Crumpled Up

For me, 2007-2008 in general, was a time of testing, trial and disappointment in which I struggled with the silence of God and the fickleness of humankind. I have named that period of my life “The Nationwide Period” (referring to the “Life Comes At You Fast” commercials).

I’m still discovering all that God meant for me to learn through my experiences the last couple years. At the same time, I’m so eager to move on with my life, knowing that God still offers me a future and a hope.

The promise of Isaiah 43:19 is leading me into 2009: “Forget about what’s happened; don’t keep going over old history. Be alert, be present. I’m about to do something brand-new. It’s bursting out! Don’t you see it? There it is! I’m making a road through the desert, rivers in the badlands” (The Message).

I get so caught up with planning my life, writing my to-do lists, making resolutions, dreaming, and setting goals; but I struggle with surrendering it all to God and allowing Him—waiting on him—to direct my life. Most of my plans and daily decisions are common sense-led rather than Spirit-led and somehow I muddle through. But, I realize, muddling through is settling for second best. God’s ways are not our ways—they are so much better—and I should desire what He desires.

My life is characterized with a steady faith and peace when I am in constant communication with God. It might seem crazy that we be at peace with stressors, inconveniences, and disappointments such as losing a job, having the side of our car dented in, or moving to the other side of town. But it may be the way God leads us on to the next step in His plan for our lives.

God and I both can’t be in charge at the same time. Trust me, I’ve tried to negotiate this.

Oswald Chambers once said, “When I stop telling God what I want, He can catch me up for what He wants without let or hindrance. He can crumple me up or exalt me, He can do anything He chooses. He simply asks me to have implicit faith in Himself and in His goodness. Self pity is of the devil, if I go off on that line I cannot be used by God for His purpose in the world.”

At many different times within the last couple years, I’ve felt crumpled up and tossed aside. My dreams have crumpled up. Even some of my relationships have crumpled up. I still don’t know what God’s purpose is in it. I don’t know how it will all come together in the end—I’d have to be God to understand.

My place is to never look back and doubt His goodness. Instead, I’m to be present and alert, knowing that the best is yet to come!

Lost in the Shadows

I'm almost to that point again. No, I'm not referring to my oddly recurring saturday night migraine. I sense I'm losing myself—the real me, or at least my ideal me. I've not fought hard enough to protect my autonomy. I've starved my soul of the things I love—the things that give back and give purpose to my random life.

There's so much talk these days about "connection" and "connecting" but my soul is crying out for me to disconnect. I'm feeling smothered and have begun to view people as zombies invading my space, breathing down my neck; sucking the joy right out of me by their mere presence. Not pretty.

I just want to sit in silence, to consider what I've lost and how to get it back. That was the plan tonight. But instead, I'm sharing one wall with a roommate and her visiting boyfriend and another with my second roommate, currently watching TV. I choose to drown out the noise with more noise by hooking up to my iPod. Somehow the music envelopes me, creating a sort of impenetrable bubble. The darkness of the room makes it even easier for my mind to escape these four walls. Maybe I can hear my thoughts there.

A few impassioned "glorias" later...

I realize that, although I didn't intend to worship, that's exactly where this stint of stillness led me. I didn't even know that I had anything to say...or pray. If I had spoken, I probably would've just said all the right words (I know how to plead my case). But I'm sick of words and false humility. So I just sat still—listening—and was soon overwhelmed by God's presence.

Just a short time of considering God and His character unearthed fears, hurt, lies, dreams...my entire life. Slowly, my heart softens and transforms again, returning to the place where it is completely known, accepted and loved. Christ as my focus. Everything else, lost in the shadows. Everything in it's rightful place.

I sing along (using my inside voice), giving testimony to the fact that I can still be floored by His unexpected, timely entrance into my otherwise random life:

Your face is beautiful

And Your eyes are like the stars

Your gentle hands have healing 

There inside the scars 

Your loving arms they draw me near

And Your smile it brings me peace 

Draw me closer oh my Lord

Draw me closer Lord to Thee 




Captivate us, Lord Jesus

Set our eyes on You 

Devastate us with Your presence

Falling down 

And rushing river, draw us nearer 

Holy fountain consume us with You

Captivate us Lord Jesus, with You 



Your voice is powerful 

And Your words are radiant bright

In Your breath and shadow 
I will come close and abide

You whisper love and life divine

And Your fellowship is free
Draw me closer O my Lord 

Draw me closer Lord to Thee



Let everything be lost in the shadows

Of the light of Your face 

Let every chain be broken from me

As I’m bound in Your grace

For Your yoke is easy,
Your burden is light 

You’re full of wisdom, power and might 

And every eye will see You

(Captivate Us)

The BandAid

Life crisis definitely create an unsettledness but it's the faith crisis that threaten to rock my world. They've shot down all the comforts of religion, burst the safe little bubble I've felt secure in and made me question everything I ever thought about God. I realize that I'm not the first one to ask these questions about God nor will I be the last. I find some comfort in that fact. Even C.S. Lewis struggled with his view of God when times got tough. He wrote, "Not that I am (I think) in much danger of ceasing to believe in God. The real danger is of coming to believe such dreadful things about Him. The conclusion I dread is not, "So there's no God at all" but "So this is what God's really like, Deceive yourself no longer." No matter what, I can't believe there is no God. I can try all I want to deny him in my head but in my heart I know the truth of his existence and my responsibility to live accordingly, as a result of knowing that. What I can't understand is why he seems so distant at times and so close other times.

I visited a friend in Chicago at the beginning of the summer. One morning, while reaching for a brand new razor in the shower, I managed to take a nice chunk of flesh off my finger. My friend was in a meeting somewhere so I couldn't contact her to ask her where she kept her BandAids. I started looking in what I thought were the obvious places but didn't find one anywhere. I was in a hurry to get ready to meet her somewhere but I couldn't seem to get my finger to stop bleeding, so I resorted to prayer. I began praying that God would help me find a BandAid somewhere. I remember thinking how ridiculous it was to pray for a BandAid. Why would God answer such an insignificant request? It seemed so childish. But I really needed one! I walked into the kitchen to get a paper towel to wrap around my finger and noticed a drawer wide open. It was a "sixth sense" moment (Only since moving in with my new roommates have I accepted random open cupboards and drawers as the norm). I went over to shut it and, in doing so, discovered the drawer was full of BandAids - all shapes and sizes! I'm sure Carrie left it open in her rush to leave the house that morning but it seemed a little more than coincidental to me at that point.

In answering my prayer for a BandAid, my faith was restored and I was reassured of God's love and concern for every area of my life. At the same time, if God hadn't answered my prayer, would that have made me question his love and care for me? Wouldn't his silence indicate an indifference to my need? Whether a prayer is answered or not doesn't change the fact that God is alive and working but answered prayer "...does touch an emotional need within us that is perhaps even deeper than the intellectual one: the need to know that what we are going through and the way that we are feeling matter; the need to know that our requests have been heard; the need to know that God—in whom we have placed all our hope—is near and He truly cares." (God on Mute)

That answer to prayer was a reminder to me that God is aware of and able and willing to alter the circumstances of my life. But in other more significant areas of my life, he remains silent. In areas that I passionately ask him to intervene, he seems hands-off. What does that leave me to believe about him? I refuse to be one of those people who throw out their faith in God as soon as he doesn't react or intervene in the way they think he should. "When we look at situations of unanswered prayer and conclude that there is no God or that if there is a God, He is either a powerful sadist or an impotent but kindly old uncle, His removal from the equation of our suffering solves nothing. However problematic His existence may seem, without God—this bankruptcy, this broken marriage, this four-year old with leukemia, this congregation killed by lightening, this mother mowed down by a drunk driver—the tragedies of life are reduced to meaningless losses in the great evolutionary casino. Without God, we are hopelessly alone in a twisted reality, contorting without spiritual comfort and without the hope, however distant, of supernatural intervention." (God on Mute)

I always try to remain aware of the spiritual warfare we are in. It brings things into perspective when I remember, "Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms." (Ephesians 6:12) There are a number of reasons that things don't go my way. Sometimes my own ignorance brings me pain; sometimes someone else's selfishness. There are also forces of evil that are working against God's plan for me. Daniel prayed for 21 days before the angel arrived to deliver him. He faced the resistance of Satan which held him back from responding to his cry for help. "Since the first day that you set your mind to gain understanding and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard, and I have come in response to them. But the prince of the Persian kingdom resisted me twenty-one days. Then Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, because I was detained there with the king of Persia." (Daniel 10:12,13) God wasn't unresponsive. There was a spiritual warfare going on behind the scenes. God isn't playing us like a game of cards. God gave us the gift of freedom. Things that look like they are caused by God are just results of that freedom or the results of living in a fallen world. We are free to make choices that heal or choices that harm us and others. As long as we have that, there will always be pain. More often than not, we make the wrong choices; self-centered choices, and, as a result, there will always be heartbreak, severed relationships, and prodigal sons.

I recently finished reading "God on Mute" by Peter Greig. In the book, Greig recounts the a story from "The Magician's Nephew" (part of the Narnia Series) in which a boy named Digory asks the great lion Aslan to heal his mother. Digory says, 'May I–please, will you give me some magic fruit of this country to make Mother well?' He had been desperately hoping that the Lion would say, 'Yes'; he had been horribly afraid it might say, 'No'. But he was taken aback when it did neither. He thought of his Mother, and he thought of the great hopes he had, and how they were all dying away, and a lump came in his throat and tears in his eyes, and he blurted out: 'But please, please won't you—can't you give me something that will cure Mother?' Up till then he had been looking at the Lion's great feet and the huge claws on them; now, in despair, he looked up at its face. What he saw surprised him as much as anything in his whole life. For the tawny face was bent down near his own and (wonder of wonders) great shining tears stood in the Lion's eyes. They were such big, bright tears compared with Digory's own that for a moment he felt as if the Lion must really be sorrier about his Mother than he was himself."

This simple illustration changed my view of God. After months of grieving a lost relationship and feeling that God was indifferent, I suddenly realized that I really didn't know my God if I truly believed that he wasn't weeping with me as I wept through my heartache! What kind of loving God couldn't be touched by my pain? My prayers changed from that point on. I'm no longer trying hard to persuade God to give me something that I want. I realize He isn't holding out on me. I've reached a point where I can trust that God really does care, even when I don't feel his presence and influence immediately. I know that he SEES. That he FEELS. That he is MOVED. And sometimes a little empathy is all I'm really looking for.