Love Part III

I've been thinking a lot about the love of God this summer.  Looking up Bible verses that talk about love, writing them down in my journal, thinking hard about what the words really mean. What does it really mean that the God of the Universe loves me?  And how does that love change things?  

I was listening to a Christian radio program on my way home from work not long ago.  A woman, a missionary I think, was talking about reaching out to people with the love of God.  She talked about the verse in II Corinthians that says: "For Christ's love compels us us because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And He died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again" (II Cor. 5:14,15).  She knew the love of God.  She had experienced it for herself and it changed her. Christ's love compelled her to spend her life investing in people, sharing the Gospel with them, loving them.  My thoughts on love began to take a different angle.  

The next day, I was on my way to my nephew's first birthday party. Doing some freeway praying. Lately, I've sort of developed a new habit. Most mornings, during my time with God, I'll write a prayer in my journal that goes something like this: “God, I lay down my expectations. Turn my heart towards gratitude, towards trust in You. I open my hands to receive love from Yours in any way you choose to give it.” Singleness. Deferred hope. Some way, somehow, love from His hand.

In place of those expectations, in place of those dusty dreams, where there has been sorrow and confusion and disappointment, I lay them down to make room for something else.

Redirect my heart.

I was thinking about what the woman said about how Christ's love compels us and I was thinking about long singleness and a redirected heart.  These are the words that came out of my mouth: “God, give me the capacity...to know the love of Christ...”

I stopped. Tears in eyes. Seeing something crystal clear that had been nothing but blurry for years. “God, give me the capacity to know the love of Christ that passes knowledge that I may be filled with the fullness of God.”  My life verse.  The one I chose when I was a teenager.

My whole life, I've wanted nothing as much as I've wanted to know that love. Experience it for myself. Feel loved by the God of the Universe. He's teaching me love in unexpected ways. Ways I wouldn't have chosen. Ways higher than mine.

It's like coming full circle. I'm back where I started, all those years ago, asking Him to let me know, grasp and understand His love for myself.  He's answering my prayer of so many years, just differently than I thought. Through teaching me to lay down expectations. Through deferred hopes and dreams collecting dust.  He's actually answering my prayer in the very best way. It isn't what I thought. It doesn't look like what I thought it would look like. It's Love, yes. Perfect and complete all by itself.  Love that always looks outside of itself, that can't help but change forever everything it touches.  

So how does the love of God change things?  Change me?  God, may the love of Christ compel me to meet a new person at church on Sunday when I feel shy and introverted. May the love of God compel me to get out of bed when my alarm goes off instead of hitting the snooze button so that I'll have time to spend with You before work. May the love of Christ compel me to trust you when my heart feels broken. And so much more.  

Ultimately, my story of striving, singleness, my story of love--it comes down to trusting the heart of the Father.  The relentless, tireless, tender love of Him. Today. Tomorrow. In all the little, insignificant moments that make up a lifetime. And here's the thing about His love: it can't be contained. If I know it, if I really do, it will fill me and seep out of me, spill over onto the length of my shadow and everything in its space.

Love Part II

Fast forward 10 years or so.  This is the part of the story called singleness.

Do you mind if I show you some of the not-so-pretty?

If you had told me 10 years ago what my life would look like at 30 years old, if you had shown me a snapshot, I wouldn't have believed you.  I would have flat out refused to believe you. At the starting line of my fourth decade with no husband or babies?  Absolutely impossible.  That's what I would have said.

This is a tricky job.  To express the disappointment I've felt, and still feel sometimes, while not giving the impression that I am without hope or faith in my loving, gracious, faithful God. Because the truth is I do have hope. It's the bottom line carved below disappointment.  The feel of a firm hand, strong in the dark.

Love.

I have hope because He loves me (Romans 5:5).

It's simple.  His ways are not my ways.   His thoughts are not my thoughts.  Yes, I've had times of throwing myself on the ground, metaphorically speaking, flailing my arms and legs about, pounding the ground and air in outrage at the injustice, the shock, the sadness of singleness.

BUT.  Thankfully, there is a but.

God is still good in light of long singleness.  This part of my story is not an accident or mistake.

He loves tenderly the broken heart.  He does.  And in that love is a fierce fight. To rescue it, set it free.

For what comes next.

Love Part I

By the time I was sixteen, I had decided what my life verse would be.  It resonated with the core of me, way down deep where the longing lives and all the way to the surface.  It spelled out my desire, my quest, my hope, my prayer for as long as I could remember.   

"And to know the love of Christ, which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God."  Ephesians 3:19

As a teenager, it wasn't easy for me to grasp that love.  The situation didn't improve much as I got older.  I think the devil knows how dangerous, how devastating to him it is for us to know, really know and experience the love God has for us.  So he spends all his strength trying to blind us, harden our hearts, make us feel worthless...anything to sabotage our chances of encountering the love of God.  And his tactics are subtle.  In my case, it was effort that got me tripped up.  I thought if I tried hard enough, I'd finally find that illusive feeling of God's love and it would set me free and change me into a different person, a Loved person.  The more that love feeling eluded me, the harder I tried to reach for it.  The devil's job was easy. Make me strive so much for love that I would never stop long enough to realize it was already mine, perfect and complete.   

This is how I've lived most of my life.  But, thankfully, it's not the end of my story. 

Movement

Not long ago, I was driving back from San Diego with one of my roommates. Sand still stuck to our feet, colors of summer sun setting on the rise and fall of solid green. Beautiful. I was verbally processing, a rare and often unproductive venture of mine. Not-very-filtered honesty. Serious stuff: trust in God, blaming God, being single, being sad. Lamenting the disconnect between my heart and my head. He isn't to blame. I know that. But He could make it better. He can, I know He can. He doesn't. What sense can I make of that? What does He want from me? These were the thoughts running through my head and some of them, out of my mouth.  

The thing about verbal processing/filterlessness that I don't like is the lack of closure. Everything inside spilled out, messy. I can clean up the mess but I can't scrub hard enough to get rid of the silence that follows. Vulnerability. Before the God of the Universe, so exposed. And not in my best light.  

The moment passed. We listened to music and enjoyed the view. I dropped my roommate off at the house and headed to the store to pick up the movie we had somehow found the time to reserve on the drive home amidst all that verbal processing. So, alone in the car, I turned the music down reluctantly and exposed the ugly again. I allowed myself (forced is more like it) some honesty with the God. All the things that He heard me process with my roommate. All the things He already knew before I ever said a word. The lack of closure, answer, clarity. The frustration, confusion, disappointment. The messiness. In the Psalms, David refers to it as pouring out my heart to Him. That's what I did. And somewhere between my house and the Redbox, the light bulb flashed. The light bulb that holds within it the mystery of eternity.

Jesus loves me.

How do I trust the one who holds me? The one whose hands are strong and powerful and doesn't always do with them what I wish He would? How do I make sense of what I can't make sense of? By believing down to the very depths of my being that Jesus loves me. My answer to joy, my answer to sorrow. The words I whisper when my heart is broken for love or for loss. The muscle movements of hands that accept exactly what He gives, everything.

He loves me.

These words turn my eyes towards Him, light. So powerful, so vulnerable, these words. It could be that He moved heaven and earth to hear me say them. And if I spend every day of the rest of my life making it a habit to believe them, I will not have wasted time.

That day, that moment, it changed me. It changed everything. My view of the world, my view of God, the nature of reality, me.

That moment is moving from not pushing Him away to stepping towards Him. Movement thirty years in the making.  

The Beach, the Brakes, and the Bread Maker

A long, long time ago, my car started squeaking whenever I pressed down on the brakes. So I did what anyone with a deep aversion to car troubles would do. I pretended like everything was OK and kept right on driving. 

As the months went by, that nagging little voice of wisdom kept pestering me and I reached the point where I knew it was just about time to do something about the squeaking (and the shaking, by this time, especially as I pressed on my brakes going down hill.)  Around this time, I was learning about finances in my discipleship group. Figuring out what God has to say about money, provision, blessing, stewardship, etc. What I learned was convicting and it really challenged my perspective. I had sort of forgotten that God wants to provide for my needs. Without realizing it, I had adopted a self-sufficient mindset. So I thought I might start including God in that area of my life. I was beginning to consider praying for specific things to see what He would do. Sort of dipping my toes in the water, so to speak. Not much expectation. Not much risk. It wasn't that I didn't believe God could answer specific prayers. I just didn't think my requests were all that important. 

Well, I thought about the whole brakes situation and I decided it might be a good opportunity to pray a specific prayer. And I gave it a good try. But I couldn't ask God for the money. I just couldn't do it. I don't think it's wrong to ask God for money, but I couldn't quite get past the belief system of my brakes = my problem. There is one thing, one specific thing, I did ask him for, though. And I'll tell you what that was later. 

But first I will tell you that within about two weeks of thinking about these financial things in a new way, out of the clear blue sky, I received a check in the mail for $400. It wasn't exactly out of the clear blue sky. It was from a person, a very generous person who decided to bless me because God had blessed her. So now I had the money I needed to get my brakes fixed. What I still did not have was the resolve to overcome my deep aversion to car troubles and actually go to a mechanic. 

About a week after receiving the check, I was at work. It was a Friday. A happy Friday. My boss gave me a bread maker, out of the clear blue sky. Just kidding. It was out of her garage, actually. But it made my day. I told her she increased my chances of finding true love with that gift. What guy doesn't like a girl who can bake her own bread, right? Then, as I left work that Friday on my way to a graduation party, bread maker in tow, I heard a new, unpleasant sound coming from my car. That sound was the motivation I needed to overcome my aforementioned aversion. Images of metal scraping against metal filled my vision. Within a short time, I had coordinated a stop to the mechanic the following day on the way to the beach, where a couple friends and I had planned to spend our Saturday. It was slated to work out perfectly. The mechanic was on our way to the beach. We were on our way to the beach. I'd drop off my car on the way there and pick it up on our way back.  Simple.  

Later, as I was driving home from the party, anxious about the noises coming from my car but grateful that everything had worked out so well, I remembered something. My prayer. The one request I was bold enough to present to my Father. In my quiet time journal, referring to the mechanic, I wrote, "Will you give me a friend to go with me?" Well, He gave me two. My two friends who just so happened to have invited me earlier in the week to go with them to the beach on Saturday. I felt loved by God. I felt relieved that my car would no longer convulse every time I slowed down. 

Everything went according to plan. I picked up my car on our way back from the OC and was quite pleased to discover the convulsing and squeaking was gone! The new, unpleasant sound, however, remained. So, true to form, I solved the problem the way you'd expect. I turned up my music louder. But the noise was like a gnat flying around my face. Hard as I tried, I couldn't pretend it away. 

Fast forward to last week, due to an uncooperative network, I left work early. I had no excuses. Back to the mechanic I went to compliment him on how nicely he fixed my brakes and to tell him the bad sound hadn't gone away. I sat in the shop while first one, then both of the mechanics drove my car around to try to diagnose the mysterious problem. Well, diagnose it, they did. You'll never guess what they discovered.

Apparently, the bread maker I had stuffed on the floor of my backseat a couple Fridays earlier was rattling around from where it sat. Now, there are two things you can take away from this story. Firstly, I am the kind of girl who thinks very bad things are happening to her car when, in fact, it is just a medium-sized kitchen appliance jostling about in her backseat (I give you permission to use this against me as you see fit.) And secondly, God used that bread maker to answer my prayer. If it hadn't rattled in my ear that Friday, convincing me that my brakes were just shy of leading me and my Mazda to ruin, I wouldn't have made such immediate plans to get them fixed and I wouldn't have gone to the mechanic with not just one, but two friends. 

From the answer to the prayer I couldn't pray to the answer that exceeded the prayer I did pray, God took care of me. He wove a beautifully tangled web of blessing and provision through brakes and a bread maker. "'Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus, throughout all generations, forever and ever! Amen" Ephesians 3:20-21.   

True Story

This is a true story. And it has four parts.

Part I: Yesterday

Some days it's easier for me to trust God than others.  Some days I believe with conviction that God is good and that my heart matters to Him.  Other days, He seems aloof and indifferent to me and I push Him away, accordingly.  I doubt Him, His nature, His character.  I wish I didn't, but I do. This is the way yesterday was shaping up, so, I thought I'd fight it.  Take out my sword.  Sharpen it a little.  I decided I'd look up a Bible verse about God not forgetting about me. My plan was to wait until my quiet time this morning and search then.

Part II: Last Night

I had a strange dream.  Let that be my disclaimer for what follows. I dreamed that I was breastfeeding, or rather that I had need of breastfeeding, if you know what I mean.  Granted, I have no first-hand knowledge when it comes to this topic, but I do understand the general idea of it. And I know what happens when a momma needs to do it and can't.  That was my situation, in my dream.  Like I said, it was very strange. 

Part III: This Morning

Quiet time. It was an especially sleepy one this morning, to be honest. I flipped to the back of my Bible and looked up the word 'forget' in the concordance. The only verse I could find that mentioned God not forgetting about me was Isaiah 49:15. I found it, read it, then froze a little bit. This is what Isaiah 49:15,16 says, "Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are ever before me."

Part IV: Now

OK, I can take a hint.  Someone's trying to tell me something.  He hasn't forgotten about me.  And He won't forget about me because it isn't in His nature or character to do so. He is faithful and good and so quick to love me, even when I doubt Him.  

What I Believe

I believe that God is good. He is faithful. He loves me very much. He will not let me wander through the unknown alone. He will not leave me or grow tired of me and walk away. I believe that He is working out the circumstances of my life for my good, even the disappointments and the things I don't understand yet. He will put me at the school or job that He chooses and whatever He chooses will be what is best for me. He will close all the doors of the places that are not His best for me and He will open the door at the right place for me. No matter the circumstances of my life or the stage of life I'm in, I will always, ALWAYS have need to trust Him deeply and completely. The more I trust Him with today, the more easily I will trust Him tomorrow. And He will prove faithful. He will prove constant in His affection for me. He will open the windows of Heaven and pour out blessing that I cannot contain. I know this because He already has and because His Word says so. I can't see the end of the story. I can't see past today. The disappointments that seem so hard to carry today may be weaving together a story more beautiful than any I could have imagined on my own. Or it may be that I will never see the finished beauty in this life. It is only a reflection of Him anyways. He is true beauty. And I will see it someday. I will see Him someday. My goal is to trust Him as much in this moment as I will in that moment.     

Teacher

I've been away for a while.  Well, not away exactly.  Just to Mountain View Middle School for seven weeks and to Moreno Valley High School for almost seven weeks and to work at Skanska in the afternoons and evenings and back to this little bedroom after all of that to plan for the next day of repeating it all over again.

This isn't a thorough description of my life since my last post, but it'll do.  Just know my absence was for a good reason.  I was sitting at the drum set at practice last Saturday morning, checking my email between songs, and I saw a message (a very, very expensive message) from Commission on Teacher Credentialing wishing me congratulations on my single subject teaching credential.

Come to think of it, technically, I can say I became an English teacher at band practice one sunny, Spring Saturday morning.  I like that.

Student teaching taught me a lot. Endurance. Hard work. Compassion. Time management. I have still have so much to learn. But now I can start learning as a teacher.