shabar + joy

below is my closing statement.  since i've moved back on campus i'll just say it's been somewhat of a spiritual struggle.  and i am just continuing to realize what i've realized one million times before.  but it's time to dig deeper and i feel that God is doing exactly that in me.  my life is so not my own.  this summer was so not my own.  this year of school ahead and whatever is ahead of that will so not be my own.  below, as i said, is my long-winded closing statement, but i hope you read it and i hope that it resonates.  it is, i believe, the single most meaningful thing i have ever put into type– and not mine, either:

if there's one thing i've learned in my twenty-one years thus far (+ so much so this summer) it's that it takes a lot more than a cross necklace and a nightly prayer to lead a Christian life.  a life for Christ is made up of sacrifices– friends, family, potential romances, popularity– a life for Christ is made up of brokenness– over sin, over weakness– a life for Christ is giving up all claims to control and seeing only the dimly lit portion of path just ahead– maybe only feeling blindly for the solid foundation.  when you live for Christ, the Bible isn't a book– it's food and water and air.  you don't discipline yourself into reading or paying attention, you are holding on to every word and pray for greater revelation with every re-reading of that passage you thought you already understood.  living for Christ is owning up to your every thought, not hiding from yourself, not hiding from Him– surrendering.  living for Christ is not hiding from others– it is opening your arms and your heart to brothers and sisters unlike you perhaps in every way other than dependence on the Lord.  living for Christ is embracing community, loving and learning together, getting hurt, forgiving and being forgiven.  living for Christ is slowing the speed of your tongue, increasing the quickness with which you take situations to prayer, and turning your ear to the voice of the Shepherd who guides you in every large, medium, and small thing.  a life for Christ is yearning to attain the unattainable of holiness, righteousness and goodness.  living for Christ is a scarlet letter on your forehead saying you're narrow-minded and judgmental– stones thrown, and a lack of understanding abounding– but still responding with gentleness, kindness, and steadfastness in the Word of God.  it is being angry and endeavoring not to sin in anger.  living for Christ is considering your body His– it is caring for it and treating it as sacred, and adorning it modestly out of respect for His creation, and mindfulness of others' temptations.  living for Christ is regarding the body of every human as you regard your own, and having no part in the exploitation or harm of another of God's creations.  living for Christ is utter exhaustion of the mind– nothing is left unconsidered, from the music you listen to, to the food you eat, to the person you pursue/ who pursues you with the intent of marriage, to the political stance you struggle to decide upon and take.  living for Christ is constant learning– mistake, mistake, mistake, mistake, mistake and mistake again.  it is heeding the wisdom of parents and elders; it is heeding the warnings and the corrections given by them and by the Spirit.  it is time– it is hours of stillness, and worship, and prayer, and study.  a life for Christ is just that– a life.  it is not completed in a prayer, or by reading the words between Genesis 1 to Revelation 22.  it isn't a straight line, it is full of ups and downs, as we are watered, grown, pruned, and loved.  a life for Christ is letting go of past chains, of freedom from slavery and not returning.  a life for Christ is not certainty– it is doubt and struggle and intellectual challenge. a life for Christ is not capable of being fully understood in human minds, but it does not require our understanding. a life for Christ is seeing death in life.

a life for Christ is seeing life in death.  a life for Christ is a life of abundance, of being filled, pouring over, and bearing fruit.  a life for Christ is refreshing and freeing tears, joyous and pure laughter.  a life for Christ is fun!  it is sweet and wonderful, deep and stimulating, light and sustaining fellowship– jokes and dancing, and eating and simply being there with one another.  a life for Christ is rejuvenation, renewal, rebirth, revitalization– chronic baptism.  a life for Christ is not lonely.  a life for Christ is never being alone, even when physically alone, even when feeling alone.  a life for Christ is freedom from lies and fears by truth and love.  a life for Christ is healing and strength beyond it– growing more solid than before.  a life for Christ is protection– armors of righteousness, faith, and the Word of God.  a life for Christ is God going before you– it is never too much for you to handle, it is planned to prosper you.  a life for Christ is thankfulness– for clothes, for shelter, for breath, for sunlight, for moonlight, for stars.  a life for Christ is unique!  it is embedded with varying gifts for different people.  a life for Christ may produce and be expressed through music, art, poetry, businesses, pastoring, architecture, cooking, teaching.  a life for Christ is rest– release of burdens, trust that takes away the stress of having to do and know.  a life for Christ is peace in the midst of chaos, confusion, misery, and destruction.  a life for Christ is the rewards of wisdom, patience and goodness.  a life for Christ is a heart turned from pride of oneself to exaltation of the only one and true God above.  a life for Christ is not accomplished, earned, or received by luck.  a life for Christ is pre-ordained, born of grace, and contracted in blood and therefore it cannot be foiled by us or anything on earth or in the spiritual realms.  a life for Christ is God-ordained, God-organized, and God-orchestrated.  a life for Christ isn't even about you– it's about the glory of God– who loves you, made you, knows you, and calls you– unceasingly.

a life for Christ is what i desperately need.  and it is who i am.  and thank God for it.
amen.

prose

so i'm a writer.  i'm up late tonight and i've been writing a lot in the past couple of nights and then i just felt like i should post something here, at least once, at least by now.  so i have two prose pieces below.  the first, i think, is very appropriate for the theme of my summer and for this blog.  a representation of some of my more artistic thoughts in terms of shabar, or brokenness.  the second is a piece i wrote in san francisco; it is creative non-fiction.


#1
it’s nice to know the world is a broken place. pangea. once a solid form, once a whole, an entirety. once upon a time the world was a land instead of many. people traveled across it, instead of over oceans to its other pieces. but it bust. like a glass jar dropped— no like paper ripping— no like the sidewalk after years of growth beneath its surface, cold winters and hot summers expanding and contracting the concrete until it cracked. there was too much time for the world to take. the very earth splintered under the weight of itself, existing for so long, while everything grew upon it. years split the earth into pieces large and small. now we walk over bridges, we sit in planes over valleys, we ride on boats over seas.
indiscriminate time does the same to us. once solid forms, once sure, once whole, the years fall upon us like rain like sun like winter and summer and concrete. we bust. like broken pipes, like broken windows, like the strings of guitar pulled too taut too long until it snaps to two. like the spines of books bent back so many times the sewn parts wear to nothing, and our pages fall out. there is too much time for us to take. when we are born we are given a name and when we die we find we may have many names for the pieces remaining. different locations, destinations of our selves we have given for other people to travel to across our bridges, valleys, seas. we do not ask them to remember us for what we were on day one. but for the pleasant memories they received from the parts of us they came to dwell in.
we are broken places, like the earth. i think it’s nice to know it’s not just us.

#2

sometimes you don’t even meet a person you wish you knew their name. step one step two step three on the escalator coming off the train and i really want to know how to say the word that belongs to the face of the boy-man-human-person walking around with his bike on the stone like he owns the ground he travels. hand to the side as i slide up into the night with my best friend beside me– man on the stairs close to my left shoulder asking for money or something and i don’t want to say anything because it is dark i am cold and always afraid of my womanness in places i don’t know very well. he asks my friend is she from richmond because that’s what her sweatshirt says and even though he is mistaken we will not tell him because we fear our womanness and it is dark outside.

i hear the man with his bike say behind us below us as though his voice is above us, ‘she said no’. he said that for us. i want to know his word, like now i know his sound.

the man who asked says, ‘nah, she didn’t say nothing man.’ fading away because we have already walked one step two steps off of the escalator in the night dimly lit by street lamps and a blinking walk sign, flashing red, ten, nine, eight.

crossing the street i am so close to my friend, two blocks from the hotel, two feet on the ground of an earth that does not belong to me. i turn my head, and i see the man with his bike, paused. maybe he looked at me. maybe he wondered what was my word, my sound.

i wonder would i ever recognize his face, again? i wonder if i saw enough. i heard enough.

sometimes you don’t even need to meet a person. it’s enough just to know somewhere they still exist. one beat, two beats, three beats of a heart somewhere is sound enough. the word is alive.

it is april.

a month of rain and flowers.  i think the ideal time to begin this, although originally i had anticipated beginning it a bit later-- a bit closer to the date of my summer studies.

months ago, i sent a soul sister of mine an email entitled "call me crazy".  in it, i told her that i felt God was putting something on my heart: aftercare for victims of human trafficking, something i have been studying for over a year now.  

God moved, as always, in a way that was very different from my thoughts.  this summer, this soul sister and i will be doing research around the U.S. on the topic of aftercare for women who have been trafficked in the U.S.

now, in the past few weeks, i feel God is doing a work of aftercare in me.  i have been up and i have been down, but ultimately i have come to see how much... my thoughts can be hurtful, to myself and to others. i have seen the envy that i have, the frustration, the impatience, the indifference.  i feel my eyes have been opened to how much i lack, how little control i have, how great the grace of God is to fill me where i am not whole, and to brighten up where i am dark.

that is why this blog is called shabar+joy.  shabar is a hebrew word, meaning broken.  

last summer, the theme of my summer was selah; a hebrew word meaning 'pause and think on this' often found at the end of/ within psalms.

this summer my theme is shabar+joy.  i am broken, and yet i smile.  i am messed up, and yet i laugh.  for i am not without hope, and i am not without healing.  God loves me, and says to me, rejoice in Him.  God pours into me, so i overflow with gladness.

i invite you to walk with me as i take on this summer.  i will share with you my experiences, my crafts, pictures i take, and things that i learn.  

it is april.  and you know what they say.  april showers, bring may flowers.

Philippians 4:4-7

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice.  Let your reasonableness be known to everyone.  The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.  And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.