In the Mystery

In this season, I'm realizing more and more that life with God is mysterious.

For perhaps the first 15 years of my adult life (age 18 and above), I never saw myself as mother. I lack patience. I get anxious easily. I have a temper. I used to look at children and feel a sense of dread...so needy, so clingy, so new at everything.

I then married an incredible man, hands down the best. And many thought (even I thought) that my dread would change. That producing something that was half his would be magnificent. And yet 5 years into our marriage, we felt so complete. We rarely argue, we laugh a lot, we see eye to eye on most major issues, we love to travel, love to eat. Many think we are actual blood relatives because in many ways we just fit. So 5 years in, we think, why have children? Things are great the way they are. We can go anywhere we want, sleep for as long as we want, have our house as clean as we want etc. Life is just so simple, not that messy, and peaceful.

And then 10/2018, some switch was turned on in my soul. It was like in an instant, things changed. Suddenly something inside me began to yearn for something more. Not just anything more, but something that was half mine and half his and all God's. I still can't fully tell what exactly triggered it, but it was unmistakable. I began to pray into motherhood more intentionally than ever before. It's still a mystery to me.

As I prayed, I realized I carry a lot of fear, tons of inadequacy, and just plain laziness. I saw my marriage as a gift to be treasured only by us and that's it. After all, it had already borne so much fruit: ministries, libraries, clinics, etc. And yet, God wanted more than that for our marriage. More than that for each of us. Mysterious.

As I prayed, a realized that I yearned for him to be a father more than I wanted to be a mother. I think I carried around this idea that I was never cut out to be a mom. I don't cook. I hate cleaning. I don't like hanging out with children for too long. Kids who throw tantrums really stress me out.

But, God saw something deeper. Something past the inconvenience, fear and inadequacy.

Perhaps it looks something like this:

See this flower is perfect. Fully in bloom. Not missing any petals. It's totally complete. And yet there is another bud forming. It's not yet bloomed, but right there, new life is promised.

See, I know many who have kids because there's some yearning or longing they want filled. There is a gap in their marriage or relationship that children can bridge. I'm not saying that's bad, but that's just not us.

Our story is different.

I believe God unearthed the desire for children in us and continues to grow this because He wants to make us more like Him. He wants us to understand more about who He is, how He loves, how He perseveres. He wants us to deposit the precious seeds of the Holy Spirit in the next generation.

N., I want you because you are God's gift to me. I want you because you are the culmination of every good that me and your father have. I believe you will out-blossom us all, in every way. You will make this fully bloomed flower, that much more glorious. You won't complete us, you will expand us. You will make us better, bigger, more like your Maker.

You will be a precious addition to this world that God has purposed you to be. It's still a mystery when you will come, who will be, or what you will impact.

But, you will come. You will grow. And you will make things more beautiful.

Life in Death

As Christians we talk a lot about life after death. Eternal life. We talk about heaven as this distant place we long to get to. This isn’t bad. But I wonder…

Is there life in death?

I think there are seasons in life characterized by deaths. Not just physical death, but a dying… a dying to our own agenda, our expectation, our desire, our plans.

It’s a dying that’s a combination of deep disappointment and discouragement fused together like a knot in the throat, a pit in the stomach.

Is there life in this place? Where death is happening? When death is not a final completion, but an ongoing journey of loss? Loss after loss.

Does Jesus offer life in this place? And if He does, how do we find it?

One of my best friends reminded me of this verse today (paraphrased): Unless a grain of wheat falls to the earth and dies, it does not bear much fruit.

It’s counterintuitive that fruit comes from death, that fruit is borne from unlikely, unhelpful, disabled, diseased, weak, dying places. But this verse makes it clear. I mean it’s basically a foreshadowing of this: Jesus had to die to save us.

What would have happened He was never crucified? But instead He performed miracle after miracle and proved His majesty and glory that way and then ascended into heaven? Why did He have to die in order save many, in order to bear much fruit?

This is a mystery I don’t fully understand yet, but I think it has to do with sacrifice; with paying the ultimate price, so that the ultimate price led to the ultimate fruit: eternal life and the saving of the world---the whole world.

The verse talks not just about fruit, but bearing much fruit.

So in our dying, there isn’t just life, but much fruit.

I’m realizing the key to bearing fruit in death and finding life in death is this:

Open eyes.

Our eyes must be open to see the threads of life flowing through our dying places. The glimpses of life in what feels like constant darkness. To track like a patient hunter in the forest, the nuanced movements of the Holy Spirit, clarifying the season, repositioning the throne of death, overshadowing it with life.

The eyes of my heart, my spirit, even my physical eyes must be open to see the life that Jesus always offers no matter what season I find myself in.

In Jesus there is always life. No matter my circumstance.

God, I open my eyes as I enter into my first ever sabbatical from work and church. I open my eyes to see the life you are offering me in the midst of this season of death. I open my eyes to accept this season as one not just of death, but of life in death.

I say yes to your life. I choose to open my eyes. I choose to see the way you see.

N., I pray that you experience life in all things. That even as I go through this season of my own, that it somehow plants a seed of truth in your being that enables you to navigate seasons of deaths with wide open eyes. That you would find God in all things, you would see Him in the recesses of hard circumstances, in dark corners of disappointment, in hidden places of worry. I pray that as you are knitted together, that as your eyes form, that they would be graced with a spiritual openness to see life in death your whole life. 

May your eyes know that in Jesus there is always life.

Reverent Unknowing

Today, the Alabaster team called me from Endonyolasho. There are only a few who would fully understand the miracle that is...

Endonyo is hundreds of miles away from any proper city, any running water, any electricity. For the 7 years we have been sharing life with this precious community, they have been cut off from the world, no phone calls (except near one solitary tree), no internet, no roads...

But last year when we went, something had changed. The rolling hills once bare now boasted a tall, metal tower...a cell tower!! Back then in July 2018, I didn't know how much it would mean to me personally that these hills now supported this tower.

But today, it meant more to me than I could have ever known as my husband, friends, teammates called me from within the brand new library Alabaster had helped build. So much new in just one call...new phone calls, new library, new books...new possibilities.

Yet, I could have never known this significance 1 year ago. But God knew. He knew. He knows. He always knows.

I'm realizing that I need to live in submission to a deep unknowing, accepting that I will never fully know the future, the path or the outcome of things. All I know is that God is good and that He has good in store for us. It's a Reverent Unknowing.

I couldn't have known that as of this day, I carry no child, I'm in LA and not Kenya and my husband and team are thriving without me. I wouldn't have known that I would no longer be needed. It's a challenging, and yet deeply important lesson for me to learn:

I'm not that important.

To God, yes I am, but in the grand scheme of His plans, He doesn't really require me. He invites me, but not begs me. He welcomes me, but doesn't always wait for me. He allows me to ask, but never demand. He's God and I'm certainly not.

So today, I meditate on the picture below because it sums up the beauty of this reverent unknowing. Sums up the truth of not being needed.

Below is my beautiful, world-changing husband, standing without me, in front of the library he helped birth. In the midst of the children he loves in Kenya, he stands, with that signature smile of his.

What's most poignant about this quite candid and unfiltered photo, is the young boy that seems to somehow be connected to him, pulling him in.

I don't know yet the eternal significance of this photo and why it speaks to me so much. But I know that it feels important enough to write about and paste here. Reverent Unknowing.

N -- this is one of the many things you will inherit from your father. Probably one of the most important. Meet your first brothers and sisters all the way across the world. They are our teachers. They are our friends. They taught us love, courage and perseverance. They taught us gratitude and how to have joy in simplicity. They taught us how to see God in all things. They made us ready for you.

One day you will meet them and our world will be complete.

A Broken Psalm

It is in the crushing that we are ultimately made whole. In the choosing hiddenness over glory that we are made new again.

It is written that You make a path through the sea. Today the sea is loneliness, a searing feeling of being left behind or forgotten. Today the sea is my very tangible, very present reality.

Why is it O God that death must happen before life? Even in conception, cells are broken and divided before they replicate, form bone, tendons, muscle, breath.

Why is it O God that we must break in order to be made whole?

Broken.

Heartbroken

Time broken

Purpose broken

Broken.

And yet, it is in the breaking that we are set free. It is in the crushing that we are given capacity to behold You, hear from You, love You for who You are, not who we want You to be.

It is in the breaking that we are both fully distinguished from You, and yet simultaneously grafted into You.

So my spirit declares, Amen, to this breaking. I yield my spirit, my will, my heart, my misunderstanding, my confusion, my anger to the breaking, the crushing.

In every granule of my crushing, I am made one with You.

In the crushing, I become one with reverent unknowing, with mystery, with submission.

Yes, Submission.

So Amen I say again.

Amen.

About Your Father

N.,

Let me tell you a bit about your father. As I sit here, not having seen him for over 24 hours, 2 continents away from him, I am in awe of him. The man you will some day call your Dada is a man of deep, pervasive, abundant:

integrity. 

He is man who left an entire life -- security, money, praise, comfort. He gave it all up for us. For me and in that, for you. He gave it all up for a prolonged season of anonymity.

From a string of no's, a struggling business, to being thrust into a whole new culture, a whole new church, a whole new way of functioning, a whole new professional career, your father is a:

survivor. 

He is both firm and kind, relaxed and focused, deep and easygoing. He is both extroverted and introverted, a great listener, but also a great speaker. He is:

all things to all people. 

There is not one person I have met that doesn't deeply respect or admire your father.

He is man who runs hard after what is right, even when it hurts, even when it's inconvenient, even if it means giving up security, comfort, freedom. He is a man of:

faith. 

Today, as I sit here missing him, he is on his way to Africa to launch his first of many libraries. A vision he had for many years coming to fruition. A dream being made to reality. He is a man of:

vision.

Even as he left, he had to decide between trusting God and going to Kenya or choosing to stay behind to focus on a life-changing event in his career. He chose the much harder thing. The thing that on the outside seems less, but on the very inside, has deep spiritual significance. He chose to dive head first into the mystery of God's presence, instead of the security of the world. He is a man of immense:

loyalty.

N., you are so deeply lucky to be fathered by this man. A man of incredible significance and worth. A man of grit.

Even as I write this, I am struck by his decision to go to Kenya without fully knowing its purpose and without fully knowing if it will end up hurting his career. He took a huge leap of faith and as his wife, I reluctantly leapt with him. We don't know how it's going to turn out, but we do know that God honors faith, God honors obedience, God honors stepping out and God honors a pure spirit. Your father is a man of:

courage. 

N., my prayer for you is that you will learn each and every day from your father. Learn his ways, soak up his sincerity. Learn his servant heart. Allow him to discipline you with his firm and consistent love. I pray you will grow up and embody your father's deeply beautiful and compassionate heart. I pray you will see the goodness of God through your father's loving smile, his hefty laugh, his intent silences, and great love for food. May you grow up to be a man of great service to others, just as your father.

What a privilege to consider that by God's grace, my life will soon shift, expand, radiate out to include two men of deep, deep, deep:

impact. 

N., I love your father more than words can express. He makes everything he interacts with better. Most especially, me. He sharpens my words, trains my heart to love more deeply, reminds me of who I am and who God is. Without him, I couldn't be your mother both literally and in every other way. His deep love for me has released a spirit of motherhood I never knew existed within me.

So one day, as I gaze into your eyes N., I will only be filled with immense gratitude--for within you, in your very DNA, holds the best man I ever known and will ever know:

your father.

No Eye Has Seen

I said goodbye to my husband and the Alabaster team today. Off to Kenya they go...without me. I kept it together at the airport. Smiled, feigned peace, made jokes about them being an all South Asian team flying together to Dubai and then Nairobi. It was all so cordial.

But inside, I was dying. Faint of heart characterizes how I feel in this season. I can't rely on my heart these days. One minute, I trust God and I lean in and the very next second, I am in complete disbelief, angry, running far away.

What do we do when our heart, the central hub of our emotions, is no longer reliable? 

What do we do when our limited...oh so limited humanity, comes up against the sovereignty of an Almighty God, whose thoughts, ways, timing, reasoning, thinking, planning are 100% higher than mine?

God and I are supposed to be so intimate and yet we aren't even on the same playing field. It's like trying to play chess with a giant. We don't see eye to eye, I can't predict His strategy, I can't see His body language or facial expressions, I don't even know what pieces He's moving.

So everything in my heart says He's not good...He betrayed me, deceived me. He's a giant that can't be known or predicted so is it even worth it?

Unreliable.

So I need to press in deeper, much deeper. Past the tears, the confusion, the anger, the hopelessness. I need to find the inner place of my spirit.

Ugh...sounds SO new age-y and flimsy. And yet, in my deepest places, I know it's true. I need to move, act, think, pray, praise, cry through my spirit in this season. Everything else is death.

My spirit says this: Even when it hurts, I'll praise you. Even when it hurts like hell, I'll praise you. Even when the fight is lost, I'll praise you. It's actually a Hillsong song, but it's truth today...every day...each day I wait for you, N.

I praise you God.

I praise you Jesus.

I praise you Holy Spirit.

I put a period after each time because that's all there is. Just praise. I have nothing else to turn to in this season. I have to live from my spirit and praise God even as my heart feels like a weighted stone -- a chaotic, entangled, turned-inward muscle fully incapable of praising God on its own.

Life in this season and frankly in every season can only be fully lived from the place of the spirit.

Living from the spirit is way easier said that done. It means that external cues, emotions, logical rationalizations have to be thrown in the garbage...incinerated. It means having to believe it's true when Isaiah 64 says (paraphrased): No eye has seen, No ear has heard, what God has planned for those who love Him/wait on Him.

WHAT???

For a control-freak, enneagram 3, the above verse is awful to me. Ultimately, it means we can't ever fully know what God has in store. All we can know in our spirits is that God is good and His goodness NEVER fails. Everything else is really not within our capacity to fully know.

I am living this out right now...why? Because EVERY SINGLE PRAYER that has been prayed over me regarding the timing of me getting pregnant (including my own prayers) have been 100% WRONG. Every. Single. One.

So, this tells me this: either all of these precious people are wrong and can't hear from God (which I know to be untrue) OR...

No eye has seen, No ear has heard...

For some reason, this season of listening and hearing from God has been ravaged by seeming misinformation. Chracterized by words I thought were for me, but clearly have turned out not to be.

What do we charismatic, evangelical, pentecostal Christians do in the midst of this?







Praise. 

Press in...deep into your spirit. And even when it hurts, praise.

For one day, you will see, for one day you will hear, and you will look up and say:

Those who trust in the Lord will never be put to shame. He has done it. (Psalm 22)






P.S. N., if you ever read this, know that this was the greatest lesson your parents needed to learn in this season.

It is well

Sometimes you have to believe before you can see. Even when things seem total opposite of what was promised or hoped for. Today marks the end of 7 months of wondering, praying and hoping.  7 months ago, I decided not to go to Kenya this year in hopes that I would be pregnant. What an incredible story it would have been, right? So symmetrical, so poised, so human.

"I released one seed for another...I was obedient and it paid off...I trusted and God rewarded me...I heard a word and it came to pass at the exact time I wanted." 

See the problem with all that is the word "I" is primary. It's all about me. My timeline, my agenda, my vindication, my saving face.

And today, that "I" died. Shattered. My husband, Alabaster, my closest friends are off to Kenya in 2 days and I'm left behind...seedless. No baby, no inclination if I will ever get the chance to give the above name to anyone...ever. No tangible reality that even this blog I have created will even have purpose one day.

I have so many questions. 

I have no answers to give when asked why I'm not going. I'm left with a deep emptiness, brokenhearted, confused, lost.

I wonder if this is how the disciples felt when Jesus took His last breath on the cross. All the promises of eternal life, all their hopes of serving a revered king, all the words of majesty, dead on that cross.

What did they do those next 3 days? What did they do Day 1? Were they angry? Betrayed? Lonely? Confused? Lost? We know they hid, we know they feared, we know they doubted.

Day 2: perhaps denial and hopelessness turned to passive resignation, rationalizing. Trying to be above their raw misunderstanding.

How do we move in the Day 2s of our lives? 

When our worst fears are realized, when the opposite of what we prayed for or hoped for or thought God said, happens. What do we do in the opposite places?

I don't have any sophisticated answers, but I do know this:

Running away is not an option. Acting like I'm not hurt or sad or confused are also not options.

So I stay. I wait. I trust. I try to believe. I praise.

In Day 2, I become one with the dark. It doesn't become a place I visit, it becomes home. It becomes the place I learn to obey even when it hurts, even when it means I die to myself every second, every minute, every hour.

In Day 2, in the dark, I choose to hold on to a God I don't fully understand, to a God that is totally different from me, to a God that speaks in parables, to a God that fully knows me more than I know myself, to a God that knows the beginnings from the ends, to a God who transcends time.

In Day 2, God is othered and that is both a heartbreaking and freeing reality. (even as I write this we experienced an earthquake (the last I felt was 6 years ago) and I'm reminded again of how other I am to God's power and magnitude).

So I hold on to the photo above. I drew his name in the sand 2/1/2019 as a declaration that I believe God is a promise-keeper, a God of miracles, a God who doesn't deceive or overpromise or underpromise. Who doesn't lie or cheat. A God who can make good on His promises not because we deserve it or try hard enough, but because that's His nature, the only thing He knows how to do.

Nathaniel, I don't know if I'll ever meet you, hold you, bestow this name upon you. And today on my Day 2, I grasp this reality.

In my Day 2,  I am learning to say in quiet, strained, tearful whispers:

it is well with my soul.

This is what it means to see in the dark.