Reflecting

I have had such a hard time wrestling with the thoughts and feelings of the state of things. I want to help, I want to speak, but I have never felt my voice is one to be heard. I am a person of mixed color and culture. I am half white and half Polynesian, but I just don’t feel like I have room in this conversation. This is something I’ve struggled with for the whole time I’ve been watching the Black Lives Matter movement.

My experience is different

The racism and privilege I’ve experienced isn’t to any degree that many others have experienced. I know that I have experienced privilege in my life, but I’m not convinced its only from my white side of the family. I am also not convinced the hardship I’ve faced is from the Poly side either.

I work at a mission agency. We send US Christians into the world. Some places with such hardship, such pain, and the reality of genocide. The governments around the world are so corrupt and evil; the value of human life doesn’t exist. In this battle we face here in the States, I want to maintain a global perspective and heart.

No person’s suffering negates another’s suffering.

I am so incredibly heartbroken over the loss of lives that were based solely on the color of skin. I am outraged to see authority treat human beings in such horrible ways. Our country is dealing with tragedy upon tragedy. I am so sad to see the level of hate and rage on both sides. I am so sad to see that in this horrible time of COVID-19, there is more suffering that is being put on so many people. I am so disheartened to see the defensiveness of people I know, extreme actions and statements from people I love.

Other people’s suffering doesn’t negate your suffering. Humanity is suffering. We can all mourn and be sad with all of the world. Jesus wept for the suffering of others too.

What we need to guard ourselves from is letting guilt and shame and anger rule over our lives. White friends and family, mourn with those who mourn, but don’t succumb to the shame the world is throwing at you. There is nothing good that is built out of shame. Be humble, be listeners. Friends and family of color, there is a need for justice and I pray we can all fight together. Let your fight be purposeful and fueled by righteous zeal for justice. Justice for you and those like you. Be an advocate for change.

Love in Action

God is at work! I don’t think there is any doubt about that. I don’t think we have the full picture of what it is he is doing. I am choosing to ask God each day for what I should be doing. How can I be his hands and feet while my arm span is cut so short?

Let’s all take time to reflect on what we are seeing, praying into and for the injustices we are witnessing and move forward in love and faith of the authority of Christ Jesus. There is freedom in what he calls you to. May we respond in obedience.

⁹ Don’t just pretend to love others. Really love them. Hate what is wrong. Hold tightly to what is good. ¹⁰ Love each other with genuine affection, and take delight in honoring each other. ¹¹ Never be lazy, but work hard and serve the Lord enthusiastically. ¹² Rejoice in our confident hope. Be patient in trouble, and keep on praying. ¹³ When God’s people are in need, be ready to help them. Always be eager to practice hospitality.

¹⁴ Bless those who persecute you. Don’t curse them; pray that God will bless them. ¹⁵ Be happy with those who are happy, and weep with those who weep. ¹⁶ Live in harmony with each other. Don’t be too proud to enjoy the company of ordinary people. And don’t think you know it all!

¹⁷ Never pay back evil with more evil. Do things in such a way that everyone can see you are honorable. ¹⁸ Do all that you can to live in peace with everyone.

¹⁹ Dear friends, never take revenge. Leave that to the righteous anger of God. For the Scriptures say,

“I will take revenge;
    I will pay them back,”
    says the Lord.

²⁰ Instead,

“If your enemies are hungry, feed them.
    If they are thirsty, give them something to drink.
In doing this, you will heap
    burning coals of shame on their heads.”

²¹ Don’t let evil conquer you, but conquer evil by doing good.

Romans 12:9-21

Advertisement

New Year’s Resolution

I’ve always felt like the start of the New Year was a very arbitrary time to start new habits, kick old ones, lose weight, etc. I also never feel like mid-winter is the best time to try and motivate yourself. I usually use my birthday as my “new year” to have some new goals.

I had my birthday this last weekend and it was, as I’m sure you can imagine, VERY low key. I turned 26 so I wasn’t planning on a big birthday bash, but it is interesting to see how much events like birthdays have such loss attached to them during our current world situation.

In keeping with my low key birthday celebrations, I tried to keep my resolutions pretty low key. The reality of my next year is up in the air with COVID and with a baby coming. It would be pretty pointless to make grand goals that could never realistically be met.

Here are my New Years Resolutions for 26:

1. To live this year with open hands

I have learned already with all the plans that have changed in my life and with the uncertainty of what’s ahead to keep my hands open. God is teaching many of us this right now and I don’t want the lesson to go to waste in my next year.

2. To take any chance I have to interact with the Word

Even before COVID changed the reality of what “church” or “bible study” has traditionally looked like, I have known that my normals of interacting with the Word will look different once the baby comes. I don’t know what “quiet time” will be like with this little one. I’m pretty resolved to take each opportunity that’s presented to me to interact with the Word.

3. To invest in people and friendships

I don’t want to let parenthood put a divide between me and my relationships. I want to make sure that in the changes of my life, I don’t make anyone feel left behind. I also will need to allow myself a lot of room for grace. Grace for when I mess up, grace for when others aren’t understanding, grace for all that’s in between those points. It’s all a learning process.

4. To take risks in making good relationships, learning to be vulnerable again

Between COVID and pregnancy, I have really felt isolated. It’s been a slow shift in reality for me, between job changes, life changes, just normal life changes. The groups of people I could call on to talk to are spread out and not the same anymore. In this next chapter of life, I don’t want to doubt myself and the appointments God has set up for me. I know I will need a community to raise this child. I need to be intentional to build that for me and my family. I don’t want to be passive and miss out on what can be there. I know it will take trial and error, but I want to walk forward to whatever God has for me.

5. To survive to 27

I’ve been waiting to make this joke for. so. long.

Hellos and Goodbyes

Being pregnant is such a hard time of transition. I wasn’t planning on having a baby and I think that adds to the complexity of this time. I’m in my sixth month now and I think I have moved through all of the emotions you possibly could. It’s hard to let go of things when you weren’t planning on having a baby, and it’s an odd thing to say hello to so many new things as well. I had to say goodbye to something I truly loved today and it’s really hard. I wanted to make a list of the hellos and goodbyes to help me chart all that God is doing in this season of transition.

Goodbyes:

• My timelines. It’s not like Russell and I had planned on traveling the world or really doing anything out of our ordinary lives, but I still wasn’t planning on being a parent yet.
• My dream of doing foster adoption. I know this isn’t off the table. It’s still my hope, but I was hoping to work towards it and to build our family that way. I know God’s plan is so worthy of me trusting.
• My ministries. I had honestly been feeling some growing pains in a lot of way in the things I had been doing with youth ministry for a year or so. I knew something new was around the corner. There are pieces I was happy to give up, but there was still one piece in particular that’s hit me hard to give up. I’m still needed in that place, I still love serving in that place, but the timing of the baby just won’t let that be an option for now.
• The question, “When are you guys wanting to have kids?” Honestly good riddance.
• My career. I’m still planning to work after the baby comes. (There’s not much choice in it.) When I found out that I was pregnant, I had settled into my dream job. I love my job. I feel like I have to say goodbye to letting it be something that I still love. I’ll be a mom, then a working woman.
• Friendships. I have good friends that I know will stick through all that life has. I’m not thinking that parenthood will leave us friendless. I do really worry about how it will affect our friendships with our single friends. Marriage already can make things different and hard, a kid will add to that. Pregnancy has felt so isolated at times (COVID aside). I am afraid of what having a baby will mean.
• My body. My body is a life factory now. I am SO very aware of it all the time. Once my baby is born, my body is still going to be the one-stop-shop for the baby to get what she needs. I am excited to be a source of life, instead of a commodity, but it will definitely come at a price.
• Body image insecurities. I have always struggled with my self image. I don’t want to be so self obsessed, but I have always succumbed to the pressure of being young and hot and desirable. In a way, pregnancy has freed me of this. I can’t come to terms with my body because where it’s at is so temporary. It won’t make a difference if I hold to this.

Hellos:

• A sweet little baby. It’s so nuts to me to think I’ll have a little person to hang out with and that will want (at least for a few years) to hang out with me too. I’ve had so much experience in nannying and being a caregiver, but I’ve never been the one that they cry over or want to spend their time with.
• A new way to look at family. Russell and I have been a “family” since we were married, but this is so much more real. We are planning for our own rules and philosophies and it’s not just us playing house. It’s us doing a ministry in new and unique ways.
• Seeing Russell as a dad. Oh man. Even before we started officially dating, Russell had always said that he wanted to be a good husband and father. This guy has always been the most baby crazy, fun-loving, goofy guy. He’s always been perfect dad material.
• A new set of friends. Relationships with the friends I have will change a lot. I also know that because we are entering this new phase, different people who are in similar situations are going to start popping up. I have been and am praying for good families and women and men to connect to in ways I haven’t connected with before.
• Body insecurities. Female bodies are amazing, but they don’t go back to be exactly like they were after birthing a person. I know that and I’m expecting that. But it is hard to deal with body changes. I know that there will be new things that pop up.
• A complicated sex life. Don’t get me wrong, it’s always been and will be complicated. But now learning how to feel sexy while breastfeeding and being pooped on will definitely be a big learning curve.
• A better understanding of God’s love for me as a daughter. I’ve heard my whole life that I’m a child of God, but now I will be able to know what it feels like to have a child of my own. I’m looking forward to understanding God’s love for me in a new way.
• Baby giggles. I mean, who wouldn’t want to say hello to that?

This whole journey has been so hard, and good, and deep. While it’s so tough to say hello and goodbye to so many things, I’m so confident in God’s hand in all of it.

Good Friday in 2020

This year Good Friday feels especially heavy.

I am a huge advocate for a good cry; for letting myself feel as fully as I can. I think emotion gives the world color and makes lightness lighter and darkness darker. Good Friday usually get lumped into the named-but-uncelebrated days of Holy Week. I don’t have any upbringing in the traditions of Holy Week and all of the events that churches take part in for this time of year. Even though I’m pretty much a novice in the practices that go with each day, I still have always found that letting myself free in how I feel makes Easter more meaningful.

The first time I watched the Passion of the Christ I was in high school. It was still a pretty new movie at that point, so it was a bit taboo for me to be watching. I was randomly with a friend this year instead of my family as usual. We were at a cabin in the mountains. Despite being in a different context then what was usually normal for me, I knew that I wanted to feel the depth of what the crucifixion was. Growing up in Sunday School, we were handed really cutesy watered down ways to explain what Jesus dying on the cross was like. Easter didn’t have much weight because of that.

I had heard my whole life that “Jesus died for my sins,” but I wanted to feel what that actually meant. I watched the movie, letting myself get attached to the people on the screen. I watched and let the gory scenes get to me. I watched and I let myself weep.

It is so good to weep. I’m not one of the people who feels so much better after they cry. I usually am stuffed up, have a headache, face is puffy beyond belief. I become a hot mess. But weeping brings us into such a thin place and that is such a great place to meet with God.

I haven’t watched the Passion since that year, but I intend to today as I feel like there is much to weep about in this world. With the global pandemic we are living through, there is so much that we can come to Jesus with and to weep with him in.

We have a God who weeps with us and meets us in the depth and height of our emotions. Good Friday can be a beautiful day to lay our sorrows and our fears and our sins at the cross and to feel the death of all of them with the death of our Savior.

Mourning the death of our Savior on this Good Friday adds to the meaning of what Easter means. I hope that the church can do that this year.