Transformation
I realized something today.
I’m not even remotely the same person I was two years ago.
Oh, there are some similarities. I still love movies and music, coffee and chocolate. I still play guitar and love the fall colors. I still laugh at the same stupid jokes and like the same kind of jewelry. But the bitterness, hurt and pain once inside me is gone. And I realized it while listening to this song:
So, yeah. Tears.
I was so afraid this transformation, which I kinda felt as it was happening, would not be permenant. That once I left the bubble of seminary I would go back to the way I was. In a way I assumed that would happen. And maybe it’s too early to tell, but I find myself, even when under the most incredible stress and amidst a huge frustration that the bitterness doesn’t come.
I’m sorry, but that’s HUGE.
So I started thinking about when it happened. When had God done this to me? Was it when I left a job that frustrated me, was it the in the act of following God’s call, was it all the crap I worked through in counseling, was it how He gave me real church family that loved me and accepted me so much? Was it all of them combined?
He is jealous for me,
Loves like a hurricane, I am a tree,
Bending beneath the weight of his wind and mercy.
When all of a sudden,
I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory,
And I realise just how beautiful You are,
And how great Your affections are for me.
The line that always gets me in verse one is “When all of a sudden I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory”
That is my life. I just noticed that my afflictions were conquered by the One I was made to glorify. He smacked my afflictions in the face and said “No more.” He restored me in the most beautiful way. It was in my mentor’s office week after week as I poured my heart out to her. It was in my education classes, where I sat up front and asked question after question. It was in the writing of papers on my geneology of grace, my family’s genogram, an exegetical paper on a passage in Joshua and my thesis. It was in late-night conversations with dear friends and roommates. God’s glory eclipsed my afflictions. His glory was bigger than them all… and I am in repair.
We are His portion and He is our prize,
Drawn to redemption by the grace in His eyes,
If grace is an ocean, we’re all sinking.
So Heaven meets earth like a sloppy wet kiss,
And my heart turns violently inside of my chest,
I don’t have time to maintain these regrets,
When I think about the way He loves us,
whoa how He loves us, whoa how He loves us
Heaven met me. It was sloppy and beautiful, messy and wonderful. But it happened and I am ever so grateful. I am new, different, transformed. His grace is sufficient and I am overwhelmed.
Being Single in the Church
During my time in seminary, I found myself growing frustrated at something the church is pretty good at failing at: ministering to those who are single.
I think most people view a ministry to single people means creating a program where singles can gather together. Okay, that’s fine I guess. I’ve never much cared for these kinds of”programs” and while in St. Louis I avoided my church’s “singles ministry” like the plague. And then after a while I noticed how many different sermons I’d hear on marriage (this was after about a year and a half at this church). Most of these sermons were structured to talk about the difficulties of marriage and the blessings, too. That’s something I simply can’t relate to. While it may be interesting information, it’s not relevant to me. And after I realized I’d heard 5 sermons in the last year and a half on marriage, I asked myself, “Have I heard any on being single?” No, I hadn’t.
I understand it might not be that easy for a married pastor to do a sermon on being single, but I would like to know why this subject is being avoided so much.
Another thing I’ve noticed, especially once I passed the age of 30, is that most of the people my age – and the one I connected with – were married. Some with kids, some without. This also became frustrating at family events, where everyone my age spent the entire day talking about their kids. It’s really hard for a single person to join in the conversation about the hardships of their kids teething, or getting teased at school, or about how they are developing in school subjects. Family members I once could talk to for hours and hours about things became family members with which I no longer had anything in common. It made me sad, but it also kind of made me angry, truthfully. Why did the conversation always have to be about them and nothing else?
So, back to the sermon thing. As I noticed that I’d never heard a sermon about the perils and blessings of being single (though I heard many about the perils and blessing of marriage) I looked at the people who I considered to be good friends – and almost all were married. There were a blessed handful who invited to do thing with them and their friends – whether it was dinner, art in the park, a concert, etc. But it took a long time for us to get to that point, and even then it was rare for such an invitation to happen, truthfully. It’s very common to come to church on Sunday and hear some of your friends talk about what they did on the 4th of July or the dinner they had together the night before. And I don’t want to come across of lamenting about “not getting invited” but I do wonder if there isn’t some sense of 1.) She’s single and I don’t know what to do with her. or 2.) I think she will feel uncomfortable around a bunch of couples. And maybe the second is true for some single people, it just doesn’t happen to be the case with me. I’m probably far more comfortable with my married couple friends than I ever am in a room full of single church members who’ve gathered together for Super Bowl Sunday. (The second makes me a little nauseous, actually.)
So it seems that sermons about being single could help, don’t you? If married couples aren’t sure what to do with us, perhaps a pastor could remind them they they are just people looking to connect – with anyone, regardless of relationships status. And by labeling us single in the first place, it’s kind of like putting a large scarlet letter “A” on our chest, so that everyone knows there must be something wrong with us. There are married couples out there that remember what singlehood is like (And thankfully one of them goes to my church now and they always ask me to do things). But I would love to see this kind of attitude come from the leadership in the church – I would love to hear a sermon that reminds congregation members that being single is hard, and that single people need all the support that we can get (from married people in particular!) just to make it through this life.
Trust
“You are going to have to decide if your unrest is the Spirit not giving you peace or your fear of following God into the unknown.” – Friar Tuck
I’ve heard some say that it’s much easier to live with a sovereign Lord because no matter your decision it is the Lord’s will. “Nothing happens outside the Lord’s will,” I hear over and over again. And I believe, I guess. But I also must say I believe it’s actually harder to live with, because your trust in him is paramount.
It’s hard for me to accept that the Lord’s will was for this to happen or for this to happen. Any good reformer will say that it’s our sin nature that causes it. So God is responsible for only the good stuff and not the really heinous stuff?
I know where I could be headed with this isn’t good. But I do feel, at time, the neccecisity of pointing out the other side of the theological tension here.To ignore it is to ignore one of the greatest gifts God gave us: our minds. But what this post is about (actually, what most of my posts are about) is the heart. The unrest of the heart that kind either be about my own fear or about the Spirit moving.
Whenever I find myself in a situation where I realize how I need to trust God, I am troubled. Troubled because I find it so much easier to not trust him and rather, trust myself. This is a very dangerous place to be as his child, and I’m realizing more and more that’s it’s even more dangerous when you are in the vocation of ministry.
Two weeks ago I attended our Presbytery latest meeting, where the speaking (Joan Gray) spoke about Sailboat Christianity. She asked us, “Are we rowing the boat ourselves? Or are we allowing the Holy Spirit to blow the boat in whatever direction he sees fit.” These are tough question to ask ourselves, because to admit one is to admit you don’t trust God. I’ve had to do some of that (the trusting) of late, especially as I faced a decision – to come to Arizona or choose something else. To choose something else who have been just as much of a leap of faith and choosing to go, but it doesn’t always seem like that (to yourselves or maybe even to others).
What I am now looking for is some way to me to measure this. I know it sounds crazy, but i don’t know that I truly recognized the depth of my lack if trust in God. Actually, I do think I trust God. I just trust myself more. And what a terrible, awful place to be – in a place where you trust the fallible more than the infallible. Yet I find it much easier to blame the unrest I sometimes feel on the Spirit, rather than just admitting I am afraid.
Father, I pray for your guidance and your guidance alone. Allow me to understand when I’m trusting myself more than you, and not trusting you enough. Stop me cold in my tracks, if need be, if I ever step outside your will. Amen.
A New Birth
My blog silence has been rather inexcusable of late. Though I have had some major life changes and am still in the process of settling in and feeling normal again, I also have a healthy perspective that things may never feel normal again.
That said, I think it’s simply because I got out of the regular habit of journaling in seminary because I didn’t have the time. It is now time to re-discipline myself, and I just haven’t done it yet.
I have, however, been thinking a lot about re-birth. In the last two weeks I’ve been unpacking thing that were in storage for the last two years, placing objects with wonderful memories attached to them around my new home. I’ve painted many walls, shopped for new furniture, towels, yard supplies, lamps, and curtains. And occasionally I sit down on my sofa and look around at mostly old, familiar things. Things that were gifts, things that once belonged to family members, things I purchased on trips to see family and friends. They are things that reflect me and my life, but they are in a new place. The look the same, but they also kind of don’t. And I wondered, “Is this at like what it’s like to be re-born?”
Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a member of the Jewish ruling council. He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the miraculous signs you are doing if God were not with him.”
In reply Jesus declared, “I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.”
“How can a man be born when he is old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb to be born!”
Jesus answered, “I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” John 3: 1-8
I’ve been a Christ-follower my whole life. I did not have the “conversion moment” that so many talk about. I’ve just been on a journey [to heaven’s own bright king]. I guess you could say I’ve been in the process of re-birth my whole life. And yet, I’m still me.
The familiar things that now surround me in my new home are not unlike my old self. They still look the same… by themselves. But in a new place, they are altered. So I must ask, what new place am I in right now?
The obvious answer is Arizona. But there is another new place where I reside, and it’s in a place of transformation that I never grow tired of talking about. That sometimes wears me down and makes me weary, but never completely knocks me down.
But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. – 2 Corinthians 4:7-9
This passage often comes to mind when I know I am being pressed, altered, and transformed. So in reading on to the rest of the passage, all of my thoughts about re-birth begin to make sense.
We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body. So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you. -2 Corinthians 4:10-12
I am still me, but constantly being changed by the gracious work of our Lord and Savior. But just as sure as I am in a new state, new job and new home, I am also still me. But the beauty of the gospel is that it is never stagnant. How wonderful is that?
Starting Over
I was driving through town the other day, running a few errands. That always take a bit longer when you are getting to know a new city. And this city is kinds of a strange one… it’s very spread out with lots of small locally owned places. So a quick glance at signs doesn’t necessarily tell me much.
Once again, I am finding myself starting over. Didn’t I JUST do this? Having to find new things of nearly everything, like a hairdresser, a mechanic, a bank, a mary kay lady. Blech.(At least I don’t have to go church shopping. *Ba-dum-bum*)
“…and he also gave them provisions for their journey. – Gen. 45:21”
I never tire of reminding myself that ‘God’s work done God’s way will never lack God’s supply’. The mode I feel I am in right now, though, is “survival”. I often feel as though I am moving from deadline to deadline, program to program, event to event, and am unable to work on the theory of building a good support system, of training and equipping those in education, of writing policies and putting some structure in place.
It’s as if I am not only starting over in my life, but beginning something completely new in this ministry. I came here not wanting to do that, because I wanted to honor what the previous woman did here, and honor the church’s culture, and spend time figuring all that out. But as it seems more clear to me that what was done before didn’t work, I am now faced with deciding what to change, how to change it, and when to make that happen. I have a committee of wonderful people looking to me to make those decisions when it feels kind of wrong for me to be the one who does. Not because the Lord hasn’t gifted or equipped me. I believe he has. But because I don’t know this place the way they do.
My challenge is helping them understand that even though they hired me and I have the expertise and experience they wanted, I cannot be the white knight. I will not make decisions for this church on my own. I don’t want to be that leader… the leader that starts over just to start over. The leader that starts over because she thinks she knows what is best.
I don’t know what is best for this place. And that may freak some people out. I just need to figure out how to be a leader in the process of starting over, without completely starting over. I need to figure out how to lead adaptively, in a way that not only works, but helps them understand why.
Stephanie Nelson 