Knowing You Are.

A week ago in church my pastor was talking about peace. A lot of times people confuse feelings of pleasure or comfort as peace and right living. However, peace is laying down in bed at night knowing that what you're doing in life is lining up with what Gods will is.

Peace is laying in bed at night sometimes hurting but knowing something is right.

Peace is laying in bed at night feeling uncomfortable but saying "you are my Shepard I will not be in want, you are my Shepard I will not be, you are my Shepard, you are"

Peace comes through a process. It is taking my feelings to God and expressing them. Then it is viewing a situation with grace and objectivity, putting what another person may be going through first in my mind. Then it is fervent prayer. And it is saying whatever you want Lord. Then that's when the peace comes, when trusting the Lords will.

And then repeating it.

Peace doesn't cancel out hurt but it is seeking it that makes me realize how holy God is that I can still know peace and Gods sovereignty when I don't think it makes sense. 

Not too messy for God’s love?

If you’ve been in the Christian community for much time at all then you’ve probably watched some of those cheesy Christian movies. They all start to run together after awhile and most of them have the same general theme. No disrespect to the makers of these movies. I’m sure some of these movies have changed lives, but as I’ve watched some of them I see the same general story: a girl is in an abusive relationship or is mistreated in some kind of way, a Christian man comes and shows her God’s love and helps her out of her bad situation, and then they are happily married and everything is happy and easy.

Easy.

Well, I guess I don’t live a “real” Christian life then because in my experience every time I surrender more of myself to God life gets harder and messier.

Ok here’s a warning. I’m about to be a lot more blunt then I often am because it’s something that has really been heavy on my heart lately....

A very common thing for me to write about is the tangibility, or rather intangibility of the Christian life and walking with God. 

The reason for that starts out with the story of a little girl whose first memories are more than can be explained in one little blog post. It starts off with a little girl who was robbed of her innocence and was left with a pain that stung. It started off with a girl who frequently slept a couple hours a night, along with nightmares because of the trauma it left her. That girl is me.

I grew up in a Christian home, a very loving one at that. My situation was one that my parents had no idea about for a very long period of time and would have intervened had they had any idea.

So that was the way it was. At four, five, and six years old when someone threatens you and abuses you, even if you are raised right, it is incredibly hard to stand up for yourself and tell someone what was going on. I lived with an internal fear and an incredible secret battle. I went to church and was taught in my home that God was loving and that he can redeem any mess. He rescues his people. I remember when I first heard the story of Daniel in the lion’s den. Daniel prayed to his God, day and night. He loved the Lord deeply. He was thrown in a lion’s den and left to die for his faith, but the Lord kept him safe. Daniel did not get eaten by the lions. This was a very popular story in my Sunday school classes, but it always bothered me.

How could such a loving God shut the lions’ mouths when Daniel was thrown to them, but the same loving God wouldn’t protect me? Where was He?

That’s perhaps why this concept of tangibility is so important to me. Or why I feel it so much.

As I got older, I was able to find some healing and growth. I resisted God’s love for a long time because other things seemed much easier. And they were. When I chose my way, I got my tangible life. It wasn’t very hard to get, but it wasn’t fulfilling. I was convicted that that was not the life the Lord wanted me to live. But that’s not really what this post is about.

What it is about is what we do with mess.

I always had this idea that once I gave my life to God, just like the old cheesy Christian movies, I would understand the whole world. I would feel instantly fulfilled. I would feel renewed all the time. I would be swept off my feet by an amazing Christian man who loved me unconditionally and gave me God’s love in a tangible and real way.

But that “easy” life isn’t what happened. My life got a lot messier. Clinging to God’s Word in a world that doesn’t always feel satisfying. When Christians failed me (both in romantic relationships and friendships) I got really upset. When nightmares came back about things in the past, I got fearful. That’s not the way this is supposed to work, right?

If God’s love is so deep, vast, wide, and consistent then why is there mess?

Why in the world am I writing this post to talk about messy, uncomfortable life? Because I believe if we are all honest we all walk through this. And it is scary. It is scary to admit doubt or fear or frustration even with God.

But I’m writing this post because that is not where we are supposed to stay. We are not created for comfortable life. We are created for eternal life. When we chose to live for God, we chose hope for fear. We chose faith in the unseen. We chose to not live in fear.

Psalm 23 says:

The Lord is my Shepherd. I will have everything I need. He lets me rest in fields of green grass. He leads me beside the quiet waters. He makes me strong again. He leads me in the way of living right with Himself which brings honor to His name. Yes, even if I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will not be afraid of anything, because You are with me. You have a walking stick with which to guide and one with which to help. These comfort me. You are making a table of food ready for me in front of those who hate me. You have poured oil on my head. I have everything I need. For sure, You will give me goodness and loving-kindness all the days of my life. Then I will live with You in Your house forever.

What stands out to me in this passage is the phrase “Even if I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will not be afraid of anything”

What does that mean to walk through the valley of the shadow of death?  Think of a shadow... Imagine you are standing in the street and a truck drives by and runs you over. You are probably dead because you have been hit by a truck. Now, imagine you are walking along the side of the road and a truck drives by. It has a huge shadow that is right over you. You are standing in the shadow, but it doesn’t hurt you. That’s because it is a shadow. So if I am comparing life on earth to the valley then the worst thing I can face, if I am saved, is a shadow of death then I have nothing to fear because it is only a shadow.

I can’t explain why we have mess or why things happen other than the fact that we live in a sinful world, one that is under the shadow of death, but there is hope that when we cling to truth God is our comfort. I think when bad things happen we often times like to stay in our frustration and continue to ask God why? But I challenge to stop asking why and start listening.

“He lets me rest in fields of green grass. He leads me beside quiet waters” Have you ever noticed in the old KJV of the Bible the word “Selah” in between parts of the Psalms? I learned recently this word means to rest, pause, or listen to God. What amazes me is that the Psalms are full of cries out to God, praise, and questions to Him. In all of this there are breaks for “Selah”. God gives us a beautiful gift of rest, quiet, and peace when we follow Him. How many of us really take a break from things in our lives to “selah”? Rest is a gift God gives us to dwell in Him. I often feel uncomfortable with it because I don’t like to slow down to listen. I like to know the answer to something right away. I like when problems get fixed right away. But that isn’t God’s way. I wonder what God could really do in me if I took time to rest in Him, to really listen in quiet. I wonder what God could do in me when I only have the desire to know Him in one of His ways that seems so uncomfortable and intangible to me: stillness.

Why we experience mess and how to get rid of it? I don’t know. I have so much mess, but I want to be still enough to really cling to God’s truths.

Why? Because it makes things easier? No. Because it is right. Because in Christ I know that I have everything I need. And I will live with Him forever.

So do with me what you want, God. Show me who to love and how. Give me patience to allow You to speak to others, to step aside and allow you to be God. Grow me in grace when I don’t understand some things. Show me how to be a better friend, daughter, girlfriend, sister, and follower of You.

I surrender my mess. It’s yours God. Show me what you want with it.

The Hands and Feet of Jesus

Well I feel overwhelmed today, in a good way.

Today was my second full shift at my new job. I’m working every weekday in a family’s home for two kids with autism. The older child, age 20, has a high functioning form of autism called aspergers. I work with him much of the day and then whenever the younger child lets me work with her, I do. The younger child, age 16, has the most severe case of autism I have ever seen. You can pretty much forget that she is 16 because she functions as though she is 2.

Autism is a mental disorder that deals with how the brain processes information. Take me for example. I am dyslexic. When I look at a page I often see a jumble of words. I misspell things all the time. I mispronounce many things. I can’t do math. It takes a lot for me to teach my brain how to process the information I read. I was diagnosed with dyslexia when I was in first grade, but my dad did something really awesome with that. He made me read with him for an hour or so every night. Sometimes he read to me and other times I had to read with him. I did that until sixth grade. My dad’s loving dedication to me is the reason why I am able to function as highly as I do. My dad believed in me like no one else did. He had hope that I could learn how to function at a higher level.

People who have autism see the world in the way that I see words on a page, all jumbled. The girl I work with now on a day-to-day basis cannot understand the world she lives in. Her behaviors all center around consistency. She likes when things are the same, ordinary. She hates changing her clothes. She watches the same few minutes of a video tape, rewinds it and watches it again. She carries around a book that has prerecorded sounds on it and plays the same sound buttons over and over again. She does this to block out other sounds she hears. This is called stimulating herself. Autistic children are believed to be over-stimulated, over sensitive. She may hear sounds much louder than I do. Think about yourself trying to type out a report on your laptop. You sit down to type and you hear a car horn outside of the window. You feel a breeze blow your hair. You hear the ticking of a clock. If you had autism, you may have a very difficult time separating these distractions and ignoring them. You don’t understand them so you do everything you can to block them out. That is where stimulating yourself comes in. You may hold a book with prerecorded sounds right up to your ear and play it over and over again so you don’t have to hear the other sounds that are flowing into your head. You have heard these tunes so many times that the moment the book breaks, you have become so dependent on this book that you throw a tantrum because you can’t block out this world around you that you can’t understand. And you don’t want to try because it feels like too much.

This is what the girl I work with every day faces. My job is to take her from the stimulation she exposes herself to (her books with the prerecorded sounds, the tv, and other things) and interact with her. My job is to join her in her world. I try to make my world make sense to hers. Since she is much more sensitive to everything than I am, I have to act like her. If she throws herself on the ground and roar like a lion, I throw myself on the floor and roar like a lion. It is in those moments that I can make eye contact with her. I can make a connection with her. My challenge is how to stimulate her brain and help her to choose human interaction over electronic stimulation. So if she wants music, guess what I get to sing. If she wants me to sing she presses on my nose and and I don’t always have a song. Today I sang something about running at the beach. I made it up and it was so stupid, but she looked into my eyes and laughed. She had no idea what I was singing about but she knew I was paying attention to her. She knew I was interacting with her and that’s a start.

The interesting thing is that there was a part of today that I was feeling really sad. In that part of my shift, I had her up in her play room ready to interact with her and I just drew a blank. I had her away from anything electronic but my brain just couldn’t come up with any game to do. The more I was focusing on what I should do, the more I was thinking about how I wished she could communicate. I wished she could understand life. I got really sad for her and her family and what all of them had to face everyday. I just couldn’t imagine. How in the world could someone live like this? How could you watch your child go through this?…I had to ask her dad for advise. It was at that point he said he wanted me to watch this autism documentary and take a little break from her therapy.

 This documentary was the journey of a little boy with autism and his parents who prayed they could have their little boy back. They were filled with sadness and every time their son acted out (which was all the time) they mourned. They begged and pleaded with God about why their son was this way. This family traveled to an autism center to participate in the Sonrise therapy program (which is the type of therapy I am doing in an in-home version) and had to learn how to love their little autistic boy. They couldn’t view their son as two personalities: autistic son and sweet boy. They had to learn to view him as their autistic son. Period. They had to love the autistic side of him. They had to stop mourning him and focusing on their weakness. When they began loving their son in his autism and interacting him and focusing on loving him as he was, they were able to see improvement. They had to stop seeing their own weakness and instead see themselves as God’s tools. In the documentary they said they were able to see improvement with their son because they stopped mourning. They started believing they were strong enough to handle it. When their view changed, they started asking God for strength. When they asked Him for strength, He gave them strength and they could believe in their autistic boy in ways no one else ever could because God helped them. In their story, their son was able to learn how to function much better. He still has some challenges but he can now read, write, and interact with his family outside of his home.

Something I see in the girl I work with is that even though she doesn’t understand the world, she understands joy. She understands laughter and being looked in the eyes and feeling cared about. It reminded me that my job is to walk into work everyday remembering that she is a child of God and I am his hands and feet.

It strengthens my faith because I am reminded everyday about a truth of God. He does not give us more than what we can handle. An autistic individual is certainly a lot to handle, but He is stronger.

The older son that I work with is a child of God too. I see God in his loving heart. When we played chess today, he expressed his concern for his sister and how he wished she could play and be able to function normally. His love for his sister really struck me. He wasn’t stuck on his own weakness,. He knows he is autistic and he works to use his creativity to make things and draw and love his family. He reminded me of hope and that I can love his family with hope and as the hands and feet of Jesus.

I would love for these kids to see the world how I see it one day. Based off of research that really will not happen. What can happen though, is looking up to the God of hope and asking for His strength to be his hands and feet. That is my hope in working with these kids. I hope to give them joy. It may be in ways that are abnormal to others. The things that make these kids laugh are so ridiculous sometimes, but when I look into their eyes and make that connection with them I can’t help but feel that I am sharing Jesus.

What things are you feeling week about today? How can you look up to God and ask for His strength? What can you do to dwell in His consistency today? What roles are you placed in that requires you to be the hands and feet of Jesus? Do you have a task of analyzing numbers that no one else can understand? Do you have a tension span that most others don’t have that you can use? Who in your life can you learn how to love and support in the ways they feel loved? How can you show the love of God tangibly?

Sometimes it is hard to feel direction in our lives because we have unfulfilled expectations or we get bored. Sometimes we get really focused on ourselves and don’t feel like serving others, but I encourage you to let go of doing it on your own. You have a God who made you, uniquely, to love Him and show your love for Him in your love for others. How will you show His love today?

My hope is in you Lord

All the day long I won’t be shaken by drought or storm

A peace that passes understanding is my song

And I sing my hope is in You, Lord

-Aaron Shust