The middle place

Ok, so, the story continues. The whole chaplaincy experience has transformed my reality. My struggle is with my own family, my own kids, now with an up close personal look at sickness and suffering of children. I am vascillating between hypervigilance and "suck it up, you are so beyond fine". I can't help but relate to parents when I meet them in the hospital rooms. When I see the pained look in their eyes. When I see how much they want to hope that this is just a bump in the road and that soon all will return to normal. For some it will, for others there is a new kind of normal. I can't help but see my own children laying in those beds, sick, in pain, scared.
Other times at home with my own kids after being at the hospital all day, complaints of sniffles and about what we are eating for dinner exacerbate me. Don't they know how healthy they are? Don't they realize how blessed they are to be eating food with a fork instead of being fed through a tube, sitting at a table instead of laying in a bed, walking and running and feeling the wind on their skin instead of confined to one room or one building?
This is my struggle. I am trying to find the middle place. That is where these two realities intertwine and mesh, where one makes the other more real.
Today is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent, forty days, excluding Sundays, between now and Easter. Jesus spent 40 days in the desert before he was tempted by Satan. Did this time in the desert, this time of self denial and solitude make Jesus more real? More human? Does suffering make us human? Jesus himself was the intertwining of God and man, fully God, fully human, Jesus is the middle place.

Balance, huh?

This is something I struggle with. I do too much sometimes, I know. I tend to take on a lot, I know. Truth is I do say no to things, I just say yes to more. I have come to better understand who I am and who I am not and therefore what I should not put my energies toward.
Everyone seems to be looking for balance, work, family, play, church, etc. I don't want that. For there to be "balance" means I am not 100 % sold out for Jesus. That means giving everything I do my all, my best, for his glory. Jesus took his time away from the crowds to pray and to rest but he always went right back to work. I don't think there really is a separate compartment for everything. With God at the center all else in my life is touched by Him, His love for me and mine for Him. That is balance! To have great balance physically a strong core is necessary. We all hear talk about exercises to strengthen our core, right? If your love for God is at the center, the core, what are you doing to strengthen your relationship with Him? How will that likely affect the rest of your life?
Just something to think about...

Proverbs 16:11Honest scales and balances are from the LORD; all the weights in the bag are of his making.

This resonates with my journey...

Ok so I have been talking about how incapable I feel to minister to people in the situation I find myself in as a chaplaincy intern. I read in scripture when I am weak, he is strong, that he will equip me for every good work and I believe it all. I have experienced this first hand, yet the human part of me cannot help but be anxious and hesitant and frankly wanting to run and hide some days. This devotional reading came to me today. Watchman Nee wrote the following and it says it all:

I believe many people are so rich and strong that they give no ground for God to work. I frequently recall the words, "helpless and hopeless." I must tell God, "all that I have is yours, I myself have nothing. Apart from you I am truly helpless and hopeless." We need to have such a dependent attitude toward God that it is as if we cannot inhale or exhale without Him. In this way we shall see that our power as well as our holiness all comes from Him. Oh how God delights in seeing us coming hopeless and helpless to Him. A brother once asked me, "What is the condition for the working of the Spirit?" To which I replied that . . . the Holy Spirit must first bring us to a place where we can do nothing by ourselves.

"My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power, so that your faith might not rest on men's wisdom, but on God's power" (1 Corinthians 2:3-5).

It's a hard place to find yourself but truly find yourself you will!

We are fragile...

The theme of these last weeks has come to a head in the last two days. Life can change in an instant. Your normal can become a new kind of normal in the blink of an eye. We really do not think about how fragile we are, what an incredible gift life is everyday, how blessed we are to have kids that get dirty playing outside so we have do use stain remover and do incredible amounts of laundry, while some parents are praying for their child to leave a hospital bed, to utter one word, or walk, to even see their next birthday. It can all change in a blink. A new diagnosis, a car accident, a sudden illness. We take for granted that tomorrow will be like today, that we will all open our eyes, and step out of bed in the morning. Sigh...
Sitting with a family whose eleven year old, that has never been in a hospital since the day she was born, and holding their hands, and listening to their fears, shock and disbelief while they hear their daughter has a brain tumor that requires immediate surgery, well, that can change your reality. We all know intellectually that this happens, but imagine yourself in the room getting the diagnosis with your child. It happens every day, several times a week, all over the world. We take so much for granted. We take each other for granted. If we all just loved each other more. If...
Hug your kids, your friends and your family a little tighter. Appreciate the hardworking people that make your life easier in whatever capacity. Well, I could go on for days, but Jesus said it all when he said, "Love one another".

Foolishness and Obedience

What does one have to do with the other, this foolishness and obedience?
I was talking to a group tonight about discipleship and disciplemaking. There came a time of questions and answers toward the end and the question came up as to how I got into CPE, Clinical Pastoral Education, working as an intern in the chaplaincy department of a local children's hospital this semester. I have gotten some "bless your hearts" and some "wow, that's greats" but honestly I don't know how I got here. I don't know how I am halfway through my second year of seminary, and frankly how I stand up and talk to 100s of people or pray with and for them either. Totally honest, I don't know how.
God gets all the credit here. All I have tried to do is be obedient. To walk toward Him and His ways. Most of the time, totally honest, I am absolutely terrified. I keep looking around for Aaron to speak for me!
Call me a fool for believing God is always going to show up, or for walking forward in obedience when I feel completely incapable of doing what He has called me to, but this I know. The more I have to rely on Him for every single thing the better right? For most things in life this is easier said than done. We'd all rather stay in our comfort zones because there we know what to expect and what resources we have, etc. But outside of our comfort zone...the place I seem to live these days...we are more or less forced to rely on God. It is here that He can do His best work, when we are fully surrendered, right? I am counting on it!

Phillipians 4:13 I can do everything through him who gives me strength.