Dying Well

So after a brief hiatus, I'm kind of picking up where I left off. It's All Saints Day. In addition to having "For All the Saints" running through my head, I've been thinking about the cloud of witnesses that surrounds us. Really, more like one person in particular.

My grandmother taught me how to die. Now, she taught me many other things through her words and example. But she truly showed me what it means to die well.

Nanny, as all the grandkids called her, was in excellent health until the last few years of her life. These were very painful as she suffered severe osteoporosis and a host of other issues. Yet, as attested by her family and friends, she never complained. She always fought to regain her strength and be there for us, even as she experienced strenuous medical issues. After recovering from multiple falls, gall stones, and pancreatitis, she earned the nickname Energizer Bunny.

In her final months, she told us several times that she longed to go Home. She was ready to be with Jesus. But even still, she fought to live to the fullest in every moment she was given.

A few days before she died, my uncles were in her hospital room discussing sports. Nanny was fading, often in and out of consciousness and lucidness at that point. Yet she was well aware of one thing. "The Rangers lost. Lauren won't be happy." For a couple years, the majority of my summer nights were spent with Mom and Nanny, hanging out at her apartment, watching the Rangers, talking about anything and everything, and helping Nanny with her evening routine.

Tonight, the Rangers lost game five of the World Series, and I can't say I'm happy. But there are so many bigger things in life, matters of life and death, matters of eternity. Nanny lived out what it meant to trust God, even when life was living hell. She had a confident faith and a gracious strength. She never quit fighting, even to her very last days. On her 88th birthday, her whole family gathered in her hospital room. She told each one of us that she loved us and was proud of us. Two days later, God took her Home, and I'm sure she heard the words, "Well done, good and faithful servant."

May I strive for that, as she did, every day of my life, and may I live and die well, to the glory of God.

O blest communion, fellowship divine!
We feebly struggle, they in glory shine;
All are one in Thee, for all are Thine.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

O may Thy soldiers, faithful, true and bold,
Fight as the saints who nobly fought of old,
And win with them the victor’s crown of gold.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

And when the strife is fierce, the warfare long,
Steals on the ear the distant triumph song,
And hearts are brave, again, and arms are strong.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

Go/Stay = Both/And

I was talking with a friend at lunch today about calling as it relates to going/staying. She feels called to minister to those who have heard the Gospel - or at least are in a culture familiar with the Gospel - and yet have rejected it or not truly understood it. While she supports cross-cultural missions, she is called to stay "home" (whatever that actually means...in this case, not going to a different people group).

While I support the vision God has given her and many other people I love and respect, I don't have that vision. My heart resonates with the probing question posed by Oswald Smith: Why should anyone hear the Gospel twice until everyone has heard it once? Of course, this isn't practical, nor should it be. Repeatedly being reminded of the beauty and power of the Gospel is critical to my sanctification. But my longing echoes that of Paul:

And thus I make it my ambition to preach the gospel, not where Christ has already been named, lest I build on someone else's foundation, but as it is written, "Those who have never been told of him will see, and those who have never heard will understand." - Romans 15:20-21

In class this week, I heard this described as the difference between Petrine and Pauline mission. You could say Pauline mission is going where Christ isn't; Petrine mission is going/strengthening where Christ already is.

Paul is very much about frontier missions, going to the unreached and the unengaged, those who have no contact with the Gospel in their language and culture. Peter, though not excused from cross-cultural ministry, focuses on his own people group - the Jews. Though focused on "staying home," Peter still has important cross-cultural work. He is the first to take the Gospel to Gentiles - Cornelius and his household, and he certainly is interacting with different cultures as he ministers to the church in Rome.

Both are needed. The Church must preach the Gospel and make disciples in Jerusalem AND Judea and Samaria AND the ends of the earth. We're not given an option of Israel OR the world, or Israel and THEN the world. It's definitely a BOTH/AND calling. We need Peter and Paul. Peter and Paul need each other, and they need to support each other.

Home? ...Defining and Equivocating

I've been home in Texas for a week now.

I'm not sure what I think about that statement. On the one hand, I love being home. We got to hang out with all my cousins last night, and I realized just how much I had missed my family (even if I didn't really have time to realize it while I was away). Yet part of me still feels like "home" is somewhere else - yes, in a very special lodge hidden in the San Juan mountains, but more so with a very special group of 40 people I call my Semester family.

For the first time this year, I've begun to think of places other than the North Texas address I've lived at for most of my life as "home." I've now lived outside of Texas for the first time in my life, and this year is the first time I have seriously contemplated moving much farther away - as in halfway across the globe. (And I'm sure this post, just like this one did nine months ago, is making my mom seriously freak out...)

To quote from the aforementioned post:

I miss it.

It is so different than home. And in a million ways, I'm so glad to be home. But for the first time in my life, I've recently entertained thoughts that "home" may be far from my beloved Texas.

I couldn't be happier with my home as it is right now. I'm not looking for a one-way ticket to Timbuktu or anywhere else. But my heart longs for Home, and deep down, I know my allegiance is first and foremost to that Place, to Him who makes it Home, and not to geography or ideals or people.

Meaning, I know I will have to be in whichever place He decides is most necessary for His glory and the good of all those who may one day call His presence "Home."

The context of this is coming back from Asia, another place where my heart felt strangely at home, yet I find these words ringing true again. Perhaps they have a deeper meaning to me now, after living away from what I've always known as "home."

I felt at home at Semester like I've never felt at any other place or with any other group of people, save my family. And while I miss them dearly, it is stirring something deeper within me. Beck wrote in her blog near the end of the Semester that we could now identify with the Penvensie children having to leave Narnia. The experience is similar, I think - we got a taste of otherworldliness, how this world is supposed to be - and that stirs a deep longing which cannot easily be fulfilled. I'm reminded of CS Lewis' journey as chronicled in Surprised by Joy.

Yet as Lewis writes, this longing, this Joy, is not the end in of itself. It is the signpost that leads to something much greater, Home. Heaven. The New Creation.

Revelation 21: 1-5
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Now the dwelling of God is with men, and He will live with them. They will be His people, and God Himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away." He who was seated on the throne said, "I am making everything new!"

Home for Christ and His Kingdom and Hope

On Friday night, I became an alumna of Summit Semester, the class of 2009. It doesn't seem right. It seems like we should just be starting. But, no, we spent three amazing months together, and now it is time to go home, "for Christ and His Kingdom," as Eric charged us.

So I'm home, after a 14 hour drive all day Saturday. It was so weird to be home. I stayed up for like three more hours, reading the Semester blogs, bios, and notes, looking at pictures, remembering...

We went to church this morning, which was really good. It was good to see friends again. And I really needed the sermon, on hope, today being the first Sunday of Advent.

I'm not gonna lie, I don't feel like being hopeful right now. My heart is still looking back, longing for my new family and the home we had at Snow Wolf Lodge. I'd honestly rather wallow in the "400 silent years" for at least a few more days, musing and contemplating and grieving, in a sense, rather than jump back in wholeheartedly into life.

Yet I'm called to more than this.

To quote my new favorite article ("Telling the World Its Own Story," Richard John Neuhaus):

All of us who have contended to be Christian disciples, to be faithful, know times in which we are tempted to despair and to feel that we are a part not only of a minority enterprise but a failing and perhaps definitively failed enterprise. But we have not the right to despair, for despair is a sin. And finally we have not the reason to despair, quite simply because Christ has risen.

As Dr. Dunagin reminded us this morning, God broke the the silence of 400 years with the command: "Fear not!" Of all of Jesus' commands, almost 20% of these were spent telling us not to fear.

His main points: Fear robs us of joy and hope. It causes us to doubt God's goodness, and fear produces "spiritual amnesia." Fear drains us of generosity; it causes us to seek safety first, which drains us of love. On the other hand, joy is deep and firm and abiding. Joy flourishes in the midst of pain and struggle.

Currently, I am wrestling more with fear and despair than I am with hope and joy. I'm not sure how to best keep up the friendships I've made these past three months. I'm scared of finding/creating a community here at home like the one I've just come from and of developing deep friendships that sharpen like iron. I'm not sure what lies ahead, and I don't really like that.

Yet this is why hope and joy are so essential. They aren't abstract ideas that only work when life is good and the world is happy. Hope and joy sustain us when everything else is falling apart because hope and joy can't just be mustered up inside us when we feel down. They come as a result of tremendous sacrifice.

Neuhaus again:

Optimism is not a Christian virtue. Optimism is simply a matter of optics, of seeing what you want to see and opting not to see what you don't want to see.

We are hopeful, filled with hope, which is a very different thing. Hope is a virtue of having looked unblinkingly into all the reasons for despair, into all of the reasons that would seem to falsify hope, and to say, "Nonetheless Christ is Lord. Nonetheless this is the story of the world. Nonetheless this is a story to which I will surrender myself day by day." Not simply on one altar call, but as the entirety of one's life, in which every day is a laying of your life on the altar of the Lord Jesus Christ being offered up in perfect sacrifice to the Father.

And will we overcome? Will we prevail? We have overcome and have prevailed ultimately because He has overcome and He has prevailed. There are days in which you and I get discouraged. On those days I tell myself — I suppose almost every day I tell myself, sometimes several times a day — those marvelous lines from T. S. Eliot's "East Coker," where Eliot says, "For us there is only the trying. The rest is not our business."

For us there is only the trying. The rest is not our business. Some people read those lines as lines of resignation, kind of shrugging your shoulders and saying, "What can you do?" But I read them as lines of vibrant hope. The rest is not our business. The rest is God's business.

Thank God, we are not God. Thank God, God is God.

This Is Home

March has been an intense month. A lot has happened, and I have a lot to process. I can't help but wonder if I'll look back on this month as a milestone, or perhaps a springboard, into what God has planned for me.

Following up to yesterday's post, "This Is Home" by Switchfoot has been running through my head lately.

I’ve got my memories
Always inside of me
But I can't go back, back to how it was
I believe You now
I've come too far
No I can't go back, back to how it was

Created for a place I've never known

This is home
Now I'm finally where I belong, where I belong
Yeah this is home, I've been searching for a place of my own,
Now I found it, maybe this is home
Yes this is home

Belief over misery
I seen the enemy
And I wont go back, back to how it was
And I got my heart set on what happens next
I got my eyes wide, it's not over yet
We are miracles, and we're not alone

And now, after all my searching
After all my questions
I'm going to call it home
I got a brand new mind set
I can finally see the sunset
I'm gonna call it home

Hebrews 11: 10, 13-14
Abraham did it by keeping his eye on an unseen City with real, eternal foundations — the City designed and built by God. Each one of these people of faith died not yet having in hand what was promised, but still believing. How did they do it? They saw it way off in the distance, waved their greeting, and accepted the fact that they were transients in this world. People who live this way make it plain that they are looking for their true Home.

Or as my friend Will Netherland sings: "I live for a City of unordinary people. I live for a City where the servants are the served. I live for a City of unashamed freedom. I live for a City where the tears are no more."

Home

I went to the grocery store a couple of days ago. It was quiet, bright, peaceful, and kind of surreal.

Preface: my nine days of spring break were spent overseas in Asia. My last market experience was typical - all the senses are assaulted at once. Color and chaos is everywhere, smells and sights range from tropical fruit to animals being slaughtered to the satisfaction of the buyer, and a perpetual cacophony accompanies.

I miss it.

It is so different than home. And in a million ways, I'm so glad to be home. But for the first time in my life, I've recently entertained thoughts that "home" may be far from my beloved Texas.

I couldn't be happier with my home as it is right now. I'm not looking for a one-way ticket to Timbuktu or anywhere else. But my heart longs for Home, and deep down, I know my allegiance is first and foremost to that Place, to Him who makes it Home, and not to geography or ideals or people.

Meaning, I know I will have to be in whichever place He decides is most necessary for His glory and the good of all those who may one day call His presence "Home."

And as much as I would like it, His description of His Home doesn't look much like Texas. When I see it with His eyes, it is much more beautiful.

There was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people, and language, standing before the Throne and in front of the Lamb. Rev. 7:9

That. Is. Home.

I don't yet know how I'll get there, or what this home will be like until then. It could be a stone's throw from where I'm sitting now. It could be a couple hours away. Or it could be halfway across the world. I don't know.

And I don't need to know right now. He knows. God will reveal His plan in His time. As the Message translates Moses' words in Psalm 90:

God, it seems you've been our Home forever; long before the mountains were born, Long before you brought earth itself to birth, from "once upon a time" to "kingdom come"—you are God.

Looking for Hope and Home

hmm, I've got several posts floating around in my head, and I guess we'll see what comes out. Coming soon to a blog near you are posts on "Great books vs. Cultural Literacy," reviews of Twilight, thoughts on Advent, and some other random things.

Thanksgiving has always been one of my favorite holidays. It doesn't seem to have the same commercialism as Christmas and everything else. This year just seemed different. Black Friday a year ago is when my grandmother went into the hospital for the beginning of the downward spiral that took her Home. I've really been grieving for her this week - sometimes really randomly. I guess that's kind of how it works. 

Today was the first Sunday of Advent, and it was my first time to really participate in Advent in a Methodist church. I've always kind of considered myself Methodist, and been around that tradition, but have spent the majority of my life in non-denominational churches. I've been aware of Advent and the candles and all that, especially when around my Methodist-pastor-uncle's house at Christmas, but it was really cool experiencing and participating in the ancient tradition of anticipating the HOPE of Christ's arrival. 

So I do not grieve as one without hope. I live because Christ lives in me, the Hope of Glory. 

I'm loving Brooke Fraser's "CS Lewis Song."

If I find in myself desires nothing in this world can satisfy

I can only conclude that I was not made for here

If the flesh that I fight is at best only light and momentary

Then of course I’ll feel nude when to where I’m destined I’m compared

CHORUS

Speak to me in the light of the dawn

Mercy comes with the morning

I will sigh and with all creation groan

As I wait for hope to come for me

Am I lost or just less found,

On the straight or on the roundabout of the wrong way?

Is this a soul that stirs in me,

Is it breaking free, wanting to come alive?

‘Cause my comfort would prefer for me to be numb

And avoid the impending birth

Of who I was born to become

For we, we are not long here

Our time is but a breath

So we better breathe it

And I, I was made to live

I was made to love

I was made to know you

Hope is coming for me

Home - random thoughts

My grandmother went home to be with Jesus last night. It was time, and I'm glad she's Home; at the same time, I'm still sad and I grieve. But we do not grieve as those without hope.

An oft used phrase around here as of late has been, "We look to heaven. Our hope is in heaven." (Clarification: this concept of heaven is not about it being a cool place, but rather, it is the very presence of God.)

Along with Ted Dekker, Bodie and Brock Thoene are my favorite authors. This week I was reading their book Seventh Day, the seventh in a twelve book series about the life of Jesus. These books are unlike any other work. They understand the historical Jewish perspective and weave amazing stories into a wealth of Scripture insight.

In Seventh Day was the coolest scene I've read in a long time. Abel, son of the widow at Nain, and Deborah, daughter of Jairus of Capernaum, were raised from the dead by Yeshua (Jesus) at different occasions. But here they meet and talk about the things they both experienced.

Abel: "There were many who I knew must be from of old. Though I can't name them, they seemed as though I knew them from my Torah studies...But the first one I met was my father. ...[my father was in] a garden...such color!"

Deborah: "Yes, I was in the same place. The garden. Flowers! Such fragrance! No thorns! Waterfalls so high I couldn't see the top. Rainbows. Hues so deep the air hummed with the music of color. I never knew color is music. Seven colors matched seven musical notes. But all with different shades and voices. Reds and blues and greens, a thousand pitches of every color. I can't explain it. I try, but I can't...it's so...."

They laughed and huddled with heads close together. They seemed to me like old friends meeting unexpectedly on a lonely and distant shore. They rejoiced as they remembered the familiar sights and sounds of their much loved home. In this case heaven was home. This present world was the strange and distant shore to which they had returned.

Wow...

I've been looking at I Corinthians 15 lately. Amazing chapter, all about the Resurrection. I'm sure I'll bring this up again soon...

Oh yeah, Happy Patriot's Day! It's the anniversary of the day 'twas fired the shot heard 'round the world. My favorite source for political news/commentary is http://patriotpost.us/, and they've got some cool stuff on this.