Another Atypical New Year’s letter: Love’s Freedom

The Way I Was Made
Performed by Chris Tomlin
“Arriving”

“…Feels like I’m tied up, what’s holding me?
Just praying today would be the day I go free

I want to live like there is no tomorrow
I want to dance like no one is around
I want to sing like nobody is listening
Before I lay my body down

I want to give like I have plenty
I want to love like I’m not afraid
I want to be the “man” I was meant to be
I want to be the way I was made”

Made in Your likeness, made with Your hands
Made to discover who You are and who I am
All I've forgotten help me to find
All that You've promised let it be in my life”

~Music and lyrics by Chris Tomlin


Ever since I read the famous children’s story, “The Velveteen Rabbit” I have marveled at how the rabbit became real. That stuffed bunny wanted to live and move and eat and play just like a real live rabbit. He wanted it so much it almost drove him crazy with desire, but even so he wanted to love the boy more than he wanted his freedom. So it was an incredible turn of events that in loving the boy with all that he had he became real. No longer was he a stuffed animal sitting on the boy’s bed…a mere plaything, he was real…alive…able to move at his own will…able to choose where to go and when. It was a deep glorious freedom he had never known before. In loving this boy with his entire being he had somehow released himself from the bondage of cotton stuffing, buttons and faded satin and became his truest self…the one he was meant to be.

I love Chris Tomlin’s song “The Way I Was Made” because it is a declaration of freedom. It is a demand to be released from all that tries to hold us to being tame…to being fearful…to being less than we were made to be. In fact the fist time I heard it my soul screamed the lyrics from somewhere deep within me. I remember being alone in my house shouting these lyrics at the top of my lungs longing for the day, just like the rabbit, when I would be real…alive…free…I would be exactly who God made me to be. No more pretending, no more holding myself back, no more trying to look the part, no more fear. Love was the deepest cry of my heart in 2008 and in learning to love, I have been led to freedom. Sweet, glorious, beautiful, exhilarating freedom which interestingly only exists as you love and are loved.

“I want to live like there is no tomorrow”
I lived most of 2008 in Kampala, Uganda. Amidst a world in financial crisis when it seemed holding on tightly to what you have was the best way to proceed, I sold my home, I left my job, I gave some of my furniture away and I bought a plane ticket to Kampala to be with the ones I love. Over the last two years, I have fallen in love with some beautiful women who happen to be widows…who happen to be poor…and many of who happen to be sick. But, I just know them as Joyce, Aida, Josephine, Margaret, Jane, Rebecca, Ruth, Rosemary…I could go on and on. Each woman is so unique and a treasured friend. I wanted to live with them and know them deeply. We loved each other and grew intimate friendships. When I left the US, I didn’t care whether my financial world would come crumbling down around my ears or if my job would still be there, I just wanted to live…to breathe in God’s great beauty…to become intoxicated on love…to swim in an ocean of peace. To live like my friends did…fully in the moment resting in the knowledge that God is big enough to provide for my needs. I squeezed every drop of life out of every day and I lived like there was no tomorrow.

“I want to dance like no one is around, I want to sing like nobody is listening”
Every Tuesday, I met the ladies at Logogo Baptist Church. I remember speeding through Kampala on the back of a motorbike (Boda Boda) not wanting to miss a minute of our time together and especially not wanting to be late. Whenever any of us arrived late to the meeting, we would have to dance for the rest of the group. I had, so far, not had to endure this comical “punishment,” but on more than one occasion I had watched several of the women dance and sing for the rest of the group. It always ended in hilarious fits of laughter, but since I didn’t know the dances to begin with I wanted to make sure I was never late.

As I sat on the back of the Boda Boda, I realized that I was not going to make it on time. I would have to dance, I would have to sing and there would be an audience. Yikes! When I arrived, I walked sheepishly towards them smiling my best, “please don’t make me dance and sing in front of all these people” smile. Suddenly, Joyce and Josephine were at my side hugging and welcoming me, for a moment I thought they may have forgotten; but then Joyce said with a gleam in her eye, “We are all so excited to watch you dance.” I took a deep breath, exhaled and then looked around to see who was watching. We were out in the middle of the compound so I was easily seen by the people walking by the church, every Bible study group in the adjacent rooms and the men constructing the new bathrooms on the property.

Suddenly, I smiled a great big smile and took a big leap of faith. Instead of fear, I chose freedom. I shook every part of my body that would shake and I started to sing, “Yes, Jesus loves me, Yes, Jesus loves me, yes, Jesus loves me the Bible tells me so” at the top of my lungs. As you would imagine, a white woman with no rhythm and a tone deaf ear was quite a site to see. As I looked up I saw the women laughing and holding their sides, but I also saw them rising. Suddenly we were all dancing and I was doing my best to copy their moves. Josephine then began to sing praise songs in Luo. Before I knew it I was dancing with wild abandon and singing in a language I didn’t know at the top of my lungs. About a half hour into it, we had quite a large group of onlookers, but I didn’t care. I was enveloped in joy. It was bursting out of my mouth, my fingers, my arms, my feet, my legs and yes, even my hips. I laughed until my sides hurt and my cheeks ached, but I kept dancing and singing. At that moment, HIV, hunger, pain, loss, grief held no power over us, we were awash in joy! We were free!

“I want to give like I have plenty”
When I arrived in Kampala in February of last year, I made a conscious decision to give my money away to whoever needed it whenever I felt God telling me to do so. I didn’t tell anyone what I had decided nor did I want anyone to know it was from me, so I told them it was from the Dorcas Widows Fund, which at that time did not have an emergency fund. I wanted to see what God could do in the lives of those I loved if I treated money as something to give instead of something to keep.

Not long after I had arrived, I went to see Rosemary. She had sores all over her tongue making it difficult to talk and sores on her legs making it difficult to walk. She was in constant pain and had not been able to work in months. She also had a raging case of diabetes. Other widows were giving her and her family food in order to survive, but she was in desperate need of house rent and food. My heart broke for the pain my friend was enduring. It was my honor and privilege to give her enough to pay her back house rent and to buy groceries. Then Agnes called. Agnes is no more than 90 pounds and in a more advanced stage of AIDS. She had not eaten for a couple days and borrowed her neighbors phone to call me for help. I was able to provide some food and medical care for her. Soon, I was giving often and allowing God to break my heart for his beloved widows. I used to wrestle with God about how he could allow these women to be so destitute…so sick…so poor, until I realized that I was the one who knew them…who loved them…who could help meet some of their needs. He sent me to love them and to give them what God had given me. God had blessed me with a job and a savings account so I could bless them…simple Kingdom economics.

The trips to the ATM were no longer about me and what I wanted, but about who I could bless this week. God was using my money to quite literally save lives. That’s when I realized the money I had access to was not mine, it was what God has entrusted to me for my use and for the use of his kingdom. When I realized that I became fearless in giving. I gave all the money I had in my wallet at times, saving only coins to ride the bus home. Finally, I was free…money had no hold on me. I could have it and use it or give it and walk home, either way I gained this intense sense of life at it’s fullest.

It was then that Lisa, my friend from home and overseer of my bank accounts, began to see my savings dwindle. When she asked what I was doing with all the money, I was hesitant to tell her at first, but was itching to tell someone about what God was doing with all this money. As I told her how God was meeting the needs of these women, she told me that others may want to join my little revolution too. She also wanted to give away her money and watch God do amazing things. Thus, the Dorcas Widows Emergency Fund was born in late March. Now our fund provides emergency feeding, house rent, medical care and school fees. Thanks to many of you who have wanted to give with abandon, the Dorcas Widows Fund continues to help dozens of women in crisis.

“I want to love like I’m not afraid”
Over the last year I have fallen deeply in love. My whole heart and mind have become consumed with the very nature of love. With some fear and trembling, I have ventured deep into love’s unknown territory past the superficial love so common to our world and into the vulnerable places I once feared to go. In doing so I had to leave everything I had once used to protect my heart and instead continue the journey completely naked with only the great lover of my soul to protect me. It was risky to so completely expose myself to pain, heartache, and disappointment knowing that I could easily be wounded and scarred for life. So many times, I thought about turning back. I wanted to run at top speed and go back to that place where I wore the protective armor around my heart. Yet every time fear tried to beckon me back to safety, Jesus held my hand tight and walked me into love’s deeper places. I began to see that love is wider and deeper than I ever imagined and at its core exists a fierce wildness that cannot be tamed. It is both intoxicatingly beautiful and incredibly powerful. You are completely vulnerable, yet in that vulnerability there is great peace. It isn’t safe, but it is tender and full of compassion.

Chris Tomlin’s lyric found a home in my heart as I realized how well it communicated my deepest longing about this love that I have been experiencing. I want to love without fear…knowing the danger, but not fearing it. Knowing that love is the place where God’s spirit resides and where fear has no real power. Knowing full well that I will, at times, be wounded, but knowing in an even deeper place that the author of love will heal those wounds or use those scars to increase my capacity to give and receive His great beautiful love.

I love Jane and Jane loves me. I met her over a year ago and at our first meeting I was taken aback at how sick she was. She was no more than 90 pounds, frail and emotionally distraught. Her skeletal frame labored to breathe. Every few minutes she spit mucus into her handkerchief. AIDS and TB had taken residence inside of her and were wreaking tremendous havoc leaving her a mere shell of the person she once was. She was too sick to work, so her children were drinking tea or watered down porridge to stay alive. I remember her standing in front of me, shaking, sobbing, and begging the other widows to help feed her children. I had never seen such raw despair. I had never seen someone so sick and in so much misery. My first reaction was to step back, however shameful that is to admit, I wanted to run from it, to close my eyes and erase that painful memory from my mind. Fear gripped my heart and whispered in my ear, “Don’t get close to her. It will be uncomfortable for you. She will become a burden to you. She will beg from you constantly. She will die someday….can you really handle that? Are you strong enough to watch someone die?”

Later, when my mind settled and fear decided that his work was done for the day, a still small quiet voice whispered another message in my ear, “I tried to show you love today. I tried to show you how big and beautiful love is, but you refused to see it. Fear lied to you and you believed him. There is nothing more beautiful than to love and be loved, but to experience it you have to stop protecting your heart…you have to stop weighing the cost…you have to stop imagining the pain it may cause you…instead you have to trust in my love for you…trust that I will protect you…and trust that love is worth the cost you may have to pay.” Immediately, a feeling of shame washed over me, I had come to Uganda to learn how to love like Jesus loves and instead I had refused the opportunity to love the woman Jesus loves. I cried that night over my own weakness and selfishness, but a small seed was planted that day in my soul…a small courage began to bubble up…with deep trembling I decided to reach out for the hand of Jesus and let him teach me how to love.

This last year, I went to her home almost every week and at times several times a week. We talked about everything from Ugandan politics to her first kiss under the mango tree. I learned that she loved to cook…something she learned from her late mother and that she has an incredibly artistic eye. She loves creating the beaded jewelry because it gives her an outlet to create true works of art. In quieter moments, she revealed that she deeply loves her children and wants to give them everything she possibly can. It is incredibly painful for her to know that she may never live long enough to see her children graduate from high school, get married or have children of their own. She feels deep guilt over the inevitability of leaving them orphans. Being an orphan herself she knows intimately the pain they will pass through. She was overwhelmingly grateful for the sponsor I found for her children. Now she was resting easier knowing that no matter what happens to her, her children will still be able to go to school. I also began to share my own joys and sorrows with her. I told her intimate things about myself. I let her know me deeply and completely. Sometimes, I cried over my own pain as she held me and prayed with me. Suddenly, I realized one day that I loved her…I really truly loved her.

My love for her is real and deep. She is an amazing woman full of wisdom, love, patience and great courage. She is compassionate and unbelievably generous. Yet I know that she lives with an incurable disease. One day AIDS will take her from me and I will mourn and not be comforted. I will scream in agony and shed a thousand tears. It is a deep pain that I know is coming. It is a wound that will pierce a tender place in my heart and I have nothing to protect myself. Everything I once feared will come to pass, but not in the way I thought. Now I consider it pure joy to pay medical bills for my friend. I am elated to take care of her children and give them what they need to survive. Yes, I will watch her die, and it is more painful than words can express, but the love I have experienced with her is worth it. She is worth it. This love between us is powerful, beautiful, intoxicating, uncontrollable and incredibly tender. It will leave me with a scar, but I am confident that God will use it for his glory. Even though Jane will die, love will live.


“I want to be the “man” I was meant to be. I want to be the way I was made”
This year I lived like there was no tomorrow, I danced like no one was around, I sang like no one was listening, I gave like I had plenty and I loved even though at times I am still afraid. With many apologies to Chris Tomlin, I became the woman I was meant to be and got a taste of being the way I was made…of living the life I was meant to live. Love made it all possible…love makes each moment worth living, it is the music we dance to, it is the song we sing, the reason we give…and that perfect love drives out all fear allowing us to love others deeply from the heart. Living a life so devoted to love allows me to live as my truest self…the way I was meant to be. As I have become enveloped in love I have experienced total and complete freedom and it is exihirating!!

So this is the place I find myself as 2009 begins. If you see me around you know the anthem my heart will be singing and I invite you to sing along.