Praying scary prayers...

Soak me in your laundry and I’ll come out clean,

    scrub me and I’ll have a snow-white life.

Tune me in to foot-tapping songs,

    set these once-broken bones to dancing.

Don’t look too close for blemishes,

    give me a clean bill of health.

God, make a fresh start in me,

    shape a Genesis week from the chaos of my life.

Don’t throw me out with the trash,

    or fail to breathe holiness in me.

Bring me back from gray exile,

    put a fresh wind in my sails!

Give me a job teaching rebels your ways

    so the lost can find their way home.

Commute my death sentence, God, my salvation God,

    and I’ll sing anthems to your life-giving ways.

Unbutton my lips, dear God;

    I’ll let loose with your praise.

-Psalm 51:7-15 (the Message)  

OK. So. Remember all that trust stuff I was spouting yesterday? 

 Oh. My. Goodness. 

I'm on the craziest journey & I'm really really really NOT comfortable with it. For real. Really.

Yesterday, my husband were having our typical Friday morning coffee together. We take this time each week to spend just hanging out in our sweatpants, catching up on our week & talking about deep things. God things. Anyway, at some point between our discussing the Gospel & discipleship the conversation turned to what we are willing to give God. He said 'everything'. I said 'everything'. But I didn't really mean it.

So I backtracked & had to confess... 'Everything' scares the crap out of me.

Preparing to share my missions trip with my church family.

When I was a young teenager I spent the summer in Europe doing missions work. I had really wanted to go to Africa but my best friend, who I had convinced to go with me, was not so much feeling it. I actually think she would have been content with doing some missions work closer to home, so we compromised & wound up in the Netherlands building brick walls in a bike shed, working in the kitchen at a kids camp & performing in town squares all over the country. The team we went with was a motley crew of kids, ages 13-18 from all over the US. We came together, some out of love for God, some with curiosity about missions & others because their parents were like, "That's it! You spoiled, ungrateful, rotten, rebellious kid! You are going away for the summer to serve others." I went because I thought overseas missions would be my life's path.

We also went with four adult leaders. Four brave souls who dared to go on a two month trip with thirty teens that involved passports & train travel & backpacks & tents & vats of peanut butter & hormones. Bless their hearts. Our senior leaders, Walt & Penny, a married couple from Pennsylvania had just retired from construction management & teaching school. They had been on several previous trips with other youth teams serving as project manager & cook. This was their first team of their very own. 



At the beginning of the trip as we were putting together the program we would perform all summer long we latched on to this song. It goes like this:

Hey, I'm yours Lord

Everything I've got

Everything I am

Everything I'm not.

I'm yours Lord

Try me now and see

See if I can be

Completely yours.

My life and my love

You hold in your hand

And I'll gladly devote

And enjoy your command.

Now, I know it's not much

Your gift to repay

But its all that I got

And it's all I can say.

I'm yours Lord

Everything I got

Everything I am

Everything I'm not.

I'm yours Lord

Try me now and see

See if I can be

Completely yours.

You put it aside

Desire to belong

And join in your strength

Unless we become strong.

With that thought in mind

I reach for the sky

And I lift up my voice

And read out the signs.

I'm yours Lord

Everything I've got

Everything I am

Everything I'm not.

I'm yours Lord

try me now and see

See if I can be

Completely yours.

I'm yours Lord

Everything I've got

Everything I am

Everything I'm not.

I'm yours Lord

Try me now and see

See if I can be

Completely yours...

Yeah... That my friends. Is a really scary prayer.

In our innocence about God & life & missions we really had no idea what we were saying. What we were singing. I mean, we wanted God to use us. Even with our youth & enthusiasm, we knew that despite our giftedness, we with our language barrier & lack of experience would not be able to do great things for God if we didn't allow Him to direct our days. So we sang. With gusto.

Right around our second week in country, Penny had a stroke. This really rendered her husband, the guy that really knew construction, helpless to lead us. His days were bound by hospital visits, surgeries & doing his best to guide our two younger less seasoned leaders to step up in leadership. Our summer changed. We couldn't very well do the construction we had planned without him.

To our young leaders credit, they really rose to the occasion. They encouraged us, read us scripture, prayed with us, cried with us. They created an incredible learning environment, as we worked on scaled back versions of the construction projects we had anticipated & we spent much more time out in the community doing evangelism. We just did whatever God had planned for us.

Near the end of the trip we headed off to Switzerland to debrief before we headed back home to the US. As we rolled out our sleeping bags onto camp bunks, at a little retreat center tucked away high in the Swiss Alps, the news came in. Our beloved Penny had died.

We were devastated.

We had given God everything we had right... So why now? Why her?  & Now what?

I'm about to brutally honest here... Whenever I think about giving God everything, I go back to that moment & I wonder. If I give Him my whole life... every piece... what will He take away? 

Yesterday, I found myself pouring all of this out on my husband. I couldn't even look in his direction. It was the first time I had ever verbalized it. Fear crept up into my belly. What kind of horror would overtake me now that it was out?

Here's the beauty of God & of the man He has given me to share my life with. First of all, my husband didn't even flinch. He didn't chastise me or berate me or judge me... instead he took me in his arms & he kissed my forehead. He reminded me that my "everything" is already God's. I can choose to give it all to Him willingly or He can pry it from my cold clenched fingers.

It's kinda funny how God works sometimes. You know what I'm talking about right? How sometimes He speaks to us quietly in our hearts & other times He hits us upside the head with a two-by-four?

What I've failed to tell you is that I kinda laid this whole thing on the hubs, as I was putting my coat on to go out the door to meet a girlfriend for lunch. Just in case my revelation totally freaked him out & he wanted some time to process a response or a divorce or whatever.

So after he hugs me, I hop in my car & try to calm my breathing & get my head together by putting on the radio. 

Whew. 

Crisis averted.

Yeah right.

Another song. This time on the radio. Almost thirty years later. A nice big fat, 'THWACK' up alongside my head with a two-by-four.

I am wrecked. 
I am blubbering. 
& I am hoppin' mad. 
At myself.  

Here it is again. 

Control.

That dang blasted thing that I wrestle with the most. The thing you have seen played out over & over in my blog writing or God forbid you've had to listen to me ramble on... insistently. Oh sure. I'm getting better.... I'm making progress... & I do HATE it but I also love it... I want to keep it & I want to be rid of it. 

It's like what Paul says in the great 'doodoo' verse in Romans chapter 7... " For what I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate."

ARGH!

I long for Jesus to have everything... to be everything. 

& I know that in order for Him to use me fully I have to allow Him access to... you guessed it. EVERYTHING. 

I just need the courage to DO it. 

I'm rubbing my poor banged up head & praying scary prayers people. For real. Really.

"Becoming a follower of Jesus means having your heart so enraptured by the beauty, majesty, and value of God's gift of Himself to you that knowing and pleasing Him becomes the one driving passion of your heart. Even if it costs you everything else." -Gospel: Recovering the Power that Made Christianity Revolutionary, J.D. Greear

"Keep Making Me"

Make me broken
So I can be healed
‘Cause I’m so calloused
And now I can’t feel
I want to run to You
With heart wide open
Make me broken

Make empty
So I can be filled
‘Cause I’m still holding
Onto my will
And I’m completed
When you are with me
Make me empty

[Chorus:]
‘Til You are my one desire
‘Til You are my one true love
‘Til You are my breath, my everything
Lord, please keep making me

Make me lonely
So I can be Yours
‘Til I want no one
More than You, Lord
‘Cause in the darkness
I know You will hold me
Make me lonely

[Chorus]

I'm including this little Sidewalk Prophets devo here because... well, because it is just so much good!