My Miscarriage

Today I finished miscarrying my second pregnancy.

My first pregnancy went about as swimmingly as any could (save for the severe nausea I had until week 19). But with the second, all of my worst fears were realized.

I say "pregnancy" and not "baby" or "child," because those words would not be accurate. This was what is sometimes known as an anembryonic pregnancy. Which means there was no embryo to be found. So, you see, it would not be accurate or precise to say anything other than "second pregnancy."

But even without an embryo, I was still considered pregnant. When I took a test it always came back positive because my hormone levels were still elevated.

But when 8 weeks came, and we got into the ultrasound room, the terrifying picture I saw looked like this:

My heart immediately sank. You see, I knew from my first pregnancy that this is actually what the ultrasound should look like:

That's my Joshua at 8 weeks gestation.

Something wasn't right. We speculated that maybe that I was not as far along as I thought. But I knew. There was pain and bleeding, and I knew. 

I had hoped and prayed that God would perform a miracle. Please, spare me this, I begged. I cannot bear it. 

But even as my mother drove me to my follow-up with the OB, I knew.

It wasn't that I thought God could not do it. It was that I knew that the answer was no. For whatever reason, I knew that this was not the time.

Let me tell you, there is so much I did not know about miscarriage. I would learn in the coming days that most women opt for a D&C, a surgery that involves removal of the tissues inside the uterus. Worried about damage a D&C might cause to my uterus and effects it might have on future pregnancies, I opted for Misoprostol, a drug used to induce contractions and speed up the miscarriage process. Misoprostol posed no threat to future pregnancies, and would help me avoid potentially months of bleeding. It was a Wednesday when I took it. I went straight from school to my OB. That night, I stayed home and waited for something to happen. And waited. And waited. Thursday morning, I woke up worried it didn't take (that happens sometimes). But then, the worst pain I've ever endured.

I had never endured so much pain. I now understood the Hydrocodone prescription my doctor had given me. I felt so mixed-up. For all the things I was going through physically, and only being able to take one day off from school, there was barely time to process my emotions. And today, as the physical part of this miscarriage ends, the emotional damage is hitting me and sinking in fully.

I lost it. I lost a pregnancy. When all of my other pregnant friends deliver their spring babies, I will be baby-less. What do I do? How can I see all of those babies with the same due-month and not think, why me? 

Mourning. The worst feeling I've ever felt.

But I don't know how to mourn the loss of something that was never mine. An anembryonic pregnancy. Do I find peace in the fact that there is no loss of an embryo here? Do I find peace in not having carried a baby longer, or even bringing them into the world, only to lose them later? I don't know.

I have a uterus that played the nastiest trick on me. It made me believe there was life inside. It lied to me. 

This is a pain I cannot bear. I do not know how to be this person. I do not know how to come out of this daydream--or daynightmare. I don't know how to wake up from the hazy tailspin this experience has put me through.

--

As I come back to this post three weeks later, I realize the daze I am still in. But I have also realized that I cannot live in this delirium. 

I have been told several times by well-meaning people that it's okay to be mad at God. 

But I am not.

To be mad at God would be nonsensical of me. God is not the cause of the suffering we endure. Sin is. From the moment sin entered the world (a choice made by man), evil came with it (Genesis 3:14-19). Suffering. God brings peace, and comfort, and joy. God is the author of good (James 1:13-17). To be angry at God would be a great display of immaturity on my part. Like a toddler throwing a tantrum at his mother when he throws his own toy and breaks it.

I can't explain all of the little things that have happened to me in the last few years. But all of those little things have brought my relationship with God to a very specific understanding: God is the cause of peace and comfort. To be at peace and feel comforted is not a natural state. It is something brought on by God. My natural state as a human being, honestly, is anxious. Worried. Doubtful. Insecure. But God steps in and changes that. He brings me peace and healing. He makes me whole.

So, why, then, would I assume that God suddenly changed his tune and decided to bring me only terror, fear, and suffering? It would not make any sense.

So now is the time for me to persevere and lean further into the embrace of the One who wants nothing but the utmost comfort for me. His answer will not always be yes. But his objective will always be peace.

On The Power of Perception

We love opinions.

We live in a society where everyone has a platform on which to share their opinions; social media is rampant with them. We ask for the opinions of our friends when considering options for ourselves on everything from a coffee maker to our primary care physician. If a trusted friend tells me that they had a horrible experience with a certain model of Keurig machine, you can bet I'm not going to waste my money on it!

Those opinions are built entirely on experiences and shaped by perceptions. Consider the following example:

Experience: At a new restaurant in town, my waiter forgets to refill my drink, gets my order wrong, and takes too long to get back to my table with our check.
Perception: This is a bad waiter.
Opinion: That restaurant has terrible service.

I worked in the restaurant business for several years, and something that my bosses told me over and over again was this: "perception is reality." Basically, however the customer perceived you was their reality, and there was little you could do to explain or argue your way out of it. You simply had to prove them wrong with your service.

I have adopted this phrase in my life as well. Especially when it comes to conflict resolution, I think it's important to remember that perception is reality. Whenever someone comes to you with hurt feelings over something, you have to know that the way they are saying that they perceived your actions or words is reality to them.

But something that is equally important that perhaps I have not done a great job of explaining in the past is that perception is simultaneously not reality. The operative part of the phrase "perception is reality" is "to the one perceiving." Just because my perceptions are my reality, it doesn't make them correct. And I think that knowing this as the perceiver is just as important as my offender knowing that my perception is my reality.

In Language Arts classes, we learn in Elementary School how to distinguish facts from opinions. Exercises include looking at statements like these--

"Coca-Cola is the most popular brand of soda in the United States"
"Coca-Cola is the best soda"

--and asking students, "which of these is a fact, and which is an opinion?" I explain to my students all the time the necessity of examining our own opinions for validity, and making sure to constantly support our opinions with indisputable evidence. If we do not support our opinions with evidence, they are considered weak and faulty.

But what if we are building our opinions on faulty perceptions?

What if I told you that the waiter in my first example was covering more than just his section of the restaurant because another waiter didn't show up for his shift, and the manager, instead of helping this waiter, was sitting back in his office checking his Facebook? Would that change your perception of the waiter? And your opinion of the restaurant?

But we would never know that. How can we know if our perceptions are faulty?

Great question! Thanks for asking.

Whenever we have perceived an offense of any kind, what should we do first? Matthew 18:15 tells us to "go and tell [our] brother his fault," meaning we need to approach the person who has offended us, and let them know.

VERY IMPORTANT: This absolutely does not give us license to chew this person out, call them names, make them feel bad, etc. The purpose of "telling your brother his fault" is to fact-find. And that is extremely important to remember. The purpose is not to vent and tell off someone else. If that's your reason for wanting to express your hurt feelings, you need to examine yourself and question whether your motives are godly or selfish.

Remember that this is conflict resolution, not conflict heightening. 

"Telling your brother his fault" is a fact-finding mission because we know that while perception is reality, it is simultaneously not reality. The objective of this conversation with your offender is to find the truth of the matter, not to accuse.

In my Bible class last year, I had to mediate a conversation between some of the girls because so many of them had been offended by so many others of them. I told them, before anyone started talking, to speak cautiously. They were not allowed to make statements that made unfounded assumptions about anyone else. They were only allowed to say how they felt.

I said this coming from a place of experience. Not too long before this incident, a friend who was dear to me had approached me with an offense of her own. However, when she was telling me how some of my actions had made her feel, she simultaneously made assumptions about me. She assumed that I did not care about her or value her enough, and therefore formed the opinion that I was a bad friend. This was ultimately extremely hurtful to me. The reason it was so hurtful was because her perceptions of the experiences she was referencing were so wrong and so skewed, but because of the way she told me my fault, through "I feel [_____________] because you don't care" statements, I was never given the opportunity to correct those misperceptions. When she approached me, it was not a fact-finding mission. She had already formed her opinion, and there was little to nothing I could do to fix it or mend the relationship. This completely broke my heart: knowing that this person had been hurt so badly by my actions, knowing that there was so much I could have said to mend those hurt feelings and correct wrong perceptions,  but knowing that at this point there was not a whole lot I could say to do so, since the opinion was already formed.

So, while her perceptions were her reality, they were simultaneously not reality. This is why conflict resolution is a fact-finding mission. Whenever I approach someone with an offense, especially since that experience, I usually state my feelings, and then make some sort of clarifying statement. I will ask why someone did something that I perceived as hurtful, or ask them to help me understand the situation better. Because I believe that that person is better than the way I am perceiving them. And I want to be sure to give them ample opportunity to shed some light on the experience I am perceiving so negatively before I form the opinion that this person is not a friend, or out to get me, etc.

The offender also has responsibilities of their own. While it is always great to have the chance to correct a misperception, we have to also figure out how that misperception came to be in the first place. Sometimes it is because the offended was having a bad day, or otherwise incapable of viewing things correctly. But sometimes the offender really was careless in their actions or words. Either way, the way we come to resolving conflict is to decide which of these is the case, and how it can be avoided in the future.

Basically, the offender needs to know that perception is reality, but the offended need to know that perception is simultaneously not reality.

So, don't always give so much credence to your perceptions. Understand the difference between opinions and facts. Go on fact-finding missions. Seek the truth. Believe the best in others. Don't give perceptions--those sly little devils--so much power.

On Prioritization

Wednesday was a rough day for me.

There's a very simple explanation for it: baby preparations are stressful! Simply put, all of the wrong circumstances aligned and combined to twist me into a ball of emotions on this particular day. 

So, when my husband got home from work, and then, almost immediately, had to turn around and leave to make it to the church band rehearsal on time, I totally lost it. 

But my husband did something wonderful. He put down his guitar and his pedal board, knowing he had to leave that moment if he had a prayer of making it to rehearsal on time, and he sat on the couch with me and let me cry on his shoulders. He did so until I made him leave because I knew how late he was making himself. He let me have a chance to calm down, get it together, and let him leave the house.

Relationships depend a lot on proper prioritization. Timeliness on our church worship team is vital. It's a very big deal. It meant the world to me that my husband was willing to make himself late to something he values so much just to let me hug him an extra fifteen minutes. 

I've watched a lot of relationships (not just dating, but friendships as well) deteriorate because of poor prioritization. We let other things take precedence over the people who should really be the most important. Sometimes this happens because we take for granted that those people know we love them, so we don't think they need the reassurance. And sometimes it's genuinely because we've lost sight of the people that are actually important because everything else has so rudely intruded on so much of our time.

What I'm encouraging you to do is very simple. Don't forget who matters to you. Prioritize them on purpose. There is a lot of pressure to give, give, give to everyone--to your friends, to your band, to your job, to your ministry--but don't forget about the people who mean most. When it comes to spouses and future spouses, it's up to you to put them in their place: the top! My boss once told me, "your husband is your first ministry," and that has really resonated with me. My ministries are closest to my heart, but my husband is also my ministry. And I'm the only one who can keep him in his place. And he does the same for me!

And, I'm telling you, until you understand this, until making that person your first ministry really resonates with you, you will struggle to find what you're looking for in a romantic relationship. In the same way that, in our relationships with God--which are supposed to be examples of our relationships with our spouses--we have to deny ourselves over and over again, we have to deny ourselves sometimes in our romantic relationships. We have to put our own agendas and plans aside, shut out the noise, and remember who's most important to us. We have to do this for each other constantly, and we have to trust each other to do this. Otherwise, we both end up only looking out for Number One, and we will both be constantly unsatisfied. 

But because I can trust that my husband has me in my proper place in his heart, and he can trust that I have him in his proper place in my heart, we can both rest in the peace and love that comes with that trust. We can both be completely cared for without having the pressure of needing to look out for ourselves. And that's the ideal spot for me!

On Garage Sales and Faithfulness

If you follow me on Facebook, you're more than aware of the Garage Sale that I'm having this weekend.

Sorry for blowing up your news feeds, but we've got a lot of stuff to get rid of and we've got money to raise!

Most of you also know about my job. For those of you who don't, let me introduce you:

These are my students. They are superstars.

I work at a small Christian school in Jacksonville that's doing some pretty awesome things. In particular, we're raising world-changers. No big deal.

All joking aside, I teach English at this small school. We are not just teachers, we are disciple-makers whose biggest hope is to coach and guide these students to be successful, excellent, intelligent Christians. Each and every one of these teachers are excellent in their fields, passionate about the material, and most importantly, they are on fire for answering the Great Commission: to make disciples.

I love my job. There has never been a time in my life when I felt like my job had more meaning.

I also love my husband. If it weren't for him, I would not have been able to accept a position at this school. The reason for that is because this job is a ministry. This particular ministry required me (and my husband) to make certain financial sacrifices.

So, I accepted a pay cut in order to do something much more fulfilling with my time and life, and I have not regretted this decision. This past school year, as it was my first, has been trying and difficult. It has not come without frustration and insecurity, and has stretched me and made me grow. But it has been the most fulfilling year also.

In my last blog post, I talked about trusting God. My life has been a series of events and seasons that have required me to trust God over and over again, and he has always proven faithful.

This past season required me to trust him with finances more than I ever have before. It has really been strange to not bring a lot of dough to the table on my own--as someone who has worked steadily since sixteen-years-old, feeling dependent was not something I was ready for.

My husband and I were at once reminded of God's faithfulness when I very first took this job. My husband confidently said "yes" even though we weren't sure how we would manage. Not long after that, he was blessed with a raise and promotion at his job. This promotion almost made up for the amount I was going to lose from my income by taking my new job. I knew then that God had some pretty amazing things in store.

As you know, we found out in January that we would be welcoming our first little one into the world. We are BEYOND thrilled to be entering into this season, but it did not come without an onslaught of insecurity and doubt. I had a lot of reasons to question my future and wonder in anxiety.

Because of maternity leave and this big change that's coming, I will be teaching less classes next year, which means another pay cut. I was at once nervous, but then relieved. Nervous for what was going to happen to us financially, but relieved to have a less strenuous schedule with Baby coming.

I have been trying to no avail to find a part-time job for the Summer. It has become evident that maybe I need to take some time to rest in God's faithfulness.

In the week since the last day of school, with two paychecks left from last school year still on their way, we've already seen evidence of God's faithfulness once again. Some family of mine have been extremely generous in helping us prepare for Baby's arrival. It was unexpected and unsolicited. What an amazing surprise!

I am so confident in the faithfulness of God, that I look toward a Summer without my regular pay check and I know that my husband and I will not be in want for anything. I am not worried, I am not anxious; I am excited to see the ways that God plans to show off in our lives.

Now, in the spirit of preparation, I have planned my very first Garage Sale for this Saturday! There were multiple motives for this (as is typically the case with garage sales): I do not want to be a packrat, and am eager to get rid of things we do not use anymore. But I also want to raise some money to prep for Baby's arrival!

I am coming into this Garage Sale with a sense of expectation. The choosing and pricing of each item I am selling has been prayerfully considered, and I am really expecting this to be another opportunity for God to show himself off.

BONUS: My friends, the Brownings, are joining us for this Garage Sale to raise money to fund their Ethiopian adoption! I also have high expectations for them--I know this will be another opportunity for God to show off for them!

On Inferior and Unstable Callings

This morning, I was bombarded with e-mails and notifications that threw me pretty quickly into a feeling of melancholy. Why? Well, firstly because I'm pregnant and my hormones ensure that I am quite on the edge at all times. But also because these e-mails and notifications were intimately intertwined with questions that I have been asking God to reveal the answers to for quite some months. These e-mails and notifications weren't answers. They were just more mud in what has been an already muddy situation. The sort of situation where choices you have to make are not cut-and-dry. The correct choice is not obvious; it's hidden.

So I sat on my couch for a few minutes and stewed. I then decided that I needed to take some time and do my favorite thing: worship.

So, I put my phone on "Do Not Disturb" mode, turned on my iPhone speaker and pumped out some of my favorites. My voice was not warmed up, it was just my just-woke-up-groggy voice. But I belted it. There was something inside that I just needed to get out. I'm sure you know the feeling.

In this moment, I got to hear the bridge to one of my favorites in a new way:

Spirit, lead me where my trust is without borders
Let me walk upon the waters
Wherever You would call me

Take me deeper than my feet could ever wander
And my faith will be made stronger
In the presence of my Savior

What Am I Doing?

If you're like me, you have not always known what it is that you are called to do with your life. If you're exactly like me, you seem to be surrounded by people who do, and it infuriates you and makes you feel inferior. If you are me, you're still not sure exactly what you're called to do, and sometimes that makes you nervous.

There are some people, like my sister, who know exactly what they want to do with their lives, and it is such an amazing thing to watch them pursue their calling. But what of the rest of us who don't know? Who have asked and have not received an answer? Or have received partial answers, but the rest remains unclear?

My life, as a direct result of this, has been a constant one-step-at-a-time process. There is really no such thing as a 5-year plan for me, because God is always redirecting me. What do I plan to do next? Follow God's calling. That's all I've got. It is, quite literally, all the good Lord has given me to work with.

And what I need to remember is that that is plenty. 

I Am Not Without, So I Should Stop Acting Like It

As long as I have been listening to God's callings, He has never, ever failed me. He has never left me without something I needed. He has never not given me the answers to my heart's questions in the exact moment I needed them. He has been faithful and consistent. He has given me no reason to believe that the questions I'm asking in this season won't be answered.

So, when Darlene Czech sings, Spirit lead me where my trust is without borders, I'm no longer going to hear it simply as trust that knows no end, but also trust that doesn't come with stipulations. Trust that never falters or questions. Trust that simply trusts. 

I will sing with Darlene, let me walk upon the waters, wherever you would call me! Water isn't solid ground. It's not consistent, it's not stable or sturdy. Real confidence (and trust) was required of Peter to be able to step out onto the rocky sea and walk on water towards Jesus. And we all know what happened the moment he doubted--he began to drown! No drowning for me. I want to walk confidently onto something that provides no proof of stability or sturdiness, all the while knowing that as long as I maintain confidence, Jesus will not let me drown. 

The next line, Take me deeper than my feet could ever wander, means a lot to me right now. I am faced with some difficult decisions to make. And no options are presenting themselves as obviously wrong choices. I could be successful in any situation. But which one is the one for me? I want my trust to believe that God is going to take me so much further than anything I could possibly choose for myself. I have told myself this so many times over the years, and heard it proclaimed from the pulpits, but I'm suddenly hearing it with fresh ears. God's plans are so much greater than mine. So great, that my faith would be made stronger in the presence of my Savior. 

His plans to lead me confidently into completely unsteady places will end up taking me so deep into His plan for me that it will build my faith even more! 

What All This Means

When I think about the decisions I have coming up in this way, I'm not scared anymore. I'm not worried. I am excited. I am thrilled to go deeper. I am thrilled to be closer to God. I am beyond pumped for how much it will build my faith to be taken to those scary places! 

And beyond that, instead of feeling inferior for not being one of the ones to whom God reveals his calling all at once, I feel honored to have been trusted with the requirement of walking in faith on a constant basis. I feel honored knowing that God has confidence that I can walk in complete trust, stepping out into nothing, but knowing that I will find Him there!

So, what did I end up actually praying once I had come to all these revelations? 

God, you know the questions on my heart, even better than I know them. So I'm not asking for the answers to those questions. I'm asking that, in the time between now and the time that You plan on answering those, that You would get my faith ready for the answer You deliver. Prepare my heart to hear the answer You have. Make me ready. 

I would encourage you to do the same. We all have decisions to make. We all want to know what it is that God wants us to pursue. But sometimes it's not time for us to know. And we need to change the way we're thinking about not knowing the answers. Because the more scared we are before even knowing the answers to our heart's questions, the less prepared we'll be for the answers that come.

On Grayce

You read that correctly.

I am a very black-and-white person. Always have been. Lately, however, I've noticed that when I say that to people, I get a lot of reactions with a common main idea. The conversation tends to go a little something like this:

Me: "I am a very black-and-white thinker."

Person: "Oh, I'm just too gracious for that kind of thinking."

The implication is that because I see the world in black-and-white, I am incapable of expressing grace towards people. 

Now, I have nothing against the folks who've made such comments. In fact, I have found that this response is so overwhelmingly popular, that I can only deduce that it is a generally accepted idea that one is either black-and-white or overly gracious.

If you ask my Middle School students, I hope they would tell you that I am a fairly gracious teacher. I have patience to spare and am always open to listening when a student has trouble completing an assignment on time, or something else that may affect their grade in my class. But they know that the bottom line is this: an assignment turned in a day late is worth half credit, and an assignment turned in any time after that is worth no credit. Anything outside of extenuating circumstances or atypical behavior from the student is not an acceptable excuse for lateness.

Now, making an exception for a student for whatever reason is how I extend grace. But it's very clear when this happens that I am not extending grace necessarily because I think the student deserves it inherently; rather, I make sure the student knows that they made an error in turning their work in late, but that I will graciously accept the late work for whatever reason I choose is appropriate.

This is just one example of how grace looks practically in a black-and-white world. Let me explain:

Seeing the World in Black and White

First of all, my fellow Christians, I don't think that being black-and-white is a matter of opinion. It's not something that is a conviction for some, but not for others. It's something that I believe is universal.

We have the Holy Spirit here on earth with us to help us in our daily activity (Romans 8:26). I have prayed over the years that my heart and mind would be more sensitive to what the Holy Spirit is telling me. In addition, I spend time with God daily so that I can get to know him better, so that I am most likely to make the decisions he would have me make. In these ways, I set myself up to make right decisions (which is not to say that I never lose the battle with my flesh and make the wrong one anyway). In every decision, there is a clear right or best choice, regardless of whether or not that choice is immediately apparent.

There are also wrong (sinful) choices. Paul tells us quite plainly to "walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other" (Galatians 5:16-17). There is no gray area here; there are only the things the Spirit wants, and the things the flesh wants. And they do not agree with each other. He states earlier that we are to use the freedom Christ gave us, not to "indulge the flesh," (Galatians 5:13), but to crucify (or put to death) the desires of the flesh (Galatians 5:24). Again I say, there is no gray area. The desires of the Spirit oppose the desires of the flesh, which are to be completely obliterated in our lives.

To further his point, Paul says that the desires of the flesh are obvious (as in, easily understood, lacking ambiguity or subtlety, black-and-white): "sexual immorality, debauchery, impurity, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissension, factions and envy, drunkenness, orgies, and the like" (Galatians 5:19-21). 

Paul does something I completely appreciate: he leaves no room for misinterpretation. I mean, that's just good writing. His whole objective is to ensure that the church in Galatia would not at all miss his point: obliterate fleshly desires because they oppose the Spirit and therefore the advancement of God's kingdom. Can I get an Amen?

It is for these reasons that I don't believe in gray areas. There are two sides: The flesh, and the Spirit. They do not agree. One leads to destruction, the other to the glory of God. There is no in-between, there is no "no-man's land," there is no gray. Only black and white.

There's No "Y" in "Grace"

If we accept that, as Christians, we need to see right for right and wrong for wrong: where does grace fit in?

It is easy to confuse gray areas with being gracious. They appear similar on the outside. In both cases, the wrongdoer does not have to suffer the full consequences of their actions. But only in the instance of grace--not gray--does the wrongdoer have to acknowledge the wrong committed.

Grace is "God showing his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8). The operative clause here is while we were still sinners. Christ loved us so much that he bore the weight of all of our crimes (those aforementioned desires of the flesh) so that we wouldn't have to suffer the full extent of the consequences of those crimes, which would be death and separation from God (John 3:16; Romans 6:23). 

But we cannot accept this grace if we never acknowledge that we did anything wrong in the first place. Isaiah 30:15 says "in repentance is your salvation," meaning that we do no receive salvation without first repenting: admitting our wrongdoing and turning from it. 

Jesus himself was the most radical black-and-white, gracious person in existence. He says specifically that he came to the earth to call sinners to repentance (Luke 5:32). His entire mission was to save the undeserving wrongdoers; but they can only be saved through their own admittance of wrong. 

The Implications of a Gray World

Who needs Jesus in a world where no one is right and no one is wrong? 

How useless would I be if someone came to me with a moral dilemma and my response was: "well, morality is really a gray area, so you just do what you think is best"? 

How could we get the correction we so desperately need (Proverbs 12:1) if we never admit that we did anything that needs correcting?

A Gray World is a scary place to me. It is a terrifying culture in which we cannot tell the difference between right and wrong, life and death, sin and righteousness, fruit and weeds. 

There is no growth, because no one ever challenges anyone else, because everything is relative to the opinion of everyone else. 

It is a scary, fruitless place.

Does this place sound familiar? It sounds a lot to me like the world that those who do not know Christ live in. And, as I've said before on this blog, our lives should look nothing like theirs; they should look radically different. Thinking in black-and-white and acknowledging that we don't always make the right choices and that for that reason we need a savior is so humble and transparent and radical--and freeing. 

There are chains that come with accepting a gray universe for yourself. These chains look a lot like freedom--from condemnation of sin and such--but feel a lot like groping the darkness, being lost in the forest, and being separated from loved ones.

There's so much maturity and humility in admitting that we've done the wrong thing. And there's so much freedom that comes from the subsequent forgiveness of that wrong--because we know that God is quick to forgive and forget (1 John 1:9). And then we get to grow and move on instead forever dwelling in that wrong, unable to admit whether it's wrong or not.

It's time to live out an uncompromising faith. It's time to step up and own and take responsibility for our own choices and actions. It's time to be bold and courageous, humble and mature. It's time to think radically and differently. 

It's time to see the world in black and white, and experience full, complete, and total grace. 

On The Push

He trains my hands for war, 
so that my arms can bend a bow of bronze.

Psalm 18:34

I am in my fifteenth week of pregnancy. I have had a significant struggle with "morning" sickness--a stupid name for it, as it comes and goes as it pleases throughout the day. It is violent, it is unpredictable, it is inconsistent, and it is, at times, demoralizing. 

I am on the Sunday Morning Worship Team at my church. That means, most Sundays, I wake up very early, I put my heels on, they stick a microphone in my hand, and I get up there and lead with a team of some of my favorite people, in a church full of some of the most important people in my life. I love it! 

Leading worship is something I know I have been called to do. I feel the most myself when I'm doing it, and I know that I am actively responding to part of God's call on my life. It's the greatest.

Yesterday morning, however, was a struggle.

I felt nauseous immediately upon waking. I had to get ready pretty quickly, and my husband and I rushed into the car at 7:30am. I ate some fruit gummies on the way to the church, as it was all I wanted. We began rehearsal promptly at 8:00am. I took a few sips of water and we began. We had a particularly long set yesterday, which made rehearsal particularly strenuous. Towards the end, I realized how faint I was feeling, so I sat down through the last song.

After rehearsal, I ate a few grapes and tried to eat a muffin. Each week, someone leads the team in a morning devotional. But I knew as soon as it began that I was not going to be able to make it through the devotional. And then it happened.

You know.

By the time I came back, the devotional was wrapping up, and it was time to say a prayer and head to the stage. Oh, I didn't want to. I didn't know if I could. I panicked at the thought of having to leave the stage mid-set should another terrible incident occur. 

Something reminded me of Psalm 18:34. At the beginning of the school year, my seventh grade class read Elizabeth George Speare's The Bronze Bow, a biblical fiction novel based on the life of a young boy living in Jerusalem at the time of the Roman takeover. This verse appears many times throughout the novel. The students and I had several discussions about the meaning of the verse. Part of the class tended to take the verse quite literally, while the other thought the meaning of the verse had more to do with spiritual battles rather than physical ones.

In yesterday morning's case, the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual battles all seemed to collide at once.

God trains us for war--whatever the war may be in our own lives. And the wars are different for everyone. Some face real physical battles and struggles. Some have to deal with mental ones. We all have to deal with spiritual ones. But God has designed our lives in a way that trains us--teaches us through instruction and practice over different seasons in our lives. Trains us to the point that our arms can bend a bow of bronze! 

We can bend bronze! With our bare hands! That's crazy strength. So, if you're the literal type and understand this verse to be talking about physical strength, there is no room to doubt the level of preparedness that we should obtain if we listen to God's instruction. The same is true for other types of wars. 

Let me repeat that:

There is no room to doubt the level of preparedness that we should obtain if we listen to God's instruction. 

A lot of people will tell you, when you feel overwhelmed, "God won't give you more than you can handle." Which is close to the truth; 1 Corinthians 10:13 says that we will not be tempted beyond what we can bear. So it stands to reason that we will not be tempted to distrust God beyond what we can bear.

But I believe that our capacity for those things changes over time. It changes because we are to learn something from the seasons that overwhelm us. We should be expanding our capacity to trust in each situation. Personally, I needed to trust that God was going to give me the strength--emotional, physical, mental, spiritual--to make it through this Sunday morning. And not just to survive the worship sets for the morning, but to thrive and glorify--as in, reveal and represent Christ--through all of it.

Plus, I knew that nothing would upset the Enemy of my Soul more than to get up on that stage and sing praises to Jesus anyway. 

So, I did. I refreshed my makeup, ate a few pieces of cheese and some grapes, and made it through both services. And, as amazing as it always feels to be a part of the team to lead the congregation in worship, it felt so much better on this day to know that I was intentionally stomping on the Enemy's attempt to destroy me. And to know that I was not doing it by my own strength--as I don't know how much more of my own strength I could have possibly possessed--but by God's. That God loved me so much that he would not let me be defeated by this.

So, I encourage you this week to keep an eye out for the Enemy's attempts to hurt you, especially his attempts to hurt your call, and crush them. Know that you are prepared for this moment. You have been well-trained by the Conqueror of Death. You can do this. And in doing this, you will glorify Christ.