In 6 weeks (on Easter Sunday) I will be leaving Minnesota’s winter wonderland for the tropical sun of Africa. A blizzard is raging outside at the moment and I couldn’t be more excited to leave all the cold behind for warm sun and sandals.
Over the last few weeks, I have been working hard to get everything ready for my departure. I have done my taxes, found someone to take my car, hired a long-term substitute to take my place at school, acquired international travel insurance, purchased my airline ticket & Visas and confirmed my itinerary. Needless to say, it has been a very busy couple of months, but so exciting. The only thing left to do is rent my house. I have had some interest in it and if all goes well it will be rented by next week. Please pray that the person I offer it to decides to live here.
As it turns out the details of leaving are much easier than the emotional and spiritual transformation that needs to take place as one leaves their home to love the least of these. Over the last year I have been asking God to help me learn how to love him and how to love others. There have been times where I feel my heart might burst with the love I feel inside and times where my heart feels empty, angry and consumed with selfishness. And I think how can I go out into the world and love the most vulnerable with such a divided heart? I am scared that I will not love well. But, I also know that God’s perfect love inside me casts out all fear of inadequacy, so I am stepping into places where my love for God and my love for others will be my only security. My deepest desire in leaving is to love well, so if you pray for me, pray that I learn to love deeply from the heart.
The second reason for this African adventure is to listen to the stories of the most vulnerable. God has told me that he has something to say about himself through these dear people and that those people are his beloved as well as our responsibility. I have felt this longing to be God’s storyteller. I don’t know where it came from or why I feel that way, but I feel the closest to Jesus when I respectfully tell the stories of the least, the lost and the left out. So, I hope you follow my blog and read the stories of the people I encounter. It is my hope to honor them by showing the beauty of God inside them. It is also my hope to encourage you to become more deeply involved with the widows and orphans of the world. Please pray that God uses these stories to wake the church up to the plight of the poor and the sick.
Where am I going?
April 8-15—I will be visiting Christ Presbyterian Church’s sponsored students at Daystar University.
April 15-May 5—I will be in Ogembo, Kenya. (A small rural mountain village) My friend James lives there and has started a school for orphans there. James has now sent a container of donated books, school supplies & Bibles to his school in Ogembo. I will live with James’ family and help organize and donate these materials and books. The school has previously been without books and the church without Bibles, so this will be an incredible blessing to the community.
May 5-August 15—I will be in Kampala, Uganda living with Simon Kabi at Corner Stone. Corner Stone is a ministry that cares for street orphans. They have several guardian homes in Kampala & Gulu that house girls and boys who had previously been on the street. At these homes they are loved, educated and discipled. I will be developing relationships with these children. It should be exciting to see how God uses me to love them.
Mid-June—I will visit my brother and sister-in-law’s sponsored kids.
July 18-19—I will be in Rakai to visit my own sponsored kids.
I will also be visiting Opportunity International and International Justice Mission while I am there. Dates for those visits are still in process. I will also be spending time with Veronica & Johnson, dear friends of mine and of CPC.
It will certainly be a beautiful, painful, inspiring and challenging adventure. Thank you for supporting and encouraging me. It means more to me than you could possibly know. If you want to contact me while I am gone you can use my regular email address. I hope to hear from you!
Sunday, February 25, 2007
Sunday, February 11, 2007
Love Is More Than a Pear
“This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue, but with actions and in truth.” 1 John 3:16-18
Love. It is a mysterious, powerful emotion. There is an innate wildness to it, yet when enveloped in it one feels safe and protected. It is tender and at the same time strong enough to conquer all fear. It has the power to heal deep wounds as well as create them. If you have ever loved and lost, it is a pain you know all too well. With all its contradictions we spend all our lives yearning to love and be loved. It is as important to our survival as the air we breathe. In the deepest part of who we are, we know we were created to experience love in all its fullness.
My whole life I have been trying to understand how to experience love in all its fullness. I have read books about what love is, stories of great love and dreamed of what deep love might feel like. However, at some point love has to come out of that dreamy state and into our everyday lives. We can read all the beautiful words the poets have crafted about the powerful tenderness of love, but at some point we have to ask the question, “What does love look like in real life amidst all the errands we have to run, bills we have to pay and meetings we have to attend? ”
I went to Swaziland because I wanted to see the HIV/AIDS crisis up close and personal. I longed to meet those who were suffering from this disease, so that I could comfort them with the love of Jesus. In my own life, God had been showing his love for me in real and tangible ways and that same love wanted desperately to flow out to others. Love always seems on the move, as soon as you experience it; you want to give it to somebody else.
One day I walked to the corner market to buy some lunch as I had missed breakfast. I picked up a few pears, a loaf of bread, some cheese, a tub of butter and some juice. I was so hungry I couldn’t wait to get back to the house and cook up some grilled cheese. I walked down the red dusty road back to the house enjoying the African sunshine and the voices all around me speaking Saswati. It was a glorious day. It was at that point that a young boy approached me. His legs and arms looked like little toothpicks sticking out of tattered clothes. He was barefoot and dirty. He asked me very politely if I had any money so that he could buy some food. I looked into his pleading eyes and realized that this was the middle of the day. He couldn’t afford to go to school. I felt bad for him and reached into my grocery bag and gave him one pear. He thanked me and we parted ways.
It only took a few minutes for the weight of my grocery bags to send a shameful message to my heart. Suddenly, tears filled my eyes and I choked back sobs. I came here to love as God had loved me. Jesus had given up everything he had to love me. He had sacrificed his time, his resources even his own life to ensure that I knew in tangible ways that he loved me. He didn’t just love in words-- he loved in action. Now, God had given me an opportunity to love someone in the midst of my busy day in a tangible way. I saw that the boy was hungry and in great need and instead of giving him all the groceries that I had—I gave him one pear. I thought of my own hunger even though I am well fed and could of easily turned around and bought more food. I didn’t love that boy. I threw him the crumbs off my table. Jesus says that when we love the least of these we love him. My heart crumbled as I realized that I had given the one that saved me only what I didn’t want for myself. I had only loved myself and no one else. When I got back to the house, I collapsed on the ground and sobbed. I was so ashamed. I couldn’t even look at the food I had purchased.
Something I had read in the Bible came back to me. John, the apostle that Jesus loved, said “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue, but with actions and in truth.” (1 John 3:16-18) In the midst of that incredibly painful moment, I realized that love is denying my own needs, wants and desires for the needs, wants and desires of someone else. It is giving my time, my talents and my resources to someone that needs them. Love is giving more than a pear.
Just like the Velveteen Rabbit, we want love to change us and make us real. The rabbit wanted to live life to its fullest and experience love in its grandest form. The fairy told him that becoming real would pull out his whiskers, rub off his beautiful velveteen fur, and create tears in his seams. Love would change his appearance forever, but sacrificing himself would make the rabbit real. He would have love in its purest form and it would satisfy his deep yearning. I believe we are all like that rabbit. Learning to love as Jesus did will cost us. Some of our spots will have to be rubbed off and we might loose an eye, but in the midst of it all we will learn how to love and be loved. Love will no longer be a dreamy eyed state but a real everyday reality.
Love the one God puts in front of you and by all means--give them more than a pear.
Love. It is a mysterious, powerful emotion. There is an innate wildness to it, yet when enveloped in it one feels safe and protected. It is tender and at the same time strong enough to conquer all fear. It has the power to heal deep wounds as well as create them. If you have ever loved and lost, it is a pain you know all too well. With all its contradictions we spend all our lives yearning to love and be loved. It is as important to our survival as the air we breathe. In the deepest part of who we are, we know we were created to experience love in all its fullness.
My whole life I have been trying to understand how to experience love in all its fullness. I have read books about what love is, stories of great love and dreamed of what deep love might feel like. However, at some point love has to come out of that dreamy state and into our everyday lives. We can read all the beautiful words the poets have crafted about the powerful tenderness of love, but at some point we have to ask the question, “What does love look like in real life amidst all the errands we have to run, bills we have to pay and meetings we have to attend? ”
I went to Swaziland because I wanted to see the HIV/AIDS crisis up close and personal. I longed to meet those who were suffering from this disease, so that I could comfort them with the love of Jesus. In my own life, God had been showing his love for me in real and tangible ways and that same love wanted desperately to flow out to others. Love always seems on the move, as soon as you experience it; you want to give it to somebody else.
One day I walked to the corner market to buy some lunch as I had missed breakfast. I picked up a few pears, a loaf of bread, some cheese, a tub of butter and some juice. I was so hungry I couldn’t wait to get back to the house and cook up some grilled cheese. I walked down the red dusty road back to the house enjoying the African sunshine and the voices all around me speaking Saswati. It was a glorious day. It was at that point that a young boy approached me. His legs and arms looked like little toothpicks sticking out of tattered clothes. He was barefoot and dirty. He asked me very politely if I had any money so that he could buy some food. I looked into his pleading eyes and realized that this was the middle of the day. He couldn’t afford to go to school. I felt bad for him and reached into my grocery bag and gave him one pear. He thanked me and we parted ways.
It only took a few minutes for the weight of my grocery bags to send a shameful message to my heart. Suddenly, tears filled my eyes and I choked back sobs. I came here to love as God had loved me. Jesus had given up everything he had to love me. He had sacrificed his time, his resources even his own life to ensure that I knew in tangible ways that he loved me. He didn’t just love in words-- he loved in action. Now, God had given me an opportunity to love someone in the midst of my busy day in a tangible way. I saw that the boy was hungry and in great need and instead of giving him all the groceries that I had—I gave him one pear. I thought of my own hunger even though I am well fed and could of easily turned around and bought more food. I didn’t love that boy. I threw him the crumbs off my table. Jesus says that when we love the least of these we love him. My heart crumbled as I realized that I had given the one that saved me only what I didn’t want for myself. I had only loved myself and no one else. When I got back to the house, I collapsed on the ground and sobbed. I was so ashamed. I couldn’t even look at the food I had purchased.
Something I had read in the Bible came back to me. John, the apostle that Jesus loved, said “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue, but with actions and in truth.” (1 John 3:16-18) In the midst of that incredibly painful moment, I realized that love is denying my own needs, wants and desires for the needs, wants and desires of someone else. It is giving my time, my talents and my resources to someone that needs them. Love is giving more than a pear.
Just like the Velveteen Rabbit, we want love to change us and make us real. The rabbit wanted to live life to its fullest and experience love in its grandest form. The fairy told him that becoming real would pull out his whiskers, rub off his beautiful velveteen fur, and create tears in his seams. Love would change his appearance forever, but sacrificing himself would make the rabbit real. He would have love in its purest form and it would satisfy his deep yearning. I believe we are all like that rabbit. Learning to love as Jesus did will cost us. Some of our spots will have to be rubbed off and we might loose an eye, but in the midst of it all we will learn how to love and be loved. Love will no longer be a dreamy eyed state but a real everyday reality.
Love the one God puts in front of you and by all means--give them more than a pear.
Monday, February 5, 2007
Love, Valentines & Growing Up
“We love because he first loved us.” 1 John 4:19
With Valentine’s Day just around the corner love is swirling in the air and yet do we have any better understanding of how to love deeply and purely then we did yesterday? When the people in ancient times asked Jesus what the most important spiritual truth was, he said to love God and love your neighbor. Yet 2,000 years later, we still struggle to understand exactly what it means to love an abstract being and how to love the imperfect people around us. It gets so confusing when you can love pizza, your new vacuum and your mother. Intrinsically we know that there are chasms of difference between loving your new vacuum and loving your mother, but love still seems like a word that everyone knows but no one can really define. However, when we have been loved deeply from the heart, we know it.
It is true we love best when we have been deeply loved. The apostle John went so far to say that our only capacity to love comes from the fact that God loved us first. I was told my whole life that God loved me, but it always sounded a little like Santa Claus seeing everything I did. It seemed like a fanciful abstract idea that held no weight in real life. I wanted to believe that God loved me but how would I ever know that. I know he died for us, but that included everybody in the world. I could understand how God loved mankind, but did he really love me—in all my faults and uniqueness? The church told me I was supposed to feel full of God’s love, but secretly I wondered how would I ever know if God really loved me—just me?
Several years ago, I lived in Arlington, Virginia. One day in early spring as the cherry blossoms were bursting out of their buds, I decided to go for a run at a local community center. I loved coming home from work, putting on my running shoes and heading up to the center especially on beautiful spring days. The center had an outside track that circled an open grassy park where people often played Frisbee or sat on blankets reading the paper. There were no trees or plants of any kind; it was just a wide-open grassy plain with a track that surrounded it. The park was completely fenced in with only one way in and one way out.
That warm day I started jogging and asking the God the question I had always struggled with, “Do you really love just me and if you do how would I know?” I then ran around the bend and continued down the far side of the track. I immediately noticed a very old African American woman sitting on a park bench beside the track. As I got closer to her, a strong, almost overpowering, thought entered my mid—“Go talk to her.” Immediately I shook my head and said no way. I don’t want to stop. I have a good pace going. What would I say to her? It would be too weird. Instead of this thought sinking back into the recesses of my mind, it got stronger and as I approached the bench where the woman sat this thought seemed to press hard into my mind. It was an odd feeling, so I stopped and stood still. I looked over at her. She was old with gray wisps of hair and a face that seemed to hold the wisdom of a life filled with joy and tragedy. Her face had a kindness to it and I realized as I stared at her that she was reading a large print Bible.
I walked over to her and sat next to her on the park bench. I didn’t say anything. I just sat there and looked at her. She looked up, smiled at me, and commented on the weather. I smiled and told her how much I loved the sunshine. As I looked up towards the sun, she grabbed my hands and held them in hers. I jumped slightly. I was not expecting her to touch me. I turned my head quickly toward her and opened my eyes wide and stared at her in silence. She then looked deep into my eyes and said, ‘Jesus loves you. He really loves you.” In a high-pitched squeal, I said, “What? What did you say?” She repeated it and I was so shocked I pulled my hands away, backed away from her and went back to the track. I started to run and it felt like my heart was going to beat out of my chest.
About 20 seconds later, my impolite reaction caught up with me and I was suddenly ashamed of how I treated this kind woman, so I stopped, turned around and looked toward the park bench. She wasn’t there. I searched the grassy plain; she wasn’t there either. She hadn’t passed me on the track and she wasn’t walking in the other direction. My heart was beating so loud I could hear it my ears. I ran back to the bench and searched for her again. Then I began to ask others who were sitting in that area if they saw that woman. Not one person remembered seeing anyone like that. I asked everyone in the park. No one had seen her. Then I asked the front office if they had seen her. They told me that they didn’t remember anyone with that description. I searched for an hour for her and it was like she disappeared out of thin air. All I know is that the divine came into the ordinary in that moment and it still makes me shiver. I think I saw I an angel that day and I think God sent her to tell me—me—that he loves me. That was the first time God came into the reality of life to let me feel his love for me.
Just like most people the bizarre experience in the park eventually became a distant memory and the questions about God truly deeply loving me in the midst of all my mistakes and doubts came back to plague me once again. I was in Uganda in October 2004 visiting some widows who had been rescued by International Justice Mission. The day we were to see the widows was my 33rd birthday. I had told no one that it was my birthday and was relishing in the grand pity party I had created for myself. I told God that if I had a boyfriend, he would be giving me jewelry. I told him that if I were really his beloved, he would do something special like that for my birthday. Not my finest moment. The widow’s stories were powerful, beautiful and full of God’s mercy and I suddenly felt so silly and ridiculous for demanding a birthday present from God when clearly there were people in the world with bigger needs then my own. As the presentation ended, the widows said that they had made something for us. They asked me to come up first to see what it was. As the box opened, I saw the most beautiful necklaces. They asked me to pick the one I liked best. I choked back tears as I realized that God had given me jewelry on my birthday and straight from the hands of the widows he loves so much.
Like I said, when you have been loved deeply, you know it. I have had many more tangible experiences of God’s love for me including a valentine from Jesus sent anonymously to me a couple years ago. I needed to know that God saw my uniqueness and loved me as an individual. He has reminded me over and over that he is my beloved and that he will romance me for the rest of eternity. However, the story does not end there.
Some Christians want to stop the story there. God loves us. He really does and wants to show us everyday how much he loves us if we look past the ordinary into the divine around us. All true, but not the whole story. Infants are showered with love from the families that love them. New parents provide for all their needs, hug them when they cry, and rock them to sleep at night. Infants do not yet have the capacity to return the love lavished on them and so they grow up. God wants us to grow up too. We are not intended to stay spiritual infants. God’s love is meant to help us grow up into people who love with incredible ferocity and wild abandon.
Like any great love affair it grows as each person tries to out love the other. As God has loved me in tangible deep ways, I have now begun to ask the question—“How can I love him?” I want to die trying to out love God. In Matthew 25, Jesus says the best way to love him is to care for the sick, clothe the poor, to feed the hungry, to give a drink to the thirsty, to look after the stranger and the prisoner. In Isaiah 58 God says the best way to honor him is to love the poor and create justice for the oppressed. So, I have and will continue to love the poor, the sick, the oppressed and the strangers among us. Will you?
Let God love you and then give God a Valentine he will never forget…shelter for the cold, food for the hungry, justice for the oppressed, love for your enemies or healing for the sick.
“We love because he first loved us.” 1 John 4:19
With Valentine’s Day just around the corner love is swirling in the air and yet do we have any better understanding of how to love deeply and purely then we did yesterday? When the people in ancient times asked Jesus what the most important spiritual truth was, he said to love God and love your neighbor. Yet 2,000 years later, we still struggle to understand exactly what it means to love an abstract being and how to love the imperfect people around us. It gets so confusing when you can love pizza, your new vacuum and your mother. Intrinsically we know that there are chasms of difference between loving your new vacuum and loving your mother, but love still seems like a word that everyone knows but no one can really define. However, when we have been loved deeply from the heart, we know it.
It is true we love best when we have been deeply loved. The apostle John went so far to say that our only capacity to love comes from the fact that God loved us first. I was told my whole life that God loved me, but it always sounded a little like Santa Claus seeing everything I did. It seemed like a fanciful abstract idea that held no weight in real life. I wanted to believe that God loved me but how would I ever know that. I know he died for us, but that included everybody in the world. I could understand how God loved mankind, but did he really love me—in all my faults and uniqueness? The church told me I was supposed to feel full of God’s love, but secretly I wondered how would I ever know if God really loved me—just me?
Several years ago, I lived in Arlington, Virginia. One day in early spring as the cherry blossoms were bursting out of their buds, I decided to go for a run at a local community center. I loved coming home from work, putting on my running shoes and heading up to the center especially on beautiful spring days. The center had an outside track that circled an open grassy park where people often played Frisbee or sat on blankets reading the paper. There were no trees or plants of any kind; it was just a wide-open grassy plain with a track that surrounded it. The park was completely fenced in with only one way in and one way out.
That warm day I started jogging and asking the God the question I had always struggled with, “Do you really love just me and if you do how would I know?” I then ran around the bend and continued down the far side of the track. I immediately noticed a very old African American woman sitting on a park bench beside the track. As I got closer to her, a strong, almost overpowering, thought entered my mid—“Go talk to her.” Immediately I shook my head and said no way. I don’t want to stop. I have a good pace going. What would I say to her? It would be too weird. Instead of this thought sinking back into the recesses of my mind, it got stronger and as I approached the bench where the woman sat this thought seemed to press hard into my mind. It was an odd feeling, so I stopped and stood still. I looked over at her. She was old with gray wisps of hair and a face that seemed to hold the wisdom of a life filled with joy and tragedy. Her face had a kindness to it and I realized as I stared at her that she was reading a large print Bible.
I walked over to her and sat next to her on the park bench. I didn’t say anything. I just sat there and looked at her. She looked up, smiled at me, and commented on the weather. I smiled and told her how much I loved the sunshine. As I looked up towards the sun, she grabbed my hands and held them in hers. I jumped slightly. I was not expecting her to touch me. I turned my head quickly toward her and opened my eyes wide and stared at her in silence. She then looked deep into my eyes and said, ‘Jesus loves you. He really loves you.” In a high-pitched squeal, I said, “What? What did you say?” She repeated it and I was so shocked I pulled my hands away, backed away from her and went back to the track. I started to run and it felt like my heart was going to beat out of my chest.
About 20 seconds later, my impolite reaction caught up with me and I was suddenly ashamed of how I treated this kind woman, so I stopped, turned around and looked toward the park bench. She wasn’t there. I searched the grassy plain; she wasn’t there either. She hadn’t passed me on the track and she wasn’t walking in the other direction. My heart was beating so loud I could hear it my ears. I ran back to the bench and searched for her again. Then I began to ask others who were sitting in that area if they saw that woman. Not one person remembered seeing anyone like that. I asked everyone in the park. No one had seen her. Then I asked the front office if they had seen her. They told me that they didn’t remember anyone with that description. I searched for an hour for her and it was like she disappeared out of thin air. All I know is that the divine came into the ordinary in that moment and it still makes me shiver. I think I saw I an angel that day and I think God sent her to tell me—me—that he loves me. That was the first time God came into the reality of life to let me feel his love for me.
Just like most people the bizarre experience in the park eventually became a distant memory and the questions about God truly deeply loving me in the midst of all my mistakes and doubts came back to plague me once again. I was in Uganda in October 2004 visiting some widows who had been rescued by International Justice Mission. The day we were to see the widows was my 33rd birthday. I had told no one that it was my birthday and was relishing in the grand pity party I had created for myself. I told God that if I had a boyfriend, he would be giving me jewelry. I told him that if I were really his beloved, he would do something special like that for my birthday. Not my finest moment. The widow’s stories were powerful, beautiful and full of God’s mercy and I suddenly felt so silly and ridiculous for demanding a birthday present from God when clearly there were people in the world with bigger needs then my own. As the presentation ended, the widows said that they had made something for us. They asked me to come up first to see what it was. As the box opened, I saw the most beautiful necklaces. They asked me to pick the one I liked best. I choked back tears as I realized that God had given me jewelry on my birthday and straight from the hands of the widows he loves so much.
Like I said, when you have been loved deeply, you know it. I have had many more tangible experiences of God’s love for me including a valentine from Jesus sent anonymously to me a couple years ago. I needed to know that God saw my uniqueness and loved me as an individual. He has reminded me over and over that he is my beloved and that he will romance me for the rest of eternity. However, the story does not end there.
Some Christians want to stop the story there. God loves us. He really does and wants to show us everyday how much he loves us if we look past the ordinary into the divine around us. All true, but not the whole story. Infants are showered with love from the families that love them. New parents provide for all their needs, hug them when they cry, and rock them to sleep at night. Infants do not yet have the capacity to return the love lavished on them and so they grow up. God wants us to grow up too. We are not intended to stay spiritual infants. God’s love is meant to help us grow up into people who love with incredible ferocity and wild abandon.
Like any great love affair it grows as each person tries to out love the other. As God has loved me in tangible deep ways, I have now begun to ask the question—“How can I love him?” I want to die trying to out love God. In Matthew 25, Jesus says the best way to love him is to care for the sick, clothe the poor, to feed the hungry, to give a drink to the thirsty, to look after the stranger and the prisoner. In Isaiah 58 God says the best way to honor him is to love the poor and create justice for the oppressed. So, I have and will continue to love the poor, the sick, the oppressed and the strangers among us. Will you?
Let God love you and then give God a Valentine he will never forget…shelter for the cold, food for the hungry, justice for the oppressed, love for your enemies or healing for the sick.
“We love because he first loved us.” 1 John 4:19
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