Friday, March 20, 2015

On earth as it is in heaven

It was Palm Sunday. Ten years ago today. I slowly, breathlessly dragged my aching, worn out body down the increasingly long hospital hallway that seemed to stretch out for miles. And it was desolate. I was making my way to the lab for some follow up blood work from my ER visit 24 hours before. As the seconds passed like hours, I pressed my shoulder to the wall for support with each step. I'm a determined, independent chick, so I hadn't thought to ask for help back at the registration desk, or from my family for that matter. I sent them on to church (who misses Palm Sunday?!) and drove myself to the hospital. But I started to rethink my independence about halfway to the lab when I realized that all these 1st floor hallways are empty on a Sunday morning. If I were to stop and slither down the wall for a rest like I really wanted to do, who knows how long it would be before someone made their way down here to find me. And so I kept my shoulder pressed to the wall and willed each step to take me closer to the needle and vile that would hopefully give me some answers.
It had been six days since the fever started. Not just any fever. Nearly 104 degree fever with violent shakes and chills. And then it would disappear and I'd be left feeling like I'd been hit by a truck...and then run a marathon, only for the fever to return a day or so later. Every bone hurt. I had no breath. No energy. I crawled around the house most days trying to care for my three children, terribly fearful for the one that was growing in me. For 4 months this little one was wrapped in peace and safety in my womb and this illness kept me praying for my little pregnant belly.
The lab tech said I looked horrible and asked if I needed help back to my car. I guess that ticked me off a little because I declined and took on the challenge. At home, I sat in my recliner with my Bible study book and began reading. It was Isaiah 45. At verse 7 I was ready to rip a page out. But instead I just put a big question mark and wrote, "I don't like this."
I am the Lord; there is no other.
I form the light and create darkness,
I bring prosperity and create disaster; 
I, the Lord, do all these things.
Nope. Don't like that one bit. You create disaster? No thanks. Whatever this was that was making me so sick it sure felt like a disaster. And when the fever spiked again late that night, I called the after hours line and was told my blood work was "concerning" and I needed to return to the ER immediately. I let my husband take me this time.
It took about 4 hours of ice packs and cool IV fluids, more blood work and lots and lots of questions for the doctor to get a spark of an idea that triggered a question that is seared in my memory. "When you were in Honduras, did you get bitten by any mosquitoes?" I knew immediately that I was lying there, pregnant, in the middle of the United States of America, with malaria. A disaster? Maybe. I still don't like it. And I still don't believe God directed a malaria-infested mosquito to bite me. God knows we struggle with those whys. And so he reminds us who He is...and who we are...just a couple lines later in verse 9. 
Doom to the one 
who argues with the potter,
as if he were just another clay pot!
Does the clay say to the potter,
"What are you making?"
or "Your work has no handles"?

God has taken this lump of clay, with impurities and flaws and clots and all the things that weren't meant to be there in the first place - everything that would spell disaster - and molded a story that has worked for good. Romans 8:28 has proven true: 

God works all things together 
for the good of those who love Him 
who are called according to His purpose.

My happy, healthy baby boy, Jacob, will be 10 in August. And this Sunday I preach at a church in St. Louis telling this gospel-infused story yet again. It has occurred to me that even if my baby would have died, I'd still be telling this story and fighting for mommas on the other side of the ocean who don't have the same opportunity to protect their children that I had to protect mine. God's wholeness and redemption is available to us all. Whatever disaster we have experienced, however it has turned out, Jesus walked this earth turning disaster into healing and restoration. And Jesus reigns as Lord so that we can glimpse His Kingdom right here. There is no malaria in the kingdom of heaven. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.




Ten years. Ten dollars. One precious life.
The statistics are heart-wrenching. But they're changing! 
Just $10 helps a momma protect her child. 

Tuesday, March 10, 2015

The God Who Sees

Sometimes you find yourself crammed into a 4-wheel drive with 6 amazing people, traveling for unending hours on a wide path called a road, forging flooded rivers, dodging cavernous potholes, sliding in muddy ruts, heading to the most remote of places in the middle of an African country, singing bad Bryan Adams remixes and eating dark chocolate covered pretzels from Target. Sometimes. Okay, maybe one time. But you hope that it could happen again. Because God speaks loudly when we get out of ourselves and we're uncomfortable like that. 
God's speaking this to me: How much does my view of God, my understanding of the gospel, get muddied in with my culture and comfortable reasoning? (The answer: a lot.) Am I willing to take off some masks; not just my own, but the ones I've put on God and others? Am I willing to not make assumptions about others' needs or sins or motives or authenticity? 
And am I willing to just see people? I'm seeing this team - the good, the bad and the ugly - as we have experienced some extreme contrasts of culture (i.e. Are you supposed to pee on the rocks or between the rocks in the potty hut? How do you react when your accommodations are quite honestly hard and utilitarian at best?). I'm seeing us wrestle with the contrasts and questions of accepting our own culture just as we accept the African culture. I'm seeing discomfort and submission, humor and heartache. And I'm seeing our little representations of God shining on this journey in Mozambique. We each bear the image of God, the Imago Dei, created in His image to bear His love and grace to the ends of the earth - or just to the end of the road. 
And when we finally reach the end of the road, there are more faces of these representations of God. They are beautiful, significant creations of the God Who Sees. I see them. I travel all this way and I make eye contact with a precious little boy missing his front tooth. I go to the end of the road and there really is a United Methodist cross and flame and I see a woman pastor singing and dancing unashamed for her God. I go to a remote spot in the wide dirt path and stir a pot of chima with a young woman with beautiful eyes. And I see her. And she sees me. And we see God. We are both reminded that God sees us. 
We are created in the image of the God Who Sees and we are to imitate that God and see others. The God who said, "You are precious in my eyes and honored and I love you" (Isaiah 43:4). We have His eyes. Everywhere we go. To the ends of earth, the ends of the road, the end of the street, and across the room. In this contrast of cultures God reminds me to also see the person behind the counter at the gas station, taking my order, driving like a maniac, begging for change at the Cardinals game, begging for my attention at the dinner table. We are each created in the image of God, the God Who Sees. Who do you see?