The Burnt Offering

Leviticus 9:24 says:

Fire came out from the presence of the Lord and consumed the burnt offering and the fat portions on the altar. And when all the people saw it, they shouted for joy and fell facedown.

If God would come and consume my fat portions, I would certainly shout for joy and fall facedown. Guaranteed.

Just sayin'.

Have a happy Friday, y'all!

On Coming Down from the Mountain

There is a stirring, a discontent. No, discontent isn't the right word. I cannot put my finger on it. A restlessness that I cannot define. 

We go home in 9 days. 9 days before we return to life stateside, to grocery stores and farmers' markets, preschool, Chipotle, girlfriends, walls and fences, rights and privilege, hot showers, reliable electricity, driving on the left side of the road, car seats, abundance, abundance, abundance.

9 days. Have I learned what You brought me here to teach? My eyes have been opened to MANY, many things, but I am slow to learn. My head is slow and heart is stubborn.

9 days. What I have heard, what I have seen throughout the past four months have been incredible lessons in community, what it is and how to live it. In grace; this has always been an ambiguous, churchy word to me, but I have seen it lived out and now know that it is much harder, and much more freeing than I ever imagined. In humility, which apparently I knew nothing about. It is freeing to know, and believe, that there is One who speaks on my behalf, yet incredibly hard to not open my mouth and fight. Learning to ask the questions, "Does it matter? Will this glorify God?"

Community, grace, humility.

There are things in my own life that I know must change, steps that I have taken that have hindered my growth, slowed my faith walk. Finding your way back to the path of God can be challenging, but He has promised that those who seek Him are sure to find Him. And so I seek, grasp, cry out, and know that He will answer.

I want to pray throughout the day, even fixed-hour prayer. I want to be sure to give You thanks before bites go into the mouth, because my eyes have seen and my heart has loved many who do not have such privilege. They have faces and names, bodies that I have held. They are not strangers to me, and I do not want to forget their plight, or the One who provides for us all. I want to be in the habit of feasting on the real Bread of life several times each day, and not when crisis or concern strikes, as that is what will nourish and grow me through all seasons. I want these things not for the sake of being a "better" Christian, but for the sake of knowing You more, walking more closely with You, living out this Christ-life and actually looking more like Christ. I want these to define my life with passion and energy, without becoming mindless routines.

Somehow, this status quo isn't enough. There is a void that has to be filled and my habit and flesh tendency would fill it with worldly things, such as food, or shopping, or just making myself busier to fill that void. But I have learned enough to know that those things don't fill the void, but only ease the pain of it for a short, short time. Here I have not had access to those "drugs" and so God has revealed Himself in mighty ways, as the Comforter and the One who heals.

How can I be truly set apart when my life feels so ordinary, so much like everybody else? How will anyone know anything about Jesus by looking at my life?

I have seen short-term mission teams come and go throughout the summer, so alive, passion burning. They are intentional and focused, set apart for a short season to proclaim the goodness of God. And I too have been a part of such a team, and remember standing at the mountaintop, bold for my Savior, wildly in love and wanting all in my path to receive His blessings of peace and life. But I cannot help but wonder, what happens when this short season ends and life goes back to normal? My summer began with a team, moving from village to village, but when the team left and everyday life resumed of raising up my family of little people, the excitement and passion of a focused purpose quickly waned. Daily trips to the market for food for dinner, sibling squabbles, diapers, upset tummies, temper tantrums replaced travel and interaction and being seen as important, relevant, needed.

And I wondered, "How now, will they know that I am His?"

When you travel with a mission team, life is a bit different. The standard is set a bit higher and everyone feeds off of each other, for better or worse, and the spiritual air is thick with anticipation of God's movement. With the demands of the mission field, it is know that one cannot survive a day, at least not well, without full reliance on the guidance, grace, and mercy of the Holy Spirit. There is much more reliance. There has to be.

And then seasons shift drastically and the excitement of work well done becomes the mundane of routine. And someone says with the best of intentions, "Just give it some time, and everything will go back to normal."

And somehow it always does, except that it is never quite the same ever again because I'm trying to fit all that my eyes have seen and my heart has absorbed into a box that wasn't prepared for such things. And it just doesn't fit.

What happened when Moses had to come down from the Mountain so beautiful and face so radiant, and deal with bickering, rebellious siblings, and squabbling families, and the chores of keeping the people focused long enough to not build golden calfs and call them god?

He threw his tablets on the ground and stomped his feet in anger.

Yeah, I know that feeling.

How do the passions keep from becoming mere smoldering coals?
Is it that we are to be set apart for a mere short season, a 10-week short-term trip, or set apart for life, day-to-day life lived out in sacrifice and humility and community? And in the "normal" day-to-day of life, what is my role in seeing that the hungry are fed, the thirsty are given water, the orphans are cared for and the widows are loved? What is my role in creating and contributing to community, that they may know that we are one?
And how do we do that when we are all seeking to move away from others, with walls that separate us to preserve our privacy and personal space?

I dont' want everything to go back to normal. I want the radical obedience and wild passion of following Jesus. I just need to know what it looks like.

As we are preparing for the journey back to the states, these are the questions I am struggling with, praying for discernment.
How now shall we live? For the next 9 days, I am pondering this with intensity.

What about you? What are your thoughts on community and humility and grace towards others? 

I have more thoughts to share on those things soon. They are a tornado in my heart right now, moving too fast to make any sense. Hopefully the winds will die down soon.

Touching Base

So, I haven't been around the blogosphere quite as much this past week or so. Today marks two weeks left in Kenya until we fly back to the states, so we have been trying to make like tourists and soak up as much of what we can do around Nairobi as possible. So we visited the Karen Blixen museum and coffee plantation. For those not familiar, she is the author of "Out of Africa," which became a movie in 1985 with Meryl Streep and Robert Redford. Good movie, actually, if you haven't seen it.
We visited the elephant orphanage and had fun watching the silly elephants nurse from bottles. Toria was bored within a few minutes though and ready to move.
So, while we enjoy our remaining time in Kenya, I will try to post some photos so you can see too. Here are some for starters.

Elephant orphanage

African sister love

Always in motion

Spying the elephant in the bush

Peaceful as a flower...

That a Girl!

"Look at me, mommy!"

"Mama, look over here! Watch this!"

"Mommy, watch me jump over this!"

These were the shouts that I heard all morning as the girls played on the jungle gym, jumping from the end of the slide, swinging on the monkey bars, climbing up the chain ladder. I smiled as I took in their joy, heart warmed by their play. I was struck by their desire to be seen, for their achievements to be noticed.

"Mommy, are you watching?"

They would stand at attention at the end of the platform, readied in position to launch themselves into the sand pit, and yet would pose, waiting until eyes were on them before making the move. Then, launch! And then shoot up like an Olympic gymnast, arms like arrows extended in the air, body straight and stiff, awaiting the applause.

"Ta-da!"

"Bravo! Bravo! Well done! So proud of you! That was amazing! I can't believe you jumped so high!"

The look of satisfaction, joy, success. They accomplished, and then they were praised. They smile big with pride, stand taller, and are bold and confident to do more. And me, their mama, the one who carried and bore them, stand tall with pride and joy to see my angels fly, to see my girls learn and grow and accomplish through courage. I am so proud of them.

"That's my girl! Well done!"

They have so much to learn, and everyday is an opportunity for growth. They are learning how to interact with each other, learning how to love selflessly, learning how to forgive and make amends. They are learning what it looks like to love Jesus, and everyday is an opportunity to learn more. And I am more proud of them everyday. Not every moment is perfect, and there is still much to learn, but their journey has begun, and my prayer is that Jesus is more real to them and more alive in their lives than I have ever experienced.

And then I just wonder about our Father, the One who has birthed us all by the workings of His mighty hands and the beauty of His own imagination. And I wonder about the Son and how He came to show us a new way, The Way. His teachings were so against the mainstream, so counter-intuitive. He taught us to turn the other cheek, and it sounds altruistic and beautiful on paper, but living it out makes the flesh cringe. He taught us to forgive quickly, and it sounds noble on paper, but then the heart rages against offense and wants to get even. And He taught us to forsake the things of this world, to be sure that the hungry are fed, and the orphans are cared for, to be sure that the poor are looked after. And then we begin to question and squirm, and look for technicalities, and justify taking care of ourselves first.

He taught us how to fellowship with those who do wrong, those who are immoral, and how to speak life and exhortation into such as those, but our lives are so full and so righteous. He taught us how to live in selfless community, looking for the God-image in all, restoring the Father-dignity that the evil one has stripped, but our to-do list must get done and we just don't have time. And what we have worked for, we have worked very hard for, and I like my privacy and my space, and the simple, counter-intuitive, counter-cultural teachings of Jesus become muddled and grey and watered down till the fire in my heart has been simmered into a slightly smoldering coal with barely an orange tint to it.

But then there are voices crying out in the wilderness, prophets in their own day, those who are speaking the stirrings of their heart, seeking out the voice that will guide them in obedience. There are visionaries who are risking it all, and those who are willing to step out. There is a stirring taking place, and quiet revolution seeking to bring Heaven to this broken pit. I have seen their hearts, those who are no longer content with the status quo of a system set in place by tradition or routines. Those who are no longer willing to do what they do simply because this is what we do. There is a quiet stirring, those who are questioning.

If we are told that the picture of the Church is a community that is willing to sell all their earthly possessions and come together, meeting each others' needs completely, are we as the Church not held to the same standard?

If we are told that the picture of grace is a body of people who have set aside their rights and are willing to put the needs of others before their own, are we not held to the same standard?

I just wonder about the ways of the Father, when we get ahold of a lesson, when we share our food with the hungry, or open our doors to someone in need of a roof over their heads, I just wonder if the Father doesn't smile over us.

"That a girl! Now you've got it."

The Grime is Washed Away

Another laundry day has come and gone, and I am praising Jesus that my hands are holding up better than they did for the first several weeks that we were here in Kenya. Now I can make it through a washing session without broken skin, raw knuckles, or bleeding wounds. Great rejoicing over this not-so-insignificant fact. But today as I was scrubbing the clothes, somehow a great wave of satisfaction came over me.

While I would not readily choose to do laundry by hand for the rest of my days, I am finding something so very cathartic about sitting out under the sun, scrubbing the clothes for my family. I see the dirt and stains with which the scrubbing begins, and as my hands work the fabric, suds of cleansing water washing the grime away, the sweat of my brow seeing the reward of its effort. As the final product hangs on the line to dry, made new by the grease of my own elbows, restored to what it was made to be, I feel great pride and satisfaction to know what I have done.

I know it may sound simple, but the African dirt has coated these clothes well as my girls run and jump and play with no hindrance at all for the stains that they are setting in. When all the clothes from a bucket have been washed and moved to a bucket of clean water for rinsing, I see the extent of the filth. The water is grey-brown, thick, cloudy, murky. It is full of grime that my hands scrubbed out. As I dump the bucket out, there is great joy in knowing that it has all been washed away, that all that was once covered in filth is now clean and sparkling, like new again. There is such joy in my heart at this simple realization.

And then I begin to wonder if this is just a glimpse at how God feels as He washes us white as snow. He knows our filth. He knows our grime. He knows the deepest, darkest recesses of our hearts, and He does the hard work to wash us clean. He puts in the elbow grease, He wages war on our behalf, and He asks us to trust Him as he twists and scrubs us in His massive, powerful, yet ever-gentle hands. I just wonder if this is just a small peek into how He revels over us.

For much of my life, I struggled with this idea of such hopeless, helpless brokenness. Maybe it was my pride getting in the way of truly understanding, or maybe I had just heard for far too long what a reckless sinner I was. I knew I was a sinner. I knew I was broken. I knew that I was a mess. And my ears heard the Church reminding me of that over and over and over again; until all I could think was, "What's the point, then? If I'm such a horrible human being, I can never live up to be any good for anything, what's the point of doing the "good" thing?"

I would then hear the inevitable follow-up of how God loves me anyway. He loves me anyway. So, I'm not really lovable, not really worthy of love because I am such a reckless sinner. Because I am such a sinner, I don't deserve love, but instead deserve to hang on a cross. I deserve death, but He loves me anyway.

Well isn't that big of Him.

Gosh...thanks?

Any sense of dignity has just been beaten down and ripped to shreds, but telling me that He loves me anyway is supposed to pick me back up again. Great.

The problem is that there were some true things that were being said, some true things that my ears were hearing, and some true things that my heart was taking in. But they were not all truth. They were not all Truth.

Yes, I am a sinner. No, I am not unloveable.

Yes, I am broken. No, I am not hopeless.

Yes, I am a mess. No, I am not undeserving of love.

Yes, I do fall short of the glory of God. No, I am not to loathe myself for it.

Many times, my ears would absorb a teaching, receive it as a condemnation, and then continue to condemn self for it. So where I was told that there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, for some reason that wasn't enough to cover all the other condemning things that had already been taken in. And so they became chains around my ankles, shackles on my wrists, bounding my heart in lies that were set on repeat in my head.

You will never be good enough for love.

You can never live up to this standard, so why bother? Just give up. You're not worth the trouble.

Somehow, the fact that I was a sinner translated into God hating me. But His Word doesn't say that. His Word says this:

The Lord your God is with you,

he is mighty to save.

He will take great delight in you.

He will quiet you with his love.

He will rejoice over you with singing.

And again it says:

He will cover you with his feathers 

and under his wings you will find refuge; 

his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.

Those are not the words of an angry father who is counting up how many times he has to bail us out. Those are the words of a lover, of one who rejoices when we are free and joyful, and one who rejoices when we surrender ourselves to Him to be our shield and our rampart.

And so I just wonder, as He dips us into the water and scrubs away the dirt and filth that has built up on our backs, if He doesn't take great joy in the process, knowing how beautiful the end result will be, knowing that even in the midst of the grime and muck, there is already beauty, because He made it so. And though the process might be a bit painful at times, humbling to have this stain scrubbed away, hurting to see Him toil so on our behalf, the process of surrendering to His cleansing ways is so freeing.

And I believe He takes great joy in it all, as he watches the murky, filthy water washed away from that which He created to shine.

I believe He will rejoice over it with singing, because that's what His Word says.

And so I will not hang my head in shame, as there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, but I will rejoice over His love with great singing as I return it back to Him.

Happy Sabbath, friends. Praying for God's peace and grace to fill you to overflowing today.

Taste and See

This is post #1 in a series on "Salt." To read the follow-up posts, please feel welcome to visit here and here. Karibu tena (Welcome again).

Tonight I sit in the dark, an old Coleman lamp providing a small amount of light by which to see, and the glow of the computer screen for as long as the reserve battery will last. No power, distractions removed, all other options turned away. Time for reflection in the quiet of the early night, the hum of electricity silenced.

Soon after we first arrived to Kenya, I remember posting on facebook that I didn’t feel like cooking dinner for the night. The cooking process here is elaborate, time consuming, and in many cases, serious manual labor. I was tired that particular night and just really craving the convenience food of home. But none could be found. Several precious friends responded with quick ideas, none of which I could implement because we lacked the supplies, the spices.

Spices are hard to come by here, as most of the food that is cooked is either fresh kill or straight out of the garden. Great for the body, but not as full of flavor as the seasoned, artificial, preserved, colored, tampered, engineered food that I grew upon. At home in the states, we use lots of seasoning, lots of spices and many different kinds of foods. For instance, think of how many different kinds of cheeses you will use in just one week. Parmesan, cheddar, American, swiss, mozzarella, brie….oh my mouth is watering. Why do I do this to myself? Cheese is not part of the Kenyan diet (though I did discover a place to but some imported Brie, yum!). Fresh kill or straight out of the garden.

Not to say that things are flavorless here, by no means at all. Add a little salt to fresh garlic, bell pepper, and onion, throw that in the mix with some chopped up cabbage and tomatoes, and your mouth will be hopping fresh flavors. Just add a little salt, and it brings out the absolute best.

Isn’t if funny that we have been called to be salt? Throw a few salty people into the natural arena of life, and it should be a very God glorifying situation, where the best of what has been created is brought out, enhanced, magnified. Throw a few salty people into the mix, and all things should be edified, built up, made better.

But we who have been called to be this precious flavor enhancer have to be careful. Too much salt ruins the meal. Not enough salt will go completely unnoticed, leaving the portion bland and undesirable. Too much destroys, not enough blends into the surrounding. We are looking to be just the right amount.

So how do you know? How do you know if you are too much salt, not enough salt, or just the right amount? Well, how do you tell when you are cooking?

Taste and see that it is good.

Taste and see that the Lord is good. 

Head in the Sand

Tonight, I wish I could bury my head in the sand. I wish I didn't feel the weight of the world on my shoulders. I wish that I could live a "normal" day-in and day-out life. I wish I had a good paying job in which I could don a power suit five days a week, go into a nice office setting and work with competent co-workers, leaving at the end of the day feeling accomplished and appreciated. I wish I could have a sense of fulfillment from having something to show for a hard day's work and then come home to an expectant family and children who are happy to see me. I wish my job description and daily expectations were clear, because I like to do my job well. I wish I could feel the sense of accomplishment of climbing up a corporate ladder and receiving positive feedback for a job well done. I wish my weekends were full of play and relaxation, cramming in fun activities that get pushed to the back burner during the busy work week.

I don't know. I'm not really one to harbor regrets, but for some reason these days, I just wonder about things. I wish that I had gone to college closer to my childhood best friend. As children we had always talked about living near each other when we grew up, but for some reason ended up thousands of miles apart during those critical college years. And though we remain to be friends, we are certainly not as close as we could have been. I miss her like crazy, especially these days.

These days I am knee deep in dramatic temper tantrums, dirty diapers, toddler talk, preschool stories, teaching, educating, reminding, cleaning, laundry, cleaning, folding, cleaning, and did I mention dramatic temper tantrums? Just random, unwarranted, non-stop temper tantrums. I am the mother of 3 girls, and the temper tantrums seem to go on all day long, passing from one girl to the next like a hot potato in a vicious cruel game. It's even better when all three are crying at once. And I love it when I ask why one is crying and the answer whines out, "I don't know." Really? This is not the glamour I imagined. I certainly am questioning how the Proverbs 31 woman was able to get her children to rise up and call her blessed, because I am nowhere near that these days. Maybe the day will come and we will all still be sane, especially me.

I know this is random, and it may be more for my benefit to get some things out of my head more than anything else. I know I should be grateful for where I am, sometimes I just have a hard time not coveting the seemingly glamorous life of others who have so much more. Struggling these days to remember that God has not forgotten us. Maybe this is just a rant to get that out.