Not So Great Expectations

I thought everything would be better once I got my grad applications in.

Oops.

It seems that I have, probably for the hundredth time, mistakenly thought that I was about to get to a place in life where things would be easy... easy enough, that is, for me to do it by myself. I was expecting to reach this point right now and not desperately need Jesus.

Oh what a mistake. It's always such a mistake.

...Because the first half of January got me. I felt overwhelmed and I wanted to crawl under my desk and not do a single thing that apparently all need to be done at that very moment. And in the midst of this overwhelmed feeling, I thought, "It wasn't supposed to be like this!" I was angry because my expectations were inaccurate and I wasn't prepared for the way I was feeling.

Then in the midst of my midst of my frustration and dismay one week, I tuned in to the words playing on my (totally non-Christian music) Pandora station:

...Here I raise mine ebenezer, hither by thy help I've come
And I hope, by thy good pleasure, safely to arrive at home
Jesus sought me when a stranger wandering from the fold of God
he to rescue me from danger interposed his precious blood

Oh to grace how great a debtor daily I'm constrained to be
let thy goodness like a fetter, bind my wandering heart to thee
prone to wander, Lord I feel it, prone to leave the God I love
Here's my heart Lord take and seal it, seal it for thy courts above

I suppose I can add "impromptu rendition of my favorite hymn in the middle of a hard day" to my list of things to be thankful for...

The point is that I need grace every day. I need Jesus every day. It's to today, by His help, that I've come, and it's up to Him for me to safely arrive at my (eternal) home. But there is some prideful part of me that continues thinking that I can be independent and that I should be unless it's necessary to depend on God for something that's too hard for me to handle. That is not how life works at all, and unconsciously assessing whether I'll be able to make it through the day on my own sets me up for epic failure... or at least unnecessarily stressful days.

So today some of the responsibilities that were overwhelming me in January are completed. Others have been added to the list. But I'll be okay, because Christ's grace covers me today, like it does every day.

Who Do You Want To Be?

Yesterday, a dear woman left this life to be with Jesus. For those of you who have followed Kara Tippetts' journey through her blog Mundane Faithfulness, you already know how amazing she was, what an impact she had on the lives of people around her, and how much she will be missed by those who loved her.

As I read some of her last posts and those of her husband and friends from the past few weeks, I was-as always-overcome with a wash of emotions. With her simple, deep eloquence, she revealed things I didn't know about our visible and invisible lives, and my heart was stirred. Grief and hope, hurt and joy welled up within me, with an added blend of encouragement and discouragement.

Encouragement: Have you gotten a glimpse of this woman's life? It was beautiful. She was beautiful. Over and over, the people who love her spoke of her genuine kindness and her gift of loving people. Her deep trust and reliance on Jesus was so evident; she helped people (me) to see Jesus more clearly. Her personality was so precious and unique, her giftings from the Lord were poured out and used for his glory. I want to be more like that. I want to be Kara.

Discouragement: I am not Kara. Becoming like her seems impossible in some ways and actually is impossible in others. I am yearning to be something I am not, a cricket watching a butterfly.

The fog and gloom of this winter is slowly lifting, and I am starting to feel myself coming alive again. I am beginning to care about things and it feels so good. But as the apathy begins to fade, I am seeing so much of myself that I don't want to see, and I am dissatisfied with who I am. It's like I have this annoying girl with me all the time that I can't get away from, and she is NEVER going to be like the women I aspire to be.

But I am not meant to be Kara. I am not meant to be Corrie, or Susanna, or Amy, or Kim, or Marty (although they are all beautiful examples).

I am meant to be like Jesus.

And I am promised the Holy Spirit to help me become more like Jesus. And I am promised that it is not just up to me, that God WILL make it happen.

"Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is." -1 John 3:2

Go back and actually read that verse. Think about it. 

As I become more like Jesus, I feel more like myself, the self I was meant to be. I remember this feeling of becoming myself, even though I don't feel it right now. 

I think it is okay to yearn for transformation, to desire to be someone you are not (yet). Often for me, this feeling is a companion of conviction, and the desire to partner with God in his work is a good thing! But ultimately I am being transformed, which is a passive verb. I am watching and being amazed at what God is doing with my life. Well, at the moment, I am not seeing what God is doing. But I am asking him to work, and waiting expectantly to be amazed. 

Because God can do something even more amazing than making me like Kara Tippetts. He can make me like Jesus. 

Random Rainy Day Thoughts

I walked out of my building this afternoon cautiously, not looking forward to the walk across campus to get to my car. Somehow, I was not particularly smart this morning, and I didn’t wear my rainboots because “I didn’t wear them yesterday when it rained all day, so why should I today? I will be inside most of the time, anyway.” This was unintelligent because (a) I love my rainboots and typically view rain as an excuse to incorporate them into my outfit and (b) as soon as I got to campus today, it poured down rain, and I had to park far from my building and then walk through the wind, getting soaked from the knee down and disgruntled pretty much all over.

So when I ventured out in the afternoon to find that there was a short respite from the rain, a thought popped unbidden into my head, “Aw, you love me, God. Thank you!” At that point, my thought process was pretty much as follows:

Why was my automatic response that God loved me because it wasn’t raining? The rain or lack of it didn’t have any bearing on whether God loves me. I am not a “Your Best Life Now!” believer who expects special blessing and continued prosperity because I am a follower of Christ. I’m more of a John 16:33, Luke 9:23 kind of girl (because, you know, Jesus actually said those things). God isn't some favor/karma genie who gives me green traffic lights when he is pleased with me or helps me pick the fastest checkout line at the grocery store when I pray with proper faith. I don't want to let my heart think God's love changes based on my daily circumstances, nor that I should expect life to be awesome simply because I am a beloved daughter of God.

Another nice gift/way
to have toasty warm toes...

But then I thought about the spirit of my (mental) exclamation. I was thankful because I felt like I had been given a gift. I had no reason to expect that I would get to stay dry as I hiked to my car, but I did. It made me happy, and I attributed this good gift to God. And good gifts make you feel loved! (I know, my logic is so advanced it's shocking) I felt loved this winter on nights when I went to bed and discovered that my wonderful housemate (aka mom) had turned on my electric heater so my bed was warm. I didn't think her love for me was at all related to whether my bed was toasty warm or freezing cold, I just felt loved to get an unexpected gift. And I didn't feel unloved when it rained on my way in to work that morning. Not unloved, just wet. So it's not that ups and downs affect how I view God's love... I am just starting to instinctively attribute good gifts I get to Him.

So apparently my thankfulness-focused Lenten devotional worked? But that's a tale for another time. Meanwhile, I was dry for a large part of the day... even though I forgot my rainboots. Thanks, God!

"Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name. For the Lord is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations." -Psalm 100:4-5  

Tales From The Other Side

In a shocking (cue sarcastic voice) and very unexpected turn of events in the tale of my heart being an idol factory, it turns out that even though I now have a job, I am still a sinner. On the bright side, I am now both a sinner and a gainfully employed person, so I feel like it is a net improvement.

So first things first… long awaited positive news from the job-hunting adventure! I was offered a fellowship position in January at the National Institute of Nursing Research. And I accepted it… but paperwork happens slowly here, so I didn’t start until March. I’m working at the National Institutes of Health main campus in Bethesda, where I am doing genomics and epigenetics(!!) research for studies of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, mild Traumatic Brain Injury, and Phantom Limb Pain (mostly) . So the physical work I am doing is straight genetics, but the big picture is psychology (I get the feeling that the NINR researches whatever it feels like, which is convenient for me because… genomic psychology?!?! I’m sure it is related to nursing. Somehow. And I love it.) The PTSD and Phantom Limb studies are both in populations of Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans, and I think the only way I could possibly be more excited about the PTSD study would be if they would let me walk across the street to Walter Reed Army Medical Center and help with the clinical phenotyping. The mTBI study is in a population of student athletes, and although I haven’t figured out how you get a concussion playing basketball (trip and hit your head? Hit another player with your head? Hit the backboard with your head? So confusing compared to the logical football/soccer/hockey concussions), the rest of the study is straightforward, as far as epigenetics goes, and should be interesting like the other two projects.

Proverb holding the fort.
If the fort was a bag.

I say “should be interesting” because I haven’t really done much yet. Thankfully it took me less than two weeks to take the safety courses I needed to take (again) in order to work in a lab with potential blood borne pathogens. Then I held the fort while my boss was out all of last week. (You do not hold down the fort. The fort is not inflatable. In this particular case, the fort is a lab with a -80°^C freezer that I am organizing within an inch of its life.) So while I told myself that I would just ‘wait until I start my new job’ to blog about it, and then told myself I would just ‘wait until I actually start working on something,’ time trickled away. Sorry, team. I am still learning that exciting is relative, and writing about real life is not going to flow like a good book.

Instead, life seems to be flowing, slowly, in circles. Like I mentioned at the beginning, it turns out that even though I now have the thing that I wanted,  didn’t have, and spent considerable energy pursuing for the past ten months, getting a job did not resolve all the struggles I had before I had a job. In fact, it was an almost laughable moment when I realized-on the day I accepted my job offer-that I had been subconsciously building up a job in my heart as the solution to all my problems and was disappointed to learn that the real thing did not live up to expectations. I did not really have more control over my life than I did before; I did not have the security that I desperately wanted. My new job was not a guarantee that I would get into the grad school of my dreams, there was no way to know for sure that working at NIH would make me happy, and this job would not secure the rest of my career and assure my success. And now that I am working, what do I struggle with on a daily basis? Yep, it's the same old stuff. Turns out I am not magically better at being content, resting in my identity in Christ, etc. now that I have a job. 

Basically, I still have to trust God’s control in my life for security. I still have to look to him rather than choosing to worry about my future. I still have to seek him for real contentment. But I also get to extract DNA while I do those things. Life is good :)

P.S. Here are some other struggles that aren't fixed by a job. I don't really mind most of them, though...

The Strength Of Men

I love that God made men. I also love that I am not one. Sometimes, I think it is easier to appreciate something from the outside, easier to recognize something that is different.

This week, I saw the movie Lone Survivor. It was excellent... difficult to watch[i], but I still loved it. For those of you who haven't seen it, I won't explain the entire plot, but will simply say that it is based on a true story of SEAL team 10 serving in Afghanistan in 2005, and that the title speaks for itself. Watching the movie was painful and involved a lot of wincing and mentally trying to keep myself together, but it also moved me deeply. And it kept me awake that night thinking.

There was a point in the movie, during which the team was literally tumbling down a mountain and I was feeling ALL the conflicting emotions, when I thought to myself, "There is something about men that I love." At the moment, I couldn't put that 'something' into words (because, really, too many feels at once), but as I thought about it later, the word that came to mind was "strength." It wasn't just the physical strength that the men displayed, but the strength of mind and character as they lived and died during their last day on this earth with courage and honor.

As I watched them, they seemed very... other. Very different from me. I could not have done what they did, and it made me appreciate that they could. And yes, I know that I have not been trained to be a Navy SEAL. But the difference seemed deeper, more qualitative. I too, have been made for war, but not for that part of war. My heart yearns to fight, but it is a fight to rebuild, to restore, to redeem, and to rescue. I want to be on the front lines of battle, but it is a different part of the battle, and fighting looks different where I want to be.

And so, as I lay awake and reflected on their fight, I rejoiced that God has equipped and prepared men to fight in some wars that I am not called to. I rejoiced that he has given them the strength they need for their battles, which frees me and inspires me to use the strength he gives me for my own battles. The strength of those men I have never met inspire me, but they are not the only ones who do so. I am inspired by men of strength who wage a Relentless Fight against pervasive sin and equip others to fight with them. I am inspired by men of courage who fight to be a father to the fatherless. I am inspired by men of honor who take a stand against sexual violence.

Although my heart is moved by the strength of all these men, they only dimly reflect the strength of one man. A man who, though innocent, was beaten until he was marred beyond human likeness. After this beating, which had killed others before him, he hauled a slab of wood on his bleeding back up a hill so that he could be nailed to it. And although he could have called down legions of warriors to help him, he allowed himself to be crucified while bearing the weight of every sin ever committed and experiencing a soul crushing separation from the person he loved most. The strength of other men inspires me, but it is the strength of this man, Jesus Christ, that empowers me.

P.S. It was an intense movie. Cats just didn't quite fit. But of course there are some pretty cool cats serving on the front lines, too. So enjoy some wartime cats.

P.P.S. In case that wasn't enough cats for you, there are also cats in the Middle East who deserve some love.

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[i] Side note for gents who want to care for the ladies in their lives... war movies like this usually leave us with deep feelings, and we have some hefty emotional processing to do even though the movie is over. As such, although watching a war movie might make you want to immediately play Call of Duty, doing that will make us want to cry. We sort of want to cry already, so its helpful if you just give us some processing time to pull ourselves together. (And this might not be true of all ladies, but its true for me and the girlfriends I've discussed this with.)

Celebrating Baby Jesus' Birthday

I compartmentalize both mentally and emotionally like a pro[i]. In many ways, I find this to be helpful, such as when action needs to be taken and I don’t have time to feel all the feels. However, it also has some pitfalls, like when I file something away in the ‘later’ box and forget to take it back out… or when it is Christmas.

There are enough people who talk about the ‘real meaning of Christmas’ that it should be easy to remember what Christmas is all about. And with all of the Christmas movies that my mother forces me to watch that I enjoy watching with my mom, I get frequent reminders of the reason for the season. In fact, Linus tells me several times through the month of December.

And yet, although I am definitely improved in my ability to remember that Christmas is about Christ while also doing the things that are done at this time of year, I simply don’t get excited about Christmas the way I do about Easter. I love Easter, the whole Easter season (you can ask me why, I know just the reason). And while I get excited all through lent, cry on Good Friday, and cheer Easter morning, Christmas feels like the necessary prequel, the sponsor of Easter (“This holiday made possible by…”). I enjoy putting up my crèche and reading the nativity story, but Christmas doesn’t touch my heart quite like Easter does.

But I put my finger on why it does that this year. I have identified the problem (and that always seems to be the first step toward recovery). I have been compartmentalizing Jesus[ii]. I have been celebrating Baby Jesus’ birthday instead of celebrating the King of Kings coming down to earth as the God-man.

In absence of conscious effort, Christmas in my mind is a fairly quaint affair. Sure, it was definitely a bit grittier in real life than in the storybook versions (1. Have you ever smelled a place where animals live? 2. Culturally, Mary was up to nine years younger than me… I can’t imagine anyone trusting me with a baby at that age, much less one who is also the savior of the world. 3. The reigning King is actually a baby killer.) Still, I take for granted that God is doing cool things with the stars, sending angels around to appear to regular people, likely ramping up spiritual warfare against Satan’s attacks, and incarnating himself… and I end up just focusing on a snuggly baby.

Don’t get me wrong. I love babies. Snuggling with them is the best (even better than kittens). It’s awesome that God chose to come as an approachable, snuggle-able little one rather than coming in glory and being terrifying. His coming as a baby and submitting himself to our messy existence definitely reveals an aspect of his character that is awesome and makes me love him. But sometimes, I get stuck on Baby Jesus and I forget about Jesus with tattoos on his leg and eyes like fire in Revelation 19. It makes perfect sense on someone’s 50^th birthday to look at their whole life and the person they have become, not just the story of their birth. That sort of slipped my mind on the celebration of Christ’s 2013^th birthday. Hopefully, I will do better for his 2014^th.

Speaking of cats and Christmas... I think 1:30 and 2:00 might be my favorites,  but then there is every other part, and those might be my favorites, too. 

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[i] For a woman, anyway. To be fair, women and men’s brains are wired a bit differently, and thanks to our thicker corpus callosum, women generally tend to be better at multitasking but not quite as good at compartmentalizing. There are admittedly times when I wish I could put unimportant things away in a box but just can’t. Thanks, brain chemistry.

[ii] This isn’t exactly big news for me. I struggle with compartmentalizing God all the time. I think if I could manage to simultaneously recall and coalesce all of the aspects of God that I (only partially) understand to date, my brain would explode. He’s just so big that if I can keep two or three characteristics in my head at once (powerful enough to create ALL the things, loving father, perfectly just, etc.), I’m making progress.