Two Legs And A Piece Of An Ear

The coyotes were thick that year. Paw prints around the chicken coop and their howls sounding just beyond the edges of the porch light were constant reminders that they were on the prowl, waiting for their next chance to kill. It was spring. With young pups in their dens, mamas were lean and hungry. Their normal reserve was wearing thin, and they were willing to take risks that ran contrary to their timid nature. We should have known it was only a matter of time before one of the cows would become vulnerable as they began dropping that year’s calves.

But the coyotes weren’t the only mamas lean and hungry. I was in my second year of seminary. Every week I spent nineteen hours on the road, to and from class. I juggled Greek and Hebrew vocabulary and grammar, the needs of my children, the obligations that came with living on the family farm, and the constant strain of simply trying to survive.

The first semester of grad school, I had tried working until my body rebelled. It seemed that I wasn’t super woman after all, and twenty hours of work combined with fifteen hours of class, homeschooling, that massive commute, and various other needs that had to be tended were more than I could take. Not that I would admit that. In my mind, failure just meant that I hadn’t tried hard enough, and I was livid when I was forced to “self-terminate” my job. Officially the paper work states it was due to lack of availability to work. The truth was I was terminated due to my lack of availability to the womanizing manager, thus beginning a downward spiral into student loan debt, but even then money was virtually nonexistent.

I could write a novel on the obstacles I had faced just trying to get by. My love life was a shambles. The church I attended underwent a major shift that led to me leaving, and not on good terms. I was living on cigarettes and coffee. Five hours of unbroken sleep was a luxury, and I was having to work double time to keep up with my classmates whose previous degrees had prepared them for the classes we now took. Even the most common terms tossed about by my profs were foreign to me, and I was looking up almost everything they said so I could understand the lectures – Reform Theology, Liberation Theology, documentary criticism, redaction, pericopes, types and shadows, all of it left me wondering if I really belonged here. My fellow students seemed to know I didn’t belong there and only a few were willing to be more than polite, and few weren’t even willing to do that.

Emotionally, mentally, and even in this place where one would expect to be fed spiritually, I was that the end of my rope. Don’t get me wrong. God provided in ways that defy explanation, but sometimes it is hard to see him at work when your world is crashing down around you.

“As a shepherd recuses from the mouth of the lion two legs or a piece of an ear, so shall the people of Israel who dwell in Samaria be rescued.” Amos 3:12

These words roused me from the open-eyed nap I had perfected for chapel, and I briefly tuned in to hear the rest of the speaker’s sermon. “Why in the world would anyone bother to save two legs and a piece of an ear?” I wondered, and then my sleep deprived mind turned grouchy. “You’d better hurry up,” I mentally told God, “or that’s going to be all that is left of me. And what good is that going to do you?”

That night after the kids were asleep, I sat on the front porch and dined on ramen noodles and steak sauce, and considered dropping out. What type of mother was I being to my children? How could I possibly get through this when I was constantly so lost on my assignments? Maybe I was never meant to fit in with all the people who had really been called to be in seminary, and I needed to come to grips with the fact that my pride had led me into an impossible situation. The coyotes screamed in the darkness, and on impulse I screamed back hoping to scare them away. Instead, they joined me filling the night with their song until it seemed as if everything dark and black hid hundreds of their kind. I laughed, wasn’t this how it always goes? Stand your ground only to learn that the enemy has you out numbered and surrounded?

The next day, one of the cows limped to the barn. That she had calved was obvious, but the baby was nowhere to be seen. I pulled on my boots and began searching the forty acres. In the far back corner, I found what the coyotes had left.

Two legs and a piece of an ear.

People claim that God doesn’t talk to us these days, but he spoke to on that one. I didn’t need words. It was spelled out in blood before me. Was my God any less loving or caring than me? Was he any less compassionate towards me than I was for this animal? And if I trudged through the heavy grass, to find what was hidden from me, would the God who saw everything miss my struggles? Here I was examining the aftermath of a vicious attack, but he swore to be there to reclaim what was his even from the mouth of the lion. Not to simply view the remains after the enemy had left.

In Exodus 22, we are told that if man gives livestock to another for safekeeping, and it is torn to bits that that the caretaker should gather the remains, and hand it over as proof that he was not a thief. As I walked away from the bloody bits of the calf wishing I could have done more and being confronted with the fact that I could not, I realized that while I had done all I could in the natural, I still had a job to do in the spiritual. I was not a thief. I had not neglected the gifts that had been given over to my care. My life may have been shredded by the teeth of an enemy who roams about like a lion seeking who he could devour, but I was still responsible to get those pieces back to the rightful owner. So that day, I gathered up the remains of my life and presented them to God.

I realized that in keeping those bits of my ravaged hopes and dreams, I was condemning myself as a thief. I was hanging onto what did not belong to me, and hiding the evidence of my own innocence in their demise. And I think this is where most of us miss a step. We see the death, and we see the gore, and so we walk away without completing the task set before us.

Some of us need to go back to the far corner of that field in our lives where our dreams died, we need to pick up the scattered pieces, and return them to the One who gave us that dream. They belong to him, not us, and we need to finish what we started. Walking away, leaving the remains on the ground, shouldn’t be an option. For as we march to God’s throne to offer up even these fragments, we are walking in defiance of our enemy, and bearing witness to the world of our God’s goodness and mercy. We are rejecting the lies of the one who devours, proclaiming that he does not have the final word, he does not get to define our reality, and we will not be branded a thief based on his actions. We are affirming that God sees through it all, he knows who bears the blame, and that we can trust him in our brokenness.

So get to walking, look for those pieces. Stop bearing the guilt that belongs to the one who destroys. Don’t entertain the shame for the deeds of the one who kills. Move in faith towards the King who surrounds us with love, and who never saw death – even the death of dreams – as final. Then stand back and watch what he can do with two legs and a piece of an ear.

One Of Those Days

So it is going to be one of those days. You know the days where all the reality that you have been shoving aside in order to keep functioning comes rushing past the dam you have so carefully constructed in your mind and heart? Yeah, one of those days.

Bills have come crashing in, people you thought you could count on fail you, and even the stupid computer won’t let me get through a single blog post without wanting to update despite the fact I have limited time to get this done. Oh, the agony of being me! Excuse me while I go rail against the world for a bit, while I lose sight of all the miraculous things that have happened over the past few weeks and months, while I forget all the monsters slain and moldering because there is a fresh wave on the horizon, and I don’t feel like picking up my sword one more time. Instead, I think I will look for a rock to climb under, if I can find one big enough and one not threatening to topple over and crush me.

On days like this I used to tell people that I should have stayed in bed, but with my luck the ceiling fan would fall on me. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised when one day the ceiling fan did, in fact, fall. Thankfully, it happened on day I did get out of bed so the damage was limited to a cloud of dust that covered my room. (And by the way, just to be honest, that “thankfully” was obligatory rather than heartfelt. I was rather irritated about the whole affair.)

I try to have the proper attitude. I really do. I suppose I must succeed on some level because people are always telling me how positive and encouraging I am. You’re welcome, glad to help, and that is wonderful. And I do mean it. I want to be an encourager. I make very intentional and carefully weighed decisions about what I say and what I share because encouraging one another is something I think we should all be actively striving to do. How could I expect less of myself than I would of others? So I put effort into being positive.

But sometimes, if we aren’t careful, that turns into hypocrisy. We become those people whose lives seem to scream, “Look at me! See me! I have it all together, why don’t you?” When the truth of the matter is they are falling apart inside and too scared to admit that today they just aren’t feeling it. Today, they just want the freedom to be down and frustrated with this life.

So today, I am frustrated. I am down. I am worn out and done in. Life is too big to be whooped, and I am the one taking a beating. And that is okay.

Notice that I didn’t say it is fun. I didn’t start doing a hallelujah dance or brush it off as inconsequential. My emotions matter. They have a purpose and value. God did not give them to me and then expect me to deny that they are real. He didn’t tell me that path to holiness is in denial of anything that isn’t all rainbow fuzzies and unicorn farts, and he didn’t say that I am sinful to acknowledging how I feel. And most importantly, he didn’t say that I was being unfaithful in feeling this way.

In an age of pop preachers and carefully coiffed TV evangelists who make their living with the promise of happiness, too many of us have started thinking that feeling anything other than a desire to give a gleaming smile to the world is nothing short of sin. It’s time that we get it straight – our sadness and frustration is not a betrayal of God, it is a demonstration of the fact that their shallow theology just won’t cut it in the real world.

But, but, but, we should rejoice in the Lord always! That is what it says in the Bible! You sow happiness and joy so that you can reap happiness and joy! Change your stinking thinking and your emotions will fall into line – oh, the protests I can hear as I type!

I have but one thing to say to all of that: “Jesus wept.”

Now, tell me this, just how sinful was he being in that moment? Be very careful in how you answer that lest you be guilty of blaspheme.

We could dive deeper and read some of his biting remarks to the Pharisees and his disciples. We could stop and consider the Garden of Gethsemane. We could consider Isaiah 53:3.

He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. 

Emotions, even the big bad ugly ones, are not evil. They are not sinful. They just are. You don’t get to legislate them, and you don’t get to turn them off by becoming some spiritual creature who is above such things. Jesus didn’t, why do we think that we should have it better than him? To think such a thing is arrogance, and that is one emotion that the Bible does call sin.

So you own them. You look them in the eye, and see them for what they are. They are real. They are powerful, and they are tools for understanding ourselves and this world we inhabit. They do not define us, they do not get to rule us, but that does not mean they are without value or purpose. Acknowledging how we feel is the first step to authenticity and is an act of integrity and strength. When we gather them all up, take them to Father, and declare the truth of our experience, we are walking in faith and exhibiting hope in the knowledge that he is greater than anything that has hurt our hearts, but we cannot give to Father what we do not own.

For me, today stinks. I don’t want to feel all of this, and I don’t want to deal with all the things that are frustrating me. I just don’t, and that is the truth as plainly as I know how to put it short of a few colorful metaphors. Eventually, I will get past it. I will be able to remember some of the greater truths of my life, and I will find the will to celebrate the good things Father has given me. I will be able to rest in the hope of his promises to me, but not right now. Not in this moment, because it would be a lie and a denial of how he created me. So I will throw my little pity party, I’ll invite Father over and serve him a cup of coffee if he likes, and whine a bit. He will listen, and he won’t patronize or toss Scripture at me. He will acknowledge my pain as valid, and invite me to give it all to him. And in that moment, I will begin to feel the joy of anticipation as I wonder what grand and marvelous thing he will create from my painful honesty.

Our Redemption Stories

Originally published on Exploring Life on the Pagus

There are times when we look up and find ourselves in the middle of a mine field. We have no idea how we got there, but circumstance and good intentions take us right back to a place we fought so hard to leave behind.

Yesterday, I was asked to help a friend. It seemed like an innocent enough request, and one I wanted to fulfill. After all, I know what it is like to be young mother taking care of small children on limited funds and not being able to pay the mountain of bills that keeps growing to epic peaks of destruction. So I got in my car and went, with no reservations, no compunction, and no hesitancy.

But soon after I got there I was in a scene all too familiar. One that I fled from over a decade ago, and one that I would like to forget ever played out in my life. It was a painful place, one where I almost lost myself and my children to a special type of hell that is reserved for women who think that they can save the world, or at least one “special” man.

As I sat and talked to the young woman who needed the assistance, I kept having flashbacks that were trying to break to the surface of my mind. Memories that I would quickly put down so that I could focus on the specifics of this situation, but as she talked I knew I really didn’t even need to hear what she said. The script was familiar enough, after all, I felt like I wrote it so many years ago, and frankly, my delivery was better.

I woke up this morning still troubled by what I had witnessed, and in the privacy and safety of my own home I let those suppressed memories play out in my head. The question that kept ringing across them all was why? Why did I need to be the one who went? Why did I need to be reminded in such a blunt way of all the pain I left behind? Worked so hard to be free of?

I know the answer, and it is simple enough. Those who went with me spoke it plainly, “I don’t have your perspective,” “I’ve never been in this situation,” “I can’t imagine what this is like,” “I don’t know what to do to help.” At the time, all I could think was “Thank God you don’t.”

If I believe anything it is this. One, God is sovereign. He is big enough, strong enough, and sometimes even ruthless enough to carry out his purposes. Two, there is redemption for all the things we carry to the throne. Nothing is wasted, nothing is without purpose, not even our pain.

As I walked through yesterday, I had eyes to see what others would have missed. I had the experience to hear between the words, and the hard won wisdom to know what can and can’t be done to help. I am not saying this out of any sort of arrogance. It simply is the result of what I have lived through, and that is the key – I LIVED through it.

I came out on the other side basically whole, with a few scars that still give me trouble when a front moves through. But I am still alive, and I am stronger for what I have endured. It deepened my appreciation for the beautiful things I have in my life now, and it gave me an intimate knowledge of God that so many people in church just do not understand.

The thing is, we all have at least one area of our lives like this. One wilderness that we have walked through that others don’t even have a map to explain. What we have known and what we have done is a mystery to them, and they need us to help them navigate through these unknown lands.

It is one of the redemptive elements of our lives – the power of our story. It gives purpose and meaning to the events we have witnessed that is beyond ourselves. It brings hope to those who are still wandering in the land we managed to escape. Too often we try to avoid confronting our past hurts and wounding, we think that if we ignore it long enough we can forget that it existed, forget that we ever allowed ourselves to be that person.

Sometimes, I think that the world is crying out for those of us brave enough to show them our scars to give them this hope. They need to see that the God we serve is big enough to bring life, even where they are. They need to know that they are not forgotten, and He loves them even in the midst of their pain. And that only happens when we are strong enough to let another see into our past, show them how God saved us, and the power of his healing enacted in our lives.

Our stories of healing and redemption validate God’s power in this life, in their lives, and for many this is the only hope they have to cling to. If God did it for them, maybe he can and will do it for me – how can they have that hope unless we live it out before them? Maybe it is time we put an end to being the victims of our past and declare the victory of a Lord who specializes in redeeming all of history to his glory. Maybe it is time we stopped living in shame over our mistakes and we lived a life celebrating the redemptive power of His story.