if i were...

If I were to write a blog post I would write about how God has provided a place for Lydia and I to live.

I would write about opportunities to relax and spend time with girls that I barely know and yet feel so connected with.

If I had the words, I would wax poetic about my desire to be certain that I am not an emotional, verbal bulldozer.

It might be worth telling about some truth nuggets from class.

But it’s hard to be faithful to a blog no one reads.  I’ve always had this vision in my head of a time when some of God’s people want to support me as a missionary.  Then, because I was faithful with an online journal, they would have access to me and God’s work in me over the years. And I still have that dream. 

I’m learning that breaks are okay if they have a purpose.  I’m learning that patience and waiting does not always mean proactive pestering in the white noise.  I’m learning that it’s okay to be ready for changes I’ve never even imagined being ready for until now.

Tanner is in Africa, practicing this whole missionary thing, and we couldn’t talk for a while. When we finally could talk, I informed him that he has ruined me. He cleans my car when it gets snow on it, he buys me snacks and coffee, he listens to me when I’m fragile and I cry.  I’m spoiled and also happy and I miss him. And I’m thankful for him. And for some reason he loves me back and it blows my mind.

And if I were to write a blog, I would say that the future looks bright and hopeful and plain old full. 

where has all the time gone?

I am overwhelmed with lists.

There is a list for things that need to be done on my phone: messages checked, emails responded to, figure out how to get the cloud to stop telling me my phone can't back up... A list for homework, additional promises, future plans, insurance, food prep...All of it to attempt to make sense of time spinning faster than my hands can catch.

I am learning that I don't pray the way I ought.  We've been going through Daniel and the man fell on his face three times a day to talk to the God he knew was holy, and I think to Him.  I cast my stray thoughts to Him in moments, but I do not know how to bow in prayer for more than ten minutes at a time.  And they're sporadic minutes.  Not that I need a prayer schedule, but something needs to change because Daniel was a man of God and people knew it and I want people to know it about me, too.

The days are shorter and colder.  Some days it feels like my friends are shorter and colder, too.  This isn't bitterness, because I see the sweet moments we have.  I mean that they are tired, and worn, and this world seems so heavy for all the young Christians around me.  They are world weary, when I think we are meant to be heavenly.  Why do the cares of this life mean so much to all of us? 

October is a hard month for me.  The second hardest is February.  They're claustrophobic months that creep into my sense like snakes looking for an extra skin.  These are the months that I need to remember God is sovereign.  Over my feelings.  Over my worries.  Over my cares.  And over all of the feelings and worries and cares carried by the world around me.  And God is love.  Love is defined by Him.  I am learning that love flows through me best when I am not focused on sharing how I am worried today.  Love is better expressed in sharing the joyful mess of who God has made me for today.  Like, there is only triumph for us now that we are in Christ and I don't understand why we so quickly forget that.

October is a hard month for me.  But I am learning it can be easier.

Flash Flood Warning

My friend, Anna, is really worried that, as Wisconsin (hopefully) warms into spring, the large snowbanks will cause flash flooding.  We laugh at her, whether or not she's right, because pretty much everyone I know will trade a couple flash floods for windchills above the negative degrees.

It's been so long since I've written about what's going on in my personal life.  I mean, I can't remember the last time I wrote a journal entry longer than three sentences, let alone wrote a blog post that wasn't a school assignment. Sometimes (most times) I want to give myself a pass on posting because, let's be real, my only reader right now is my mother.  Even she barely reads this.  But then I remember the point is just to keep the practice of writing regularly for when I'm in a ministry position where writing consistently actually matters.

With that in mind, let's go through the brownie-frownie exercise.

Brownie: I got to go to the Ethnos360 Missionary Training Center down in Missouri last weekend. Honestly, I didn't even go because I wanted an exposure trip to convince me to go there when I'm done in Wisconsin. Some of the sweetest people I've been blessed to know are currently on interim staff down at the MTC: part of my Philippines fam, the Brooks.  Once again, they have been a complete answer to prayer. Over the past month, I've really been feeling the need for someone older and wiser, who's been where I want to go, to sit me down and challenge my thinking.  That's exactly what Danny and Pip did.  From my worries about having a home church, to finding financial support for 2 years at MTC and after, to my mounting anxiety about my next visit to the doctor over spring break, they challenged the way I was approaching each situation.

Frownie (but really a brownie, too): On the way back to Wisconsin from Missouri, my car broke down.  We were only 20 minutes from the MTC campus, so friends were able to come rescue us, but my car wasn't fixable at 10 pm on a Saturday night.  I had to be back for work early, so I caught a ride back to Wisconsin with a school van while Tanner and Michael waited with my car through Sunday.  In the end, one of the main belts had broken and more steering lines had rotted out.  I was amazed at how the community of Christ just completely came together in the situation.  People who don't even know me personally towed my car back to campus, figured out what parts I needed, purchased them, and fixed the car.  All free of charge to me.  In the end, Tanner and Michael got the car back to Wisconsin barely 24 hours after me.  At first, I saw the surface blessing of God providing people coming through to help me. BUT THEN! Guys, I literally wouldn't have been able to afford my car breaking any other place in any other way.  Like, God knew that and planned this minor inconvenience to take care of me.  He's always providing.  Every moment.  Why do I ever think I know what's best for me?

And that's where I'm at.

Letter No. 5

Hey Kid,

We left off in chapter 4 with Paul making it clear that God’s thumbs-up only comes from trusting
Him in what He’s said. That’s how we get into God’s family—by trusting Him that He meant it when He said He would count Jesus’ death as payment for my sin.  But what does life look like after that?  Do I just trust God and then move on? 

Obviously, you have kind of a heads up from my last letter that the answer to that second question is a fat no. Chapter 5 starts to deal with those questions, with what being in God’s family actually looks like.  The chapter starts out by telling us exactly what we get when we join God’s family: peace with
God (because when we were out of His family, we were always going to be hostile with Him, but now things are different), grace (that’s God’s thumbs-up to me, because Jesus deserves God’s thumbs-up and gives it to me), confidently and joyfully looking forward to looking good with God because He changes me to be like Him, the ability to be joyful when life gets tough, and the assurance that I will never be disappointed that I joined God’s family.

A little further on, Paul talks about our fickle feelings. We get worried (or at least I know I have) that God might decide to get rid of us.  But, Kid!  He sent Jesus to die for everyone WHILE everyone hated Him, while people were His enemies.  Now that I’m in His family, there’s no way He’ll get rid of me!  Imagine the amazing things He’ll do for His family when He did incredible things for His enemies!  Just wow.

Pretty soon after that, Paul reaches a transition point in the letter.  He moves on to talk about Christian living.   He recaps a lot of what we talked about in chapter 1, with the main point that Adam’s original sin (taking from the tree in the Garden of Eden to try to be like God) affected everyone, making everyone die, BUT Jesus made one payment for everyone’s sin to make joining God’s family available to everyone. And that, my dear sister, is what we’ll talk about in Chapter 6.


So what do I do with what we’ve talked about in the last chapter?  One of the things that struck
me the most was how Paul deals with our feelings of fear about God possibly deciding He doesn’t want us anymore.  You know from my last two letters that I for sure struggled with those thoughts for a long time, and I love the way Paul smacks those thoughts into the garbage.  He’s all like, “Listen, God sent the Person He loves most to die for you while you still hated Him.  He wanted you then.  What makes you think that, now that you love Him and accept His love, He’ll decide He doesn’t want you anymore?  THAT IS NOT HOW IT WORKS!”  And it just makes my mind rest easy, you know? 

I love you, Kiddo.

Viv

Letter No. 4

Hey Kid, 
We went through Romans chapter 4 over the past few days, and it was a lot.  One of the
questions Romans 3 left off on was, “Why did God give the Law in the first place? And are we getting rid of the Law now that we understand God’s grace through Jesus’ death?  How does New Testament salvation work with the Old Testament Law system?”

In order to answer that, I want to do two things.  The first thing is looking at Abraham and David, the most famous Jews of all time, which is exactly what Paul does, too.  Paul reminds his readers that Abraham technically wasn’t a Jew when God made promises to him and said, “Abraham, I like that you’re trusting Me; you don’t deserve My thumbs up, but I’m going to give it to you because you believe I will do what I said would.” God said that when Abe was about 85 years old; God didn’t give Abraham the sign of circumcision until he was like 99.  That blows any idea of circumcision or Jewish heritage giving you God’s thumbs up completely out of the water.  Abraham also definitely received God’s thumbs up way before God gave the Torah to Moses, so hat gets rid of the idea that having the Law puts you in God’s good books, either. 

King David, on the other hand, was for sure Jewish, for sure circumcised when he was a baby, and for sure knew the Torah.  But in Psalm 32, David acknowledges his sin, but God says the same thing He said to Abraham, “You’re trusting all of the things I’ve told you, so you get My thumbs up, just like Abe!”  The point is, even though David had all of the things the Jews thought made them better than everyone else, he still met God’s standard just by God taking his trust and giving him grace. 

Which brings me to point number two: The Law was still important for people to have.  God gave the Law as an example of His character, His standard and to explain there is a consequence for not meeting that standard: death.  All of this boils down to trusting God to do what He says, even though it is impossible.  Just like Abraham trusted God to give him a son when he was 100 years old, we trust God that He has already accepted Jesus’ death for our sins to give us grace to be His children, meeting His standard. 

After the last discussion on chapter 4, I had to go and talk to Dave Field, our teacher.  I wanted
to ask him to explain exactly why he said the Law was necessary for Jesus to pay our sin debt that we
talked about last time.  Like how can the Law be necessary, but I still feel free from having to fulfill it?  We’re going to get more in depth with this later on in the letter, but I just want to share what Dave
shared with me, because I just think it’s super important to clarify.  Basically, God chose the Law to give humankind an example of His perfection.  While the Law and the sacrificial system were in play as a sin credit card, God showed grace to the people who trusted Him because He knew He would send Christ to pay it off.  BUT THE LAW STILL BROUGHT DEATH! 

So what about the standard?  Because it still exists and it wasn’t thrown away, even when Jesus died and rose again.  NOW, as a believer, I have the Holy Spirit, God Himself, His living standard, alive inside of me.  He lives out the standard through me as I have faith in God like Abraham and David.  The rest I find in that, Kid, is amazing.

I love you, 
Viv

Letter No. 3

Hey Kid,  

I’m going to be real with you, this is the third letter I’m writing, but the first one isn’t in the mail
yet.  It’s a goal for this week is actually to put at least one of them in the mail.  Enough excuses, though, I’m about to lay Romans chapter 3 out for you! 

The chapter starts out with a hypothetical conversation between Paul and a Jew.  They’re
arguing about whether or not the Jew deserves God’s thumbs up (just so you know, NO ONE deserves God’s thumbs up, not even the Jew). To prove his point, Paul reminds his imaginary opponent about Psalm 51, in which David (the best Jew after Abraham) goes to court against God, and God is justified, not David!  God is the only One who can ever be announced right.  Paul uses a lot of Old Testament quotes to back up this idea, but then it finally gets good, Kid! 

Starting in verse 21, Paul announces that now, through Jesus’ death on the cross, God is giving His right status to everyone who believes that what Jesus did was enough.  In the Old Testament time period, God had set up for Israel a system of sacrifices that looked forward to what Jesus was going to do on the cross. Those sacrifices didn’t pay for Israel’s sin, it just covered for the sin like a credit card.  Then, when Jesus lived the whole Law out and died on the cross, all sin was paid for IN FULL by His blood.  Paul also announces that payment wasn’t just for the Jews, it was and is for anyone who will trust that Jesus’ payment is enough!  This doesn’t mean the law is dead and gone, it just means that it is fulfilled and now we get to live in Jesus’ fulfillment of it! 

How does this apply to my life today?  SO MUCH, KID!  I used to think that I could only fit into
God’s plan if I followed Jesus’ life exactly and obeyed the Law to its fullest extent.  I thought that was the only way God would be happy with me.  I trusted Jesus when He said He would save me in the Bible, but I also thought He would save me even though He was angry with me for failing at the Law every day.  I love this because it explains what it took so long for me to understand as a teenager. Jesus did everything for everyone; it’s simple.  All we have to do is trust Him that He did everything He says He did.  Of course, Paul is going to keep explaining the ins and outs of the salvation situation as we go, but I hope this letter encourages you

I love you, Kid.

Viv

Letter No. 2

Hey Kid, 
 You probably haven’t even received my first letter yet, but I’m here to tell you about Romans
chapter 2—the major points that hit me and how I want to apply them to my life right now.

Chapter 1 ended with the idea that God gave all of humankind over to the darkness, because they chose it over Him.  Remember this is a letter that didn’t have chapters when Paul wrote it, so chapter 2 follows in a similar vein.  Paul now focuses his attention on the guy that is going to be like, “Hey, I’m not as bad as these remote tribal people who worship demons.  I’m pretty good and I agree with God that those other people are bad, so God won’t punish me, right?” Wrong. 

Paul tells that guy straight out, “You aren’t good all the time, so you miss God’s standard of right-ness, too.  You’re just as bad as the other guy.” Through a number of hypothetical questions, Paul forces the “good-enough” guy to see that he isn’t good enough at all.

Finally, Paul talks straight at God’s chosen person, the Jew.  The Jew thinks that, between the Torah, the fact that he is circumcised (I know, weird), and his lineage from Abraham, he has enough to deserve a pass from God.  Paul smacks all of that into the garbage.  He says, “Nope. You have the Torah, and you teach it, but you don’t actually do it.  You fail to reach God’s standard, too!” 

The main focus toward the end of the chapter is that God doesn’t care tiddlywinks for the rules you follow if your heart doesn’t match up with your actions.  You can fool people into giving you a “good job” all you want; the reality is that only God’s “good job” matters. This all seems pretty dark, right?  It feels like we’re all in a ship that is sinking fast, and for most of humanity that’s true.  Kid, we can’t touch God’s right-ness on our own, but we both know how this story ends.

Keep reading these letters.  I promise that it gets brighter. 

The only question left is how to apply this to my life.  I think the main thing for me is that, with our background, I know a lot.  I know the rules, I know what this is supposed to look like, and I know that, in the past, I've stood on a soapbox to preach something I'm not living.  My prayer tonight is that God would keep softening my heart to recognize every effort of my own to reach His right-ness is pointless.  Like I said, this is a lot of talk about failure, but I know you know the solution for failure, too, and I'm about to write about it next time.

I love you, Kiddo

Viv

Letter No. 1

For nine weeks this semester, my class will be going through the book of Romans.  Part of our homework is, after each chapter, stopping and writing a letter to someone about what we've learned and how we can apply it to our lives.  While I'm pretty sure I know who I'm going to send my letters to, I also want to put it on here.  My hope is that maybe someone will find it encouraging:

 Hey, Kid!

We're starting this semester at school with a class on Romans. Each week, part of our homework is to write a letter about what we have learned to a non-student, so I chose you. Here we go!

You know that Romans is a letter from the Apostle Paul to the early Roman church.  It starts off with Paul introducing himself to the church as a servant of Jesus, an apostle, and as someone set apart.  It was really cool to see that he introduced himself as a servant first, because that was what he considered to be the most important thing for the Romans to know about him.  Then, they needed to understand that his teaching held the same authority as James or John, the early church leaders who walked with Jesus.  His title as an apostle gave him that authority. Finally, when Paul says he’s set apart, it explains how God saw Paul.  He had one job in God’s eyes—spreading the gospel, and that’s it.

The next thing that stood out to me was verse 15, which leads into the "theme verses" of the letter. Anyway, it talks about the news of Jesus' life, death and resurrection (which is the gospel) and how it is as much for people after they're saved as it was from them to become saved.  The gospel literally plays into every aspect of Christian life!  That concept goes forward into verses 16-17, where Paul basically says, "I am beyond proud of this Jesus story because it shows us how right God is and it gives salvation from sin because He gives His right-ness to people FREELY through Jesus!"  The big point you need to get is that God's salvation for people comes through trusting in God alone.



One more thing! Paul gets into explaining how God revealed Himself to everyone, even the most remote people groups, by His creation.  Kid, you have to read verses 20-23.  At one piont, everyone alive KNEW about God, BUT PEOPLE CHOSE NOT TO CHERISH THAT KNOWLEDGE, Kid!  Humankind actually CHOSE to forget God.  So what did God do?  He let them forget and gave them all the horrible consequences that went with choosing darkness over God's light.  He let them go, ready for them to realize how awful life was without Him, ready for them to turn back to Him.  They noticed, all right, but they got all excited about how horrible they could be instead of going back to God and His right-ness.

There is a lot more, but those are the highlights that stuck out to me the most.  Sometimes the hardest or most time-consuming part of learning all of this is how to apply it to my own life.  When I look back at how Paul introduced himself, I don’t think the first thing I’ve ever told someone about me is that I am a servant of Jesus Christ.  Honestly, I don’t that I’ve ever spoken or even thought of myself in those exact terms for any extended period of time until this class.  Kid…that probably (which means definitely) needs to change.  

 The other major thought that is going through my mind stems from the bit about what happened when people didn’t cherish their knowledge of God.  It reminds me of myself when I went to college for the first time. I feel like, for the first time, I am truly understanding how equal the playing field is between me and the unreached tribal nationals in Africa in terms of knowing God.

I love you and God loves you,

Viv

there and back again

It's crazy to think that Christmas and New Years Day have come and gone.  I've driven to New York, stopped in Ohio twice, driven back to Wisconsin, and stopped at a train station along the way.  We're amping up to do leadership training before the semester starts, then classes and work both kick off on Monday. 

Over the break, I was supposed to go to the doctor to have some tests run.  For the past two years, I have had abnormal results in other routine tests, and my PA suggested that it was time we took a closer look at things.  The first specialist didn't do any of the things she was supposed to do and, after further deliberation with my PA, we decided that I should see someone in a different practice.  My new doctor, however, isn't accepting new patients until March.  I feel like I've been waiting forever to find out what is going on in my body for certain, but the waiting isn't over.

Real talk: I'm not a patient person.  Like not at all.  I like to think I am, and I try to be when I'm dealing with other people, but I'm for sure not patient when it comes to dealing with myself.  I want to know what's wrong, why I'm feeling the way I feel, and what I can do about it, and I want to know all of it yesterday. And maybe that's why God's timing is working the way it is.  I need to wait on Him.  I need to trust Him. That's all.

Medical aspect of break aside, it was probably the most relaxing break I've had with my family in years.  We played a ridiculous amount of board games, ate all the time, stayed up late and slept in. Of course there were moments when we all got under each other's skin, and I'm 100% happy to be back at school, but my over-arching memory of the break is sweet.

On to Semester Three!

praise

YAHWEH

He is as He is.

I AM.

Unfathomable.

Beyond the edge of the universe yet intimately breathing life into every cell of creation: God.

 THE God

(note the big “G” God,

and no

lower case nonsense),

outside of linear thinking and movement yet working within those confines for my sake. YAHWEH

God Who sees, hears, knows—

holy;

God above and below.

He’s an enigma, out of reach like a seed in water, unattainable and yet! He abides.

Constant

as twenty-four-hour days

so God

chooses to remain.

He meets me where I’m at and stays there

until I say, “Here I am, send me.”

“Abide

in me and I in you.”

His Word—

alive, speaking truth.

From age to age, He doesn’t change;

outside of time, so He is unaffected by seconds ticking by.

YAHWEH

He is as He is.

I AM.

Unfathomable.

this is for the best

I think I need to admit this to myself, as much as I should confess it publicly: it's all been a lie.  Autumn can't possibly be my favorite season  I mean, the crisp air is great, the color scheme is flawless, squash is in season and hot lattes are officially cozy.  You'd think--scratch that!  I thought it was my favorite season, hands down.  It should be!  But the sun is slowly spending more time wrapped in clouds and the days are growing shorter and cooler and I just want to be a hermit, wrapped in blankets like a human burrito.  Actual favorite season: July (also known as summer, but let's be real, they're basically synonymous in the northern midwest.)  Anyway, the weather is still nice enough for a morning/early afternoon walk and Lord knows I'll be taking one of those every day till snow sticks.

Shifting seasons aside, the past two weeks of class have been good.  Great, really.  Two weeks ago, it seemed like everyone was follow a theme of walking through trials, rather than trying to just get rid of them.  This exhortation was ridiculously timely.  1,000% honesty, there was (and continues to be) increasingly turbulent emotional situations in my dorm, to the extent that has us all asking, "When is it going to stop?"  The encouragement, though, is to walk through this.  So that's what we're going to do.  Everything I'm walking through, publicly or privately, is literally God's best for me and His glory.  And it's good.

Then, this week, the resounding note for me, at any rate, was, "Be who you are."  Now, I know that sounds very 21st century, but hang with me for a minute.  First, we were in 1 Peter during leadership chapel.  The challenge was to obey Christ's call to "be holy as I am holy," the point being that this is only possible because we, as believers, are literally dead except that Christ is alive in us.  All holiness is possible and even expected, if we're truly living our faith because every action will be dictated by who is truly alive in us: the great JC Himself.  Later, in Prophets class, we were finishing the book of Isaiah.  In the final chapters, Isaiah describes Messiah's armor WHICH IS THE SAME AS THE ARMOR WE ARE CALLED TO WEAR IN EPHESIANS 6.  Bros!  Be who you are!  Not only is Christ alive in you, but he's equipped you for battle, son!

I'm still fired up about it.

praying this morning

Abba, Father God,
it hasn't been that long since we've talked
but there's a burden
lingering on my back as if I've
been ignoring You.
Can we please talk, God?
Just the two of us in the quiet,
us in the garden,
working through how this old, heavy weight
behind my eyes grew
to the point, oh God,
where I keep cracking my face into
crumbling concrete and
that's a metaphor for forgetting
everything You do.
Like how my life, God,
would be nothing (no, really, nothing;
like in a trash can,
like no recycling, just straight refuse)
if not, God, for You.
Abba, Father God,
my Security,  my Foundation,
my Resurrection,
replace this weight with holy freedom
to wholly worship You.

I Actually Have Friends

(Part of my crew this year 😊 Left to right: Wesley, Mike, Emmie, me, Tanner)

(Emmie and I at Lake Superior for leadership training, even though you can’t see the lake. It’s there. I promise.)

(We’re very thug. And dramatic. And ridiculous.)

(And this picture is actually from my Montana trip with Gracie this summer, but I can’t talk about friends and not show off her beautiful face.)

People used to encourage me to be more outgoing and make friends because no man is an island, right?  Well, they were right and God has blessed me with some amazing human beings.