It's just Tuesday:

This life has no true rule book. No actual manual that explains the process of paying off student debt and grocery shopping efficiently. There isn't a 'how-to' blog on dating the next guy or confronting best friends. There isn't a self-help book which perfectly describes how to receive criticism, or hear the opinions you know are true but don't want to accept. All that this life is, is one hesitant step after the next and the occasional over-confident leap, and for my performance-driven, perfectionist of a soul, this reality doesn't bode well.

I find myself, life experience after life experience, learning the hard way, judging my successes and choices against the grain of my well established sisters, happily married friends, and degree-toting peers and comparison is stealing my joy. It is robbing me of my confidence and convincing me of my rebellion. If I cannot make the right choice, why not make all the wrong ones?

This is not a confession of a series of bad choices. In fact, by most people's standards I probably live a pretty good life. I'm a relatively straight-laced, mature, moral person living a pretty good life. While this is mostly true, I know of the warring inside. The constant battle to live by the expectations of my community and the demands of a Christian label. But that's just it. Christian is not my label. It is my identity. One that I was created for and one that I chose.

The last couple weeks we've had baptisms at church. I've sat and watched as people put their public stake in the ground, proclaiming Christ as their Savior. I clap and holler as they come up, out of that water with fresh hearts and a confidence that shines like Jesus' face. It got me thinking about decisions, words, and actions. My decisions. My words. My actions. Yes, I have an external expectation. A standard set by my upbringing, but more importantly it's an internal standard that longs to please God. To be near to Him by following His commandments and knowing His desires for my heart. Yes, I was raised in the church. For as long as I can remember, it was Awana on Wednesdays, church on Sunday, and youth group on Sunday nights, but somewhere along the way Jesus pricked me and out of that moment he breathed his very ruah, his holy breath, into my lungs and my life changed. I decided to look into his eyes and step out of my boat and, like Peter, walk toward him.

I was baptized, in middle school, in front of church just like these people last Sunday. But, here I am again publicly proclaiming myself as Christian. In a world where "Christian" is marked with a stigma of judgement, selfishness, and criticism, I am telling you that I am a Christian. Not because I am condemning a life you live, if differently, but because I want this world to know that despite the warring, every decision, every word, and every action is motivated by Jesus. To be like Jesus. To be kind and helpful. To be confident and genuine. To be caring and wise. To be just and generous and to leave every person with the knowledge and feeling that they are valued beyond measure and cared for beyond imagination; not because I have loved them but because Jesus gave me to them and somehow overflowed his irrevocable love into them.

I am Christian because I want to be and that is something I will not apologize for.

With all that said. I am not, despite my best efforts, perfect. I swear. I give-up, I am honest to a fault, I disrespect my parents, and often seek personal gain. I fail sometimes, most times because just like everyone else I'm a flawed human being. And just like every one else, I need saving. Redeeming, I need purifying. Pruning. Even still, there isn't a manual on how to become better. But, lately I've been so deeply convicted of my own neglect of the love letter left to us (it's the bible, folks). Sermon after sermon in the last months has reminded me that to be like Jesus I need to know him. To be better I need to seek him. And to give peace to this internal battle, I need to pray. It's time I open all I am to the possibility that God's promise is true and in reading, seeking, and praying He will reveal himself to me and bless me. Not because if we "do good" God will give us stuff, but because to know Him is to follow Him and to follow Him is to receive his blessing.

One of my favorite authors said,

"there is this lie floating around that says I am supposed to be able to do life alone, without any help, without stopping to worship something bigger than myself. But I actually believe that there is something bigger than me, and I need for there to be something bigger than me. I need someone to put awe inside me; I need to come second to someone who has everything figured out" (Blue Like Jazz, by Don Miller) 

It's an encouragement to me because, despite my best efforts, I am not perfect. It's an encouragement because we are frail, broken, flawed people and Jesus is the most perfect peace about that. He says all that is okay because I love you still. I love you yet. I love you regardless. I love you forever. So, maybe, on this Tuesday open up your eyes and your hands and your hearts and seek Him. Ask Him. Find Him and be restored. Like I am being restored right now in my empty classroom. 

Could it be?

I have waited.

I have cried out.

I have prayed.

I have walked in wilderness for months and now a quiet whisper of goodness seems to name each new day. Could it be over? Could I have walked through fire to actually reach the other side? Could it be that freedom and healing, for which I have prayed, are actually mine to claim?

I spent the last week of 2015 reading through my journals from the year. The last year was marked by a Grand African Adventure which broke down my concept of God. It included the giddy start to my first love and the painful process by which it ended. I endured failure and waiting in my academic life, followed by challenge and joy as I finished my undergraduate degree. I learned that heartbreak is real, it is tangible, its all encompassing. I experienced deep and lasting need. I pressed into emotions: anger, frustration, mourning. I cried, screamed, laughed, and talked incessantly with anyone who would listen. My year was marked by the very real ups and downs of life and change. It spoke of hurt and gladness. Understanding and lacking. But, mostly it proclaims profound faithfulness on the part of a Good, Good God.

There was a day in October where God said he would call me deeper still. In the midst of all that fall was, he asked me into wilderness and waited for me to say yes. I stumbled in, not by choice, and cast my eyes upward, desperate for a way out. But, he said, deeper still. So, I took my quivering hands and one by one pulled open my fingers. I sat there with my shaky palms facing our slanted ceiling and begged him, 'Papa, if I give it all to you, will you fill them again,' only to learn that my hands were empty to begin with. I had given up a relationship, I had not sacrificed my life for his kingdom. I had made a choice to walk away from the "not best thing", I had not moved to a foreign place to preach the gospel, or forsake all comforts. My hands were empty and still he came. Each day after that one I walked with God. Mornings were quiet and lonely. Just me, the whistling tea kettle and my Jesus Calling. As I walked out the door to go be teacher, I read words that would remind me of God's promise. I would trust them and glean strength from them. As my anxious heart would beat faster when I neared my exit, I would whisper peace and accept it. It was small and shaky, but it was faith.

Then it came. November 20, my last day teaching. I pulled into the parking lot and burst into tears because I had done it. God had done it . With all the deeper still and wilderness and empty hands he had brought me to the end with perfect sustenance. November 20 became December 11. I said goodbye to my students, finished my portfolio, accepted a future job, bought all my Christmas presents and waited. Soon my quiet mornings disappeared in favor of sleeping in. My slow cups of tea became travel mugs of coffee and that deep-rooted faithfulness drifted into random acknowledgements. Days were becoming less of a struggle. Life was more normal. My heart ached less frequently and my mind didn't wander as often. Slowly the idea of self-sufficiency replaced my deep need and I walked through my Mondays and Tuesdays without so much as a 'Good morning, Jesus'. Eventually though, I learned that he had a not-so-new girlfriend and that semblance of a solid foundation shattered because I wasn't good enough. I wasn't wanted. I wasn't needed. I wasn't moved on enough. And I was mad because my heart beat anxiously again, and the memories tugged at my contentment. And the wanting sank too deeply. My heart broke. Just as quickly as I believed I was good. I was needy again. It happened that way, so I opened my journals and learned from my old self that I had been in this place before and God was calling me deeper still.

Now it's January 20 and I realized I have not forgiven him. After all this time and all this process and all the letting go, my "empty" hands are actually gripping so tightly to a sense of justice. A feeling deep in my gut that tells me he owes me something. When really he owes me nothing at all. Or maybe all he owes me is to become what God intended and to live that precious life fully. After all this time I still have nothing to give. After all I have done and worked for, I am still needy because after all, God is the one on the throne.

Recently, I find myself staring at two versions of myself, hesitantly asking God if it is over. If I can pack up my tent and claim healed instead of healing. And, I think, he says, deeper still, because there is faith to be learned in the mundane. There is faith to be learned when things are good. There is faith to be learned out of joy and gratitude and I do not yet know it. Again, I have to walk something out. It's I forgive you, I forgive you, I forgive you, and I forgive me, too. It's claiming my name as God's before anything else and it's practicing mundane faithfulness.

January 1 came and went. I wrote a "Shannafesto" for the first time in history because I sit in expectation for what this year will be and what these pages will teach me. But there is this idea that everything is a process. This whole idea of forgiveness has less and less to do with the  boy and more to do with grace upon grace. It's about trusting that God has got it and that is good. The most perfect good.

After reading through all my journals I realized that I write about faith the most. The concept of faithfulness is something I strive for, but this process allowed me to understand that in all my striving and trying to achieve this perfect faithfulness, I have become faithful. I know from where my strength comes because I experienced a season in which I could not do a day without leaning into the Spirit. I know from where my joy comes because my heart hurt and there were people that made my stomach hurt from laughter instead. This is what it is to know him and that is all these empty hands long for.

"Behold, this we have searched out; it is true. Hear, and know it for your good" 

Job 5:27