Browsing category: Your Mom Goes to Seminary

I’m sitting at the beach, watching my 12-year old paint her legs with sand. Dolphins keep peeking out in the horizon, their glossy fins enough to make us newbies look twice. We wonder what swims not far from where we just stood. “Look!” I call out over the waves to my children. “Dolphins!” I point ferociously while they scan the sea (never in the direction I’m pointing). We keep watching even when others have moved on. I don’t want to stop delighting at the sight of dolphins not at Sea World. The aquarium is before us in all its vastness and I can’t stop staring. I come to the ocean to remember I’m small, and I’m never disappointed.

These past six months have been an ocean of their own, building in strength and severity. The waves come unabated, one after another. A lost job. Shelter in place. Incompletes. Cancellations and disappointments and opportunities gone for good. The sand has turned to concrete and we can’t move as the ocean swells before us. We remember we’re small, wonder if we’ll drown.

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I spent much of my summer writing a paper on Daniel 9:24-27. It’s one of those prophecies that’s provoked thousands of pages of commentaries, with scholars analyzing and picking apart each detail in hopes that the angel’s mysterious words will become clear. I can’t say I figured the passage out in my assigned 12 pages. If you want to feel small, just study eschatology. Or the prophets. In Hebrew.

The chapter opens with Daniel praying on behalf of God’s people who have been in exile for seventy years. They’ve utterly failed, acting in rebellion, idolatry, apostasy. And yet, Daniel appeals to God’s covenant with his redeemed people. He remembers the prayer at the dedication of the temple, when Solomon implores God to respond when his people repent and cry out for mercy. Here, Daniel offers the prayer God has promised to answer (2 Chron 7:14). He humbly confesses the people’s sin and pleads for mercy: “O Lord, hear; O Lord, forgive. O Lord, pay attention and act” (Dan 9:19).

And God does answer. In that moment, he sends his angel Gabriel with a message to give Daniel hope. God will act. He will bring an end to his people’s suffering. The promises of the covenant stand.

And yet, he lifts Daniel’s eyes to look beyond temporal restoration to an eschatological future. Yes, the Lord will answer his prayer to forgive and restore his people and their temple, but God’s purposes are bigger and more expansive than just that. He will usher in his new covenant and bring it to its ultimate fulfillment. He will not restore an old kingdom to its earthly glory, he will usher in an everlasting one, secured by the blood of a perfect sacrifice and vindicated in judgment by a conquering king. Though his people will suffer in waiting, their suffering is limited. The end is decreed. One day, the curse will finally and ultimately be vanquished because the anointed one, the prince, is seated upon the throne.

We might wonder if this word offers any real comfort. The promise of war, devastation, desolation. The hope of restoration far into the future. My plan is much bigger than this, the Lord assures Daniel. His suffering – our suffering – is just a little speck on the timeline of history, working towards a future God has ordained. We are small, insignificant, our stories lost in the larger one being written. It’s all part of the plan.

But if we’re honest, sometimes, we want to sneak our way centerstage and see if anyone is paying attention. We mistake small for forgotten, waiting for abandoned.

We forget that the conquering king had to first hang upon a bloodied cross. The path to glory is paved with suffering, and I’m not the first to walk this way, lamenting the pain and the thorns and the certainty of death.

There’s comfort in looking up over the waves, realizing these small moments make up a story that’s already been written. History marches onward to a glorious end, and I’m there in the midst of it.

Poor and needy that I am, the Lord takes thought for me.

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I sat in a professor’s office the other day, trying to design an independent study to fulfill my last two unallocated credits. I’m desperate to bring all of this together, to figure out what the point of this education is, where I’ll take it from here. We talked through my many questions and the best way to go about answering them.

“This is too broad,” he told me. “We need to focus.” He did this while handing me book after book from his shelves, each one unrelated to the one before it.

I laughed a little. Of course it’s too broad. If seminary has taught me anything, it’s that there’s so much I don’t know. I have more questions than answers. There’s the vastness of an incomprehensible God set before me, each class an invitation to take a sip from a firehose. I came to seminary thirsty, and I’ll leave soaked. And still thirsty.

I want to bring it all together, to have somewhere to go from here, but there’s always more to question, more to understand.

Sensing my distress, my professor backed away from the bookshelf and sat across from me. He challenged me to consider what it means to be faithful. It’s not a matter of figuring it all out, seeing how it all fits together, having all the questions answered. It’s a matter of taking a next step, of serving the Lord where I am, of trusting him that there’s a place for me even if I can’t see it right now.

It’s a matter of embracing my smallness. Of recognizing I can only do what’s before me, and beyond that isn’t really my business.

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The dolphins are gone now, and the sun glistens off the waves. My kids are in the water, their giggles rise above the soothing hum of beach noises – wind and waves, birds and laughter. I breathe in the ocean air, hold, exhale. I feel my shoulders relax, my jaw unclench, my heart lighten.

“Come into the water, Mom!”

I’m so tired. Tired of juggling deadlines and desires, my children’s emotions along with my own. I’m tired of interruptions, of uncertainty and unsettledness. I’m tired of wondering where I fit, or what the future holds. I’m tired of holding my breath, waiting for the next wave to knock me off my feet, knowing it can come at any second.

But there is peace in remembering I’m small.

When I remember I’m small, I see there is far more at play than this moment. I look to the horizon, trusting that these struggles really are just small and momentary. Eternal glory awaits. There is an ocean before me, and it still recognizes the voice that spoke it into existence.

And when I remember I’m small, I also see this moment is all that’s entrusted to me. I might know the ending, but I don’t know tomorrow, and tomorrow has enough worry of its own anyway. So I remember that the one who commands the waves is the one in whom all things hold together. The one who holds me together.

I brace myself; the water is cold. This ocean is huge but this moment is small, so I let my children grab my hands, dragging me further out, our teeth jittering. The waves come, bigger and bigger, but we forget to be afraid. Salt water catches our lips as we throw back our heads and laugh.

A year ago, I stood in front of a hundred women and made them repeat after me, “I can do hard things.”

We were talking about studying our Bibles, acknowledging the discomfort of entering unfamiliar territory, and our tendency to cut and run when things get hard. Growth happens in the tension, I assured them. As we persevere in the hard work of studying the Word, it penetrates our hearts and renews our minds. So we can tell our brains to pipe down; we can breathe deeply; we can do the hard things.

I felt pretty confident after that: I can do hard things. And I loved that it became a mantra of our women’s discipleship efforts–this challenge to one another to do the things we may not feel like, but which we know are ultimately for our good.

I love studying my Bible. I don’t say that to display my piety but rather to admit that this “hard thing” is really not that hard for me. Maybe at some point it was, but really, maybe not. When I heard the gospel 7 years ago and realized I’d been taught wrong my whole life, I couldn’t devour my Bible fast enough. I wanted to read all the books and understand all the things. I wanted to undo years of wrongful thinking and with every discovery, there was more light. And the light was addicting. I couldn’t get enough. Even in dark seasons or busy seasons, the Word was my anchor–words to nourish my soul and steady my feet. In the middle of the night with babies, in the early hours of the morning, on notecards around my house, and in my lap while the kids watched TV, I found a way most days, because the words were life itself.

This is why I beat the table for women to know the Word, because I simply can’t understand–how can you live without it?

My mind is a terrifying place even when it’s tethered to scripture–but it’s much, much worse apart from it. It’s not that I’ve been able to study in depth at all points in my life, but time in the Word has been a fixed part of my daily routine for many years now.

The only conclusion I can reach is this is solely a work of God’s grace. I can’t desire God apart from his work in my heart, but he has faithfully cultivated that desire over the years, and he’s done that primarily by revealing himself to me in his Word.

There is discipline involved in my pursuit of understanding scripture, but it doesn’t feel like discipline. It’s like eating breakfast. I wake up hungry.

But it’s not just Bible study that’s not really a hard thing. School was always pretty easy for me. I only had to pay attention to ace a test. And if it was an essay test, I probably didn’t even need to pay attention. (College was a little different, but skipping class might have had something to do with that.)

I often found courage where others were fearful. For example, I love roller coasters. At youth group camp in the Appalachian mountains, my peers stood trembling on the mountain’s edge, clinging to the ropes and paralyzed from stepping over. I was the first to go, marveling at the rush and the beauty as I repelled down. A couple of years later, I dove head-first off a cliff into the Caribbean. I flew to Chad when I was 16 and home again, alone, to catch another flight to Russia a week later. When I was 19, I volunteered for an internship in Los Angeles without any personal contacts or idea of what I was getting myself into. And I love public speaking.

These, again, aren’t meant to be examples of my awesomeness but rather my reality. While I might tell people to do hard things, what I haven’t really admitted deep down is that many of these things haven’t been hard for me. I’ve always loved an adventure, a challenge, a change. Come on, guys, we can do hard things!

I tell it to my kids, too. We can push through the discomfort! We can do things we don’t feel like! We can do hard things!

Which is why I hate to admit that this move to California has knocked me off my feet. What I once might have found thrilling is now mostly overwhelming. It turns out, I hate doing hard things. I want the comfortable things. I want to shop in a store where everything is where it should be; I want to be surrounded by a crowd of people who know me; I want to send my kids to the basement or backyard while I have coffee with a familiar friend.

I don’t care if growth happens in the tension; I’m tired of the tension.

At times, the darkness has hovered so thick I’m not sure I can breathe. I wonder if I’m really just a fraud. Have I even fooled myself?

I’ve felt this compulsive need to confess to all my friends back home: I can’t do hard things! They’re too hard! Let’s all just go back to bed!

I want to say my struggles these past months have been humbling, but mostly they’re just humiliating. It turns out I’m weak where I thought I was strong. I’m fearful where I thought I was courageous. I’m self-righteous where I thought I was helpful.

But there’s grace to be found even in my stubborn refusal to do the hard things.

By God’s grace, I stumble out to the patio most mornings, cup of coffee in hand and Bible in my lap. I search for hope in those well-worn pages. One morning, the words leap off the page: “This I know, that God is for me” (Ps 56:9). It takes my breath away, this reminder of the God who did not spare his own Son–how will he not also with him graciously give us all things (Rom 8:31)?

But also these words: This I know.

And I realize that I do know.

That even in the midst of the depression and the loneliness and the uncertainty, that in these years, God has been at work in my heart, helping me to dig down deep, setting my feet upon a Rock (Lk 6:48, Ps 40:2). This God-given discipline–this one hard thing–this is how he sustains me (Matt 4:4).

It’s not that I hold fast to him–it’s that he holds fast to me.

I wake up hungry, and every morning he spreads a feast and invites me to come and sit–to eat food I haven’t paid for and drink until I’m no longer thirsty (Is 55:1-2).

He meets me with mercies new every morning. Even when I’ve doubted his goodness. Even when I’ve forgotten the ways that he’s proven his faithfulness. Even when I’ve refused to receive from his hand the good he’s continually provided–new places to belong, new people to love. He reminds me that, though I am faithless, he is faithful (2 Tim 2:13). That when I am weak, he is strong (2 Cor 12:9). That my flesh and my heart fail, time and time again, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever (Ps 73:26). And that he is working, even when I fail to do the hard things (Rom 8:28).

We spent the weekend saying goodbye. Even though we’ve known for months that these goodbyes would come, they were no less painful. After the whirlwind of loading the trailer and cleaning and making sure everything was gone, I stood alone in my empty living room and fell apart. We only lived in that house for 2-1/2 years, but it’s an adequate representation of our life here.

When we moved into that house, we learned shortly after that my mother-in-law had stage 4 breast cancer. What we thought would be a season of remodeling and settling into our new home became a season of maximizing time spent with family. But as sweet as those last months with her were, living in the basement of a house with everything upstairs torn apart began to take its toll on us. We would try to squeeze projects into the crevices of our disappearing time, but we lived in a constant state of upheaval. Through that season, our church family faithfully brought meals, chipped the ice off of our driveway, painted our walls, and, in what is still one of the sweetest acts of generosity I’ve been privileged to witness, rounded up a crew of people to come finish our floors so we could actually move into our bedroom and use our kitchen.

I stood on those floors in my empty living room and cried tears of gratitude. For that house, for those people, for our life here.

I moved to Fargo in 2007. Though Fargo had never really been “home” to me, I was pregnant with Hadley and needed my mom. But I dreamt of leaving the moment I arrived. I would just take a year or two to get my bearings, then head back to the city, I thought. I never imagined living here for ten years. I never imagined what this life would become.

On Saturday, I went to some friends’ house to drop off something I’d borrowed. As I drove the way to their home, I noticed how familiar it was. Seven years ago, this was a well-worn path. These were the people who welcomed Hadley and I into their family, who told me over and over again about Jesus, who taught me what it looks like to follow him, who protectively interrogated by now-husband and who helped us learn how to be married and raise children together. These are the people we turn to in crisis, the ones who bring a team of people over to clear off our driveway and finish our floors. Despite the fact that recent years and the natural course of our lives have created more distance between us, there is no being prepared to say goodbye to people like that.

On Sunday, we braced ourselves for our final goodbyes at church. As I listened to my pastor’s sermon, I remembered that Sunday I sat there seven years ago, waiting for him to say something that would give me an excuse not to come back. Instead, he preached the gospel and I was ruined. As we’ve navigated the messy and beautiful paradox of life in a church, these people have become our family. They are the people I’ve learned from and alongside. Through conflict and crisis, joy and grief, these people have become fixtures in our lives. We can’t picture life without them.

In the midst of the grief, I’m pondering grace. I’ve been thinking how God’s grace is so vast–there’s his grace that saves us and grace that sustains us. But through this transition, I’ve realized that one of the primary ways he extends his grace to us is through his people. His comfort in our grief was in the form of people who cried with us and supported us. His provision was in the form of people who brought meals and watched our kids and helped with house projects. His love was in the form of sweet friendship. His growth in the form of the mentorship and discipleship of others.

When the Bible says that God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble, I think it applies here. In order to experience the grace of the family of God, you have to be willing to need it. I can’t say that we’ve always been so humble as to say we need it, but more often humbled by God’s gracious provision through his people in spite of our pride. I can testify to his grace at work in my people–they have been loved deeply in Christ, and that love has poured over into my family through the years.

When the Israelites are standing on the border of the Promised Land, after 40 years of wandering in the wilderness, Moses lays out the law one more time and warns the people not to stray from their God. He says:

“And when the LORD your God brings you into the land that he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give you—with great and good cities that you did not build, and houses full of all good things that you did not fill, and cisterns that you did not dig, and vineyards and olive trees that you did not plant—and when you eat and are full, then take care lest you forget the LORD, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” (Deut 6:10-12)

I thought of this warning as I stood in my empty living room that friends had cleaned, on floors I didn’t install, surrounded by walls I didn’t paint, having emptied our fridge of food I didn’t prepare, knowing that a trailer sat outside that was loaded with the help of many. These words warn me, too: “Take care lest you forget.”

My ten years in Fargo have been marked by God’s grace. The Lord graciously drew me to this place where I could encounter the truth of my wretchedness and his holiness. Where I could be confronted in my prideful self-sufficiency and learn for the first time what grace actually is. Where I could learn to love God and share my life with others. Where I could learn how to be a part of this family God was growing around me.

This is the place where God rescued me. Where I brought my babies home. Where I met and married my husband. Where we loved and said goodbye to foster children. Where we said goodbye to my mother-in-law. Where we have lived and celebrated and laughed and wept alongside our people.

Growing up and moving a few times, my mom would always insist to me, “Home is where your people are.” That truth has taken root in me, and as I look at this little family God has grown, I’m grateful to know that I’m bringing home with me. And yet, “my people” have expanded over the last ten years. My home is not this house, but in some ways it is this place and these people. There’s a grief in this goodbye that I’ve yet to fully swallow.

And yet, I want to take care, lest I forget God’s faithfulness these ten years. Lest I forget his love and provision through his people. Lest I forget that all that we’ve gained here was by God’s grace. Lest I forget that it’s God’s grace that will continue to sustain us as we go from here.

As I say goodbye and prepare for this next chapter, I do so marked by my seasons here in ways I’m sure I still don’t comprehend. I’m so deeply sad to leave, and so overwhelmingly grateful.