Somethings I learned about my calling during my search for my calling

My PA school journey begins tomorrow with a full week of orientation and then classes get going (for real) on August 11th.   I'm nervous, excited, and to be honest still have moments of doubt...I most of all feel really blessed to have this opportunity to go to school where they bring the toughest of the tough cases.  I really don't know where this journey is going to lead and who knows it could be right back to the yoga studio or athletic training room...BUT I am excited to get started with it!

Time is funny.  In someways it seems like I have been looking for a "calling" forever and somedays I feel like it just began.  Esther de Waal wrote these words about St. Benedict in the book Seeking God "For him (St. Benedict), life in Christ means life through a succession of opening doors, not a life that is always static or safe."  And this has seemed to hold pretty true for me thus far as well.  God has not chosen to send me a lightening bolt or a talking donkey to direct me on which way to go next.  But He has seemed to use open and closed doors to get me to where I am now.  Some I walked through in faith with my knees shaking, others I jumped in with both feet.  At times, it has seemed like just a little light has been shone before each next step.  To be honest, I really did not like those times.  I really wanted to see how it all fit or at least be making progress in figuring out how the puzzle pieces fit.  But as I look back, I see that I was given some tidbits about living out my calling that should come in handy as I start this new journey.

 First off, "who I am determines what I do." Neil Anderson used these words in his book Victory Over the Darkness, and they were significantly used in my life during the Spring of 2010 when a relationship was falling apart, and I was struggling with my identity in the process.  I had struggled throughout the relationship with flip-flopping this statement, and it did not work.  In fact, there is a whole lot of pressure to perform when what you do determines who you are.  So throughout the healing process, God brought me back to this statement (thanks, Andi for lending me this book!).   It is always refreshing to me like a breath of fresh air when I see this truth.  Os Guiness describes it in his words as "do what you are."  I am a child of God, first and foremost.  That is my starting place and what I have to constantly remind myself.  Thankfully, at any point in the day, I can jump into the arms of my good Father and go from there.

Once I have the correct starting place, calling becomes more of a response and less of a responsibility.  Os Guiness describes calling in these words. "Calling is the truth that God calls us to himself so decisively that everything we are, everything we do and everything we have is invested with a special devotion and dynamism lived out as a response to his summons and service."  There is such a big difference in responsibility and response.  Responsibility feels weighty and heavy.  Response feels natural, organic and light.  Here's the catch though...sometimes it is easier to go into responsibility mode for me.  Turn the autopilot on, get the to do list done, and just get the job done.  It's boring when I am in responsibility mode in life and in my relationship with God; life turns stale.  However, to live the response type of life and calling, I have to be listening and listening intently.  And listening intently does not come natural to me.  I need help in "giving my entire attention to what God is doing right now" (Matthew 6:34 The Message).  So often I can be distracted by uncertainty, fears or other people's opinions... these stifle the response type of life and that stifles my calling.  

Dan Allender gave me another couple tidbits about living out my calling in an article he wrote (which I highly recommend) entitled Getting Caught by Your Calling (shoutout to Kate for passing this article on to me while we were all in the Treehouse).  He said, "Calling is not what we do - but how we do it." This one sits well with me on one hand because also I think it entails freedom.  You really can do anything.  Yoga teacher, floor sweeper, ice cream scooper...anything.  However, it does matter if you love others while doing it and what direction your heart is going while you're doing it.  So why am I taking the time and effort (and spending the money) to go back to school when I can do anything, I ask?!?  Well, I am still working on answering this question, but for some reason I feel like God can use someone like me in this profession.  

To be honest, I don't feel perfectly equipped for this next task, but I also think that is right where God wants me.  When I look at Aaron and Moses, I don't see people that thought they were perfectly equipped to do the task they were called to do but that is what gives God the most glory.  And when I look at history, I also see people like Eunice from the movie Miss Ever's Boys which is based on the real story about the nurse assigned to the controversial Tuskegee Experiment in Alabama.   She also did not feel equipped to do the job she was called to do.  But her Dad encouraged her to stick with it by saying, "If you thought there was nothing you could do you would not have become a nurse in the first place." This quote resonates with me because for some reason I just think there is something I can do, some way God wants to use me in it.  And as Dan Allender also states in his article, "My calling is to walk through any door God gives me in order to reveal his glory...I am called by God not for a mere season or reason, but for an eternity to reveal his glory.  What is my calling?  It is to make known something about God that is bound to my unique face, name, and story.  It is to reveal God through my character."

So really, there is no limit to what He can do through me.  Jesus fed the five thousand with only five loaves of bread and two fish and had twelve extra baskets left over (Matthew 14:13-21).  And He wants to work the same miracles in my life.  But so often, all I see are the limitations.  I see the time crunches and my mediocre test-taking ability and start to get raddled.  My perspective is really the issue here. I want the old hymn to whisper to me in these moments to "Ponder anew what the Almighty can do." This quote came back in my life after I got back from the medical ship and was wondering what exactly God had next.  How would He ever be able to top my last experience?  In reality, God sees what I cannot see.  So may I be willing, able and ready to jump in to this next season in faith, listening intently, and ready to respond.  

Reflections on Lent 2014

My church follows the Liturgical calendar.  Since March 5th, we have been walking through the season of Lent.  I had always thought that Lent, from the outside looking in, was a time to give up something you loved as a way to get a little taste of Jesus's total surrender experience.  And it just so happened that it was right before bathing suit season so most friends I knew gave up chocolate.  This Lent was the first time I committed to practice it.  Even though I have given up certain things, what this season has mostly shown me is that my misled desires and compulsions distract me from life with Jesus.   I just plain and simple still want my way a lot of the time, and I just want it now. When I want to be fed...I want it NOW.  When I want something sweet...I want chocolate NOW.  When I want me teeth straight...I want it NOW (yes - still rocking the adult braces).   I have continued to realize and experience that I can't physically strip myself from these unruly, demanding desires, and it seems like the harder I try the more they follow me.   I have seen how the darkness still surrounds me even when I try to fight it most.  I set up goals for myself, but I still come short of meeting them.  Pastor Chris challenged my church at the beginning of Lent to not let this Easter Sunday be like any old Easter Sunday...but as I come to the end of Lent, I wonder what has changed inside of me.  

Our church has walked through Exodus during this season, I have seen myself so much in the Israelites.  In their spontaneous grumbling right after the Lord had just shown up with provision and deliverance (Exodus 16:1-3).  In the fear, fatigue and disappointment that drove the them to golden calf making (Ex 32:1-24).  Ashley, one of our pastors, said the church set up Lent around 300 AD to remind them that they are people of the resurrection.  But do I live like the resurrection happened or not?  Do I live with God?  I am beginning to see that the doubt and unruly desires that bombard me are not the even the problems that keep me from living life with God, but they can highlight for me what is the problem.   So often, I run to the temporary fixes that never fill me up.  Desire is really a powerful force that can be used to facilitate "agape love that can integrate for us a whole and eternal life with God and man" (Renovation of the Heart p. 68).  However, my partial and distorted appetites focused on getting my way lead me to darkness and unbelief.  And so often doubt starts this process of distorted appetites in my life.  Eve experienced this in the garden when she began to doubt and question what God's instructions were about the trees she could and could not eat from.  The serpent came to her with the question, "Did God really say 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden?'" (Genesis 3:1).  Immediately, Eve gave the response of what God had told her, but the root of doubt had been planted so that when she saw "that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it" (Genesis 3:6).  My questions that begin the seedlings of doubt in me aren't about fruit in the garden but start off more like: "Did He really say He wouldn't leave me? Did He really say He would guide me?  Did He really say He will give me the desires of my heart if I delight in Him?  Did he really say it is better to lose your life than to save it because I really think I should get my way?  Did He really say  He will be the factor that makes you distinguishable/approved, among the crowds because I really think I know best how to make myself distinguishable?  Did He really say "It is finished"...am I really covered?

During our Good Friday service last night for a few moments they extinguished all the lights so we could experience darkness.  In that quiet, still moment, the darkness was penetrating.  I sat there accepting it, knowing that so often I sell my "birthright as a creature in God's image -- a birthright of genuine goodness, sufficiency, and power for which we are fitted by nature -- for a mere bowl of soup (Genesis 25:30-31): perhaps a little illicit sex, money, reputation, power, self-righteousness and so forth -- 'the pleasures of sin for a season' -- for the mere promise of possibility of such. "(Renovation of the Heart p 68).  I think that if the darkness can show us how far we are from the True Light maybe there is something holy and divine about darkness.   During the death of Jesus "From the sixth hour until the ninth hour darkness came over all the land. (Matthew 27:45).  Right before the  power to raise someone from the death was brought to this earth, darkness covered it.  This gives me hope.  Because this season has seemed pretty dark for me because my junk seems to be the same.
An excerpt from Lent: A Symphony in Three Parts said Lent " is a time to think seriously about who Jesus is for us."  And Jesus the crucified is for me Someone that opened Himself up to receive me to cover me.  And that is enough for me. May I live like it is enough and may I keep coming to the empty tomb saying, "I believe."

The land the you have been promised.

The Daily Office has been taking me through some Old Testament lessons that have been resonating with me in a whole new way as I begin to look toward the new land that I am being led to in this next season.  This week we have been in Numbers reading through the story about the Israelites going to scope out the land (the land was more specifically called by the Lord a land "which I am giving to the people of Israel") and bring a report back to the people.  They went and saw that it was indeed a very good land.  One that was flowing with a lot of good things like amazing produce and vegetation, but it also had some very big people.  Most of the spies came back saying "No way."  According to their human perspective there was no way that they could conquer and overcome these healthy and wealthy people.  Caleb looked through a different set of lenses.  He witnessed the same circumstances but his response was one that basically said let's go right now and take it over.  The Lord delighted in this type of character.  He later said that "my servant Caleb, because he has a different spirit and has followed me fully, I will bring into the land into which he went" (Numbers 14:24).  But the people listened to the other spies response and once again everyone started to complain and whine.  I love seeing how they immediately jump to the worst case scenario (mainly because I relate so well with that reaction).  They began to cry out with complaints such as these... has the Lord brought us all the way here just to devour us?  It would have been better to have been left alone in Egypt to be slaves than to come all the way here to be devoured?  They were falling back to their old tendencies.  This began with the seed of doubt.  Doubting what the Lord had said.  The Lord had said this is the land "which I am giving to the people of Israel" (Numbers 13:2). But this seed of doubt produced lack of faith in the character of God.  God has promised to be with them.  He has lifted them up and bore them on "eagles' wings and brought them to Himself" (Exodus 19:4).  This lack of faith in who God is, what he has done and what he has promised to do produced cowardly people.  Faith in God produced genuine courage in Joshua and Caleb, a courage that caused them to be unafraid to go into the new land.  Moses plea to the people when he heard their whining was "..the Lord is with us; do not fear them" (Numbers 14:9).  But it was too late their lack of faith brought about wandering in the wilderness for 40 years.

Right now I feel like a spy in the new land that God is calling me to for this next season.  I have moved into my new upstairs apartment a stone's throw from Emory, walking distance to the classroom that I will be entering in August.  At this point, it still doesn't really feel real. I can still look at the campus and think, "Really, God, you want me here?"  and this seed of doubt can lead me to a whole bunch of worst case scenarios that are too numerous to go into here.  I look at this new land and see really smart people with mile-long resumes of unique and incredible accomplishments.  I have a tendency to relate with the spies that went into the land and thought "no way."  Thankfully, God has revealed this tendency to me through this Old Testament story.  My tendency to doubt His plans, His calling and His purpose particularly when I look at the land and the people that inhabit it.  This doubt produces such a lack of faith.  I see where the Israelites lack of faith got them, wandering and death in the wilderness.  I long for a genuine courage, the courage of Caleb that saw the mighty people with all their accomplishes and whose response was "what are we waiting for...it is ours to take because of what the Lord has done and said."  So as a way to help fix my eyes on Him and the calling He has led me to for this next season.  I am going to be taking a few blog posts (but let's be honest...it may just be one) to review what I have learned about calling during the search for calling thus far.  I know I will need these rocks along the way over the next couple years.

Haiti Recap

It is hard to sum up a trip in a passing conversation.  It was a great trip, but what is going to stick?  What makes this one stick out?  God put together a whole set of moments for me and my team on our trip to Haiti that I do not want to pass by without stopping.

We landed in Port-Au-Prince and our host, Peer Val, the priest of the Eglise Episcopale d'Haiti, and our chauffeur, Jimmy, were at the airport to greet us.  We loaded all our luggage onto the back of a pick-up truck and tied it all down.  Then we went straight to our home for the week.  We stayed in Croix de Bouquets, a northern suburb of the capitol of Port-Au-Prince.  Side note: Wikipedia  reports this to be the town where Wyclef Jean, Haitian-American rapper, was born.   There were no celebrity citings, but if I would have known this fun fact before we left I definitely would have put Killing Me Softly on the Haiti Playlist.  We stayed in what seemed like to me a city within a city, a fortress.  This inner city was tucked behind a cement wall that was protected with broken glass and barbwire lining the top.  Behind this wall was a church, a school, a playground a large outdoor seating area, and a 4 bedroom house with 2 bathrooms.   

We did not leave this area without one of our Haitian chauffeurs, but inside this walled area was enough activity to keep us occupied.  There were a few kids always hanging around, as they were kids of one of the folks on staff or, it seemed like to me, they had come to live in this safe place through the nutrition program.  There were also a few dogs and probably the ugliest cat you have ever seen which affectionately got the name "Snowflake."  Although this cat with a pair of eyes that were not the same color and a skeleton of a body was far from a fluffy snowflake.

That first night we celebrated Mona's 16th birthday with a large birthday cake.  And this became one of the moments I want to take with me. Mona is not just any sixteen year old young woman.  She was actually the first participant in the nutrition program that Carmel started over 15 years ago to serve severely malnourished kids in Haiti.  When Carmel presented her with the cake that night she spoke of the beautiful young woman she had become and how she was looked up to in her community.  Later that week, we saw a picture of Mona before she started the nutrition program.  Like most of the kids in the Carmel's photo album from the nutrition program, Mona was severely malnourished with swollen limbs and a swollen belly prior to starting this program.  It was incredible to not only see the picture of Mona approximately 3 months after starting the nutrition program, but also as a young women that is making an impact in her community because of the dream and vision that God put in Carmel's heart.

That brings me to the new beautiful clinic that has just been completed.  We found out that this clinic has been a dream of Carmel's since she was eight years old.  It is named Lespwa Timoun Clinic (Hope for Children), and we got the privilege of working out of it the first day.  The clinic sparkles just like Carmel.  It has a white interior that they clean frequently.  Before I set up the therapeutic exercise station on that first day they insisted that someone come in and mop the floors.  I tried to resist this service, but they insisted.

For the next three days, we took the clinic on the road.  At each of our four clinic sites, I got to work mostly with women which is always so fun for me.  Most of the women I saw complained of chronic back pain.  And thankfully, God provided some awesome handouts in the Creole language made by some of the athletic training students at Merrimac College.  A couple months before the trip I read an article in our NATA magazine about this program's partnership with Haiti and, graciously, they lent a copy of their handouts to me so that I was able to pass them out to those I worked with in Haiti as well.

All the ladies I got the pleasure of working with were lovely.  They would typically smile and sometimes giggle.  We would work  through 3-5 various stretches to put into their daily routine to help them combat their back pain.  One of my most memorable patients was a woman I met on our first mobile clinic day.  From afar when she came walking up to us, it seemed like she was an older lady.  But as she got closer, I saw that her left sided foot drop was misleading, and her face looked very young.  After a little more examination, I saw that her left hand  was contracted in a flexed position.  We stole the interpreter away for a few minutes to get a little bit further understanding of her complaints and found out she had no feeling on the left side.  Her biggest complaint was the  back and hip pain on the opposite side from overuse.  I demonstrated a few exercises she could do for what to me seemed like the uninvolved side.  I just could not believe that she was content with her limitations on the left side of her body and the doer in me really wanted to do more for her.  But the only other thing that came to my mind was to tell her how beautiful she was.  Later that day, we found out from the doctors that examined her that she sustained a stroke during childbirth.  As I saw her throughout the rest of the day, we would share a glance and a smile.  It seemed like she continued to say "thank you" with her eyes.  And I continued to want to do more for her each time I saw her.  But she just continued to say "merci."

The ending moment of this story did not come until days later.  One struggle I have on these trips is fighting the doer in me.  The doer in me just wants to make a difference and take care of people and make them better.  But a part of this desire is prideful because that part of the story is all about me.  Me getting the glory of making them better and making a difference and looking good.  Thankfully, the Lord reminded me of the ultimate thing I have to give.   This Truth came through in another moment.  It happened while we were out shopping at the market.  Some of the team were talking to a couple Haitian women and their children.  The children were being particularly playful, and I tried to seize that moment to be a child again, and I played with them.  Then I heard the women singing in English, "Every move I make I make in You."  I realized they were singing worship songs in English that the Haitian women had learned somewhere along the way.  I joined them, and we then went through about four other praise songs that the women knew.  It was ironic because they didn't know English but they knew those songs in English, and I didn't know Creole but we could share those songs together. Later, I asked Sarah how the conversation with those women got started.  And she said that they had asked her if she had anything she could give them.  Her response was, "All I have to give you is Jesus' love."  That response was so simple and so right on and unbelievingly heart penetrating for me.  This response came from the one on our trip who is a practicing psychiatrist.  She has had a ton of education and life experiences.  Yet she humbly claims all she has to give is the love of Christ.  It was so simple and somewhat the "Sunday School answer." But it was exactly what I needed to hear.  Really all I have to give is Jesus' love as well.  And it is not just the main thing I have to give to people in the clinical setting while I am in Haiti, but people in my family, co-workers, and friends as well.   I tend to get distracted by all the other things I can do to take care of people because that is what I do love to do.  It often takes language barriers and wrestling with my own insecurities and fears in  an uncomfortable environment for me to see that really God is so much bigger than my feebleness and that "the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing." The Psalms that our team started our day with told of this Truth about The Main Thing.  Yet it took Sarah's simple response for it to really sink in for me.  An Anne Lamott quote really sums it up for me as well.  In Grace Eventually Thoughts on Faith, Anne quotes a friend who says  "You do what you can.  Then you get out of the way because you are not the One who does the work."  So for the rest of the week, I really just tried to get myself out of the way.  To start at that spot where I feel utterly helpless to do it, whatever "it" may be.  Andrew Murray speaks of laying all my gifts and powers down at Christ's feet, feeling in myself "utterly powerless to use them aright."  These Truths helped ground me back in the bare essentials of serving and sustained me through the rest of the week.  So as we left Crochu, the last mobile clinic tucked away near the top of a Haitian hill, thankfully, the doer in me had been quieted by a bigger Power working itself out in me.  I was able to just be a little more.  Do what I could a little more and as we left Crochu, I was able to rest with the work God did through our team and in our team.  The work that He has started there, He will complete.  That is what He promises.  It was my job to get out of the way and enjoy the incredibly bumpy ride back down the mountain.

Another moment to add would definitely be the BBQ and dance party at the end of the week.  The wonderful cooks served us chicken and, yes, even hotdogs from the grill as well as some amazing Haitian fried plantains.  We ate food with some of the ladies from the pharmacy and some of the translators and others that had been serving with us not only all week but doing the work there long before we arrived.  Then the dancing began.  It started with a few couple people doing some salsa and ended with Carmel throwing some crazy elbows on the dance floor with the biggest smile on her face.  She danced with no regrets and held nothing back.  She said this is how I get my exercise as the glistening around her brow began to form.  Our BBQ and dance with our Haitian brothers and sisters on that ending night of our work week gave us just a taste of what that final banquet will be like.   When all the hard work and perseverance and sweat and tears will pale in comparison to the glory we get to behold on that mountain where "the Lord Almighty will prepare a feast of rich food for all peoples" (Isaiah 25:6).  Because after all, as Timothy Keller says "each one of us - whether we are materially rich or poor - is longing, like the Prodigal Son, to come home to a feast, a banquet in which all our physical needs are fully satisfied and all our relationships are completely restored, a banquet in which we experience all that it means to be human for the first time."   All of us have this longing and it gets hidden in different ways by the world we live in and our own sinful nature and our busyness.  But we have to believe there is a longer restoration project going on by the King of Justice and Righteousness and this moment helped me remember this Truth.

We ended our work week with a day at the beach.  I have never been so buoyant in ocean water.  So often when I go the beach, I am fighting against the tide.  But that day in the Caribbean Ocean a couple of us stayed out floating without float.  Ok…don't get me wrong - there was a little treading going on AND there were at least two jelly fish attacks but that did not make us want to leave.  The water had taken us over.  Could it be that God was whispering in that moment - "I want to carry you."  "Cease your striving and know that I am God" (Psalms 46:10).  Endurance in the treading is so much more manageable when I am being lifted up.  

I am so thankful for the opportunity to go, but I think the challenge always comes when you return.  When you sit with and try to make sense of what you saw and what you learned and what is going to stick.   So that is where I am these days tossing the moments around in my mind and heart not wanting to forget but feeling the urge to press on as well.  The entire week our team witnessed the profound impact that Pere Val and Carmel have had in this corner of their world.  There were so many signs of God's hand in restoring this nation.  And I don't want forget not only the way that Carmel served but also the way she danced.

We leave for Haiti Saturday!

We had our last meeting on Sunday, February 9th.  Next time I seem my teammates, we will be at the airport!  I am so excited and ready to see what God is going to do and how He is going to use us.

On Sunday we did some packing and final planning for the trip.  As we ate lunch, some of my teammates shared how they have been tested with sickness and family member's sickness as they have prepared for the trip.  Personally, I feel like the enemy has been trying to discourage my hope in Christ particularly as I reflected back on my story and shared that story with my team at our retreat in January.  It seems like since then, I have dealt with some confusion and doubt about God's plans for me.  Thankfully, the Lord led me back to one of my favorite devotional books, "Abiding in Christ" by Andrew Murray.  This little book is a classic and has reminded me of the power that comes in trusting the Lord's grace and faithfulness to keep me in Christ.  May I be given a whole lot of grace to remember this Truth as I seek to serve Him next week.

Here are a few pictures from our packing event.

Our fearless leaders supervise Mary Rose fitting a cot into a duffle bag.

Jason and Whitney attempt to reach the 49 lb weight limit with their carry on suitcase.

Jason is anticipating sleeping on the cot that he is holding in less than a week.

I am just randomly throwing things in my duffle.

The team at our Blue Ridge retreat in January.

Reflection on our story is crucial. It is hard work and requires time and stillness.  But the deeper work can bring rest. I am thankful for the story's of the people that I get to serve with in Haiti.  We all have brokenness and poverty, and these elements of human life come across in different ways in each of our stories.  But we also know the Healer and the Giver of Life.  As our landscape turns to the poverty of a new country, may we all be reminded of the chaos and destruction in our selves and in our relationships. May we look to the Savior and who loves us each individually more than we could possibly imagine.  May we take with us those moments with our Redeemer and Healer to Haiti and may He use us to spread healing, joy and encouragement to the people we encounter.

Here is how you can pray for me and my team this week..."that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies, might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him all our days." Luke 1:74-75

Here are a couple of my favorite quotes about personal story.

“Every life tells a story, through words and actions and choices, through our homes and our children, through our clothes and dishes and perfume.  We each play a character in a grand drama, and every stage direction matters.  We tell our stories, and we let God’s story be told through our stories.  We hide and we seek, and we lose ourselves in the best possible way and find things around us and inside ourselves that we never expected.   We tell God’s story as we live and discover our own.  We know that God is a storyteller.  He’s a mad scientist and a father and a magician and certainly, he’s a storyteller.  And I don’t know if there’s anything better in the world than when we lay ourselves wide open and let his story become our story, when we screw up our fists and our courage and start to tell the truest, best stories we know, which are always God’s stories.”

Cold Tangerines Shauna Niequist p 137

“The basic structure of a good story – A character who wants something and overcomes conflict to get it.”

A Million Miles in a Thousand Years Donald Miller p 48.