My First Real Job

…begins in approximately one week.  I chose to begin marriage nannying because it was counseled to me by our pastor to take a season to slow down, learn how to be married (and I’m still learning!), and re-evaluate everything.  With all of the stress and anxiety pre-wedding, I couldn’t get through marriage counseling without adding to the Mississippi River, so the advice was timely.  There was a definite need for some time to breathe.  After grad school and planning a wedding, its safe to say I was pretty burnt out.  I have spent the last 7 months part-time nannying, writing and recording music, dreaming, praying, spending time with college women, substitute teaching, and writing and studying Matthew, Acts, and Romans… seriously- God just totally blessed me with an amazing season of rest and personal growth as an individual and in marriage.  Coming off of last year, it seriously has felt like emotional rehab.  I think I have fully recovered.  Can I getta Amen?

It is all going to change in one week, but I am ready.  I am anticipating it, excited for how God will use me and teach me.  I will be working as a teaching assistant and a morning program supervisor at Hope Academy, while continuing to hang out with college women in the evenings and weekends.

The reason I have decided to pursue a teaching job is because I have been on the teeter-totter of working as a teacher or working in college ministry for the past few years.  I have subbed at Hope a few times per week this past school year, and this job became available, so I applied for it to see if God would open or close the door.  He opened it, and Nick and I think it would be wise for me to try teaching out.  I know that I love college ministry and would do it full time in a heart beat, but there has always been this draw- this pull towards children and families in the city of Minneapolis.  Since my first time working with them at Hope five years ago, something about working in the city with all of the children stirred my affections for Jesus.

Here I am, this blonde girl from the suburbs sliding in the dirt, falling off of playgrounds playing with children, talking to them about their lives, praying with them- and my affections for God just shot through the roof!  I have climbed the ladder from volunteer to substitute teacher to teaching assistant.  I guess we’ll see what’s next!  It was funny because the Hope administration staff said that if they could describe me in one word in my interview it would be: persistent.   I guess they are right.

As long as this door is open, I am going to go for it.  I am going to be working with a wonderful woman in a kindergarten classroom, so I am bracing myself for lots of colored paper, singing songs, and sheparding the hearts of these young children.  I am grateful to have so many teacher friends to learn from.

My experience subbing for middle school has been really challenging, but so rewarding.  My favorite part is when a student is being rude or disrespectful (sounds weird, I know).  This provides an amazing opportunity to get a little deeper with my young friends.  I often sternly tell him/her  to come into the hall with me.  They walk with me, usually looking really afraid of losing a privilege or getting detention… but then I change my tone quickly.  I calmly tell them how much I love having them in my class and how much I want them to be there.  I tell them that I don’t appreciate being disrespected and ask them to change their demeanor.  I am also able to ask, “How’s your day going?  Do you want to talk about anything?”  I have had some great one-on-ones with some young women because of our little hall chats.  After one second chance (and they all know this)- it’s a detention.  Boo.  I hate giving detentions.

Today, I did something a little different in my fun fitness class.  During the free activity time, I asked all of the girls to come sit and talk with me.  Here’s a visual of the racial diversity:  Two latino girls to my left and four African American girls on my right.  And then me.  White, blonde, born-and-raised-in-the-suburbs-me.  I moved past barriers as we formed a small, intimate circle.  The reason I did this is because I desire to know them.  I can’t effectively teach them- or reach them- if I don’t know them.  And I will not let racial barriers or cultural backgrounds get in the way.  God created all of us and put us on this earth, and though we have miles to go to understanding each others’ cultural influences, we must try.

I took this time to ask them how their days were, how old they were, what grades they were in.  Here is what I learned:  Their favorite musical artists, their desire to get their learners’ permits, how their days were going, the ups and downs, the difficulties they are having in school, what they want to study in college, some phrases they say, etc.  We laughed as I tried to say some of the phrases they say and as I told them about my experience of driving my parents’ car into the wall in my garage when I first got my permit.  It was definitely girl talk.  Which I thought was ok considering I was substitute teaching for the after school extracurricular program.

It was a stepping stone to understanding who they are and what influences them.  This is key to understanding how to teach them.

So my first real job… is in kindergarten and not middle school, but either way, I am eager to learn and watch other teachers show me how to teach in the inner city of Minneapolis.  I confess I feel inadequate, but I believe that God is going to develop me through this process.  He’s going to show me what it takes to love and help these children and young adults. The funny thing is that I often feel like a child myself.

Just because there’s a ring on my finger and I’m working out of college doesn’t mean I’m all grown up.  I am certain that God is giving me this job to reveal to me all the areas that I need to grow in.  I know it wont be easy, but God never promised me easy.

He promised to be with me.

Why a Recession?

“What’s going to happen when we go to Rainbow and there is no food to buy? We will help each other and be there for each other. No Christian should live in the land of plenty while their brothers and sisters somewhere else do not have what they need. God is going to test His people- are they truly a church? Or just a club?” (paraphrase of John Piper: What is a Recession For? Some of God’s Purposes)

The sermon I heard today was so full of truth, hope, and reasons to why we might be enduring a recession in our economy today- so good that I have to post the highlights. I hope it gives those who are feeling fear, anxiety, or restlessness about a lost job, a layoff, or struggles and hardships that are coming out of the recession hope and a softened heart to God’s goodness when it might seem hard to believe He is good.

The most comforting point was that God foresees everything and nothing comes to pass unless He commands it to. God doesn’t let anything happen without a solid purpose. At very least, we can trust that He will not waste a recession or waste the trials some of us are facing. Piper encourages us NOT to waste this recession by seeing some of God’s purposes.

John Piper’s Five reasons that God might allow a recession are as follows:

#1) He intends to expose hidden sin and bring us to repentance.

○ Recessions are good at exposing the sin of waste, selfishness, and fear. It is GRACE that God would expose our true state of heart, that it might lead us to repentance and to receive His mercy and forgiveness.

#2) He intends to awaken the western world to an economic state that 2/3 of the world lives in every day.

○ John Piper read an excerpt from the website http://www.global-prayer-digest.org/ about one family’s situation in Ethiopia.

“It’s 3:00 am, and the Afar father is still awake. The desert night is cold. He snuggles up to his wife and newborn baby to keep them warm. Their stomachs rumble with hunger. Should he slaughter his scrawny goat to feed his wife, hoping she will produce enough milk for their baby? Or should he beseech the clan elders to move again, in search of weeds for the goat, or maybe even some fresh water? They are fortunate; both his wife and their baby survived the birth.

The Afar people have the highest maternal fatality rate in the world. Women give birth without benefit of sterile conditions, or even clean water. Of the babies born alive one-third die before age five. Afar people roam throughout one of the most desolate places on earth: the Ethiopian desert. Drought and malnutrition make them vulnerable to diseases such as tuberculosis, malaria, conjunctivitis, and other water-borne illnesses. Of 13 million Afar people, three million are infected with HIV/AIDS. They have never been taught basic hygiene or sterilization techniques. Sources of clean water are few and far between.

Nomadic and clannish, the Afar people are suspicious of any outsiders. Ninety-five percent of the Afars are professing Muslims.

* Pray for non-threatening missionaries to reach the Afar, so they might receive His truth. Pray for Afar elders to experience Jesus in dreams and visions. Pray that Christian radio broadcasts in the Afar language will show them the way to Jesus, and also include teachings on how to address their many health problems.-JWS”

#3) He intends to relocate the roots of our joy and His grace, His goods, not our money, and His worth, not our wealth.

○ We so often forget that our joy doesn’t ultimately come from money or wealth, but from His grace, His worth, and the things that He has given us. During a recession, we will have to fight to remember that our joy is not found because of an easy life with easily available health care and food supply, but found in God’s love and mercy poured out on us.

#4) He intends to awaken us to waste, mistreatment, and over consumption.

○ A recession brings to light the mistreatment of resources and people through exposing greed, selfishness, and overconsumption of some, which leaves others at the receiving end of selfish hoarding. It brings to light unethical business dealings and the need for Christians to offer relief to those who have been mistreated and who lack resources to get help. Many have a chance to repent of wrong spending and the wrong motives of their heart and receive the grace of Christ.

#5) He intends for His mission in the world to advance- the spread of the gospel and growth of the church when the resources of the church are the least they have been in a long time.

○ A recession is a time to think about giving your life away to relieve the suffering, especially the eternally suffering.
○ It is biblical to give generously (not just financially) during suffering, not out of duty, but out of overflowing joy! 2 Corinthians 8: 1-4 shares the story of the church in Macedonia, facing harsh poverty, who gave generously for the relief of their brothers and sisters in Christ. “We want you to know, brothers, about the grace of God that has been given among the churches of Macedonia, for in a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part. For they gave according to their means, of their own accord, begging us earnestly for the favor of taking part in the relief of the saints- and this, not as we expected, but that gave themselves first to the Lord and then by the will of God to us.”

God is so good that He included so many stories of despair, struggle, and near death experiences of people in the bible for us to read about, identify with, and gain a right perspective from. The apostle Paul was quite possibly the most persecuted and afflicted Christian to ever have lived, and He wrote to His churches that He was ministering to from often near- death circumstances. He wrote with His brother Timothy to the church of Corinth out of extreme affliction, and He helps us see something good about it: “… For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead.” (2 Cor. 1:8-9)

I have found myself praying at times in my life that God would show me more of Him, that I would rely on Him, that He would show me that He is all I really have, but I think about the potential of losing my comfort, losing my job, losing security, losing cleanliness, losing health care, losing food, losing all of these things that so readily sustain me in America- and it is easy to despair and think things like: What if I can’t pay off that loan? What if I have to move? What if I can’t provide for my family? What if I am forced to ask for help? What if, in the Apostle Paul’s words, I am “so utterly burdened beyond my strength that I despair of life itself?”

Now, I’m not experiencing any anxiety or fear of the future right now because I am not currently facing hardship or a loss of my job due to the economic crisis, but I will say that I am clinging to the security of a job or a home, or clean water and food- very loosely right now. Because its not guaranteed at the end of the day. I want to be like the church in Macedonia, who, even amidst affliction and severe poverty, experienced abundant joy because of the grace of Christ.

The fact that God has had mercy on me and promised me eternal life through Christ is the only hope that lasts. If or when I face mere survival in my physical body on this earth, how much more will I hope for a life that is better than this?

Perhaps God is bringing us through a recession to show us the reality that this life isn’t it. This world is a fallen world. It is not as beautiful, glorious, or steadfast as Heaven and the glory that we can one day share with God forever.

If we have to go through trials of broken marriages, lost jobs, and unguaranteed health and security to urge us to hope more in heaven, then we should brace ourselves. Brace ourselves for the trials to come, yet dance with overflowing joy that the trials are not the end- a life in God’s Kingdom with Christ who gave Himself as a ransom for many- is the timeless hope we can have.

How humbling to feel inadequate and have nowhere to run but into the arms of God, surrendered and broken. Yet, how difficult will it be to find hope in Him rather than in the temporary blessings of this life? This is perhaps my biggest daily struggle, but I wonder how an economic crisis will reveal even more how much I put my hope in false circumstances rather than God.  If this is a means for Him to help us rely on Him more deeply and to feel His presence more sweetly, then what a good God He is.  He will never leave us or forsake us.  Not even death can separate Him from us because it is He who raises the dead, and this can be our ultimate hope when we “despair of life itself.”

I get excited about the social justice that might come forth through the broken economic infrastructure.  I don’t want to sound all Miss-America-like and wish for world peace, but I pray for a savior to reach the world and restore the sin that has messed it up, and that even if the world is not in a peaceful estate, that many would feel the peace of their soul resting in the forgiveness and grace of God- and that this would be sweeter than any earthly thing.

I Just Needed a Little Jazz

Friday Night: Meeting with students all morning. Substitute teaching in the afternoon. Hanging out in the Somali mall in the evening with a good friend. Saturday: Lunch with Grandparents. Babysitting at night. Sunday: Taken over by the fear of what people think Monday: Deeply processing life. Tuesday: Gas leak in our apartment. Later Tuesday Night: Date I planned to surprise Nick- Jazz Concert.

Honestly and truly, my life/circumstances are not hard. Not hard at all. But there is something that is extremely hard for me: the thought of someone not liking me. Alas, this life-long fear has been met by the grace of God as of last night when Nick and I went to see a jazz concert by the Jason Harms Band. They played at Bethel College and radically gave me a refreshing perspective.

They just released their new album titled, “The Land of the Fear of Men.” Each song is artistically written about this theme. What does it mean? I wish I could describe to you the haunting and amazing sounds that made up their song, “The Land of the Fear of Men.” They intended for the song to give off a scary and riveting vibe because if we were honest with ourselves, we could see just how debilitating it is when most of our motives behind our words and actions are because of the fear of other people. How we’ll do anything to gain approval. How we are chained to wanting the approval of others… we go so far as to fear each other more than God… so far as to think people are the ultimate judges of our lives rather than God Himself. I’ll be the first to admit this, and am probably the foremost of people-fearers.

Jason Harms expressed this land that we live in very poetically and startlingly in this song. Here are the lyrics to capture its essence:

The Land of the fear of men,
She lies near the Devil’s den
In hollows foul
With praises’ howl.

We’ll travel her now and then
In hopes to secure a friend.
But all are slaves
Or sunk in graves-
The land of the fear of men.

When fears and anxieties
Form Clouds that canopy,
Forfeiting light’s true guide,
We follow our compass, pride.

The Land of the fear of men
Is haunting at every bend.
In oaks of grey
The nooses sway.

Her hills form a prowler’s pen
Ensnaring the singing wren,
Where praises made
Disguise the blade-
The Land of the fear of men

Arguments with Nick often rise out of my tendency to over-evaluate a social situation we were in… did I say the right thing? Do the right thing? Did I cause this person to like me or not? Do they think I’m always… Do they understand where I’m coming from… Did they get the wrong idea when I said… I don’t want people to think that…. And on and on and on! This anxiety and fear of what others think will often result in one of us impatiently telling the other, “You are way too concerned with what people think of you!”

Call me the world’s largest people-pleaser, but Jason Harms helped me see this in a much more horrific and honest way than it actually sounds. People pleasing sounds so frilly. So common. It sounds like I’m just dancing around in a tu-tu handing out May-Day baskets, right? Wrong.

People pleasing is majorly a result of unbelief and fear. Instead of the tu-tu guise, its more like I’m obnoxiously wearing a sign that says, “Please like me! Please! Approve of me!” It is what happens when I do not believe or trust in God’s total love and acceptance of me. The gospel has been said to me in many different ways, but I like this short phrase best that measures our status as believers in front of God: You are more sinful than you could ever imagine, but more loved and accepted by God than you could ever think or dream. Really?! I don’t so much like to hear that “sin” part, but I like the sound of me being loved and accepted. If I’m honest, that’s what I want most. If I don’t understand the depths of God’s love for me, I’ll never understand the security I can have in Him.

It takes BELIEF to feel secure in God’s presence. So why is it so hard to believe in the freedom and forgiveness offered to me in Christ? I think it is pride. What is pride? www.dictionary.com says…

pride
   /praɪd/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [prahyd] Show IPA Pronunciation
noun, verb, prid⋅ed, prid⋅ing.
–noun
1. a high or inordinate opinion of one’s own dignity, importance, merit, or superiority, whether as cherished in the mind or as displayed in bearing, conduct, etc.
2. the state or feeling of being proud.
3. a becoming or dignified sense of what is due to oneself or one’s position or character; self-respect; self-esteem.

The third definition says, “a dignified sense of what is due to oneself…” The gospel doesn’t make sense at ALL because it trumps our dignified sense of what is due to ourselves. Our pride makes us live in this sense of what is due, what we deserve, what we owe, etc. When we can clearly see the depths of our sin and depravity without God, we run to our pride. We think of every possible way to make up for our imperfection. This attempt is the #1 reason that makes the gospel so hard to believe for me. The gospel is a free gift. Its exactly like someone reaching over to slide their VISA card for my grocery bill at the grocery store. My pride and sense of what I owe screams, “Oh, no no! REALLY, PLEASE, you don’t have to do that! Let ME pay, really, they’re my groceries, I should pay for them… I can understand that I owe money to pay for what I picked out, but I cannot understand how someone could just pay for something that I deserve to pay for. And that is the gospel. That is why its so hard to trust in it.

Before trusting in Christ, my sin separated me from God. Paul writes to the Ephesians (new followers of Christ) in verse 2:12 “Remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.” Paul is reminding them of who they were without knowing of God’s love. The Ephesians, before they knew about Christ, probably felt how we feel when we don’t hope in God: Like we are on trial every day. And the judges are not God- they are people. Thankfully, the apostle Paul came to their city to tell them about Jesus Christ and how the trial is OVER! The verdict is in- they are sinful, yet loved and approved by God!

Eph 2:13 “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.”

The Ephesians must have read Paul’s words with utter surprise when he writes in Eph 2:4-7 “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ–by grace you have been saved– and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”

They must have thought, “WHAT?! God saw us in our sin and LOVED us? And now he wants to be kind to us? IMMEASURABLE grace? What does that even mean?

I find myself feeling like a lost Ephesian hearing the gospel for the first time. My only hope use to be that people would approve of me somehow. I only lived in the Land of the Fear of Men. But now, as a Christian, the Land of the Fear of Men has not gone away. I still travel there probably daily. Because a lot of the time I just don’t believe its true- that God’s love for me is so steadfast and secure- that I am actually completely detached from the viewpoint, ridicule, judgment, false accusation, or praise from people.

I am so accustomed to living like I am on trial in the world’s eyes and it is so hard to believe that the trial is over because some man came and died on a cross for my sin some 2,000 years ago… its so easy to let doubt take over the truth… but God is faithful, and if I begin to completely doubt his love and reality, He’ll find a way to show me all over again. And my doubt cannot stop God.

What is GLORIOUS is that, if we are trusting in Christ, even if we don’t “feel” secure in His presence, we ARE and we cannot be separated from it. Paul writes in Romans 8:35- 39

“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Just as it is written, “For Thy sake we are being put to death all day long; we were considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

This security in a relationship with God begins when a sinner’s eyes are opened and suddenly all of the ways that they’ve been living and thinking begin to feel heavy and they begin to wonder and question everything. They feel like an overinflated balloon of secrecy that needs to be popped, exposed, confessed, and repented of. At least, this is exactly how I felt my junior year of college. I was so inflated with sin, that I popped. I began to expose myself to Christian women in my life and repented of the sin I had been hiding to God- and nothing has ever felt so good, so refreshing, so FREEING in all my life. I have never felt newer than I did once I let go of my old life and began all over again.

So… if its true that God’s love for me is ALWAYS there, always singing over me, I can truly feel secure at all times. Caring what people think of me more than what God thinks of me is because I don’t understand what God thinks of me. Its like walking on thin ice thinking that A) Wow. God must be smiling on me today because of all of the rules I followed and all of the good things I did. Or B) God must hate me because of the words I just spoke or because of the lies I just told, etc. If “what God thinks of me” is based on my successes or failures, then I don’t have a chance at feeling secure in his presence! Not feeling secure in His presence leads me to search for security, love, and approval from everyone but Him.

Because Christ lived and died in my place, I can feel so secure in God’s love for me, that I can live detached from what people think of me. How do I attain this status with God? The status where he pardons my sin and sees me as clean, made new, perfect and beautiful? I repent of the things that aren’t glorifying to God in my life and trust in Christ. I surrender my burdens, anxieties, and fears in to His hands. I melt at His compassion and mercy over my life. I relish in this new identity. In this new era of freedom of which I never knew before I trusted Christ. To “trust Christ” isn’t just some Christian jargon. It means to believe that when He died on the cross, it was enough to cover all of our sin. It was the payment we deserve, but now we are promised eternal life through Christ.

So, last Tuesday night, when I was angered by the gas leak in our apartment, I was able to slip away into the beat and song of the Jason Harms Band. I was awakened to my unbelief in God’s love and acceptance of me and reminded that His love is always there, and nothing can separate me from it. Nothing can free me more from what others think of me than knowing what God thinks of me.

He doesn’t accept me because of myself, but because of Christ.

Amen to what God can do through jazz music!

Tanzania Life Project

My Grandma Katie and Grandpa Jim Vanderheyden are the founders of this organization.  You can donate and be apart of this vision!

Mission Tanzania Life Project is a certified 501(c)(3) charitable organization that is dedicated to helping the poor people of small villages in Tanzania, Africa, to develop a better quality of life, and to reach a point of self sustenance.  Our success comes from empowering the villagers to help themselves, providing experienced mentors to educate and work cooperatively with them and keep the size of our projects within the means of our support.

Visit the website for more information…

http://www.tanzanialifeproject.org/

World’s Apart

Written Saturday, August 09, 2008
12:13 PM

Today, creativity preceded our Saturday checklist at the Stromwall residence.  Soft melodies of a saxophone and a piano drifted into the haze of sunshine through our window as we casually dabbled with our musical passions in our pajamas.  Suddenly,  ideas flooded our humble abode on Huron Blvd, which actually, in comparison to most of the world, is like a mansion filled with amazing amenities most do not have access to- running water, a fully supplied kitchen, cupboards with food, a couch, computers, a great piano to play… let me backtrack. It is not a humble abode at all when looking through a global lens. Its actually quite luxurious, even though it is considered the least expensive place to live near the University of Minnesota.  So… am I rich or poor? In a matter of 30 seconds, each literate person with access to the internet could have their definitions of wealth and poverty completely redefined by one click on links to websites such as: http://www.globalrichlist.com, http://www.globalissues.org, and http://www.tanzanialifeproject.org.

Don’t worry, I’m not just going to propose a challenge without taking the plunge myself myself. Thirty seconds ago, I thought I was one of those young, “just starting off” college grads who just upgraded old silverware for some nice new silverware. After 30 seconds of clicking, I have been whacked over the head with what feels like a large baseball bat. I think I actually felt my brain jiggle after I visited http://www.globalrichlist.com/ and learned that in college, I lived among the top 13% of the richest people in the world. That means I was richer than 87% of the world.  Holy Smokes! Let me get specific. I worked as a nanny and a waitress for one year of college. Combined, I made near $10,000 in a year from those jobs. This puts me in the top 13.31% of the richest people in the world, economically speaking. Let me give you a visual (which you could see too in about 30 seconds)…