The Darkness has Not Overcome

Fear is sneaky.

Most days, especially when the sun is shining, I can function normally and leave the rest to God.

But then there are the times when the days have been gloomy and the girls have been testy and night falls and I'm left feeling like the locomotive of COVID-19 is barreling down the tracks toward my family and it's only a matter of time til it hits and all I can do is hunker down and wait.

On one such night last week, I actually did something right about my emotions. I talked to my husband (who's been a voice of calm in the insanity of the last few weeks) and then went up to bed and opened my Bible.

(I'm working my way through "The Story," an adaptation of the NIV that presents the words of Scripture, while in selections, as one continuous story. Reading it is much like reading any other book, with breaks for chapters rather than separate books with chapters and verses. While there are brief editorial breaks to explain themes or summarize missing sections, it's largely simply the Biblical text, and it's been a nice way for me to get a new perspective on passages that otherwise have become rote.)

I opened to my bookmark, and this is the first thing that met my eyes.

That's where the stirring of the Holy Spirit stopped me, and what I believe He impressed on my heart was exactly what I needed at that moment. I'd like to share it with you, in the hope that you may be encouraged, too. It's maybe not completely cohesive, but hopefully it's coherent!

In the beginning - As God was speaking planets and molecules into existence, He already knew that the year AD 2020 would find a pandemic sweeping the globe.

He knew it all: the beginning of COVID-19 in China; Italy's anguish; that hospitals would be unprepared; the steady creep of the disease from our continent's coasts toward its interior. He already knew every detail of what was coming, including the ones we don't know yet.

He isn't surprised; He isn't less good; He isn't less in control.

the Word - Jesus, "the Word," is the sum total of God's message to humanity. He's the culmination of everything God had said before the New Testament, everything God has promised to say to His people, and everything God is ever going to say. Think of it! All this embodied in one 33-year life on planet Earth. (Spoiler alert: His life and teaching still have ramifications for us today!)

Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. - Seventh grade science tells us humans are made when an egg and sperm fuse to become a zygote. This mono-cellular carrier of a complete genetic code has all the information necessary to bring into being a fully functioning adult man or woman.

John, the writer of the above passage, tells us that it is actually an egg, a sperm, and God who make each person (although maybe not in that order...).

Psalms says God knitted my children together within my womb.

This is an issue of personal workmanship!

If I take pains that the frisky cat not claw up the afghan I crocheted - if I delight in the art and craftsmanship of my hand and my husband's and our friends' - if I hang these things on my walls and store them gently when they're not on display - how much more does my God care for the two miraculous lives He designed, built, and brought to life? We're not guaranteed a pass on suffering or even on infection, but He knows. He understands. My fear, my attempt to trust, my weakness in the face of the unknown, all of it.

And He loves my daughters more fiercely even than their mommy and daddy do, and He will work all things to good. They are safe in the hands that made them. (And while I still pray that my husband and I will be allowed to raise our children to adulthood, I also thank God for allowing us to raise them this day.)

life/light - In this time of disease, we understand our need for life much like we understand our need for light only when in a dark room in the middle of a power outage. Jesus possessed the life that was the light of all mankind.

And we killed it.

The darkness in you and the darkness in me rose up and extinguished Him. (We spend a lot of time talking about the good in everyone, but why would we put so much effort into proclaiming our goodness if there wasn't actually darkness - sin - there, too?)

He was dead.

Gone.
Kaput.
Laid in a grave.

(Have you been to a funeral? Looked in a casket? Seen it prepared to be lowered into the ground? How many of those people do you see walking down the sidewalk a week or two later?)

And for two days, it looked like the darkness had overcome.

But.

But then?

Then came Easter morning.

Letting God Do His Job

HELLO . . . hello . . . hello . . .

Ahh, the echoes of a long-neglected blog!

Usually, my posts grow out of a thought or impression that follows me over the course of several days until it has developed into a full-blown post. Lately, I've been running so fast trying to keep up with our 20-month-old that a thought flies out of my head before it has a chance to root, much less grow into anything worthwhile. Besides - blog or sleep? No contest, lately!

But, for you kind souls who like to amuse yourselves while humoring my vanity by reading these posts, I'll let you in on something that has managed to keep pace with my life lately. It's been much longer in the making than my typical posts, actually.

Go back with me several summers. We had only owned our small-town home a short while but were rapidly falling in love with the idea of raising a family here. We felt we lived in a real-life Mayberry, in the best sense of the expression. The people were kind, the town was clean, and the opportunities were just perfect for our purposes.

These happy thoughts were percolating while I was out for an early-morning jog, trying to beat the heat that July day. My usual route took me past the town park where the carnival was setting up in anticipation of our town festival that weekend.

Now, I've never spent much time thinking about carnival workers and their lives. Of course, I've seen some flicks and heard some stories about the rough life they lead or the shady character that can be a carnie, but that was about all the time I'd ever bothered about them. So, when I say, "the thought crossed my mind," I really don't mean to imply that it came from me. But, it was in my mind, suddenly, and I didn't know what to do with it:

"I wonder what they think of our town?"

The thought stopped me in my tracks. What? Of course they know what a lovely town this is, what nice people we are.

How would they know? What if your town is just another stop to them? Another weekend, to make another check, to pack up and do it again for another town just looking to have a good time?

Did they think we were snobs? Did we ignore them? Treat them as less-than?

What if they didn't even like being here in my town?

Well, I didn't like bothering with such uncomfortable thoughts. After all, I was still a new-comer. What could I do?

So, I finished my jog and conveniently forgot all about the whole thing.

Until last summer.

When the same thing happened all over again.

I can be dense, but I listened better the second time.

But, how does one reach out to a carnie? What do they need? What would they be open to having someone do for them? What have others done?

Enter the all-knowing Google!

Except, Google didn't really know, either.

I searched "carnival worker ministry," and I maybe got a handful of articles, written 10 years ago or more.

Except there was one hit from a Facebook page, dated earlier that summer, and titled (drumroll, please!), "Carnival Worker Ministry"!

Eureka!

I backtracked to the hosting church's website - for a church in Kentucky - and shortly had a phone number.

Gathering my courage about me, I put N down for a nap, tucked into my easy chair with a pen and a sticky note, and dialed the number into my cell.

A couple of rings later, I was speaking with a kind woman with a Southern lilt to her words - not so much that I couldn't understand her, but enough that I made sure to listen closely!

Wouldn't you know it, she just happened to be part of the women's group that headed that particular ministry. I told her my reason for calling, explained Google's lack of assistance, how I had found their page, and asked, "What do I need to know?"

She was positively tickled that I had called and gladly walked me through their yearly potluck dinner with the carnival workers, explained how they prepared, what sort of gifts they collected via donations to send with them, and much more.

At the end of our conversation, I thanked her, and she left me with the church's email address, requesting photos should anything come of our conversation.

Earlier this year, I contacted our festival board, and they were thrilled to have new ideas and new blood - especially, I think, since I was willing to head up the project!

The library is willing to be the collection site of donations.

Now, I am in the stage of contacting area churches. I sent out emails late Thursday afternoon and nervously check my inbox every time my phone chimes.

I would like this to be a community effort, but I want to have a devotion during the meal and give Bibles and devotional materials along with the other gifts, so I need it to clearly be an interchurch and community event. In order to have an interchurch event, I need churches involved.

So, I wait. And pray.

It's scary not knowing what will happen.

Maybe no one will want to come to the potluck. Then I will be doing a lot of cooking.

Maybe a lot of community members will show at the potluck, but none of the carnival workers will bother. That would be awkward.

But, I can't control that.

I can only step out, one foot after the other, in what I believe to be the path I've been asked to follow.

It seems God has been asking me to do that sort of thing more often lately - do what I am supposed to do and leave the rest to Him.

It's tough letting God do His job.

But it's much less work than doing it for Him.

Not a Good Christian Girl Anymore

When I first considered starting a blog (in the spring of 2012), that's what I thought I would name it. Not as a jab at my Christian heritage or a rebellion against the Christian faith but as a chronicle of my struggle to leave behind acting like a Christian and start being like Christ.

"Many of us don't want to be led by the Holy Spirit. . . . Many of us don't want to be led by anyone other than ourselves." "If you say you want the Holy Spirit, you must first honestly ask yourself if you want to do His will" (from Forgotten God, by Francis Chan, pp. 50, 51).

I ask God for His wisdom. I beg for it. I need it now and in the life to which He is calling me.

I ask Him to move in me, that His Holy Spirit would fill me and take hold of me.

Then I turn around and do it all myself.

After all, I know what the church expects. I know what modern, American Christianity expects. If I let Him do it, He might do it wrong! It might look weird when He gets finished with it, and that would be embarrassing.

I slap God's hands away from my life and my affairs, say, "I'll handle this," and bustle off with a nod of my head.

Then it falls apart and I run back, dump it in His lap, and ask Him through my groans and tears to make it all work.

But, oh, when will I learn? If I would leave it with Him from the first, it wouldn't be broken . . . and if it looked broken in His hands (and I left it there still), I could trust Him to make it all right.

Oh! the peace of mind I sell for my "right" to have things my way!

But why do I want the Holy Spirit? Am I asking like Simon the Magician, trying to buy Him for myself (p. 84)?

Is this an effort to be "Christian cool," one of those people to whom others look up? Is it some sort of Christian club membership to me? I've always wanted to be part of that elusive inner circle, whatever the context. Is that all this desire has been?

I know that at least part of the desire comes with my life calling. I'm totally unequipped. I feel like I'm play-acting and it's only a matter of time before I'm discovered, like the Holy Spirit is my only chance at "legitimacy."

But, if God has called, isn't that legitimate enough?
When do I stop seeking my nod of approval from the world - even the "Christian" world?
When will God be enough?

Maybe when I'm done following rules and am ready to pursue a whole different way of life.
Maybe when I'm done looking good and am ready to be made good.
Maybe when I'm done focusing on myself and am ready to follow Him.

Maybe when I'm done being a good Christian girl.