So It Goes.

My favorite author, Kurt Vonnegut, died.

He did not go to heaven.

In alot of ways I do not understand the finality of death. No one close to me has ever died. Both of my grandfathers passed away when I was a young child, I did not know them well, but I recognize the the impact those men had on my family and therefore me. My grandmother died a couple years ago. But the ultimate cause of her death, a major stroke, occurred when I was in high school. It was at that time I mourned the loss of my grandma, after the stroke she was not the women who had shaped so much of my personality as it exists now.

But the true shock of death has never struck my life.
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A list. Chronologically, documenting the last thirty days:

• My co-worker's nephew died of a horrible, unknown immune disorder


• A man in my church died of liver failure after battling the dehabiliating disease for nearly two years.


• Another co-worker's oldest friend died a brutal, but accidental death as a result of years of alcoholism.


• Our office mailman died of a heart attack, he was found in his truck in parking lot in our neighborhood.


• The grandfather of my best friend at home died after a sudden stroke.

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And then came Kurt Vonnegut. You would think some of those other events would have impacted me more, but I am a selfish, selfish girl.

A lot of people might not mourn the loss of a favorite author, but it's a big deal to me. Increasingly, I'm surprised by my own emotions or sometimes my lack of emotions. I felt very little in all of those other death related circumstance. I felt sorrow for my friends, the ones who were still living, and I wanted to share the gospel with them, to give them hope, but everytime I opened my mouth, only air came out. I am ashamed that I cannot give to these people the truth that I believe so thoroughly. If I can't share it with them in a time such as this, what good am I?

It seems in a lot of ways that immediately following the death of someone would be a great opportunity to talk about eternal life, but if I put myself in the shoes of the one who has just been eternally separated from a dear friend or family member, my only response would be "How unfair. I can go to heaven, but my friend can't."

In my mind, I can respond to this thought, I can analyze the truth I know and the character of God and come to a solution: God does not owe us salvation. He gives it freely, but He is not required to save us. Even just writing those words give me peace. My God is truly in control of all things, he desires all to be saved, but he knows that some will perish. This thought does not impact my belief in God, but I'm terrified that it will impact someone else.

I love the gospel, I love sharing the gospel, I love hearing the gospel, I love praying with people in that moment when they accept Christ into there lives. There is no greater calling or purpose in life than to rescue those who are staggering towards death, to hold back those who are being led towards slaughter.

Then, why, now, when it seems there is no better chance to give hope to the hope to the hopeless are the words trapped in my throat?

I keep thinking of this verse:

Romans 1:16 "I am not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God for the salvation for everyone who believes first for the Jew, the for the Gentile."

Two things: In that statement alone, it's clear that God extends the offer of salvation, and it's up to us to take it. God does not send anyone to hell. And, the gospel is the power of God. The power of God. The power of God. The power of God.

Kurt Vonnegut went to hell because he did not believe in the power of God. He did not even believe in God.

My friend Micah, who died of liver failure, went to heaven because he did believe in the power of God.

I'm sure Kurt Vonnegut heard the gospel in his life, and I'm sure because of the sort of man he was and because of the sort of mind he possessed he thought about it. And he chose not to believe it. God did not send Kurt Vonnegut to hell. He chose it.

Everytime I consider sharing the gospel, I am afraid that I will say or do something that will be the reason some one chooses not to go to heaven. Everytime. This thought terrifies me, it makes me feel that I will some how be responsible for this person's death. I know the truth is that what I say or do, if done in a loving and kind way cannot overshadow the truth of the gospel. Even if I make a terrible blunder or that person is offended by my statements, they still make the choice.

That doesn't make me feel any better.

I'm still scared.

Father, please give me words.

Now that I'm in my mid-twenties, I find that holidays are a little awkward.

If you get down to it, most holidays center around children. At Christmas the kids dreams of sugar plums, at Halloween they get all dressed up to go trick-or-treating and at Easter they put on their frilliest outfit and go look for hidden eggs. The adults ohh and ahh at all the silly, precocious things their little tykes do, and then everyone eats a whole lot of food.

But as a single twenty-something, who lives far away from her family, my holidays look a little different. Sometimes holidays can be lonely, but often I get the opportunity to choose the family that I spend it with. Like alot of twenty-somethings, I don't have a family that looks anything like the traditional nuclear family. My family, those who I love and long for, are my friends, the amazing people that God has blessed me with and in His divine providence allowed my to walk the straight and narrow beside them.


So I get to do alot of fun, crazy things on holidays, like climb (and by climb I mean ride a tram) to the top of a mountain in the pre-dawn hours to gather and watch the sunrise on Easter morning ...





Shannon the Instigator ... this hair-brained idea was her master plan.

Oh, the enthusiasm that 5 a.m. brings!

Shoved in the tram like cattle ... Even though it was cold and dark and I couldn't see out the window, and we were hanging from a simple pulley system, I didn't get scared, really, not even a little bit, really.

Who goes to the top of a mountain at night in a snow storm?

We do!

The opposite of dusk ...

The sun came up, but we couldn't find it ...

But we did find snow, just what we were hopingfor ...

Penguin Huddle!

Ben the Canadian seeks wisdom and guidance from an Eskimo, sort of ...


All in all sunrise service was amazing, even if the sun did not grace us with its presence. After, we went down to the valley where the sun was shining and it was clear that springtime was on it's way. I won't make the super cheesy Hallmark analogy that life without Jesus is like wintertime, and life with Jesus is like springtime, full of possibilities. Wait, did I just make that analogy? I did, didn't I? Oh well, I stand by it.

Some Pretty Remarkable Statistics

These are from an article on Burnside Writers Collective, which has recently been rocking my world. The four of you who read this, should go read that. Particularly you.

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Pretty Remarkable Statistic #1: 1.1 billion people are without safe drinking water, while Americans consume 26 billion liters of BOTTLED water annually.

Pretty Remarkable Statistic #2: Every 16 seconds somewhere in the world someone dies of hunger, while 2 out of 3 Americans are considered overweight.

Pretty Remarkable Statistic #3: Americans spend more annually on trash bags than nearly half the world does on ALL goods.

Pretty Remarkable Statistic #4: An estimated 22 million people died from preventable disease in 2001; 10 million were children.

Pretty Remarkable Statistic #5: 1 in 16 women in sub-Saharan African dies in childbirth.

Pretty Remarkable Statistic #6: 40% of the world lacks basic sanitation facilities.

Consider the costs of eradicating some of these needs:

The cost of basic education for all: $6 billion.

The cost of water and sanitation for all: $10 billion.

The cost of reproductive health for all women: $12 billion.

Basic health and nutrition for all: $13 billion.

To put this in perspective, consider that Americans spent just over $18 billion on consumer products (largely for Christmas gifts) during the weekend of November 24-26, 2006, which is the largest shopping weekend of the year.

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Sometimes numbers and statistics screw with my head, and quite honestly they can be manipulated. I think these are from a pretty legitimate source. But like my pastor says, numbers equal lives.

I believe that these numbers reflect the most crucial issue of our time. Bigger than the war in Iraq, bigger than global warming, bigger than what Paris Hilton did last night, or when the next Pirates of the Caribbean flick comes to a theater near you. These numbers, aside from the gospel, are the most important information you will see today, or tomorrow or the day after that, because the numbers reflect the status in which our world exists.

Yes, they maybe disheartening, and even heartbreaking, when I actually choose to think about what these numbers mean (millions of people dying without knowing the love of the God who created them) I am nearly paralyzed with sorrow. It seems like too big of a problem to even try.

But more than that, these numbers reflect an opportunity. An opportunity to be used as an instrument of God's grace to extend healing, justice and mercy to those widows and orphans who are the very closest to the heart of God. An opportunity to let your (my) mind and your (my) heart be transformed by the Holy Spirit, because it is only when God renews us from within that any of our outward actions will matter at all. This is not about me making myself feel good because I gave some money to the poor and needy. This is about coming into a deeper understanding of who my God is and what is of value to him.


James 1:27
Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

Proverbs 24:11-12
Rescue those being led away to death; hold back those staggering toward slaughter. If you say, "But we knew nothing about this," does not he who weighs the heart perceive it? Does not he who guards your life know it? Will he not repay each person according to what he has done?

I'm not saying that we all have to quit our jobs at this very moment to go to Africa or India or China, but thanks be to God that we have jobs! And jobs equal paychecks. Paychecks equal dollar bills and no matter the ethics of it, dollar bills equal the beginning of the end of this problem. I do believe that no matter how much money the United States and Europe throws at Africa that the problem will not be completely solved.

All of these crisises are more than just a lack of money or infrastructure or education. These problems are all indicative of the most basic problem that any human being has: SIN. Our world is devastated because of sin and the consequences our own flesh has ravished upon us for generations. Because we at our core are the problem, there is nothing we can do with our own hands that will solve it.

The solution can only come from outside of ourselves. The only solution is the love and grace the Jesus Christ offers us. The only solution is a relationship with the One who made us, and who rescues us from of all these problems that we have gotten ourselves into.

I spilled coffee on my bible this morning, and nearly swore, but didn't because I really wasn't aware enough to forms words. It made me feel like the cards were stacked against me and that surely Thursday would turn out bad. Then as I was wiping away the warm liquid that should have been in my body instead of on the kitchen table, I scolded myself for having such negative thoughts. Why on earth would a clutzy maneuver like spilling my coffee indicate the outcome of my day? It doesn't.

I'm restless in my skin.

I'm tired of feeling the same thing over and over and over. I'm tired of anticipation, but I don't think I'm ready for whatever it is I am anticipating.

I want the world to change.
I want to change the world.

I want to go, but it's not time for me to leave.

pray.
wait.
pray.
wait.
wait.
wait.
pray.

City Notebooks

O sweet Moleskine notebook of my heart, you have gone and done it again ...

How Moleskine did you know that the only thing that I love more than your well-bound pages and smooth leather cover is maps?

My hearts twitters.

I Agree

This is a story from the Burnside Writers Collective. I've been a thrift guru for alot of year now, but never really thought about it in this way.

http://www.burnsidewriterscollective.com/social/2007/03/a_goodwill_emissary.php

I just want the world to change. I want to use every resource available to me to have a hand in that change.

Neva Knows the Score, part 2

3. A Revolutionary Christian Woman is able to GIVE HER HEART AWAY TO OTHERS and then, someday, BLESS AND RELEASE those very same people that she has invested so much into.

This is how we accomplish the great commission.

“Partir c’est de mourir un peu.”
To part is to die a little.

Isaiah 49: 15, 16
Can a mother forget the baby at her breast
and have no compassion on the child she has borne?
Though she may forget,
I will not forget you!
See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands;
your walls are ever before me.

This point was especially poignant, as I am still trying to process how to engage and interact with my former roommates.

I love those women more than I love life. I would give anything they ever asked of me. Except that I haven’t been giving them very much of my time, and they haven’t been asking for much of it either.

I will admit that I felt a level of bitterness, and at times still do, as they moved into new homes of their chocie -- without me. But then, I started to notice that their lives weren’t precisely what I wanted. I doubt any of them missed a beat in their relationships with God, but in some ways they seemed to disconnect from the church, while my life was being consumed more and more by new activities and new people with whom to connect. I didn’t know how to balance the two, and I chose nearly full involvement with a new group of people, establishing a new group of core friends.

My old roommates hold a place in my heart that can never be filled by another set of people; they in fact are my very heart. By a "core group of friends," I mean people with whom I spend the majority of my time. I felt that God was leading me to be more involved in the campus ministry of our church, a group of people my old roommates have nothing in common with and would therefore never choose thehang out with them.

So in the new year, I fond myself in a new household with four women, all but one of whom I’d known less than a year. I knew that this situation would require a lot of trust in God on my part, because in a lot of ways I felt very exposed to the world. As soon as I moved in with these women, they would see me for who I really am, and I was sure they wouldn’t like me very much. My other fear – one even more selfish – is that I wouldn’t like them very much. Then, I thought, I would really be alone.

But God surprised me. I love my new roommates, and they love me. Yes, my life is drastically different now than it was six months ago, but if my life had remained the same, I would not have grown in the ways I have. I miss my old roommates, a lot, but I definitely see how God was working to make me more like Him. It’s one hard thing to live in a house with five other women. It’s another hard thing to be a leader of a house of five other women.

A side note: This time last year, although I knew I was no where near being ready to marry, I wanted so very much to be married. Now, even after three short months of “leading a household” I understand a lot more a (or at least I think I do) about what being a wife might entail, which is mostly always putting others before yourself (just like Neva says, she really does know the score), but God has completely removed my desire to be married -- anytime soon.

I really want to keep living this life that God has laid out for me. This life of partnering with my roommates to rescue those women who are staggering towards death. Something that I wouldn’t have event the faintest idea of how to do with out the years that my previous roommates built into my life.

I like that little French saying, that to part is to die a little. The day we moved out of our old house, a part of each of our hearts died a little, but the day I moved into my new house, I felt like a new part of my heart came alive.

If there is one lesson I continue to learn about the Christian life, it’s the act of dying to oneself. Christ died so the others may live, the ultimate mark that He is the one who is revolutionizing my life are the parts of that I let die so that he can give me new life. Usually I think of those as very personal private areas, but I think this time around he did it in a much more public way, so that he could receive the glory.