Paralyzed by the Slash

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I’m feeling paralyzed.

There was an article the other day by Rachel Pieh Jones, asking ‘where are they? A significant challenge for nonprofits and ministries remains recruiting people who will commit to serve long-term outside the United States.”

I know where they are.  They’re listening to everyone else who is telling them not to have a white savior complex and save the world.

We hear about how we’re doing short-term missions wrong, and maybe it isn’t even effective – and we’re ending up with people who have never been overseas in the short run, so why would they want to in the long run?

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I have had writer’s block for a while now, for a variety of reasons.  But one of them was this post by Sarah Bessey.  Every time someone says or does something that strikes a chord in me, which I’ve normally tended to use as a jumping off point for writing, I now freeze and wonder if I’m misappropriating their story, their sentence, their action.  And so I don’t write about it.  Misusing story is a big theme in the blogging world right now and it’s scaring me off.

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And then, Fitch the Homeless. I watched the video and shared it. Read more…

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9 Years of Tears

Photo Credit: Megyarsh

 

The only time I remember being taught about emotions in youth group was when they were related to hormones.  I never remember being taught how to handle the ‘darker’ emotions.  Years of being in church didn’t teach me how to interpret them.  There were no Bible studies about coping mechanisms when living in dysfunction.

But as it turned out, books had been providing me the answers all along.

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The wire book display stood, spinning, as I turned it, looking for new books to read.  Small paperbacks leaned forward, hoping to be the ones chosen.  Island of the Blue Dolphins.  Summer of my German Soldier.  Too Young To Die.

It was library time in 6th grade.  The sun beat down through the long, tall windows onto the wood floor, and the room smelled of old books.  I had suddenly discovered a new author, Lurlene McDaniel.  If you were a teenage girl in the 90s, you might remember her.  She made crying cool.

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Finding Hope in the Drought

 

 

 

When it comes to suffering, I’ve heard Joel 2:25 quoted a lot.

“I will restore to you the years the locusts have eaten.”

Otherwise meant as, Let’s not dwell in the pain.  Look for the good.  Eventually this will all be rewarded. 

But what if it isn’t? What if you live locust-ridden with every breath of oxygen you take on this spinning orb of rock and water?

Where is the hope when the stalks have been stripped bare?  When you are rustling with the wind, barren and empty?

If the locusts have feasted and you despair of rain or new growth, what will speak hope to you?

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A Letter to My Daughter, On Marriage

Dear A~

How can I give you advice on finding a husband, when how I found mine was exactly what the christian dating books say will happen, but with which I completely disagree?

I’m aware that the beginning of our story sounds crazy, as if I imagined it.  God picked out my husband and told me we would get married the second time I saw him.

Because our beginning is the exception instead of the rule, my first piece of advice is that you shouldn’t sit around hoping God finds you ‘the one’.  The rest of my thoughts come from having a relationship I couldn’t have imagined, but that I wouldn’t have any other way.

My hope for your marriage, if you have one, is that you would find someone who is a brick-puller.

 

Come join me over at Jenny Rae Armstrong’s to read the rest!

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Complaining as an Act of Faith

Photo Credit: dariuszka

 

When my brother and I were old enough to be left home alone, we always had to clean the house.  As we got older, we fell into our roles as obedient and ‘rebellious’ oldest and middle children.

Which meant by high school I was cleaning the house everyday, even forsaking homework to get it done.  If the house wasn’t cleaned, we were yelled at for not ‘pitching in and being part of the family.’  Sometimes I’d refuse to do any of it, and quickly the house would become obviously lived in.

I vividly remember my mom sitting at the kitchen table, surrounded by piles of books and papers, the counters filled with dishes and her complaining about it all.  “Maybe we need to make a chore chart.”

My complaints about how it was only messy because I (not we) didn’t clean it fell on deaf ears.

There was no talk of splitting the chores when I worked, only when I didn’t.  The fact that my siblings or parents didn’t help me was never talked about.  When I did the job, everything was hunky-dory.  When I didn’t, then it was ‘oh why isn’t everyone doing their part?’  I wasn’t given credit for working, only shared blame when I wasn’t.

My complaints and frustrations were never acknowledged.  The unfairness of the situation was never addressed.

When I got married, I didn’t do any housework for a year.

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