Holy Cross Abbey, Fall 2012 © Stephanie L. Brown
He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say to the Lord, “My refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.” ~Psalm 91:1-2
© Stephanie L. Brown 2012
The Lord God showed me this: A basket of summer fruit. ~Amos 8:1
Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor.
~Romans 12:10
This is a motley crew of people. I like to think that we would all be friends if we’d just met randomly along the way, but we wouldn’t. Our personal circumstances wouldn’t have allowed it. But, because everyone in this picture loves Jesus and had a desire to build a community in our town, we were all bound together. We truly believed that God had brought us together to form a church — and that’s what we worked toward for a couple of years. That is not what ultimately came to pass in a literal sense, but as I look at this picture, I see a group of people (and there are more who, sadly, aren’t in this picture) who worshiped together, took communion together, baptized one another, ministered to one another and loved each other when we weren’t necessarily loveable. Most of all, through all of that, we learned together. We learned to live a life that wasn’t easy and built relationships that were sometimes (often times) messy. We were learning to be missionaries in our families, our neighborhoods, our cities and our world.
And, now…most of us are scattered all over the place. In each of these people, I can see that they are tangibly living out the Gospel in their new contexts. And, I realize that God was building his church. Not in a building, but in the lives of the people who follow him. I read Phillipians, Chapter 1 with an appreciation of the love that Paul had for the people that he served alongside…because every time I think of them, I thank God for them. (Phil 1:3)
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
(Genesis 1:1-2 ESV)
It would be easy for me to post a picture of my son and husband on this day. But, I wanted to dive deeper into the biblical meaning of the word “love”. Basically, the bible defines love in several different ways (ready for a Greek lesson?):
“Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you. (Exodus 20:12 ESV)
The thing that strikes me about all of these kinds of love is that in our human view, they are conditional. None of the terms above apply to our enemies….or to people we don’t know. In fact, I don’t even think that all of us can claim to have a “storge” love toward all of our family members.
Fortunately for us, God loves us with a different kind of love. He loves us with Agape love, the highest form of love there is. There really isn’t a term for this kind of love in our modern language. It is often described as “unconditional love”, but that doesn’t even begin to cover it. Agape love is the love that is described in 1 Corinthians 13. It is was is meant when scripture says that God is love (1 John 4:8) — it is not a feeling, it is an essence. Everything God does flows from this love. God doesn’t love us because we are lovable. He loves us because it is his very nature and character to do so. This is the sacrificial love that Jesus demonstrated on the cross. It is the kind of love that we are called to. It is a kind of love that I don’t think any of us are capable apart from Jesus. It’s the kind of love I pray that God will grip my heart with.
via iStockPhoto
By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.
(1 John 3:16-18 ESV)
This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. ~1 John 1:5
Every day, I wonder. I wonder what the guy in the car next to me on the GW Parkway was doing this morning as he was snapping his fingers in front of his heater vents (is this some sort of “clapper” method of turning your car heater on)? I wonder why on earth people decided to build their house in that particular spot. I wonder why people spit in public. I wonder why some people smell like mothballs. I wonder what babies think when we stick our faces within inches of theirs and speak a strange language in a high pitched voice. I wonder why my dog barks to be let out at 6am on weekends but not on weekdays. I wonder if the Broncos would have beat the 49’ers in the Superbowl. And, I wonder why Opening Day of baseball season isn’t a national holiday.
These are everyday wonders — curiosities, if you will. There are bigger wonders, too. I put these on my “questions I have for God when I get to Heaven” list. This list is comprised mostly of the “Why are things not fair” and the “I don’t understand” variety. Why was *my* child born with a heart defect? And, why did *their* child die having the same surgery that saved my child’s life? Why do we have to suffer so as we get old? Why do teenagers talk back? And of course the “What on earth does (insert scripture verse here) actually mean? And just today, I found out that somebody we knew passed away last week. It made me wonder if I was always as kind to him as I should have been. The truth is that when I actually do have the opportunity to ask God these questions, the answers likely won’t matter anymore.
And, then there is the wonder of God’s creation.
I remember being in 9th grade and having these mind-blowing discussions with a friend of mine about the universe and how it never ends. We would go round and round about how it *has* to end. Nothing goes on forever. But, it does! And, I can’t wrap my mind around it. Just like I can’t wrap my mind around God. Regardless of whether you believe that God created the world in 6 days or over a period of millions of years (file this question in the second category above)….He created it! And, it’s amazing.
When my son was born and we discovered he had a heart defect, the NICU doctor said to me that he was always the MOST amazed when a baby was born completely healthy. He explained that my baby’s heart was beating before I even knew I was pregnant. And, it already had the defect. We don’t know why — it just didn’t form correctly for one reason or another. But, it is an example of how things must go EXACTLY right — perfectly, really — in order for a baby to be born with no defect.
Another thing that brings me great wonder is the changing of the seasons….particularly spring. We see life begin to burst forth where things seemed so dead. The birds instinctively know that its time to fly north. The earth has made another trip around the sun…just as it was designed to do…and the cycle of life begins again. It takes my breath away when I think about it.
It is he who made the earth by his power,
who established the world by his wisdom,
and by his understanding stretched out the heavens.
When he utters his voice, there is a tumult of waters in the heavens,
and he makes the mist rise from the ends of the earth.
He makes lightning for the rain,
and he brings forth the wind from his storehouses.~Jeremiah 10:12-13
I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.
John 16:33
This word settle….it has a negative connotation to me. As in, settling for something…accepting things as they are even though you long for something different. But as I thought and prayed about it, I began to look at it differently.
You see, I’ve always been somewhat of a gypsy. I get restless easy. It’s hard for me to “settle” into a routine without getting bored. In our 20 years of marriage, I bet we’ve had at least 15 addresses we’ve lived in 5 states and have considered living in a couple of more. Once our son started school, we made a conscious effort to settle down a little more and we did stay in the same community for nearly 9 years–although not the same house– and not the same church.
And now here we are in the DC area. We spent a lot of time figuring out where we were going to live…because we want to stay put until Jake has graduated from high school. We spent a lot of time “church shopping” and even went through the painful process of finding a place that we thought we would be for a long time and then having that not be the case.
We’ve been here nearly three years and it occurs to me that we have “settled”…In a good way. And the way that I know its God’s plan and not mine is that none of it is what I would have chosen. But it’s home and we are settled and happy.
He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?
~Micah 6:8
Adventures of A Wild Pixie 