walk.

This is a true story.

Sometimes, I want to give up on God.

Usually because I feel overwhelmingly as though I've failed Him. I think...why bother? This is too hard. I can't be an actual believer. I kinda suck at believing anyway. Why keep at this? I'm never going to live up to the kind of holiness that Christ seems to call people to. I can't do this.

Then I try to strip it down. Where is all of this pressure coming from?

Some of it is coming from inside, some from out, but none from God.

What is God's role in all of this? I think He loves me. But then...can I let Him love me? Ohhh, that's a top-of-the-roller-coast kinda feeling. Am I failing at His love, too? Can I not even do what should be the simplest of all things--accepting grace? How can that be so hard? Just accepting, just letting, just being.

A million doubts still rush in. What if this isn't real, Ash? Suppose you've been taken. Mistaken. Will you be okay to play the fool?

But remember the beginning of this. There was joy there. You said "yes" to Christ for a reason. And you felt suddenly that there was so much you hadn't seen, though you would adamantly have sworn before that there had been nothing hidden. So here, again, you might not see it all without saying "yes." You have to trust the unseen.

Ash. From the start, you've said yes. You've kept walking. And at each new turn, you've not regretted it. The waters are getting deeper, the stakes seem to be getting higher. But the alternative is still the same. Still similarly unTruth-ful.

Walk.

we believe in one God.

I don't have the energy to make this pretty, so this'll be like ...and there alone is God: rough cut... unplugged, raw, live, etc.

I've been doing something a little crazy, without realizing it. So, when a friend of mine brought it up recently, it was easy for me to categorically deny her claim, because I didn't agree with some of the rest of what she was saying. Until tonight.

I was in church, thinking about how the sermon reminded me of this post that I wrote way back in April of last year. The post is about how no matter what is taken from me, God is the only thing that I really need, and coincidentally, He can never be taken from me.

I re-read it when I got home, and it touched me. I had such a pure faith at that time. I know that sounds silly--it was only 8 months ago, but as I've noted before, I feel like I've been on a rapid spin cycle over the last year and a half. My heart turns upside down, and back around, about once every three weeks. As I read, I thought..."Wow, you found such joy in God then."

I still find joy in God. Recently, though, it's been joy tempered by questions. Is the Old Testament meant to be taken literally in its entirety? How could a virgin give birth to God? (It is literally occurring to me as I write this that given that I believe that Jesus was God, the part about her being a virgin shouldn't be such an issue...I mean, really). How does culture interact with scripture?

I think I may be forgetting all that I do believe. I believe in an all-powerful God, who hears my prayers, and sent His son to account for my sins. I believe that He gives me the grace to change, and grow. I believe that He changes lives, and that I've seen Him change mine. I believe that He can overcome any questions I have about what is literal, and what is not. I believe that whatever happens--His great plan is good.

When I re-read that blog, I remembered what it was like to live in these beliefs fully. See, I've been putting my questions on the same level with my beliefs. So I've been holding back. Treating it all as suspect. Forgetting the great joy that comes in conviction.

And that's crazy. To allow questions about all that you don't know to affect the reality of all that you do...it's crazy.

My belief is not perfect. It's dependent, at best. But I want it to be joyful.

my forehead to His feet.

My Dad called me, and asked me to suggest a verse for a friend to whom he wanted to give comfort. "Ashley, which verse do you find comforting?"

Well, Dad. For my money, Romans 9:15.

There's flipping on the other end of the phone line. Then silence. Then incredulity.

"'I will have mercy on whom I'll have mercy, and compassion on whom I'll have compassion?' That's the verse you find comforting? That's what you want me to tell my friend with a sick daughter?"

Yes, and here's why.

What else are you going to say? Unless God Himself tells you so, it's probably a wash to tell anyone that that they're going to be healed. "Atleast she'll be in a better place"? Ouch. Like nails on a coffin. A simple "I love you so much, what do you need?" is a good place to start. But, you know, spiritual people want to say spiritual stuff.

So. Romans 9:15.

It's got everything you need. That is, it's got God being God. God being in charge. God enacting the plan of God.

Maybe it lacks varnish. It's not comforting like soft pillows, and haagen-daaz, and Guideposts magazines. But it's got truth, which can sometimes resemble the edge of a straight blade. Straight blades aren't comforting.

I think there's something to be said for Truth, though. Luckily, there are enough other comforting verses to fill in the blanks on this one. On whom will He have compassion? Everyone. Who will touch His mercy? We all do.

That last stuff seems like junk. There's this huge gulf of mystery between our understanding of salvation, and God. Some people don't ever reach for His compassion, and others won't ever feel His mercy. So, is He compassionate? How could He be merciful?

There's a real question there. An absence of knowledge. No logic can reach into that hole, friends.

But that's the beauty of the verse, see. Whether or not we understand the workings of God, He works. Though I might not ever make sense of the world around me, God's power is absolute. I ask, in frustration, why doesn't he believe? Why won't she just say yes? And my despair for the darkness is almost too much.

So I say: His will be done. But I worry about the contents of His will. Then, I reach for a comforting thought of God--something to soften that will. "He loves me too much for that to happen."

But really, the great thing about the verse is that it doesn't seem to reach out to comfort us, but to offer us reality.

He will have have mercy on whom He has mercy, and compassion on whom He has compassion.

Whatever happens, God chose it. Or He allowed it. Or He created it. And whether I love Him or hate Him through it all, He's the same. He's in control. Whether I shout at Him all night, or put my forehead to His feet, His is the power.

Now that's comforting.

to hear yourself.

A couple of months ago, I met a girl in a coffee shop who reminded me so much of me, I felt the making of a "God thing." My very own God thing.

As we talked about Christianity, and Christians, and Christ, and the peculiarities of each, I found myself saying things that aren't a part of any conversion pitch I've ever heard. Things like, "I don't always believe," and "Some days, I wake up, and have to remind myself of the logic of Christ," and "Honestly, sometimes I wonder if this is really true."

So I won't ever be guest-lecturing in any evangelism classes.

But I was honest. And she smiled. She considered me in a way that she had not considered the woman who'd attempted to witness to her before I sat down. I don't say that to elevate myself, because trust me, I just barely made it over there. The me in my head was shaking like a leaf through the whole front end of the thing. I say it because God knew. He knew that before she could hear of Christ, she needed to hear what she felt--uncertainty, and doubt, and sincere yearning to find God. She needed to be understood by a Christian, because she was so desperately hoping to be understood by Christ.

We come to Him in varied fashion. Some completely ready to fall, practically throwing ourselves down to His feet. Some sort of tottering on the edge, silently begging Him to push us. Others crawling forward, sticking out our necks, thinking, "What's down there?" Some others still entirely differently--far from the edge, or sitting stubbornly with our legs dangling over that edge, or refusing to acknowledge the edge, or perhaps like me: trying to rappel down the side, at my own speed, in control of the rope.

Sometimes, by His grace, I see. I understand that though I'm scared, He made me. And any moment that I am anything other than what He made me to be is one in which His great plan for others is weakened. Not that He can't work without me, but He does seem to work through me. He worked through me with the girl in the coffee shop. I was completely the person He made me to be in that moment, and honest about the parts of me that were not in fact a part of His creation. She saw my fear, and doubt and uncertainty. But because she saw me in Christ with them, I have to imagine that as a smart girl, she saw that Christ did not ask her to be above them, but to bring them with her.

What a beautiful design. That God would create us with a purpose for others. And what a terrible consequence of failure, or refusal, or stagnation. That others would miss out on their purpose in God's creation.

jubilance.

"Neither farmer, nor field is finally eligible for sale."

Is that not the most beautiful thing you've ever read? Probably not. Let me explain.

The quote is from a religious studies professor named Ellen Davis, in a book about the connection between Old Testament spirituality, and agriculture.

Davis had been discussing Jubilee, when I wandered across the words. Jubilee was the Israelite practice stipulated in the Holiness codes to occur roughly every 49 years--a time when land leased off during hardship would return to its original owner. Davis contends that in the biblical language, there is an intimate linking of person, and land, such that the ramification of this corner of the Holiness Codes is that...

"Neither farmer, nor field is finally eligible for sale."

The implication is that both belong solely to God. Jubilee is a codified reminder of that truth. For her purposes, this means that we ought to understand agriculture, and the industry that surrounds it, with a heart that acknowledges our sole dependence on our Creator.

I'm sure you're fascinated. The academic nerdiness aside, chew on that sentence.

Neither farmer, nor field is finally eligible for sale.

We've built this incredibly complex world. I don't know about you, but I don't really understand much of it. I don't know what happens when I flip a light switch on. The stock market is endlessly confounding to me. I can't keep on top of the news. And if complexity were my only problem. I live in a present giving way constantly to newly-unknown futures. I trust God, and everything feels so uncertain.

But to know that though I have no effing idea what's coming around the bend, that no part of my life or my self is for sale...

And that God wrote this into His word so long ago! That inherent in the most seemingly unconnected laws of agriculture is something that so perfectly binds me to Him.

There's such intricacy in His design.

26 ways to sunday.

I'm 26 tomorrow.

I never really imagined what my life would be like at 26, so I've got nothing to be disappointed about. In fact, I think I may be ahead of the game I could have played.

I have intact relationships with the majority of my family. I've got good friends--old, and new. I own a couch (albeit a rather unfortunate-looking one). I'll have a Master's Degree by the time I'm 27, not having paid a dime for it. I've not yet had a truly embarrassing karaoke experience (at least not any more embarrassing than any karaoke experience inherently is). I've been given incredibly extravagant opportunities to love people, and to prove to myself that when things are on the line, I'll make the right choice. I know God.

Sometimes, I worry too much. I get caught up in the details of who I am, and who I could have been, and who I ought to be. But really...I have lived the life out of these first 26 years. I've lived the milliseconds. I've felt. Experienced. Gone all in.

There's no reason to believe that whatever comes next won't be just as fantastical.

I didn't make New Year's resolutions. But I will make exactly one birthday resolution. It goes like this:

I resolve to be the person in public that I am in private. To stop scrunching up my face when someone says something deep about God. To not be so squeamish about how much I love my Lord. To be that open, heart-filled, sincere and earnest girl who writes about God, and prayer, and doubt, and disbelief. All the time.

Transparency isn't really valued in the pretense of academia. The world doesn't warm to naivete.

The word on the block, though, is that mine is a God who loves humility, and has grace for my timidity.

So, friends, maybe this it the year of crazy faith.

Watch out, Pentecostals.

rehab: resounding gongs.

I wonder what it means to "believe for" something.

I'm thinking about my Dad.

This faith thing has been interesting for me, because all of the things that had already been neatly dealt with in therapy, and tucked away, and cleaned--they're coming back around. Therapists don't care if you really forgive people in your heart. Jesus seems to.

Of all of the things I've learned from Tim Keene that he probably has no idea he taught me, it's that love is what Paul says it is. We were talking one day, and I said that a person was probably "that kind of person." Tim gently reminded me. Love doesn't keep records, and it always trusts, and it always hopes.

That means it doesn't expect you to screw up, it doesn't remember that you screwed up so many times before, it wholly and openly and miraculously believes that you'll be all that God made you to be. What an incredible gift to give someone. What an unbelievable thing to receive--that kind of love.

I've read over those verses so many times, thinking, "how pretty." But really-- how powerful. And how monstrously difficult. To love that way, without memory for wrongs, and with full and innocent trust in a person's ability to change and grow, it's dangerous. Pain awaits.

I had learned how to face and cope with the pain in my own story. I let go of what had happened, and decided to live forward with my parents. Our relationships improved.

But, as I wrote a few days back, God's love is so deep, so thorough, that to believe it, you really gotta believe it. The reality of His love is SO real that it will lay bare all of the cracks and the crevices of your heart. If you've been leaking, you'll know it soon.

As I travel with God, and I learn to let Him love me, my cracks are showing. The places where my love has been far less than perfect are leaking. Probably because though I had learned to cope, and to forgive, in a sense, I hadn't learned to love like God loves. Without records, and with trust and hope. Believing for that person's ability to be all that God intended. In my own ability, to be all that He intended.

I sometimes wonder what it would be like to love everyone like I'm supposed to love them at weddings. With patience, and kindness. Without envy, boastfulness or pride. Dishonoring no one, and entirely selflessly. Calmly, and with no sense of past wrongs. Truthfully, trustingly, hopefully. What if I loved my parents like that? Who could we become, if allowed out of their past mistakes? What could my friends achieve, if I loved them in the full light of their glorious identities in Christ? The receptionist? The girl who sits next to me in class? My students?

Maybe it sounds silly. But I know it's real. Tim loves people like that, and when we're talking, I know that I can be all that Christ intended--I know that I can believe for massive things, that I can trust God for miracles, that I can be holy, and loving, and brave. It's real.

As with all else, I've no faith in my own ability to love like that.

Father. Love me, that I might love others so entirely. Let me love past my expectations. You give such incredible grace. Help me to give that kind of grace. Father, give me the strength to expect the best in those around me, and in so doing, to allow them to grow into the full and incredible people You know them as. Heal my heart, so that my love will bring hearts to You for healing. Let me see people with the tenderness You have. Soften me. Give me patience. Give me all that I'm not wise enough to ask for. You're so good...

letting Him love me, today anyway.

"Maybe I should have had an abortion. I don't know."

I'm watching her say this, and all I can think is, "Has this crazy woman finally done lost her mind completely?"

My Mom had been telling me about her marriage to my father. About the affairs, and the verbal abuse, and how, when she told him she was pregnant with me, he told her to have an abortion. She was, apparently, so wrapped up in the story that it didn't occur to her. Comments about the feasibility of a past abortion should probably be had with one's best friend, and certainly NOT with the object of said procedure. I feel generally safer when the validity of my very existence isn't being called into question at the corner table of Pepe's Family Mexican Restaurant.

As with my father's past antics, this kind of thing from my mother used to sting. I'd be lying if I said that this particular one doesn't still get to me. It was as though, in that moment, she looked at us. She remembered everything about our life together, and what she loved and what she hated, and what we were. And she couldn't decide. "Maybe...I don't know."

I know that she loves me outrageously. She has sacrificed tremendously. But still.

It wasn't until this last year that I understood God's love well enough to see His response to her words. To understand that while my parents didn't plan for me, and the circumstances of my having come into this world were not joyous--He planned for me, and my birth was to Him...pure joy. God was certainly not shaking His head, thinking..."maybe." He wanted me. From the very start. For ever. Unequivocally. And not just after I came, but long long, long before I came. He purposed me.

Some comedian said that childhood is what we spend adulthood getting over. That's funny. Mostly sad. And incredibly true, when our parents are hurt people. When they weren't close enough with Christ to be whole enough in themselves to love us wholly.

Neither of my parents can understand why I keep a picture of them on their wedding day. It's a sweet photo of my father looking tenderly at my mother while she looks down at her ring, in love. They don't understand because they've each had two more weddings since the wedding in that picture. They're both now happily married to third spouses. It probably bothers them that I keep a memento of what I'm sure feels like a painful failure.

But to me--it reminds me that though there was little love by the time I came, there was once love! Though all I knew of them were screaming matches, and hatred, and hurt--there had been something beautiful once. I hadn't come from complete ugliness. Somewhere, there there had been light.

I wonder, sometimes, if a lot of my life has been about making a meaning and a value for myself that I didn't feel. Because, parents beware, no number of piano lessons and figure-skating coaches can replace loving. Loving your kid, and just as importantly loving one another, even in the worst of circumstances.

The truth, though, is that I can't make the same mistake as my parents. I didn't need a Dad who took me to the symphony, and encouraged me to read high-brow literature. I needed one who loved Christ enough to love us before himself. I greatly admire that my Mom never badmouthed him when I was a child, but I also needed her to want me unwaveringly.

I don't need to be the smartest, or the best. I need to love Christ enough to trust Him to heal the hurts that allow me to hurt other people. Because no amount of cheery encouragement, or support can gloss over the sting of a heart not given wholly.

I won't spend my adulthood getting over my childhood. But I will spend a lot of my faith journey learning to let Him love me. Maybe that's sad. It's also beautiful. At least I'm that far. My journeys in the church tell me that there are lifelong Christians who've not yet made it here.

Do you let Him love you?