Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas!
Well folks, Christmas is upon us once again. I don’t know about you, but I am having trouble getting into the “Christmas Spirit”.
I have been reading a book about the history of the church for the last few months. It is amazing how much the traditions for celebrating Christmas has changed. I often assume that people in the past had an easier time getting that elusive Christmas Spirit. After reading about the history of the church, I’m no longer convinced they did. They were human too after all. The reason we have celebrations, any at all, is to acknowledge something important that has happened or to remind ourselves of an event we don’t want to forget. We all get tired of having to be reminded what Christmas is really about, but honestly, that is the whole point of Christmas, is to remind us, to help us remember, what LIFE is all about. With out birth, there would be no life, without life, there would be no death, and without His death, there would be no new birth and new life for us. So don’t get annoyed with all the people harping on about the “real meaning of Christmas”. That is, after all, why we celebrate in the first place, to remind us. I pray the Lord will bless you and keep you this joyous season of remembering!

I came, I saw, I smashed it into the rug!

Fear...it is a powerful thing. Most of the time the fear of doing something is more painful than actually doing it. Living in fear of something isn't living at all. It keeps you up at night, it keeps you from taking any risks, it can even keep you from having relationships or from ever experiencing the joy of living life free from fear.
Fears come in all shapes and sizes. We like to laugh at other people's fears, but when it comes to our own fears, our sense of humor tends to run dry. Some people laugh at the girl so afraid of home invasion that she ritualistically checks doors and windows and closets and under the bed before going to sleep every night, but those same people may be terrified of doing their income taxes. Which causes me to ask, which is a more rational fear...really. You may find fear of mice or roaches to be paltry and irrational, but tremble at the thought of universal health care and the end of capitalism. Fear is personal and not often rational.
Why do we fear things anyway? I guess that some fears keep people from making really bad choices that might get themselves killed or worse. Fear, to a certain extent, is just a survival instinct, a tool we use to help us stay alive. But I am not really talking about that kind of fear. No, I am talking about the fear that binds us and makes us a slave to it, that smothers us and holds us back from our potential. God has been teaching me a lot lately about this kind of fear. I have had to identify some of the fears that are keeping me bound and asking God to free me from them. Some of you have asked God to free you from some of your fears and you know where this story is going, but for the rest of you, I must warn you that when you ask God to free you from your fear, you better be ready for him to do it.
Since I was a small girl, I have feared one thing with such consistency and stamina that I really ought to qualify for some sort of award. I fear cockroaches. Not the little roaches that are about a cm long and crawl out of your drain at night. I mean, they are gross, but they are hardly terrifying. No, I fear the big ones, the tree roaches that love to invade the old Victorian houses in Galveston. The ones that live in the walls and come out at night when the lights are turned out, that do not respect the boundaries of door, nor bed cover, nor drawer. They can smell fear and vulnerability, and they feed off it. They lie in wait in your bath towels, they breed in your tennis shoes, they invade your bedchamber in hoards with a snick, click, snick sound, that chills to the bone.
To be honest, I know they cannot hurt me, not really. They may be impossible to kill and look like incarnated devils, but really quite harmless when compared to say...earthquakes, house fires, rabid wolves or vampires. But as with any home invader, their real power lies in the fact that there is nothing you can do to guarantee that they will not enter your home, you are completely vulnerable and helpless. Now, like with home invaders, you can have weapons of mass destruction handy to blast them into oblivion, but you may be caught unawares and unprepared.
One of the things I have been worried about in heading to Africa is the fact that cockroaches are just as prevalent there if not more so, than in Galveston where I grew up. How am I supposed to deal with that? Especially if I am living alone? So, even though I was pretty sure I wouldn't like his methods, I told God that I needed his help to conquer this fear. Maybe that was when he decided to send me to Galveston for three months. The first encounter came one night after my sisters had gone to bed. Natalie came tearing into the living room weeping hysterically and blathering unintelligibly. It was a roach near her bed in her room. Christopher could not be roused, so I decided I must deal with it. I steeled myself and rushed to her aid, only to find that Audra had already dealt a stunning blow the the offending insect. I tried to scoop it up with an envelope to dispose of it, and it seemed to revive a little, so I grabbed a shoe and clobbered it beyond revival. My hand was shaking with adrenaline as I sent it to it's watery grave.
The next training exercise came when my friend and I were at her apartment late at night. I went into the kitchen and flipped the switch. Two giant creepers were feasting on crumbs on the floor. We tried to poison them with Lysol spray, but one got away in the pantry, and the other escaped into the bedroom. Well, the bedroom invader was the size of a school eraser and I had no intention of sharing my sleeping quarters with it. We chased if from behind the dresser with a broom and worked together to trap and destroy it using a two pronged attack with dustpan and broom.
Then tonight, I came home to my friend's apartment, alone. I started to climb the stairs and there on the wall was another super-sized-creature-from-the-pit-of-hell! This time, I was all alone. I looked downstairs, praying that God would provide a weapon of ample reach and clout. Thank heaven...there was a mop. I grabbed the implement and headed up the stairs. I swung, and missed, but the creature underestimated my reaction time and didn't move quick enough to evade my next blow. This one struck it dead on and it fell to the stairs. I beat it into the carpet, but knew that it wasn't broken and might still revive. I dashed upstairs to get the broom and dustpan, only to find that our associate from the previous night, the pantry lurker, was carousing on my Weapon of Mass Destruction! I screamed a mighty war cry and slammed the door a couple times until he abandoned my WMD for safer regions further back in the pantry. I disposed of the first kill and went to address the lurker, only to find that once again it evaded my efforts to destroy it. I suppose I still have some residual fear issues I need to work out with that one later.
All in all, I am pretty darn proud of my accomplishments, as indicated by this rather lengthy epitaph in their honor. I suppose one of the hardest and most important steps to getting over any fear is deciding that you are going to have to face it in order to conquer it. This is even harder to do than actually facing it, for some reason. Fear is really only as strong as the fear itself, and adrenaline can be a very useful supplement to bravery.

Bits of Glass

There are a lot of lessons to be learned from the sea. It can be unstable, powerful, destructive, constant, untamed and also likened in scripture to the voice of God. Maybe the awe we feel for the unfettered might of the ocean is a taste of the awe we should feel for the might of God.

There isn’t anything particularly wonderful about the Galveston beach if you compare it to other beaches in the world. The sand is gray, not white, the shells are all small and mostly broken, the waves are small and gentle compared to say, the California coast. But it is special all the same. I had given up searching for pretty shells that were unbroken by the churning about on the bottom of the Gulf. They are just too hard to find. Then I remembered a book about sea glass that I had read a few months ago and once again turned my eye down to see if I could find a piece of real sea glass.

Sea glass, if you are going to get technical, only becomes sea glass (as opposed to the regular broken- bottle variety of glass) when it has been chunked about enough in the water and sand that all the sharp edges are gone, the smooth shiny surfaces are buffed up and look “frosted”, or if something else strange and destructive has happened to it, like melting. I thought how cool it would be to find a piece of perfect bottle green sea glass, just sitting there waiting for me to discover. The first piece I found however was beer-bottle brown. The wonderful thing about sea glass, though, is that it really doesn’t matter what the glass was in its former life, no matter how mundane or unsavory, when it is remade by the waves and sand, it is unique and beautiful. Shells loose some of there beauty when they are broken and damaged, glass just gets prettier. So I picked up that small brown sliver and rolled it about in my hand as I continued to search for another piece.

The first piece of green glass caught my eye as the sun glinted off of it. It wasn’t technically sea glass yet. The edges were chipped and the surface was scratched, and though it was beautiful, it really wasn’t finished yet. I held on to it for a little while though. It reminded me of myself, a little broken and battered, but not yet fully remade.

I found several more pieces, a few more browns of various shades and sizes, a couple of greens (that were real sea glass) and two white pieces. I had told God as I looked how much I would like to find a green, and I found a green, then I told him how much I would like to find some white glass, and then I found some white glass, so then I told him how much I would like to find some blue glass, but I never found any, at least not that day. I’m not done looking, though, and I’m not done asking. I have a feeling there is a piece of blue glass out there, waiting for me to find it. Maybe it’s just not ready yet.

You can learn a lot from the sea, if you take the time to listen.

I am back in Nacogdoches for the first time since December graduation. It feels very strange to be here without all of the friends that used to make this place home. Not that I don't have any friends here, just not most of the dear ones I went to school with.
I meet with the missions committee and then spoke at my supporting church here on Sunday and that was very encouraging. I was a little disappointed that not more people wanted to get together this week, but I realized that I keep developing these great expectations about how people aught to receive me and respond. I think my ego really wants just once for a speaking engagement to result in like five new supporters or something. I know, that's rediculous, that isn't how it has ever happened for me, but I keep expecting it all the same. It is so hard some times to place all my expectations on God and to leave the door open for him to provide how ever he sees fit. Partnership Development so rarely happens the way I think it should.
I am at 70% of the monthly support I need for the year in France, and that is not counting most of the one time/special gifts I have received. All said and done, I have much to be greatful for in regard to the Lord's provision.

Push

Over the last few months I have really been getting back into drawing a lot. I feel like all those questions I have had for so many years about who I am and what I was made to do are not nearly so pressing or significant now. I don't think about all that as much. I feel comfortable in my own skin for the first time in a decade or so. Maybe being that is a signal that I am really doing what I was made for, that I have figured out how to live my life "right". Not that there is one right way and I have stumbled across the secret and the rest of you are on your own... no, I think it is an individual process and that there may come a season of discontent and frustration again in the future. What I guess I know now is that God uses those times to PUSH is forward in the direction he wants us to go. He wants it to be voluntary, he wants us to choose to follow, but he is not above a nice firm shove or a serious case of the discontents. The thing is, I love drawing, but that wasn't what I was made for, was it? I was made for the glory of God, and as long as I can glorify him in art, then I guess that is what I will do... until the next time I feel him push me in another direction.

Bad timing

This summer, i am taking a Primary Health Care class with PBT to prepare for health care issues on the field. I am the youngest and only unmarried woman in the class. One day, we split up guys and girls to talk about examining ourselves for cancer in our sensitive areas. The teachers had these little silicone replicas of breasts and testicles that had lumps in them so you could practice the exam. We started off talking about self-exams, but all things being equal, about half way through, we swapped parts and talked about the other gender's exam techniques (I guess so we are well informed). The guys were taking a really long time with their little fake booby and so all the wives were making jokes about it. It was lunch and I had left my shoes in the room where the guys were at, so finally Laura Brollier peeked in and told me I should go ahead because they were almost done. i went in and tried to ignore the fact that five grown men were poking around on a little fake boob. I grabbed my stuff and was almost out safely when Sue Alice, the teacher (an older nurse) instructs the men, "So you can be really helpful to your wives, men. While you are making love..." I didn't wait around to hear any more but bolted for the door. I would have been fine if the door hadn't been partially blocked by a couple of tables. I slammed my hip into one, hooked my foot on another and then slammed into the partition as I hurtled into the other room. Laura had heard all that had transpired and was doubled over in laughter, "Bad timing!" I'll say. I laughed so hard I nearly peed myself!

Not alone

So I was thinking today about how many of my close friends are actively pursuing an alternative life path. They are from a broad range of backgrounds, with various college degrees and all different kinds of gifts and passions. My friend Alyssa is in Grenada now, working with the Peace Corp to help with the blind students there. Karissa is in Costa Rica working with students with special education needs and looking into other options for future ministry. My friends Miriam and Kristine are preparing to serve with Campus Crusade's Bridges ministry in Houston TX. Anjuli is heading to California to work at an alternative Christian school for children and is considering going on a mission trip to Dubai this summer.
There are other young people I know, people from church back home, from my family, from my peers in college not to mention all the people I have met this year in Dallas who are preparing to serve with Pioneer Bible Translators, Wycliffe international and SIL international. They are not choosing the "American Dream" wit nice jobs and benefits and a stable secure salaries. Many are giving up the comforts of good health, air conditioning, and stable governments to serve in other countries.
Why are we all making this choice? Some people went to Bible college others went to state schools. Some were raised in the church and have been on more mission trips than they can remember, others didn't really get on board until after college. All different kinds of interests and motivations and pasions, but all making similar choices.
Yet there is something that is guiding each and every one of us who has made the decision to do something different with this season of our life: faith. Faith that God has a plan bigger than we can imagine, faith that it is for our good as well as for the good of all men. Faith that we are going to be ok, even in Africa, or the middle east or Papua New Guinea or Houston TX. Faith that a life lived pursuing the will of God, no matter how insufficient our abilities and how insurmountable the obstacals, is the only life we want to live.
I find it encouraging and exciting to know that I am not the only one who found themself unexpectedly flung into a life they did not expect. God is calling people from all different backgrounds and walks of life to serve him in unexpected ways. How awesome is our God.