Our God is Greater

I stood in the Easter service this morning amazed. Amazed at God. Amazed at His faithfulness. Amazed at the way He knows me so intimately. Amazed at how He speaks Truths to my heart when I’m not even conscious of the lies needing to be refuted. Amazed at the way He meets me where I’m at and affirms and confirms. Amazed at the depth to which He refreshes and restores and fills. And I love that He did that today before I was even dry or worn out or empty.

During my last two months in the US, I have seen so much brokenness—all shapes and sizes and depths….

My cousins are making the tough choice to home-school because all of the public school options in their town are downright scary places.

In that small, western town and in the church, there is also a strangely high concentration of broken families and broken relationships—so many grandparents caring for their grandchildren, struggling marriages, hurting people. The Kingdom seems to be so small.

Then there’s the drug house on my mom’s bus route. The couple has nine children (and counting…), all with some sort of special needs and the father is abusive.

I see years and years of family conflict that seems to have become the unchangeable norm;

people living out the repercussions of their bad choices, some completely unaware;

youth group friends that are still running from God;

negative ethnic stereotypes that sometimes seem so true;

friends dealing with cancer and infertility and the hard road to healing;

and the trajectory of health care and morality and marriage and so-called “freedom” is frightening.

Is this the same country I left so many years ago?

And so, travel weary and with all of this weighing on my heart, I entered Holy Week. Maundy Thursday and Good Friday were especially hard as the questions and doubts and sadness lingered below the surface. I wasn’t quite sure what was going on in my heart, I just felt unusually tired and overwhelmed with unarticulated emotion. As I opened my Bible on Holy Saturday, I just stared at the pages. They had laid Jesus in the tomb, then…. nothing…. end of paragraph…. end of chapter…. silence….

I think God allowed me to sit in that “ending” emotionally. He let me sit in the midst of all the yuckiness and unresolved brokenness, feeling the tangible waiting of today and the “not yet” of Jesus’ reign. What had those last words, “It is finished” meant? Is that it? Is He really enough? Is that all that the promised “Kingdom coming” is? What, then, are we to do with all the wounds and pain, unfulfilled dreams and fading hope? I could only groan and listen to John Waller’s “While I’m Waiting,” which helped me surrender afresh to the God I know to be Good and Loving even though I cannot see it in the right-now.

However, the surrender of my heart has never been a one-time thing and this weekend was no exception. In the shower this morning, I began wondering if all that have seen and processed and heard from God in the past few months was real or not. The promises and the hope almost seemed irrelevant and unrealistic in light of the brokenness around me. Was my heart and my trust running completely off base?

Then, I saw this in the window this morning…. 

The sun rising…. over the hilltop…. through the brown, unleafed branches…. shining right through the cross. Isn’t that exactly how it is?!

Chris Tomlin articulates this Truth beautifully in the song we sang at church this morning.

Water You turned into wine
Opened the eyes of the blind
There's no one like You, none like You
Into the darkness You shine
Out of the ashes we rise
There's no one like You, none like You

Our God is greater, our God is stronger
God You are higher than any other
Our God is Healer, awesome and power
Our God, Our God...
[ Lyrics from: http://www.lyricsty.com/chris-tomlin-our-god-is-greater-lyrics.html ]
God spoke the Truth of His amazing, unchanging character over my heart’s questions today, this Resurrection Day. He is greater than the brokenness, stronger than the relational struggles. He is Healer for the wounds, awesome and powerful over the doubts and rebellion and unbelief. The burial of Jesus was NOT the end of the story! The stone has been rolled away. He is Risen! He is Alive and relevant and Real! He forgives and it is complete. He brings life and it is full.

….I am so thankful….

And because I love the imagery....another beautiful picture of the way the Resurrection affects our daily life from the Moravian church graveyard in Old Salem, NC.

 

Falling in Love: The Invitation, part 2

(Scripture passages are a combination of the ESV and The Message)

           On day two of my weekend away, God reminded me of a passage from Song of Solomon that I read in the introduction of Ruth Myers’ The Satisfied Heart a few days before. God met me in incredibly deep ways through this chapter in His Word. He first spoke to my heart as I meditated on the phrases. Then, because He knows me so well, He allowed me to see and touch these Truths in vibrant and tangible ways. The truths came to life and made their way deep into my heart as I explored the city and hiked atop what was left of the Great Wall on its way to meet the sea. 

Yes, God surprised me with an adventure-hike! Little did I know when I started out that the path I was to take wouldn’t look like the Great Wall I knew. I was sort of expecting, from the symbol on the map, a path like that those famous photos that everyone has seen in coffee table books. No, this was more like a long, snaking mound of dirt with a path on top, slowly making its way to the horizon. But God knew that I would enjoy this kind of hike much more! I wasn’t expecting it and it felt like a gift from God who was teaching me so deeply about His love for me. As I walked along, maybe a little taller and head held a little higher than before, I felt almost as if I was on a first date. J Was I blushing at this perfectly chosen gift just for me from Abba? A little.

I am just a wildflower picked from the plains of Sharon, a lotus blossom from the valley pools (Song of Solomon 2.1)

            I have often felt this way, especially in my relationship with God. One among many, not often singled out. Maybe beautiful, but still unnoticed, not standing out special. I struggle with the longings deep inside for intimacy and exclusivity. I know, in my head, that these needs should and can be met by God, but the feeling of having them met often eludes me. There are places in my heart that don’t believe it’s possible for them to be satisfied in God. No matter how many times I hear of other’s experiences, or read in books, or even Scripture, that portion of unbelief lingers.

             

           A while back, God started digging into these places of unbelief in my heart. I remember studying the attributes of God in my Systematic Theology class and it just dawned on me—literally like new morning sunlight after the long darkness—that God is bigger and different than I thought. God is Love. God is also eternal, all-present, all-powerful, unchanging, free, infinite….and so His Love must also be characterized by these things. If God is Love, and God is also all those other things we discover about Him in Scripture, then His Love must also be characterized by those things. His Love is infinite, eternal, unchanging, all-present but never diminished, all-powerful, and free. 

            And, in His freedom, He chose a wildflower from the wildflower-filled plains, a lotus blossom from the valley pool. He singled me out from among many and chose me.

A lotus blossoming in a swamp of weeds, that’s my beloved among the girls in the village (Song of Solomon 2.2).

            Not only did He choose me, but He sees me as different from the rest, a lily among brambles, a lotus in the swamp. Exclusivity. He is able to satisfy and fulfill this longing!

           

At times, that path I was hiking along the top of the ancient Wall seemed to disappear into a thick patch of brambles and thorn bushes. And yet, it continued to wind carefully around the bushes and stretch faithfully ahead. It was while walking through one of these briar patches that I first noticed it. A wild purple crocus, its pointed petal and yellow-centered beauty, breaking into the otherwise gray and brown of the brush. The stark contrast made this brightly-colored treasure even more beautiful, more precious.

            And, God spoke to me…

Remember yesterday, from the Song of Solomon, “As a lily among brambles, so is my love for you among the young women.” I see you, gaze at you, as exclusively as that lily is among the brambles. Do you see? Do you get it?

           

 It took my breath away. I took about a hundred photos of the lilies/crocuses dotting the otherwise barren and unremarkable pathway. I worshipped and blushed and thanked and was overwhelmed with amazement at each movement of the shutter. Incredible! Not only is God’s love for me this big, this special, this beautiful, but the way He used to show me this spoke just as, if not more, deeply to my heart. On a hike. With a flower. Able to capture the sight with my camera. Another perfectly chosen gift just for me from Abba! He knows and loves me so intimately, so deeply, so well.

 

As an apricot tree stands out in the forest, my lover stands above the young men in town. All I want is to sit in his shade, to taste and savor his delicious love [Psalm 27.4, 63]. He took me home with him for a festive meal, but his eyes feasted on me. His banner over me was love. (Song of Solomon 2.3-4)

            As different as an apricot or an apple tree is from the others in the forest, so is God’s love different from earthly men. God showed me this as I hiked as well. It was springtime and it was so easy to see the starked contrast between an apricot tree, full of white and pink and fuchsia flowers against a backdrop of brown twigs tipped in green!

The voice of my Beloved! Behold he comes, leaping over the mountains, bounding over the hills. My Beloved is like a gazelle or a young stag. Behold, there he stands behind our wall, gazing through the windows, looking through the lattice, on tiptoe at the gate, all eyes, all ears—ready! (Song of Solomon 2.8-9)

    

Leaping in joy, bounding in excitement, gazing with anticipation. His heart is beating fast. He has come for me!

 My Beloved speaks and says to me:

            Arise my love, my beautiful one, and come away, for behold the winter has past; the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth, the time of singing has come….the vines are in blossom….

            Arise my love, my beautiful one, and come away. O my dove, in the clefts of the rock, in the crannies of the cliff, let me see your face, let me hear your voice, for your voice is sweet and your face is lovely.

            Catch the foxes for us, the little foxes that spoil the vineyards, for our vineyards are in blossom.

My Beloved is mine and I am his. (Song of Solomon 2.10-16)

This is His call to me—in general, of course—but for that weekend in particular.

Arise, my love, my beautiful one, and come away!

“Yes!” I responded. “I will come! I will go with You, hand-in-hand wherever you may go!”

Arise my love, my beautiful one, and come away, for behold the winter has past; the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth, the time of singing has come….the vines are in blossom….

The anticipation that springtime brings is His voice calling me away. Flowers appearing….vines blossoming….birds singing….all are His way of calling out to me to come away with Him. To be with Him. To love Him. To enjoy Him. To find pleasure and satisfaction in Him. To delight in Who He is and who He has created me to be.

Arise my love, my beautiful one, and come away. O my dove, in the clefts of the rock, in the crannies of the cliff...

           

He is calling me out of hiding, out of winter hibernation and slumber. He is calling me out of rock clefts and the small, confining spaces…to fly, to spread my wings, to live in fullness. He is calling me out. But even when I am still trapped, in hiding, He longs to see me, to hear my voice. Even in those cramped places, when I’m not free, not soaring, not “living in my created potential,” He sees the beautiful, special one He created and longs for my company.

O my dove, in the clefts of the rock, in the crannies of the cliff…., let me see your face, let me hear your voice, for your voice is sweet and your face is lovely.

            Amazing! Though He certainly desires my freedom, longs to see me spread my wings, He doesn’t wait for that before He looks and sees and delights. He doesn’t wait, even patiently, for me to get it first. He loves me fully then, in the confined places, in my winter hiding spot, in my brokenness, in my fear, in my weakness. He, even then, finds me beautiful, sweet, ravishing.

            Again, the Truth strikes me. The freedom is not the goal, the end. An intimate, enjoyable, satisfying, mutual delighting-in relationship with Abba is.

Catch the foxes for us, the little foxes that spoil the vineyards, for our vineyards are in blossom.

            In all this delightfulness, there are things that spoil, things that threaten the new blossoms, the delighting. And, He is asking me to catch them, to keep them from taking away what we have.

           

            They mute the singing.

            They stop up my ears.

            They pluck and eat the fruit before it ripens.

They cloud over my eyes.

            They keep me from enjoying the beauty of the blossoms.
            Maybe they keep me from hearing Him call to me.

            Maybe they keep me from seeing Him delight in me.

            Maybe they keep me hiding in the clefts and crannies in fear.

            They make the spring seem like winter, ruining the blossoms and the fruit.

            Interestingly, I can’t catch foxes from inside the cleft of a rock. I must courageously come out of hiding, begin to spread my wings.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

My three and a half hour hiking adventure with all its twists and turns and unknowns and surprises did eventually lead me to the place I had always wanted to go—the gray and brown bricks of the Great Wall entering the vast blue ocean. I soaked it all in. It had been an amazing gift-filled adventure. I wasn’t quite ready for it to be over.

            Thankfully, following the path down to the beach wasn’t the end. There were many more surprises and delightful gifts that day. Sea glass, red doors, magnolia trees, helpful shop-owners, the “golden hour” of sunlight perfectly coinciding with my time at the beach….

            And, I’m sure that these gifts and adventures will continue the next day and the next day and the next….

            His love for me is indeed infinite and unchanging, is it not?! Keep my eyes wide open to see and my heart ready to receive.

Falling in Love: The Invitation, part 1

 The next few months (spring of 2012), felt like an intense, grace-filled growth spurt. It seemed that every time I opened my Bible or whatever book I was reading, words, paragraphs, ideas jumped out at me from the pages and took me to deep places of reflection and prayer. And, interestingly, my response common to all these times was to write—pages and pages in my journal, photo-laden blog entries, notes on my iPod, ideas and outlines scrawled on pieces of scrap paper.

            I have always known that writing, for me, is a particularly powerful way that God speaks to my heart. It is my favorite way to process what I am thinking and learning. Many of my most focused and deepest times of prayer have been wrestling through issues with God on paper. I learn as I write. Truths somehow make their way from my head to my heart as I kinesthetically express them in words.

            On Easter afternoon, after sharing some of what I’d been learning with a friend, she asked me a great question: “What are you going to do to continue cultivating this level of growth?” My initial answers, from my head, were the almost cliché, “continue spending time with God in the mornings, pray more…” and other such responses that made sense logically from my experience. But, as she listened and waited and gave me space, the “real” answer, from my heart, came forth: “I need to write.”

            And so, over the next few days, I started making plans for a writing trip. I didn’t spend much time pondering over how or when this getaway would happen or even question the thought that it should. I HAD to go, that was for sure. A friend suggested a location, I booked a hotel and was soon sitting on a train, racing at 120km/hour through the northeastern China countryside to a place I’ve never been before—physically, for sure, and, I would soon find out, emotionally and spiritually as well!

On the train, I began reading a book. Pursuit of a Thirsty Fool is the life-journey of a man I am honored to call a friend. Through the first several chapters, I was intrigued, drawn into the unfolding journey. My understanding of God’s grace and offer of redemption deepened. Abba was drawing me to Himself through the pages penned in courage and humility. But, it wasn’t until chapter 12 that I truly became engaged in the story. I was no longer merely listening to my friend tell of his experiences. In chapter 12, our spiritual journeys intersected.

I learned how to walk with a limp through the journey of life. I was pretty good at it, but the Father wanted more for me than I believed was possible. God wanted to heal me. I didn’t have to live with a limp. He wanted to do surgery on my soul, to bring full healing, full restoration. He wanted me to learn to live in freedom, health and power and to live as Jesus had lived (MacLeslie, Loc 1548).

[Jesus] showed us what real faith is—not a bundle of dogmas to be believed but a relationship with a Person to be enjoyed (MacLeslie, Loc 1556, emphasis mine).

I thought the path I knew was the only path, that the wounds were at the core of me, that I had to live with the pain. I didn’t yet know the power of the Father that raised Jesus Christ from the dead. I didn’t yet understand the gift of eternal life and was unwilling or unable to trust God with the depths of my heart (MacLeslie, Loc 1559).

 Since this is what God had been showing me, too, the conclusion was probably the same. There were parts of my heart that I was not letting God touch, layers of dust that kept me from seeing things as they really are. I was limping and had become used to (or learned to live with) my brokenness.

But what if the center of the story isn’t about the actions Jesus did? What if He modeled a deeper Truth that wasn’t primarily about performance? Jesus spoke and acted as He did because of a deeper reality as He lived in constant contact with His Father. He emptied Himself and neither spoke nor did anything apart from His Father. His life in inspiring, but when we focus on holiness or Christ-like behavior as the end, we miss the point. His relationship with the Father is the true miracle. (MacLeslie, Loc 1595).

Jesus showed us that true freedom is found in submission to and union with God. The freedom and power are not the point, the relationship with God is (MacLeslie, Loc 1601, emphasis mine).

As soon as I read this sentence, I knew that THIS was the Truth that I need to press into that long weekend away. This was my prayer: “May God use this weekend as I come before Him with these questions, to dig out these lies, to bring healing to hurting places, to speak love to condemned and fearful places.”

I wasn’t free from sin because parts of my life still weren’t His. I was withholding myself from Him and I wanted to use Him for my ends rather than submitting myself and aligning my will with His. God wants me to find my satisfaction in Him, but I was continuing to run to other things—things that cannot satisfy. I was spending my time, energy, and money in pursuit of the thing that He longed to give me for free. (MacLeslie, Loc 1602).

What was He inviting me into? What is He longing to give me?

I thought freedom was the point, but freedom is a by-product of an authentic relationship with God (MacLeslie, Loc 1608).

God wants us to belong to Him and to be with Him. In the process of walking with God, He rubs off on us and we start to look like Him—to take on the family resemblance. Along the way, we discover that we have become free as we become more like Jesus. We become free because we live like Jesus did, in union with the Father. (MacLeslie, Loc 1613).

I wasn’t finding freedom because I was only seeking freedom (MacLeslie, Loc 1617).

            That is what I, too, have experienced. “Along the way” I have discovered that I have become free. Those things that I ran to for “rest” (though they really only added to the guilt and burden that fatigues me) lost their appeal. The hours of internet TV and games, the endless snacks, the drifting of my thought to things untrue, unclean. I was no longer ensnared. I was starting to have control of my computer keys, of the things that went into my mouth, the things that my mind dwelt on.

            These are areas that I have struggled with, made goals toward diminishing, fought against and failed at countless times in the past. Hearing God speak my real name, Him releasing me from the burden of the “shoulds” to enjoy what He has called and gifted me to do, pouring over His Word….the struggles have melted away. Along with the fear and the concern with what others might think.

            God was reminding me that I had entered into RELATIONSHIP with Him those years ago. He was drawing me, inviting me to go deeper.

Falling in Love: The Wooing

Vulnerability is one of those things that doesn’t really get easier with time and practice. It is always a choice. It is like putting your heart, exposed and solitary, on the table to be seen and responded to. It is risky every time. It is always hard and it is always scary.

But, God… One of my favorite phrases in the Bible is true of my story as well. Just when it appears that all things are far gone and hopeless, fear and impossibility welled-up like fortified walls barring the road ahead, God moves. He tips our version of reality and logic on its head. He intervenes in ways we don’t expect and couldn’t have possibly imagined. He brings Strength from weakness, Good from devastation, Beauty from ashes, Healing from wounds, Hope and Joy from unmet longings and pain. He Redeems and Restores.

So, in line with His character and how He has always worked in the pages of history, it has been in the scariness of laying my heart on the table—right in the middle of the fear—that God has wooed me. In the moments of being vulnerable before others and letting them see the real me—the depths and struggles, the longings and hopes, the frailty and failings—He has shown me that His care for me runs deeper than I could imagine, that His love for me is bigger than my weakness, bigger than my sin (and my rebellious running after it), bigger than my desire to live and love well. He continues to passionately pursue me each and every day in this same way—by revealing the breadth and length and height and depth of His love toward me. He speaks to me of His love that surpasses all experience of human love and shows me how His love fills and satisfies. He demonstrates in tangible and incredibly intimate ways that His love for me is far bigger and deeper and more abundant than all I could hope or dream. It is a love that is already mine. I don’t have to do anything to earn it or get more of it. He loves me, all of me, because of His lavish grace, because of Jesus.

 

“I only know Divine unconditional, radical and reckless love for me when I dare to approach God just as I am. The more I have the courage to meet God is this place of weakness, the more I will know myself to be truly and deeply loved by God. And the more deeply I know this love” (Benner, The Gift of Being Yourself,p. 51).

I am so thankful, in this process of living life with my heart held open and vulnerable before others, to be journeying with such amazing people around me. My China family—brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews—are like “God with skin on” to me every day. They have made the road of vulnerability easier to walk. My brothers’ big bear hugs in the moments I feel like I might fall apart. The safe place my sister created for my heart right in the middle of her kitchen floor and her healing touch that I felt much deeper than her hand on my skin. Another sister often asking, “How’s your heart?” just at the right time that I needed to feel known and listened to and cared for. Grace upon grace shown over and over again. No shame, but rather healing, with sin confessed (James 5.16 fleshed out). Thoughtful gifts. Life-giving words. Perfectly-timed phone calls. Celebrating and grieving together. Real life side-by-side. Walking shoulder-to-shoulder, hand-in-hand on this path of vulnerability toward the heart of God. Weak, dependent, desperate and in need together. We carry each other, give pulls and pushes when we seem stuck, but forward we do walk. God has revealed the depths of His heart to me through this family. He uses them time and time again to draw me into His heart, to woo me.

Almost three years ago, I was sitting on the living room couch of two very dear friends. They wanted to take some time to pray for me before I traveled home after my long weekend with them. We started the time of prayer in quiet listening. I was anxious, wanting to hear, but afraid I wouldn’t. Looking for answers for a difficult work situation, but fearing they wouldn’t be given. A picture came to my mind. Jesus standing before me with His arms outstretched. Reminded of His faithfulness and love for me, I relaxed. I took a deep breath and, one muscle at a time, sunk down into the soft cushions. It was the most restful I had felt in as long a time as I could remember. My friends prayed for me and then one shared that God had given him a question to ask me about my work situation during the time of listening, “What do you want to do?” My response, “Really?” “Yep. That’s all He said to me.” Freedom. The anxiousness was gone and the answers I was searching for given. My relationship with Him and the state of my soul was more important than all the strength I could muster up pushing through a work situation in which I was not thriving. God was caring for my heart in ways beyond what I could have imagined. He was wooing me with His Love and Rest.

On the opening evening of our annual conference two years ago, I found myself overwhelmed by all the people and wishing the week would go by quickly so I could enjoy my few days of beach vacation. Then, graciously crashing into these thoughts was the voice of our leader:

If God is a King, which He is,

And we are His people, which we are,

Then He would occasionally arrange a feast for us.

May this week be a feast.

May we come expecting.

How big my unbelief and how low my expectations of God to fill and refresh. And, a feast He did give me that week!

The next day, I was reading in the Psalms.

He split the rocks in the wilderness

And gave them abundant drink

Like the ocean depths. (78.15)

This is the kind of God I have! Not just a trickle or even a gushing, but ocean-like! And from the most unlikely place—a rock in the middle of the desert. My God, that formed me and knows my name, is this powerful, this good, this compassionate, this abundant! Enough for a feast. Wooing me with His unmatchable character.

Later in the week, God spoke deeply to my heart during a time of listening prayer. “I want you to know My goodness and abundance. I want to show you that coming to Me is not drudgery. I will fill you, not drain you. I want to see you have joy in My delight in you. I want you to experience rest in Me often. I want to talk to you.” Wooing me with His love and delight in me.

 A seminar leader gave each of us a blank sheet of paper and asked us to draw our “terrain”—how we viewed the road ahead and behind, what the bumps and pitfalls look like, etc. What came out on my paper was a bit scary—crags and crevices in the ground ahead and boulders falling from the sky! Chaos. Fear. Apprehension. Joy overwhelmed by adversity, bad news and pain. But, before I was done with my drawing, I felt compelled to write a few words at the top of the page. Shalom. Shield. Wise Counselor. God spoke His character and Goodness over my treacherous terrain and the fear of walking ahead. He has been, is and will be my Protector, Guide, One who holds and cares for my heart. Wooing me with His reigning Love.

Another of God’s tangible demonstrations of His love for me happened at a life-coaching training last fall. I was asked by the trainer to be coached by him in front of the class so that we could discuss and learn from a real-life coaching session. The trainer and I sat facing each other with fifteen others looking on and began to talk. I shared about my love for photography and desire to grow in and improve my skills. As I opened up and the trainer probed, it became clear that the goal of improving my skills was stealing my joy from taking and processing photos. Because I felt the self-imposed pressure to “learn how to use my camera more effectively” or “take better pictures,” taking photos without doing these things felt like an indulgent poor use of time. There, as my heart was exposed—my desire, delight and weakness—God wooed me through the comment of one of the observing students. He said, “Why do you think taking pictures purely for the enjoyment of it a bad thing? What is wrong with ‘indulging’ in this thing that you are so obviously passionate about? God delights in you delighting in His creation and who He has created you to be.” Freedom and release. 

* Interestingly, in the year since that coaching session, I have still not read my camera’s instruction manual nor any blogs or articles about photography. But, I have taken hundreds of photos…and have enjoyed every moment! Through “indulging” in the delight of taking photos, I have discovered that it is a form of worship for me. God loves it when I enjoy His creation, slow down and view it in ways that I don’t normally do each day. “Enjoy Me in this,” He has spoken to my heart. The thick Canon strap around my neck, my favorite 50mm lens in from of my eyes, finding just the right position to frame the flower, the smile that lights up my face, the calm that it brings to my heart. Enjoying photography is enjoying Him—enjoying what He has made and enjoying being with Him. (see “Healing Flowers”) And, God has used my photos to bless and speak deeply to many people along the way. Amazing! * 

A friend asked me during another life-coaching session, “Who is Allyson?” He waited. He waited past my pat answers. He waited through the awkward silence when I was wriggling in my seat as his gaze made its way deep down inside. Part of me wanted to get up and run away in response to the vulnerability I felt. I willed myself to stay. And, as my friend waited and I let his question find its way to my heart, God made us aware of His presence in a profound way. A series of detailed and beautiful pictures came to mind—God personally answering the question my friend posed. “Who is Allyson?” Dressed in armor and bearing a sword: Warrior. Sitting at the bed of someone sick and touching them: Healer. Standing, arms outstretched and brightness streaming out to others: Bearer of Light. God, once again, showed me how He sees beyond my sin and weakness to who He created me to be. He is wooing me with His Love and Grace.

Over the past two years, a close friend and I have co-led a ministry to hurting women. Honestly, leadership was something neither of us asked for nor wanted, especially when it involved months of facilitating intense conflict resolution. Our experience, knowledge, human wisdom, strength and energy were never enough to face going into several-hour-long meetings with people unwilling to forgive. We were overtly aware of our weakness and lack of anything to offer. We constantly called out to God in complete dependence and asked Him often to show up in surprising ways. And, He always did. He never failed to give my co-leader and I words to say, patience and endurance to wait for God to break through a sister’s hardened heart, strength and language ability to press through tense situations. In almost every meeting we have had in the past two years for this ministry, God has demonstrated what we have started to refer to as His “multi-faceted grace.” He has worked out countless seemingly impossible situations in ways beyond all that we could ask or imagine, leaving each person involved feeling deeply loved and cared for. One time, the person we were going to ask to step down, came to the realization herself that she needed a break to pursue heart healing and a deeper relationship with God. She felt honored and cared for that we would release her and allow her to take the time she needed! He lavishes His abundant grace on us and His steadfast love endures forever!

 

…according to the riches of His glory He may grant you to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. (Ephesians 3.16-21)

He continues to woo me.

Falling in Love: The Awakening

It all began the summer before I returned to China at a Willow Creek Leadership Summit while Lincoln Brewster was leading worship. Well, it didn’t really begin there, but the story of all the years in between will have to wait for another time to be told. This moment, when Lincoln Brewster took the stage with his guitar was significant enough to be called a beginning. He sang: 

 

You're the One Who made the heavens.

You're the One Who shaped the earth.

You're the One Who formed my heart

Long before my birth.

I believe You'll always lead me.

All my days have been ordained.

All Your thoughts toward me are holy,

Full of love and grace—”

That wasn’t even close to the end of the song (only the first verse actually), but it was like the whole world stopped. Everything went quiet after that line was sung out while the Holy Spirit spoke ever so clearly to my heart, “Dwell on this for a minute.” I argued that I didn’t want to and would rather sing the rest of the song with everyone else. He was patient with me and kept pulling me back, “Stay here. Think about what those words mean and what they imply for you.” As I did, I had to sit down with the weight of that Truth—ALL God’s thoughts toward me are holy, FULL of LOVE and GRACE. Really?! Is that even possible?! Doesn’t He hate sin and get frustrated with the number of times I do the things I shouldn’t and don’t do the things I should? Doesn’t He get impatient and annoyed with me like I do with myself? “I don’t see you the way you see you,” He spoke gently, deeply to my heart. Freedom. Rest. Care. Intimacy. And thus began my journey of understanding God’s acceptance of and lavish grace toward me. Awakening.

About a year and a half into my second return to China, three events coincided that would change my life, heart and relationships forever. God awakened me to deep longings as I read Captivating, deep pain in the sudden death of my friends’ two month old baby, and deep healing in an unexpected relationship with a wonderful man. Places in my heart opened up in those few months in the spring of 2006 that I never knew were closed.

It was March 2006 when pulled Captivating off my shelf for the fourth time. I had loved Wild at Heart and purchased Captivating while it was still on prominent display at the Christian bookstore. I started reading it then, and a time or two after that, but couldn’t get past the first chapter. It did make it onto the short list of things I shipped to China, only to sit on the shelf for over a year collecting dust. That March, I was struggling, feeling lonely, desiring closer relationships with God and others, and longing for a husband. God lovingly brought me to a place through a talk with a dear friend where I realized that the root of much of this emotional struggle was because I was looking for worth, happiness, security and fulfillment in the wrong places. God planted these longings inside of me to draw me to Himself. Only He can fulfill them. But, I didn’t know that yet. (I highly recommend a sermon series that addresses this and related  issues from the Vineyard church of Evanston: Christian Sexuality in a Sex-Crazed World.  Great teaching!!).

So many times, when I felt that all-too-familiar longing for love or felt the pain of being overlooked again, I would smother it in a worship song. I would preach to myself about how God is sovereign and “good” and “loving” until the sadness subsided. It sounds spiritual, but it was actually the opposite. It was my way of covering up and hiding from what was really going on inside. Pretending that the longings weren’t there didn’t make them go away. And, I never really believed what I preaching to myself although I really wanted to. Thinking I was “rehearsing truth,” I was actually building up a false image of God (“my Baal” like in Hosea 2.16), with labels “loving” and “good,” but really just empty, cold, and stone-hearted. As a result, I raised protective walls in my heart against the true God and those around me.

It was in this place, that I started reading Captivating once again. This time I devoured every word. There, in black and white, were my recent thoughts and feelings and struggles, so poignantly articulated by John and Stasi Eldredge. God spoke to me deeply through those pages, gently pulling at unhealthy roots that wound around my heart, affirming my pain, calling out for me to run to Him in all of my messiness.

“We need not be ashamed that our hearts ache; that we need and thirst and hunger for much more. All of our hearts ache. All of our hearts are at some level unsatisfied and longing. It is our insatiable need for more that drives us to our God. What we need to see is that all our controlling and our hiding, all our indulging, actually serves to separate us from our hearts. We lose touch with those longings that make us women. And the substitutes never, ever resolve the deeper issue of our souls.” (p. 58) (I highly recommend a Tim Keller sermon on this topic: The Struggle for Love).

“Shame causes us to hide. We are afraid of being truly seen, and so we hide our truest selves and offer only what we believe is wanted….We are silent and do not say what we see or know when it is different from what others are saying, because we think we must be wrong. We refuse to bring the weight of our lives, who God has made us to be, to bear on others out of a fear of being rejected.” (p. 74)

“From Eve we received a deep mistrust in the heart of God toward us. Clearly, He’s holding out on us. We’ll just have to arrange for the life we want. We will control our world. But there is also an ache deep within, an ache for intimacy and for life. We’ll have to find a way to fill it. A way that will not require us to trust anyone, especially God. A way that will not require vulnerability.” (p. 75)

Vulnerability. This word and all that it implied had always caused a guttural reaction in me: weakness, shame, cold sweats, anxiety, inadequacy, feelings of not ____ enough (you fill in the blank—any adjective will do!), shutting down, hiding. This time, it was more like a seed planted deep that early spring day into my mind and heart that would eventually grow into something I never dreamed possible. Awakening.

“Lord, teach me not to fear vulnerability,” I prayed on March 24th.  

On April 2^nd, 2006, I received that horrible phone call. My friends’ baby had just died in their arms—quickly, no explanation, nothing the doctors could do. The afternoon was the first time I ever remember crying so uninhibitedly in front of people without fear or embarrassment. There was no room to hide that kind of gut-wrenching pain. I bent in half and sobbed in the middle of the restaurant with my head on my knees. Searing pain gashed to places so deep inside my heart that I didn’t realize even existed. Gaping heart-wounds. Everyone saw deep inside and I didn’t care. It took weeks for the tears to stop and, even when they did, that gash was still open—visible and raw. I remember wishing for a switch to turn off the pain and, at the same time, knowing turning off would dull my soul. I wrote in my journal April 9th, “This is a place where I need to choose humility, vulnerability, trust, faith, God, community, God’s version of good. I don’t want to go down that road, but I know I have to. It is going to hurt and it’s going to be long, but by God’s grace….”

Strangely, in that time of deep pain, I felt so alive, most like the real Allyson that seemed to have been buried and hidden for so long. In the wake of the tragedy and grief of Baby’s death, she was emerging. Perhaps it was only through such deep hurt that the walls could be stripped away that were keeping her trapped. Awakening.

“Continue to call me deeper, Lord Jesus. Continue to soften my heart to Your touch and my ears to Your voice.”

On April 21^st, 2006, I was asked out to dinner. “Now? While my heart-wound is still gaping? While I still barely have energy to make it through the day, let alone give to someone else and wade through the beginnings of a relationship?” I wondered. But, I was drawn to this man—to his strong and safe presence, to his initiative, to his courage and willingness to walk beside me in the hours after Baby’s death. I trusted him. I prayed that evening, “Lord, help me not to fear this process. Help me to open my heart to him. Help me to let down my defenses and allow him to pursue me. Allow me to learn about You through him. Help me to rest in this. Help me to trust Your hand.”

That was the first of many dinners, walks, phone calls, conversations over the next ten months. As we got to know each other, God was answering my prayer. God was showing me His heart for me through this man—I am not too much, there is nothing innately wrong with me as I had feared, emotion and vulnerability is good, God cares deeply for my heart. An amazing gift! Awakening.

God wants me to—has always wanted me to—come to Him with ALL of me, covering nothing up, hiding nothing, leaving nothing behind. David Benner, in Chapter three of his book The Gift of Being Yourself, states, “Things about ourselves that we refuse to acknowledge are given increased power and influence by our failure to accept them…. Before we can surrender ourselves we must become ourselves, for no one can give up what he or she does not first possess” (p. 58). I started to realize that the road of vulnerability is the road to the heart of God. It is when I acknowledge that there are these depths to me that the door is opened for God to enter there…

Falling in Love: The Longing

A friend told me once that I was boy crazy. You wouldn’t know it by looking at my nearly non-existent dating history, but she was right. I have had many, many crushes and my mind often occupied by whether or not a certain boy liked me and, if so, what I should do about it. If he didn’t like me, I would dream what it would be like if he did. In fact, I don’t remember any time between middle school and into my mid-twenties that I didn’t have my eyes and heart set on one or another classmate or someone from my social circle. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was looking hard for affirmation and always desiring to fill my deep longing for intimacy and exclusivity with someone I could see and touch and talk to.

I grew up going to church and gave my life fully to Jesus in ninth grade at a youth group retreat. I understood and believed completely that He rescued me from my sin and called me to follow Him. I was familiar with teaching that God loved me, that my worth was found in Him, that He was faithful and I could trust Him fully, that He was my Lover and my Husband. But, I didn’t quite get it, especially about the theme throughout Scripture that I was the bride and Jesus the Bridegroom. It did not compute. It made it to my brain and I desperately wanted it to be true for me, but it didn’t ever quite make it to my heart.

In high school, a new group called Jars of Clay started to become popular and their first album had a song that both awakened something deep inside and confused me at the same time. 

Love Song for a Savior

 In open fields of wild flowers,

She breathes the air and flies away
She thanks her Jesus for the daises and the roses

In no simple language
Someday she'll understand the meaning of it all

He's more than the laughter or the stars in the heavens
As close a heartbeat or a song on her lips
Someday she'll trust Him and learn how to see Him
Someday He'll call her and she will come running

And fall in His arms and the tears will fall down and she'll pray,

"I want to fall in love with You"

Sitting silent wearing Sunday best
The sermon echoes through the walls
A great salvation through it calls to the people
Who stare into nowhere, and can't feel the chains on their souls

He's more than the laughter or the stars in the heavens
As close a heartbeat or a song on our lips
Someday we'll trust Him and learn how to see Him
Someday He'll call us and we will come running
And fall in His arms and the tears will fall down and we'll pray,

"I want to fall in love with You"

It seems too easy to call you "Savior",
Not close enough to call you "God"
So as I sit and think of words I can mention
To show my devotion

"I want to fall in love with You"

"My heart beats for You"

Somewhere deep down inside wanted this to be true, to be the cry of my heart. I wanted to be in a place where I could truthfully scream, “I want to fall in love with You,” but I couldn’t. I didn’t understand how it was possible to fall in love with God.

I remember sort of dating two guys, one in high school, another in college. I really liked them and they really liked me, but I didn’t know what to do with their affection. Eventually, I started to get frustrated, even annoyed at their care. I shut down and pushed them away. Looking back at that time in my life, this was also what I was doing with God, albeit subconsciously. I was keeping my heart shut off from Him. I didn’t even know He wanted it.

Then there were two men, at different times in my journey, that spoke beautiful, pursuing words to me only to walk out of my life a short while later. With the help of the Accuser, I began to believe that I was not worth pursuing, that no one had the passion or courage (or even interest) to get past my messiness to find the beauty deep inside, that I would always be abandoned and alone.

I did love God, though, and grew to trust Him as my Redeemer, Provider, Guide, Protector and Lord. My life was His and I sought to follow Him and know Him, but there was an emotional disconnect. He was an authority figure, a Father, but not someone to long for, to be passionate about. I saw my heart as something that God wanted to be His to clean out, but not as the object of His affection or desire. I saw God as walking either behind or beside me, showing me the way in which to go, holding my hand as I walked along. I didn’t realize the deeper love-relationship that I was missing, that He could and would meet ALL the longings of my heart.

In spite of myself, my gracious God met me where I was at and slowly, but surely wooed me.