An Unusual Response

If you've been keeping up with my blog, you probably know I attended a writers' conference a few weekends ago. If you haven't, this post will make more sense if you read "A Gift Greater Than Gold" below.

The Proverbs 31 Ministries She Speaks Conference was phenomenal. Most of the sessions I attended were part of the writers' track, but I've recently developed a mild curiosity about speaking, so I sat in on a few speaker sessions as well. It was informative. It was inspirational. It was...exhausting, delightfully exhausting.

By the middle of the second day, there were so many things swirling around my brain that I had to step outside for a few minutes to take a few deep breaths and ask God what to do with all the inspiration and information.

I wasn't stressed or overwhelmed, but I knew God had brought me to the conference for a reason, and I wanted to be a good steward of what I had been given. As I sought God in prayer, it became clear to me that what I was to do was:

• learn: soak up as much information as possible
• ponder: continue to look for ways to apply Biblical truths to everyday situations
• practice: keep writing, be open to the possibility of speaking
• persevere: don't quit; write as an offering, not for an outcome
• pray: stay close to Him and listen for His direction
• respond: act when called
• wait: trust in Him; wait and see what He will do

The weird thing was: I was totally okay with that answer. Usually, when something interests me, I run in one direction or the other. Either I charge ahead, running ahead of God, convincing myself it's all up to me, and clinging to a particular outcome, or I decide the chances of failure are too great and give up before I get started. But not this time.

This time I was content to say, "Here I am. I am willing. I will follow." I had come to a place where I was neither striving nor resisting, just trusting in His plan and His timing and ready to follow His lead. It was a feeling so contrary to my nature that it could only be a good and perfect gift.

Coincidence? Ha!

Angela does not want me to go the conference this weekend (to find out who Angela is, you'll have to read the next post, and you can find out more about the conference in the post, "A Gift Greater Than Gold"). When she's not telling me that it's a waste of time, she's busy predicting a variety of disasters that will prevent me from going. When my husband came back inside yesterday morning and told me he was unable to dislodge the tire tread he had run over the night before from the rear axle of the truck and would have to take the car to work, it was tempting to listen to her, but Beau said it wasn't a big deal. He didn't want to drive the truck all the way to work, but assured me it would be fine to drive it to the mechanic down the street. So he turned the truck around in the driveway for me, and I made an afternoon appointment with the mechanic...but I didn't make the appointment because the truck wouldn't start.

Since the truck worked just fine earlier, I assumed the tire tread had done some sort of damage when Beau turned the truck around. Angela pounced at this unwelcome turn of events. "Something terrible happened when Beau moved the truck. It's probably thousands of dollars worth of damage that will take days to repair. How are you going to get to the conference, hmmmm??" I'll admit I listened to her for a few minutes, but then decided I would view the situation as a gift—an opportunity to trust God. So I answered every thought from Angela with Psalm 121:1-2, "..where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord."

I called AAA for a tow , and even though I knew we'd likely have to walk home if the damage was serious, Zack and I caught a ride to the mechanic with the tow truck driver. I took advantage of the waiting time to work on a blog post, and even had time to read a great article called, "Sit. Stay." The topic? The importance of not running away or finding distractions when faced with an uncomfortable, but beneficial situation (imagine me needing to be reminded of that this week!).

In less than an hour, the perky receptionist called me up and said, "We were able to remove the tire tread, no problem. And the only thing wrong with the truck was a dead battery, which was totally independent of the lodged tire tread. Isn't that a crazy coincidence?" I smiled and said, "great news! praise God!" And inside I was thinking, "Coincidence? Ha! It's a good and perfect gift."

Fighting The Lizard Brain

I just finished reading a fantastic book called Linchpin. Are You Indispensable? It's a secular book from marketing guru Seth Godin. Naturally, he writes from a secular point of view, but the bulk of his message is only amplified when considered from a biblical perspective. The most important thing I took away from the book can best be expressed by Godin himself, "It turns out that what we need are gifts and connections and humanity—and the artist who create them." We're all born "artists" with something unique and brilliant inside of us, and we all long to share it with others. The art we create isn't limited to painting, writing, or making music. We have the opportunity to create art in every interaction. "Being open is art. Making a connection when it's not part of your job is gift. You can say your lines and get away with it, or you can touch someone and make a difference in their life forever. This is risky and it's impossible to demand of someone. The decision to commit to the act is a personal one, a gift from the heart."

Sadly, however, we're often unwilling to extend ourselves. We're often hesitant to create and share our art. And it's because of what Godin calls the lizard brain. "Everyone has a voice inside their head that's angry and afraid. That voice is the resistance—your lizard brain." The lizard brain doesn't want us to take risks and doesn't like change. The lizard brain tells us we must be perfect. And the lizard brain is tenacious, it "will invent stories, illnesses, emergencies, and distractions in order to keep the genius bottled up." The "wicked, lazy servant" in Matthew 25 listened to his lizard brain.

Godin wonders why "we're so easily able to expend emotional labor off the job, but uncomfortable expending the same energy on the job," and asks "Can the time you spend at work be the place you give gifts, create connections, invent, and find joy?" The thing is, I've never had a problem with expending emotional labor at work. Give me a job to do, and I will not only approach it with passion, but will easily (and happily) connect with and relate to the people associated with the work. The problem I struggle with is that my lizard brain wants to tie the relationships and the passion to the work. My lizard brain likes work. Work is necessary, predictable, and controlled. As long as I have something to do, my lizard brain feels safe, and as I discussed in my post "Skating Through Life," work can be a convenient distraction to keep me from creating art.

So last fall when I felt God pushing me to create the art He was calling me to create and extend myself outside the context of getting a job done, my lizard brain fought like never before. It took months of prayer, Bible study, and counsel from trusted friends (thanks Jen and Titus group ladies!) to quiet the lizard brain. It was a hard fight, and though the lizard brain lost the battle, I knew it wouldn't give up the war.

My lizard brain talks so much, I've given it a name: Angela (after Angela on The Office). As I tiptoed out in faith to respond to God's leading, I asked Him to keep me stocked with anti-Angela ammunition for the battles I knew would come. He has faithfully provided just what I needed at just the right times through scriptures, sermons, songs, emails, conversations, and many other places, including Seth Godin's book.

Seth Godin is undoubtedly an artist, and Linchpin is a gift to his readers, but the fact that it made it into my hands at just the right time was a good and perfect gift from the master Artist.

p.s. Godin devotes more than a chapter to the significance of gifts. Artists may be paid for their gifts, but the recipient can never fully compensate the artist. We can, however, be changed by the art. We can be inspired to give a gift to someone else. "A gift always creates a surplus as it spreads." I love that quote, but one of my favorite things Godin says about gifts comes from his blog. "The way I understand gifts is that the giver must make a sacrifice, create an uneven exchange, bring himself closer to the recipient, create change and do it all with the right spirit. To do anything less might be smart commerce, but it doesn't rise to the magical level of the gift." Everytime I read that, I'm reminded of the gift of salvation. In the spirit of perfect love, Christ made a sacrifice that we can never repay. We are brought closer to Him through His gift, and are changed in the process. Love that.

A Gift Greater Than Gold

We don't do debt at our house anymore, but that's another story. It's actually a great story, but all you need to know right now is that, with the exception of our mortgage, we don't do debt. I'm not particularly frugal and am no financial wizard, but as the keeper of the finances, I know the only way to live without debt is to set aside money each month for things we know we'll want or need. One of the biggest chunks we set aside right now is called the "car fund" because while my husband and I are happy to drive our current vehicles as long as they last, both are over ten years old, so it just makes sense to be prepared. We started the fund after selling some property and paying off all our debt over a year ago, and have been faithfully paying into it every month since. It's pretty healthy, but we won't be really comfortable for another year or so. Still, we've been blessed with reliable cars, and have faith that God will provide us with what we need when we need it.

Because of that, when it came time to make a pledge to our church's annual missionary budget, it seemed logical to earmark at least one month's car savings. Each year, members of our church are asked to promise a certain amount of support in faith that God will enable them to honor their commitment. Called a "faith-promise," it is an opportunity to share in the building of God's kingdom and to exercise our faith. For the 2009-2010 budget year, we committed to one month's car savings, plus 25%. At the time, it seemed like just enough of a stretch, but honestly, I had very little doubt we'd be able to honor the commitment. I had focused most of my faith in the hopes that neither vehicle would need to be replaced until we had built up our car fund, but God had much bigger things in mind, and two circumstances would soon arise that would truly test my faith in particular.

The first was an unwelcome surprise. Near the end of 2009, we received a huge, unexpected bill from our HOA. The details aren't important, but it funded a major project mandated by an outdated state law. While we took advantage of the option to break up the amount into three payments over several months, the total bill was equal to exactly three months of car savings, and that's just where we decided it would come from. I didn't feel great about it, but figured there was no sense worrying about it either, so I took a deep breath, prayed, and tried to let it go.

The second came up in the Spring, months after we'd paid the first installment to our HOA and months before the final two installments were due. I really felt God was leading me to attend a writer's conference in the summer, but was discouraged when I learned it would cost several hundred dollars (or two months of car savings). I talked it over with my husband, and was pleasantly surprised when he said I should go. Again, we were looking at a major expense we hadn't budgeted for, and again--unwilling to tap into our "real" savings--we decided to pull it from the car fund. But then I chickened out.

Well, not really, but with the final two installments to our HOA, our faith-promise, and the conference registration deadline all looming, the reality of allocating a total of six months of car savings elsewhere started to make me uneasy. As I sat at my computer with the conference website open, I just couldn't bring myself to type in my debit card number. And yet, I felt so strongly that God was calling me to go, and the go-ahead from my typically frugal husband only reinforced that feeling. Confused and conflicted, I tried to rationalize a solution. Obviously, I couldn't do anything about the HOA bill, so I sat at my desk weighing our faith-promise, the conference, and my anxiety. Had our faith-promise pledge been too ambitious? Was the pull I felt toward the conference just wishful thinking? Or was I simply worrying too much?

As I prayed and pondered, the answer to all of those questions was, "no." In my heart, I knew we had to honor our faith-promise commitment, and yet, the pull to go to the conference was undeniable. Unable to comfortably reconcile those two things, I stopped trying to. I clicked the conference website closed, pushed back my chair, and literally threw up my hands in surrender. "Okay God, I can't figure this out. I'm leaving it up to you. If I'm meant to go to this conference, you're going to have to show me how to do it or ease my anxiety about spending the money."

If I made that sound like it was easy, it wasn't. I went to bed confused and disappointed. My husband works evenings, so I couldn't even talk through my concerns with him. But the next morning, when I wandered into the kitchen to pour my super-sized glass of iced tea, he said he had picked up the mail on his way home the night before and there was something in the HOA newsletter about a change in the state-mandated project. Still sleepy and sluggish, I stared dumbly at the article and had to read it several times before it sunk in. A new state law had made the project unnecessary, and while some of the funds we'd already paid had been spent in preparation for the project, some of it would be returned. More importantly, we were no longer liable for the final two installments. The one part of the equation I thought couldn't change had changed overnight, and the amount we'd planned to allocate to the final two installments of the HOA bill easily covered the cost of the conference.

Thankful and giddy, I had no idea that God wasn't even done yet. Fast forward to just a few weeks ago. On a whim, I sent in some old silver and gold jewelry to goldstashforcash.com. Don’t feel bad if you're snickering because I was skeptical of the whole "cash for gold" craze myself, but goldstashforcash.com is endorsed by Dave Ramsey, so I knew they were a credible business. I gathered up all my broken, outdated, and tarnished jewelry and sent it off with absolutely no expectations. My husband and I joked about it for a couple of days and tried to guess how much "cash" I'd get for my "stash." My guess was $200.00, but really, I had no idea how much my stuff was worth, and would have been satisfied with $50.00. Imagine my surprise when the check arrived a few days later, and there were four numbers on the left of the decimal. In fact, it was just shy of three months' car savings.

If you've gotten lost in the math, let me help you out a little. We were originally looking at six months of car savings allocated elsewhere. But with the HOA project canceled and my unexpected windfall, our total outlay for the faith-promise, conference, and the small amount that went to our HOA was $50.00 less than our car savings for one month. I guess that's why they call it a "faith-promise."

As thankful as I am, I had reservations about publishing this particular post because I don't want to imply that God is some sort of fairy godfather who magically grants wishes. This particular gift is tangible and easily measurable, but it's also so much more. God brought me to a place where I couldn't find a comfortable solution and gave me the faith to leave it in His hands. He chose to make it possible for me to go to the conference and to make it abundantly clear that it was a calling, but He could just as easily have answered my prayer by granting me peace in either foregoing the conference or spending the extra money. God doesn't always give us exactly want we want or expect, but He is no man's debtor and richly blesses those who put their faith in Him.

I Am a Witness

God recently performed an amazing work in the life of someone close to me. It was so remarkable that merely witnessing it was a gift. The details are not mine to share, but I hope it's evident in every post that my focus here is not on the details surrounding the gifts, but on the nature of the Giver. The gifts point to God, and my purpose in discussing them is to acknowledge the source and glorify Him.

I walked alongside someone for over a year as they faced turmoil, grief, and uncertainty. A fellow Christian, this person prayed about her situation, sought guidance from scripture, spent time in self-examination, and made earnest attempts to change things for the better. In summary, she acted in good faith to address the cause of her pain, and yet it all came to nothing. My own efforts were even less productive. Though I too sought to view the circumstances from a Biblical perspective, there was nothing I could do to effect any change. I could only listen, empathize, encourage, and pray. There was nothing else to be done. The best human efforts had failed. It was apparent that only God could provide any measure of relief, and it seemed His response throughout months of prayers was, "No." So I watched, frustrated, heartbroken, and helpless, as things spiraled downward toward tragedy.

And then, when all seemed utterly hopeless, God suddenly intervened. In an instant, everything changed. She literally went to bed one evening in a state of despair and woke to find that God had not only made things better, but had completely redeemed the situation. God had done "immeasurably more" than we could imagine. The change has been so stunning that in the midst of my joy, I find that I am still adjusting to the new reality because it is so different from what I thought possible.

But God is not limited by what we consider possible, and if, in His providence, He chooses to delay, our lack of understanding should not cause us to doubt or lose hope. I am not suggesting that waiting for His answer is easy. On the contrary, it can be difficult and discouraging, but in His wisdom, God chooses when and how to intervene, and though I have often been perplexed, I have not ever had sufficient grounds to doubt His faithfulness.

I've been thinking a lot lately about my favorite scene in the movie The African Queen. As Katherine Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart make their treacherous journey down the Ulanga river toward Lake Victoria they come to a place where the river all but disappears. Though they know the river eventually pours into Lake Victoria, all that is visible from their vantage point is a maze of marshes. The water becomes so shallow they are forced to get out of the boat and pull it by hand as they attempt to navigate through the swamps. When the boat becomes bogged down in the mire and they can go no further, they are convinced all hope is lost. Disheartened, exhausted, and unable to find their way, they collapse into the boat. Katherine Hepburn's character, a missionary, offers up a prayer, but is so certain of their fate, it is a funereal prayer--she doesn't even ask God to deliver them. Indeed, all does seem hopeless, but as the camera pans back, the audience can see the heroes are only a few hundred yards from the free-flowing river. The fact that they are unable to see it doesn't change the fact that the river is there, but despite their best efforts they have been unable to find their way to higher water on their own. And then, in an instant, everything changes. It begins to rain, and when they awake they find their boat has become dislodged and has drifted into the river. Better still, they can see Lake Victoria in the distance. They have not only been rescued from tragedy, but are in sight of what they are seeking.

The parallels between this scene and what I recently witnessed are striking. The river was there all along, but she was unable to get to it on her own. When all human strivings had failed, God redeemed the situation in a moment, and there can be no question as to the source of her deliverance.

A Picture Worth a Thousand Words

This past week marked the celebration of both Mother's Day and my son's birthday. Any attempt to describe what a blessing my son is to me would wear out my keyboard and deplete my vocabulary, so I'm not even going to try. However, one of the blessings of parenthood is that it gives us a better understanding of God's love for us. Through Christ, we are God's beloved children, and our love for our children gives us a taste of the immensity, depth, and steadfast nature of God's love for us.

My love for Zack is unchangeable and unwavering. No amount of disobedience, failure, foolishness, or mistakes will ever diminish my love for him. And though I cheer him on through triumphs and am pleased when he makes the right choices, neither of those things make me love him any more, because I love him all the time, just the same.

I rejoice when he rejoices, and my heart aches for him when he is anxious or sad. I enjoy being with him, laughing with him, and watching him master new skills and ideas. I do my best to help him discover his God-given talents and encourage him to pursue and develop them. I want to know what's on his heart and mind—good or bad. I can appreciate the position expressed in Isaiah 49:25, "I will contend with those that contend with you."

It brings me great pleasure to make him happy and fulfill his wishes, and yet I often withhold seemingly good things he wants because I know they won't be good for him in the long run. In short, his welfare, his growth, and his future are always in the forefront of my mind. Sometimes that means I have to discipline him, disappoint him, or insist he do things he'd rather not…and often he doesn't appreciate or understand why because he is unable to see the big picture.

Of course, my love for Zack can only provide me with an imperfect image of a perfect God's perfect love, but it's still a good gift.

I'm No Cry Baby

Really, I’m not. I get sad and hurt just like everyone else, but it’s rare I cry about it. Not because I’m cold-hearted or brave; it’s just not my normal response. I’m more likely to cry from anger or exhaustion, but even then it has to be pretty extreme. I’m not particularly sentimental either, though I will admit to shedding a tear or two at the hands of Hallmark, a handful of sappy songs, and a few movies I was suckered into watching (OK, I sobbed during E.T. in 7th grade, but it was an isolated incident). Those sorts of tears are usually shed begrudgingly because I feel I’ve been manipulated, like someone jerked my emotions around for the sake of the emotion, and I get annoyed with myself for playing into it.

But there are tears that spring from a deeper well, and they invariably begin within the first verse or two of a hymn or praise song. Whether it's one of my favorites or one that I'd never choose, something about hearing and singing the words floods my soul with joy, and the tears just flow. And it's not sentimentality. The "story" of an innocent man suffering on a cross for the sake of others is Hollywood-quality sentimental gold, but to confess out loud that "it was my sin that held Him there" and "His wounds have paid my ransom" transcends sentimentality. It’s substantive, and it's personal. An audible confession of my great need and His great mercy. And it doesn't stop there. There are so many songs that beautifully express our weaknesses ("Just as I am...with many a conflict, many a doubt/fighting fears within, without…"), affirm His providence and faithfulness ("Hast thou not seen how thy desires e'er have been/granted in what He ordaineth?"), rejoice in the beauty of His creation ("…I consider all that Your hands have made/every newborn's eyes, every new sunrise…"), and extol His majesty (“…only Thou art holy; there is none beside Thee/perfect in power, in love, and purity”). There are more examples, of course, but the common thread through all of the songs is worship. My friend Maria summed it up nicely when she said, "it's the realization of who God is and what He has done" that moves us members of the Kleenex Club to tears.

Even so, I have often wished I could turn off the faucet. First of all, it's uncomfortable, and I don't mean lump-in-the-throat uncomfortable. Crying makes people uncomfortable, and spontaneous crying can leave people wondering how to respond. Which makes them uncomfortable. I think. Or maybe I just assume that. Either way, it makes me uncomfortable. In fact, it makes me so uncomfortable that I've developed all sorts of techniques over the years to disguise the tears (fanning myself, staring at the ceiling, pretending there is something in my eye, "allergies!"). Yes, I know I'm not fooling anyone, but thanks for playing along with me. Secondly, my ability to literally sing His praises is hindered when I have to pause to compose myself every few lines, and it's frustrating.

Still, I am certain my tears are a gift. Years ago, I pled my case to God, "please take these tears away; let me sing to You and of You without crying," and He answered that prayer. I stood in church the following Sunday and sang and felt…nothing. God was still there, of course, but my spirit was unmoved. I quickly retracted my prayer and resigned myself to a lifetime of smeared mascara. For whatever reason, God has hard-wired me to respond to worship with tears, so my tears must be God-ordained. Do they sometimes make me uncomfortable? Sure, but Jesus never said, "follow me, and you'll never feel uncomfortable." In fact, just the opposite is true, but mostly because we waste so much time and energy focusing on ourselves and how we are perceived rather than focusing on Christ. As for my desire to sing through a hymn without crying, it is apparently more important to me than it is to God. If God wanted me to sing, uninterrupted by tears, He'd make it possible. Since it rarely happens, I have to conclude that He values my tears more than my performance. So if you spot me with watery eyes and a red nose, chances are I’m fine. I'm merely expressing my love for God and gratitude for His love for me. So please join me in praising Him…and could you pass me a tissue?