Category Archives: Jesus

the agony of anticipation

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rollercoaster upI’m one of those people who can’t tackle giant rollercoasters because of the long, slow, clicking rise to the top.  Not the way down!  I could probably handle the drop, but I cannot deal with that painful rise, that horrible anticipation.

Tonight I’m thinking about Gethsemane, about the weight of anticipation on Christ’s shoulders as he looks forward and sees the cat o’ nine tails, the cross, the nails, and so much blood.  To know fully what is only hours away … anguish.

But he knew he was destined for the cross long before the garden that night … his whole life … and even before his earthly birth … for all of eternity.

That, my friends, is a long time to ride the rollercoaster up.

I am so proud of my savior.

 

my darkest, lowest days

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Tonight, I have been thinking about that deep, dark pit and the moments of my life when I was at the very bottom, nowhere lower to go and my head too heavy to look up.  I have been thinking about the things and places that remind me of those times.

You might guess that it was those months after college graduation, when I would wander from the laundry room to look over the balcony to the pool area two floors below and think about what would happen if I let myself fall.

Or maybe that it would be one of those evenings when I was wild-eyed and manic, scream-weeping in the bathroom while my roommate sat outside the door and prayed.

But when I think of myself at my lowest, I always picture myself in the Caribou Coffee in Long Lake, Minnesota.  I’d arrived to town too early to visit Orono High School, and so I stopped into Caribou off of Highway 12 (which has since been re-routed), ordered hot cocoa, and sat alone at a table.  In my car I had been listening to “Spirit” by the band Switchfoot, letting the chorus hammer into me that all I wanted was Jesus … exactly whom I believed I could not have.

Interestingly, the emotion that I seemed to feel the most was this odd, lonely marvel.  Don’t get me wrong– it was not good, as marvel usually is.  It was this dark, lost, inconceivable wonder that I could be so damned and that there was nothing I could do about it.  I sipped at my cocoa, thinking how there was no joy left available to me, no rescue coming, no prayer I could whisper to make things okay again.  A marvel and a sort of understanding washing over me that this was my reality and there was no way out.

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For years, I could not listen to that song (which truly is a lovely one!) without feeling a stale depression steal over me.  To this day, when I drive by that Caribou, I think to that dark day.  Nothing impressive or strange or particularly triggering had occurred, but it is my lowest, loneliest moment of my life.

I could not have pulled myself out of that pit.  I didn’t even have the strength to lift my eyes.

(Oh gosh, I’m going to start being known as That Girl Who Cries in Barnes & Noble, LOL!)

Jesus Christ rescued me.  He led me to the right medication and the right therapy and carried me out of the pit himself.

In the past couple of weeks, I have gotten several emails from fellow obsessive-compulsives who are in that same pit.  I write this post to say that there is hope– and it’s not in ourselves.

 

 

Can shame co-exist with grace?

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Earlier this week, A Deeper Story shared an incredible post called “A Lesson in Words: They Mean Things,” and while I generally like to produce my own work on my blog, this post was too good not to share.

Here’s the beginning of it:

My voice came out braver than I felt, startling me.

“I need you to explain what you mean by God-centered shame.”

The entire class turned and looked in my direction. A guy sitting at our table cleared his throat and shifted in his seat.  I didn’t realize the tension in the room until I spoke up. But it was clear: they are the leaders; we are the students. They know more than we do. They speak; we inhale.

I couldn’t ignore my gut any longer – the small voice telling me to speak! – and so I did. I raised my hand, and when my hand was ignored, I interrupted the greeting to ask my question.

The response to my question was mediocre and confusing at best, and so I pushed a little more. “But, I still don’t understand. How can shame exist within His kingdom if Christ went to the cross despising the shame? Shame cannot coexist with grace. It can’t.”

And they told me that it came down to the Greek roots of words, and in 2 Corinthians 7:10, the godly sorrow leading to repentance is really an offshoot of godly shame. We’re faced with our sin, and so ashamed, we’re moved to repent.

People joined in the discussion. I still wasn’t willing to let it go, but my words were starting to trip over themselves because of the almost robotic-like responses of those around me. Phrases like “Well, I think what he means is this…” and “we can definitely feel shame over our sin and it lead to repentance” and “I can totally see how shame, in this context, would be beneficial to our salvation” were said.

And friends, I swear I saw red.

“I still don’t see how they relate.” I said. “Grief is not shame. Sorrow is not shame. When I feel shame, I believe lies. Grief and sorrow are healthy emotions. Shame is not. Shame is negative. Shame speaks lies.”

To read the rest of the post, click here.

Then hop back over to my blog and let’s discuss!

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some details on my faith

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I wanted to post something about Jesus and my relationship with Him on my blog, just something short and simple and true so that my readers would know more about me and my faith.

I love Jesus the way I love my mother, my father, and my best friends all combined.  Most of the time I feel like I really know Him—like, really know Him.  It’s like Jesus called out to my heart across all the junk I manufactured in my head, and He never quit calling.  And better than that, even.  It’s like He fought through the junk—I picture someone in a jungle with a machete, ripping away the undergrowth, clearing a path, you know?  It’s like how a girl always wants a boy to fight his way to win her heart.  God did that—does that—for me.

Jesus has given me Truth and Purpose, and these things are my gravity, grounding me, centering me.  When I boil down all the desires I have—to be an excellent writer, to have a family, to love people well and make them think—the real core, the only real desire I have, is Jesus Christ.

God is perfect.  I am not.  The wages of sin is death—which is exactly what I deserved.  But instead, God had His Son die in my place.  What an incredible substitution!  And when Jesus rose from the dead, He conquered death.  Because He has rescued me and because I cling to Him, I now get to go along for the ride with this VICTORIOUS One!

The truth I know, the purpose that centers me, the friendship—actual, real friendship—I have with Jesus Christ … these are the things that I want for others.

 

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a literary life

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What is your favorite thing about reading and/or writing?

It’s hard for me to choose just one thing!  I love that I get to create new worlds, love that it’s my responsibility to make people think about God and ideas.  But I think my very favorite thing is that I know that, when I write, I am sitting in the very seat of God’s will for my life … I am doing what I was created to do.  How many 31-year-olds are that clear on their calling (and are able to respond)?!  I love my literary life.

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a whole new way to look at things (and myself)

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I can’t tell you how blessed I am to know Judy Hougen.

I had coffee on Friday night with my former writing instructor, who is so full of wisdom that she can’t help but share life-giving insight.  We were discussing my recent blog post in which I fretted over mediocrity.

“I don’t think in terms of success and failure anymore,” she told me.  “I’ve trained myself out of thinking that way.  It’s better to think in terms of faithfulness and unfaithfulness.  You are being faithful with the gifts that God has given you, and that is not a mediocre thing.”

Judy reminded me that that success/failure framework is all about us, but faithfulness/unfaithfulness frames things in our relationship to God, and those are the questions believers need to be asking.

I felt a little like a kaleidoscope that had just been given a good shake: a new way to look at things.

I’d been so zoomed in on my own life, the camera screen was full of me.  But talking with her reminded me to take a step back, to zoom out, to remind me that I am a servant of God, that I am tethered to the King, that my actions gain meaning when seen in relation to him.

And anytime I include Jesus Christ in the picture, the pressure on me relaxes.

Kaleidoscope

 

an honest post

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Okay, all of my posts are honest … I guess I should have called this a vulnerable post, but I’m not going to go back and change the title because all my posts are published on my Facebook account, and I don’t want to draw too many extra eyes here.

I turn 31 two weeks from today.  Thirty-one.  I know it’s not, but it feels old.  (It’s the oldest I’ll have ever been, ha!)  Life is so different than what I thought it would be.  Some good, some bad.

I have more joy and freedom than I have had since I was a young child.  I survived a ravaging war against OCD and found victory.  I have an assurance of salvation that was brought about by a paradoxical embrace of uncertainty.  I have better friends than I could have ever imagined for myself.  I love my job as a recruiter and would have never guessed I’d be good at sales.

On the other hand, I think about myself as a senior in high school, and I had my own little plan for life (How do you make God laugh?  Tell him your plans.): I’d go off to college, meet the love of my life freshman year, marry him after graduation, get an advanced degree, write lovely little poems that everyone would clambor after, and have a family.

No graduate school.  I am pussyfooting my way through fiction.  My first manuscript was rejected by an embarrassing number of agents.  And I am completely single– don’t even have a crush.

I look around at the friends of mine who are living my old dreams, and I don’t resent them (most of the time)– but I do feel light-years behind other people my age.  They have masters degrees, 2.5 children, own their own homes, have husbands who work hard for them so that they can stay home with the kids.  I live an apartment, hang out with college kids, take joy in being published in no-name literature journals just so I can update my writer’s resume in the hope that I will fool someone on a grant committee somewhere into giving me money.

My dream has changed a little.  I’m not sure if it still includes children.  I adore children– my friend Tracy’s three daughters (Emma, Ava, and Elsie) are so dear to my heart that I’m not sure I could love them more even if I’d birthed them myself.  But I’m not sure I want to be a mom– I feel a little too selfish with my time.  I want to write.  My novel is (at this time) my baby, and I’m scared I would resent anything that took my attention away from it.  I don’t know.  We’ll see.  I’ve learned to hold plans loosely.

But I do want to be married.  Like, yesterday.

There have been so many boys, so many crushes, through the years– I burned through them like fuel for my poetry fire.  And I don’t regret liking these men or “letting them go.”  My friend Kristin says, “When God loves you, everything is mercy.”  I am grateful to be where I am.  I trust in his holy plan, believe in his masterful timing, even if that is that I remain single forever.

But I hope I don’t.

I have areas of brokenness in my life that I want to fix before I meet someone.  Sometimes.  Sometimes, I want to meet someone who will love those broken parts and pray with me for healing.  I am glad I didn’t get married straight out of college– now I look back and realize that we were just babies then!  Working at a university, I see these students getting engaged and I think, You don’t even know who you are yet.

Maybe that’s okay.  They can learn together, grow together, change together.  But I have seen plenty of failed and/or unhappy marriages amongst people who married young.  I’m just making observations, not offering judgment.

I know I’m rambling, using this blog as a diary of sorts, which I try not to do.  Maybe it’s okay once in a while.  For this one honest, vulnerable post.

I try to never view a husband as life’s greatest gift, because I know that it’s not.  Not by far.  The gift of salvation by grace, the gift of daily knowing and loving my sweet savior– these are my life’s greatest gifts.  I remind myself that a husband is just icing on the cake I already have.  But I still want one.

Two weeks, and I will be 31.  I already have Jesus Christ, who is a more permanent lover than any I could imagine; I own my faith; I have control over my mental illness; I have a job that I love and enjoy; I don’t own a home or have a graduate degree, but I write almost every day and believe in my story, believe I have messages on my blog and in my life that speak to people.  Life is good, but sometimes I am still lonely.

And I am going to dare to say that that is okay.  I’m not sure, but I think so.

cheer up

I Celebrate the Day

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“I Celebrate The Day”

And with this Christmas wish is missed
The point I could convey
If only I could find the words to say to let
You know how much You’ve touched my life
Because here is where You’re finding me,
in the exact same place as New Year’s eve
And from a lack of my persistency
We’re less than half as close as I want to be

And the first time
That You opened Your eyes,
did You realize that You would be my Savior?
And the first breath that left Your lips
Did You know that it would change this world forever?

And so this Christmas I’ll compare the things I felt in prior years
To what this midnight made so clear
That You have come to meet me here

To look back and think that
This baby would one day save me
In the hope that what You did
That you were born so I might really live
To look back and think that
This baby would one day save me

And I, I celebrate the day
That You were born to die
So I could one day pray for You to save my life

Reblogged: All the Single Ladies

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My friend Kristin is like a sage to me.  We were friends in college; then, my senior year, she was my supervisor in the campus writing center.  She left Minnesota for grad school– first out to LA, then to Chicago– before coming back to teach English at our alma mater, where I work in the admissions office.  It was during round two of her life in Minnesota that I really got to bond with her.  She knows scripture so well, and she is unbelievably wise.  And really gracious.  She is someone whom I can talk to about all my weird, really-out-there ideas without judgment.  Instead, she pours wisdom into my life.

She has been living in Nairobi, Kenya, for the last year and a half, and she recently blogged about an issue that I am really feeling at this time of the year.  I hope you’ll hop over to her blog to read it.

Here’s the first little bit:

All the Single Ladies: Facebook Holiday Survival Guide

Sometimes, it feels as if facebook is trying to tell me something. This morning, for instance, posts and links accumulated such that I felt like a detective at the end of a mystery novel—all the pieces were falling into place. 
 
Post One: “He asked. I said yes.”
I’m not usually overly sentimental about such things, but this friend, who is about ten years older than I am, has been a particular influence on my life for the past couple years. This is often the case when you are a single adult woman and you know other single adult women who are older than you–especially happy, balanced single women who just like you don’t want to always be single but still manage to be, well, happy and balanced in their singleness. At some point, the age differentiation becomes very important–after this point, when people younger than you get married, you get angsty (why don’t they just wait their turn, for Pete’s sake?); when people older than you get married, you get hopeful (see? it’s possible!). Selfish, yes, but also true.
For the rest of her holiday survival guide, click here!
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