Lenten Fast 2013: The Cupboard Challenge Begins

I love the church season of Lent.  Part of that probably stems from growing up in a "traditional, liturgical" church where the church calendar was serious business - it signified when to change the felt banners and candle colors and which section to mark with the ribbon markers in the pew hymnal.  I remember giving things up some years, like ice cream, and wailing to my mother about its absence while clinging to the freezer and trying to cheat.  Because, for real, a day without ice cream in my growing life was a day hard to come across.  (Chocolate chip cookie dough flavor with pancake syrup. weird. yes. but don't knock it til you try it.)  Amidst my griping, I also recall the Lenten soup suppers our church had on Wednesday nights, where two people from the congregation would each volunteer to make a huge tureen of soup for all those that would show up.  We'd have a short service afterward, and I don't remember those much, but I remember being introduced to Tomato Tortellini soup heaven.  Oh. my. word.  It was a cozy feeling for our church community to gather around a simple meal weekly for 40 days.

On to life today... I am not a creature of discipline.  Not in the slightest.  I fought my mother on every single clarinet practice session growing up, and I still fight with myself over piano practice that should happen yet conveniently gets replaced by more "pressing" things. (probably part of my love of being good at things instead of the things themselves - I highly recommend reading this blog post Chris wrote as a guest blogger for Off the Cuff Christian. The quote he references wrecked my life in a pretty darn good way.)  I let rooms of our apartment fall into total disarray and then belittle myself for my sloppy inattention and procrastination.  I get ideas of what to do with an evening, and suddenly 94 minutes have past and I'm still searching a Facebook newsfeed.  I walk into Target vowing that I will NOT buy another unnecessary albeit cheap piece of clothing, and 10 minutes later I'm grazing the alluring clearance racks.  So yes, discipline = not my tendency.

Enter Lent.  Defined.  Public.  Community-based.  Bleak midwinter.  No excuses.  YES.

When asked to give something up, it's easy to default to the ice cream, chocolate, alcohol, etc. vices that we enjoy.  Depriving ourselves of physical pacifiers definitely has merit.  But just the other day, we had a joking but lively dinner debate about what constituted "bread" and what did not for our friend that was going to give it up for Lent.  (Are scones bread?? Thoughts??)  When we come to this place of splitting hairs about what we can and can't have under our self-imposed restrictions, or when we drool into the freezer and whine and pout about our denial, we've missed the whole point of the sacrifice.  We have the chance to be emptied, to let the Spirit fill us and refresh us.  To let prayer and our Comforter be the thing we depend on in our moments of weakness instead of an immediate physical comfort.

I have also heard people say that Lent can be a season of taking things on, not just giving things up.  I saw a link circling around of 40 tasks to accomplish, a different one for each day, for the season.  I agree there can be good in taking on habits and experiences... but if you're telling me that in our American culture of absurd amounts of food, media, communication, possessions, money, transportation, you name it, that you can't find SOMETHING you could go without for 40 days, then I think our culture has fooled you as much as it's fooled me time and time again.  With doing a different thing each day for 40 days, I'm sure a lot of them are helpful and could be eye-opening.  But we are a culture of minute time spans who don't even want to watch a full 5-minute YouTube video.  This notion of changing things up daily, for me at least, feeds right into that self-taught impatience and ADD.  By all means, do it if you feel called - I am sure there are many for whom routine is normal, and shaking things up every day would let the Spirit work.  But I think we, especially young adults, hate to commit to things, and making a 40 day commitment can return us to roots of dedication and discipline we have long set aside.

Back to the thoughts leading up to our fast.  This year, Chris has been good about trying to get us to actually use some the groceries we accumulate.  He's been poking through the freezer and cabinets, pulling out things to throw together into a meal rather than rushing out for more ingredients to make a pre-prescribed recipe.  The man could create chili out of next to nothing.  To give you a frame of reference, he lived - willingly - for over a year in a place that looked like this:

Above: the cleanest and emptiest the "bathroom" ever looked. Yes, it was the entire, open basement. Yes, that's water festering on the floor.  He survived longer than I ever could.  He gets this whole "minimalist" concept that's foreign to the rest of us Americans.

And then he married a woman who grew up with a "Canned Goods Room" in her basement.  Family friends would joke about "shopping at the Laymans'."  True, we didn't have a 'pantry' in the kitchen.  So, instead, this is the Apocalypse Grocery Mecca Shelter of Things That Were On Sale So We Bought Twelve:

On the left: the chest freezer (which is the third operating freezer in the house, and it's filled to the brim), followed by shelves generally including cereal, bottles, granola bars, chips.  On the right: shelves of canned goods, juice, pasta, paper towels, etc.  Behind you on the right: more cabinets of canned goods.  And this is LESS than what was there when we were growing up. Not that it is not a closet.  It is an entire room.

So, having A bottle of ketchup was a foreign concept to me.  (Right now, we have three.  Big ones.  How big?  They were too heavy for me to lift with fractured ribs.)  How could you NOT buy at least five of something if you found a super good deal?!  STOCKPILE!!!!!!

In light of trying to follow Chris's lead, while he was at work the other day I compiled a list of (almost) every food item in the cabinets we use as a pantry next to our fridge.  I mean, I know we have stuff, but it didn't look like that much!  Here's the view:

This is what I came up with:

 It is backwards.  Not to prevent you from reading it.  

But because I took it with PhotoBooth and can't figure out how to reverse it.

People.  Seriously?!  There are things in there that I moved from my old roommate's house.  I lived there for over four years.  And yet I've given them exactly 2 seconds' consideration in terms of actual consumption.  This list does not even TOUCH what's in the fridge and freezer right now.  Look at all of that.  It's funny; on this tiny picture, it doesn't appear as long of a list.  But there are 71 DIFFERENT items on this list, and many of them have multiple cans/boxes in that cabinet.

And there are dear ones - some a plane ride away, some a WALK away - that would cheer if they had ONE of those items in their house to eat tonight.  One.

My heart twinges more and more each passing day when I see our overabundance and know that we are in the top 4% of the world's income.  That's a public school teacher and a children's library associate with musician side jobs - not exactly "high" salaries by America's standards.  But to millions, we are rich.  And I cannot abide another person saying "It just makes you thankful that we're fortunate and blessed, doesn't it?  Thank you, Lord, for blessing us.  Oh, and please, may You bless those less fortunate someday.  Amen."  NO.  It makes my stomach hurt.  For I do not think that God, who made himself human in such a way that he spent much of his ministry with no place to lay his head, is looking at me and saying, "Bless you, child.  I grant you the means to buy more spaghetti than you could eat in a year to build a fort in your cupboard, and that is precisely what you should do with it.  This is how I show you that you are loved."  (no, we don't have this much spaghetti. but we're in an apartment with minimal cupboard space. put me in a house with legit storage and I fear for my future and whether or not it will involve an episode of Hoarders.)  I'm pretty sure each time Jesus is confronted with any type of wealth, his directions are to give it to the poor.  I'm certain he gives US the tools to bless others with the wealth that already exists on this earth.

So, this is our Lenten journey this year:  We are allowed to buy milk and produce if we run out and are truly in need.  That's it.  Fresh produce is nourishing and part of our Year of Health guidelines (we instituted those after our 1st anniversary, when we realized how few of our clothes fit from the Fat Happy Lazy Married Times of year 1).  Milk is a beverage and an ingredient, so we will allow it.  Beyond that, we're restricted to whatever is in our cupboards, fridge and freezer for 40 days.  If we depleted almost everything, could we revisit and buy some essentials?  Sure.  Sadly, I bet we won't need to.  But maybe it will give us the TINIEST inkling of those so near us who have absolutely no choice about what they are going to eat for dinner - if they have one item, it's that; if they have nothing, they eat nothing.  And maybe, beyond thinking of them and saying a quick prayer before we chow down, we'll actually be moved to be Love to them and bring them what they need.

 

An American family of 4's food waste for a month. Oh, my heart.

(And no, we won't just go out to dinner if we think we have "nothing to eat" or don't "see" anything - the shameful, sinful response thought we both have all too often when we peek in that cupboard).  Last year, we gave up eating in all restaurants for Lent, and that helped us get over our cravings of quick, easy, cash-sucking, and often terrible-for-us food.  We'll probably go out a few times, but the goal is to eat here as often as possible.)

I plan to chronicle what we eat for my own curiosity - I want to see how lavish our meals remain despite these restrictions.  That blog post may come in pieces or all at once at the end - we'll see how long it gets.

Thank you, Jesus, for showing us that fasting can cleanse us and make more room for Your spirit in us.  I pray you do that in us - as our excess decreases, give us eyes to see what we truly need and what those around us need.  Please increase.

(On a side note, Jenna personally is fasting from her personal Facebook account for Lent.  If you've left her love there, you are not being ignored!)

Rest.

"At least one blog entry per month!" I crowed.  ...It's January 31.  No time like the present, eh?

I can be my own worst enemy - understatement of the year. (And it's only January!)  I have so many ideas swirling around that I get sidetracked from just PICKING one and getting to it.  Then I want to wait for the *perfect* moment (even now I jumped up mid-sentence to put sweatpants and heat milk for hot chocolate and light a candle...).  And ironically, I've probably had tons of perfect moments in the past few weeks (okay, no joke, I just got off this couch FIVE TIMES to perfect this atmosphere.  enough.  ON TO THE POST), because I've had more rest than I've had... well... ever?  Since I was a kid?

We haven't made a silly YouTube video about Chris and Jenna's Big Adventure: The Car Accident yet (hardy... har... har.......), but to sum up for you, a few weeks ago we were on the way to worship band practice on a Sunday morning and got redirected to the sidewalk across the road by a confused elderly man who hadn't noticed a stop sign on his cross-street.  A short ER trip and rides from friends later, we were home, Chris with the typical aches, Jenna with some fractured ribs.  There goes my "Never have I ever broken a bone" game card.

I had some moments of realization foreshadowing what this month has been like while still on the gurney in the hospital.  At one point, they were cleaning a room to get ready for me, and the EMT was gabbing about some really bad crash he'd seen in a nearby room, and people were bustling about... and I was stuck on the ambulance stretcher in a hallway, on my back, by myself.  Not much control when you can't get a breath deep enough to call out for someone or to tell them they're still spelling your name wrong.  A while later, I was finally in a room, but they had whisked me away from the crash scene without Chris, so I was alone, with no husband, no phone, no pain meds yet, and no method of really remedying any of these things.  And I'm ashamed to say how long it took me to realize that in lieu of these things, one thing I COULD do for the pain was to be praying and worshipping.  The song that came to mind as I began to do this is called "Be Still," by our lovely friend Jaime Carbo (you want to listen, I promise).  And really, it's all I could do - be still on my back and wait.  And I could concentrate on the source of Comfort, rather than my discomfort.

For the first week upon release, I had to stay immobile, pretty drugged up and home from everything.  I had a slew of amazing caretakers - Chris first and foremost, and others who drove distances and made great sacrifices so I didn't have to be alone when Chris returned to work.  If you know nothing about my life, let me sum up by saying a week lying on the couch is NOT how I have spent my time.  Ever.  You could count some of the time I was home this summer, but I was crazily consumedly crafting (consumedly - a word? it is now - i need it, it's alliteration) for my best friend's bridal shower and other events - in other words, my butt might have been still, but the rest of me and most certainly my mind was not.  In the first week of this recovery, narcotics made things a little hazy, but I know it was entirely constructed of rest.  Naps.  A movie or two.  Occasional internet.  Relaxed conversation with those who came by.  Not moving.  Rest.

The next week, by Wednesday, it came time to return to work.  "Okay, let's go!" sang bored superwoman Jenna, springing off the couch - I am not a lounge-about kind of girl, give me something to do!!

Fast forward to 3:45 that day, and Jenna hobbled out to her car a half-hour before the work day was over, groaning and pitifully running up the white flag.  After a phone call back to the doctor, more drugs, and some ice/heat on the ribs, half-days of work were in order for more of a transition.  Look at me, overestimating what I'm capable of - shocker. 

So the next week brought alternating days of sleeping in, pjs, long showers, sipping coffee on the couch with my Bible or the computer before rousting myself for work at noon.  The other days dragged me (stiffly) out of bed early, but brought me home for lunch and an afternoon of - Rest.  Not just rest, but GUILT-FREE rest, because it's exactly what I was supposed to be doing.

This pace of life is unfamiliar and strange to me.  And there is something healing in it.

Somewhere in all this, I read this blog post written by a girl who is faithfully observing Sabbath.  And the title cut me to the quick: "I Am (Not) Lord."  I read of how Kasey ran about like crazy, serving in her ministry and not being "able to afford" to stop, for there was so much important work to be done... and the revealing of how we make ourselves disobedient and "above" a God who rested and made rest for US when we refuse it.  It's counter-intuitive to our culture.  It's counter-intuitive to my mind.

And turn my nose up at the God who made me when I tell him I don't need His rest, thankyouverymuch.

(And then marvel when I snap at my husband, stay up too late doing nothing but staring idly at a Facebook newsfeed, have no energy to write songs, don't feel like taking care of our house or myself, get insecure about my lack of creativity, grossly envy the gorgeous original songs someone else posts, and inexplicably hit walls of frustration I can't even voice that just make me want to crawl into bed and speak to no one for days.)

PEOPLE - NO LIE - I just tuned into the song that was playing on my iHeartRadio stream and looked up, confronted by the title "Rest Easy" by Andrew Peterson.  Never have I heard this song before.

You  work  so  hard  to  wear  yourself  down

is what just sang at me out of the TV speakers.  Seriously.

I think I picked the right blog post idea.  Thanks, God.

I have noticed some of my selfish, greedy tendencies, often brought out by Chris's generosities (God bless marriage for making me holier, if not happy all the time).  I have an urge to hoard.  To protect.  To skimp.  And I have been learning how to surrender my heart in some of these areas... but I forget that perhaps one of the things I hoard yet waste most is my time, protectively hunching over it with a resentful, suspicious pout over my shoulder at one who would dare suggest I have time to observe a Sabbath.  Do I do fun things?  Things that are restful?  Sure - but not with the intention of a Sabbath set aside from work.  Those fun, rest-like things are events I've organized and crammed into my planner, or else done when I knew I had 5 more important things to do on a Thursday evening and so squandered my time away with the pangs of Guilt weighing it silently down.

Not freedom.

You don't have to prove yourself
You're already Mine

In rest, is freedom.  Freedom to allow God to provide for me.  To declare that what he has commanded of me and created for me is more important than the plans I design for myself, even those that I think are in line with His will and are meant to serve Him.

 upon arrival on our honeymoon - talk about rest!

I'm back at work full time now, so days will not be rampant with restful couch coffee time, free of guilt.  And as someone who drags herself crankily out of bed on a Sunday morning to practice with the band for two hours before church starts, helps to lead a church service, may have more band business to attend to after the service for the afternoon, and a small group Bible study in the evening, I cannot realistically call Sunday my "Sabbath" rest.  It is still dedicated to the Lord, but it is not true rest.

You're smiling like you're scared to death
You're out of faith and all out of breath

I come before you with this with unclear ideas of how to remedy this.  Because truthfully, I am scared.  I hold my feeble trappings of this life trembling in my grasp, trying to grip tighter and tighter as they start to slip through the cracks between my fingers.  I don't know how to set aside a large chunk time of time to TRULY free my mind from all responsibilities - not checking our band email, not hopping on Facebook/Twitter to update our status, not doing chores or resenting the chores I see undone, not running through my perpetual mental checklist - to give God room to refresh and restore me.

But I know that, despite some excruciating pain and frustration in these past few weeks due to these fractured bones in my body, I have also felt refreshed in ways that I have not in ages.

You don't have to work so hard
You can rest easy 

So again, God uses the most unexpected of circumstances to teach me the most unexpected lessons.  Perhaps not surprising to the outsider looking in on my life, but to the blind girl running on her hamster wheel living it, the simplest of truths can often knock me off into stillness.  And stillness is what I'm praying for - the freedom of resting in God's lordship over my life, presented to Him free of my own agenda for my time, and dedicated to His.

"That's what Christmas means to me, my love..."

You may have noticed that I'm not the most consistent with blog posts.  I think this is going to be part of my new year's resolutions... well, really, those rarely get kept.  So rather than calling it that, I'll call it a part of our goals for 2013.  We did pretty well with our goals for 2012!  We started the recording process (loosely - we have 90% of the songs, and we made some demos), we practiced more, we met a penguin (actually two!), we went on another Big Adventure to North Carolina... we also started the Year of Health once we got close to our first wedding anniversary and realized we had celebrated being newlyweds all to well the way we know best - EATING.  Some simple rules about our eating habits have helped us fit back into our clothes again, thank heavens!  That will run through next July 15, so we'll have to update you once we get there.

There are some things that were on our list that we didn't quite get to... one was to host a Taste for Change dinner party (as you can see by the last blog entry, this was begun quite a bit ago!).  We went on the Big Adventure, but never got any video footage together.  There are some other ones that we didn't complete on our fridge list of goals, I know, but we're in Florida (!!!) to record an EP with the worship band we joined this year, The Remedy, so I don't have it in front of me to remember what all of them are that we "failed" on...

And I think that's where this blog post is going.  Honestly, I have had so much on my heart that I've wanted to write about that it's hard to pick one, but we'll start here.  It is the day after Christmas, and I am struck by how often this season I was asked by frazzled people, "Are you ready for Christmas?!"  I am starting to cringe whenever I hear this (and when I am tempted to ask it myself).  What most people mean is, "Have you spent all your money yet?  Have you proven yourself socially savvy by purchasing something for everyone that could possibly be expecting it?  Have you put decorations out?  Have you baked your 32 dozen cookies for the 16 cookie exchanges you agreed to do?  Did you pick up enough stuff in the dollar section at Target to fill stockings and White Elephant gift bags so that people can feel momentarily fulfilled before they throw it away or give it to Goodwill?"

Let me be clear:  I love Christmas.  Chris loves it even more.

We begin listening to nothing but Christmas music on Black Friday and rotate through our deluxe Christmas special DVD sets (which, p.s., are WAY weirder than I thought they were when I was 7...) and work on our now-annual Chris & Jenna Christmas video (you can view 2011 here and 2012 here) and save our pennies for a Starbucks peppermint white mocha or eggnog latte... (Year of Health, Jenna.  One and done!!)  This year, I got in crafty mode and made us an advent calendar:

On each day to flip over, I put a sticky note of a Christmas-related task and a scripture to read.  I tried to make it a special thing that would increase Chris's abundant holiday cheer and keep us mindful of this special time.  I included trivial things, like the Starbucks drink, as well as some more service-oriented things that make me uncomfortable, like creating some cold-weather kits for homeless people in our community and actually going out to give them in person (we got the stuff for the kits; we are planning to give them out when we return from FL).  Without fail, as December got busier, we started to fall behind on some of our activities.  There was my precious creation on the wall, but I'd look at it and realize that yesterday's date would still be unturned, and that some of the dates we had overturned listed activities we hadn't even begun.

Cue the voices of despair.

Each time, though, Chris looked at me sternly and mandated that we were NOT going to turn the advent calendar into a guilt trip.  We could CHOOSE to do the things I had thought up, or we could choose not to, or we could choose to do them 3 weeks after Christmas, and that none of this would be a measurement of failure.  It was a choice.  He centered me each time, implying that I am not a terrible wife if we didn't bake the self-inflicted cookies for the neighbors at a timely moment (and that maybe I should also chill if I didn't actually have enough powdered sugar for the recipe I had wanted to make, and if I accidentally melted the butter instead of softening it...). 

And I need his help in this... because if I listen to everyone around me, Christmas is a to-do list.  It's a set of things to accomplish, and I am less of a woman if I don't complete them all.

This wearies my heart.

It's hard to communicate the message of what I want to say without sounding like the cheesy "Keep CHRIST in Christmas!" saying.  Because really, I don't see much of Christ in a lot of the Christmas in my area.  God didn't commission the holiday of the Christmas that we've made at Jesus' birth.  The angels didn't sing, "Glory to God in the highest, and peace to his people who manage to hang enough icicle lights to look festive but not tacky."  A lot of our pretty carols and songs even seem to sing of the poor baby Jesus in the cold winter snow, which whether it's accurate or not, seems to hint at a lot more of our own seasons and chosen date of December 25 than the Biblical evidence I read of the account.  It's a microcosm of what we do to God: we take something miraculous and incredible, and we attach our own human ideas and practices to it until it's a weak, shredded version of what it once was.  While I love seeing decorated trees and lights, they are not Christmas.

Christmas is God exchanging his riches for poverty.  Christmas is God turning the status quo on its head.  Christmas is God coming to earth as a homeless infant.  Christmas is God taking on human flesh SO THAT he could die for us, set from the beginning.  Christmas is the gift we've never quite been able to rationalize receiving, the gift we disguise with bows and wrapping so that we can make it something pretty and orderly and tangible and controlled, instead of the dirty, shocking, "beautiful, scandalous night" that it was.  Christmas is unfair.  I can't pay it back, can't measure up to it, can't fathom it, can't justify it by my actions. 

And when I read of Mary's selfless compliance bearing the son of God, sacrificing her community's respect, Joseph doing the same by taking her as his wife to follow God's direction, and this rugged, painful, glamor-less birth, all of the Secret Santas and house spotlights to show greenery and bows through the night to passersby and shopping "to do" on my list become hollow.  I don't think God's dreams for us when He let us know of this miraculous night in history were to have us spend THOUSANDS of dollars on gifts that, honestly, most of the people on our lists really don't need.

I don't think He desired for Christmas to become something to accomplish.

My vow is that I will not make Christmas into this.  I will not share in the scores of women who ask, "Are you ready??" and find comfort in us each bemoaning how much we've procrastinated on gift-buying and how much food we'll need to make in the coming weeks.  Because we don't HAVE to do any of it.

Seriously?  Seriously.  WE DON'T HAVE TO DO ANY OF IT.

Will our families judge us?  Will our neighbors scoff?  Will our Bible studies look at us in concern?  Will our children feel jilted?

Probably.  And if that's enough to keep us going through the motions, scurrying around like drug-tested mice to "be ready" for Christmas, then we've missed the whole point.  Entirely.  

Don't miss my meaning: having an opportunity to express care for people through thoughtful, meaningful gifts is wonderful.  Having family traditions is special and creates closeness and memories.  Doing intentional preparations for a holiday that remind us of why we celebrate in the first place is helpful and can keep our hearts in the proper posture.  I love doing these things, and will continue to do them.  But I pray that as I do them, I will do them with a heart like Mary's, who "pondered these things and treasured them in her heart," and did not "briefly reflect on these things and treasured the gifts she didn't have to worry about coming in the mail on time."

Christmas will NEVER be a to-do list in our house, a thing to race to get ready for on the outside and not in our spirits, and if it ever does, I pray we can back off from it and get back to its simple, hard, lovely truths of love poured out on us undeservedly.

Get Up and Walk.

In the past couple weeks, we've had some intense conversations with some dear friends whose lives have suddenly been turned upside down.  They are going through life-defining moments in which the things they hold dear have disappeared, leaving them options - options to find another person to cling to instead, to throw themselves into activities that would distract them from pain, or to run headlong after God, with nothing holding them back from pursuit of Him and His dreams for their lives that they now might have open ears to hear.

And if I'm honest, a weird part of me envies them.

I've had defining moments like this, and they've completely shaped my life.  Chris has had them too, and some of our stories are why we have these conversations with people - we've walked those roads and come out on the other end knowing God better and learning so much about life.  But when the years keep passing after these mega-trial moments, sometimes it starts to become a little fuzzy.  Life starts to seem a little more comfortable when there's not devastating heartbreak threatening to keep me in bed for a week or thrilling tough life circumstances that create an incredible need to depend on the Lord for survival.  Were times like that fun?  Heavens, no.  Horrid.  But I feel like I had the chance to really hear what God had been trying to say to me all along about who I was and what He had created me for.  Now, in comfy times, I know in my head that those truths have not changed... but they do seem a lot less life-or-death, above-all-else important.

"It is not enough to say I love you...
It is not enough to say I need you so...
'Cause every time my tongue does move
It's only words from me to you
And love requires a deeper proof
To do the last thing I'd want to do
For you..."

And I start to stumble.  I start to sink, fractions of an inch at a time, into having a head knowledge of what I feel like I'm supposed to be doing and knowing the joy it brings my heart, but having miles of space between a life like that and what my life really looks like.  And those miles start to look like an impossible frigid desert, full of brush and debris and massive landforms and terrible weather that would prevent me from going much farther past the tiptoes I have in past the boundary.

The terrain gets even more intense when I look at the mountain on the other side, where people who are younger and cuter than me are having a big successful musical ministry party.  Clearly they know some kind of secret I don't, because they picked up and moved to Nashville and now are magically able to support themselves touring for a living and putting out new records all the time.  And others of them must have magical genes because they're barely 22 and writing new songs like a boss to huge critical acclaim.  And others who seem to have lots in common with me, but clearly care about what they're doing more and are better at it because they've booked 20 shows to the one I've chased down.  And clearly they must have more faith than me because I'm not at that party on the mountain with them.  And after all, I'm 28, and that's close to 30, and isn't 30 a bit old to be still trying to think about all this and not have significant progress made towards those goals, to still be stuck in the frigid sand and snow?

"It is not enough to find time for you soon...
It is not enough to give what I would give up anyway,
It is not enough - it is not love."

Which is the mud-slinging, wallowing pity party I throw myself back on the other side of the desert before one of these on-fire, life-defining-moment women (you can read her inspiring blog posts and get convicted about your life here) stops my poor-me celebration with one look and says, "That's comparison.  You are comparing.  Stop it."

She's right.  I am.  I am comparing my life and my inside struggles and sins with only the shiny pretty outside of somebody else's life.  Who is not me.  Who has nothing to do with what God has whispered he wants me to do.  I don't recall ever getting a word from the Lord that said "Jenna, my calling on your life is for you to try to mimic ____________'s life.  They're doing things right.  You aren't creative enough to live your own life.  So, my child, try to live theirs."

But I live like that's what He said.  Like a jealous older brother watching his younger brother, who wasted all of his money but came to apologize, get a big party thrown for his repentance while I sit thinking I never got anything like that my whole life.  Even though everything my Father ever could - and DID - give is surrounding me at my fingertips.  Oh, but for my blindness, I could be enjoying these riches instead of glaring at somebody else's!

Like a beggar who sits, lame.  And begging for Jesus' healing power to come over his life because he can't forsee it ever going differently otherwise - he sees everyone walking by him every day, doing the thing he wishes he could do but is positive he can't.  And Jesus looking at him and saying "Get up and walk."

"'Cause love is an easy word to choose
But weakens the more I overuse
It acts as a cover for the flaw
That saving myself is all I want
To do..."


Get up and walk, Jenna.  The lie that some far off moment is going to come, when THEN I will be successful and satisfied and living out God's purposes immaculately, is just that - a lie.  What am I doing about it RIGHT NOW?  If the answer is nothing, then nothing will come of it.  If I could just change my answer to be something more consistently, I bet something would come of it more often.  Stop bemoaning what could be and isn't, and JUST. DO. SOMETHING. NOW.

"I'm done loving with the words I say
But not with selfishness my deeds convey
I wanna be love
I'm done faking authenticity
I'm not getting up off of my knees 
Til I can be love"

The song I'm writing here and sharing with you (before I even get Chris to edit it and make it better!) wasn't about this originally.  But it certainly describes the present moment.  I am called to love the Lord with the gifts he has given to me.  And brooding about my supposed inability to do so or the timing of it all is a sad replacement for what I could be doing in that moment - living out love by writing the songs He's placed in my heart and letting God take care of what He wants to do with them, to do with me.

"I'm done, I'm done living for me
I want, I want to be a living sacrifice
And give my life for you..."

God, you have to bring me to this place again and again.  I'm so sorry for the time I waste doing this instead of just believing Your promises and living like who You meant me to be, not some imaginary version that I've created in my head that I'm supposed to be measuring up to.  I will try to be me.  And I will try to let go of trying to plan and control my life and instead offer it to You and let You have a turn.

Grace Isn't Always a Pretty Word.

I have recently (as in the past several years) learned to love the sound of the word "grace."  I think it's a good example of one of those words that sounds kind of like what it means.  Just hearing it, I can see the graceful arc of a ballerina's arm extending above her head, a river bird perfectly gliding onto the water, my grandmother's weathered and kind face.

God has been revealing to me, bit by bit, what His grace looks like.  And it, too, is beautiful.  There is such poetry in hearing the grace shown to the prodigal son, returning home and undeserving of love but being received with running, open arms by his father.  Each time Jesus shows his grace by looking at, touching, or healing a hurting woman, my heart melts.  Grace is wrapped in love, and when it is lavished, it turns our heads and we take notice.

In the past couple years, I would probably tell you that I've had many opportunities to learn what it means to extend grace.  Forgiveness is at the root of it - learning to let go and love again when I've been wronged.  God's lesson in this to me is the pillar that our marriage is built upon.  Chris and I dated for a while right after I graduated from college, and it ended in a horrible breakup.  There were a pretty miserable few months there.  Eventually, God led me past my grief to show me who I was without Chris, which I realized I had lost sight of.  And then one day, just as I was beginning to try to cleanse the anger from my heart, Chris called out of the blue.  He, too, had been growing in our time apart, and he came to me with apologies and acknowledgements of every wrong that had been done.  God intervened and took every ounce of anger I had carried on my shoulders in one breath - it was a physical feeling!  Forgiveness was not instantaneous - I learned that it is a choice, to choose into it daily rather than retreat into the past.  I certainly did not go leaping back into Chris's arms, and he was wise to not expect that, but he spent the next months faithfully, intentionally pursuing my friendship and then my heart.  With trust built up based on showing one another grace and forgiveness, we began to date in order to marry.  God's grace is the reason for our marriage today.  And while it was hard and ugly for a while, it's all part of a beautiful story.

HOWEVER.  The turning point in our story is when Chris came and sought my forgiveness.  He knew he didn't deserve it, but he came to make amends.  And while extending forgiveness when it is requested is not always easy, it softens my heart when someone humbles himself to admit his wrongdoing and begins to pave the way for it.

BUT... what about when someone doesn't ask for forgiveness?  When someone either refuses to acknowledge their sin, or truly doesn't even see it?  This the place I sit.  God is putting multiple people in my life who have no interest in trying to reconcile, to talk it out, to apologize for something.  One may just ignore me and the whole problem, another may just act as if nothing wrong ever happened, and then, horror of horrors, another actually might need something from me.

This is when grace feels ugly to me.

Everything inside me is injured, indignant, and wants to cry out, "Do you have any idea what life has been like for me?  How can you pretend everything is fine?  I'm hurting!  YOU hurt me!!  And now you WANT something from me?!" and on and on and on...  And I'm sure there would be many a person who would say I'm justified.

And this exposes my as-yet immature plunges into extending grace.  Because I'm willing to forgive... if someone apologizes first.  Until then, my tendency is to hold out.  I can even act kindly on the surface to that person, because it might make me feel good about myself, like I'm the "bigger person."

I once read in Timothy Keller's book Prodigal God that you can't truly forgive someone if you still think you are better than him.  It grabbed my heart at the time, and I conveniently managed to put it away and not think about it until just this second as I'm writing this.  I talked to Chris about one such situation, and indignantly pointed out the irony and injustice of it all.  He so simply said the thing that I knew deep down in my gut and didn't want to hear aloud... "Yeah, but wouldn't this be a really great opportunity for you to show grace?"  Cue the stomach plunge and watery eyes.

I'm pouring out my heart here because grace sounds like such a lovely word.  And looking at the aftermath of it being poured out, it usually leaves a lovely picture behind.  But sometimes, when you're the one with the choice, it doesn't feel lovely.  It feels hard and wrong and backwards.  And like it's the last thing you want to do, the last thing the world would tell you to do, because it doesn't make sense.  That person could go right on ahead and take advantage of you, and you would be the weaker for it.  And, frustratingly, you might never feel the benefit of what you pour out to that person.

"In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple." Jesus said this to his followers in Luke.  He's not just talking about earthly possessions.  He means my pride, my self-given "right" to be apologized to and to be treated the way I think I should be.  This is what grace is.  Lavishly giving when it is undeserved and feels absurd.  Forgiving and extending love when it hurts.  Sometimes there is no earthly reward for this.  If I'm waiting for a pat on the back, I shouldn't have bothered in the first place.

I'm sure a song will come out of all this at some point... On our first album, there's one I wrote about learning to apologize (seriously a difficult thing for me at one point).  I guess now God's got me on a different side of things, way more difficult to me than the seemingly easy thing of accepting an apology (and it once seemed so hard!).  I pray I can learn to do this because it's what Christ did for me, long before I thought of apologizing or trying to admit my own wrongs.

what looks like weakness can do anything 

and what looks like foolishness is understanding 

when what is powerful has not come to fight 

it looks like you’re going to war 

but you lay down your life 

but i give myself to what looks like love 

and i sell myself for what feels like love 

and i pay to get what is not love 

and all just because i see things upside down

~derek webb

A New Name

This weekend we got to visit my sister Katrina at Penn State and got to attend her church.  They've been going through the book of Genesis, and we were on Genesis 17 - Circumcision.  (A little awkward, right?  Is it just me that has the tendency to look around to see who's giggling and hiding their face in their Bibles trying to be mature?)

The man who taught had a lot of wise things to say... he pointed out how much God is the central character and focus of this passage, unlike many passages that tell stories with God almost absent as a character, and this creates something we need to pay attention to.    (On a complete side note, I listened to a children's book about prepositions this week that said it is in fact NOT wrong to end a sentence with a preposition!  SCORE!  This has been a bane of my writing existence for years!!)

This is also the chapter in which God for the first time gives someone a new name - a sure sign that something big is happening.  He changes Abram to Abraham, redefining his purpose from being an "exalted father" to a "father of multitudes."  He elaborates on his promises to Abraham, saying that despite Abraham's best efforts to figure out God's plan and make it happen in his own way (cough, cough... my life?!), God still has a plan set and that it is only now (THIRTEEN years after Abram's efforts to make it come true! ugh!) that more light and definition will be shed.

He then gives Sarai a new name - Sarah.  What's interesting to me is that they both mean "princess."  So, she maintains her role and her purpose, but simply gets a new spelling??  Hmm.  Any other time God changes a name in scripture, it is indeed a sign of change, of calling, of importance.  So it's not that her life is taking on an unprecedented direction; it's the advent of the promised purpose and calling finally coming to fruition.

The thought that came to me was that, while the Bible doesn't tell us about many female God-given name changes, we see tons of female name changes in our culture today.  Many women who get married (although I'm sure statistics will tell us this percentage is falling daily) take on their husband's last name, either shedding their maiden name or hyphenating it with the new name.  I guess it's not really novel that with this new name a woman takes on a new identity as a wife... but I do think it's easy to take on the "title" of Mrs. _____________ without the sense of a new self.  For me at least, after being rather independent and taking care of myself up until age 27, it's hard to suddenly be in a role that needs me to let someone else take care of me and seeks first the betterment of that person before my own, all the time, every day!  On an average day to day basis, it can be easy to fall into my old habits and patterns of how I like to spend my evenings, what I think should be done with the time I have, what's important to me... but this new name is an opportunity, I think, to let God redefine who I am and the purpose to which he has called me.  He doesn't intend for me to just carry on in my same-old self, riddled with selfishness and stubbornness and so many other things wrapped into it... He is calling me out and coaxing out the things in me he wants to purify and cleanse, and does it (at times painfully!) through this new name of being a Mrs., being pledged and promised to a man to love him faithfully through everything, having to expose my uglier parts in order to love him better and let God mold me.

I'm getting to a tired state of mind and having trouble finding the right ending (and worrying that I'm rambling)... so I guess my point is that God's act of giving us new names is ultimately done now through Christ, when we are called His through having faith in him.  And that God, being a God of grace and second chances, gives me another chance through this new married name to bring glory to His name by serving with someone at my side, and serving the one at my side as I need to serve my God.  It's not just a legal document change at the MVA and Social Security... it's truly a gift and a calling to let God give me new purposes and do greater things than I could have done when I was just me on my own.  God, I hope I can listen to you call me by name to follow You the way You've dreamed for me!

Time

I do not often have the discipline I should.

Time is something that, every few weeks or so, causes me to despair at how little I have of it.  There are not enough hours in the day to practice, to see the people I want to see, to get some quality date time, to keep our apartment clean, to write new songs, to write poetry and prose like I used to, to exercise...

I am a planner, and sometimes this can be a fault of mine.  I get stressed out when I don't know what's going on and frustrated when plans get foiled.  It is something I am gradually learning to loosen up about, definitely with Chris's help (he's the type that often does not plan the way I think he should, and yet things miraculously always work out for him!).

But with the planner in me, if I don't think ahead about un-scheduled time, life can flip on its head and go from having "not enough time" to piles of wasted time.  It's spring break, and I have so many high hopes for it!  Chris roused me on his way to work at 8 am this morning, telling me he left the freezer door open and I'd better get up to close it (perfect trick, it actually got me out of bed - not an easy task!!)  After a few minutes I stumbled to the kitchen (he closed it after all) and then to the living room, where I picked up the laptop "just to check email."  It is now an hour and a half later, and what have I done?  I sent one band marketing inquiry... am now writing a blog post... and spend the whole rest of that time changing Facebook pictures, looking through Twitter, browsing a few blogs, and generally a whole lot of nothing.

Both Chris and I run into days/nights like this, where we get into a funk at how poorly we spent the hours we had.  There are so many worthwhile things to do, and yet we gravitate toward those that will not feed our souls or benefit others.

I think there is a fine line here that I need to walk... I often err on the side of having a “Martha heart,” bustling around trying to accomplish things and fretting about To Do lists. And it's true that I need to not have many mornings like this one where I sit on a couch in the face of everything else I could do. But getting off these cushions and spending the next few hours doing laundry and cleaning is not going to bless my heart, either. I have a wonderful mother who has worked so hard to take care of our family for my whole life. I am in awe of all she has done! And yet, often when we talk, she is frustrated with a day, and says that she “didn't get enough things done.” Indeed, I remember BALKING at hearing that phrase in my teenage years - “Jenna, it's time to get some things done!”  I think I hated the word "things" in the phrase, as if there were these looming tasks that would never be complete no matter what I accomplished (and thus precluded me from getting started at all at times!).  And for all the joy my mom has brought us and others, it makes me sad when her perception of her life is tied to how many chores and tasks she got done in a day.

The Gospel writers tell of Mary, who got it exactly right when she sat at Jesus' feet, soaking in his presence and every word he had to say.  And this is the very thing I am prone to shy away from, wanting to complete something tangible and being tempted to do something else first (which almost always results in me not spending time with Him at all).  I hate this about myself, and hate that I recognize it every few months and slip right back into the same pattern anyway.

So, I am getting off of the couch to first go read and talk to God.  It's not on my To Do list... but really, maybe it should be.  Maybe it should be the first thing, written at the top in all caps in bold Sharpie.  Maybe then I wouldn't begin days and nights with aimless meandering on the internet.  I don't think God's desire for my life is for me to put Him on a To-Do list.  But if that's how my brain operates, maybe it's a least a place to start falling more in love with Him.