Pain sucks

There is really no other way to say it. No one likes pain but we all create it, run from it, blame others for it, and wish it didn't exist. But it does and it sucks.

I naturally want to put pain in my 'bad things that happen' category but it never stays there. I want pain to be bad because it feels bad and it's something I want to hide and not have to bring out and deal with. Pain feels horrible so it should go to the place that all horrible things go; that acceptable place we put stuff. Like paint thinner on the top shelf in the back with the lid on tight so no one can smell it. 

My mom used to say, "if you don't have something positive to say than don't say anything at all" when my brothers and I were arguing or name calling. If we wern't going to speak words that bring life then we weren't allowed to talk. Pain feels like words of death so I avoided it like the plague. 

Some pain is an alarm that let's us know when something isn't right. In the most obvious sense it let's me know when the direction I am heading in is not a good one and I should redirect course, like a knife cutting my finger instead of the vegetable on the cutting board. When I feel the pain I know the knife is no longer in the produce but in my finger! So in some cases pain is actually...good. 

But what about the pain that is brought by an intangible knife? Pain that starts as a tightening in my throat constricting down through my chest until I can hardly breath and the only piece of me that is free are the tears pouring from my eyes. That pain sucks. That is the pain I want to call bad because it's there through the darkest, scariest, loneliest times in my life, through divorce, rejection, betrayal, lies, broken relationships and loss.

Some say pain is the hardest teacher. I say pain is that teacher you hate and want to get all your classmates to sign a petition to get them fired, but then those moments after the excruciating exam when you know you will never forget the lessons somehow win. 

I don't have a cute way to wrap this up or have insightful words of wisdom that make pain better. Honestly pain just sucks, especially right now, when I'm in it.

Struggling through Africa

Africa was enchanting, frightening, beautiful and incredibly hard.  It's a place I've wanted to visit for almost as long as I can remember.  I used to dream of being a missionary living in a foreign land, taking on a new culture, living in a small hut with a dirt floor, so going to Africa was one of those small dream-come-true type of adventures.

I've been home for two months but it's taken me a while to process everything I experienced.  It wasn't as easy to transition back to everyday life as I thought it would be, including enjoying our solidly build, beautifully furnished home and church and abundant meals lavishly provided by our fully stocked Trader Joes.  On our first Sunday back home I was finishing my prep work in our children's Sunday school classrooms and checking to make sure our teachers had everything they needed before I slipped into service which had already began.  As I took my seat in the front row next to Chris I inhaled a deep breath and felt a tightness grip my chest and I wanted to burst into tears.  Just days ago I was at Pastor Sangini's church out in the bush in a hut with corrugated metal ceiling and walls for service, then teaching Sunday school in the dirt under the shade of a large tree.  We didn't have classrooms, Sunday school curriculum (now they do, thank you lbcf), desks or supplies, the church didn't have doors, electricity, sound equipment or instruments but the hut was filled with people worshiping together and seeking Jesus.

As I stood in the front row of our fully furnished sanctuary my eyes wet with tears and my mind lost in the bush in Zambia, resentment began to creep into my heart.  We have such a lavish life style, I wished I could go back to Pastor Sangini's church in the bush and live simply, loving Jesus and sharing His love with others and caring for those in need.  I didn't know what to do with those feelings of resentment so I began praying.  Over the next few days through prayer and sharing with those around me my resentment and bitter feelings toward America and our culture began to shift.  One of the most beautiful parts of the Gospel and Christianity is it meets you right where you are, where as other religions bring a culture along with them.  If you were to walk into a Mosque it would look like most other Muslim places of worship no matter what country it was in, similar to Buddhist temples, they have a culture that you must enter into to participate in the religion.  But Christianity looks like the culture it is in.  In Zambia Africa most people live in huts with dirt floors so their churches are huts with dirt floors and in America most people live in solid structure homes with electricity and carpet so our churches look the same.  American church buildings with their decorated walls and high-tech sound systems are just a reflection of the culture we live in.  I found myself thanking Jesus for our church buildings and Sunday school classrooms, instead of feeling bitter towards them I can celebrate the beauty of the Gospel that meets us right where we are.

I am struggling through many other experiences I encountered like children and their families only having enough money for one meal a day, consisting of corn meal cabbage and broth. Some of the kids I taught in Sunday school walked for almost two hours to get to church that morning, most with empty stomachs.  One day we were walking through one of the compounds and saw a woman selling small bags of what looked like little white rocks.  I learned they were in fact rocks and she told me they were food.  Yes, these people are eating rocks.  She told me the rocks were a great source of calcium and perfect for pregnant women.  My stomach sank as she was speaking to me.  Here I am this young American woman looking forward to Chris and I getting pregnant next year so I am going to my naturopathic Dr. and taking all kinds of herbal remedies and supplements in hopes that I will have good nutrients in my body for a healthy baby and these women are eating rocks.  I felt sick to my stomach and totally helpless.

There are so many needs.  I feel like I opened Pandora's box in my heart and there is no way to shut it.  These experiences and images will forever be burned in my mind, haunting and beautiful alike.

I am grateful for our trip to Africa and all I encountered, for Rob and Naomi who warmly welcomed us into their home and their lives, for Pastor Bruce and Christabella and their mission to open a free school for the children in the compound,  for all the precious children I hugged, worshiped with and played with, for the safari and beholding the wonder of creation, and that I got to do all of this side by side with my beloved husband.

I will choose to live in the tension of poverty and wealth, desperation and abundance and endure the struggle of life and death as long as my Abba is with me to build His kingdom here in the midst of it.

Untamed

Elephants are really quiet.  It's quite funny considering they are one of the largest  mammals on earth, and they don't exactly tip toe around.  Africa's wildlife has found a secret door in my heart and swung it wide open (it's also given me pause to consider choosing the life of a vegetarian).  Sitting on the edge of my tall seat in the very back of our safari jeep armed with my zoom lens camera I enter the  untamed.  We round a bend and catch the sables and impala grazing on the edge of the Zambezi River (Zambezi means River of God), carefully lowering their heads for a cool drink of water.  Baboon mothers scavenge for food on the beach with their babies clinging onto their under bellies with all four legs.  We explore a little deeper and come to a roadblock but none like I have ever experienced before.  Ahead of us are three towering giraffes, their stretched necks reach for the leaves at the top of the trees as they gracefully nibble at the foliage.  We begin again only to stop suddenly as elephants emerge in formation out of the bush, the adults take up the front and rear protecting the young from predators.  I can hardly breath as the shutter on my camera opens and closes capturing the majesty of these regal giants.  Then it happens.  Worship bursts out of my heart so much that my chest can hardly contain it.  It was silent yet my soul was singing one of the loudest songs I have ever experienced.  This is His creation declaring the glory of the Lord and I get to join in and worship!  Just think, God gets to take in this wild landscape filled with enchanting creatures every minute of every day. 

Amsterdam

I didn't have much expectation for Amsterdam.  The only real thing I knew of the city before we came was the reputation of the red light district.  I am quickly falling in love with it here.  There are over 40 canals winding throughout the city center lined with tall narrow brick buildings full of character.  Beneath the stately old buildings are cafes, sandwich shops and underground pubs and crepe bakeries.  The streets are congested with bicycles and mopeds, not very many cars, most everyone rides.  The city is teaming with life from the ancient museums to the floating flower market and the upscale shopping streets.  We only have a 22hr layover here on our way to Africa but there is so much more to be explored!

We made our way through the city center and crossed a bridge into the red light district, we intentionally visited this famed area in the middle of the day.  From first glance it looked just as sweet and quaint as the other parts of the city.  I guess I thought it would look dark and shameful.  It didn't.  The streets were filled with families with children and tourists.  It felt almost too okay.  It wasn't until we looked closely at the storefronts that we saw the reputation was in fact accurate.  There were weed shops, sex toy souvenir shops and 'live porn' stores.  What really caught my attention were the buildings that didn't have a neon sign or pornography in the windows.  These shops looked like mini window displays and had floor to ceiling windows with a chair or a bed and a sink or shower head.  The displays were anywhere from 4 feet by 4 feet to 10x10 and had a full length glass front door giving entrance to the closet sized display.  Each housed a woman wearing as close to nothing as possible, posing, coercing, seducing or sitting on the chair taking a break on her iPhone waiting for her next customer.  One girl we passed looked different from the others.  I wondered what her story was as she stood closer to the window than the rest and impatiently tapped her foot which made her whole body shake.  As I passed, we made eye contact for what felt like a full minute.  What was she thinking, how did she get there, did she want out?  I had this fleeting thought of wanting her to be free and wondering if she wanted my life.  We could only walk those streets in the red light for a few minutes, besides averting our eyes at every corner our hearts began to feel heavy.  Chris leaned over and whispered a song in my ear, 'Your the God of this City...'.  We began singing it under our breath as the naked women and sex toys fell into the distance.

Amsterdam has surprised me.  I thought it would be full of sex and nudity but it's not.  It's full of life and culture and beauty.  So then I thought for sure if it was all crammed into one corner of the city it would feel dark, heavy and repulsive but it's not.  As I sit here on my bed in our quaint little hotel room on the other side of town and process all that we saw, my heart hurts.  It hurts for the women in the windows.  For the men who visit them.  For the darkness that is disguised in light.  It is peculiar how sex, prostitution, and pornography have made their way into mainstream culture.  It's no big deal.  Kids can walk with their parents through the sex exploited streets of the red light district without second thought.  I find that I am not turned off by the 'sin' but rather by the way it is disguised.

Jesus
You're the Light in this darkness
You're the Hope to the hopeless
You're the Peace to the restless
You are

Would you reveal yourself to the restless girl in the window who locked eyes with me.  Let her taste your hope and peace and never be satisfied with anything else again.  Make a way for her to find you.

Control

I'm reading a new book its called, Grace for the Good Girl.  The author writes from her perspective of knowing Jesus almost her entire life and about the struggles she has faced learning how to live life well.  My mind is being held captive by a concept I read the other day, it keeps surfacing and haunting me.  Jesus says in John 12:24, a grain of wheat stays alone and remains just as it is unless it falls to the ground and dies.  This sounds horrible.  Everyday I expend energy on things that bring life, it feels unnatural and wrong to promote death.  Falling to the ground and dying means I have to give up control.  Control stabilizes me, it keeps my life in order and holds everything together without control I fear I would fall apart or worse, fall to the ground and die.

Control has enabled me to be good.  Being in relationship with Jesus comes easy.  I've known Him almost my entire life, I only have a few memories that don't include Him.  I trust Jesus, how could I not, He has never left me and He always does what is best for me.  I model my life after Him, I choose to include Him in everything I do and I wouldn't have it any other way.  There is a path I think Jesus wants my life to be on and I learn to walk it by reading scripture and watching others.  

Control is an integral part of my life on this path.  It enables me to choose what is right and produce results, fruit, isn't that a good thing?

The part I often miss is my efforts still fall short.  No matter how well put together or how hard I try I am still not good enough.  There is nothing I can do or create or manipulate on my own.  Ultimately it comes down to surrender.  Control looks very practical and helpful, but under the surface it is squeezing the life out of me.  My control must fall to the ground and die in order to produce life.

I want to learn how to release.

My life may appear a certain way outwardly but internally I am in a perpetual struggle.  I want to be enough, know the right things, have what it takes, so I control.

While I was praying I saw a picture of a rat maze and I was inside.  The walls of the maze were constructed by me and as time went on and life changes took place the maze grew larger.  Then without warning I heard a voice that I knew to be Jesus' saying, I want to set you free.  At that moment the walls of the maze bent forward and I walked out.  He lead me to the edge of the bluff and said this is all yours, I want you to live in freedom.

I had build my own prison and gave Jesus the role of the guard.  When all along His story for me is vast open space.  Terrifying when navigating along but that is the beauty in it.  I was not created to be alone, I am created to surrender my life to Jesus and gain his life.  Freedom.

Lord teach me how to release control and live
in the freedom you have set before me.

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free; keep standing firm 
and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery.
Galatians 5:1