Amazing Grace (my chains are gone)

Ahhhhh … it’s so good to be with you again!  Many of you probably didn’t even know I was gone, but Jeff and I just returned from a 3 day prayer retreat.  We’re now snuggled in over in Bend, visiting Jeff’s mom, and after a much-needed hot shower, a delicious dinner (Jeff’s mom is my favorite cook in the world), and a bit of a difficult time getting Dutch to sleep, I had this rush of anticipation as I brushed my teeth, washed my face, and sneaked away into our bedroom.  Finally–alone with … you!  Yes, it is true.  I love this blog that much.  And, I have learned in the last few days — that is wonderful!   John Piper’s son, who has a blog featuring only 22 words each day (some of you wish my blog were that brief!) boldly asserts that he blogs because he enjoys it, and we don’t take that pure sort of enjoyment seriously enough.  Well, that is true of me too.  I enjoy, deeply enjoy, writing and being with you.  And, as opened my laptop and scanned my emails, I found perhaps one of the most encouraging emails I have ever read … from you.  From you, a precious reader who I have never met, whose words have convinced me that sharing my thoughts and journey here, though ugly at times, is valuable.  Thank you for that letter.  You know who you are and you’ve blessed me profoundly.

So, we’re back!  Three days spent at a Christian Retreat Center with twenty other men and women from seminary who set aside this time to simply request, “Lord, teach us to pray.” 

I hesitate to even begin to try to express what God has done these past 3 days.  In some ways it feels too personal, like telling a stranger about making love with your spouse.  In some ways it feels too profound, too enormous to try to sum up in some neat little package to share.  But, perhaps some little nugget of it will be valuable.

First of all, God had me wrecked before I even went to the retreat, which proves that the key factor in transformation is not a retreat, it’s God. As I progressed through The Hawk and the Dove, I read a chapter with a story surrounding Holy Poverty, and what it truly meant for the Benedictine (I mispoke earlier, they are Benedictine monks) to practice the discipline of poverty, as a means of following Christ.  In the story, Abbot Peregrine (the main character) is having an ongoing conversation with a well-intentioned friend who is criticizing the Abbot’s insistence on such a brutally low standard of living for himself and his brothers.  The friend’s critique is that poverty simply means renouncing ownership, dressing in simplicity, and to say of nothing “this is mine.”  But, he insists, certain pleasures are simply the bounties of God’s immense kindliness, for there must be some pleasure in life!  The line that grabs me is this: 

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His friend says, “Moderation! You ask too much! Your self-imposed penury is not holy poverty.  It is like the poverty of the world.  It is …” 

“Too must like the real thing, you mean?” Abbot Peregrine interjects wryly. 

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Too much like the real thing.  Too much like the real thing.  Am I bothered by believers who are too much like the real thing?  As I read the dialogue between these two men, I could identify with the friend much more than with the Abbot.  The Abbot was the real thing. Practiced the real thing.  Perhaps not all are called to poverty in following Christ.  But can we at least, if we are called to something, do it genuinely?  The friend’s plea was moderation!  Moderation.  Moderation.  While I believe all things in moderation is a great plan to follow in dietary habits, it is nowhere given as a prescribed manner of living for Christ.  In fact as I consider it, my stomach turns when I realize how much of my life is lived in the sickly bed of Christian moderation.  I want just enough of God, but not enough mean anything drastic for my life.

So this is the state of my heart before the retreat. I couldn’t sleep the night before.  All I wanted to do was repent of my sick state of selfish moderation. My heart that is honestly more concerned with having a nice house, enough money, people who admire and like me and think I’m godly but not too crazy, health insurance, and a successful comfortable life.  Even as I write those words it makes me feel sick in my stomach.  How on earth can I have those values, truly in my heart those values, and call myself a Christian–a follower of Christ.  How can I call myself a Christian if my life has no semblence whatsoever to His?  Please don’t get me wrong — this is not a sad depressing state to be in.  For the first time in a long time I felt alive.

So we arrived after a crazy day of attack.  The brakes went out on our car, Dutch got sick and was puking, and I almost got in a car wreck driving home from class.  But by 6pm Dutch was on the mend, we had new brakes in the car (and less money in the bank:-)), and we were driving to the retreat. 

The retreat itself was amazing.  I think I will save much of what happened to put upcoming posts.  But we opened with some prayer and worship, led out by whoever had a song on their heart.  Amazing Grace was sung by someone who’d been in a severe car accident that literally sliced off half of his body.  He now only has one arm and one leg, and is a walking (sort of walking) miracle.  After singing, we shared stories of amazing grace.  You know you think you know people, but you don’t.  For privacy I won’t share their stories, but Jeff and I sat back shaking our heads in amazement at God.  Amazing grace.

Thursday, we spent much time alone in prayer, then came together in the afternoon and watched Chris Tomlin’s How Great is our God tour video, featuring Louis Giglio speaking on the miracle of the universe and of human life.  Afterwards we all sang along with Chris Tomlin’s Amazing Grace (my chains are gone). 

My chains are gone, I’ve been set free.  My God, My Savior, has ransomed me.  And like a flood, His mercy reigns. Unending love, amazing grace.

Thursday night we had a communion table set up, and a “prayer chair” set up in front, open for anyone who wanted to come confess of sin or seek prayer from the group.  Within 5 seconds I was surprised to see Jeff, who’d been quiet and reserved for most of the retreat, get up and go sit in the chair.  He prayed and repented of being so anxious over our future, what we’re going to be doing, of buckling under the pressure of needing to be “successful”.  He poured out his heart expressing his desire to trust God and follow the path laid out for us, even without knowing what it is.  People began to surround Jeff, and I knelt down at his feet and could feel the tears flowing down my cheeks, the words of repentence feeling like they were being wrenched out of the very depths of my being.  I choked them out, “I repent here, with my husband, for my anxiety over the future, of being so scared and unsure.”  I shook as the tears poured down my cheeks.  Dozens of hands rested on our backs and shoulders as the group surrounded us.  In the next ten minutes of prayer, I think I have never felt so loved in all my life.  Every word, every prayer, was God’s loving and tender arms expressing his love, his approval, his pleasure in us.  One woman said, “God is so proud of you” over and over. That broke my heart, because I realized that I had felt for so long that somehow Jeff and I just didn’t quite measure up, compared to the success of others around us.  While others are off with directed, well-put-together lives, we were struggling to manage part-time jobs and seminary and parenthood, interning at a church where we don’t get paid.  That’s how it felt.  And all of a sudden I realized that this anxiety had me chained.  Chained by trying too hard. Chained by trying to be what I thought people wanted me to be or what I thought I should be. Chained by trying to make all the pieces fit into the life I somehow thought I was supposed to have.  I guess you could say God just turned my vision upside down. 

And I realized that at this retreat, I was free in a way that I’ve not been in along time.  I was my true, free, joyful self.  I was so free from self-consciousness there.  I played the djembe with my heart and soul, something I’ve neglected to do ever since leaving Corvallis.  I realized that I’ve neglected things, like playing the djembe, because I’m so afraid people will judge my motives or think that I’m just trying to get attention.  So instead of letting God use my passion for playing, I hide it away in fear.  As I contemplated this, I had let two encounters put that root in my heart.  Small things–but I had let the enemy use them to make me cower in fear. First, when I was pregnant, someone said to my mom, “You better tell Kari to beware because as soon as that baby’s born everything’s not going to be about her anymore.”  I know it was meant to be a joke, but it struck me as a slap in the face because all I could think was, “Do people really think that I want things to be all about me?”  Yuck.  Yes, as a human I am focused on myself, but as a pregnant mom the last thing in the entire world that I’m craving is for things to revolve around me. It made me sick, and the thought plagued me–do people see me as trying to get attention?  Then, last summer Jeff and I attended a certain church service where we love and know the pastor very well.  As he referred to something, he said, from the pulpit, “Jeff and Kari, it’s not all about you this time.”  I sat there in my seat stricken.  What?  Did he or people there think that we were somehow there for us?   We were attending to show support for our family.  Because I was already in a vulnerable place, the passing comment devestated me.  And I know these were such small little incidences, but the reason they’ve plagued me is that I DID used to be like that, and would continue to be like that but for the grace of God.  That’s why I absolutely cringe if someone jokes about how my friend Megan and I used to dance on tables at our high school dances.  It makes me want to run to my room and cry, because I WAS like that.  But I’m not anymore.  And I don’t take it lightly.  The idea of wanting to get glory and attention on myself literally makes my stomach turn, and so somehow, in the last year, because of this, I’ve let myself somehow believe that I shouldn’t do anything that would draw attention to myself or be “visible” in any way because people will think that I just want attention.  And oh how I’m so scared of being misunderstood!  I don’t want the glory, the attention. Yes, that is probably my sinful default mode, but I don’t live in that now.  I just want to be alive again.  When I think back to experiences with speaking, acting, playing the djembe, dancing.  I would no more do those things right now than fly, because somehow I’ve gotten in my mind that I’m just an “attention seeker.”  But this is a lie. Yes, of course I can fall prey to that sin, and it’s not an “all or nothing” type of thing, but just because something can make us vulnerable to sin doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do it!  Pastors who preach the gospel are vulnerable, but they should preach! 

But at this retreat, something happened.  My chains were broken.  The first night, a student from Rwanda, pulled out a djembe and started playing.  Now our professor had told us that we should bring any instruments that we play so that we can use them for worship. So Jeff said, “make sure you take your djembe.” ANd what did I say?  Of course. “No, I don’t want to play.”  Of course I want to play!  Of course I want to play!  That was the stupidest lie of the century, but that is what I’d bought. So this student pulled out his drum the first night and I realized then what I’d been doing.  Chained up because of a fear that people would think I was seeking attention.  So afterwards, with sweaty palms and my heart racing, I casually started a conversation with him about how Africans and Brasilians play a different beat.  “You play?”  He asked.  “A little.” I said.  He broke into a huge grin–“You play next time!”  He insisted.  And I did. In fact I played the rest of the retreat. A little rusty, but I played with all my heart, I played with the passion that I had missed for so long. I could feel God’s Spirit resting on me.  I could sense Him letting me loose of the chains I’d had.  And as the retreat progressed I realized that Kari, the true Kari, the free and fun and true Kari was slowly coming alive again, slowly laying down chain link by chain link.  I realized that I am not an attention-seeker any more than someone who came out of a life of drugs is currently a drug addict.  Yes, I am suseptible to that the same way the past drug addict is.  Yes, they can fall into that sin, but that is not their current identity.  I love my Lord Jesus and want to be used in any way shape or form, whether that is in a spotlight, in the shadows, in the privacy of my home with my precious son, or in a public arena.  Either one, any way, and all of the above. I want whatever God has, without fearing what people think.

My chains are gone, I’ve been set free.  My God, My Savior, has ransomed me.  And like a flood, His mercy reigns. Unending love, amazing grace.

I’m free for what?  For a life of radical devotion to Christ.  Lord, change my dreams.  Pull me from the sickly bed of moderation.  Give me radical love, radical faith.  Help me to live here, in the trenches, away from mountaintop retreat experiences, with the same freedom that You gave me there.  Change us, God.  Help us to live as Christ-followers, freed from the chains that bind.  We love You, our precious Lord.  Thank You for Your amazing grace.

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PS  I lay awake in bed last night thinking about this post, and realized, once again–that again the problem lies in pride. Humility, again, is the answer. A truly humble person would say, “Who cares of people think that I’m trying to get attention? My job is to please God alone and it’s not about me anyway.  My worth and identity is not based on what others think of me.”  But of course, I am not that truly humble person. I do still care what others think of me, far too much.  My plea is that God would let my heart be pure before Him and He’d give me the humility and grace to seek to please Him alone. Once again, the key is … humility.