Category: Thoughts

I am a sinner, in the first person

Yesterday, I stood in a new church singing a song with all the old, redemptive swagger of a classic hymn. We rested on the chorus in repeat and I finally sang in the first person.

“I am a sinner, if it’s not one thing it’s another
caught up in words, tangled in lies
You are a Savior and you take brokenness aside
and make it beautiful, beautiful.”
(Brokenness Aside by All Sons & Daughters)

I am a sinner. 

Have you ever been challenged to make “I am …” statements? I often asked my students in Honduras to make a list of ways they could finish that sentence. We would then look through the list and talk about which of those statements were true, which were false, and which were within his/her power to change. All those conversations are nice and tidy when I’m on the counseling end, encouraging people to examine their inner being and ask God to reveal if there is any wrong thing.

As I stood there singing, “I am a sinner” in the first person, something broke. “Sinner” is not the first thing I’d like to have follow my “I am” statements. I’d like to have an impressive list before I make that admission. I always have a hard time thinking about specific ways I sin when I’m standing in church (so convenient, I know). But not yesterday. With every repeating chorus I thought of ways I’d made my heart ugly.

I am a sinner.

The pastor introduced the sermon series on generosity and we read from Luke 18 about the offerings of the Pharisee and the tax collector.

He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt: “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”
(Luke 18:9-14 ESV)

I work with the kind of stories that would tear your heart out – parents, children, families, neighbors capable of things we try not to know about. There’s a distance that threatens to creep in to my posture when I come before the Lord. There are so many things I haven’t done and would never do.

I pictured the posture of the tax collector at the temple and his first person proclamations struck me. Both the Pharisee and the tax collector prayed for favor. The Pharisee was grateful for what he was not. The tax collector was grateful for who God was. 

The tax collector prayed with a posture that honored the Lord, recognizing how great God would have to be to save him – a sinner.

It is this kind of posture that produces a generous heart – a desperate, first person statement that begs for mercy from the One who is merciful.

I am a sinner, but You are my Savior and you take brokenness aside and make it beautiful, beautiful.

let LOVE fly like cRaZy
Posted on by Caroline 2

joy lives next to loneliness

Sometimes more than other times I feel the weight of packed suitcases. It’s like a surprise that sweeps the hair straight up on my arms. I forget, I guess. Things get going – mornings and middays and meetings – and I forget, I guess, that home is not places.

Then the question drops like all kinds of innocence with friends at the dinner table, “So, how do you like living in Des Moines?”

There’s nothing special about the question, but it hits me like surprise and my hair stands straight up. It’s been a month and a half now, living in Des Moines and working as an in-home counselor, and the question is like paralysis. My mouth says the pleasantries, but my mind speeds by the years after college – Chicago, Austin, Tegucigalpa, Ames, and now Des Moines – and I realize I am still moving.

I get all kinds of emotional about the motion and I wonder if I’ll ever hang my hat or turn in my key or take off my shoes somewhere permanent. I wonder if I’ll ever stop moving. Now, I’m queasy.

My conscience pricks before self-pity sets in or some other such selfish device. Maybe this is the drama I create – maybe these thoughts are not even worth all the words. Having time to think about whether or not I like living in a certain city, whether or not I like working my new job, whether or not I like searching for a church… they are first world questions and I won’t pretend otherwise.

But it is not exactly a bad feeling I feel, this loneliness, and it is there getting stuck in my throat while I think up an answer to the question at the dinner table. I realize I may never get planted in a place of permanence on this side of heaven and it’s both a good and hard thought.

I suppose I am surprised to find joy lives so content next to this loneliness.
I suppose this is home.

And the mystery of this supposing can only lead me into praise.

let LOVE fly like cRaZy
Posted on by Caroline 3

the storm is passing over

This song appeared on a compilation CD to benefit those affected by Hurricane Sandy and I’ve been playing it a lot the last couple weeks. Hurricane Sandy is still a nightmare for some – struggling to put back the pieces of their lives after houses caved in on themselves and memories washed away with several feet of water. It’s not as newsworthy because there have been tragedies since that won out the airplay.

So many storms, this world has. So many storms.

You know what I love, though?

I love that my Lord promises the storm is passing over and I love that I can trust Him.

Because the storms, they just keep coming.
Death and destruction and disease – it all looks so relentless and it’s tempting to fashion our lives out of fear.

My Lord has a plan for redemption that defeats destruction and He invites all to let Him fashion our lives out of freedom.  

(Get the WHOLE cd for free and then leave a tip to help out the people in NYC)

let LOVE fly like cRaZy

 

Posted on by Caroline 0

adventures in stairwells

One of the strange and beautiful things about human nature is the way grief and sorrow can live next to joy and laughter. I don’t mean to say things that grieve us also make us laugh. I don’t mean to say that at all.

What I mean is the way one can get into a helpless state of the giggles on the same day one feels helpless about the state of things in the world.

I say all this because yesterday was my first day to “have court.” This is what all my co-workers say when they go to the courthouse, so I say it now too. When we “have court” we sit behind the DHS worker and the child’s attorney, available for information about the case.

It all sounds really serious because it is. You would be shocked to know what children face. You probably don’t want to know any more than that – just that it’s devastating.

So, here I am driving around downtown Des Moines looking for public parking so that I can “have court.” I’ve had problems with parking garages before, but I wrongly assumed Des Moines would be an easier animal to wrestle. I found a parking garage in plenty of time, but when I slung my briefcase over my shoulder and flew down the stairwell I decided I should be in a hurry.

Coming out of the parking garage was like someone had spun me around and set me down facing a different direction (which is actually exactly what a parking garage does). I didn’t know which way was North and what historical building to walk toward.

So, I picked one and hoped it was the courthouse. I got close enough to see “POLK COUNTY” written on it but as I was walking up the steps, a lady taking a smoke break said, “You don’t look too happy to be coming here. But, hey at least it’s not the courthouse!”

Yeah.

So, I walked in one door and out the other where I promptly asked a parking meter officer to point me in the direction of the courthouse. She looked at me, smiled with all kinds of pity, and said, “Just walk up Court Avenue right there and you’ll run right into it.”

Right. Court Avenue, silly me.

So, I got to court with time to spare (thanks to my enormous cushion I operate with due to my Latin tendencies). Everything went well enough and when I left I felt good about things.

And then I met the sidewalk and realized retracing my steps would lead me in all kinds of circles. Everything looked familiar because I had passed all of downtown on my adventure to the courthouse.

So, I did what any new-to-downtown would do – I walked briskly in the direction of a hunch with my briefcase slung over my shoulder and my heels clicking professionally on the pavement. I saw that nice parking meter lady again and gave her the grandest smile.

And then I walked in every parking garage stairwell I came to until I found the one that was just right. I can’t be sure how many stairwells I walked up, but I kept the brisk pace so anyone around thought I was going someplace important. I finally found the stairwell I was searching for – one with no numbers, partially inside/partially outside, and with my little car Eddie waiting on the fourth or fifth floor (no numbers).

And so my adventures in stairwells gave a different kind of ending to my first court experience – proof that a helpless state of giggles can live inside the helpless state of the world.

let LOVE fly like cRaZy
Posted on by Caroline 2

what is it that makes it beat?

This one line in a new song by one of my favorite singer/songwriters, Sandra McCracken is enough to break you or melt you or stitch you back together. This one line, I don’t know… it’s enough.

“to bend the will you first must change the heart”

So many times I look at the news – and not just in the United States – and I grimace. It’s almost better to not know the extent of the damage human beings can have on one another. Almost.

I’ve been thinking a lot about what people are capable of doing and how to harness our capabilities into something productive and beautiful. And the conversation will always dabble in bandaids until it engages with the heart.

The heart is alive behind bars and at parks and in mental illness and in gun stores and at family dinner and on Sunday morning.

The heart is alive, so what is it that makes it beat?

let LOVE fly like cRaZy

Get the song, Dynamite, for free here.

Posted on by Caroline 0

flash flood prayers

Dear, Father
I just-
Lord, be with-
Oh, I just lift up-
There is so much-
Lord, you know-
There is just so much-
I don’t know-
Help me to-
God, please-
You are good.

This morning, my prayers got jumbled in a bunch of starts like water rushing a roadblock – just a massive surge leaving no time to consider convenient direction or map a course that makes sense.

Sometimes my soul wells up like that.
Sometimes my prayers swell in a most inconvenient and nonsensical way.
Sometimes my prayers sound like a flash flood.

And those times I rest in the knowledge that God hears my heart. God sees the needs I can’t express. God knew before the flash flood hit my morning news bulletin that the world needs Him.

He knows better than anyone knows the depth of that need.
God sent His Son to stand in the unfathomable depth of that need so now there is hope for flash flood mornings.

let LOVE fly like cRaZy

Posted on by Caroline 0

threading the needle of His mending

I woke up feeling the ugliness. It slipped out my eyelids as I was doing laundry and felt like a freight train as I read my Advent devotional.

It was unnerving yesterday to see people jumping on platforms to make the tragedy in Sandy Hook political. This is a time for weeping and just that. Grief serves as a great reminder that the world is not broken because of systems or structures but because of people. The world is broken because people are not inherently good.

We are broken. We are wayward. We are disasters making disasters.

And so, this morning, when I read these words I remembered why it is important that we understand God’s law. When we look at His commands – at the weight and glory and perfection of them – we know what a mended world would look like.

Now the God of peace, who brought up from the dead the great Shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the eternal covenant [this is the purchase of the new covenant], even Jesus our Lord, equip you in every good thing to do His will, working in us that which is pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen. Hebrews 13:20-21

The words “working in us that which is pleasing in his sight” describe what happens when God writes the law on our hearts in the new covenant. And the words “through Jesus Christ” describe Jesus as the Mediator of this glorious work of sovereign grace.

So the meaning of Christmas is not only that God replaces shadows with Reality, but also that he takes the reality and makes it real to his people. He writes it on our hearts. He does not lay his Christmas gift of salvation and transformation down for you to pick up in your own strength. He picks it up and puts in your heart and in your mind, and seals to you that you are a child of God. (Good News of Great Joy  Advent Devotional, day 15)

His law is true and pure and beautiful. He writes his ways on our hearts when we put down all our human efforts and pick up His finished work on the cross. Then we will obey His commands because we love Him more than what is broken.

In His power and strength, we will act the miracles He has written on our hearts – from one hard fought step to the next. We cannot legislate the mending of this world because the brokenness is deeper than our pens and papers.

The mending of this world must begin in our hearts – by believing that Christ was broken on our behalf, but that He did not stay broken.

When we believe there is only One with power enough to beat brokenness, He grants power that we might thread the needle of His mending.

let LOVE fly like cRaZy
Posted on by Caroline 1

the reason the world exists

“The magnifying of Christ in the white-hot worship of all nations is the reason the world exists.” from Good News of Great Joy Advent Devotional, day 9

I keep thinking about this statement that rounded out day 9 in the Advent reading. To propose a reason for the world’s existence is a claim worth considering. Westminster Catechism says the purpose of man is to love God and enjoy Him forever, but what is the purpose of the world as a whole?

The magnifying of Christ in the white-hot worship of all nations…

What is it about all nations that is so important? Why did the star lead foreigners across miles to an unlikely destination where Jesus had been born with the title “King of the Jews”?

Because God’s heart is not divided by national lines or allocated to allied forces. God desires that all nations would know about the gift of salvation through Christ.

Many things had to work just right – from the Roman Empire calling for a census precisely when Mary was ready to pop to a brilliant star trotting across the sky in a way that led the Magi to follow.

These things worked just right because God ordained them to be just so.

Now, if I am going to participate in the magnifying of Christ, I must understand how I am both singing in the white-hot worship and inviting others to join me.

What a beautiful thing to stretch out an invitation to worship the Savior of the world with every nation and tribe and tongue.

let LOVE fly like cRaZy

 

Posted on by Caroline 0

scrambled

Over-easy, hard, benedict… scrambled.

If you asked me to describe my life right now in terms of cooked eggs (which of course you wouldn’t), I would say scrambled.

These days are like opening my eyes underwater and finding a thick, slimy mud. I’m muscling through the grime for clearer deeps, but there is a thickness trying to steal my hope. Cynicism is cheap in this business where skeptics are trained by years of disappointment.

Working with broken people means getting broken yourself.

The first line of this song sticks to me as I walk around broken, reaching out to broken, “Lay your righteousness on the table…”

It’s like sitting down for negotiation and emptying my pockets of every bit of pride trying to play the cards in my favor. I don’t know what The Gin House intended the song to mean, but it feels like the “fire is alive” is about hope.

After honesty and justice has wrung out all my vices, there is hope … and not in what I’ve flung on the table. There is hope outside of what I have to offer.

It’s that kind of hope that will hold when I pull with all my might.
It’s that kind of hope that is secure when everything is scrambled.

Posted on by Caroline 0

peace is found in believing

“The key that unlocks the treasure chest of God’s peace is faith in the promises of God. So Paul prays, “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing” (Romans 15:13). And when we do trust the promises of God and have joy and peace and love, then God is glorified.”
– from Day 7 in Good News of Great Joy, Advent Devotional.

Some days it feels like I need the treasure of God’s peace more than I need anything else. In those days, I turn life upside down in search of it.

But my feelings betray me because every day I need this treasure. And every day I either find God’s peace or settle for something else. Usually, when I don’t feel like I need the treasure of God’s peace I have settled for something far less valuable and my very settling will send me on a desperate search for the real thing as soon as the counterfeit runs out.

I love this reflection about peace – that peace is faith in the promises of God.

Both joy and peace come in believing – in the process of trusting we unlock the treasure of peace. An easier treasure map you could not find: trust in the promises of the One who made you, called you, loves you, and sanctifies you. Trust in the One who has no beginning and no end.

This is the map to the treasure of God’s peace: trust.

That’s it.

Thankfully, there’s no math. It’s not trust + effort or trust + deeds that we need to get to peace. But it’s also not an equation one can finish and present to God in exchange for peace.

I am a notorious short-lived truster: I trust for a moment and then fall out of believing moments after. But this in believing that Paul talks about in Romans 15 – this in believing is beautiful because our active trusting (in the present tense) means the peace is hidden there in the activity.

God has infinite joy and peace waiting to be discovered by those who trust Him for who He is from this moment to the next… and then for the moments after that.

Some days it feels like I need the treasure of God’s peace more than I need anything else. On those other days my feelings forget to make me feel what my soul always searches.

Every day I need God’s peace and every day it is found in believing.
He finds me as I am believing and gives me peace.

And in the giving of peace, He is glorified as the only One in whom we can believe for this peace – the only One whose promises are worth trusting.

[deep breath]

let LOVE fly like cRaZy

Posted on by Caroline 1