change : verb (used with object), changed, changing. 1. to make the form, nature, content, future course, etc., of (something)different from what it is or from what it would be if left alone: Oh guys, change is such a deep thing. It’s such a hard thing, usually painful, at the very least uncomfortable. We live for consistency, for something so stable in this life in which, by definition, things never happen the same way twice. Change is when Papa digs his whittling knife in, and shaves away hard knots, knots we believed to be part of us, the knots we believed were hard enough withstand all of life’s inconsistency. And it's paradoxical because the tenderness of his hand is ever present as He holds us, turns us this way and that, and admires us, and we feel it. Yet it is this same tenderness in his hands that seems to be scourging us. The knots that Papa is shaving off, shaping, they’re not all bad things, it is not that he seeks to perfect us, He just simply can not leave us alone. He’s a God of change, known as a God who is Trustworthy. We know that God is good, God is kind, God knows, and God is gentle. God is on our side, God is with us, God is for us, God is faithful to His own word, He will do what He promised, He will finish what He starts, God has mercy, and showers it down on us continually. These, all of these things, are our saving grace. But sometimes change means loss. Sometime its not just the fear of the unknown that accompanies change, but it is also shrieking pain. The kind that leaves you breathless, hanging on only to the fact that you know God is not against you…none else. The last season of my life has been all of those words in a nutshell. I don’t even know when it started, or if it has stopped or not. There are no definite moments in linear time, only moments of defined depth, both in being known, and in surrender. (Are those one in the same?) My only evidence is my journal and its pages describing my white knuckled grip attempting to cling to the gargantuan immovable Rock that is my God, knowing that He is not against me, and nothing else. My grandpa died in October. It was unexpected, and the pain was absolutely stunning. He woke up that Friday, like normal, and went to work. Next thing you know I'm at my grandma's house, and she's in the garage yelling for him to come home, in utter disbelief and walking around the house repeating herself, and moaning. Family came from wherever they were, and as each walked in, it was like the weight of the world fell on each of us with each new arrival, and the tears falling onto our cheeks weighed a thousand strained pounds each. Things seemed to move in slow motion that day, my whole body was tense. My stomach threatened me, and watching my gramma wasn't even doable. They were married for 55 years. I found myself with an insatiable need to constantly be playing music. It soothes the soul, and did then like nothing else could have. The funeral passed, I wept, I thought, reflected, a week passed, a month passed, and I could not accept it. There was another loss that I had not accepted, and to accept one, I had to accept both. Friends, it was the loss of everything I thought I had finally been granted. During my year in Mexico I encountered things that are more real than anything else I know. Vision, community, peace, community, clarity, community, focus, community. There is a sweetness to living in a place, and I mean physically living together, with other humans who are passionately pursuing the things that are real, the things of the heart, and the things of a gentle and kind Father. One day I was in the greenhouse bubble of my base, surrounded the friends who knew me deeply, and who had become family, and the next I was definitely all the way out of it. It's the transition through loss that every missionary deals with. It's a bit of a bear. While I could just label it as the mock-speed descent off the side of the highest cliff I've ever been on, I think I’m choosing to believe there is more to it than that. If you know me, you know that I do things with 100% of me. (Except school work?) I have a burning within me for the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. In fact I struggle, when God tells me to do things that I don’t feel like I can or want to put myself 100% into. We struggle about that, He and I. (School work.) And you know what else? I’m sure all of my close friends could recite my complaints and whinings by memory at this point. Actually probably anyone who knows my name could tell you my complaints. I’ve been complaining. The magnitude of the circumstances were(are?) too overwhelming to swallow at once, so I haven't. I've just held it in my mouth, no digestion, didn't process it, and so I’ve also been hungry. So. Hungry. Ever met a hangry person? They’re dissatisfied. Very dissatisfied. The reality is that things like literal overnight life change, and death are too big to swallow... they just are. And God uses this to create hunger within us, to let the pangs of dissatisfaction resound in every fiber of our being, to drive us to find food. These are the things that expand our capacity to eat more meat, and to drink less infant milk. (1 Corinth. 3:2) Imagine. As a baby, at first while that hunk of meat is sitting in front of you, its frustrating. You know you can’t handle it, and you give God the same eyes that your dog gives you when you give it a piece of lettuce, after its been intently begging you for your food. “What?! Lettuce?? Come on!” Head tilt and all**. But your stomach is demanding, so you open your little baby chomping gums, and start trying to fit this thing in your tiny baby chomping mouth. Then you’re stuck, because it’s huge. Just literally too huge. Your face is bulging, and you can’t really get your lips back together down in front, honestly it’s a miracle that you’re still breathing around this mass. Papa asks you to try to chew, which results in a blank stare from you, and a sufficient amount of drool cascading from your lips. You sit there, and think about, and the more you think about it, the more you feel like it's already choking you. As it turns out, your composure is disintegrating at an exponential rate. Engage all resistance methods! Such as: complaining, hissy fits, crying even, possibly snorting and even as far as feigned gagging. Things you thought you were way over, and right now all you got are Momma's words ringing in your ears; "You ain't gettin down from the table till all your food is gone." So, it's here that you stay, while your stomach turns over, growling hangrily. Because it’s scary. You’ve never accepted anything this big before, and nothing as unknown, nothing as threatening, nothing that’s such a possible choking hazard. You thought you were eating big meat last time this happened, but it was definitely different then. Your stomach is screaming for it, and your tongue is confused, but that fear is absolutely paralyzing. Paralyzing. Because if it doesn’t go down, you’re done. Out. Eyes bulging, Heimlich, 911.(Heck isn't that where you basically already are?!) And everything you have known God to be is a lie. You know, all these --> God is good, God is kind, God knows, and God is gentle. God is on your side, God is with you, God is for you, God is faithful to His own word, He will do what He promised, He will finish what He starts, God has mercy, and showers it down on you continually. These, all of these, are your saving grace…. Yeah. Hopefully right? Like maybe? It is in this cloud of doubt that His mercy carries you through your drooling, and crying while you sit there like a two year old eating peas, scrunched up face and all. The entire time you are soaking your little tiny baby onesie in drool, your capacity is expanding. Your vision is expanding, your hunger is more consuming. ‘I need more. I need more.’ There is more to be had. So here I was, sitting with this hunk of meat in my mouth, complaining to everyone, dissatisfied. And this whole meat metaphor is light hearted, and maybe even amusing, but the reality is that I am talking about real pain, the first Christmas at my grandparents house without my grandpa’s laugh, or his nicknames, or his fantastic work on the roaring fire or the cutting of the ham. A Christmas when the weight of loss weighs heavy on the family who just lost their leader, their father. The first Christmas spent without the other half of her heart, after 55 Christmases together for my Grandma. For me it’s a Christmas that signifies another chunk of time here, where being understood is a challenge, and relationships seem shallow. I miss the people who know me best, and they are scattered all over the globe along with the pieces of my heart that they hold. It's a Christmas that I'll spend divided between 3, 4, 5, houses because of broken relationships, a family quite literally in pieces. The underlying theme; things are not as they could be. (Ow). These are things that happen, amongst all others, to everyone. They are things that heal with time, change with maturity, things that can but don’t need to overcome a person, but this is what I am holding in my mouth. And in my fear, my fear that everything is lost, that God might not be good enough to make this worth my while, that he might not actually know what his kids need, that this meat will kill me, my hunger and my capacity begin to reach levels equaling and surpassing my fear. Right now, right here, is when the Lion looks at me with eyes on fire and growls from deep within Him, rumbling: “LET Me be known for who I am, who I really am.” A God of Love. And when He roars, my hands fly above my head in surrender before I can even take my next breath, and I am steadfast. Let God be God. This is all about knowing Him, the God who is Trustworthy. It’s about trusting a God who is out of my control. My Father loves me, and more than anything just wants to be closer than close to me. “Trust is our gift back to God, and he finds it so enchanting that Jesus died for love of it”. -Brennan Manning He so good, that He would not leave me alone. As in, would not leave me friendless, would not leave me abandoned, would not leave me without the only thing that I want; relationship. And with every knot that is shaved off of me, there is a new deeper place that the Father’s tender hand has touched, and I have been known to this extent. This is intimacy. With every level of shrieking, there is a greater level of lullaby, because the Father is there, and He is with me, feeling what I feel, being where I am, and His lullaby is His banner of love over me. The knots are not necessarily bad. [But God] can not leave me alone. He’s a visionary, He’s got ideas, but more so, He’s in relentless pursuit. He can not put me down, can not stop turning me this way and that, can not stop having new ideas, and deeper desire for me. He will keep changing His ideas for whatever it is that He’s making out of me, just for the sake of the relationship that change brings. He knows that the knots hurt me, but He knows they are the closest and closest is where He desires to be. For He can not leave me alone.
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