Overwhelmed.

I started this most recent part of my journey, two months ago, with the feeling of being completely overwhelmed. The overwhelming feeling wasn't one that brought fear or angst, but joy and peace. As I began to pack my bags I found a new overwhelming joy, I was brought to tears with the thoughts of those who have played such a vital role in my life; those who have kept me focused on what I sometimes forget is important; they reminded me of the truth inside me, the things I deeply desired. 

I find myself overwhelmed at the support of friends who not only ask how they can pray for my time in Sudan, but who also gave and partnered with me financially so that I am able to go and serve and be a part of the lives of these beautiful people who have had their country and their lives tumultuously torn apart. 

I find myself overwhelmed with the grace that God has given me to see Him in the midst of everything swirling. I see the face of Jesus inviting me into a depth with Him that has cast out all fear and need for control. 

I find myself overwhelmed with hope of what will come in my life and in the lives of those I will soon meet and have the privilege to work with. 

I find myself overwhelmed with the depth of understanding that there is a hope that rules over every evil and every trial, and it comes through the transforming love of Jesus; Emmanuel: God with us, God among us, God in Wichita, and God in South Sudan.

And now, I must pack... 

But, here's an 11 minute and 13 second video for you to see where and what I'll be involved with.

https://vimeo.com/74112271

What I Choose:

I choose to believe that God is good. 

I choose to believe it because nothing else makes sense. 

I wished for years that something would make sense in the turmoil of my soul; I tried to run to what was easier, rather than sticking with what didn't make physical sense. For much of my life I thought that holding on to true sense meant that every piece of every puzzle would fit just how I wanted it to and I would be able to chart that "sense" like everything else we say we can tangibly grasp in this life. As I continued to engage myself in what I believed would come together, I continued to find myself even further from the reality of truth and hope that my soul longed for. The physical things that I thought would bring me joy, were stealing life from me. I was taking the easy route. I was unable to hold onto, or even see, what was really true. I still get foggy at times in the mess of life, that God somehow makes beautiful in its time; I still get lost in what I think I need and what I think should make sense; but, it never fails that the only true anchor of hope is hinged on the true love of God. If we feel that we are anchored to hope, but that vessel to which that hope is hinged, is not Christ, then we ware destined to drown with that falsehood. No vessel, no matter how great or strong, and no matter how well mended, will sink with the devastating waves, or through the corrosion of time. CS Lewis said, "God cannot give us happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing." The only vessel of hope that will truly stand the test of time and the storms of life, is the love of Christ. 

This is what I choose.

Do You Trust Me?

 
I have found that a vital part of our humanity that we have lost almost completely in our culture and the world, as we know it now, is trust. I think most people would say they can barely trust anyone anymore. I fully believe that there is truth, and we know it deep inside of us, but as Erwin McManus writes, “…truth exists only if there is someone who is trustworthy. The truth is an extension of someone who can be trusted.” I have found this to be so very true in every part of my life; someone may be one-hundred percent true in what they are saying, but if I cannot trust them for whatever reason, past lies or painful memories, than their truth means nothing; I will see it as foolishness, lunacy, or at the least, false. This takes me back to the last sentence in McManus’ quote that I left out before where he says, “The truth exists because God is trustworthy.” As I worked this last year with many elementary students, I worked specifically with one, so we became very close. We would have amazing highs and lows in our work together, but when push came to shove on any issues, I would always ask him, “Do you trust me?” It was funny to see him get to the point that he fully trusted me and would spout off out of anger, “NO!” Normally a second or two later (sometimes a little longer), responding, “Yes, of course I trust you, Mr. G.” It was this beautiful place that we had come to where through patience and long bearing (on both ends), he finally trusted that even if he didn’t understand or had to work harder than he ever had before and put in more effort than he thought he could, he trusted that I wasn’t leading him astray. The growth and learning that came from his ability to trust me was astronomical.  It was so great to see this in my work with this student because it gave me complete understanding in this area of how God is with us. He waits patiently; He continues to stand next to us during our fits of rage or our tears of despair and disappointment, and smiles big and says, “Do you trust me?” We talk about how faith is difficult and hard to understand, and even hard to live out, but if we really understand that God is who He says he is, we must only respond with, “Yes, of course I trust you.” I had a good friend who said, “God is love, right? So, I like to replace ‘love’ in 1 Corinthians 13 with ‘Jesus.’ It just makes sense, doesn’t it?” If we do this, we come to this amazing truth that Jesus is patient, kind, not envious, He doesn’t brag, He’s not puffed up. He’s not rude or self-serving, easily angered or resentful. He is not glad about injustice, but He rejoices with the truth. He bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things. Trust doesn’t come easily because it can so easily be given away, but I once again borrow Erwin’s words and say, “The truth exists because God is trustworthy.”

Grace Never Shakes Its Head:

I once heard someone say, "You may be the only Jesus that someone ever meets." This is a very deep statement if we actually think about it in the framework outside of ourselves. We can easily take it in as a challenge to be perfect; or we can take it as a statement of grace. As I was reading Brennan Manning's book, The Ragamuffin Gospel, I was convicted by these amazing words that I feel closely coincide with idea of being the only Jesus someone may ever meet, "whatever our failings may be, we need not lower our eyes in the presence of Jesus." Hear me out, in no way am I claiming to be Christ. However, I am proclaiming the truth that I am His hands and His feet. I loosely throw this out, that I am the active, working, visual reflection of Jesus in a tangible, graspable, every day human form. I am saying that we, us, you and me, as individual people are Christ in the flesh. As unfavorable issues arise, issues that I would most definitely want forgiveness and grace poured for me, I have so often put my head down and shaken it in disgust; all the while claiming, I am His hands and His feet. This only portrays one visual of grace; that He will also put His head down and shake it in disgust and arrogance. How many eyes have looked to me for the reassurance that maybe today, maybe today's the day that they will see Jesus in all of his mercy and grace, and I was shaking my head, saying, "You're not worthy, and His grace was not for you. You're not together enough for this grace."

Grace doesn't drop and shake it's head, portraying a deep and unmistakable view of un-forgiveness and shame, it always invites us to raise our eyes in the presence of a loving and gracious savior who says, "Come to life, which has been given so that you may have it to the full."

Cleaning Wounds:

Cleaning a wound is not easy or free of pain. It actually often feels better in the moment to allow for the cut to sit and fester; hoping it will just take care of itself over time. The human body and the human spirit are two of the most restorable things that you will find in all of creation. In my time traveling the world though, I saw many people whose bodies had healed but they were left with a limp because the bone was never set correctly, or a small mountain of tissue on a wrist inhibited full movement due to the infectious growth that had gone untreated. Our spirits will often heal the best that they can without being set, or cleaned; but will it now try and enjoy the beauty of life inhibited by unhealthy scarring, or effort much harder while trying to run with a limp, continuing to avoid what may once again be a painful leap. We must allow our spirit, not unlike our physical bodies, to go through the pain of being set when broken, or cleaned out when torn; no matter how painful in the moment; to once again be as close to fully healed as possible. We are made to be whole and to continually find that whole-ness. But how? How do we search the depths of ourselves and find ourselves once again, whole, if we choose to believe that we alone hold the ability to reconcile the damage that has been done. These are questions that I have been asking myself as I continue to daily find strength and stability in the framework of Christ. I don't even understand that as I type this; I don't understand how brokenness can become whole again. It is a complete miracle by all accounts. I must say that my faith is founded on complete redemption of a Father who loves me dearly and who will over time, set my broken spirit and clean my dirty wounds, and when my spirit shall once again be trampled and downtrodden, He will set me straight with the comforting words, "Do you really trust that I am The Redeemer who will continue take all of your brokenness and make it new?"

I hold fast to these words from 1 Corinthians 1:18. For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

My Name Is My Story:

While working with teenagers I was often asked very strange questions that would catch me completely off guard or leave me on the floor laughing hysterically. However, one day I was asked a very serious question by one of the guys. He asked, “Would you ever consider changing names with me?” I didn’t really understand why he asked this question or what he was getting at. However, I was somehow able to quickly respond with, “Of course not! My name has my story in it.” I didn’t really see the magnitude of my statement until I looked a little closer at what I had said.

Our name attaches us to a story. Jesus, Martin Luther King Jr., Mother Teresa, our neighbor, and every other human who has ever lived and will live in the future. We all have a name. We all have a story. We all are a story.

As represented in a few names listed before, our stories can and do look very different. Our stories can be ugly and full of hate, or joyful and full of hope. We may be able to empathize or feel that we understand someone else’s story, but in the end it is not our own. We can only observe and feel the repercussion of the ink being splattered or carefully and beautifully scripted on the pages of the constantly expanding or shrinking chapters being written. We can easily look at someone else’s story and feel that we have them figured out; we judge them by their actions or what they say. This may hold some truth and it is obvious that our actions hold a lot of weight in representing who we are. However, how often do we know someone’s name, but not their story? We know what we’ve heard about them through the grapevine, but we don’t really know their story. We know that they were arrested for stealing a loaf of bread, but the part we don’t know is that the young man never had a father to teach him how to work and the bread was for his mother who is unable to get to the store because she can no longer walk. We know that he was arrested for fighting in school, but do we know that in the limited time he had with his father, much of that time was spent being beaten every night? Yes, once again, we can look at the name. We can look at the outside and we can judge. I often do. But we have to see deeper, we have to get to know the stories of those around us. We must be willing to allow them to feel that we will allow them in without judgment; that their mess is not too much; that they are not just a name, but they are a story that is still being written. Their past does not have to be their future, and their future does not have to be their past.

After my initial confusion and answer I realized that what I was really being asked was, “Can I switch from my story to yours?” He wanted to have my story. He wanted to be out of where he was; he wanted to be rid of his pain. I think this is also my response to seeing the stories that others are living. I want their story. I want to steal their pages.

Ink is often messy. People are often messy. I am often messy. We must continue to write our own and also read those stories being written all around us.

Leave It Better Than You Found It:

Unfortunately, there are things that I have heard over the last two and a half years in my job that I wish I never had. Not that I’m not honored to have been a part of someone’s life to the depth that they were vulnerable enough to share part of their story with me, but that there were certain parts of their life that were so terrible and that they had that chapter that was able to be told. What response do you give to a young man who tells you that his mother once told him that she wished she had aborted him, or another guy who brings you visually and emotionally into his reality that as a kid when he was disciplined by his father he had to kneel down on rice scattered on their wood floor (often digging its way past the first and second layer of skin) with his hands clinched behind his head for hours; if he should so happen to get tired and begin to drop his hands than the man who was supposed to be firm but loving, a gracious teacher, and a light of guidance in a world that has enough trouble of its own; would take the metal end of the fly swatter and snap it across his bare back to remind him that his sentence had not yet been served. What response do you offer to a young man who was locked in a closet for days without food or water because he complained about the taste of dinner? And, what response do you offer to a young man whose father held his head in the toilet full of urine and feces, to the place that he almost drowned? He shared with me the desired response to this action, “I wish I had drowned. I just wanted to die.”

           
This finally became a tangible reality in the middle of one guy who would always ask me, “Why do you pick up trash all the time? Why do continue to pick up all that shit when you know you’re not making a difference?” I responded, “Well, I pick it all up, little by little, because I think we can make a difference; and because my mom told me to always leave it better than I found it. So, I guess I’m just trying to leave things better than I found ‘em.” The response that I got from him after what I thought was a deep and philosophical statement on my part was, “Well, my mom always said I was going to be a failure.”
           
A little back story of my past, is that I lost my mom to cancer when I was eighteen years old, and I thought that was as painful as it could get; but, I guess there are things worse than death. She never told me I was going to be a failure. She died, and that was devastating, but she never verbally killed me. She never uttered something so violent to my spirit; something that this guy will now live with for the rest of his life. I once again go back to my question I asked before, what response do you give to something like this? What action can we take that will be some sort of bandage or medicine for a wound to the soul? This became a daily question that I asked myself for months until I began to see a change in this young man through just investing my time and love. Over time I began to see his demeanor change, he seemed brighter and he no longer identified himself as a drug addict and a failure. Instead, he was now someone who told me that he was glad to be sober and alive, and he began asking for wisdom to persevere through the struggles and battles that continued to rage in his mind and heart. As his life began to change before my eyes, I realized that my answer had been there all along. Picking up the shit, was really making a difference, and it was slowly, but surely bringing him closer to who he really was. In every human life that we come across we must be willing to hear the stories that wrench our hearts, and we must then be willing to ask the questions of why, and how do we love greater? 

We must be willing to ask ourselves, are we leaving those around us better than we found them?