Swatches of Hope

For a few weeks now, I’ve been carrying around some unusual symbols of hope: a small stack of paint swatches in a wrinkled plastic grocery bag.

I’d been looking for a new place to live—someplace close enough to work and school to shorten a soul-draining daily commute. A good space for having friends over, with enough room for a little dog, and a small balcony where I can read on warm summer nights. A space with walls I can paint whatever color I want.

Finding that space has taken more than a year—a long year full of appointments and paperwork squeezed around all of my regular responsibilities. As time has ground on, the idea of having a home has started to feel more abstract than concrete. I know intellectually that eventually I’ll fax the last mound of papers, write the last check, get the keys, and move in, but I didn’t feel connected to that reality.

So a few weeks ago, I went to the hardware store on a mission to find some paint swatches. I figured that having some small reminders of the joy I’d feel once I had my own place would help me feel encouraged and connected, even as I slogged along.

While I’d already made the decision to see the process through until the end, somehow carrying around swatches with names like Banana Cream Pie and Buttered Sweet Corn has helped me to remain positive and joyful, if a little hungry.

This small example from my day-to-day life has me thinking about what hope means for a follower of Christ. While I affirm that my hope is in him in a sort of general, overarching sense, just skimming the day’s headlines about the host of intractable problems facing the world presents a deep challenge to that hope.

I wonder: How do I connect what feels like abstract hope to the concrete problems I see? Are we all just slogging along in this mess, seeing bright little splashes of hope here and there, but mostly getting worn down? And how does the gospel apply to all of this?

A friend of mine often poses these questions by asking, “What’s the Good News for this situation?” And sometimes, I just don’t know. I find myself living the realities of Romans 8, which describes the joyful challenges of freedom in Christ, of waiting for God’s glory to be revealed, and of living as victors who cannot be separated from the love of God.

One of my favorite gospel songs, by the composer Lucie Campbell, describes having a “something within” that allows a believer to persist through the challenges of life:

“Something within me that holdeth the reins/ Something within me that banishes pain/ Something within me I cannot explain, All that I know there is something within.”

Campbell’s lyrics describe that “something within” as a “heavenly fire.” If hope is one of those “somethings within,” how can we maintain it, so that it warms others?

I often find myself encouraged by a good book about faith or a conversation with a fellow traveler who is farther along the road of faith than I am. But I’d like to become someone who integrates hope more deeply into my life. I’d like to “practice” it—to carry it around with me like I have these swatches for the last few weeks.

What helps you to practice hope?

26.2 Miles for Water

Recently, I made the mistake of going to church. A World Vision marathon recruiter shared stories of African villages that don’t have water. Women and children walk miles every day just to find water. And whatever water they find typically is bacteria-ridden.

As I sat listening to her pitch about how we could run the Chicago Marathon and raise funds to help bring water to the driest places in the world, something inside me rose up and said, “Yes, I can help. I may not be able to pay for a well or a water filtration system, but I bet I could raise enough money for water.”

Once the vision was planted in my brain, there was no turning back. So one month ago I registered to run the Chicago Marathon for the first time. I’ve never run a marathon before. The farthest I’ve ever run is three miles! But I knew God was challenging me to step out in faith to make a difference in the lives of women and children who desperately need the basic necessities of life—something I too often take for granted.

So now I’m part of Team World Vision, one of the world’s largest Christian charitable organizations. Never in a million years would I have conceived of running a marathon. Each week now, I have been training with my Team World Vision running mates. I will continue meeting with them every Saturday for the next 18 weeks. And on October 10, 2010 (10/10/10), I will run 26.2 miles in the Chicago Marathon, an endeavor I never would have thought to attempt for my own sake. But for water, I will run, even though there’s nothing within my physical capabilities today to indicate I can do this.

Because there’s no way I’ll be able to run this marathon without God’s help, I decided to set an equally audacious fundraising goal—$26,200! That’s a thousand dollars for each mile. I’m claiming Mark 10:27: “With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God.”

I’ll keep you posted on my progress here on Kyria.com. You can follow me with my team and donate to this great cause at http://bit.ly/af9HfV. And of course, you can pray for me and my teammates—and all the folks who will be running in World Vision marathons across the country this year—that we’ll be able to train well, run hard, and keep the focus on why we’re doing what we’re doing.

Identity Crisis

Identity is a funny thing. We often base it upon the realities of our day-to-day: “I’m a mom,” “I’m an athlete,” “I’m a teacher.” What we do becomes who we are, which happens easily when we invest in a vocation, craft, or gift.

So we naturally experience a sense of vertigo when our seeming significance is ripped from us. Who do we become when we can’t do what we feel we’re made to do, what we’re supposed to do in order to minister to others, or to keep our own sanity?

Maybe the change is health-related. Or someone telling us, “Actually, this might not be your gift.” Or it could simply be a change in life circumstances. When we’ve placed our sense of being into a fragile vessel, what happens to our identity when that vessel shatters?

I experienced this confusion my freshman year of college. I was a voice major, and singing was my thing. I felt comfortable calling myself a singer. But when I was put on vocal rest (no lessons, no choir, no performing) because of a nodule on my vocal chords, I went into an existential tailspin. If I wasn’t—even temporarily—a singer, who was I?

This was a time of wrestling for me, a time of shedding my comfortable skin of doing. Awkwardly at first, I moved toward a deeper sense of self. God used this difficulty to show me gifts I didn’t know were there, passions that hadn’t yet developed because of my singular focus.

My sense of identity wasn’t wrong, but it was narrow. These identities we give ourselves matter. It would be naïve to say they don’t. They matter deeply as evidence of our unique humanity, beings made in the image of an incarnated Savior.

But we need to allow room for the Holy Spirit to redefine and deepen these identities. Sometimes the only way we find our true self is by—willingly or not—giving up who we thought we were and letting God smash and broaden our rigid ideas about him and what he can do through us.

What about you: Have you experienced this painful identity crisis? How did God surprise you during that time?

Martha Stewart Is Not Hospitable

If you ask a group (I’ve tried this, so I know), “What is the first thing that comes to your mind when you hear the word hospitality?” most people will say, “Martha Stewart.” And that’s just a shame, because Martha Stewart is not hospitable.

How can I say that, you ask?

I watched a Today show segment where Martha was illustrating how to decorate a gingerbread house. Meredith Vieira tried to follow Martha’s directions as they decorated it together. When they’d finished Martha turned the house to display the side she had done, rather than Meredith’s. Meredith asked her why she didn’t show her side, and Martha said, “We want it to look pretty.” Meredith looked offended and said, “Martha!” in a tone of surprise and hurt.

Hospitality is not providing the perfect meal in the perfect home by the perfect hostess. We’ve been led to believe that’s what it is by the Martha Stewart perfection that many of us secretly aspire to. I’d love to be able to turn out food and events that look like Martha’s, but I gave up on that long ago because of time and lack of ability (my gingerbread houses look like Meredith’s, not Martha’s).

I sometimes enjoy watching Martha’s show. I enjoy beautiful things, so it’s fun to see the amazing things she turns out. And I’m not dissing those of you who have similar abilities. More power to you. But I still insist that, in itself, is not hospitality. That’s cooking and craft skill. On her television show, I once heard Martha ask a man, “Didn’t your mother teach you anything?” That is not hospitable.

I heard a story when I was a child about a family who invited a man to dinner who had been homeless much of his life. He was uncomfortable at the dinner table because he’d rarely sat at one. The only utensil he could handle well was the spoon, so he grabbed that and used it for the casserole, the peas, everything. The father of the family followed his cue and also used only his spoon. Soon the homeless man was talking comfortably with them. That’s hospitality.

As Christians, especially, we should be aware of what the commands to be hospitable truly mean. Just take a look at these verses:

Romans 12:13: “When God’s people are in need, be ready to help them. Always be eager to practice hospitality.”

1 Timothy 5:10: “She must be well respected by everyone because of the good she has done. Has she brought up her children well? Has she been kind to strangers and served other believers humbly? Has she helped those who are in trouble? Has she always been ready to do good?”

1 Peter 4:9: “Cheerfully share your home with those who need a meal or a place to stay.”

3 John 1:8: “So we ourselves should support them so that we can be their partners as they teach the truth.”

What do you think? What is true hospitality?

When I Was in a Besieged City

Hopefully you’ve tasted the blessedness of bringing sin into the light of Christ’s love and the fellowship of gracious believers. The step of coming out of the shadows is a challenging one to take—to show we are empty, crooked, and dark. And sometimes even seeing this darkness in us takes a long time; sin desensitizes us as it often subtly invades. And for different reasons, sin causes us to lose some connection to the life outside of our broken selves. This, I believe, is the scariest part.

In the same way that sin curls us inward and slowly silences us, so does fear and anxiety. The places in us that are governed by worry and panic take control of our minds and suck our attentions and demeanors into that darkness. And as with sin, the more we invest in our fears, the more we nourish them.

For the last four years, I’ve been struggling with the darkness of anxiety. Where I once relegated those consumed-with thoughts about death to the fringe Goth kids in my high school, I’ve come to wonder at anyone who doesn’t interpret day-to-day goings on through a sharp awareness of mortality. I am constantly expecting the next tragedy that will turn my life upside-down—the news or the accident that will change my course completely and break my heart.

Strangely enough, but consistent with the nature of fear, these haven’t seemed like thoughts worth sharing: they come in and out of my mind so regularly and so unbidden. I sit with them, mull over them, follow their channels as if hungry for what is worst. I am often afraid, but what is there to say or do about it?

As hidden sin has a way of manifesting itself—even against my own will—so, too, my anxiety has recently begun to take its very physical toll on me; perhaps my body has simply grown weary under the weight of it. The thought patterns that have become so normal to me are in reality such a strenuous game—one that drains my thoughts, my spirit, and my body. Several times now I’ve been driving on the interstate and have found myself unable to breathe well. I’ve had to pull onto the shoulder, feeling I would black out. And this has begun to transfer to more mundane contexts: sitting at my desk at work, taking my dog for a walk, lying down to sleep at night.

This experience became so prevalent so quickly that in the midst of it, I didn’t know if I could ever have my life back. King David suffered attack and abandonment in a besieged city. I felt utterly invaded and taken over, and with him cried out, “I had said in my alarm, ‘I am cut off from your sight’” (Psalm 31:21–22).

But “blessed be the LORD, for he has wondrously show his steadfast love.” Though we be invaded and dwell in a darkened cell, we are welcome elsewhere. We are actually invited and waited-for in the light and life of true fellowship.

After recently confessing a sin I had committed against someone I respect very much, this friend didn’t sentence me to more jail time but offered me a welcome—a welcome into a new place of life with the community of those washed in the blood of our gracious Savior. And when I finally broke under my panic, and sat shaking in the doctor’s office, I wasn’t met with blank and isolating expression. The nurse’s nurturing voice and compassionate eyes let me know I did not have to bear my fear alone: “You came to the right place.”

Please share your own experiences of breaking out of the bondage of isolation, and let’s mutually encourage one another.