Thursday, June 18, 2015

Grace Upon Grace Upon Grace

Really, nothing huge has been happening in my life lately. Instead of a life update, this post is going to be a conglomeration of three different pictures of grace in my life at this current time. Even though it hasn't been a terribly adventurous few weeks, Jesus is speaking to my heart in so many tender and beautiful ways. With every moment and heartbeat and minor, tedious, every day experience, I am feeling so in-tune with the Creator of all life and the One who gives me breath. I will try to share and explain some of those moments of beauty the best way I know how: through rambling, random thoughts.





Point of Grace #1 (aka "Oh great, she's going to start a post about running that dang marathon. AGAIN."):

I swore Tulsa was going to be my last marathon, but in reality, it was a terrible race (except for that whole getting engaged at the end thing. That part was pretty rad.). And I know that if I had ended my marathon career with a gimpy race, I would always wonder why I didn't push myself harder on my last big run. But, despite my low/non-existent expectations of getting back into the saddle of the proverbial horse that is running, I am getting to redeem the suckiness that was the 26.4 miles before I saw Michael down on one knee at the finish line with the chance to run my dream race in the Chicago Marathon. And not only that, but I get to run my dream race with two of the dearest friends of my heart. If you already know our friendship stories, please skip to the paragraph past the parentheses, because the way that I found these friends is such a huge picture of grace and continues to bless me over and over again and therefore must be told for those who have not heard the stories.

(I met both Libby and Gretchen at the beginning of my senior year of college, when I thought that I was done making new beginnings in place of all the definitive endings that loomed ahead with the close of my college career. Gretchen came into my life via a Facebook message that summer before she began her freshman year of college, asking me what she needed to know to do both marching band and sorority rush. I had been super prejudiced against sorority girls, and it would have been easy to simply brush off her message and treat her according to how I assumed sorority girls would behave. But just one month before I encountered Gretchen, Jesus had known I needed to soften my stony heart and placed me in a room with a girl on my CRU summer project who was heavily involved in her sorority. Her name was Allison, and she probably has no idea the part that she plays in my friendship story, but being around her made me realize that not all sorority girls were terrible and that I could even be friends with people in a different social class than myself. So when I met Gretchen at band camp, I was willing to try to let go of prejudices and soon realized how awesome this baby freshman actually was. The rest is history, and our friendship is one of the greatest blessings in my life. Gretchen is my tiniest friend. She's also sassy and classy and so smart that it's scary. She always challenges me to find beauty in the every day, to think outside of the box, and to desire a deeper, more real relationship with faith. She also started the monster that is my obsession with cats and chai tea. A few weeks after I met Gretchen, I met Libby in a Bible study full of girls with incredibly opposite personalities. My first impression of her was that she was an awkward and weird sophomore with more energy than I could even process. We've talked about it several times since the beginning of that Bible study and we really don't know when we became friends. Maybe it was that time we carpooled to Oklahoma for Thanksgiving, or that time when I helped her run a marathon, or that time when she helped me run a marathon. Either way, Libby knows my deepest heart, and I'm so grateful that she somehow made her way into the inner circle of my life. Libby is the friend to whom I absolutely bare my soul while also running a copious and rather insane amount of miles. She is the opposite of me in so many ways, but somehow our friendship is more magical because of that fact. She is loud and passionate and fearless and loves puns and cute animals. She challenges me to be passionate and fearless and to live in such a way that my life absolutely radiates with passion for Jesus and others.)

The really cool thing about this season of marathon training is that, even though I am in Emporia while Libby is in Lawrence and Gretchen is in North Carolina, I am far from alone on my runs. It is so unbelievably encouraging to know that, even as I am still trying to find my place in Emporia, I have a home of the heart in the shared experience of running the same miles and the same race with my two kindred spirit friends. Even better is the fact that both of these sweet friends are believers, and each of us has our own running-inspired verse from the Bible that we cling to in our times of weakness and exhaustion during our miles on the run. Mine is Hebrews 12:1-2: "Therefore, since we also are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily ensnares us and run with endurance the race which is set before us, keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus Christ, the author and finisher of our faith". When I run, I hold this verse close to my heart, reminding myself that I run because God gave me heart and legs and lungs to run, and that by His grace I am able to live and move and breathe and run the good race. Running is not about me in any way, shape, or form, and that knowledge is ridiculously freeing. Meanwhile, Gretchen's running verse is 1 Corinthians 9:26: "I do not run like someone running aimlessly; I do not fight like a boxer beating the air." When I run, I hold this verse close to my heart to remember that I am here for a purpose and that every step and breath I take is for the purpose of glorifying Jesus, who makes it possible that I can run and worship. And when I carry this verse, I pray for Gretchen as I run. Libby's verse is Song of Solomon 1:4: "Draw me after you; let us run." When I run, I hold this verse close to my heart and pray that this verse may become my one desire; that I might be drawn to the heart of God and that I may run the race of life and the race of Chicago with equal passion and direction. And when I carry this verse, I pray for Libby as I run.

There's an author named Shauna Niequist, and really all you need to know about her is that she is perfect. Her books are essentially compilations of her own random thoughts on God and grace, and her words always pierce my heart with conviction and beauty. Today I got her newest book, "Savor", in the mail. It's a 365-day compilation, and I opened the book to find that today's reading was entitled "Running". She opens with the line "Running taps into all my fears about myself" and continues with a memory of how hard running is but how she was able to run the Chicago Marathon because of the love and encouragement of her friend who was there with her during the race. And the fact that Gretchen and Libby and I are basically getting to live out this same scenario has me absolutely drowning in grace. The accompanying verse to her reading is my current challenge in running the race with those whom God has placed so beautifully in my life:

"Let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds...encouraging one another."~Hebrews 10:24-25




Point of Grace #2: The Business of Family

Lately I have been reading between the books of Ruth and Romans. They seemingly don't have much to do with each other, except for the fact that they both include the gospel of God's love for humanity as seen throughout the scope of the Bible. Right before Michael and I got married, our Kansas-home church hired a new pastor. We have heard him preach in person a few times, and he has an amazing ability to see the gospel in absolutely every portion of scripture. I've since started listening to the church's weekly sermon podcast, and learning how to see God's hand entwined throughout all of history is helping me to see the beauty in the humdrum of every day so much more clearly. While reading Romans, I was struck with a portion of speech in which Paul is telling the church that Israel had rejected the gospel, and that the result was that Gentiles (or non-Jews) could then come to faith and be grafted into the tree which is representative of the family of believers. Although it was absolutely astonishing at that time for Jews to hear that even the unwashed masses could come to faith, this development was no surprise to God. What I realized in the very depths of my soul is that God is, and always has been, in the business of making family. Of creating substance and life from nothingness. Of binding up broken hearts and creating beautiful stories. Of writing stories of redemption and grace that are meant to be passed from generation to generation.

Ruth is one of those books of the Bible that all little girls are taught to love. I always loved getting to read Ruth. Her story has never been very mind-blowing to me but was rather a nice, sweet little story about a girl marrying a guy with a funny name. But this time it absolutely rocked my world to realize that Ruth was a Gentile. She accepted a life of faith before it was cool for Gentiles to accept faith. She left all that she knew to follow a God that she had learned about from her mother-in-law. Even when she lost her husband, she chose to follow the faith she had been shown by her mother-in-law to a new land of different customs and cultures. Once in Bethlehem, God provided in huge ways for Ruth, both through physical nourishment and through the provision of a husband. Her obedience led to the marriage of Boaz (a Jew) and herself (a Gentile). Generations before the arrival of Jesus, God included Gentiles into the Messianic line. Even then, it was known that Gentiles would find a place in the family of God.

Obviously it would be really ambitious and foolish to compare myself to Ruth, but this realization that God is in the business of making family has made me realize just what family means. For me, it means leaving Oklahoma behind to live in Kansas with my husband. It signifies the end of our conversations of my-family-and-your-family. It means putting Michael's needs before mine and taking the time to actually listen and be concerned about the things which are important to him. For the first time, I've been realizing that Michael and I are actually FAMILY now. We are a family of two, and it is beautiful and strange and awkward and incomprehensibly beyond anything I could ever deserve. And somehow now I can go and stand in the middle of the Kansas prairie and be filled with absolute wonder and awe at all of the beauty around me and revel at the beauty of the fact that within this strange state I have found a home. And somehow now I can come home to our tiny apartment at the end of the day and find that my heart has also found home with this silly and thoughtful boy whom God graciously gave me after a chance meeting at camp almost 3 years ago. There's a verse in Psalms that says "God sets the solitary in families". Despite all of my independence, despite my wandering heart I have been given family beyond just my parents and myself. And someday if we ever have kids, we will be able to and responsible for passing along the stories of goodness and grace that fill our own story and the stories of those we love best.


Point of Grace #3: Grace grace grace.

I missed the last two days of the school year due to sickness. Several weeks before that, I had already started to tune out of my job as a paraeducator. By week one of summer I had started confidently self-identifying once again as a music therapist instead of dancing around the awkward ho-hums that had been issuing from my voice whenever anyone would ask what I do for a career. I started making a list of all possible music therapy opportunities in Emporia and actually have a job pitch for a possible music therapy contract tomorrow morning (more details to come on that if things go well) and leads on further potential contracts in the community. In all reality, I am subconsciously denying the fact that I may very well still end up working as a para next school year.

Yet, I do not have any guarantee of a music therapy job. Heck, I don't have any guarantees in life. Life is too wild and tumultuous of a beast to ever give out free passes for certainties. And if my plans fall through, I will still have a hundred and one reasons to praise God and embrace the beauty that is life.

This past week has been an interesting one on my Facebook feed. Several people I know have been suffering from tragedies, from medical emergencies, from the deaths of loved ones. I do not feel right telling their stories here since they are not my stories to tell. All that I can say is that in all of these tragedies I have witnessed, I have also seen a breathtaking amount of grace given within the realm of pain. Children have had the chance to share recent good experiences and then be there to say goodbye to a father as he passed away. Communities have come together to love one another and to lighten the load of burdens. Terrible news has been given in the kindest, most graceful ways possible. Even when all seems wrong in the world, God is still on His throne. As if it weren't enough to just be given life, God also blesses His children with grace in the face of heartache, mercy in the face of shame, and hope in the face of aimlessness.

And I know, that even if all of my dreams and plans and personal schemes fall through, I will be caught by grace in whichever path I then travel. I cannot be defined as a music therapist. Yeah, it's something that I am good at. Yeah, it's something that I love doing. But in the grand scheme of things, I hope that someday when I die or when tragedy touches my life that I am known as more than just a music therapist. I want to strive to be someone of whom it can be said that light leaks from my pockets. To be someone who is passionate and radiant and able to change the world within my scope of influence. To be someone who lives seeking God and laughing with joy at the small beauties that He graces me with each and every day. I want to be generous with my time, money, and talents. I want to live in such a way that I know how much I am beloved by Yahweh even on days when I cuss or grumble or am not nice to others.

Basically, I want to live in a cloud of abundant grace. And in this season of life, this abundant grace is overflowing in my mind and consciousness and filling my soul with more goodness and joy than I can comprehend. I am so thankful for all that my soul is becoming aware of and so grateful that even my imperfect self can find life and love and hope and peace.




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