Meredith Shuppy
Why I am doing Mission Year
My name is Meredith Shuppy and I will be a team member on the 2010 New Orleans Mission Year Team! A dream that is quite quickly manifesting into a reality!
I’ve wanted to do Mission Year for a while, but I didn’t have the guts to apply until spring of last year. I actually didn’t know much about it, either. I was kind of scared that God might actually want me to do it, and I knew it’d be a giant risk so I stayed away from it for a while. But then God kept knocking on my heart and asking me to consider it. I began to feel restless and really unsatisfied with how I was acting out my faith and each time I’d pray and ask God what I was supposed to do with my life for Him, Mission Year came to my mind.
For even longer than I had wanted to do Mission Year, I felt a call on my life to live in simplicity and to shed the layers of material dependency that I’d become so comfortable wearing. God really caused a consciousness in me to ignite and I was aware of how much I had and how little I really needed and how these THINGS kept me from truly being solely dependent on the One God. I had gods all over the place in my life (still do, unfortunately) and I knew that the best way to live was without the influence of stuff (not that I have always been one to eagerly sell my stuff and give the money to the poor). I also saw how much I had and how little so many others had. My eyes were opened to the kind of slavery Christ tells us He can free us from: ourselves and the bonds of the lust of this world. Suddenly car commercials became poison to me and I was consumed with how privileged my life really was and what excess I was allowing to take over my life.
These two things have grown into giant desires to walk with Jesus in a way my heart has always yearned for, but I didn’t always know that yearning or how to answer it. I praise God for how He’s brought so many different people, books, words, songs, ideas, etc into my life to speak His Truth to me and beckon me to walk closer with Him and become more like Him. Thusly, falling ever more deeply in love with Him. I praise Him that He hasn’t given up on me even though my disobedience to His gentle prodding to walk with Him and leave this stuff behind greatly outweighs my obedience to follow wholeheartedly. I have, so many times, put my hand to the plow and looked back. I pray those days are coming to an end and I can walk single-mindedly towards God’s Kingdom both here on earth, and in the next life. By His grace, amen.
Mission Year, for me, isn’t a statement of my awesome faithfulness to Jesus and His teachings. Oh my gosh, if only people could be in my head as I prepare to leave! So much fear and doubt that rumbles beneath. I’m completely faithless. It’s just my lame attempt to walk a little more like Jesus and get a bit closer to Him. And to put action into the Words I love. What kind of testimony do I have in Jesus if I am not willing to do as He asks and trust what He says? I am scared to leave my family, to live with people I don’t know (yet!), to live in a rougher neighborhood than I’m sure I’ve ever lived, to be without my stuff that I’ve come to rely on. It won’t be very comfortable, but I don’t want to walk on this earth without having really walked with Jesus. It’s just time for me to back up all this talk with some walk :)
Prayers for our group as we prepare and for all of the Mission Year staff who is working so hard to get things ready for us. Prayers that God would work in us and through us and that we wouldn’t seek becoming like God something to be grasped, but that we’d humble ourselves as servants and serve with passion and joy to all those we know now and will know soon. God’s grace upon you, loved one!
About Mission Year
Mission Year is a year long urban ministry program focused on Christian service and discipleship. We take teams of young people, place them in an area of need, and help them to serve people and create community. We are committed to the command of Jesus to “love God and love people,” by placing the needs of our neighbors first and developing committed disciples of Christ with a heart for the poor. Learn more about our first year program…
Meredith Shuppy's Blog
In the ridiculous words of a very wise man... / Nov 24, 08:20 PM
“Thanksgiving was when John Smith and Pocahontas got together to smoke weed.” Ha. So in the spirit of that highly inaccurate historical account, I’ve been thinking about Thanksgiving, being thankful, my family, and turkey. So far, here are the two things that have been missing from my New Orleans Thanksgiving celebrations: My family and turkey. Now, although, in my family’s tradition, turkey is a Thanksgiving -meal staple, I haven’t missed it much. I don’t crave it or long for it the way I do for my family during this time. There are two things that make me sad as I think about my family: 1.) That I won’t be with them on the grand Turkey Day, everyone fulfilling their yearly roles in preparing food, watching the parade, making bits of food magically disappear as it is presented on the table, lounging around picking out favorite Christmas CD’s with which to accompany the feast, etc. 2.) My family will be severely fractured this year as we all celebrate Christmas separately in several different parts of the U.S. and the world. My mom and sister are heading the Virginia, my dad is staying in PA, I’m here in New Orleans, and my brother – farthest of all – is going to be teaching French adolescents who won’t be celebrating this delicious holiday in any capacity in a small French village in, you guessed it, Texas. Just kidding. France. So my heart longs to be in their presence and for all of us to be in one place at the same time. It’s weird not following traditions that have been in place for 20+ years with grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. Our family has seen changes in the form of new significant others, babies, and losing loved ones, but it’s never been this ruptured, it seems. And it seems painful for all of us to exist, yet not be near on this holiday. However, in the depths of my longing, God reminds me of something far more precious than earthly family and far more worthy of my dwelling thoughts than the sadness of separateness. He reminds me of His Family and the blessing of togetherness right here, right now, all around me in the 9th ward of New Orleans. He has done this in ways that seem to present contradiction: a card from my mom reminding me to relish in the beauty of the family and friends that surround me here, urging me not to forget or to look elsewhere when it’s so blatantly in my face – beaucoup love. And He’s done it with magic and His presence. Yesterday was Desire Fellowship’s First Annual Thanksgiving Dinner together. I spent all day here at the Ministry with my friend Stacy cooking green beans, corn, rice, baked macaroni, and taking in the tantalizing smells of the food we’d both prepared earlier. I had my first experience spicing the beans and corn with Tony Cachere’s Original Creole Seasoning under the tutelage of Miss Stacy Howard Just when I thought it was too much, I kept shaking until Stacy would tell me it was enough. And then we both worked together to accomplish the perfect cheesy taste and texture to the baked macaroni, only to have burnt our first pot. Not because of lack of experience or expertise on Stacy’s part! It was the stove. People started arriving at 5pm and we still had to cook the stuffed peppers & chicken wings and we had a whole other pot of baked mac to produce. Thankfully, our friend Hubert worked his cooking magic and made us some delicious baked mac in less time than it had taken me and Stacy. While he whipped that up, more friends arrived, placing their contributions to the feast on the food tables – one for entrees and one for desserts. Hugs and kisses were issued, kids ran to the backroom with the sole intent of making a mess and lots of noise, and the house filled up and up with love and family. At certain points I just had to stop and look around. “My mom was so right,” I would think to myself. I am surrounded by love, by family. We had friends taste-test each other’s food and help set the table. People making jokes and hooking their favorite jams up to the speakers – it felt so familiar, familial, so like every other Thanksgiving. I think that’s what was startling about it – I’ve never been in New Orleans for Thanksgiving and I’ve only known these people for 10 months at most, but it all felt so comfortable, real, and built on God’s love. When you do life together day after day, you become family. And New Orleans is a place of family. As I’ve been growing in relationships and as this is New Orleans, it’s a double whammy recipe for love. I’m thankful for several things this Thanksgiving. I’m thankful that Jesus knows me better than I know me. I’m thankful that He knew New Orleans would be a place where I would find parts myself coming alive and speaking to me about Him and His love in ways I’ve never known. I’m thankful that God is so big that He uses everyone to reveal Himself. No one is exempt from expressing God’s beauty. Thank you, Jesus, for teaching me that I could find you in unlikely people at unlikely times in unlikely places. You are an unlikely King, Jesus, but You Are, and for your upside-down ways, I praise You. I’m thankful for family, both blood and in the Blood. Family that encourages, speaks truth, and ultimately, loves like Yahweh does. This Thanksgiving, I’m thankful for being humbled and being put in my place by Christ and His ways that shock and scandalize me because they are so different from my own, but they are so what humanity is crying out for. Thank you, God, for letting me see that more clearly and for understanding that Truth more deeply. I’m thankful for my community in New Orleans, for their generosity and extraordinary expressions of faith. Although I await being reunited with my family in the coming weeks, I do not lack anything, especially family. God’s just… awesome. I rejoice in His provision, that which is asked for, and that which is a delightful surprise to my spirit, a reminder that my Savior does here my prayers, even those that are too far down to utter, even in my thoughts. Happy Thanksgiving, all. I hope you find much to be thankful for.
the 9th ward: where everybody knows you name / Oct 19, 01:30 PM
My driveway down to my porch in my Pennsylvania home is too far from the street to catch anyone’s attention from the porch. I don’t know the names of many of my neighbors and I certainly don’t watch and make sure that their house is safe when they are away. In fact, I don’t much notice if they even are away. We only have an on-going Christmas cheer exchange with one neighbor, and that’s mostly just my mom’s thing. I don’t know what’s going on in their life or if they shop at the same grocery store as me and I’ve never offered to grab them some milk when I go. Our lives are carefully organized to not cause any uncomfortable or unnecessary friction when we go in and out of our house to our cars or even to take a walk around the street. We wave, smile, or nod, but long talks at the end of the driveway are rare and when they’re over, each person makes the long walk back down their driveway to their far-removed porch.
Every time I sit out on my porch in New Orleans, anyone who passes by speaks to me. In fact, most of my neighbors all know each other’s names and watch out for one another. While Amanda and I were gone on Fall Break, our closest neighbors on either side were keeping track of the house while we were away, making sure no one was breaking in or trespassing. We didn’t ask them to, they just did. Our daily lives overlap and, quite honestly, we all live too close and in too much view of one another to ignore anyone. Everybody speaks and knows everyone’s name, and if they don’t know it, they’ll make something up and keep calling you that until you mention that your name is Meredith, not May.
What’s really shocking to me is that even though my neighborhood in New Orleans is way more warm and open than my neighborhood at home, there is an enormous difference in the amount of crime here vs. New Castle, PA. Why is that? Why in a place where so many people know each other and have known each other for such a long time does lots of crime happen? If so many people are paying attention to each other and taking care of one another, why does New Orleans have such a severe crime rate? I mean, what’s missing? How could a place like my neighborhood where people barely acknowledge one another’s existence be so much “safer” than the 9th ward where no one is a stranger? What’s up with that?
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I'm just a branch. / Sep 29, 11:02 AM
Nothing in this life is about me.
This is an incredibly humbling thought. Even as I know, intellectually, that it’s true, it’s really hard for my flesh to make an emotional connection with this Truth. Why? Because as humans, we really believe it is all about us. I do. How could it not be? I am the main character in my life. At least, that’s the lie that’s been instilled in me.
Since I got back from Fall Break, there have been a few themes running in my conversations with people. 1.) John 15:4-5, 2.) Am I living a consecrated life? 3.) my experiences aren’t for me, they are for someone else.
While being home for 10 days and then spending time in the Chicago suburbs with my Christian fam from college, God began speaking to me and preparing my heart to return to ministry here in New Orleans. So much has changed for me on the inside since I left on September 3rd.
I’ve begun to see that I’m not here for me. I’m not here to fulfill myself or my longings or my desires. Or, let’s put it this way: That’s why I came to New Orleans. It was selfish. I wanted to be doing something of purpose after college. I didn’t want to waste away in my hometown, not using my gifts, not exploring a new, challenging way of life that intrigued me and freaked me out. I wanted to come to have something to show for myself since I was then (and am still) a college grad. Obviously, something momentous needed to take place, I thought. So I came here. Of course my reasons were good reasons. They weren’t to destroy anyone or anything. And I didn’t come to make life miserable for the people of New Orleans. But they weren’t good enough. Jesus was not the center of my reasons. My branch departed from the True Vine in my reasons for coming and so I wore out and I ran out.
I have realized then that I can’t be here for myself. I must be here for God. Or else the same thing will happen again. I can’t even be here for another human being. Human beings were never made to be one another’s anchors. We don’t sink and sit and stay, stably settled at the bottom of a raging ocean, tethered securely to the boat. We are the boats. And to be attached to one another in hopes of maintaining a position is a gigantic mistake. So I can’t even say I’m here for people. The way I put it with my roommates last night was this – I’m here to people, but not for them.
So I’m processing that idea of abiding in the Vine and understanding the Truth that without the Vine – or The Anchor – I will not bear fruit. Or I might bear one fruit here and there, but it will inevitably wither and die because it cannot be sustained on my strength as a measly branch alone.
And then we come to the idea of living a consecrated life. I’d been thinking about it before I even came back to New Orleans because, confession: I really like the Trey Songz song “Bottoms Up” mainly because Nicki Minaj’s rap is off the chain in that song. So I was hanging out with some sisters in the Faith before I left Chicago to come back and I wanted to share with them how awesome Nicki Minaj is, so I chose that song and had them listen to it. But as I was listening to it, murmuring all the words to myself, bobbing my head, I was thinking, “This song is terrible. Why am I sharing something so empty and so focused on sex and partying with women of God? Why am I so excited to share this with them? Why aren’t I sharing a song that’s actually beautiful?” And I was kind of embarrassed! It made me examine that moment and take an assessment of what I was promoting. I know these sisters love me unconditionally and support me, but I just felt like in that moment, I’d given them this really ugly piece of rock instead of a nugget of gold that I could have. Why did I settle for sharing something so pointless when I know I have a plethora of Christ-centered things to share with them? And I’m not saying everything we listen to or watch has to be a Gospel song or a movie about Jesus’ life because I’ve watched movies that have moved me and challenged my faith and they haven’t been necessarily about Christ. And I don’t think that all music is off limits to us either. But I was ashamed at what I’d chosen, in that moment, to open up to my sisters because I thought it was “cool” or something. I don’t even know why. I just felt like such an idiot.
Why do I even listen to that song? So ok, even though I’m not going to choose to spend one of my evenings at the club, tossing drinks back, getting totally drunk and then having a one-night-stand with some dude I don’t even know, should I even be caught muttering those lyrics and having those ideas and images stirring in my head and heart? Like, if my whole being is God’s then am I really protecting His temple by having songs like that swirling in my head all day long? It just got me thinking.
And I’m living in a place where a lot of people like Trey Songz and know his music and listen to it a lot. So I’m also tempted by this culture to listen to it and like it and make it a staple in my ipod. But I’m also called by My Creator to be salt, light, a city on a hill, to stand out, to consecrate myself because of what He’s going to do through me (Joshua 3:5). Like, am I making myself a vessel that people can respect and can experience God’s unadulterated love through? I am human so of course I’m flawed – that goes without saying. But what precautions am I taking so that I am protecting His vessel from Satan and from other temptations? And what am I doing so that the Gospel can go out from me (not only verbally, but also in deed and lifestyle) purely? You know? It just made me think about that.
Which brings me to the third and final thing. I didn’t get saved by Jesus just for myself. I got saved so that I could encourage/influence/spur forward others along the way. It reminds me of a conversation I had with two friends about a year ago (shout out to Abby and Abena!) in which we discussed what it meant to be a leader and how the best thing you can offer anyone is your testimony. Our Bible Study leader at our church this year always reminds us of this as well. Even just today he said: “God has kept us so that we can help someone else.” – Brother Hayes.
Do you ever think about that? I’ve “thought” about it, but didn’t necessarily agree with it because I always thought that I went through it so that I could feel superior to my old self and to all those other losers who weren’t quite there yet. Yeah, I’m a total jerk.
I have gone through things and triumphed and failed but not for my own satisfaction, but so that people could, through my story, see God. When I tell about my days in high school and what I struggled with there and how these random people in college sought me out for Bible Study even though I wasn’t sure what I believed at that point and then I became so involved and grew so much that I didn’t recognize the girl in the journal entries from senior year of high school – God is the main character of that story. He is how any of that happened. Not me. Not my small group leader. Not my old pastor or youth leaders. God.
I think all three of these things tie into one another. You know? I’m realizing that I have to lean not on my own understanding (Proverbs 3:4) which means that I have to lean on the Lord. In order to lean on something, you have to be next to it. So I can’t run ahead of God or wait and wait while God walks way on ahead. I have to be in step with Him. And some times His pace is slower than I’d like, but if I want to abide in Him then I just have to walk as He walks and trust, even though I may not be able to see, that He is doing something. And then that also comes to what else it might mean to walk in step: shedding off the worldly clothing that might hinder my ability to keep pace with Him, whatever form what clothing might take. That also affects others. I am walking with Him for others to come to Him, too. So if I have layers between me and Him and I can’t fully rely on Him, people see that and they will notice the disparity between what I say I believe and where I really am with God. My fruit will show – either it’s good or bad. It’s all about dying to myself so that Christ can reign and work His purposes out through me, His servant. He’s my example and that’s precisely what He did for Abba (Philippians 2:5-9). And for us.
“Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.” – John 15:4-5
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"I want your heart." / May 21, 01:36 PM
I thought coming to Mission Year meant a couple of things.
1.) It meant that I had to know how to live a life of love the moment that I came here and that I was a an expert and was 100% familiar with the ropes of being a neighbor.
2.) It meant that this is where I REALLY prove my faith to God and to people because I left home and came to the inner-city without anyone or anything familiar. This is where I was going to show God how serious I was about Him and everything was going to be easy from here on out.
I’m 4 months in and from the moment I got here, I’ve struggled with a tension in my Spirit and my relationship with God because He has desired to show me the reality of being here. I’ve wanted to cling to my own definition of what it meant to be here and therefore, have exhausted myself and have become confused and angry with the Lord.
I’ve lived a long life with Jesus of trying to show Him how totally serious I am about Him and have missed out on just being His friend and letting Him be mine. I’ve been lonely here – at time, so overwhelmingly isolated and sad. I’ve prayed that God would provide friendships, would take away my homesickness, would work a magic trick and bring me SOMEONE. Instead, He’s continued to diligently chisel away at my character and is breaking through with His eternal beckoning of, “Come.”
I need a friend, God.
“Come.”
I’m sad, God.
“Come.”
I’m tired, Jesus.
“Come.”
He hasn’t left me to fend for myself or come up with the answers on my own. His answers are always before me – the remedy always at the tips of my fingers, or the tip of my tongue. I don’t have to work like crazy to come up with the answer or submit a list of why I should be picked for His next blessing. I don’t have to do anything, but be still and know that He is God (Psalm 46:10) and trust that He works everything out for the good of those who love Him (Romans 8:28).
Am I weak? Do I need Him more than I’d like to admit? Yes.
Do I have to call on Him more times in a moment than can be humanly calculated? Yes.
Is this bad?
No.
This is exactly as He’s always known, knew when He created the world, understood as His Son died on the cross so that I could be with Him forever, and was ready to handle because He (miraculously) loves me.
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.” – Isaiah 55:8
I thought Mission Year was going to be a year where I could use what I already knew to serve this city and serve my community site and have a year of ease and fulfillment. I never foresaw this year flipping around on me: Jesus making His intentions known to me and frankly expressing how He feels about me, causing me to have to come to terms with myself, my sins, my emptiness, neediness, poverty, and overall humanity. We are not quite yet in the wilderness – I don’t trust Jesus quite that much yet – but He is slowly leading me there with Him, into a desolate place where He can restore me (Hosea 2:14).
I’ve often wondered to God, “How can someone who has been a Christian, truly believing in You and Your Son for almost 10 years feel so new at this with you?” I’m embarrassed that all of this is so new – the trust and coming to real terms with my sin and struggles, being honest with God about the darkest parts of myself and trusting that He will still love me in the morning, or the next moment. How could I have been faking peace, trust, and relationship for so long? I guess because I didn’t know I was faking, I thought striving was what was expected of me. I think it’s a bit of an epidemic and I’m simply one of the millions infected with this need to make myself perfect for Christ instead of allowing Him to perfect me. Because He is the author and perfecter of my faith (Hebrews 12:2), not me.
The Bible doesn’t tell anyone that what happens is this: We accept that we’re sinners and in need of Jesus’ salvation in order to be saved, to live full lives here on this earth, and to be accepted into eternal life after we leave this place. Then, we live out that “fullness of life” here by working and toiling for our own salvation that we’ve just accepted as a gift but days before. It’s all on us now! That whole part about it having been done once and for all was just a ploy to get you to consider it and then have to strive until death for perfection, which you can’t attain, by the way. So enjoy! Love, God.
I’m not sure which Bible anyone else has ever read, but if you find something to that affect in there, please tell me. Because I really don’t believe that God, the God who tells me that He will redeem the shame of my youth and He will serve as my Husband (Isiah 54:5-5) would pull the rug out from under me like that, knowing that I am dust (Psalm 103:14).
God, as Brennan Manning express in his book THE RAGAMUFFIN GOSPEL, “is not moody or capricious; He knows no seasons of change. He has a single, relentless stance towards us: He loves us (pg. 20).” I am not graded by the Great Judge on my ability to keep up with my personal holiness. I am just asked, over and over again, to come. Walk towards Him, rest with Him, let Him be in my life.
Continuously, I snatch my weighty burdens away from the open palms of My Daddy. “Here,” He says gently, “let me have those.” And I put distance between us, because I want to be worthy, I want to have shown Him how great I can be, how good of a job I can do.
It’s so counter-cultural, the call of Jesus; His expectation for us. Because, I think what it really is is us lying down. It’s us, listening to our Shepherd to rest beside the still waters and let Him restore our empty souls, taking a load off our feet, and watching as He makes the world go round. We aren’t expected to chase the wolves away or climb out of the raging waters while our little lamb feet slip over the rocks and wet moss. He expects to hear us crying out, “Help me! This wolf is too big for me to fight and the water is too fast for me to swim!” He expects to and loves to hear us call out to Him, in need of Him. We open our lives up to Him to show us just how much He loves us. When we are impoverished in our abilities and are honest about that, the way a child openly holds up a jar that is too difficult for them to open, He takes it from us and happily pops the top off and hands it back. He doesn’t say, “Try it yourself again. You just need more brawn and more effort. C’mon!” He sees our need, KNOWS our need, and takes that burden from us, from our fat, child hands, knowing we can’t tackle it by ourselves.
He accepts us into His kingdom knowing all of this. This isn’t news to Him as we walk into His presence with our shabby, torn clothes in need of Him. It’s the point of the whole thing. If we could do it all on our own Jesus would be pointless and this universe would be… well, it probably wouldn’t be.
“For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” – Matthew 11:30
I’m not worthy. I’m not worthy because of how many sit-ups I can do, how little I ate today, how pretty I look in my new clothes, how many scriptures I can quote, how long I stay at church praying on my knees. I’m not worthy because I’ve done some mortal feat and can now pat myself on the back. That does not make me worthy to Jesus.
I’m worthy because He says so. I need to know Him in order to understand my worth. My worth lies in Him.
I’m feeling worthLESS?
Ask Jesus about that.
I’m feeling unloved?
Find that in Jesus.
I’m experiencing isolation and rejection?
There is only inclusion and acceptance in Jesus, He can bind up my brokenness and fill me with His love.
Jesus is the answer for everything. It’s all in Him. All of it. Every. Little. Thing.
I’m just at the brink of this realization. I’m just eating baby food at this point. I’m going slow, I’m still scared, still shying away from this crazy unknown love of Jesus. It freaks me out a little bit, not gonna lie. Someone who wants to be with me all the time, no matter what I do? It’s, like, what I’ve always wanted, duh. But it’s also incredibly overwhelming and frightening that someone could always feel like that towards me. I… sometimes want to run. And ask, “For real? Do you know how bad I smell right now? Do you know how bitchy I am right now and I just want to cuss you out? Do you know how ugly my thoughts have been about myself? Do you know ugly my thoughts have been about another person?” And Jesus says, “Yeah. I still love you. I still want you more than you could ever believe.” Clearly.
Sometimes it’s easy for me to feel like because I’m not married and I don’t have a boyfriend that I’m somehow missing out on THE love of my life; as though God is keeping something good and beautiful from me because He doesn’t want me to experience that. That is so not true on a couple levels:
1.) God wouldn’t keep something beautiful away from me just to be cruel. He’s not a cruel god.
2.) That thing that I believe to be THE LOVE OF MY LIFE really isn’t. He offers me that. And I don’t mean that in this cheesy, I’ve-heard-my-50-year-old-pastor-tell-me-that-a-zillion-times kind of way. It’s true. I mean, if I want to feel valued as a woman, and I want my femininity to be affirmed and I want to be made to feel beautiful, like someone can’t take their eyes off of me they’re so in love with me – Jesus. He doesn’t want me to NOT want to feel like that, He wants me to come to Him and find myself fulfilled in Him, not something else.
He doesn’t want us to suppress or subdue ANY feeling or desire – He wants us to take that to Him and find our fulfillment in Him. I’ve realized that – He’s shown me that. And He will fulfill the desires of my heart as I give my heart over to Him.
He is The Best Love we could ever ask for and it’s free. He’s all ours if we just let Him be.
“He is looking into the eyes of Israel from His depths to hers. He sees through the smokescreen of deeds good and bad to Israel herself. She glances up uneasily, “Who me?”
“Yes, you. I don’t want the abstractions of relationship. I want your heart (pg. 103, Manning).”
“I want your heart.”
“And the effect of righteousness will be peace, and the result of righteousness, quietness and trust forever.” – Isaiah 32:17
everything ends somewhere. / Apr 23, 03:25 PM
Spring Break ended for our team with a jolting transition. Our team of four, which was whittled down to three at the beginning of February, had been whittled once again, down to a whopping two-person team. It was definitely a shock to come back expecting to continue on as a three-person unit and then to have to face some challenging circumstances surrounding the loss of another teammate, but I know that God is in control. I think that, ultimately, God is trying to tell me, “Trust in me. Not in what you can see or can touch because those things are temporary. Not only will they vanish when your life here ends, but they could vanish from you within this life here and now.” It’s easy to be shaken up about the temporariness, not only of our life here, but also of the stuff and the people we surround ourselves with. Things and people could literally vanish in one blink of an eye. I could see something in front of me one moment, turn around, and it’s gone when I turn back to it. Nothing is guaranteed to stay nor is anything guaranteed to stay away. So much about life is uncertain – I couldn’t guarantee that someone isn’t breaking into our house right now and taking all of my electronics, all of my clothes, all of my jewelry and leaving me and my roommate with nothing. I can’t guarantee that when I leave my house in the morning that I’ll come back. I can’t even guarantee that this breath I take as I type this won’t be my last. I cannot build my life upon things I can only experience with my 5 senses. I cannot because those things will eventually crumble and the only Thing that will never crumble, has never crumbled, is The Rock, Jesus Christ. If my feet aren’t on that, I’m sinking in sand that will slowly swallow me whole until one day, I’m all gobbled up, food for the belly of this world, food for the belly of emptiness and nothingness.
And as I think of the reality of this in regards to our team’s recent change, I also think of the lives that have been taken in our neighborhood by shootings and acts of violence. I haven’t really spent time processing this because, when I do, I begin to see the overwhelming sadness in my heart, and the brokenness of my Lover’s heart over these tragedies. And so I get scared and back away. I just can’t help but me overwhelmed but the unsteadiness of life. NOTHING is a guarantee. And there are people out there who know this. And I’ve heard that said to me 1,000,000,000 times over and over, but I guess I always thought I was invincible and that this life and all that it materially contains has to be the utmost truth because it’s all I can see. But Hebrews 11 basically says, “What you see isn’t what is true. Have faith in what you don’t see – it’s everlasting and REAL.” My Rabbi is teaching me that only He is real, only He can outlast anything, only He is going to be around in the end. I haven’t experienced, personally, terrible tragedy. But someday, I may and I think it’s a good thing to have a grasp on the temporariness of anything in this life and that God is the only One is always going to be there. I don’t want to be put my faith or my life or my identity in things that are inevitably going to change or could, at any moment, not exist any more.
The Lord is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He does not grow faint or grow weary…
He gives power to the faint,
and to him who has no might he increases strength.
-Isaiah 40: 28-29
He is the only Thing I can put my life, trust, identity, and faith into. He is the only Person who is always going to be on my side, the only person who will never die or disappear in my life. He is the only steadfast Part of my life. I just pray that He can raise me up to be a woman of true faith in this.
