Adopted

When we first began to discuss marriage I asked Tim [I was desperate to know] “Do you really want to adopt children? Are you just saying you want to because you know it’s important to me?”

I know that with all the qualities needed to be a godly husband it is odd that I would center on having a heart for adoption as a deal-maker/breaker. It’s just that a desire to reach out to orphans has been growing in the core of my being since I can remember. To never adopt a child would be to deny a part of the purposes God has for me. The question was not meant as manipulation, but a fleece.

Tim’s “yes, I really do,” was part of my hearts confirmation that God was the One bringing us together. We’re not just crazy young adults compelled by our hormones. Our marriage is going to serve the Church and the world. We are going to create a home for God’s children.

Last Monday as I was talking with Liz this discussion of adoption came up:

“All those years with an eating disorder where hard on my body. Sometimes I get really afraid that I will not be able to have children,” I confide, “but we want to adopt so it’s okay.”

I catch the lie and correct myself,

“what I mean is it is the dream of my heart to have Tim’s children. To find out I am infertile would be shameful and devastating…”

Minutes past before I continue,

“...But we want to adopt whether or not we have biological children… and our hearts are large enough to love any child that God gives us.”

I know that is true. I am at the age were most of my friends are having children and I want that, but then I think “what if I don’t have a baby?” and I know that there would be purpose in that too because we would be interested in foster-care and adoption earlier in life if we were to find out that we are unable to conceive. If that is the path we are meant to take--- I know it will be beautiful.

The more I get to know my husband the more impressed I am with the man that he is, and the leader he is becoming. My heart has no doubt-- Tim is going to a fantastic father someday. He has a huge heart filled with tremendous amounts of love.

Interestingly enough, though I am the one feels compelled towards adoption and parenthood, Tim is teaching me about the parent’s responsibility to affirm their child’s soul.

Here’s how: In many areas my husband’s affirmation of me is the first time truth has stuck to my soul. Before I got married Tim [or anybody else for that matter] could tell me all day long---

“Sarah,”

• “You’re beautiful.”
• “You’re not fat.”
• “You’re intelligent.”
• “You’re kind and good.”

--- and I would not be able to accept any truth in what they said. Addicted to affirmation I would do anything to please, but once I received a compliment my mind would immediately begin to devise reasons why I couldn’t be lovable and lovely.

In some miraculous way marriage has pierced through this self-hatred complex.

Now I have this theory --- little girls must be taught that they are smart, beautiful, and worthy of love by a man in their family. Since these were not truths I received from my father, Tim is the first man in my life with the proximity to teach me. Stasi Eldredge echoes this in her book Captivating, "Women learn from mothers what it means to be a woman, and from their fathers the value that woman has - the value they have as a woman."

My dad is a good man, but relationships are not intuitive to him and nobody taught my father how to affirm a little-girl’s soul. The result has been that though my dad has provided for me throughout my life, we began with a rather detached relationship. This tentative relationship shattered in 94 when things in my biological family temporarily fell apart. Efforts have since been made to heal the break in our relationship, but they have been short-lived.

I used to blame this on myself. If only I were a better daughter and worked harder at understanding Dad, I would have a good relationship with him. It took a lot of truth-facing for me to realize that the damage done was not “all my fault” and that it really was beyond my ability to repair.

Once out of denial I started to blame the rift in our relationship and the father-hole-in-my-soul on the current impossibility of time-travel. Right now if you’re a father needing to make amends with an adult daughter who you betrayed as a child you’re out of luck:

• You can’t go back to when your daughter was being teased and tell her “you are beautiful.”

• You can’t go back to when separation took her far from you and tell her “it’s not your fault.”

• You can’t take back the time you hit her and the poisonous things you said in your anger, and choose instead to hold her, to comfort her, to reach out to her in her shame and whisper in her ear “I love you anyway. You’re my treasure. You’re going to make it through this. I love you,” as you hug her to your chest.

And that love and attention in those formative moments is the only cure I can imagine for the pain that was caused.

Of course, this kind of blame it on the “what ifs” thinking is even more depressing than thinking the void is all your fault. You’re helpless, but so is he. In this place there is nothing anyone can do.

So I’m shifting again… Rearranging the thoughts in my mind to grieve what could have been and to forgive. What I realized is that our parents represent God to us as children, we rightly look to them for affirmation, protection, and comfort; but since they are human they will always fall short. As we grow into a knowledge of God’s love, our demand that our parents be God to us becomes idolatry. Instead of allowing God to satisfy us, we look to man who cannot.

God has taken me in His arms and is slowly teaching me that He is the only perfect father. Here I have found hope in this for me [and for my dad] because God able to nurture and affirm our wounded souls in ways that help us correctly interpret history. He delights in teaching our hearts His healing truth and love.

It’s hard for me to learn though because when my heart is quiet I get sleepy, I doze off or I day-dream. Plus I am not used to tuning into the Father heart of God, and when I do feel His love I have to fight to believe it’s true, just like I have to fight to believe that my husband loves me, or that the Schiros love me.

I told Linda about how “love always seems too good to be true” and her reply struck me as wisdom, “Sarah we all feel that way when we are loved, especially when we are loved by someone who doesn’t seem to need our love. That’s why it is so hard to understand God’s love because he doesn’t in anyway need us.”

As I have skeptically researched the grace of Divine adoption, my eyes have been opened to the overwhelming evidence of scripture: I am a penniless orphan and God has chosen to lavish his love on me. I must choose to open my wounded heart and rest in it.

The Apostle John describes the extravagant love of adoption this way,

How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears,[a]we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. (1 John 3:1-2)

In my husband God has given me a companion to audibly speak His affirmation to my heart. This ability to speak life to the soul of a woman is the most powerful part of a man. It is how I know with every fiber of my being my husband’s strength.

I resonate with the way Stasi Eldredge describes strength in Captivating,

"To experience the strength of a man is to have him speak on our behalf. For when men abuse with words, we are pierced. When they are silent, we are starved. They have offered us no strength, they have abandoned us. but, when they speak with us, hear us, offer their words to us and on our behalf, something in our hearts is able to rest. We long for the protection masculine strength offers,... but also to have them shield us from emotional hard and spiritual attack...as women we long for someone strong to stand between us and the vicious assault of our Enemy."

That's exactly how it works for me. Through consistently speaking the truth over me Tim is helping me to see myself through God’s eyes instead of giving in to the lies and distortion of the enemy. As I open up his family is teaching me this too. It is "weird" because they don’t need me, but they love me anyway. I am praying for them and hope to become a blessing in return.

When I consider my life, I know from experience that God really does place “the lonely in families (Ps 68:6)” This is a main contributor to my passion for adoption. Some people estimate that there are as many as 163 million orphans around the world. It’s heart-breaking and overwhelming. Tim and I want to extend the family of God to the next child in need of a Father.

A Child's Voice from Discover The Journey on Vimeo.

For right now we are sponsoring a Alexandria a three year old little girl in Haiti so that her family can afford to provide for her and we pray for the opportunity to adopt.

Joy in the Journey

Life has been a trip for me, a road I would not have chosen, but a journey I would not take back. Through this journey God has formed me into the wife, daughter, sister, and friend I am. He has shown me beautiful sunrises on the summits of my life and when I walked through the Valley of the Shadow of death he has held my hand for every painful step.

Recently I have again found my fearful heart hesitant to take the first step on the path now laid before me. By retracing the steps that have brought me here, I hope to bolster my conviction that there is indeed joy in the journey:

Salt Lake City. I started kindergarten in Salt Lake and stayed through 3rd grade. From the very beginning I was in awe of the mountains, spending time in the majestic Rockies

I became a bit of a mystic because I realized the great power behind creation.Because of how tight-knit the Mormon community was there, I was never accepted by the girls in my class. In Salt Lake I learned to view myself as outside and other.

The Vineyard Church. My mother brought us to the Vineyard when we had nothing. At 9 years old I was worried about whether we would food, clothes, or a place to stay, but even when the church began to help us I wouldn’t go in…

I spent the winter in the back of the station wagon wrapped in a blanket reading, until I really got hungry for God. This community wrapped it’s arms around me—a hurting little girl--- and helped me begin to understand that the God who formed the mountains could want a “girl-like-me.” It was here I learned to pray, to worship, to believe. And every time I’ve returned “the prodigal” they have taken me back.

Youth With A Mission. All the money I earned during high school went towards mission trips to Mexico. I went 3 times with the church and twice with Youth with a Mission. I gained a heart for people outside of my own community.I began to dare to believe that God could use someone like me.

I discovered how the Spirit would pour through me when I was praying, drawing, and reaching out to the children.

Oakdale Christian Academy.
My personality needs stability, and I grew up on a roller-coaster. At 17 I had so much contempt in my heart towards myself and my family I couldn’t survive at home anymore.I walked around holding my breath

and God brought me to Oakdale to help me breath again.I learned to sleep at night, to look people in the eye, and to believe in family. This community made me feel wanted despite my scars.


Mercy Ministries. Since childhood I have had an undercurrent of defiant independence running through the depths of my soul, but I didn’t want to confess to this darkness in me or to acknowledge the pain which led me to dig the canal.

I was alone and broken- bulimic, anorexic, suicidal, miserable.
Mercy was my intervention. Words can’t express my gratitude for how they loved me when I stubbornly refused to let love in. It was here that God restored my sense of self-worth, so that I could have courage to keep facing the enemy with him.

Central Christian College. In the Science Hall Crow’s Nest I discovered a love for the Bible and for Theology. My professor nurtured well the passion in me to learn. These were days for dreams and visions.

These were years for wrestling out of my heart the root-belief that God only uses the beautiful people. This was a season of getting my feet wet in ministry, observing the loneliness of leadership, developing greater passion for justice, and leaning hard on the Spirit.


Breathitt County. For my first venture in the adult world I returned to OCA. Growing up was hard for me… I guess it pretty much always is. I hiked the hills of Breathitt County as I worked out all the longings and fears surfacing in me.Nature was a solace to my pain.

Creation again lifted my eyes to the Creator…Stars and sweat were my friends, the students I worked with my teachers. Prayer my life-line.

The Pregnancy Service Center. I used to think that “Since caring about the unborn is the one area of social justice where the Church has really taken a stance, I should devote my prayers to those who are overlooked by mainstream Christianity.”

But God taught me his heart for these children, and gave me a job that brought me to the end of me and taught me humility. Never have I experienced greater spiritual warfare. The staff and volunteers at this ministry are true servants of the kingdom. They daily confront the ways that the enemy has come to steal, kill, and destroy their community with the life-transforming love of Christ.

Disability Supports. When I started in February I was looking for a job where I could “reach-out and not stress-out.” This community has come to mean much more to me. Working with people with disabilities brings to light both the beautiful and the ugly parts of our society

and feeds my passion to be part of a more transparent community. At the end of [most] workdays I honestly feel that the clients I work with are giving more to me than I am to them. They are teaching me that:

• Sometimes it is better to stop trying to communicate with words and start paying attention to what their eyes are already telling me.

• the true significance in who we are is not what we are capable of doing, but the extent to which we use our capabilities to care about the people in our world. We all have a purpose for being here.

• Even small things done in love can make the day worth living.

For now I am here—and I love it. I relish every day, and there is joy in the journey… but I also ache know that there is more here than I am engaging, that the community of McPherson and the Revolution are places and relationships which I also need to open my soul to.

But relationally I am at a stand still until I forgive.

TodayI find my soul fearfully welcoming the reformation God has shown me that real forgiveness will bring.

On being un-dragoned.

Since elementary school I have been pigeon-holed as the “nice-girl” in my social circle. You know the type: she smiles all the time, does the job nobody else wants, and befriends the underdog--- A friendly enough part in the community drama: but I always resented being her. I long to be known and people don’t know the nice girl, she’s far too polite to share the “horrible things” she actually feels.

It’s a dumb compulsion, but nice-girls are actually appalled by their own mean thoughts. They seem so counter our lot in life-- the epitome of insincerity.

It’s not surprising that the thing I hate most about me is the inner monster which my smile masks.

• A girl who wants so badly to be loved that she won’t love and risk not being loved in return [because rejection feels like death. ]

• A girl who holds all her pain like treasure… and struggles to forgive.
• A girl who shakes her fist at a God who offers her real love.

For twenty years I have hated the monster in me and grinned wider to compensate for the fact that deep-down-inside I am not the nice girl everyone thinks I am.

But this quest for authenticity is teaching that--- when blindly playing the roles in which society has cast them all humans are monsters.

Just about everybody is frantically running around trying by sheer force of effort to slim down enough to squeeze ourselves into our part in the drama. It doesn’t work well. We feel as though we have become awful parodies of the glory that our spirits were intend to reflect. We are broken and we turn to smaller gods to find relief the pangs of smallness.

And we find ourselves more monstrous than ever

In his book Addiction and Grace Gerald May the universality of this cycle,

I am not being flippant when I say that all of us suffer from addiction. Nor am I reducing the meaning of addiction. I mean in all truth that the psychological, neurological, and spiritual dynamics of full-fledged addiction are actively at work within every human being. The same processes that are responsible for addiction to alcohol and narcotics are also responsible for addiction to ideas, work, relationships, power, moods, fantasies, and an endless variety of other things. We are all addicts in every sense of the word. Moreover, our addictions are our own worst enemies. They enslave us with chains that are of our own making and yet that, paradoxically, are virtually beyond our control. Addiction also makes idolators of us all, because it forces us to worship these objects of attachment, thereby preventing us from truly, freely loving God and one another" (pp. 3-4)..”

Every human being on this planet was created to reflect the Divine Image. He is a Big God-- social roles don’t fit us well. They’re just too small. Our lives are meant to expansive and radiant through the power of the Holy Spirit’s indwelling presence.

The reason for failing to fit your own societal-definition is that you are more than you know:

• Loved more than you know
• Created for more than you know
• Desired more than you know

My attempts at authenticity thus far have failed because [in classic nice girl fashion] I was trying to do it on my own, and we can only shed the ill-fitting costumes assigned us through intervening grace.

Story is helping me wrap my heart around Grace. In The Voyage of the Dawn Treader C.S. Lewis explores the pain involved in allowing God to restore us to the people we were intended to be, through his character Eustace Scrub.

Because of an enchanted bracelet Eustace was trapped in the body of a dragon for several weeks; then one morning he returns to the camp as a boy again. In confidence Eustace shares the details of his unbelievable restoration with his cousin Edmund,

I looked up and saw the very last thing I expected: a huge lion coming slowly towards me. And one queer thing was that there was no moon last night, but there was moonlight where the lion was. So it came nearer and nearer. I was terribly afraid of it. You may think that, being a dragon, I could have knocked any lion out easily enough. But it wasn't that kind of fear. I wasn't afraid of it eating me, I was just afraid of it - if you can understand. Well, it came close up to me and looked straight into my eyes. And I shut my eyes tight. But that wasn't any good because it told me to follow it.”

“You mean it spoke?”

“I don't know. Now that you mention it, I don't think it did. But it told me all the same. And I knew I'd have to do what it told me, so I got up and followed it. And it led me a long way into the mountains. And there was always this moonlight over and round the lion wherever we went. So at last we came to the top of a mountain I'd never seen before and on the top of this mountain there was a garden - trees and fruit and everything. In the middle of it there was a well.

“I knew it was a well because you could see the water bubbling up from the bottom of it: but it was a lot bigger than most wells - like a very big, round bath with marble steps going down into it. The water was as clear as anything and I thought if I could get in there and bathe it would ease the pain in my leg. But the lion told me I must undress first. Mind you, I don't know if he said any words out loud or not.
“I was just going to say that I couldn't undress because I hadn't any clothes on when I suddenly thought that dragons are snaky sort of things and snakes can cast their skins. Oh, of course, thought I, that's what the lion means. So I started scratching myself and my scales began coming off all over the place. And then I scratched a little deeper and, instead of just scales coming off here and there, my whole skin started peeling off beautifully, like it does after an illness, or as if I was a banana. In a minute or two I just stepped out of it. I could see it lying there beside me, looking rather nasty. It was a most lovely feeling. So I started to go down into the well for my bathe.

“But just as I was going to put my feet into the water I looked down and saw that they were all hard and rough and wrinkled and scaly just as they had been before. Oh, that's all right, said I, it only means I had another smaller suit on underneath the first one, and I'll have to get out of it too. So I scratched and tore again and this underskin peeled off beautifully and out I stepped and left it lying beside the other one and went down to the well for my bathe.

“Well, exactly the same thing happened again. And I thought to myself, oh dear, how ever many skins have I got to take off? For I was longing to bathe my leg. So I scratched away for the third time and got off a third skin, just like the two others, and stepped out of it. But as soon as I looked at myself in the water I knew it had been no good.

“Then the lion said - but I don't know if it spoke – ‘You will have to let me undress you.’ I was afraid of his claws, I can tell you, but I was pretty nearly desperate now. So I just lay flat down on my back to let him do it.The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I've ever felt. The only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off. You know - if you've ever picked the scab off a sore place. It hurts like billy-oh but it is such fun to see it coming away.”

“I know exactly what you mean,” said Edmund.

“Well, he peeled the beastly stuff right off - just as I thought I'd done it myself the other three times, only they hadn't hurt - and there it was lying on the grass: only ever so much thicker, and darker, and more knobbly-looking than the others had been. And there was I as smooth and soft as a peeled switch and smaller than I had been. Then he caught hold of me - I didn't like that much for I was very tender underneath now that I'd no skin on - and threw me into the water. It smarted like anything but only for a moment. After that it became perfectly delicious and as soon as I started swimming and splashing I found that all the pain had gone from my arm. And then I saw why. I'd turned into a boy again. You'd think me simply phoney if I told you how I felt about my own arms. I know they've no muscle and are pretty mouldy compared with Caspian's, but I was so glad to see them. After a bit the lion took me out and dressed me –“

“Dressed you. With his paws?”

“Well, I don't exactly remember that bit. But he did somehow or other: in new clothes - the same I've got on now, as a matter of fact. And then suddenly I was back here. Which is what makes me think it must have been a dream.”

“No. It wasn't a dream,” said Edmund.

“Why not?”

“Well, there are the clothes, for one thing. And you have been - well, un-dragoned, for another.”

“What do you think it was, then?” asked Eustace.

“I think you've seen Aslan,” said Edmund.

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader – Chapter 7

I see myself in Eustace. To be restored I too need to be un-dragoned, undressed and washed in pools of living water. I see it happening slowly…

Tear by tear God is restoring me to find my value as his daughter.

When the Saints...

Last Sunday was Pentecost.

That morning Hope, Lindsay, and I spent a good hour resting on the Wolcott’s front porch-- just pouring our hearts out to each other. As listened to hopes and fears of these sisters in Christ, the forlorn tendril of singularity that had wrapped itself around my heart these past months began to unwind.


Here were women who also longed to work in international ministry, but feared that in the time it’s taking us to get there we will become entrenched in the American lifestyle. They shared my consternation at frequently observing a lack of passion in the lives of those who claim to follow Christ. They related to my burning hunger to know God, my confusion over how exactly prayer works, and my struggle to not allow the very words of God become passé as I read the Bible once again.

Here in America we are so very rich, and I would like to think that it is with a purpose--- that we are somehow predestined to this position to make a global impact in these last days.

But as a culture we are so satiated by vain pursuits that we have lost a hunger for God and subsequently any sense of a Divine purpose for our lives. What makes me most angry is how easily I find myself standing among the congregation of Christians who have given up on ever having a closer relationship with the Spirit.

So many days I am the one living like the God of the Bible has vacated this planet. My small way of living does compute with my faith--- and the internal dissension hurts.

But for a moment last Sunday morning the dissonant pain in me found relief in hope. As we fellowshipped the breeze brew cool on our faces reminding us of the presence of the Holy Spirit. The Wolcott’s porch became a sanctuary from the too-busy-to-honor life I have created. Lindsay’s and Hope’s passion was the Spirit’s healing balm to my jaded heart.

The night after Lindsay and Hope had headed home I began to unpack the events of the day. We had been so aware of the Spirit’s presence. I had felt, for the first time in a long while, a connection to the Church--- the followers of Christ throughout the history and the world. I really sensed the Spirit telling me to “dare to believe that I am working through you and have kingdom purposes for your life.”

and God brought to my heart a song, When the Saints Come Marching In by Sara Groves. As I mouthed the lyrics to the melody in my head the last verse resonated in my soul,

I see the long quiet walk along the Underground Railroad
I see the slave awakening to the value of her soul

I see the young missionary and the angry spear
I see his family returning with no trace of fear

I see the long hard shadows of Calcutta nights
I see the sister standing by the dying man's side

I see the young girl huddled on the brothel floor
I see the man with a passion come and kicking down the door

I see the man of sorrows and his long troubled road
I see the world on his shoulders and my easy load

And when the Saints go marching in
I want to be one of them.

This is my family, my true community. The passionate fire that I sometimes feel should be tamed and hidden, is a mere flicker. I do dare to hope that I will see the Holy Spirit descend with consuming Pentecostal fire on my life, that I may know and shine the Glory of the Most High.

Drawn by love

Fall 2008. I agreed to Autumn’s invitation to join choir on a whim. After all, I reasoned:

1. I needed something to fill my time.
2. I was looking to connect with my students outside of the dorm-work, and of course
3. I have always loved to sing

---so why not join the OCA chorus?

I didn’t realize until after I had agreed to enroll that:

The fact that the entire junior high—whether they liked singing or not--- was required to participate in choir would have been a good reason to decline. I almost groaned out loud when on the first day of class I walked into a room of hyper 12 year old boys.


I had no complaints when I ended up sitting beside not a student, but the other “extended community enrollee”-- my co-workers daughter. All I knew about her was that somehow the room always brightened when she entered, and that many of the students in my dorm clearly adored her. The fact that some of the girls considered her a younger sibling had made her even more interesting in my book… For weeks I had wanted to become better acquainted with the “little sister” of the girl’s dorm.

In one class period [45 minutes] I learned this 11 year old had a beautiful voice and was generous with her smiles. Within the first week I fallen in love her heart. She was easy to love. Hearing her sing to Jesus “fill us with the light of day” cut deep into my spirit. Her love for Christ was so whole and transparent, I would think, “the kingdom of heaven does indeed belong to such as these (Matthew 19:14)”

During her solo I would whisper my prayer to her Jesus under my breath, “oh Spirit, fill me too.”

If I close my eyes and think back to those lonely autumn days, I can still hear her song--youthful and pure-- in my memory. As I look back on these snapshots of memory I know my time at OCA was sanctifying and the hours spent rehearsing worship music with the choir, sacred.

My choir-buddy stayed a part of the OCA melody until life forced us from our home in the vale. For me transition made existence busy. I lost touch with the people who had been family to me.

Sometimes in all the busy changes, even God has felt far away.

Since leaving I have felt very disconnected.

So every few months or so I would peruse my OCA family’s facebook photos to reassure myself that my adoptive community is doing alright.

A couple weeks ago when I was browsing this former co-worker's FB page and found that her daughter is now writing worship songs. “That is so her!” I thought. Intrigued I decided to look up my choir buddy’s profile. She had posted Jeremiah 31:3, “[God] has drawn his people with loving-kindness.”

I swear God had her post that for me.

Somehow as I read that verse, I knew in the deep aching places within my soul, “He is drawing me too.” In my mind’s eye I saw Jesus resting his hand on my back as I wept and I knew I needed to know for myself if this man really does love me the way the verse describes—with unfailing, everlasting, drawing love.

The very next moment I felt the familiar whisper of doubt hiss, “The verse is about the nation of Israel, not you. It can’t be possible that God loves you the way you are.”

My inner conflict became a catalyst for a more in-depth study of the verse. I discover that Jeremiah is describing both the way God has historically loved the nation of Israel, and the nature of the love God promises to continue to show. It is true, God’s love drew the remnant of his people and it is drawing me. I found out the term “to draw” comes from the Hebrew word,מָשַׁךְ -- mashak, which refers to both the magnetism, and longevity of Agape love.

This means,

• God’s love for us draws-out, it continues through our days of wandering and exile.
• God’s love also draws-back his wandering children.

When this truth dawned on me I whispered, “God if your drawing me, if you really love me the way I am, please show me.” I picked up a pen and waited.

Until the Holy Spirit showed me how real the love of God is:




I am indebted for my choir-buddy’s radiant spirit, grateful that she does not hide her love for Christ. She has taken to heart the counsel of 1 Timothy 4:12, "Don't let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity."She will never know how greatly the world around her is impacted through the Spirit within her, but if she has the chance to read this I hope she is encouraged. God is speaking through us, even on Facebook.

An open return of encouragement,

At graduation yesterday the Central Christian College concert choir performed a song that made me think of you, Choir-buddy… It resonated within my spirit, gave me goose-bumps, and whispered to my heart again “You are being drawn. Now return and find rest.”

Know that you are a worshiper and this song is your heart… Close your eyes and listen. May you also find rest in the Love that has drawn you in your youth,

Psalm 46:10 says, "Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth."

Keeping Singing.
Keep Radiating your love for Him.

Your sister in Christ

Sarah

Am I enough?

Tim describes my demeanor with an oft-quoted term of endearment, “She is all girl, and all woman.”

He has no idea the extent to which his affection for me is bringing out the girl and the woman. Every day I am growing through work that requires that I pour my heart into serving. I am growing old as I sit close to the suffering of people who were born with severe disabilities, but I am also growing young--- laughing more than I have since I was a little girl.

I am laughing because Tim loves me.

We are Adam and Eve and we discover ourselves in each other. In Adam's Diary Samuel Clemen’s portrays the first woman's adoration of the beauty of the Earth this way:

She is all interest, eagerness, vivacity, the world is to her a charm, a wonder, a mystery, a joy; she can’t speak for delight when she finds a new flower, she must pet it and caress it and smell it and talk to it, and pour out endearing names upon it. And she is color-mad: brown rocks, yellow sand, gray moss, green foliage, blue sky; the pearl of the dawn, the purple shadows on the mountains, the golden islands floating in crimson seas at sunset, the pallid moon sailing through the shredded cloud-rack, the star-jewels glittering in the wastes of space—none of them is of any practical value, so far as I can see, but because they have color and majesty, that is enough for her, and she loses her mind over them.

This is the exburance for life that love is letting me taste. I have begun to shed the somber skin of an insecure woman and now I find that the Sarah underneath is young with wonder, resembling the Eve of Eden—new to the world. New awe shudders through me as I drink in creation.

And of course Tim is Adam to me, my love and the one who loves me. He has a deeper understanding of the nature of love than I. Though he is younger he has lived in this light longer. So I am learning from him and his family more about the generous world where love has transplanted my soul.

…And can I tell you there is something intoxicating about being desired the way my husband desires me?

After months of Tim living with sick me, whinny me, crabby me, depressed me, tired me--- he still loves only me, every part of me, for all of time. All his love is convincing parts of my heart which I assumed where beyond repair that I am loveable and lovely.

Ironically for awhile this love has actually made me angry at a God who I grew-up believing wanted me to be more like the beautiful, perfect people. I didn’t know that love could ever say who I am is enough. When Tim convinced me that he actually thought this mess was beautiful; I didn’t give the credit for this ministry to the Spirit of God who indwelled him.

So my desire was for my husband and he became my first love… This was no outright denial of the love, hunger, and awe I feel toward the Trinity, but a subtle shifting of priorities toward the only one I perceived to love me as I am. For awhile Tim consumed my life, then things began to ache in me… because I began to long that God would love me as my husband does.

Then the other day I found my heart praying with the song Beautiful by Bethany Dillon,

I want to be beautiful
Make you stand in awe
Look inside my heart, and be amazed
I want to hear you say
Who I am is quite enough
Just want to be worthy of love
And beautiful

And I realized that all that time growing up it was the worldly parts of the church that were rejecting me not the Father. Not what was true and beautiful in the body of Christ... because I am a piece of the true and the beautiful.

In a flash the Spirit overwhelmed me with His love for the-me-He-created and I recognized that all these past months it has been Him loving me through my husband.

All that I am and all that has happened is not an accident…

He showed me how I have been designed with intention and love. He told me if He were to paint a picture of who He wants me to be, I would look like myself. l would be wearing my frayed jeans, a four year old t-shirt, and worn tennis shoes. My hair would be falling out of a pony-tail, and my face make-up free. My nose would be crooked. My lashes long. My nails short. My arms scarred.

I would be laughing or day-dreaming…. or crying with my face buried in my hands.

I would be pushing my fly-away-baby-hairs out of my eyes as I draw, leaving both hands and face smudged with pencil led.

…. Maybe I would be

• writing with laptop balanced on my knees
• mirroring the smile of my client as we talk with our eyes.
• whispering to God as tears running down my cheeks
• resting my head on Tim’s shoulder

Because all these pieces of me are predestined, designed, and desired.

As I stand back and examine this painting in my mind, I can love the humanity, the authenticity, the way I have embraced the practice of wearing the scars and joys of the journey as evidence of Grace.

I am not the beautiful “popular” girl I dreamed of being. I am not successful or wealthy. I don’t have scores of friends, nice clothes, a new car, or a beautiful house. I am not the perfect sister, daughter, or wife.

But I am me… being stretched, molded, re-created by the Holy Spirit who indwells me. I am loved, desired, designed--- even when I make a mess of me.

All this healing is evidence that indeed,

The moment we get tired in the waiting, God's Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don't know how or what to pray, it doesn't matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That's why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.

God knew what he was doing from the very beginning. He decided from the outset to shape the lives of those who love him along the same lines as the life of his Son. The Son stands first in the line of humanity he restored. We see the original and intended shape of our lives there in him. After God made that decision of what his children should be like, he followed it up by calling people by name. After he called them by name, he set them on a solid basis with himself. And then, after getting them established, he stayed with them to the end, gloriously completing what he had begun.

Romans 8:26-30

My Mother & Velveteen Prayers

This Saturday my mother graduated with a degree in Elementary Ed. I am thrilled for her. She is the most resilient, remarkably giving woman I know. She made my childhood magical. When we ate spaghetti we were birds eating worms, when we swam in the pool we were dolphins, when we were caught out in the rain we were Indian princesses and we danced around and around and around… I know she will be the most amazing teacher ever.


Her accomplishment sent my mind reminiscing:

Two years ago I stood before my classmates a college graduate, just like she did this weekend. My accomplishment that day was a testament to her love and sacrifice and that of the rest of my family, the Vineyard, Oakdale, and Mercy--- hundreds of people who despite some unlikely odds refused to give up on me. So at 22 I had this sense that my life was hugely significant. Why else would God have showered all this rescuing love on me?

As I addressed my fellow graduates I admonished them “Speak up because we are called to be leaders.” The speech included a quote about the painful side of becoming a leader that the past years have continued to unpack for me. In this season of growing up I have often return to the words of Robert Clinton to give context and solace,

“The major work is that which God is doing to and in the (young) leader, not through him or her. Most emerging leaders don’t recognize this. They evaluate productivity, activities, fruitfulness, etc. But God is quietly, often in unusual ways, trying to get the leader to see that one ministers out of what one is. God is concerned with what we are. We want to learn a thousand things to do. But He will teach us one thing, perhaps in a thousand ways: ‘I am forming Christ in you.’ It is this that will give power to your ministry.”

—From The Making of a Leader by J. Robert Clinton.

You see the truth is I am not the girl I dreamed of being the day of my graduation. I was full of dreams then. I wanted to do great things for the kingdom of God. I wanted to work to create a more just world. Instead I have found myself back here in Kansas fighting the same sins, doing a less than glamorous job... and I am ashamed to admit this, but I am disappointed.

But remembering that though I “want to learn a thousand things to do. God will teach me one thing, perhaps in a thousand ways,” comforts me when I feel like such a failure to the kingdom. He must form the image of Christ in me… And this is necessarily a terribly painful journey.

At the Revolution worship service this week Jeff read from Deuteronomy 8. My anxious heart grabbed tight hold of the words Moses spoke to the children of Israel all those years ago (v.2-5):

Remember how the LORD your God led you all the way in the desert these forty years, to humble you and to test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands. He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD. Your clothes did not wear out and your feet did not swell during these forty years.

Know then in your heart that as a man disciplines his son, so the LORD your God disciplines you.

As I listened I realized this season is not so much about failure as it is about refinement. Sandwiched safely between my husband and my friend, I let my mind go into the painful places to explore this truth.

These past two years have taught me that I am not better than the next person, That:

• when I get sick,
• when money is tight,
• when work is hard

……When the promises appear hollow and the Spirit is silent

I shake my fist at God and bleed just like the next girl. Two years ago I would see this breaking as evidence of collapse, but weakness has become a teacher to me. Sickness has evoked deep hunger for God. Smallness has inspired my greatest prayers. In this place I have met the God of third, forth, fifth… chances. He doesn’t abandon the weak and the sick for they recognize how deeply they need Him. He is disciplining and humbling me…

During worship my heart responded to God’s humbling me. The team played a song I had never heard before, My Desire by Jeremy Camp. Jeremy begins “You want to be real. You want to be emptied inside…” and I cried snot. I do. I dream of being unselfconsciously Christlike, the Sarah I was created to be.

As I was drifting off to sleep that night my mind was flooded with snapshots of growing up with mom. It zoomed in on a picture me nestling down into a “nest” I had built of blankets as my mother read me The Velveteen Rabbit.

She had beautiful copy which she read with a British accent. I remember being mesmerized by her voice as I snuggled near. The sound of my mother reading my favorite part of the story echoed from this distant memory to the present,

"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but really loves you, then you become Real."

"Does it hurt?" asked the rabbit.

"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."

"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"

"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in your joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

Yes it hurts to become real. Sometimes I think that there is so much sin in me that there won’t be anything left after I have been sifted… but since I know that I am not being abandoned, but re-created I choose this journey… I learn my dependence of the Word of the Lord more each day.

Theology Under the Covers

A few weeks ago Tim and I were making small talk when I asked him:

“if you could meet any contemporary Christian author or artist who would it be?”

Tim wants to meet ReliantK. He wants to get know the artist who has written some of his favorite songs about our faith so he can assure the world that this crossover artist is not a poser. After discussing cross-over artists and my angst about about how some people in the Christian music industry have been sliming Jennifer Knapp for the next twenty-minutes, Tim posed the question back to me, "So who would you meet Sarah?"

My answer was slightly more comical; mostly because I felt the need to preface it with this disclaimer: "I really want to meet many of my favorite authors, but I am afraid that meeting them will be disappointing. I want to discuss what they write about, to pick their brains, to understand more through discussion, but I am afraid they will just consider me a little know nothing."

At this self-deprecating confession Tim [who is used to my little tirades] laughed and asked, “Who is it that you, my beautiful wife, are so insecure about meeting?”

“Gordon Fee,” was my answer, “I want to meet so many people… Brennan Manning, N.T. Wright, Ravi Zacharias, Derek Morphew…. But most of all I would like to meet Gordon Fee. I want to talk with him about what the New Testament teaches about the work of the Holy Spirit. I want to understand more… but he is a genius and I’m afraid he would think my questions are moronic.”

Tim bust out laughing at this, “Sarah, you are a moron. I’m pretty sure any of the theologians or apologists you mentioned would be honored to talk with a lovely woman who is learning from the insight God has given them.”

I continue to ramble my explanation to Tim, “As I have gleaned Gordon Fees articles and commentaries during my studies, I have fallen in love with the passion for the Holy Spirit which he expresses. My spirit resonates with the expressions of his, so I do feel like I know him. I hope your right about my dear theologians Tim. I hate to think of Gordon Fee, or any of my literary teachers, as too self-important to talk with the little people [girls like me who only wish they were smart enough to write biblical commentaries.]”

At this we both started laughing again. It’s official- I am a theology-nerd. But for real:

Revelation is the reason I love these dear scholars. For the truths these men have explained help me to unpack truth in my own life. Dorothy Sayers, another one of my favorite authors, describes the way this occurs in her anthology The Whimsical Christian,

"This recognition of the truth we get in the artist’s work comes to us as a revelation of new truth. I want to be clear about that. I am not referring to the sort of patronizing recognition we give a writer by nodding our heads and observing, “Yes, yes, very good, very true—that’s just what I’m always saying.”I mean the recognition of a truth that tells us something about ourselves that we had not been always saying,

something that puts a new knowledge of ourselves within our grasp.

It is new, startling, and perhaps shattering, and yet it comes to us with a sense of familiarity. We did not know it before, but the moment the poet how shown it to us, we know that, somehow or other, we had always really known it."

Yes… truth worms its way into my heart exactly like that, and I get goosebumps every time it happens. I am a closet theologian. I started reading the Bible under the covers while the rest of the house slept when I was a little girl, and I have been doing it ever since.

I am addicted to knowing more, but not smart enough to write commentaries of my own… [at least not yet.] So for now I am learning from reading with ravenous appetite, and enjoying it thoroughly.

For any closet theologians who happen to be reading this entry I have included a few of the latest nuggets of truth I have been chewing on:

" It is no wonder that the women were first at the Cradle and last at the Cross. They had never known a man like this Man--there had never been such another. A prophet and a teacher who never nagged at them, who never flattered or coaxed or patronized; who never made arch jokes about them, never treated them either as 'The women, God help us!' or 'The ladies, God bless them!'; who took their questions and arguments seriously, who never mapped out their sphere for them, never urged them to be feminine or jeered at them for being female; who had no ax to grind and no uneasy male dignity to defend; who took them as he found them and was completely unselfconscious.

"There is no act, no sermon, no parable in the whole Gospel that borrows its pungency from female perversity; nobody could possibly guess from the words of Jesus that there was anything 'funny' about woman's nature.

"But we might easily deduce it from His contemporaries, and from His prophets before Him, and from His Church to this day."

Dorothy Sayers, Are Women Human?

“Prayer…is not simply our cry of desperation or our “grocery list” of request that we bring before our heavenly Abba; prayer is an activity inspired by God himself, through the Holy Spirit. It is God siding with his people and, by his own empowering presence, the Spirit of God himself, bringing forth prayer that is in keeping with his will and his ways.”

Gordon Fee, “The Spirit and Prayer”- God’s Empowering Presence

Just a wife and mother...

This past Monday Dawn, Stephanie and I went over to Liz’s house for spaghetti squash. After we had all stuffed our faces as much squashy-goodness as possible, we relaxed in the living room and commenced with the “girl-talk.”

When my turn came to “bare my soul” I confided to my girlfriends that what I really long for is… [drumroll]……………..…. to have babies!

—my heart, my body yearns to mother.

This is of course is not really new news to any of my friends. Since I was thirteen I adopted several sets of “practice children,” begged to borrow any newborn in sight, and stuffed pillows in my shirt to pretend I was pregnant…

For my girlfriends the appalling part of my disclosure was what I said next:

I want to be a homemaker. I want to throw myself into motherhood by keeping house and home schooling. Someday I want to teach my children to love God, to read, to play the piano, to speak Spanish, and to live every moment fully alive.

The girls listened smilingly and were hesitantly supportive of my oh-so-traditional castle-in-the-sky, but it was easy to read the patronization in their eyes. They quickly reassured me that it was great if I could be happy being “just a wife and a mother,” but they needed careers.

I get what they were saying… being a “just” a house wife sounds very 1950s. Shouldn’t educated women in the 21st century give themselves to something greater than building a family? The idea that I would give up pursuing my hard-won right to a career in order to nurse babies, change diapers, and wipe snotty noses for the next however many years seems to be moving in the wrong direction, and little people [babies that is] can be scary.

My girlfriends response to “homemaker-dreams” reminds me of an appalling book I read in middle school. I’m Glad I’m a Boy written in the 1970’s is reflective the culture’s view of women during that era… The stereotypes illustrated in this children’s book are so appalling to this generation of Americans that they seem comical in a satirical way. You read it asking yourself, “the author is joking right? He’s got to be! Below are few of the grossest stereotypes he makes:

Boys can eat. Girls can cook.


Boys build houses. Girls keep houses.

I’m glad I don’t live in the 1970s… I’m glad women have the chance now to build houses if they want. It is a great opportunity to be allowed a career, but it seems to me that the cultural perception of a “successful woman” has shifted from one ditch to the other. Isn't real respect of womanhood honoring the women who choose to be homemakers as much as those who choose to be architects?

Today we live a society where the opportunity to a career is viewed as the redemption of every woman. So clearly my friends see their value to society through their careers. The roles of wife and mother [as well as those of husband and father] are rapidly changing to keep up with culture… and I fear these roles have lost the respect of the culture fair and square.

But I know change is coming... This generation was hurt by their parents divorces, or strained marriages. This generation longed for relationship with parents who were busy at work. Many want different kinds of families than the ones they grew up in. More and more the women I talk to confide to me... they secretly hope that they will be able to just be wives and mothers.

So where does this career-oriented culture leave family-oriented girls like us?

I keep asking myself, "I don’t want to build houses… I want to keep houses. Can that desire be okay too?" I don’t mind working, but even in work I find myself gravitating to motherly jobs that let me nurture. I love to give care, to protect and support.

For right now, I have decided to view my freedom to prioritize my role as a wife [and someday as mother] as a way of embracing my femininity. I don’t know that I am right on this one… but I am praying. I just want to bloom where I’m planted. I pray to become the woman God created me to be,

As I contemplate the tension I feel between the pull of career and that of family I have been chewing on proverbs 31:10-31, commonly referred to as the biblical description of a godly woman.

10 A wife of noble character who can find?
She is worth far more than rubies.

11 Her husband has full confidence in her
and lacks nothing of value.

12 She brings him good, not harm,
all the days of her life.

13 She selects wool and flax
and works with eager hands.

14 She is like the merchant ships,
bringing her food from afar.

15 She gets up while it is still dark;
she provides food for her family
and portions for her servant girls.

16 She considers a field and buys it;
out of her earnings she plants a vineyard.

17 She sets about her work vigorously;
her arms are strong for her tasks.

18 She sees that her trading is profitable,
and her lamp does not go out at night.

19 In her hand she holds the distaff
and grasps the spindle with her fingers.

20 She opens her arms to the poor
and extends her hands to the needy.

21 When it snows, she has no fear for her household;
for all of them are clothed in scarlet.

22 She makes coverings for her bed;
she is clothed in fine linen and purple.

23 Her husband is respected at the city gate,
where he takes his seat among the elders of the land.

24 She makes linen garments and sells them,
and supplies the merchants with sashes.

25 She is clothed with strength and dignity;
she can laugh at the days to come.

26 She speaks with wisdom,
and faithful instruction is on her tongue.

27 She watches over the affairs of her household
and does not eat the bread of idleness.

28 Her children arise and call her blessed;
her husband also, and he praises her:

29 "Many women do noble things,
but you surpass them all."

30 Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting;
but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised.

31 Give her the reward she has earned,
and let her works bring her praise at the city gate.

Clearly this girl did it all. She had a career and a family, but in the end she was praised for fearing the Lord.

Leaving the ghosts for good...

At night I am visited by ghosts...

Sometimes haunting memories of people from my past--- who teased me, hurt me, and shamed me. come in dreams and drag me back to the nights I spent in the valley of the shadow. They remind me of the pain. They remind me why I need to make sure some things never happen again. I hardly ever have these nightmares anymore, but when I was a teenager they were something pretty horrible… Even now, when I am fully awake and all the lights are on, it makes my heart race just to think of the way these used to abuse my memory.

But not every phantom is unwelcome.

More often now I have better dreams--- conversations with loved ones who have died---Saints who lives on earth brushed against mine. Mostly I talk with my Grandma Jane about how I want to be a missionary and a mother. Occasionally I cry to Gran about how I continue to wrestle with so many food- anxieties… or confess to Grandma O the prayers that still consume me.

I also dream-talk with the living-“dead,” people who haven’t been involved in my life for years. I talk with Dianne Leman, my childhood pastor, about the fear that I will never conceive children. I return to Utah and tell Mrs. Mantella, my third grade teacher, the story of what happened after we ran away. I confide to my friends Stevie and Faith how much I worry that I will settle for a mediocre relationship with Christ because I am too in love with the idea of a comfortable life.

Because I loved (or feared) these people so greatly when they were in my life, my subconscious has clung to our dead relationship in order to process and unpack the fears which overshadow my days.

There have been seasons in my life the relationships I had with these ghosts in my dreams have been deeper and more real than the relationships I have with solid, present people. I went through the day saving up all the things I felt inside of me and shared them with the ghosts while I was sleeping. The reason for this was that conversations with ghosts [even mean and wicked ghosts] are oddly more comfortable than conversations with the living because, of course, ghosts are inside you. Ghosts will always corroborate your inner dialogue… Friendly ghosts show up when you feel friendly towards yourself… and sinister ghosts, when you feel worthless. Each of us has enough memories to confirm any emotional belief we experience.

A challenge I have in reading the Bible is to avoid turning the Living God into one of my ghosts. It is easy for me to take the ways God moved in the past and distort them to confirm my emotions. It is hard for me to come to Christ in the present and listen. It is easier loosely apply scripture to an area of prayer where I have yet to hear His answer [and there are many] than to deal with the tension of the Kingdom of God being both already and not yet present in my mind, body, and world.

The story of the Voice of God coming to Elijah on Mount Horeb reminds me that the Divine whisper is not mere self-talk [or even self-application of scripture]:

The LORD said, "Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the LORD, for the LORD is about to pass by."
Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave.
Then a voice said to him, "What are you doing here, Elijah?" (1 Kings 19:11-13)

Elijah fasted and waited on the Lord. He looked for the Presence of his God, instead of fabricating it in the phenomena at hand. If we want to truly hear, we too must seek His voice. We must wait and listen.

This is difficult because our personal ghosts automatically interpret the events of our day for us if we let them. Since the voice of God is not something fabricated in our head, our natural thoughts have to be taken captive and truth from God actively pursued. Therefore denying our memories and perceptions permission to frame our beliefs one of the great challenges of the faith. To know the truth will require that we leave the ghosts for good.

In the face of phenomena and the ghosts of my experience, I echo the prayer of the Psalmist (27:10-14) :

Teach me your way, O LORD;
lead me in a straight path
because of my oppressors.

Do not turn me over to the desire of my foes,
for false witnesses rise up against me,
breathing out violence.

I am still confident of this:
I will see the goodness of the LORD
in the land of the living.

Wait for the LORD;
be strong and take heart
and wait for the LORD.

There are so many places here in the land of the living where I am learning to wait to see God’s goodness, and so I pray:

God let me hear your voice. Holy Spirit woe my heart from lesser loves: from the love of comfort, from the love of money, from the love of man’s approval, from the love of “beauty.” Jesus ravish my heart… become to me the Living definition of comfort, sufficiency, acceptance, and beauty. I know that I have fallen short of Your standard. I have raised the idols of my culture. I have run after other gods, and forsaken the journey to which my Maker called me. I cling to Your cross and beg for mercy. Forgive me again, breathe new life in me, speak to me again Living God…. Cleanse me of my disease. Create in me a clean heart… renew a right spirit within me. Give me ears to hear Your voice. Lips to proclaim Your goodness. You said Your kingdom embraces the prodigal; the prodigal is me. Father I need You. I wait for You alone.

Space for the Anti-churchies

I have been reflecting recently on a passage from Mere Christianity where C.S. Lewis writes regarding the significance of church,

He works on us in all sorts of ways. But above all, he works on us through each other. Men are mirrors, or “carriers” of Christ to other men. Usually it is those who know Him that bring Him to others. That is why the church, the whole body of Christians showing Him to one another, is so important. It is so easy to think that the church has a lot of different objects – education, buildings, missions, holding services…the Church exists for no other purpose but to draw men to Christ. to make them little Christs. If they are not doing that, all the cathedrals, clergy, missions, sermons, even the Bible itself, are simply a waste of time. God became man for no other purpose. It is even doubtful, you know, whether the whole universe was created for any other purpose.

I agree that Christian fellowship is important, but church is such a difficult place for me. As I pondered the passage I realized that I consider “churchyness” and “anti-churchyness” to be two poles of the Christian-personality trait spectrum.

On one side there are the “churchy” people who are mostly, but not always:

• Beautiful people who dress both modestly and well.
• Optimists who are highly involved in “good” causes.
• Extroverts who place a high value on social appearance.
• Givers who are not interested in sharing their needs or struggles.
• Believers in God’s love and in prayer.
• Faithful attenders of Sunday school, Sunday morning worship, Wednesday night bible study…

On the other side there are the “anti-churchy” people who are:

• Edgy in dress and appearance since they feel these are "shallow" preoccupations.
• Realists who are involved in different “good” causes.
• Less extroverted, more introspective, more depressed…
• Concerned about authenticity and truth… want to be loved for “who they really are.”
• Skeptical about whether God loves them or listens to their prayers.
• Absent from church, More willing to dialogue about their faith questions in less formal situations.

There are great people, who love Jesus, and are working to advance His kingdom on both sides of this spectrum (and everywhere in between.) I personally have a rather "anti-churchy" personality and have always felt more at home having spiritual conservations with my friends who aren't attending formal worship services than the die-hard "churchies" I know. Don't hear me wrong... I don't feel this way because the churchies aren't wonderful and loving people, but because I resonate with emotions, experiences, and questions of the "anti-churchies" I am more like them and so naturally feel more accepted there.

I am not one of those people who views attending a Sunday morning worship service as a the biblically mandated way of making a payment on my ticket to heaven. It wouldn't be too difficult for me to quit attending church services like I would quit attending any social gathering where I just didn't click, if it weren't for the way the Bible calls those who have put their faith [however shakey] in Christ to come together,

Ephesians 2:19-22:

That's plain enough, isn't it? You're no longer wandering exiles. This kingdom of faith is now your home country. You're no longer strangers or outsiders. You belong here, with as much right to the name Christian as anyone. God is building a home. He's using us all—irrespective of how we got here—in what he is building. He used the apostles and prophets for the foundation. Now he's using you, fitting you in brick by brick, stone by stone, with Christ Jesus as the cornerstone that holds all the parts together. We see it taking shape day after day—a holy temple built by God, all of us built into it, a temple in which God is quite at home.

My dream is to build bridges for my "anti-churchy" circle to worship with the "churchies." I want to be a part of a church where the each member is equipped to play a significant role in ministry, a place where Christ followers of all shapes, sizes, and personalities gather corporately as His body, reflecting His Image in their community...

Most Christians ["churchies" and "anti-churchies"] share this dream...

But if we are going to become this type of transformational community of hope, we have to be the ones to step into it... which is why--- though sometimes I get tired of shaking hands and giving hugs during service to people who don't know anything about my life--- I keep showing up Sunday morning.

I need to pray more about this one... I really do want to reach out more and to create space in church for those who have been following on the outside.

Food Fight

Today Tim and I got into a fight… I’m willing air it here on the internet because it was a “mini-fight,” a dumb fight, and completely my fault. Here’s the set-up:

The lady I babysit for needed me to stay later with her kids, so by the time I had returned home Tim had already started lunch. Instead of thanking him, I began to discuss the nutrition of the food he was preparing. In my head I knew everything he had made was healthy, but the fear in my stomach and chest revolted against eating “so much.”

So I went off on this tirade about how for lunch I like to eat 1 carbohydrate, 1 protein, and 2 vegetables… but if you added cheese to the vegetable that made it a vegetable and a protein, and if you prepared the food in oil it became more difficult to stomach.



Tim looked at me and announced, “I hate cooking for you. I can never please you. I’m mad at myself for never knowing what to make.”I knew then I was being unreasonable. That the fear I try to bury in me, had again raised her ugly head. I wanted to make amends with Tim, but couldn’t while the gripof fear still clutched my heart. I went into the bedroom and knelt low in the closet so my face touched the floor.

I was thinking so many things at once:

• I hate you; you’re so dramatic.
• He should know. He should understand. He married a woman with an eating disorder. I told him.
• I hate you; you have an eating disorder.
• God help me. Why don’t you help me? I hate this.
• What if I never shake this… what if she [anorexia] kills me? What if she kills my children?

And memories played like movies in my mind.

• First grade Sarah. The girls in my class where fun of me for being fat. They say “You are so fat we can’t fit between your chair and the wall to pass your desk.”…. and I think I can’t get fat again.

• Third grade Sarah. I am eating fourth plate of food at the buffet and my mother scolds me for eating too fast. “People are looking at you,” she says, but I am still hungry… and I think I can’t be full again.

• Eleventh grade Sarah. Finally giving the demon anorexia full permission to possess my soul, in exchange for the stamina to starve myself. She promises “I will treat you better than God. I will give you all that your heart desires.”… and I am still so deceived...
  

as today’s fears of gaining weight, losing friends, losing control, losing love tumble around and around inside me.[I feel like I’m choking… I want to throw up.] I am even more certain Tim is right and I’ve been horrid.

I see how even this afternoon as I bowed in my closet… shaking my fist at God for not healing me. I have bent my knee again to anorexia, and heeded her whisper. I have again worshiped the goddess of thin, and I have become like her--- consumed with shallow preoccupations.

Even in this moment of perspective I can feel the tug of anorexia. God is silent, and she has had such a hold on my emotions for so long… that even though I recognize her distorting whispers in the insecurities plaguing my mind. I entertain the thought that perhaps God has given her my soul. I hear her whisper, “You did this to yourself, Sarah. You deserve your inner hell and you deserve damnation”

Trembling I realize…

She’s right….

she’s right… I cannot free myself from her grip. I cannot be good enough to earn salvation.

and as tears pour down my cheeks... I see the Cross, far in the distance... and I think again about how I am only saved by Grace… I can't stop crying.

Ten minutes later I apologize to Tim [who is blaming himself because it’s not helpful for him to criticize me for food struggles] and try to make up for my meanness by small talk. We both know I need to change. I know I need to fight instead of giving up [tonight I had popcorn and light yogurt for dinner as I watched America’s Next Top Model. I am not helping myself.]

but I thank God that as it says in the 1 Peter 5:10-11 (MSG): “Jesus gets the last word. Yes, He does.” and that in truth I am not expected to and could never earn the right to be loved and redeemed by my Lord,

The Apostle Paul wrote in his letter the the church at Ephesus,

It wasn't so long ago that you were mired in that old stagnant life of sin. You let the world, which doesn't know the first thing about living, tell you how to live. You filled your lungs with polluted unbelief, and then exhaled disobedience. We all did it, all of us doing what we felt like doing, when we felt like doing it, all of us in the same boat. It's a wonder God didn't lose his temper and do away with the whole lot of us. Instead, immense in mercy and with an incredible love, he embraced us.

He took our sin-dead lives and made us alive in Christ. He did all this on his own, with no help from us! Then he picked us up and set us down in highest heaven in company with Jesus, our Messiah. Now God has us where he wants us, with all the time in this world and the next to shower grace and kindness upon us in Christ Jesus. Saving is all his idea, and all his work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It's God's gift from start to finish! We don't play the major role. If we did, we'd probably go around bragging that we'd done the whole thing! No, we neither make nor save ourselves. God does both the making and saving. He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join him in the work he does, the good work he has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing.

Eph 3:1-10 MSG