A puddle in a pew

A girl, a rock, the vast expanse of water that goes on for as far as the eye can see. Here I see God. Here is where I can listen and hear the whispers in the waves and the laughter of children lilting over the windy shore, see Him in the moss-clinging rocks and the millions of brilliant stones cast upon the shore just because. Just for Him. All this beauty. And just for us. A whole world created just for the glory of God.

If I were being perfectly honest, this will always be my church. My family is where I first found God and it is where I meet Him most authentically daily. It is where I work out my faith on my knees, and it where I feel the thrill of Him most often.

Katy receives her 4th grade Bible during "Children's Church", when all the children of the church go to the altar and worship for 10 minutes in front of the congregation, then receive the blessing of the congregation before dismissing to Sunday School.

But for my children, Sunday after Sunday spent at home with family as church was not enough. Pain fades so much faster when you're a child. I was still in the middle of a mental breakdown after our expulsion from the evangelical church when our kids started begging to go back. We found a "hospital church" for a while - a church in our hometown that specifically ministers to people recovering from abuse, broken hearts, and faith crises. There, in the dark of the worship hall, I could hide my panic attacks and hear a few words or stanzas of comfort while my children came back to life in the Sunday School rooms brightly lit and colorfully painted.

The children added their names to the Church's "heart" during Family Worship this Sunday.

Then there came a time when God winked, and we went to hear Handel's Messiah at Christmas at a church we'd never heard of, a Protestant mainline church we normally would never attend, and suddenly, we were home. Under the huge oak beams 150 years old, with the warmth of the pipe organ filling the rafters, and a choir singing hymns I remembered viscerally from my youth, every sinew in my body that was trained to be taut as wire in church relaxed. I was in a puddle in a pew.

There are moments, still, when I am overwhelmed. I live in fear of being discovered. I don't want to be anything but a face in the pew. The children, on the other hand, want to be in everything. Youth choir. The pageants and dramas. Vacation Bible school. Family worship meetings. Ministries to the elderly.

I am happy for them, these little girls in their blue choir robes. Part of me weeps for the fact that I never experienced this rich heritage as a child. Part of me shudders in fear that this blossoming hope they have for church will be crushed someday. I pray that they can be like thousands of people I've brushed shoulders with over the years - people who've been at the same church for 60 years and never missed a beat. I can't imagine that kind of life, that kind of fortune. But I dream of it for my children...pray for it.

That someday, their children, and then grandchildren, will be dressed in these same blue choir robes. That maybe, finally, we've started a new tradition that will last for a few generations.

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I am excited to announce the publication of an anthology on Finding Church: Stories of Leaving, Switching and Reforming, edited by Jeremy Myers. I contributed a chapter on leaving church in the age of social media. The book is available for pre-order through the publisher here, and will be available via Amazon and other major booksellers December 1.

You're Already Amazing: Worth a Second Look

My daughter hauled an agate boulder out of the rock pile the other day. It was covered with dirt and I told her I didn't think it was an agate. She abandoned it in the yard, and the rain washed it clean. Lo and behold - the biggest agate I've ever seen!

Sometimes the eyes of innocence see hope where we do not, see beauty where we do not. Jaded by experience, we occasionally miss the wonder of this world.

This was my experience reading Holley Gerth's book, You're Already Amazing. The first time I read through it, I was using my jaded eyes to do so. In some ways, suffering can wreck you if you're not careful. I notice I sometimes assume that people who haven't suffered are too shallow or too naive to understand the world fully. I felt this way reading Holley's book the first time through. It is a very readable how-to guide that takes you through your position in Christ and uses check-lists and journaling suggestions to help you more fully explore your God-given identity and use it well.

But I picked up the book again after finishing my dissertation. I was in a happier place, and ready to think more positively about life. Out of the suffering season, the book was a welcome companion as I rethink my identity (I am no longer a cancer patient. I am a cancer survivor!). I found Gerth's personable and common-sense approach to this important topic both engaging to read and practical to implement.

Christ commands us to have faith like a child (Matthew 18:3). Gerth encourages us to use our adult understanding to explore our own role in the kingdom of God, yet demonstrates an innocent devotion to our Savior that is refreshing in a world of pain. I admire both her relationship with God and her writing on this important topic.

• Book: You're Already Amazing (Holley Gerth)
• Topic: Our position in Christ
• Sub-topics: Finding your talents and skills and putting them to work wherever you are
• Suggested audience: teen to adult readers, new and experienced Christians
• Cost: $10-13 on Amazon
• Recommendation: 3-4 stars

You're Already Amazing: Wearing Pearls Well

I read the maxim while cancer raged: Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass; it's about learning to dance in the rain (Tiffany Wilson, who spoke in 2007 at the It's My Life foster care conference). As I read the Psalms, this sentiment was echoed again and again in the rejoicing suffering servant's poetry, most eloquently in one of my favorite Psalms, 46, at the end of which David exhorts us to be still and know that He is God. 

The other day, it rained in it's soft April way all day long. The flowers were coated with raindrops. As I sat in my swing looking out at the glory of it all, I noticed the very ordinary chives growing in my kitchen garden, made extraordinarily beautiful by the pearls God had placed on each spear with his laws of gravity and physics. Each water molecule is positively charged on one end, and negatively charged on the other, so opposites attract like the latch and hook of train cars, forming strings of drops, each growing larger until it is heavy enough to drop to the earth. 

As I prepared for my dissertation, I tried to pull my post-baby belly into a pair of, well, let's just call them iron shorts. I am a large raindrop. I am glued to the earth by the gravity of too much weight, and it is a source of embarrassment for me. Holley Gerth addresses this in her book:

Inside a voice whispers, you're not enough. Depending on the day, an extra word might be thrown into the sentence. You're not pretty enough. You're not outgoing enough. You're not likable enough.

I felt all of these things that day. Would they like me enough to let me pass? Was I outgoing enough to slog through a 30 minute presentation about my own work? (I didn't even wonder about pretty. I was so sure it wasn't true.) Once I stepped into the room where I would give my presentation, I was even more embarrassed by a comment made during my introduction to the small group gathered there. My mentor said I had stuck with my studies through "thick, and thick, and thick". I immediately felt my cheeks burn, and I wanted to jump up and explain I had just been following God as best I could! Receiving this compliment seemed so false. But Gerth refutes this in her book, drawing us in to a private conversation she had with God during her exasperated and exhausted prayer. The truth is, this compliment was just telling me that others could see God at work in my life. I didn't need to explain myself, because others have already seen faith at work.

"Lord," I asked, "why do women feel as if we're not enough?" It seemed I heard a whisper in response, "Because they're not." For a moment I thought I had some holy static happening. "Excuse me, God, it sounded like you said we're not enough. Could you repeat that, pretty please?" Again, gently and firmly, "You are not enough." By then I started thinking perhaps my heart had dialed the wrong number and the devil was on the line. But in that pause it seemed God finished the sentence: "You are not enough...in me you are so much more." We are much more than pretty...we are wonderfully made. We are much more than likable...we are deeply loved. We are much more than okay...we are daughters of the King. I think the enemy tricks us into believing we are not enough because he knows that if we discover the truth, we'll be unstoppable.

If you're in the rain storms of life, wear your pearls with a confident heart. Gerth asks us to go beyond Eve's sin, and uncover the other lies that slow us down and destroy our joy in the Lord. What if we said "Yes, God really did say I can do all thing through Christ" (Phil. 4:13). "Yes, God really did say he loves me with an everlasting love." (Jer. 3:13) "Yes, God really did say I am fearfully and wonderfully made." (Ps. 139:14) Everything could change forever (Gerth, p. 42). If you're like me, one of the lies that brings you down is the concern that being confident means you are prideful and selfish. But Gerth points out that insecurity is just a tool to turn us inward - away from God and the truth of our position in Christ. We focus on ourselves, our looks, our housekeeping ability, whether or not we're fully using our talents. Holley says that being confident allows us to "stop looking inward and instead focus upward and outward on Him as well as others." (p. 51)

Another truth leaps off the raindrops. Later that day, the sunshine warmed the earth, and the chives were quickly dried in the breeze. Even dry, with no pearl necklace, the chives are beautiful.

This was a good reminder for me. I think those of us who have faced suffering and trials can become addicted to walking that path. It is hard to bring yourself to look up and enjoy the sunshine. It is hard to shed the pearls of the rainstorm. It is hard because it is scary. As difficult as it is to trust God during the rainstorm, it can be even more difficult to trust that the sunshine is meant for you, that it will last more than a brief moment. You are braced for the next trial to sweep you off your feet. But as I continue into remission, into dissertation success, I've got to shed my survival mode thinking. The path stretches long and dappled with sun in front of me. I need to look up and trust I'm not going to be lashed with the cold wind and the sudden rain. If I live the rest of my life expecting to suffer, I will miss out on so much.

Out of all of history, God chose this time for you to be on earth. He knew the exact second you would enter this world with a cry and change it forever. In between the laundry, the mundane parts of being human, we can forget we're part of a bigger story, a greater plan. And here's the thing: we only get one you. There never has been, and never will be, another you in this world. God doesn't have a backup plan or replacement policy. We don't need a copy of someone else - we need the one and only, original you. How do we live in this place, suspended between history and eternity? How do we find the courage to offer who we are in the middle of the mess? ...He is the I AM. We find God not in the future or in the past. We find Him right here with us, beside us, in us. The temptation will always be to say, "After I...." or "When this happens, then I'll...", but life doesn't work that way. Embrace this moment. Be who you are. (Gerth, p. 180-181; emphasis mine)

Take hold of the fortitude and insight to thrive in whatever season God has you. If you are in the rain, wear your pearls - don't hide them! And find hope in the fact that the sunshine always comes, sooner or later. If you're in the sun, don't be ashamed to be happy dancing in the gentle breeze! Don't wear a false garment of shame, don't let yourself be trapped in thinking this is just a moment before the next storm. God has given you this moment. Be yourself here, today. Because He can't wait to see you dancing - in your rain boots and slicker, or your shorts and tank top!

Back in the beginning of March, I was invited to review Holley Gerth's new book, You're Already Amazing. Life intervened, and although I read the book immediately, I'm just now getting to the writing of the review. This is part 2 of a 3 part series on this simply beautiful book about our position in Christ. (Read part 1 below)

You're Already Amazing: Earthen Vessels

Back in the beginning of March, I was invited to review Holley Gerth's new book, You're Already Amazing. Life intervened, and although I read the book immediately, I'm just now getting to the writing of the review. This is part 1 of a 3 part series on this simply beautiful book about our position in Christ.

My kids love to play "Africa". I find ground up rocks all over the yard, pulverized into dust. I look down at the red clay and I remember the Lord God formed man out of dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life (Genesis 2:7). We're all sons and daughters of Adam, sons and daughters of dust, sons and daughters blessed with the breath of life only God can breathe.

We all start as terracotta, baked earth. It's the simplest way to turn dust into something useful. Clay pots baked at a modest temperature, over fires, in pits, in some of the oldest fireplaces and furnaces known to man. Under the right conditions, terracotta can last a long time. It doesn't crumble easily.

Image credit

The only pottery prior to the 14th century, terracotta was used not only to make pots, bowls, and other household items, but also armies of sculptures, like the famous terracotta warriors of the Qin dynasty of China's first emperor in 210 B.C.

But we aren't sculptures. We're not solid. We're not made to last. 


We are hollow. We're pots. The kind you'll only find shards of when you excavate an ancient civilization. If you live your life like a sculpture, placing your trust in the solidity and beauty of humanity, you will always wonder at your hollowness. The hollowness of your relationships. The hollow and fragile nature of your own health. The hollowness you feel inside when it is just you, alone in the dark with your fears and your insecurities.

We weren't made simply as a work of art, to bring beauty to this world. We were made to be filled up, like a flower pot.

We have a higher purpose - and it's a strange one. It's to bring glory to God through our hollowness, our brokenness.

Paul says we hold the treasure of life in earthen vessels. The book of Job reminds us that we live in houses of clay with foundations of dust. Don't we all begin as terracotta, formed by the Potter out of the dust of the earth, fit for a purpose, but weak and easily broken?

Something magical happens when you glaze terracotta. The porous surface is bound to the glaze by the higher heat of a kiln, and all the pockmarks and weak places the pot was born with are filled and made strong by the glaze. Like the furnace of faith, the heat hardens the glaze and strengthens the pot in an irreversible process that will forever change the pot. Holley Gerth reminds us that, in Christ,

You're not only amazing. You're enough. You're beautiful. You're wanted. You're chosen. You're called. You've got what it takes...not just to survive, but to change the world.

Faith isn't easy. While the glaze protects us from the water damage of rainstorms of life, Satan can still chip away at the beautiful surface of a glazed pot. If we allow him leeway while we struggle to weather the storms, he'll chip away with fervor.

One of the great mysteries - great wonders! - of life is that God will use any cracked pot. In Paul's words, we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us (2 Corinthians 4:7). When we are under fire, it is common for those around us to marvel at the strength we show. During the hardest storms of my life, when I'm left wondering how I'm staying afloat, and my strength and confidence are in shreds, I am at my ugliest, and I have lost sight of my purpose in Christ, I've grown sick of hearing "how do you do it?" or "you're so strong" or "your faith must be enormous". To wear the admiration of others with any pride would be a complete farce. I know beyond any shadow of doubt that the strength I'm apparently demonstrating does not come from within. If I am able to walk through the trial with any grace at all, it is because of Christ's strength and not my own. The suffering Christian knows deeply the truths of Job 4:19, and marvels that God would ever find glory through the faltering faith of the suffering.

How great the patience of God! Look upon man in his life. The very foundation of that cottage of clay in which man dwells, is in the dust, and it will sink with its own weight. We stand but upon the dust. Some have a higher heap of dust to stand upon than others but still it is the earth that stays us up, and will shortly swallow us up. Beauty, strength, learning, not only cannot secure them from death, but these things die with them; nor shall their pomp, their wealth, or power, continue after them. Shall a weak, sinful, dying creature, pretend to be more just than God, and more pure than his Maker? No: instead of quarrelling with his afflictions, let him wonder that he is out of hell. (from Matthew Henry's commentary on Job 4:19)

Sometimes, in the intensity of life's greatest battles, whole sections of pottery are sheared off, and we are left broken. You may be like me, with large sections of your life broken off by disease or hardship. You can't see your beauty anymore, you doubt you are useful for much of anything, certainly no longer fit for service of the most high King. Gerth addresses this in her book as well:

You're not the "it" girl...it's a good thing. When we look at the kingdom of God, there aren't "it girls" (or guys). There are only "is girls". God looks at you and says, "She is loved, accepted and valued. She is created just the way I wanted her to be.

And the amazing thing is, even if we're reduced to one shard of our original beauty, the curve of the pot that God created will still cradle a handful of dirt and plants will grow from that soil. Whether suffering has stripped you of ministry opportunities, career, physical strength or beauty, you're still fit for God's purposes for your life.

In the end, what He wants most is simply us. Our hearts. Our dreams. Our days. Then what we do with our skills is just a natural response - and ordinary activities such as cooking or cleaning become just as sacred as leading a church or going on a mission trip. (Gerth, Who Am I, Really? p. 33)