I am From

I am from sheets of music
Lying on the bed
Guitars propped up

I am from brothers’ clothes
The buttonhook on dad’s hand
In the backyard of summer

I am from bike jumps and bloody knees
Prayers and backrubs by my bedside
Dad’s surprise tickle attacks

I am from kleenexes
Tucked in a sleeve in case of tears
I am from a late night movie
On a school night

I am from cake rolls
Cinnamon gum in a purse
Crowds of people laughing
Cousins joking
Till stomachs hurt

I am from dirt paths
Cutting down Christmas trees
A small cabin overflowing
The clean plate club
Pink curlers and the boxcar children
Popcorn clouded skies
Endless with dreams

I am from sock fights on rainy days
Mochas and listening from blue eyes
The patience that taught me to drive
Taught me to live

I am from hands that let go
Freedom to become
Freedom to sing my own song
That love
Even so

I am from bike rides and road trips
Books on tape
Stories around a campfire
Guitars around a campfire

I am from cheers at soccer games
I am from cheering
At football
At basketball
At the Depot

I am from being amazed
At songs they write
At their humor
At their love
For a sister in tears
Or a sister on an amateur stage
Or at a project on beach
Or a sister in a fight
Even so
They love

I am from drums in the basement
Microphones and speakers
Crowds of boys in the house
I am from wanting to be cool
Like them

I am from the Christmas walk
Birthday Breakfast in bed
Cinnamon Rolls on Christmas
From homemade dinner
From buttons re-sewn
From fingers calming my back
Hot chocolate after
The snow jumps we made

I am from clothes on my back
And shoes on my feet
Dinner on the table
Every night
Lots of kids don’t have that

I am from fights and misunderstanding
And a powerful grace
Moments of re-creation
Redemption at work
A puzzle never-ending
Still being pieced

I am from a goofy face
Peering in the door crack
Holding a football blanket
Asking to sleepover
Night after night
Late night chats about mistakes
About redemption
Backrubs and peanut butter
Harmonizing to songs

I am from his hands
Showing me A, B, C, D
From power chords
And re-writing songs
His help, his intellect
His honesty
Another goofy face
Making me laugh
Making me think deep
Over coffee
Over a kid’s ice cream cone
Creative ideas
Made into real life

I am from the tree house
The boat, the music
I am from vanilla dipped in chocolate
At the drive through
Chocolate chip cookies
Baking

I am from their genuine songs
Ears and eyes
Gets louder, wiser
Freer
Over time

If it is a contest of Strength, Behold He is Mighty…

In Job 9:19, Job says “If it is a contest of strength, behold, he is mighty! If it is a matter of justice, who can summon him?”

Job is so truthful. He doesn’t pretend to understand God or presume to have all knowledge. He regards God within his shattered life and speaks in his uncomfort, honestly stating that he loathes his life. His whole family has died and his body is taken over by disease. Satan’s goal is to get Job to curse God- so he takes away all that Job has been blessed with.

In Job 1:11, Satan says to God, “But stretch out your hand and touch all that he has, and he will curse you to your face.” God agrees to let Satan test Job, “And the Lord said to Satan, Behold, all that he has is in your hand. Only against him do not stretch out your hand.”

In Job chapter 9, Job speaks as though he is in a battle with God. In all of his suffering, he acknowledges God’s total supremacy and power. When Job says, “If it is a contest of strength, behold, he is mighty! If it is a matter of justice, who can summon him?” He knows that his own strength is not stronger than God’s. He knows that God is completely just in all his ways, the ultimate and most perfect judge.

Job goes on in chapter 10 to be even more real and vulnerable, “I loathe my life; I will give free utterance to my complaint; I will speak in the bitterness of my soul.” (Job 10:1)

It is clear from reading in Job that God wants something from us. He doesn’t want our good deeds or our perfect satisfaction at all times- but our broken hearts pleading before him- acknowledging our frailty and inability to help ourselves. He wants us to be so broken that we cry out to him- like Job. And he wants us to cry out in honesty, in fear of God, in belief that he is real and powerful. How comforting to know that God, in his wisdom, included broken people filled with calamity, sin, and bitterness in the bible. We can be comforted because it is these very type of people that can still have relationship with the God of the Universe, who can cry out to him in the midst of despair.

In chapter 7, Job is hopeless. He believes his life is ruined and that there is no hope of redemption or restoration. He’s basically expecting death. He says in Job 7:11, “Therefore, I will not restrain my mouth; I will speak in the anguish of my spirit; I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.” He goes on in verses 13- 16, “When I say, ‘My bed will comfort me, my couch will ease my complaint, then you scare me with dreams and terrify me with visions, so that I would choose strangling and death rather than my bones. I loathe my life; I would not live forever. Leave me alone, for my days are a breath.”

Job sees his sickness and despair. Rather than hoping in the eternity after his death, he is expecting death to take him and end it all. It is a hopeless plight. Even so, he is honest in his despair, which allows me to feel freedom to be honest in my own despair.

Bildad speaks in Chapter 8 that Job should repent of his hopelessness. He encourages Job in verses 8:5-7, “If you will seek God and plead with the Almighty for mercy, if you are pure and upright, surely then he will rouse himself for you and restore your rightful habitation. And though your beginning is small, your latter days will be very great.” Verse 12 says, “He will yet fill your mouth with laughter, and your lips with shouting. Those who hate you will be clothed with shame, and the tent of the wicked will be no more.”

There is so much hope for Job in his most lowly hours! Is there not the same hope for us in our most lonely, most terrified, most beaten, most bruised, most ungodly, most helpless hours?

In the beginning of Job, Job thinks he is righteous on his own, that he is without sin. But God reveals to him that he is sinful and Job begins to have understanding. Job 13: 23, “How many are my iniquities and my sins? Make me know my transgression and my sin.” He believes in God’s redemption, in his power to remove our sin… “For then you would number my steps; you would not keep watch over my sin; my transgression would be sealed up in a bag, and you would cover over my iniquity.”

God can cover over our iniquity when we cry out to him, in raw emotion and despair. We can trust him to remove all our sin and to promise us better days ahead. We can talk to God in anger, in despair, in untrust, in disbelief- and hope that he can restore us and mark us with redemption and total forgiveness and blessing.

Job’s faith is contagious. I want to be real with God like Job. I want to learn to hope in God through my own struggles and despair.

Isn’t it great? We can come to God as we are. He is stronger than we are and powerful enough to break our addictions and patterns of crap in our lives.

I am so hopeful today.

I, Too, am a Refugee

“I, Too, am a Refugee” Personal Narrative
By Katie Vanderheyden October 17, 2007

Rain slammed down hard on Loring Park
It slammed the stories
Of the boy who’s face was blown off by a bomb
Of the girl who carried her brother
On her back
Everyday
To get medicine

Into my mind

The mud splashing the misery onto my feet
As the puddles of distant pain grew deeper
They flooded the guilt of the American Individual
The guilt of having freedom
Of having enough

There were 10,000 people in Uganda
Huddled in a field, he said
He got a call and went
They escaped
A rescue worker died trying to help
She gave her life

Puddles deepening

I’m sure I could die of self obsession
Here in America
In Darfur, in Chad, in Colombia
They want to be safe
To eat food

Suffering, we all are
Some more affluently than others

We have a lot of stuff
What about empty jars without water?
They have so many over there
Got to pump it from wells
If they have a well to pump from

I never see where my water comes from
Know I get thirsty
Know what it feels like to appear full
But to be empty

If their jars were full
Would they want more?
Don’t we need more than food and water?
Looks that way, here in America
When I watch TV
When I go to college

I do
Want more
I can’t sleep sometimes
Because its not enough
The food
The water
My affluent quality of life

It’s not enough for me

Fallen, Broken
We are
In Darfur, in Chad, In Colombia
Everywhere
Here, in America

Fighting, Despairing
We are

Unconsciously attracted to life
Hoping forever is real
Rest for our souls
Wanting to know the secret
Groaning for places that sparkle
From conversation to conversation
Heaven, Utopia, Nirvana…
Begging to be given everything we need
Or acting like we need nothing

Jesus Christ says his yoke is light
Come to him; says he will give us rest
Wasn’t sure if he was just my “homeboy” a “good man”
Or a liar
Stopped believing in the cultural Jesus
Wanted to know him
For real

Truth

Use to think he wanted just the good ones
Now I know Him
Know he likes to take the ones broken, crying
Messy and honest
Like me

Says he will see us in paradise
Not because we’re good enough
But because of his mercy

I am a refugee
From sin
From guilt
From hiding
From the weight of others’ eyes
Got so heavy, I laid my burden down

Still fighting, but not despairing
Persecuted, but not abandoned
Struck down, but not destroyed
His joy is going to be my strength

His joy, His strength

A free gift he says
But I want to act like I have
A wealth of knowledge and peace
Like I understand
But I don’t
Just know it felt real dark
And I got scared that the dark would take me
I needed a refuge
A rescue worker
Who would die for me

A free gift to
Everyone who is fleeing
Everyone who wants to escape
For all of the refugees

Who have nothing left but belief

I don’t feel free because of America
Or because I can eat, go to college, and be clean
Actually, I feel heavy chains here
Maybe there are chains are everywhere…

Maybe its because we’re all sinners—
We know not what we do

Offending a perfect God
Could we admit it?
Would we?
If we knew—
We could be completely accepted
Approved of
Lavished in grace

“Forgive them, Father—
They know not what they do,”
He prayed

But dancing with him
The one who made himself poor
Who loved prostitutes, outcasts, beggars
Like me

Laying my sin upon him
Like he’s my best friend’s ear
Being made new, scars erased
That’s where I feel the most free

For what he’s done now
What joy, what peace!
I am not who I use to be…

Never thought, never dreamed…

He’s come to free me
All I am is worth it to believe
Worth letting go of the past
Worth admitting I am weak
Worth it to start over
To see him live in me
Worth it to feel this true

This free

In my puddle, I can see that
I, too, am a refugee

Redemptive Community

Yesterday and today I woke up with a kick in my spirit, unlike any kicks I’ve experienced recently. Days are rare when we can wake up and feel excited and eager for life. I have felt overjoyed this past weekend, and I cannot express how thankful I am. I attribute it to the people that surrounded me this past weekend and the way that they motivate me to live life.

There is something that living in community does to my spirit. Living in community can also be challenging because sin easily taints the beauty of relationships. But redemptive community is different. It is a group with two things in common that can bond a human soul faster than any other commonalities I’ve known in relationships. 1) We are all sinners to the same degree. 2) We are all forgiven and made righteous through Christ. This makes these relationships a lot different than relationships built upon other standards. This makes these relationships out-of-this-world, literally. These kind of relationships don’t exist naturally in the world. They only exist when both people in a relationship have experienced the radical forgiveness of Christ. This makes these relationships full of freedom, honesty and forgiveness.  This makes these relationships all about celebrating life- because its forever!  A side note:  My friend Mary and I decided we never would have been friends unless we shared the bond of Christ- pretty funny huh?  Now she stands as my ex-roommate (only because I got married!) of two years and a dear friend who stood by me in my wedding.  Anywho…

As a part of the human condition, we have a natural tendency to only hold on to relationships if they can give us what we feel we need and deserve. I’ve realized I wake up each day with expectations from certain relationships. What I don’t often do is consider the after math of when one of my expectations doesn’t get met. How will I react to the failure of myself as a friend and the failure of others as my friends?

Into the Light

Into the Light
By Katie Stromwall

Song Lyrics written
Sunday, March 09, 2008
11:56 AM

V1
The lights are blinding
Driving Home
On this two way road
You’re in control
But you’re losing it now

You’ve cut ties with everyone
Made your wish
That this could all be done
I know
Because I’ve been there

Chorus
Hold on
I’ll stay by you
Till this is through
In battle cries
We will rise
Into the light

V2
When it seems impossible
To hope when you feel strangled
By a world of lies
It will addict us to anything
To escape momentary affliction
Its so appealing
Just to be set free