Strange New Kind of Normal

I woke up this morning completely surprised.

It wasn't that I'd slept for 9 hours straight. That was a gift, but not surprising given the combination of painting/moving stress plus travel/flying fatigue.

It wasn't that I wasn't that I was so hot already. I expected that this trip, being at the tail end of the hottest season in Northern Thailand.

It wasn't even that I was in a different bedroom than my own, although it was that realization and the lack of the surprise of it that was surprising. All that's familiar is surprising me.

Familiar faces were waiting for us on the other side of the customs barrier, and it was warm and wonderful to wai and embrace and kiss lovely little faces. There were about 16, all Thais but one, only 8 of whom were our Hot Springs orphans (the others had school or other reasons, not sure yet but we'll see them all soon). The rest of the group consisted of Suradet, Yupa, Tutu, and Ashley (Asia's Hope intern from the US you'll get to know more as we go, I'm sure) and baby Joshua and a staff person who's name I asked but didn't write down, and one other teenage girl who I don't know. But mostly, mostly familiar faces. Faces of people I love. What's up with that? Half way around the world, Thai faces, a culture and people so strange to me, yet so familiar so much part of me. When did that happen?

Tutu took us first to the home of Mike and Debbie Flinchum, long time missionaries in Thailand now serving with Asia's Hope at Doi Saket. Remarkably, they have opened their home to us even while they are back in the US welcoming the arrival of another grandchild. It's where I stayed when not at Hot Spring while I was here last fall. It's a beautiful home, clean and bright in typical Thai-modern style. But more beautiful is the open handed spirit of these two kingdom servant-warriors, who have left us everything we need for a few days of rest and refreshment while we recover from the journey and adapt to the culture and climate.

Not daring to nap, at least for long, we only gave ourselves about two hours to settle in, shower, unpack and get oriented. Then we headed off to "big Lotus" (think Walmart on steriods with a complete grocery section) to get our money exchanged. It was strange to realize how familiar I am with baht and with being able to do simple exchanges at the store. In fact, at one point Tutu left the three of us with our own cart and the list of what we would need for breakfast and snacks and other basic survival items (like toilet paper) at Hot Springs. And there we were, just us Canadians surrounded by Thais speaking Thai, surrounded by strange signage and unusual fruit and sticky rice on your ice cream.....and it was fine. More than fine. It was fun and wild and strange and familiar all at the same time.

And then this morning, when I woke up in a room I knew and immediately realized where I was and it all felt so normal even though I am literally half way around the world.....that's what surprised me.

My first time here I was so out of my element. No, really. Completely and totally out of whack with my self, feeling so disoriented and lost and uncomfortable, so hopelessly homesick I was barely good for anything. The first time here I was all about me and how I was experiencing everything. The first time here I felt anything but normal.

And now? This is strange and normal all at once. It's a strange new kind of normal where what I know overlaps with what is new in a way that makes me wonder what God has for me to discover in that overlapping space.

Whatever it is, I have a feeling that it will completely surprise me.

On Our Way

The Team is on its way!

At the time of this writing it's 2 a.m. our time. Except you're not supposed to do that, keep checking your watch and translating the time back. Here in LA it's only 11 p.m. But, hey, that's still late, and I'm still tired.

But happy. Really happy. Almost Skittles happy without the Skittles. Poor George and Starr. They've been very tolerant, even to the point of pulling themselves out of their sleepy slump to pose for this picture. We are waiting at Gate 121, the famous, long-layover gate of this (my) third time. Feels like home to me. Wait! That reminds me of a song. (See, told ya...Skittles happy.)

We have come through the all the security and customs checks with remarkable ease, had an uneventful first flight, rescued George's hat from having abandonment issues, have had a "robust" meal (my small group will understand that word) at a snappy Mexican restaurant, and have now found our wandering way around this massive labyrinth that is LAX.

I still can't believe I get to go again. I can't. What a gift this is to my astonished soul. That God would allow this, that the people in my life would let me go, shoulder my responsibilities at church and at home, that generous hearts would provide the means, thoughtful hearts would stock the snack bag, that praying hearts would cover us.

So...here we are, at Gate 121, waiting for that long, long but-numbing flight to Taipei, Skittles-happy without the Skittles...at least I am :).

We'll keep you posted.

The Anchor that Frees Me

I am particularly grateful for and humbled by the selflessness of my hero tonight.

Nothing spectacular happened, except that he sat with me, listened respectfully, and helped me figure out a tedious, last minute detail this final night before my third trip to Southeast Asia. Third trip. And he's doing it again....letting me go, not holding me back from the adventure, patiently, gently helping me figure out tedious, last minute details.

It constantly amazes me that God would know exactly who it was I would need, at 15 and at 52, neither of us being the same person today that we were then, not at all; yet being and becoming the other puzzle piece in a life long romance that anchors. I am not an easy person to live with. Yet Ken remains. This is a great gift.

So I'm the one getting on the plane, but those kids in Chiang Mai have every bit as much of Ken in every moment I spend, every hug I share, every treat given, every faltering sermon stumbled through with the gracious assistance of translation.

I am the goer but Ken is the sender, less exotic, more hidden.....quietly my hero.

Thank you, love.
I'm excited to go, can hardly wait.
But I'm anchored to your heart,
And I'll be back very soon
More me
Because you let me go.

The Wild Space In Between

Sometimes I can totally relate to those unfortunate characters on Star Trek who find themselves in a time warp continuum. It's a place where time and space kind of don't factor any more, and everything seems like forever and a second all at once. Between Asia is like that for me.

Can it really be that in just six days I'll be getting back on a plane heading to Thailand?

Flashback. I'm sitting on the runway in Chiang Mai, my gut in knots from the goodbye I have just endured. What have I done to my heart? After two weeks with the orphans at Hot Springs, I am not sure I remember where I end and they begin. And now I am about to fly as far away from them as geographically possible, to the other side of the world. I do NOT want to leave them.

The pain is physical, in my chest and stomach and arms. The engine roars and so does something deep inside of me. How is this happening? Why is this okay? When did 15 children I didn't know exist two years ago, become part of my inner sanctum? Six months. That's how long I will have to wait to see them again. And the plane lifts off and I honestly can't remember ever being so wrenched away.

Six months. On Tuesday the six months is over. How did that happen? When did it happen?

We are travelling as three this time. George Gabber, one of Highview's Elders and an odd mix of completely serious and seriously fun. Starr Bramer, year two of university under her belt, ready to be pushed out of her zone. We'll go to Hot Springs Orphan Home and love and encourage our kids. (Jen Connor will have her very own adventure in June. More on that later.)

April 28 to May 15, a little more than two weeks all included (with travel time). We're bringing gifts and treats and chess and nail polish and frisbees and open hearts to love bumblingly midst the language and cultural cross over. We're excited and anxious and ready and unprepared.

And it's Tuesday that we leave. Tuesday.

Tutu (Thailand Director of Ministry for Asia's Hope) and I have written frequently since that first visit in February of 2008. Recently we chatted about this visit, and I told her that all the sum of the events of the past 11 months have left me with a certain kind of weariness. Not sad, except very sad. Not discouraged, except bewildered some. Not in want, except empty in some places. I told her that I was so looking forward to the "filling up" of our time together. I said that I hoped she and I could have some good 'conversations' about our life and leadership as women in ministry. She wrote back and reassured me, "You will know my heart."

I'm packing. I'm driving around imagining the greeting at the airport. I am practicing how I will say my hellos. I can't wait to kiss the faces and give out candy.

I will abandon myself once again to the wild space in between the space of my life.

Resurrection Intersection

It's been called 'The Greatest Story Ever Told'.

A man named Jesus arrives on the planet, born to a poor Jewish couple midst considerable controversy and reports of various unusual events.....things like angel visits and magi visits and wholesale slaughter of innocents at the hands of a jealous king. Jesus grows up to wander the countryside teaching and healing people and collecting something of a following, much to the agitation of the authorities.

At the peak of His popularity, He is betrayed by one of His own, arrested and charged with blasphemy, a crime punishable by death according to the Jews. (It's significant, this charge, because it argues pretty convincingly, that Jesus was claiming to be God, otherwise the Pharisees wouldn't have been so interested.) The Romans get in on it, so the means of death is crucifixion, long and agonizing by any standards, while His followers look on helpless and demoralized.

They put His crushed body into a borrowed tomb, and everyone's thinking that's the end of it. But the same kind of various and unusual events that marked His arrival, burn that third morning into history like the blinding of an eclipse. And in an act that, if it's true, changes EVERYTHING, Jesus walks out of the tomb, radiating life, breathing power -- God-like.

That's Jesus' story. The greatest story ever told. Except, if you go further in the story...follow it all the way to today, for instance, the incredible thing is...It's not done.

Because what happens is that Jesus' story intersects with my story. And that's where I just have to sit still in the moment and let it make me breathless.

See I know who I am without Him. Paralyzed by my proclivity for emotional dominance. Exhausted by a perfectionistic workaholism. Driven by a need to be noticed and approved of. Poisoned by the wicked clutch of bitterness and revenge that seems perfectly justifiable to my bruised and betrayed psyche. There is no living in all of that. There is no power in all of that.

But because Jesus did it first, I can do it now. Because He was willing to offer it all and able conquer it all, I can offer my all back to Him, and receive "everything I need for life and godliness" (2 Peter 1:3). My emotional life, my work, my ego and my need for justice, it's all His when I collide with a risen Jesus. My heart, my mission, my sense of self, it's all empowered by a power so blinding it flashes across 2000 years of history to meet me where I am, here, right now, where my own story plays out.

I know who I am without Him, and I shouldn't be able to live like I do. I shouldn't be able to shoulder the weight of it, bear the sorrow of it, think through the confusion of it. I shouldn't be able to conquer my own inner junk to be of any earthly good whatsoever. I shouldn't be able to even entertain the thought of forgiving the unspeakable betrayals. Really, there should be no joy.

But there is and I can and I do, imperfectly for sure, stumbling as much as striding, learning and re-learning as I go. But I am breathless in this moment of rescurrection intersection, realizing again, just this morning, what a gift His God-empowered, death-can't-hold-me-back life is to me.

And what that means is that I woke up this morning......astonishingly alive.

A Fog of Trust

I snuck into my office on Monday last week.

Normally there's no one around. Being a church, the Staff generally takes Mondays as a day off to recover from the demands of Sunday before heading back into the thick of it. And because I knew it would be quiet and because I needed that kind of quiet to still my heart and bring some focus to the events of the past month, I came in, turned on the lamps and sat in the crying chair.

They called it that, not me. Apparently there's something about sitting in my office in that chair in the corner that makes people cry. There's a box of kleenex at the ready at all times, just because of this strange phenomenon. And true enough, for most people, the chair, or whatever it is they are talking about while sitting in it, more often than not involves some crying. Mostly good crying, release crying, honest understandings and deep moving kind of crying.

So, on Monday, I sat in my chair. And cried.

Not right at first. I had sat with my Bible in my lap and my journal open for a bit, just being. I'm usually more of a human doing than a human being, so in that moment I was just being. Quiet. Not thinking too much. Not feeling too much. Not yet.

I picked up a book from the stack on my desk that will inform and shape the summer series of sermons for Highview (Restoring Weary Souls, all about soul rest, I'm sure you'll hear more about it in future blogs). The book was Ruthless Trust by Brennan Manning.

I didn't get too far, only to page 5. Manning writes....

When the brilliant ethicist John Kavanaugh went to work for three months at the "house of the dying" in Calcutta, he was seeking a clear answer as to how best to spend the rest of his life. On the first morning there he met Mother Teresa. She asked, "And what can I do for you?" Kavanaugh asked her to pray for him.

"What do you want me to pray for?" she asked. he voiced the request that he had borne thousands of miles from the United States. "Pray that I have clarity"

She said firmly, "No, I will not do that." When he asked her why, she said, "Clarity is the last thing you are clinging to and must let go of." When Kavanaugh commented that she always seemed to have the clarity he longed for, she laughed and said, "I have never had clarity; what I have always had is trust. So I will pray that you trust God."

Craving clarity, we attempt to eliminate the risk of trusting God.

I'm not sure if it's the anxieties of the past month, or the enormities of this past year, but in all of it at every step of the way, I have craved clarity. The sheer volume of decisions that I've been involved in making, both as a church and as a family, hang with the dead weight of implication around my neck. The opinions expressed, the criticisms, the bombardment of grief and anger, confusion and pain, understandable but tsunami-like in its collective form, sometimes threaten to suck me away and bash me against the rocks of personal and professional disgrace. So much is expected of me, every day, all the time. All that was and in many ways still is at stake, in so many ways it seems it all demands clarity.

Doesn't it? I've prayed for it. Sure I have. And in a certain way, when needed for the sake of love, God has provided good ideas, stable minds, level heads, workable strategies. When I keep thinking biblically, remain cognitively prioritized, and work the plan, I see God's power unleashed to make His people strong in the midst of what should destroy us.

But standing by the bedside of a gasping child, not know each day what tricks her little lung will play on us, myself senselessly removed from being part of where my presence is apparently not so essential - for a whole month not so essential - hours and hours of not knowing, not going anywhere.....not doing anything and doing everything all at the same time....there was no clarity in that. Still isn't. I don't get it.

And I came home from London and for a while I let God have it. Because I didn't understand. I had no clarity.

So on Monday, I snuck into my office and sat in my chair and cried. I cried for sheer beauty of abandoning myself to Him all over again. I cried because I suddenly understood that for God to explain it all would ruin everything. I cried because, while it's okay to be mad at God, when I do it, I sure miss Him. And it was deep and sweet and musical to sit there and let Him be tender with me again.

The rest of the week was good. A few not so nice surprises, and some news and the sharing of both pain and joy that comes with walking this way with a community of faith. April is proving to have it's own version of craziness as I attempt to catch up from being away in London, prepare for going away to Thailand, and all the while do some major shifting in family living arrangements, all before the 25th.

Still, I get to Sunday afternoon (my "end of week") and have a sense of quiet trust. No clarity. Not really. Just resting in the midst of the chaos, in the arms of a God I definitely do not understand.

But then again, if I understood Him, He's be too simple and too ordinary to worship.