A Voice of Hope

Happy Birthday Wendy Lou!

One of my best friends was born on this day. Go wish her a happy one!

Life Unplugged

"Sometimes we want God to be more committed to the 'quality of our lives' than the quality of our character. God is far less interested in making sure your life goes well and everything goes smooth and far more interested in carving and shaping you into the kind of human being that you were created to become. To live a life of extraordinary courage." -- Erwin McManus, "Extraordinary Courage"

Neo took a pill and woke up in a tub of goop. He'd gone in search of the Matrix and taken the pill on the promise he would find it. He didn't know that the only way to discover the truth of the Matrix was by being unplugged from it. But he found out.

Over 7 years ago I prayed a prayer and woke up in my own tub of goop. I'd gone in search of the promised and seemingly mythical Abundant Life. I wanted to live, really live, and know that God was responsible for the Life I experienced (Ezek 37:14). I'd lived a safe and sane life, one that promised happiness and ease. But I was decided unhappy, and wholly dissatisfied. I wanted to be a spiritual Jackie Chan, jumping off high places in the name of Jesus and doing all manner of amazing and crazy things for His pleasure. I wanted to risk it all and see what happened. I'd been a Christian since I was 6 and a true, committed follower of Jesus for nearly 5 years, and I had no idea I was still connected to the Matrix. Or perhaps I'd been unplugged years ago, but just hadn't awakened...

After my prayer my life went crazy. Everything from relationships to job and living situations were turned upside down. I went overseas, first for 4 months, then for what I believed was the rest of my life. I sold everything that wouldn't fit in my 300 sq. ft crate and left my own country and old life behind. I jumped off that spiritual cliff. I thought I was finally getting "plugged in". But in reality, I was just like Neo; I'd been flushed from the Matrix and was now living in a far different world than what I thought I'd find. Looking back now I see that it wasn't until I prayed that prayer and took the "whatever You say I'll do and where ever You go I'll follow" pill that I began to live the unplugged life. Isn't it amazing that a Christian, even a follower of Jesus, can still live under the influence of the Matrix, to still live a life plugged in, still believing the in the false images given us by the enemy of our souls?

When you think of Abundant Life, what are words that immediately come to your mind? Shout 'em out right now. Turn them over in your mind for a few moments. Here are some of mine: Joy. Fulfillment. Satisfaction. Contentment. Hope. Overflowing love.

If I was brutally honest I would also include: Purposeful, dynamic, larger-than-life, powerful and power-filled, filled with positive emotions and with confidence, courage and character.

Words that I would never have associated with Abundant Life were things like: agonizing, utter discontentment, painful and pain-filled, uncertainty, fear, confusion, dissatisfaction, anger, frustration, sometimes overwhelming hopelessness, just plain overwhelming, powerlessness, helplessness and brokenness.

There's a character in the movie (Cypher?) that betrays our heroes, Neo, Morpheus and Trinity, because he's fed up with the dank, crusty, gritty, tasteless, pain-filled unplugged life. He wants to be reintegrated into the Matrix and he wants to have no memory of his life outside.

I understand him. I understand his longing, his ache. I understand his betrayal of all that is heroic to fully embrace blissful ignorance in order to regain contentment with the illusions I once had of what life was really all about.

I understand because I feel it. I'm there, man. I'm there. I understand the desire to give anything to go back to living a life of illusion and ignorance. I would almost give anything to live back in the illusion; the lie that a great job, a nice car, a husband and kids and all the other trappings of this world could bring me happiness and fulfillment. Heck, I would even take the churchy Matrix that loving God and serving in some ministry will bring me success and fulfillment beyond my dreams.

We as the church, as the body of Christ, have done ourselves and all our descendants such wrong! We have believed and perpetuated a lie about the true nature of the Abundant Life Jesus comes to bring. We've bought a bill of goods that is just as fake and untrue as the Matrix.

Jesus Himself said, "In the world you will have many troubles... they will persecute you as they have persecuted me... take up your cross and follow me..." And yet we tell ourselves that if we serve God He will make sure we're at peace, that we don't get seriously hurt, and that all the bad things that happen to us (because surely we will have bad things happen, we're not that naive) will not get us down for long, and won't be too horrific or unbearable (He does promise us that we won't be given anything we can't handle, doesn't He?). What kind of picture of Abundant Life does this all leave us with? Life will be good, in that happily-ever-after kind of way.

It never occurs to us that living life unplugged from the Matrix means a life of running and dodging, of striking the enemy then going into stealth mode to avoid capture. That it will mean living in rags, eating slop more fit for pigs than people and living with the scars and implants of our former, Matrix-ed life. Scars that, oddly enough, are the very way we reconnect to the Matrix in order to rescue those still trapped within. Paul's life, Stephen's life, the lives of the other apostles are all anomalies. It doesn't happen that way anymore. Our sacrifices are on a much smaller, more containable, manageable scale.

Or so we tell ourselves.

Since being unplugged those years ago, I have experienced more heartache, more heartbreak, more agony, pain, suffering, anxiety, and overwhelming fear than I ever did in my life in the Christian Matrix. I have never been more dissatisfied with life on this earth, never been more frustrated with the here and now, never been more anxious about not only the unknown future but the next step I see before me as well.

I struggle daily with the realities of my unplugged life. The Matrix calls  my name, sometimes shouts it so loud I can't hear anything else. Don't get me wrong. I have good days. Days when I feel like I can conquer anything that comes my way because God is with me. Moments when all the pieces come together and I catch a glimpse of the whole picture, and it is glorious, beautiful beyond compare and I get it. Lapses of happiness, contentment and fulfillment. But they are momentary and fleeting. I don't live there, I just visit from time-to-time.  Many days I cower in fear of every little noise. Those days get pretty dark. And last week, for various reasons not worth mentioning here, was really dark.

In those days I beg Jesus to let me come home. Life can get too dark sometimes, you know? For me, the last  4 years have been full of darkness, with occasional shafts of light. Yet I believe. I believe. I believe God. That He does love me. That there is a plan, a reason for all this.

So a battle rages within me. I struggle between my heart's desire to be done with this "life" and move into the eternal life beyond, and God's pull, ever so strong, to stay connected and engaged in the here and now, the gritty unplugged life He's brought me into.

"As long as I'm alive in this body, there is good work for me to do. If I had to choose right now, I hardly know which I'd choose. Hard choice! The desire to break camp here and be with Christ is powerful. Some days I can think of nothing better." -- Paul, Letter to the Philippians 1:22-23, The Message

Every day I wake up and I'm still in the here and now. So I know there is some reason for me to be here. Some purpose left undone.

Last week I cried out again, in my darkness, and I asked God, "why am I here? Why am I alive?" He answered with a question:

"Am I not enough?"

Yeah, let that one sink in a moment.

I have a decision to make. Is He enough? Am I willing to let Him be enough? I don't think I'd ever really understood the old Christian phrase until I heard Jesus whisper it to me last week:

"Live for Me. Live. For. Me."

Am I willing to live for Him? Not in that sweet, fluffy, dreamy way it comes across in my happier, brighter moments, but in the gritty, 'Zion-bound' way of the Matrix heroes? Not in the sense of, "yes, I live because I owe Him my life." But in the, "yes, because You love me and because You ask, I will do it, even though it's not my first (or second or... 15th...) choice. I will live because You ask and I love You. And only because."

Is that enough? Is that righteous? Is this what "dying to self" really is?

I wish I knew.

I only know this is where I choose live because of love. Unplugged.

Bag Ladies Forever

I missed the blogging memo about posting the things your grateful for on Thanksgiving.

Actually I spent most of my holiday weekend away from the computer (I know, shocking isn't it, to find out that one can survive a weekend without the laptop appendage). By choice, no less. So its not surprising I was in the dark about this. I guess it should have been a given, considering the holiday and all, but, well, I'm not the brightest bulb on the tree, ya know?

As I dropped in on all my favorite blogs today, I found that many had posted on or around Thanksgiving, mainly about things they're thankful for,  or about the holiday in general.

Sometimes I forget to think about the blessings in my life. I get so caught up in all the things I think are going wrong in my life, all the things I don't have and all I'm missing. In those times I'd do well to "count my blessings" as they say. But I usually don't think to. And I get very upset at people who tell me I "should" do so.

This was especially difficult to do in the weeks and months after mom and dad died. It seemed to me that I had lost everything ever important in life, that I had nothing left either in life or in me of value or worth. Counting my blessings then was very, very tough.

Somehow I always managed to count at least two: Jesus in my life, holding me together; and friends in my life, who just held me. Wendy was one of those friends. She was one who stuck by my side like she'd been glued there.

I remember crying to her and Kim McManus over my fears that I was hopelessly forever alone, that I would never marry or have any kind of family of my own. Wendy told me that would never be true; I would never be alone. She would always be there and jokingly said I could always be a bag lady with her. Be a bag lady with me, she cheerily invited.

At the time I didn't find this idea either funny or the least bit comforting.

Seriously. I already feared that I would end up a homeless bag lady within a few years, if not sooner. So her declaration didn't sooth me so much as it confirmed my worst fears.

Through the last two years, however, that declaration that I indeed would have a least one friend no matter what befell me in life has brought me much comfort. I find the future is easier to face when I remember that, if/when it all goes south, Wendy and I will be bag ladies together. I will not be alone.

Today I extended the offer to join Wendy and I in our bag lady-ness to my friend, Niza, who had a rough day over the weekend. It occurred to me after I posted my comment that she might misunderstand, as I did once, what a blessing this offer really is. No truer mark of a friend can be found than that of a friend who invites you to share her cardboard house with her and openly declares her friendship till the end of time, no matter how messy life gets.

I am indeed blessed.

Not because I have much -- even though I do, by the world's standards. Not because I am someone of importance -- even though I am to God, and, thanks be to God!, my friends and family. I am blessed because I am loved. And love has been spoken over me even if I end up a bag lady, toothless and dirty, scrounging for food on the streets of downtown Nashville. Wendy will love me even then. Wendy will be my friend even then.

God shines His love on us through the people He brings into our lives. Wendy shines His light brighter than anyone I've known. I hope, perhaps, I can pass on some of that light and shine it into another's. Perhaps we can all one day form the Bag Lady Brigade, walking the streets of America, toothless and dirty, stomachs growling and empty but hearts overflowing with joy because we are Jesus to each other in our darkest moments of life. And, knowing Wendy, she'll organize us into the finest women's worship band you've ever heard!

Wow!

Such an amazing weekend!! The conference was sold out -- 23, 662 women, celebrating God at the last event to be held in the Charlotte Coliseum before its sold and most likely demolished.

I got so much out of each speaker's message, the worship times, Sandy Patty's mini-concert and the pre-conference with Kathy Troccoli and Marilyn Meberg. There is much to digest, and much to tell.

I was exhausted when I got home last night around 8:30, so I didn't do much of anything other than unpack, flip through my mail and  read through the stacks of email I got over the weekend.

I intend to do an internal de-brief tonight and hope to post some of what God taught me over the weekend.

What an amazing experience! If Women of Faith comes even close to your hometown, ladies, you need to go. I'm not kidding. It is time well spent, money well invested and memories worth the effort to make. Go. Go! Go!!

My She Community

In memory of Helen, I stole a couple of pictures off Wendy's blog, cropped and re-posted them here.

Helen, on the left, with Wendy (center) and Debbie in Verona, was an incredibly vivacious, rowdy but yet all woman crazy friend. I never knew her as well as I'd liked. I'm one of those girls who watch women like Helen and Conna do insanely funny things from the sidelines. Not because it's safe there. But because I just don't have the mental/emotional agility to think up those kinds of things, and I lack the personality to be able to carry them off.

I can't remember if it was Conna's or Helen's birthday that the two of them led a large group of our friends into a local firehouse and got the firemen to serenade the birthday girl with "Happy Birthday". All because the one said she'd always wanted to be serenaded by firemen and the other took up the call to make it happen.

Add Debbie into that mix, the intellectual who always fascinated me, and Wendy the soul-lover who connects on deep levels with pretty much everyone, and you've got a crazy, wonderful, mind-bending she community.

But it doesn't end there. There's still Leticia, Sylvia, Irene, Joyce, Kat, Niza -- and of course my sisters, Nina and Cathy. Those are my peeps. Women who get me. Women who get it. Who get that deep relationship and community is forged in the fires of honesty, authenticity, transparency and conflict resolution. That's not an easy thing to find.

I remember a time when Conna (the red-head on the bottom of the "chick-stack"), Wendy, Sylvia, Leticia and I formed an accountability group that met every Wednesday evening before Life University. We shared our hearts with each other; our burdens and our joys, our needs and our abundance. It was out of that abundance in each others hearts that we were each, in turn, nourished by the others. Even though that group in that form and time, whose theme became "e'spose your toes", based off Syl's fear of ever revealing what she deemed the ugliest feature about her body, her toes, was only for a season, the relationships forged there have lasted a decade.

It's the same with Irene and Joyce, two roommates, one a Weigh Down buddy, one a former team leader; Kat, my precious friend whom I met at Paramount, and Niza, whom I first met through Kim and now could never imagine my life without. Each one of these women brings into my life significant God-dust and I would not be who I am right now without them. Nor will I be all that God has for me to become.

Some people are brought into your life only for a season. Wendy's perfected the art of not letting this happen if she can help it. :) But regardless of what we try, some people just aren't meant to belong in our small circle forever. My friend Judy is one of those. She came into my life in '87, when I desperately needed someone just like her. And a year or so later, she drifted out. But a little over two years ago I discovered her on Classmates.com and we've kept in (inconsistent) contact ever since.

Conna, well, Conna's a woman all to her own. She's one who's always in my heart, even when she's not in my life. She's one of those rare gifts from God -- she and Kimberly Michelle -- mind-bogglingly complex and special. Even when she's not right in front of me, she's in my head, in my heart, in my very soul. She's one of the few people who can see the weirdness of who I really am and not be offended or frightened off. Perhaps that's because she's got a weirdness of her own that matches mine. I've said it often before, and I'll probably say it till I die, if Conna were a man, I'd marry her. She'd be my "match".

Helen, I guess, was just one of those people I wasn't meant to keep. She was always in that "cool" group of people I couldn't quite fit into -- though Wendy and Conna always brought me in anyway. I watched her from a little distance and envied her energy and love of life. As she struggled with cancer, and her own decisions to seek alternative therapy until the cancer had spread too far, I stood amazed and dumbstruck at her resilience, resistance and refusal to just lay down and die. I had counted her as "dead in a few weeks" more times in the last few years than I care to remember. Yet each time she bounced back. Each time she beat the odds, beat the cancer down and once again triumphed over the indestructible.

When she lost her battle I was stunned. I had come to rely on the "fact" that Helen would always be there as my model/encouragement/challenge to fight hard, never give up and beat the odds every time. Each time I've hit my lowest points, my heart has gone back to Helen and her fight, and I remind myself that this beautiful, amazing, (still single) woman is fighting the battle of all our lives and if she can keep going, keep hoping, and laugh in the face of death, then so can I. It probably sounds selfish to think of my puny loss of Helen as an inspiration, especially in light of her realized glory in the presence of Jesus. But her death was a severe blow to my soul.

My friend Julie gave me a pink "Breast Cancer Awareness" bracelet a couple of weeks ago in honor of her sister, Nancy, who's currently battling it. I wore it off and on until Helen died. Now I wear it every day. It reminds me of my She Community. Past, present and future.

It reminds me that some women will pass in and out of my life, some will linger for a while, some will park for a lifetime (thank you Jesus for Wendy!!). But all will leave their mark. All will leave an indelible imprint on my soul where their lives have pressed in upon mine, our hearts have bled together and our souls intermingled until we look like, sound like, act like one another. Each will leave me covered in God-dust as we walk through Life side-by-side, or one behind the other. I hope I add as much to their lives as they have added to mine!

How I love these women!

In Memory of A Friend

I found out this morning that my friend, Helen Harris, died yesterday morning of breast cancer. She'd been fighting a battle with it for over 5 years. She was a wonderful woman, with a bubbly warm personality and a loving heart. She was so young, still -- and had so many years of life and love ahead of her!

She never knew it, but she was an inspiration to me. Her battle with cancer and refusal to give up hope, often believing in healing against impossible odds, inspired and challenged me to keep going. If she could do it, with all she had to face, I can most certainly do it.

Please pray for Helen's family, my friends Wendy, Conna, Debbie, and so many others who were touched by Helen's life and miss her dearly.

For a couple of pictures, see Wendy's blog.

I Don't Know What I'm Doing

But I'm moving forward anyway.

I've been looking around for new places to live. And I haven't been paying too close attention to my budget to know if I really "should" be looking at places that expensive. Heck, I have a couple of months before I need to move, I guess I could afford a little time to dream (Wendy, are you sure you don't want to move out here???).

I long for a community, especially one with some of my peers in it. I know that probably sounds retarded, but, well, it's just that it would be so nice to have some older women here in Nashville I could actually hang out with. I miss my girlfriends back in LA. Women like Wendy, Kat, Leticia, Kim, Kim South, Rachel, Holly, Kristin, Joyce, Deb -- and Conna!!!! (who's no longer in LA). I miss being able to be with women who really understand and get where I'm at in life. Women who get me. Women I can feel comfortable with and just let my hair down; who get my jokes and movie references because they actually saw those movies in the theatre. ---- Wow. I never thought I'd say such things. I sound so old, don't I.

I guess that's the truth I've realized recently. I really am old. At least compared to all these young girls around me at Mosaic Nashville. Youn 20s, some still in college, or just recently out. To them life is fresh and ripe with possibilities. They're too young to understand crushed dreams, major heartbreak and the crashing in of reality and time. Oh, they think they have. I remember those days. Every new lesson from God was an earthshattering event. Every break up or crush that didn't reciprocate was cause for deep soul-searching as to what was wrong with me (or him) that it didn't work out. I was focused on God and living out my dreams and thought I knew pretty much all I needed to know. And every single woman around 40 was a person to be pitied and avoided. Pitied for her sad situation in life and avoided so I wouldn't have to think about the possibility that I might end up just like her.

But then I got older. My 30s arrived and I started truly appreciating all that older women have to offer. I miss women like Karin, Carol, Kristin, Norma, Laura and Kim who were older and wiser than me and poured into me, gave me such sound counsel and encouragement. Its been hard to be the oldest woman in the group. Heck, the oldest person in the group. And I'm not even 40 yet.

I want to find some community with real women, not young girls still dreaming of womanhood. ---No offense to all you 20-somethings out there.

I have found one woman friend, and I think I found another this weekend. It was so good to talk to someone older than me that could understand and relate to all I've gone through!! Two is a good start, don't you think?

So off I go. Into God knows what. Looking for God knows what.

I hope I find it.

Learning Curve

"You are my witnesses," declares the LORD, "and my servant whom I have chosen, so that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he. Before me no god was formed, nor will there be one after me." --- Isa 43:10

Nearly three years ago Beth Moore's Breaking Free study challenged me with this verse. Do I really believe God? Not believe IN Him but BELIEVE Him? I struggled through that lesson for a year. Then everything else in my life fell apart.

Two years later I find myself faced with the same lesson. With God asking me, point blank, "Do you believe Me?"

It seems that I am re-evaluating everything I once believed about who God is. I realized recently that up till now I have pretty much rested in the faith of others, allowing their faith and belief in God's character, their definitions of who He is and their trust in those definitions to carry me through life. I think God is using this time in my life, with all the losses I've suffered, to help me face the reality of what I really believe and re-examine if that is indeed the truth. Events of the last two years completely demolished my faith-house of cards, completely stripping away all I once trusted. I saw this as a horrible thing; a disaster equal to a 10.0 earthquake in downtown LA.

Until last night.

A couple of weeks ago I realized the truth that the events two years ago didn't destroy my faith and trust as much as it uncovered my lack of it. Its as if God took my life, turned it upside down and shook it with mighty force. Everything was dumped out and I was left to pick up the broken pieces. However, I realize now that what I thought was broken from the shaking was actually broken long ago.

I'm not a more broken person now. The truth is, I was ALWAYS this broken. I just had lots of things in my heart and life I could hide that truth behind. I hid it so well, I couldn't even see the truth of myself.

Again, I saw this as a "bad" thing. An ugly truth. A failure. An unfixable situation.

Last night God got in my face about another aspect of His character. I'm still struggling to believe Him. Was it really Him I heard? Or was it the enemy trying to puff me up? What is the Truth?

In the midst of all that questioning, and a long conversation with Adria, I began to think that perhaps all the shaking of my life isn't such a bad thing. Perhaps all this questioning and seeking isn't a bad thing either. At the end of it all I will know what I believe. And be convinced of its truth.

I want to know God. I want to believe God. I want to come out of this time of pain and fire refined by my encounters with Him.

Fresh Rain

Can you smell it?

It's the fragrant aroma of fresh rain falling. I began as I drove home from Mosaic tonight. I got a whiff of it and immediately opened my sunroof to the "tilt" position so I could take in the whole bouquet of it.

It's a fragrance that immediately takes me back to my childhood. For some reason, even though I lived in many places as a child where it rained often -- like Tacoma, Washington -- the smell of fresh rain always seems to take me back first to Glorieta, New Mexico. I have wonderful memories of many summers spent at there, hiking in the mountains where the conference center is nestled, learning to make many fun things in day-camp, playing in the campground, and watching the daily thunderstorm make it's way through the mountains on its way to Santa Fe.

But more than just the memories comes the feelings, of newness, of freshness.... hope. Every time I smell the rain I feel.... cleaner. Even if I'm dirty as I can get.

It was so refreshing to smell the rain tonight. I'm so tired. I've been exhausted all weekend. Not sure what's going on... I just feel like I did when I had Mono back in the 8th grade. I slept most of today, and I still feel like I could sleep for another 12 hours. So to inhale that wonderful aroma of fresh rain and fill my lungs with it was like... like getting a cold drink of water on a hot summer day. Invigorating and filled with hope.

On My Mind

So don't lose a minute in building on what you've been given, complementing your basic faith with good character, spiritual understanding, alert discipline, passionate patience, reverent wonder, warm friendliness, and generous love, each dimension fitting into and developing the others. With these qualities active and growing in your lives, no grass will grow under your feet, no day will pass without its reward as you mature in your experience of our Master Jesus. Without these qualities you can't see what's right before you, oblivious that your old sinful life has been wiped off the books.                                --- 2 Peter 1:5-9 The Message