Consider It All-Joy

"It's not a comfort to me."

My friend - who waits for wholeness, for excitement in faith - waits, years now, to see God.  Running hard after him in education and community and pure grit; she knows he's more broad paint strokes than he is minutiae of the mind.

Hearing me say the things I've written here about suffering did nothing to move her toward him.  I have to wonder what is the magnetism to stay behind while his peace is just steps ahead?  When we see the end at least in some sketchy line-drawing sort of way, what in us makes us want to leave it be off in the distance. We might think "someday," but we say it with gnat-like confidence.

#

The book of James says that verse that we quote with a full adolescent eye-roll:  "Consider it all joy when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance and let endurance have it's perfect result that you may be perfect and complete lacking in nothing."  

The very first word is like a hole in our own yard that we try to fill with the leaky garden hose of poor interpretation.  It doesn't say, "feel."  It doesn't say, "Be comforted." There is nothing here that says, "In the middle of the trial, I should fully grasp and experience joy because I know God is going to make me better because of it." This is not stiff-upper lip stuff.  This is a thinking word.  Consider.

This is early, early church and maybe James is the first to write a letter to a church, at least the first that we have.  And what do you know?  They're in the midst of something unpleasant right from the start.  This Christian life was never a predictor of ease or reward.  Early on, the Jewish Christians were scratching their heads, maybe weeping, stressed, threatened. We still follow suit in that, walking in the footsteps of all the trial-bearers that have gone before us.  There is nothing new under the sun.

And because every good mentor casts a vision for a mentee, and James is no exception, he begins the letter with the vision of hope. "Even though you're in this deep place of confusion or betrayal or persecution, you won't stay there.  The training doesn't last forever."  The mentor says, on the other side of it, "you'll be made complete."  It's just a sketch, because we can't really grasp what complete looks like but it's enough to make out the shape of it from a distance.

He knows the joy isn't right. this. very. minute.  But he knows it will be full and attaches "all" not to "trials" but to "joy."  He knows that there is the "all joy" coming.  This brother of the Lord, who once thought Jesus was crazy only later to be changed by the resurrection.  This brother has seen and lived with the difference between the young Jesus, the dead Jesus and the live Jesus.  This brother who devoted his life to the message of renewal and rightness with God; he knows what all-joy looks like.

We don't. We roll our eyes at it, because we think we have to feel it.  No.  Be free of that.  But we do have to think it.  Which means we have to stop thinking the other things, the false truths, the assumptions.  We have to stop clinging tighfisted to the tapes in our heads:
"I'm not worth anything."
"I'm dirty."
"I'm a failure."
"I'll always be this way."
"I'll never hear the answer."

The brother of James knows differently, thinks differently of you.  He's a man of love and love assumes the best, sees the best, wants the best.   Our assumptions about ourselves hold back the steadfastness, hold back the lacking in nothing.  Take up the thoughts that he has for you:

• You were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers
• Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need
• The law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death
• Even when we were dead in our trespasses, made alive together with Christ
• The life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me
• And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, if you obey the voice of the Lord your God. Blessed shall you be in the city, and blessed shall you be in the field
• Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation
• We are reconciled
• To all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God
• Competent, equipped for every good work

Joy is unnatural. There's no good reason for it.  It's the steady push toward trust in God. It doesn't have to be happy, just thankful, hopeful.  In the middle of contentment, it's there outloud, like paint on the walls.  But in the middle of trial, it's there, hidden, padding the floor where we lie down in grief.   Deep and steady and settled.

James says "consider."  Keep it in front of your mind, don't look away from the endurance that leads to wholeness.  Push to the all-joy.  It's not a comfort. It's a promise.

The Discourteous Friend

Yesterday I had the chance to take part in a spiritual formation exercise which focused on a photograph.  

This is not the photo.  But there are some similarities.  If you could pretend the shadowed trees were sunflowers... 

I determined to go well before I realized it would be a day of tears riding at the surface; before I knew the hovering darkness would encapsulate me.  Grief danced with joy at inopportune times this week -- sometimes beaten back with the stick of hope, sometimes trampling on all my freshly sown seeds.  There are less trampling days now, but this snake is not crushed yet, and it had a tail to lash that day.  

I entered the room of the spiritual Jedi, formidable souls who reported to move through their days on a sea of grace, focused on the Almighty and saying, "It is well with my soul" around the table.  But I knew that this well of sadness couldn't be contained.  In that roomful of spiritual mentors, before they even knew my name, they knew it was not well with my soul.

Why couldn't the groping have come the next day?  Why did I have to introduce myself with trembling lip before a circle of gentle monks and sisters who could see into my heart?  Why couldn't yesterday's strength have lasted?

I managed to tell the briefest story, to lower my eyes, to tuck in my lip, and simply say, "And we're just looking for what God has next for us here." 

Thankfully, the speaking stopped and we moved into our morning's exercise.  We watched the photos on the screen and asked, "What does God have for me to see?"  When they ended we sat in a moment of silence, contemplating and then viewed them again.  And silently we left the room and scattered about the sanctuary asking Him not what do you want me to hear, but what do you want me to see?

#

In the desert, weather-worn treeless bluffs greet the rise of the sun.  The light and the warmth hit the peak of the rock, and nothing grows.  Not even with all the energy of the sun painted fast upon it. Not even with that.  And this happens all the time in a forever pattern.  It's not the first sunrise on these rocks and it will see sunsets again and again.  The light and the dark are rhythms like truth and grace.

But at the base of the bluffs, where the sun hasn't yet fingered, in the cracks and crevasses grows Asteraceae, the Sunflower.  In a cluster of life forms they wait to feel the sun on their faces.  Waiting.  Waiting.  It will arrive, but not in this moment.  Never in this photo.  

No one comes there to see them.  No one sees that they are doing exactly what they're designed to do.  They are beautiful enough for a garden, for companions in growth; but they're here between nowhere and anyplace.  Yet capable enough to persevere even so.  The growing continues even in desolation, even in the middle of nowhere.

What do you want me to see?

Keep doing it.  Keep growing.  Keep doing what the design says to do.  Follow it closely.  Do not waiver.  Do not believe that the energy is only in other places.  Keep crying.  Keep asking.  Keep leading.  Keep pushing into the side of God.  

Growth comes up out of the cracks.  That hard surface where the sun beats down grows nothing.  It's the cracked ones, the ones that walk with a limp, that have the potential to be made new, to absorb the life and give it back again.  

Always be ready with beauty.  To give it away.  Even if no one's around to take it. 

You are tucked.  

to push, fold or turn so as to hide or make secure.
to draw something together in a small space
to put or keep in a specified place so as to be hidden, secure or comfortable.  

I don't want to be tucked.  I want to be that plant, even in the shadow doing what it should do, reaching higher toward its Maker.  I don't want to be hidden or comfortable.  I don't care about secure.  But I am so tired of this pushing and turning and folding first inside then outside.  I won't give up the hope of the sun.

#

The women, wrinkled and warm with wisdom and grace, gathered around me and were silent at first.  I said it all to them.  They knew the picture.  They saw the paradoxes: the dry and the green ("It's not about the green, but the Giver of the green."), the dark and the light ("We can have a broken heart AND have joy").  

I know.  I know.  

Because I do.  I keep a list.  All summer I've tried to make a list of what I love, my gratitudes, and it's been sparsely attended to.  But now...now in the midst of the great heartbreak I see the loveliness of the brave husband, the simple gift of flowers, the gatherings of friends, the provisions, the song, the purposeful work, the boys now moved into contentment.  My list just keeps growing.  My gratitude is great.  

Now I see.  

The woman near me who's been in the soul business in our city for so many years said to me, "This is how suffering is a friend."  And she quoted the end of a story she'd read in a book wherein God said this:

"If there was anything more I could have given you for your good I would have done it."

Hello, Suffering.  My friend.  Make me new.  

Undaunted

This weekend I led my final women's retreat with the friends who all came together as a result of our time at The Next Level Church in Denver, Colorado.  It was a bittersweet time, just coming off the firing, reworking my identity from pastor's wife to friend, moving between bursts of laughter and sudden tears. But in the midst of our silence and solitude I heard the Voice say, "Share what you've learned."  And because I follow these nudges, this is what I said.

#

When we met back in May to plan the retreat we couldn't have forseen its bearing, couldn't have presumed its import.  We knew that some of us would be working through the book of James soon.  James who says, "Consider it all joy when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance..."  James who pushes us into good works, into painting a better picture of that eternal hug of salvation.  Undaunted seemed to be a good way to begin, a good way to re-envision, a good nudge into "go."

The very day we decided the retreat, I met with a friend who gave me a future.  A future I didn't know I'd desperately need now.  A job doing things I was designed to do and a nudge into "go."  It was an important day, but its meaning was lost on me until now.

We soon left for sabbatical, a time of waiting and silence, and at its conclusion I went to Maine.  There I engaged in some personal challenges: traveling by myself, living with strangers for four days, hiking a course hand-over hand through boulders, tougher than anyone envisioned.  One new friend said to me, "If I'd have known what the path would be like, I wouldn't have gone."  

Two days before our trip, our host announced her breast cancer.  Immediately she messaged our team to fill us in and she said, "Be prepared to come to Maine with joy."   And so that first night we all gathered from Denver and Indianapolis and Texas and Connecticut.  She told us what her health was like, and what it likely would become.  She told us what we needed to know to live with her for four days.  And she said, "Other people meet these sudden challenges and ask, "Why me?"  But I'm asking, "Why NOT me?"  I began to fill in her blanks:  why shouldn't I be thrust into the very side of God?  Why shouldn't I be the one to grasp and reach for God to give me my very next step?   Why NOT me?  Why shouldn't I be chosen to face this giant with joy?

Why not me?  The message obviously stuck.

I returned from Maine and the next night I went to TNL for the first time in two and a half months, eager to reengage with my community.  That night we sang, "I Surrender All."  I had no idea that the very next day surrendering all would be required of me.  I had no idea that I would have to lay down the two biggest pieces of my identity: I was no longer a pastor's wife.  I was no longer a homeschooling mother.  I had to surrender them both.

Our challenges surprise us: Breast cancer, job loss, relational switches. As much as I've been trying to prepare for the work that God gave to me, to us, I've never felt prepared for the toughest challenges.  But God continues to give them, to roll them out wrapped in invitation and hope and pain.

Our challenges require surrender:  We have to surrender our egos, our plans, even our dreams.  We have to surrender our hats, our very identities tied to the wrong trees, our assumptions, our fears.  We can't push forward into the challenge with our hands full because sometimes the hiking is hand-over-hand.

Our challenges are for us:  Last week I found a video from one of my favorite authors, Barbara Brown Taylor.  In it she was talking about pain, but she said that if I can trust that whatever comes into my life is for me then it will break down my idols and isolation.  If I see that every challenge is for the purpose of building me I can move forward with trust and wisdom.  If I let the challenge do its work in me, breathe it in, then ultimately it's for my health.

Saturday I met with a friend who really picked inside my head and heart.  I was struggling hard, everything just below the surface.  She said, "Debra, you're free."  You're free to become the person God has designed you to be.  You're free to do that in any way you need to.  No one will put their thumb down on you.  No one will stuff you into a mold.  Then she said, "This is a gift.  Not a punishment."

Our challenges are a gift, but they require surrender.  Our challenges are for us, but they force us to breathe them in and see them that way.  Seeing my current challenge as a punishment was what I needed to surrender.

This week my husband had coffee with a pastor in town to process and make some sense of these past days.  He had been through a similar situation, had been let go from a church for confusing reasons.  Out of that experience he wrote a book and he brought a copy for my husband and signed it with the words a woman said to him at that time: "Consider what has happened to you as God's kiss upon your forehead."

When we surrender and push through danger, difficulty and disappointment to follow God in what he's asking us to do, we see him, we know his touch, we sense his presence, we take part in his strength.  We all came with our own challenges, not just the communal one that has been thrust upon us:  caring for a mother in a wheelchair, confronting a father, adopting and fostering children, grieving the passing of a sister.  I've seen you rise to these challenges and you've inspired me.  You've surrendered to a will greater than yours. You've been thrust into the very side of God.

In order to follow God we have to surrender and believe that this thing that's come into our life is ultimately for us.  But when we surrender we don't surrender to a person, or a group of people or a circumstance.  We surrender to Jesus.  He is your good and beautiful God and he loves you.

I hope that you leave here empowered to go, to be the hope, to be the change.  And as you go into the challenge that God has for you don't say the path is too rough, or ask, "Why me?" Say undauntedly, "Why NOT me!  This is a gift. God's kiss upon my forehead. I don't know the path, but I'm going anyway."

Healing Place

This yard has been my healing place. 

Last summer, just as they were beginning to spread broad leaves and delicate flowers, the bursting plants faced the pounding hail -- and lost.  All season I mourned the damage to what I had planted; the ragged Hostas and broken Jack Frost, their beauty punched full of painful holes.

But this spring they rose again, whole and full.  And the storms have stayed away and let them flourish.

I've spent so many early mornings out here. Talking the plants through their traumas, reading words of inspiration, writing thoughts.  And listening.  Because somehow in the rustle of the leaves of the apple tree, the call of the chickadees, the silence of things growing I can hear the sound of God.

From within the very blades of the grass He calls me out here to be with him.  To sink my feet in.  To linger. It seems fitting to begin a new life in this very space where I most hear him whisper and comfort and nudge.

When the turmoil hit this week, we poured our mourning friends out onto the grass hoping that the whispers would reach them too, that the comfort from being where everything is still breathing life would be just the right setting. And it was. They came from everywhere to be present with us in the mending shade of the vines.  It was right for us to be together, to move into pain and move out.  It was right to throw up our hands in the midst of creation and say, "We don't understand."  Because creation shows us the enduring love we're grasping for.

For his invisible attributes... his eternal power and divine nature... have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. -- Romans 1:20

Four sunsets after the hit, we gathered on the grass again.  The new friends and the familiar.  The hurting and the hopeful.  And in those moments we moved from questioning the fall of man to asking each other for help in our own falling.  We handed each other checks and set up coffee dates and prayed for one another and ran home for just the thing this new friend needed.  We said, "This is what I need."  And then we said, "I can meet it."  Out of this lawn, grew the church.

I will keep coming out here to listen.  But now I will also come out to remember and to give thanks for healing.  When I'm shaken and weary and worn, I will come out to hear the whisper of God.  I will come to the matted grass to sit in the print of friends and feel their companionship when I'm ragged and torn.  I will look to the perfect leaves of the Hostas to know what it looks like to be made new.

Though the storms come and shred us in a season, we burst back forth again and bring new beauty and purpose in the next. "Known, yet regarded as unknown; dying, and yet we live on; beaten, and yet not killed; sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing everything."   -- 2 Corinthians 6:10

Healing is coming.  It is here.  I can walk within it.