A Quick Update

I've had a busy week of thinking, and am not quite ready to report, but I did want to update that we now have an official departure date! On the night of April 29th, we (myself, Eric, Holly, Maggie, Mollie, and Sam) will be leaving from the Boston airport with our dozen brightly colored suitcases and numerous carry-on bags, in which we will have packed whatever we can think of to ease the next 48+ hours of traveling before we land in Lusaka, Zambia at 6:10 AM local time.

This is where it starts to get a bit more interesting...

Intensity Redefined

I have been described by many to have an intense personality. I can't help it really- it's just how I function. I tend to take things pretty seriously, and can often get a bit dramatic. This intensity easily shines through my last few posts, and as I read over them again, part of me wants to apologize for my incessant ranting. I'm sure that some have given up reading this blog- tired of reading my long soliloquies on God's heart for the poor. Some are saying, "Beth, dear, we get it. God loves the poor, so should we. Please move onto something else and be a bit more interesting."

If I am honest, there are indeed times when I am tempted to use this blog to prove the world how funny I really am, or how clever I can be with words, or even how much I love Jesus. In these moments, I find God catching me with His grace, gently reminding me that I am not the one deserving any glory- and that He will not give it to another (Isaiah 42:8). He wants glory all for Himself, and He will do what He must in my life in order that I be humbled before Him.

Lately, God has been bringing me low in the presence of giants gone before, specifically through reading A Chance to Die, The Life and Legacy of Amy Carmichael (missionary to orphans in India at the turn of the twentieth century). If I am one labeled by the world as "intense," I am not sure the world has language enough to describe the life of this woman, for my intensity pales to almost invisibility in comparison to hers. Some of my favorite quotes thus far-

"Her great longing was to have a 'single eye' for the glory of God. Whatever might blur the vision God had given her of His work, whatever could distract or deceive or tempt others to seek anything but the Lord Jesus Himself she tried to eliminate."

"Missionary social activities were not Amy's cup of tea. How to justify the time spent in this way? It was like making daisy chains while people were plunging blindly over a precipice."

"If there were less of what seems like ease in our lives they would tell more for Christ and souls...We profess to be strangers and pilgrims, seeking after a country of our own, yet we settle down in the most un-stranger-like fashion, exactly as if we were quite at home and meant to stay as long as we could."

After reading Amy, I feel like God has given me a new definition of what it means to live with intensity for Him and His glory (and I'm only halfway through). I would wholeheartedly recommend her for those of you getting bored with me. Be warned, however- her fiery fanaticism, earnest energy, and deadly devotion to Jesus may challenge your own understanding of the intensity with which we are called, and even dared, to follow after God.

Psalm 10

"A Song of Confidence in God’s Triumph over Evil

Why do You stand afar off, O LORD?
Why do You hide in times of trouble?
The wicked in his pride persecutes the poor;
Let them be caught in the plots which they have devised.

For the wicked boasts of his heart’s desire;
He blesses the greedy and renounces the LORD.
The wicked in his proud countenance does not seek God;
God is in none of his thoughts.

His ways are always prospering;
Your judgments are far above, out of his sight;
As for all his enemies, he sneers at them.
He has said in his heart, “I shall not be moved;
I shall never be in adversity.”
His mouth is full of cursing and deceit and oppression;
Under his tongue is trouble and iniquity.

He sits in the lurking places of the villages;
In the secret places he murders the innocent;
His eyes are secretly fixed on the helpless.
He lies in wait secretly, as a lion in his den;
He lies in wait to catch the poor;
He catches the poor when he draws him into his net.
So he crouches, he lies low,
That the helpless may fall by his strength.
He has said in his heart,
“God has forgotten;
He hides His face;
He will never see.”

Arise, O LORD!
O God, lift up Your hand!
Do not forget the humble.
Why do the wicked renounce God?
He has said in his heart,
“You will not require an account.”

But You have seen, for You observe trouble and grief,
To repay it by Your hand.
The helpless commits himself to You;
You are the helper of the fatherless.
Break the arm of the wicked and the evil man;
Seek out his wickedness until You find none.

The LORD is King forever and ever;
The nations have perished out of His land.
LORD, You have heard the desire of the humble;
You will prepare their heart;
You will cause Your ear to hear,
To do justice to the fatherless and the oppressed,
That the man of the earth may oppress no more."

Most of us would claim to be on the Lord's side when it comes to good versus evil. There are verses in this psalm, however, that actually cause me to wonder whose side we are really on. When it comes to orphans with intellectual disabilities, it seems we actually do think as the evil one does- "surely God has forgotten about them too; surely He won't hold us accountable for them one day." Here's the thing- He has not forgotten them. Nor has He been unclear about His desire to do justice unto them- He will certainly accomplish it. The question remains- will we be the ones celebrating with Him that day, or will we be the ones whose arms are broken according to the wrath of God?

How Lovely is His Dwelling Place*

The idea of the Lord's "dwelling place" is quite nice, isn't it? I'm sure many of you have heard and sung the contemporary worship song "Better is One Day"...

"How lovely is Your dwelling place,
oh Lord Almighty
My soul longs and even faints for You.

One thing I ask and I would seek,
to see Your beauty
To find You in the place Your glory dwells."

Though the song pulls lines from different psalms of David, the idea is consistent- there is beauty and glory to be found in the dwelling place of the Lord. No wonder we claim it would be better to spend a day there than a thousand elsewhere- it sounds like a delightful place to be.

The church is again and again called by Scripture to keep our minds fixed on the eternity we will spend in the presence of the beautifully glorious Lord Almighty, and so songs like this one and the psalms of David are helpful in directing our hearts towards that end.

But what about God's dwelling place here on earth? What does the Word have to say about the place God chooses to dwell here in the earthly, temporal realm?

A father of the fatherless and judge for the widows, is God in His holy habitation. Psalm 68:5

It seems there is a long list of verses that agree with this one- that God consistently chooses His dwelling place to be with those who are weak and afflicted. Jesus, Himself, is clear about this in Matthew 25-

"Come you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took me in; I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited me; I was in prison and you came to Me."

Then the righteous will answer Him, saying, "Lord when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You drink? When did we see You a stranger and take You in, or naked and clothe You? Or when did we see You sick, or in prison and come to You?"

And the King will answer and say to them "Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me."

Here, Jesus does not simply claim to dwell with the hungry, thirsty, strange, naked, sick, and imprisoned- He claims to BE them. By reading this passage, God's chosen dwelling place on this earth is made very clear- the adjectives used to describe it, however, are not as lovely-sounding. I'm not sure my heart and flesh would so easily long for such a place, and I really don't know that I would choose to spend a day in any of those circumstances. Certainly not when my current dwelling place allows me to be satiated, familiar, clothed, healthy, and free.

But what if those places are really where the beauty and glory of the Lord is to be found? What if God actually does choose the weak things of the world as His dwelling place? What would it mean for little guys like this one...


He has been labeled by the world as worthless- so much so that they have placed him in a brick holding room, where he is never permitted to leave. He has AIDS and an intellectual disability, and is passed small amounts of food through the hole from which this picture was taken. I bet he is indeed hungry and thirsty, feeling naked and like a stranger, is very sick and certainly imprisoned. So what if our responsibility to him is actually the same as our responsibility to Him? What if we actually have to stand before Jesus one day and explain why we left Him sitting in His lonely (and not so lovely) dwelling place? Will we ever get to enjoy the Lord in His heavenly dwelling place if we choose not to join Him in His earthly dwelling place of suffering?

In order that we might not be the ones to whom Jesus says "Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels," (Matt 25:41) may He give us grace to pray as David did and to continue to sing this song, but perhaps, with a new understanding of that which we are asking. May our eyes be opened, and then fixed, to the beauty and glory of God that is so uniquely displayed in orphans with intellectual disabilities.

*I wrote this for the Special Hope Network blog, which you can find at www.specialhopenetwork.com. It is updated weekly, and explains a lot more about what God has called us to do. Check out the website if you have not yet!

Please Forgive Me

I have been tempted over the last few days to quit this blogging business. It's not that I don't love it, because I really do love writing here. It's not that I don't want to share with you, because I really do want to process these things with you. The temptation to shut down this operation has been rooted in my fear of speaking too soon about things currently going on in my life.

I feel like I am in a place where God has started to grow something new in me, but I'm not quite sure yet what it will be, or how the end will turn out. I've had a few conversations in the past few days where I start describing it to someone, and I eventually find myself lost and confused in the midst of my own story. The thoughts behind these conversations, and these blog posts, are nowhere near fully developed and are in need of constant revision according to God's clarification.

For example, in Thrashing Thorns, I wrote,

"The Bible is clear about Who is ultimately responsible for the growth of fruit in one's life, but it is also very clear about my responsibility to partner in the work of cultivating it."

Part of me has to believe this is true- that I have to be willing to let God change me. But if you were to really break down that thought, it would eventually argue against the sovereignty of God. It would ultimately place my own willingness above the power of the Lord Almighty. The inverse is certainly not true (if I am not willing, then God cannot change me), and so part of me also wonders if this idea could be true at all.

The prophet Zephaniah brought to the Israelites a warning of God's impending judgment upon them (this may seem like a disconnected thought, but it will reconnect, I promise).

And it shall come to pass at that time that I will search Jerusalem with lamps, and punish the men who are settled in complacency (Zeph 1:12).

It wasn't that they committed some outrightly wicked, horrifically evil sin- they had simply become stagnant. However, their complacency so outrages the Lord that He plans to completely destroy them. Does God really work this way? Is He really infuriated by things like laziness? And if so, how lazy do you have to be to fall into the category of the judged- really super lazy, or just a little bit?

Whatever the standards may be (remembering that the standards of God are often very different than those we hold for ourselves), God is also clear in His words through Zephaniah about His remedy for complacency. He does not simply pour out some grace so that they can muster up the energy to follow Him again. Instead, He, Himself "will restore to the peoples a pure language, that they all may call on the name of the Lord, to serve Him with one accord (3:9)." He does it Himself, with no help, no invitation, no permission from them. His work in the remnant of Israel is completely and utterly dependent upon His doing it.

God, as the Sovereign One He is, has the power to do in me whatever He wishes. It will be with no help, no invitation, and no permission from me that He accomplishes His glory through my life. My "partnering" with Him (as I wrote before) doesn't actually seem to play a role in His sovereignty.

You can see what I mean when I describe the contents of this blog to be a series of rough cuts. I cannot guarantee that the next few months won't be filled with contradicting, clarifying, and completely controversial posts- so please forgive me. I don't take this lightly, but I do forge ahead with fear and trembling of Him who is sovereign over it all.

Thrashing Thorns

In my last post, I concluded by putting all of my hope for growth in Christ. If anything remotely worthwhile is going to come from my life- it will indeed be because of Him. And while I know that I cannot accomplish anything on my own, I also know that I am certainly not just going to sit around, waiting lazily for something to happen. This would be in direct opposition to my type-A personality, and my understanding of the very Word of God. The Bible is clear about Who is ultimately responsible for the growth of fruit in one's life, but it is also very clear about my responsibility to partner in the work of cultivating it.

I shared my fear about the thorns- that they would choke out that which God has started in me. And so, in my attempt to partner with God in the cultivating He is doing in me, this is where I must start. I must identify the thorns in my life, and begin whatever I must in order to remove them. I must set to thrashing thorns with as much energy as the Holy Spirit allows.

So how does ones go about thrashing thorns? It seems we have been given the tools to do so, and the obvious first tool to choose would the the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God (Eph 6:17). In order to not be be conformed to this world (as the thorns threaten), we must be transformed and renewed (Rom 12:2) by the Word, that we might learn to set our minds on things above, not on things on the earth (Col 3:3).

Through this transformation, we can learn to put the cares of God above the cares of this world. His cares, those closest to His heart, are made very clear in the Word of God. His care is consistently bent toward the hungry, thirsty, naked, sick, imprisoned, weak, distressed, perishing, blind, poor, afflicted, broken, needy, unfortunate, lame, defenseless, orphaned, widowed, forgotten, alienated, despised, rejected, and enslaved.

His Word speaks of them over and over, and interestingly, in almost every verse that includes one of the adjectives listed above, there is also a command to the people of God. Near to these descriptions are almost always imperative verbs, calling us to act on their behalf- to speak for them, to plead for them, to love them, to stand for them, to cry out for them, to be gracious to them, to seek justice for them, to help them, to rescue them, to feed them, to clothe them, to take them in, to visit them, to deliver them, to protect them, and to remember them above all else.

What does it mean to thrash the thorns of my life? It means clearing out the cares I have for myself, and choosing to act according to the care God has for the oppressed. Even more, that His care for them would become my own- that the fruit of my life would be unto Him and the ones He loves.

Seeds Sown, Not Necessarily Grown

I think we, as Christians, have the tendency to easily assume things without really thinking about it. For example, when reading something like the Parable of the Sower (Matt 13, Mark 4, Luke 8), I think we tend to assume we are the "good soil" people- the ones who have received seeds that will automatically yield a crop thirty, sixty, even one hundredfold.

I certainly do hope that I am one whose heart is filled with good soil- but can I share a fear with you? What if I am actually one of the others? What if the seed of God's truth that has been sown in me is snatched away by some evil bird? What if the roots can't grow deep enough, and therefore the seed only endures for a short while? What if the thorns choke out the seed, and it withers away?

I think I am most fearful of the third seed's fate-

"Now he who received seed among thorns is he who hears the word, and the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and he becomes unfruitful."

I know the wickedness of my own heart, and how much I can be consumed by the cares of this world. And though God's grace has allowed me to make a significant decision of surrender in choosing to move to Africa, I am not yet fully convinced that my sinfulness won't ruin what God has started in me. If left up to me, my life still has distinct potential to end up fruitless.

I suppose this is where trusting Him must once again enter the picture; that I must, once again, rely on Him and His grace instead of myself and my own abilities. The seed He has planted has only one real hope- that He would grow it, and make it to produce something beautiful. Only He can do it, and "being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in [me] will complete it" (Phil 1:6)- whatever it might look like, I pray for a frutiful life, and that the harvest be unto His Name and honor.

Ohana Means Family

Many of you know that in college I lived in a house with a unique group of girls. Though we didn't really know it when we named our house Ohana (Hawaiian for family, after a sermon we heard at a local church who was hosting Luau Sunday)- we were destined to become just that. These girls have become a part of me, and I them. Jesus in each of them has encouraged me to want to know more of Him, and challenged me to follow hard after Him. They are the most beautiful girls I know, and I am so blessed to call them my family.

I write about them because our family is changing. I'm not exactly sure when it started- perhaps when Mallory chose to follow the Lord's inviting her to be a part of a new family, the Trinity Fellows. I have watched this family mold and shape her in ways that Ohana could not, and though it first stirred jealousy and bitterness in me- it is with utmost joy that I see the woman God is transforming her to be.

Then, our dear Liz chose to accept an invitation from Jesus and her beloved Spencer. Yesterday, we celebrated their engagement in bittersweet fashion- with such hope for their new life together, and with remembrance of the season of life we shared together. This new family will shape Liz in ways Ohana, again, could not and I am so excited to watch it unfold.

Yesterday's celebration was also bittersweet because Ohana was not fully accounted for- we missed our sweet Molly. For the past month, Molly has been seeking the Lord in Kansas City, at the International House of Prayer. She was the first to fly from Ohana's Charlottesville nest, and so I greatly admire her courage and tenacity to follow God wherever He takes her (even if it is to a place whose winter temperatures settle right around zero).

And then there is Maddy and Veronica, who are awaiting the Lord's call to move; being faithful in the place He has them now. Veronica is finishing her degree, loving everyone she meets in the process, and continuing to make known the name of Jesus at UVa. She does this in a way that most cannot- she is so full of life and joy, it is impossible not to see God in the beautiful woman she is. Maddy is working a myriad of jobs, and worshipping God in the midst of and above it all. I have never known a woman to love Jesus the way she does- every minute, with every ounce of her energy, encouraging others to do the same.

When I actually think about it (which I admit, I often do not and instead take it all for granted), I cannot believe God would bless me with such incredible sisters. I also cannot believe that He would take them away from me, or that He would take me away from them. Oh how my heart breaks to know that we won't always be under one roof, or even on the same continent. My heart does break, but it also hopes in the way it will be restored, as He promises it will. I hope in Him who has the power to give and take away, to ruin and renew, and whatever plan He has for Ohana. He may indeed be changing our family- but I trust that the transformation will be unto His glory, forever and ever, Amen.