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Broken bread & poured out wine

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Roughly once a month I have the privilege of serving communion at Scum of the Earth Church. According to our church’s tradition, I serve with another person and we stand side by side, holding either the bread or the wine. As our fellow Scum come to partake, they break off a piece of bread then dip it in the wine as my fellow servant and I say, “This is the body of Christ, broken for you.” “This is the blood of the Christ, shed for you.”

Sometimes it’s easy for my brain to switch into auto-pilot while serving communion, after uttering “This is the blood of Christ, shed for you.”, “This is the blood of Christ, shed for you.” “This is the blood of Christ…” for the tenth or fifteenth time. While my mouth utters, “This is the blood of Christ, shed for you.” my brain is drinking in all of my surroundings. As my mind slips away, I begin tapping my foot to the beat of the worship band singing behind me. While I stand there, there are wonderfully quirky people to watch, and of course I usually am keeping an eye on who is coming down the communion line, trying to gauge whether or not we grabbed enough bread or gluten free crackers. I become distracted & my brain switches into auto-pilot, causing my mouth to say those same nine words over and over again without actually considering them.

But Sunday as I uttered the phrases of communion and simultaneously people watched, I was caught off guard by something. As I stood there, wine goblet laced in my fingers, some of the liquid dripped off someone’s chunk of bread and drizzled down my fingers before dropping at my feet in the dimly lit room.

This is the blood of Christ, shed for you.

I don’t know why, but that time the words resonated in my soul as I looked into the eyes of a young woman who I’ve never seen before and said them.

~

Lately I’ve been incredibly guilty of zoning out and auto-piloting my way through life like I do when I serve communion. I wake up, wash up, drive to work, teach my kids, then head from work to potluck/bible study/gospel community/school/home without even thinking about it. At this point, I feel like I could complete my lather-rise-repeat routine in my sleep.

Saturday, a day before the cool wine running down my fingers snapped me out of my proverbial daydream state, I got another wake up call. This last weekend one of my best friends and I decided to road trip to see another friend up in Vail. On an adventurous whim Saturday afternoon, I applied for a summer job as a nanny up in Vail.

Much to my own personal shock, I got an e-mail back almost immediately requesting that I set up a time for a phone interview sometime this week. As I read the e-mail to my girlfriends, I squealed with excitement. Could I really have the opportunity to move from my tiny apartment in the city up into one of the most beautiful cities in Colorado for the summer? This was great! I would get to spend time in my beloved mountains before my move to Texas, I would have an opportunity to be outdoors (and away from the dreaded 100 degree Denver summer heat), and I would be able to have the adventure that I’ve been craving in the midst of my boring daily routine.

And then it hit me.

Holy crap. I am talking about giving up my cute little home that I have worked so hard to make my own, packing all of my stuff into boxes, and shoving them into a storage unit. Not only that, but I would be forfeiting my cherished time off, and the ability to see my friends and family whenever I chose. Am I really willing to do that?

As I sat in my rocking chair in said tiny apartment the next morning, I looked around. I can’t give up all of this. I have my antique book collection, my typewriter, my pictures aligned exactly how I like them, the mural that I painted on my wall… I can’t do it. I can’t give the life I love up. I just can’t.

Just about as quickly as I began to internally panic, the story of the Israelites and their unleavened bread from Exodus popped into my mind.

In Exodus 12, God commands the Israelites to give up leavened bread. He knows that He is about to move mightily amongst the Egyptians through the plague of the first born, and that when Pharaoh releases the Israelites from captivity, that they will need to leave for the Promised Land immediately. They wouldn’t have time to worry about letting their bread rise; they will simply need to worry about following where the Lord was leading them.

~

As I stood there with the communion glass in my hand with the drops of wine at my feet Sunday night, I looked over at the bowl of bread in my friend’s hand and remembered this story that I had been thinking about just six hours earlier.

Just like the Israelites, I need to follow where God is leading me– regardless of whether that is Vail, Pueblo, Denver, or Dallas… I need to go and I need to be free to do so when the time comes. I need to break free from my restricting (yet oddly comforting) daily routine and follow God instead of staying in my own little safety zone.

So over the next few weeks I’ll be separating my necessities from my clutter and packing up my apartment in faith. I don’t know where I’m going, but I know that it will be beautiful. My Texas born friend insists that “The Great Country of Texas” is the promised land; maybe I need to look for my milk and honey down there… Or maybe I will find it in the Rocky Mountains. Who knows…

All of this to say, for the Lenten Season I am giving up leavened bread in a spiritual pursuit of the “spur of the moment” adventure that I feel God calling me to. My comfort zone is, well comfortable… But I know in the depths of my heart that I want God and His Will for my life far more than I want a comfortable tiny apartment for my bread rise in or a lather-rinse-repeat routine where I accidentally forget to include Him because I’m so wrapped up in my everyday life.

Is God calling you to lay something down for Him, that He might give you something else this Lenten Season?

~

31 During the night Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron and said, “Up! Leave my people, you and the Israelites! Go, worship the Lord as you have requested. 32 Take your flocks and herds, as you have said, and go. And also bless me.”

33 The Egyptians urged the people to hurry and leave the country. “For otherwise,” they said, “we will all die!” 34 So the people took their dough before the yeast was added, and carried it on their shoulders in kneading troughs wrapped in clothing. 35 The Israelites did as Moses instructed and asked the Egyptians for articles of silver and gold and for clothing. 36 The Lord had made the Egyptians favorably disposed toward the people, and they gave them what they asked for; so they plundered the Egyptians.

37 The Israelites journeyed from Rameses to Sukkoth. There were about six hundred thousand men on foot, besides women and children. 38 Many other people went up with them, and also large droves of livestock, both flocks and herds. 39 With the dough the Israelites had brought from Egypt, they baked loaves of unleavened bread. The dough was without yeast because they had been driven out of Egypt and did not have time to prepare food for themselves.”

(Exodus 12:31-39)

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Washing the feet of the weirdos

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If you’ve ever spent any time with me, I can guarantee that you know at least two things about me. The first being that I spend nearly all of my free time in coffee shops. The second being that my life is weird.

Maybe my own personal weirdness sends out a vibe to all the other weirdos in the world that screams, “Hey! This lady is crazy so come do all your crazy stuff in her vicinity!” Or maybe I have some sign on my back that is invisible to me but that invites people to lose their ever-loving minds in my presence… Either way, my love for coffee and my attractiveness to insanity came to a head yesterday afternoon in an absolutely hilarious way.

I had yesterday off from work because Thursday night was the Street School‘s ginormous annual fundraiser. After sleeping in until roughly one o’clock (Go ahead, judge me.) I got cleaned up and biked over to my favorite coffee shop in Five Points. (For those of you non-Denver-ites, Five Points is a notoriously terrible part of town that has been known for its random violence, gang territories, homeless population, & drug problem for the last thirty years or so. For those of you who are related to me and are currently freaking out, calm down.)

I absolutely adore Purple Door Coffee. Not only do they play my favorite music, have comfy couches, and serve delicious coffee, but they have an incredibly unique mission. When the owners, Madison and Mark, moved to Denver they knew that they wanted to open a coffee shop in a neighborhood like Five Points because their plan was to employ at-risk street youth who had a greater vision for their lives than to live in poverty forever.

Unfortunately however, their vision and their location clash sometimes simply due to the fact that the cute coffee shop stands out like a lit candle in the midst of a rather rundown neighborhood. Since their grand opening a year ago, they’ve had bricks thrown through their windows, they’ve been harassed, and they’ve dealt with unique situations like the one I witnessed yesterday.

Anyway, while I was locking up my bike, I watched a man who appeared to be homeless walk past me and into Purple Door– a pretty normal occurrence given the neighborhood.

About ten minutes later, I had ordered my latte, chatted with Madi, and had taken my usual seat in one of the white comfy chairs. I watched Mark as he calmly knocked on the door of the men’s restroom, sweetly telling the man who had walked in before me, that it had been about ten minutes, and that other people needed to use the restroom. No answer came from within the bathroom and Mark just looked at me and sighed before walking away. Without thinking much about it, I opened my school work and got down to business.

About ten minutes later, Mark knocked on the door again. The man inside yelled something that no one on our side of the door could understand and Mark walked away yet again. About fifteen minutes later, Mark walked back over to the door, knocked, and kindly asked the man once more to come out of the bathroom.

With a loud crack, the door swung open, and honestly I wish I would’ve had my camera out so I could’ve captured the stunned look on Mark’s face.

The man I had seen roughly half an hour earlier with hair about as long as my own, walked nonchalantly past Mark and out the side door… No big deal, right? Ha! Wrong.

As he walked out of the bathroom, clumps of hair that had obviously been patchily shaved off this man’s head fell to the floor forming a bizarre trail out the side door.

His head? Nearly bald. The bathroom and anything he had touched? Completely covered in tufts of long black hair.

Once the shock of the moment wore off, Mark and I made eye contact and simultaneously burst out into laughter.

How else do you handle something so weird? The homeless gentleman was gone, leaving behind only a reminder that Purple Door Coffee and its surrounding environment weren’t quite cut from the same cloth.

As Madison swept up the clumps of hair in the lobby and Mark tackled the bathroom laughing to himself, I was struck with how similar the crew of PDC is to Jesus. Not once did they grumble about the filth that they were left to clean up, nor did they say, “Well, we obviously made a mistake coming into this neighborhood. We should close this shop and open a new one in a place that actually seems to have its crap together.”

No. They are walking through the filth of Five Points to reach its people for Jesus, just like Jesus worked to literally clean the filth off the feet of the disciples in John 13 or how how we permanently cleansed us of the filth of our sins through His death.

Life isn’t pretty or clean, and people are most definitely weird, but just like Jesus, we as Christians have been called to step outside of our comfort zones and love the weird, the filthy, the unstable, and the broken by washing their feet.

What a beautiful calling it is to love our world, as Christ has first loved us.

Whose feet are you washing today? Where is God using you in your community?

When He had washed their feet and put on His outer garments and resumed His place, He said to them, “Do you understand what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you.”
(John 13:12-15 ESV)

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Perfect Weakness

I’m a hypocrite when it comes to counseling.

If working with students who have been victims of abuse has taught me one thing, that would be it.

You can ask any one of my students and they’ll tell you that I am all about sitting on floors in empty hallways and letting them verbally process their lives and trauma when they can’t focus in class or simply are having an “off” day.

I do this so frequently with some of my kids that last week one of them sweetly asked me, “Miss, don’t you ever get tired of listening to stories about other peoples’ lives?”

And the truth is that I don’t. I love that part of my job the most. I love sitting on floors, listening, hugging, and reassuring them that they can bring anything to me in confidence.

But when it comes down to it, I’ve realized that I’m terrible at doing this myself.

Oh sure, I can hold a deep conversation with my girl friends about God, love, and what life is like today and what it might be like ten years from now… But there are some things that I simply am too afraid to verbalize, even though I know that I would be speaking in confidence with my closest friends on their bedroom or kitchen floors.

I suffer from crippling anxiety. About ninety-five percent of the time, you wouldn’t know this simply by looking at me; God has truly done miraculous work to bring me out of this through the last few years… But over the course of the last week, it has returned.

I know exactly what triggered it and I know that my inability to talk openly about the source with the people closest to me is only feeding into my anxiety and the accompanying restlessness and insomnia.

Every night for the last week I have had nightmares. I’ve woken up in tears; restless and fearful for my safety and obviously less than rejuvenated to face the day ahead.

Deep down I know that I need to speak up, for my own sanity, for the sanity of the thousands of people like me, but when I open my mouth to explain what I’m currently feeling or what I felt five, seven, or even nine years ago… Nothing comes out.

It’s like fear has me by the neck and I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe because I’m afraid of being judged. I’m afraid of people not believing me. I’m afraid that the nightmares and panic attacks won’t go away if I say something– if it becomes ‘real’ again. I’m afraid of the repercussions of the truth.

I’m simply afraid.

And to be honest, as a Christian woman, I’m a bit ashamed that I have let fear root so deeply in my heart.

In my heart I know that “Perfect Love casts out all fear.”

I’ve memorized the lyrics to the Chris Tomlin song and know that I have no one to fear because my God is “for” me.

I have read and re-read all of the verses in the New Testament that talk about God overcoming fear with His loving & powerful Spirit, and yet, I still laid on my bed tonight with my blanket over my face trying to remember how to breathe.

But tonight, as I laid there, I realized something.

This can’t be the way that I handle this any longer. I can’t just “wait” for these feelings to fade away, as I have in the past when they’ve risen up and taken over my life.

I can’t continue to allow myself to pretend like I’m perfectly healthy at work while I am waking myself up at night from screaming in my sleep.

This has to stop.

So students, if you’re reading this, know that you have inspired me to seek help. Your strength and openness has taught me that I can’t continue living like this, even if it is only for a few weeks at a time every few months, or years.

Anyone else reading this, I would genuinely appreciate your prayers over the next several days, weeks, and months. I know that whatever “this” is, that the healing process is going to be messy.

Speaking up is going to make me weaker than I already am, yet becoming weaker is a pre-requisite for becoming stronger in this case. Through this I will not become stronger on my own, or stronger because I will be “healthier” in the long run. No. I will be stronger because I will have laid my greatest fear down in front of God and said, “This is Yours because I can’t carry this burden on my own anymore.” And He will become my strength.

But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

(2 Corinthians 12:9)

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Treasure

Wednesday morning one of the other English teachers read Matthew 6 during morning devotions, but she put her own “DSS” spin on it. It went something like this:

Do not store up treasures for yourself on earth, where drug dealers and gang violence destroy and where thieves may rob you of them; but lay up treasures in heaven for yourself, where neither crackheads nor Crips can touch them, where unfinished homework will not matter, and where thieves cannot break in and steal your classroom keys, iPhones, or vehicles. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Matthew 6:19-21 [Well, kind of…])

The last three weeks have been rough at the school. We’ve dealt with suicidal students, death threats of several different natures, and students being under the influence of just about every substance you can think of while at school. The police have been at our school so frequently that my principal is beginning to recognize police officers and learn their names.

Our staff has been robbed, screamed at, cursed out, and belittled. Doors have been slammed in our faces and many tears have been shed by my co-workers, my students, and myself.

There have been days when teaching seems secondary to simply surviving the day and when my lunch hour could not come fast enough.

I ended my work week last week sobbing in the girls’ bathroom, begging God to change his mind and move me to Dallas early. I can’t do this anymore God. I quit. I don’t want to play anymore. I just want to work in a “normal” high school where students take my word as law and don’t scream at me… or maybe a “normal” nine to five job that wouldn’t leave me emotionally exhausted every single day would be nice. I’m sick of pouring my heart into students who watch me being vulnerable with them and then decide to attack me when I am feeling the lowest… I’m sick of feeling discombobulated and anxious. I can’t do this anymore!

I wish I could say that I was the only one in the school that had a conversation with God like this, but unfortunately I know that the majority of my co-workers have had some variation of this moment within the last few weeks as well.

At first, I tried everything “Christian-y” I could think of to make these feelings and the hurt in my heart go away.

I prayed throughout my planning periods and my drives to and from work.

I had morning coffee dates with Jesus and spent time in the Word everyday.

I read verses about love and patience and begged God to make me His vessel.

I talked to my roommates and tried to process everything in a Godly manner so I wouldn’t inadvertently spew my emotions all over my students.

I tried to walk in the front doors of the school everyday in the power of Christ.

And yet, NOTHING changed. 

(Que my instant gratification American mind set…)

In fact, the more I tried to force myself to believe that God was going to do something to change the crappy circumstances at the school, the worse the situations seemed to get. And as the situations complicated and multiplied, I began to feel like God had hung us out to dry. By last Friday afternoon, I felt completely abandoned.

All I wanted was a work day without police contact or a student behavioral e-mail. I didn’t feel like that was too much to ask… Or maybe a day where I could actually teach something instead of dealing with shenanigans in my classroom… Now, that would be living!

As I tried to cope with/through all of the crappy situations going on, building relationships, praying for my kids, and having deep conversations (my favorite parts of my job, mind you) were shoved onto the back burner while I begged my students to complete their vocabulary packets and disregard the fact that my phone was buzzing every five minutes with e-mail updates from my co-workers and boss, or the fact that the cops had just driven past my classroom window, yet again.

In a weird way that only teachers will ever really understand, classwork, journal entries, and a fluid routine became the things that I was longing for and treasuring in my heart. Comfort and routine had become functional idols in my life and the more I sought after those things, the less I focused on God…

But in His very weird, “God way” I got a phone call from one of my original Street School students last night. Chris and I have gotten to be close over the last 4 1/2 years that I have taught / nagged / mentored him, and within minutes of talking to me, he knew that something was wrong.

He patiently listened to me list off the slew of problems at the school and then calmly said something to the effect of, “You don’t seem like you have your priorities in order… Things like this have always happened, but you guys never let that get to you. You need to focus on God and the things that will bring these “new kids” to Him. The ‘family’ part of the school and all that will follow, but you need to keep your eyes on God and His work first.”

“For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

I had gotten so wrapped up in the chaos and begun treasuring such minute things that my heart had fallen away from God.

So instead of focusing on the chaos (which has finally begun clear up a bit; praise God!) I really tried to realign my heart with God’s today and treasure the things that will ultimately matter in the end: talking to my kids about Jesus, loving them like Jesus loves us, and offering grace as I have been offered grace by my Father.

These things should be my treasures, not the lack of behavioral e-mails, or the number of vocabulary packets that have been turned in, or even my comfortable daily routine.

I still feel like I have a long way to go (and several battles directly ahead of me) in regards to destroying the “treasures” of comfort and routine in my life, but today, for the first time in over a month, I sat in my car after work and cried happy tears– tears because I love my job and my students. Tears of relief.

Are you treasuring something instead of the Kingdom of God right now?

Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal.For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

(Matthew 6:19-21 [For real])

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“Turn the other cheek”

Happy-New-Year-2014

I’m typically not big on New Year’s resolutions, or really the concept of “starting fresh” when the clock strikes midnight on December 31st/January 1st. Maybe I’m too cynical or too much of a realist, but the whole thing just seems silly to me, because deep down we all know that nothing resets when the clock chimes. I mean seriously people, we’re not Cinderella & this is not a Disney movie. (If my sister is reading this, I can guarantee that she is semi-frowning right now… Sorry Cam.)

Anyway, several years ago I went out to lunch with two of the wonderful women that I have the privilege of working with at the Street School. Both of them are older than me; one is in her late 50’s with children around my age and the other is in her early 40’s with kiddos in elementary school and junior high. As I sat and listened to them talk, Carey (the one with the younger kids) mentioned that she had a word for the year, and at that point her word was “war” because of all of the battles she felt like she was going through to come out a better mother, wife, and woman of God. (P.S. She’s also a phenomenal author, blogger, and life coach. Check her out here!)

That afternoon I sat in our booth at Chili’s, listening to the conversation and I got to thinking: If I had a word for each year, what would it be?

At the time, it was near the end of 2011, which was by far one of the roughest years of my life. Henceforth my word for the remainder of that year became “survival”.

In 2012, I followed suit and my word was “rebirth”. When 2013 rolled around I felt like my word was supposed to be “growth”.

Looking back on the last three years, I can see exactly where those words came into play in my life and shaped me into the woman I am today. When the clock struck midnight and drew 2011 to a close, my sister and I both looked at each other and burst into tears, gasping, “I survived. We survived. I never thought it would be over, but it is.” Slowly, 2012 brought rebirth into my life through my move back to the city, truly reconnecting with God, and establishing myself within two healthy, growing Christian communities. In 2013, God pushed me to my limits spiritually, personally, and professionally, and from that came growth that I never would have fathomed last January.

So this week, as I sat and prayed about what my word was on New Year’s Eve, I instantly knew that 2014 was going to necessitate a phrase instead of a single word: Turn the other cheek.

By no means would I consider myself an outright angry or hostile person anymore (Thanks for fixing that one Jesus). However, when my personal and familial life went to crap at the beginning of Christmas vacation, I realized that I suck at turning the other cheek. When I am verbally attacked and pushed and put down and then attacked some more, I start off calm and collected, ready to turn the other cheek, but eventually I snap and attack back… and it’s bad. I’m quick with my speech and if I don’t intentionally use my powers for “good instead of evil”, well, things get REALLY messy REALLY quickly. Maybe this is a byproduct of the culture I was raised in, or maybe it’s just human nature, but either way I have realized that harsh words in response to harsh actions are unfruitful.

So this year, I am making Matthew 5:38-42 my mantra:

38 “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ 39 But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. 40 And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. 41 And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. 42 Give to the one who begs from you, and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you.

This year I am going to learn to hold my tongue, smile, and let God do me fighting for me. Even if it kills me, I will be nicer to those who persecute me and cut me down. I will love people; I’m not giving myself an alternative. It’s not going to be easy, but I know that it has to be done in order to save my floundering relationships and rebuild ones that have completely fallen apart.

Where is God working on your heart? What will your word be for 2014?

19 Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; 20 for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.” (James 1:19-20)