Thursday February 21st, 2013
This weekend I decided to take a sabbatical from life in the Bolivar bubble for my first cross state adventure of 2013. As I muse at McDonald's in Memphis alongside a few early morning regulars reading the paper and slowly sipping coffee, I am reminded of the glorious thing that is the breaking of the routine to which I have become so accustomed. Being in the city returns a vitality and energy to my soul that it does not find in the quiet wild of Southwest Missouri.
It is a spiritual practice to take retreats and venture into the unknown. This week, that looked like driving three hundred miles to the great land of Delta Blues (Mark Cohn obviously playing in my head). Why? I'm too much a pauper to have random adventures that involve travel to random large cities. The purpose of this Southern venture, other than to escape nasty snowy weather and relax in the early spring rain down here, is to volunteer with an organization called Student Life. SL is a huge interdenominational youth organization that hosts five day camps for childrens and teens in locations across the country all summer. This weekend is the SL Conference, where teens and adults from over 90 churches will pour into a huge auditorium to worship and learn with their youth. Several months ago, I felt the Lord tugging on my heart to get out of my context again. Since I am saving money for future overseas ministry, and I work 50 hours a week nine months of the year in Bolivar, it needed to be a summer gig that would pay (not lucratively, just enough to help me save money).
Would you join me in prayer as I take this leap of faith? No matter the time I spent preparing to go on an insane six month journey overseas, getting away from the comfort of home is still paradoxically terrifying and thrilling. I desperately long for grand adventure, messy community and a life lived out loud in ministry and love for others. Yet I cling to the staple routine of my every day, my six cups of coffee, my lunch at precisely 10:35 a.m., my knowledge of the things that each one of my students need, the e-mails I send, and the time spent in fellowship at K-Life, church and with my roommates in the evenings. I don't think most of us are lovers of cataclysmic change. I think we serve a God who is brings order and reason to chaos, and we crave the familiar, partially because of what he has put into our hearts. Yet we also serve a God who paints the sunrise differently each morning, who makes each fingerprint and each snowflake especially unique. When I am in Bolivar, entrenched in the routine of work, my students and church activities, I am so tempted to make that routine my own God, rather than trusting the One who gives me breath to go about each day in the first place. I relearned my obsession with routine and perfection yesterday when we were totally uncertain whether or not there would be a snow day today and totally uncertain about when our 8th grade students would take a practice standardized test that altered the course of everyone's day. I don't like it when my supervisors or my students or the weather mess with 'The Plan.' I don't like it when God messes with my plan... when he insists on conforming my selfish desires to His own and reforming me in the process. This summer, if Student Life is part of His plan is going to entirely mess my life up. Never has a summer lacked routine or been at the mercy of thousands of students, teammates and supervisors who travel across the country together in fifteen passenger vans... My summers have always been my very own. I will not be able to attend the weddings of close friends. I will likely not see my family once. I have to move. I have no idea where I'm living when the summer ends in August, nor who I'll share a home with. Every neat list and desire I had suddenly exploded into a realm of possibilty with the advent of this one opportunity. I know that the Lord has a journey to take me on, I know that it's a journey for my good. I know he means me to use everything I have to serve.
This weekend I decided to take a sabbatical from life in the Bolivar bubble for my first cross state adventure of 2013. As I muse at McDonald's in Memphis alongside a few early morning regulars reading the paper and slowly sipping coffee, I am reminded of the glorious thing that is the breaking of the routine to which I have become so accustomed. Being in the city returns a vitality and energy to my soul that it does not find in the quiet wild of Southwest Missouri.
It is a spiritual practice to take retreats and venture into the unknown. This week, that looked like driving three hundred miles to the great land of Delta Blues (Mark Cohn obviously playing in my head). Why? I'm too much a pauper to have random adventures that involve travel to random large cities. The purpose of this Southern venture, other than to escape nasty snowy weather and relax in the early spring rain down here, is to volunteer with an organization called Student Life. SL is a huge interdenominational youth organization that hosts five day camps for childrens and teens in locations across the country all summer. This weekend is the SL Conference, where teens and adults from over 90 churches will pour into a huge auditorium to worship and learn with their youth. Several months ago, I felt the Lord tugging on my heart to get out of my context again. Since I am saving money for future overseas ministry, and I work 50 hours a week nine months of the year in Bolivar, it needed to be a summer gig that would pay (not lucratively, just enough to help me save money).
Would you join me in prayer as I take this leap of faith? No matter the time I spent preparing to go on an insane six month journey overseas, getting away from the comfort of home is still paradoxically terrifying and thrilling. I desperately long for grand adventure, messy community and a life lived out loud in ministry and love for others. Yet I cling to the staple routine of my every day, my six cups of coffee, my lunch at precisely 10:35 a.m., my knowledge of the things that each one of my students need, the e-mails I send, and the time spent in fellowship at K-Life, church and with my roommates in the evenings. I don't think most of us are lovers of cataclysmic change. I think we serve a God who is brings order and reason to chaos, and we crave the familiar, partially because of what he has put into our hearts. Yet we also serve a God who paints the sunrise differently each morning, who makes each fingerprint and each snowflake especially unique. When I am in Bolivar, entrenched in the routine of work, my students and church activities, I am so tempted to make that routine my own God, rather than trusting the One who gives me breath to go about each day in the first place. I relearned my obsession with routine and perfection yesterday when we were totally uncertain whether or not there would be a snow day today and totally uncertain about when our 8th grade students would take a practice standardized test that altered the course of everyone's day. I don't like it when my supervisors or my students or the weather mess with 'The Plan.' I don't like it when God messes with my plan... when he insists on conforming my selfish desires to His own and reforming me in the process. This summer, if Student Life is part of His plan is going to entirely mess my life up. Never has a summer lacked routine or been at the mercy of thousands of students, teammates and supervisors who travel across the country together in fifteen passenger vans... My summers have always been my very own. I will not be able to attend the weddings of close friends. I will likely not see my family once. I have to move. I have no idea where I'm living when the summer ends in August, nor who I'll share a home with. Every neat list and desire I had suddenly exploded into a realm of possibilty with the advent of this one opportunity. I know that the Lord has a journey to take me on, I know that it's a journey for my good. I know he means me to use everything I have to serve.
