We all lost things back in those days. Not just things … we lost people we love, memories we hoped to make, pieces of our lives just seem to have been taken away – outside of our control.
Those were the days the word “Covid” sent shock waves through our country. We all listened, glued to the news of the newest outbreak, unsure of what it would all mean for us. It was 6 years ago – do you remember? Sometimes I don’t want to – the memories can feel pretty raw. But leave it to facebook to keep reminding me …
6 years ago, I wrote this post – it was a necessary grieving that involved more than just a place. It felt like loss of dreams – loss of hope, even. Now, as I read it, I can only hear this verse on repeat in the back of my mind: ““I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten…and you will praise the name of the Lord your God, who has worked wonders for you (Joel 2:25-26)
Because … this!
This place – that meant so much to me… this place – that I grieved the loss of … well, do you see the light shining from the window? It re-opened last week, and I have been watching this from the other side of the ocen with a tinge of awe and wonder.
They didn’t just pause and re-open 6 years older. They refocused and renovated. They rebuilt what was into something better. That loss I had grieved 6 years ago has come back to life in a new way. That light shining from the windows? It makes me think of resurrection.
There’s a reason God tends to look back every time He looks forward. There is a beautiful tension in the hope that is drawn from that, and I don’t want to miss that. Pause for a minute … and trace His hand in the long waiting … in the gestation of our dreams into reality. Sometimes we don’t recognize them because they look different than we anticipated. Sometimes we give up because the waiting is too painful. Sometimes He changes us, and with it our dreams.
But my friend! Don’t give up on the God who restores. Who sits with us in the waiting, who weaps with us in the loss, and who also repays us for the years the locusts have stolen. I don’t have many words right now – just a look back and a breathless prayer of thanksgiving to my God who makes all things new. (Revelations 21:5)
How do you capture lightning in a bottle? And yet here I am trying to do that with something more fragile – elusive words that seem to hold little of the substance filling my soul right now.
Sometimes life is like that … bringing you moments that weigh so much, and as soon as you try to grab ahold of it, you find the moment has passed and you’re left grasping for words.
But in essence, it never slips away. The impacts linger and the ripple effects can go through generations.
I knew I would never be the same … I had seen and tasted a life spent communicating the beauty of walking with Jesus to those who were seeking… and I knew this was what God had created me for. I couldn’t go back to the person I had been just a month before, and somehow my major and plans didn’t make much sense anymore… when I returned to campus that fall, I felt a bit lost in it all.
“It is the Lord who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not leave you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed” Deuteronomy 31:8
Do you believe the promises in Scripture, my friend? Do you believe that they hold the power of life or death? Sometimes a moment in time shows you how undeniably real these promises are…
But I get ahead of myself.
That year … returning to school and feeling a bit lost … I wandered into a class on C.S. Lewis. I thought it might be an interesting way to earn a few credits. That was the year I walked into Dr. Jerry Root’s classroom – and this part of my story begins.
I learned about the “F” ring of Saturn – and that it happens to be braided! I have never lost the wonder of that fact … and I have never stopped wanting to learn more about my God who scatters the stars in the universe, braids the rings around planets, and calls me by name.
I heard stories – stories of vulnerable intersections of humanity. Stories of relentlessly holding the Hope of Jesus out to all – boldly and selflessly. And the moments that may have felt like failures are the ones I carried with me all these years, because I learned that there is no “perfect” or “right” formula – that I’m just one beggar showing another where to find Bread. I needed these stories … and I still do.
I learned to love the world captured inside of a book. Not just to read it for information, but to enter into the wonder of what that particular book held for me. And to read it again and again simply to live in that world for another minute of time. My imagination was validated and enriched – and it has widened the borders of my world ever since.
I learned to wander through life with a sense of wonder, seeking God’s grandeur in the simple and to “look along” the beams of His glory to find His fingerprints in the world all around me.1
How do you capture with words the sum of a new perspective on life? You can only try.
How do you capture lightning in a bottle? You can’t.
But you can stand by with awe as you watch it strike again. Awe – and maybe a few tears.
Last week, after 30 years, Jerry Root walked into my life, again. “But as for God, His way is perfect” (Ps 18:30) We may know that, say it as if we believe it, but sometimes we need lightning to strike the same spot again. And that is what happened last week.
Sometimes life crowds out the wonder. Sometimes we forget to hear the bird singing its worship in the morning and we rush past all the glory blossoming in brilliant red and yellow and purple around us. Sometimes doing things for God stands in the way of us seeing God. Sometimes our hearts grow weary and our spirits grow heavy and the weight of glory becomes more than we can carry well.
So lightning strikes again … and reminds us.
I keep asking myself why my eyes grow wet whenever I think of that week. Jerry Root is a great man – a man who doesn’t brag about being one of the world’s leading experts on C.S. Lewis, rather he simply speaks as a man who walks with God, with conviction and humility. But this is not why my eyes grow misty whenever I look at these pictures.
30 years ago, I walked into a classroom, not knowing my life would be changed.
Last week, he walked into my classroom – the classroom of young Native leaders who I get to spend my time with – and helped me remember. And once again left me changed. Re-stoking longings to see God in clarity and wonder. To listen to His promptings and immerse myself in His story. To pick up those books that I keep putting off. In the beautiful symmetry of time, I got to see other’s hearts awaken to the wonders that impacted me 30 years ago, to see my own children grow excited about learning, to have my 15 year old ask me to take him to the used bookstore in town … When lightning strikes again, we pay attention.
And God has my attention.
I wonder – how is He getting your attention? Where is the lightning striking in your life right now? Pay attention, my friend. Sometimes He speaks in a still, small voice, and sometimes He speaks through the thunder and lightning. (Ex. 19)
Pause for a minute. Lean in and really listen. How is He speaking to you right now? In the silence, in the chaos, in the symmetry, in the lightning – do you hear Him? “Call to me and I will answer you, and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known” (Jeremiah 33:3)
“Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him…” – (Revelation 3:20)
1“All of God’s creation becomes a beam to be “looked along” or a sound to be “heard along” or a fragrance to be “smelled along” or a flavor to be “tasted along” or a touch to be “felt along”. All our senses become partners with the eyes of the heart in perceiving the glory of God through the physical world” – John Piper
“Well, that’s weird”, she said. And then 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, 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. Turn 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 royaltyand 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 she 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 to discover who He truly made me to be. 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!”
Our God is a consuming fire 