On a more serious note...

Church was very thought provoking today and reminded me of a conversation that I had with a friend from back home a few weeks ago. Her Bible study group had just started reading Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell and she was telling me what she thought of it so far. After listening for a few minutes, it became apparent that we were of two very different minds about the book and I realized, once again, just how much I've changed since coming to Fuller two years ago. Our conversation soon focused on the topic of the emerging church and I did a poor job of explaining just what I thought about it all, tripping and stumbling over my words. I'm the first to admit that theology is not my strong point and that much of what I hear in class goes over my head (but B's get degrees, right?!). Yet, at the same time, even if I can't fully explain the transformation that has taken place in my mind and heart, I also can't deny the fact that it somehow feels true and right. Amazing debating skills, I know.

My friend had really good questions that challenged me, questions that I don't have any answers to. But I think that's part of my process - being okay with not knowing. Through Bell's book and others (Blue Like Jazz, Inside Out, and anything by Anne Lamott), I'm struck, again and again, with the realization of God's grace. As someone who has felt guilty for one thing or another pretty much every day of her life, I cannot tell you how freeing this is. And that's what I was reminded of again at church today as we started a series on Galatians. It's about Jesus. Period. Jesus plus nothing. I've spent a lot of years adding things to Jesus, a lot of years with a legalistic mindset and a huge list of what I have to do in order to be a good Christian. And I'm tired. I'm tired of always falling short and heaping guilt and shame upon myself that God never meant for me to experience. I'm ready to see myself as a child of God and really believe it. And rest in it.

And because this blog is way more serious than my normal ones, I better go ahead and share the rest of my heavy heart, or at least the pieces of it that are left over from it being broken again and again as of late. Ever since Cambodia, God's opened my eyes up to a lot of suffering. I'm finding opportunity after opportunity to learn more about injustice, whether it be child soldiers, trafficking, homosexuality, or through the stories of my clients. I feel like everywhere I turn God is prompting me. I just don't know what He's prompting me to do. Do I get involved with this organization or that? Do I focus my trauma research on sexual trauma or AIDS in Africa? Do I take further classes in SIS to learn more about international needs or do I focus locally? All I know for sure is that I'm supposed to do something that I never thought I'd even consider before. And it's rocking my world.

After this recent two-week intensive, I'm overwhelmed - physically, emotionally, and spiritually. I didn't realize how much until I went to a play last night called Butterflies of Uganda, which depicted a true story of a girl-child soldier. I was so raw from everything leading up to that night that it didn't take long for the tears to start falling. And they kept coming. It was as though I could no longer keep it all in - all my questions of direction, of pain, and of theodicy. We talk a lot about containment in therapy - how we help hold our clients pain and suffering. When we do that, we take on that suffering, too. And as I'm learning to do that for my clients and as I'm exposed to more and more themes of justice, I'm finding that it's hard to hold it all. I can't do it alone. Community helps. So does creativity and exercise. And apparently becoming a blubbering mess at a theater helps, too. Fair warning to those who sit next to me.