The Desires of My Heart

Many of you have followed my years of wrestling through being single (as exampled 2012, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2016, 2016, 2016, and 2016). One of the major verses that, though I know it's a pretty cliche one, was that of: "Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart." (Psalm 37:4) I've heard so many people misuse that passage throughout the years, so I'm even hesitant mentioning it, but it has been such an integral part of my journey that I must speak of it's role.

When I was a little girl, life was pretty difficult, and I found myself living in survival mode most of the time. When one enters this place of simply making it through to the next day, the part of the heart that forms dreams and hopes somewhat dies. So, the fairytale daydreams that most little girls develop never captured my heart. However, a dark idol came to roost instead. Falling in love and getting married weren't dreams of mine, they somehow along the way became a picture of a savior to me. It wasn't "Prince Charming and Christina lived happily ever after," but rather more of a "if only I could be married, then..." Marriage and this elusive perfect man would right all wrongs and solve all problems! He would come and rescue me in every way I could imagine, and while outwardly I seemed content to be single and very independent, there was this unquenchable hunger to be found by him.

In case you didn't just read that and think: "that's a formula for a disaster," let me inform you: that's a formula for a huge disaster! And praise my Almighty Lord God that He didn't allow any such man to come along! There were snippets of wisdom that God used in massive ways to protect my foolish heart. There were men and women who spoke Truth into my life as I veered along life's path in a crazy pattern. And there were Scriptures that I clung to when I couldn't see or understand my Jesus' ways. Psalm 37:4 was one such passage.

The first time I recall meditating on these beautiful words was in high school. I couldn't figure out what it meant to be delighted in God. Step by step, I begged Him to teach my silly heart to find Him as my Treasure and to show me how to be fully satisfied and enraptured in Him alone. Later I began to examine what it meant to have "desires of your heart." Oh, I could see many people around me wanting temporal things that they would implore the Lord for, but watching as they quickly turned to dust in their hearts when they received them. There had to be something different meant by those words! Slowly over time, I began to understand that being delighted in Him means that He defines what those desires in my heart are, and that He is a GOOD Father! To be delighted in God means to be content in His presence. To find rest and joy in Him, not what He gives.

As you can imagine, this journey had dramatic influence upon my searching for "the man who would come rescue me." God became that Man to me in every sense: my Savior, my Rescuer, my Friend, my Beloved, and the One my heart found its fullest delight in. I don't know how to fully describe that feeling for you, but I'll just say this last two years of being homeless, moving every few weeks, volunteering in refugee camps, and being unemployed has been some of the richest times I've ever felt because He became more than just enough for me. He became my sole delight.

Please don't read the next section of what I'm writing as a sequel following that lesson of contentment, as if what I learned from God unlocked some formula to bring a man into my life! That isn't how God works, and that isn't at all what I mean...

 God crossed my path with Matt on May 22, 2011 :) He came to my city in Kosovo, and we went out for coffee to debrief about some things. This blue-eyed South African guy became a good friend of mine in the months (and later years) that followed. We connected over loving the Lord, reading biographies, laughing together, exploring the outdoors, talking about monkeys, and other such things. But, because my heart was searching for a fictional super-rescuer-type-dude, Matt only ever was seen as my friend. I know that our sins don't thwart the plans of our Big God, and I can see all the ways that Matt and I needed to grow up over the next six years, but it is a bit funny how aimlessly my restless heart was searching for something that was indeed right in front of me! It wasn't until God helped me to be fully delighted in Him that I was able to see that Matt was exactly the man I was needing- loving, gentle, patient, forgiving, and an extremely humble leader.

I would never have seen Matt as more than a friend if God hadn't first shattered my silly idol, if He hadn't taught my heart to be fully delighted in Him. I am thirty-three years old. Most people categorize that as old to be getting married, but God knows best, and I couldn't be more thankful for my single years and more excited about the adventure that lays ahead. Praise God that He continuously pursues my heart even now to be delighted solely in Him and that He continues to reveal to me the beautiful desires He's placed within me (and how He fulfills them all). Here's to the next season of life and the beauty found therein!

Treated like a Zoo

Most of the people who randomly read my blog will never step foot in a refugee camp. Your understanding is limited to what you've read or perhaps pictures seen. I think the general consensus is that most are inhumane and the conditions are in desperate need of being improved... While both of those thoughts are accurate, neither fully capture what it means to be the one living in the camp.

Have you ever visited a zoo and walked away with a heavy heart? There's just something about seeing a massive elephant confined to a small habitat that makes me feel sad. Or little monkeys swinging from plastic branches and roped up tires. Or tigers reduced to pacing back and forth in front of a door for their next meal. Essentially what they've been designed to be and do has been stripped away due to the selfishness of others around them. I'm just as much to blame- I love getting to see the majestic creatures that I'd likely never behold in my lifetime in their natural habitat. And the truth is, I wouldn't even come near most if I encountered them in the wild (they scare me!).

The refugee camps take on a bit of a zoo-type feeling. You have these amazing, full of life, talented people who have truly the most heroic characteristics from the horrific events they've been exposed to  all packed into a small space. Some are carpenters, doctors, students, artists, or teachers. Some have suffered horrors at the hands of a people they've now been commanded to share a tent with (which many do so without fighting). They have undertaken a journey marked by unmentionable bravery and fortitude to simply reach this place and remain for months or years. Most of them literally have to say just a few sentences before I am humbled and feel unworthy to call them friend.

And yet, here they all are, trapped in a place that essentially strips them of all that being a resilient person (or merely a human being) means. "You can't work. You can't cook for yourself. You can't chose your own clothing or even wash them. You must eat these things. We don't have drinking water for you. You must live in the unknown and wait until I tell you that you can move forward (or backward). No one wants you here, why don't you just go home? Because your country is at war, you've now become a statistic, lost in the midst of a sea of other refugees... unknown, unvalued, unwanted, and uncared for!" Literally every day screams those messages loud and clear to their hearts.

When fear controls our hearts and decisions, we buy into the lie that people who are different than us, that people fleeing areas of war, that people who come from certain places in this world aren't worthy of a chance, of an education, of a future, of love... Oh, but when fear is removed and compassion takes root, then, and only then, are people able to be the majestic creatures God designed us all to be!

God in the Barrenness

I've had a lot of friends who've struggled with infertility or miscarriages, so it's a topic close to my heart. My own mother had 3 miscarriages when I was a young girl, so I know intimately the pain felt at such losses. Though it has never been my own personal experience (apart from being single and desiring children, but that's a different sort of wrestle!), it appears that this struggle and desire to be a mother is one of the most difficult and painful a woman can walk through. Scripture has much to say on this subject as well, and I've been so encouraged through the years as I encountered various narratives of women found there. However, it wasn't until yesterday that I pieced them all together. I want to take you through my thought process a bit, but first let me paint a small picture for you by mentioning all the women Scripture said were barren (I may miss some, but these are the ones I can recall off the top of my head):

Sarah was barren before Isaac (Genesis 15:2)
Rebekah was barren before Esau and Jacob (Genesis 25:21)
Rachel was barren before Joseph (Genesis 30:1)
Manoah's wife was barren before Samson (Judges 13:2)
Hannah was barren before Samuel (1Samuel 1:5)
Elizabeth was barren before John (Luke 1:7)

Read through that list of men there again- what strikes you with each of them? All were influential in the pages of Scripture in mighty ways! Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph were key instruments in the beginning of the nation of Israel. Samson was a powerful judge that brought peace from the Philistines. Samuel was an incredible leader of God's people for his entire lifetime. And John the Baptist paved the way for Jesus' ministry. God had a plan for each of their lives that powerfully affected His plan for His children. There wasn't ever a doubt in His mind that they would be born- to Him being outside of time, their mothers weren't barren at all! So, it would seem that God was after something much more than just these women having children... I mean, isn't that the "natural and normal" order of how things work: get married and have children? So, to have put a "pause" on them rushing forward into living a "normal life" seems a bit interesting.

Something that also strikes me as interesting is there are a few of the stories where it mentions that God was the One who closed her womb. Take Hannah, for instance, it says "the Lord had closed her womb" twice in back-to-back verses (repeating it emphasizes it even more!). What in the world?! Why would God be the One to cause such pain in her life?

The answer appears to be simple to me (and yet not simple at all...): God was after something so much more than giving these women a "normal life". He was after their hearts. You see, there is something about suffering that develops a depth of character that no one living a "normal life" will ever be able to find. By allowing these ladies to walk through sorrow, He laid the foundation for them to parent these young men who would one day lead His people. These men bear the marks of their mother's intimacy with the Lord that likely originated in their barrenness and crying out to God.

Please don't hear me say that if you're struggling to get pregnant, you can cry out to God and know that He'll give you a child (or if you're single, you can believe God will bring a husband), because that's not at all what these verses teach! The beauty found here is that God is intimate, sometimes in the pruning, sometimes in the pausing of desires, sometimes in the withholding, and sometimes in the giving. But the wonderful thing that can be counted on in each is that He's after your heart and the hearts of those around you, whether that one day gets to be your children, your husband, or simply deep friendships. Don't waste your suffering by missing the opportunity to meet Him in the pain and to give Him your heart and tears!

The Humility of Prayer

This morning I woke up early (6-something), after going to sleep late (close to 2am) and felt irritated to not still be sleeping. As I lay on my bed, tossing and turning in protest at being awake, I felt the gentle prompt of the Holy Spirit to pray for family/friends back home, friends in the camp, and the massive political and religious issues unfurling worldwide that are affecting millions of people daily. "Okay, Jesus, I'll just lay here and casually pray, with the hopes that once I'm done, You will help me to fall back to sleep!" (I'm a very selfish person... sorry if you weren't aware of that fact!) It's now close to 8am, and I'm still awake and my heart is still heavy.

There is a sentence that has been playing in my head as I read Scripture and attempted to sort-of pray: "If My people, who are called by My name, humble themselves, and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land..." I've heard this passage quoted so many times that I am able to type it from memory! But I think one part of it has been overlooked often when it's taught on: humility! Prayer requires humble-ness, doesn't it? It's a coming to the end of yourself. It's a cry for help. It's a petition for intervention in a place where you know you have no power or ability to impact.

Prayer isn't popular. I probably can count on my fingers the men and women in my life that I know have a vibrant prayer life- you know, the kind that puts you to shame when they tell you they pray for you every morning or interceded for 20 years for someone to be free from their bondage? It's rare! Another thing that is rare is humility! It's not natural to anyone, even the people that seem to be naturally humble.

I'm currently spending my days in a refugee camp- it's one of the darkest places you can go: people fleeing from war and bearing the marks from this, eyes once lit with hope are now darkened by defeat from months of just sitting in utter boredom, sins and wickedness that have been allowed to enter into the lives of a few now engulf and affect everyone surrounding, and I could keep going on. If anyone ever had a reason to pray, it is me! I "do well" on most days, starting it with prayer, ending it with prayer, and throwing up prayers in between as situations arise. But, if I'm completely honest, there isn't always that humility that this passage speaks of. The realization that unless God moves, unless He works, unless it's His power nothing will be broken or be rescued. This passage isn't talking about casual prayer, it is talking about deep dependence prayer, and I'm convinced most of us know nothing about this sort of thing.

I once read a story of a man who would spend every night praying God would use him to save one person the next day- he would pray until he felt God had heard and answered yes (we are talking hours here). Eventually he began to wonder why he was just praying for one person, so he slowly began to pray for more, until he got up to 5 people a day that were coming to know God through him. It also reminds me of the story of Elijah praying for it to rain after there had been a drought for three years (1 Kings 18:41-46) He prayed and sent his servant to look seven times before God answered his prayers. I wonder if I would've stopped long before seven... But I long to keep striving to have this dependency and humility before the Lord- may God continue to bring this about in my heart and life!

Crying Their Tears

Well, I've been back in Eastern Europe for the past few weeks, working in a refugee camp at the border of Serbia and Croatia. All three times I've come in the past year and a half to various camps have looked and felt differently. This time is a lot more involved in the day to day life in a camp and involves contact with primarily men, as the women normally stay in their rooms or busy themselves with washing and tending to the children. Most of these men (many of them are young boys, but have earned the title 'men' in my book for all they've been through!) are tough and distant at first. As I hand them a cup of tea or sweep around their feet in our little 'cafe', they usually look up in surprise that this crazy Western lady just addressed them with a friendly greeting. Sometimes all I'll get in response is a grunt, sometimes a shy smile with downcast eyes, or occasionally it's a greeting back. But slowly they warm up, and often I'll find myself chatting away with someone as I serve tea to the masses. In the short time I've been here, I've begun to build friendships with a  few of the young guys, and I've had the privilege of hearing the stories of a few dozen others. Though vastly different, their stories all are similar. Trauma, pain, loss, hopelessness, and uncertainty. With a few of them, I can see the emotion in their eyes as they share about their families or difficult journey, but mostly it's more a relaying of the facts. Any emotion I express is typically met with a shrug of the shoulders and perhaps a change of the subject. Emotions aren't comfortable for men, but this goes a lot deeper than that. These men come from war-torn countries, they've been taught to be tough and strong, and I found last year in the camps in Greece, so had the women. Not all of that is a bad thing. It is indeed necessary for survival. On a lesser degree, I can understand this mentality from all the craziness I experienced as a child. But what happens when that strength fails you or begins to break after a year stuck in a refugee camp? Many of the men bear marks on their arms from cutting, some have even attempted suicide, and fighting is a daily occurrence in the tents.

This morning I spent some time crying the unfallen tears of these men. Weeping for the pain and unmet longings of their hearts. I don't know what else to do with their stories, but lay them at the foot of Jesus who loves and cares about all of this! My goal isn't to get them to cry, but last night I was so excited when the man I was talking with did. You see, self-harm and suicide have become his coping strategies as the pain locked inside has become too great. Talking through the past year of crushing hurt and trauma opened his heart a sliver for me to tell him how much God loves him, how much He values his life, and how He has a beautiful plan for his future.  Tears formed in his eyes as he tried to believe these things about himself. Today I cried the rest of those tears as I begged God to help this man truly grasp these things about Him, to see beauty again, and to experience the freedom that only He can bring.

In my camp here alone there are about 1,200 refugees. This is one of hundreds of camps stretched across Europe, and thousands throughout the world at the moment. My heart staggers at that thought... I just have no mental capacity to fathom this. So, in my overwhelmed-ness, I will continue to meet my God there and ask Him to continue to give me the strength to cry their tears for them until they are able to heal and find Hope!