Category: Christianity

Save Your World.

 

You are not responsible for saving the world. There is a God who is much more qualified for that role. Regardless of how you feel about this last year’s election, you probably feel like you are responsible for changing someone’s mind regarding an issue close to your heart.  You want to save people from their ignorance. You want to save people from hate. You want to save refugees from harm. You want to save babies. You are responsible for what’s happening. You’re responsible to a God who is saving the world. Especially if you call yourself a Christian.

 

Politics bore me to no end. I’d rather do my taxes than research issues. But my disinterest in political happenings does not excuse me from trying to solves the problems we face. But I’m a writer and I care about writing. I have a responsibility to use my gifts and my talents wisely. I can sow discord or I can sow hope. I can be a spectator or a speaker. I can pretend to be impartial, I can pretend you are impartial. We all know we are not. Disagreeing has never been a bad thing.

Can we agree on one thing? You are responsible. You hold influence within the spheres you are. Do you turn away from those who are “other?” Do you box in and trap those who disagree with you? Do you beg for “peace,” when you really just want silence? Do you scream and expect others to listen? The middle child within me just wants us all to “Get along.” The middle child within me wants to say outrageous things to stir up some controversy and see what happens. Neither option is good.

You don’t have to change the world, but what can you change for the better?

Psalm 84:10 Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere; I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of the wicked.”

Better to be a humble doorkeeper for Jesus, than a comfortable man in living in luxury of evil people. Better to be a toe, or a foot, and stop pretending you’re the head of the body. Better to be a part of the body than a lonesome (and slightly creepy) body part struggling by themselves. Be who God wants you to be, and not who the doubters tell you is your only option. Better to be a toe on a healthy body than an eye of a body that’s diseased. Better to ask God who you should be than to wait for the culture to tell you.

So go, save your world. One person at a time.

Out of the Pain, We Rise

“Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. 3If anyone thinks they are something when they are not, they deceive themselves. 4Each one should test their own actions. Then they can take pride in themselves alone, without comparing themselves to someone else,”

You reap what you sow, you sow what you reap. I read recently in an article that when choose actions now that will help us in the future we’re really showing compassion for our future self. So if you choose to do something hard, unpleasant, or tedious today that will make tomorrow or the next day a lot better, you are saying to your future self, “Hey, I care about you.” When I get up in the morning I say to myself “I care enough about my future to choose the hard thing now so that down the road I’ll be sick less, have less stress, and feel good about my body.” The temporary pain provides long-term benefits. But you have to choose the hard, the uphill battle, and the pain over and over again until finally you sit back on your deck and sip some lemonade and say “It’s good.”

Right after my Mom died it was hard to see a future. Logically I knew that tomorrow would come, and the next month, years and so forth. But I had to make my life from scratch, and everyone knows those pre-made cake boxes are darn easy to throw together and using high-quality ingredients is expensive and hard to find. My first bite of cake at the shop where I work ruined convenience and cheapness for all other desserts for me. Seeing the behind the scenes of a bakery made me realize just how incredibly difficult it is to make a beautiful cake. One single cake takes at least three people: One to make the frosting and batter ahead of time, the baker mixing, baking, being covered in batter and then depanning. And then the froster has to over it several coats of frosting and has to drag a spatula across to make it surface.  and that’s only half of it.  Don’t try to make your life over from scratch by yourself. If a cake takes a team, then your heart takes a team.

Your batter makes the cake, so make good batter. That’s it. You reap what you sow.

And yes, the relationship between what you put in and the results you see is murkier and more of a “grey” area than we like. Don’t. Give. Up.

“Broken people, we can be made whole, we can be made whole.”

The Brilliance, Will We Ever Rise

Can you live without comparing yourself to others? Can you live and let others carry your burdens with you? Life is much, much sweeter when you get to share it with other people. At my work we have a 10 gallon bucket that collects all of the espresso machine’s runoff. This includes cake crumbs, coffee grounds, syrup, and stale shots. We call it the “sludge” bucket. At the end of the night, it’s our job to make sure this bucket gets emptied into the mop closet sink. We made so many drinks one day that the bucket was practically overflowing with brown sludge. It was too heavy for one person to carry it without spilling this lovely concoction all over the floor. Me and my coworker had to carry it together. Don’t try to dump the sludge bucket of your life by yourself. Don’t wait until it’s too full for you to carry. Don’t pretend ugly brokenness isn’t inside of you. We need each other.

Back to lemonade on the porch. It’s sunny and your arms are streaked with dirt from working in the garden. You look over to see your most beloved grandparent, your best friend, or the love of your life.The struggle is over. Beauty is inside of you and outside of you. Plant good things.

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A dessert shop taught me how to grieve

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Today I woke up stronger and better and healthier than I have been in years. and I cried. Because life is still really hard. I thought if I just find a way to make the good days outnumber the bad days. If I finally committed to a workout routine and started seeing results. If I had a job that I liked and liked the people I worked with. If I found a husband who loves me and I genuinely enjoy spending time with. If I wrote a poem and thought it was beautiful then I would be fine.If I faced my grief instead of running from it, I would be ok.

But all I can think is, “I wish I could tell her how well I’m doing.”

and I can’t.

Isn’t that what you do? You call your Mom on the bad days and she tells you that no, you shouldn’t cook raw chicken in the microwave, only thaw it. She’ll tell you that if you keep crying you’ll get too upset and to just put a cold washcloth on your forehead and take a nap. Or sit on the toilet or something. You call your Mom on the good days too. If you do something right, she brags about you to other people. She doesn’t shut up about you, because she raised you and by some miracle she likes hanging out with adult you.

and just when you’re starting to step into the next chapter entitled “You can actually be friends with your Mom now.” You turn the page and it says “To be continued.”and you know it’s going to be a long, long time before you get an answer. and it’s not going to be here.

I wish it was here.

You’d think seeing daughters spending time with their Moms makes me sad, but it really doesn’t. There is a Mom and daughter who come into the shop where I work and get a sugar cookie and a cupcake every Monday night. and it makes me really, really happy. Cause they get it, it’s the here, it’s the now. It’s the ritual of a Monday night. They know that the secret isn’t quality time vs. quantity of time. It’s just constantly choosing to be together over and over and over so that when that time runs out (and you never really know when it will) you have bouquet of memories to dry in the pages of old books and hang on your wall with just a hint of fragrance left to them. We’d trade them for flowers in a heartbeat. But at least we have petals to scatter across the waters of our sorrows.

My Mom, Dad, and brother were in a car accident on a really rainy day on the freeway about three years before she died of cancer. I hated that car accident so much. I didn’t like seeing my brother in a hospital bed (even though it wasn’t serious), and I really, really hated seeing my Mom standing beside him with only one earring on. When I pointed out to her that her other earring was missing she didn’t even realize that she’d lost it. I loathed the whole experience. I did not enjoy being reminded that at any moment your whole life can change and just how quickly it can happen. Nothing was taken from me that day, instead I was given a reprieve, a gentle nudge to hold my loved ones closer. I was so grateful I had hugged each of them before they had left and said “I love you!” to each of them. In the following years I made sure to give each of my family members a hug and to say “I love you” any time we said goodbye. I was given divine homework, and like any good student I took it seriously.

“I guess we’re all one phone call

From our knees.”

Mat Kearney

We’ve all been given divine homework. Nobody is getting graded, and there’s no clear deadline. I’m not just talking about good works or kind words or buying a strangers coffee (these are all really, really good things though) I’m talking the hard, the hate, the heartbreaking, backbreaking thorn-in-my-flesh, I must fight this with God by my side or else I will fail challenges that we face. We don’t have to chase it, or search for it, it somehow finds us.  It often doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, and the emotions run deeper and clearer than a frozen river.

So yes, a dessert shop taught me to grieve, because day after day I see friends meeting friends for coffee and cake. I see families lighting birthday candles, their faces lit by the glow. I put together a box of sugar cookies for a lady who has just received the call that yes, she does have breast cancer. And she has no idea what she’ll be fighting. The pink curtains of the front window are pulled back and for a moment you can see a glimpse into heaven. A cupcake can’t really fix anything, but the kindness and the joy surrounding it remind me that the darkness can be fought. What battle are you on the front lines of? If the curtain is pulled back and you saw what Jesus saw, what would your divine homework be? 

“And afterward, I will pour out my spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions.”

Joel 2:28