When Saving the World Isn't Glamorous

Almost every twenty-something I know has a spectacular plan for their life. They are beautiful, grand adventures that usually involve seeing the world, documenting the chasing of sunsets and summiting of mountains while simultaneously rescuing girls from sex-trafficking, mothering orphans, and binding up bleeding and broken families. I am so proud of my generation. I am proud to be among those who have brave hearts, big dreams and restless souls. I am so excited to see these plans magnify. They will deepen and shape shift that way that they do when we place those plans in the hands of the creative Dreamer and let him change what we see.

But for me, my adventure doesn't involve filling up my gas tank every weekend and lacing up my hiking boots. This summer I danced in the waves of the Mediterranean, floated in the salty waters of the Dead Sea, and stargazed in the sand of the Wadi Rum desert. Jesus replenished my thirsty soul with His love and beauty. Although it was a summer of swimming in the beauty and joy of a Father lavishing love on his daughter, my adventure has twisted and turned down a road that is far less dazzling. 

Anyone who knows me know that I have a love for children that far exceeds playing hide-and-go-seek and reading with them The Very Hungry Caterpillar. I have written essay after essay about how passionately I believe that teachers have the ability to set a child's life ablaze with a fire of confident hope. No matter the culture, home, parents, or disability that makes up a child's past, I confidently claim that a teacher has the opportunity to speak unwavering truth to a child and that those words can be poured from the spring of living water that is in the Spirit of God who loves and fights for children. 

This year I have begun my teaching career by teaching two-year-olds. If you're not a mom you might have forgotten that at age 2 kids begin potty training, expressing themselves, and drinking out of cups without lids. I love them so much, but to say that my day is full of teaching valuable lessons and creating learning environments that promote discovery and exploration, I'd be hiding the reality. Sure, we try our best to make that happen. It's always the goal and failure isn't due to a lack of trying. But truthfully, it's a lot of screams of defiance, wet pants and snot on your sleeve. My day is choosing battles, celebrating the smallest of victories, and reminding kids to wash their hands and pull up their pants. 

I can say that knowing the fact that the work I do changes the lives of those malleable munchkins is a golden cord that I hold onto for dear life and shear sanity. I know that my purpose is bigger than each day and that the fruit of labor isn't seen until the harvest, but some days it's just hard. I have to continually ask the Spirit to pour into me an overflow of patience, love, kindness, and peace so that my flesh doesn't destroy a single opportunity. But I don't always win. I fail a lot. Over and over I fail until sometimes it feels like the good of my work has been trampled out by my stomping selfishness. 

And yet.

That's not grace. Grace is knowing that when the adventure God takes you on sometimes ends with poop on your hands. And it still is beautiful. His glory shines. Grace is knowing that the world is full of beautiful glimpses of Paradise and that missing out on seeing the world now is only missing out on the shadow of greater things to come. Grace is knowing that He is God in classrooms and he is God in the hills of India and the deserts of Jordan and the grasslands of Africa and the coffee shops of Portland. Grace is knowing that our identity does not waver when we repeatedly fail. Grace is knowing it is better to know your depravity than to think that you've got things figured out. Grace is knowing that the beauty of suffering eclipses the pain it causes. 

Grace is knowing that adventure is not always glamorous. 

A Letter To Myers and Her Pal Briggs

Dear Myers and your Pal Briggs, 

I have recently overcome the complicating hurdle of an identity crisis. An almost-quarter-life crisis I’ve been calling it. I blame it on my self-analytical tendencies, my generation’s “be who you want to be” mantra, but mostly I blame you, Myers and Briggs. You pesky little ladies have insistently drawn lines and built barriers confining all persons to only 16 different personality types!  

Let me the first to admit: I am obsessed with your work, Myers-Briggs, and your eerily accurate descriptions and interpretations of human behavior and personality quirks. I love how you astute ladies have described and defined personalities and have thus helped me understand my friends and family better. You’ve profoundly picked out our tendencies, our flaws and our fortes. You have helped me resolve my schemas and think, “that’s why so-and-so can’t keep their room cleaned” or “wow, I didn’t realize that alone-time could actually be preferable.” But despite these insights and ah-ha’s, Meyers and Briggs, you have inevitably caused me to stubbornly defy any explanation of my unique self. I, of course, am far too mysterious, complicated, and matchless to be put inside box! 

Well, apparently not. 

You’ve described ESFP’s as having an “exuberant love for materials” who get “overwhelmed with negative thoughts and possibilities.” They hate structure and routine and would love nothing more than for life to be a continual party. They’re given the title “The Performer.” Characters such as Fred and George Weasley have been pegged as this type and, of course, the Bible’s best-known partier, the infamous Prodigal Son. Not only does this list of a mix of vivacious and overly precarious adjectives perfectly describe my personality and general outlook on life, it also tells me that I have been, unwillingly, boxed in. I have been wrapped up and called out. You have not only described me, Myers-Briggs but have described my hate for describing. Sheesh. 

But let me tell you something, Meyers-Briggs, you’ve forgotten one very important factor. One tiny little detail that happens to change everything. My love for life and thirst for beauty and pleasure may cause me to live a little recklessly and have the inability to do things that I don’t find fun and purposeful, but my flesh and my worldly passions and desires are not my fate. I am not inevitably doomed for a life of non-committed relationships and an exuberant need for aesthetics and luxury. Because I am being transformed in the likeness of my Maker--the Maker and Creator of every trait and tendency. And guess what Myers-Briggs, he’s an Extroverted Introvert with Sensing iNtuition, a Feeling Thinker, and a Perceptive Judger and I am not bound by my personality because I am becoming more like him. 

My personality, therefore, is neither a strength nor a weakness. It is not an excuse to sin and it is not a reason for success. It is a reflection of a big God, a whole God, a God that had to create more than 7 billion different and distinct personalities to even begin to show us His own person, His own character. He uses every trait and tendency to show off himself. He refines the sin and brings forth the good, the reflections of himself, and makes them glow.  

In overcoming this identity crisis, I’ve realized that there are things described in my personality that I love. There are things listed on my “personality profile” that allow me to better understand myself and why I do things the way I do. Because Jesus doesn’t make mistakes and he is making me new. He doesn’t stuff my personality in the trash and he doesn’t want to turn me into some kind of robot or, even worse, a Pharisee, but by refining flesh into beauty and quirks into gifts.  

So I want to say thank you, Myers and Briggs. Thank you for helping me see that it takes every kind of person to reflect the image of our Father. Our Father who loves me for exactly who I am. And really, that’s all that matters in the end. My identity is in him and who he says I am. And he says I am His. His quirky, lover of beauty, ESFP daughter. 

Yours very truly, 

Karly

Big Questions and Big Thoughts

Theology used to scare me, but it doesn't anymore.

Big questions and big thoughts seemed frightful in a way that could knock me right off whatever tentative ground I was trying to stand on. It was as though if I didn't find answers to big, ominous things like predestination or the complicated balance between His love and His justice, faith was merely a freestanding title, not a character trait and certainly not something that has been grown out of loving trust or devine revelation by His Spirit.

Now, let me say this: faith does not mean ignorance. Big thoughts and big questions don't not scare me anymore because I have written them off and chosen not to think about them. I know the depth, I know the draw, and I know the weightiness of all that has consistently been roadblocks and dead ends for men and women of faith. I think long and deeply about things like dispensationalism, creationism,  calvinism, free will and so on and so forth. I am not saying that those things aren't important or worthy of great contemplation, I just can't get past the grace by which I have been saved. What I mean is, that "twas grace that taught my heart to fear And grace my fear relieved!" See, it's not big thoughts and big questions that scare me, it is facing those big thoughts and big questions without knowing Jesus and his sweet and tender love for me.

I am in a theology class that my church is teaching this fall and there are times when what I learn causes my brain to want to question things I know in my heart. But let me tell you, it is not because I am smarter or understand God more (for His thoughts will always be higher than my thoughts (Isaiah 55:9)) that these "big thoughts" (I hope you have experienced what type of big thoughts and questions I am referring to. If not, this probably doesn't make much sense) don't scare me anymore. It is because I know God and I have gotten to know His character through relationship with Jesus. I have felt His tenderness, I have endured the gut wrenching realizations of the ugliness of my sin, I have experienced the depths of my desperation for His presence. I am becoming one with His Spirit and by doing so, I can ask questions and have theological "discussions" without my faith wavering or my heart trembling. 

One thing that I have learned by returning home this semester is that moving somewhere or going somewhere or leaving somewhere doesn't "fix the problem." Sure, being somewhere else might make things easier or more or less enjoyable, but that is mere frosting on the deep transformation that the Lord wants to do on the crumbling cake (or should I say feces) of my heart. 

It is a great and necessary thing to wrestle through big things. God works in big ways when His children ask him big questions (I mean, He is a BIG God and gives BIG answers). It is just scary to face such big things when, on our own, our faith is so weak, so fragile. It is even scarier when our pride causes us to believe that our logic is higher than He and that our inability to find answers is due to God's inability to answer them. 

Will I ever understand grace? I sure hope not. But I do know that knowing Jesus and falling in love with him is the greatest of all romances and causes my heart and my mind to be totally transformed by recognizing His sovereignty over all things and the patient love He demonstrates to His children.

 We are written on the palms of His hands, Isaiah tells us. But listen to this beautiful realization: our names are chiseled there by the nails hammered into Jesus' hands on the cross! We are written there by his blood! We are never far from His thoughts, but the thought of Him often causes our sinful flesh to turn away. If the thought of God is too much to understand, if it is too frightening, too ominous, get to know Jesus. His love and compassion will overwhelm your big thoughts and big questions. Sometimes with answers and sometimes with the comfort (yes, the comfort!) of not knowing.

You see, the harder you lean on Jesus, the stronger you find him to be. 

Misfits Like Me.

I started community college this semester as a last minute decision not to return to Greenville this fall. It definitely is not what I was expecting but it far exceeds anything I could have looked forward to on my own. As I walked through the halls and sat in my classes on the first few days of school, I was surprised to notice that there is the widest variety of people I have seen that go to school together.  There isn't a certain profile that an NWACC student fits into. There are people who have families and full time jobs that are just trying to further their education. There are even older people who want to get a diploma after all these years. There are kids who, after spending a few years living like they wanted to, decided that school is a better option. There are students, like me, who want to get general education classes out of the way before pursuing bigger dreams. There are people who are just trying to make ends meet and make life better for their kids. I like to call the students in community college misfits. I don't use that as a derogatory term but to say that it seems to me that these people are about as real as it gets. I think the misfits at community college are the most beautiful people I have ever seen.

You see, I think that Jesus came for the misfits at community college. Not just them, of course, but people like them. People that don't plan on making their life be about money, people that might have a hard life ahead of or behind them, people who work hard without getting pats on the back or gold stars. Humble people. Just regular joes. People who have been marked up by life and are tired and weary.

I've been a part of a lot of groups in my life that like to be cool for Jesus, sometimes even in the name of Jesus. Jesus doesn't care about being cool. And neither do the misfits at community college. They just are who they are. Lots of them don't know how special they are. They don't know how furiously Jesus loves them. They haven't yet been carried off by the waves of God's grace into the deep ocean of His love. But I can't help but think that that is a better place to be than to think that we can live our lives being cool for Jesus. I think that maybe grace means more to people who don't think they are too good for it.

Really, I think that we are all misfits when it comes down to it. We just aren't ready to think about it. Life is really crazy and hard and beautiful when we are chasing the Wild Goose. More times than not, we are weary, full of worries and fears and doubts. We like to pretend that we are cool by trying to make our lives look like Pinterest and we like to pretend we are adventurous by posting our life on Instagram. I do it too of couse, but I think what I am really doing is making approval an idol and not casting my burdens on Jesus. To be in step with the Spirit that has been given to us means to be without worry and to be free from the world. Oh how I wish my full trust was in Jesus! I think it's good for us to realize that Jesus wasn't cool. Not only was he not cool, he was weird. He was a misfit born into a family of misfits (I mean, really, just think about his lineage! Ha!). Sometimes the closer we follow Jesus, the more unrelatable to the world we become. But we also become completely humble and gentle. The world doesn't recognize us. But the misfits do.

Francis Chan asked once whether or not we knew that nothing in life will ever matter unless we spend it loving God and loving the people he created. Well, if we are only loving the people that already love him, that doesn't make sense either. Light only shines in the darkness. Plus Jesus was weird and people didn't ever get him or why he did things. Maybe that's how we should look, too. Nothing else matters but Jesus, guys. He's the best and he loves you no matter how many times you mess up. Our mess ups make into the misfits. He hung out with the misfits. He loves the misfits. He loves you. He loves me.

Let's love the misfits, too.

Chasing the Wild Goose

I named this blog "A Wild Goose Chase" because that is exactly what I feel like I'm doing as I chase after and pursue Jesus. Trying to follow Jesus is really confusing sometimes and nearly always difficult.

But that is why I must keep chasing after him.

Life is already confusing and difficult and stressful and exhausting, but the hard things that Jesus teaches me are infinitely different than the things the world drags me through. It is hard following Jesus because I have to deny myself what my self-centered, self-seeking, self-desiring flesh wants everyday. It is hard following Jesus because he leads me away from everything that I want. It is hard following Jesus because I never know if I am doing it right. It is hard following Jesus because it requires trusting him and not my plans. It is hard following Jesus because he wants me to do things and love people that I just don't want to do or love. It is really hard following Jesus.

But it isn't just hard.

It is full of life.
It is full of joy.
It is abiding in peace,
overflowing with grace.
Grace that is not dependent upon
my actions
or thoughts
or moods
or desires.
It does not matter how many times I screw up.
It doesn't matter if this sin I had yesterday
is the same sin I'm struggling with today.
His grace is sufficient.
He loves just because he is.

This past week Jesus has asked me to do one of the hardest things yet. He has asked me to stay at Greenville College next year instead of going back home, to the friends and family whom I deeply love and care for. He is drawing me into a life of humble irrelevancy. He is teaching me how to shift my focus from wanting to be cool and popular and beautiful and fun and quirky to learning to be humble, irrelevant, full of quiet peace, gently listening and seeking understanding. Basically, he wants to make me less like my flesh and more like him. He wants to teach me how to live completely dependent on him, not seeking comfort from my friends and family. Sounds just like him, huh? And it sure is hard.

Not seeking approval from the relevant, hip world--even the Christian world.... Yikes. What a battle. My friend Allie always describes followers of Jesus as Warrior Princesses. That describes my life much more than cowering surrender.

Yeah, following Jesus may be hard, but it is worth it. Knowing Jesus and being loved by him is worth all the hard and more. It is worth being lonely and scared and confused. It is worth failing, it is worth not understanding. It is even worth all those times that you cry and ask, "Why Jesus? Why is it so hard?" Yeah, his peace is over-whelming. Yes is grace is sufficient. Yes his love surpasses all understanding, but even more than that, you get Jesus. And he is enough. Jesus is enough. And He is worth it.

He Loves us just because He is.

A few nights ago I was praying and journaling and I asked Jesus why He is SO good to me. He said to me, so clearly and so sweetly, "I wish you would stop asking me that. It's because I LOVE you. So so so so much. Don't you get it?"

No. No, I don't.
I don't get it at all.

Jesus doesn't have to have a REASON to be good me and shower his grace and blessings over me. In fact, he has every reason NOT to. I go before him mangled and broken and filthy. He should turn his eyes away from me. I should look disgusting to him, sitting in the rags of my self-righteousness and disbelief. But, instead, he looks at me so sweetly and so tenderly and I find myself drowning in a sea of his affection for me.

Lately, my heart has EXPLODED with love for Jesus. Jesus as my groom, my lover. I found that I am so used to Jesus being my teacher, God being my creator, and the Spirit being my helper. I spend most of my days feeling like a child skipping along in the wake of Jesus. Never have I felt the depths of the delight and satisfaction Jesus feels for me as his bride. Every time I look at him, every time I choose him over the desires of my flesh, every time I act in obedience to His word, the heart of God is moved with love for me. Jesus wants to dance with me, looking me straight in the eyes, while I wear my pure and spotless dress.

I know that I don't deserve anything, nothing but death. But I think that it makes my Father sad for me to settle with that. We live in the power and shadow of His resurrection. We were the joy set before the cross and we satisfy our maker. So I don't think that he wants us to believe that we are nothing more that filthy rags. I think, and I'm learning, that Jesus wants us to realize that there really is no reason for why he loves us and why he is so good and so faithful to us, but he does and he is. He came to set us FREE from our slavery to sin. We washes us white like snow. He makes beauty out of our ashes. He did not rescue us from the very depths of darkness so that we would continually talk about our wretchedness. He came to dance with us, to set us free. His heart is UNDONE with our love for him. We have to accept that. We have know that it is as true that we are found spotless to him as it that we were ONCE lost and full of darkness. But when our maker looks at us, he is overwhelmed with love for us, not disappointment that we have failed over and over again.

It kind of comes full circle, doesn't it? We love because he first loved us. We love BECAUSE of his love. His love is our purpose. So we have to accept it. We have to feel it down to the very depths of our being and let it resonated and shake us to the core. We can only love Jesus with his help. So, we ask him for it. And he can't WAIT drop us like a seed into an ocean of his love and grace.

I feel so free. Because he LIVES I can face tomorrow. Because he lives, I can dance with Jesus.
Just because He lives.

A Little Blue Bird

There once was a little blue bird who had big wings and a bigger heart. She loved to fly. It was her very favorite thing to do, flying.  Her eyes would shine and her spirit was light as she floated atop the air right into the sun. Her wings fluttered with the light. Sometimes she flew great distances to exotic lands or scary forests, and sometimes she just flew right down the road. Her favorite times, however, were when she could fly just to fly, going nowhere at all.


During one of these times, when she was flying just to feel free, it started to rain. Big, freezing drops of water pounded down on her like strong hands on a big drum. Each drop of rain pushed her closer and closer to the ground until--THUD--she crashed into the muddy earth. The little blue bird didn't know what to do! She didn't know where she was nor any of the creatures that were scurrying around looking for shelter from the storm clamoring in the sky. On top of that, she had crushed one of her beautiful, broad wings as she crashed into the ground. She shivered fiercely.


Suddenly, the ground began to shake and the little blue bird felt a deep trembling inside her chest. Something was coming toward her, something big, much, much bigger than the little blue bird. She squinted her eyes to try and see through the thick rain. It was a man. A tall man. A man with broad shoulders and big feet. He thundered right up next to the little blue bird and she was sure that was going to step on her. She squeezed shut her eyes and tensed up her shoulders preparing to be crushed...but it never came. Instead, the earth stopped shaking. She peeped real slowly out of one eye. The man had squatted down next to her and was looking directly at her! He scooped her up gently, with tender hands. She noticed how strong his hands were and she wondered how he could be so delicate with his touch with such strong hands.


The man with strong hands started walking back to a small cabin just a few yards away. He looked down sweetly at the little blue bird and said, "I saw you fall, you know. The rain got heavy and the winds grew rough and I saw you fall straight down. Oh, look! Your poor little wing is hurt, too. Don't worry little blue bird, I've got you in my strong, safe hands"


I usually feel like the little bird, flying and feeling free. Chasing the sunrise. But then things happen and life gets hard and I remember that it I, by myself, do have hallow bones that will break during heavy rains and strong winds. But He takes care of the lilies and the sparrows so surely He'll take care of me too. He sees, heals and sets me free. So I can truly fly in freedom in the shadow of his wings, tasting the sun and singing of glory. 


 "Then Jesus said to his disciples: “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear.For life is more than food, and the body more than clothes. Consider the ravens: They do not sow or reap, they have no storeroom or barn; yet God feeds them. And how much more valuable you are than birds! Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to your life? Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest?" Luke 12:22-26