Forgive

I could cry it feels so good to be sitting here at Caribou spending time alone considering every waking moment this past week I have been surrounded by lots of people- children, husband, friends, teachers, neighbors, etc.  I am so blessed by so much community, but I have not spent very much time reflecting or processing the past two weeks. Right now, I wish I had creativity flowing through my brain to my fingers to my hands, but all I have is bullet point thoughts. I started a new job. Its so incredibly eye-opening. I love it. We looked at some houses in the Phillips neighborhood. I went on my first kindergarten field trip. I am having so many breakthroughs in marriage.  In life.  In everything.  How do you even begin to process so much life change?

Today, I had the day off of teaching. Aaaa… the blessings of working in education. You get all of these days off for conferences, teacher workshop days, holiday breaks, etc. So nice. Today, I went to spin class (and Nick came too for the first time!). I met with a dear friend for tea, and spent the entire afternoon cooking. As I cooked, thoughts that seem too big for my small head just bounced off the walls of my brain… teaching…marriage… college ministry… family relationships… students… moving… what ingredients did I forget? Etc. As Nickel Creek played in the background, the calmness of God caught me like a fish on a hook. I was browning italian sausage with ground beef just mashing and thinking, mashing and thinking, mashing and thinking and BAMB! I just put down the masher (the spatula) took a look out of the window at the beautiful day and prayed, “God? Would you help me stop? Help me stop thinking about things as inhumane as italian sausage and hamburger beef? Please clear my mind. Fill me with peace.”

My mashing turned into brainlessly browning meat while music saturated my anxiety. I spent most of yesterday attached at every limb to five kindergarteners at a time, ssshhhhing, holding hands, and walking children to the bathroom on our field trip to the Maplewood Community Center, where we watched a play. Kindergarteners can only hold it for so long. I can only think and talk for so long without needing to take a time-out of life. A time out of doing. A time out to Listen. Exfoliate my heart with the Word of God. Over the last few weeks, there are a few verses that have been so much more than words I heartlessly read. They have cut my heart like a sword. They have challenged the ways that I think and have CHANGED the ways that I think.

Because of a situation that happened with some of my students at school, I chose to handle the situation by talking to the students about forgiveness and what it means to truly forgive someone.

Here is the verse I read… Col. 3: 12-13 “Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.” For so long, I have just passed over that verse, thinking it was just one of those “love everyone” verses. Loving people isn’t that hard, is it? Um, I’ve discovered that it IS.

It is hard to love people. Loving people does not soley consist of smiling and sticking your thumbs up. If I am called to love and forgive others as the Lord has forgiven me, I have the hardest challenge of my life ahead of me. I certainly cannot do this without the supernatural work of God changing my heart and mind. I have learned so much about myself and the expectations that I place on other people. On my students. My friends. My family. My husband. I have the expectation that I deserve to be treated nicely and considerately. I expect students to listen to me.  I expect certain people to make me feel a certain way.  I expect that when people are rude or mean, they will apologize to me.  I live in the sense of what is due, what people should owe me.  I don’t outwardly act like this, but its the restlessness in my heart that reveals I have all these needs and expectations from certain relationships and groups of people that just don’t get met the way that my longings want to be met.  And I am realizing how bogus it is to hold unwritten and unspoken expectations for people who simply were not created to meet my needs.  No human being can meet my needs.

I have realized that I live very much out of the perspective of “Give and take.” I am not ok with just giving. I want to receive something for my giving. When people hurt me, I expect an apology and I expect it to be sincere and heart-felt. The reality is, however, not all people will apologize to someone even if they’ve been the one in the wrong. Free love is loving people without expecting something in return. Its forgiving them in totality, forgiving  AS GOD HAS FORGIVEN US. I will get nowhere in my love for others if I do not take a moment and ask myself, “How has God forgiven me?”

I am almost speechless because what God has forgiven me for could never even fill every page that could be typed and pasted onto the internet. My sin is so bad that it deserves death. And I’m not just talking about sin that is obvious, but the hidden sins in my heart. The thoughts I think. I have spit in God’s face and chosen temporary pleasures for my own selfish gain, made myself into a God rather than looked to Him as my God, wanted to be worshipped myself than worship God, lived carelessly, shamed others with hurtful words and blasphemy, made idols out of relationships, body image and on and on and on… God has forgiven me of ALL MY SIN! This is amazing! When someone wrongs a forgiven sinner, the way that we are called to forgive is as God has forgiven us. We are called to give grace, to wipe away grudges for even the most hurtful actions others have done to us.

I think that one of the reasons it is so hard to truly forgive other people is because we hold too high of expectations for people who are broken and sinful. Why do we expect perfection from other people if they are, by their nature, sinful, and not God? At least if you are like me, you either to a large or small degree think that others owe you dignity and integrity. Because you hold a very high status for yourself. You are beside yourself if others do not meet this end of the deal. Oh how hopeless we are without God to help us! Is it possibly to give and to give of ourselves joyfully without needing anything in return? Without expecting something in return? Could we love others and look past the ways they’ve hurt us or treated us? Could we prepare our hearts to walk into every situation without needing something from people?  Not if we don’t double click on what the gospel really is.

Did Jesus come to die on a cross for “good” people?  No.  He came for sinners.  Sinners aren’t just lonely beggars.  They are you and me.  WE are liars, murderers, filled with jealousy, malice, slander, sexual immorality, idolatry, etc.  Sin has separated us from God, and yet He came and took the punishment we deserve.  If we double click on Christ’s death on the cross, we’d see the torture, the pain, the sorrow, the death- that all happened because justice had to be served.  Death was the just result of sin.  And mercy was the gracious act of God poured out through the life and resurrection of Jesus.  He has forgiven us.  Not only has he pardoned our sin, but he welcomes us into his presence at all times.  He doesn’t define us by what we did wrong, but by the righteousness of Christ living in us.  If we understood the depths of His forgiveness of us, we would see more clearly that no one owes us anything at all.  But we’ll never understand this unless we are exposed to our sin and shown how much we really don’t deserve anything.  We are entitled to nothing.  Not even to others treating us nicely.

I am a firm-planted needer.  This is the first year of my life that it has been revealed so largely that I cannot help but see that God is revealing it because He wants to show me the problem with needing others and the solution of His total love that is the only real thing that can give me what I need. I am currently reading, “When People are Big and God is Small” by Edward Welch.  I am really hoping that this book, along with Col. 3 will help me begin to love people fully, freely, and graciously without needing them.  I am loved and accepted by God- I want HIM to be big and people to be small when it comes to my needs being met.

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.