A Letter: From a Christian Teacher to the Secular Student

My Dearest Student,

I wish it were time to let you know that if I weren’t your teacher, my voice would sound much different. But for now, for this time and space, I will hold on to the noise that reverberates through my being, the one that wants to speak loudly into your life, because for now I am your teacher and all I can do is hope that somehow what I can say and what I can do today finds a way into the corner of your mind so that one of these days, when you start to clear out the cobwebs towards clarity, you will hear me.  

I will sound different then.  More like the real me.  And I will speak what I really wanted you to know all along. But for now, I will just hope I can show what I so earnestly wish to tell.

To tell you that I see you.  I see the struggle in your eyes and the anxiety in your heart.

To tell you that I understand you.  Believe it or not, I was once your age, walking the dimmed streets of shadows.

To tell you you are worth it.  You are worth every night I sacrifice time with my own family to help you grow in knowledge and in truth.  You are worth every gray hair from deeply contemplating how I could best reach into your heart when I have such limited time each day to whisper some sense of the meaning of life.  

To tell you that I love you . . . not because you are lovable.  None of us are.  But because I have a Savior whose Spirit lives in me, I can know the Truth and it does set me free.  Free to love you even when you miss the mark.  Because we all miss the mark.  But here is where I hope my voice speaks loud and clear, because vague walls build dangerous hearts.  

I believe in God the Father.  I believe in Jesus Christ.  I believe in the Holy Spirit.  I believe in the infallible Word of God.  And I believe in TRUTH.  Not my version of it, but the only real Truth that I believe exists, and please trust me that I have earnestly sought the world over for these seeds.  And because I hold firmly to that Truth, I see how my choices separate me from God’s love, and that great chasm is vast array of utter loneliness, and I don’t want you to be alone.  

So when you trust me enough to ask really hard questions, I have a really hard time not answering. But for now, I am your teacher and jaded avoidance breaks my heart, but I know not what else to do, not because I fear what may happen to me, but because I fear what might happen in you prematurely.  Sometimes, the hardest questions have to wait for a different time.  A time when you can hear me clearly, without those damned walled hearts.  To know that when I consider it a sin, it is because I am building my life on God’s Truth.  To know that it really is possible to love you even in the midst of your sin, fully for who you are, but wishing desperately you would walk with me, as I too am fighting my way up from the pit of me.  

Will you have grown enough when you hear me to be able to love like this?  To allow me to still sit at your table of confidence, even when our worldviews collide?  Isn’t that what true acceptance means? Not that I can accept only those who are like-minded, but that I can invite all to the table where we meet to think.  And will you then be able to think deeply, and widely, and openly enough to entertain other ideas, sharpening your mind against the edge, and all the while truly maintaining love in spite of our differing selves?  For if you think back really hard, this is the lesson I tried to teach all along.

But for now I will love you through the silence, because though I desperately wish I could speak, I am still your teacher.  In time, my voice will change, and I will wait because I understand seasons differently than you do.   And I will hope.  I will pray for the day you can hear me clearly.  But on that day, please don’t look at my age and assume I am archaically outdated.  Even age needs company who will listen to the noise inside.

Deeply and Earnestly,

Your Teacher

The View from Below

It has been one of those years.

Actually, if I am really honest, it started three years ago with a drought.  And although God sent adequate rain to the crops for the next years, my heart remained dry.  

Have you ever had one of those journeys in life where God has clearly asked you into something, but the farther you walk through that door, the more doors behind you start to shut, and if you are really honest, you rather liked those rooms and cringe every time you hear the slam because you are not sure what to do with the seemingly empty voids left behind now that you can no longer go there.  

For the past year, I have sat removed from those doors and shed bitter tears, frustrated with God because He would not let me go back, back to where I felt comfortable, back to where I felt needed, back to where I felt safe, back to where life was good.  And it has been a very dry season.  A constant battle between my head and my heart.  My head would say read and study and fill yourself with God’s promises, but my heart would cry out against me because my will was not aligning with God’s.  

Lots of questions.  What is my purpose?  I have no ministry, no direction.  And as I wandered aimlessly, my heart followed, starting to question everything, trying to fill the void in my heart with fallen family, forcing them up on a cross to be my savior only to be reminded that they too never belong on that pedestal; only one man has ever walked this earth who earned the right to bear that place for the sake of saving my dry and crackling heart.

And in the meantime, Satan snuck in for the attack, shaking foundations in my life that had never been shaken before, hurling more and more questions at my wounded soul.  Are you really loved?  Are you really worth it?  Don’t you know how ugly your soul is?  Don’t you know you’ve missed out on all the things you could’ve become?  And pride peeped in, begging an invitation to consider the flawed suggestions.  

A better crack.  A friend who keeps praying and won’t let me remain hidden in the depths of my pit.  A student who shares and invites me to do the same.  A song, a friend.  

Confession: I have forced myself Sunday after Sunday to go to a place that only stirred very deep resentment; bad enough You closed the doors, but do You have to parade me past them week after week to remind me of what you took.

Remember.  Since the beginning of creation You have asked Your people to remember, because You alone know what is truly good.  And You are reminding me that pretending the scars aren’t there will not make them go away.  You take away, but you also give.

Trust.  Trust that when You have closed a door, it is only because You have a much better one in store.  But . . . always a but. . . . the struggle is the point.  Face the frustration knowing You are still in control, and You really do have the Best plan in mind for me.

Funny thing happened this summer.  The rain seems to never cease.  Three years ago a drought hit and my heart began to dry, and for years I have been begging God on one hand to just speak up and tell me something, anything, all while my heart began to harden against hearing.

The rains came down.  Sunday after Sunday this summer I have sat in church and wept.  My heart is far from good, but God is good, even when I am not.  

You are good, You are good, when there’s nothing good in me.  I would love to say I’m running to Your arms, but I’m not.  It's more of a one-foot-in-front-of-the-other climbing out to the ground above so I can plant my feet on solid ground just long enough to fall on my knees, crying out to You to please forgive me.  

I have been wandering, and I want to be found in Your ways alone.  I want to hear the truth to those questions, to know You Love Me, because You think I am worth it enough to send Your Son to die for me.  To know you make beauty from the ashes of my burnt out soul and whatever I have missed out on is nothing compared to what You have in store.

I am ready to Touch the Sky.  It seems too far away in this wallowed pit.

The Cover Red

I was listening to Daily Audio Bible this morning and he was reading from Genesis.  The story is far from novel for me.  Eve is tempted by the serpent.  She then gets Adam to eat as well.  Then they suddenly have knowledge of good and evil and are ashamed and cover themselves, which is how God finds them.  Nothing new in the story, but I am humbled once again by God’s reminder that his Word is alive and active and sharper than any double-edged sword, and it brings newness to a soul seeking fresh life.

The first idea I had never thought of was Adam’s lack of standing against Satan.  According to the scripture, he is right there?  Why doesn’t he speak up for his wife?  Why doesn’t he tell Satan to get the heck out of dodge and quit leading his wife astray.  If someone were to come along and try to seduce me right in front of Daniel, I certainly hope he would man up and do something, anything about it.  But Adam does nothing; well, actually he does do something-he joins in.  It’s as if Satan is asking Eve to come play with him and Adam says why don't we all join in?  What?  

And then I started thinking about how important that tree is.  The tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  Certainly Adam and Eve knew good before they ate of this tree because they were living in complete harmony with not only God’s creation, but with God himself-forever in his presence.  Maybe they didn’t have knowledge that this was good since they had no concept of evil to contrast, but still, they experienced good 24/7.  What would that be like?  I am not certain any of us on earth can even comprehend that.  Even our good is shadowed by the phantom of evil ever lurking around the corner.  So maybe the lesson is we can never fully know much less appreciate good until we have encountered evil?  

We as humans became our own gods.  We now know good and evil and can only become right with the epitome of good, God himself, when we choose wisely.  A choice necessitates options.  The tree suddenly enabled options.  But the option was there before which enabled the choice.  Opt to obey or opt to disobey.  They choose unwisely and that choice led to a knowledge they didn’t really want; none of us really want to know evil.  When it sneaks into our homes, when it pries into our hearts, it wreaks unfathomable misery that only God can heal.

Only God can heal; only God can restore the great chasm that now exists.  When Adam and Eve ate, they heard God walking and they hid to cover themselves.  They suddenly knew shame as it filled their soul with isolation.  Because isn’t that what shame does.  It drives us away to a place of cover, like a game of hide and go seek gone bad because we become so lost we are never found.  The masks of facade we persist in raising in the ball of our masquerade to achieve a status for all to see that doesn’t come close to revealing who we really are, much less how much we really need Jesus, or how much we need others who also need Jesus.  But with our human frailty and flesh, we become monsters of our own closets, slapping a pretty picture on the door so no one suspects what lurks beyond. Why do we do THIS?????!!!!  Because with our knowledge of good and evil, we know we are evil.  We know we will never measure up.  We know we are naked and God can see every last inch of us and we would much rather put on some leaves and pretend God doesn’t really see us for who we are.  BUT HE DOES.  He always does.  He knows every last inch of my shameful soul and yet He Loves?  What?

Some days I love my covers.  I love to wrap underneath them and feel like life is okay because I played the part well and reached the end of the hour to hear the applause.  But some days, oh some days, I grow very weary of the facade.  I want to strip the leaves away and proclaim to the world that I too am a failure.  I too fall flat on my face.  I too live in the shame of my sin and can never measure up.  And I too just want to let it all out on the table before Him who already knows it all anyway and say Here am I.  Will you still claim me?  Will you still call me Your own?  Will you still pick me up into your Daddy arms and whisper in my ear that You, You-the God of the Universe, the creator of the stars and the mountains and the seas and the beauty that fills my nostrils on a warm, new spring day-You love me?  Will you love my selfishness?  Will You love my anger?  Will you love my deep, dark need for worldly acceptance?

And I hear you say no.  I will not love your selfishness.  I will not love your anger.  I will not love your deep, dark need for fleeting status.

But. . .

I will love you.  I will love you enough to lift you out of your selfishness.  I will love you enough to rise you above your anger.  And I will love you enough to give you a new name, my name.  And then I will take you on a wild ride through this life, a great adventure.  But always remember, I AM.  

I am the one who can reveal who you are.  But I cannot reveal you in your mirror of self-reflection if you insist on keeping your covers on.

The covers of Adam and Eve must go.  No more hiding from God’s presence in shame.  For when we step out into the light, His light, HE will make a cover for us to conceal our shame.  In the garden, it was made of skins.  But that covering was only temporary.   He knew we needed time before he gave us the ultimate covering.  The blanket of dripping red.

A Humble Heart's Cry

Dearest Father,

You are moving in my soul.  And it is well.  So I stand before you and say I am a mess.  I have harbored bitterness and unforgiveness because I felt betrayed and lost and alone and unloved.  But you have called me out of my pit.  You have lifted me out of my darkness.  And you are beautiful, absolutely beautiful.  So I stand in your presence and say I love you.  I love you for how you love me.  I love you for being the God of greatness.  I love you for being the God of grace.  I love you for looking at all my ugliness and saying you will still choose to make me into something beautiful.  And I can never understand why.  Why would you love me?  Why would you see me?  Why do you continue to pour your Spirit into my breath and soul and grant me glimpses of Your Greatness.  

Oh, God.  You are.  And I will hold onto that promise until one day when I get to see you once again.  I will believe that you have so much more promised for me.  I believe You are God and you reign on high and yet you still love me.  me.  

Move in me.  Move me out of my wretched lukewarm.  I do not want to be out of your presence for a moment, so set my heart on fire.  And love me.  For when you fill me with your love, then I  am love.  And on that day when I stand in your presence and all those i’ve left behind stand on earth, may they have caught a glimpse of your love through my meager efforts to reflect your light.  

break me down.  bring me to my knees.  take out of me anything that is not of you.  make me more and more like you.  to be a light to my children.  so they too can become lights for your kingdom.  so they too can serve you and obey you with all their beings.

You are good.  You are light.  I love you greatly.

humbly yours,

lesa

When God Smiles His Cat Grin

The cat drama continues.

We finally brought home three new kitties the end of June and the kids were so excited.  But just as life was settling in for cats and kiddos, two of the kittens took a ride somewhere never to be found again, leaving only Max to brighten our days.  Through the course of friends finding out about our children’s sadness and desire for kittens, we inherited two more, Whiskers and Oreo. 

As Caleb was doing chores this morning, Daniel sent Nate to the other farm, leaving Caleb alone with the coon dogs.  Caleb thought he had latched Copper’s kennel door and stepped in with Sissy and locked himself in.  He soon realized Copper was loose and hollered for Nate, not knowing Nate was already gone.  By the time he got out of Sissy’s pen and up to the house to alert Daniel, Copper had already gotten a hold of Max.  By this time, Katie is beyond upset and Caleb is doing his best to hold it together as he was the one trying to drag Copper off Max. 

The morning was not what any of us planned. 

Emotions soon subsided as our children have already had to learn the cycle of life . . . and death on several previous occasions.  With hearts still sore, they bucked up and occupied themselves with playing while I dug a hole in our ever-growing pet cemetery.

On our way home late tonight from a campfire with friends, we spotted a kitten as we were driving through the bottoms.  All of the children were already asleep, but Nate and Katie quickly came to life when they heard me say, “That looked like Sammy.” 

Daniel backed the truck up and to our surprise the cat was not only still there, but willingly let us catch it and bring it home.  I am not sure I can explain how very lively and excited Nate and Katie were at the prospect of this kitten being theirs, especially since it is identical to one of the cats who took a ride somewhere never to be found again?

God smiles on us when we least expect it.  And even if this cat is someone else’s and we have to return it, it was still a great reminder tonight that we are never alone.  Even in the midst of hurting or sorrow, He sees all and cannot wait till just the right moment to shower us with reminders of how much He loves us and is looking out for us, even if it is only a simple thing like a cat on the side of the road.  So tonight I am beyond grateful for a cat grin that somehow looks very much like God’s smile.

Finding Home

You found me tonight.  I expected it to be just another drive home:  late night, all asleep but me and the radio, fighting hard to stay awake and make it safely home.  I knew early into the drive it would be different.  Wide awake on 164 with my thoughts alone to seek you.  And you found me. 

One of those moments we live for.  Thank you for finding me.  Thank you for seeking me. 

As I watched her stand on her own two legs tonight, you reminded me that You are the strength on which we all stand if we are ever able to stand against the winds and rains of this life.  I know not why you gave us this precious gift of time, more time to learn and grow and experience life together, but I remain humbled at your gracious mercy.  You ARE Good.  And You DO still work miracles.  And I am amazed that you invite me to witness these miraculously divine interventions, to be part of Your plan.

She has much left to teach; I am ready to learn.  She has much left to give; I am ready to receive.  She has much left to live; I am ready to partake. 

For now, she remains captive there, as she herself said.  But I know very clearly from our time together tonight that You are preparing for her a great day ahead when she will make it safely home, back here to us, until the day when You decide it IS time to call her home.   Why you gave her more time here we do not yet fully know, but I desperately ask that we would all seek you earnestly so her fight will have not been in vain.  Help us all to learn, to receive, to partake of You, to find You like we’ve never been found before.

A Change of Weather

It’s still raining.  The aftermath of the storm.  We knew it was coming.  Storm predictors warned us of the coming tropical storm as it carved its way toward us, heading on out but leaving behind overcast skies, gloomy weather, and still more rain.

A little over six months ago, storm predictors blew a cloud over her family as the diagnosis was grim.   A short rebound, chemo pills could replace chemotherapy, a short gasp for air.  Then the rapid decline.  It has spread to her brain and spinal fluid. It’s the worst kind.

And we knew. We knew she had been in much more pain than she would ever let us know.  We knew our time was short.  Too short for a mother-in-law who was in all ways her other mom.  Too short for her husband who was her lifelong partner, not just in words, but in heart and deeds.  Too short for her daughter-in-law who was in all ways really the daughter she never had.  Too short for her 8-year-old grandson who knew in his heart how much this hurt, but was too young to have to go through this.

She was too young to have to go through this.  Sixty years of life on this earth.  A life of love, a life of giving.  For if Sharlyn was anything, she was a giver.  The countless hours spent providing for her husband who suffered from strokes well before his time, a mother who too died of the wretched disease that would too soon claim her own life, a mother-in-law who fell too much, broke too much, and now spends her living moments in the confines of a wheelchair.

She gave.  She gave of her time.  She gave of her heart.  And then You came and took. 

“You give and take away.  You give and take away.  Yet my heart will choose to say, Lord, blessed be your name.”

It is true You took her, but in taking, we know You gave so much. 

You gave her time.  Just enough time.  Not too long to suffer too much from the cancer that stole her body, but long enough so it couldn’t steal her soul. 

You gave her a daughter who braved the fear of how she might respond in her final days, how it might end as a broken relationship.  But in that courage, you made a broken spirit whole.  You gave a moment, a prayer, a heart open to Your Word, and a heart to share the very Love of You with a dying woman who needed nothing more than You.

And I watch her now.  Now that Sharlyn’s gone.  And I praise you for her.  I praise You for opening the doors wide open so she could save a soul. 

I watch her now as she grieves.  And my heart cries out to you.  Father, please.  Continue to open her eyes so she sees another door wide open.  For when you took Sharlyn and closed that door, you gave another door for us to walk through.  A door that is daily open into Your Very Presence.  A door that opens into our hearts, that wipes away our tears, and gives us a greater hope for each coming day.

For though it’s raining today, it won’t rain forever.  Time will heal.  And the storm that blew in months ago, leaving an aftermath of overcast hearts, gloomy spirits, and still more rain will not last forever.  For You always promise that in the rain will come the Son, and with the Son comes a change in weather.

“And everything in time and under heaven finally falls asleep.  Wrapped in blankets white, all creation, shivers underneath. Still I notice you when branches crack, and in my breath on frosted glass.  Even now in death, you open doors for life to enter.  You are winter. . .

And everything that’s new has bravely surfaced, teaching us to breathe.  And what was frozen through is newly purposed, turning all things green. So it is with you and how you make me new with every season’s change.  And so it will be, as you are recreating me.  Summer, Autumn, Winter, Spring.”

This was her song.  I happened upon it early after her diagnosis.  I prayed earnestly, passionately for her to soften her heart and ask You, the God of all seasons, to come into her life and change her winter of disease into a spring of eternity. 

And she did.  As she sat in her hospital room just a short time before she would pass, she asked my sweet sister to lead her to Jesus. And they prayed to You.  And she cried.  And in that moment, even then in death, You opened doors for life to enter, and You continue to open doors for those of us left behind.

Left behind, we feel the thickness of the winter cold.  But I’m praying time will heal quickly so all can pass from this season to the next, to the season where a new beginning dawns on the horizon, and all can once again breathe, and not just shallow breaths to get through the day, but deep, wholesome breaths that fill lungs anew.  I’m praying to soon find all things green, in a new spring.  For though the foundation of that family is gone, you can recreate.  And I believe You will.  Because I believe although you take way, you also give, just as she gave. 

And I believe this rain is not the end.  For in all rains, you give promise.  Promise to send your Son to shine upon us and usher in something new.  So we wait.  We wait for you to give and take away.  To take away the rain, the pain, the tears, and the longings.  We wait for you to take away this emptiness and loneliness.  But we also ask You to give, to fulfill Your great promise and send some sonshine.  To take this rain and turn it into a rainbow, giving us brilliant colors of You to fill our hearts, and brighten our days once again.   So Father, although you give and take away, may our hearts choose to say, Lord blessed be your name.  And Father, please send your Son to take this rain and create a rainbow for us all to see, for we really could use a change of weather.