Brokenhearted

It's raining in Georgia today, and the weather could not better suit my mood. I got an email a little while ago from a very sweet friend in my church. She was writing, originally, to talk to me about something else, and then continued on to tell me something really, really sad.

She told me that she's considering leaving our church because she feels like it is a club that she hasn't been given the admission rules for, and she does not in any way feel the sense of community that we profess to be about.

I don't think I need to tell you that this broke my heart. It did so for several reasons, first among them being that she is an incredibly sweet person and I, for one, have thoroughly enjoyed having her there. To me, she is just the kind of person we need: personable, genuine, honest, and incredibly open-minded, all while having a devotion to the Lord and an openness to His will that inspires me every time I interact with her. I do not want to see her go. We need her as much as she needs from us what she is not finding here.

I was also saddened by this because I, too, have felt this. For several months after Scott and I got married, I felt like an outsider looking in on an exclusive club meeting. Everyone would be laughing and smiling and welcoming each other with such warmth, but I never got even a touch of that warmth. I was overlooked and ignored; encountering this kind of lack of community in my church was more harmful to my sense of self than it would have in any other setting. Week after week I would sit and listen to sermons and testimonies on the power of love and community that they had found at Quest, and once the worship gathering was over I would again cry out of sheer loneliness. Scott felt it, too, and we talked about leaving because we didn't want to be a part of (or be excluded from, as the case may be) a community like that. It was more than upsetting; it hurt. It was painful, and while I don't blame this experience for my struggles with social anxiety, I definitely do not think it helped. My heart breaks for her as I recall the pain of feeling utterly alone in a crowded room.

Why is it so hard to create a true sense of community for every member of a group of like-minded believers? Truly, Quest is probably the most community-oriented church I've ever heard of, which makes it simultaneously shocking, ironic, and frustrating that we would struggle with this problem. If we - a church that works to incorporate everyone into a small group - cannot create a sense of belonging, who can? If we - a church that has "experience relationships" as a part of its mission statement - cannot make every member and visitor alike feel special and loved, who will?

That day about three thousand took him at his word, were baptized and were signed up. They committed themselves to the teaching of the apostles, the life together, the common meal, and the prayers. Everyone around was in awe—all those wonders and signs done through the apostles! And all the believers lived in a wonderful harmony, holding everything in common. They sold whatever they owned and pooled their resources so that each person's need was met. They followed a daily discipline of worship in the Temple followed by meals at home, every meal a celebration, exuberant and joyful, as they praised God. People in general liked what they saw. Every day their number grew as God added those who were saved. (Acts 2:42-47 MSG)

How many times have I read this passage, and how many times have I assumed that the only needs that were met were physical needs? It does not say that the believers' needs for food, shelter, and clothing were met. We understand that to be the case as it mentions that they sold what they owned, but it does not say that the only resources that were pooled were personal possessions. Who is to say that the "resources" that were pooled were not those of spiritual gifts such as hospitality and discipleship? We have to assume that if the believers were living so closely, there was a degree of "community" in the sense that every believer felt welcome, loved, and accepted.

What if this wasn't the case, though? What if they didn't experience this sense of belonging? We know that Luke, a leader in the early church, wrote this account of the acts of the apostles. What if he, because of his position and involvement, perceived this sense of community to be there, but other believers did not? What if others among them thought the way my friend and I have felt - that the early church was little more than a social club, while the leaders of the church - from their different vantage point - saw a warm and loving community? What if they were inadvertantly neglecting the most basic emotional needs of those to whom they were ministering?

If that is the case, my heart breaks yet again. We, two thousand years later, are up against a nearly insurmountable obstacle if believers with personal memories of the person of Jesus could not even create a real community. Jesus's vision of the church was not just a grouping of cliques. He did not intend for some among his followers to feel excluded or ignored; rather, He searched out those who had experienced this treatment in society as a whole and welcomed them into the family of believers wholeheartedly. The community with Jesus as its head reached out to everyone where they were, touched them in their most hurting and vulnerable places, and offered a love that was near impossible to imagine. We have turned something that was meant to be encouraging into something disheartening, something that was supposed to be uplifting into something depressing. We have messed it up so badly that I wonder if we have any resemblance to the community defined in the American Heritage Dictionary: sharing, participation, and fellowship. The terrible thing about it is that the hurting people around us come to the church to find relief from those hurts in the fellowship they find there, only to find that we within the church are no different than those who have inflicted their wounds on them in the first place.

I don't exclude myself from the problem. I have been on the receiving end of the neglect, but I have also been part of the problem. I have seen people sitting alone and have not gone to speak to them. I have been more focused on the worship service than on the ministry that should have been taking place. I have worried more about what to say when I'm onstage than whether I'll say anything at all to someone who needs me. I have made excuses as to why I've done these things, and I've felt the guilt when I realize that there is no good reason for it.

What have we done, and how can we fix it? Will our selfish human nature even allow it? How do we react to the realization that this is happening? Something has to be done. We're going to keep losing precious people if we don't do something, but what will we do?

O Lord, I am calling to You. Please hurry! Listen when I cry to You for help! Accept my prayer as incense offered to You, and my upraised hands as an evening offering. (Psalm 141: 1-2)

Why does it have to be that way?

Last night as I watched American Idol I received a text message from Dad: "Go outside. The eclipse is starting!" I grabbed my camera and Scott's slippers and ventured out on the porch. Our yard provided the perfect stage for the display God had for us last night. As I looked up, I literally had my breath taken away. A bright full moon, partially eclipsed by a mere sliver of darkness. We've had eclipses before, of course, but it's usually cloudy (if not raining) and the timing of the visible part of the eclipse is usually such that only tomcats and possums can see it. Last night, though, I got to see the performance. I got to see what looked like the finger of God sliding over the surface of the moon, and all I could say was, "God, thank You! You're amazing!" I was speechless and breathless and teary-eyed.

I was struck by how big God is, and how only He could orchestrate something like that. Only He could create a night like that with a scene like that, and only He is good enough to include His children in something so magnificent.

At the same time as my marveling, though, I felt a tug. A pull from inside. "You're missing American Idol, you know." What? Did I actually just think that? I'm out here seeing God and witnessing something He created, and I'm even remotely conscious that I'm missing a stupid TV show? "Well, it's that...but you also need to get in the shower and get ready for bed." Whoa! Stop it! "You didn't sleep well last night and you're already tired. You need to get some sleep or you're going to be useless." I cannot believe these thoughts are going through my mind! Focus, Jess. Focus. "It's cold and you have things to do. Go back inside." And I did.

Granted, I had seen most of it, and yes - I did have to get ready for bed so that I wouldn't have to use the eclipse as an excuse for why I would be brain dead at work. I was in God's presence, though, and was pulled away by such trivial things that - let's be honest - happen every week, if not every night. Why?

It didn't stop there. Once Scott got home and I was ready for bed, I had the gall to get mad at him because I coudn't get to bed as early as I wanted to. We go to bed together (we're still newlyweds, I guess!), so I wait for him to be ready, and he was doing a bunch of things he hadn't been able to do earlier because he hadn't been home. I was ready to go to sleep, he was busy doing something else, and I could feel myself getting angry. I was rude and mean and snapped at him.....and why? Because I was selfish and wrapped up in little stuff that doesn't matter. I had only a little while earlier been in such a place of praise and adoration of a God that is higher and bigger than anything around me - anything I can see - and I so quickly fell back into the junk of life.

I felt so bad that then - even once we were both in bed, the lights were out, and his breathing settled into that rhythmic pattern of sleep - I couldn't sleep. I wasn't mad anymore, but I was upset with myself. I was upset with my flesh, and I was upset that I have to be so much of the world no matter how hard God pursues me. What does He have to do to get my attention? What will it take?

I look up at your macro-skies, dark and enormous, your handmade sky-jewelry, moon and stars mounted in their settings. Then I look at my micro-self and wonder, Why do you bother with us? Why take a second look our way? (Psalm 8:3 MSG)

Parched

I don't know why it's such a struggle for me. I don't understand why I don't feel it the way I think I'm supposed to. I don't know why I can't sit quietly and talk to God, feeling His presence and being changed by it. I don't know why something so powerful - that sounds so simple - is so hard for me to do. I don't know why I - a follower of Christ - have such a hard time with something that is so basic and central to faith. I don't know why something that is supposed to be uplifting and encouraging is the source of such frustration for me, and I don't know why I can't change something I want so badly to change.

Ever since I posted the above statements, I've felt like I should have said more. I've felt a little guilty of being vague about the very sort of thing that I always say that we - as followers of Christ - need to be honest with each other about. I truly feel like we have a lot we can learn from each other - I'm conviced of that because I've experienced such deep and profound wisdom from other Christian women - but that can only happen if we're willing to be compeltely real, honest, and vulnerable with each other. We can never help each other work out our issues and troubles if we don't allow each other to see them.

That said, I'm going back and changing what I said. I'm not taking it back, because it's still true and I don't want to discount what I said. I'm changing it so that I can go deeper, allowing myself to find answers and - possibly - to encourage someone else who needs to hear it.

Quiet time. I do not know what it is. I do not know because I don't think I've ever experienced it the way God wants me to. I don't think I've ever felt it like He longs for me to feel it. Yes, I've had powerful prayer times, and have praised Him powerfully in my personal times of devotion. I've sung and raised my hands and cried out to Him and have felt His presence. I have, but that is more the exception than the rule for my "quiet times."

This is what it usually looks like. I sit down with my Bible, journal, pen, highlighter, and - possibly - study book. I might have music playing - I might not. I'm ready to go. I have everything I need.......except direction. Once I've managed to carve out time and conjure the motivation to do this thing called "quiet time," I'm stumped. Finding time and motivation, for me, is not the hard part. The hard part, for me, is the quiet time itself. I don't know what to do. I never know where to start.

I can liken it to someone who is fascinated by a hobby - say, rock-climbing. Imagine a guy who sees all of the "cool" guys around him getting involved in rock-climbing. He sees their Nalgene bottles, carabiners, backpacks, and calloused hands. He hears their stories of their latest summit, or their plans for their next big climb. (I should mention here that I have never done this thing called "rock-climbing," and therefore am probably not using any of the right terminology. Bear with me. I have a point, I promise.) He sees all of this and hears all of this and wishes so badly that he could be a part of it. He wants to be a part of that world - to understand what they're talking about and experience what they experience. There's something amazing that they get to be a part of, and he wants that.

Desperate to experience this rush, he goes and buys all of the equipment he needs for climbing. He reads up on how to do it, reads accounts of those who have done it, finds out the best places to go to do it, and learns ll of the lingo (unlike me). He does all of this, but he never goes and does it. He never once steps onto a mountain, or a climbing wall, either, for that matter. He never tries it. He never takes that step, and wonders why all of his superficial preparation has not brought him to the place he wants to be. He wonders why he still cannot relate to those who have been there and done that, and wonders why - as much as anything - he feels like such a poser.

I'm like this wanna-be rock-climber when it comes to quiet time. I have all of the equipment. I've read what all of the experienced folks have to say about it. I talk about it like I know everything about it firsthand, and I use the language like I really know what I'm talking about.

But I don't. I just don't.

I have no clue. Here, I'm afraid, is where the similarities between myself and the wanna-be rock-climber end. I try to do it. I really do. I sit down and have every intention and hope of wholeheartedly dedicating some time to God. I hope that this time it will be different. I read some......I write some........I listen.........and, more often than not, I fall asleep. Or my mind wanders to thousands of trivial things. Or I get frustrated and quit. I really do try, but I don't feel anything. My prayers sound more like a recited poem, with the same words every time, and my Bible always falls open to the same well-marked passages. Nothing new. Nothing fresh. Nothing extraordinary, and nothing life-changing.

This makes me really sad. For one thing, I want this. I want to know God and want to experience Him in this intensely personal way. I ask Him to help me with this - to make me HUNGRY (starved, even) for Him - but nothing happens. I want it so much, but I don't k now what to do or how to think to make it real for me.

For another thing, I feel like a poser. I get up in front of the church every week and help lead worship. I have, I think, led people to believe that I am in a place of higher spirituality than I am, and this breaks my heart. I want to get up in front of everyone and say all of this. I want to tell the world that it's not as easy as everyone says, and that "not even I have it all together." It's lonely on this pedestal of righteousness that church leaders get placed on. Even in a church like mine, that professes to be real and honest (and usually is), does not make me feel like I can talk openly about a struggle with something that *should* be so basic to my faith. It's lonely, frustrating, and - honestly - it's kind of infuriating. If we can't be honest - really, brutally honest - with each other about how we're struggling with this, we're never going to be able to move forward as a Church. We won't, because individuals are going to be fighting wars all on their own, fed lies that they are each the only ones who deal with this and should not, could not, would not ever talk about it with anyone who might be able to help. The Church, I think, is trying to jump whilst having our feet nailed to the ground.

The thing with quiet time is this: we know it should be this powerful thing, and perhaps we've even experienced it to be so (I maybe have, at certain times), but DO WE REALLY HAVE ANY GRASP OF WHAT IT COULD BE? Do we really get it? Do we really see this personal, one-on-one time with God as the life-changing interaction He wants it to be for us? Do we expect great things when we meet with Him, or do we simply expect more of the same? Do we cherish that time, or do we let it slip by without incident?

I have to wonder how close we ever are. I have to wonder how much more there is than we are allowing ourselves to have. We sing a song in church that says: "If I'm healed by just one touch of your garment, Lord, then how much more of You is for me than what I'm tasting?" If one little glimpse of Him is that powerful for us, how much more does He wants us to have than what we're settling for? How much more? Even the most enlightened followers of Christ must be falling desperately short.

And this is where it becomes frustrating. Jesus said - promised, even - that the poor in Spirit would be blessed. Those who see how badly they need God will be blessed.....but what does it take? I know I need God. I want God - more and more of Him - but I can't get myself to that place. My feet, too, are nailed to the ground, and I can't make it happen for myself. I struggle, and force myself into quiet time, only to leave there feeling like I've missed the point again. Yet again. There's so much to be had, and I don't know how to get there. I don't know how to experience the thing I need the most. It's like I'm dying of thirst in front of a crystal spring because I don't know how to get the water that will keep me alive.



Please comment. I covet your thoughts on this.

Stuff on my Kitter

I sent this picture in to Stuff on my Cat about 8 months ago, I think, and it finally got selected! They have *tons* of submissions, so I never knew if I was going to get on or not, but here she is!

Her caption was, "I hope you like hairy water."

That's my girl!

I could have told them that. Why didn't they ask me?

Why sadness can blow your budget - from CNN.com

BOSTON, Massachusetts (AP) -- If you're sad and shopping, watch your wallet: A new study shows people's spending judgment goes out the window when they're down, especially if they're a bit self-absorbed.

Study participants who watched a sadness-inducing video clip offered to pay nearly four times as much money to buy a water bottle than a group that watched an emotionally neutral clip.
The so-called "misery is not miserly" phenomenon is well-known to psychologists, advertisers and personal shoppers alike, and has been documented in a similar study in 2004. The new study released Friday by researchers from four universities goes further, trying to answer whether temporary sadness alone can trigger spendthrift tendencies.

The study found a willingness to spend freely by sad people occurs mainly when their sadness triggers greater "self-focus." That response was measured by counting how frequently study participants used references to "I," "me," "my" and "myself" in writing an essay about how a sad situation such as the one portrayed in the video would affect them personally.

The brief video was about the death of a boy's mentor. Another group watched an emotionally neutral clip about the Great Barrier Reef, the vast coral reef system off Australia's coast.
On average, the group watching the sad video offered to pay nearly four times as much for a sporty-looking, insulated water bottle than the group watching the nature video, according to the study by researchers from Harvard, Carnegie Mellon, Stanford and Pittsburgh universities. Thirty-three study subjects -- young adults who responded to an advertisement offering $10 for participation -- were offered the chance to trade some of the $10 to buy the bottle. The sad group offered to trade an average of $2.11, compared with 56 cents for the neutral group.

Despite the big difference, participants in the sad group typically insisted that the video's emotional content didn't affect their willingness to spend more -- an incorrect assumption, said one of the study's co-authors.

"This is a phenomenon that occurs without awareness," Jennifer Lerner, a Harvard professor who studies emotion and decision making, said in a phone interview. "This is really different from the idea of retail therapy, where people are feeling negative and want to cheer themselves up by shopping. People have no idea this is going on."

The researchers concluded sadness can trigger a chain of emotions leading to extravagant tendencies. Sadness leads people to become more focused on themselves, causing the person to feel that they and their possessions are worth little. That feeling increases willingness to pay more -- presumably to feel better about themselves.

"Because the study used real commodities and real money, results hold implications for everyday decisions," according to the authors of the study, to be published in the journal Psychological Science, and presented Saturday at a meeting of the Society for Social and Personality Psychology.

Edward Charlesworth, a Houston-based clinical psychologist who was not involved in the study, suggested the misery-is-not-miserly phenomenon is rooted in a culture that encourages people to buy to feel better.

"Certainly, the advertising industry knows that," Charlesworth, citing as an example a 1970s McDonald's fast-food jingle, "You deserve a break today."

Charlesworth frequently sees clients in his clinical practice who overspend to deal with difficulties.

"It's not necessarily that you go to the mall and go on a shopping spree," said Charlesworth, author of a book on stress management. "It's often more subtle -- you spend a bit more on something than you normally would. But if you magnify that over the course of a year, or a lifetime, those little things add up."

Personal shoppers, who make a business of prowling the aisles for others, say they frequently see clients stray from their budgets when they're feeling blue.

"At that point, cost isn't usually a factor," said Kalyn Johnson, of New York City-based Style by Kalyn Johnson. "They say, 'If I can have these wonderful shoes, I'll look better, and feel better.'
"But on the back end, I've seen buyer's remorse. This kicks in after they realize that new pair of shoes, or iPod, or whatever, didn't make them feel better, and then there's that sense of, 'Oh my God, why did I spend money on this?"'