Each time we’ve invited someone new into our home it’s been like a mirror has gone up in front of me. I get to see who I really am. One by one God uses THEM to sanctify and refine ME, and it gets pretty eye-opening. I realize how selfish I am with my time and my things and my relationships. Sin issues are brought out into the light more than ever before. Through these experiences I’ve seen that I love people so conditionally, that I vent my anger like a fool, and that I too quickly forget that I also was once (and still am) a wretched sinner in need of grace.
Until this Rosebud hosting experience came around, we have never hosted someone in our home who has so boldly refused God. Others who we’ve hosted in our home have had some sort of base knowledge or belief in God to start from, and were either interested, thirsting, or at least open to being taught more about Him. Our host student made it clear from the beginning of this journey that she rejected the Lord and our family’s fear of Him. At first we made our family devotionals mandatory for her to attend, but over time, in prayer, we decided that Jesus never begged anyone to follow Him, and we shouldn’t do so either. Her decision to reject was not based on lack of knowledge of the concepts of faith, or because she didn’t understand the scriptures. She is a very smart girl, and conveyed time and again that she had full comprehension of the basics of the Bible and salvation. Rather her heart just said no to God. I am not sure that I have ever encountered someone who has full understanding of the knowledge of Jesus, but has chosen to outrightly say no to the only way of salvation - in order to proceed down the path of destruction so happily. And yet, God has not designed us as robots. He’s given us each the free will to choose to submit to Him, or not. As mind-boggling as it was, Jake and I knew that we needed to allow our host student the freedom to reject. Our hope in that was that someday she would begin to understand and care about the consequences of her choice, and that Jesus would melt her heart of stone.
For me, sharing the gospel with the hope that God will lead a heart towards repentance and belief in His Son is honestly the only reason that I ever open up my home for these experiences. Hosting students for me is not about offering someone a great educational opportunity, the rich experience of learning a new culture, or the challenge of helping a young adult turn their life around. Those things are just additional benefits in my mind to the main purpose: sharing the hope of Christ. That purpose is eternal and the most important. Everything else is just temporary. Therefore, for me, the past two semesters of this hosting experience have been an intense spiritual battle. When I personally came to the realization that our host student was stiff-arming God, not even allowing the chance for Him to do a work in her heart, it became very, very hard for me to want to lay down my life for her. I found it difficult to smile at her in the mornings before school, or to even want to entertain conversations with her. It became a burden for me to give her rides to events, or to go out of my way to show her kindness. As she separated herself apart from Christ, I started to feel the battle lines being drawn. In fact, when I looked at her I saw my enemy. I know that sounds like a harsh word to use, but I was feeling the fullness of what Jesus says in Matthew 12:30, “He who is not with me is against me.” Every day began to feel like war.
I believe the Lord’s desire in this hosting experience was to teach me to love my enemies. I came to this revelation earlier this year. I wish I could say that realizing what God was trying to do in me changed my heart and therefore actions towards our host student. It didn’t. I am sure it would have spoken volumes to our host student if amidst our struggles I would have been the ‘aroma of Christ’ and the ‘fragrance of life’ to her. But unfortunately, I fought this process of sanctification that the Lord was desiring to work in me. I’ll be honest - I began counting down the days until this hosting experience would be over.
In Luke Chapter 6 Jesus says…
But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you….If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even ‘sinners’ love those who love them. And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even ‘sinners’ do that. And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even ‘sinners’ lend to ‘sinners’ expecting to be repaid in full. But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great and you will be sons of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful (Luke 6:27-28, 32-36).
I went into this hosting experience hoping to play a part in God transforming a life. Our family was offering this particular host student a second chance at being part of this program, and because of that I expected to see a spark in her, a change of heart from her time in the program last school year, a grasping for opportunity, an appreciation of the second chance being offered. But instead I watched a gift of grace be tossed aside, and that made me angry.
But I am also thankful. These past two semesters God used this hosting opportunity to teach me to be a more submissive wife (because parenting strategies don’t always match up when you are in the middle of conflict), to teach me self-control over my emotions, to humble my prideful heart, to open my eyes to just how spiritual of a world we live in, to show me the importance of being prepared to give an answer for the hope that I have in Christ (and doing so with patience and careful instruction) and to teach me to show mercy – something very unfamiliar to my nature.
My expectation going into this experience was wrong – I thought God wanted to do a transforming work in our host student’s heart, but it turns out He wanted to do the greater work in mine. Although this outcome was not what we had hoped for or expected for our host student, God has exposed the ugly areas of my heart that need to be rooted out. And for that I am thankful.
Do not resist or run from the difficulties in your life. These problems are not random mistakes; they are hand-tailored blessings designed for your benefit and growth. Embrace all the circumstances that I allow in your life, trusting Me to bring good out of them. View problems as opportunities to rely more fully on Me. When you start to feel stressed, let those feelings alert you to your need for Me. Thus, your needs become doorways to deep dependence on Me and increasing intimacy between us. Although self-sufficiency is acclaimed in the world, reliance on Me produces abundant living in My kingdom. Thank Me for the difficulties in your life, since they provide protection from the idolatry of self-reliance. ~Jesus Calling~
Showing posts with label Rosebud Indian Reservation Hosting Program. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rosebud Indian Reservation Hosting Program. Show all posts
Friday, May 11, 2012
Monday, January 23, 2012
UN-Wanted
“You’re a mistake.”
“You’re a demon-child.”
This is what she has been told, by a man who calls himself her father.
A man who she so desperately wants to please, but fails to again and again.
He never wanted her. He tells her this face to face. He tells her this often. She buries her so-said worthlessness deep inside, and lives up to his low expectations because that’s what he says she’ll amount to afterall….nothing.
“You don’t understand!” she tells us with her heart exposed. “You don’t know what it’s like to have someone tell you over and over that you were a mistake! You don’t know how it feels.” Sobbing. Emptied. Rejected.
The one time that I am thankful for my past is now. In this conversation. I do know how it feels. Mine was a silent abandonment, not an out-loud one like hers. But still a big, fat, UN-Wanted. Just to hear an “I love you” from him. Just to have a father’s arms wrap you up and protect you from the crazy world. Just to feel valued in his eyes so you don’t have to go looking for it in other men when you are too young, too vulnerable, too needy for affection and worth. Just to hear him say, “You can be anything you want to be. You can do it. I believe in you,” and to see the confidence in his eyes. Just to have him say to your date, “Have her home by 11:30pm – or else.” Just to feel the comfort that he cares and wants to protect you like all good fathers want to protect their daughters. Just a phone call. Just a birthday card….just….anything….
Missing pieces.
Broken heart.
Scarred, damaged, and full of baggage for all future relationships.
Yet, there is hope.
Something she refuses to embrace yet, but maybe, just maybe this is how she will begin to SEE.
You see, she can be adopted. No not an earthly, physical adoption. A spiritual one.
“I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.” 2 Corinthians 6:18
He can be her Father.
He’ll receive her with open arms and rejoice with His angels in heaven over their relationship. In the same way I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents. Luke 15:10
She’ll find in Him that she was certainly no mistake. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. Psalm 139: 14-16
In fact He has great plans for her, a purpose for her life. “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Jeremiah 29:11
He won’t get drunk and in his stupor tell her how worthless she is. In fact, He’s gone to great lengths to show her His love. For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16
He sure ain’t the leaving kind. I will never leave you nor forsake you. Joshua 1:5
While others push her away, His arms wait for her. Though my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will receive me. Psalm 27:10
These are His promises. This is His character. Whisperings of ultimate worth. I created you. I want a relationship with you. I love you. Leave your life of sin behind, and thirst no more. Rest. Peace. No striving. No hiding. Guidance into purpose. Strong arms of refuge. Complete fulfillment that enables healthy relationships with others. Protection......
She looks out the window, waiting for the mail to come. As soon as it does she runs out to the box, hopeful, expectant. Each and every day she is the first to open the mailbox. Day after day disappointment and sunkeness await. And she comes back in. “My Dad said he’s going to write me. His letter should be coming soon.”
She will wait. And wait. And wait for that letter. For just a tiny spark, a tiny showing that he thinks of her.
And He will wait - her Heavenly Father. He will wait and wait and wait for her change of heart. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9). A book full of letters He has written her. Unfailing love He offers her. An awful-beautiful death on a cross ready to purchase her life and grant an adoption. An adoption unlike any other. An adoption that would give her the right to call the King of the universe “Dad”….
...you received God’s Spirit when he adopted you as his own children. Now we call him, “Abba, Father.” For his Spirit joins with our spirit to affirm that we are God’s children. Romans 8:15-16If she messes up she won’t find Him keeping a record of her wrongs to hold it against her. As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. Psalm 103:12
“You’re a demon-child.”
This is what she has been told, by a man who calls himself her father.
A man who she so desperately wants to please, but fails to again and again.
He never wanted her. He tells her this face to face. He tells her this often. She buries her so-said worthlessness deep inside, and lives up to his low expectations because that’s what he says she’ll amount to afterall….nothing.
“You don’t understand!” she tells us with her heart exposed. “You don’t know what it’s like to have someone tell you over and over that you were a mistake! You don’t know how it feels.” Sobbing. Emptied. Rejected.
The one time that I am thankful for my past is now. In this conversation. I do know how it feels. Mine was a silent abandonment, not an out-loud one like hers. But still a big, fat, UN-Wanted. Just to hear an “I love you” from him. Just to have a father’s arms wrap you up and protect you from the crazy world. Just to feel valued in his eyes so you don’t have to go looking for it in other men when you are too young, too vulnerable, too needy for affection and worth. Just to hear him say, “You can be anything you want to be. You can do it. I believe in you,” and to see the confidence in his eyes. Just to have him say to your date, “Have her home by 11:30pm – or else.” Just to feel the comfort that he cares and wants to protect you like all good fathers want to protect their daughters. Just a phone call. Just a birthday card….just….anything….
Missing pieces.
Broken heart.
Scarred, damaged, and full of baggage for all future relationships.
Yet, there is hope.
Something she refuses to embrace yet, but maybe, just maybe this is how she will begin to SEE.
You see, she can be adopted. No not an earthly, physical adoption. A spiritual one.
“I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.” 2 Corinthians 6:18
He can be her Father.
He’ll receive her with open arms and rejoice with His angels in heaven over their relationship. In the same way I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents. Luke 15:10
She’ll find in Him that she was certainly no mistake. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. Psalm 139: 14-16
In fact He has great plans for her, a purpose for her life. “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Jeremiah 29:11
He won’t get drunk and in his stupor tell her how worthless she is. In fact, He’s gone to great lengths to show her His love. For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16
He sure ain’t the leaving kind. I will never leave you nor forsake you. Joshua 1:5
While others push her away, His arms wait for her. Though my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will receive me. Psalm 27:10
These are His promises. This is His character. Whisperings of ultimate worth. I created you. I want a relationship with you. I love you. Leave your life of sin behind, and thirst no more. Rest. Peace. No striving. No hiding. Guidance into purpose. Strong arms of refuge. Complete fulfillment that enables healthy relationships with others. Protection......
She looks out the window, waiting for the mail to come. As soon as it does she runs out to the box, hopeful, expectant. Each and every day she is the first to open the mailbox. Day after day disappointment and sunkeness await. And she comes back in. “My Dad said he’s going to write me. His letter should be coming soon.”
She will wait. And wait. And wait for that letter. For just a tiny spark, a tiny showing that he thinks of her.
And He will wait - her Heavenly Father. He will wait and wait and wait for her change of heart. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9). A book full of letters He has written her. Unfailing love He offers her. An awful-beautiful death on a cross ready to purchase her life and grant an adoption. An adoption unlike any other. An adoption that would give her the right to call the King of the universe “Dad”….
...you received God’s Spirit when he adopted you as his own children. Now we call him, “Abba, Father.” For his Spirit joins with our spirit to affirm that we are God’s children. Romans 8:15-16If she messes up she won’t find Him keeping a record of her wrongs to hold it against her. As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. Psalm 103:12
Monday, December 12, 2011
Joyful All Ye Nations Rise
A few weeks ago we ‘split up’ our Rosebud girls, and one of them is now with a different host family in a different home. There have been many confirmations that this was the right decision, and I’ll save those stories for a different day. :)
The other night in the car we got into an interesting conversation with our Rosebud girl. It went a little something like this:
Out of nowhere she said, “Don’t you wonder what the end of the world is going to be like?”
Her question was the perfect invitation into a spiritual conversation.
“If you would have been in church today you wouldn’t have to wonder. You would know,” I replied.
For the past few months we have been going through the book of Revelation at church, talking in depth about the end times and how it will go down. She had overslept that morning, and I had decided not to lure her/drag her/force her out of bed.
Without missing a beat she promptly responded with a giggle, “My mom and grandma think that aliens are going to come suck us up and take us away.”
Hmmmm, hadn’t heard this one from her yet. She started talking about some movie she had seen and going on and on about death by aliens. One thing that God has revealed about our Rosebud girl is that deep down she is very fearful about anything regarding death. Because of that, she likes to make little of the subject. She talks about death in very comical/non-serious ways. She was obsessed with Halloween this year, and would always excitedly point out lawn decorations filled with make-shift graveyards, and zombie looking creatures. She fills her mind with books and movies all about darkness and evil and she becomes completely numb to it all. Her assumptions on what death will be like for her arrive at very comfortable-feeling conclusions.
Unfortunately, death for the person who has rejected God will be anything but comfortable. I felt the truth starting to well up inside of me, just waiting to bust out of my mouth. I began to recap what we had learned in church about the Seven Bowls of God’s Wrath (Revelations 16) and I shared about some of the plagues God will send when the world comes to an end.
“The seas, rivers, and springs will all turn to blood. That means toilets and faucets will only pour out blood. Those who reject God will break out with ugly, awful, painful sores. The sun will be given the power to scorch them with fire. Giant hailstones will be hurled from the sky each weighing a hundred pounds and they will fall on people...”
Then she said something that made me hurt for where she is at spiritually, more than I ever have. She said, “If all those things were happening, why wouldn’t you just crawl in a hole and die?” My mind wandered to a different section in Revelation which described this exact heart response. As she implied, some will continue to reject God even as He displays His power through these judgments and plagues that will be poured out onto the earth. They would rather die than fall on their knees and acknowledge God’s Sovereign power. Revelation 6:12-17:
I watched as he opened the sixth seal. There was a great earthquake. The sun turned black like sackcloth made of goat hair, the whole moon turned blood red, and the stars in the sky fell to earth, as late figs drop from a fig tree when shaken by a strong wind. The sky receded like a scroll, rolling up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place.
Then the kings of the earth, the princes, the generals, the rich, the mighty, and every slave and every free man hid in caves and among the rocks of the mountains. They called to the mountains and the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb! For the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?”
Those who in their life flaunted their disbelief and showed no reverence for God will find themselves face to face with God’s wrath if they are still living on the earth during this time. They will realize that they were wrong. And in these verses we see that rather than repent, rather than look to Jesus and believe, they instead call on ‘mother nature’ to have rocks fall on them and kill them as they hide from God in terror. Further still, others in their pride and arrogance will curse His name rather than bow down to Him. Revelation 16: 8-9:
The fourth angel poured out his bowl on the sun, and the sun was given power to scorch people with fire. They were seared by the intense heat and they cursed the name of God, who had control over these plagues, but they refused to repent and glorify him.
As I pointed this out she listened intently and then said, “That’s what you believe. The Lakota Sioux believe….” And then she went on to explain a few of the spiritual stories of her people that have been passed down to her from generation to generation. This is the point that we always get to when Jesus comes up. Every. Single. Time. She’s mentioned that to her, our faith - Christianity - is ‘white man religion’. If she were to bow down to Jesus, that would be rejecting her culture, her family traditions, her very identity, and once again giving into the ‘white man’ - which all of American History has proven to be a bad thing for her people. When I look at this all from her perspective, I can comprehend the loyalty that she feels to what she has been taught her whole life.
But there is something that doesn’t quite add up, and she hasn’t been able to connect the dots yet. She has expressed many times that she doesn’t want to go back to the reservation. So when we got to this point in the conversation I said, “Do the people on the reservation seem to be living lives filled with joy, hope, and peace?” I already knew what her answer would be.
“No,” she said.
“And why don’t you want to go back there? Why don’t you want to grow up there and raise a family there?”
“Because there are horrible things there. The suicides, rape, alcoholism, murders, depression, teenage pregnancies. It ruins people’s lives.”
Exactly. And what I know that she doesn’t yet, is that those things that are ruining the lives of her people are the product of Satan’s hands. Satan is the great deceiver. He can use what looks like ‘religion’ and ‘culture’ to lead people astray - far, far away from truth, generation after generation.
I know I serve a God who came for all nations and all people (Matthew 28:18-20), although Satan would try to dishevel that truth. The new life that Christ can bring stands in stark contrast to a life of guilt, shame, and emptiness that plagues her people.
Jesus says, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” (John 10:10)
She’s already seen lives destroyed. I hope that she will get to experience life to the full through a Savior that gave his life for hers.
We of course are not the first to discover this tension of Christianity being perceived by Native Americans as ‘white man religion’. That tension has just traveled into my home now, so I am becoming very interested in it. I just found out about this book:
(Book of Hope)
It is a collaboration of stories and testimonies written about Native American’s who have put their faith in Jesus. Our church also supplied us with this book when we signed on for the exchange program:
(One Church Many Tribes: Following Jesus the Way God Made You)I have yet to pick this book up, however, reading both of these are now on my list to accomplish over Christmas break.
The other night in the car we got into an interesting conversation with our Rosebud girl. It went a little something like this:
Out of nowhere she said, “Don’t you wonder what the end of the world is going to be like?”
Her question was the perfect invitation into a spiritual conversation.
“If you would have been in church today you wouldn’t have to wonder. You would know,” I replied.
For the past few months we have been going through the book of Revelation at church, talking in depth about the end times and how it will go down. She had overslept that morning, and I had decided not to lure her/drag her/force her out of bed.
Without missing a beat she promptly responded with a giggle, “My mom and grandma think that aliens are going to come suck us up and take us away.”
Hmmmm, hadn’t heard this one from her yet. She started talking about some movie she had seen and going on and on about death by aliens. One thing that God has revealed about our Rosebud girl is that deep down she is very fearful about anything regarding death. Because of that, she likes to make little of the subject. She talks about death in very comical/non-serious ways. She was obsessed with Halloween this year, and would always excitedly point out lawn decorations filled with make-shift graveyards, and zombie looking creatures. She fills her mind with books and movies all about darkness and evil and she becomes completely numb to it all. Her assumptions on what death will be like for her arrive at very comfortable-feeling conclusions.
Unfortunately, death for the person who has rejected God will be anything but comfortable. I felt the truth starting to well up inside of me, just waiting to bust out of my mouth. I began to recap what we had learned in church about the Seven Bowls of God’s Wrath (Revelations 16) and I shared about some of the plagues God will send when the world comes to an end.
“The seas, rivers, and springs will all turn to blood. That means toilets and faucets will only pour out blood. Those who reject God will break out with ugly, awful, painful sores. The sun will be given the power to scorch them with fire. Giant hailstones will be hurled from the sky each weighing a hundred pounds and they will fall on people...”
Then she said something that made me hurt for where she is at spiritually, more than I ever have. She said, “If all those things were happening, why wouldn’t you just crawl in a hole and die?” My mind wandered to a different section in Revelation which described this exact heart response. As she implied, some will continue to reject God even as He displays His power through these judgments and plagues that will be poured out onto the earth. They would rather die than fall on their knees and acknowledge God’s Sovereign power. Revelation 6:12-17:
I watched as he opened the sixth seal. There was a great earthquake. The sun turned black like sackcloth made of goat hair, the whole moon turned blood red, and the stars in the sky fell to earth, as late figs drop from a fig tree when shaken by a strong wind. The sky receded like a scroll, rolling up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place.
Then the kings of the earth, the princes, the generals, the rich, the mighty, and every slave and every free man hid in caves and among the rocks of the mountains. They called to the mountains and the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb! For the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?”
Those who in their life flaunted their disbelief and showed no reverence for God will find themselves face to face with God’s wrath if they are still living on the earth during this time. They will realize that they were wrong. And in these verses we see that rather than repent, rather than look to Jesus and believe, they instead call on ‘mother nature’ to have rocks fall on them and kill them as they hide from God in terror. Further still, others in their pride and arrogance will curse His name rather than bow down to Him. Revelation 16: 8-9:
The fourth angel poured out his bowl on the sun, and the sun was given power to scorch people with fire. They were seared by the intense heat and they cursed the name of God, who had control over these plagues, but they refused to repent and glorify him.
As I pointed this out she listened intently and then said, “That’s what you believe. The Lakota Sioux believe….” And then she went on to explain a few of the spiritual stories of her people that have been passed down to her from generation to generation. This is the point that we always get to when Jesus comes up. Every. Single. Time. She’s mentioned that to her, our faith - Christianity - is ‘white man religion’. If she were to bow down to Jesus, that would be rejecting her culture, her family traditions, her very identity, and once again giving into the ‘white man’ - which all of American History has proven to be a bad thing for her people. When I look at this all from her perspective, I can comprehend the loyalty that she feels to what she has been taught her whole life.
But there is something that doesn’t quite add up, and she hasn’t been able to connect the dots yet. She has expressed many times that she doesn’t want to go back to the reservation. So when we got to this point in the conversation I said, “Do the people on the reservation seem to be living lives filled with joy, hope, and peace?” I already knew what her answer would be.
“No,” she said.
“And why don’t you want to go back there? Why don’t you want to grow up there and raise a family there?”
“Because there are horrible things there. The suicides, rape, alcoholism, murders, depression, teenage pregnancies. It ruins people’s lives.”
Exactly. And what I know that she doesn’t yet, is that those things that are ruining the lives of her people are the product of Satan’s hands. Satan is the great deceiver. He can use what looks like ‘religion’ and ‘culture’ to lead people astray - far, far away from truth, generation after generation.
I know I serve a God who came for all nations and all people (Matthew 28:18-20), although Satan would try to dishevel that truth. The new life that Christ can bring stands in stark contrast to a life of guilt, shame, and emptiness that plagues her people.
Jesus says, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” (John 10:10)
She’s already seen lives destroyed. I hope that she will get to experience life to the full through a Savior that gave his life for hers.
We of course are not the first to discover this tension of Christianity being perceived by Native Americans as ‘white man religion’. That tension has just traveled into my home now, so I am becoming very interested in it. I just found out about this book:
(Book of Hope)
It is a collaboration of stories and testimonies written about Native American’s who have put their faith in Jesus. Our church also supplied us with this book when we signed on for the exchange program:
(One Church Many Tribes: Following Jesus the Way God Made You)
Monday, November 14, 2011
Light and Dark
This is what God the Lord says-
he who created the heavens and stretched them out,
who spread out the earth and all that comes out of it,
who gives breath to its people,
and life to those who walk in it;
I, the Lord, have called you in righteousness;
I will take hold of your hand.
I will keep you and will make you to be a covenant for the people
and a light for the Gentiles,
to open eyes that are blind,
to free captives from prison
and to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness.
(Isaiah 42:5-7)
Reading these verses the other day immediately gave me a visual of one of our Rosebud girls.
There she sits, in darkness. No, you would never know by talking to her. She’s happy, social, and carefree on the outside. But on the inside her heart is cold, hardened, defensive. She goes her own way. Ignores warnings, suppresses truth. She knows scripture. She can read a verse and tell you what it means. She’ll sing to the Lord on Sundays when everyone is watching. But she’ll also tell you in the next breath that she rejects Him. “These are just stories to me,” she says holding up the Bible. She reminds us again and again that they hold no value for her life. To her, the message of the cross is foolishness. She’s purposefully distracting and unresponsive during family devotionals. So much so that one evening I got another vision of her. Sitting there at the table, I pictured her giving the middle finger to God. That’s the only way I could describe her blatant disregard towards the One who sustains her life. I’ve gotten so angry with her at times that I’ve screamed out, “Don’t you know that God could take away your very next breath?! You aren’t promised another day! If you die tomorrow….”
Oh boy. My responses to her are often so full of anger and without love. It’s not what I am saying. In a world full of lies she so desperately needs to be confronted with truth. But it’s how I am saying it. I think to myself Good grief, you are supposed to be making Christ attractive, and here you are getting all offended and shoving it down her throat! Time and again I resolve to be more gentle and compassionate the next time, knowing that I purposefully have to choose that heart attitude because it doesn’t naturally come.
On other days I’ve caught my heart on the verge of giving up. Why keep telling her about Jesus? She just continues to reject Him. Just let her go her own way. Let her be. You have too much going on to deal with someone who doesn’t even want help. Ugh, my heart is so ugly. I know Satan wants me to dwell on the thought that there is nothing in this for me, and that in fact, dealing with her is burdensome. Jake and I have had a handful of deep talks with her. Each time it’s like going down into the dungeon to sit there with her. It’s draining and I feel weighed down with her unrepentance and blatant rebelliousness. I feel unequipped to know how to reach her, how to connect with her, how to even smile at her when my heart is so turned away from her.
Jake reminds me that we don’t need to beg her out of the dungeon. “Jesus never begged anyone to follow Him,” he says, and he’s right. I know from scripture that Jesus does seek out the lost. He reaches out His hand offering release from darkness and fullness of new life, but it is everyone’s choice whether or not they will grab on.
So far, she’s not grabbing.
On the other end, our other Rosebud girl has responded to the gospel as I wrote about here. In her young teenage life, her responding ‘looks’ different than say what it would look like in a 30 year old. But Jake and I have watched her continue to take steps out into the light of God’s presence. It’s rocky and she’s young. There were weeks in a row when we questioned her genuineness. But day after day it seems that her excitement about God grows, her worship becomes more heartfelt. There are MANY lows in between the highs. Her tendency is to shut God out when things get hard, something my own heart is familiar with. But she always comes back to Him. When He gets too close she’ll push Him away, only to days later run back into his loving and forgiving arms. I know she is unfamiliar with what it is like to have a God who doesn’t keep score. Who loves no matter what. Who is a refuge. Who is safe. Who will never leave or abandon her. She’s never known this sort of relationship before. She’s testing it out to see if it will endure. In church yesterday we sang some lyrics to an old hymn. I know she hadn’t heard the song before, but once she got a hold of one line, she started singing it louder and louder each time it came around. By the end of the song she was belting out this particular part….
Prone to wander, Lord I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love,
Here’s my heart Lord take and seal it,
Seal it for thy courts above.
Oh, how all of us who follow Christ can relate to these words. Standing next to her, listening to her sing, I felt a sense of relief that she was able to belt out the tug of war going on in her heart. This tug of war has become a current theme in her life. Days before she had shared with me how God gave her a vision one day when she was looking out into a grass field. She clearly saw two paths, one narrow, one wide. She went on to describe Matthew 7:13-14 in her own words. She said “I know God wants me on the narrow path. That’s the way I should go.”
Our Rosebud girls have come from the same place, the same culture, similar pasts, and dealt with similar patterns in their familial relationships. But their hearts are responding differently to Jesus. One sits in her dungeon, storing up wrath for herself without care. The other has taken a step into the light, lifted her head up, and tasted salvation. The hard part is that these two are the best of friends. The one who is stepping into the light doesn’t want to leave her friend in darkness. But the one in darkness wants nothing to do with the light. Since the one stepping into the light is the weaker, more timid of the two, she succumbs back under all she has ever known - her friend sitting there in the darkness.
For the past few weeks Jake and I have wrestled with the idea of separating our two girls….finding a different host family for one of them. We’ve gone back and forth trying to pick through the good and the bad of staying or splitting. But we keep coming back to this: our ‘light girl’ who is responding to the gospel needs to be able to breathe and to discover her identity without hiding under the other. This is just absolutely not possible with their current living situation in our home. When the two are together, they tend to stay in step with one another….feeding off each other in games of manipulation. Furthermore, we find our ‘light girl’ being pulled back into the darkness, enticed to take part in sin, and taking unnecessary steps backward. Jake and I know that her relationship with God needs to be priority over a friendship. Pretty hard for a teenager to understand. Or so I thought. I brought this idea of a split up to her in the car the other day when we were alone. I explained everything I’ve written here and, expecting the worst, I asked her how she would feel about a split. She said, “I think it would give me an option to come away from her.” Whew! That went over well. I think she’s been feeling suffocated and torn in two, but just hasn’t had the courage to bring it up. She actually sounded relieved at the thought of it.
Of course there will always be stumbling blocks in our walk with God, and we aren’t trying to shield our ‘light girl’ from developing the faith to get through them by initiating this split. We also know that God could eventually choose ‘light girl’ to draw her friend to Jesus. But if that is God’s intent, I know that them living under different roofs will not thwart His plan. In fact, our hope is that ‘light girl’ would so grow in her faith that she does become in a position to take the gospel to those who reject Him….for her that will start back on her reservation. I have so many hopes for ‘light girl’…..it seems that a split might just be the first step in helping her to blossom….
Don't become partners with those who reject God. How can you make a partnership out of right and wrong? That's not partnership; that's war. Is light best friends with dark? Does Christ go strolling with the Devil? Do trust and mistrust hold hands? Who would think of setting up pagan idols in God's holy Temple? (2 Corinthians 6:14-16)
he who created the heavens and stretched them out,
who spread out the earth and all that comes out of it,
who gives breath to its people,
and life to those who walk in it;
I, the Lord, have called you in righteousness;
I will take hold of your hand.
I will keep you and will make you to be a covenant for the people
and a light for the Gentiles,
to open eyes that are blind,
to free captives from prison
and to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness.
(Isaiah 42:5-7)
Reading these verses the other day immediately gave me a visual of one of our Rosebud girls.
There she sits, in darkness. No, you would never know by talking to her. She’s happy, social, and carefree on the outside. But on the inside her heart is cold, hardened, defensive. She goes her own way. Ignores warnings, suppresses truth. She knows scripture. She can read a verse and tell you what it means. She’ll sing to the Lord on Sundays when everyone is watching. But she’ll also tell you in the next breath that she rejects Him. “These are just stories to me,” she says holding up the Bible. She reminds us again and again that they hold no value for her life. To her, the message of the cross is foolishness. She’s purposefully distracting and unresponsive during family devotionals. So much so that one evening I got another vision of her. Sitting there at the table, I pictured her giving the middle finger to God. That’s the only way I could describe her blatant disregard towards the One who sustains her life. I’ve gotten so angry with her at times that I’ve screamed out, “Don’t you know that God could take away your very next breath?! You aren’t promised another day! If you die tomorrow….”Oh boy. My responses to her are often so full of anger and without love. It’s not what I am saying. In a world full of lies she so desperately needs to be confronted with truth. But it’s how I am saying it. I think to myself Good grief, you are supposed to be making Christ attractive, and here you are getting all offended and shoving it down her throat! Time and again I resolve to be more gentle and compassionate the next time, knowing that I purposefully have to choose that heart attitude because it doesn’t naturally come.
On other days I’ve caught my heart on the verge of giving up. Why keep telling her about Jesus? She just continues to reject Him. Just let her go her own way. Let her be. You have too much going on to deal with someone who doesn’t even want help. Ugh, my heart is so ugly. I know Satan wants me to dwell on the thought that there is nothing in this for me, and that in fact, dealing with her is burdensome. Jake and I have had a handful of deep talks with her. Each time it’s like going down into the dungeon to sit there with her. It’s draining and I feel weighed down with her unrepentance and blatant rebelliousness. I feel unequipped to know how to reach her, how to connect with her, how to even smile at her when my heart is so turned away from her.
Jake reminds me that we don’t need to beg her out of the dungeon. “Jesus never begged anyone to follow Him,” he says, and he’s right. I know from scripture that Jesus does seek out the lost. He reaches out His hand offering release from darkness and fullness of new life, but it is everyone’s choice whether or not they will grab on.
So far, she’s not grabbing.
On the other end, our other Rosebud girl has responded to the gospel as I wrote about here. In her young teenage life, her responding ‘looks’ different than say what it would look like in a 30 year old. But Jake and I have watched her continue to take steps out into the light of God’s presence. It’s rocky and she’s young. There were weeks in a row when we questioned her genuineness. But day after day it seems that her excitement about God grows, her worship becomes more heartfelt. There are MANY lows in between the highs. Her tendency is to shut God out when things get hard, something my own heart is familiar with. But she always comes back to Him. When He gets too close she’ll push Him away, only to days later run back into his loving and forgiving arms. I know she is unfamiliar with what it is like to have a God who doesn’t keep score. Who loves no matter what. Who is a refuge. Who is safe. Who will never leave or abandon her. She’s never known this sort of relationship before. She’s testing it out to see if it will endure. In church yesterday we sang some lyrics to an old hymn. I know she hadn’t heard the song before, but once she got a hold of one line, she started singing it louder and louder each time it came around. By the end of the song she was belting out this particular part….
Prone to wander, Lord I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love,
Here’s my heart Lord take and seal it,
Seal it for thy courts above.
Oh, how all of us who follow Christ can relate to these words. Standing next to her, listening to her sing, I felt a sense of relief that she was able to belt out the tug of war going on in her heart. This tug of war has become a current theme in her life. Days before she had shared with me how God gave her a vision one day when she was looking out into a grass field. She clearly saw two paths, one narrow, one wide. She went on to describe Matthew 7:13-14 in her own words. She said “I know God wants me on the narrow path. That’s the way I should go.”
Our Rosebud girls have come from the same place, the same culture, similar pasts, and dealt with similar patterns in their familial relationships. But their hearts are responding differently to Jesus. One sits in her dungeon, storing up wrath for herself without care. The other has taken a step into the light, lifted her head up, and tasted salvation. The hard part is that these two are the best of friends. The one who is stepping into the light doesn’t want to leave her friend in darkness. But the one in darkness wants nothing to do with the light. Since the one stepping into the light is the weaker, more timid of the two, she succumbs back under all she has ever known - her friend sitting there in the darkness.
For the past few weeks Jake and I have wrestled with the idea of separating our two girls….finding a different host family for one of them. We’ve gone back and forth trying to pick through the good and the bad of staying or splitting. But we keep coming back to this: our ‘light girl’ who is responding to the gospel needs to be able to breathe and to discover her identity without hiding under the other. This is just absolutely not possible with their current living situation in our home. When the two are together, they tend to stay in step with one another….feeding off each other in games of manipulation. Furthermore, we find our ‘light girl’ being pulled back into the darkness, enticed to take part in sin, and taking unnecessary steps backward. Jake and I know that her relationship with God needs to be priority over a friendship. Pretty hard for a teenager to understand. Or so I thought. I brought this idea of a split up to her in the car the other day when we were alone. I explained everything I’ve written here and, expecting the worst, I asked her how she would feel about a split. She said, “I think it would give me an option to come away from her.” Whew! That went over well. I think she’s been feeling suffocated and torn in two, but just hasn’t had the courage to bring it up. She actually sounded relieved at the thought of it.
Of course there will always be stumbling blocks in our walk with God, and we aren’t trying to shield our ‘light girl’ from developing the faith to get through them by initiating this split. We also know that God could eventually choose ‘light girl’ to draw her friend to Jesus. But if that is God’s intent, I know that them living under different roofs will not thwart His plan. In fact, our hope is that ‘light girl’ would so grow in her faith that she does become in a position to take the gospel to those who reject Him….for her that will start back on her reservation. I have so many hopes for ‘light girl’…..it seems that a split might just be the first step in helping her to blossom….
Don't become partners with those who reject God. How can you make a partnership out of right and wrong? That's not partnership; that's war. Is light best friends with dark? Does Christ go strolling with the Devil? Do trust and mistrust hold hands? Who would think of setting up pagan idols in God's holy Temple? (2 Corinthians 6:14-16)
Thursday, October 27, 2011
ABC 20/20 Documentary: Children of the Plains
When this documentary aired on ABC a few weeks ago Jake and I made it a point to sit down and watch it. It was so extremely insightful to many of the how’s and why’s running through our minds the past few months as we’ve started on this journey of hosting our girls from the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota. It answered a lot of our questions, and also brought up more questions that perhaps we will be able to shed light on as we continue with our hosting experience. This documentary was filmed at Pine Ridge, a neighboring reservation to Rosebud in South Dakota. Our church’s hosting program currently has 12 students from Rosebud, and 1 student from Pine Ridge. This documentary is about 40 minutes long, but definitely gives a vivid and honest glimpse into the culture, family dynamics, and living conditions on ‘the rez’. You can watch the full documentary here: http://abc.go.com/watch/2020/SH559026/VD55148316/2020-1014-children-of-the-plains
Thursday, October 20, 2011
Days Like This
Hosting these students has been the hardest thing I have ever been a part of. Emotionally, spiritually, physically I feel that we have been pouring our lives into them….only to see no fruit, hard hearts, more deceit, manipulations, and walls knocked down and then built up higher. There are many days when my head spins and spins trying to figure out how to climb out of their circles of lies and double-mindedness. There are many nights when I can’t sleep because my mind is filled with stress over their ways and my responses. I am easily fooled into their traps. I can’t decipher what is genuine and what is not. My spirit wars against so much of theirs. There are days when I sincerely from the bottom of my heart want to beg and plead with them to repent and change their ways. There are other days when I give up and wonder when the path of destruction they’ve chosen will catch up with them.
I could write 10 more pages on how drained, confused, lacking, defeated I feel in these moments. BUT, I would rather sing of God and how He is meeting me right where I am in this mess of broken, rebellious lives intertwined with ours. In the midst of days like this, I feel God’s presence so strongly. My heart wants to shout all day long about how good He is. I feel His light penetrating the darkness that we have opened up our home to. It is a mystery to me of how I can feel so depleted with these circumstances and yet so alive and satisfied in my soul at the same time.
The past few days I have been asking the Lord how He would encourage me to press on. He answered in a whisper. This is only a season. Only a season in a lifetime of moments. In the big picture this is such a small, small clip of days. This won’t last forever. I know that if I was in my right mind I would run in the opposite direction of them and their lives. But He reminds me daily that I am not in my right mind. I have a new mind in Christ. And because of Him I take another step closer to them.
This morning as I sat before the Lord I felt my heart turn to the Psalms. So, I flipped through them knowing that God was trying to point me to one. And I found it. I hope it encourages you today too, whatever season of life you find yourself in.
Psalm 63A psalm of David. When he was in the Desert of Judah.
1 O God, you are my God,
earnestly I seek you;
my soul thirsts for you,
my body longs for you,
in a dry and weary land
where there is no water.
2 I have seen you in the sanctuary
and beheld your power and your glory.
3 Because your love is better than life,
my lips will glorify you.
4 I will praise you as long as I live,
and in your name I will lift up my hands.
5 My soul will be satisfied as with the richest of foods;
with singing lips my mouth will praise you.
6 On my bed I remember you;
I think of you through the watches of the night.
7 Because you are my help,
I sing in the shadow of your wings.
8 My soul clings to you;
your right hand upholds me.
9 They who seek my life will be destroyed;
they will go down to the depths of the earth.
10 They will be given over to the sword
and become food for jackals.
11 But the king will rejoice in God;
all who swear by God's name will praise him,
while the mouths of liars will be silenced.
I could write 10 more pages on how drained, confused, lacking, defeated I feel in these moments. BUT, I would rather sing of God and how He is meeting me right where I am in this mess of broken, rebellious lives intertwined with ours. In the midst of days like this, I feel God’s presence so strongly. My heart wants to shout all day long about how good He is. I feel His light penetrating the darkness that we have opened up our home to. It is a mystery to me of how I can feel so depleted with these circumstances and yet so alive and satisfied in my soul at the same time.
The past few days I have been asking the Lord how He would encourage me to press on. He answered in a whisper. This is only a season. Only a season in a lifetime of moments. In the big picture this is such a small, small clip of days. This won’t last forever. I know that if I was in my right mind I would run in the opposite direction of them and their lives. But He reminds me daily that I am not in my right mind. I have a new mind in Christ. And because of Him I take another step closer to them.
This morning as I sat before the Lord I felt my heart turn to the Psalms. So, I flipped through them knowing that God was trying to point me to one. And I found it. I hope it encourages you today too, whatever season of life you find yourself in.
Psalm 63A psalm of David. When he was in the Desert of Judah.
1 O God, you are my God,
earnestly I seek you;
my soul thirsts for you,
my body longs for you,
in a dry and weary land
where there is no water.
2 I have seen you in the sanctuary
and beheld your power and your glory.
3 Because your love is better than life,
my lips will glorify you.
4 I will praise you as long as I live,
and in your name I will lift up my hands.
5 My soul will be satisfied as with the richest of foods;
with singing lips my mouth will praise you.
6 On my bed I remember you;
I think of you through the watches of the night.
7 Because you are my help,
I sing in the shadow of your wings.
8 My soul clings to you;
your right hand upholds me.
9 They who seek my life will be destroyed;
they will go down to the depths of the earth.
10 They will be given over to the sword
and become food for jackals.
11 But the king will rejoice in God;
all who swear by God's name will praise him,
while the mouths of liars will be silenced.
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Broken & Beautiful
There she sat on our back patio. Vulnerable, emotionally exposed. Events from the past week had spurred this conversation. And now she was opening up about her life for the first time since she’s been here. Slowly, cautiously, and quietly. Careful to not make eye contact. Still and frozen she sat as she answered our questions. A few words at a time. And then her voice broke. And the tears came falling. And they couldn’t stop. There she sat. Broken in every way. Hurting in every way. Raw and ready to cling onto something – anything – that would take the pain away.
Her heart has been destroyed by the sin of this world. She’s been let down by the people who were supposed to love her the most. It hurts her. But it also angers her. She’s tried many things to make herself feel better. But the ‘feel-good’ things become fleeing fantasies, only filling the void for a short time. The pain stays, and she can’t get away. A deep hurt that nothing seems to cover, or fill, or take away.
This was the place that Jake and I had prayed that she would come to. A heart softened and ready for TRUTH to come busting in.
Jake begins to share his story. He knows about the internal prison. He knows what that feels like. Obsessions. Complusions. Racing thoughts. Acting on them so that they would go away. “But it never went away,” he said. “My obsessions just moved on to something else, and it became a vicious cycle. Until Jesus stepped into my life. And then I found freedom from my prison.” He shares parts of my story. Emptyness in the ‘missing piece’ of a relationship with my earthly father. The searching for fulfillment and identity. And finally, the realization that what I was thirsting for all along was actually a relationship with Jesus.
She looks up. For the first time these are no longer just words to her. Her eyes tell us she can relate. She waits for more.
“You can have a new life,” I say. “People will always let you down. But God never will. You can keep trying to chase after the things of this world to fill you up. But they only will for a time. You will just wind up empty again and again. That’s because simply covering up the pain will never get it to go away.”
“Yeah, I can’t wait to go to church on Sunday,” she says excitedly and with a smile.
“Why do you like church so much?” Jake asks.
Silence. And then, “I love the worship time. I love singing to God,” she says.
“You feel close to Him when you sing praises to Him, don’t you?” I say. “I used to feel the same way in college. Church was where I experienced God, where I was pulled in and felt close to Him. But when I left church that feeling would always go away. I only experienced that high at church. Eventually I learned that it doesn’t have to go away! If you put your faith in Jesus he makes an amazing promise to you – He’ll give you his Spirit! He’ll live inside of you! You can have those same feelings that you have in church - every single day of your life! But first you have to surrender your heart to Jesus. Until you do that, His Spirit won’t come to you. God can see right into your heart, and He will know when you’ve asked Him to make His home there.”
This is not the first time she’s heard it. But now it’s starting to make sense. She’s starting to understand that she is talking to two witnesses of God’s transforming power. The evidence sits in front of her. It’s in our words, in our stories, in our past, in our present. She didn't know us then, but she sees it now. She gets it. God has given Jake and I new life, and now our lives are filled with hope. Hope. It’s so attractive to her.
Sunday comes. We sit in church. It is a day for baptisms. She listens intently to a girl from China, who spills her heart open in the baptismal waters. She sits next to me and takes notes as the young girl says, “When I first heard scripture from the Bible, they were just stories to me. I didn’t believe them.” The young girl from China goes on and speaks of her broken life, God’s transforming power, of hope in a Savior who she has now put her faith in. Another witness proclaiming that Jesus is real. His Spirit is real. His offer of life is real. The young girl shares her favorite verse, “1 John 5:11-12 says: This is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life. ” Her pleading words hang in the air as she goes under the water, and then comes back up to an explosion of applauding and cheers.
Sunday afternoon rolls around. I take a break from cleaning and decide to check Facebook where a sweet surprise awaited. Her status: *I Am Ready To Surrender To My Savior! I Am Ready. Jake Sullivan & Janel Sullivan Can You Help Me? Surrender To Our Savior. I Don't Care If People Make Fun Of Me At Rosebud Or Anywhere I Am PROUD To Get To Know Jesus At Least I Give It A Chance. (: I Want To Share & Help People Learn About Jesus Christ.
She’s ready. She’s ready to surrender her life to the One, the only One, who gave His very life for her. She’s ready to accept His free gift of new life. I go get her and tell her to come upstairs. Jake and I lay our hands on her and pray over her. God’s Spirit floods the room - we all feel it. I lead her through a prayer, but they aren’t just words to her. She gets it. Her heart is genuine. She cries as she repeats my words back to her Savior God for the first time. Broken. And Beautiful.
Our prayer ends and a smile widens across her face. We rejoice together in her day of salvation, not because the road ahead will be easy, but because hope has enveloped her in an embrace. An embrace that will never let go.
She feels the magnitude of her decision almost immediately. Many of her church friends celebrate her faith and encourage her. Many more old friends hear of her new faith and insult her, reject her, and say hurtful things. They de-friend her on facebook and write her off. They tell her they will beat her up if she ever comes back to the rez. Already it’s hard. She’s had to choose Jesus over friends. She’s confused. Why are people making fun of her? Why would ‘friends’ leave her so quickly?
My mind wanders to His words, knowing He too was rejected by the very ones He came to save. It doesn’t make sense. But His words bring light, ‘Count yourself blessed every time someone cuts you down or throws you out, every time someone smears or blackens your name to discredit me. What it means is that the truth is too close for comfort and that that person is uncomfortable. You can be glad when that happens—skip like a lamb, if you like!—for even though they don't like it, I do . . . and all heaven applauds. And know that you are in good company; my preachers and witnesses have always been treated like this (Luke 6:22-23).’
Another reminder that in the end, people will still fail her, and her expectations of them will too. But now she can see things differently. Now she’s committed to following the One and Only True God who will supernaturally meet her needs with His grace, time and again, in ways that I will never be able to explain to her in words. Her Savior has given her hope.
Hope. It's what she needed all along.
A hope that will never fail her or leave her empty the way people and relationships can. A hope that no one could ever take away. A hope that that will always float, no matter the circumstances, no matter the trials, no matter if she fails again and again. A hope for this life, and an eternal hope for the next. This hope will not disappoint her. Ever.
All heaven applauds. The old self - broken. The new self - looking beautiful in the precious and redeeming blood of Jesus Christ. Broken, beautiful, and hope-filled. Let new life begin…..
Her heart has been destroyed by the sin of this world. She’s been let down by the people who were supposed to love her the most. It hurts her. But it also angers her. She’s tried many things to make herself feel better. But the ‘feel-good’ things become fleeing fantasies, only filling the void for a short time. The pain stays, and she can’t get away. A deep hurt that nothing seems to cover, or fill, or take away.
This was the place that Jake and I had prayed that she would come to. A heart softened and ready for TRUTH to come busting in.
Jake begins to share his story. He knows about the internal prison. He knows what that feels like. Obsessions. Complusions. Racing thoughts. Acting on them so that they would go away. “But it never went away,” he said. “My obsessions just moved on to something else, and it became a vicious cycle. Until Jesus stepped into my life. And then I found freedom from my prison.” He shares parts of my story. Emptyness in the ‘missing piece’ of a relationship with my earthly father. The searching for fulfillment and identity. And finally, the realization that what I was thirsting for all along was actually a relationship with Jesus.
She looks up. For the first time these are no longer just words to her. Her eyes tell us she can relate. She waits for more.
“You can have a new life,” I say. “People will always let you down. But God never will. You can keep trying to chase after the things of this world to fill you up. But they only will for a time. You will just wind up empty again and again. That’s because simply covering up the pain will never get it to go away.”
“Yeah, I can’t wait to go to church on Sunday,” she says excitedly and with a smile.
“Why do you like church so much?” Jake asks.
Silence. And then, “I love the worship time. I love singing to God,” she says.
“You feel close to Him when you sing praises to Him, don’t you?” I say. “I used to feel the same way in college. Church was where I experienced God, where I was pulled in and felt close to Him. But when I left church that feeling would always go away. I only experienced that high at church. Eventually I learned that it doesn’t have to go away! If you put your faith in Jesus he makes an amazing promise to you – He’ll give you his Spirit! He’ll live inside of you! You can have those same feelings that you have in church - every single day of your life! But first you have to surrender your heart to Jesus. Until you do that, His Spirit won’t come to you. God can see right into your heart, and He will know when you’ve asked Him to make His home there.”
This is not the first time she’s heard it. But now it’s starting to make sense. She’s starting to understand that she is talking to two witnesses of God’s transforming power. The evidence sits in front of her. It’s in our words, in our stories, in our past, in our present. She didn't know us then, but she sees it now. She gets it. God has given Jake and I new life, and now our lives are filled with hope. Hope. It’s so attractive to her.
Sunday comes. We sit in church. It is a day for baptisms. She listens intently to a girl from China, who spills her heart open in the baptismal waters. She sits next to me and takes notes as the young girl says, “When I first heard scripture from the Bible, they were just stories to me. I didn’t believe them.” The young girl from China goes on and speaks of her broken life, God’s transforming power, of hope in a Savior who she has now put her faith in. Another witness proclaiming that Jesus is real. His Spirit is real. His offer of life is real. The young girl shares her favorite verse, “1 John 5:11-12 says: This is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life. ” Her pleading words hang in the air as she goes under the water, and then comes back up to an explosion of applauding and cheers.
Sunday afternoon rolls around. I take a break from cleaning and decide to check Facebook where a sweet surprise awaited. Her status: *I Am Ready To Surrender To My Savior! I Am Ready. Jake Sullivan & Janel Sullivan Can You Help Me? Surrender To Our Savior. I Don't Care If People Make Fun Of Me At Rosebud Or Anywhere I Am PROUD To Get To Know Jesus At Least I Give It A Chance. (: I Want To Share & Help People Learn About Jesus Christ.
She’s ready. She’s ready to surrender her life to the One, the only One, who gave His very life for her. She’s ready to accept His free gift of new life. I go get her and tell her to come upstairs. Jake and I lay our hands on her and pray over her. God’s Spirit floods the room - we all feel it. I lead her through a prayer, but they aren’t just words to her. She gets it. Her heart is genuine. She cries as she repeats my words back to her Savior God for the first time. Broken. And Beautiful.
Our prayer ends and a smile widens across her face. We rejoice together in her day of salvation, not because the road ahead will be easy, but because hope has enveloped her in an embrace. An embrace that will never let go.
She feels the magnitude of her decision almost immediately. Many of her church friends celebrate her faith and encourage her. Many more old friends hear of her new faith and insult her, reject her, and say hurtful things. They de-friend her on facebook and write her off. They tell her they will beat her up if she ever comes back to the rez. Already it’s hard. She’s had to choose Jesus over friends. She’s confused. Why are people making fun of her? Why would ‘friends’ leave her so quickly?
My mind wanders to His words, knowing He too was rejected by the very ones He came to save. It doesn’t make sense. But His words bring light, ‘Count yourself blessed every time someone cuts you down or throws you out, every time someone smears or blackens your name to discredit me. What it means is that the truth is too close for comfort and that that person is uncomfortable. You can be glad when that happens—skip like a lamb, if you like!—for even though they don't like it, I do . . . and all heaven applauds. And know that you are in good company; my preachers and witnesses have always been treated like this (Luke 6:22-23).’
Another reminder that in the end, people will still fail her, and her expectations of them will too. But now she can see things differently. Now she’s committed to following the One and Only True God who will supernaturally meet her needs with His grace, time and again, in ways that I will never be able to explain to her in words. Her Savior has given her hope.
Hope. It's what she needed all along.
A hope that will never fail her or leave her empty the way people and relationships can. A hope that no one could ever take away. A hope that that will always float, no matter the circumstances, no matter the trials, no matter if she fails again and again. A hope for this life, and an eternal hope for the next. This hope will not disappoint her. Ever.
All heaven applauds. The old self - broken. The new self - looking beautiful in the precious and redeeming blood of Jesus Christ. Broken, beautiful, and hope-filled. Let new life begin…..
Thursday, September 15, 2011
And That Is What Some of You Were
There is no knowing where her lies start or end.
We’ve learned to mistrust her more than trust her.
There’s eye rolling, there’s secrets.
Immature behaviors pour out of her, even when we ask her to do the simplest of tasks.
Her school work isn’t getting done and we’re getting calls from the principal about skipping class, about assignments not getting turned in, and about more and more lies.
She is constantly doing foolish things to try and get attention.
She purposely lives her life in disobedience just to see how we will react. 'Will they give up on me?' she wonders. It’s written all over her face. She’s testing us. Testing our faith. Testing our family. Testing our parenting skills. 'Well that didn’t push them away….maybe if I do this then they will quit, give up, send me back…..'
Everything inside of me screams out “I can’t love her!!! I can’t stand her immaturity and selfishness and silly mind games and fakeness!! I hate that she lies and lies and lies right to my face!!!! I can’t fathom why she doesn’t want to make the most of this opportunity! Why does she not care if she never gets out of generations and generations of hopelessness? Why won’t she work hard? Can I do this Lord? Can I really learn to love her unconditionally? What if she never changes?!?!?!?!?”
And then I hear it. A reminder. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8).
It’s easy to withhold my love from people when I don’t think they are deserving. But what if Jesus would have done that to me? God loved me when I was a rebel. When I didn’t love him back. When I hadn’t yet turned to him. He sent his son to die for me….not because I was good enough. Not because I deserved it. Just simply because he loved wayward, lost, sinful, unthankful, superficial me. “Don’t you remember?” he says to my heart. Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were. But, you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God (1 Corinthians 6:9-11).
And that is what some of you were.
And that is what some of you were.
And that is what some of you were.
I was once her. Sin is sin. Among other things I was a drunkard and among other things she is a liar. There is no difference between my sin or her sin. Without Jesus our sin stands. We are not spoken for. We cannot inherit the kingdom of God. We are not justified, rather we stand condemned. Me and her. Her and me. Jesus loved me, even when my heart was the same as hers. Even when I was stacking up sins without care.
But now I know the love of a Father. Of a heavenly Father who is relentless….a Father who leaves 99 safe sheep to go after just one who is lost. A Father who rejoices and celebrates with angels over one sinner who repents. I’ve felt the love of a Father. And He won’t let me stop in contentment by just receiving His love. “Now go and do likewise,” he says to my heart. “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples if you love one another (John 13:34-35).”
My nerves scream that I can’t do it. My schedule tells me I don’t have time. My mind tells me that I am not equipped to handle her and her issues. Satan sets himself up against our every move so that even one step forward is met with 3 steps back…..
But there it is again. That reminder. Janel, while you were still sinning, Christ died for you.
And so my challenge lies before me. To love unconditionally. To love through sin, through disobedience, through unrepentance, through lies….even if she never changes. This was the type of love my Savior showed me, and he asks me to do the same, for HIS GLORY is on the line. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know….
We’ve learned to mistrust her more than trust her.
There’s eye rolling, there’s secrets.
Immature behaviors pour out of her, even when we ask her to do the simplest of tasks.
Her school work isn’t getting done and we’re getting calls from the principal about skipping class, about assignments not getting turned in, and about more and more lies.
She is constantly doing foolish things to try and get attention.
She purposely lives her life in disobedience just to see how we will react. 'Will they give up on me?' she wonders. It’s written all over her face. She’s testing us. Testing our faith. Testing our family. Testing our parenting skills. 'Well that didn’t push them away….maybe if I do this then they will quit, give up, send me back…..'
Everything inside of me screams out “I can’t love her!!! I can’t stand her immaturity and selfishness and silly mind games and fakeness!! I hate that she lies and lies and lies right to my face!!!! I can’t fathom why she doesn’t want to make the most of this opportunity! Why does she not care if she never gets out of generations and generations of hopelessness? Why won’t she work hard? Can I do this Lord? Can I really learn to love her unconditionally? What if she never changes?!?!?!?!?”
And then I hear it. A reminder. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8).
It’s easy to withhold my love from people when I don’t think they are deserving. But what if Jesus would have done that to me? God loved me when I was a rebel. When I didn’t love him back. When I hadn’t yet turned to him. He sent his son to die for me….not because I was good enough. Not because I deserved it. Just simply because he loved wayward, lost, sinful, unthankful, superficial me. “Don’t you remember?” he says to my heart. Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were. But, you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God (1 Corinthians 6:9-11).
And that is what some of you were.
And that is what some of you were.
And that is what some of you were.
I was once her. Sin is sin. Among other things I was a drunkard and among other things she is a liar. There is no difference between my sin or her sin. Without Jesus our sin stands. We are not spoken for. We cannot inherit the kingdom of God. We are not justified, rather we stand condemned. Me and her. Her and me. Jesus loved me, even when my heart was the same as hers. Even when I was stacking up sins without care.
But now I know the love of a Father. Of a heavenly Father who is relentless….a Father who leaves 99 safe sheep to go after just one who is lost. A Father who rejoices and celebrates with angels over one sinner who repents. I’ve felt the love of a Father. And He won’t let me stop in contentment by just receiving His love. “Now go and do likewise,” he says to my heart. “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples if you love one another (John 13:34-35).”
My nerves scream that I can’t do it. My schedule tells me I don’t have time. My mind tells me that I am not equipped to handle her and her issues. Satan sets himself up against our every move so that even one step forward is met with 3 steps back…..
But there it is again. That reminder. Janel, while you were still sinning, Christ died for you.
And so my challenge lies before me. To love unconditionally. To love through sin, through disobedience, through unrepentance, through lies….even if she never changes. This was the type of love my Savior showed me, and he asks me to do the same, for HIS GLORY is on the line. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know….
Thursday, September 1, 2011
Host Student Switcheroo
Our college host students that had been home for the summer, Yaw and Ezekiel, headed back to college on August 17th. Ezekiel went back to Gillette College in Wyoming where he and Yaw attended school last year. Yaw started at Dordt College located in Sioux Center, Iowa. (http://www.dordt.edu/) This year we also decided to try and find a host family for Peprah (our high school host student) that was closer to his school, Des Moines Christian. It was a struggle all last year for Jake to get him to school every morning and pick him up every afternoon with that 45 minute drive! It also didn’t seem fair to Peprah that he had to be so far removed from school activities and friends since we live so far from his school. An awesome host family was found for Peprah, the Storts, and he now lives with them in Des Moines and is only 1 mile away from Des Moines Christian high school (the Storts also have 2 younger kids not pictured here)!
Jake and I were so bummed to see Peprah go…..he was a great role model for our kids, a huge help to me around the house, and brought such a joyful-lighthearted-spirit to our family. But, we know that he will enjoy his high school experience so much more now that he can be closer to his school and friends.
So, within one day Yaw, Ezekiel and Peprah were gone, and on that same day we welcomed in our new host students from the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota. Kiana, 8th grader (pictured left), and Victoria, 9th grader (pictured right), have now taken over our extra bedroom and will be hanging with us for the rest of the school year. The tables have turned folks! We now have more girls in the house than boys!
Here’s a map of the reservations in South Dakota…Rosebud is there at the bottom center….
We signed up to be a host family for this exchange program through our church, fully knowing that the Native American culture and community is something we have very little knowledge about. Since our initial sign up, Jake and I have slowly come to understand small tidbits of what life is like on ‘the rez’ (the reservation). Although we haven’t been to the rez, the descriptions of gang pressure, sexual assault, suicide, and drug and alcohol abuse give me pictures of darkness and hopelessness. There have been a handful of articles written which give quite a glimpse into the depravity of reservation life…..here is the link to those: http://www.argusleader.com/section/gui I found the following statistics written into the story of Neleigh, a little girl Jayla’s age, quite piercing….
- As a Native American girl and a member of what South Dakota’s U.S. Attorney Brendan Johnson calls “the most victimized group in America,” Neleigh has a one in three chance of being sexually abused in her lifetime.
- The possibility of her dropping out of school is greater than her getting a diploma.
- She will know people in gangs, and maybe join one herself.
- She’ll have friends who are crammed into inadequate housing with 15 people or more, or who get ready for school with no running water or electricity in their homes.
- On a welfare diet of Ramen noodles and popsicles, she has a 50-50 shot at developing diabetes.
- She is twice as likely to be touched by thoughts or knowledge of suicide as other South Dakota teens.
- And like her mother, who was 15 when she gave birth, Neleigh is growing up in a place where the rate of teen pregnancy is 2 1/2 times the state average.
It appears that often times, the only future hope to escape becoming another statistic is to leave the reservation.
After having our girls with us for a little less than 2 weeks, I can tell you that hosting them is going to be a night and day difference from what we experienced in hosting our Ghanaian host students. But, we are seeing strikingly similar things as to when Sam lived with us. Namely, this is a major spiritual battle. Yaw, Peprah and Ezekiel each came to us with a professed faith in Jesus. They learned and grew in their faith while here, but they originally came to us with a base of a relationship in God. Reading their Bible was not foreign to them, going to church was not foreign to them, and praying was not foreign to them. This is not so with our girls. Everything that has to do with God is foreign to them, and rather uncomfortable. I know that Satan absolutely hates that they are here, and inviting these girls into our home has put us all in the line of fire for the devil’s attacks. But to me, that is the first sign that we are supposed to be doing this. It was the same with our adoption. We know God is in this, because Satan is desperately trying to stop it.
One of the things that I love about hosting students is sitting down a few times a week to do a family bible study. The discussions stay pretty interesting when you get to hear from teenagers on topics of faith and listen to their questions. I love even more that our own kids get to hear insights and thoughts and questions from those not too far off from them in age. During one of our family bible studies last week we went through these verses in Acts:
The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ (Acts 17:24-28)
We talked about how these verses showcase God’s sovereignty in that He ordained for these girls to be sitting there in our living room from the beginning of their lives. And the same with Justice. We talked about how Justice was one of the millions of orphans in Africa, and yet, God literally picked him out from all the way across the world, and now he was here with us. From there the girls opened up and asked some great questions:
Why is God the most important spirit? Why should we worship him alone over all the other spirits?
How do you change when you’ve grown up your whole life believing something else?
Oh man, are they talking to the right people or what?!?!?! Jake and I had these same questions that we ourselves had to deal with just a few short years ago. Although I hate that I’ve spent more of my life as an enemy of God than a follower, I also now see how I can use my past to my advantage. I know where these girls are coming from. I know what it feels like to not have the Holy Spirit inside, and to not really give a care at all to your way of life, not to mention your Creator.
We got to talk to the girls about what beliefs they’ve grown up with. I asked them about their beliefs on death. “When the Sioux Indians die their spirits go to the wind caves,” they said.
“What about us, then?” Jake asked. “Where does the white man go when he dies according to your beliefs?”
“You go wherever you believe it is you go.”
I can see my old self in these girls. And although it is tempting for me to carry the burden of wanting so badly for them to know truth, I know that it is not up to me. Yes, we can open the scriptures with them. Yes, we can openly talk to them about our faith. Yes, we can pray for them. But, God is the one who will open their eyes and reveal His truths to them, just as He did for Jake and I not too long ago.
….so that you may proclaim the praises of the One who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light. ~ 1 Peter 2:9 ~
So, within one day Yaw, Ezekiel and Peprah were gone, and on that same day we welcomed in our new host students from the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota. Kiana, 8th grader (pictured left), and Victoria, 9th grader (pictured right), have now taken over our extra bedroom and will be hanging with us for the rest of the school year. The tables have turned folks! We now have more girls in the house than boys!
Here’s a map of the reservations in South Dakota…Rosebud is there at the bottom center….
- As a Native American girl and a member of what South Dakota’s U.S. Attorney Brendan Johnson calls “the most victimized group in America,” Neleigh has a one in three chance of being sexually abused in her lifetime.
- The possibility of her dropping out of school is greater than her getting a diploma.
- She will know people in gangs, and maybe join one herself.
- She’ll have friends who are crammed into inadequate housing with 15 people or more, or who get ready for school with no running water or electricity in their homes.
- On a welfare diet of Ramen noodles and popsicles, she has a 50-50 shot at developing diabetes.
- She is twice as likely to be touched by thoughts or knowledge of suicide as other South Dakota teens.
- And like her mother, who was 15 when she gave birth, Neleigh is growing up in a place where the rate of teen pregnancy is 2 1/2 times the state average.
It appears that often times, the only future hope to escape becoming another statistic is to leave the reservation.
After having our girls with us for a little less than 2 weeks, I can tell you that hosting them is going to be a night and day difference from what we experienced in hosting our Ghanaian host students. But, we are seeing strikingly similar things as to when Sam lived with us. Namely, this is a major spiritual battle. Yaw, Peprah and Ezekiel each came to us with a professed faith in Jesus. They learned and grew in their faith while here, but they originally came to us with a base of a relationship in God. Reading their Bible was not foreign to them, going to church was not foreign to them, and praying was not foreign to them. This is not so with our girls. Everything that has to do with God is foreign to them, and rather uncomfortable. I know that Satan absolutely hates that they are here, and inviting these girls into our home has put us all in the line of fire for the devil’s attacks. But to me, that is the first sign that we are supposed to be doing this. It was the same with our adoption. We know God is in this, because Satan is desperately trying to stop it.
One of the things that I love about hosting students is sitting down a few times a week to do a family bible study. The discussions stay pretty interesting when you get to hear from teenagers on topics of faith and listen to their questions. I love even more that our own kids get to hear insights and thoughts and questions from those not too far off from them in age. During one of our family bible studies last week we went through these verses in Acts:
The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ (Acts 17:24-28)
We talked about how these verses showcase God’s sovereignty in that He ordained for these girls to be sitting there in our living room from the beginning of their lives. And the same with Justice. We talked about how Justice was one of the millions of orphans in Africa, and yet, God literally picked him out from all the way across the world, and now he was here with us. From there the girls opened up and asked some great questions:
Why is God the most important spirit? Why should we worship him alone over all the other spirits?
How do you change when you’ve grown up your whole life believing something else?
Oh man, are they talking to the right people or what?!?!?! Jake and I had these same questions that we ourselves had to deal with just a few short years ago. Although I hate that I’ve spent more of my life as an enemy of God than a follower, I also now see how I can use my past to my advantage. I know where these girls are coming from. I know what it feels like to not have the Holy Spirit inside, and to not really give a care at all to your way of life, not to mention your Creator.
We got to talk to the girls about what beliefs they’ve grown up with. I asked them about their beliefs on death. “When the Sioux Indians die their spirits go to the wind caves,” they said.
“What about us, then?” Jake asked. “Where does the white man go when he dies according to your beliefs?”
“You go wherever you believe it is you go.”
I can see my old self in these girls. And although it is tempting for me to carry the burden of wanting so badly for them to know truth, I know that it is not up to me. Yes, we can open the scriptures with them. Yes, we can openly talk to them about our faith. Yes, we can pray for them. But, God is the one who will open their eyes and reveal His truths to them, just as He did for Jake and I not too long ago.
….so that you may proclaim the praises of the One who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light. ~ 1 Peter 2:9 ~
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