an over-generalized, philosophical rant

Sometimes I feel like I am one person.

Sometimes I feel like I am one person.

Last night I was up late. Once a month, thanks to hormones, I struggle with insomnia. Tess also vomited in her bed last night, so I was up anyways doing laundry at midnight, and I had a hard time settling down enough to go to sleep. As usual, I found myself camped out at my computer in the early morning hours, catching up on social media and news.

I read an exceedingly disturbing article about the famine in east Africa and took those images to bed with me, woke up with them in my head. Parents are being forced to leave their small unconscious children on the roadside so the rest of the family can press on to seek food and water. How could any human being be forced to make that decision, a decision that will haunt them the rest of their lives? People are faced with this type of dilemma daily, a reality that is horrific to even fathom.

When I read about things like this, I can’t help but feel small and powerless. I want to do something to help, but how can one person touch suffering on that scale? I am not God. In the midst of where God has me now, what can I do other than pray?

When I read things like this, I question why He has placed me where He has, in this material abundance and wealth, with this voice, these passions and desires, this family, these friends, this story, raising these children at this point in time. Why here, why now? I don’t know that the answers to these questions even matter, or if they'd change anything, but I ask them nonetheless.

In the meantime, I recognize that in my small sphere of life, I feel like I make an impact--at least, most of the time. I feel like I matter to my family and my friends.

I don’t think anything I’m writing in this post is new. Themes of impact and significance whirl through a lot of my blog posts, which is reflective of the struggles that surge through me on any given day.

Who am I?

Who did God make me to be?

How does my life reflect Him?

How will He choose to use me?

How has He made me unique?

While there are some tangible things I can identify in response to these questions, most of the answers feel abstract, yet I consistently find myself attempting to fit them into defined boundaries, into a finite room with four walls, a floor and a roof. I ascribe labels to myself and think I need to fit within the confines of those labels. I fall prey to prescribed images and start to fret when I don’t measure up to them. I construct this idea of how God wants me to be and how He can use me most, only for Him to throw me confusing curve balls that render my preconceived ideas useless. 

He tells me I don't belong in that confining box.

I am different.

So are you.

That’s a good thing.

I suppose that also means we should stop comparing our differences.

I think we all carry around this shame of either being too different or too ordinary. The “too different” category resonates with me, and I find myself constantly seeking to filter out little parts of how God created me in order to fit into mainstream Christian America. I think that we internalize this unspoken rule that in order for God to use us, we need to run in certain circles, to talk a certain way, to have certain hobbies or interests. If we can cram God’s calling for our lives into a black and white, concrete thing, then we can have something tangible to prove our worth by and hang it high on a flagpole for others to see. 

But that’s not how God works, is it?

I read this a few days ago and I’ve been mulling it over ever since:

“At the beginning of the Christian life we have our own ideas as to what God’s purpose is--"I am meant to go here or there," "God has called me to do this special work"; and we go and do the thing, and still the big compelling of God remains. The work we do is of no account, it is so much scaffolding compared with the big compelling of God.”  --Oswald Chambers.

Along these lines, I’m also reminded of a Dan Allender quote:

“...our calling is not what we do--it’s how we do it.”

And this one is good too:

“We do not know what God is after, but we have to maintain our relationship with Him whatever happens.” --Oswald Chambers.

God doesn’t seem to discuss His purposes with us. I think He guides us gradually into them, but we never know what the final outcome is or what it will look like. Perhaps the outcome is a moot point to Him. He's more concerned with the relationship with Him...not the externals we seem so obsessed about.


***BTW...just wanted to say, as of today, we are officially DTC (Dossier To China)! It's on it's way to Beijing right now!