Preaching with Your Life

This is my first post in a series on Ann Voskamp's One Thousand Gifts. Each post will cover one of the eleven chapters of this book on seeing God and learning how to live fully... right where you are. Each post will be tagged 05/2014 and One Thousand Gifts. All quotes in italics are from the book.

Chapter 1: An Emptier, Fuller Life

Your life is a sermon. I know some pastors who can bring the Word. I mean, really bring it. Take it out, read it real, break it down, make connections, put those pieces together, and make stars come to your eyes. "Wow! I never knew it that way. What power! What truth!" But I've never known a pastor who could preach the way a life preaches. The way patterns of days unfold and the way a person goes -- it says far more than any twenty, thirty, sixty minutes of starry connections. The way you talk to your children, the way you start your day, the way you end your day, the way you go about your way for every minute in between... it says far more about what you believe (and what you believe about God) than you could ever put into words. And string those days along by weeks and months and years and you have a raging, roaring sermon of a life that proclaims: "This is my truth!"

What is your truth?

"Our fall was, has always been, and always will be, that we aren't satisfied in God and what He gives. We hunger for something more, something other."

Some days, I wake up and I know it will be good. My heart and eyes are wide open and I'm so full of love and excited. I hug my kids and tickle them and play silly games and everyone is fed and happy and glory be! Some days... not so much. My back hurts and my eyes sting with tired and I just. don't. feel like it. And I grump and mope and gripe and it rains inside our house.

"Where hides this joy of the Lord, this God who fills the earth with good things, and how do I fully live when life is full of hurt? How do I wake up to joy and grace and beauty and all that is the fullest life when I must stay numb to losses and crushed dreams and all that empties me out?"

Some days, it's just too painful to be happy, joyful, to be up. "But haven't you seen the news?" Tornadoes and babies dying and millions of souls in slums sorting trash (actual, literal trash) for their food. Closer to home, moms miscarry and husbands lose jobs and kids need surgery and never enough sleep. The days grind by through dishes and laundry and I lose some hold on what I ever did with myself. 

"When we find ourselves groping along, famished for more, we can choose. When we are despairing, we can choose to live as Israelites gathering manna... They find soul-filling in the inexplicable. They eat the mystery."

Some days, the sermon my life preaches about God is that He is stingy and rude and doesn't care very much. He's all up there going about His glory-seeking business and I'm all down here up to my elbows in dirty diapers. If I squint my eyes hard and squeeze the last drop of joy out of my heart, I hear myself mumble, "Thank you, Lord. Thank you for this day. I don't even really know what I am thankful for about this day, but it was a day, so it was a gift, so thank you." And I feel my heart open up just the littlest bit.

"That which tears open our souls, those holes that splatter our sight, may actually become the thin, open places to see through the mess of this place to the heart-aching beauty beyond. To Him. To the God whom we endlessly crave."

Those days that seem to grind the hardest, the ones with puking babies and cranky, defiant toddlers, the ones with terrible news from doctors and impossible decisions to make... I must admit, those are the days I find myself talking most to God. "Lord, please this... Lord, that. Lord, hear me, please. Do you see this? Help this." And we break down and break through and God hears. I know, because I'm still here. 

"Since we took a bite out of the fruit and tore into our own souls, that drain hole where joy seeps away, God's had this wild secretive plan. He means to fill us with glory again. With glory and grace."

The search, the fight of every day, is always to find the light in the darkness. The pinhole spot, the tear in the cavern wall that screams, "This is the way!" And the days can be dark. This dark is no joke. The darkness of cancer that eats and viruses that burn and depression that presses and anxiety that spins and loneliness that aches. Consuming darknesses that feel they are impenetrable. But there is always light. Even at the bedside of your only daughter, bruised and swollen and hungry for air. There is light in the hope of life and a caring nurse. Even in the diagnosis that will take you from this world. There is light in the hope of life beyond and your partner all these years. Even in the depression and loneliness that bores you down like a stripped screw. There is light in the hope of a friendly ear and a new day.

Joy matters because our lives matter. The sermons they preach are going out. People are watching and listening and learning. From us. And they want to know. They want to know where to find God in the darkness. They want to know how bad things can happen to good people if He cares. They want to know how to carry on through life's drudgeries and disappointments. They want to know the point of it all.

And we can preach a God who is powerless and careless by our frightened, anxious, fretting hearts. We can preach a God who is unkind and impatient with our harsh words and our hasty hands. We can preach a God who never wanted us to have a good thing by never opening our eyes to see a good thing.

Or...

We can preach a God whose power reaches beyond our lives to the whole world by our praise of His name in the storm. We can preach a God who is loving and patient far beyond what we can imagine by our over-and-over again forgiving and loving and caring touch. We can preach a God who gives and gives and gives us all good things, forever raining down, giving even to His death... by opening our eyes to what is already around us. The simple things, the profound things, the daily things, the life-altering, universe-tilting things. We can preach this God. We can shout sermons in our days that preach, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory!" (Isaiah 6:3) 

The whole earth is full of His glory. In flowering blooms and laughing children and powerful peace. In raging storms and warring factions and dried-up streams. The whole earth... the whole earth... is full of His glory. And we must fight to see.

Tune back in on Saturday, 5/3, for my post on Chapter 2: A Word to Live... and Die By

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Celebrating Lent

We're in the midst of crazy town in the Buck home these days. My husband takes his doctoral exams in exactly one week, and let's just say... it's the most stressed/hardest working I've ever seen him. These things mean business which means he means business which means lots of long days for him which means lots of long days for me. I have so much more respect and admiration for my med school wives after going through this! Thankfully, it will be over in just two weeks' time, but it has left my heart longing for some capital "T" Truth and Peace in my days. So! Inspired by some lovely bloggers I read, we are celebrating Lent.

Lent actually began this past Wednesday but we are following John Piper's Lenten devotional readings. There is one reading for each Sunday of Lent as well as for Good Friday and Easter. I'd have been happy just to do the readings, but they accompany instructions for incorporating candles into the observance. As I read the explanation, I knew I must have candles: "'The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.' (John 1:5). But for a while it seemed as if the darkness was overcoming—for a long while. Your seven candles symbolize the Light of the World—the Light that was God’s glory and that illuminated God for us—the Light that, in the end, seemed to have been darkened. As we move through the season preceding Easter, the candles are snuffed out one by one, until all are dark on Good Friday, when Jesus died and the earth was covered with shadow. Darkness apparently had won. The Light of the World had been extinguished. It was finished. But NO! Easter brings resurrection! Life! Return from death! The Light has won and all the candles burn as we praise him—the Light of the World, the Bright Morning Star, the Glory of God."

Unfortunately, right now, the dollar bills are few and far between so I couldn't very well go out and spend a fortune on a beautiful Lenten candle centerpiece. Thanks to the beauty of Pinterest, I put together my very own for about $3. Want to see?!?

I happen to have about a thousand of these bad boys sitting around:

Baby food jars

That's right! Baby food jars! They make perfect votive holders. Except that they're clear and not pretty. No fear...

Glue and tissue paper

I picked up this regular ol' Elmer's glue and some tissue paper for about $3 at the grocery store. I used them to transform my little jars! First, I mixed some glue with water, about 50/50 ratio (to make what is essentially Modge Podge without paying more for it...). I tore up the tissue paper into little pieces and then spread a thin layer of the watery glue onto my jar. I stuck the paper to the glue in a mosaic-style pattern:

Around and around the jar I went until I reached where I started. I tried to keep it relatively even at the top and bottom so it looked more intentional. Overlap is good; it makes darker and lighter shades of the color which is perfect. When I finished it looked like this:

Pieces kind of sticking off and all. To keep it all in place, I spread another layer of the watery glue over the paper. It seals it down while still keeping its papery texture. While wet, it looks sad and weird:

But once it dries???

Pretty, right?! I repeated this six times to have a total of seven jars for candles. I rummaged around in our cabinets for a pretty plate/bowl to collect them on:

A lovely wedding gift from a sweet friend!

All lit, I think they are simply beautiful:

We sat down as a family tonight and began our reading...

We talked about man trading the truth of God for a lie. "For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened." My son blew out the first candle...

We will start off next week with just six candles lit and each week snuff another one out.

I am so excited to be adding some weight to this Easter season. The walk to the cross is long and we will bear it up under the weight of Truth and fill our hearts with the hope of Peace.

*If you don't have time for the whole Lenten celebration, the Piper's did this devotional series in a week. You can read about that here.

#Winning

I see this hashtag a lot: #winning. Sometimes it accompanies a picture of a chocolate drizzled eclair cake, other times a bottle of unpasteurized green juice. Sometimes I see with an accomplishment: graduating, excellent latte art, a workout. Other times, it's a sarcastic celebration of spilled food or injury or a stupid comment. Whether used seriously or not, the idea of "winning" suggests a prize or an end and its attachment to anything reveals the implied "finish line". We "win" when we enjoy good gifts or make it to the top or get stronger and bigger or get fitter and skinnier or maintain neatness and health and wholeness and intelligence. We "win" when we don't screw up and we get everything right, all our t's crossed and i's dotted.

The new year is coming soon and people, myself included, are making their resolutions. Instead of resolutions, I make a list of goals. I'm a stay-at-home mom so no one hands me progress reports or gives me milestones to achieve. I set them myself and it helps me remember what is important to me and what I want to accomplish with my life. The goals I set determine my actions. I want to read my Bible every day, so I need to get up early. I want to clean up our food choices, so I need to plan my grocery trips strategically. I want to learn sign language, so I need to use nap time to my advantage. I set my sights on what I want and I gear my actions toward that end.

We can't know how to do life until we know what we're shooting for, until we know the end game and our goal and our why. We can't figure out our actions, our game plan, set eyes on our target, until we see the finish line and know what we're shooting for. What is real "winning"? What is the real prize, end, finish line? It is exceeding simple and complicated and altogether Christmas: man with God.

It started out that way, right? Adam and Eve, walking with God, talking with Him. No barriers of shame or fear. No anger or confusion. No one had to take a sick day or make custody arrangements. Just God and His children and love and joy. But then we broke it. Satan broke it. And now we're afraid and pissed off and trying to figure it out. We are orphaned from our Father and we hate Him but also want Him back and that makes us so terribly mad. Man with God -- we had that and we had it easy, but we broke it and all of history has been God moving to get that back.

The plan was so big and took thousands of years, but when it came, it came small. It came in the painful, bloody way we all come. It cried and needed diaper changes and fed from its mother's breast. The plan was a person, is a Person, will always be that Person. The plan was man with God, so with God, that God was man. One and the same, inhabiting the body, being the body. Feeling and hurting and thinking and walking on dusty roads with dirty feet, the same dirt He once used to form the men He walked amongst. The goal is so man with God that God became man to fulfill it.

And men die. We can spend our lives building our towers to God, trying to be with Him, but once your eighty years pass, you die and your tower crumbles. Men die, and God made man -- He died. The squirming, bloody, crying nursling hung and died, obediently bleeding as He cried out to His Father. But then He was alive. Christmas comes and He is born and praise the Lord, there is an Easter! Because man with God did not end with God as man. God as man was just the beginning and because He lives, we can once again achieve man with God.

I will be very happy if this is the year I finally start getting up early to exercise and read the Word. I will be very happy if this is the year that I finally create our household "binder" and read books with my husband and stick to a budget and a cleaning schedule. That would be great and not just because it means I'll get to check off all the little boxes on my chart. But I have only one goal this year (and every year): man with God. Because what once was and then broke was repaired again by a little baby. And the whole end of this is still man with God, me with my Father, you with your Father -- no anger or confusion or pain or brokenness. We have to know this is where we are going if we will ever figure out how to get there.

The miracle of the truth lives in how we get there. We set our eyes on man with God and we do not get there through our wealth or our intelligence or our health or our strong work ethic. We do not get there by crossing our t's and dotting our i's or being bigger or being smaller. We do not get there through a "what" but through a "who". Man with God is achieved by the God as man whom we serve. The baby born is our bridge to the Father and all we do is walk across. We don't have to walk in the straightest of lines. We don't have to race to be first. We don't really even have to walk there because it is God who delivers us home. If the end of it all is man with God, only one way will deliver and that way is Jesus.

#Winning on earth is a lot of things, and trust me, I love a good eclair cake like the rest of y'all. But #winning doesn't end here. Nothing ends here. And the end we're aiming for is higher, bigger, more than all we see here. If we're going to do this right, we have to set our sights right. If we're going to run the right race, we have to set our eyes on the right finish line. The finish line is a reconciliation, a beautiful adoptive homecoming when a Father welcomes His babies home, and everything, every day should move us in that direction. Our lockstep with Jesus, our service to Him, our shining light reflection of His love and His life carries us to where we need to go. We go on a walk in a garden, leave through the gate, visit a baby in a barn, watch a man die on a tree. And we sit and weep outside his tomb until the angel says, "Do not be afraid... for he has risen... Then go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead."

God Answers Prayer

Baby girl, today you are six months young! Your half-birthday, your unbirthday, your mid-way through your very first year day. We will celebrate today with a cookie cake that you cannot eat but that your brother will thoroughly enjoy. We will celebrate your birth and your life and your health, but most of all we will celebrate one nearly unbelievable were it not for what we've seen truth: God answers prayer.

Baby girl, I am not the one to explain to you the theology of how this prayer thing works. How an all-powerful, sovereign God who formed the stars, spoke them, and knows the depths of the oceans, commands us to pray, to offer up our petitions to Him, and promises to listen. How Jesus says, "Ask and it will be given to you" and how that matches up with "the heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps." But I know that the Word says, "Pray without ceasing" and I know that here we are, December come, and God answers prayer.

Baby girl, months and months and months ago, I prayed for this day. I sat with you while you slept and you held my finger and I prayed, wept, for December. Please, Lord, carry us through. Please, Lord, let us see Christmas. Please, Lord, let December come, let all this pass, and let my baby girl still be. I prayed for platelets and pounds and antivirals and appetites. I prayed for nurses and doctors and rest and tests. I prayed for your brother and your ears and your brain and your father. But mostly, most of all, I prayed for December.

Baby girl, today we celebrate a baby unplanned. We were not expecting you, but there you were. (Your mommy even said to your daddy, "Well, this sure is a God thing!" Silly mommy, right? Everything is a God thing.) But you came, and you grew, and I carried you. Then you came and you suffered and we prayed. And sometimes, I could feel the hand of God turn to me, palm out, and say, "Wait, child. Wait while I work." And sometimes I could feel the blessings of God, victories practically raining down on us, and I could see the face of God, beaming with joy, so pleased with His creation. And though we did not plan for you and though when you came, you suffered, now we rejoice. We rejoice for your health. We rejoice for every last ounce you gain. We rejoice that you finally feel well, have room to grow, to become the sweet-souled girl who God knit together in my womb.

Baby girl, we rejoice in all these things, but most of all we rejoice because God answers prayer. Because in June, I prayed for December and here we are. Here we are in December and in ten short days, we will celebrate a baby unplanned (at least to His mother). We will celebrate a baby, given to the world, who came... and suffered. Who bled while His Father held out His hand and said, "Wait, Son. Wait while I work." Who waited to His death. In ten short days, we will celebrate and rejoice with that same baby, grown to a man, who after death, rose again. He lived again and He walked again and He spoke again. And when He spoke, He said, "Behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age." We celebrate this baby because the Word tells us that right now, in this moment, Jesus sits at the right hand of God the Father and intercedes for us. Intercedes. He intervenes, mediates, serves as our go-between, between us and the Father.

Baby girl, God heard each and every one of my prayers for you because of Jesus. Jesus heard my cries, my pleas for your life, and He turned to the Father and appealed for them all. Obedient to God, He sat to His right and delivered my pleas. He prayed with me and waited with me and wept with me and encouraged me. He held my teary face in His hands and hushed, "Ask and it will be given to you." He reminded me in the scariest of times that He was with me, with you, always. We rejoice for your health and your life because we rejoice in Jesus' birth. We rejoice in His birth and His life and His death because all of that made possible His resurrection to new life. All of that made possible His place by the Father, as the One to hear our prayers and hand them to God. In every answered prayer is a baby in a manger, a man on the cross, a Son shining in the glory of His Father. In every answered prayer is the goodness of God, His mercy, and His love.

Baby girl, your life, all six months of it, by usual standards, has been quite difficult. And I'm not here to tell you that all your troubles are behind you, that life won't throw you any more curveballs. Because that is not the promise in the Word. That is not what God says He will give. But I am here to tell you that despite all the difficulties, all the troubles, all the odds that might stand against you... God answers prayer. I will say it again: God. Answers. Prayer. It is not an illusion of your mind, a grasping at straws, an attempt to form conclusions out of confusing situations. It is a truth and a plan and a reality far greater than what we can see. When the fog rolls in and the road clouds out and you get turned around, not sure you're going the right way or are even on the road at all, remember the promise. Remember the promise of December come. Remember the promise of a baby born. Remember the promise of a Father who hears, even when we can't. Remember the promise of a Love that endured all, that you might endure all. Remember the One who waits for you to call and who will answer when you do.

Baby girl, your life paints a picture of faithfulness. Every celebration of you shoots right up to Heaven. Every celebration of you shines light in the darkest, scariest places. You have seen those places and God has been faithful to show you light. In Jesus is life, and the life is the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. The darkness did not overcome you, nor will it ever, because pleading for you, petitioning for you, going to God for you is One, December come, who is for you. And when He is for you, nothing can be against you. Happy six months, bitty. And praise God for them all!

God's Presence

**If you just started reading, go here to read about why I'm writing.**

About two weeks before my daughter came home, the hospital chaplain paid me a visit. I was snuggled up with baby girl in the comfy chair I had a nurse steal for me and we were watching our usual mindless HGTV show. The chaplain said he had been meaning to come by and just wanted to chat for a minute so I welcomed him in. He asked me how she was doing and I filled him in. He asked me how I was doing, kind of pressed me on it, and I told him -- that all things considered, I was doing pretty well, in large part thanks to the amazing community I had supporting me. I told him about some of the incredible ways God had shown Himself to us through our whole ordeal and he was almost surprised to hear that as my response. He asked me an interesting question that I will never forget. "You say that you feel God with you right now, but has there been a point throughout all this when you felt that God wasn't there?" The question took me off guard because truthfully, I hadn't really considered it. I took a moment to think and truthfully answered, "No, I never felt like God wasn't there." He nodded and smiled and said he was very encouraged by our story and went on his way.

I thought more about that question after he left. I answered him then, but I really wanted to examine my heart, think about what he was asking. We had been through a lot, most of it not good. We were facing questions without answers and some terrible possibilities for the future. At times, we weren't sure our daughter would survive everything she had to overcome. We certainly celebrated many "mountain top" moments when we could point and say, "Look! See! God is here!" But what about the valleys? What about the terrible-awfuls and the frightening parts? Was God present in those moments? Or was He just there for the victories?

As I pondered this, I thought back to a sermon preached by our church's former associate pastor. I don't remember the context of the illustration (sorry, Drew), but I will never forget what he said. He recounted his own experience with a sick child, his son born months premature and fighting for his life in the NICU. He was talking about God's presence in those times and he said, "If someone were to tell me that God wasn't with my son, that He wasn't a part of all this, I would want to punch that person in the face." The congregation chuckled at the thought of this very quiet, mild-mannered man hitting someone. But he said, "If God wasn't there, if God wasn't with my son when he was at his worst, what hope did we have? What hope is there if God isn't with us?"

The real emotion behind his words made my heart do flip flops. Knowing what they had been through and how scary it was, having visited his son when he was still in the hospital living in a plastic rectangle -- I knew that his charge to see God in the midst of pain and struggle came from a place of experience. He had been there, immersed in the pain, seeking to understand how these terrible things could happen and God could still be good. I had never really thought about it before. I had never thought about it in a way that was personal and real to me, in a way that I could truly see, and it scared me. What if I couldn't reconcile this? What if this was so big that it would shake the very foundation I stood on? How would I know if God was there when I encountered suffering in my own life?

The Word of God promises over and over again that God will be with his people always. Moses says this to Joshua as he hands over leadership to him: "It is the Lord who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not leave you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed. (Deuteronomy 31:8)" Jesus promises his presence to his disciples before He ascended into heaven: "And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age. (Matthew 28:20)" God promises this in Isaiah: "Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you,I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. (Isaiah 41:10)" In Micah, the Word speaks to God's presence in trial: "Rejoice not over me, O my enemy; when I fall, I shall rise; when I sit in darkness, the Lord will be a light to me. (Micah 7:8)" Even when things look dim, God is still present, a light in the darkness.

My heart flip-flopped to think of seeking God in the midst of pain because I know myself. I know that when the going gets tough, I suck into my turtle shell and wait to beat off the intruders with a stick. I talk a good game, but I am not strong; I'm scared and small and weak. I give God my character, imagine He would do as I would, and suddenly the outcome doesn't look so good. Instead of victories, I see defeat after defeat after defeat and when the stakes are high -- say, my daughter's life -- I cannot compute; I don't want to go there; I don't want to have to think about God in the midst of that.

But God isn't me (thank God!). God is a God who keeps His promises and who is there. And thankfully, none of it relies on me. One of my favorite stories from Genesis illustrates this. "The word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision: 'Fear not, Abram, for I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.' (Genesis 15:1)" Abram didn't understand; he had no children but God was promising him great things and offspring beyond number. Abram "believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness." To cement this covenant that God had made with Abram, as a physical manifestation of the promise, God has Abram bring him sacrifices, animals that he was to cut in half and lay in the grass. When the time came to seal the covenant, Abram fell into a deep sleep. God repeated His promises to Abram, and "when the sun had gone down and it was dark, behold, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces." Abram didn't move between the pieces of the sacrifice. Abram didn't uphold his part of the covenant. God sealed the covenant for both parties, for himself and for Abram. God made the covenant with Abram, and God would keep the covenant for both himself and Abram.

All of those promises in the Word, promises to prosper and protect and secure and deliver, all those promises were made by the same God who sealed this covenant with Abram. They were made by a God who upholds His end of the deal and proves Himself over and over. When I look around and see my circumstances, see the pain or suffering around me, I could be tempted to think that God is not present or protecting or delivering. I could be tempted to think that God has abandoned me in that moment and that I am alone in my shell with my stick. But God does not depend on my circumstances. God does not depend on what I see or how I feel. And God is not shaped by my response to the world around me. I don't have to understand or know why. I don't have to be able to explain it or defend it. God's promises are true, despite my feelings or assessment of the situation. His promises are true regardless of how I think things look, and so I can say with confidence at all times that God is "my rock and my redeemer", that when I pass through the waters, God "will be with me" because, as He says, "I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior" and if He says it, it is true. Always. Forever. In all things.

The Need for Community

I am a smart, independent woman, living in post-women's rights America. I can vote, drive a car, wear pants, cook, let my husband cook, stay home with my kids, work, etc. etc. Yes, there are still gender pay gaps and social constraints, but for the most part, I can go it alone if I want -- and often, I want. I have chosen to marry and go the "traditional" woman route, but it was just that -- a choice. No one made me and I in no way felt pressured. I just as easily could have stayed single, started a career, and blasted to the top of the social food chain. All this power goes to my brain (it goes to men's brains too...), and makes me think that I can do everything all by myself. I not only don't need your help, but I can probably do it better than you can, so I might as well do it myself anyway. (Whew, truth-telling can get ugly, y'all. Welcome to my mind...)

But regardless of my station in life, whether I'm wiping butts, windows, or the leather seats in my Porsche, I can't do it alone. It's not a matter of "won't", "don't want to", "rather not" -- I can't. You can't. No one can. God created us in His own image: "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. (Genesis 1:27)" God created us to reflect Him, but He is not alone. He is the Father, the Son, and the Spirit and they all exist together eternally. Our very foundational existence hinges on us being with others, being together, needing relationships. In fact, God made a partner for Adam specifically so that he would not be "alone" (Genesis 2:18). God says that isn't good. Being alone isn't good -- for anyone. (By "alone", I don't mean "single" - I just mean by yourself, with no friends, having no connections at all.)

Being my independent, go-it-alone self, I could have felt crippled when my daughter was born and everything fell apart. I was one person; there was no way I could both be with my daughter in the NICU and with my son (who was not allowed to visit her there). It was not physically possible for me to take care of my home, myself, my husband, and both my children. I could not make all the decisions and do all the things that needed doing. I had to rely on other people. 

Thankfully, God has blessed me with an amazing community of family and church. He placed on our hearts (my husband's and mine) the burden of connecting with a community, "for better or worse" if you will. "Bear one another's burdens (Galatians 6:2)" "Rejoice with those who rejoice; weep with those who weep. (Romans 12:15)" When it comes down to it, we are called to be with one another, support one another, when life gets tough (which it always does). Without the rich community that we have in our church and family, my husband and I would have felt like leaves blowing in the wind, nothing holding us down when the rug was pulled out from under us. Interestingly enough, most of the powerful lessons about God, love, suffering, community, and the hard truth of life were taught to me through those very same people who were loving on us when we needed it. We have walked with our friends through cancer, death, mysterious illness, joblessness, depression. We watched them turn to the Lord and teach us about the amazing grace, power, and love of our God. We believed them and nodded our heads and thought, "Wow, I can't imagine going through something like that."

Then God gave us the opportunity to put feet to our words. When life gets hard, do you really believe what you say? What I started to realize was that the very body who taught me these truths was the one who helped me to keep believing them when those truths were tested in my own life. They taught me, and when I needed it, reminded me. "Speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love. (Ephesians 4:15-16 )" God's people are His body, and I may make a really good hand or foot or left pinky toe, but I can't work the whole thing (certainly not the head, which is Christ). During our time of struggle, all the hands, feet, arms, fingers, toes, ears, noses, and every other part of the body of Christ came together and built a haven of love. What did this look like? People walked our dogs, checked our mail, mowed our grass, watched our toddler, bought us meals, gave us money, sent us gifts, sat with us at the hospital, called, texted, emailed, Facebooked, prayed and prayed and prayed and prayed. People sent our story all around the world, put us on prayer lists for churches who didn't even know us, asked our friends and family continually about this little baby girl they had never met. "Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. (Philippians 2:3-4)" I truly saw the spirit of this time and time again from people who were so keen to help us, practically begging to do more.

But, really, what is the point? Besides being God's image-bearers, what is the point of this community of God? What does it accomplish? As I looked at verse after verse about the church being the church and people coming together, a few key things emerged. It fulfills the law: "Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. (Galatians 6:2)" What is the law of Christ? Specifically Jesus' command to love one's neighbor as oneself which leads you to obey all the other moral laws that God commanded (Romans 13:9-10). It makes us more like Jesus: The Philippians 2 passage continues, "Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus"; the "body" in Ephesians grows into Christ (the head). We become a light: in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says to be salt -- to influence the world for good -- and to be light -- to shine the kingdom so that people will see the good works done by Jesus' disciples. All this leads to the main reason: it brings God glory: "In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in Heaven. (Matthew 5:16)." "Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins... in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. (1 Peter 4:8, 11)"

Relying on others, leaning hard into a community, is part of our very design. We need it to survive, to simply "be". When we rely on that community and build it up as it builds us up, we are fulfilling the law of God. We are becoming more like Christ and displaying His grace and sacrifice to the world by being gracious and sacrificial toward one another. And ultimately, we are bringing God - the Creator of the Universe and the Giver of all things - the glory due His name. It is no small thing to have love and compassion for others, to show it through acts of service and words of love, to cry with your friends, to bring them dinners, to clean their homes, and care for their children. When you do this humbly, not for yourself but to bring glory to God, you are kneeling right next to Jesus, washing dirty feet. You are being the humble servant Christ displays for you and the world watches. It sees you get dirty to help others become clean. And it raises its eyebrow and wonders.

What about those in need? What does this picture, this charge, have to say to you? What did our time of trial teach me? Take off your sandals. Leave your independent, "I can do it myself" attitude at the door and receive the love that your brothers and sisters offer. Let your feet be washed and in doing so, bring God great glory by allowing His love to be poured out over you. Let yourself be weak. Accept it, and embrace it, and God will say to you, "'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Corinthians 12:9-10)" In your weakness, the power of Christ will be with you, and trust me when I say, that power is far greater than anything you can do alone.