Saturday, January 18, 2014

My First Personal Great Awakening While Rakin' Fall Leaves and Singin' my Lungs Out...(Memoirs part IV)

We all have these pivotal moments in life we look back on as *the moment* something changed. Incredible is the fact that while the moment is transpiring it is an ordinary moment...there is no  immediate realization that *this precise moment* is going to change my life. Only in retrospect does the moment become something extraordinary, something sacred from other moments in life.

Such was a moment in my life when I was 15 years old, out rakin' leaves during what must have been Christmas Break. I can still feel the crispness of the air with that slight Texas Fall chill. The smell of the burning leaves is still so familiar that anytime I smell burning leaves I feel an overwhelming sense of goodness and joy. I even took my 'jam box' outside and put in a cassette tape my dear cousin had given me of Acapella Praise and I would rake, sing, think. Rake, sing, think.... for 3 days straight (we had a big yard). Surprising is that the tape didn't warp after so much use. :-) Nothing like it! 

 At this time in my life, I had just finished reading the New Testament all by myself for the first time  and it had not been  at all what I expected. I had heard many sermons and I had read entire books of the Bible at a time with my mother but never had I picked up the Word and just read it for myself until that time. I had this most extraordinary 'brainstorm' while rakin' and singin'. I wanted to try and take what I had learned from scripture and create a 'Fantasy Church' that would be based entirely on the ancient scripture but relevant to the modern world in which I lived. The first time I can remember I purposed to think outside my usual box. It was glorious.

To understand why this was so significant to me personally you have to know what I was used to in terms of church. A very tiny church...maybe 20-30 of sweet, kind, salt of the earth folks...yet we did nothing beyond Sunday service. We even called it the "5 acts of worship"...singing, praying, giving, preaching, communion. Period. That was it. The rare times we had potlucks I felt euphoric....time to visit and bond with people! Admittedly it was rare. We just weren't that kind of church. The fact I thought a potluck was 'relationship intimacy' is telling isn't it? Wow. I was starving! Literally starving for real church. Real intimacy and *being the body*.

So as I read Acts the first time you can imagine how it touched my heart...deeply. Enough to move me to tears. I cried as I read how the early church *lived* together. The breaking of bread, the fellowship, the teaching, prayers, and time together. I read about being the 'body of Christ'...members like body parts...taking care of one another, each essential to the other. How moved I was to read we are 'living stones' building up to be the living *house of God*. I was overwhelmed at 15 with HOW MUCH MORE Church could and should be. It went so beyond distinctives of a denomination, so beyond even theology and 'issues'...even important ones. It came down to being a living, organic, messy body. A *body* and all that means and entails. So much more that I ever imagined! The scripture was pointing me to SO MUCH MORE!

I wanted that Church. Deeply so. I was raised to believe a huge goal is the 'Restoration of the 1st Century Church'. I realize how the real goal is far beyond that...we are not supposed to restore an imperfect 1st century church...we are to become like Jesus. I found however that even with the mindset of wanting to restore the 1st century church, we were light-years away. We had defined Restoration in terms of issues...the New Testament Church was defined in terms of *relationships*. We were speaking two different languages. The picture the Bible painted is of the *people*. That is what my soul longed for and what I needed so desperately...at a tender, formidable age I realized I couldn't be what Jesus called me to be without this kind of help and support. This living household made up of living stones. I needed that. I just couldn't be what Jesus wanted  me to be without HER...his bride and all He designed her to be.

When the leaves were all raked and burned and the yard complete, I was so bummed. I wanted more leaves to rake. I never wanted those golden days to be over. The one thing I was left with however was this idea "Whatever it takes, I want to be part of this kind of body. A vibrant one. The one I read about in scripture". It would be 4 years before that journey would really begin but the seed was planted there. My own personal Awakening while rakin' the leaves and singin' until I lost my voice. "He Bore it All" was the song that I remember most from the tape. Before or since, I have never had Fall days like those three. Something you cannot re-create. My own personal Great Awakening as to how much I needed what the Bible describes as *church*...and all she was meant and able to be.

Friday, January 3, 2014

When God First Broke My Heart (Spiritual Journey Memoirs: Part III)

     I honestly never remember a time I didn't believe in God. My earliest memories are of my mother teaching me about God and me accepting what she said. The thing about a child's 'faith' however, is that they are as likely to believe in a monster in their closet or under the bed as well as they are to believe in God. Santa...God...both seem equally believable. That is the nature of childhood 'faith'. I'm more and more uncomfortable actually labeling it 'faith' because it is most accurately described as 'belief/acceptance' without any critical thinking or independent reasoning. It's a good thing, don't misunderstand...a step that many of us who were raised in Christian families share and an important part of our spiritual development. I was comfortable with God like I was comfortable with characters from my favorite stories. Then something changed. He broke my 10 year old heart.

  There was a family at our small church...a dad, mom, and 2 sons. She was 39 years old. She had a nagging cough we all noticed that the doctors were fairly confident was 'walking pneumonia' but when it lingered and refused to respond to treatment further testing revealed she had lung cancer. Never smoked a day in her life. I remember how upset my mother was. She said we needed to be in daily prayer about this and to ask God for healing. The church I was part of at this time and my mother both had very healthy/balanced attitudes regarding healing and prayer. They both taught it had to be within God's will and naturally you had to ask in faith believing that nothing was too hard for Him to do. Somehow even though I was taught the truth about this, what I believed in my child's mind was that if I had enough faith and didn't doubt, then God would answer my prayer and heal this beloved sister. I knew the verse about '...if you have faith as a mustard seed you can say to this mountain be moved and it will fall into the sea...'. I knew that verse. I had my mustard seed. God had to heal her. He just had to. If I did my end of the equation, he was obligated to do his, right?

  The part about it being God's will? Well, how could healing a mother of 2 kids who never smoked NOT be his will? I mean really? Wouldn't that just make him mean and cruel if it wasn't his will? This was the reasoning of my 10 year old mind.

  So we prayed. And prayed. And prayed. In faith. When I doubted (because of course I did) I would psych myself up NOT to doubt...I would will my doubts away (sweep them under my mind's rug so to speak, not actually address them but deny/stifle them) and one day we received good news that the tumors on a checkup had shown no growth so a possible 'remission' was beginning. We praised God and I just knew it was because of my rock solid 'faith' without doubtings that had 'done the job'.

   About two weeks later, this precious sister died. Her lungs and health were decimated from cancer and the treatment and she got sick...so sick her body could not survive. She died. Her funeral tore me to pieces. "How could you God????" "Are you even there???" "What kind of God are you if you ARE real that you would take a young mother from her kids?? I had enough faith!!! You didn't keep your end of the bargain!!" Those were my thoughts and accusations I hurled at God. I shook my 10 year old fist in his Divine face and threw a temper tantrum before the throne of Heaven.

  For a time my faith was deeply injured...I spiritually pouted. I also felt so spiritually lonely. Who was God? I realized I didn't actually know. My 'faith' of a child was not gone per se, it was being cultivated for the first time, I just didn't realize it. God was preserving the mustard seed... now letting it begin to actually germinate into something much more real. To actually face doubts. To face Him...the real Him, and not a childish caricature I had of Him. He was showing me that the puny box I was so comfortable putting him in must be destroyed. My broken heart was allowing me to catch a real glimpse of Him for the first time. The God who does not answer to me or even make sense to me...a 10 year old who somehow thought I could comprehend God and not only comprehend Him but control what His Sovereign Will is.
 
  Now as an adult, I still have thoughts such as "Why, Lord, Why??" I don't have all the answers. Now I turn to Job and read how God responded to his questions...then I am put in my place:

“Dress for action like a man;
    I will question you, and you make it known to me. Will you even put me in the wrong?
    Will you condemn me that you may be in the right? Have you an arm like God,
    and can you thunder with a voice like his?


    Adorn yourself with majesty and dignity;
    clothe yourself with glory and splendor.Pour out the overflowings of your anger,
    and look on everyone who is proud and abase him. Look on everyone who is proud and bring him low
    and tread down the wicked where they stand. Hide them all in the dust together;
    bind their faces in the world below. Then will I also acknowledge to you
    that your own right hand can save you." Job 40: 7-14

God's answer to Job is simply this: I AM GOD. Period. At first glance, that may not seem the most satisfying answer to the question but that is the answer. He is God. We are not. He never explains himself to Job, he simply highlights his Sovereignty and thereby puts Job in his finite, human place. It's as Aslan in Narnia stories "He is not safe, but He's good". He will not bend to our understanding and reasoning nor will He enter our puny and pathetic little 'cardboard' boxes. 'Cardboard' boxes we think can comfortably contain the power that created the universe. In the end, he gave Job *and us* the only answer that matters. He is God. We are not. I also find comfort in the fact that this God is so powerful that even when it defies our best reasoning he still is the God that "works ALL things for good for those who love him"...Romans 8:28

He broke my heart that first time. He has broken it many times sense. He will continue to break it as needed for his Sovereign will to unfold. Yet I trust him. I hope in him. I thank Him for cultivating a faith beyond believing because I understand but rather the opposite... Him sustaining and growing my faith when I do NOT understand. He is God. I am not. Period.