Christian life

Prodigal Daughter

~ agirlnamedmary ~ 5 Comments

Snapchat-1412695388Honesty usually comes easily to me, but telling this story has not.

I think many of us can relate — my brothers and sisters who grew up in the church, in Christian families, steeped in good doctrine and surrounded by friends in the faith. It’s hard to admit that we’ve fallen away.

I never thought I would willingly walk away. I’m an obsessive rule-follower. My skirts go to the knee. I still address adults as ‘Mr.’ and ‘Mrs.’ The only tattoo I have is a Czech phrase taken from the statue of a martyred reformer which stood in the village I lived in while serving as a missionary associate for two years. Both my parents play visible roles in the Christian community, so if ever there was a poster child for what a good Christian young adult should look like, I was it.

For the greater part of my life, I could honestly say that, though I have struggled in aspects of my Christian walk, my faith has never wavered. Not once.

I cannot say that anymore.

When I lived in Prague, I commonly hosted friends and acquaintances who were meandering their way through Central Europe. Kids I knew in high school, people from church, some of my brother’s friends from college — the routine was the same: we’d meet up, I’d show them the city, and sometime between the hot coffee or the spiced wine and the sweeping views of majestic castles and steeple spires, we’d talk about God.

I had never felt closer to my Maker. It was clear I was where he wanted me to be, serving him in a beautiful place with people I fell in love with so quickly. I had purpose, I had contentment, and I had joy, and on the other side of the world from the community I grew up in, I felt none of the pressures of singleness or job security or social status. I could feel God in everything, and even though it was by no means a simple two years, his presence was so tangible and his provision so evident that I felt refreshed and revitalized daily.

But many of my friends were struggling. They didn’t feel connected to God or the faith of their parents. They were afraid to let people in their church know they had doubts. They were afraid to tell their families. They felt like hypocrites and many of them were considering leaving the faith altogether because, like an Irish goodbye, it would be easier to slip away unnoticed than to cause a very public, very humiliating stir in the community. You can only pretend for so long.

At the time, I didn’t understand. I told them that they should talk to someone, seek accountability, pray, draw near to God. After all, I had a great relationship with the Lord, so clearly, it could be done. It was all so clinical to me, someone who had never been through a spiritual drought.

One summer, in Prague, a Christian friend and I were discussing the story of the prodigal son. I never really liked that story because I always related to the older brother who stayed at home and did everything he was supposed to do. It seemed unfair that some Christians should have a better welcome into the fold just because they had a better conversion story. Sitting on the steps of the garden, surrounded by plump tomatoes and the stillness of the muggy afternoon, my friend insisted that I was misunderstanding the point of the story — we are all the prodigal son.

“The sons represent the elect, not the unsaved,” he said, as hot summer thunder clouds boiled over our heads. “Both sons are already children of God, but one walks away for a while — and, at some point, so will we all. The older son represents the Christians who are still leaning on their own works to win their inheritance, not realizing that everything the father has is already theirs.”

I didn’t fully agree with him, mostly because I still felt like the older brother. I had never walked away. I never planned on walking away. What a stupid thing to do.

But the point is that neither son understands the father’s love — one does what is right out of obligation and not out of gratitude for the father’s generosity, and the other assumes that he can return and earn his forgiveness by working in his father’s house as a servant. They both believe their inheritance depends upon their own merit. Yet the father treats both his foolish sons the same way, with unconditional love.

What a father. What a God.

But I think I left a lot of my relationship with God in Prague.

Almost immediately upon returning to San Diego, I was swept up into college and work and making new plans for the future.

And I was lost. There were no road signs from God, no clear direction. In a lot of ways, I felt like he had just backed away completely, like he didn’t need me anymore now that my time in Prague was done.

My Bible reading was the first to go. It was followed closely by poor decisions at school.

I wasn’t making bad decisions — I’m the rule-follower, remember? But they were worldly choices, things that drew me away from the Lord rather than to him. And, like the prodigal son, as I began to recognize the trouble I was getting myself into — especially as I felt myself falling away from the Lord, I assumed I could work my way out of it. I could do it on my own. I could earn my faith back.

Small sins became habitual, big sins began appearing.

It amazes me, looking back at the last two years, to see how God sustained and protected me, despite moments where I consciously decided to step onto a path that I knew would lead me away from the God who carried me through my time in Prague, the God for whom I went to Prague in the first place, the God who was feeling farther and farther away from me every day.

There could have been so many devastating earthly consequences to my actions, and yet there were none. It both emboldened and embittered me.

Rebellion is not a characteristic I would have associated with myself, but this was full-on, unapologetic revolt. I wanted to see how far I could push myself down the wrong path before something went really wrong. If I hadn’t witnessed the progression, I would never have recognized the person I had become — a person that was still parading around as a put-together Christian, leading youth group events and explaining to my non-Christian friends that “my faith is everything to me.”

What a lie.

A few months ago, I realized just how hallow those words felt coming out of my mouth. I came home from work late one night, sat on the floor and desperately opened my Bible, like someone who has been walking aimlessly for years only to wake up one day and realize they are hopelessly lost and need a map.

But it had been a long time since I had sincerely searched Scripture and I didn’t know where to start. I had a devotional tucked in the back cover of my Bible, so I pulled it out and read the first page. A voice in my head interpreted every line with bitter, cynical mockery. It was a voice I had never heard before — certainly not mine! I loved the Lord, I loved his Word, I believed that this was the Truth, so where had this voice come from?

I closed the book and tried to pray only to find my heart empty of words and my mind doubting that my prayers would find a listener. God wasn’t there. He was gone. I had walked so far away, he had disappeared entirely from view. For the first time in my life, I found myself cut off from my Savior.

I was alone.

Suddenly, I understood what my friends travelling through Prague were going through. I had both consciously and unconsciously let myself be pulled away from the faith, through wordly priorities and the cultivation of destructive patterns, by starving myself of Scripture and prayer. I was sickened by myself. I was a hypocrite, drenched in sins that had grown to consume my life, separated from God.

And worst of all, I really wasn’t sure if God existed at all. Sin I knew I could be forgiven of, but if there was no God, then there was no hope and no purpose. The world as I knew it was wrong and everyone I loved and trusted was a fool. I was a fool.

Falling through the next two days like a wounded animal searching for water, I questioned everything. What if God had just been a figment of my imagination for all these years? What if I had been brainwashed by a group of narrow-minded people who were believing a lie? What if these mountains I always assumed belonged to the hand of a Brilliant Designer were in fact merely the product of billions of years of evolutionary change? There was no God and I had no reason to be here. Right and wrong did not exist. Purpose, irrelevant.

Those were agonizing days.

In hindsight, it strikes me that even the shame of my sin was swallowed by the fear of a life without God — that is the true devastation of disobedience, after all, the original consequence to sin: separation for our Creator.

In that initial moment of despair, the night I found I couldn’t pray, I had two options.

The first option, of course, would have been to give in to the despair and walk away for good. In so many ways, it would have been easier. I was so far into the world already, and I desperately wanted what it offered — status, opportunities, fun, romance and relationships I had not been able to enjoy yet.

I thank God that he gave me the grace to choose the second option.

Crying on the floor, unable to even look at my Bible, writhing in the physical pain of my spiritual loss, with the clock on my wall blinking just past one o’clock in the morning, I picked up my phone and sent three text messages.

One message to three friends, and they all responded before morning with verses and prayers and promises to meet up. And for the next three weeks, they were God’s living witnesses, displaying through their actions his faithfulness, his kindness, his mercy, his strength, his love. And they held me tightly with arms, like His, that would not let me go.

One friend met up with me in person multiple times — a half hour before work, a quick cup of coffee at the end of the day to pray and read Scripture together. She sent me articles to read and told me to meet up with godly people at my church to broaden my circle of accountability and seek out the wisdom of our elders (which I did, and it was equally difficult and rewarding).

One friend sent me Scripture verses, almost daily. He challenged my doubts and questioned my devotional habits with unbending tough-love. It was uncomfortable and humbling, and I needed it.

The other friend — my prayer warrior — messaged me daily, “How are you doing? I’m praying for you.”

And slowly, slowly I started to find the pathway home.

God still felt far away, but I was reading Scripture every day, I was actively fighting the sin that had built up in my life, and I was praying again. I was drawing near to God — toddling closer with the clumsy steps of someone learning to walk for the first time. And this time I understood what was hanging in the balance.

For the first time in my life, I truly understood what grace was. I understood why we refer to our Christian walk as the ‘good fight’ — because it is a fight. It is spiritual warfare that we must consciously engage in, and we must win. And only by the grace of God will we.

The good news, of course, is that for those of us who do don the armor of God, the fight has already been won, our souls purchased by the blood of the Son of God himself.

I share this story, not because I am proud of any of it — not the fall from grace, nor even the return, for it was not my doing, but the Lord’s.

I share because I know I am not alone. I know that those of us who grew up in the church will one day be put to the test, if we haven’t already, and I want you to know that you are not alone in this fight either. The body of Christ, fellow saints and believers are struggling too, and they are here to pick us up as we stumble — in sin, in doubt, in fear, in grief, in loss.

It is easy for Christians to pretend that we do not stumble, to waltz into church on Sunday in our best clothes, singing with our loudest voices, while hiding the sin and hurt and pain that is welling up inside of us.

The facade of the perfect Christian will kill the church.

If you assume that the people sitting next to you have never struggled with temptations, never failed in their walk with the Lord, never doubted their faith or their assurance, how likely are you to share your own struggles with them? And if we do not confess to each other, we cannot build each other back up. We cannot edify and heal the body, so it will rot.

God uses a broken church to work out his sovereign grace, which means we need to swallow our pride, face our shame, and ask our brothers and sisters for help.

I share this story in order to shatter my own self-crafted image as a poster child for the Christian community — me, the missionary associate, the youth leader, the camp counselor, the school evangelist, the Christian blogger or whatever false idea exists about who I am and who I am not.

I am a sinner, ransomed and redeemed, lost and found.

I share this story so that you, too, might share yours with those who need to hear it or those who can help you through the battle, to the glory of God.

The story of the prodigal son isn’t about the sons, you see, it is about the father. It is about his faithfulness — and how great it is! New every morning, with strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow.

I realize now what it means to be the lost sheep — all those years in Sunday school learning the story, and I finally understand how it feels to walk away from the pasture, how it feels to be scared and alone and wonder if you’ll ever find your way back, how it feels to be wrapped in the tender arms of the Shepherd and brought back to the fold.

So, I share this story because I want you to feel this too. I want you to know that our God is so good to us. That his grace is sweet and his mercy is free. That you are his forever. That, even though the road home can look long and feel empty, you will not be walking it alone. Christ will be shepherding your footsteps all the way, until you reach the end and find our Heavenly Father waiting to receive you with open arms.

an open letter to single women and literally everyone else

~ agirlnamedmary ~ Leave a comment

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Dear single women and literally everyone else in the whole world, but especially in the Christian community,

I think it’s time we cleared up a few things. These are things I know you know, but sometimes a reminder is helpful (if you’re tired of reading things about singleness, feel free to move along. I’m impressed you even stopped by). And because I’ve had this conversation four times in the last week, I decided to just blog about it to save myself some time.

Because tone is tough to convey online, please know that this is said in love with firmness of conviction and gentleness of heart. This did not used to be an easy subject for me to talk about and I know many of my dear friends still find it hard to put words to the feelings of doubt, loneliness, isolation and rejection that can come from being a single woman of “marital age” in the Christian community.

So…

  1. Your value as a human being is not in your relationship status, but in the image you bear that reflects our Creator.
    Okay, this one is basic and we all know it. But I also know it doesn’t always seem like this when our friends get married and have kids and we’re still here burning poptarts and watching Netflix by ourselves on Friday nights (..um, okay, maybe that’s just me). The point is, I know that the trend in our community sometimes seems like you aren’t important unless you have family – this is true especially in the church. Gosh, it’s like we aren’t even fully human until we get someone to put a ring on it. But know that God didn’t make you half a person, destined to wait for your other half to come along. He made you a whole person. And he also made you with a job to do, and right now he’s asking you to do it in whatever your current relationship status is (because this applies to married people too). God has a purpose for each family, and each individual. So go out and do it, you beautiful, capable, whole person!

     For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”

    -Ephesians 2:10

  2. A relationship will not fulfill you.
    Mmk, in the spirit of honesty, I learned this one the hard way. I was in a relationship with a godly young man that could reasonably could have ended in marriage. I was surprised to find that after six months, not only did it not feel fulfilling, but (at least on my end) it also didn’t seem very godly. This may have been because I went into the relationship hoping to achieve my own ends rather than allowing God to work out his own. The only relationship that will fulfill you is the one you have with God. But when we take our eyes off God and our aim is no longer to glorify him, we will ultimately fall short of the good things God has in store for those who wait on him. Keep in mind that good things do not necessarily mean “husband and kids” (though they also sometimes do, and that’s wonderful because it has made me an aunt and that’s probably my life’s second-greatest joy and definitely my favorite job). Those good things might look very different from what we’ve been wanting, expecting, or told we should want or expect (but we will rejoice in them because they are from him and his inexpressible fullness and grace will be far greater than what we had even thought to ask for!). And that leads us to our next point.
  3. The community does not decide your calling, God does.
    I don’t mean to sound prickly here, but sometimes the church community can be a little over zealous about marriage. We know everyone is well-intentioned, but it can feel like a witch-hunt sometimes (single women being the witches, with gossip, judgement and pity – the very worst of the three – being the flames that consume). And if you embrace your singleness and explore the plans God has for you, sometimes those flames get a little aggressive. (STOP AND BREATHE: I am obviously not saying everyone who has asked you about your relationship status is a witch-hunter, nor should you. I’m saying, a lot of us know what it feels like to find our feet walking down a path leading us far away from the expectations and hopes of dear people in our lives). Do not be dismayed. God sees your patience and your graciousness. And he also sees the plans he has for you, and he knows they are good. Because, of course they are. He is a good God. If God calls you to be a wife and mother, rejoice. If he calls you first to go to college, become a doctor, work on a mission field, travel the world, pursue the arts or stay home to care for elderly parents, rejoice! If he calls you to be single till the day he calls you home again so that you can serve him in that capacity, rejoice! Rejoice always. Rejoice, because you have been created for a purpose, elected as a child of the Risen King, and given a job to do, chosen by the Almighty himself. And if that job is sweeping floors, or building skyscrapers, or raising children, or sitting deaf, lame, and blind in a corner praying for people you’ve never met, it will be the same in the eyes of God. And believe me, if done unto the Lord, there is peace that comes with sweeping floors.
  4. Love God first, and he will help you love everything else.
    It is easy to feel isolated when you are single. Easy to feel like everyone else caught the wave into shore and you’re still sitting stupidly on your surfboard in the open ocean, wondering if sharks can smell fear and cheap pizza. It’s easy to feel like every glance your way is a pitying or judgemental one, like no one understands what you’re going through (especially married people), like life is a little more unfair than people claimed it would be. And it’s easy to think that maybe there’s something wrong with you. (Like, I know I’m a little high-maintenance and have the emotional stability of a goldfish, but I’m really a charming person beyond that. Just ask my pet rock!). People will tell you to love yourself. People will tell you to find contentment in the Lord and then he will give you a husband (Ha!). People will say that you are fine just the way you are (that may or may not be true. I know I personally have some work to do). I’m here to tell you that this is misguided advice. Love God and he will give you a new heart with which to love everything else, including yourself. When you start seeing yourself as a child of the God you love, and everyone else as his children, and this whole world as his beautiful work of art, a divinely written story that we get to be a part of, suddenly it does seem lovely. Our own attitudes will inevitably shift when we look to truly see the works of God’s hands and are filled utterly with his ineffable grace. And this is important because the more we channel that love into our lives, the better witnesses we will be for God’s kingdom, to testify to his goodness and minister to his people.

Now. Which of those four things might also apply to someone who doesn’t strictly fit the “lonely 20-something” category of youngish women? All of them. That’s because relationship status does not put you in a separate category of what it means to be a Christian. It’s simply another way we are sometimes called to serve.

So enough of the pity-parties (for yourself or for the poor, dear single women in your church). We have been given jobs to do on this earth in this lifetime. What a privilege!

Now may the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, equip you with everything good for doing his will, and may he work in us what is pleasing to him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.”

-Hebrews 13:20-21

And, lastly, know that if you are called to serve as a single person, you will not be doing it alone. We work together, the unified body of Christ, brothers and sisters. We are all his bride. Let us unite and use the gifts, time and talents he has given us to fight the good fight. And may we find peace and joy in the task!

sincerely,

a sister in Christ

Saint George, tea and my wee little star

~ agirlnamedmary ~ 1 Comment

Saint George and the Dragon by Margaret Hodges was a book I was raised on. Beautifully brought to life by the art nouveau illustrations of Trina Schart Hyman, the story captured my childhood imagination with distant lands and faraway places.

As Saint George, mounted on a valiant steed and bearing a red cross upon his white shield, follows the fair Princess Una into a realm terrorized by a dragon, I too trailed behind them, lighted by images of faeries and magical creatures, led by the dim glow of adventure ever on the horizon.

Northern Ireland looks a lot like the pages of that fairy tale. Green and gold fields lie in patchwork patterns, stitched together by rows of hawthorn bushes. Brick cottages line country roads like red-capped mushrooms leading towards a fairy castle. And sunlight, softer than stardust, falls from magnificently clouded skies.

After leaving Prague, which was just as difficult as I expected it would be, I found myself on a bus speeding towards Belfast to spend a day with one of my very most favorite families, literally ever. I like to break up the trip home with a stop in Ireland because 24 hours on a plane is just no bueno, and I couldn’t leave Europe without seeing the MacArthurs.

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They picked me up from the bus stop, drove me southeast into the countryside, put me up in a room inside their beautiful Georgian dollhouse of a home, gave me a spot of tea, and sent me to bed, which was basically the best welcoming reception of all time.

That feathery sunlight woke me up the next morning, which was incredible considering how dark a morning it was, complete with the foreboding winds of a coming storm.

“Victoria’s going to take you around today,” Mrs. MacArthur told me over cereal, hot cross buns and tea.

Victoria seems exactly the same since the last time I saw her 18 months ago. There is something about youth that keeps a person growing, and yet unchanged, like a star that churns in the abyss of the galaxy where time cannot reach its effervescent twinkle.

She’s a pretty girl, sweet and unassuming, with a perfect blend of joviality and tempered enthusiasm. And she’s just gotten her driver’s license.

So it was with mild trepidation that we both began our morning’s adventures, her as she got behind the wheel of a car, and me as I climbed into the left side of the vehicle.

Our first stop was Greyabbey cemetery, and the road that took us there wound through a collection of villages decked with flags and bunting from the most recent public holiday.

“Those are for Prince William of Orange,” Victoria explained. “He defeated someone on July 12, but I don’t remember who. And this used to be a castle we’re passing but I’m not sure who it belonged to.”

Where information was lacking, charm and general pleasantries about the countryside was used as substitution. For Victoria, this magical place is just home. For me, it’s a strange new wonderland and I spent most of the day picturing myself traversing it on a grey horse with a gleaming sword (and a super pretty, probably impractical princess dress).

“Do you ever think that whoever owned that castle could be your lords today if we were still under that kind of governance?” I asked as we pulled into the gravelly car park.

“I guess not,” she said. “I don’t think I really know the area that well. This is actually only my second time to the abbey. I only discovered it a week ago.”

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Greyabbey was built in the 12th century by a group of people whose names we could not pronounce and therefore cannot remember. Most of it still stood erect, minus the roof and about sixty percent of the walls. But the beautiful arches and the front edifice remained. It was huge.

Wandering through the garden, past plants like mugwort and vervain, felt very Medieval indeed.

And then the graveyard. It’s stone markers falling over, crumbling to pieces, it looked derelict and forgotten. Most of the tombstones dated back to the 17th and 18th centuries. These people lived and died before my country was ever born.

We got our fill of nostalgia and wandered back to the car. Next stop: Victoria’s grandparents.

George and Rosemary live in a quaint brick house. A sunroom off the kitchen juts out into the brightest flurry of garden flowers you will ever see. Blazingly orange nasturtiums and baby-pink wall roses nestled between shocks of purple and blue flowers and doves and pigeons lighted in and out of low-creeping tree branches. What a garden!

In the sunroom, a blue-and-white tea table was set with little cups, plates of potato bread, jams, honey, berries and a tea pot snuggled deeply into a tea cozy.

Rosemary led us to a sofa and Victoria took a seat at one end. One more spot was open next to her and a wooden chair sat just beyond that. Suddenly, years of flipping through Norman Rockwell picture books came flooding back to me. This was a real tea. I was expected to sit like a real little lady, probably with legs crossed at the ankle and back straight, as Victoria was already so aptly demonstrating. Thrill filled my soul. Tea time.

I sat down and was asked questions by Rosemary about my life and plans, and when she got up to busy herself around the kitchen, George came out of the garden woodshed and took up her place.

Was I a student? What did I study? Did I work? What kind of journalism did I do in the States? Where was I coming from? Did I like Prague? Had it been hard to leave? Yes…some changes are very hard, indeed.

George led us in prayer before tea began.

“We thank you, Lord, for all these good gifts,” he said, his deep brogue bending wide in sincerity as we approached the feet of our Creator. “And let this food nourish our bodies today – even Mary’s, though she is herself a journalist.”

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And so commenced our tea. Delightful, from the first sip to the last breadcrumb. I especially enjoyed the “traybakes,” a scrumptious compact of biscuits, candied cherries, marshmallows and sweetened condensed milk. But before reaching for a butter knife, stirring my tea or taking a bit of something laid out before us, I would glance over at Victoria first to see if I was doing it correctly.

When tea was finished, Rosemary showed me her collection of tea cozies, which she sells online (and which you should totally look into if you’re at all into the tea scene).

Then she packed us a picnic lunch and filled our arms with gifts and goodies for the road, and we were ushered on our way.

Several runaway strands of sunlight christened the start of the afternoon as we drove past the local lough, which, I later learned, has the largest presence of organisms of any lough in Ireland (or something along those lines. I mostly just remembered that it look pretty).

We parked on the slope of a hill and walked a short ways through a stronge breeze and grey sunshine to the top where Scrabo Tower stood proudly and alone against a pale sky.

Around us, Northern Ireland stretched out like a blanket, covering the world we could see in deep greens and golds. To one side, the Irish Sea sidled along the coast, bringing the Isle of Man and the shores of Scotland just into view.

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“They were going to build a castle here too,” Victoria explained as the wind rattled our jackets (I was wearing a jacket and a hoodie because it was freezing. Victoria barely had a sweater on).

“Why didn’t they?”

“I guess they got lazy,” she said.

The tower was tall and dark, made of thick brown stones and covered with moss around the base. My head filled with images of knights climbing the hill, fully armored, ready for siege or ready for rest. What a world this must have been only a few hundred years ago.

We climbed back down the hill for a spot of tea (again) and lunch. Sandwiches were pulled out of our hamper and chocolate and traybakes were distributed. I rambled on and on about fairy castles and dueling knights as Victoria sat in patient silence.

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“This is beautiful,” I finally said.

“It’s home.”

In an instant, that word brought me speeding back to the Czech Republic, beneath amber rays of sunlight and skies as big and open as the universe. I don’t know when it happened, but at some point in the last six years, home for me became the winding curve of the Vltava covered in hoar frost and the gentle sloping of forested hills and spired villages. The feeling was so powerful that not even the enchantment of a day in a fairy land with my wee little friend could distract me from the sudden rush of heartbreak that welled inside me.

I don’t know what I had been thinking, going back to Prague. Because, although my six weeks in the Czech Republic were a dream, I knew, I knew, leaving was going to break my heart a second time.

Our last stop of the day was a pottery barn where we could hide from the rain that had begun to plop down against the countryside. The weather was beginning to reflect the somber churnings of my mind, so bright colors and sponge molds were a welcome relief from it all.Temp1_drive-download-20160801T181131Z1

Victoria is a pottery pro. Her plate was finished and looking fine a good half hour before mine was. She patiently sat and watched me painstakingly etch out my feelings onto a plate, disguised as clouds and birds and seascapes. I threw in a few faerie mushrooms as well, just because.

When we got back to the house, the heavens had opened up on us and rain was coming down with sincerity.

Dinner wasn’t for a few more hours so Victoria and I agreed we had both earned a nap. I shut the door to the little guest bedroom on the second story, the view of hawthorn trees blowing in the gale framing my window, and fell fast asleep into dreams of home.

Dinner was a wee affair, with just the four of us there to enjoy the delicious food and splendid conversation. Mostly, we talked about other missionaries, some I had met in Madrid when I first ran into the MacArthurs, others I had only heard about from them. Lots of people coming and going from one spot on the map to another, wherever the Lord calls them to serve next.

Finally, we piled into the car one last time and went into town for ice cream and coffee. Victoria grinned eight shades of happiness behind her cone and cup.

Curled up next to a window that looked out onto a street splashed with rain, we continued to chit chat about life and the world. This little family exemplifies Christian hospitality, such that I am humbled and inspired in my own Christian walk because of them.

And it was a good reminder for me.

I’m sure the Lord is using these good people for more important tasks than simply helping one lost Pilgrim find the path of purpose again and the way home, but on this day, that is exactly what they did. They reminded me that God calls us to serve in many places and none of them will be home, for home is heaven.

“The Fairy Queen has sent you to do brave deeds in this world. That High City that you see is in another world. Before you climb the path to it and hang your shield on its wall, go down into the valley and fight the dragon that you were sent to fight.”

-Margaret Hodges, Saint George and the Dragon

Who knows where we’ll be called to go under the banner of God’s Kingdom? To the darkest parts of Africa or the glimmering lights of cities who do not know our Savior, or even right back to our own front door. All these adventures we must first embark on before we can truly go home, and when that day comes, every tear shall be wiped away and all that was lost will be refilled with the goodness of God himself.

And I will rejoice to see the MacArthurs right there with me, joining the throng of the church invisible, brought to completion at last.

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The World Behind Me

~ agirlnamedmary ~ 2 Comments

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.”

-Mark Twain

 

Self-admittedly, I have always been a little self-righteous. It began innocently enough – as most sins do – something good rooted in a sinful nature that eventually turns into something not so good.

I grew up in a home that taught me to love knowledge, love truth, love the practice of it. And because of that, a very large part of my identity is founded on a pride in knowing and following the truth. I build up a castle of facts around myself so that when I am faced with conflict or adversity, I have ground to stand on.

Truth is my fortress.

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Several years at college, in the workforce and then on the other side of the world have done a lot to change my view of the world. Issues I used to take for granted, used to stubbornly defend as the absolute truth, I am seeing are more complex than my 16-year old mind could have understood at the time. The details aren’t important beyond mentioning that only what I believe about my faith has remained completely unaltered.

Since coming home, I have begun to see much more vividly how far I have branched away from the views of my family and friends (and now I understand why they say never to discuss religion and politics at the dinner table).

It has felt isolating, to be honest. No one prepared me for that. I certainly still align myself more with the views of the community I grew up in than say, the far liberal left. The unfortunate result is feeling like I don’t really fit in either group.

Maybe other millennials are feeling the same way. This is what our parents wanted, right? They wanted us to grow up and become our own thinkers.

But I’m afraid I have played the part of the bitter idealist for too long. I have been the tortured, enlightened martyr in the fight for perspective and balance that every secretly hates talking to for more than four minutes lest I begin another rant. And it was yet another journey that has begun to cure me of my own self-importance (which, though much less self-righteous in nature, has manifested itself similarly).

Athens is quite a place to experience. What a city of paradoxes. Greeks are a people divided by a courageous compassion for those washing up on their shores and a fearful self-focus, making them apathetic to the needs of humans in the throes of great tragedy. It’s a ruined city built around a city of ruins – both of which are celebrated in their own way. And it’s a city with ancient people and modern people; tourists, foreigners and refugees.

It’s an amazing place to build a church.

I visited three churches while I was there, all of which were freckled with different nationalities, different worship backgrounds, different theologies. It was uncomfortable for me and my frigid protestant background.

My self-righteous spirit was much more awake during those services than my humility ever was, as it critiqued and criticized every aspect of the worship. There is a Biblical way to have a church service, there is order and method for a reason. The liturgy, the depth of our hymns, the fencing of the table, the preaching of the word all has ordained structure! I’d be screaming on the inside as I sat through a messy fifth chorus of “Good, Good Father.”

Following one of the services, the congregation of Greeks, Americans, Sri Lankans, Iranians and North Africans piled into cars and drove to the seaside. It was time for a baptism.

Now, I was raised as a paedobaptist, which means we baptize our infants as a sign that they are born into the covenant family of God, whether or not they are elect believers. I have seen several adult baptisms, one in a backyard pool in the Czech mountains and another in a church baptismal in the South.

This one was different. Perhaps because I was already feeling so rigidly defensive of my own beliefs and practices.

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We spilled onto mushy white sand, which was littered with trash and seaweed. A huge storm had rolled over the night before. The debris seemed to suggest that the sea had gotten sick and thrown up whatever was in its belly onto the beach.

We picked our way to the water’s edge where four Iranians stood, ready to give us their testimonies. They were all refugees. Some had left their homes seeking God, others had found him along the way. Some had been rejected by their families and spouses because of their faith in Christ. Some had left good jobs and good lives to come to Greece. Each one had made a dangerous journey. Each one had had to leave the community they were born into to join the family of God. Each one gave up their world for the next.

The sun was still low in the late-morning sky and it turned the water into a silver sheet of ripples. So bright were its rays, so clear was the sky, that all we could see were the silhouettes of our new brothers and sisters as they were lowered into the water and brought back up, new creations in Christ Jesus.

An African woman to my left began to sing a song I have known since childhood. It’s one of those songs I have written off as shallow and repetitive, but in the context of this baptism it took on new life.

I have decided to follow Jesus
No turning back, no turning back.

The cross before me, the world behind me
No turning back, no turning back.

It was a long way down for me that morning. You don’t realize how high your horse is until someone clubs you in the stomach and knocks you off.

I am so narrow-minded.

The impatience I once had for people who grew up with different values than I did, I now have toward those who don’t apply these values the same way I do. My stubborn insistence that I am right has made me unkind and uncaring. Some child of God I am.

We should seek the truth, but we must speak it in love. Our castles of fact will not serve us well if we cannot learn how to invite others in with winsomeness and charity.

God’s people come from all over the world – in it, not of it. We are born into different cultures and traditions. We will disagree on how to be good stewards of this earth or godly citizens beneath the authority of men which God has placed us under. We will even disagree on what it looks like to be a child of the Risen King. Our churches will have different flavors and our Christian walks will be the varying tunes of a mighty orchestra that rises in harmony to the ears of God, the Great Composer.

And if the beauty of a broken people united and made perfect in Christ were not enough to strip away self-importance, the reminder that we are all refugees in the eyes of God, washing onto the world’s shores with nothing to give brought me back down to my knees.

In the damp sand of an ancient shore on a very clear day, I remembered the second greatest commandment. It is not, love the truth. It is love your neighbor.