community: mercy

Last week was about me.  I prayed for me.  I thought about me.  I dreamed about me-centered things.  On one of those days I woke up grumpy.  No surprise, I had me for breakfast.

My mom asked me to go to the store for... I think it was flour.  I had a decision to make: Jewel or Dominicks?  I chose Jewel for three deep and compelling reasons.

1. There are self-checkout lanes

2. I didn't want to talk to anyone

3. I hadn't showered

So,  I jumped into the family van and drove to Jewel thinking about what a bad person I was.  I was deliberately avoiding human contact, and I wasn't going to change.

I walked through Jewel successfully avoiding any howdydo's and stood by myself scanning the flour.

"Do you play soccer?"

I was startled to see an employee named Slavisa standing twelve inches or so from my face.

"Uh, yes I do," I said.  The correct answer would have been, "I'm a has-been as of Winter 2009" but let's not argue over the details.

Slavisa and I proceeded to have a two minute conversation about soccer, and how we both don't like getting hit in the face with the ball.  I left Jewel and laughed as I got into the family van and thanked God for Slavisa.  Despite all my machinations, God decided I would have a conversation with someone, shower or no.

My Jewel adventure got me thinking about community. I often think of it as church potlucks, parties, soccer games, and picnics.  But it is more.  Community is scary because it means people get to see the real you, true community strips past the social facades we erect to keep people from knowing who we really are.

God knows we need to be with people.  God knows I need to be with people.  God uses people to show us how much we need Him, and God uses people to show us how much He loves us.

I realize that I avoid community because it takes work, and it can be messy.  It takes love and sacrifice, mercy and patience.

I want to be willing to serve people whenever God desires, sometimes it so hard.... when I've been thinking about me especially.  When I'm focused on me, it is harder to give other people grace, or the time of day.  Lately, to help, I have been thinking about this verse:

"Therefore be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful."  Luke 6:36

This verse helped me understand again that loving people and working in community is hard, and it requires mercy.  Since I know the lavish amounts of mercy God has bestowed upon me, I can ask Him to help me give other people love and mercy without measure.

And once I start conciously giving mercy to others, and praying for mercy, I realize how much mercy I recieve daily.  Sometimes I am overwhelmed by the goodness of the Lord I serve.

If you need a passage of scripture to help you pull your head out of the ground, I suggest Luke 6.  It worked for me... but really, you'd have to ask somebody in my community if it helped.

Give love, give mercy, live in community.

love's roar

I just wanted to share a poem that recently became the lyrics for a song Tim and I recorded together. The poem came out of a time of weakness a couple weeks ago. I hope you enjoy it.

You said love, You said peace
My eyes saw stains upon my heart
You said there's grace, You said I'm free
And still I stay, and still I grieve

I knocked myself down to the floor
Before You could raise me up
You stretched Yourself, Your tendons tore
And still I lay there, bruised and sore

I draw my lids, and scar my mind
I lose myself, I weep and cry
Why do You care, will I still find?
You thunder, roar, and yet are kind?

I do not know You, I said I did
I claimed Your name and said forgive
I rise and seek my sins to rid
And still I'm weak, and still I live

You said it's finished, I changed your name
Your sins forgot, your sins are gone
Why don't you trust, your life is mine...
I am Love, My roar divine.

If you want to hear the song for these words you can go to our myspace.
http://myspace.com/timothyandabigail

humble love

Last week it felt like my sins and struggles were delivered to me on a platter. A platter with dead carcasses and flies. Dirty flies.

I could hardly bear it. It is much nicer to have makeup on when you look at the mirror to your soul. Unfortunately for pride and ego, that mirror strips past your facades and shows your wretched nakedness. All your glory, all your stains.

My prayers were full of "I need Yous" and "Please." I realized, re-realized that I need God in the most desperate of ways. I was faced with my weakness and I prayed more fervently than I had in a long time.

The amazing thing was, in my weakness, I felt closer to God than I had felt in a while. I realized that He was using my desperate, despairing, dumpiest of days to draw me closer to Him. I was seeking Him hourly, rather than for a fifteen minute debrief once a day. And all the while, I knew that this crazed seeking was not of my own doing... it was God's work. I was humbled, please keep me humble Lord.

God also showed me how easy it is for me to love something other than Him. I love someone on earth so deeply, I am afraid to love God more. I worry that allowing God to take the throne, and knock out my idols, will destroy me. I become enraptured with the things of this earth, and the loves of the present... and I forget that I will never love those dearest to me the way God loves them... if I don't love Him first.

But this is painful. But it is good. Open heart surgery. I give God all of my heart, and He allows me to love others the way He does. The way is narrow, and few find it.

Take my weaknesses Lord, use them as You wish. Keep me humble, please don't let me go. Take my heart, my love is Yours.

straitjacket

I am constantly unconciously categorizing things in my own crazy i-think-i'm-an-artist way.  This is beautiful, haunting, moving, repulsive, crazy.  This is do-able, this is impossible.  This is possible for some, out of the question for me, etc., etc.  I place constraints on myself and others based on how well I understand the situation based on my experiences and knowledge.

The most unfortunate of straitjackets is the one that I put on God.

I underestimate His power.

I give out straitjackets based on my comfort level and knowledge of the situation.  I realize that my knowledge and understanding of God is limited and finite... I am always trying to re-box Him when He tears apart the wrapping paper.

But this is not the God I serve.  He is not tame, He cannot be conquered intellectually any more than He can be conquered physically or spiritually.

These mis-understandings cause confusion in my theology, they allow me to both doubt my salvation and think I have done something to earn the salvation I think I have lost.  A funny couple.  Of course I will doubt a salvation I have earned myself, the Lord knows I have done nothing to deserve it.  Filthy rags, filthy rags.

My religious legalism wraps its tentacles around my mind, and tries to put a leash on the power of God.  I think that I must do certain things to be pleasing to Him.

Then it happens... my secret sin knocks on my door, I let it in.  Suddenly, my forgiving Savior becomes a dictator bent on revenge.  I am afraid of Him.  I plead for forgiveness and feel like I cannot be forgiven.  I mentally brow-beat myself, and drag myself through the dirt.  Is this yet another form of pride, a pride that thinks my self-hate will somehow gain forgiveness?

If I feel terrible enough, maybe He will forgive.

This is not Jesus, this is someone created in my own head.  Jesus died on the cross to save me from the sins of yesterday, today, and tomorrow.  No amount of confession or self-loathing will bring about my salvation.  He lavishes grace upon my life, and forgets my sins when I ask for forgiveness the first time.

Why is it so hard to accept His love?  I am continually missing the God who is there, who walks beside me, carries me, the Savior who never lets me go.  

Lord, let me know Your love.  Let me feel Your presence.  Give me grace, help me give grace to others.  Please open my blind eyes, and let me see Your lovely face.  I love You.

kingdom of heaven

"Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.  Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven."

tim and abby sing

In the last month I haven't written at all because I discovered a new hobby, singing with my fiance Tim. Everyone has told me, "Abby, I didn't know you could sing." To which I intelligently replied, "Neither did I."

We have recorded four songs and posted them to a myspace, and on Saturday we had our first show at La Spiaza. This was old hat for Tim, a seasoned performer, but it was a new, exciting, and slightly terrifying experience for me. My cheeks burned red, and my hands were ice cold, but we had a lot of fun. The audience was comprised of family, friends, and a few coffee drinkers who happened to stop by.

We played some Tim Ophus originals, Tim and Abby songs, and covers. Hopefully, we will be getting another gig soon, I'll keep you posted.

If you are interested in hearing the tunes, check out this page:

http://myspace.com/timothyandabigail

I've been focusing on lyrics lately, but I'm hoping to be updating my dear blog more often, especially as my final semester in college is coming to a close.

Peace and love.

after His heart

For one of my classes I had to answer this question:

Commemoration: If you were to write your epitaph, what would it be?

This is a weird exercise. Part of me feels like if I live to be eighty-five, I know exactly what will be on there. My family will say something nice about me like beloved wife, mother, and grandmother. It will look much like all the other gravestones in the cemetery... all those stones, representing not even one day of the years that were lived by the body resting underneath it.

Forgotten stories. How would I sum up my story in a few words or sentences? I don't know what my "short story" would be right now, but I know what I would wish it to be in the future.

"Abigail was a woman after God's own heart. She loved Him until the end, and she will rest in His love for eternity."

I stole the "woman after God's own heart" from King David. His epitaph was that he was a man after God's own heart. I always liked this because David had some major errors during his lifetime (he happened to murder a man and take his wife). I realized that I could still pursue God with the intensity of King David, even though I have made and continue to make some severe blunders.

God's grace will enable me to pursue Him passionately, knowing that His grace and mercy cover me, and His love will hold me close until I am called home to be with Him.

So many things threaten my quest to pursue God's heart. Worries about the future and things I can't control often cause me the most distress, and keep me from focusing on the true source of peace and security.

What does the Lord require of me? To act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with Him. Love the Lord my God with all my heart, soul, and mind.

A gravestone means very little. It marks the place where my shell will lie. Many people hope they die well. I want to live well.

I will love Him until the end.

eternal longing

For most of my life I have owned a paralyzing fear, a pair of twin elephants that I carried around on my back.  I was afraid of eternity and death.

It all began at four.  I was lying in my bed in our family's apartment in South Carolina one night.  I imagined that I was in a grave alone in a pitch black coffin.  I was separated from my mom, my dad, and my brother.  I was completely and utterly alone, and I cried in despair.  Soon after this I trusted in Jesus as my Savior, seeing that He was the only way I could escape being separated from everything I held dear.

This did not erase my fear of eternity or even of death, however.  Now I knew that I would not be alone, but eternity was such a very long time, and my idea of heaven at that point was a sterile, cloudy place where my mom and I would wear orange sleeping bags with head and arm holes and my brother and father would wear blue ones.  Worshipping the Father in heaven forever seemed rather boring and ridiculous to me, and I couldn't imagine being in a church service for more than 45 minutes, much less thousands of years.  I didn't think my voice would last that long.  I loved Jesus with all my heart, but I couldn't understand what it would mean to be with Him and His Father forever.

When I started kindergarten we moved to Illinois and attended a Lutheran church.  In Sunday School my teacher had us draw a picture of what we thought heaven would look like.  I drew exactly what I wanted heaven to be: a very large swimming pool with a slide and diving board.  I thought that if that was what heaven was,  I would be satisfied staying there for more than a lifetime.  I soon discovered that while heaven will be wonderful, it is not guaranteed that there will be a swimming pool (if you find that verse in Revelation let me know asap).  

I have come to terms with that now, especially after reading C.S. Lewis' descriptions of heaven, more particularly in his book The Last Battle.  In the book, at the end the children have died and they find themselves in a place that is wonderfully familiar, in fact, they are in a perfected Narnia.  They can also travel to other lands, one of which looks a little like Great Britain.  Aslan tells them to keep going "Further up and further in."  It becomes more and more wonderful, until Lewis can no longer describe it because we have not yet been called home.  This helped me understand that the God who created this world that I love and created  everything in it that is good, is also the Lord of heaven.  Heaven will be home, and if He knows how to make me happy here, how much more so will I be satisfied in heaven?

As far as worshipping the Lord in heaven, I have come to see that worship is not just singing in a service; but every act of being, if done for His glory, will be worship.  Our fellowship, our service, our speech (and might I add artistic endeavors?) will all be done for His glory without the hindrance of our sinful bodies.  What freedom is this?  What joy unknown?

Even though I am sometimes overwhelmed by thoughts of years and years of unknown happenings in eternity, I have come to place where I long for them with all my heart.  C.S. Lewis (yes, Lewis again) wrote two quotes that summarize my life to this point:

"It was when I was happiest that I longed most... the sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing... to find the place where all the beauty came from."

"I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world."

I have found that the longing for Jesus, the longing for peace, the longing for another world... these satisfy me.  It was when I was holding on desperately to those things that I could not keep that I was conquered by fear.

I long for the day when Jesus will call me His beloved and hold me in His arms, and there will be no more darkness, no more goodbyes, and no more fear.