What Do You Fear, My Lady?

A year ago this evening I was terribly angry at a man named Chris Ong who had the audacity to suggest, quite innocently I'm sure,  that I might need a man in my life. I very rarely get angry at my friends, but he had broached a dangerous subject. I was having a hard enough time with the fact that he was my friend, and was also a guy. I didn't have a problem with guy friends in general, but this one somehow seemed dangerous.He was getting too close.

I had gone through my stage of wanting a guy in my life, wanting love, wanting the white picket fence, but I was over it. I honestly didn't want to get married. I was so happy with my life as it was, and so satisfied with my wonderful close friends, my brother, my family, and I didn't want any of it to change. I also had dreams, grand dreams where God and I went out into the world all on our own and made a difference. I wanted to help orphans, lead girls retreats, counsel, minister, and be free to do all these things as much and as often as I wanted. Marriage, frankly, would get in the way. Marriage was accepting mediocrity, accepting normalcy, accepting the typical American lifestyle - raise a family, make meals, kiss the husband when he gets home from work, go to church twice a week, trying to be "good Christians" in a temporal world. I wanted to be as far from that life as possible. I wanted anything BUT normal. I wanted to see and know God in unheard of ways. And I wanted it it be just Him and me. I wasn't gonna share Him with anyone. He was my Love and I didn't need anything else.

I also seriously didn't think any man could handle my intensity and emotions.There was no way one person would want to have to deal with all that the rest of their life. I totally wore myself out, and I didn't want to do that to someone I loved. I dumped a bit on people I really trusted, my brother Jonathan got a lot of it, but never completely, never all the way. I was sure the only one who could take the "real me" with out running in terror was God.

Around the end of 2009 God began to challenge some of my thinking in these areas. I remember clearly when I felt Him asking me if I would trust Him enough to let Him have me get married. Not that it was gonna happen, just if I'd be ok with it. It took me a week to be able to say that I would still trust Him. I slowly realized that I was limiting God by holding such rigid views of a fulfilled life and of what He could do through people. He began to ask me to let Him show me that He was bigger.

Around this same time I was getting to know Chris better, and it amazed me how often our conversations would inadvertently end up on the same topics God was talking to me about. We had such good conversations about everything from abiding in Christ, asking God for big things, sibling relationships, and the character of God, to personal fears and dreams. One night in right before Christmas we had this conversation:
 Chris: So what do you fear most?

  “'What do you fear my lady?'
'A cage. To stay behind bars until use and old age accept them and all chance of valor has gone beyond beyond recall or desire.'”

me: I resemble that quote. :)

  I think...I think I fear loosing hope. I fear mediocrity and complacency.

 Chris: I don't think i know you extremely well. But if I had to gamble.

I think you are scared you will be called to stay here and not be able to go to africa

  where all chance of doing what you deem is valor for the glory of God is

me: I just want to see God and know He's at work in and through me.

  Here, or there.

  The thing I truly fear the most is NOT having God.

Chris: God isn't only over in africa Christy

me: but He seems easier to find there and I'm not sure if it's supposed to be that way... or if it's just my fear that keeps me from finding him here

Chris: That is a great fear to have. However the way you are talking I think you currently fear something is in your life right now that is preventing you from finding him

  if thats the case

  africa is not gonna help

 me: yeah.

 Chris: So what you need to settle is.

The fact a housewife can be just as dynamic and powerful and know God and have as close a relationship

  as Amy Carmichael

 me: I know.

Chris: So then is it really marriage you are currently fearing?

me: Um....

I don't think so.

I just want to know and be used of God. Where ever, how ever.

  Really.

  I'm just...

Not sure what that looks like and wish He'd tell me.Chris: normally I am not the blunt one but I think He is trying

I was frustrated with how often God chose to speak to me through Chris but couldn't deny that it was Him talking. The "cage" quote from The Lord of the Rings quickly became a theme with me, and God slowly convinced me that the cage I feared was of my own making and that as long as I followed Him He would never put me in a cage. Therefore whatever He asked of me, even marriage, could not possibly be a cage. I repeated this to myself over and over and over... and over and over. I know it sounds silly that this was so hard for me, but I had built a picture of Christ-likeness for myself, and was quite convinced it was the real thing. It took time to wipe away the lies and let God recreate the picture His way.

On that night a year ago, as I was talking through the confusion that was surfacing as God redefined His will for me, Chris got especially bold (I didn't find out til much later how it was that he seemed to know the secrets of my heart and the exact thoughts I needed to hear.)

me: Oh, that was something else Mrs. Spray said when I was talking about Africa and Haiti.

  She looked right at me, after we'd been talking for about 10 minutes, and said "Hun, I don't think you could handle that yet. It would be too much for you to carry."

  (or something to that effect.)

 Chris: wow.

me: I almost got mad, and almost started crying.... because I think God was nodding vehemently

  :P

Chris: your gonna hate me for what I am gonna say next.

 me: can't be worse than some of the things you've said before. ;)Chris: Could be you will never have the strength alone but will need the help of another person to help share the burdens you want to carry and help with.

 me: MY WORD!! What is it with you telling me I should get married?!

AHHH.

 Chris: Sorry.  I was so mad I wished he was actually in front of me so I could physically get up and walk away. He felt terrible, and the next time I saw him he brought me my favorite movie, bubble wrap, and bought me coffee to try and make up for it. I don't think he had any idea how much God was using his words despite my reaction.

I don't think either of us had any idea that exactly a year later would would have just celebrated our 7 month wedding anniversary.
  

Just a Cup of Water

"And whoever gives one of these little ones even a cup of water because he is a disciple, truly, I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward." Matthew 10:42

 And the King will answer them, 'Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.' Matthew 25:40

A couple years ago I was wandering a large campus in hot and humid Texas during a homeschool conference. The year before I had been right hand man (figuratively, of course, since I'm not a man) to the head of hospitality during this same conference and had never had a moment to rest as I was constantly involved in getting something for this or that speaker, overseeing the girls cleaning, making a request on my walkie, checking people in the meal line, and hauling this basket of goodies or that special request to the other side of campus.
This year was different. I was still on staff but with no special position, and no great avenue to help important people. I cleaned some bathrooms, stalked some dorms, moved lots of towels, and generally just had to search for little ways to make a difference.
Honestly, I was frustrated, and as I walked around that day I asked God why in the world I was there. I was giving up precious time with my family, was in the middle of an advanced study course and had an assignment over due, and didn't seem to have much to show for it. I wondered if I was wasting my time.
God didn't say anything, but I looked up and saw a girl coming toward me with a camera around her neck. Her name was Julie and we had been roommates the first few days I was there until the conference started and she joined the photography class.
"How's it going?" I asked.
"Ug. The instructors are pretty hard on us. I'm hot, so tired, and really thirsty." She looked ready to cry.
I looked down at the water bottle I had just grabbed and back at her.
"Uh, here. I just picked this up. Haven't even opened it."
She accepted it gratefully and walked away.
That was it.
But then God said something.
"If just a cup of water I place in your hands, then just a cup of water is all that I demand."
Sometimes He asks us to give up our lives, our comfort, our finances, our dreams, our time...
And sometimes He just asks for a cup of water.
Great or small, He sees it as precious.
If I had failed my course just so that I could be there to give Julie a cup of water, I think it would have been worth it.

Change

Well, how life changes!
Since my last post in March I started a relationship with a wonderful man, spent wonderful, whirlwind months packed with mountain wanderings, Denver days, day trips to the Springs, kite flying, airport days, MN visits, road trips home, afternoons at Loodles, lots of skittles, morning coffee dates, evening walks, tree house talks, weekly Dazbog dates, long talks, texts, lots of laughter and a few tears; I became engaged on my birthday, complete with a blue Mini Cooper, skittles, beautiful mountains and a bridge; I planned a wedding, took a road trip with girl friends, enjoyed a crazy month of lasts, family support and wild emotions; I got married, had a lovely honeymoon in Steamboat, settled in to a little basement apartment in Greeley, started working at Loodles and was laid off 4 months later, taught a semester and a half of a Names of God class at CHESS, sadly neglected my friends, spent some wonderful time under Eric's preaching at Ellerslie, loved my husband more each day, prayed a lot and enjoyed every day.
I have been married over six months now and am amazed at how different my life looks now, how much change I have dealt with. Change is beautiful, hard, but beautiful.