Saturday, January 29, 2011

A Note

I recently started this little box that I keep at the church where kids can leave me notes. These can be comments, questions, prayer requests, really anything they want to tell me. I was sure to let them know that what they write to me isn't something that I am going to share with the other kids or their parents. It's really just meant to be a way for kids to share things with me in a space where they feel totally safe.

It is just a box. A plain cardboard box with a slit cut in it.

In the last two weeks I have gotten some really sweet notes from kids telling me that they had fun or what their favorite part of Kid's Worship is. I love reading them and it always makes me smile. There is one little girl who just leaves me notes with her name on them, because that is all that she knows how to spell.

It blows me away how much these amazing little kids just want to be connected to someone that loves them. Someone who isn't their parent or a family member. Someone that doesn't love them just because they are supposed to, but because they want to.

This morning when I got to the church I found a little piece of folded up paper in my box that I must have missed on Wednesday night. I unfolded it to read this...

I want to tell you that my Dad is not alive.


It was signed Love and then the girls name.

Wow.

I have developed a relationship with this little girl over the last couple of months since they started coming to church. I knew that her father was not living, but I don't know any of the details. I have never asked her about it because, honestly, when is the best time to bring something like that up.

For this little 5 year old girl, that is such a huge part of her story. The idea that she feels so loved and so safe in this space, safe enough to share that with me, means more than I have words for.

There is a reason why I spend my Saturdays in this building. There is a reason why I am here late at night during the week once my own kids have gone to bed. There is a reason why I would give my life for this church, not 5 or 10 years down the road when it is perfect, but today.

This morning I was reminded what that reason is.

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Quiet Time

The more I think I have everything figured out, the more I realize that I really don't even have a clue. Now I know that is going to be a shock to most of you, so take your time getting over that, and read on at your own pace.

I could go on for days and days listing all the ways that I have been proven wrong over the past year, but you would get bored after the 213th one, so I decided to narrow it down to a bit and share a few of them, one at a time. These are in no way ordered by philosophical importance, just things that finally cracked through this stubborn brain of mine.

Quiet Time

I have grown up hearing that term, but I'll be honest and tell you that I have never been really sure what "quiet" time is. I was fairly sure of a few things. First, it always took place before the sun woke up and was best acquired if you traveled to some sort of mountain top each morning. On the way to the mountain top you would listen to Sandi Patty and after a few hours of prayer God would lean down and kiss the earth, the sun would then break the horizon line and angels would sing and you would know that you had spent time with the Creator.

Another favorite term I remember from my childhood was going to your "prayer closet". Now this one really freaked me out. I imagined the old people of my church climbing in their closet each morning to have their quiet time with God. As I got older it made me chuckle a little to think that each morning they then "came out of the closet".

Anyway, there have been so many times in my life when I have made the decision to wake up before the sun and spend time reading the bible and praying. To do what real Christians do, the kind that not only get to live in Heaven, but get to live in the part that is a gated community past the standard pearly gates, the diamond studded gates. Like the houses that are down the street from Max Lucado and Carmen, where Ray Boltz sings every night at the all you can eat buffet. Super Christian territory.

As many times as I had tried it, I had failed. The reasons are varied. Sometimes quiet time....early morning....in the dark ....in the quiet....would often turn to sleeping time. When I was able to stay awake I would play that Bible game that everyone has played at sometime in their lives, where I would close my eyes and open it up to a random page and expect pixie dust to fall out and angels sing as God reveals something special that only my eyes would ever see. That never happened. I tried doing devotionals or "just" praying, but it never seemed to have the power that everyone else talked about. It was like maybe I was just so close to God that He really didn't need a special time with me. He was busy moving in the lives of the other sinners and he just wanted me to sleep an extra hour. In my delusional mind it all made perfect sense.

And then something changed. Committed to figuring this whole thing out, I began to experiment a little with quiet time. I usually spend an hour or so every evening reading through the lessons that I am going to teach to the kids on Sunday mornings and Wednesday nights. Slowly, what happened is that I started to not just see them but to look into them in a way that I had not before. Those same scriptures that were part of the lesson to be taught to 2nd and 3rd graders had an all new meaning for me. I had found a space to do my quiet time, it just looked nothing like I had expected.

At 5 am in the morning, I still think that I can do it all on my own. In the quiet darkness of a new day, Matthew 5 was written for someone else, someone less fortunate than me. Before the day starts, I have a plan in place for how and where I will allow God to work and be seen.

At the end of the day I am beaten up, I am drained of every ounce of feeling like I could ever control this life. At the end of the day Matthew 5 is not only for me, it often is the only thing that makes doing it all over again the next day a possibility. At the end of the day I am able to look back over the last 12 hours and know that none of it was of my own strength, to see all the places where I was held.

So it's not in the morning, it's not structured, I never go into my closet, but it's our time. I'm ok with not living down the street from Billy Graham in heaven. Hopefully I will be able to hear the Winans from my chic little studio apartment.

Friday, January 7, 2011

One Word



One Word. Not a list of the things I wish I could change, but probably won't. Not a list of resolutions that will last through January. Not a list of unreachable goals. Just one word.

One word that will guide and shape the decisions that I make. One word that I will live out everyday. With lots of contemplation and even more prayer, I have decided on my one word.

Story.

I have a story. I actually have many stories.

I have an inner story. The story in my heart. The one that is an improvisational portrayal of what it looks like to be completely loved and adored by a God that lavishes favor upon me despite my despicable behavior.

I have another story. The narration that is told through my actions. The story that is ever changing to fit in with my surroundings. Fiction. Sarcasm. Slander.

In 2011, I want to live an authentic story. I am not even completely confident that I know what that means at this point, but it is my one word.

Story.