After returning from my back-to-back weekends of retreats and conferences, I was meeting up with one of my students leaders talking about what had been happening so far this semester. In passing, he happened to mention that someone had just given her life to Christ after starting to come to InterVarsity! I was like "Whoa!" When did I miss out on the news of people getting saved?! I caught up with Alexis at our next large group and then connected with her over coffee to hear more of her story. I've posted some of it below for you!
In the past few months God has completely changed my life around. For years I had been an atheist and had never really known what to think about the idea of a God existing. I never wanted to talk about religion or imagine a higher power knowing everything I ever did or thought. Last month, however, something changed inside of me. With my grandmother in the hospital for lung and skin cancer I had started to get a little weary of my belief in atheism. I didn't want to believe that my grandmother would someday just die. A few of my friends kept telling me about InterVarsity and I started to get curious.
I knew that it was just a group of kids getting together to praise God and worship Him. For a good month and a half I kept thinking about going but always stopped myself, feeling somehow that I didn't belong there. One night I suddenly made myself go to at least find out more. More of what? I'm not sure. I guess I wanted to find out more about God, more about the people who believed and in turn find out more about myself. I like to think that I didnt find God but instead that He found me and led me to InterVarsity and the people I met there. After a while I was completely rearranged. Now I not only attend InterVarsity but I also go to church twice on Sundays, once on Wednesdays and then go to a bible study every Monday night. I would so much rather talk to someone about religion and our relationship with God than anything else.
I wish for everyone to find the same joy that I just recently found in God. There's so much to be happy about in our lives and so much to look forward to when we give up control and let Him take over. Now that He has found me, I cannot imagine going back to the life I had before filled with stress and unhappiness. He truly is here for us when we need him the most. As humans we still fall down on hard times. The difference between a life with God and a life without Him is that when we DO fall, He is there to pick us back up, dust us off, and let us know that He would never put us through anything that we cannot handle.
Praise God for what he is doing in Alexis's life! Stories like this keep me fired up about what God is doing at Randolph-Macon!!
Showing posts with label Love. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Love. Show all posts
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Monday, January 11, 2010
Reflections on Community and the Gospel
This is a reflection I wrote during a quiet time today as I was remembering some interactions I had with students this past fall. I think it's inspiring and challenging to see how far our communities and relationships have come and how far they have yet to go until Jesus comes to restore all things.
My biggest beef with relationships I have and things (you know, material stuff) is that I don't want to give up anything I think I deserve - whether it's stuff, friendships, security, money, etc. The reality, though, is that we gave up our rights to ourselves (and any of those other things) when we decided to follow Jesus. It seems incredibly foolish from a worldly perspective. Why would we allow ourselves to become a doormat to other people? We will be abused and let down and disappointed (in addition to doing those things ourselves). But we can be "fools for God" because our value is held no longer in the view of the world or the esteem others give us - it is in the fact that we are beloved children of God. This knowledge alone should carry us and give us strength to lay down our lives on behalf of others even when they are undeserving, because we ourselves are undeserving of the love God has given us. And so when we are beaten down and taken advantage of, we can take comfort that there is a greater reward for our obedience and sacrifice than for the pride of preserving our own sense of dignity.
There is no dignity in the cross. Crucifixion was the most undignified thing that could happen to a person and yet Jesus went to it with the full knowledge of what he was doing. He went willingly. That's foolish. Yet, his desire to be obedient to His father's will led him to it. Led him to death itself - but on the other side of that death was new life and abundant life for those who would also lay down their lives in obedience to the Father's will. A life that comes from a willingness to sacrifice our own dignity before other people for the sake of loving them.
The Christian life is not about finding the most convenient ways for dealing with other people. It is about radical love - radical because the world (and myself) would call it foolish and offensive, but radical nonetheless because it would take all abuses to show that one is a beloved child of God. The beauty in this is not that we love perfectly, but that Jesus has demonstrated his perfect love to us undeserving people. We are the very people we refuse to love because of how they have hurt us, and yet God has deemed us worthy of His own son's life so that he might know us for eternity. Are not other people then worthy of our own lives - the sacrifice of our pride, emotions, self-righteousness and dignity? The answer should be a resounding yes! But it rakes painfully against the very nature of who we are as humans. We are to value others as greater than ourselves. Love your enemies was not a command to simply withhold evil, but to esteem others as more worthy than ourselves - worthy of our very lives. If we do not, we deny the very love God shows to us in Jesus because we were once enemies of God, but have been brought near because of Jesus sacrifice of love on our behalf.
I have not come near to achieving this love in my own life, but I see how the Holy Spirit is at work in my heart. And I hope that in my relationships with others God will humble me to be undignified for His sake. So, may I be a doormat to others if in that I would be upon the entryway to God's Kingdom!
My biggest beef with relationships I have and things (you know, material stuff) is that I don't want to give up anything I think I deserve - whether it's stuff, friendships, security, money, etc. The reality, though, is that we gave up our rights to ourselves (and any of those other things) when we decided to follow Jesus. It seems incredibly foolish from a worldly perspective. Why would we allow ourselves to become a doormat to other people? We will be abused and let down and disappointed (in addition to doing those things ourselves). But we can be "fools for God" because our value is held no longer in the view of the world or the esteem others give us - it is in the fact that we are beloved children of God. This knowledge alone should carry us and give us strength to lay down our lives on behalf of others even when they are undeserving, because we ourselves are undeserving of the love God has given us. And so when we are beaten down and taken advantage of, we can take comfort that there is a greater reward for our obedience and sacrifice than for the pride of preserving our own sense of dignity.
There is no dignity in the cross. Crucifixion was the most undignified thing that could happen to a person and yet Jesus went to it with the full knowledge of what he was doing. He went willingly. That's foolish. Yet, his desire to be obedient to His father's will led him to it. Led him to death itself - but on the other side of that death was new life and abundant life for those who would also lay down their lives in obedience to the Father's will. A life that comes from a willingness to sacrifice our own dignity before other people for the sake of loving them.
The Christian life is not about finding the most convenient ways for dealing with other people. It is about radical love - radical because the world (and myself) would call it foolish and offensive, but radical nonetheless because it would take all abuses to show that one is a beloved child of God. The beauty in this is not that we love perfectly, but that Jesus has demonstrated his perfect love to us undeserving people. We are the very people we refuse to love because of how they have hurt us, and yet God has deemed us worthy of His own son's life so that he might know us for eternity. Are not other people then worthy of our own lives - the sacrifice of our pride, emotions, self-righteousness and dignity? The answer should be a resounding yes! But it rakes painfully against the very nature of who we are as humans. We are to value others as greater than ourselves. Love your enemies was not a command to simply withhold evil, but to esteem others as more worthy than ourselves - worthy of our very lives. If we do not, we deny the very love God shows to us in Jesus because we were once enemies of God, but have been brought near because of Jesus sacrifice of love on our behalf.
I have not come near to achieving this love in my own life, but I see how the Holy Spirit is at work in my heart. And I hope that in my relationships with others God will humble me to be undignified for His sake. So, may I be a doormat to others if in that I would be upon the entryway to God's Kingdom!
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Lessons Learned from a Scammer
About two weeks ago Morgan and I were having a delicious pizza dinner when we received a knock at the door. It was a young man working for a group called KLMN Reader Services. He said it was a work program to help people get back on their feet and find work (they were selling magazines). When I asked how he got connected with this company, he replied that he had been out of work for a while and saw an ad in the paper for a sales position with them. He seemed like a very nice guy, but I was definitely wary about the whole thing. Perhaps it's the cynic in me, but I just had a bad feeling about the situation. He had a really shady looking clipboard sheet about the company and receipts that didn’t look very legitimate. I ended up giving him a check for $20 for a subscription that’s supposed to go to the hospital down the road.
As soon as he left, though, I went inside and “googled” the company. It seems that I wasn’t the first to be scammed by these people. There’s report after report of people getting ripped off by this company and their workers and every story sounds about the same. People never received magazines, couldn’t get refunds, the phone numbers for the company were not legitimate - they even tried drawing funds of $70,000 from the account of one lady who wrote a check to them.
I immediately had a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. At that point, it wasn't so much about the loss of money, but the violation of trust between two people. I think God uses moments like this, though, to remind me that I'm called to something greater than guilt over the loss of $20. I guess if we hold a right view of our resources, the money was God's to lose anyways.
The lesson for me laid more in the calling we have as Christians to give all people the dignity and respect they are due as children of God, despite their efforts to deceive. My gut reaction was that this guy was a liar, a cheat, and definitely a scammer. All of my common sense told me this. But something else made me stay on the porch a little longer and hear him out, and I think it nothing less than God's work in my own life to change my heart towards others. I suppose that it's not so much about whether or not we avoid injustice being done to us (albeit this was very minor), but more about how we honor God in the ways we interact with and even think about other people. I, too, am a liar, cheat, and scammer . . . that's the reality of my own fallenness. And so, if it were to happen to me again, I hope that I would be wise with the money God has given me, but also extend the same love that God has extended to me.
That's the lesson I learned from a scammer.
As soon as he left, though, I went inside and “googled” the company. It seems that I wasn’t the first to be scammed by these people. There’s report after report of people getting ripped off by this company and their workers and every story sounds about the same. People never received magazines, couldn’t get refunds, the phone numbers for the company were not legitimate - they even tried drawing funds of $70,000 from the account of one lady who wrote a check to them.
I immediately had a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. At that point, it wasn't so much about the loss of money, but the violation of trust between two people. I think God uses moments like this, though, to remind me that I'm called to something greater than guilt over the loss of $20. I guess if we hold a right view of our resources, the money was God's to lose anyways.
The lesson for me laid more in the calling we have as Christians to give all people the dignity and respect they are due as children of God, despite their efforts to deceive. My gut reaction was that this guy was a liar, a cheat, and definitely a scammer. All of my common sense told me this. But something else made me stay on the porch a little longer and hear him out, and I think it nothing less than God's work in my own life to change my heart towards others. I suppose that it's not so much about whether or not we avoid injustice being done to us (albeit this was very minor), but more about how we honor God in the ways we interact with and even think about other people. I, too, am a liar, cheat, and scammer . . . that's the reality of my own fallenness. And so, if it were to happen to me again, I hope that I would be wise with the money God has given me, but also extend the same love that God has extended to me.
That's the lesson I learned from a scammer.
Thursday, November 8, 2007
To Write Love on Her Arms
This is the story that sparked the movement To Write Love on Her Arms (check out the website) that is travelling across the country now. I heard about it in my Relevant Magazine a few issues ago and the story is incredibly compelling . . . it made me cry. I think it's a beautiful and messy picture of what it looks like for us to love all of God's children.
I know the story is a little long, but it's well worth reading.
TO WRITE LOVE ON HER ARMS by Jamie Tworkowski
Pedro the Lion is loud in the speakers, and the city waits just outside our open windows. She sits and sings, legs crossed in the passenger seat, her pretty voice hiding in the volume. Music is a safe place and Pedro is her favorite. It hits me that she won't see this skyline for several weeks, and we will be without her. I lean forward, knowing this will be written, and I ask what she'd say if her story had an audience. She smiles. "Tell them to look up. Tell them to remember the stars."
I would rather write her a song, because songs don't wait to resolve, and because songs mean so much to her. Stories wait for endings, but songs are brave things bold enough to sing when all they know is darkness. These words, like most words, will be written next to midnight, between hurricane and harbor, as both claim to save her.
Renee is 19. When I meet her, cocaine is fresh in her system. She hasn't slept in 36 hours and she won't for another 24. It is a familiar blur of coke, pot, pills and alcohol. She has agreed to meet us, to listen and to let us pray. We ask Renee to come with us, to leave this broken night. She says she'll go to rehab tomorrow, but she isn't ready now. It is too great a change. We pray and say goodbye and it is hard to leave without her.
She has known such great pain; haunted dreams as a child, the near-constant presence of evil ever since. She has felt the touch of awful naked men, battled depression and addiction, and attempted suicide. Her arms remember razor blades, fifty scars that speak of self-inflicted wounds. Six hours after I meet her, she is feeling trapped, two groups of "friends" offering opposite ideas. Everyone is asleep. The sun is rising. She drinks long from a bottle of liquor, takes a razor blade from the table and locks herself in the bathroom. She cuts herself, using the blade to write "FUCK UP" large across her left forearm.
The nurse at the treatment center finds the wound several hours later. The center has no detox, names her too great a risk, and does not accept her. For the next five days, she is ours to love. We become her hospital and the possibility of healing fills our living room with life. It is unspoken and there are only a few of us, but we will be her church, the body of Christ coming alive to meet her needs, to write love on her arms.
She is full of contrast, more alive and closer to death than anyone I've known, like a Johnny Cash song or some theatre star. She owns attitude and humor beyond her 19 years, and when she tells me her story, she is humble and quiet and kind, shaped by the pain of a hundred lifetimes. I sit privileged but breaking as she shares. Her life has been so dark yet there is some soft hope in her words, and on consecutive evenings, I watch the prettiest girls in the room tell her that she's beautiful. I think it's God reminding her.
I've never walked this road, but I decide that if we're going to run a five-day rehab, it is going to be the coolest in the country. It is going to be rock and roll. We start with the basics; lots of fun, too much Starbucks and way too many cigarettes.
Thursday night she is in the balcony for Band Marino, Orlando's finest. They are indie-folk-fabulous, a movement disguised as a circus. She loves them and she smiles when I point out the A&R man from Atlantic Europe, in town from London just to catch this show.
She is in good seats when the Magic beat the Sonics the next night, screaming like a lifelong fan with every Dwight Howard dunk. On the way home, we stop for more coffee and books, Blue Like Jazz and (Anne Lamott's) Travelling Mercies. On Saturday, the Taste of Chaos tour is in town and I'm not even sure we can get in, but doors do open and minutes after parking, we are on stage for Thrice, one of her favorite bands. She stands ten feet from the drummer, smiling constantly. It is a bright moment there in the music, as light and rain collide above the stage. It feels like healing. It is certainly hope.
Sunday night is church and many gather after the service to pray for Renee, this her last night before entering rehab. Some are strangers but all are friends tonight. The prayers move from broken to bold, all encouraging. We're talking to God but I think as much, we're talking to her, telling her she's loved, saying she does not go alone. One among us knows her best. Ryan sits in the corner strumming an acoustic guitar, singing songs she's inspired.
After church our house fills with friends, there for a few more moments before goodbye. Everyone has some gift for her, some note or hug or piece of encouragement. She pulls me aside and tells me she would like to give me something. I smile surprised, wondering what it could be. We walk through the crowded living room, to the garage and her stuff.
She hands me her last razor blade, tells me it is the one she used to cut her arm and her last lines of cocaine five nights before. She's had it with her ever since, shares that tonight will be the hardest night and she shouldn't have it. I hold it carefully, thank her and know instantly that this moment, this gift, will stay with me. It hits me to wonder if this great feeling is what Christ knows when we surrender our broken hearts, when we trade death for life.
As we arrive at the treatment center, she finishes: "The stars are always there but we miss them in the dirt and clouds. We miss them in the storms. Tell them to remember hope. We have hope."
I have watched life come back to her, and it has been a privilege. When our time with her began, someone suggested shifts but that is the language of business. Love is something better. I have been challenged and changed, reminded that love is that simple answer to so many of our hardest questions. Don Miller says we're called to hold our hands against the wounds of a broken world, to stop the bleeding. I agree so greatly.
We often ask God to show up. We pray prayers of rescue. Perhaps God would ask us to be that rescue, to be His body, to move for things that matter. He is not invisible when we come alive. I might be simple but more and more, I believe God works in love, speaks in love, is revealed in our love. I have seen that this week and honestly, it has been simple: Take a broken girl, treat her like a famous princess, give her the best seats in the house. Buy her coffee and cigarettes for the coming down, books and bathroom things for the days ahead. Tell her something true when all she's known are lies. Tell her God loves her. Tell her about forgiveness, the possibility of freedom, tell her she was made to dance in white dresses. All these things are true.
We are only asked to love, to offer hope to the many hopeless. We don't get to choose all the endings, but we are asked to play the rescuers. We won't solve all mysteries and our hearts will certainly break in such a vulnerable life, but it is the best way. We were made to be lovers bold in broken places, pouring ourselves out again and again until we're called home.
I have learned so much in one week with one brave girl. She is alive now, in the patience and safety of rehab, covered in marks of madness but choosing to believe that God makes things new, that He meant hope and healing in the stars. She would ask you to remember.
I know the story is a little long, but it's well worth reading.
TO WRITE LOVE ON HER ARMS by Jamie Tworkowski
Pedro the Lion is loud in the speakers, and the city waits just outside our open windows. She sits and sings, legs crossed in the passenger seat, her pretty voice hiding in the volume. Music is a safe place and Pedro is her favorite. It hits me that she won't see this skyline for several weeks, and we will be without her. I lean forward, knowing this will be written, and I ask what she'd say if her story had an audience. She smiles. "Tell them to look up. Tell them to remember the stars."
I would rather write her a song, because songs don't wait to resolve, and because songs mean so much to her. Stories wait for endings, but songs are brave things bold enough to sing when all they know is darkness. These words, like most words, will be written next to midnight, between hurricane and harbor, as both claim to save her.
Renee is 19. When I meet her, cocaine is fresh in her system. She hasn't slept in 36 hours and she won't for another 24. It is a familiar blur of coke, pot, pills and alcohol. She has agreed to meet us, to listen and to let us pray. We ask Renee to come with us, to leave this broken night. She says she'll go to rehab tomorrow, but she isn't ready now. It is too great a change. We pray and say goodbye and it is hard to leave without her.
She has known such great pain; haunted dreams as a child, the near-constant presence of evil ever since. She has felt the touch of awful naked men, battled depression and addiction, and attempted suicide. Her arms remember razor blades, fifty scars that speak of self-inflicted wounds. Six hours after I meet her, she is feeling trapped, two groups of "friends" offering opposite ideas. Everyone is asleep. The sun is rising. She drinks long from a bottle of liquor, takes a razor blade from the table and locks herself in the bathroom. She cuts herself, using the blade to write "FUCK UP" large across her left forearm.
The nurse at the treatment center finds the wound several hours later. The center has no detox, names her too great a risk, and does not accept her. For the next five days, she is ours to love. We become her hospital and the possibility of healing fills our living room with life. It is unspoken and there are only a few of us, but we will be her church, the body of Christ coming alive to meet her needs, to write love on her arms.
She is full of contrast, more alive and closer to death than anyone I've known, like a Johnny Cash song or some theatre star. She owns attitude and humor beyond her 19 years, and when she tells me her story, she is humble and quiet and kind, shaped by the pain of a hundred lifetimes. I sit privileged but breaking as she shares. Her life has been so dark yet there is some soft hope in her words, and on consecutive evenings, I watch the prettiest girls in the room tell her that she's beautiful. I think it's God reminding her.
I've never walked this road, but I decide that if we're going to run a five-day rehab, it is going to be the coolest in the country. It is going to be rock and roll. We start with the basics; lots of fun, too much Starbucks and way too many cigarettes.
Thursday night she is in the balcony for Band Marino, Orlando's finest. They are indie-folk-fabulous, a movement disguised as a circus. She loves them and she smiles when I point out the A&R man from Atlantic Europe, in town from London just to catch this show.
She is in good seats when the Magic beat the Sonics the next night, screaming like a lifelong fan with every Dwight Howard dunk. On the way home, we stop for more coffee and books, Blue Like Jazz and (Anne Lamott's) Travelling Mercies. On Saturday, the Taste of Chaos tour is in town and I'm not even sure we can get in, but doors do open and minutes after parking, we are on stage for Thrice, one of her favorite bands. She stands ten feet from the drummer, smiling constantly. It is a bright moment there in the music, as light and rain collide above the stage. It feels like healing. It is certainly hope.
Sunday night is church and many gather after the service to pray for Renee, this her last night before entering rehab. Some are strangers but all are friends tonight. The prayers move from broken to bold, all encouraging. We're talking to God but I think as much, we're talking to her, telling her she's loved, saying she does not go alone. One among us knows her best. Ryan sits in the corner strumming an acoustic guitar, singing songs she's inspired.
After church our house fills with friends, there for a few more moments before goodbye. Everyone has some gift for her, some note or hug or piece of encouragement. She pulls me aside and tells me she would like to give me something. I smile surprised, wondering what it could be. We walk through the crowded living room, to the garage and her stuff.
She hands me her last razor blade, tells me it is the one she used to cut her arm and her last lines of cocaine five nights before. She's had it with her ever since, shares that tonight will be the hardest night and she shouldn't have it. I hold it carefully, thank her and know instantly that this moment, this gift, will stay with me. It hits me to wonder if this great feeling is what Christ knows when we surrender our broken hearts, when we trade death for life.
As we arrive at the treatment center, she finishes: "The stars are always there but we miss them in the dirt and clouds. We miss them in the storms. Tell them to remember hope. We have hope."
I have watched life come back to her, and it has been a privilege. When our time with her began, someone suggested shifts but that is the language of business. Love is something better. I have been challenged and changed, reminded that love is that simple answer to so many of our hardest questions. Don Miller says we're called to hold our hands against the wounds of a broken world, to stop the bleeding. I agree so greatly.
We often ask God to show up. We pray prayers of rescue. Perhaps God would ask us to be that rescue, to be His body, to move for things that matter. He is not invisible when we come alive. I might be simple but more and more, I believe God works in love, speaks in love, is revealed in our love. I have seen that this week and honestly, it has been simple: Take a broken girl, treat her like a famous princess, give her the best seats in the house. Buy her coffee and cigarettes for the coming down, books and bathroom things for the days ahead. Tell her something true when all she's known are lies. Tell her God loves her. Tell her about forgiveness, the possibility of freedom, tell her she was made to dance in white dresses. All these things are true.
We are only asked to love, to offer hope to the many hopeless. We don't get to choose all the endings, but we are asked to play the rescuers. We won't solve all mysteries and our hearts will certainly break in such a vulnerable life, but it is the best way. We were made to be lovers bold in broken places, pouring ourselves out again and again until we're called home.
I have learned so much in one week with one brave girl. She is alive now, in the patience and safety of rehab, covered in marks of madness but choosing to believe that God makes things new, that He meant hope and healing in the stars. She would ask you to remember.
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