Cardboard Blessings

It happens in life that you come to a place of reckoning, where everything is stripped away and you come face to face with the stuff of who you are. It is like the heavens open up and you see yourself unvarnished. The supports fall away and the bare-naked truth reveals itself: We really are dust. Or cardboard. That's the way I came to think of it at a particularly pointed time of unvarnishing in my life. Through those somewhat painful moments I began to see how human I really am, that without Grace filling me up, my life is more like cardboard than crystal.

That "moment of truth" was quite a few years ago. While it was quite a shocking revelation at the time, I've come to accept, make friends with, my cardboard-ness. After all, though it is not very pretty, cardboard is not as fragile as crystal. And I kind of like the anonymity that comes with being deeply ordinary. I am comfortable there. Don't get me wrong: I try really hard to give my best. But I also know that in my quirky expression of self, my best is not often pretty. It just is what it is. I jokingly tell my dear prayer partner, "At some point God has to take credit for my ineptness; after all He made me this way, and only He is able to make me into something different." Sometimes I feel like I need one of those cartoon bubbles over my head filled with words: "Please forgive her; she is cardboard." Or dust. People may need the explanation, but God never does. I love the scripture that says, "He knows how we are made; He remembers that we are dust (Psalm 103:14). Even cooler is the verse right before that: "As a father has compassion for his children, so the Lord has compassion for those who fear Him (Psalm 103:13). So I just recklessly abandon myself to the Lord's compassion. I know that He gets me.

The coolest thing happened the other day. For months I have been frustrated with my little boys clothes chest. It has shelves in it where we stack his clothes, but as he sorts through them they often become a tangled mess. There is no order, no neat stacks, just the chaos of wadded pants, shirts, and shorts. For a while now I have wanted to get baskets that we could use to separate the clothes in this chest, but it always seemed like such a frivolous expense. And then the other day I happened to think that the boxes that hold the baby wipes and diapers we use for our six month old are just the perfect size! Sure enough they fit perfectly, neatly holding pants and shorts, with shirts nicely folded and stacked in between. I even cut the fronts off of them so that we can easily see what is where, making everything easily accessible. After the fury of activity that made the mess manageable, my sons and I stood back with awe and appreciated our hard work. Instead of chaos there were simply stacks, neatly contained by, you guessed it, cardboard.

It took me a couple of days to realize what had happened. Not so much in the "my son's room is messy" arena, but in the "my soul's room is messy" arena. For the purpose we needed fulfilled for little boy clothes, those cardboard boxes worked perfectly, better than fancy baskets that would have cost alot. And I realize now, for the purposes God has chosen me for, exaclty who I am is exactly who He needs. This cardboard self that I am has Divine purpose. And I don't have to be crystal to fulfill it. And even if I were crystal, I never could be and do the things He needs me to be and do. From His perspective, no apologies are needed.

From my quiet time today the scripture reading is this: "What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you came to believe, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. The one who plants and the one who waters have a common purpose, and each will receive wages according to the labor of each. For we are God's servants, working together" (I Corithians 3:5-9). This is all to say that God uses us according to His own wisdom, working through our lives in unique ways that ultimately bring glory to Him alone. So don't worry about not being something you are not. Sure you may not look like Apollos or Paul. Your life may be more cardboard than crystal. But God has a purpose for you that absolutely will be fulfilled when you surrender your self to His love, boldly trusting in His awesome compassion. He love you, and dear one, He also loves through you.

This is me full of trust,

Sami

Fourteen Years Ago Today . . . .

My husband and I play this game. It's called, "Do you know what you were doing _________ years ago today?" Sometimes it goes by, "Do you remember where you were?" Or "What did you eat for dinner?" Or "What clothes were you wearing?" It's mostly him asking me, but I like it. It's a fun game.

Mostly because it helps me mark milestones in my life, and the sign posts can often be missed because they are so ordinary. But on special days, even the ordinary has significance. I remember fourteen years ago today waking up and trying to take a bubble bath in a hotel room with a fancy jaccuzi tub. For some reason I couldn't figure out how to make the plug stick, and all my bubbles kept running out. By the time I found a solution, all the hot water was gone, my bubbles had disappeared, and I had used up my time to leisurely enjoy a bubble bath tinkering with the drain on a crazy bath tub that required a PH.D. to operate. And I wanted my day to start out special because one of the most significant events of my life was getting ready to take place: I would marry Tim.

As a pastor I have learned to tell couples getting married, "Don't worry about what goes wrong; ten years from now you will laugh about it." I think that is one of the greatest lessons I have learned, laughing makes everything better. Rarely does anything in my life match the scenarios that I invent in my head. But time has taught me that life is good anyway. On the day of my wedding, the fancy tub didn't work, I took a cold bath, my hair didn't do what it was supposed to, the candles weren't lit for most of our pictures, and my dress didn't fit down the aisle. Yet despite all the pitfalls, we shared a lovely worship service with beloved family and friends. Tim and I sealed our promise to one another at the same place we began our relationship, the altar. I was walked down the aisle by one of the most precious men I have ever known. And my sweet father blessed our marriage as the one who performed our ceremony, preaching a beautiful message on the power of God's grace to overcome all obstacles.

The scripture for our wedding was Romans 8:35-39. It says:

Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, ‘For your sake we are being killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.’ No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

My Dad spoke of God's never failing love, and the power of the love of Christ to redeem everything in our lives, no matter what we experience, no matter what mistakes we make. In fourteen years Tim and I have discovered that to be true. Perfection doesn't exist in our lives, but grace is lavish. Through all the ups and downs, heartaches and heartbreaks, we have found a Love that holds us, even when we are too human to hold each other. And somehow that same Love gives us the strength to love one another better than we could simply in our own strength, amazing both of us sometimes.

I share all this as my celebration, captured in a very ordinary day, in remembrance of another ordinary day filled with significance. Today my hair didn't do what I wanted it to, my toe-nail polish is chipped and fading, I somehow got toothpaste on my shirt, I forgot to pick up something at church, my quiet time didn't quite happen the way it was supposed to, and I haven't gotten anything on my to-do list accomplished. But today is filled with significance. Because I am still in love with the man I married fourteen years ago. He is still the love of my life. And perhaps more extraordinary given my incredible self-doubt and insecurity, I know he loves me. Wrapped up in the craziness of my ordinary life is wonderful Grace, mysterious Grace. Grace that makes ordinary beautiful, expecially in its commonplace insignificance. I am so thankful for God's love that keeps me so much better than I can keep myself, and helps me to appreciate the best gift He's ever given me . . . . Tim.

Sweetly Broken, Still

I've spent the week still pondering the whole sugar bowl incident, and what it means to live my life with an open heart, even when it means that my heart might sometimes be broken. I have been pondering the connection between brokenness and love. The most powerful connection for me is Jesus, which the song "Sweetly Broken" is all about. Specifically I am considering the weight of love revealed in His words, "This is my body broken for you." The words themselves add a whole new revelation to the phrase "sweetly broken, wholly surrendered."

When I was in seminary I had what some would describe as a vision. All I know is that I had a powerful experience of Jesus that filled all my senses in a way I had not known before. And what is funny is that, although I had given my heart to Him a hundred times in my adolescent life, I had never had that experience of His presence. Now the presence of God, or the Holy Spirit, both of those were very real to me. But feeling Jesus as a part of my life was so hard for some reason. And then there was that night in seminary. I was in a worship service, my eyes closed, my voice raised as I sang a love song to the Lord. In my mind's eye I saw someone standing before me, hands stretched out to me. The face was obscure, but those hands had been pierced. I knew exactly Who it was, and in astonishment, joy, and relief I grasped the hands held out to me. I was so overwhelmed at finally having a real encounter with Jesus that I began to weep. Ever so gently those nail-pierced hands lifted to my face and began to wipe my tears away. "No," I said, "There are too many." And the voice of Jesus spoke to my heart, "There are never too many tears for Me to wipe away."

Jesus always appeared to His disciples after the resurrection with the scars of His death intact. Even in His glorified self, His body held the evidence of His love for the world that He died to save. So when He says to us, "This is my body broken for you," we can believe Him; He does not erase the cost of loving us from His person, as if it didn't happen, as if we had ceased to exist for Him the moment He enterend heaven. It is immensely comforting to me.

Because a broken heart is not the only risk that love has demanded from me. My body has been broken as well. I am the mother of three boys. Each one was delivered by C-section. For the first two I have a fairly well hidden horizontal scar on my abdomen where they cut a hole in my body to pull my children out. I begged my doctor for this third time to just let me have another incision like that. But she did not give in; the scar tissue inside my body was far to bad. As it turned out, having a vertical incision probably saved my life. Without it, she told my husband afterwards, I would have been in trouble. And so now I have a red scar that stretches up my belly.

In the month or so after giving birth to Jeremiah, I grieved for my body. I wanted the old one back; the new one looked ugly to me; the new one made me feel ugly all over. One morning I simply sat in the middle of my closet and cried. In the midst of terrible physical pain, a breastfeeding nightmare, hormonal overload, and kidney stones to top it off, I just broke down and wept. Every part of me hurt: body, mind, spirit, and soul.

As I sat there crying, my sweet three year old came in. With a gentle touch he cupped my face in his little hands and looked intently into my eyes. "Mommy, you're a princess," was all he said.

As I have pondered the words to that worship song the last couple of weeks, the meaning of "sweetly broken" has gone deeper and deeper. I am beginning to make peace with my body. I am immensely grateful to it for giving me the gift of motherhood. I love being a mother, and I love my boys with all that I am. Now when I look at my scar, I try not to think about how unflattering it looks, but rather about how those three boys are so worth it. It is worth it to me to bear a scar that brought my children into the world. I guess that is how Jesus feels about His own scars. It is worth it to Him to bear the scars of bringing His children into eternity.

I still don't feel much like a princess, at least not the image of one I carry in my head. But I know I am one to my son. And I believe I am the daughter of the King. He died to bring me home to Himself. So being a princess is not about unblemished perfection. It is not about being untouchable and unreal. Instead it is about being boldy accessible, vulnerable and bendable, willing to enter in to love, even at the price of suffering. I continue to learn that love truly does conquer all. But it is only His love that makes real love possible or plausible.

This is me full of trust,

Sami

Sweetly Broken

Monday I got to go to Camp Loucon for Youth Workers Sabbath. It’s one of my favorite things. I look forward to it each spring. It gives me a chance to reflect on where I am at the end of another school year, to renew some precious friendships with youth pastors who have been opening their hearts to kids for years, and to just be refreshed and renewed in some forgiving space for awhile. This year the theme song for our worship was “Sweetly Broken” by Jeremy Riddle. The chorus goes like this:

AT THE CROSS YOU BECKON ME
YOU DRAW ME GENTLY TO MY KNEES, AND I AM
LOST FOR WORDS SO LOST IN LOVE
I AM SWEETLY BROKEN WHOLLY SURRENDERED

I was very moved by the song and really felt a connection to it. I left my time away with those words pressed into my heart. And so I returned home to the busyness of finals week, and the preparations of our Ladies Tea Party. Replacing my hiking boots with strappy heels, I prepared for the end of year celebration soon to take place at my house.

The thing is, I love tea parties. In my first place of ministry my dear friends introduced me to the practice. Anytime one of us had something to celebrate we gathered around fine china and crystal, being very intentional about making our time special and the guests honored. I continued the tradition when I became a campus minister. I wanted my girls to know themselves as special and honored too.

Last night I got out the server pieces from my original china set to serve sugar and creamer in. It is beautiful to me with its delicate curves and filigree handles. The china is a pristine white that is transparent when held up to the light. It was part of the pattern I registered for as a new bride almost fourteen years ago. As I went to fill the sugar bowl with sugar, the unthinkable happened. It was too close to the edge of the counter and accidentally got pushed off, shattering as it hit the floor. And “sweetly broken” began to have new meaning for me.

Two of the young ladies who joined us last night will be moving on to new adventures soon. One is graduating, and the other is transferring to the University of Louisville. It was a very bittersweet celebration. On the one hand I am immensely grateful for the opportunity to know and love them. On the other hand, my heart is breaking as I say goodbye. Like my sugar bowl, I too am sweetly broken.

Jesus warned His disciples that they must count the cost of discipleship: “Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not first sit down and estimate the cost, to see whether he has enough to complete it? (Luke 14:27-28).” I don’t think He says this to scare them, but simply to let them know that there is a cost in following His path. Jesus heads straight for the path of love, and love leads Him to the cross. It leads us there too.

Like a sugar bowl (even a fine china sugar bowl) was made for sugar, my heart was made for love. It would be so easy to keep my china and precious tea cup collection safe. I could just go to the store and buy disposable everything. But then our tea parties wouldn’t be so special. And all that beautiful china would simply sit unseen in a cabinet, never fulfilling its intended purpose. I too could protect my heart from loss. I could go through the motions and never risk getting hurt by never opening my heart. I could keep my life an unopened book, never sharing its mysteries, struggles, and triumphs. I could never share the story of who I am, never listen to the story of who you are, and never allow those stories to shape each other in eternal ways. I could lock up my heart and never allow the presence of a student to live there and never suffer loss when they leave. And I could live a miserable, joy-less, empty life, bereft of laughter, flat, without any vibrant color or candor, simply a barren existence. I could do that, but I would forever forfeit who I really am. My heart was made for love.

And I am a pastor whose flock always leaves. As my sheep, I will love you, nurture you, pray for you, wait for you, patiently tend you, gently guide you, and always worry over you. But if I do my job right, you will always leave me. And if I do my job right, your departure will always leave an ache in my heart. Loss is the cost of loving you into the fullness of God’s intention for you as a sheep in my care. Still I would not have it any other way. After eight years of being a campus minister, I have discovered that I was made for this ministry of loving students into fullness. It is worth it to me to suffer this loss. You are worth it to me.

Because we are all worth it to Him. On the cross Jesus answered Love’s call and laid down His own life so that He could take our brokenness and sin into His own heart. It was worth to Him to die there so that the power of sin would be broken in our lives, and so that we would know without any doubt that we are forgiven. When scripture says that nothing can separate us from the love God has for us in Jesus Christ, it speaks the truth. He removes the sin that separates us from God’s holiness by His death, and then He removes the death that sin breeds within us by His resurrection. His gift to us is eternal life, peace with the Father, and love that cleanses us from all un-love. Praise Jesus.

I know what I was made for. Do you know what you are made for? Part of my purpose is to help you discover that, to love you into it. To walk beside you until some day you walk into the destiny God has prepared for you, designed you for. The thing you would suffer loss for because nothing else fills you up quite the same way. And that is what you are to me.

So I love you, because He loves me and chooses to love you through me. In ways you cannot know you have been grafted into my life. And when it comes time to let you go my dear ones, it will always break my heart. But I am so grateful to be sweetly broken.

This is me full of trust,

Sami

Doing the Pee Pee Dance on South Lawn

Let me begin by saying, this particular e-letter is not for the faint of heart. The subject after all is “doing the pee pee dance.” But I am a firm believer that everything teaches, and I will use anything to tell students about Jesus. Nothing is off limits. So here goes . . . .

I have a urinary tract infection. The pain comes and goes, but when it comes, it is brutal. The feeling I described to my doctor is like peeing razor blades. Not fun. Thankfully he gave me some antibiotics and a purple pill I’m supposed to take 4 times a day, with a lovely side effect of turning urine blue. I got kind of tickled this morning when my sweet husband Tim says to me, “It looks like a smurf broke into our house in the middle of the night and used our toilet.” Precious.

So yesterday I was on South Lawn with our prayer labyrinth. We got to participate once again in “Stresstivus” which is sponsored by WKU’s Health Services. I love participating every year since it invites students who wouldn’t go to church to experience Jesus and prayer in a meaningful way. But because I was hurting and had to go to the bathroom every 45 minutes, there was a big part of me that just really did not want to be there. Campus outreach projects are some of my favorite things in the whole world. I mean, that is when I am an over-the-top fool for Christ. For example, during our Easter Egg give-away I put on a Sunflower headband. It looked like I had yellow petals sprouting from my head. (I would have worn the pink bunny ears, but they clashed with my t-shirt.) I love sharing the love of Jesus with random people in inviting, winsome, and often wacky ways. So it was a bit disconcerting to be on campus sharing Jesus and not quite having the heart for it.

Here is the thing. We had more people walk our prayer labyrinth than ever before, and I even got to have some really cool conversations. Each person who participated received a mosaic tile as a reminder of their experience, along with a corresponding bookmark with scripture and reflection questions on it. These were given as a way for the experience to speak deeply to their lives in the areas of transformation, experiencing a heart of peace, or learning to live like “lilies of the field,” without worry. We had a great response.

And the whole experience was a real lesson for me. The scripture that comes to mind is from 2 Corinthians 12:9: “But [the Lord] said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’” Most of the time, I live my life as if the whole world relies upon my strength. I am fully aware on many occasions that God’s presence and power under-gird me in ways I cannot comprehend, but I also feel weight of responsibility so heavily. I know that there are people depending on me. While I am so aware of my limitations (and mostly because of my limitations), I just feel like I can’t afford to not give all that I am to everything I do. It’s like I believe that if something significant is going to get done, I have to make it happen. Well yesterday my maker was not up to making things happen. My maker was simply making me have to go pee all the time, praying that sometime soon the pain would stop. Yet in the middle of all that God my Maker showed up.

Yesterday I was reminded in a powerful way that God is not dependent upon me to do His thing. He can do His thing whenever and wherever He wants. He can move with the power of a mighty wind whether I am feeling up to it or not. I guess what I am trying to say is that I don’t have to be my best in order for Him to be His best. Marvelous happens on His time schedule, regardless of what is happing in mine. I’m so thankful. So I guess the moral of this little confession is that God helps those who cannot help themselves. He does His best work when we cannot work at all. Thank God. I’m just hoping someone else needed to hear that as much as me, because I feel kind of silly having to confess to and repent of my own self-sufficiency. So there you go. Praise the Lord. Oh, and by the way, the razor blades are gone. Praise God!

This is me trusting,

Sami

Common Beauty, Uncommon Love

It is spring time and dandelions are everywhere. Have you ever thought about the difference between dandelions and potted plants? One is common; it grows at will, wild and un-tame. Very ordinary, and in its abundance very obscure. One is cultivated; it’s growth is precarious, needing time and attention. It grows through intention, needing specific care to be sustained. It is special, specially placed, and specially noticed. I am a dandelion girl, growing wherever I will, wild and un-tame. Thoroughly common.

A few years ago I noticed a set of dishes in a department store sporting pictures of various wild growing flowers, usually considered weeds. The dandelion was just one of four common flowers that graced the front of that particular china pattern. I loved it. I loved that an expensive set of porcelain captured the loveliness of the ordinary, elevating it to the ranks of beautiful, as these un-common dishes sat beside the more common stacks of rose painted plates. It gave me the courage to notice the beauty in what is often overlooked, simply because it is so abundant.

Obviously Someone is cultivating the common. I believe it is God. God loves dandelions, and there was a time when we did too. I remember as a girl making numerous bracelets, necklaces and crowns out of the yellow blooms, stringing each flexible green stem through the next until there was a chain. I remember the fascination and joy of watching the white dandelion seeds being lifted by the wind as I blew upon their fuzzy heads. In that innocence of youth, dandelions were still flowers, not yet weeds, and still an object of beauty instead of an aggravating nuisance. Whatever happened to our uncommon love for common beauty?

I think it is because our culture has trained us to think that only unordinary things are worthy of notice, that life at its heart is a competition for VIP status. Only the rare and very important things and people matter. What is common is undesirable, unnoticed, unworthy. Understated is uninteresting. Our culture tells us that if we want to be successful, marketable, and have value we must be over-the-top, bigger and better than everyone else. Survival means setting ourselves apart. Even if it hurts others around us, grabbing that status is everything. And once we are deemed worthy of attention, we have to work even harder to stay that way. In the college scene it means belonging to the best organizations, making the best grades, establishing the best reputation, enjoying all the right contacts, gaining the most achievements, growing the best resume. And ordinary is just not good enough. Only outstanding will do. You future happiness and well-being depends on it. Sound exhausting?

As a teenager and young adult, I used to see people (namely myself) in those same terms, believing that the category of beautiful applied to pageant winners, the “in” crowd, and people with power and prestige. Beauty, or worth, I felt, was only reserved for those who were “special.” So I tried my hardest to be as special as I could, making the best grades I could, being as acceptable as I could, pleasing the most people I could, gaining all the success I could. And when I couldn’t live up to those standards, my world came apart. The Lord patiently put me back together again. Somehow I learned along the way that I had to make peace with my ordinariness. Then I began to discover God’s grace that creates and loves the ordinary, naming and claming that which the world does not. His purposes for such ordinary things surely outshine worldly efforts at greatness. And just like we cannot stop the dandelions from filling our yards, neither can the world’s demands for extraordinary deny the power of an ordinary life lived through simple trust in the Lord.

I love these words from scripture: “Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you—you of little faith! And do not keep striving for what you are to eat and what you are to drink, and do not keep worrying. For it is the nations of the world that strive after all these things, and your Father knows that you need them. Instead, strive for his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well” (Luke 12:27-31). It is almost as if I can hear God saying, “Have you looked at any dandelions lately? Did you ever think about why they grow so abundantly when you do absolutely nothing to make them do that, when you even try to inhibit their growth? Don’t you think if I can make dandelions grow so beautifully, I can take care of you too? So why do you think your well-being depends on effort you cannot possibly give? Stop trying to do My job! Instead, why don’t you just try to be the blessing I created you to be? So you are a dandelion in the great garden of life. I made so many because I love them so much. You are so beautiful to Me; just be what I made you to be!”

Don’t get me wrong. Potted plants are nice, but at the end of the day, they too are just plants, no better or worse than the ordinary dandelion. God creates each bloom with such exquisite detail and care, tending to the needs of each flower’s life with sustenance we can only guess at. Surely if God cares enough to give life to dandelions He also cares about us as well. And even in our ordinariness we can trust Him to have a plan and purpose that not only sustains us with mercy, but reveals His glory to those all around.

This is me trusting,

Sami

Walk by Faith

Last weekend eight students and I went to Camp Loucon for our Spring Retreat. It was awesome, and amazing, and it rocked our world! Woo Hoo!!!! Can you tell I had a great time? It was everything we needed it to be and more. The theme of our weekend was the twenty third Psalm; together we considered the many ways that God shepherds our lives. What I love about God is that He always speaks His message to us in several ways, through many mediums. I especially experienced this when it came time for us to do low elements.

We began our low element activities with our facilitator instructing us to get into pairs, handing out bandanas, and asking a person from each pair to be blindfolded. It was then the responsibility of the “seeing” person to guide the blindfolded one along a path set by our facilitator, using only her or his voice. The guides were not allowed to touch those being led; they could only tell them how to walk the path in their blindness. Sound familiar? Doesn’t it sound like following God’s lead when we cannot see Him or touch Him? I believe it is a perfect metaphor for faith—God, who knows all and sees all, tells us with hints and nudges how to walk through life in our blindness. And while we have the guidance of scripture and the camaraderie of a community of believers, in specific details we can only guess at what our best decisions are: we cannot see the future, we cannot possibly know outcomes or consequences, and we are clueless in regard to the intentions and decisions of others. We’re not even that good at predicting the weather, even though we try really hard.

It can be really disorienting. Like being blindfolded and asked to walk a path that may or may not be on the road. Because we had an odd number, I got paired up with both Derek and Tyler. We each got a turn to be the guide to two blind people and each of us got to be led around in the dark. I would much prefer to be blindfolded any day. Kind of like, I would hate to have God’s job. And both of my guides did a great job! It was so cool to see how each approached the task of guiding their charges to safety. Derek had a keen sense of description. I knew exactly what the terrain was at all times and exactly how best to approach it. Tyler lead with his own feet, making as much noise as he could by scraping and dragging that we always knew where his feet were and could simply follow their sound in addition to his specific vocal cues. I have often said before that the life of faith is like this. As we come to know the Lord, we each develop a language with Him. Thus He speaks to each of us in a way that is unique to the relationship we have with Him. Of course He does this; His loves each of us personally and specifically. What I found with each of my guides is that after a while I could relax; the pattern of our communication, their leading and my following, eventually became almost like sight. Familiarity opened up our trust.

And then we came to a point when Tyler said, “I don’t know what to say. We’re not changing direction or anything. Just keep following the sound of my feet.” And then I started to panic. My first impulse was to scream, “I don’t care what the road is doing, just keep talking!” I couldn’t see after all. I just kept thinking, “Don’t take away your voice too!” But then I found that, in fact, the road was fairly easy, and I didn’t need extra instruction, and the sound of his feet was so reliable I didn’t even need His voice. And then it struck me: “God this is so like you!” Isn’t it? Haven’t you found yourself trying to follow God and He suddenly becomes very quiet? All the ways that you used to sense Him speaking have dried up. The only thing you can do is to go on what you know about Him, and hope it will all turn out alright. And it will. In that moment of my uncertainty and panic it was as if I heard God say to my spirit, “You don’t have to worry when I am silent, Sami. Those are simply the times when my last bit of direction is totally sufficient. Just keep doing what you are doing and trust me to give you new insight when you need it.” In Tyler’s words I heard the sound of my Lord: “We’re not changing direction or anything. Just keep following the sound of My feet.”

This Sunday we will be going to Elizabethtown to share our outreach ministry with the home church of some of our students. One of the songs we are singing this year is “Walk By Faith” by Jeremy Camp. The chorus goes like this: “Oh I will walk by faith, even though I cannot see. Because this broken road prepares Your will for me.” In our walk with Jesus, there will often be times of clarity and brilliant insight, but more often than not, there will be times of guessing and hoping, trusting and blind obeying. It is in those times that our faith grows the most and we develop a keener understanding of Who God is in our lives, and who we are in His. I want to encourage you, dear one. If you are in one of those silent times when your faith is being stretched, know that you are still in God’s sights even when He is not in yours. You can trust Him to get you safely home. And also know, if you were not ready to trust Him more, he never would have led you to where you are now. Be blessed on the path you follow. He is always, and still, shepherding you.

This is me trusting,

Sami

Dream a Better Dream

Long before Susan Boyle made it famous, I sang “I Dreamed a Dream” for Senior Night the year I graduated from High School. Absolutely love the song. But it sure is sad. From the musical Les Miserables it tells the story of a woman, Fantine, who loved and lost, who naively gave her heart away and found it returned to her in pieces. Yet sadder still, such a brief taste of love ultimately left her stranded and alone with a child she could not support. In the end, she dies a broken woman who had sold herself in order to keep her child alive. The closing lyrics to the song say it all: “I had a dream my life would be, so different from this hell I’m living; so different now from what it seemed, now life has killed the dream I dreamed.”

This could be the life song of so many people. We start out in one direction, full of hope and expectancy, and then, for all kinds of reasons, things go in a direction we did not choose and cannot seem to change. Even for college students, whose lives are filled with promise and possibility, this is still true. Maybe it was the scholarship that didn’t come true, the acceptance letter that never came, the relationship that didn’t work out, the mistake that never goes away. Life has failed us somehow, and we stand confused, holding the pieces of our hearts in our hands. We keep telling ourselves sentences that begin with the words, “If only . . . .” We want to go back in time, choose differently, turn things around. We long for this opportunity, yet we are a million miles away from fulfilling it. I have been there. And so had Mary of Bethany, friend and disciple of Jesus.

We first meet Mary sitting at the Lord’s feet while He visits in her home; she is listening to Him, learning from Him. Martha interrupts, insisting that Mary assist her in the work of hospitality; Jesus simply says that Mary’s devotion will not be taken from her—she is right where she needs to be. I love the sense of intimacy that permeates the story. Of course his boy disciples are there, Peter, James, John, etc. Of course Martha is hurrying and scurrying. Of course it is a scene full of tension as Martha “subtly” makes her frustration clear before saying anything, while Peter and the crew wonder what is so special about this “girl” who gets to sit with them, hear what they hear, learn what they learn. The haughty sighs and grumpy harrumphs are the audible subtext of the story; not everyone agrees that Mary is right where she needs to be. But Jesus doesn’t care. And Mary doesn’t seem to either. For them, they might as well be the only two in the room, a woman loving the Lord with her whole self: mind, heart, strength, and soul. It is a beautiful picture of what Jesus invites us to: Intimacy unscathed by the chaos surrounding it.

And so when Mary’s beloved brother dies, her devastation is clear. She knows He could have kept it from happening. She knows Him, yet she doesn’t understand Him. Her anguished words echo this paradox of faith and floundering: “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” The subtext here is the un-asked question, “Lord, why did You not come?” I hear in her words the same anguish voiced by Fantine: “I had a dream my life would be, so different from this hell I’m living.” Mary had a different dream for her life too. And now she is caught in circumstances she could neither foresee nor change: she had trusted Jesus implicitly, opened her heart to Him completely, entrusted Him with the vulnerability of real belief, and Jesus failed to show up when she asked Him too. She is really devastated. Seeing her so, Jesus cannot help but respond to her grief: “When he saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved” (John 11:33). Jesus grieves with her. I believe He even grieves for her.

But her tears (and He knew she would have them) do not have the power to change His plans, plans that she could not understand or grasp. In a way I love this. Bizarre as it sounds, I love that He does not give in to my grief. It comforts me to know that He grieves with and for me—it is so like Him; He is compassion. But to give in to our hopes, even those that are good, is to do us a grave dis-service when He has something so much better for us in mind. For Mary Jesus’ intention was better than simply making her brother well. His intention was to bring the dead to life, to do what only He could do. While it is true that life often kills our dreams, Jesus invites us to dream better ones. He invites us to bring to Him our shattered and broken dreams, especially those that are beyond repair, because in the place of their death, He intends to bring life. In the places of our greatest devestation new hope is born, where and when we least expect it. It may not look like what we expect, but we can trust that it will look like something only He can do, far beyond what we can ask or imagine. Jesus looks at the tomb of Mary’s brother, and cries with a loud voice, “Lazurus, come out! (John 11:43). This is my Easter message: He doesn’t just bring resurrection, He is the resurrection. In the middle of our brokenness, He invites us to wait for His gift of new life. Be courageous enough to dream a better dream with me.

This is me trusting,

Sami

Fruit Basket Turnover--Wesley Foundation E-Letter (Methodist Campus Ministry)

Hello All!  Hope you have had a chance to enjoy this beautiful weather outside!  It is truly a blessing!  Vitamin D—Woo Hoo!!!!  Here is what is going on this week:

 

TONIGHT:  A special service at 6:30pm in our Chapel in honor of Holy Week.  Come and experience what God has to say to us through the final moments of Jesus’s life on earth. 

 

THURSDAY:  Free meal & program, 6:30pm.  We will be having and Easter Egg Hunt!  Yes!!  This is your opportunity to relive the childhood dream! 

 

EASTER EGG GIVE-AWAY ON SOUTH LAWN:  We will be doing this on Thursday from 11-4.  This is a change from Wednesday!  Each egg will have a piece of candy as well as one of about 15 different scripture verses folded inside.  This is an opportunity for us to be vessels of God’s grace for random students who walk by.  So join me as we share the hope of Easter in a tangible way with students on campus.

 

Now For Sami’s Ramblings About Jesus:

 

The last few weeks I have been mulling over a verse in scripture.  It has been simmering on the back burner of my mind, occasionally piercing my awareness, connecting with my inner longing for grounded-ness and a sense of being settled.  I have been told by friends that this internal angst is directly related to hormones that are still adjusting after having a baby.  I feel more myself now, but those moments when I’m lost in the hormonal shuffle seem like all my thoughts, feelings, and emotions have been tossed up in the air and someone forgot to tell them to come down.  As I wait for the pieces of my internal fruit basket turnover to land, I can’t help but long for simplicity.  So what does this simmering scripture say that so aptly speaks to my unkemptness?  It says, “after you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, support, strengthen, and establish you” (I Peter 5:10).

 

We all experience internal fruit basket turnover; it’s only a matter of how and when.  Some upsets are more piercing than others.  Some come with deep heartache attached.  Some simply are agitated by too many demands pressing in on our already stretched thin lives.  And so a fitting word from the Lord comes and speaks peace to all those troubled places deep in our hearts.  I love how God’s word is truly one size fits all!  Here is what He says:

 

1)       This state of heart and mind will not last forever.  It has a definite end in sight.  It is hard to say what “a little while” means in God language.  It could mean days, months, years, or even minutes and hours.  At any moment God can intervene.  And the point is that God will intervene.  It is not an “if” but a “when” matter.  It will be on this side of Heaven, precisely because of what God intends to do when He does show up in an unmistakable way.  He will move in your life in a way that is noticeable.  That movement is grounded in the life you know here and now.

 

2)       Which leads to the second point:  God, Himself, will step in.  He won’t send a messenger in His stead to relieve your suffering.  He, Himself, will step into your situation and bring relief.  Our suffering is the kind of situation that God takes to heart.  He absolutely, and very personally, cares about what is going on in your life.  And God absolutely, and very intentionally, chooses to act within the details of your life to reveal His presence and glory. 

 

3)       And finally, the work God Himself will accomplish for you and within you, is of the lasting kind.  It has an eternal quality and cannot be diminished.  Ever.  By anything.  When God steps in and begins to work, noticeable change takes place.  You won’t have to wonder how long it will last.  The things God sets His mind to do will last as long as He does. . . . Forever.

 

These truths are so comforting to me!  I am so glad that God is more than able to overcome the challenges in my life, and more than willing to step into the mess that I am and make it wonderful.  How cool is that?  We must mean the world to Him!  And I want you to take to heart exactly what He intends to do for us and through us.

 

The words that scripture uses are:  restore, support, strengthen, and establish.  The meaning of the original Greek has a way of opening up these words for us.  First of all, all of these words are verbs.  They indicate activity that God does in reference to us.  We are the objects of God’s action.  All four of these verbs appear as future, active, indicative words.  It is action that is to come; the subject of the verb (God) is performing the action (as opposed to receiving it); and the action is an objective fact (as opposed to being a subjective possibility).  This means that what God intends to do for us comes from His movement that will actually happen, regardless of what we do, say, or think.  It is dependent upon His decision to engage in our lives in a very specific way, and that decision has already been given.  We don’t have to wonder whether or not God is going to show up in our suffering; God is already actively engaged whether we realize it or not.  Now, what exactly does God intend to do?

 

First He restores us.  The Greek word used here is a form of the word katartizo.  It means “to complete thoroughly, i.e. repair (literally or figuratively) or adjust—fit, frame, mend, (make) perfect (-ly join together), prepare, restore.”  It means that every kind of damage that our suffering has brought forth, the Lord will make right.  He will heal it.  He will make it well again.  We can count on being mended and whole again.

 

Then He supports us.  Here the word used comes from sterizo.  It means “to make fast, establish.  To set fast, i.e. (literally) to turn resolutely in a certain direction, or (figuratively) to confirm—fix, (e-) stablish, steadfastly set, strengthen.”  It reminds me of how a cast sets a broken bone.  The cast supports the limb in its healing and ensures that strength will return to that which was once broken. 

 

And thus He strengthens us.  This word comes from the Greek word sthenoo.  It means “to strengthen, i.e. (figuratively) confirm (in spiritual knowledge and power) –strengthen.”  This word is based upon the root word sthenos  which means “bodily vigor.”  Not only will God restore the strength that was lost, but we will be overflowing with it.  We will be better than we were before our suffering ever started.  Both sthenoo and sterizo are derived from the word histemi, meaning “to make to stand, to stand.”  Both words speak to the strength God gives us to stand on our own after we go through difficulty, after we are knocked down.  Suffering never has the last word for God’s children.  He gives us everything we need to stand tall again.

 

Finally, God establishes us.  In Greek it is themelioo.  It means “to lay a basis for, i.e. (literally) erect, or (figuratively) consolidate—(lay the) found (-ation), ground, settle.”  It comes from the word themelios which means “of or for a foundation,” which in turn is derived from tithemi.  Now here is where it gets exciting!  Watch this:  tithemi means “to place, lay, set; to place (in the widest application) literally or figuratively; properly, in a passive or horizontal posture, thus differently from histemi which denotes an upright and active position.”  Did you catch that?  Not only does God give us strength to actively stand on our own (histemi), but He also does for us what we cannot do for ourselves!  He places us in a settled place, upon a foundation that cannot be shaken (tithemi)!  As pastor Tom Ferrell points out (in his sermon “Hope When Life is Hard . . .”) this word, themelioo is the same word Jesus used in Matthew 7:25:  “The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on rock.”  In His mercy, God heals our suffering, supports and strengthens us through it, and then gives us such a firm foundation that we cannot be knocked down again in the way we were before.  OH WOW!

 

Do you feel encouraged?  I do.  The grammar convinces me.  It helps me to see what I couldn’t before.  God has already made His mind up to do something about my life.  Something only He can do.  Something I need desperately.  Something I cannot do for myself.  And what He wants to do is an objective fact.  Something anyone can see.  We just have to turn everything over to Him, not allowing distractions to rob us of the peace He gives, trusting Him to be everything He says He is.  But that is another e-letter.  Be blessed and know that you are loved dear one.  His promises are for you.  Be brave enough to take them personally.  And I will too.

 

This is me trusting,

 

Sami

 

 

 

 

To subscribe or unsubscribe to the Wesley Foundation Weekly E-Letter List go to:

http://lists.wku.edu/mailman/listinfo/wesley

 

Sami Wilson

Campus Minister/Director

WKU Wesley Foundation

United Methodist Campus Ministry

270-842-2880

sami.wilson@wku.edu

 

Liminality--Wesley Foundation E-Letter (Methodist Campus Ministry)

Dear Friends, hope you are all well.  I am so looking forward to Wesley tonight!  It will be so good to see each and every one of you.  And I have a surprise for everyone who comes!  I got you all a present!  WOO HOO!!!!  You have to come and see what it is!  It will bless you, bless you, bless you!

 

Also, a word about Spring Retreat.  If you haven’t told me you are coming, RSVP to facebook or let me know through e-mail, in person, by phone, etc.  Thanks!

 

Now For Sami’s Ramblings About Jesus:

 

It is such a privilege to serve the body of Christ in the way that I get to.  I get to walk with young adults through some of the most formative days of their lives.  It is a time of discovery; separated from the framework of home, students must stand without the supports that formerly bolstered them, trying their own strengths that had once been tended and nurtured under the watchful eyes of parents.  I have often said that the most important education of college doesn’t happen in the classroom.  It is the education of learning how to live your own life, separated from home, yet still in an arena of freedom that still provides a safety net for the most scary steps of all.  And some of you make your way to my office, its own kind of safety net, and together we get to explore how walking through life supporting yourself feels.  It is scary, uncertain, thrilling, exciting, new, filled with exhilaration, yet constantly dogged by the unknown.  In a word, it is liminal. 

 

Liminal is such an unusual word.  My spell check doesn’t even recognize it.  It keeps asking me if I want to replace it with the word “luminal.”  No.  Liminal is exactly what I want to say.  My edition of Webster’s defines liminal as:  “of, relating to, or situated at the limen.”  Limen, according to Webster, means “threshold.”  And here is what Webster has to say about threshold: 

 

1) the plank, stone, or piece of timber that lies under a door: sill 2) a: gate, door b: (1): end, boundary; specifically: the end of a runway (2): the place or point of entering or beginning:  outset 3) the point at which a physiological or psychological effect begins to be produced (~ of consciousness) (a high renal clearance ~).

 

So liminality is best described as an in-between time or place.  In essence, things are ending and beginning simultaneously.  To be liminal is to be suspended between two points, without belonging to either.  For all of you biology majors, it is that moment when a neurotransmitter is suspended between the synapses of two neurons.  For all of you outdoor recreation buffs it is that moment when one is jumping from one rock to another and you are hanging in mid-air.  For all of you car owners who drive a manual transmission, it is that moment where you disengage the clutch in order to give it gas.  Hard to define where one ends and the other begins, but something significant is definitely happening.

 

As Christians, ones who belong to Christ, our spiritual walk is very liminal.  God is always wanting to do a new thing within us.  He is really into character development and new, abundant life.  Yet in order for the new thing to be born, something else must be relinquished.  So our lives become suffused with the tension of letting go and grabbing on.  Rarely does God manifest the new thing all at once.  It is a process that demands our blood, sweat and tears.  It must come from within us, so that it is truly a part of us.  Magic appearances do little more than scintillate our senses:  They have no lasting value; they are fleeting.  When God initiates change, it is a labor of Love, for Him and us.  This is God’s provision for lasting change; the cost assures us of its worth.  Thus we value the new life we are given.  But before it is born we labor with it.  Many times we are just so confused as to what the new thing is that we struggle with what old things must be retained as provision for the journey ahead or left behind as extra baggage.  These seasons are rarely neat; they are often messy, disorganized, and filled with disorientation.  And mostly these moments leave us exhausted, while we can’t even articulate why.  On the surface our lives may look as if not much is happening, yet inside tremendous change is taking place.

 

I believe God has enormous patience and love for those who have assented to the new thing He proposes; very rarely do we know what we get ourselves into.  And we cannot even say how or when or why we gave our yes, just that at some point we knew a time had come for the yes to be given.  I believe it is why our Lord has such a special place in His heart for college students.  Each one has said yes to such a radical upheaval of all that they know and love.  And not a one of them can say for sure where the pieces will lay when the four years are done.  Scariest of all is that sometimes at the end of four years, the degree is nowhere near finished, and that precious student stares into an uncertain future wondering where the time went.

 

So for all of those timid and tossed souls who are in the throws of liminality I bring tidings of Good News—God isn’t through with you:  “I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus” (Philippians 1:4-6).  He has better things ahead, hopeful things and helpful things.  It is good to remember the butterfly that is formed only in the cocoon.  And Jesus does not arise resurrected from the cross.  First He was entombed for three days, and His resurrection is born from the resting place of His death.  Is the cocoon or tomb our true home?  Surely not!  But what looks dead on the outside nestles the stirrings of new life within, and at just the right time new life will burst forth with amazing clarity and joy.  Wait for it, it will come.  Hear His promises to you, dear one:  “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love Him” (I Corinthians 2:9).

 

This is me trusting,

 

Sami

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To subscribe or unsubscribe to the Wesley Foundation Weekly E-Letter List go to:

http://lists.wku.edu/mailman/listinfo/wesley

 

Sami Wilson

Campus Minister/Director

WKU Wesley Foundation

United Methodist Campus Ministry

270-842-2880

sami.wilson@wku.edu