Bleeding for Dust Like Us

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by Elizabeth

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I worked at a Christian summer camp when I was a teenager. We attended Hymn Sing every morning, and at the end of every Hymn Sing we wandered off to our Bible classes while singing these words from Fanny Crosby: “Tell me the story of Jesus, write on my heart every word. Tell me the story most precious, sweetest that ever was heard.”

I didn’t realize at the time just how central that prayer-song is to our Christian walk. For what is theology but the stories we tell ourselves about God? So we cry: Tell me the story of Jesus. Tell me the story of a God-become-flesh, a God-who-dwells-among. Tell me the story of a God who sacrifices of self, who pours out His life-blood for dust like us.

Tell me the story of a God who sets captives free and makes blind people see. Tell me the story that never gets old or grows stale. Tell me the story that revives my weary soul, the story that brings new life to all. Tell me the same story I’ve been hearing for thirty years, the same story people have been telling for two thousand years: Tell me the story of Jesus.

I love this story. Truly I do. It doesn’t matter how many times I hear the story, I can’t get enough of it. And it never gets old. But. Sometimes I forget. And sometimes I need a reminder. Last month my reminder came in the form of C.S. Lewis’s children’s novel The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. For when I read it with my children, I read words like these:

“Please – Aslan,” said Lucy, “can anything be done to save Edmund?”
“All shall be done,” said Aslan, “but it may be harder than you think.”

As I spoke those words out loud, I remembered the greatest Story ever told: the enormity of Jesus’ sacrifice, the enormity of my need for that sacrifice, the enormity of Jesus’ love for all of humanity. Believe me, I needed the reminder.

Glennon Melton has said that “Grace cannot be personal if it is not universal.” If grace is for me, then it’s for you. And if it’s for you, then it’s also for me. This is a truth about grace that I sometimes forget. Sometimes I need reminding of the personal, and sometimes I need reminding of the universal. Last month I needed reminding of both, and I found them both in the pages of an ageless children’s story.

This week the global Church is preparing for Easter. We’re on a collective journey toward the Cross and toward the Resurrection that follows. As we journey, let us remember the truths immortalized in the Apostles’ Creed. They are the core, the crux, the fundamentals of our faith. They are the words we must remember when we begin to forget. And they are the words I leave you with today.

I believe in God, the Father Almighty,
creator of heaven and earth.
I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried;
he descended to the dead.
On the third day he rose again;
he ascended into heaven,
he is seated at the right hand of the Father,
and he will come to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic Church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting.
Amen.

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When you forget the Story, what helps you remember??

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(Originally published at Velvet Ashes.)

The Great Rescinder

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The Great Rescinder
I am not.

I AM
the One who is faithful

I AM
the running Father

I AM
the God who keeps his promises

I am not
going to surprise you with a curse

or
hurt you for reasons unknown
and confusing

Because I AM good

I AM
a better father than yours. And you.

I AM
the Giver of good gifts

I AM
the One who is yours
the Lord who loves

I AM the One who will never stop.

I AM.

—————————————————

by Jonathan

tgr1

Gratitude in the Particular

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by Elizabeth

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I like to think of myself as a content, happy person: my life is good, and I lack for nothing.

At least I used to think I was content and happy. That was before I realized — to my horror — that my prayer journal was filled with lament. Not thankfulness, not appreciation, but lament, through and through.

I have an everyday journal where I like to complain to God — er, pray. And I have an extra-special journal where I record the lyrics to my favorite worship songs. But until recently, I didn’t have a place to chronicle my gratitude.

I thought perhaps this was a problem for me. That maybe it’s one of my incongruous places: a place where my orthodoxy doesn’t match my orthopraxy. A bottle-necked area of my life. A cramped space in my soul that needs expanding.

Like so many of you, I’ve read about the importance of practicing gratefulness, of writing in a dedicated gratitude journal. Ann does it. Crystal does it. Good heavens, even Oprah does it. So I thought I’d try it.

And you know what I discovered? I’m terrible at it. I couldn’t think of specific things to be thankful for. I kept running into trouble thinking over my day and looking for the blessings. I couldn’t always find good things. All I could see was stress — and that very fact troubled me.

I could think of general things; I’m a very thankful person in the general. I’ve written all about my general love of creation, my general love of Cambodia, my general love of the church, my general love of worshiping, my general love for my husband. And those generic things were the only things I could think of when I started this venture. They are the things I kept recording on the pages of my pretty, pink journal.

Now don’t get me wrong, gratitude in the general is GREAT. But I’d like to inscribe more specifics into that brand-new journal of mine. I’d like to flex my gratitude muscles. I’d like to learn how to reflect on my day and see the “patches of Godlight” in it.

And I’m starting to. I’m noticing the little things and memorializing them. I’m seeing the small joys and giving thanks. But I’m a novice, a beginner. I haven’t yet learned gratefulness in the particular.

Then again maybe that’s what the gratitude journal is all about.

Intensity and Intentionality {a note about marriage and motherhood on the field}

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A while back our organization asked me to write a little something about marriage and motherhood on the field. At the time I wasn’t sure whether I wanted the article to be anonymous or not, as I obliquely discuss both my children and my marriage in it. So I waited awhile before deciding (with both Jonathan’s and my children’s approval) that this is something that I could share publicly. ~Elizabeth

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Two words come to mind when I think about marriage and motherhood on the field: Intensity and Intention. After living internationally for over four years, my experience has been that everything about living overseas is more intense than living in your passport country.

It’s more physically intense. It’s wildly hot where I am, with no central air conditioning. Housework takes longer as there are fewer automated devices. Electricity and water are sometimes unreliable, and food and water supplies aren’t as clean. That meant that in the beginning especially, we were ill more often – and more severely – than we were back “home.” Life in another country is also more mentally and emotionally intense. Learning a strange, new culture and doing everything in a new language is hard work. You make mistakes and misunderstand things every day.

Anyone crossing cultures must deal with these changes and stressors, but as a parent, I also bear witness to the strain of crossing cultures on my children. They get annoyed by aspects of life here: it’s loud, it’s crowded, and we have no yard or playgrounds nearby. They don’t like the way local people touch them or stare at them, and they don’t particularly like the local cuisine (or at least, not all of it). Life here is transitory, and the friends they make often move in and out of their lives with little advance warning. On top of all that, they miss friends and family back home – especially grandparents.

In light of the intensity of missionary life, I have to be more intentional about marriage and motherhood. I need to care for my children’s hearts in a way I wouldn’t if we lived in America. Of course we have the same pre-school and pre-adolescent emotional turmoil that children and parents have in their home culture, but we also have more potential issues. I have to keep my own heart soft towards my kids, and I need to take the time to validate their feelings. This is difficult to do as I am already emotionally, physically, and spiritually stretched to the max myself. Practically speaking, it means I also need to carve time out of our schedule so they can communicate with friends and family back home (usually that’s through Skype).

Marriage is the same way: I have to be intentional about taking care of it. Simply surviving here takes more time and energy, so it’s tempting not to spend enough time on my marriage. But of course when I don’t spend time on it, my marriage suffers. The less time I spend on my marriage, the farther I drift away from my husband, and the harder it is to bring us back to together again. Likewise, the more time and effort I pour into my marriage, the easier and more fulfilling it is. It becomes life-giving instead of life-draining, as it does when I’m not nurturing it enough.

In order to pour so much time and energy into my husband and my children, I have to be intentional about filling myself up. I have to be vigilant about taking care of my spirit by getting up early to spend time with God. I have to be diligent about taking care of my mind and body by eating at regular intervals throughout the day, exercising four or five days a week, and going to bed on time. If I don’t do these things, I don’t have enough emotional energy to pour into my husband and children, who need me so much.

In many ways marriage and parenting on the field is the same as it is in my home culture, but its intensity level is higher. Missionary life simply requires more of me, and in order to match its intensity, I have to be intentional about taking care of both myself and my family. I have to daily turn my heart toward them and toward God. When I don’t, the consequences are great. But when I do, the reward is greater still.

This article originally appeared here.

a practically perfect porch

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by Elizabeth

I’ve been getting back to my roots with a stroll through Lucy Maud Montgomery’s Jane of Lantern Hill. It’s as good as — or better than — I remember it. At age 11, it was my very first Lucy Maud book. I stayed up late reading it, hunched over the night-light in the bedroom on Forsyth Avenue.

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Forsyth Avenue, Fort Riley, Kansas

I also read it during daylight hours, swinging back and forth on the porch swing in the screened-in wrap-around porch (complete with ceiling fan if I remember correctly — quite the dream porch if you ask me). We were guests in that house, and its pantry gave me my first introduction to V8 juice, which I would drink while reading on the swing.

Years later, and just before his own father died, my husband gave me a covered porch swing as a surprise birthday present. He knew I’d always wanted one. And I cherished that gift. I would sit on it and watch my kids play in the yard. I would sit on it and read science magazines and natural childbirth books and home school catalogs. I would sit on it and talk to my husband during the at-home dates we would manage to steal after tucking our kids into bed — winter, spring, summer, or fall.

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Saying one last goodbye to the porch swing.

It was with great difficulty that I parted from that swing the year we moved to Cambodia. And to this day, when my man wants to show me he loves me, he buys me a can of V8 — the search for which can sometimes be quite the treasure hunt in Phnom Penh.

These are the legacies of Lucy Maud and of the innocent joys of a childhood well-spent.

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photo credit: Library of Congress

My blogging friend and fellow Third Culture Kid Marilyn Gardner encouraged me to take this TCK story, which was originally a Facebook status, and turn it into a blog post.