Concrete Grace

I don't like to admit it, but I am the kind of person who will pray for a parking space. (Hey, if you lived where I do, you'd do the same!) But it's in the small, silly things that God teaches me about grace.

On Saturday I bricked my phone. I unwittingly tossed it in the washing machine with a load of sheets, started another chore, then realized I hadn't heard any alerts in a while. It was with a great sinking feeling that I fished my soggy laundry out, reached into the murky water and drew out the phone, only a week old, but just as zombified as my previous one. In vain I tried to resurrect it.

Just like that, I was cut off (well, sort of), from civilization. I'm used to the insta-response world, especially for work.
I was furious. I hate even the threat of being ineffective; inefficient. Combine that with my deep resistance to spending money, and you've got my approximate attitude as I sat and seethed in church. C'mon, God! You know how hard I work! I don't deserve all this crap! I've been so prudent!
And once again, the ugly truth is that I made it all about me and my actions. Gross.

So by Sunday night I was resigned to buying a replacement, thinking it would either be a lesson or redeemed somehow.
The next morning I found out that I may be able to return the damaged phone for a refund. Start over. Grace. Redemption. I don't deserve it.

I see the concrete example of grace in the example of the waterlogged phone. I'm irreparably messed up, but God reached down and plucked me out of deep waters. He's tearing out the junked programming and rewriting my code. It's painful sometimes. I'm resistant to change my heart. But he's patient and won't stop until I'm mended and rebuilt better than before.

The Green Book

I held the green-bound book in my hands with all the care of holding an infant. Gold Arabic script swirled across the cover. I had in my hands a precious copy of Luke and Acts, a translation work from our global partners and their team. The language is a specific Kurdish dialect native to northern Iraq.
Can you imagine not having the Bible in your first language? Only having access to Luke and Acts? What would my faith look like if I only had select passages of Scripture to mull over?

Recently I've felt that the world seems even more loudly chaotic to me. Political crises, economic woes, unbelievable violence and hatred, lack of civility, grief upon grief. A thousand different voices scream themselves into oblivion on social media. But underneath all the noise, we can still hear the whisper of truth, if we'll just listen.

So as I held the small sliver of verses, I was thankful for the simplicity of the gospel. This is what keeps me excited — to see that in spite of everything, truth still makes its way into the world, into languages I can't read or understand, and speaks to the heart of people everywhere.

The Bad Breakup

The full weight of the realization hit me with all the force of an antique crystal punchbowl shattering on concrete (an actual event, but that's for another time).

Over the last year I've kept being convicted that I need to let Spain go. To not seek career appointment or any other at this point. To give up an identity. For nearly seven years I've been That Spain Girl. I haven't seen life outside of this. In fact, I had made the [dangerous] assertion that if I wasn't called to Spain, I couldn't serve anywhere else. I held this calling in a closed fist. It was mine. Not God's. Mine.

I told a trusted coworker about this bit of clarity, and her response was, "do you feel freed or have you lost an identity?" I replied, "It feels like a really bad breakup."
Until fairly recently, one of my points of pride was my ability to carefully arrange my thoughts and emotions like church potluck leftovers. Nice tupperware containers. Clean and precise. To keep with the analogy, I've dispensed with some containers, and the ones I do have don't have matching lids. I'll let God sort it out.

I don't know what's next. I want to feel the freedom my coworker was talking about, but for now I'm sad, sick, embarrassed, disappointed, relieved; a whole mix of things. I might change my blog name, I might not.

This spring, I will be spending my birthday in Madrid. Why, after all this? Because I love this country more than a lot of things, and I think I always will. And I'm not ruling out serving in Spain entirely. Or any other place. But I want to serve with open hands, not a clenched fist.


[Postscript: For the friends who knew this was coming, thank you for the countless missiology/existential talks, identity discussions over sushi, crying fits, late-night WhatsApp messaging, couch hangouts, and prayer times. Thank you for being Christ to me.]

"I Hope I'll See You In Heaven"

Another day, another El adventure.
I had just left a good friend catch-up, with a belly full of kofta, Lebanese tea, and baklava (my favorite), when the El swished into the station. I sprinted up the stairs, slashed my pass through the reader, and managed to stomp my boots onto the platform just before the mechanical voice intoned "doors are closing" and the doors snapped shut. That meant another ten minutes on the frigid, concrete platform. Ugh.
I waited for the next train.
Somewhere around 13th Street he and his friend slung themselves into a seat and started talking about their music and a trip to the Middle East. My ears perked up when he said, "ya know, it's all for Christ" and started detailing how believers in this country surreptitiously identified themselves to him. Story after story about God working through his performances, people coming up to him in the marketplace and telling him their testimony.
I don't know him, his name or anything about him. But I know that he's my brother.
I caught his eye shortly before my stop and smiled. As the train slowed, I identified him as my brother and asked God to bless him. He smiled back and thanked me, and I slipped out of the train.
Two lines (out of context) of a Larry Norman song kept playing in my head as I shuffled the rest of the way home "...I hope I'll see you again someday. But if I don't, I hope I'll see you in heaven."

How many stories will we hear then? How many amazing stories of God's grace surround us each day, but won't be fully known until we get to heaven!

Holding The Ropes

After hearing an account of the spiritual needs of India, the secretary of the meeting remarked: "There is a gold mine in India, but it seems almost as deep as the center of the earth. Who will venture to explore it?" "I will venture to go down," said William Carey, "but remember that you must hold the ropes."

God help me to hold the ropes with steady hands.

(Quote source here.)

Death: On Time Arrival

Sunday after church I headed to the El to get back home, per the usual. I stepped into the subway car and noticed a disheveled man napping at a strange angle in his seat, but put it out of my mind and settled in the opposite end of the car. I've seen many weird things on SEPTA, so my first instinct is to allow adequate room.
Then a passenger started shouting that the man wasn't breathing. It was as if all the passengers roused themselves at once. Conductors' radios crackled to life and the El, still deep underground at 13th Street, screeched to a halt.
No breathing. No pulse. Totally unresponsive. A few people tried to find a heartbeat, with no success. A conductor ordered us out of the car and onto the platform to catch the next El, and shortly ambulance sirens grew louder overhead as they edged closer to whisk the man away.
I noted fear in some of the passengers' faces. How uncertain life is, that you can board at 69th Street Terminal (this was the rumor about the so-called napping man) and be staring eternity in the face by 15th Street!
I didn't get to confirm that the man passed away, but nevertheless, we have no guarantees in this life. Aside from the usual existential thoughts that tumble around my brain, this past week I've kept being bombarded by Matthew 6:33-34. It's the Kingdom that matters. And someday, despite my worrying and stressing about this side of life, it'll be finished. Lord willing, I just hope they won't have to cart my corpse off the El!