Colored Pens And A Comfortable Chair

I woke up in the middle of the night recently because of a loud boom of thunder.  The first thing that came to mind upon waking and hearing rain pour down from the cracked-open sky was whether my basement would flood.  I twisted and turned under the covers almost whining in my worry over a basement filled with water.  I knew that nothing I could do could stop the basement from flooding.  No amount of worrying or hoping.  Indeed, even if I had been standing in the middle of the basement with the lights on and my eyes open, I would have had no ability to stop the rain from seeping in, no ability to save the carpet, or keep the drywall from ruin.  And this, strange as it seems, brought me face to face with grace and God and my own weakness and lack of control.  It would only be by God’s grace that the basement would not flood, and only by his grace that it would.  

I am in a season of life in which I am fully aware, almost on a minute-by-minute basis, of my utter lack of control of things that really matter.  This is not to say that I have been in control of such things before, but only that I am now understanding my lack of control in a real way.  And, I am not sure I can say that I have ever felt more uncomfortable.  It is nearly unbearable to sit in a place of vulnerability, to sit with the knowledge that I cannot make the rain come or go.

Experiencing extended vulnerability, for me, means coming up with ways (mostly without this intention) of seeking to manipulate God.  Here’s an example:  I had this great idea that I could pray better and more effectively if only I had a more comfortable chair.  I looked on-line and in catalogs.  Would red be good?  Bomber-jacket brown?  Orange would make a statement!  If I had one of these chairs, perhaps my prayers (which, if analyzed would reveal themselves to be polite requests to restore control to me) would be heard and answered quickly.  More recently, after having had a friend describe that she writes prayers in different colors and in drawings rather than words, I realized that what I really needed was colored pens.  Orange, green, blue, red, purple.  For sure, if I had these colored pens, my soul would spill onto paper, God would really know of my desperate need for control, and I would again feel safe and sound.  

In my healthy, honest moments, I know that even armed with colored pens and a comfortable chair, I cannot manipulate God, cannot “regain” control I never had in the first place, and am simply a naked soul dependent on God’s grace and mercy.  And so, I hold on to this grace, believing when he says it is sufficient for me, even when, or perhaps especially when, everything inside me wonders if it is otherwise, longs to rely on my own ego and strength, and aches for my will to be done instead of his.

My Profession

Lord, this is my prayer,

To live a life surrendered to Christ.  A life whose reference is Christ – all moving toward him and all moving out from him.

To live in the present, in celebration of the good that you created, but also in full recognition of my own sinfulness.

To know that the Christ I follow was crucified.

To know that Christ is present with me here and now, in my earthly life, in my earthly body.

To step into the life of the oppressed and not fear the death of self that comes with that step.

To find community that is grounded in Christ and that prepares all in that community for engagement with the world through disciplines of prayer, song, Scripture, silence, confession, and celebration.

To have the strength to look in the mirror and ask not what my thoughts are or what my talk is, but what my life is.

To have the courage to obey your call on my life even when it contradicts my own longings and desires, and even when it seems contrary to reason or my own ethics.

Though I may not know your will for every circumstance I face, to act boldly and rely on the assurance of your mercy and grace.

To develop a liturgy of desire for the Christ-centered life, a liturgy that rejects the desires that the world calls me to, like consumerism and promotion of self over others.

To have the courage to make decisions from inside of pain and suffering and not just from a place of security.

To always hold my reason in obedience to Jesus Christ, the crucified and resurrected.

To believe your demonstration through Christ that you are utterly for humanity, utterly for me.

To view my life through the lens of Christ instead of viewing Christ through the lens of me.

Not to fear going into the world with the gospel because I know that Christ has already gone before me.

To see Christ hidden in the oppressed, the sick, the imprisoned, the hated, the illegal immigrant, the hungry, the unloved.

To love with action, to love when it is hard, to love the one who irritates me, imprisons me, slanders me, and mistreats me, to love in the way that frees, instead of controls.

To see Christ between me and any other.

To know that the way your grace works is not to sweep me up and pull me out of the world and into a far-away place called heaven, but rather, to meet me here and restore, as if never broken, the parts of me that I would call forever damaged and silenced by my own sin and the sins of others.

To rely solely and completely on the righteousness of Christ.

To ask not “what does this have to do with me,” but instead, “what does this have to do with Christ?”

To ask not “who is this person to me,” but instead, “who is this person to Christ?”

To be available to you.

To live a life that is yours alone.

In the name of Jesus,
Amen.

The One He Loves

For the last four months, I have picked up my daughter from school almost everyday.  I have never been able to do this until now.  Every single day, I pull into the “car line” and wait for her.  She has trouble with her locker and so she is often one of the last kids to come out.  So I wait and watch for her.  And then, every single day, when I first see her walking toward the car, my breath catches slightly in my throat and I think, “There she is!”  I am so full of love and excitement that I would run to her if I weren’t in the car.  Every. Single. Day.  Really.  It’s not planned, it just happens.  “There she is!”  She opens the back door, puts her trumpet and backpack inside, and then climbs into the front seat.  And there she is, so full of life.  I want to know what she learned, how she feels, what she saw, what she had for lunch.  I want to know everything.  I hug her and kiss her.  There is a reason for all of this, of course: she is the one I love.  She is my beloved.  Of all the kids that walk out of the school doors, she is mine.  She is the one I love in the sea of faces.  If you have more than one child, you have this reaction to each of them.  When you see yours, something inside breaks open and your heart leaps: There she is! There he is!  There is the one I love! 

This experience seems like a small thing.  It is just 10 minutes of my day, between 2:39 and 2:49.  It happens on days when it’s sunny, days when it’s rainy, days when it’s snowy, days when it’s windy, days when I’m sick, days when she’s sick, days when I’m stressed, days when she’s tired.  But, it is in these 10 minutes that I see everything so clearly.  It is in these 10 minutes that I know for sure what holds everything else together.  It is in these 10 minutes that I am reminded that my reaction to seeing my daughter as she walks out of school is the same reaction God has when he looks at me.  His breath catches in his throat and he says: “There she is!”  He looks at me and says: “You’re the one I love.”  He runs to me and wants to know what’s on my heart, how I feel, what I saw, what I learned.  This is because I’m the one he loves.  I belong to him.  I am his beloved.  His heart is overwhelmed with love for me.  

But it’s not just me. It’s also the person I gossiped about the other day with friends.  She is the one he loves.  It’s the homeless person I walked by on the street.  He is the one he loves.  It’s the politician who gives rise in my chest to anger and near hate.  He is the one he loves.  It’s the person on their cell phone in line.  She is the one he loves.  It’s the person I think made the worst decision possible.  He is the one he loves.  It’s the person who has hurt me deeply.  He is the one he loves.  It’s the person I have hurt.  He is the one he loves.  God is like the parent who has more than one child.  

He has this same reaction to you.  When he sees you, his breath catches in his throat and he says: “There she is!”  “There he is!”   He runs to be close to you, but not to scold you or condemn you.  Not to tell you of the ways you fall short, but to throw his arms around you, kiss you, and celebrate you.  (Luke 15:20-21)  He wants you to tell him what’s on your heart, how you feel, what you learned, what you saw, how you loved. 

And there is a reason for this: You are the one he loves.  

-- inspired in part by Jason Gray's song "Remind Me Who I Am"  [watch video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSIVjjY8Ou8]