"Come away with me for awhile..."

So I am about 7 weeks into this crazy, wonderful, overwhelming, scary, hilarious, purposeful, all around awesome life in the MTR family. It has been FAR too long since I've written a post - it's been on my list of things to do pretty much since orientation week, so over a month ago...sorry, Dad! But life has been hoppin' and even in my spare moments sleep, the on-going process of getting my apartment situated, or reading has seemed much more pressing than writing. I will try to be more timely from now on (but unfortunately make no promises!).

Everything I've been doing in this crazy life -- grad classes, training, preparing for a year in a 3rd grade classroom, getting to know my new 40+ person family, epic cockroach chases -- I will address in a different post soon. What struck me this morning that I wanted to write about is a little bit of what God has been up to with me. I'm going to approach this in two parts that overlap a lot, but I'm going to talk about them separately anyway: solitude with the Lord and God's total awesomeness (in power, in love...).

SOLITUDE WITH THE LORD
From the get-go I knew that this year was going to be a lot about me and God together, 1) because this is all wayyyy too big for me and 2) because it turns out that there was an odd number of unmarried girls in MTR, so I have my own apartment instead of having a roommate. Now, as someone who has always adamantly maintained that I would never ever live alone, this has been a big adjustment, though I really do enjoy it now. But during orientation week I could already feel God working on me, whispering in my ear in my moments of loneliness or sadness or just wanting someone to say goodnight to, "Beloved, you know how we always talk about you depending on Me? And you always say that you do that? I think we both know that you don't do that. So we're going to work on that together this year." I have been wonderfully blessed in my life with a solid and faithful network of family and friends; God has been sweet to give me such wonderful people! But it has at points made it easy for me to turn to them first instead of to the Lord and some of the insecurities that I have wrestled with through the years have been fed by my ability (which then turned into my need) to look to others for my worth. Learning to be okay with being by myself, to not always need to have music on or to call or text someone so that I'm communicating with someone, is a 2-steps-forward-1-step-back kind of process for me, but we're figuring it out. I'm learning to process things with God first and then to others as the occasion warrants. I like the freedom of wandering around my apartment praying out loud, though I admit that sometimes I have to force myself and it feels funny; at others it feels like the most natural thing in the world. This sounds kind of silly, but so much of it is just a matter of having the courage to face my insecurity or doubt and to speak, embracing whatever it is that I'm feeling at the moment and actually engaging in believing what I belive.

The second big thing I am relearning about solitude with the Lord is just how totally and completely necessary it is for emotional stamina and stability. My daily devotional book "Jesus Calling" hit the nail on the head this morning, so I though I'd share the blurb here:

"Come away with Me for awhile. The world, with its nonstop demands, can be put on hold. Most people put Me on hold, rationalizing that someday they will find time to focus on Me. But the longer people push Me into the background of their lives, the harder it is for them to find Me.
You live among people who glorify busyness; they have made time a tyrant that controls their lives. Even those who know Me as Savior tend to march to the tempo of the world. They have bought into the illusion that more is always better: more meetings, more programs, more activity.
I have called you to follow Me on a solitary path, making time alone with Me your highest priority and deepest Joy. It is a pathway largely unappreciated and often despised. However, you have chosen the better thing, which will never be taken away from you. Moreover, as you walk close to Me, I can bless others through you."

These words settled on my heart this morning and I could see the truth of them in my life. How much I promise God that I will give Him some of my time later which turns into passing thoughts and prayers without ever much quality time where I'm focusing on the Lord -- though I manage to find plenty of time for reading, talking to friends and family on the phone, hanging out with people, or going to Harry Potter midnight showings...all of which are great things! I'm not saying they aren't, but does the Lord not deserve some intentional time from me just like these other things do?
I was also struck by the last thought: "as you walk close to Me, I can bless others through you." It wasn't what this actually said, but thinking about the implications of the opposite scenario --> as I get distracted from God, am I still a blessing to others? It would be easy for me to spout nice phrases about how God can use anything or anyone (and I know that He does) and look at "nice things" I've done for people in those times. But I can't let myself off that easily anymore. Because I know the truth of what my life becomes when it is ruled in various areas by my own selfishness, some even in the past week and a half. When I put myself back in the center, it blesses no one.
which leads me to...

GOD'S TOTAL AWESOMENESS
One of the things that we do as part of the MTR is spiritual life class with David. We start off the year talking about the Bible as one narrative, one over-arching story told in a lot of different ways that tell us who God is and who we are. Right off the bat through creation we learn so many things about the Lord: His creativity, His distinctiveness from creation, His relational nature, His sovereignty, His intimacy, His great love, His wisdom, and finally the fact that God is crazy powerful. Our vision in MTR is about what God is doing in urban education in Memphis, that He is about transforming this system, these schools, these children's lives and also back up the scale through the country and world. And it is crazy. There are some HUGE obstacles, on the macro and micro levels -- everything from teachers who protected by systems that keep them teaching long after their fire and drive for the children has gone out to the students who struggle in the classroom because of their empty stomach or fear of the abuses waiting for them when they get home. It's too much. I can't do it. It is insurmountable to me.

And what has been washing over me, sometimes gradually, sometimes in a rush, sometimes struggling to push past all of my selfish, insecure doubts, is that praise the Lord, I don't have to! He can and He is and He will continue to! I am just lucky enough to be along for the ride. And the humility that knowledge brings is life-saving, both for me and for my students, because if I tried to do this in my own pride it would only bring failure for all of us.

Today in church I had one of the moments where this glorious truth hit me in a rush, washing over me with the words of a song. I've sung it many times, so it was not the novelty that affected me, but just the truth of it. I stood there silently, letting the singing rise around, savoring all of it while I wept quietly to the Lord - tears of relief, of gratitude, of shame, of release. I cried for my students, for a couple friends who are facing major transitions, for MTR, for myself. I cried in gratitude because God is crazy powerful and He will continue to point to and bring glory to Himself with the restoration of the world. Mostly I was crying in the knowledge that He truly is big enough, strong enough, loving enough, and powerful enough to do it. He can and will draw my friends' close in to Him and do His great works in their lives. He can and will bring transformative, radical change to our schools and to our students' lives. I guess to put it simply, He can and will be Himself.

The song that I wept through is called "Mighty to Save" by Hillsong. The next song that drew my heart back to my morning's devotion and wrapped it in with the humility that I need and desire before the Lord, and that I also partially wept through is called "Lead me to the Cross" also by Hillsong. I'll put the lyrics to both choruses below, but really all of the lyrics are just solid and I hope you'll take a moment to put them into google for the lyrics or youtube for the songs. Take the minutes for a little solitude with the Lord :)

"My Savior, He can move the mountains
my God is mighty to save, He is mighty to save
forever, Author of salvation,
He rose and conquered the grave, Jesus conquered the grave"

"Lead me to the cross where Your love poured out
bring me to my knees, Lord i lay me down
rid me of myself, i belong to You
lead me, lead me to the cross"

Amen.

Choosing trust, not fear

It is May 26, 2011. Which means that 12 days ago I graduated from Rhodes College and 11 days ago I turned in my fob, my apartment key, my key to my room in Bellingrath sophomore year that I discovered over the summer after having lost and replaced it (whoops!), and my mailroom keys (two because of the aforementioned losing and finding of keys). So, 11 days ago I left living at Rhodes for good, only to visit in the future. It also means that 2 days from now I will load up Ruby (my car) and my Mom's van and my parents and I will start our trip to Memphis. And 5 days from now I will begin to move in to my new apartment, officially becoming a resident of Tennessee. And 7 days from now my life with Memphis Teacher Residency officially begins with a welcome dinner. Mom will leave the next morning (an event that I am pretty sure will be basically drowned in my tears) and I will dive in head first to this new life.

So I'm in this in-between period...this limbo place of having left Rhodes, the life that I have loved and grown through and been incredibly blessed by for 4 years, and trying to prepare for MTR, the life that I know I will love and have to grow through to survive and will be amazingly blessed by for 4 years. And that preparation is looking like a week at Bald Head Island with my whole family and a week in Raleigh catching up with friends and going to doctors appointments and packing packing packing - soaking in a little bit more of this life that I will always love, where they've let me grow and supported me while I did (and continue to), where I'm blessed every day.

Needless to say, I have been rather all over the place. Sometimes I don't get why I'm packing furniture and books and clothing because I feel like I'm just on any other summer vacation. Sometimes I am all too aware of the fact that graduation was real and I will never live in that place with those people again - which either makes me want to cry or frantically contact everyone to make sure they remember that I love them no matter where we each go and how much we actually stay in touch - though it also often just makes me fill with so much gratitude for it all. The rest of the time I have been looking forward to MTR - and that has been an emotional roller coaster in and of itself.

I love this program. I respect this program. I agree with its heart, its goal, its hopes, its faith. I am more sure of the importance of changing children's lives by giving them the opportunity to earn a great education with every moment of my day - watching the news, reading books, listening to conversations around me in the grocery store...I am constantly aware of how much potential for radical wonderful change in this world is possible if everyone has the opportunity to be educated well. I saw the movie "Freedom Writers" a couple months ago and am now reading the book "The Freedom Writers Diary" - the true story of an L.A. teacher and her students that this movie and book share makes the importance of education and the potential for change (on the individual and larger level) that it provides abundantly clear. So as I head into this 4-yr program, I am filled with excitement and purpose.

I have also been filled with fear. What if I'm not a good teacher? What if I fail these students? What if I'm too prideful to take constructive critique well? What if everyone else is better at reaching their students than I am? What if I let the MTR family down (not to mention my own family)? What if my faith isn't strong enough? What if I just...can't do it? What if...?

These questions have been plaguing me, gnawing at me. Not constantly, but they lurk and are ready to move back in as soon as my general insecurities let them. People have spoken words of reassurance to me (some repeatedly - thank you for your patience!) and it might push them back a little, but they've just kept coming...

Yesterday was particularly draining for me. I was just feeling in a state of being generally overwhelmed and I had spent 6hrs with my Mom loading furniture and going through shelves of books at my Nana and Papa's house. As I rushed off to meet a friend for dinner I was on the verge of being on the verge of tears (any criers will know what I mean; if you don't cry a lot, suffice it to say that there were no tears in my eyes, but it wouldn't have taken much to get them there!) - from exhaustion, the emotional moments of clearing out my grandparents house (my Nana passed away in February), the stress of how much I still had to do before leaving for Memphis, and the fear that I wasn't even going to be able to do this! I was driving along with the windows all the way down, the evening still wonderfully warm, and an old mix cd playing. I was singing along without really paying attention as I was so consumed by all of these thoughts. Then I started to register what I was singing as I sang the words, "But the Voice of Truth tells me a different story, the Voice of Truth says 'Do not be afraid', the Voice of Truth says 'This if for My Glory'. Out of all the voices calling out to me, I will choose to listen and believe the Voice of Truth."

And joy filled me. It wasn't a momentary rush. It was a gradual warmth, a slow remembrance of the truth of those words. I started the song over and listened to every word. Then I started the song over and sang every word at the top of my heart (it makes more sense to me than lungs, though the idea is the same). The song is called "Voice of Truth" by Casting Crowns and I've known it for years. And the truth of it has never been clearer in my life than at that moment, than at this time of my life. Here is a link to a video of it and I'll post the lyrics below: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcuiuIwtpa4&feature=related
____________________

"Voice of Truth" by Casting Crowns

Oh, what I would do to have the kind of faith it takes
To climb out of this boat I'm in onto the crashing waves
To step out of my comfort zone into the realm of the unknown
Where Jesus is, and He's holding out His hand

But the waves are calling out my name and they laugh at me
Reminding me of the all the times I've tried before and failed
The waves they keep on telling me time and time again
"Boy, you'll never win, you'll never win!"

But the Voice of Truth tells me a different story
The Voice of Truth says "Do not be afraid!"
And the Voice of Truth says "This is for My glory"
Out of all the voices calling out to me
I will choose to listen and believe the Voice of Truth

Oh, what I would do to have the kind of strength it takes
To stand before a giant with just a sling and a stone
Surrounded by the sound of a thousand warriors shaking in their armor
Wishing they'd have had the strength to stand

But the giant's calling out my name and he laughs at me
Reminding me of all the times I've tried before and failed
The giant keeps on telling me time and time again
"Boy, you'll never win, you'll never win!"

But the Voice of Truth tells me a different story
The Voice of Truth says "Do not be afraid!"
And the Voice of Truth says "This is for My glory"
Out of all the voices calling out to me
I will choose to listen and believe the Voice of Truth

But the stone was just the right size to put the giant on the ground
And the waves they don't seem so high from on top of them looking down
I will soar with the wings of eagles
When I stop and listen to the sound of Jesus singing over me

The Voice of Truth tells me a different story
The Voice of Truth says "Do not be afraid!"
And the Voice of Truth says "This is for my glory"
Out of all the voices calling out to me
I will choose to listen and believe the Voice of Truth

I will listen and believe
'Cause Jesus You are the Voice of Truth
And I will listen to You...
____________________

I listened to the song a few more times on the way home from my dinner, meditating on the words and the truths they point to. How grateful I am for God, the One who calls the truth to me and encourages me when I am overwhelmed by fear. Because the truth that I was forgetting was that it is God's strength that is at work reforming the education system. The work that I can do on my own or that all of the MTR family can do or that all educators can do is nothing compared to what God can and is doing. And I might think that I can be a positive impact in these kid's lives and that my love can encourage and strengthen them, but that is NOTHING compared to God's love for these children.

I knew all this in December at the selection weekend. I knew that I had never been asked to give what this program would require of me and so I didn't know if I could do it, but God did. And that it wouldn't be my strength that could do it anyways, but that I would only be able to do this if I was completely leaning on God in humility, in the knowledge that I am too small for even a fraction of this situation. I knew all this then and I trusted God completely as I interviewed, was accepted, and made the decision to commit. But I got distracted and I forgot. I forgot that I don't have to do it all myself. I forgot that my strength is not found in myself, but in the fact that I am weak and I do need God and others, that together we are stronger and with God we are complete.

So those questions are there, but they are changed. They are not filling me with anxiety, though I am still nervous because I generally am before life changes. But they are more wonderings now. I wonder what it will look like for me to be a teacher. I wonder what my relationship with my mentor will be like. I wonder who my roommate will be. I wonder what the relationships we build within MTR will look like.

But I am not afraid. Fear paralyzes me, fills me with anxiety, keeps me looking back wishing for the safety of what I know. While I will always treasure the past and will try to honestly watch it to learn from my mistakes, I don't have to hide there. That is not necessary.

Because I choose trust. And with that trust, I choose life. Life that is action and moving forward. With humility, yes! but not trepidation. Trusting that I am not walking blindly because, though I am called to the waves and am called to face the giant, I am called there with the promise that I am not and will never be alone.

Is Christmas Over?

December 25 has come and gone. We're waving goodbye to Epiphany. Christmas lights are turning off. Christmas trees are coming down. So that's it then, right? Christmas is over until the-day-after-Thanksgiving 2011 when it's acceptable to let the Christmas music play again. Right?

Gosh, I hope not.

I hear people sometimes lamenting the ever-increasing commercialization of Christmas and we even have those nice "Jesus is the reason for the season" pencils now. But still, I blink after Christmas and we're on to the new school semester and the stores are full of the pink and red of Valentine's Day. Christmas is supposed to be a season about Jesus; the coming of God in human form; the Holy of Holies entering the world as a vulnerable baby; the beginning of the life that's very existence is evidence of the mercy, grace, love and justice flowing from our Maker and that's end will offer salvation to all.

With that understanding, we see the work that Christmas calls us to. "Work?" you say, "Christmas is about presents. So you mean 'work' as in 'getting presents for other people', right?" Mmm, no. Christmas - the eternity-changing advent of Jesus Christ into this world (as opposed to the holiday) - demands a response from your heart and your life.

"The Work of Christmas" by Howard Thurman

When the star in the sky is gone,
When the Kings and Princes are home,
When the shepherds are back with their flocks,
The work of Christmas begins.

To find the lost,
To heal the broken,
To feed the hungry,
To release the prisoner,
To teach the nations,
To bring Christ to all,
To make music in the heart.

I pray that we will see this "work" as the blessing that it is and carry the name of Jesus into each season of this new year.

Love to all and happy new year! :)
Isaiah 40