New seasons

November is the month when the seasons change in Thailand, from rainy season to A Bit Less Hot season.  This week we've had several breezy days where the heat does grip in quite the same way and the AC might not be required every minute, and it's been great. I do love rainy season, with it's rolling black clouds and rush of wind as the storms blow in, but cool season is definitely my favorite. Everyone's favorite, I would imagine.

Lately, as the season shifts and the school year rolls on, I have been feeling so incredibly blessed. God has been incredibly good to me this semester, even in the midst of difficult circumstances. The abundance of his goodness and grace is often overwhelming and I find myself lost for words beyond Thank You. And believe me, I am not often at a loss for words!  

Even in the midst of abundance and blessing, life still holds great uncertainty and unknowns, but I know the One who goes before me and I trust that whichever way the road turns, I am going to be okay. After a long hiatus from running, I've finally gotten back into it a bit the past few weeks, and I love the opportunity that it gives me to think. I allows my thoughts to flop around in my brain in way that they can't when I am doing other activities. As they have done so, I have found that even in the bits of life that are unsure or sad or maddening or frustrating, I also have great peace and joy. 

So as cool season ushers in new life to Bangkok, the way the first winds of spring do in Michigan, I also feel ushered into a season of peace and contentment and trust, even in the great unknowns. 

Broken into beautiful

It's been one of those weeks for me. Those weeks when you are reminded countless times just how broken life is, how broken each of us are. We run around pretending that we are okay, covering our shame, our fear, our emptiness, our pain. We struggle with the ordinary moments, the monotony of daily life as we dredge ourselves up to do it One More Time. We struggle with the crises, the moments that divide lives into 'before' and 'after'. Weeks like this weigh heavily.

Truth is, we're all broken. But you know that, you don't need me to tell you. You know that the person next to you, the one who looks like they have it all together, doesn't. Too often we think we are the only one whose house is a disaster, whose family is struggling, who crumbles under the weight of their job or their relationships or their expectations. But we aren't the only ones. You don't usually even have to peel back many layers to find it. Right under the surface, we carry our silent grief, our hidden guilt, our quiet tears.

As I encountered situation after situation this week that broke my heart, I was reminded of how easy it is, especially in the age of social media, for us to build a façade and hide behind it. I know I do. But I was also reminded that wherever there is brokenness there is also Jesus. Lift up your heads, you gates; be lifted up, you ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in. Who is this King of glory? The Lord, strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle. 

In our weakness, He is there. When my family gathers for a fall weekend in Northern Michigan and I sit under the air con in Bangkok, the King of glory may come in. When leaders stumble, the King of glory may come in. When cancer invades and families are left without husbands and fathers, the King of glory may come in. When young people make tragic decisions, the King of glory may come in. When the clock ticks on and hope seems futile, the King of glory may come in. When babies die and a mother's arms are left empty, the King of glory may come in. When families struggle, the King of glory may come in. He can make broken things beautiful. He's the only one that can make broken things beautiful. In fact, he came to make broken into beautiful. 

Whatever you are facing this week dear friends, the King of glory may come in. 

He loves you. 

He is with you. 

He is for you. And he is mighty in battle. 

Dwell in the shelter of the Most High: On tantrums and trust

It's been quite a while since I have blogged on here, or at least blogged in the real sense instead of just updates and travel bits.  The last six months have had lots of ups and downs and lots of learning, much of it not over.  Sometimes I feel like my inner life is going through so much that I can't make sense of it to write about it.  How do I make sense of lives all around me seeming to shout, this is not how it is supposed to be? So often I am like a small child, petulant in my temper tantrums, demanding my way and demanding it now.  I always feel like in order to blog I need some great answer to the problems, some great revelation that is going to help all of us draw closer to God.

But the truth is, the last 6 months have not brought any startling revelations.  They've brought tears and moments I am not proud of, plenty of times where essentially I have sprawled on the floor like a writhing screaming toddler, mad at God and wondering how in the world it would all ever end.  Wondering if we will ever see an end to the sting of death, the ravages of sin, the loneliness of a broken world. 

In the midst of it, I don't really want people to help me cope, not even God.  I want Him/them to make the situation right, to make the problem go away, or at the very least, to allow me to quit.  This may come as a bit of a surprise, but I seem to have a knack for quitting.  They say that when the going gets tough, the tough get going, and Clare takes a nap. Perseverance is not my strong suit.  If perseverance produces character, I'll pass on the character bit thanks.

This morning I read Psalm 91, which opens with, "Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty" and goes on to say some pretty awesome things.  It's one of my favorite psalms.  But all day I've been stuck on the first verse.  And particularly on the second word: dwell.  I had coffee this week with a friend who is preparing for the transition back to life in the US and we talked about this word, dwell.  For me, dwelling in Thailand means buying things that won't fit in a suitcase, or plants that give a sense of permanence.  But dwelling in the shelter of the Most High? 

The devotional I read right after the psalm was about trust.  About how we only sort of want to trust God-we trust him for some things (like today or eternity) but not others (like tomorrow and practical things).  I think to an extent we know that trusting him does not mean that we're going to win the tantrum and get what we want.  Trusting him doesn't buy us control over our lives.  But I think dwelling in his shelter and trusting him can look awfully similar.  It's not any great revelation, and I'm not even exactly sure how it looks played out in everyday lives, but it does help me know that that abiding and rest are possible. 

I still want my way, of course, but it helps put into perspective an idea that I read about a few months ago, living for God's Big Kingdom and its purposes instead of our own little kingdoms with all the little things we're trying to control.  Trusting God's purposes for our own lives, but also for the lives of those we love.  So I try to release the fist, so tightly closed around the things I want to control, and I realize just how tired that fist is.  It's exhausting, and so much easier to let go.  I don't think I'm going to be very good at it, but I need to try. I need to work on figuring out how to trust, how to dwell in the shelter of the Most High, because I do know this: there is no safer place for me to be.

Dance Upon Injustice

In college we sang a song in chapel that had a line about dancing upon injustice.  We danced while we sang it, and it sounded real nice, but most of us didn't really know what it meant, injustice.  I still don't, really.  But I'm beginning to get a better picture. 

And before I go any further, I want to let you know that I am fully aware that the problem that came up last week is 100% what we would call a 'first world problem'.  But that doesn't mean I can't learn from it.  It's much harder to be ignorant to injustice when you live in Thailand.  The dictionary calls injustice a "violation of the rights of others; unjust or unfair action or treatment".  We see it every day here in human trafficking, extreme poverty, immigration detention centers, and lack of access to basic necessities like clean water or education.  We see it all over the world in lives around us: a 30-something father with stage four cancer, an unborn child diagnosed with an incurable condition that will limit his life to a few hours, a child who struggles in their new family after years of abuse and neglect.  But still, I never felt it.

And then a Chinese consulate officer decided to give me a 7 day visa for a planned 10 day trip (we had turned in flight itineraries, hotel receipts, and a letter of invitation among other documents that contained our trip dates). And worse yet, there was no possibility to change it. No explanation, no reason why.  Just the way it is. An outside chance that the reason was that I applied outside my home country.But the fact that others at my school had been given two month visas sort of shot down that theory.  It was just a seemingly random decision by some person that would greatly impact me.  We still don't know if we're going to be able to go, and how the trip is going to shake out (the airline will not change the flight dates).

But for me, the learning came in the hours right after I found all this out. It came in my anger and frustration, my desperation, my fury.  There was nothing I could do.  And it wasn't fair.  And boy, did I feel that.  And right about then, it hit me.  This is a bit of what injustice feels like. It helped me to step back and say, the worse case scenario is I am stuck at home for break, sweltering in Bangkok's intense April heat.  I lose the hundreds upon hundreds of dollars I have spent on the trip.  Only money.  This was (and still is) the worst case scenario.  It's not that big a deal.

But it did give me an emotional glimpse of what the song meant, that God will dance upon injustice.  That there will be no more rights violated. No more unjust or unfair actions. No more death and dying or pain and tears.  No more slavery or trafficking, poverty or abuse.  He is a just God and he will reign.  Come Lord Jesus! 

It's Friday...

Someone had to die, because someone had to pay.  My heart is prideful and greedy, proud and vengeful and because of that a price must be paid.  The just thing would be for my sin to be exposed, my heart to be made known and my life covered in shame.  That's what ought to happen.  But it doesn't.

When it's time for that to happen, the Father's heart is filled with love and compassion.  So he steps in, sends his son, that when the shame of my heart is exposed everyone thinks it's him, not me.  My anger sticks on him, my lust, my arrogance, my ugly envy, my greed for wealth, my "better than", my vengeful spirit.  And I stand quietly, a distance back, someone else getting the blame for all I've done and thought and said, but worse yet, for all I am.  The ickyness falls on him, and he takes it- because his Father asked him to, because he loves me.  He takes it and wears it and is blamed for it and judged for it- the sentence is death.

But it's so unfair.  I scream and shout- No!- but my voice is not heard.  "It's me!"  I am ignored.  The execution continues.  I am helpless.  There is nothing I can do. An innocent man is going to die because of me- because his Father loves me.

It happens. He dies.  It's over.  There's nothing to do.  No one to whom I can appeal.  Over.  Done. Past. Finished. They killed the wrong one.

My grief is intense- O the injustice of it!  I want to fix it, but it's no use fighting.  It should have been me. It was my ugliness on the tree, but it wasn't me.  I want to cry, to scream, to punch something- I want to yell loud enough that it actually makes a difference. But it's no use.  It's all over.  I can't change it or undo it or reverse it.  It's too late. He's dead.