Even if I have to die...

I heard a song on the radio, and the singer was expressing his desire to follow God, no matter what. Even if he were to lose his life. It´s a good song. And when you say something like that to God, it´s coming from a good place, a sensitive heart. A heart that wants to please God.

I just wonder if we are really willing to lose our lives for God.

For some Christians, throughout the world, losing their lives for God means literally losing their lives. They are burned alive, tortured, beaten and killed because they will not denounce the name of Christ. It´s a terrifying reality, and one that should sober us daily as we walk with Christ in such lavish freedom. That freedom will eventually be taken away from us as the time for Christ´s coming get closer, and we, too, may one day have to face those horrors. But for now, that threat is still distant, and doesn´t play much of a role in our lives from day to day.

So, when a middle class, everyday Christian says to God, ¨I would die for you,¨ what is that person really saying?

Is God unjust? Why should some Christians be called to give their lives while others are free to live out their lives comfortably?

The answer is that God is just, and all Christians are called to give their lives for Him. If someone put a gun to your head and asked you if you are a Christian, I hope you would say yes. I hope I would, too. But what about the daily death we are called to face? What about dying to ourselves? What about taking up our cross?

I have been in many different settings and cultures and I have observed the current state of the Church, and I fear that this death is just as rare for us as martyrdom. We live a Christianity that is comfortable, safe, and, to be honest, virtually unrecognizable in contrast with the Christianity of Scripture.

You don´t become a martyr based on one act of faithfulness when the gun is on your temple. You become a martyr based on the daily act of dying to self. This is why Jesus warns us:

“If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple. Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple. For which one of you, when he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who observe it begin to ridicule him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ Or what king, when he sets out to meet another king in battle, will not first sit down and consider whether he is strong enough with ten thousand men to encounter the one coming against him with twenty thousand? Or else, while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. So then, none of you can be My disciple who does not give up all his own possessions.¨ Luke 14:26-33





If it were easy, if it were comfortable, if it were a matter of just saying the words, why would Jesus talk so much about the need to be prepared? The Jesus you accepted as a little kid in Sunday School or on the subway from a Bible pamphlet is not just a happy face with open arms. He is a Holy God who gave His life to save us, and He has expectations. 


I wonder, is our faith really costing us anything? Is it difficult? How much does it occupy our thoughts? How much effort does it require?


Are we really willing to lose our lives? Are we willing to give up our time, our relationships, our hobbies, our jobs, our money, our possessions? Are we willing to watch Him slowly take control of every last detail? Because He must. If we are to follow Him, then He has to be the one calling the shots.


I can say from experience that when He is in the driver´s seat, pretty soon your life becomes unrecognizable. Because it isn´t yours anymore. You lost it. And only once that happens can you really begin to be a follower of Christ.

Perfect Moments

I always tell my husband that I need something to collect. I love looking at other people´s collections of things. It doesn´t matter if they collect stamps, coins, jewelry, dolls, books or whatever--I love the idea of searching for that special something, finding it in some unexpected place, getting excited about it, and putting it in a special place at home amongst other similar things where it will feel at home. I wanted to collect something, but there wasn´t anything that I really cared enough about to collect. (One quality of mine that makes me a good missionary, but not a very good collector, is that I am not very impressed by material possessions.)

Today, however, I finally found something worth collecting. It´s rare, valuable, and almost always turns up in unexpected places. It´s virtually impossible to manufacture, and equally as difficult to preserve. What is it?

The perfect moment.

Have you had one? I had one just today. There was music on the radio, and we had just finished dinner. I scooped Bella up in my arms, and Jairo was holding Jane, and we were dancing together; our two little pairs of dancing partners. For about ten seconds (I told you, these moments don´t last long), it was like life was put on pause. The air was filled with love, closeness and pure happiness. And then, in the blink of an eye, it was gone. Life was normal again.

It wasn´t a perfect day. I failed many times. I failed as a mother. I failed as a wife. I failed as a follower of Christ. You can´t collect perfect days, because they do not exist. Not in this world. But you can collect perfect moments.

If you are a reader of CS Lewis, you will recognize these perfect moments as what he calls ¨joy¨. It isn´t just a happy feeling. It´s a moment of transcendence. It´s bittersweet. And it is designed to make you ache in your soul.

Why?

Because these moments are what we were created for. Before the fall, before sin and failure, there was joy. There was perfection. And there are traces of that perfection still hanging around, ready to surprise you and remind you that there is more. To remind you that what is to come is so much better than what we are living now. It stings, because it doesn´t last, and we so wish it would. But it also reminds us that the capacity we have for feeling true joy is a foreshadowing of an existence to come, when joy will no longer sting, because it will never end.

Would you collect with me? If you pay attention, you will find these perfect moments scattered all throughout your day-to-day. You might have to turn off your iphone, close your laptop, switch off the tv...but it´s worth it. Be present, open your eyes, and really see. There, in your child´s big, genuine, belly laugh; here, in a cool breeze, while you pause to look at Creation; it really can be found anywhere, if you look.

When you find the perfect moment, beware: It is not tame, and it will not stay with you long. If you want to keep it, you will have to bottle it up in your memory. And, if your memory is anything like mine, your perfect moment will not be safe in your memory for long. Tomorrow, next week, sometime you will forget it. And then it will be lost. So write it down. It only takes a few seconds. It´s like sticking your new stamp in your stamp book, or your new book on the shelf. You put it away ever so carefully, and then, when you need it, you´ll know where it is.

And you will need it.

There are so many moments in life that rob us of joy. In those moments, the best defense is to remember those perfect moments. It´s good to know that they exist, that we have lived them, and that soon we will live them again. In this world, and someday, in the next.

My Janey Bear

World, meet Janey Bear.

My first (lucid) thought after giving birth to Jane, when the doctors placed her on my chest and I was endlessly cuddling her, was this:

You have always been a part of this family.

Sometimes parents worry when another child is on the way, about the transition it will be for the family, and whether or not they will be able to love another child as much as the first. Everyone assures you that you will, but it is impossible to imagine until you have lived it.

Having a new family member has certainly been a transition, and not always an easy one, but I never doubted Jane´s place with us. She fit perfectly into a little Jane-shaped hole that I never noticed we had in our family. (I wonder how many more baby-shaped holes we will discover in the future?? ha.)

Janey Bear, as we call her, is everything you could want in a baby. She is easy. She is calm, happy, and extremely cuddly. She is generous with her smiles, which are big and contagious. She thinks her sister is hilarious, and loves tickles when she´s sleepy. She is physically strong and constantly surprises us with what she can do. She has a very girly cry, and makes a heartbreaking face when she uses it, that makes you rush over to fawn over her and make her happy. She loves her blue ball. As soon as she wakes up in the morning, she starts smiling and cooing at us.

She also seems to know exactly what she wants. I remember when she was only days old, and she would look at us so intensely and grunt: ¨uh! uh!¨ and we would know she wanted us to pick her up. She is getting bigger now and has more sounds and faces, but when she wants something, she gets you to understand her in some magic Janey way.

Cuddling and nursing Jane, watching Bella cuddle Jane and make her laugh, watching her fall asleep while Jairo strokes her face, I realize that my first reaction to Jane was exactly right. She was the one thing we never knew we needed.

Mom of Two

It´s official...I´m a mom of two.

My life consists almost entirely of feeding, bathing, playing with, cuddling, reading to, singing to, comforting, teaching, dressing, and refereeing children. I almost always have at least one child attached to me, on top of me, pulling on my leg, cradled in my arms, or climbing on me. I never sleep alone, eat alone, and rarely ever get to use the bathroom alone. I have to plan my whole day perfectly to get a shower. And even the most perfect planning does not guarantee success. And don´t call me on the phone...I won´t be able to hear, listen to or focus on more than 10% of what you´re telling me.

I also had the joy of once again recovering from childbirth, which apparently does not get easier with experience. I will spare you the gory details, but I think I was a card-carrying member of Childbearers Anonymous because going to the bathroom suddenly became a 12-step process. Which was great, since I have approximately 4.7 seconds in the bathroom before my toddler barges in, or before my infant starts crying to be nursed, or both. I had hot flashes, mood swings, pain, and constant trips to the bathroom, not to mention extreme exhaustion.

As a mother, I have now faced every kind of bodily fluid in such quantity that they no longer gross me out. You will have to do much worse than pee or vomit on me if you want me to be impressed, let me tell you. I have done the all-nighters, dealt with night terrors, insomnia, night-feedings, nighttime vomiting and bed-wetting, and the getting up the next day to do it all over again. I have held crying babies and tried to soothe them without knowing what is wrong. I have been driven to the point of desperation one hundred times in a day.

And if you think that´something (which you won´t, if you´re also a mother), let me introduce you to every mother´s constant companion: mommy guilt. That constant voice in your head telling you that you are doing everything wrong, that your children are going to be scarred forever by your tremendous failures as a mother, and would probably be better off being raised by wolves.

But here´s the kicker, ladies and gentlemen: I LOVE THIS STUFF.

Yes, it´s true, most days my to-do list only grows, and I feel overwhelmed by the quantity of things I have yet to get done. But then I think about all of the things I did get done. I (hopefully) showed my daughters patience, love, kindness, consideration and grace, teaching them slowly but surely how to do the same. I (hopefully) took time to listen, to play, to cuddle, to kiss and hug, to dream, to sing, to dance and to eat imaginary cupcakes. I (hopefully) taught my daughters the value of motherhood, by choosing to be their mother over other things that I could be doing. I (hopefully) showed my girls how to set good priorities, teaching them that people are more important than laundry, dirty dishes, and *gasp* even ministry. Because they are my ministry. They are my mission field. They are the most important role God has given me.

I am thankful for every role that God has given me. I´m thankful to be a missionary, a wife, a woman, a daughter, a leader, and a sister.

But most of all, I am so thankful to be a mom of two.