Spoiled Clay

A couple of weekends ago I went on a beach retreat with the youth from our church.

(Side note: It was FREEZING!)

One night, Brad (the youth pastor) spoke very personally about his life. He was on a rough path for most of his childhood and teenage years. He has been through a lot that I have never, and hope to never, experience.

At one point Brad recalled that at age 17 he realized (oddly enough- through the messy mistake of a Cherokee Indian potter) that his life was perfectly depicted by a mess of clay splattered all over the room.

He retold this passage from Jeremiah 18 about the potter and the clay:

'God told Jeremiah, "Up on your feet. Go to the potter's house. When you get there I'll tell you what I have to say." So I went to the potter's house and sure enough, the potter was there, working away at his wheel. Whenever the pot the potter was working on turned out badly, as sometimes happens when you are working with clay, the potter would simply start over and use the same clay to make another pot. Then God's message came to me: "Can't I do just as this potter does, people of Israel?" God's decree! "Watch this potter. In the same way this potter works his clay, I work on you, people of Israel.'

Yes, I have heard this story many times. But for a few reasons, it went straight to my heart that weekend.

MAN, I screw up a lot! I often have a bad attitude, I forget to love people, I get lazy, I get selfish, I let other people's issues drag me down, and trust me - there's plenty more to add to this list.

And that's not even mentioning the things that I don't necessarily bring on myself - it's hard to deal with some things that come your way in life - even though we try sometimes we just can't seem to "fix" ourselves. Half the time we dont' even know where the junk comes from.

THEN on top of that, I don't know about you, but realizing all of these shortcomings puts me in a worse mood and then I start letting myself feel defeated and on and on... ;)

(I know, poor me right?)

Sometimes we aren't even aware that we are broken, and sometimes we are so aware of it that we feel spread out across a room in little pieces.

There is a lot going on in life right now, for me and for several of my friends. As stinky and hard as that can be, I love remembering that my God is bigger. What a load off! :)

I am a work in progress and I am learning.

Even when it feels like you take 14 steps backwards, THERE IS ALWAYS HOPE.

Sometimes it feels like we have "turned out badly", but we can always be re-shaped.

Sometimes I think I need to remember that my clay hasn't dried yet.

This is the body

Over the holidays Chris and I were asked to serve communion to our fellow church members. (basically we were asked to hold the plates). ;)
I wasn't super exicted to do it, mostly because I'm not a fan of being up in front of lots of people, but I really wasn't too concerned about it.
Well... I had no idea that it would be the experience that it was.

I LOVED serving my church family. I don't know the best way to explain why it was so cool, but just seeing each individual person and holding out the tray of bread (aka stirofoam) for them, was so great. It felt like we were not only serving each person - but also joining with them all to remind ourselves that we are about something so much bigger than ourselves. We were in it together! Make sense?

That's something that I don't often feel when I take communion. Yes, we all wait to eat and drink at the same time, but this was a totally different experience. It felt like we were actually "in communion" with each other. (what a concept, I know). Isn't that the point anyway?

As a child, that wasn't a part of my understanding of communion. Maybe I just wasn't bright enough to comprehend exactly what it was all about, but I don't remember the commuity part being explained. My understanding was - we eat bread that represents Jesus body and drink juice that represents his blood to remind us of Him because He died for us and He told us to do it. I don't mean anything disrespectfully in that statement and I don't mean to make it sound like that isn't a vital point in communion either. But even as a young adult I don't think I gained much deeper insight in this area.

I read a sermon about communion recently.
The pastor said that in some ways you can consider communion to have a two fold purpose. The first purpose being memorial - we remember what Jesus has done for us and we give thanks for it and set ourselves in line with His heart. The second purpose is fellowship - we are united in our purpose and coming together as the body of Christ to remember why we are here and what we are about as a group.
He even went on to discuss the difference between the way they took communion in the bible and the way we normally do in our churches today. In biblical times they were often gathered around a table for a meal as opposed to sitting in a pew facing the minister.
He weighs the idea that this little difference could actually have a significant impact because instead of looking our community in the eyes (which provides more sense of connection to each other) we are all looking at the director of the communion.
I wouldn't really have thought about that making much of a difference, but after experiencing communion from a different standpoint, I can say that it totally does.
It can be easy to get into the routine of church & the activities that surround it and still get sort of disconnected from each other -especially when your church has multiple services. I miss that community and I think it is so so important.

There is something powerful about taking time to remember and realize that we are united. That the story behind this ritual is why we are here. That this is what brings us together.
We are all in need of the savior that gives us true life. We are all seeking to serve him - together.
There are a lot of things that people (even in the same church) differ on. It's nice to give adequate attention to what makes us stand together.

It happened to be New Years...

For a while now Chris and I have been planning to take a day or so to do some serious thinking. We have been trying to discern the direction that our lives should be going in the near future. We want to make sure that we are giving a good amount of consideration to this decision (or decisions I should say) because we are obviously not interested in blindly making a choice AND because we don't want to decide based only on our own desires/feelings. We want to be listening for and hearing God's heart more than anything.

It is so easy to just try to be comfortable wherever we are, and even though that is sometimes a temptation for us, we know that we would not be fulfilled by living that life.

We both have personal convictions regarding our need to be expressing the love of Jesus to people in need - to those who lack necessities to meet basic needs for living, those who are overlooked, and those who need to experience a relationship that recognizes their own value and worth. We want to do this wherever we are.

We know that it is Christ's love that we desire to display - whether we do it well or not - and we have realized that we will not be satisfied or fulfilled in this life unless we are following this desire .

Having said that, it obviously wouldn't make much sense for us to make a decision without seeking the will of the one who has shown us what this love even is in the first place.

A friend of Chris's sent us an evaluation with some very detailed questions that he has asked himself when he has been in the midst of life changing decisions. It is extremely well thought out and very helpful. (I don't know if he got the general idea from somewhere else or if he thought it out himself, but I honestly think the process could be published because it really is a great tool, but that is beside the point).

It just so happened that the next time both of us had a little break from work without anything else planned was New Years Eve and Day. Ironic, since most people choose that day to make decisions regarding their personal lives. We didn't plan it that way on purpose, but it's kind of cool that it worked out that way.

So we headed to Charleston for an overnight mini retreat.

I share this with you to ask for prayer. We are really thankful to have had the opportunity to start the process off well but we still have A LOT of continual thinking and discerning and praying to do, and we would really appreciate it if you could remember us.

Part of the difficulty we are having is that we feel the need and pull to follow these callings - but it's not there is a list of options lined up for us and all we have to do is choose.

Even if we decided that we need to be somewhere else - we don't have any idea where that somewhere else could be. That makes it hard to feel like we can really make any decisions. We know that trusting God to provide the opportunities is vital, it's just hard to feel like you are really deciding anything when nothing is final. BUT, we do hope that we are preparing ourselves for whenever the right opportunity does present itself and it may be that is all we can do at this point. We also need patience (I am NOT a patient person) because we really feel ready to make some changes.

We would appreciate your prayers because as routine as it may sound for christians to be seeking Gods will - it is much easier said than done when you are talking about making yourselves willing to be placed into literally ANY situation that would serve God most.

Chris and I are both practical people - we like to be prepared for things and to have a clear plan. We know that we need to release these needs in some ways because it very well could be that where God wants us is a situation that would not allow us to save money for our future children or own a house or be financially secure in any way. Some of you may have already allowed yourselves to be used in that type of situation, so it might not seem like such a stretch to you. Others of you, like us, might struggle with this decision.

Chris and I have both spent lots of time in some challenging financial situations growing up, so the thought of continuing that trend is scary to us to say the least. It is a trust issue, but as Chris has mentioned in his blog before - it's hard to decide where the line is between your duty to provide for your family and your call to spend your life in ministry. Now - we don't honestly think there is a line there.

We know that God will provide for us - or at least it's easy to SAY that you know that and HOPE that you know that - because you are SUPPOSED to know that, but that doesn't free you up to make reckless decisions, right?

I will be honest and say that what we really don't know is where the line is between using your head to make good decisions to be a good steward without being a burden to others, and forgetting that and seeking only to do ministry because it is your purpose/desire.

(By the way - anyone who finds themselves in the middle of discerning life changes (or anything for that matter) should try Lectio Divina if you don't already. It really helps to focus your thoughts and soak your mind in scripture in a personal way.)

Anyway, there is a little glimpse into our thoughts these days.

As I said - we need prayer, help us out please! ;)

Hope everyone had a great Christmas and New Years!