Category: Uncategorized

This year began with a plunge into the ocean. In the middle of the night, straight into cold water–the exact kind of thing I usually don’t like. I told Calvin I was going to need to be thrown in if I was going to do this midnight dip thing, and he happily obliged. I remember bracing, closing my eyes as tightly as I could, and suddenly being in the air. Then came the plunge. The feeling was what I imagine getting shut into a washing machine would be like. A few seconds went by before I emerged and opened my eyes. At first I legitimately didn’t know where I was.

My brain was saying one thing only. Run.

We sprinted back up the beach, up the long Seacliff stairs under a shower of fireworks, and back through the softly illuminated seaside neighborhood, shouting and laughing as we ran. I was in utter disbelief at what had just happened. One minute I was dreading the icy waves, the next I was feeling clean and invigorated and happy. The night ended with the six of us packed into a friend of a friend’s backyard sauna singing songs and doing bad impressions and stand up. In the sauna my sister and I sat across from each other and giggled. What kind of fever dream was this?

Since then things haven’t been as crazy fun… they’ve just been crazy. First of all, school started back up with one week online before we headed back into the classroom. It’s been mostly great, but also, try taking 35 teenagers who have just spent a month at home and tell them to write poetry while their friends who get to go to virtual school are at home in their fuzzy socks.

Also, as of late my car has been having some expen$ive issues resulting in me having to use my dad’s car, which then started having its own issues. To be more detailed, issues like stalling on the freeway during the biggest storm of the year and hydroplaning across three lanes. That wasn’t my idea of a great Tuesday night activity, but hey, I’m just happy nothing super serious happened.

Someone humorously remarked that so far, 2021 is just 2020 with bangs. I’m seeing it. But before the New Year I prayed over a word to focus on, pray over, and hopefully grow into. After a few days of praying it became clear that that word was “peace,” which sounds great and doable at Christmas when the word is plastered on every card and Christmassy ornament, and nearly impossible to achieve when you’ve spun out on the freeway in the middle of a rainstorm.

But I do need peace. His peace. And as I’ve prayed into this word this last month, I have come to viscerally learn the difference it makes when I stop myself and my spiraling thoughts and ask (more like beg) to be shown His peace. My struggle with anxiety and perfectionism means that there will always be a battle for my heart between those two really bad masters I keep trying to serve and the one Good Master who has already served me and set me free. This quest for peace, then, isn’t a journey toward something Jesus hasn’t already given to me. It’s a battle for my passions, the things my heart chooses to focus on. It’s a battle to take captive every thought that sets itself up against the truth I have in Christ and make it obey him (2 Cor. 10:5). And in that battle He’s already fighting for me, I receive the gift He has already bought for me: peace.

So this year, my goal is to truly take each anxious thought captive–to chase it down, hog tie it, throw it in the back of the truck (where did I get a truck?), and bring it to Sea Cliff State beach. Then I will carry it down to the sand, bend low and then spring up, throwing it into the icy water to be washed. Then I’ll pray that it stumbles back up the slope, a bit disoriented, but mostly invigorated and full of His life and His purpose–ready to run freely through the street below the glow of fireworks.

Lord, help me to reign in my anxious thoughts and baptise my mind with your peace.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that an in-progress home project will always make the neighbors wonder what the heck you’re doing with your already-chaotic scrap-metal Millwright Mecca/chicken-haven of a property.

There are streaky lines in the stucco where enormous cracks have been patched, and the once turquoise-green trim has been sanded into ugly patches. If that weren’t enough, there’s a commercial shipping container that looks like a train car in the driveway to temporarily house my dad’s work materials.

My boyfriend can attest that I was happy about none of this for about a week. First world problems, I know. For the 20 years that I’ve lived here, our house has been white, and in my stability-seeking, change-fearing mind, this did not need to change—except since my parents are trying to refinance, it totally did.

The other day when I was whining about how much I hated the new paint color, I asked him if I was being ridiculous. His look, though supportive and gentle, said something along the lines of “you are freaking out over a PAINT COLOR, so yes.” Turns out moving back and forth between military houses where you can’t just paint the walls or change the carpets gives you a healthier perspective on things. Paint and carpets and even houses are just things! They’re temporary. And the sooner I learn to let go of the things I can’t change, the easier my life will be. (And I actually do like the new color now!)

That was lesson one for this month.

Lesson two could be filed under any of the following: 1) Learning to Ask for Help; 2) Learning to Ask for Help When You’re Standing in the Dark Behind the Church and Bleeding; or the ever-practical #3) You Should Have Sucked it Up and Gotten Stitches, You Big Dummy. I urge you to exit this page now if you’re the squeamish type (I’m not) because the cut isn’t worth the trouble telling you about if I can’t show you.

(Seriously. Leave now, or at least squint a little bit as you scroll if blood makes you puke.)

On Wednesday night, one week after a high school youth group student accidentally kicked me full-on in the shin during a game of yoga ball soccer, I cut open my other shin. It was a game similar to a hide and seek scavenger hunt for the adult leaders, and I was NOT going to be found. Except I was found… twice. After being discovered behind a palm tree, I decided enough was enough, tried to jump from a 3’ high ledge in the dark, and landed in a pile of leaves behind the church. Honestly, I would’ve been fine had my leg cleared the ledge. A searing pain shot up my right leg. I hoped it wasn’t broken.

Knowing that I was injured but too stupid to give up my position just yet, I limped down a dirt road and hid behind the church, waiting for the game to end while wondering where the water dripping down my leg was coming from. (I thought it was runoff from that morning’s rain but later learned it was blood.)

***

Asking for help is not my forte. And neither is sitting it out when I know that I’m probably incapable of going on. When I cut my knee open on a loose nail in my grandparent’s rented RV, 5 year-old me opted to keep my leg completely straight for three weeks to avoid getting stitches. Just last week, I hit my head on a brick staircase and, despite my suspicion that I had gotten a mild concussion, drove home anyway. The next day at work, just minutes after discussing my dizziness and light sensitivity with a co-worker, a freestanding whiteboard fell on my head and either gave me a concussion or just made the existing one worse.

I asked Calvin the other day, “What exactly is God trying to teach me with all of these injuries?” I recounted my schedule—how I’ve been getting up at 4:00am recently to prep for work; teaching during the day and working at church in the evening; stressing about silly things like paint colors; and carrying these things day after day like a pack mule. He said he didn’t know, but that it probably had to do with pride.

Ah, yes. That old familiar friend who convinced me that drinking 5 cups of coffee a day my junior year of college was worth getting all As, even though it also meant developing stomach ulcers. Pride tells me that I am capable of controlling the outcome—that working myself to death is somehow worth the pat on the back.

But is it? I’ve been trying to work out whether this is a good exchange rate, and the bandage on my leg is telling me it’s not.

Pride says to strive, but God says to rest (Psalm 46:10).

Pride says perfection is attainable, but God says He’s perfect in my weakness (2 Cor. 12:9).

Pride promises praise but ultimately keeps me unsatisfied, because even when I’m busting my butt making the world’s greatest lesson-plans, I can’t control the level of effort my students put into their work.

So maybe, just maybe…. seeking perfection and control is a sham and God is right:

“I have seen all the works which have been done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and striving after wind.”

Ecclesiastes 1:14

Striving for perfection and control can be as self-centered and useless as speaking in the tongues of angels without love (1 Cor. 13:1). Plus, I’m of little use to anyone if I’m knocked out or literally unable to walk.

***

Before the trim on the house was painted, all I could see were the course spots where the old paint had been buffed out. I quietly wondered what our neighbors thought—if they thought we’d leave the house in that state. But it doesn’t matter. Those ugly patches are being revealed, and that’s potentially embarrassing.

But the thing is, they’re being revealed.

Now the new paint will stick—and though that process isn’t very attractive, it’ll result in something fresh and beautiful and worthwhile and new.

In college, a woman from my Art History class handed me a tiny Bible made from two fun-size Hershey’s, tin foil and some felt.

“Happy Reformation Day!” she said as she thrust the minuscule package into my hand. My mind shot back to freshman year world history when I learned that October 31st was a real church holiday. October 31, 1517 is known as the day Martin Luther nailed the 95 Theses to the door of the church in Wittenberg, and that rainy 8am lecture was the first time I had witnessed someone actually celebrating the day we commemorate the start of the Protestant Reformation.

I will say that Luther’s protest against the Catholic church’s sale of indulgences (slips of paper guaranteeing an already-passed loved one’s entrance into Heaven) has always been one of my favorite moments in church history, and I can’t help but think that celebrating such an act as incredibly relevant to today’s social, political, and even religious environment. While we don’t have clergymen in the streets selling the remission of sins in order to fund a new basilica, the reality is that we do have insidious ideologies floating around, ready to deceive the majority of Christians whose discernment muscle is honestly pretty atrophied. The coming election has made that fact more obvious to me, anyway, and in the age of moral relativism we need our Luthers—our discerning men and women who are willing to walk in the Spirit and stand for truth.

At my school, Reformation Day is a school-wide festival and, as I’ve described it to friends who are confused as to why I’m wearing a velvet bodice to work, it’s basically the Christian Ren Faire.

Kids are sorted in houses (at first I thought it was very HP, but it turns out that this is normal with Classical Schools) and compete in games for house points. Foxtail, dodgeball, and some soccer-related game are Reformation Day mainstays, but my favorite part is the costume parade.

Last year’s costume contest had me wondering if I had wandered into an episode of Parks and Rec. Since the school is small, the morning assembly allows time for every child to take the stage and announce their costume, which can come from any of the following categories: Royalty (King/Queen/prince/princess, but not Disney); townsperson/peasant; animal; inanimate object (kid you not, last year one kid was a sword); Bible character; and person from church history.

Last year there were mostly knights and princesses, but a good number of Bible characters and church martyrs were thrown into the mix, too. One second grade Paul mounted the stage with dignity as he held his scroll and tried to keep his little beard from falling off while a dragon, aka a kid in one of those inflatable T-Rex suits stumbled up the steps, his taped-on cardboard wings flapping in the ascent. There were at least three Moseses (all under the age of ten), one St. Teresa of Avila, and one very detailed St. Sebastian, who was famously tied to a tree and shot through with arrows. Not only did this high school boy have bloody arrows sticking out of his shirt, but he also tied a huge tree branch to his back, giving the full appearance of the early Christian martyr.

My favorite of all, however, was a tiny second grade girl with a tent peg and mallet in hand. I nearly fell out of my seat when she took the mic and announced deadpan in the tiniest voice, “I’m Jael.”

This year’s Reformation day was obviously different thanks to COVID, and we ate Costco pizza instead of the usual Oktoberfest-esque feast of sausages. Still, there was lots of laughter, friendly house-against-house competition, a refresher in church history, and plenty of pie. The change in pace was so refreshing, especially for the younger students whose daily routines are scheduled down to the second to allow for minimal contact with students outside their class. Seeing my high school kids pummel their opponents in dodgeball was almost as great as watching one kindergarten knight wander onto the dodgeball court unawares, pull out his sword and shield, and hunker down against the enemy (not the opposing team, but every ball that came his way), fighting with bravery and conviction until the end of the round.

All in all, it was a good reminder that sometimes, the kind of reform we need is found in fewer rules and some room to run around. I liken it to the paradox of sanctification—that process of falling backwards into the arms of Christ as he unmakes the old us and fashions us into something new. We really do get that process wrong when we try to white-knuckle our way into holiness and forget that it’s God who softens hearts and sets us free from our old ways. Jesus explained this to his bickering, power-happy disciples when he said, “Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it” (Mark 10:13-16). In His upside down Kingdom, it’s the humble that are put first, and the Lord of the Universe is laid in a manger. One of my favorite verses, Psalm 8:2 explains how it’s the praises of babies that can win a war:

“Through the praise of children and infants you have established a stronghold against your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger.”

If Jesus expects me to be like a child, then I want to be that five year old knight who wanders into a legitimately dangerous arena and fights, sword in hand, with all joy and conviction and no fear.