Posted in Living this Life

Weird

Posted on by Sara

“Well, that’s weird”, she said. And she walked away, leaving an indelible mark on my heart.

It was 1989. My family had moved from Africa to Los Angeles, and I was thrown into a Southern California high school after spending the first 14 years of my life in the jungles of West Africa. (anyone getting Mean Girls vibes here yet?) This was a mixer to get to know people before the first day of school, and some cheerleaders were supposed to be welcoming us. So she smiled brightly, asked me where I was from, and I eagerly told her, “I’m from Africa”.

Looking back, I kind of feel sorry for her. She probably expected me to just say Pasadena or Sierra Madre like most others in that room, so when the word, “Africa” came out of my mouth, what was she suppose to do? There is no script for that when you’re in high school in So Cal… so she applied the only label she probably knew – “weird” – and then walked away. Leaving me standing there, feeling … well, weird, I guess.

Sometimes I remember that moment, and I feel that blush of shame start to crawl up my neck again. There’s something worse than feeling invisible – and that is feeling wrong. Like the whole world is one way, and you are another – and there’s nothing you can do about it.

So you bumble along, figuring the best you can do is pretend. You wear the clothes, play the part, don the mask, and yet feel so out of place in every place you go.

My whole life until then, I was the blond kid in a sea of beautiful brown faces. I may have looked out of place – even weird, you might say – but it was my home and it felt right.

But then it all changed. Suddenly, I looked like I fit in, but nothing inside of me belonged. And that brings a whole other set of confusion, insecurity, and identity conflict.

There were alot of years spent walking in the shadow of that branding … the word weird almost became my identity. I know I’m not alone – in fact many who are reading this have echoes of much worse names spoken over them by those much closer to them than a random cheerleader at a high school event. People who were supposed to protect you and honor you, but instead spoke words filled with lies and deceit into your soul.

My own story led me down many roads and into many different communities where I found bits and pieces of myself, but none could ever define all of me. In Amsterdam, I found a community I could relate to in a wonderful world of misfit travellers who collectively didn’t belong anywhere. It was perhaps the most “at home” I had felt in that sense… but it wasn’t my home. On a beautiful Native American reservation, I found echoes of my life in Africa, and I built a life there, despite once again seeming so out of place. It still feels like home to me, but even that place filled with memories of my wedding day, my babies being babies, much laughter and many tears – even that place doesn’t define me.

So here we are … and I have questions.

When you sit before God in the cool of the day, and let your soul be unclothed, what does He see? And what do you see? Do those two visions align or do you find yourself with a splintered identity?

Could it be that we are living lives designed by a Creator, with beautiful and unique giftings, but we see ourselves through imperfect eyes – and that disconnect between the vision God has of us and our own vision of ourselves leaves an insecurity and brokennes imprinted on our souls. So we live with a splintered identity in the shadow of the lies spoken over us, making life decisions, we choosing careers, marrying (or staying single) and raising families (or not) … all while being defined by this discordant note.

Lean in – listen to this! This next part takes my breath away. I love the promises of Scripture, and I have spent years reading and learning and seeking to apply to my life the truth of who God says I actually am… and yet I had never seen this until my 50th year. My year of Jubilee.

In a desert land He found him,
    in a barren and howling waste.
He shielded him and cared for him;
    He guarded him as the apple of His eye. (Dt 32:10)

This is a promise I have always loved, and while finding the phrase “apple of His eye” rather endearing, it sounds like something echoing from the hallways of the 1800’s, doesn’t it? I struggled to find much significance in the phrase until I found myself studying this passage in depth to prepare to teach one day… and I decided it was time to learn what that phrase really meant. Allow me a moment to nerd out over words here, because this little insight has transformed how I see myself!

Here is the image of the Hebrew word we read as “apple” in our Bibles today:

Which translates literally as the “the little man of the eye”.

I have so many more questions at this point. How does a “little man” translate to “apple” and what does all of that even mean in light of God’s promises to you and me?

Hold on – this gets really cool! What this describes is that moment you look into someone’s eye, and their pupil (the apple of their eye) catches the light and reflects a mirrored image of yourself back to you. A “little man of the eye” … kind of like this:

Is your heart beating a little faster? Do you hear what I hear in this beautiful little Hebrew phrase?

We can only see the true image of ourselves when we look into our Father’s eye, into the apple of His eye, and see our reflection gazing back at us.

Which means – we need to draw close. Lay aside all the tormenting lies and self doubts. Lay down all the aspirations and self-help motivational speeches. Tune down what your family and community and successes and failures and echoes in your head say about you. Lay it all down, and gaze into His eyes. Let your soul be stripped down of all the ways we guard ourselves, and in this vulnerable space, look deep into His eyes and see yourself for who you truly are.

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
    your works are wonderful,
    I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from you
    when I was made in the secret place,
    when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed body;
    all the days ordained for me were written in your book
    before one of them came to be. (Psalm 139:14-16)

My friend, do you believe that?

You will be a crown of splendor in the Lord’s hand,
    a royal diadem in the hand of your God.
No longer will they call you Deserted,
    or name your land Desolate.
But you will be called Hephzibah, (which means “my delight is in her”)
    and your land Beulah;
for the Lord will take delight in you. Is 62:3-4

You are His workmanship, His poem1 you are royalty and you are holy2 . You are righteous3, you are a temple4 , you are free5, you are a jewel6, you are honored7, and you are protected8 You are delighted in9, you are chosen and precious10, you are complete11, you are loved12, and you have a purpose13. You need not fear or be discouraged14 , you are bold, imbued with power, love, and self-discipline15.

Draw near, my friend!. Gaze in His eyes. Don’t look away – keep at it until you see your reflection in there… see who He is and who He made you to be. Only then is our reflection true, trustworthy, and sure. Only then do the voices from within and without that taunt us start to fade and become irrelevant. Only then do our feet find a firm foundation, and we can truly align our identity with the one our Creator designed us to be.

This brings peace. The kind that doesn’t get rocked by our circumstances. That sweet cheerleader had no idea the road whe was putting me on back in 1989, and today I am grateful for the label she put on me – for it made me draw closer to my Creator. I kind of like how Dr. Seuss puts it: “today you are you, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is youer than you!”

  1. Ephesians 2:10 ↩︎
  2. 1 Peter 2:9 ↩︎
  3. Isaiah 54:14 ↩︎
  4. 1 Corinthians 6:19 ↩︎
  5. Zechariah 9:11-12 ↩︎
  6. Zechariah 9:17 ↩︎
  7. Isaiah 49:5 ↩︎
  8. Zechariah 2:8 ↩︎
  9. Zephaniah 3:17 ↩︎
  10. Isaiah 28:16 ↩︎
  11. Colossians 2:10 ↩︎
  12. Romans 5:8 ↩︎
  13. Jeremiah 29:11; 1 Peter 2:9b ↩︎
  14. Joshua 1:9 ↩︎
  15. 2 Timothy 1:7 ↩︎
Posted in Living this Life

I did a thing…

Posted on by Sara

So I did a thing today.

I’m not necessarily proud of it. In fact, I feel a little dirty, sitting here, sharing this personal detail of my life with you.

I cleaned my fridge. Not the typical swipe the front with a rag and hope nobody looks too closely kind of cleaning that I normally do. I took out the drawers.

I’m not sure if you’ve done that recently. You’re probably a much better housekeeper than I am, and if so, this doesn’t concern you. But here we are, being honest with each other, so I’m going to keep going.

First – a picture:

I blame my children for spilling something and not telling me about it. Chances are I wouldn’t have bothered to look this closely if they had, but let’s not tell them that.

At first glance, upon removing said drawers, my impulse was just to shove the drawers back in and go on my merry way. I mean … who really sees that part of my fridge anyway?

Right?

How many parts of our house exist that we just can’t let anyone see? There was a moment when I thought that terrible color was just permanent part of the plastic, and then there was the moment when my dog started sniffing and I wondered if it was a new life form emerging.

And as I stared at that embarrassing space, trying to will myself to do something about it, I remembered a time when Jesus talked about cleaning the outside of a cup but the inside was still filled with greed and self-indulgence (Mt 23) … He had some pretty strong words about that. And suddenly I started thinking about all the ways we pretty up the outside of our lives and just hope no one will get too close or look deep enough to see the reality that our social media filters cover up so effectively.

I don’t have a whole lot more to say right now. I have a fridge to clean.

But I know that as I do, I’ll be talking with Jesus, asking Him to show me what parts of my life I need to drag into the light and let Him heal and clean. It’s worth it… no matter how uncomfortable it is.

And I’ll be celebrating these words as I go: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” 2 Corinthians 5:17

Feels pretty good to know anyone can come over and look in my fridge without me hiding in shame… now just don’t look under my bed ;P

Posted in Living this Life

Cutting through the fog

Posted on by Sara

“Open your mouth wide and I will fill it” … what a funny phrase to have running through my head all day. It just popped in there and wouldn’t stop, like when you hear that ear worm song that’s on repeat all day long. So I wandered around the amusement park that day in December when all of this began, a bit bemused and filled with curiosity.

As I sit down to write, it is now a couple months later. I have a story to tell, but it is very incomplete, and I have to confess I am still a bit bemused and filled with curiosity over what God is doing. So I invite you into the middle of this story as I travel this road with Jesus.

A little context: over the last 5 years, I have walked an unreasonably complicated and beautiful adventure, experienced the heavens opening in provision in ways I could never anticipate and all the tumult that comes with it. At times I have felt a bit like Peter trying to figure out how to handle the fish overflowing his boat (Luke 5) – all filled with wonder and yet overwhelmed at the realities of all that it practically means when you feel your boat is about to sink from all the wonder.

In the last year, God has been showing me a beautifully intimate form of personal care – a friend giving me a grill when mine is wearing out, a loveseat that matches my decor perfectly right when I was looking for a new chair to replace the one I’ve had for 15 years… small details that don’t mean much in the grand scheme, but declare to this heart that God sees, and He who sees the sparrows cares about the intricate details of our lives as well.

So when God started whispering these beautiful, simple words to my heart, I started to look up in expectation and wonder at what He is promising. I found the origin of the words in Psalm 81: “I am the Lord your God, who brought you up out of Egypt. Open wide your mouth and I will fill it”. I read further… I opened commentaries and dove a bit deeper. And I discovered these words from Spurgeon that captured my heart:

“When the mother-bird brings food she never has to ask the little ones to open their mouths wide; her only difficulty is to fill the great width which they are quite sure to present to her: appetite and eagerness are never lacking, they are utterly insatiable…picture a nest of little birds reaching up their mouths, and all opening them as wide as they can.”

Hey Spurgeon – guess what? I have that exact picture because that is precisely what happens in my backyard every spring!

Do you see what I see when you look at this picture? The utter helplessness of those baby birds to provide for themselves? The wide open expectancy of those beaks on hearing the sound of their mother approaching? My heart leaped at this realization – this is how God is asking me to live my life! No more chasing after my own means of provision, no more carrying the constant burden of control. Just release and open my mouth, expectantly waiting for God to fill it. I read on, and my heart beats faster:

“You may easily over-expect the creature, but you cannot over-expect God, ‘Open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it;’ widen and dilate the desires and expectations of your souls, and God is able to fill every chink to the vastest capacity… Our cup is small, and we blame the fountain. (Spurgeon)

I read these words and resolve: I no longer want to live in small expectation, carrying memories of disappointments and longings not satisfied. I want to widen my desires and expand my expectations of what God will do for me.

As children, we have big dreams and high expectations of life. But then the reality of bills and sicknesses and unmet expectations hit, and our hearts begin to shrivel. Cynicism sets in, we diminish our expectations because we fear disappointment, and we begin to close our mouth to God. In fact, the rest of Ps 81 speaks directly to that, and the sorrow God feels over our lack of trust.

So I set my heart to release more and trust as a child. I ask Him to help me believe – to help me see Him as a God who provides without limit. But how? How do we see beyond the loss and the pain and the drama and the material wants and the demands of others and the distractions of our tech driven world – how do we see beyond our current mud puddle to the offer of a holiday at the sea?1 To not wonder where or how the provision will come, but only to look to the heavens with curious expectation, watching for His hand to fulfill His promise. “Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it”.

Let me tell you what has happened in the last 2 months since all this took place and I set my heart to trust. It is the tale of a two cars, a dryer, a diamond, and some other stuff.

We have two cars. One is the newer “good” car, the other one we bought when I was pregnant with our first child…. it is now over 20 years old, has 265,000 miles on it, and I call it “Old Faithful” because it just never stops running. Warning lights start flashing on the “good car”, and despite attempts to get it diagnosed and fixed, we found ourselves stranded on the side of the road one night while driving our daughter home for Christmas break. Yet He says,”Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it…”

Multiple visits to multiple garages resulting in multiple bills finally led us to a more expensive garage who would diagnose a more expensive repair … but it’s our main car and we need it, so we go ahead and stretch our finances to get it repaired. “Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it…”

On a Monday like any other, just a couple weeks ago, while driving “Old Faithful” from Walmart to Taco Bell to pick up lunch for my boys, someone turned into me and totaled good “Old Faithful”. Gratefully, I am not totaled, and as we get the newer car back from the garage, we begin to hunt for a replacement vehicle for the one that was just wrecked. “Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it…”

Then there’s the ring … and the day I look down at my hand and discover the diamond that has been there every day of our marriage these 23 years is now missing… “Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it…”

And on the day of a massive winter storm… our dryer stops working. “Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it…”

Our car shopping is turning up empty thus far… “Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it…”

And just this morning, as we drive to church, the newer car that we have dumped more money into than we would have anticipated is now flashing all the warning lights that is has been giving us for the last 2 months, and it appears we are back at square one. “Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it…”

So here I sit on this chilly Sunday afternoon, aware that my current circumstances are not matching the expectation in the promise I have been receiving from God. I asked Him to help me believe – and it seems He is doing the opposite.

Do you hear it in the air? That temptation to listen to that great lie the enemy of our souls has been whispering since the beginning of time? That voice that says, “did God really say…?”

So I have a choice to make. It’s a choice that each of us face every day of our lives.

Will I let my current circimstances define my belief in God’s promises – or will God’s promises define how I see my circumstances?

As I sit here on this chilly Sunday afternoon, I think of these words from Scripture: “For all the promises of God find their Yes in Him [Jesus]. (2 Corinthians 1:20)

And these: “Every word of God proves true. He is a shield to all who come to Him for protection” Proverbs 30:5

And “my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus.” (Phil 4:19)

So I say it again: Will I let my current circimstances define my belief in God’s promises – or will God’s promises define how I see our circumstances?

How do you then reconcile a life that doesn’t seem to be lining up with the promises you thought you were hearing from God? It is easy to sit here, on this chilly Sunday afternoon, and resent God for promising good things while my situation continues to worsen. I mean, let’s be honest – my situation isn’t even that bad. It’s just earth stuff and inconveniences I’m grappling with. There is so much life-and-death struggle all around us: traumas and hurts and insecurities and fears pressing in. How do we cut through the fog to understand what God is really promising us?

And I think that might be the key question right there– how do we cut through the fog?

How do we understand that “Now we see through a glass dimly” (1 Corinthians 13)? Peter demonstrated this when he stepped out of the boat, eyes on Jesus, and against all odds found his feet walking on top of the waves. His feet remained steady while His eyes were on Jesus. Trust cuts through the fog. Trust hushes the challenging voice of the enemy, calms the restless heart, and releases the controlling compulsions. Trust chooses to believe what is true when the world feeds us false visions of a tainted reality.

Trust chooses what to see. My story tells of a lost diamond – but it doesn’t include the gift of an old ring that might help replace what was lost. My story tells of a broken dryer right when we needed a touch of encouragement. A week later, a hand-me-down dryer was delivered, and just this weekend we celebrated fresh laundry and clean, dry clothes! My story doesn’t include the day my husband left to get groceries and came home with 3 dozen eggs that were being given out for free by generous souls who wanted to bless others. As I crack those eggs into our French Toast this morning, I thank God for providing for us in unexpected winks from Him that tell me He sees, He cares, I am safe in His hands. Then there was a “random” gift handed to my husband as we entered church (just 30 minutes after those warning lights started flashing again) – a very specific gift given by a friend who knows my husband loves the’80’s. This friend didn’t know the discouragement that had just hit us, but he came armed with encouragement right when we needed it. There are so many lavish blessings that surround us, and we miss them because our myopia only repeats to us the stories of loss. So we rejoice, we give thanks, while we continue to live in this thin place between what is and what will be. “Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” (1 Thessalonians 5:16)

Trust means we know that His vision is so much clearer than ours. It means knowing that we see today and maybe part of tomorrow – He sees all eternity, and “all my days … written in Your book and ordained for me before one of them came to be” (Psalm 139:16)

Trust teaches us the beauty of Paul’s words reminding us to look beyond our circumstances: “I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want…” (Philippians 4:12)

Trust tells me that while I am restlessly wondering how the bills will all get paid and how we will meet the needs we currently have, Jesus says, ““Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes?  Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?  Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?” (Mt 6:25-27)

Trust believes that the firmness of His promises are more sure than the mirages we see all around us. Trust tells me to “open your mouth wide, and I will fill it”.

So today, on this chilly Sunday afternoon, I choose to trust His promises. I know His timing is often different than mine, and that “His ways are not my ways” (Isaiah 55:8). And so I lay down control and that crazy, constant urge to “fix it” myself – and I let His promises speak louder to me than my fears. I will dig up the deep promises of His Word every day, and I will choose to let them define that day’s circumstances for me. I will do this with every sunrise and every sunset, for “His mercies are new every morning” and “from the rising of the sun to its setting, the name of the Lord is to be praised” And when I falter, He promises to help even in that (Romans 8:26).

And that’s my story. At least all has been written on the pages of my life so far. But it is enough. Some stories are about what happens in the middle.

“Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it…”

it looks a little like this:

Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. (Hebrews 10:23)

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1 “It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.” (C.S. Lewis)