Standing in the Middle of the Street

I've never stared at the blank place where blog pages begin for so long before...I even want to escape it, not put into words the feelings and thoughts pinging through me but the feeling is there, maybe the one that comes to every writer, but I know it especially as mine: that feeling of words in me pelting at my brain until they are put into a proper form, for others to read--even if that other is only ever me. I can't keep in what is happening in this mind of mine, there's something here that God or whoever directs this crazy world is forcing me to push forward.

haha...so here we are, you (hopefully) captive audience and I a lonely artist toiling away--but this is the work that I could pour the rest of my life and perhaps more into, so this will come forth, a spring of words that hopefully becomes more than just marks on a page, bringing forth light and hope and maybe a bit more of an understanding of this crazy God who loved so much that He would choose to save a whole world by the death of His Son: it's a wild story and it will never make sense.

I'm learning to live again and see life where death was, but it doesn't take away from what happened before. There are moments--such as a few minutes ago--where something triggers a flashback. I was playing a normal game with a group of people and started to get so agitated...and I didn't know why. The game involved a lot of shouting and we were in two teams so you were pitted against each other and after playing for an hour I couldn't stand it anymore. It was so frustrating to be stuck in that place. I went to my room afterward and cried, trying to figure out what it was that had me so agitated. And I realized it was this: disharmony was starting to build in the room as the game went on and people were shouting to each other and though I knew I was safe  and that no one was really mad, it triggered something (you've had this happen to you). You were fine and then you get put into a certain set of circumstances and you react--for me, the shouting and atmosphere we had created as a team as we played felt very much like how it felt when my family would fight together. I knew, mentally, that it was a different situation, but subconsciously I was prepared for and acting as though I were in that situation again. Everyone else was having fun playing the game and I was just trying to survive it.

We live broken. We try so hard to put our lives together and make enough money and run our lives well--and we all have places and situations and people that create this tension in us that we want to escape. Each human is so complicated and bent and broken, each with their own story and hang ups and lostness--we are able to see the similarities and celebrate them but at the end of the day, only God alone and yourself know why you are the way you are and how you operate There is a loneliness in being you that, if you never learn to interact with your Creator, will never subside. The feeling that only you are you--and that is wonderful and your unique voice is needed and life, the life that is life inside of you, is good and needed and brings even more life as (hopefully) you reflect this God who loves and loved to create you but...

I'm learning that life is constant pushing forward against the tide which keeps us all separate, a constant realignment with the truth you know about yourself, who you are, your situation. There have been moments this week when I have felt so alone...such as standing on the street last night, holding a bucket, standing there in the dark trying to collect money from strangers. (We were fundraising to get money for our sponsor trainees--students who come to our Discipleship Training School from third world countries). It was weird to stand there in the dark and face the onslaught...

It's where we all stand when we are without hope. We are all the kids on a corner, holding out an empty bucket, hoping that those who go by will see us, stop and choose to toss in a few coins. It is strange to be faced with the stark reality of a human soul on a cold Irish night: that we are all traveling together toward what we don't understand, all trying to cope with what the world has placed in us or thrown at us or refused to give us.

We all are completely without a clue.

But then I came home--threw off everything that had been keeping me warm, but also kept me from being close--and was enfolded again in this family that I have gotten to adopt in these last months. And to be out of the cold...and known...and accepted even! Those are the moments in life that fill you with such joy and peace in believing.

Because we may have started out our lives as orphans, separated from God and each other, just standing there staring into the lights hoping to create a life from what others can hand us--but then, suddenly, someone takes our hand and we look up and find a Father--and He's so good! He leads us home, lets us into the front door and shows us the family we were always created to be in the middle of.

It's like the story of Cosette from Les Miserables, the girl poorly taken care of by innkeepers who was suddenly taken care of and brought into family. This is her song, sung right before he comes to her rescue after her mother's death:

There is a castle on a cloud,
I like to go there in my sleep,
Aren't any floors for me to sweep,
Not in my castle on a cloud.

There is a room that's full of toys.
There are a hundred boys and girls.
Nobody shouts or talks too loud,
Not in my castle on a cloud.

There is a lady all in white,
Holds me and sings a lullaby,
She's nice to see and she's soft to touch,
She says, "Cosette, I love you very much."

I know a place where no one's lost,
I know a place where no one cries,
Crying at all is not allowed,
Not in my castle on a cloud. 

We all pray to find our castle on a cloud, and when we do find it ...well, that's salvation. That's the miracle of being whisked away from the street and all that would hurt you and finding that you have a life to be lived: right in front of you, given to you by Him and full of much more joy and hope and possibilities than anything you could have created yourself. 

So here we are...parts of our street life still breaking in and causing us pain as we remember where we have been and still live out life as well as we can, constantly crying out as He allows us; but overall, hope found and enough strength in His arms to carry us through whatever this life may throw, scream or dance us into.

He's enough--and so is His rescue.

Love is enough.

The Heavy Heart: Reactions to Suffering

I’ve been a mess this year, more than a few times. Circumstances beyond my control coupled with people in my life who make ‘interesting’ choices have left me staring after them with a “What the…?” face (you know the face) and often have resulted in tears as I try to process through their brokenness. It’s one thing to know how people make disasters of their lives, it’s another thing entirely to have someone close to you start hop, skipping and jumping down that road.

At the beginning of this mess, I had a really hard time processing it and in many ways had no safe place to process it (it wasn’t the kind of stuff you bring up at work and that’s where I spent the majority of my time). When I finally was around safe places (Bible study group) or people I literally melted down. I couldn’t hold it all together anymore.

I think it scares people to see you weep, to lament. We live in a culture where we keep quiet and safe and we keep all of our problems close. I know. I was raised very well in this culture, even told that, as a woman, I had no voice. I clearly remember the male figure (not my father) in my life saying, “Are you sure that’s what you believe?” in a mocking, borderline sarcastic tone as I shared what was really on my heart with him about a situation. My opinion had no validity with him (this relationship has changed as I and this person have grown older.) However, the idea was (if they could have controlled me the way they wanted to): sit, down, shut up and do what we expect you to with your life.

That’s perhaps a bit harsh—but that’s just to give you a background on this already over timid daughter and to give glory to God because He has pulled me through and created something out of all that murky timid beginning that will put to shame anyone who wants to claim Christ is irrelevant and out-of-date. Oh yeah? Well, look what He did with my life!!! No argument—He is real. If He can take sheltered, quiet, perfectionist Robin and make her a Warrior in the Kingdom—He can do anything. He can do anything.

I have been changed, set free, given a voice. Even through these circumstances that stand before me now (I’m planning on being in Ireland in two months—a lot goes into that!!!) I am not afraid. Even though some members of my family are still walking down painful, broken roads, we’re not afraid. Even though I have no idea what my future will look like, I have Him. He’s good.

I see His goodness in the people He has set around me this year. Some have not understood as I mourned, lamented in front of them—claiming I have strayed from ‘trusting in the Lord’ but I have had other jewels in the Kingdom teaching me that the Lord is for the ‘cry’. He asks us to cry out to Him (literally ‘shriek’) in the Psalms, to raise a ‘shout’ to the Lord—this Kingdom is about being LOUD.

So, I am not ashamed of being in crisis and being loud about it—of course, I don’t run around shouting about how broken I am on the city streets (I am not CRAZY) but I will break apart in front of safe people that He allows me to be with and I will not hide my pain in a corner. I have friends who are currently doing that and they are currently being undone by their problems rather than undoing the problems.

I refuse to hide.

I refuse to be safe and respectable. I refuse to not acknowledge my pain. I refuse to not cry about all that I see in my life that I must see change. I refuse to be stagnant, to let my family continue as it always has. I refuse to be the bland and predictable person the culture demands I turn into. I refuse to do what the enemy plans—I am breaking into the Lord’s camp!

And again, I am so grateful for the friends who have rallied around—living out His Word as they sympathize with me and cry out alongside me as we seek (through prayer) to call heaven down and bring about the best in our family’s situations. They have been tenderhearted and they show me love when I desperately need it. Best friends, mentors, all you beautiful people the Lord fills with me at the right moments—thank you for being used of the Lord! You lived out 1Peter 3:8 in front of me.

I suppose all of this is to say that I am not ashamed of what I have gone through this year, nor any of my actions as I have processed through the mess that can be life lived alongside other humans. I have not always made the best decisions, but I keep believing in His goodness and what He wants to do in me and my family.

He’s writing a beautiful story, ending unplanned—and I keep seeing those things which other people claim as evil being transformed in His hands into beauty. I am not afraid of the suffering—for it brings out the best beauty in a life yielded to Him.

My Family in Haiti

School's running full tilt and I'm planning to pray every night at nine 'o' clock in our prayer chapel on my university's campus. One friend has joined me so far and I hope for more. You can begin to feel terribly alone...

Haiti, everything that goes on in Haiti, always hits me hard. I looked at the pictures the Los Angeles Times has up on its webpage and...it's crazy. It's so real, but I just don't get it...lots of people are going to die and it's just numbers, but these were people, beautiful people.

The family I have there lived in the mountains above Port au Prince, near the Dominican Republic border (the most beautiful spot in the world that you have to go over crazy roads to get to, squashed into a car...I love it!! except for the legs going numb part) They should be okay, but I'm sure they make frequent trips into Port au Prince...they could have been there when the quake hit. In any case, I wonder what they're thinking and feeling, what they know so far about what happened in the city below them.

I just don't know.

I think that's what almost killed me this time last year was the not knowing. I had hideous pictures going through my mind of...it was grisly. God gave me a picture of hope though and I choose to focus on that, on children with bright smiles and healthy faces in beautifully colored clothes. The orphanage...

Someday, I'll live in Haiti. A literacy program will be up and running for them and there will be an orphanage called "In His Name" (whatever that looks like in Creole). It may be far off, but I'm working towards God's dream. I have His hope and I have His son living in me. It's beautiful and I can't wait, but I don't mind waiting on the Lord in this time. His ways are perfect and so is His timing. I know that full well. In the meantime, I pray and learn and He prepares my heart. What a glorious God!