Jesus & Jack: An Easter Post

Maybe it's my continual failures to explain the resurrection. Or maybe it's that death has been too real this year, too close, much more threatening than ever before.

Maybe those are the reasons why my Easter thoughts for 2009 are less than "traditional" and definitely darker than I've ever thought before.

I love the Easter songs - the hymns that soar victoriously, that sing Hallelujah, that bask in the promise of a resurrection. But this year, we lost a close friend, and behind us sat a family mourning the loss of their beautiful young adult daughter. And let me tell you, that mama and daddy sang the fire out the Easter hymns.

Love's redeeming work is done, Alleluia!
Fought the fight, the battle won, Alleluia!
Death in vain forbids him rise, Alleluia!
Christ has opened paradise, Alleluia!

Vain the stone, the watch, the seal, Alleluia!
Christ hath burst the gates of hell, Alleluia!
Death in vain forbids His rise, Alleluia!
Christ hath opened paradise, Alleluia!

Lives again our glorious King, Alleluia!
Where, O death, is now thy sting? Alleluia!
Once he died our souls to save, Alleluia!
Where's thy victory, boasting grave? Alleluia

My Jesus did not lie helplessly and sputter to life after three days of sleep. My Jesus saw Death - face to face and beat the crap out of it. Three days of battle ensued, where my Jesus was tortured by a Death who thought It had won. It taunted and threatened and my Jesus fought back.

(I'm not gonna lie. The Jesus I am picturing looks a lot more like Jack Bauer than the picture Simon colored this morning.)

And my Jesus basked in our praises today, but when he looked at my heart and heard my voice singing, he heard me taunting Death right back. My song wasn't one of peace and beauty - my song was full of fighting words.

You have hurt me.
You have threatened to take the joy of those I love.
You have shown yourself powerful and ugly and scary.

But you do not win. You have already lost. Today I cheer my Jesus on, and I spit in your face.

Happy Easter everybody!

Before I'm 30, I want to...

I'm turning 30 soon. Seems like a good time to be introspective about my goals, and such, so let's see...

Well, I already found love. The kind that starts with a big "L" and is mysterious and spiritual and unconditional and that I'll spend the rest of my life trying to quiet the voices that tell me it's not real. I was born into the kind with the little "l" - the love that I will never, ever doubt because I'll always, always believe there are two people on my side. I was even lucky enough to find the other kind of love - the kind that manifests the big-L Love to me every day, the kind that I would die fighting for, the kind that knows romance is emptying the dishwasher.

And I've had babies. Beautiful babies. Two boys and a girl. And two of these babies I was blessed enough to be able to bring home with me from the hospital. The other I had to bury in an Indian cemetery, but I loved him fiercely and will never be able to talk about having babies without thinking of him.

I've trusted God to do the things I most earnestly did NOT want to do. Move to India. Apologize. Share my faith. Resist the urge to send angry letters to mean people. Forgive...well, at least try.

I've been part of something bigger than myself.

I've paid off my student loans.

I've half-way potty-trained my son.

I've gone back to school.

I've started to get over my fear of calling people on the phone.

So, that leaves me with....

..... hmmm, today all I can think of is, get my eyebrows done and paint my toenails.

I only have two days left and my list will be complete!

How's that for goal-setting?

all kidding aside

There's a lot of funny in life. Even a lot of funny in otherwise crappy situations. But sometimes you see something, encounter someone, or learn about something and know there is nothing there but heartache. And, you know you have a choice - to let it affect you to the point where you respond or to ignore it until it finally starts to ignore you.

Today, I'm sharing some of the things I've come face to face with this week. I'm praying I can trust God enough to respond and that I'll stop quietly asking Him for permission to ignore the problem (because isn't that what we're really doing when we don't respond?).

The first is a video I came across while surfing adoption blogs. I happened to find this on the site of another family adopting from Rwanda. Warning - it's hard to watch.



Then, today I attended the missions conference at our church. The speaker was Sarah Taylor, a woman who helped start a ministry to street children in Manila. When I say ministry, I mean a place where actual life change happens, where people give their lives - not just a week or so - to rescue, protect, feed and educate children without hope.

So, this is me.... wanting to be a part of the story of God's pursuit and love of these kids. This is me not having a clue what that could look like. This is me secretly hoping it's easy but feeling pretty sure it never is.

How Am I Doing?

I've recently said goodbye to a baby I couldn't wait to meet, and celebrated two full and lively years of another son's life. I've said goodbye to the friends who have walked this harrowing path with me, and I've also seen God's provision as I've welcomed new friends I didn't know I had. I moved out of the biggest home I'll ever live in and moved into an apartment where mold needed to be cleaned off the walls, and I can't walk across the (unpaved) street without dodging 3 buses and 30 rickshaws. I also just attempted to make sour cream (one of the foods I miss the most) and blew up a glass bowl in my (very small) kitchen.

So, how am I doing? I'm sad this will all be ending soon and tired and hopeful and sentimental and happy and anxious and excited to come home. And I still don't have any sour cream.

In a country where the God I know and worship and love is sometimes hard to find, I have had to face many doubts of faith. What makes my belief system different than that of these people whose spiritual lives seem so futile and ludicrous? I have had some doubts that are easily brushed aside, and some that linger a little longer, begging some more serious thought and prayer.

The one thing that can dispel any insecurities arising from these questions is God's evident work in my life. The joy of the Lord is my strength. That has been by mantra in these recent days - my answer to the question, "How am I doing?" Sometimes it is a victorious declaration, as I reflect on the deep joy I honestly have in moments when my world makes even less sense than normal. Sometimes it is a pleading reminder that the joy of the Lord is constant and there for the clinging when my world is unraveling.

But, for me, the very fact that God has put this song in my heart - [i]the joy of the Lord is my strength[/i] - is evidence enough of His existence, power, love, and sovereignty.

Now, with all that being said, you can pray for Sy's safety around the glass shards I might have missed, and for my peace of mind - for the Lord's joy in my heart - as Ben travels this week.

Oh the Drama!

One of the things I prayed about before coming here is that God’s love would be more real to me. To be honest, I had a hard time believing that a God who loved me would send me so far away from the people I love. But, God has demonstrated his love to ME in this: he has given me happiness – true and abounding – here in a place I have dreaded living.

As I’ve written before, this country is full of things that make me crazy (trash, crowds, and a full-blown sensory assault) and empty of the things that Americans hold dear (order, comfort, and someone to blame for everything). Yet, the drama queen in me loves that nothing goes the way it is supposed to. And, the cynic in me gets a sense of enjoyment when things can’t get any worse. And, my sarcastic sense of humor gets a workout when things make no sense. And my category-hating free spirit shines in a place where organization is not next to godliness and resourcefulness is a more-needed quality than preparedness.

You see, that is God’s love letter to me. He has taken the things that people (including myself) have designated my weaknesses, and He has made those the things that keep me thriving here. I serve a God who not only accepts my awkwardness, but He speaks to me through it.

I have learned to say (loudly and with feeling) along with Paul, “For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”