves that we do not serve a God who promised us an easy, comfortable life, but a life that though it may very well be difficult, will be lived to the full. He did  promise He’d never leave us or forsake us.

I’ll probably always be a little emotional about soil quality and root systems. But it’s more than that now. Now every time Jesus begins to pull back a branch to cut, I think I’ll be a little more likely to praise despite my fears. I’ll thank God that I got the privilege of growing wherever He’s planted me.

And as I unclench my fists, and open them to the possibilities He lays in front of me, I’ll hope that I’m becoming more who He sees me to be, with every snip snip of our good gardener’s shears.

---

“Suffering has been stronger than all other teaching, and has taught me to understand what your heart used to be. I have been bent and broken, but – I hope – into a better shape.”
― Charles Dickens

                                                        Naked I came from my mother’s womb,
                                                             naked I’ll return to the womb of the earth.
                                                         God gives, God takes.
                                                             God’s name be ever blessed.        -Job 1:21

“If you look the right way, you can see that the whole world is a garden.”
― Frances Hodgson Burnett

                 “but sometimes we have to lose the shadow things
                                                            to gain the true things in their place. ”
– Me

But he who received seed on the good ground is he who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and produces: some a hundredfold. -Matthew 13:23

the road goes ever on and on…

Am I excited to graduate?

I have been asked this question, with ever-increasing frequency, by any one who hears-tell that I am a senior with less than a week till I finish out my undergrad. I hate it. Seriously, it stresses me out, because in all honesty: no. I am not excited to walk around the Oval and switch my tassel to the opposite side. I love education, but more importantly, I cannot begin to imagine my life minus the community Christ has created for me in Bristol, TN/VA.

See, I have an inexplicable gift for making wherever I am, wherever my feet are firmly planted in already holy ground, wherever God has placed me now, home. Which is a beautiful gift.

Also it’s sort of terrible. Because it makes the act of leaving anywhere I’ve lived for longer than a week painful and difficult.

This also makes me unreasonably bad at goodbyes. If I had my way, and I rarely do, I’d slip out and away, unnoticed, with no fanfare to be seen. I like the idea of being here one minute, and the next, you looking about saying, “Wasn’t Mickensie just here?” But that doesn’t happen when your heart loves like mine chooses to. There are tears shed, hearts stretched to their breaking points, and friendships shown for what they truly are worth. All and all guys, graduating is not all it’s cracked up to be. Endings, happy or bittersweet, always sting a little. Friendships, change and evolve, and God uses them to teach you mighty and tender things. Things change, and that’s good, but that doesn’t stop the growing pains.

I’m excited for the future. I am. I’m headed to Nashville (interning at The Bridge Fellowship) in little under a months time, there to make new friends and learn new things from a God who is all about newness. In many ways, I have been ready to leave for a while. Things shift your senior year. God begins cultivating the soil of your heart for the journey to come. But in many other ways, nothing could prepare me for all that lies on the uncertain road ahead.

Here’s what I do know for certain:

I know that Jesus is always good.

I know that the Holston Lake is a place where the veil between here and Glory is thinner than most.

I know that King looks like Hogwarts and is full of just as much magic. Thank you to the professors in that place that have taught me to question, to think for myself, and for challenging me daily; in my walk, in my understanding, and in my education. Thank you for seeing potential in me. I am changed by your efforts.

I know all the Sonics within driving distance of campus. (There are specific rules and regulations as to who I go to which ones with. I don’t mess around about Sonic.)

I know that friendships, love, and community are at the heart of who our God is. He reveals Himself in unbelievable and life-altering ways through the most unlikely of means: the people around you. I am heartbroken to be parted from the glimpses of His face He has granted me here, in this place. To all who have been apart of my last four years of this crazy, beautiful, saving relationship with Jesus, thank you. You’ll never know, and I’ll never be able to write, how much you mean to me. The old me was shattered by coming into contact with each of you. The new me doesn’t know how we’ll make it without you. My heart is going to be divided a hundred different directions when we part.

I know that being vulnerable costs you something. But it is so worth all that you will gain.

I know that we’re called to bravery. To “being whatever Brave is.” To courage, which is not the absence of fear, but the commitment to doing the hard thing even if, even because, it terrifies the living daylights out of you. This hits close to home for me: after this summer, I will be heading to Camden, NJ to spend a whole YEAR interning with Urban Promise. Small, white girl from Winfield, WV in the inner city. I am overjoyed. And petrified. But doing it anyways. It’s okay to be afraid: Perfect love drives out fear, and the light has entered into the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it. We were created for more.

I know that food and Jesus just go together.

I know that Jesus promised us life and life to the full. I know that my life to the full is one with Youth in it. Go find out what your life to the full is full of.

I know it’s never too late. I became an English minor a week and two days prior to graduation. You can do it, whatever “it” is. Go after it.

I know that Jesus shows up. All the time. He shows up even more when you make room for Him in your life, when you start clearing out the cobwebs of sadness and hopelessness, when you start noticing Him. Jesus shows up when and where and how He wants to. Don’t even think of controlling or boxing Him in. He does what He wants.

I know sometimes it’s time to leave before you think you’re ready to.

I know you need to pick up your dragging feet and hit the road anyways. You’re in places for a season. There’s work that needs doing in the great, wide, “out there.” Let’s get to it.

And I know that He is already gone ahead of us

and is, as my pastor at my current internship put it so beautifully, already granting us the places where are feet have yet to step. We just have to walk into the future God has been crafting for us.

I ask for that grace. I ask for the grace to walk boldly into what God has in store. I ask for bravery. I ask for blessing. I ask for a heart that can handle the pain and grow stronger from it. I ask for affirmation, for help knowing what the right road is. I ask for friendships to remain. I ask for them to be strengthened. I ask for the ability to miss people, miss them well and acknowledge their lack, but to not be overcome by it. I ask for hope. I ask for the ability to give it.

 I ask for, above all, Jesus.

I may not see the road ahead of me, but He does.

So here we go. The Next Step.

Take a deep breath.

Let’s go.

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“Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous! Do not tremble or be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go.”
-Joshua 1:9

“Every time we make the decision to love someone, we open ourselves to great suffering, because those we most love cause us not only great joy but also great pain. The greatest pain comes from leaving. When the child leaves home, when the husband or wife leaves for a long period of time or for good, when the beloved friend departs to another country or dies … the pain of the leaving can tear us apart.

Still, if we want to avoid the suffering of leaving, we will never experience the joy of loving. And love is stronger than fear, life stronger than death, hope stronger than despair. We have to trust that the risk of loving is always worth taking.”- Henri Nouwen

“Many, LORD my God, are the wonders you have done, the things you planned for us. None can compare with you; were I to speak and tell of your deeds, they would be too many to declare.”
-Psalm 40:5

“See, I will do a new thing. It will begin happening now. Will you not know about it? I will even make a road in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert.”
-Isaiah 43:19

“The Road goes ever on and on
Out from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone.
Let others follow, if they can!
Let them a journey new begin.”
-JRR Tolkien

lessons from Lists, Liturgy and the Velveteen Rabbit

I was born a Back-Row Baptist. Is that an offensive term? I mean it in completely endearing sort of way! I love that I grew up ABC (American Baptist Convention. To all my southern friends, it’s a thing). I think it is rich, and full, and surprisingly ahead of the game in many aspects, and I wouldn’t be who I am without it ESPECIALLY without the love and support I found within the West Virginia Baptist Convention. (I’m looking at each and every one of you with the utmost and sincerest gratitude and love. You can’t see it cause of our computer screens being in the way).

That being said, I now mostly tell people I love Jesus and that’s the only real distinction I’m into labeling myself with.

Christian.
Christ-follower.
His.

Which is kinda awesome. Being for Jesus and letting the chips fall where they may as far as subscriptions to belief sets or rules is freeing in the best sort of way. It lets me focus on Him and lets other people worry about what name tag to stick me with.

And I like it that way. But that’s not what this post is about.

This post is about what God has been teaching me about lists and perceptions.

I grew up Baptist, like I said. But this semester, I’m lucky enough to have snagged a sweet internship opportunity at a, brace yourself,

PRESBYTERIAN church.

I know. Did the Apostles Creed just flash before your eyes?

Mine neither, because I don’t know it by heart (despite my freshman theology professor’s best efforts to make my cousin and me memorize it). Because I grew up, say it with me now:

BAPTIST.

What’s the one thing we all probably know about Baptists? We’re not huge fans of people telling us how to do things.

So like, Tradition. (And I mean Tradition with a capital ‘T.’ We all know church ladies of all denominations and creeds LOVE traditions.)

I jokingly tell people that Baptists don’t like anyone telling US how to pray. We know how to do that ourselves, thank you kindly. Which is something I throughly appreciate about us. We celebrate individualism! We say, “Talk to Jesus however it suits you!” Our lack of creeds provides a kind of flexibility and fluidity that has made my faith able to stand the test of time and college courses with ideas bigger than what I knew before. A trampoline faith, as we say in youth ministry.

And here’s what I knew about Presbyterians before I started interning:

-not a lot
-formal?
-creeds
-say prayers together?
-baptize differently (lots of jokes in freshman theology)
-liturgy

That’s about it, honestly.

Liturgy (a form or formulary according to which public religious worship, especially Christian worship, is conducted. The actual definition, in case you’re wondering. Not that I needed it…) scared me. I thought it meant a bunch of rules and certain special things you had to do. I thought it made faith rigid, unmoving, and unfeeling.

Yet, ever since reading my formerly Jewish Soul-Sister, Lauren Winner’s book Girl Meets God, I had felt myself drawn to it. She spoke of it moving her to deeper worship and intimacy with Jesus. Because I trust that chick, I thought I’d at least give it a shot.

So as I walked into my first service this semester, at bright and ever-so-early 8:30am, I had no idea what I was in for. I knew my youth min. professor, Dan the Man, would be there. I knew it was the early service for a reason: it was gasp the contemporary service. And I knew I knew next to no one.

Which, by the way, was simultaneously scary and exhilarating as all get-out. Something different. Something new. A life of following Jesus is, as the Jesus Calling devotional so lovingly puts it, a life of continual newness. Doesn’t necessarily lessen the scary, but also refuses to let it overwhelm you. Which is a super grace-filled thing to remind ourselves of.

Back to the point, I was full of certain expectations and ideas about what a Presbyterian church experience was going to consist of. The first service was so nerves-fueled, I barely remember most of it. I do remember writing down in my notebook:

“I’m here, Jesus. Now it’s your turn. Show up. Do whatever you want.”

We did read a prayer together, I’m fairly certain. The Pastor spoke, I’m sure of that. I spilled my coffee on the carpeted floor of the fellowship hall and casually moved seats during “shake-hands-with-your-neighbor” time, so I could sit with Dan. That’s about all I can pin down about that first experience.

Not because it wasn’t impactful. It was! But what I have encountered since that first step into the unknown has been far more impactful.

I’ve learned that lists can limit. I had all these ideas about what liturgy and tradition meant. About what it meant to be a certain denomination or another. About what the point of worship was. About sanctification and how Jesus speaks to us. And I’ve since learned how we limit His ability to reach us and our ability to respond when we put up barriers.

My barriers started to come down the next Wednesday night. This church is pretty established, which was new for me. They had things they just do. One of those is Wednesday Night Dinners. They have dinner t o g e t h e r. The whole church.  Down to my Bible professors’ 2 year old.

I was overwhelmed, walking into the fellowship turned mess hall: circular tables squeezed into every available square inch, kids pranking each other, babies laughing, old men discussing whatever it is old men discuss over dinner. I was standing in line to get my mini-meat loaf, in awe.

So the “formal” thing was kinda off the bullet points list.

As I’ve continued my internship, my heart has grown soft to prayers said in unison with the congregation. It’s as if we’re all supporting one-another. Saying, “Oh, you can’t say this part and mean it today? That’s okay. We’ll say if for you, so you can remind yourself it’s still true.” We repeat after the pastor, affirming what he’s saying, like “Yeah. You’re right. That is a wonderful thing about our God. I agree!” Slowly, more and more things were scratched off my list.

Then today happened.

Today, following the mythical and elusive Snow WEEK, I finally ventured out into the late-blooming winter wonderland that has become B-Town, TN/VA. I arrived at church, quickly spilled coffee all over my boots and the already massively stained carpet, then settled in for service. Dan was leading, and I was loving that. He’s SO youth min. about everything.

What I mean by that is he’s genuine. Authentic. Open. And fervently tries to connect with people, and to connect people to Jesus. By whatever means available to him.

We’re singing, there’s a scripture reading, and then Dan tells us to sit down (not typical order of service, from what I’d gathered). We sit. Dan opens up a small, blue book, and tells us he’s going to read from

The Velveteen Rabbit.

Now, this was weird because I had brought up this classic children’s novel within the last two of my english classes. And then it got weirder because Dan read the exact passage I had mentioned:

“‘Real isn’t how you are made,’ said the Skin Horse. ‘It’s a thing that happens to you.'”

‘Real is something that happens to you,’ Dan said. ‘We have to be real with each other, here. We have to be real with each other and before our God.’

I was caught off guard. So off guard that I didn’t even register that the head Pastor was calling up newly appointed Deacons and Elders to be affirmed in their new positions. Now this might seem like an awkward transition to you, but not to me. To me, sitting in the makeshift pews, it seemed seamless.

There was a call and response portion. To everyone around me, I probably looked disrespectfully oblivious, doodling in my notebook. But I was entranced. The congregation was called upon to accept the leadership of those standing before them. Then the Pastor called for prayer.

And he called for the other deacons and elders to come forward.

And to lay their hands upon their brothers and sisters in prayer.

And I was so overcome by the Holy Spirit driven nature of the moment that I didn’t know what to do.

It was in that exact moment that I realized what was going on with the liturgy and the tradition and formality in that church.

I discovered that Liturgy can be ‘Real‘ and genuine, not cold or contrived, distant and alienating, or ritualistic for the sake of ritual. Tradition itself is not bad or good. It’s our heart behind it, and the attitude of our mind that makes the difference. The people that make up that congregation care deeply for one another; they ask for prayer requests from the pulpit, they read the prayers together in unison, asking God to do His God-thing in each of their lives. But also in their collective life. I found out Liturgy could be a living, breathing thing, that is warm as it invites us to meet Jesus amongst its quiet moments.

So I discovered I like a little Liturgy. But I discovered something bigger.

I discovered that God can reach me as easily in a Presbyterian 8:30am service, as He can at my beloved Baptist campground, or my church plant’s folding chairs, or the dam overlooking the lake by my house.

This means that as long as we are being ‘Real’ and honest in our worship, then it can all be used for and by Jesus. For all good and holy things are For and By Jesus. And Praise Be, because that means my Baptist family tree won’t have to cast me out for being at a Presbyterian church, and vise versa, my Presby friends won’t ostracize me for having been dunked all the way under the waters.

Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is truly freedom.

So go forth, do good, press on, find Jesus in everything, and

 let us try and become ‘Real.’

************************************************

“‘Real isn’t how you are made,’ said the Skin Horse. ‘It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.’
‘Does it hurt?’ asked the Rabbit.
‘Sometimes,’ said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. ‘When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.’
‘Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,’ he asked, ‘or bit by bit?’
‘It doesn’t happen all at once,’ said the Skin Horse. ‘You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.” -Margery Williams, The Velveteen Rabbit

“And one called to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!”” – Isaiah 6:3

“This is wonderful news. I do not have to choose between the Sermon on the Mount and the magnolia trees. God can come to me by a still pool on the big island of Hawaii as well as the altar of the Washington National Cathedral. The House of God stretches from one corner of the universe to the other…I am not in charge of this House, and I never will be.” – Barbara Brown Taylor, An Altar in the World

the nine-letter word that can change your life…

I like to think of myself as a friendship matchmaker. Not Fiddler on the Roof style, with choreographed dance numbers and yiddish phrases, but more like I see two people and I just know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that they should be friends.

And then I make it happen. It’s become a sort of hobby of mine. I love, as my best friend would say, “making all my friends friends.”

I’ve been wondering  what that says about me. One of my all time favorite books (and I read a LOT. So when I say that, you should trust me), Captivating by Stasi Eldredge and her husband, talks about how a woman’s heart is designed to reflect back to God His own heart. The facet of this idea that always strikes the closest to home is the desire for relationship. 

Everyone feels this to some extent: the desire to know and be known. To have someone see you for who you truly are, and love you anyways. The desire to share your life with people. (Now don’t get this twisted, we are not talking about romantic, boy/girl, mushy-gushy stuff today. As fun as that is, it’s not as interesting.)

I believe that this desire is best enveloped in one word:

Community.

There’s this theory I’ve been developing that God calls different generations of His people to reclaim different parts of culture and society (especially even Christian culture), and help bring the Kingdom a little more fully here on earth. In my heart of hearts, I have come to the most happy of conclusions, that one such venture Jesus has graciously bestowed upon my generation, is the restoration of this divine dispensation of community. 

I grew up in church pews and congregational hymns, and I remember as a child the need to be surrounded by people being nurtured into the fiber of my being. Pot-lucks showed me that food feeds so much more than just your gluttony. Family reunions fostered a delight in conversations and lazy days indulging in food for thought.

And then I grew out of it.

Or better phrased, I grew up into the Church’s sad divorce from this holy ideal. The Church was designed to be a body of believers, partaking together in this sacrament of intentional intimacy.  Now, a body implies unity, togetherness, working as with one accord. I think in some little, almost forgettable, seemingly unimportant ways, we’ve forfeited the importance of being un-individualistic and caring for the whole instead of ourselves. We’ve been sucked into the “Me culture” that surrounds us instead of the anybody BUT me way of living that Jesus taught us.

Because of this, compounded with some other issues in my life, for a long time, Community was a word that felt foreign on my tongue. I honestly didn’t even know what it would look like.

Then, like hearing your native tongue when you’ve been in exile, I found my place.

Like most truly good things, it caught me completely by surprise. I had been attending my church here in my college town for almost a year. We are a small group church, meaning that instead of “Sunday school,” or Wednesday night services, we have several small groups that meet throughout the week to discuss the sermon, pray with each other, talk and eat.

Basically (to borrow a really cheesy phrase that I have unfortunately started to say completely UN-ironically), to do life with one another.

I hadn’t intentionally been avoiding attending the College group. I had theater rehearsals, or night courses, or homework. All legit excuses! And even when I started coming, it wasn’t phenomenal. There were about five of us, inconsistently. Very little discussion, ZERO food, and no real drive to know each other better.

Why am I telling you this and probably mortifying my small group leader (sorry Scott)?

I don’t want to kid you or trick you into thinking that community is easy. This is important: It’s NOT. It’s downright hard. It takes time and  a higher standard of intentionality that we as self-centered human beings are not used to being expected of us.

But it got better. SO much better SO quickly, I got whiplash.

We started meeting at my best friend and adopted family’s home, affectionally titled “the Fox den.” Food finally entered the equation (People. I cannot stress enough the vital nature of food in any sort of community. I believe it is as holy as any other thing a group of believers partakes in. And I just had my New Testament professor confirm my suspicions with Acts. So there).  But beyond anything else do you know what I think changed?

We started to care.

That’s right. We shared. We dug deep. We started pouring out our dreams, and failings, and desires, and wants, and needs, and down-fallings, and sorrows, and stories.

We invested.

And frankly, it changed my life. It’s changed me in such fundamental and unfathomable ways.

The most unbelievable thing to me is, my community is still growing. Because people notice this kind of intimacy. I’m finding more and more that people are drawn to my community. They want to know more. They want to understand and yet they don’t. They want to become part of something this viral,  this zealous, this alive.

-it’s why people are thrown off guard by how quickly information passes from one person to another in the midst of our friend group

-it’s why my apartment consistently has people filing in and out; filling every chair we have around our very large dining room table; throwing themselves on the floor or craming themselves on our couch, and eating all our food

-it’s why people are envious of my friendships (and honestly they should be. My friends are the literal best.)

-it’s why, by the end of a year, 365 days alone, we had nearly 30 college kids jam packed into one far too small family room, just to eat, to talk about Jesus and each other

-it’s why we had to add another night to our college group

-it’s why we’ll soon have to add a third

It’s why suddenly, people I counted out, people I thought would never darken the doorway of a church, people I was afraid to offend or embarrass or anger are being drawn by something immaterial and intangible to our community. They want what we all want: to be loved.

Jesus, I fear, is a little taken aback that I doubted His ability to bring those who were far off, near again. (Ephesians 2:13) I feel like He’s sitting up there just snickering and saying “Did you think I would ignore this little group? Did you think I wouldn’t take full advantage of you weirdos? This is the point of the church, Mickensie! To introduce the broken and lost to me, through you broken and lost.”

Us. God’s using us. This rag-tag group of misfits and rebels, proverbial strangers and best friends, athletes and artists, young men and women, college kids from all walks and ways of life, with backgrounds and stories as far apart and contrasting as they come, is being shaped and molded and used for God’s glory and our good.

And I am floored by it. I am utterly bewildered by the grace of it all.

There’s rarely a day that goes by now without me stopping dead in my tracks, tears filling my eyes, for a moment and praising God for the people He’s placed me in the midst of. A group of people who, for me at least and for the place I find myself located, are redeeming the idea of a community.

I pray you see this happen in your own communities.

I pray that you move out of God’s way and allow the Spirit to change how you see people. I’m asking Him to teach me to reach out to people who are different than me. People from all sorts of places and cultures and backgrounds, who can show me what they reflect about His heart. I hope He does that for you too.

I pray that He endows you with absurd amounts of love for the people you find around you. He will! If you ask (sometimes even if you don’t). My friends love me like Jesus. I see Jesus’ beautiful, winning, rebuking, unconditional love everyday through these people, daily. I can’t even pinpoint when it started, to quote Miss Jane Austen, “I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun.”

I pray that we all model our lives a little more after Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who cared deeply about people and their stories. He had friends, people he loved and whether they were hurting or happy, he wanted to know. He didn’t shy away from the hard, gritty stuff. He jumped right in.

I pray we do the same.

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“Now the full number of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one said that any of the things that belonged to him was his own, but they had everything in common.” -Acts 4:32 (emphasis mine)

“What should young people do with their lives today? Many things, obviously. But the most daring thing is to create stable communities in which the terrible disease of loneliness can be cured.”

-Kurt Vonnegut

“Jesus demonstrated that a God-following life is a life of inclusion and expansion…The God following life for Jesus was a life committed to entering the lives and stories of all kinds of people. ”

– Bruce Main,Why Jesus Crossed the Road

Resurrection Matters (or Why Death is Not the Boss of Me)

My church has been in Mark for a year.

Over a year actually, Easter to Easter plus a couple months in change. But all that’s about to change as we are finally winding down our longest sermon series yet.

One final week in Mark.

But obviously, before we could close the preverbal and literal book, we had to reach one or two last milestones in the story:

Namely, the Cross.

And the Empty Tomb.

First let’s talk about the importance of the Cross. Because, people, it’s vital.

In the Cross, we’re bought and paid for. The debt our sin ran up is covered. Jesus paid, with His criminal’s death upon that archaic, despicable, heart-wrenching torture device, the tab for us. He said, “I’ve got this,” in the most beautiful, poetic way possible. With His death, we were forgiven.

Maybe a better way of putting it is that we are purified from our sinfulness. God can look on us because we are covered by the blood of our Savior. The Lord has made it pretty clear that blood is what’s required:

“Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.” (ESV Hebrews 9:22)

So Jesus had to die. (we can get into the truth of our sinfulness another time.  James is pretty blunt about it: “So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.” -James 4:17 Pretty much covers all of us. But just ask any new parent if we are born sinful.)

The Cross is central in our beliefs because of the simple fact that it has to be. We needed it.

But here’s where I start to get a little miffed with our Christian niche cultural:

We’ve been worshipping the Cross for a long time.

Look. Get in your car and drive to the nearest Bible Family Christian Jesus Book Story. Walk in. Count the number of crosses you see in the first five seconds.

Bet you money it’s more than 20.

Still not getting me?

Look in your own life:

Do you have a cross necklace, ring, any other type of jewelry? Is it on your Bible somewhere? How many t-shirts do you have that bear the image of this torture device dating back to the 6th century BC? How many of us have it tattooed on our very skin?!

Do you know how incredibly difficult it is to find songs to sing on Easter Sunday? Coming from someone who has had her fair share of experience planning services, I can tell you in all honesty that I spent at least an hour sitting with my boss one afternoon, scouring our musical resources looking for even decent songs about the Jesus rising from the grave.

There are certainly a lot referencing the Cross.

Why is it hard to find songs about the fact that our God is Alive?

My pastor says this a lot, and I find it constantly proven in our culture:

There’s a lot we can do with a Dead Jesus.

We can sing to him. Praise him. Hear about him. Talk about him.

And best of all, he doesn’t require a whole lot out of me. So I can sing about Him dying for me and still be safe and content.

Look, before I get blasted with angry comments, know I am in NO WAY lessening in ANY WAY the importance, significance, beloved-ness, glory-filled, holiness, God-Given Saving nature of the Cross of Christ.

I’m just saying.

Where’s our love for the events of that Third Day?

The Resurrection. 

That holiest of days when Death was told “You have no jurisdiction here.”

The moment when the not even the grave itself could hold back our Lord.

The pinnacle of History in which a dead Jesus comes back to Life.

I just need to say that again:

What once was dead, Jesus made alive!!

And I meant that exactly the way I typed it. “What once was dead…”

Because what the Empty Tomb shows us is that Jesus is a savior who not only saves us, but who can breathe new life into our vestigial lungs. He can say to our un-beating hearts of stone, “Time to move again! Be flesh and blood once more!” Who can put life back into our limbs!

He’s a Jesus who can reanimate, rekindle, rejuvenate, revivify our dead lives.

He can resurrect us.

 ^“But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy,  made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.” (Ephesians 2:4-5, emphasis mine)

” I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” -Jesus.  (John 10:10) And have it NOW! And have it FOREVERMORE! 

The Resurrection saves me from living like I’m half-alive. The Resurrection brings my true life to me in the here and now, the Kingdom Come. It makes our belief go from being in a murdered man to a Risen Messiah!

My prayer is that we live like it.

My prayer is that the Resurrection becomes more than just an event that we celebrate with hiding eggs and eating candy once a year.

My prayer is that we become the people the Bible talks about, the people united in LIFE! The people of Christ.

My prayer is that Jesus would resurrect our hearts daily.

My prayer is that we would understand that when Jesus took the keys to Death and Hell, that we won. Death is defeated. The Grave is beaten. We will see those who sleep now, awake once more! We will look Death in the eye, and as one body sing, scream, holler, and shout out,

“OH DEATH, WHERE IS YOUR STING? OH HELL, WHERE IS YOUR VICTORY?”

Death is not the boss of us. I asked about your jewelry earlier, so it’s only fair I tell you about mine. I’ve been wearing a lot of skulls lately. My madre hates it, thinks it’s emo. But I’ve taken it up as a constant reminder, silly as it may be, that Death is dead. It’s has no power over me anymore. Death can’t touch me and my life is now and forever found in the life of Christ.

Oh Lord Jesus, let this true be in our lives.

Amen and Amen.

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“See, if Jesus dies on the cross but isn’t resurrected, how do we know all our sin is paid for? If Jesus dies on the cross but isn’t raised from the dead, how do we know sin has been defeated and that death is dead? How do we know? We don’t without the resurrection. The resurrection stands for us as believers as the apex of God’s love made manifest for us in the person and work of Jesus Christ.”

“Where are you at now, death? What you got now, death? Nothing…All that is sad will become untrue. We put our hope there.”

-The Initiating Love of God, Matt Chandler

“Now daughters and the sons of men
Would pay not their dues again
The debt of blood they owed was rent
When the day rolled a new

On Friday a thief
On Sunday a King
Laid down in grief
But awoke holding keys
To Hell on that day
The first born of the slain
The Man Jesus Christ
Laid death in his grave”  -John Mark McMillan, Death in His Grave

“and the living One; and I was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of death and of Hades.” (Revelation 1:18)