Pitching Tents

It’s been 4 weeks since we moved across the world AGAIN. 

I cannot express the highs and lows, the joys and fear, the raw reality of conflicting emotions when all your patterns and environments are changes all at once. Plus carrying a baby, and having 3 kids 5 and under. 

I can’t explain it, but I bet you can imagine. 

 I bet God has also placed you at sometime in Transition. Transition for most people is just a word, for people like me, it’s a curse word that symbolized all the stress and tension of the gut-wrenching unknown and unfamiliar. 

I bet God has called you into transition, like he has called me. 

I saw a very beautiful picture of this in the Life of Abraham. (Genesis 12-26)

Did I say beautiful, I meant painful and terrifying. 

When God first calls Abraham, he says,

 “Depart from your country and your relatives, and come into the land that I will show you”

Doesn’t this sound terrible? Like packing up you bags, selling your house, loading up the kids and just driving. Maybe that’s sounds fun to some of you, but in this season of my life it sounds like hell.

“God, could you just tell me where we are going so I could look it up on google?”

Abraham took a while to obey too. Once he did obey, he lived in tents for a long time. 

A nomadic pilgrim. 

Tents are a great visual for transition. 

Could you imagine setting up your house every few days? I can. 

A very ambiguous future promise is all that looms in the future, in the vague form of a promise…

 A land, a seed, a blessing. 

Abraham struggles with this promise. In fact, given his situation they seem nothing short of ridiculous. His faith is quite weak at the beginning. He constantly tries to manipulate events in his own favor, to be self-sufficient and provide for himself. It always goes bad, and God always delivers him. 

I also find it beautiful that He is commanded to set up alters in pagan lands. Here we have this man, struggling each step of the way to believe in God, pitching tent after tent, yet for good measure, he is also asked to build alters of stone to consecrate the pagan ‘pit stop’ to his foreign God. 

I wonder if he mumbled to himself while he placed each stone of the alter, “what the heck am I doing here?”

I am so grateful that God used someone who struggled with faith so much throughout his life be the father of the nation, of the seed that redeemed the World!

I am so glad Jesus takes out mustard seed faiths, our infinitesimal acts of obedience, to burst forth his goodness and blessing. 

I thank God for his promises. 

29“Truly I tell you,” Jesus replied, “no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel 30will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age: homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields—along with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life. 31But many who are first will be last, and the last first.    -Mark 10       

Happy tent dwelling my fellow transition-ers.

Sickness Unto Death

A few weeks ago, I thought I might have been pregnant.

I remember peeing on the strip and thinking, “please God no! Not yet! I’m tired, I’m stressed, I’m weak, Not another one right now.”

 I chose me, not baby.

The test was negative, my immediate relief replaced facing my heart condition in that moment.

That is until it slammed me in the face at the most unlikely of moments…

Right after I watched one of those horrific Planned Parenthood videos. The one where they mention all the baby ‘parts’ that day being all mixed up in a huge trash bag...

 death, evil, destruction, darkness, disgust

the kind that evokes tears, churns tummies, and brandishes weapons.

Then I remembered it…

I too, in a moment of desperation said. “I choose me, not baby”

I am not comparing them. I am straight up calling them the SAME THING.

Sin. The sickness unto death. 

My time, my plan, my health, my idea of ‘good timing’, over trust, over surrender, over faith. I chose me over the possibility of a life other than my own, a life that will take, and need, and cry. 

I can’t tell you how many times a week this happens, the symptoms of this death are all over my life.

 “I choose me”

In my marriage, in my motherhood, in my alone time.

The pulling, the CONSTANT pulling, of my life towards myself, like a tug of war game between me vs. God. Control vs. Surrender. Comfort vs. Service. Death vs. Life.

My mind, my will cannot curb my appetite for more me. Because my mind and will are controlled by me.The more I eat the more I want.

     “Who can rescue me from this body of death?  

                  Who can rescue this world from such death?

11And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you.”

Our mortal bodies. 

Our mortal, dying bodies

Our ravenously selfish Tuesday afternoons,

Our flesh…can have life. 

         

"saved through childbearing"

Almost every day it happens. Sometimes I am doing dishes, or sometimes reading. My two year old grins and says “Mommy, wanna see your belly”.  He began doing this about 8 months ago.  He begs, pleads and cuddles to convince me…

My belly. Hmmm. We are not on speaking terms, mostly I just ignore ‘her’. I dislike her so much I give her her own separate pronoun. She has grown three babies in 4 years and she has seen better days. Basically I do everything I can just not to look at her, because in my eyes, she has betrayed me by her deflated-balloon-ness.

But Xander Looooovvveeess her. Not just looking, he wants to touch, pat, and ask me about every freckle and mark. After about 2 minutes of this he always wraps up his ‘tummy time’ up with this last gesture. As I lay on the floor or couch, he kneels next to me, pulls up his shirt and gives me a big belly-to-belly sideways hug, his smiles and giggles are infectious, he is just so happy to be touching bellies. He lays there so content for a minute, like he has never been happier, then gets up and walks away.

He does this almost every day.  It makes me...uncomfortable.

It took me till like the tenth time to actually start liking it, that’s how deep my own-belly-hate goes. But Alex, Alexander, my little Alyosha, my Xander, is like a little cherub, chipping away at my hard edges, my vanity, my self-centered concept of beauty.

My kids are always doing this. Redefining everything, exposing my sin, my vanity, my self-centeredness. In this particular situation,

Xander not only exposed my sin,

he literally  COVERS it with his love,

 and transforms my shame into gladness .

My child-bearing is saving me.

I have been suspecting this for a while. I am Saved by the grace of God, but I am being saved through Child-bearing.

This sounds a little scary, a little heretical, except, it’s actually IN the Bible. Right smack at the end of our oft-used handbook for Godly womanhood Paul writes: “She will be saved through child-bearing”.

Well that’s awkward. That doesn't fit inside any of my preconceived notions of ‘salvation’. But there it is, said by Paul, isn't he supposed to be the logical one? I’m a little offended even, as a 21^st century woman and all.

Yes, it’s the same root as ‘Saved by grace through faith”.

Saved through

σωθήσεται διὰ

Biblical Greek does this thing with conjunctions: ‘BY grace’, ‘IN Christ’, ‘THROUGH faith’, It leaves us spinning and saying “conjunction, junction, what’ you function?” as we pull our hair out trying to figure out what “though childbearing” means.

I know one thing. It does not mean “by”. Or he would have just said ‘BY’ (as we are saved BY grace.) We also know we are not saved ‘by works’ and if childbearing isn’t work, I don’t know what is.

Yes, BY Grace, but certainly through childbearing, just like through faith. jeez louise, what does that even mean?

When I think of the word “through”, I think of the word “kroz” because I am learning Serbian, and ‘though’ is ‘kroz’ in Serbian, also ‘through’ in my mind is linked to tunnels, because my 4 year old is obsessed with tunnels and it is the word that is most linked with “through’ or “kroz” in common speech.

I say this because it is a great mental image for me. I am saved through the tunnel of childbearing, like a tunnel it is the only way forward, and some days it is long and dark. 

But also, bearing children is the gracious process through which I am being saved.

or I continuously 'work out my salvation, because of God’s work within me’ through the daily walk of being a mother. It’s pretty much the most miraculous thing that has ever happened. Not just the growing the babies, or the having the babies, or feeding the babies with my own body, but the transformative work God is going in my THROUGH my kids. The sin He exposes, the repentance it brings, the redemption, the grace.

There is another weird verse that uses this σωθήσεται διὰ this 'saved through', Maybe I should not mention it, because it is also obscure, and it makes my head hurt...                

When talking about people who build worthless crap on the foundation of Jesus, Paul writes in Corinthians 3, that all the worthless crap will be burned up, but the people themselves will be saved through this fire.

“for the day will show it because it is [to be] revealed with fire, and the fire itself will test the quality of each man's work. 14If any man's work which he has built on it remains, he will received reward. 15If any man's work is burned up, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.”

Barn’s Commentary says this:

“so on the great Day everything that is erroneous and imperfect in Christiana shall be removed, and that which is true and genuine shall be preserved as if it had passed through fire. Their whole character and opinions shall be investigated; and that which is good shall be approved; and that which is false and erroneous be removed.”

What a great image for what motherhood does. The fire that tests us, in which we ‘will suffer loss’. This fire that refines us, that takes away everything that is not Jesus.

 (like our pride in our bikini-belly-bodies, our clean house, our sanity, our intellect, you name it)

He reveals us to our core, our ugly, then he covers us up with his wings of grace, He hugs us with belly-to-belly hugs, then he leads us forward with nail pierced hands.

Every Morning, God sets my life on fire. Not in a fun way. In a three screaming kids wanting breakfast and I need to pee kind of way. He burns up the “me” and when I can’t stand it anymore, he reveals, he reminds me that my ‘me’s foundation” is Christ.

 It is a fire that saves.

"She will be saved through childbearing"

Yes she certainly will be.

Choosing Anxiety: When babies become idols

We both lay in bed hours after we turned off the lights.

“I just can’t stop thinking about it” my voice pierces the silence. I knew Jesse was awake too.

“Ya, me neither”.

Earlier that day we had taken our two year old and 5 month old baby to a castle ruin on the coast. Most of the time our kids safely tucked into carriers and strapped to our bodies. After some exploring, me and Jesse were talking about how ‘unsafe’ the entire place was, although a frequented tourist destination, there were no western rails or safety signs, just deathly heights and crumbling walls. Jesse told me he found a wide hole in the ground of the stone, dropping hundreds of feet, that opened up to an impossible large dark cavern underneath our feet. He said just standing near it freaked him out a little because that huge deathly expanse and us was separated by a floor of 2 thousand year old weatherws stone.

A little later we were in a courtyard we let 2 year old Soren out of the carrier to stretch his legs, the baby still attached to my torso. Soren begins a gleeful toddler run away from us,

in the span of 5 seconds…

Jesse’s anxious voice says, “Andrea, the hole”. I can see Soren’s feet move impossibly fast, and from my vantage point the huge hole in the stone about 15 feet in front. “STOP SOREN” I command, my usually obedient toddler, just picks up his pace, his feet flying over uneven cobblestone.  I do the math in my head, with a baby on my torso, I will not reach him in time, By brain decided on a course of action instinctively, 

My son will die if I don’t make him trip. 

My emotions, soul, and mouth responding immediately in the most haunting grief filled scream I have ever heard “SOREN”. The worry, fear, and utter terror in my voice was like a thunderbolt. Soren immediately is so terrified, he falls to the ground and begins to wail. I make it to him and scoop him up, He clings to me sobbing and terrified. I cling to him sobbing and terrified.

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That was two years ago. I remember the journey of my heart and mind that night as I lay in bed, unable to sleep, anxiety teased my every thought. “He almost died”. The heart literally hurt from realized vulnerability. That night I learned something.

 Anxiety is a cage of fear whose bars we dare not touch.

Our inability to touch fear and grief, to approach it, is the only thing that gives the cage its power. If we touch it, in the Power of the Holy Spirit, the cage, the anxiety evaporates.  But usually, we walk in circles in the middle of the cage driving ourselves mad with ‘What if’ in the abstract realm that borders on insanity.

I turn my thoughts turn towards God. He says “be Brave, step to the edge, touch the fear”

Terrified, I picture Soren’s lifeless body.  I let the wave of grief wash over me,

Pain. Sorrow. Grief.

then peace fills my heart. I exhale. “And if I lose him, God, you are still Good.”

And I am free.

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Two years Later. Another gift Given, another perfect baby, another vulnerability, another chance at idolatry.

This time it was a dream... 

Watching Logan’s little body disappear beneath Dark water. “He is gone” I say out loud in the dream. Then I wake up.

I lay in bed for an hour. I cannot go there. Instead I keep trying to re-write the dream. If I was less distracted and he never fell in, I dive in find him and give him baby CPR…the re-writes are lifeless, the real dream's reality crashes against me. 

Make a plan, Control it.

"We will not be going near water this summer" I rage.

“Go There” God says to me.

 but there are so many fears "there"...

I am afraid my faith will fail. In this rugged, untamed country, “what if “something happens and my faith doesn't make it.

What if…

What if…

What if…

Stop. Touch the grief. ” If I lose Logan…

I pause at the Alter.

“Are you still good?”

“Yes.” He replies.

I don’t know if I believe that today. My child is my Idol, I use the gift to block the GIFT: I choose anxiety over trust, a cage over freedom, control over Real love. I am trading God’s perfect love for my children for my imperfect selfish love, because I think I know better, I doubt God’s goodness.

Jesus Christ have mercy on me, a sinner.

I can feel his mercy cover my doubts anyways. 

 Meagan O Photography