Take it Slow

Yesterday, I was driving through yet another rainstorm on Merritt Island. There were no rainbows, and at times I felt like I was driving directly under Niagara Falls. Every now and then I would hit an enormous puddle, and this wall of water would shoot up and cascade over the windshield making it impossible to see.

It was not a fun ride home.

In order to avoid an accident, I had to drop far back of the car ahead of me, watch for when he hit water and then slow to almost a crawl as I approached the puddles. It took me almost twice as long as it normally does to get to the church, but I arrived safely.

Generally speaking, there are many things in my life that I need to slow down for. Just today a friend of mine, a fellow teacher, asked me to put together a grammar test the entire English Department would use. Normally, I would say “yes, no problem,” but today I was in a hurry. Today helping her would mean that I would have to rush through things and the thought of running out of time made me very cranky. Consequently, I was not the friend I should have been.

Jim Wallis writes in his book Rediscovering Values that one of the greatest predictors of whether or not we will help someone in need is whether or not we’re in a hurry at the time we’re asked for help. He gives the example of a 1970 Princeton University experiment with seminary students.

In the experiment, researchers told some seminary students that they would be speaking on the story of the Good Samaritan in a neighboring building. Other students were told they’d simply be speaking on the topic of vocations. Some students were told they had a few minutes to get to the building. Others were told they were already late.

As each student walked to their speaking engagement, they were presented with someone who was in need of help. Some seminary students stopped. Others did not.

What is interesting is that those students about to speak on the Good Samaritan were no more likely to stop than those students scheduled to speak on vocations.

The variable that decided if they would stop or not? Time.

Those who thought they were already late, more frequently than not, did not stop to help the person in need. Wallis writes, “They were simply moving too fast to even notice that an opportunity to help a neighbor was right in front of them.”

Wallis’s point was that being in a rush, hurrying through life can be blinding. It’s not that we don’t want to help others; it’s that we’re so busy and so hurried, we are as blinded as I was when I sped through the rising water on the road.

Time ensnares us, traps us. When we think we have too little, our hearts beat faster, adrenaline floods our system. Our vision literally narrows, blinding us to a large portion of the world and keeping us from being a good friend, or a good neighbor, or just a basic, loving, caring human being.

When it comes to being a good friend, there is always time. We just have to remember that and slow down.

Stranger in the Mirror

The other day I was driving down Route 3 on Merritt Island. It was late afternoon and the weather alternated from rain to sunshine and rain again seemingly every five hundred feet or so.

As I got closer to the Pineda Causeway, the trees and brush along the side of the road cleared, giving me a clear view of the river. A heavy mist settled on top of the water, but above the mist were breaks of blue in the sky and as the clouds parted, they revealed a greater beauty.

A rainbow.

And not just any rainbow, but a full and complete rainbow, one so solid you’re tempted to stop everything and go search out its ending for that pot of gold.

It was so beautiful, I felt my foot let up on the gas, and the car began to slow. Here and there the trees began to block my view, but when I could see the rainbow, my head whipped about as I tried to freeze the image in my memory … without crashing the car.

Every time I caught a glimpse of that rainbow, I couldn’t stop myself from smiling.

I smile a lot these days. I also cry a lot too. But whether I’m smiling or crying, the emotion is the same:

Joy.

It’s a new emotion for me.

When I was a kid—a teenager—the events of my life made joy something only experienced in fairy tales, whether it be Dorothy, opening the door in black and white Kansas to reveal a Technicolor Oz, or it be Lucy, walking through the wardrobe and finding a wintry, fantastical Narnia on the other side.

The writers of those fairy tales knew something about joy.

Joy is transforming.

Joy has transformed me.

When I returned to work in August for the start of the school year, people kept asking me if I had gotten a new haircut or if I had lost weight. The answer was “no” to the haircut and only five pounds over the summer, hardly enough to account for me looking different.

But I was different, somehow, and people saw that though they couldn’t quite put their finger on the change.

The joy I have now I really struggle to put into words. It is knowledge of God’s love. It is knowledge, finally, of the person God means me to be … the real me … the true self. And so, not only do I feel like a different person, I guess I look like one too.

In her book Exuberance: The Passion for Life, Kay Redfield Jamison writes about the power of joy, “One joy, the Chinese believe, scatters a hundred griefs.”

Joy is not just transforming, it is also healing. God uses joy to heal and transform.

When God heals, He does not simply close old wounds with Godly stitches. He does not put in place metaphorical casts and splints. He does not perform surgery.

When God heals, He transforms. He remakes you. He washes you clean and gives you a new heart, a new spirit. He doesn’t try to make repairs.

He makes you new.

And even though there are times now when I can hardly recognize myself, the core of who I am and who I have always been … sings.

And the song I sing is the song of joy.

Prayer: It's not just something that happens to other people

Over the past few weeks, I’ve spent a lot of time talking to people about prayer. Who prays? Why do we pray? Does God answer prayers?

And what I keep hearing from people is that yes God answers prayers … for other people. Yes, God moves in the lives … of other people.

But when it comes to God answering our prayers for ourselves, we’re either too shy to ask or we feel too unworthy to even believe that God will take the time for us.

Don’t buy into that lie.

God loves us all equally and He is moving in and shaping your life right now.

I, myself, am guilty of sometimes believing that my problems aren’t important enough for God to work in. Doesn’t He have better things to do?

Here’s what I’ve come to believe, though, over the past few months. When we pray to God, when we allow others to pray for us, we are allowing God to love us and care for us in all the ways He longs to do.

Prayer is God’s gift of love.

The other day, I was given the opportunity to see, feel, and experience firsthand just what a gift prayer is when three women, Lorraine, Judy and Pastor Debbie prayed over me in the sanctuary. It was a healing prayer and it was something I had never experienced before.

To have someone lay hands on you and pray to God for you … I didn’t know what to expect. And let me tell you that what happened during that prayer was something I can’t explain, something I am still trying to process as God reveals Himself more and more in my life.

All three women lay their hands on me and I closed my eyes. I felt a little nervous and a little foolish, worried that I was taking up their time for something so minor. I had been sick for three weeks with an upper respiratory infection, and then I had suffered horrible rib pain for an additional two weeks after that.

The pain in my chest felt like I had been shot. It felt like an arrow had pierced my heart and then lodged there, sticking out my back. I was in a lot of pain, but even then I didn’t feel worthy of being prayed for.

I could feel Lorraine and Judy and Pastor Debbie’s hands on my back, just the pressure and then Judy started to pray and when she prayed something incredible and totally outside the realm of anything I had felt before, happened.

As she prayed, her hand began to warm. And this warmth, this heat, spread through my back and my chest like a wave. I told Judy later that it felt like drinking hot chocolate on a cold winter day.  It was soothing and I could feel the pain begin to unravel.

But before I could try and figure out what was happening (how could Judy's hand just suddenly start to heat up), Lorraine started praying and the words she spoke … I can’t even remember them all, but I know the crux was that she was claiming me. I was God’s and evil was not welcome in my life.

And that was when I started to cry.

By the time Pastor Debbie spoke, I was a mess and Pastor Debbie’s words healed yet another part of my spirit as she reminded me of what God has been calling me to do.

And when it was over, all I could think was that in my life, no one has ever given me a better gift than those few minutes of prayer.

Prayer isn’t about being deserving or worthy … it is about letting God’s love work through you and in your life.

Chapter One

At the very end of The Last Battle, the final book (no matter what order you read them in) of The Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis writes: “All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story … in which each chapter is better than the one before.”

It’s now been one week since my confirmation and I’m still trying to hold onto everything that I felt that day, the love of friends and family, the love of new family, the awakening to God’s presence and hand in my life since I was born, the joy—the utter joy—and sense of purpose, the clarity that comes when we know without a doubt what God has in store for us.

So what comes next?

I sort of expected that the day after confirmation would feel like the day after Christmas after all the build-up and anticipation is gone. The gifts have all been opened, we’ve had our fill of Christmas dinner and the carols have all been played.

The day after Christmas was always a letdown for me when I was a kid and I was worried I would feel the same after confirmation.

I have been pleasantly surprised to not feel that way at all. There is no letdown … because the story isn’t over. It has only just begun.

All my life, I have been lingering on the title page of my story.

Now God has turned the page for me to Chapter One.

But what is that story? What will happen next?

A friend gave me a confirmation card this past week that quoted 2 Corinthians 5:7 which says, “For we walk by faith … not by sight.”

And oh what a difficult thing that is … especially for someone like me who likes to skip ahead and read the last pages of the book to see if the story is worth reading at all. And now, here I am, unable to see more than a few pages ahead, sometimes not more than a few words and having to trust in God and His plan that each chapter will be better than the last.

I can do that—I think—trust—because God has opened my eyes over the past five months. He has changed me in ways I could never have imagined, in ways I could never have asked for because I didn’t know that such a me could exist.

I didn’t know … and that is the beauty of God’s work … to shape us in ways unimaginable.

He is changing me still, one minute, one day, one month … one page of my story at a time.

I told Pastor Debbie that I was still spiritually hungry and I think that comes from a continued longing to be filled with God’s love, a continued longing to be changed, a continued longing to see more of the story God has written for me.

Adopted by the Spirit

As I try to process everything that has happened over the past few days and what it means to be confirmed, I’m just now realizing something amazing:

I’m an Episcopalian.

I have an identity.

I have a church.

Over the years, it’s been a little embarrassing to tell people in one breath that I was Christian, but in the next breath tell them that I didn’t go to church, that I didn’t even have a church that I was affiliated with. The best I could do was say that I was raised Catholic which made me a lapsed Catholic which wasn’t necessarily a good thing either.

But now God has stopped my wandering.  He has given me a new home and a new family.

Initially, when I found out that our friends and family could be with us while we were being confirmed or received or reaffirmed, I was terrified. I was so nervous already. Even though I was so happy my friends and family were there, the thought of having them up there with me during confirmation almost pushed me over the edge. I’m just too shy. I never want to draw attention to myself.

Marty saw the look on my face and joked “when Kendra goes up, the entire church should come up and lay their hands on her.”

During the bishop’s sermon on Sunday, right before I was to be confirmed, I sat there praying to God. I told Him that I didn’t mind kneeling before the bishop alone. I had told my friends and family to please stay seated.

But I also told Him, whispering to Him in my mind, that there were a few people whose presence up there with me would not make me nervous, but would actually fill me with peace. I hadn’t discussed it with them prior, but I left it in God’s hands.

And sure enough, as soon as I kneeled down, those people were there, putting their hands on my back. It was just one of the things that made me cry.

Because I chose Hope … but Hope also chose me.

Marty had joked about the entire congregation laying hands on me, but in those three people, Lorraine, Judy and Robin, the entire church did lay hands on me.

Those three people who stood with me represented an entire congregation that through the spirit of God has welcomed me, nurtured me, healed me and adopted me as one of their own.

God, with His glorious sense of humor, took someone who was so afraid of drawing attention to herself and filled her with so much joy and so much love, that when she knelt before the bishop she couldn’t stop crying.

All the things that had led me to this point, all the ways God had moved and shaped my life, came rushing over me in an instant as I was adopted into a new family and given a new name.

Kendra

Episcopalian

Member of Hope Episcopal Church

This is the Day

I wish I could live in this day for quite some time. Twenty-four hours doesn’t seem long enough. I want to live in this joy and happiness for much longer than that.

I knew I would cry. I tried not to, but as soon as I knelt before the bishop, as soon as I felt Lorraine, Judy and Robin with their hands on my back, blessing me, supporting me, lending their strength to me, as soon as I looked up at the bishop, the tears started flowing.

“Are you happy?” he asked.

“Very,” I said.

And then he anointed me and prayed for me and confirmed me into the Episcopal Church.

What I’m not sure people realize is how close I was to breaking down completely … how close I was to moving from simple tears to outright sobbing.

I also don’t know if Lorraine, Judy and Robin realize that without their support, both figurative and literal, I wouldn’t have been able to kneel at all. They held me up.

Never in my life have I felt as blessed as I was today. This summer has been a healing summer that has brought me closer to God. But being confirmed today was more than just healing … it was a moment that truly opened my eyes to God.

They say that right before you die your life flashes before your eyes. When I knelt before the bishop, bits and pieces of my life flashed before my eyes.

I remembered all the Sundays I have ever spent at church, all the CCD classes I took in the Catholic Church as a child. I remembered my first communion, how sunny it was that day, how unhappy my mom was because she had recently (accidentally I think) dyed her hair orange.

I remembered how I slid away from the Catholic Church, slowly, struggling to hold onto them because of my love for the liturgy. I remembered the years of floating from one church to the next, aimless and desperate for a home.

And then I found Hope.

All of these memories flashed before me in the second before I looked into the bishop’s eyes.

My life flashed before me.

But this day wasn’t about death.

This day was about new life.

And I wish I could live in this day forever.

Confirmation

When I was fifteen-years-old, I walked one Sunday morning to St. Bartholomew’s Catholic Church to meet my friend Loretta for Mass.

It was, I think, the first time I had been to church without an adult and I made the most of it by sitting up in the choir loft, a place that had previously been forbidden, but thanks to Loretta being part of the choir, was now open.

What a view it was from up there.

I smiled the whole service.

It was my first time sitting in the choir loft, my first time in church without an adult.

It was the first time I went to church because I wanted to and not because I was told to.

It was the first time that I let go and allowed myself to truly feel the presence of God.

What a journey it has been since that Sunday.

In less than a week, I’ll be confirmed in the Episcopal Church. This past Sunday, Pastor Debbie’s sermon moved me to tears because her words, to me, epitomized just what Confirmation is.

It’s when I get to announce to the world that I am His.

That I belong to God.

It is something that I’ve known my whole life.

But God planned this time, this place for me, surrounded by my family—and you are all family—to commit myself to Him.

And I am so blessed.

It has been a summer of healing for me.

And as Pastor Debbie reminds me, the healing never stops.

The other day I was at the hospital sitting next to a little boy who had a fishhook lodged in the palm of his hand. He had his hand curled into a fist and when the triage nurse came out to look at it, he started screaming.

“I’m not going to touch it,” she assured him. “I just need to see it.” She tucked her hands behind her back to show him she was just there to look.

But he was having none of that.

For many years, I was like that little boy, so hurt and so afraid, I wouldn’t let anyone in, I wouldn’t let anyone see. My fists were clenched tight.

This church, though, Hope Episcopal, is a healing church. God is doing something special with the people here because I haven’t met one person that He isn’t working through.  I'm not even sure that they realize just how special they are.

Each time someone at Hope says my name, shakes my hand, shares a hug—each time I walk through those doors, another little part of me is healed.

And I find myself opening up in ways I never could have imagined.

God is so good.

He is so … good.

This Sunday is not the end of any journey. It’s just the beginning and I cannot wait to see where God takes me from here.

Why I Write

When I told Pastor Debbie that I would be presenting to a group of teachers at our District Inservice Day and that part of my presentation would be making them write about their experiences as students, Pastor Debbie laughed.

“You’re always trying to get people to write.”

Yes, I wanted to say, because I know that writing heals. 

And I know that for me and for many, writing heals not just the big stuff, but sometimes the tiniest splinters of wounds, the ones we didn’t even know were there, but have festered over the years.

Madeleine L’Engle writes about healing in Walking on Water. She says, “Wounds. By his wounds we are healed. But they are our wounds too, and until we have been healed we do not know what wholeness is. The discipline of creation, be it to paint, compose, write, is an effort toward wholeness.”

Though I had been writing short little stories since the first grade, it wasn’t until fourth grade that I grasped the idea that writing could heal. When I was in fourth grade, my mother was in and out of the hospital. Virtually every day after school, my dad and I would drive to the hospital to visit her. It was an hour long trip one way and on the way home, I would frequently recline the seat back and try to sleep since it was too dark to do anything else.

When you’re a child, a parent’s illness can be very isolating. As an only child, I had no one to talk to, no one who could understand. Afternoons and evenings spent visiting my mom, meant there was very little time left to play with friends.

One night, though, on the way home from the hospital, I started writing a poem, composing it in my head. I had never written a poem before, but that didn’t stop me, because when I wrote, I could be anywhere.

A dark, cold car ride home could become a trip to the beach instead. So when I got home, I started writing. I could only find a piece of graph paper and I meticulously filled in each box with a letter until I had my poem written.

Here I am upon the shore,
Listening to the waves roar.
And as the tide sweeps across the shore,
And the seagulls screech,
Peace.

It’s a poem you’d expect from a Florida girl, except that we were living in upstate New York, far away from any beach, sometimes seemingly far away from any sun. We had visited Florida the Christmas before and the image had stuck.

That poem became the first of many. And by many, I mean … many. If I was breathing, I was writing and I can say that it was a gift from God because poetry sustained me for many years. It spoke the words of my heart when my heart felt too wounded to speak. It gave voice to my fears and eventually became a reflection of new hope.

Words healed me. And I thank God every day for those words.

So when I encourage others to write—sometimes I actually nag others to write—it’s because I know the healing power of words, how those words heal us and how when we share those words, they can heal others.

The Good Shepherd

I was in third grade when my dad and mom and I went to the SPCA to pick out a cat. I’m guessing my dad wanted me to spend some time looking at the kittens before settling on one, but I didn’t need very much time at all.

I saw a small calico hiding in the litter box and I pointed to her. “I want that one.”

“Leave it to you,” my dad would tell me years later, “to pick out the cat with psychological problems.”

My mom named the cat Dickens and she more than lived up to her name. She was skittish and unfriendly to everyone but me. For the longest time, I was probably the only one in the world who loved her.

And then one day she vanished. She was an outdoor cat, but she and her brother always came running when we called for them. But on this day, there was no sign of her. I was heartbroken, walking through the neighborhood, calling her name. Finally, I sat on the porch, head in hands, defeated and convinced I would never see her again.

That was when I heard a meow, a soft, distant mewing. I called her name, “Dickens!” and there was the mewing again, only I couldn’t place it. I had no idea where it was coming from. When I ran inside to tell my mom, she waved me off.

“You’re imagining it,” she said.

But I was undeterred. I kept calling for Dickens and following her cry through neighbors’ backyards to the base of a giant pine.

And that was where I found her, at the top of that very tall tree.

Mr. McFee, our neighbor who disliked children and I’m sure disliked the tree-climbing pets of said children even more, climbed a ladder to the top of that tree and plucked a hissing, claws-whirring, and very frightened Dickens from a branch and brought her back to me.

Persistence is a beautiful thing, especially when it’s based on love. And there is perhaps no greater love for any child than the love they have for a pet.

But even as persistent as I was, I was also lucky. Dickens was lucky. What if I hadn’t found her before it got dark? What if my mom had called me in for dinner? What if I had believed my mom when she told me that I wasn’t really hearing Dickens at all?

As persistent as I was, I was limited.

I am reminded when I think of this story how persistent God is and how, fortunately for us, unlimited He is in His pursuit. God never gives into darkness or doubt. He never has to stop for a bite to eat. He will always find us no matter how lost we are. He will never stop.

Jesus refers to himself as the good shepherd. In John 10:14, he says, “I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me,” and earlier in John 10:3, “The watchman opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.”

In much the same way that I called for my lost cat, God calls for us and waits for our answer. We don’t have to be lost and afraid anymore. We can put our faith in Him and know that He will carry us home.