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Church Kids and Church Shootings

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I could almost feel my eleven year old’s ears perk up as Chad and I talked in quiet tones about another church shooting, this one just a couple hours down the road from us. Our freckle-faced sixth grader listened without speaking, and I knew that he was picturing in his mind the same scene that I was imagining: our church. Our people. And the sound of gunshots ringing out.

There are no easy answers or simple platitudes to offer your children when their safe places are violated. How do you talk to church kids about the reality that even in God’s house, evil strikes? How do you hand your children hope and reassurance when the truth is sprawled across the internet in the form of live video: even here, where we worship the one true God, we are but vulnerable people who can be laid down by a sinner’s gun?

One thing we can’t do is tell them it will never happen to us. We can’t promise our children that pain or suffering or scary things won’t come their way, even when we are overwhelmingly tempted to do so. We would like to make all kinds of empty assurances to our children, just to erase the worry on their faces and the fear in their little hearts. We want to tell them that we will always protect them. That nothing bad can happen to them when they’re at school or at church or in our presence. We want to lie that there are no bad people out there who will try to harm them, and that sickness and trauma and death are worries for other people, not us.

There’s a reason children are notorious for lying awake at night when they ought to be sleeping, and it’s the same reason that many adults lie awake. This world is an unsure, unstable, and scary place. Kids get that reality from a young age. They may not be thinking about church shooters, but they are sure thinking about dark, shadowy corners in their rooms, bad dreams, strange noises, and the ever-present fear that something terrible is under their bed. All three of my kids had a firm grasp on many things to be afraid of before they were even speaking in complete sentences.  We have to give our kids something more substantial to cling to in a frightening world than hollow promises that they know we can’t keep.

Yet we also can’t tell our children that the great and very good God that we serve will always keep them out of harm’s way. We would be remiss to assure our children that God wouldn’t allow this or that to happen, because they can clearly see that terrible, devastating things happen to people who love the Lord every single day. So, just what do we say to our children when church shootings and brain tumors and car crashes and active shooter drills at school fill their minds with fear and their spirits with dread?

I guess the real truth is that saying words to our kids will only get us so far. They also have to see something in us; something special that looks very different from the rest of the world. They need to see us living out the kind of faith that led an imprisoned Paul to pen these words, through the power of the Holy Spirit: To live is Christ, but to die is gain.

What if instead of trying to convince our kids that bad things aren’t out there, we spent their growing up years showing them through God’s word and through our own lives that no matter what happens, God will see us through it, whether by taking care of us on this earth or taking care of us in Heaven? When we believe in Jesus, we are never outside the keeping of our doting Heavenly Father.

What if we taught our children that there is more to existence than this life? That eternal perspective changes the way things look here on earth? What if we showed our kids that even in a scary world, hope shines bright in the form of Jesus Christ? His victory over death is ours. His victorious resurrection will be ours, too. What if we could say with all conviction to our precious little ones that sin and sadness and shootings and sickness don’t get to have the final word?

We can only do these things if we truly believe them. If we are going to God’s word and reading the truth. If we are steeping ourselves in the full and glorious promises of the only real Promise-keeper. The further we venture from His word, the fuzzier our view of His power and goodness seems. For times like these, for the church shooter days and the monster under the bed nights, for the why did this have to happen conversations, there is only one source of wisdom and truth, and our kids are counting on us to be able to offer the real answers and real promises of our good God. This life is hard. Our kids don’t need temporary relief. They need the eternal reality that belongs to the children of God, an unvarnished truth so good that it leads especially their parents to look them in the face and whisper this certainty with all sincerity: To live is Christ, but to die is gain.

A Weary Mom Rejoices

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Today I walked into a clothing store for teenagers. I was trying to finish my Christmas shopping, and I’m down to the little things now. In true mom fashion, I round out the kids’ Christmas gifts every year with new underwear and socks.  Having shopped in this place before, I knew that I could get a good deal, and as usual I generally ignored all of the other clothing in store, most of which is ridiculous.

But when I got to the bins at the back where moms dig through the sizes to get a good deal on undies for their teenagers, I discovered bin after bin of unmentionables that were plastered with dollar signs, twenty dollar bills, labels like “wild,” “bite me,” “cash money,” and parental warning advisories. Everything about these undergarments screamed I am for sale and I am a product to be consumed.

I came home and found an online warning from a local state trooper who has found that girls younger than my own daughter are being solicited and paid online for pictures of themselves: first just their feet. Then, when the girls realize they really do get paid for the photos, they send more, this time just wearing underwear (for a higher price), then nude, then sex videos. These young girls are being paid $20-$900 for pictures and videos of themselves, and because of a culture that continually reinforces the idea that their bodies are just products to sell, they are falling for these evil schemes that scar them mind, body, and soul.

What are young girls supposed to think when their stores are selling underwear with twenty dollar bills printed across the crotch? How should we, as Christian parents, combat this pornified culture where girls are constantly being sent the message that all that matters is who wants their bodies? How do we teach our boys to fight for purity and for the purity of their sisters in Christ? I am learning as I raise kids in this world that there are no simple answers. The temptation to consume and be consumed is all around.

It’s enough to make Christian parents despair.

But on days like today when I feel a little bit panicked about the state of this world, when I wonder how much further things can go, when I worry that my children will fall for every lie that this culture has to offer them, I (eventually) stop. I turn to that squirmy feeling in the pit of my stomach and I remind it that the Holy Spirit of God is still enough.

We can become so overwhelmed with all the shocking and horrific news that points to all that’s wrong with this world that we forget that God is as fully in control as He ever was. We think we need to scheme and plan and isolate our kids, and we lock them away like little hermits. Or we bury our heads in the sand and pretend like our kids are immune to sin, telling ourselves that the world isn’t what it actually is. And then every once in awhile, like tonight, when I was wondering if we should move to a compound someplace and hide from the evils of this world, the Holy Spirit ministers to me. Wisely, He reminds me that we don’t escape evil by hiding from the world because it lives in all of us. We are all wicked people who are capable of all kinds of atrocities. Even my precious children have hearts bent toward sin. Then He brings comfort. I’m reminded that Scripture teaches that when we know Christ sin no longer has dominion over us. There is no sin that the Holy Spirit can’t handle. There is no devastation or spiritual destruction or emotional pain that is too big for the power of God. This world is no match for the King of Kings.

So, once again I find myself in a familiar spot: remembering that I can’t fix everything. In fact, I can’t fix most things. And it’s in this place that I learn a little bit more about relying on God. Trusting Him with my children is surprisingly difficult sometimes because I want to act and do and work and strive and take over. But then I get completely overwhelmed with this job, which is entirely too big for little old me to take on. And in that golden moment I remember that all I really have to do is sit back and rest in the arms of my good, good God. He is trustworthy when this world is not. He is powerful, and I am oh so weak. He is big enough to rescue my children, and I am not.

All of these truths the Holy Spirit whispers to a tired mama on an ordinary Tuesday. In the glow of the Christmas tree tonight, the Prince of Peace seems more real than ever. A thrill of hope, a weary mom rejoices. Because her God is sufficient. He always has been, and He always will be.

God’s Glory May Be in the Scars

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She’s a petite woman with a penchant for wearing sparkles. Chad and I first met her out in East Texas when she would arrive with gusto at different community events, her husband and daughter smiling behind her while she invariably grinned in her honest way and “told a funny.” They’re a singing trio, all extremely talented, but she is the talker of the family, and she weaves stories about God’s goodness throughout their concerts. I was reminded of this when she and her family stood before our little church on Sunday. It’s been years since we laid eyes on the three of them, but they drove out west and delivered the same heartfelt singing and story-telling that I remembered from days past.

Something was different, though. This little sparkly, joyful woman has been struggling through an autoimmune disorder, and when she walked into our church on Sunday, she did so with apologies. Her always-smiling face bears the marks of the disease that she has been battling. She placed her hands gingerly on her pink cheeks, wanting in some way to hide the signs of illness that she felt had to be explained. She was self-conscious and embarrassed by her appearance. Yet, she smiled as usual. And she thanked God. And she got up on a platform in front of hundreds of people and worshiped Him.

I sat on the front row and felt blessed to be a witness to this moment. I have no doubt that she would have been perfectly content to hide in her room while this disease alters her face. She could have easily justified her choice to stop singing, to stop traveling, to stop having this experience of explaining over and over again to a brand new group of people why her face is so changed. Yet, here she was, glorifying God all the more as she stood to honor Him even now and especially now, singing and speaking of His goodness and His faithfulness and of her desire to bring Him glory. In essence she reminded us that it’s not about her face. It’s about Jesus.

I felt sharp pangs of conviction there at the foot of the platform. I had beautiful skin as a teenager, but for unknown reasons when I turned twenty my skin turned on me. I have struggled with acne for all of my adult life and my face bears the scars. At times I become virtually obsessed with my imperfect skin, wishing for something better and different, wondering how I could hide it, bury it, disguise it. Many a day I have wished that I could stay in my house, stay home from church, stay away from my friends and family, sit at home and wallow in misery over the face that I don’t have. Chances are we all have some insecurity that could easily hold us back from doing the work God has for us. We all could find reasons to stay at home and wallow in our obsessions over things that aren’t that important.

On Sunday I sat on the front row, my teen-aged daughter at my elbow. I wondered if she and I would take this moment to heart, if we would remember how one little East Texas woman stood before us with her pink, swollen cheeks, with her insecurities displayed for everyone to freely observe. I wondered if we would remember the lesson that the Holy Spirit gently taught that day, that God’s glory is sometimes more clearly displayed when we are at our most vulnerable. That our struggles and our sufferings are never wasted in the hands of a good God. That even when healing hasn’t arrived, when things are just as bad today as they were yesterday, He can still receive glory and honor through His children.

Chances are that my daughter will remember this lesson more clearly if she sees it in me. So, I’m thankful for the picture that is burned in my mind, a sequin-clad singer with a face that told a tale of God’s glory. May I remember it forever.

Very Good

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Through the forest, past the twisting, singing brook, beyond the dancing vines and under the mossy ridge of a fallen oak tree sat a tiny caterpillar. She was green, like most caterpillars, and she had the most delightful smattering of freckles that seemed to cheerfully shimmy down her fuzzy back. She, having no memory of where she came from or who she was to be, was content to travel around her small area of the forest, admiring the beauty all around her.

One of her favorite places to sit was near a little grove of spring flowers, where the butterflies met each day, showing off their amazing colors and their graceful ways. The caterpillar did run across other animals who seemed useful or nice, but the butterflies were her absolute favorite. Soon she became completely obsessed with butterflies.  She determined that they were the only animals in the forest who really mattered because, after all, what could be more important than being beautiful? They brought so much glory to God with their gorgeous colors and their special ways. She thanked God for blessing the world with such beauty, and she prayed that one day He would turn her into one of these lovely creatures, admired by all for her colors, her grace, her beauty.

The little caterpillar could hardly wait to grow up, so sure as she was that she would someday become a gorgeous butterfly. Finally, the day arrived and she closed herself up into her snug cocoon. She was so warm and cozy, and she fell asleep dreaming of the brightly colored wings that she would soon be able to show off down at the flower grove.

At last she awoke from her big sleep, and she could tell that she had grown up. She began to wiggle and push her way out of her little room, in such a hurry to race to the brook and see her beautiful new self in its shiny surface. As she tried out her new wings, she was amazed by how fast she was, how lovely she already felt, and how much God must love her to create her this way, with a butterfly destiny. When she made it to the brook, she stopped short of the water, landing on the bank and bracing herself for the incredible beauty that she was about to behold. She inched one delicate foot forward, then another. Finally, she looked at her reflection.

She watched her own face as its expression shifted from excitement to shock to anger. Where were the beautiful colors that she had felt destined for? She was brown. Not just brown, but ten shades of brown. Brown like dirt. Like dusty cobwebs. Like all of the non-beautiful, boring, plain jane things in the forest. She thought God was going to bless her with amazing beauty, grace, butterfly talent, but what she got was just okay. Sure, she had wings. Brown ones. Sure, she could fly. Big deal.  She could never go to the spring flower grove looking like this! She was not a glittering butterfly. She was a moth. Yes, she had to admit it. She was a tiny, doesn’t-matter-to-anyone, brown, ugly, nuisance. This is who she grew up to be. How could she be of any use to God now? She really didn’t understand why He had made her this way.

So, she asked Him.

And He answered, in His patient way: “My sweet little one, let me show you how I see you.”

Hopeful, the moth looked into the water once more, and she could hardly believe her eyes. She looked…exactly the same. The same tiny brown wings. The same boring shades of beige and tan and ecru and eggshell. The same lack of beauty. The same unremarkable form that she had been so disappointed by just moments before. She didn’t understand.

“Don’t you see?” the Lord whispered in the breezes that swirled around her ruffled wings. “I made the rich brown earth where flowers dazzle the eye and where tiny earthworms tunnel their intricate paths.  I made the fuzzy spiders in the forest who decorate the trees with their exquisite webs. I made the fine grey mist that covers the craggly tops of mountains. I made the mud puddles where happy birds splash after a rainstorm.”

The little moth did love the grey misty mornings. She did enjoy watching her feathered friends play after a rain shower. Mud puddles aren’t bright and beautiful. Earthworms certainly don’t shimmer in the sunlight the way butterflies do. Yet, God made them. Could it be that mud and mist and spider webs and earthworms and even little brown moths can bring God glory, too?

“When I look at you,” the Lord whispered, “I see YOU, just as I made you. My creation. And I say: very good.”

Just then, a bouncing black bug landed on the water, breaking up the little moth’s reflection into dozens of ripples.  She thought about what God had said. When the water stilled again, she noticed for the first time the intricate patterns etched in brown on her delicate wings. She noticed the cute little spots of white that splashed across her back. She saw how God had made one of her tiny antenna slightly longer than the other, and she giggled at the way her teensy mouth turned down at the corners just slightly. The longer she looked at her reflection, the more she began to see the hand of God in the unique way that He had formed her, with love and care and creativity.

Suddenly she felt blessed to be here, in this beautiful forest, just a little brown moth with wings, small as they were, to carry her from place to place.

If you travel to the forest you may see the little moth, although you probably won’t notice her.  She still enjoys watching the butterflies at the grove of spring flowers.  But, she doesn’t have much time to sit and admire them anymore.  She is too busy doing the special jobs that God gave her.  She learned that she doesn’t have to be red or blue or shimmery purple to bring glory to her Creator. She is exactly the size, shape, and color that He wanted her to be, and when He looks at her, He loves what He sees. Now when she slows down for just a moment and catches a glimpse of herself in the brook, the little brown moth can’t help but smile. She remembers God’s words and repeats them happily to her reflection: “Very good.”

Being the Church

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A few days ago, we drove east, until the modest, stubby mesquite trees of west Texas gave way to the majestic, fragrant pines that hide the horizon and cover the eastern part of the state with lush greenery. We were home. Well, one of our homes. It was the first church that took a chance on a starving artist, turned attorney, turned pastor. This is where we remembered that life is fun, where our sweet church taught us what it looks like to be selfless, to be generous, to be patient. These people took us in and loved us well when we moved here ten years ago. And now, five years removed from these precious friends, we drove there again this past week to honor the life of a dear church member who had encouraged us many times through the years.

In the funeral home’s hallway, I rounded the corner to find a chapel filled with dear old friends, people we adore and miss terribly. I listened as one of Sawyer’s preschool teachers told me how attentive he was as a toddler, how he would intently listen as she taught and then he would open his baby mouth and ask deep questions. We talked about how he has such a tender heart toward the Lord, and I got the rare opportunity to hug her and thank her for the years she invested in him, for the ways that she helped to nurture a sensitivity to the Spirit that I see in him today.

I watched as friend after friend approached our children, exclaiming about how much they have grown. I reminisced with an 86 year old who had made sure, six years ago, that she was the very first person to come to our house to hold Emerald after she was born. One of our favorites, a tall, white-haired friend who used to keep Chad company in the front seat of the church bus while he drove all over the countryside, walked into the room, and we heard about some of the many sorrows that he has endured in the time since we’ve been away.  Still, he smiled, he hugged us, and he commented on the kids’ freckles. He has always loved freckles.

And then, as the service ended and it was time for us to say goodbye to our dear ones all over again, I walked out of the chapel arm in arm with a sweet friend who used to invite us to her home where she and her husband showed us old pictures and their beautiful glassware and made us fried catfish just for fun. One night we sat with them, just sat with them and ate hamburgers when their son passed away. We just wanted to be close to them. We sat and ate hamburgers and reminded each other that God is good. As we walked out of the funeral home, she looked at me with tears in her eyes and said, “You didn’t know it, but you saved our lives that night.”

Tears sprang to my eyes. It was such a precious reminder that, in the church, God has gifted us with the sweetest opportunity to experience all the joys and sorrows of life with each other. To sit together and eat hamburgers when every word you think of saying seems wrong. To sit together in solidarity, knowing that even tragedy can’t break our faith, that no unexpected heartache can loosen God’s grip on us. To sit together, remembering that Christ is enough. He is always enough.

I know we have many more moments like this ahead of us. Times when we will just hunker down with loved ones right in the middle of a hurricane of heartache. And there will be times when dear friends will do the same for us. This is the church. This is one of the many reasons that we need each other. And, I am so thankful that I got to go “home” this week so that I could be reminded that we are called to give all of ourselves to each other.

As we made our way back west, the sky opened up again. The gorgeous pinks and oranges of the sunset cast a funny hue on the wide horizon. I smiled as I watched our beloved hometown come into view. This is where we belong. This is where we are called to give ourselves away. This is where the rich, beautiful blessings of the church continue to pour out on our little family. I’m thankful.

41 Years Old

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Tomorrow I will officially turn 41 years old. I recently heard another blogger talking about how when she turned 41 she decided she was going to do all the things that she wanted to do but had always been too afraid for. She woke up at 41 and completely changed her life. Then she wrote her book and she got on all the talk shows. It’s been fun to watch it all unfold, spying on her life from a distance, seeing a whole bunch of her dreams come true.

Tomorrow I will wake up early and meet a swarm of sweet kids at the church parking lot to head to camp. I’ll get on stage and jump around and sing and I’ll dance in my awkward way, and the day will be long and Texas summer hot and oddly fun. I’m not expecting any revelations when I wake up as a 41-year-old. Here I am, with a blog that has lulled through the summer and a book that is still unwritten, dishes waiting patiently in my sink, three kids who are trying to deny the fact that school will soon be starting. Here I sit, still not reading my Bible enough, still praying too little, still fearing too much, still letting the same old sins creep up on me while I get distracted by all the things that don’t matter.

But, God never quits being patient with me. He is patient like the dishes in my sink. Like the laundry in my baskets. He is patient like that book that is still in my brain. Only with his unending patience comes compassion, understanding, and great love. He has shown me again and again through these decades marked by my imperfection that his grace never stops covering me. He is good. And his goodness keeps binding my wandering heart to my Savior.

There are so many ways I wish I were different. But, one thing I know for sure: Jesus never quits. He never stops saving me from myself. He never throws up his hands in despair and walks away. Blogs and books and even families fade and pass away, but His grip on me is sure.

So, I guess instead of deciding that year 41 will be the year that I finally do all those things that need doing, I will pray that this will be a year of remembering instead that nothing in this wide and wonderful world matters more than the love of Christ. The fact that he would stoop to love me is a miracle that I hope I never get over. Let all that I do in year 41 be for you alone, Lord. You deserve all the glory forever.

Every Testimony is Dramatic and Miraculous

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My Christian testimony is what many would call vanilla. I came to know Christ when I was eight years old. My family was something straight out of a 1950s sitcom–hardworking father, loving stay-at-home mother, two kids and a dog. We were deeply involved in the church that my parents grew up in, and I don’t remember a time in my life when I didn’t love Jesus or didn’t want to live according to His word.

It’s true that when junior high school hit I didn’t always make the best decisions. I tried out some different personas for short periods of time. But, for the most part, God has kept me on an extremely short leash. Anything I tried was immediately found out and punished. I felt humiliated by my sin, and was known during my growing up years as a “good girl.”

I went to college and didn’t experience any kind of trauma or drunken mistakes or shocking revelations. By God’s grace I made sweet Christian friends and we lived for the Lord as well as we knew how at the time. I married Chad, and he has helped lead me closer to Christ as the years have gone on.

I have no dramatic background story or miraculous turnaround to speak of. I don’t have one of those testimonies that make people say to one another, “You have GOT to hear what God has done in her life.” No, my story is simple and may not seem all that profound or even interesting at first glance.

But, the truth is that every single Christian testimony is dramatic and miraculous.

I may not remember a time when I didn’t love Jesus, but it is there in my history–a period when I was 100% dead in my sins, as dead as Lazarus in the grave. And then the Lord called out to me, and I heard His voice. How much more dramatic and miraculous can a story get? I was once dead, and now I am alive! I was bound for hell, and Jesus snatched me out of the clutches of eternal torment. May we never be guilty of seeing that kind of saving grace as ordinary or humdrum. It is the very power and love and goodness of God on display in a dramatic way, even when we forget it and we start to feel inferior to all of those with the fascinating and drama-filled testimonies.

God has worked a stunning miracle in my life. I don’t know why He has protected me from so many heartaches, but I’m grateful. If you also have an undramatic testimony, know this: there is nothing basic or boring about the life-transforming power of our Lord Jesus Christ. The angels throw a party every time someone comes to Christ, and the parties aren’t less enthusiastic for the freckle-faced eight year olds. Salvation is never small. It is big and dramatic and miraculous, every single time.

Let’s never forget what Jesus has done.

As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.

Ephesians 2:1-5

What He Holds

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When I was a kid, Vacation Bible School was the highlight of my summer. I still remember how the slightly watered-down KoolAid tasted when it washed down exactly two sandwich cookies from the local grocery store, each lovingly placed on a white napkin and eagerly gobbled up by children who were that special brand of midsummer morning starved.

I remember how much I looked forward to painting the red bricks on the outside of the church with water, the brilliant notion of some long ago Bible School director. The buckets and paint brushes and cool, cool water were a big part of my summertime dreams as a child.

This past week, in the grand tradition of many, many summers long past, our church was filled to the brim with excited children. When you are a grown-up,VBS is all at once the most fun thing you do all summer and also the most exhausting. In the famous words of then four year old Sawyer one final day of Vacation Bible School, when I am done with VBS, “my hair is tired.” I don’t know if I’ve ever heard a more perfect description of how one feels on that last day of a long week of over-the-top enthusiasm and  Holy Spirit-inspired patience. Maybe it’s the consecutive days of restraint that is really what so completely wears out a VBS worker.

This was Adelade’s first year to be a VBS volunteer. She effectively graduated from Vacation Bible School last year, after years of loving every second of it. It was sad for me, thinking about how quickly the time goes, about how she had passed a milestone that we could never really return to–the days when she would wake up with the sun, smiling before her eyes were even open, ecstatic in the first seconds of consciousness because she knew it was a VBS day.

This year I watched as her long and lean frame took the stage, helping lead the children as they sang and learned the motions to the fun music. For the most part I didn’t think much about it. Her enthusiasm was still off the charts. Her smile never waned. She was having great fun. But then in one, tiny mama moment, I stood at the back of the sanctuary, watching one of the more mischeivous boys from my class walk, no, run, no, tumble to the bathroom, and I was mesmerized by my first-born daughter, standing there at the front of the room. It was only a few seconds before the spell was broken by the tumbleweed of a boy who was barrelling toward the restroom. But, in those seconds I felt like I was seeing the beginnings of who Adelade really is and who she is to be.

The next day I sat with my rowdy little class and watched them listen intently while she taught them about the hope we have in Christ. She was so sincere, so true and sure as she spoke of the love of Jesus, and I found renewed hope in my Savior just by watching what He is doing in my dear little girl.

Thirteen years old. Vacation Bible looks different now. It looks like a lanky teenager and braces and teacher break room privileges for my own little Adelade. And as her faith and understanding grows, I’m learning that a merciful by-product is the growth of my own faith and understanding, just watching in awe while Jesus forms her into a girl after his own heart.

This week she managed to meet David Platt. When she spotted him in the hallway of a huge convention center, she gasped. She literally gasped. The president of the International Mission Board was standing right in front of her. So, she smiled up at him with that silver-bracketed precious grin that turns up at the corners. They talked about seventh grade and Secret Church, and she walked away encouraged.

And tonight she came through the door with red eyes, tears still flowing as she tried to explain things that words don’t quite have the capacity to express. She had prayed over young missionaries at their commissioning service, and all the while God was speaking to her own heart. The same David Platt who had been so kind to her yesterday was now on a big platform, speaking about calling and mission and the way that the Holy Spirit will sometimes grab you so tightly that you run out of vocabulary to describe what it feels like.

And in all of this she grows. She changes in ways that I never could have predicted back on those simple summer mornings when she awoke with a grin and a VBS song in her heart. And I change, too. I learn how much more she belongs to Christ than to me. I learn to bind my wandering heart to a Savior who calls little girls and makes them courageous Christ-followers. I learn to loosen my grip on my teary-eyed, God-gripped daughter, remembering once again that God’s hand is sufficient.  I will trust His hold on us. He is good, and He is working here.

The Long Drive Home

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She was the kind of girl who always said the wrong thing. She tried to claw her way into the popular crowd, in her de-clawed, shy kitten sort of way. It was high school in the early nineties, and we were all just doing the best we could with the very little that we knew about being teenagers. It felt like none of us really had a clue as to what kind of reaction we would get when we opened our mouths to speak, and we continually tested out all of the different ways to be, a petri dish of social experimentation in small town America.

I was no different. Predictably labeled the “goody two-shoes” of the school, I don’t remember being particularly kind or thoughtful. She was new to our school, and when the popular crowd rejected her she turned to me, and I invited her to come to some sort of youth group event with my church. I don’t remember where we went or what else happened that night, but I remember feeling like I was being mean to her. Somehow she was just such an easy target. She kept saying things that were ridiculous. I kept setting her straight. In the back of a dark church van I, the oldest leader of the youth group, sat with a crowd gathered round me while I ungraciously showed everyone all of the ways that a Christian shouldn’t be.

And then, somewhere along the way, on a long Texas road, her expression changed, and she asked me in all sincerity how to become a Christian. Imagine how my heart stopped for a moment while I realized that after my poor treatment of this girl all night long, I was the last person who should be trying to share the gospel with her. I had misrepresented Christ and refused to see this girl through spiritual eyes, and so I stumbled through a weak explanation of how Jesus changes us. I sat there in front of her, changed, knowing that I had acted all night like I never met Jesus before in my life.

And I was crushed.

I was a high schooler. I had so much to learn about Christianity. And even though I don’t remember much about my high school years, this was one of those rare moments when God was dealing with me so closely and so clearly that it cut me all the way to my immature little soul. I loved Him so. Yet, I was only beginning the sometimes painful process of being refined and sanctified by my gracious God. And in His goodness He has never let me forget the way I felt that night in a church van, as the passing interstate lights played across the face of a girl who was turning to me, of all people, for gospel truth.

I hope I have grown since then. But, I often find myself wondering if the woman from the insurance company who has put me on hold (again) could turn to me for the gospel. Am I treating her in a way that wouldn’t make me blush with shame if she asked me about my Jesus? When the fast food restaurant gets half of the order wrong and I am already running late, am I reacting in a way that would make me feel good about proclaiming that I am a child of God? After all of these long years of being molded and changed and taught by the Holy Spirit, I still have a hard time seeing those around me through spiritual eyes. I still fail to remember that they are souls, not just representatives of a company. Not just school teachers. Not just mamas or mechanics or police officers. Not just kids on the playground who aren’t treating one of my babies right. Not just awkward high school girls who always seem to say the wrong thing. Souls, one and all.

Paul said that we need to preach the word, being prepared in season and out of season. Part of that preparation is simply seeing the people around us. Really seeing them as needy sinners like ourselves. How else can we “reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching”? The simple answer is that we can’t. Not effectively. Not if we are seeing people as nothing more than characters to be dealt with. But if we open our eyes to the spiritual needs around us, it will change the way we treat everyone that we come into contact with. And then we will really be prepared to talk about the gospel at any time.

I don’t know what happened to the girl from the back of the van that night so many years ago. I pray that Jesus rescued her. I’m thankful I can see her face in my mind today, a reminder of how much I still have to learn, twenty-something years later. I’m not ashamed of the gospel, but will I be ashamed of myself when a gospel moment arises?

Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage–with great patience and careful instruction. 2 Timothy 4:2

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