The Bad News: 31 Days of Poor Writing

I wish I were better at blogging. I have some dear friends who are doing some super awesome blogging experiments. They're writing every day about things that matter to them, even when they'd rather not write.

I think the best part of this for me as a reader is learning about the hearts of these friends. Learning those things that perhaps they can't always say out loud, because they are awkward or silly or just don't come up. It is fantastic to see, little by little, the hearts of these women and realize that they are so much bigger and complex than any one of them might let on to in a given day.

It also got me thinking. I have always loved writing, and as painful as going to back to read some of that writing is at times, it is nice to have a record of where I've been and where I'm going. So I'd like to write more - even on days when it's not appealing or when I'm not really feeling it. I think having a solid purpose will encourage that.

I also started wondering if my blog did a good job of sharing my heart for Africa and missions. Perhaps it does at times, but as a whole, I think it does a better job of sharing the dark, selfish parts of my heart. So perhaps by forcing myself to focus on those outward-pouring parts of my heart, I can forget those dark parts, or at least leave them behind a little more often.

So I've decided to begin 2010 with a month-long blog project. 31 days of Africa. Every day, a different story of something that's going on currently in Africa, a profile of a missionary I know who is in the field, a little history to provide some perspective.

I promise nothing, but maybe by the end of January, we'll all have a better idea of what's going on across that continent that has captured my heart. (And perhaps my writing will get better, too.)

This is Redemption

I am sending an application in this week to go live in Africa for two years. Only one thing is left blank: Write briefly how you became a Christian, and trace how you have grown spiritually since then. There follow only about seven lines, not even the width of college-ruled paper. This is only a preliminary application; I know there will be numerous occasions in the future for me to explain the depth and breadth of this conversion, of this amazing love story. In the meantime, I am gripped by fear that I will botch it, that I will somehow say the wrong thing and screw this whole thing up.

Please let me be clear here, friends: That thought is sin. It is blasphemy because it presumes that I could somehow do something to ruin God's plans. It presumes that I have more power in this situation than He, and that is simply not true. I have repented of it, and will probably continue to do so daily until it finally sinks in that He has this all under control. There is a difference between knowing something academically, and knowing it in your heart. In my experience, the second is very slow in coming, but so beautiful and freeing when it does.

I became a Christian at age 11 at a youth conference. There was no big altar call (Methodists aren't really into that), just discussion at a break-out session on whether you thought, if you died today, you'd go to heaven or hell. My heart stopped. I wasn't sure. I apparently was the only one in my group that was so convicted, and I felt like even more of a fraud. I cried. I said that rote prayer that every kid across the nation says at a youth conference and "asked Jesus into my heart."

What did that even mean? I didn't know. I just did what I thought I was supposed to do: sang in the choir, watched the kiddies in the nursery, memorized Bible verses, and jumped at opportunities to go on missions trips. Those things make you Christian, right? Never mind the sin in my life, the fact that I didn't know how to pray anything beyond the "Our Father," the fact that my Bible laid on my shelf collecting dust.

As the years continued, I struggled desperately to reconcile my faith with the life I was leading. I was hurting terribly, my heart broken for something I couldn't explain and that I was sure I could never find. There were numerous occasions where I decided I did not want to carry on, and my body and soul will bear those scars until the day I die.

Even in these darkest of times, I was at church. I was there every Sunday for service and youth group, every Thursday night for choir, and on Wednesday night to help in the nursery. I hoped, I think, that if I just kept coming, He would meet me there.

It took me years to understand that He couldn't, or at least not in the way I wanted. I placed too many restrictions on Him. I was raised in a church where God was in a box, easily summed up in three bullet points on Sunday mornings. Jesus was a nice guy who also happened to be the Messiah. And the Holy Spirit did this crazy thing one day in the early church with tongues of fire, but hasn't really been heard from since.

That all changed for me one weekend in June. I was in town for a friend's wedding and she had this really great friend (who I'd never really met before) who hosted her bachelorette party. We all stayed the night at Meghan's house and the next day, I was invited to come along with all the wedding party to get our nails done. I sat and talked to Meghan at the wedding rehearsal, in the car between rehearsals and nails, in the apartment when we had the chance to relax for a few moments.

I had never felt so loved. This woman simply exuded the love of Christ. And I got it. I understood that THIS was what it was supposed to be about. It wasn't about formulas and bullet points, it was about love. It was about loving Him and loving others and letting ourselves be so vulnerable as to be loved. Meghan invited me to church the Sunday after the wedding and I eagerly accepted. And He met me there - He broke my heart and continues to do so that I might be fully His.

He has poured His Spirit on me, given me words and hope and peace where the world offers nothing. He teaches me everyday what He intended for life to be and how to live in community and love others beyond anything I can comprehend. It is a beautiful thing. He has laid it on my heart that I am supposed to be sharing this message of love with others. It is a call I am unworthy of, though one I accept wholeheartedly.

Now, if I could just whittle that down to 150 words before tomorrow morning, we'd be golden.

Good night, beautiful ones. I love you.

Yesterday

I watched a beautiful movie tonight. It broke my heart. It was a Zulu-language filmed called "Yesterday," which is also the name of the main character. It follows this woman, a young mother whose husband is away in the city for work, as she gets devastating news that changes her life, her marriage, her relationship to her community.

Africa has, for many years now, held a special place in my heart. This is due in great part, I believe to the AIDS epidemic and the way it ravages lives and leaves families torn apart. This movie reminded me of that, but also gave me new insight into just how heart-breaking a situation exists over there.

Yesterday confronts her husband about the news of her diagnosis - and he beats her. She returns home, leaving him in the city, where he stays until he is forced out of his own illness to see a doctor. He returns home to his wife, already thin and bearing the classic lesions of a man whose body is ravaged by AIDS.

Rumors fly in their small community and when the news that John has "the virus" is confirmed, the community demands his exile. What if he bleeds on us? What if he makes us all sick? Get him out! Yesterday visits a hospital in town, hoping to find a place for her husband - but the waiting list is already many people long and they will not have a bed for months.

And this is the part that broke my heart more than anything else: Yesterday scoured the countryside looking for pieces of scrap metal. She dragged them, herself already ill with the virus, into a field and built a hut for her husband where she could nurse and attend to him in his dying days. The aftermath of AIDS - the orphans, the sick children, the hospitals - has always been alive in my mind and heart. But the present reality - the people who are rejected by their friends and family, who are suffering with no one to lay a healing hand on them - had never struck me before that moment.

My heart is so broken by this thought that I don't know if I have any more thoughts tonight. Pray for Africa, friends.

Dearest Lord -
Be with your children in Africa tonight. Pour out your grace, peace, and love on their wounded hearts and give them the strength to carry on. Open their hearts to your word as you send your servants to them. Let them know there is a place for them in your kingdom, where they will no longer by burdened by the illness and brokenness of this world.
Amen.