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WHAT DOES TRUST LOOK LIKE?

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I’m sure you’ve reached that moment in your life. If you haven’t yet, you will. Probably many times. Sorry, but it’s the truth.

It’s the moment when you have to trust. When the ground feels shaky, you feel like you swallowed a boulder and your head is spinning.

That’s the place I’m at today. I’ve been here for a while. If we’re honest, we are here everyday, but the pace of our society and technology lets us keep it at bay. When we keep busy enough we don’t have time to peer into the unknown or look at the roadmap only to see there’s no path marked, just thousands of routes with no direction on which turn to take.

But today, today is quiet. Today I can’t hide behind a “To Do” list or a mountain of work, because God has cleared my plate. Some of you may be thinking, “I’d give anything for a day like that.” Let me tell you, it’s harder than it sounds.

How do you stare a day in the face knowing that nothing you do will really matter? How do you look at an empty calendar and feel purpose? How do you encourage the man who you love that God has a plan when you don’t see it? How do you trust when looking back you see a lot of dead ends?

The only answer I can come up with today is this:

Trust is a conversation.

Trust is being willing to be open, vulnerable and honest. Trust is crying with Job and saying to God, “I don’t like what you are doing, but I will not deny you.”

You can’t be real with someone if you don’t trust them. You can’t pour out your heart—and your hurts—if you don’t believe in them. You can’t be vulnerable if you don’t feel safe.

So today I’m choosing to claim my conversations with God, dark as they may be, as a victory because they remind me that I trust Him.

I WAS WRONG

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Our little rascally dog Jude is going to be 13 years old next month. Jude is pretty happy sleeping on the couch for hours on end, but of course, like any other creature, he needs potty breaks.

One day, he and I were checking out a new route in our neighborhood when I heard what I thought was intense moaning. Looking around our tightly packed neighborhood, I noticed an elderly man lying in his carport.

“Oh no!” I thought. “He’s dying, or sick, or injured. What do I do?”

I of course frantically looked around hoping someone else had heard the noise and silently wished that this man hadn’t been left alone. Knowing I couldn’t just leave him there, I took a deep breath and called out to him.

“Hello? Are you ok? Do you need help?”

Instantly, and I mean with the speed of a bullet train, this guy shot up and just stared at me. It was obvious I had startled him and that he didn’t speak English. It was also obvious by the way he jumped up that he was in no way incapacitated.

“Oh my gosh,” I thought to myself, as my face grew warm with embarrassment. “He’s not in pain. He was chanting and meditating.”

Because it was something out of the ordinary for me, I assumed that something was wrong. But in my assumption, I was wrong.

There are people all around us living different lives — especially here in Hawaii, where cultures meld together in a way that you can’t understand unless you’ve lived here — and I think we can probably all learn from each other.

None of is Jesus. None of us sees and knows all. None of us is right all the time.

It’s amazing when you listen to that still, quiet voice of the Spirit how much you can learn about yourself — and how flawed you are.

So I’ve learned a few things from this little encounter:

1. If someone is chanting, it doesn’t mean that they are dying.
2. It’s ok to be different. Maybe, instead of letting our differences push us apart, they could bring us together. Jesus wasn’t a prostitute, but he hung out with them. He wasn’t a sinner, but he talked to people about their sin.
3. I need to do a better job of meeting people where they are at and getting to know them and what they think.
4. Don’t always assume what you think is happening, is in fact happening.

And one parting thought I can’t sign off without sharing:

If someone sounds like they are in trouble, by all means find out if they are. But then, don’t just shyly run away in embarrassment. Start a conversation if you can and see what you can learn.

WHEN YOUR CHURCH IS SCATTERED

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Scattered dandelion

My husband and I recently left the church where he has been a pastor for the last three and a half years.

It’s been hard. Heartbreaking and gut-wrenching. This church, these people are our community. They are the people we have worshiped with, laughed with, cried with, prayed with and counseled. We have eaten with them, sipped coffee with them, gone on hikes with them and loved them.

Leaving the church has felt like our community has been ripped away. It has left me reeling. It’s not that I don’t think our friends still love us and want to be a part of our life, but it will be different. It is different.

On Sunday we’ll be surrounded by the faces of strangers. We no longer have a church. My husband is a churchless pastor.

As I have been grieving this loss and wondering what God is up to, it hit me how wrong I am. We do have a church. Our church is just scattered.

Our church is in Seattle, Vashon, Kirkland, Gig Harbor, Hawaii and California. It’s in a small town in England and the frozen tundra of Canada — and everywhere in between.

The phone calls, FaceTime sessions, Skype calls and emails remind me that we are not alone in this. We cannot all meet together on Sunday morning, but we are still united.

We are united by the blood of Christ and our love for one another. And we are in good company. The early church was scattered too. The New Testament epistles remind us of this. They are letters, not scripts. They were written encouragements, not whispered in the quiet of a shared song or a long talk over lattes. Paul was far away from people he was ministering to. That’s why he wrote letters. And thank God he did, because now we have them.

I am not saying that there is no purpose or beauty in the local church. Far from it. The book of Acts shows us how important it is to gather together in person. To share prayers and meals. To live life together. I long for the day when we have a local church again. One where we feel like God has called us. One where we belong. But until that day, God is teaching me that church won’t always look like the “church” we are used to.

I have a church and I am so grateful for my church, scattered though it may be, one day we will all be together for all eternity. And until that day, there are text messages, emails, Skype calls, FaceTime sessions and letters. Those things have a beauty all their own. Today I am choosing to be grateful.

SWEATER WEATHER

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The sun is shining brightly. Greens pop and blues run deep. It’s beautiful. The epitome of Hawaii in all her glory. It’s going to be 80. The perfect temperature for hitting the beach, sipping iced lattes and living in slippas.

Looking out my bay window at an endless ocean, you’d have no idea that the seasons change.

To mainlanders, Hawaii has no seasons. It’s endless summer. Once you’ve lived here a few years you pick up on subtle seasonal changes. The plumerias drop their leaves in the winter. The trades die off in the fall. Rain falls a little heavier into the “cooler” months. The night temps dip into the 60s in early spring. The changes are subtle. Imperceptible, if you don’t know Hawaii.

But today, a season changed. It wasn’t gradual. It was sudden. Abrupt. The season of why we came to Hawaii is over.

Today is Erik’s last day at the job he’s had for the past 3.5 years. The job that led us to pack up our home in Seattle, put our cars on a boat and have our dog go through a 4-month rabies vaccination quarantine. Today, that job is over. He will come home, his car full of reminders of an office with loud air conditioning and too many roaches.

Jobs end for people every day. We aren’t unique in that. But what is unique is for us, this wasn’t just a job. It was our life.

Erik is a pastor, and when you’re in ministry, work and life become blurry. Church attendees become friends and friends become family. Coffee dates go deep and tears are sacred. A late night phone call can be a friend checking in or someone desperate for prayer and rescue.

Work/life balance gets fuzzy in the best way possible.

But that also means that on days like this, you wish there was more black and white in the world than grey. You wish that a job was just a job and that walking away from it didn’t also mean walking away from your community.

I know that we are still friends with the people who attend the church. I pray that they will be long-lasting friendships on this earth and long into eternity. Yet I know they will be different. They’ll have to be. We won’t see people at church on the weekends. We won’t be in their Bible studies. We won’t worship with them regularly or run into them at church events. It wouldn’t hurt if we didn’t love them so much. I guess it’s a good problem to have. But I have never welcomed winter. I am a summer girl. I love the warming glow of the sun on my bare shoulders. I love loose sundresses and jumping in the ocean. Winter is cold and wet and grey. I fear that that is the season we are heading into.

I do know that God is good. I do know that He has a plan. I do know that He loves us and wants what it best for us.

I don’t know what that will look like. I don’t know how long it will take for us to catch a glimpse of our next step, of the next season. I don’t know how long the hurt will last. But I do know that the season has changed and now I need a sweater.