Eleven Years

Shannon and I in Jin Li, Chengdu, China

This eleventh month of the year 2011 will mark eleven years of friendship with one of the dearest people I know.  When my family moved back to Colorado in the fall of 2000, I was a lonely 12 year old, uprooted from all I knew and attempting to adjust to the multitude of changes occurring in my life.  My aunt, knowing I was in need of a good friend, set my family and another family up on a "friend blind date" of sorts.  And so, on a chilly November evening, Shannon and I met for the first time at a toy store in our small town.  

Since that day, we have experienced so much together.  We've gone through joys and heartbreaks, close times and seasons where we drifted apart, hilarious adolescence and attempting to figure out this whole adulthood thing.  But through it all, Shannon has been one of the dearest, most faithful of friends.  I remember huddling away in a corner to pray for our future husbands together when we were 13, listening to hours of LaRue, attempting to give Shannon dreadlocks during a weekend in the mountains at age 14, and our first annual all girls camping trip.  But, perhaps my most favorite memory is when we dreamed of going to the nations.  A true kindred spirit, Shan and I would dream about where the Father would call us, how many orphans we'd save, and what languages we'd learn to share the gospel in.  Our hearts bonded while dreaming about reaching a dark and hurting world with the glorious light of the Son.  And that's exactly what we did.

Through the years, we've watched each other go to five continents, swapping Africa stories and laughing about culture shock.  We've loved on those orphans and shared the good news in over 20 countries between the two of us.  And all those years of dreaming about being like Amy Carmichael when we grow up are making this exact moment so much sweeter.

You see, I am in China.

Shannon has been living here for the past year, serving the King we both so ardently love and have pursued together.  Closer now than ever, we talk for hours about the marvels of our King and the beauty of His ever-present grace in our lives.  Watching His work in her has been one of life's greatest pleasures and actually being able to live life with her here for a few days is beyond sweet.  Everyday here I am moved to tears by the goodness of the Father.  He brought us from little girls with big dreams to a place where we are actually living them.

Friendship is one of the Father's most precious gifts to us.  Being able to walk in covenant with another human being through the good and bad times is such a picture of Christ's love for us.  Having someone walk with you who says "I will fight for the Father's best in your life and not allow you to settle for anything else" is truly amazing if we stop and think about.  Friendship allows us to witness another's life, cheering them on along the way.  Shannon has spent the last few years cheering me on, supporting me, and encouraging me while I've been living and serving overseas, and now it's my turn to cheer.  And that's exactly why I'm in China -- cheering on my faithful friend in the work of our Daddy-King.  

Oh, and I am having WAY TOO MUCH FUN doing it!

Oh thank you Father for friendship.

Embracing the Crazy & Learning to Love

This summer, I reached the one year mark of living back in the states.  It was a bittersweet feeling.  I miss the nations in the deep places of my heart, but cherish the sweet lessons I have learned in this year at home.  I have reconnected with friends and mentors, bonded with family, and completed a year of university.  School has been inspiring for a nerd like me, as I'm sure future blogs will reveal.  But perhaps the most important thing I learned at school last year was a lesson in love.

After three years of traveling the world, studying the Bible, and living in a missional community I re-entered the American academic world.  As a political science major, I dusted off my apologetics books and brushed up on my debate arguments.  Enrolled in a "secular college" I was prepared to win people to Christ through the virtue of my argument -- intellectually and logically.  I was tired of accusations that Christians can't use their brains and intended to prove them all wrong.

But then something happened.  First, I realized that nobody was asking the questions I had rehearsed the answers to.  My classmates and professors didn't care about the Council of Niccea, they were just trying to get through today.  I listened to hours of people... hurting.  Looking for love.  Broken.  Purposeless.  Then it hit me, they didn't need an argument, they needed to encounter love.  A love that never ends, never gives up, never fails.  For once they experienced a love like that, I wouldn't need to convince them God was real, they would know it at the core of who they are.  And so I set aside my arguments and picked up the burden of love for my classmates and co-workers. 

I have also been doing what I affectionately call, "embracing the crazy."  Once I allowed myself to let go of logic as a tool of winning my friends to the Kingdom, I realized how crazy we Christians sound -- and I love it!  I believe in a virgin birth and that a God/man's blood allows me to live forever!  Just let that sink in a bit.  Sounds a bit crazy, doesn't it?  But that is the beauty of faith.  God is completely other than us.  He is beyond our reasoning, comprehension, and logic.  So rather than try to intellectualize the indescribable and logically prove the immeasurable, I'm learning to embrace the fact that I don't understand it all.  I have no other explanation other than faith.  It is truly believing in the unseen hope.  I love that I can't fathom all that He is, because if I could, I would limit Him in the finite dimensions of my own mind.  No, my Jesus is limitless.  He is the author of life and sculptor of love.

So I choose to embrace the crazy -- to treasure what is beautifully foreign and unseen.  I never thought I would be the girl championing fluffy love over intellectualism or debate, but my human logic is overrated in the light of God's strong, unchanging, life-giving love.  He is more real than I could ever describe and more loving than I could ever argue.  His love reigns supreme in the universe and it's going to change the world.  Has it changed yours?  Will you let Him in?