Messier than normal Archives - Page 2 of 8

A Top 10 List That Might Make You Cry

It’s “Top 10” week at Velvet Ashes (so far my fav list is Top 10 Podcasts –– I’ve added four of them to my podcast listening). I love a good list, so my mind has spent the last week organizing my thoughts into Top 10 lists. Here’s one from a couple of years ago with Ten Ideas for Pastors on Father’s Day.

I think my mind enjoys these mainly because writing Top 10 lists is energizing and fun compared to editing my book.

(True story: One of my mental Top 10 lists was Top 10 things I like about editing because as I say, “what you feed, you move towards” and I’d rather feed appreciation than annoyance.)

But the truth is, the Top 10 list that needs space today is 10 Things I Miss About My Dad. You know how it’s common lore in grief that the first year is the hardest? Well, that hasn’t been my experience. I miss my dad more now, in the second year, and it’s surprised me.

In wondering why the second year has been harder, I’ve come to this conclusion: I was used to not seeing my dad for a year or more at a time. Living in China conditioned me to rhythms I wasn’t aware of.

(This is true for all of us. Of course it is.)

So though I didn’t realize it, when my dad died and I didn’t seem him for a year, it wasn’t that different than the last twenty years. And then we rounded the year corner and I started crying more than I did the first year. In working out my grief and making myself articulate and honor what I miss about Dad, I bring you 10 Things I Miss About My Dad.

This picture was taken twenty years ago this summer when Dad drove out to Kansas to help pack up my apartment (and with the help of my dear friend Marla and her folks) before moving to China. He drove it home while I detoured to Wichita to visit my friend Amy who was convalescing after donating a kidney to her brother. We both look so young :)!

1. I miss that he will never again ask me if I want some Kraft Mac-n-Cheese as he makes some for himself.

2. I miss calling him after a Broncos game and talking about it. I knew I had to be fast because Dad’s friend Frank also like to debrief with him. Thankfully, I’m quick on the dial.

3. I miss Dad retelling the story of a June evening in the early 90’s that recounted an adventure Dad and I had. I miss that I will never hear Dad tell it again and then put his head back and roar.

4. I miss hearing Dad call Mom “honers” (a variation of “honey).

5. I miss the way Dad could seem to not be paying attention, but then would notice the smallest detail that showed he saw beyond the obvious. When Elizabeth got engaged, Dad loved to introduce Del to people. Loved it. Del was a catch as a son-in-law, but instead of saying, “This is Del, he’s a stand up guy who loves Jesus, has a house, lots of friends, is employed, and has minimal debt,” Dad with great joy would say, “This is Del, he’s going to be my son-in-law and he has a truck!”

6. I miss Dad being in the know. Several big events have happened to our family since he died and it’s just weird to think we know things he doesn’t.

7. I miss reading out loud to him on road trips (poor Mom is stuck with me chasing her around when I have a passage I must share). The picture we used of Dad when he died was taken on a short September day trip to look at the aspen. On that day I read from Love Does by Bob Goff.

8. I miss seeing Dad beam from the back of the room, seated next to Mom, whenever I’d speak. I could have talked about anything and they would be there. I miss his proud smile and puffed out chest that said, “That’s my daughter.”

9, I miss the air sucking-in sound he’d make when he was thinking or figuring something out. I can’t describe it well, but I can hear it in my head.

10. I miss TA Hua. TA are my dad’s initials and hua is the Chinese word for dialect. When I learned about “hua” and how it describes regional dialects in China, our family had a way to describe Dad’s communication: he was the only one fluent in TA Hua! One small example is that if you asked a question, a speaker of TA Hua gives an answer that on the surface has no relationship to the question, but makes perfect sense to the answerer. I didn’t know I’d miss it, but I do. I miss TA Hua.

I don’t mind talking about you, Dad; but what I really, really miss more than anything else, is talking with you.

Community, Faith, Learning lessons, Messier than normal, Personality

3 Ways To Offer Comfort That Don’t Lead to Feeling Violent

“Amy, I’d love to hear what you’ve learned about comfort this year.” Patty said during one of our editor’s meetings for Velvet Ashes. We were planning out the spring and talking about this week’s theme of “comfort.”

Since her comment, I’ve been reflecting on what I’ve learned in recent years about comfort versus what I call a “comfort misfire.”

(I’m not normally violent or cuss; I’m bouncy and encouraging by nature. So I know it’s a misfire if I want to stifled violence or cussing after an attempt at comfort.)

I did not want to become an expert on how to comfort people. I’d rather be an expert on how to drive fast safely or how to make the perfect peanut butter toast; but significant events turned me into a comfort expert.

The blog post I wrote about Mother’s Day: I’m still contacted every single week in regards to it.
Circumstance in my job and life lead to resigning even though I thought I’d be in that job until retirement. Not just resign, resign and relocate across an ocean.
The death of my dad.

Let me say up front I believe the intention have been honorable and to comfort me. However, it’s a tiny bit stunning how many people stink at offering comfort.

This is what I’ve learned:

1. The power of showing up. You don’t have to say or do anything profound. I think popular Youtube videos and Hollywood have warped out thinking in this area. If something isn’t big and spectacular or receives multiple likes and comments, it doesn’t seem worth doing. However, I’ve learned a text or a card, an email message, cooking a meal, making a phone call, coming to the hospital communicates comfort.

Job’s friends got this right when for the first seven days they showed up and sat with him. The problems started when they opened their mouths.

2. What you can say to me depends on who you are. If you are in my inner circle and know more than the average bear, you can say about anything and it will comfort. But if you’re not, please keep your comments generic.

“Isn’t it wonderful God knew your dad was going to die, so He had you in the U.S.” No, I want to snap, no it is not wonderful. The reason I’m in the U.S. is because I lost my voice and influence and began to die on the inside. Are you telling me God had me go through this crap so that I could be with my dad? Do you really think God could find no other way to get me in the same country as my dad than to crumble my life around me? I don’t believe God plays with us like a cat and mouse. Is he using what I’ve experienced for my good and to grow and refine me? Yes. But that’s different than what you said.

“I’m thankful you could be near your dad when he died.” Me too. That one comforts.

Multiple times I’ve been told, “It’s a good thing you’re a woman and not a man, because troubles in your job didn’t hurt you the way it would a man. You know how significant work is to a man.”

It takes all I have to stifle the rage I feel. “Are you (very colorful word) kidding me?” I want to ask; followed up by, “Do you really have no clue who I am? I am a single woman past childbearing years. Where do you think I’ve contributed my time, talents and effort? Oh right, my work.” If you cut me, I bleed. Like every human being. Don’t be an ass :). See what I mean about the opposite?

“Wow, I’m sorry for what you’ve experienced.” Ah, now I feel seen and known and comforted.

If you’re in someone’s inner circle, be there for him or her with your insights and comments. But if you’re not, keep it general and you’ll hit your goal of being comforting.

3. The final lesson is you don’t have to have walked the path to offer comfort. In God’s delightful comic sense of humor and connection, I am involved in Mother’s Day all year long. What God has shown me through the reactions to that post and the videos made from the prayer is this: the biggest part of comfort is creating space for connection not sameness.

I have probably over analyzed why the Mother’s Day post has been so popular. In essence it expanded the story of Mother’s Day from “Yay for Moms!” to “What’s your story?”

(Which by the way, includes, “Yay for Moms!”)

Your story and my story don’t have to be similar for us to be able to comfort each other. The key is: am I willing to hear what you’re saying without assuming I know what you’ll say.

And that right there might be the biggest lesson of comfort: Listen more than you talk. The most comforting question? How are you? This gives me the freedom to be as shallow or as deep as I’m comfortable with that day or with you.

I know you care, I really do. This is one of the beautiful ways we are made in God’s image. He tenderly says, “Comfort ye, comfort ye my people.” My hope is that we keep growing in extending comfort to one another and to spare you the less than Godly responses I’ve had.

And by offering comfort, new life will grow and blossom.

What would you add to my list? What less-than-comforting things have been said to you?

Amy

I’m linking up with Velvet Ashes and the theme of Comfort

Community, Faith, Learning lessons, Messier than normal

What I have learned from my dad this year

“Tom, you do not need to worry about Marsha.” Dale and Ben assured my dad as he was dying. “We will take care of the house, we will help her when it is time to sell it. You do not need to worry. We value you and Marsha and we want you to know we will take care of her.”

As I stood watching this father and son bless Dad, I thought I knew how my dad’s generosity over the years to people was coming back to him and to us.

Here’s a truth people have said, but maybe not in the clearest of terms. Let me flat our say it.

When you die, your “stuff” comes out.

Who you really were will be known. Not who you presented or hoped people would know, your secrets will see the light of day. You may be dead, but what you’ve left will be gone through. You will be known in a way you couldn’t be when you were alive because you are no longer your main PR guy or gal.

You think people won’t know about this or that. Ha! They will. When people have gone through your finances, the ways you invested your time, the type of relationships you fostered, the way you did your job day after day, week after week, year after year, what will be said of you?

If you summarized your whole life in one word, what would it be?

For Tom Young, it turns out that word is generous. (And “major smiler.”)

Those of you who had the pleasure of knowing him are nodding. Yup, he was a generous guy.

Well, I am here to tell you, you have no idea how generous, because I had no idea how generous and he raised me for Pete’s sake!

At the time of his death we were surprised to find out he had volunteered about 700 hours at The Action Center, helping people foster self-sufficiency. We knew he’d volunteered, but 700 hours?! Sure, you might be saying like I did, after he retired he had the time to give.

But this is what I’ve come to believe the past year as we’ve slowly dismantled parts of his life, it’s not about having the time or the resources, it’s about habits.

I have been stunned and humbled and proud as I’ve sorted through what I mistook to be his legacy: all the dang paper he left.

I’ve shared before, but the man never met a piece of paper he didn’t want to keep forever and ever amen. But were it not for all those boxes and piles and bags of paper stored here and there, I wouldn’t know what I know.

He gave hours and hours while working a full time job. It is hard not to speak in hyperbole, not because this is my dad I’m talking about, but because of the magnitude of the time he gave. I have gone through files representing years worth of being on the mission committee complete with the prayers notes he took and the financial investment the church made. There’s also serving as an elder and helping his aging aunts and uncles and helping this person or that one.

I could go on. But his generosity wasn’t just with his time, it was also with finances. We found a cancelled check from a time where money was very, very tight. He’d written a note saying it had been a hard year with health and business crises but that he and Mom believed in the cause and wanted to honor the commitment they had made.

When I came across the first time he chose sharing money with others when he could have reasonably kept it, I thought it was kind. Anyone can be kind on occasion, right? What do you start to make of the third or fifth time?

It’s wrong to think he was just generous nearer the end of his days when finances weren’t such a pressure. It’s easy to point to abundance and confuse it with generosity. What he had was value and habit and a true love of people.

His love of people comes through in the rough drafts he left behind. We unearthed three letters he wrote to his first granddaughter on, it seems her first and second birthday and the ways she’d enhanced his life. Just last week I found notes he’d taken to share at friend’s retirement party – the details and funny stories showed a generosity of noticing, really noticing. I’ve thrown away newspaper cuttings from the 1960s about his boss who died unexpectedly. Dad moved that clipping from job to job for the next 40 plus years.

I remember when I was a kid and I asked him how much he made a year (If you’ve been in China, you know this is a common question, I just didn’t know I was light years ahead of where I’d end up!). I’ll never forget his answer. He said, “I’m not going to tell you for two reasons. One, some of your classmates won’t be in the financial position we are. But more importantly, all you need to know as a child in this family is that we have enough. You will always be taken care of.”

This memory epitomizes Tom Young. Don’t focus on the wrong things, the things that will fade. Instead, live out of patterns that aren’t tossed by the whims of conditions.

We are told to do our good deeds in private lest anyone should boast. And this is right and good. The only down side to it is that by doing so, sometimes we forget we are capable of more than we might imagine.

I cannot imagine how devastating it would have been to discover Dad had complicated secrets, addictions we didn’t know of, or debts sprinkled here and there. I’ll be honest that in the past year, each of us has seen someone of Dad we hadn’t before. You can’t know everything. But what a sweet gift he gave to us that this year we have seen he was who we thought he was.

On this one-year anniversary of the last day I held my dad’s hand, I ask myself if there are habits I need to change? Are there some I want to foster more? Are there some I want to walk away from because of the ways they are forming me?

Dad, I am grateful that in death you continue to influence and shape me. As you know, but I will never weary of saying, I love you. And in your honor tonight we will eat your favs, Kraft Macaroni and Cheese and Pie.

Book, Faith, Messier than normal, Relationships

Review: Fight Back With Joy {and a Give Away!}

I first heard of Margaret Feinberg when I was living in Beijing. A friend brought back Scouting the Divine from the U.S. and gushed about it so much it was my very next book purchase. (In it Margaret gets to know a shepherdess, bee keeper, and vintner to understand Biblical passages involving sheep, honey, and wine. If you haven’t read it, you must. Spectacular.)

Yes, Margaret’s writing touched and impressed me, but want to know what bowled me over? She’s from Morrison, Colorado!!

I know, right! Wait, you might not have heard of Morrison? It’s a not s0-well-known town near my hometown. Being a world away, it was like hearing from home.

And now she’s come out with a new book: Fight Back With Joy. I pre-ordered it and when I received it a few days after Christmas it was my first read in the new year (even before several excellent Christmas gifts). I would have read it regardless of the title, but you know Joy holds a special corner of my soul.

I’ve written before about when my joy was gone. Even now several years out, my declaration was memorable, as I recently found out reminiscing with friends. Several years ago during team prayer requests, through tears and a few sobs, I asked for my joy to be returned. I said I was losing myself and my joy was gone. I wasn’t depressed in the clinical sense, I was depressed in the spiritual sense and I wanted me back. This happened a few weeks after they had joined the team, and it turns out when they got home that night they wondered what was wrong with our team if cheerful Amy was falling apart :).

Turns out even cheerful people can experience joy crises too.

In preparation for this book, Margaret participated in several joy experiments. Only problem was they turned out to be gimmicky (my description), which was not her goal. “God had to interrupt my joy experiment to take me on a joy expedition.”

She was diagnosed with breast cancer.

This book chronicles receiving (or living) unwanted news and the ways you can “fight back with joy.” The subtitle says it all: celebrate more, regret less, stare down your greatest fears.

“We rarely choose what is subtracted from our lives, but we can choose how we respond. How we reorganize our lives in order to move forward.” Rings true on a deep level, doesn’t it?

In her own words, Margaret wrote this book:

My prayer is that this book will be beacon for anyone searching for HOW to fight darkness.
My prayer is that this book will be a beacon for anyone ABOUT to face a battle.
My prayer is that this book will be a beacon for anyone IN the fight of their lives.
My prayer is that this book will be a beacon for anyone who has crawled THROUGH the trenches.

Sooner or later, we all find ourselves on the battlefield. But we can fight back with joy and help others do the same.

I wanted to read this book because I’m drawn to stories of folks who live in the messy middle of life and reach for God and each other in the midst of it. You know my journey with choosing a word for the year started with renewed joy, the deepest longing of my heart in that season and this is my year to practice celebration.

What better way to celebrate returned joy than by offering Fight Back With Joy by Margaret Feinberg for you to share with someone who needs it?

Leave a comment on you’ll be entered to win a copy (you can keep or give as a gift). Winner announced on Thursday :)! Who do you know who could use this book?

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You can order the book on Amazon, Barnes & Noble:, or Margaret’s website (best place) and Margaret has created a 6-Session Bible Study Kit to accompany the book. This book will be an asset to those of us who live messy lives and long for the messes to be infused with JOY! Enjoy a video about the book.

Learning lessons, Messier than normal, Relationships

Which Headline Speaks More To Your Soul?

I’m not sure why hyping language — you know, words like high, new, bigger, better, goals, do, go, fly higher– is pushing my buttons at an accelerated rate this year. But I’m here to testify that my buttons are pushed.

I read one about being a high achiever in 2015 and nearly lost it.

I get the allure, I do. Truth be told, if my choices are to be a high achiever or a low achiever in 2015, I’d choose high. Of course we want to contribute and achieve. I want what I’m investing in to matter and make a difference in this world. What’s more, I think it’s OK to want to achieve and invest.

But as I’ve been thinking about it and wondering why, why, why do I role my eyes and want to scream at something I believe in. My beef is this: Your focus becomes your target. From math we know trajectories point to where an object in motion will land.

Just go bowling and try to deny this truth.

But trajectories can be influenced and small changes and lead to landing in a different spot.

I don’t think we need nudges to be better achievers or doers or to set more goals. We’ve got that down.

Here’s what my soul would liked to read:

Find Out What Connectors Are Doing in 2015 To Connect Better

To themselves

To others

To nature

To God

How does that headline sound to your soul?

The irony is through connections, achievement will happen, goals can be reached, and significance can be feasted on.

I took this photo when I was visiting my friend Amy. Her daughter Kate made a homemade spa for us and told us not to come in until she was ready and to notice our drinks. It is a small thing, a can of coke. But do you see how she sees me? The special effort she went to digging through all of the coke cans.

On another trip I volunteered to go pick her brother up at the high school one cold, rainy evening taking Kate with me leaving her mom on the couch with a few minutes of quiet. We got to cavorting in the empty streets and Kate said, “Oh Auntie Amy, you’re not like Jilly” (I’ve changed the name). Well I hope not! I thought to myself but wondered what prompted Kate to notice or comment.

“You make my mom laugh.”

I wanted to pull the car over and ask for a moment of silence. We were on holy ground. You make my mom laugh.

Now I’ve accomplished a lot in my life. If you want to know about achieving, I know about achieving. I have more education than most, have been in leadership for years, taught thousands of students, and mastered quite a few skills. But when it all comes down and I get to heaven and Jesus and I are reviewing the highlight reel of my life, this will be on the reel. You make my mom laugh.

In other words, you connected in a significant way.

And connections are built on the backs of thousands of little things.

I don’t know what 2015 holds, what challenges and joys I’ll face. But I know this, I’m aiming to be a “high connector” and by aiming, hope I’ll hit my target.

What do you hope is said of you in 2015? Are hyping words annoying you? :)? It’s OK if they are inspiring you! What’s a small thing you have done today to connect with others?

China, Faith, Messier than normal

I am too am a Spiritual Misfit

One sign someone is a decent human?

When you write a person you haven’t met and they don’t know you from Adam (other than a few comments here and their on their blog). In the email you ask to use a photo you saw on their blog, and they write you right back sending the photo.

Michelle DeRusha is one such person. When I was getting ready to share that I’d be resigning from my job in China, leaving an organization I had been with for years, and relocating to the U.S. I knew it would be B.I.G. news.

The image that kept coming to mind was “Stepping into my own River Jordan” and I wanted a picture of a person looking down at her feet as she stepped into water. Michelle had taken such a picture and sent it to me. I joined her fan club.

This past spring her memoir Spiritual Misfit was published. I just love the cover and the concept and highly recommend the book:

Haven’t we all at some time felt like the red bird?

Today I’m over at her blog sharing where I have felt like a spiritual misfit.

One of the hazards of living overseas is returning to the US and finding yourself critical of a church you once loved. Of course I didn’t hear of this potential pot hole until years into my time in China. By that point I was already ruined for the ordinary, so why not this area too?

Over the more than 18 years I was in China, one of the few constants was the change experienced year-by-year in my church experience.

This did not bode well for me fitting into churches that don’t tend to change much.

My first year, church meant three of us …. read the rest here.

Photo Credit Kaytee Riek via Compfight CC

Faith, Messier than normal

When the view out the window is a blur

The notification came yesterday.

Peter’s been found.

And later the update on Facebook:

On behalf of the Spear family.
“It is with the deepest sorrow we have ever experienced that we report to you that our precious Peter Spear’s body was found and we have identified it. We are together as a family and lovingly supported by friends. The community of love that came together around Peter was a testament to how he cared for each of us. We know that you love Peter and that you love us and want to help. As needs arise we will not hesitate to reach out. Please continue to pray for us. No arrangements have been made yet. We will share those details as plans go forward.”

One particular memory is coming in clear paragraphs to my mind. Questions in sentences. Prayers in short phrases. At times like this the mind and soul can move in different directions.

The last Thanksgiving before I moved to China, the Spears came to our house for the meal. I took many, many photos to be able to share “A real American Thanksgiving” with my Chinese students. Those photos were laminated (this was before the days of the internet and easy access to what we in the teaching biz call “realia”) and have been passed around many a classroom in China. Two pictures have come to mind this week, and to a certain extent haunt me.

In one, my dad is carving the turkey and he’s turned to smile at me. In another, the food is being passed around the table and Susan has the serving plate filled with turkey and is helping the child to her left.

I have looked at these photos for years. I have used the again and again. Even when it was time to return to the States, I couldn’t quite part with them though they have long lost their teaching value. They are somewhere in the basement with my other worldly treasure shipped from China.

How is it that Peter and Dad died in the same year? One was sad, but more at the end of a life. One still in the early phases.

How did it come to pass the man carving the turkey and the boy eating it would enter eternity within months of each other?

There are more questions. I image you can guess them.

But the prayers, the prayers are, I want to say lacking, but that’s not the right word. They are so basic, so short, so raw. It’s more a rendition of help, help, help.

Peter was the meat in the sibling sandwich. He has an older and younger sister. And now they are two pieces of bread, can you be a sandwich when your middle is missing? Yes and no. Remember them too.

This has been a year of loss for the Spears. As you pray for them, this is not the first loss, but it is by far the most awful. This weekend, knowing that we live round the world, as they come to mind, please keep praying for them in the tragic here and now and for all of the details that are before them.

I love the ways you rallied quickly yesterday. I felt this space was, in a very small way, a place where, like Job’s friends, we could sit together with them without bothering or interrupting. Let’s sit some more.

Oh God, help, help, help. Amen.

Faith, Messier than normal

When all you can pray is help, please help

This is not the post I had planned for today. I have another one ready to go (it’s the survey results and I’m excited to share it.). But laying in bed last night, knowing what I know, I knew it wasn’t the right post for today.

Pastor Bruce was the lead officiator on my dad memorial service. He knew, loved, and respected my dad. This much was obvious. It was not a generic talk. No, it was laced with specifics and mentioned each of us by name because he knows us too.

Bruce and Susan are more than a pastor and his wife to us, they are family friends.

Their adult son, Peter, is missing. Last seen on July 6th.

This is not an episode of Law and Order. This is not a Patricia Cornwell novel. This is not a joke. This is a nightmare.

The family has gathered in New York. There are detectives involved. Witnesses are being searched for and talked to.

We are stunned.

And yet we are not abandoned. I share this for two reasons. Will you join me in prayer and an act of spiritual discipline?

Oh God, help, help, help. Help Peter be alive. Help his family. Help them to move towards each other at this horrific time. Help them to get enough food and sleep. Help the police and the detectives. Help his friends. Help. Help. Help. Amen.

The enemy of our souls loves to steal and destroy. As an act of spiritual discipline, will you also join me in creating space for gratitude for loved ones today? For a family member. A friend. A neighbor or co-worker. We are richly blessed with ordinary presence.

God has made us complex enough to be concerned for Peter and pray for him AND be grateful for our loved one. Let’s lean hard into that truth and embrace the messiness of it.

And if you would like updates on Peter and the search, a Facebook page has been set up. Find Peter Spear.

Bruce and Susan, you mean so much to us and we ache for you. We also know God can work miracles and join with you in praying for one.

Amy

Cross cultural, Ending Chapters, Faith, Learning lessons, Messier than normal

In which I am disturbed {a holy disturbance}

Can you believe it was a year ago I was putting the finishing touches on packing up my life in China? The following was written on one of my last nights and this week seems a fitting time to republish it. I am thankful for that evening and friends who will walk with me even I’ll be leaving and that God has the whole world in the palm of his hand.

**********

I texted her You want to go for a walk? It had been a day of defrosting and sorting while the rain poured cleaning out the air. Still full from lunch, I wanted to walk before doing yet another round of dishes.

Sure. Let me finish bathing the kids and hubster will put them down. (That’s not really how she talks, that’s an Amy translation.)

And so we walked into the cool of the night, headed first for the local park (pictures at that link from a morning walk in the spring). It’s alive at night! Turns out there is a “dancing with big ribbons” club. Who knew?! Maybe I can bring that back to America. Maybe not.

We exited the park onto a street that’s under massive construction and has become a bit of a migrant village alive with village activities. A man getting his hair cut under a single light. Stores spread on blankets. Food vendors selling freshly cut fruit.

This picture obviously wasn’t taken at night. Picture a single slight bulb hanging above, same guy, same chair.

Years ago, to the left of this picture, a massive four lane bridge was built going over a canal. On either side of the bridge small hutong/alley neighborhoods existed. But that bridge meant that the City had other plans and come one day, those alley communities would be replaced. Both sides now look like the background of this picture. But every night, that abandoned bridge becomes a local community setting with vendors and restaurants and snake oil.

On nearly my last night, my heart broke afresh.

Going up the stairs to the “bridge” we heard a loudspeaker and if you’ve been in China, thought nothing of it. Loudspeakers are a dime a dozen. But there were flashing lights and a ginormous crowd gathered around. This, this in a country where you need a permit to gather in public spaces, was not a dime a dozen.

In a poignant juxtaposition as the tall buildings of Beijing lit up in the background, we had stumbled onto a countryside superstitious blessing ceremony. We joined the crowd standing on tippy toe to see — at the far end, the truck that acted as stage and sound system with flashing lights, there were two statutes that one of the “sponsors” kowtowed to and then the announcer said for anyone to come forward and for only 20 kuai (about $3.25) you too could be blessed and given a golden chain.

Where was I? What was happening? Were there plants in the audience? Is this what the shaddy medicine men of the wild west did, but with a Chinese twist?

Too many people went forward for them to be plants. Too many longed for blessing — to be touched by something holy, something that would heal them, bring them fortune– for the desires to be fake.

We were in the presence of raw longing.

It was disturbing.

To see people with so little give so much to something so empty.

The organizers had drawn a line around the perimeter and asked us, the crowd, to step back outside the line. Only two of us did, you can guess who. The crowd couldn’t help but to press in, to see others blessed, to see if a miracle was going to happen.

I thought of other crowds and of the One who had compassion on those gathered and longed to bless them. Blessed are the poor in spirit and the meek and those who mourn. On he went saying “I see you, I know your condition and the longing of your heart and I want to bless you.” Really bless you, not with a gold chain necklace that looked like carnival fare, but with blessings that will last.

We turned and walked away, sobered again by the remembrance that though great, great changes have come, too many hearts that long for blessing, are listening to charlatans. “How can I leave?” I asked. But I will, and it will be OK, because the work here has never been about me or about foreigners, the work here is the Good Shepherd’s and he loves his sheep. He does.

But every now and then, the Good Shepherd lifts the curtain, allowing us a behind-the-scene-glance of the fields yet to be harvested and reminds us — the harvest is great, keep praying, keep investing, there are are still too many who long for blessing.

Will you join me afresh in praying for China? My dishes still need doing and I hadn’t planned on writing today. But I am disturbed in the best, most holy way.

Have you seen something similar to what we did last night?

Community, Faith, Messier than normal, Personality, Velvet Ashes

The secret to contentment {writing this was like birthing a kidney stone}

At Velvet Ashes, a watering hole for women living overseas, we’re ending our special three week series on parenting, marriage and singleness. We end each with with The Grove and gather around the topic for the week. The following was The Grove post for “singleness.”

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“Twenty seven.”

I was 19 and was talking to a fellow counselor at the summer camp where I worked. Many of the counselors were older, married, and mothers to a camper. She smiled and in response to the confident age I announced I was going to get married she said, “I hope it works out, but when you get married isn’t something you can control.”

Guess what age I moved to China.

In a sense, I have been married ever since.

freedom and boundaries

I have put off writing this post more than any other I have written. If I’m awake in the middle of the night, my mind drifts to it and I dread needing to write.

Here are two reasons I don’t want to write this – 1. I do not want to be a go-to person for singleness. This was not my dream. I did not picture myself being single and though I am very, very happy. I do not think it’s because I’m single. So it’s hard to write about something that has nothing to do with my contentment. 2. Though very, very happy, I can still feel like an outsider at times.

You know this month we’ve looked at TCKs and marriage and now singleness. You also know one of the reasons I love Velvet Ashes is because we are a place for all women. Single, married, happy overseas, drowning overseas, divorced, raising little ones, living in empty nests, young, old, in-between. There is something we each can offer to one another. I need you and you need me.

But as a 46-year-old single woman I also scare you. And that makes me sad.

As we planned out these three weeks, there was a throw away comment. “We need to protect the hope of the young women and if we only hear from older single women … well.”

I am no longer the “young” single. I am the cautionary tale. When did that happen?

Young single women reading this, cherish your dreams, your longings. I love the energy and hope you bring to us, to me. I love the ways you throw yourself at life and have so much before you. If you hope to get married and have children and bake cookies and build family memories, this is good and honorable and exciting.

But it is not a given.

We started this conversation in December and one of the questions in the comments asked me how do you have peace and joy as a single person.

In that post I wrote about playing Old Maid and said: When it comes to singleness, I can say this for sure: Jesus is into being a game changer. And I stand by that. Jesus values and loves and uses and disciplines me because I am, not because I am _(fill in the blank)______ (single, married, a mother, awesome at language, a killer baker, a sports fan).

No, He places value on every single person simply because they are. When he declared “It is finished” from the cross, he changed who is invited to “play the game.” He did not, however, throw out all rules.

I said above I do not think my happiness, joy, and contentment have anything to do with being single. Here is the secret to my contentment: accepting the reality of limits and freedoms.

I do not dwell on what I don’t have. I enjoy what I do have.

As a single person, I have limits placed on me. But getting married wouldn’t change that reality, it would shift it. I’d still have limits.

On the flip side, I have all kinds of freedoms as single person. Parents have freedoms too, they just look different than mine.

Parallel Lives

I have been in the unique position of having a dear friend with the same name, major in college and love for the Lord. The major difference, she married when we were 21. Our parallel lives have allowed us to “do life” on similar paths separated by continents. We offer each other a glimpse into “what my life might have been like.” So much sameness, so much difference.

A few years ago she said the kindest thing to me, “Amy I didn’t know what I was choosing when I got married at 21, you have shown me much by making different choices.” She is happily married and the mother of three (how can the oldest soon be going to college?!). But she sees that I haven’t missed out on life, I have lived full-on, engaged and invested.

To my sisters reading this who want to SCREAM, “BUT I DO NOT WANT THIS LIMIT.” I hear you. Neither did the woman whose husband had an affair, or had a child who is on the autism spectrum, or she herself has health problems. Life does not always happen the way we’d want. Living within limits is not just for the single.

Our limits point us to God. They say, “This is where you end. You are not limitless, only I AM. I give you limits to remind you who you are so you remember who I AM.”

Cry out, unabashedly, and unashamedly to God.

But like the good Father he is, it’s not all about limits. There are freedoms offered to each path in life. And I delight in my freedom. When I was deciding whether or not to leave the field for a season, one benefit I had was I was only deciding for one. If I crash and burn, I’m only taking one down. When I want to exercise on a Saturday morning, I don’t have to coordinate with someone, I just go.

I have more to say (of course =)), but this conversation will continue to unfold over time, right?

What limits and freedoms do you experience? What helps you be content?

Photo credit by jonycunha via flickr cc

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