A person is not defined by one event in his life.
History tries to make it so; we have in our memories a large set of people (size of the set depending on how well you studied for your history tests) who are only known to us because of one important event that we remember. They become one-dimensional--we have built up an idea about their whole lives from one day or one week in their fifty or more years of existence. Bad people can do good things from time to time, and good people can do bad things, and if you isolate one happening you are unlikely to find anything accurate enough to be used to judge their character.
We've taught ourselves, then, that we can do that with people we are personally familiar with as well as historical figures. Admit it--in your mind you'll define your current boyfriend by how he asked you out and your ex by how he broke up with you. If I were to keep tabs on it long enough, you might one day start telling me what a jerk this newer one is too, regardless of how well last Valentine's day was planned. The teacher in the fourth grade who made me cry because she yelled at me in front of the class for not wearing a hat on Hat Day is always going to be the most horrible elementary educator on the planet, because I honestly don't remember anything else about her. You can have a best friend for years who misconstrues one remark you make and never speaks to you again. Fortunately, the day your mom forgot you at school in the sixth grade doesn't override the years of making you dinner and remembering to pick you up at 3:30.
God was able to look at David, the adulterous murder, and still say, "He is a man after my own heart." Abraham, who's lack of faith in God's promise caused him to have a child with his servant and create serious problems even today for the two races of people stemming from that incident, has five verses in Hebrews 11 memorializing his great faith in God.
God doesn't define me by the times I've screwed up, or even by the times I've done outstandingly well (just in case I try to think I can slack off because I've done enough). He defines me by my life as a whole and by my heart's desires and by who I really am.
How would God define you?
9.28.2007
9.23.2007
this weekend I...
...thought about cutting most of my hair off.
...decided not to.
...went to church, and decided that whatever the girl's name is that sings at Newspring is my hero.
...stalled for a birthday party by going grocery shopping.
...went to my second NeedToBreathe concert in three weeks. It was incredible.
...realized that I am loved more than anyone could ever deserve.
...made a decision to always make people around me feel like my friends made me feel yesterday.
...fell in love with a place that will (with any luck) be the love of the next three years of my life.
...remembered why I want to adopt children one day.
...wished I could adopt them all right now.
...understood how vital love is to life, especially the life of a child, and how the lack of it can leave you broken.
This weekend we went to Helping Hands, an emergency foster home where children stay immediately after they are pulled out of abusive/neglectful homes (when their situation is considered too serious to wait) until they can find a more permanent place to send them. I understood that it was important, and I was prepared to work and wash buses and play with kids all morning and run around until I dropped.
I was not prepared for a seven-year-old to ask me if she can call me Mom, since hers didn't love her.
I was not prepared to be told that I had to pull away from a very confused little girl who just wanted someone to hold her hand, because we couldn't get "too attached" to them, or that I probably shouldn't hug a child who might not have ever gotten a real hug in her life.
I wasn't prepared for it, nor am I prepared to go back. I won't ever be prepared to explain to that seven-year-old why she can't come home with me, or why she feels the need to physically beat herself up when she gets angry because that's all she's ever known from anyone who was angry with her. I don't ever want to be too prepared for that. I'm not prepared to go back but I'm going anyway, knowing that those kids can't stay for more than four months and I'll be upset every time one of them has to leave. Knowing that I can't let them climb all over me like normal crazy active kids do or grab my hand or get "too attached." If you saw and heard what I did, you'd go back too.
I'm going to adopt at least one of those kids one day. Not them, but kids just like them. I know it's hard, and I know they're trouble, and I know they have way too much pain for me to fix and they have anger problems and they'll probably drive me crazy and maybe it won't ever do them any good. But it might. Love is an incredibly powerful thing, whether we fully understand it or not. And I know that the love I've been shown through grace and through the indescribable people I have the privilege of knowing has been the only thing that has ever had a chance of healing the pain I've acquired in my life--I don't think I'm allowed to be selfish with that. I've wondered for a long time why I wanted to adopt one day; now, years later, I know why. There's more than enough reasons, and I met a lot of them yesterday. They let me play on their playground.
...decided not to.
...went to church, and decided that whatever the girl's name is that sings at Newspring is my hero.
...stalled for a birthday party by going grocery shopping.
...went to my second NeedToBreathe concert in three weeks. It was incredible.
...realized that I am loved more than anyone could ever deserve.
...made a decision to always make people around me feel like my friends made me feel yesterday.
...fell in love with a place that will (with any luck) be the love of the next three years of my life.
...remembered why I want to adopt children one day.
...wished I could adopt them all right now.
...understood how vital love is to life, especially the life of a child, and how the lack of it can leave you broken.
This weekend we went to Helping Hands, an emergency foster home where children stay immediately after they are pulled out of abusive/neglectful homes (when their situation is considered too serious to wait) until they can find a more permanent place to send them. I understood that it was important, and I was prepared to work and wash buses and play with kids all morning and run around until I dropped.
I was not prepared for a seven-year-old to ask me if she can call me Mom, since hers didn't love her.
I was not prepared to be told that I had to pull away from a very confused little girl who just wanted someone to hold her hand, because we couldn't get "too attached" to them, or that I probably shouldn't hug a child who might not have ever gotten a real hug in her life.
I wasn't prepared for it, nor am I prepared to go back. I won't ever be prepared to explain to that seven-year-old why she can't come home with me, or why she feels the need to physically beat herself up when she gets angry because that's all she's ever known from anyone who was angry with her. I don't ever want to be too prepared for that. I'm not prepared to go back but I'm going anyway, knowing that those kids can't stay for more than four months and I'll be upset every time one of them has to leave. Knowing that I can't let them climb all over me like normal crazy active kids do or grab my hand or get "too attached." If you saw and heard what I did, you'd go back too.
I'm going to adopt at least one of those kids one day. Not them, but kids just like them. I know it's hard, and I know they're trouble, and I know they have way too much pain for me to fix and they have anger problems and they'll probably drive me crazy and maybe it won't ever do them any good. But it might. Love is an incredibly powerful thing, whether we fully understand it or not. And I know that the love I've been shown through grace and through the indescribable people I have the privilege of knowing has been the only thing that has ever had a chance of healing the pain I've acquired in my life--I don't think I'm allowed to be selfish with that. I've wondered for a long time why I wanted to adopt one day; now, years later, I know why. There's more than enough reasons, and I met a lot of them yesterday. They let me play on their playground.
9.11.2007
more from new orleans...
It is incredibly difficult to become humble.
It isn't like you can wake up one morning and decide that you want to be. Humility is a positive trait, and if you are aware of your positive traits you tend to be less humble (stick with me, it won't always be that confusing). I've been reading "My Utmost for His Highest" and one topic in particular caught my attention: the assertion that the best characteristic qualities of a Christian are not products of said Christian's own effort. In fact, Chambers makes the argument that only when a quality (such as humility) is unconscious is it most effective.
"...if it is conscious it ceases to have this unaffected loveliness which is the characteristic of the touch of Jesus."
My first reaction was against this particular entry (I think it was the context of the whole thing that did that). Now that I've rolled it over in my mind for awhile I think I'm more inclined to agree--you will probably find it very difficult to become like Jesus when you're making every effort to do so. During my short stay in NOLA I came across people who had no idea they exhibited (quite powerfully) the characteristics of Christ. If Christianity is more about the heart than about the law, why is it so easy to forget that we are entirely powerless to change our own hearts? That change comes from surrendering everything you are and everything you do. That "unaffected loveliness," that certain presence of grace in a person is what is supposed to make Christians so easily distinguishable. When you are truly touched by Jesus, you unconsciously develop a "poverty of spirit" because you begin to recognize that there really is nothing about you that is good, apart from the work of God in you. Humble people probably don't realize they're humble at all.
The people who impress me the most with certain qualities very rarely realize they are doing it. The things I love most about them are the things that they do without thinking about it. I am impressed by them because they ARE those things, not because they PRACTICE those things. I don't remember ever aspiring to be someone who tries really hard. I aspire to be someone who doesn't need to.
It isn't like you can wake up one morning and decide that you want to be. Humility is a positive trait, and if you are aware of your positive traits you tend to be less humble (stick with me, it won't always be that confusing). I've been reading "My Utmost for His Highest" and one topic in particular caught my attention: the assertion that the best characteristic qualities of a Christian are not products of said Christian's own effort. In fact, Chambers makes the argument that only when a quality (such as humility) is unconscious is it most effective.
"...if it is conscious it ceases to have this unaffected loveliness which is the characteristic of the touch of Jesus."
My first reaction was against this particular entry (I think it was the context of the whole thing that did that). Now that I've rolled it over in my mind for awhile I think I'm more inclined to agree--you will probably find it very difficult to become like Jesus when you're making every effort to do so. During my short stay in NOLA I came across people who had no idea they exhibited (quite powerfully) the characteristics of Christ. If Christianity is more about the heart than about the law, why is it so easy to forget that we are entirely powerless to change our own hearts? That change comes from surrendering everything you are and everything you do. That "unaffected loveliness," that certain presence of grace in a person is what is supposed to make Christians so easily distinguishable. When you are truly touched by Jesus, you unconsciously develop a "poverty of spirit" because you begin to recognize that there really is nothing about you that is good, apart from the work of God in you. Humble people probably don't realize they're humble at all.
The people who impress me the most with certain qualities very rarely realize they are doing it. The things I love most about them are the things that they do without thinking about it. I am impressed by them because they ARE those things, not because they PRACTICE those things. I don't remember ever aspiring to be someone who tries really hard. I aspire to be someone who doesn't need to.
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