The Race: I Just Got Invited Back in Again

I just got invited back in again.

When I was preparing to come out here to Ireland the first time, I spent a few days and months not working, just preparing. I had to move apartments and use money that I didn’t necessarily have: but the Lord was providing. On one of those days, I went by a park where I used to run as a kid and there it was: the cross country races in full swing.

Of course, I was caught up in the nostalgia. I used to be a runner myself: I remembered the agony and grit required, how quickly it all went by, the feeling of waiting to just start out (awful!). I wrote a grand little paper later that day on running the race together that I asked all of my soon-to-be-teammates to read (they thought I was a bit nuts, poor things. Mores the pity for them.) But God was doing something, reminding me that there is a race to be run and inviting me in, at my old stomping grounds.

Races are hard, ardous, deadly-feeling things. It’s all over really quick, but the blood, sweat and tears in the middle can leave you feeling as though you haven’t a hope in the world: best give up now. You can especially feel that way when you’re the girl who is so slow that your friend can go to the bathroom in the middle of the race and still find herself with a better time than you (that was a humbling day). I remember one race where we had been practicing in really wet, soggy conditions and then race day was dry dust and I lost heart…but we’ll finish that story in a bit.

Races…races are about the endurance, the anticipation of what’s around the next corner without letting that become your whole focus. They’re about running well right now, being fully present, with an ear and an eye to the future, knowing what is to come and that the energy you’re exerting now is worth the gain to come in the future.

I was never any good at races. I was never good at endurance. I hadn’t the head for it: I couldn’t—or maybe I never learned—to take what was in front of me and crush it so that I could reach my ultimate goal. I have had countless conversations with my mother where I tell her about what is in front of me (in a panic) and she calmly explains to me that the mountain I think is in front of me is actually a molehill.

It’s a crazy thing to race, to actually believe in oneself and move forward despite the jeers and catcalls and overwhelming doubt you can feel in the crowd. If you tune in, it can capsize you. My first race in college, I was competing against schools in the Title I division. In other words, they were the best in the nation as it came to cross country. Stanford was there, for gosh sakes! I was cart girl in that race: dead last, with the man on a cart following to make sure we all knew where the field of players was divided: just in case a winner happened to pass me, we’d still be sure to know who I was.

But you know what: I was in the race.

I take myself out of the race so often. I lose heart, get discouraged, stop making available what I have been gifted with when I perceive that it’s not being appreciated…gosh, I act a baby sometimes! And the body of Christ around me suffers for it, suffers for my selfishness, my selfish ambition, my unwillingness to reach out in love. 

I’m in a new season currently, reevaluating. What do I want out of life, what do I need? It’s a time of introspection, looking at deep wounds (far too often self-inflicted) and choosing—as I see myself clearly—to move forward with confidence: fully aware of myself, my faults and all that I perhaps can’t change and also aware of who I want to be, dreaming about how to get there and offering myself again to the world around me.

I want to be back in the race.

I am currently in Dublin. I have a few days here, seeing off my last students as they take off back to their respective homes. The lot of them has gone off to explore with one of their families and there wasn’t room enough for me in the car. I had (well, at first I was miffed by it and then I chose it) to stay behind at the hotel. There’s a glorious pond with swans and a wonderful park nearby. In search of a place to write, I took off into the park. The girls who entered before me had duffel bags hanging on their shoulders and I presumed that they were football (American soccer) players, that being the sport of choice in these parts. As we (I following these girls) made our way toward the center of the park, I saw more and more students around their age and then: a race marked out clearly, and all of them either walking or jogging it. As I walked past a microphone (nearly blasted my ear off) a female voice cheered, “Welcome to the Irish National Championships!” I had stumbled upon a race, and one with a prize to win no less. I felt the invitation again: what would you do?

What could you do? What can you do, when invited into this race with Him. I tell you what you’ll do:

You’ll run in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called.

For me that means putting aside the straight up laziness that often keeps me form accomplishing anything. It means gathering people around me who will encourage me and help me to keep training, no matter what the ‘weather’ conditions may be. It means choosing to take on each new day as a new day and then going forward establishing and living out as a pattern in my life to choose forgiveness. It means discarding all the sin that tries so hard to entangle and throwing off every weight that tries to hinder: I want to run free! It means being a living sacrifice, making these choices every day for as long as it is called a ‘day’.

            I’ll end with this, for those who are fainthearted. The story I began earlier, the dry, dusty championship race, didn’t end well. I hardly placed, didn’t help my team much and just fell into feeling an utter failure. Fear was winning and I got so overwhelmed, I almost started walking. There just wasn’t any point to this anymore.

It was then I heard an inner voice say, “I’ll never give up on you, even when you give up on yourself.”

That moment changed: and is still changing, a lot of things in me. To know that the God of the Universe is still rooting for me, will never give up on me, even when I am besieged on all sides and so unsure of how to move forward. His love never changes and in the small schemata that is my life, He has grand designs. I can’t see them yet and can hardly believed He’d deign to glance my way but its true: it’ll always be true and never stop being true that He is obsessed with me and all the details of my life. He has directed so well so far: how could I ever just wander into Irish National Cross Country Championships? And only He would know how significant that would be for me. I take away today what I overheard one coach say: “Don’t think over the whole race, it’s too much. Concentrate on doing the section you’re in really well.”

Yes Coach.

Battle with Insignificance

 Whenever you’re starting out somewhere new, a piece of you—the one that’s still trying to prove itself and doesn’t quite understand grace—will be trying to show, desperately, just how good you are and how fit for the job. For all of us struggling procrastinators and oldest children with perfectionist tendencies, this can be the (figuratively) the death of us! We struggle so hard to be liked and to please and have such a hard time accepting the compliments and well wishes that come our way that we can swamp out all the good with our self doubt.

I write from where I am: a new place where my old ‘striving’ and ‘trying to prove myself’ tendencies have kept me on my toes in my mind for far too long. Despite multiple assurances of my place here and how valued I am, I can’t get through my head that I’m doing well. I must strive, I must forge ahead, I must do things in a new way and see results and…this is exhausting and has no fruit.

As I recall, there’s a Hebrew word for this…the word literally means to walk about in a circle. When we are stuck trying to prove ourselves, we get nowhere. And as we get nowhere, because we have refused to simply be His children and move as He calls, we get really frustrated. So we try even harder…and the circle in the dirt gets deeper but…it’s still a circle in the dirt.

In this last season, I’ve found that the real battle is with the lie the enemy has tried to put on me: insignificant. It has coloured all my perceptions and my thoughts; it has created barriers between me and those I could love in this new environment because I am constantly on the look out for their assessment of my performance.

Dwelling under insignificance, like fear (which I have battled through working under), makes for terrible working conditions to say the least. It will keep you from your full potential, if left unchecked. It becomes the net by which you are ensnared and there, caught in your own imperfect assessments as well as the cruelly (by you) interpreted assessments of those around you…you find…a cage…a prison…the white walls…are you understanding me?

You are trapped in bondage, that which you were never meant to endure has become your prison sentence.

Every word, thought, deed is filtered through this mask that keeps you from seeing life as it truly is. And you can’t escape it: your mind goes with you wherever you go, overanalyzing, trying to justify and reading into everything…it really becomes a bore.

The first step in reclaiming your life from insignificance is acknowledging it. As ‘we’ (all those books and workshops whose focus is to bring inner healing) have learned through the years, the first step toward solving a problem is noticing the problem is there. Well done you.

Second, confession. This is basic…but it works. There’s no formula: it’s just simply letting God and any person who you feel needs to know that your life is feeling pretty ratty. Acknowledging that, as well as what a lie it is, can be really freeing.

Confession also frees you in that there is power in speaking out the things you struggle with, particularly to God. Once you acknowledge your sin (in this case a false mindset) it says He is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. So it’s pretty simple: you, bring Him your mess. He takes care of it. I like this…

Third: be yourself, even if sometimes in your own estimation you seem like too much or have too much to say or do things you think other people will think are weird. God created you as you: He must have had a reason. I think you are a pretty big deal in His world: and you are in ours too. Please offer yourself with all your tweaks and quirks, I promise you, you will find people who love your authentic self. (Trust me, I’ve done it!) Authenticity coupled with vulnerability will create strong beautiful relationships in your life—and those are worth having. Relationships, after all, will carry over into the next life, though they will be changed. Build them, don’t let anything, especially insignificance, bar you from them.

Now when I say, “be as you are”; I hope you realize I’m not giving a licence for sin. If you have things you need to be working through…work through them with the Lord before the people He has put as accountability partners in your life. Don’t be a mess just to be a mess: you were made to be a blessing. But DO let God heal the parts of who you are that may have been repressed or rejected. If someone told you you have big teeth and it’s made you afraid to smile anymore…please bring that to God and ask Him to show you how beautiful you are. If you can’t wear swimsuits anymore because someone made a comment that your butt is too big, forget them! Ask God to show you who you are. It may take a while to sift through it all (sometimes we have a lifetime behind us full of junk) but God is willing and faithful and will bring things up as you can deal with them. He’s good like that. Always be replacing lies people have put onto you with the truth as God shows it to you. Remember, He don’t make junk.

I think that’s it: be authentic, be real, be loved…keep working past ANY lies that keep you in the dark. The Father of lights does give good gifts—I pray you’ll be on the lookout for them and receive them from Him. He is so good…and He does such good work in you, as you allow Him.

Walking with the Lord…

My Version of a Support Letter

I am a former schoolteacher turned missionary! Or…wait…I wanted to be a missionary…even had a country in mind (maybe too in mind!) and then—rrr! Sharp right turn!—God had me do all this training to be a schoolteacher First I volunteered, the I got the job as an aide, was a sub and finally became  a full fledged in-my-own-classroom (hallelujah!!!) schoolteacher.

And then He asked me to leave.

I was listening to a teaching on Naomi today. She had accepted the worst for herself. She even wanted her name changed from “pleasant” to “bitter”. This—she had decreed—was her end. Her husband and sons were dead and she had nothing left to lose…or gain.

Or so she thought…

But God goes further, knows deeper and plans better than we ever could have. He knew that Ruth would meet Boaz, get married and have a son who would become such a breath of life to Naomi. Literally, the woman of the village said: “He shall be to you a restorer of life and a nourisher of your old age, for your daughter-in-law who loves you, who is more to you than seven sons, has given birth to him.” Ruth 4:15

Sometimes dreams die for us. I have had disappointed hopes in these last few years. Times when I wanted to jump forward and found everything pulling me back. I have had a share of mourning and trouble not uncommon to man. But I kept believing, kept hoping and found that life was good, even in the middle of a place I was not anxious to live in (United States of America).

And then suddenly, you get to pick up that dream again. It all comes rushing back this feeling of, ‘I was not made to just stay here. I was made to go…to see and do and be more than I ever could have hoped.’ Not that being a teacher was bad! Despite the struggles of teaching in your first year, I found joy in loving those kids. And not that living in the States is a bad thing—it’s absolutely not: I appreciate a Starbucks on every corner (I’m sitting at one right now) and comfy beds along with everyone else. But something…something was missing.

Like Naomi, I need that thing which will give me life. For her, it was a grandbaby who replaced sons she had lost. For me, it’s living and traveling and doing life in a country not my own, investing in people and seeing them grow. And yeah, I can do this anywhere and I have been able to do this in the United States—but it’s time to move forward into the more, the unique place that only I can occupy-–and only God knows what that looks like! I am being given permission to step into what I thought was lost—life handed back to me again.

That’s a beautiful thing.

I have a few weeks to go before I set foot on Irish soil—a lot to learn, money to raise and tons of joy to be experienced. I am investing what I have earned into this trip, selling my car and holding yard sales. I need your help—however much you would like to invest! If you feel lead of the Lord to support me financially, that business is between you and Him! (But let me know. J) If you would like to be part of my prayer team, excellent! This will be (always is) the biggest need: covering over me as I go out into territory God has promised me will be huge. I am not just going to Ireland, but Northern Ireland, a country whose spunky (and often violent) history I am just becoming familiar with. Prayer for the culture shock I am sure to experience, prayer for healthy team mate relationships, safe flights, provision, my parents and siblings safety—it’s a long list, so if you want to be part of my prayer team, I would love to be able to e-mail you periodically. Any person who goes overseas for a long period of time runs the risk of being forgotten—they become the  person who comes to peoples’ minds as ‘Yeah, Nancy went to so-and-so and I see her on facebook often!’ I don’t want to be that person—the forgotten, almost idealized missionary. I want to be the one who is in your face, telling you how it is, inviting you into the world beyond your neighborhood and keeping you smiling through the ride.

I need your support, and honestly, I think you need my perspective. Not that it’s a correct one, or a safe one or even one you want to hear but…it might help you see the world a little bigger than your backyard and introduce you to faith that goes beyond reason (hmm…that’s kind of the definition of faith, isn’t it?)

So if your game, down or whatever other lingo you got: be brave and e-mail me: teachingisthereason@gmail.com

the Kingdom of God...

Journal Entry #979 (or something like that): June 17^th, 2015

I guess what I’m learning is that nothing is what it seems. Decay actually brings beauty and growth. The most unlikely people are the ones God loves to use. And the place where it seems like everything is happening may be the place where nothing is happening for the Kingdom, while the place where it seems nothing is happening (to human eyes) may be the place where He is having His Kingdom way most readily.

You just don’t know.

Which means we can’t judge another persons actions—because the Lord may be asking them to quit their job, silly as it seems to you. And you have to make the most of every opportunity presented to you because you don’t know how long He’s going to ask you to be there. So invest, invest mightily! You have nothing left to lose—didn’t you give it all for the Kingdom anyway? You said you did…

And hope!—hope springs up everywhere where you choose to rest and fully look into His eyes. That’s all He asked of us anyway, in the first place: set your eyes on Me. Let all of that other stuff go, and set your eyes on me, making my Kingdom first and I will take care of you. He will take care of you, all your needs! He promised! (“Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things will be given to you.” Matthew 6:33)

So I set out into the unknown again, full of hope. I could list my impossibilities, all the things I am waiting on God before…but I won’t. You have your own, the things you are waiting for. Because we’re all here in the waiting. I once thought I was alone on this rock and had to muster up enough courage and strength to wrestle my way alone through this fight and try to drag some people with me, half dead though they may be, into the Kingdom. That’s what I thought, that’s how I (unconsciously) lived. Then He woke me up one day. “This happens to be my Kingdom,” He said, “And I give the orders around here, “ He said, “ And you’re not really in line with the shape of things as I do them ‘round here. Let’s get some redirection going.” And He taught me about grace. And He showed me how to love. And He put courage in my heart and taught me to live for His words and not the words of men. And He gave me life, such abundant life. And all of a sudden, I wasn’t living for other people. And I certainly wasn’t living for myself or (even worse) out of my own strength but I began…looking to Him. And He filled my life with good things and made the boundaries of my life pleasant for me. So I stay with Him, through thick and thin, mistakes on my part, as well as misdirection, all the times I seem to stumble and often fall and just plan don’t get it right: I remember that I’m looking to Him and I don’t have to always get it right because He has me. And He will continue to have me even into old age—He has such joy in being mine and I in being His. So this is just a little note to say that He’s not done with you. And He’ll never be through with you; His love just goes too deep for that. In all the places that seem impossible to you in your life or the areas where you just miss Him and want to be with Him again, lift up your hands! Look to the One who made you and fall in love with Him again; no, not gooey-eyed  like in the movies, but the love that looks straight at another person and sees all their flaws, so clearly, and decides to envelop them in all that they have to offer anyway. That is how the Lord loves you and He will demonstrate it to you in His own unique way and time as you bow forward and ask to love Him again. Fall, fall again into the arms of Jesus. It’ll be the best falling forward failure that you’ve ever felt.

Our insufficiencies are His strength, for in this we cry out to Him and His abundance overflows and envelops the very place we had thought was won over by the enemy. Be set free today, in His love.