Tag: anxiety

Posted in Living this Life

Broken Ground

Posted on by Sara

They dug deep into the dirt that day.

That beautiful pasture with the green grass that runs down into the “holler”.  The field that seems to go on forever now holds a deep red scar of dirt and mud. As I looked at the fresh dirt torn out of the beautiful green field, my eyes filled with tears.

Please don’t be sad for me. These were tears of joy. And that’s the great paradox of it all.

You see, I have waited 15 long years for this day. This day of breaking. The promise was there, the vision never faded. But in the sovereignty of God, the time was not right – until now. But now – oh rejoice with me! Now they are breaking through, turning over dirt, preparing the field.

I’ve seen the plans. I have held the blueprints for what will come. And the building that will rise on that freshly disturbed soil is beautiful. Not just in it’s physical design, but in purpose. And when I think of all that God can do in that place, my heart skips a beat.

I have never been happier to see green grass replaced by rocky piles of red dirt. And I just can’t stop thinking about it.

That morning when they dug into the dirt and my eyes saw visions of a beautiful building? That same morning, my eyes caught sight of a simple verse lying on a page – “You are God’s building” (1 Co 3:9). I caught my breath in wonder, because the meaning is unavoidable. The timing was divine. You don’t need me to spell it out for you – it’s as clear as the sun coming up over the horizon.

I saw before me the green pastures I have carefully manicured in my own life. The plans I had crafted and all the places I have desperately tried to control. I thought of all the times God has dug deep and turned over that soil. Destroying that beautiful green grass and replaced it with a rough scar of red dirt. Some of those scars continue to be fresh and I often wonder why? One can survey a field of unexplained destruction in their life and wonder how a good God can let such things happen.

“What’s that on the ground?” He sings in the background. “It’s what’s left of my heart. Somebody named Jesus broke it to pieces and planted the shards” (Andrew Peterson)

“Even when I call out or cry for help, He shuts out my prayer. He has barred my way with blocks of stone; He has made my paths crooked…” cries the prophet Jeremiah. “So I say, “My splendor is gone and all that I had hoped from the Lord.” (Jeremiah in Lamentations 3:8-9;18)

Are you sitting in a ruined field surrounded by destruction today? Does your life look so different from the one you had envisioned? Does your carefully manicured field, those dreams you once held so valuable now lie in ruin around you? My friend, lift up your eyes! There is hope beyond this mess – our shortsighted eyes may not be able to see it yet – but that doesn’t mean the blueprint doesn’t exist. Beyond that broken red scar of turned up soil lies a promise.

The vision for what will be springs up beautiful and bold in my heart, and thus the destruction becomes a sign of hope.

In the middle of these December days, when the darkness comes early and the air brings a chill, what is God turning over in your life? Right here in the middle of Advent, does your heart beat faster at the sound of Hope? Can we find Him in the middle of our mess and start to anticipate the beauty that will rise on the other side rather than just weep for the destruction of our carefully manicured, controlled spaces?

I think about that verse God started my day with – “You are God’s building” What if I just let it all go? Stopped asking why about all the messy places and started just trusting Him in the middle of the mess? What if I allow the Great Architect to dig up all those places in my life that I have clung to so He can build what He designed so many years ago – since the beginning of time? What if?

I remember Jeremiah and his anguish over the loss in his life. In the midst of his darkest days, how does Jeremiah respond? “Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed,  for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.” (Lamentations 3:21-24)

And Andrew Peterson sings on in the background ….

“And they’re coming up green,
And they’re coming in bloom
I can hardly believe this is all coming true.

Just as I am and just as I was
Just as I will be He loves me, He does
He showed me the day that
He shed His own blood.

He loves me, oh He loves me, He does

Posted in Living this Life

Through the wardrobe

Posted on by Sara

I just wanted to pretend that it hadn’t happened. It was just one of those days you want to forget. You know – wake up to a brand new day and forget all the yesterday that had gone before?

It’s not that anything significantly bad happened. I just couldn’t keep it at bay anymore. All the emotions that had been piling up – all the cumulative news of loss on top of the personal pains we all carry. It just got to be more than I could tamp down anymore. The frustration, the confusion – all the unnamed emotions that you manage to ignore most of the time came bubbling unbidden to the surface. We’ve all had these days that just feel engulfed in sadness – and if you’re anything like me, you can’t wait for the day to end so you can shake it off and start over tomorrow. Yeah – it was one of those days.

The next morning came – the birds were singing and the sun was shining and I was glad. I sat down with my coffee, my Bible, and my journal – thankful to start a new day.

Free of all that gloom. Until I felt that nudge on my heart – that gentle voice of His Spirit telling me He wasn’t done with yesterday. I had more to do.

It was like He was asking me to take another look. Don’t just shove it down again and try to distract yourself with the newest brightest thing to come your way. Don’t pretend those feelings aren’t there and will just go away if you ignore them. Stop. Look. Take it in for a minute.

So I sat there in the quiet of the morning. That precious silence that doesn’t last long. Me, my coffee, and Jesus. I looked back and let it back in – all those dark things I wanted to shake off. And then this happened – and it has made all the difference.

I felt Him directing me to shift my eyes over – and I caught my breath. He called me to behold HIM. To hold the darkness up in the light of HIS glory, His wonder, His majesty. And right there, in the dawn of the new day, I knew He was there with me. And the more I saw of Him, the more that big wall of pain shrunk as His beauty engulfed it. The more I tasted of His realness, the more I wanted of it. ““Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in him” Psalm 34:8

So as the hours turn into days, I continue down this familiar road that I often find myself drifting from. I allow myself to look along the light of His beauty all around me – not just seeing the beauty, but seeing HIM in the beauty. But what does that even look like?

“What, then, is the God I worship?.. You, my God,, are supreme, utmost in goodness, mightiest and all-powerful, most merciful and most just. You are the most hidden from us and yet the most present amongst us, the most beautiful and yet the most strong, ever enduring and yet we cannot comprehend you. You are unchangeable and yet you change all things. You are never new, never old, and yet all things have new life from you. You are the unseen power that brings decline upon the proud. You are ever active, yet always at rest. You gather all things to yourself, though you suffer no need. You support, you fill, and you protect all things. You create them, nourish them, and bring them to perfection. You seek to make them your own, though you lack for nothing. You love your creatures, but with a gentle love. You treasure them, but without apprehension… You can be angry and yet serene. Your works are varied, but your purpose is one and the same. You welcome all who come to you, though you never lost them. You are never in need yet are glad to gain, never covetous yet you exact a return for your gifts… You release us from our debts, but you lose nothing thereby. You are my God, my Life, my Holy Delight, but is this enough to say of you? – St. Augustine

This chasing after His glory… it never gets boring and never ends. Like the back wall of that wardrobe leading to Narnia – we can live in the mundane of the world we have come to expect – or we can reach through that wardrobe wall to the wonder of the God who made it all!

I hear the embattled Apostle Paul whisper in my ear, “For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.” – 2 Corinthians 4:17

and David declaring, “Both  high and low among men find refuge in the shadow of your wings. They feast on the abundance of your house; You give them drink from Your river of delights. For with you is the fountain of life; in your light we see light” Ps 35:7-10

Come along with me through the wardrobe – I’m going to be putting my discoveries right here for the next month – why not join on in? Let His glory engulf your sorrows, your confusion, your raw emotions and just breathe in His goodness that is all around.

“In such holy wonders, baptize our imaginations, that we might ever be a people shaped by awe at your eternal power, and a people moved to worship by revelations of your divine nature. Awaken our hearts now to beat in rhythm to the dance of your creation. Tune our ears to hear the songs of stars in their trillion-fold choruses, bearing witness to your glory, your power.” Douglas McKelvey

Posted in Living this Life

the e-mail

Posted on by Sara

I could tell by the subject line that I didn’t want to open the e-mail.

Yet, I knew by the subject line that I just had to open the e-mail and read the words I didn’t want to read.

It was true. Another place closing. Another place that I love – gone.

Thing is, this isn’t just another place. I drove by one of my favorite restaurants the other day and saw the for sale sign. That was a bummer. This was different. This hit deep, and I suddenly didn’t know how to process it.

It’s one of those places that I have never been able to get out of my soul. One of the first places I understood the word “home”. In a life of feeling perpetually out of place, this was a place that welcomed misfits like me and gave us a sense of belonging.

It was my sophomore year of college – that summer when I walked through the doors of a The Shelter, a youth hostel in the middle of the city of Amsterdam on the edge of the red light district.

I had no idea God would forever change the trajectory of my life that summer. That He would show me who I was created to be and that I would never be satisfied settling for anything else.

I went back after college and spent a year in those walls – eager to learn, eager to meet people from around the world, eager to share my Jesus with them. God used that place to forever alter my life.

You may say it’s just a building surrounded by a multitude of other buildings. But it was on that rooftop I would pace when I felt my world crumbling around me – I would pace back and forth – praying and pleading with God for His Truth.

It was in that dining room where I would eat with people from around the world – Laughing, singing, talking, doing life together.

It was in that kitchen where I learned to make Moussaka and Boerenkool. But it’s really the place I learned that the simple act of spending a day cutting onions and peeling mounds of potatoes can carve out quiet places to let the Spirit in.

It was in that snack bar where I would discuss the beauty of my Jesus with a Spanish traveler who had just from a Tibetan monastery. Where I would pore over the Scriptures and rest in the peace of the Psalms with my friend Jess, a gay prostitute who was desperately hungry for balm for a hurting soul.

It’s where I learned not to fear the questions – for if you keep looking you will find the Truth. It just takes a lot of courage to face the real questions and a lot of persistence to uncover the answers. It’s where I saw that we aren’t really all that different under the surface – where a smile has the power to transcend all cultural, racial, and political differences. And sometimes when trying to register a group of 20 travelers who don’t speak English, a smile is all you have.

It’s where I learned to love shoarma and frites with mayo. And I learned the value of knowing how to ask for coffee with whipped cream in Dutch (Koffie met slagroom, alstublieft)

So I read the e-mail, and as the truth soaked in that they were having to close their doors due to the current condition of our world, the tears started to fall. Not just for all the faces I saw, the people I had come to love, the memories I cherished… I wept for the loss of a place to return to.

Oh how the heart longs to remember what fades so quickly! How often we long to return to places that matter because they remind us of who we were. More importantly, of who God is and what He has done. And I don’t have many of those places…

Growing up in the jungles of Africa was an unmitigated blessing and I wouldn’t trade it for anything. But my home no longer exists – the ravages of war destroyed my childhood village many years ago, and I will never be able to take my family to the place I grew up. I can show them the country as it is, but it will forever be a different place than the home I knew.

So all these years, my heart has clung to this special place on the edge of the red light district in Amsterdam. I longed for the day I could show my family the place where God changed the course of my life. Where I learned how real He truly is and discovered that He really will catch us when the world crumbles around us. I have walked through those old hallways with my family so many times in my mind – just waiting for the day it could become reality.

And I wept for the loss of that opportunity.

God has placed eternity in the heart of man (Ecclesiastes 3:11) – and yet we try to fit this small earth around that. We grasp for the ideal of an unchangeable good – a place where our hearts feel safe. But buildings crumble and heroes let us down.. What do we do then? Construct new idols? New mirages of control or illusions of contentment? Or do we reject the stuff of earth and place all our hope firmly and only on heaven?

We’ve all experienced loss this year. And I know my story is light compared to the life changing loss many have endured. But we all share this one thing – longings for something we may not be able to return to. It comes out in grief, sorrow, rage, cynicism, depression… and I wonder – what do we do with all these feelings?

When the longings start and we are torn between what is and our nostalgic memory of what was … we often think we have to choose between the two. Instead of rushing past the callback, why don’t we linger a couple more minutes and let it bloom into something of beauty? What if we’re experiencing a foretaste, a promise, a shadow of what is to come? In His moments of greatest agony on earth, Jesus looked to the “joy set before Him”. (Hebrews 12:2)

Do you see it? Can you smell it? The welcoming notes of the fresh baked bread? The delicate aroma of flowers we have yet to discover? We blush and call it childish nostalgia – but could it be so much more?

“In speaking of this desire for our own far off country, which we find in ourselves even now, I feel a certain shyness. I am almost committing an indecency. I am trying to rip open the inconsolable secret in each one of you—the secret which hurts so much that you take your revenge on it by calling it names like Nostalgia and Romanticism and Adolescence; the secret also which pierces with such sweetness that when, in very intimate conversation, the mention of it becomes imminent, we grow awkward and affect to laugh at ourselves… These things—the beauty, the memory of our own past—are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshipers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited.” CS Lewis

So today i don’t think I’m going to wipe these tears away too quickly. I think instead I’ll try to just rest in the magic of the mystery. To let the ache in my heart intensify my longing for heaven – that great unending good that will never be taken from us. That we will never outgrow, move away from, or lose. This is the gift.

“For here we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come.” Hebrews 13:14