What is being Stolen?

It is ash Wednesday and my head is all over the place. I have been pondering and pondering my place in the church and in particular in the RCA. I visited a group of churches yesterday that do not hire ordained women (love the conscience clause). I think of the scene from the movie Elf where the kind little friend says to Buddy "you bring the elf choir down a whole octave"... in this case I brought it up a whole octave. I'm not really sure how I feel about that except to say that it pushes me right off of my confidence rock. I finished my presentation and returned to my hotel room a whir of emotion (I mean, it went well and everyone was super nice, it just left me with an odd feeling). What is my place in all of this? I sat down on my bed and looked over at the the coat rack that I had neglected to hang my coat on but had haphazardly left my scarf dangling from. It was a beautiful "God moment". It hung there with the pattern perfectly at front almost aligned end to end just like a pastors stole. So I cried. I then hopped online to discover that an old friend gave his testimony at his church and was baptized last weekend (I'm a small church girl, but gotta love big churches and technology sometimes). He said to me in a FB note "even when things were way out of whack the one thought I always had (even to the point it was pissin me off!! :D) was how you maintain to be so positive and speak your beliefs....I get it now. :D". I watched his testimony. I read his note. And I just sobbed and sobbed. It's a funny world we live in and God's power is, well, astounding. Just when I am about a half a shake away from saying "this is nuts, I am every bit the person I used to be, I'm just a girl and why would I even want to fight that fight, I'm tired (It's finals week), and even though I don't doubt my call, I do doubt myself" there God is. He calls one home that I really know well and have been rooting for and he draws my eyes to my old scarf on a dingy coat rack in a dim hotel room in snowy, nowhere Wisconsin.

ps, I am discipline challenged and this my my lent
(words of encouragement welcomed):

http://40days.bloodwatermission.com/members/kfishery/

The Ultimate Where would I be if Question?

Where would you be and what would you be like were it not for your faith and the grace of God?



Yesterday I read my Relevant media daily devotional email. Typically I cruze through it with my finger hovering over the delete button. The piece itself was not super interesting or insightful, but the question extracted really made me think... "Where would you be and what would you be like were it not for your faith and the grace of God". My gut reaction to this is "eek, I don't even want to know".

This week I have been drafting and rewriting my five minute or less of course presentation to a group known for it's conservativism. I have presented there before and am always sidelined by questions that instantly put me on the defense about who I am and what I represent. I'm not this or that enough, my organization is not this or that enough, etc. I have been working hard to learn and use a language that is unapologetic in it's decription of God and faith lived in an intentional and fully encorporated way, yet not in an overt, mandatory, nor procelytizing way.

I have been encouraged by my colleagues to put more of myself and my own story into my presentation and I have been really struggling with this. My story is not neat and pretty with a pink bow. It's messy. My life in particular before my walk of faith was a daily walk of shame. It feels entirely cliche to say "I didn't know the Lord and now I do" or "I needed to know grace" when the truth is I was abused, my life was a mess, and then I abused myself because it was all I knew and now I live into my relationship with Christ, but on some level that doesn't make my life less messy, just different (stay with me on that one, I don't mean I live an "unclean" lifestyle).

So the question on some level begs me to respond in this mega-transformation sort of way. And how on earth does one convey tranformation without first describing the starting point? (Be honest, some people just cannot refrain from judging the starting point). Any schmuck can say "I am a changed person" and that really doesn't tell you a whole lot about them. However the flip side of that is that "whoa was me, and now I'm amazing" testimonies can be tiresome too.

Where would I be and what would I be like?

I would still be a child of God, I just wouldn't know it yet. I would still be a caring individual who can sometimes be a pest, but I wouldn't know that God loves the whole of that me. I believe that I still would have overcome poor parenting, I would have kicked drugs (I never really liked them anyway), I would have eventually learned how to be a better friend and a person who trusts others. I came into this world with a strong fight response (albeit God given). I never aimed to let the world keep me down. If I did not know God's grace I would sadly just be a lot more tired from the fight because I would not know that I can be at peace and rest and that He is my number one uplifter. I wouldn't really be very different, but my soul and my countenance would be. I am thankful that I can enjoy the journey!