Remnants and Stories

Posted on September 12, 2013 by

2 Comments

One of the most interesting aspects of my job involves remnants.

It’s amazing what you find when you are cleaning and sorting through a church cabinet or closet. Everything from old bandages from a first aid kit to curriculum from 1987 to pictures of kids in the nursery from 10 years ago to construction paper scraps are discovered. There are keys to things we don’t know about (see above pic) and crayons. Each person who touched those items, each kid who used them in Sunday school… they are part of the larger story of the body of Christ and the kingdom work God is doing in this place.

One of my favorite ways to decorate any space around me, whether it be my office at work or my home living space, is to fill is with things that have memories attached to them. I love looking up from my desk at work and seeing a frame piece of parchment paper with the lyrics to Amazing Grace on it. I love it because it causes me to remember the church I served in Nebraska for many years that gave it to me when I left to attend seminary. The reason why they chose “Amazing Grace” is a particularly sweet and wonderful story (that will bring my dad to tears if you tell it.)

These are the remnants we leave behind.

When I find an old craft from VBS, or a unknown key to a cabinet, guitar chord sheets from songs in 1998, I am reminded of the many that came before me. I am reminded of the faithful souls who serve the people of this church far before I ever arrived. And thus, I think of those who will come after me when I am long gone.

These remnants, as well as the items we place around ourselves that mean something sweet to us, are identifiers in a way. They represent a small part of who we are, who we want to be, and who we were. They represent a season in the life of a church and who it used to be. The phrase “standing on the shoulders of giants” could not be more appropriate here. I am here because Jesus loves me and has given me the grace to be able to serve in this place in this time. If you were to go back to Nebraska or St. Louis, I’m sure there are a few remnants of my time there as well. I guess I don’t see that as a “legacy” or “making my mark” but more as leaving a piece of myself behind, and this is far more for myself than for the sake of others. These remnants tell a story, an important one, about the body of Christ.

May I never loose the importance of these stories.



Our Inextricable Connection

Posted on August 8, 2013 by

Leave a Comment

When I grabbed my phone off the charger this morning to toss it in my purse and head out the door to work, I glanced at it briefly and discovered my entire screen filled up with facebook messages from high school classmates.
The group had been trying to plan a reunion, so it wasn’t unusual to see these messages on my phone’s screen. But the message this time carried much different news than reunion plans.
Grief is a strange thing. We’ve lost two classmates already to unexpected, early deaths. Other classmates have lost parents and other family members. But now, one of us had lost a child.
It’s probably been ten years since I have seen anyone from my graduating class. I’ve moved around a lot – Kansas, Colorado, Nebraska, Missouri and now Arizona. And since I wasn’t particularly close to anyone in my class, I haven’t made an effort to call or exchange emails over the years. I left high school behind the year I graduated and haven’t really looked back.
My class was small because the town was small. 20 kids. So we all knew each other. And 13 of those 20 kids that all graduated together started Kindergarten together. We shared 13 years in that small school, all in one building. We walked the halls together, decorated our lockers with the latest trend, we ran laps together in gym class, shared blow dyers and suffered through an eccentric science teacher, a grumpy math teacher, and a few others that helped define our high school experience. We played kickball in the 4thgrade, held mock elections together in the 5th, and shoved our desks together in the 6th grade.
Whether we like it our not, we are connected because of this shared experience.
I have not been shy about my high school experience. I wasn’t a fan of most of it, which is why I left it behind without regret. But these people are still connected to me. Facebook has made that physically possible. But emotionally, the connection is a far more intrinsic and mysterious then I can even begin to understand.
Because when I read that one of my classmates lost a child, not only did my jaw drop in disbelief, but my heart caved in grief for her and her family. I am not close friend with her, but she is my classmate, my comrade… we went through the foxhole of Loomis Public School together for 13 years. We are connected, inextricably. I hurt because she is hurting. But not just by virtue of this being a tragedy, but in that we are bound together because of where we are all from.
There are no words to say to comfort in a time like this. I can offer up prayers to the God who created me and save me, the God I love and worship for this family, with the peace of knowing that He is walking beside her in this grief. I am angry at a fallen world that is the cause of car wrecks. I am sad for someone that I do not really know, but am linked to in an unexplained way. Sad that she has to go through the loss of a child so young. I can rail at the unfairness of this tragedy, knowing that “fairness” really has nothing to do with it at all.

And I will do this from afar, probably without her ever knowing. But that’s okay. We are tied in a way I don’t understand, and that is why I do it all in the first place.

the slow art of mending

Posted on August 5, 2013 by

Leave a Comment

When I find myself trying not to look across the room, wondering. When I find myself waiting for that acceptance in some form of contact. When I find myself assuming rather than knowing. When I find myself waiting and hoping that this isn’t really rejection but just miscommunication.

When I find myself asking “was it something I did?”

When deep down I am really just asking myself “is it something I am?”

Everyone hates rejection. That does not make me special. The desperate pain we all feel when rejection hits our hearts and the ache causes our chests to cave in and our breathing to become shallow. This is real.

But perhaps I am the only one who feels this way.

I find myself desperate to mend the feelings of rejection that seems ingrained in my soul… that crop up when an expectation isn’t met, when an invitation isn’t extended. When leaving feels like rejection, even though it isn’t always. When criticism tears open a wound where a freshly healed scar was mended by a prayer. I want to mend, I want to take the bleeding wound and cover it with gauze in the form of anything but what it should be covered with just to stop the bleeding.

I so want to be that person that finds contentment in every moment given by a person. That is happy with the time given. But I am not. I feel insecure when an expectation isn’t met. I feel rejected most of the time. Security in friendships very rarely exists for me. Yet I am forced to play the part of secure so my anxiety is hidden underneath a calm exterior with a coffee cup in my hand and an even expression on my face.

This is more than understanding who I am in Christ. This is more than just believing that I am his child and that he accepts me totally and completely. I know this deep down.

But I also know the rest of the world doesn’t.

My whole life I’ve been telling myself that I am known and loved by Christ. But this has not changed my desire to be accepted by the rest of the world – especially by the ones that mean the most to me. It’s much easier for me to find my identity in those that fill the rest of my world, and to allow what they do to change the way I see myself. All the while knowing how Christ sees me. I manage to separate what was never meant to be separated.

I ask God to stitch together these wounds with words on paper, with prayers murmured, with music that allows salient tears to form in the corners of my eyes and drop down onto the back of my hands. The slow mending works to heal several times each week, but as disconnected as I end up from the reality of what is happening, my irrational feelings surface and they are masters at opening more wounds.

So the mending is slow. But it is deliberate. I am inching ever closer to the “joy that seekest me through pain.” There is a love that will not let me go.

http://youtube.googleapis.com/v/ZiZ9xXoZ1Mk&source=uds

pragmatism and the lavish love of God

Posted on July 16, 2013 by

1 Comment

I grew up on a farm.
That doesn’t mean much in my life now, for I’ve always been a city kind of girl. My mom made sure there was more than just farm culture in my life growing up and I have fond memories of trips to see the Nutcracker, Broadway shows, museums and all others kinds of things that she believed would make me a more well-rounded person.
I was still the girl who had to get up at 6am in the summer and help her brother irrigate. The girl who rode on the back of pickup truck and shucked sweet corn after a morning in the field, picking it by hand. I was still the girl who mowed an acre and half of lawn on the homestead, rode horses when she could, and had a chore list.
I was also the girl that got lost in the music of Miss Saigon and Les Miserablés, lived my life with rich imagination (okay, it was more like my version of a pop music video but… whatever) and wanted to know more about Van Gogh, devoured The Catcher in the Rye and was often brought to tears by sections of Rachmaninoff’s Themes on Paganini.
Growing up on a farm meant we lived our life simply but not without some splurging. Both my parents are intensely practical (which was not my bent) and for the most part, I lived by the rule of “If you want it, you need to earn it.” I never did without, and having a pragmatic temperament was how I was raised.

I took a week off from work at the end of June to fly home to Nebraskaand spend some time with my family on the farm. I checked the weather before I left and planned for almost 100 degrees, which is incredibly rare for that time of year. And I was disheartened, because it was 110 in the desert and I was ready for a reprieve.
But it wasn’t that hot the whole time I was there. Nearly each day was 80 or 85 degrees, with a perfect gentle breeze. The lazy mornings on my parents’ deck were 65 degrees, which found me bundled up in a blanket with a cup of coffee and The Signature of Jesus by Brennan Manning. This is book about discipleship, but because it’s Brennan Manning, you cannot miss his heart for teaching us the spectacular, lavishing love of Jesus Christ.  Not in a “yeah, he loves the world” kind of way, but in a heart-crushing, mind-wrecking, hits-you-right-between the eyes “He loves me” kind of way.

One day during vacation, on my way to have coffee with a friend, I rolled the car window down and actually remember feeling hugged by God. It was as if he knew I needed to be refreshed and that the weather was the way my soul would be rejuvenated.

The idea that God would provide beautiful weather while I’m in Nebraskaseems ridiculous from a pragmatic point of view. Why would God make the weather beautiful for me?  That just seems silly. And when I say it out loud to my family I wonder if they have an element of disbelief in their minds. It’s almost as if I can see them smirking and saying “Doesn’t God have better things to do?”
But he doesn’t.

“Nothing is more puzzling to me than our massive resistance to the inbreak of God’s love. Why are we so churlish to receive? Are we afraid of becoming vulnerable, of losing control of our lives, of acknowledging our weakness and need? Do we keep God at a safe distance to protect the illusion of our independence?” – Brennan Manning writes in The Signature of Jesus.

For me it’s some of what we mentioned, but far more. For me, it’s my practical and sensible side insisting that I am not important enough to have such a frivolous prayer answered.  This is all rooted in the belief that my desire for comfort is not a way God will show me his extravagant love… that I am too insignificant for this to really matter to God.
But I am not.

Every day during this week, I would arise around 7:30, grab a coffee cup from the kitchen, and putter my way through the house and make my way out to the deck (I learned after the second day to grab a blanket), join my parents for coffee and bird watching. It was perfect weather. 
And there were moments that I dismissed the feelings of “God is being so gracious to me right now with the weather because he knew I needed a reprieve so much…” –  thinking to myself, “Why would God do something as trivial as give me nice weather while I’m on vacation?”
The night time included more time on the deck with more time reading (I finished three books) with lightening bugs, crickets, frogs jumping around my feet, oak trees as high as the heavens and green, green, green grass. None of that exists here in the desert, and I miss it desperately.
Because of my upbringing, I approach most of my life in a very pragmatic way. I also approach my feelings in a very pragmatic way.  (Which is a real challenge when you are a very sensitive person.) So when I have these kinds of feelings about God’s everlasting, , crazy and frivolous love for me – well, those feelings seem silly.

But the Bible says differently. If the cross taught us anything it’s that God loves us deeply and passionately… and he will go to any depth to show us how much he loves us.  If he would allow his son to die for that love, why wouldn’t he make the weather pleasant for me on my vacation because he knew I needed a break from the Arizonadesert weather? It sounds crazy to think this, yet God’s love for us just that – crazy.

It is a challenge for me to live and rest in this kind of love. I’m not completely sure it can ever been understood, and sometimes the most important thing in my life is to understand things. Understanding helps lead me to acceptance. And that is a barrier I am facing right now.

“The most difficult thing in mature believing is to accept that I am an object of God’s delight.” – Alan Jones
For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth in named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith – that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with the fullness of God. – Ephesians 3: 14-19

Of Influence, Change, and Loss

Posted on June 5, 2013 by

2 Comments

I’ve been refreshing my mind on adaptive leadership of late, as some significant changes are happening in my job. Three themes are on my heart today, and when something is on my heart I will loos sleep until I write about it.

Influence
___

I’ve been placed in a position of great influence, pretty much by accident (on my part.) But I am aware of the power I now hold and have been prayerfully processing how best to use this in grace, challenge and love. Influence must never been abused, and must always be used selflessly and with wise discretion.

There is another term for this kind of influence – most of the terms are nouns. Some call it a “power-broker” (I first heard this when I read the book “Transitioning” by Dan Southland). PBS went so far as to call it “The Merchants of Cool” in one of their best episodes. Some simply may call them influencers or leaders.

I call it terrifying.

I’ve spent a fair amount of time in the last six weeks or so asking God and asking my friends, “Why me?” Once I realized God was calling me into this place of influence that I never intended to be in, I was brought to my knees. I’ve never been ambitious career-wise. i have firmly believed that God will place where he wants me. I have, however, always been a leader in the midst of conflict. (I’m terrible on the fly, but give me time to think and prepare to deal with a conflict – that’s something I understand how to do.) This doesn’t make it any less terrifying.

Heifetz, Grashow and Linsky wrote a great book through Harvard Business Press called “The Practice of Adaptive Leadership” and one of  the many great truths I’ve been processing today is how people view change. Most people, according to their research, don’t fear change. They fear the loss that accompanies it.

Change and Loss
___

The resistance that comes when change is proposed actually stems from a fear of loss.This is a game-changer, especially in a church culture. Churches are notorious for being slow to change and some churches deserve this reputation. Some do not. I’m currently in a church culture that typically embraces change – mainly due to its transient culture of people – but also because the changes we make are changes that disrupt the culture too much. I think that its here we find the challenge of loss.

Change that doesn’t disrupt too much doesn’t bring much loss. But this begs the questions: is it truly change? If there is not loss of the ways things use to be, then aren’t we still holding on deeply to a structure or purpose that may still be lurking in the background, but that shouldn’t be lurking there?

As leaders seek to practice adaptive change within the ministry and mission of the church, we cannot and must not lose an understanding any of all three: change, loss and influence. All three must be used wisely, with the guidance of the Holy Spirit, to fulfill the mission of the church for God’s people.
I am fearful of my own loss right now. This is my revelation for this moment. I am fearful of the loss that may come in this job that – while I wasn’t entirely comfortable in – I still felt like I had footing in. This will likely be changing soon. I am fearful the loss of my own comfort in that.

I’m just going to say it: boo.
Follow Stephanie Nelson on WordPress.com
Archive