The Junk Drawer

On one of my Target excursions this week, I noticed something that made me giggle a little bit. A junk drawer organizer.

Doesn't that just strike you as oxymoronic?

For one, who has an organized junk drawer?

But really, why do we insist on keeping useless stuff in the first place? And if we're going to bother organizing it, why not just get rid of it altogether?

The junk drawer, though, seems to be a reflection of who we are as human beings.

Because we all keep spiritual junk drawers. Can you relate? We all have things in our lives that we know really aren't that healthy but that we just kinda like. So we shove them aside and hope no one notices, or better yet, that God doesn't notice.

We have our reasons. Complacency, indifference, fear, pride, comfort.

Regardless, we'd rather organize our junk drawers than throw stuff out. As long as we "manage" our sin, we think we can keep up our Christian appearance. We can live an okay life and be pretty happy.

But God knows that the stuff we keep in our junk drawers is actually toxic to our souls. He knows its keeping us from the best life. So He offers to take it off our hands, and turn our trash into treasures. But it's our call whether we'll hold on to the stash or let go. This year, I wanna let God empty out the junk drawer. Yes, it will be a battle. Yes, it might seem like not much fun at first. But the reward is far greater.

Been digging Hebrews 12 this summer...

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

Remember

Being back in Iowa has been more than a "sentimental journey." When I had to move away from this place as an eighth grader, I was convinced that my life was over and that my parents were the meanest parents ever. I thought I already had the best life possible.

And while I'm not kicking and screaming going to Colorado, (quite the opposite really,) there's still a tiny part of me that says to God, "are You sure You can top BG?" Because, in all reality, the last few years have been mindblowingly awesome. But this time, I believe He's saying YES. I can do more than you can ask or imagine. Just you wait.

And I believe it because this week, He has given me small reminders of how He surpassed all of my expectations in NW Ohio. Reminders that He never left me alone, but provided me with community, purpose, and joy. Spending an evening with dear friends around the fire, finally having Kermit's with the Erica Reese, getting coffee with Amanda, catching up with my high school choir director, celebrating my sis's 20th birthday, Dreya stopping by, and so many hugs and prayers from so many beloved friends before leaving... AND I get to come back here to Iowa and reconnect with old friends, no longer 13 year olds but beautiful women all pursuing the Lord and His purposes for their lives! All these good things in spite of my stubbornness and refusal to trust Him.

I can relate to the Israelites. I, too, am forgetful. I, too, need constant reminders of who God is. I have to practice remembering.

"If you say in your heart, 'These nations are greater than I. How can I dispossess them?" you shall not be afraid of them but you shall remember what the Lord your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt and to all Egypt, the great trials that your eyes saw, the signs, the wonders, the mighty hand, and the outstretched arm, by which the Lord your God brought you out. So will the Lord your God do to all the peoples of whom you are afraid." (Deuteronomy 7:17-19, ESV)

He will do what He has done before. He can do the same. And more.


A few looks from the night...

Anna and I remember having tea parties and stringing froot loops on necklaces as three-year-olds. Then we grew up playing tennis and going to church together. She became a sweet encouraging friend as we shared life in a middle school girls small group...



I've known Courtney since 1st grade... we were playground buddies, and play-doh buddies, and just best friends. I've admired the woman Court has become and it was such an honor to be a part of her wedding to a wonderful man, Charles :)

En route

The boxes have been packed. Goodbyes have been said. I'm halfway across the country.

And I'm so at rest.

Leave.

"....my prayer is that your story will have involved some leaving and some coming home, some summer and some winter, some roses blooming out like children at play. My hope is your story will be about changing, about getting something beautiful born inside of you, about learning to love a woman or a man, about learning to love a child, about moving yourself around water, around mountains, around friends, about learning to love others more than we love ourselves, about learning oneness as a way of understanding God. We get one story, you and I, and one story alone. God has established the elements, the setting and the climax and the resolution. It would be a crime not to venture out, wouldn't it?

It might be time for you to go. It might be time for you to go. It might be time to change, to shine out.

I want to repeat one word for you:
Leave.

Roll the word around on your tongue for a bit. It is a beautiful word, isn't it? So strong and forceful, the way you have always wanted to be. And you will not be alone. You have never been alone. Don't worry. Everything will still be here when you get back. It is you who will have changed." -Donald Miller, Through Painted Deserts

And so I find myself. On the cusp of doing just this: leaving.

It's bittersweet. In some ways, it's devastating. Thinking about leaving my family who has done nothing but overwhelm me with grace and goodness. And my friends-like-family who have laughed, cried, eaten, slept, and prayed alongside me. Who have challenged me and encouraged me and inspired me to live the good life. Imagining a tough day when I can't walk to the Union Starbucks for a comforting arm around my shoulder and life-giving words of affirmation. Wondering where I'll go when I just want to let down and "be." I'm leaving so much more than a city on a map.

But at the same time, it's glorious. It's freedom. It's adventure. A chance to shake out complacency and start fresh. A chance to experience new people and new ways of doing and being. A chance to climb mountains and waterfalls, for crying out loud. A chance to experience God anew. When I'm lonely, He will be my Friend, and we will go on this adventure together. After all, He goes far beyond the cornfields of Northwest Ohio. Not to mention, going to school for the things about which I am most passionate. Loving people. Seeking Truth. Knowing God.

So, my dear friends. I invite you to join me on this journey. I don't promise that it won't be messy. I don't promise it will all be mountaintop experiences (pun fully intended.) But it will be good. God will be good. And we will meet again, somewhere, someday. We'll have stories to swap. Some things will be as they have been. Other things will change. But we'll embrace the journey together as we wait on this side of heaven.

A story I could live.

I remember it clearly. It was the second day of IndyCC, December 29, 2008. It was late in the afternoon, I had already been to two talks, and I was ready to take a nap. I told my friend Sara, though, that she should go hear Steve Rieske talk about the Grand Story of the Bible. Steve was a cool dude on cru staff whom I enjoyed listening to and playing facebook Scrabble with, so I thought she should go check it out. Last minute, I made the decision to go with her. I picked up a $6 grande soy chai latte at the Starbucks in the hotel, and grabbed a seat.

Little did I know that this hour would forever change my life. As Steve started talking about the Bible using phrases such as "yearning for Eden," I felt like he was speaking a foreign language. To see the Bible as a story of the redemption of humankind, not just a bunch of Sunday School lessons with good moral lessons, awakened something deep within. And that God was inviting me into this story was incredible. This was a story I could live.

Donald Miller often explores the idea of writing a 'better story' with your life. If I wanted my life to tell a better story, what better way than to become part of THE story God has been writing since time began?

A story that began in the garden, where man walked with God in the cool of the day. Where man rebelled against God and broke the perfect relationship he had with both God and his fellow human beings, and himself became broken. Thus Death entered the world. But God (one of my favorite phrases in the Bible) had a plan. He would set a people aside for Himself, dwell among them, teach them His ways, and show them what it meant to be His people. They rebelled time and time again against the God who had showed them nothing but unconditional love. He punished them. He showed mercy. They repented. The cycle repeated. But God would not relent. He would pursue these people because that is who He is.

And then He entered the human experience. Becoming one of us, He put on flesh and walked among us. He taught, healed, and performed miracle upon miracle. And then He died, a perfect sacrifice. Three days later, He arose as King, victorious over death itself. And with His resurrection, He imparted resurrection life through His spirit, that those who were dead: those separated from God, enslaved to sin and self, hopelessly broken, unable to reach God, might be made alive. That they might have intimate fellowship with their Creator. That they might join in the work of transformation, becoming agents of hope and renewal. Ambassadors of God Himself.

This was a story I could LIVE. Not a faith that says, you're saved, now just do some good stuff until heaven. No. Heaven is here. The Kingdom is here. There is work to do. And He wants to do it with us and through us. Trying to fit God into my story is fiercely insulting to who God is, and leads to a religion of death and dissatisfaction. Taking my place in God's story, however, leads to life and peace. Not to mention adventure.

Today, as I listened to Steve tell the story once more, maybe for the last time... my mind wandered back to that afternoon. I think of what that Story has inspired in my life since that afternoon in Indy, and I am deeply grateful. I have heard him tell the story dozens of times since then. Sometimes I groan because I can anticipate his every word, but once in a while, it captures me once more. The deepest parts of my being resonate with its truth. The love, the mercy, the wonder, the hope, the triumph: it is a story worth telling over and over again. It must be told, for it is what we were made for. It is, indeed, a story worth living.

We know what is coming behind the crocus...

“This is why I believe that God really has dived down into the bottom of creation, and has come up bringing the whole redeemed nature on His shoulders. The miracles that have already happened are, of course, as Scripture so often says, the first fruits of that cosmic summer which is presently coming on. Christ has risen, and so we shall rise.

…To be sure, it feels wintry enough still: but often in the very early spring it feels like that. Two thousand years are only a day or two by this scale. A man really ought to say, ‘The Resurrection happened two thousand years ago’ in the same spirit in which he says ‘I saw a crocus yesterday.’

Because we know what is coming behind the crocus.

The spring comes slowly down the way, but the great thing is that the corner has been turned. There is, of course, this difference that in the natural spring the crocus cannot choose whether it will respond or not.

We can. We have the power either of withstanding the spring, and sinking back into the cosmic winter, or of going on…to which He is calling us.

It remains with us whether to follow or not, to die in this winter, or to go on into that spring and that summer.”

—C. S. Lewis from “God in the Dock”

...behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two

And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit.
And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. And the earth shook, and the rocks were split.
(Matthew 27:50-51 ESV)

The curtain is torn. The curtain to the Holy of Holies, the most sacred place in the temple where the Most High God makes His dwelling. God is no longer elusive. He is unveiling Himself to the world, nailed to a cross. And I can go to Him, weak and wounded as I am.

And knowing that, my friends, is enough to make Good Friday truly Good.