2011 has been washed away in time. Now its time to say hello!

I thought of all the hellos that have shaped my life. At 18, on the first day at my summer job I shook hands with a girl who loved Prince as much as I did. I didn’t realise that God had given me another sister. At 20, I introduced myself to a couple in a chip shop. She was wearing this jacket that I’d heard him talk about at church. I had no idea that these people would become family, that our friendship would take us around the world.

I sat next to a guy on a plane. He was a part of our church community, but we weren’t friends. We were part of a mission team for a week, so I thought I’d make an effort and say hello. I had no idea how close we’d become, our hearts and lives entwined. I say hello to him every morning. And our babies, our beautiful babies. What a privilege to say hello to each one as they entered the world.  The sweat, the tiredness, and frankly the pain, swallowed up in wonder and gratitude as I greeted the baby in my arms.

There have been many hellos that have shaped my life.

So how will I say hello to 2012? Not every hello opened a door of opportunity. Some opened up  conflict and heartbreak. Others were ignored and rejected. And sometimes the goodbye came way too soon.  So at times my hellos have been suspicious, cynical, distant, subdued, non committal. I’ve called it wisdom  or waiting of course. Its been a rare moment of vulnerability that I’ve had the courage to call it fear or disappointment.

Today at the dawn of a New Year, I’d like my hello to be as open as it used to be. As I used to be. I’m greeting the year with a broad smile and a firm handshake (we don’t do limp). I’m not waiting in the shadows, I’m taking initiative and greeting the year with boldness and light and excitement in my eyes. I’ll let my voice be loud even if my heart shows through. I’ll step into uncertainty if needed, because why not? Ordinary life produces the unexpected, I’m going to engage with it. I will cradle this year with wonder and gratitude, knowing that sometimes even the best things in life  are birthed in sweat and tiredness and pain. I’m saying hello to 2012 with my voice, expressing my choice.

I have no idea how this year will go. I know that hello is just the beginning – it shapes my perspective but doesn’t predict or protect. I’ve learned to entrust those responsibilities into the strong Hand of Another. He rises with healing in his wings, He restores the years that the locusts have eaten. He is the Savior, Covenant partner, King. He hold my hand and leads me forward.

Hello 2012, I’m pleased to meet you.

How will you say hello to 2012?

The Christmas decorations are fading into the background at our house; they feel a bit like clutter. We’ll pack them away tomorrow. The girls gave away their old toys without out a flicker of sentiment (Even Charlie and Lola. Could it be that I actually love their toys more than they do?). They play with their new toys for hours as though these toys are old friends. My hubby is immersed in a new book. Christmas may have 12 days, but for us, this bit looks remarkably like the rest of our lives… Yet amid the Christmas presents, the great meals, the fun times, there’s a bubbling excitement inside of me, almost to be point of giddy. We’re on the cusp of a New Year.

I love New Year’s Eve; I love New Year’s Day.

A New Year has always given me Hope. The past is now the past. Time has led my life to a new beginning, where things could be different. Things would be different.  I would never have to repeat that day, that month, that experience, because I couldn’t ever go back to that exact moment in time. I’d been given another chance, and I was determined to take it. My perspective has been tempered over the years . There are moments I’d love to go back and repeat, final conversations that I’d love to continue. Those memories make me wistful. But the Hope remains.

This year I’m aware of a Hope stealer; something that can pollute a new beginning. I’ve realized that to truly step into all that  2012 has in store, I’ve had to say goodbye to 2011. Yes, the past is in the past, unless you allow it to live on in your heart, unless you relive it in your mind. Yes, you have a new start. Unless the past casts a shadow that transcends time, distorting the beauty of a new day. Sometimes our best intentions for running into the future are tripped up because we run from facing our past. We’ll need to turn face some things in order to say goodbye.

The things we need to say goodbye to aren’t always hurts and wounds. It might be a habit, a comfort zone. They might be good things that we’ve simply outgrown.  How can I walk into the unknown with God whilst seated, no, embedded in the familiar? Time to say goodbye.

I drove to the beach the other day, ready to do business with God. Its funny how, standing on this beautiful beach, looking out onto the vast Pacific Ocean, I still find ways to argue with my Creator, but anyway. The praying began; the wrestle until the surrender. I drew a line in the sand, and the other side of the line waited for me to arrive. I know it sounds formal, and perhaps a little weird. But…I needed to say goodbye. It had to be my voice, expressing my choice. I know the outworking of our decisions can be a process – but what kind of life was I going to choose?

Would I choose bitterness, or would I choose grace? Would I choose hurt or would I choose wholeness? Would I choose comfort or would I choose calling? Would I choose fears or faith? Would my old habits hold me back, even the good ones, or would I let the Lord lead me forward? Is my life open still open to His guidance, His leading? There are many things in life that are much bigger than me, way beyond my control. Yet I do have responsibility for how I respond  to the opportunities and challenges that come my way. And I’d like to keep choosing life in all its fullness. I choose Him.

I stepped over the line, washed my feet in the ocean and said Goodbye to 2011. Walking back to the car there’s this bubbling excitement inside of me, almost to the point of giddy. Hope is back. Because it’s time to say hello to a New Year.

What do you need to say goodbye to as you enter a New Year?

Last week I bought my first very own bicycle. It’s a white beach cruiser,  complete with matching white basket.  I’d dreamt of  early morning rides along the beach bike path, stopping off for breakfast at Scotty’s in Hermosa or somewhere. Or riding to a local farmer’s market and filling by basket with fresh, local produce. There’s one little hiccup though; the riding bit. I’m still actually learning how to ride a bike. It’s been a long journey, but even as life gets away from you sometimes, certain dreams won’t leave you alone.

So I’m in the park and I’m ready to ride. Sort of. It took about 3 seconds to realize my biggest challenge to my goal was not my balance, navigating my gears, or the local uneven streets. It was  was learning how to learn. I rediscovered that whilst I love gathering information, discovering new things, stretching my intellect and dreaming,  learning is far more encompassing, far more incarnational, and dare I say it, at times far less attractive.

Learning how to learn was hard because I’ve generally relied on natural talents and preferences. I didn’t learn how to sing; I didn’t learn how to run fast, throw or catch a ball, and reading and writing came to me early and easily.Learning was about building on my strengths. So even when it was difficult, it felt like a worthwhile investment that made me even stronger.

But my talents and my perspective couldn’t help me this time. It was humbling. The quite literal twists and turns (and wobbles!) on the bike left me exposed.  I wanted to go to the park at the crack of dawn or at the end of dusk, because I didn’t want people to see me…like this. I felt angry that I’d never learned earlier, and rued the futility of having no one to blame. I felt scared, scared of failing and giving up, but scared of falling and getting bruised and bloody. Maybe I’d go out on the bike another day. Perhaps I’d go for a run ( read – something I feel very competent at) instead. I felt ashamed of my awkward incompetence.

Perhaps to rescue my rapidly spiraling confidence, I started thinking how much this reminded me of the process of discipleship. The idea of being mentored/coached – discipled sounds great, a beautiful and shiny pathway to our dream of becoming better people, suitable spouses, more effective leaders, greater influencers! But we rapidly discover that discipleship is not merely about gathering information and building upon our strengths. It’s incarnational. Its an apprenticeship that sometimes leaves you  feeling utterly exposed. You  learn things you thought you already knew but don’t; you get  frustrated because you paid $1000′s for an education that seems to have ill equipped you for leading people You feel like the strengths that brought you here are utterly inadequate to get you to where you’re called to be. You hope no one sees you. They’d only discover that you’re the person you’re most afraid you are.

It might be a really powerful word, but sometimes discipleship feels awful, because it exposes the truth that you are weak.

But then that’s also the beauty of learning, really learning. Discipleship doesn’t expect you to just know things; it assumes that you are a life long apprentice, an incarnational learner.  Discipleship isn’t only interested in information gathering;  an apprentice needs an accessible example to observe, experience and imitate, in order to really learn. Discipleship can feel weak and out of your depth – just look at the disciples. But the impact of being discipled and in doing so learning how to multiply that process. Well, just look at the disciples.

So as I cycle awkwardly around the park, I realise that my bruised ego needs times like these. Times like these remind me that I am a disciple, a learner, an apprentice. I’m learning from Him, and from the key people He’s placed in my life as disciplers. I may be weak and awkward sometimes,  but I’m also growing in Him every day.

Matthew 4: 1- 3 The Message

Perhaps it seems strange that Lent is my most favorite season in the Church calendar. Lent has always been such a powerful part of my faith journey.  My birthday is often in Lent ( this year was a notable exception) so whilst pancake parties have abounded, Lent provided time for reflection. I got married during Lent, and I loved the fact that a day of festive celebration and  joy filled loud parties was juxtaposed with  a season of  intense devotion to God. Lent provided a fitting backdrop in 2008 when bereavement and loss left me gasping for breath, as people I loved became memories. Grief wrapped around my heart and mind, but it offered no warmth.  And then there were the Lenten years  where I look back and remember  when wars were waged in my heart,  battles raged in my soul… and were settled.

Such a Lenten legacy can leave me feeling a bit intimidated at times, even legalistic.  I love the discipline and intensity of it all,  so if I’m not careful I find myself competing with  spiritual disciplines of years gone by. How can I top the year when I gave up X for Lent? Maybe I’ll try giving up Z… As though the power and mercy displayed in my life ever had anything to do with my austerity achievements.

Humbled, I still long to make room for God. To be with Him, to listen. To slow down, to be available, you know. For Him to be Himself in my life and me just get on with receiving and obeying. So rather than feeble attempts at a repeat performance of Lenten glories of yesteryear, I’ve been thinking about this verse and considering how to respond. Today.

The Spirit  led Jesus into the desert. As I reflect on challenges and adversity ( more posts to come on that), I  sometimes wonder how I got here. Sometimes its life; sometimes its Him. But Jesus embraces what is to come, he prepares for it, he engages with it, even though it brings him to the end of himself, acutely hungry.

This Lent my emphasis is not what I’m going to give up; its about engagement.  Its a time to respond to the promptings of the Spirit, to be led, yes, even into the desert. Even if its to the very end of myself.  And none of us want to be there, but He’s there. And for that reason alone I am confident of this, whatever challenges  and battles we’ll encounter  during this season, we will meet our God.

I’d love to hear your thoughts and reflections on what Lent means to you – let’s chat in the comments below. Jo x

We know that Jesus was the substitute, that he paid the price. We have some idea what we were rescued from. But if when the Son, sets you free you are truly free (John 8:36), what does freedom look like in everyday ordinary life?

Redemption - to buy back what was lost, through helplessness, poverty, violence, poor choices...Think about  what you’ve lost . A stolen innocence, a shattered heart, a broken home. What would that mean for your life if  His blood meant that you could be restored? Would it change the thoughts than run through your mind as you stand in front of the mirror? How would it change your relationships?Would your friendships, marriages, singleness, parenting be different? If only …

Redemption – sets people free from slavery, bondage and captivity. Think about what enslaves you, binds you, hold you captive.  Are there habits and hurts that own you?Conditions and circumstances that confuse and control ? What could it mean if in real tangible ways you were free? It could mean that anger no longer compelled you to react in a certain way. It could mean that  your appetites no longer defined your days… or guilt-ied your nights.  It would mean that  you had the space in your mind and the secuirty in your heart to say no, the freedom to walk away and keep on walking.

Redemption – free to live a new life…

And what if His mercies were new every morning? (Lamentations 3:23) Would it mean  that by His  grace, strength and power, you discover and learn the  tools and habits  that build a different kind of life. You wouldn’t just be leaving the old behind, you’d be living into the new, until it wasn’t new anymore. It would just be your life now. Not necessarily easy, certainly not temptation and trial free. But Mercy full. His Mercies - full.

What does redemption look like in your life? Think about it.

These ordinary men and women, ordinary families, are plucked out of obscurity and given a gift, a ridiculous abundant gift that they could never afford.  They couldn’t earn it even if they wanted to. A beautiful new house, college scholarships for every child in the family. A chance to say goodbye to tired old rags and embrace a new wardrobe, that somehow lifts the confidence and the heart. A new life, a new hope, a new wholeness.  You know they will never be the same. And you see the wonder on people’s faces as they recall that this new chance in life came not because of anything they did, but simply the love of a friend who made  a call.

I know why I return to these TV shows with their cheesy moments. I know why my eyes glisten until I can hold the tears no longer. They run away from me defying composure and dare to unlock well contained gentle sobs.  And I know why my heart skips a little, reaching , yearning, then rests as I remember.  Why for me amid the ironing on a Sunday or Tuesday night, time stands still .

These TV shows remind me of a much greater narrative. It reminds me of a Friend who made the call for us, who remembered us, who remembered me, and found me. And changed my life. It reminds me that we’ve been given so much more than a belief system to which we give intellectual assent. So much more than possessions or a wardrobe. His salvation transformed us. Still  transforms us.

And I love that this transformation you know?  The fact that He changes our very lives. That we are different – not by the songs we sing or place we visit on a Sunday. I mean the fact that with Him, hearts twisted by bitterness can be healed, and we can  forgive and release the person who broke our heart. Completely. That he can break the hold of habits that have imprisoned us. Completely. That the insecurities that define us daily can be replaced by a security that withstands the inevitable storms of life.

Unlike the TV shows real transformation is no  hour long quick fix. Battles are often hard won.  Transformation is birthed in Grace and Truth. Blood, Sweat, Tears. Resistance and Wrestling. Humility and Surrender. Spirit. Renewal. Accountability and Community.

But it is real, fresh and pure.

And it tastes like Healing.

Like Freedom.

And it truly was, except that I wasn’t going to meet that guy that night. I was going to meet God in an entirely new way. I was going to call him Father for the first time in the 7 years I’d been a Christian.  I was confused; with an earthly father I’d barely met I didn’t  connect to the idea of God as my Father.

Until at the end of the service, when, still preparing for that date with drummer destiny, someone stepped forward and shared a prophetic word:

“There’s a girl here tonight who doesn’t know God as her Father, and she has never known her earthly father. She’s  feels like an orphan. God wants her to know He’s her Daddy.”

What do you do when God reads your life, your heart and longings in a single moment? Then says them through some complete stranger – aloud? When time stands still because your soul explodes in anguish and loss and there is no time to be self conscious or guarded, no time to filter or reason Him away? There is no split second; there is just all your life caught up in NOW. So all I could do was sob, all I could be was in pain.

What does God do when he’s brought the moment to its crisis? What did God  do?

Well through the worship band leading that night, He sang over me.

Such love, pure as the whitest snow, Such Love, weeps for the shame I know Such love, paying the debt I owe, Oh Jesus , such love.

In all honesty I wasn’t always conscious of the debt I owed back then; but I was well aware of the sting of shame. It taunted me daily.

Such love, stilling my restlessness, Such love, filling my emptiness
Such love, showing me holiness O Jesus, such love

This time I wept louder. Uncomfortable onlookers might have thought it was an attention seeking teenager wanted to be noticed. And they were right. I’d wanted to be noticed by God, because I wondered if he knew the loss I felt. I’d wondered if that vacuous hole in my identity mattered,  if the restlessness that instigated all kinds of unpredictable behavior in me mattered. Now I knew it did. So I wailed. The wailing continued until I became one of those people that kind leaders guide to quieter sections of the church building to give everyone else around them a break. A gentle couple talked with me, prayed with me, listened to me.

Later that night it was time for introductions

“Hi. Well, I’m Joannah, but everybody calls me Jo. I guess you’re my Daddy…” And so slowly  began. I didn’t get the guy  (Because, seriously,  what guy in his right mind is going to find the weeping- wailing- screaming- not-that- appropriately-dressed- and taken- to- another- room- girl – attractive?). But I did get a Daddy.

Years later my heart leaped and the tears flowed again, when I stumbled on these verses from Zechariah. I’d not seen them before, but I’d lived them. And I smiled.

“The LORD your God is with you,
he is mighty to save.
He will take great delight in you,
he will quiet you with his love,
he will rejoice over you with singing.”

There was something so beautiful in the confused look on our daughters faces when Chris said that. They just didn’t get it, it didn’t make any sense to them. Our girls are born in the era of the Obamas. When they see him they shout – “He’s butterscotch, just like us!” and to them its perfectly normal that they’d see themselves in the White House. When they see Michelle Obama, they say “Mom, she’s just like you!” and its no big deal to them that a woman of color, with ebony hue, would grace the global stage.

They don’t know it hasn’t always been this way. They don’t know they names I was called, even at their age or those that my bi-racial friends were called, or that in other times and places that my white friends were called. They don’t know the story of their dad and me. They don’t know the names we were called , the things that were said, from sheer hatred, through to the sheer ignorance. And it saddens me that one day they’ll come to me with angry tear stained faces , and I’ll know that from personal experience, they’ll know.

But not today. Today we went to the beach and walked along carefree and happy in a family where love knows all colors and celebrates them, and I willed the sun not to set on their innocence for another day.

So its with renewed gratitude I reflect upon the lives of those who lived, fought, died, so our families could peacefully walk hand in hand. And I’m thinking and praying of how the walls of separation can continue to come down, especially in the church – the most segregated place in this wonderful country that’s now our home. Tragic isn’t it? It saddens and frustrates me. We’ve got to keep growing in this. Somehow we’ve got to embrace what the reconciliation offered on the cross, means for true healing and  harmony across different races . As salt and light… surely we’re to be the example, the model for what this could be? I wonder…

Anyway, in the meantime we  have our lives now. So I’m considering how our family can best celebrate Martin Luther King Day. Because this day is truly ours; it celebrates the colors of us.

When a Nashville friend of mine discovered Facebook – the first group she joined was entitled thus

“If you love a Southern woman raise your glasses; if you don’t, raise your standards.”

As I watched the Blind Side, that statement rang through my head repeatedly. The Blind Side recounts the true story of Michael Oher, now footballer for the Baltimore Ravens. Growing up in Memphis, Tennessee, Oher’s mother was a drug addict. He’d received little help or attention in his childhood, staying in a number of friends homes, and had been consistently passed on and ignored in the education system. His background bore the classic marks of a forgotten young man who could ultimately become a crime statistic.

Against social conventions, Sean Tuohy and his wife Leigh Anne took him in, and employed a tutor to help him secure his grades and eventually become Oher’s adoptive family. It’s an amazing story of how a family and Leigh Anne in particular  was prepared to fight for was needed, no matter how confrontational or uncomfortable for those involved – all for the sake of one young life. Leigh Anne (played by Sandra Bullock) was strong and assertive, warm, but not the kind of woman to be messed with. She wasn’t afraid to confront her friends’ bigotry, to ask difficult questions even of herself, to move from questions to action, to take in a stranger and raise him into a man and a son. Faith that is lived.

When you read interviews of Leigh Anne Tuohy in person, you see that Sandra Bullock captured her well. You’ve gotta love a Southern woman like that. Raise your glasses, indeed. 

Leaving the movie I reflected on how much investment people need to become all they were created to be, and how difficult it is when they are not given opportunity. Can we ever mentor without sacrifice? Can we invest in generation without a fight? And can we penetrate the broken communities of our cities, without inviting people into our lives, families, potentially even our homes? In Oher’s case, his life was transformed, with the help of people, teachers, friends, families who were prepared to be more than sympathetic, but were determined to get involved.

Who are we called to, where are we drawn to get involved?  Whose lives are we called to today?

Where does our faith live?

I am not into the Princess thing, but I have two preschool daughters so I am hardly going to avoid it. I’m just accepting it as a phase that too will pass. But it was a no brainer that I was taking them to see the Princess and the Frog.

I’d heard a few negatives about it actually. Why did the first African American Princess have to be the one turned into a Frog? Was the Prince not African American for a reason? How could it be set in New Orleans forgetting Katrina and all the racial politics within? Does it just play into old stereotypes and ignore reality?

It’s always difficult being the first, the one breaking new ground. The weight of expectations and longing, of righting perceived or real wrongs, the pressure to be definitive, to heal to communicate to represent can be immense. So much so that we can forget that its very presence IS a breakthrough, IS a success. We forget the transformative power found in simply by what we see.

So what did I see? I liked the New Orleans of the movie. Alongside the more nostalgic style of animation was a New Orleans of old; vibrant with music and hospitality, whilst still revealing the racial inequities of its time. I saw a young black woman who was vibrant, hard working, sacrificial and ambitious- but who chose integrity and character even at the expense of her worthy personal dreams. She did fall in love with a Prince  (this is still Disney folks, not social commentary) but did so whilst he was a frog. It’s a good story. My personal negative: the Shadowman bugged me; I get bored of the spiritual component of some of the Disney villains, and I’m not convinced it’s necessary. And perhaps an opportunity was missed with Prince from a place that didn’t exist, or was the interracial relationship even more groundbreaking? Discuss.

I liked what my daughters saw.  The bad guy lost. The good girl won. Good choices, good character won. And Tiana was the ebony skinned star of the story. They don’t need a cartoon character to be a role model, their parents are ready for that job. But I love that as they grow up they see increasing amounts of diversity; in politics, in the Supreme Court, in commercials, and on the silver screen. Different won’t be so exotic or “other”; they’ll see themselves everywhere, and that matters.

Don’t underestimate the affirming power of simply what you can see.