I am a words girl. Always have been. I spent many-an-extra-hours in various sympathetic math teachers’ classrooms, laboring with them over how to show my work on math problems that I could never fully wrap my head around the logic of. A geometric proof does what again? Solve for ‘x’ and for ‘y’? It was the ‘y’ that usually did me in. Beyond the simple plus and minus work of numbers, I never grew too comfortable around them. Oh but the words! Give me Native Son and a thesis statement and the freedom to craft thoughts and my mind felt like I was curling up with a soft blanket.

Given my unremarkable (dismal is more appropriate) history with numbers, I am, perhaps, the most shocked of all at how much counting I really do these days. I’m not finding square roots or making whole numbers out of fractions, but it seems like numbers are on my mind quite a lot.

I’m a counter. I count minutes and I count likes. I count children and I count approval. I quantify my day in so many ways—too many— forgetting that what I am often counting does not actually add up to anything real. I count accomplishments and I count failures, hoping that the former has more tallies in the column at 9:00pm. I count what I have based on what I see, and it is pride, and I sometimes count what others have, also based on what I see, and it is comparison. I’m always counting.

Today is the first day of lent: a sacrificial season of the liturgical calendar that holds the space of the 46 days before Easter Sunday. It’s a beautiful season for so many reasons, but one I have stripped of its meaning with the hint of ‘I grew-up Catholic guilt’ that still lingers, coupled with my relentless score-keeping. I’ve spent many a Lenten seasons subtracting: first it was ice cream, then sugar, next social media, and I’ve even gone for all television whatsoever. I’ve been rather crafty when it comes to my numbers during lent—technically Sundays are a respite from the 46-day total, and God knows it is also March Madness so all television besides sports became the rule. I gave up ice cream but made up for it in cookie dough. And sugar—never made it past 48 hours on that one. Add, subtract, put a few tallies in the “good” column, and call it lent; that has far too often been my stride through this season.

It seems I have been missing the point.

The Lenten season is about sacrifice, and it is equally about repentance. But I think above all, it is about getting serious with our own hearts about what we are waiting and counting for.

The arc of this 46 days ends at the cross. We hold the space between now and then with reverence and with an intent to know who God is through sacrifice, but what I am certain I have done wrong in all my counting is relegate the importance of those things to only, or mostly, these 46 days. Lent becomes a talking point or a challenge, a hashtag or something to accomplish, when really all it was ever meant to look like was me on my knees in humility, knowing that all my numbers could never add up to perfect.

But Jesus never asked for perfect, he asked for repentance. And I have so much to repent. The counting, the pride, the comparison, the lack of belief in the face of hard things, the lack of boldness in the face of wrong things. Choosing to scroll rather than open His word, choosing to vent rather than take things to Him in prayer. Making an enemy of my husband while I stand on the mountain of an issue that was only ever meant to be a discussion on how to sweep away the dirt in front of us. I could go on with this; I have to look no further than the day behind me to find my need for repentance. And it is a need far greater than 46 days.

I love lent because of the intentionality it brings, and I am even giving something up if only for the discipline to spend time with Him when I want to turn to that one thing. But mostly, lent is about repentance, sitting with my great need for, praising God that he allows it, learning about its pain and its beauty, about its grip and its freedom. Yes, lent is about repentance because life is about repentance. The arc of our lives ends the same place that lent does, at the foot of the cross. And my heart can hear Jesus leaning in and whispering, “Stick with what you know, Katie. Grab your words and come sit with me, because we have so much to talk about, and nothing to count.”

The lure of the blank calendar, it tempts me with possibilities every single year. This is the year I will be more, be different, be better, I think. And because I cannot resist the temptation offered by a package of new sharpie pens and a completely clean planner, I dive in to New Year’s dreaming and goal-setting and word-choosing like the best of them. I consider myself a connoisseur of list-making, actually: those of you who share in my joy of ‘checking boxes’ will understand that. And this year, perhaps more than any other, and I know with so many of you, I am desperate for new.

Desperate: having an urgent need; eager, impatient, fraught, forlorn. It sounds a bit dramatic when I put it like that, but in some ways it is an accurate representation of my heart.

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Just after Thanksgiving my little family drove to the base of Mt. Spokane and cut down our own Christmas Tree for the first time. It was cold and damp and gray outside, and I had to grab Cannon by the hood of his jacket no less than five times before he took himself for a jaunt into the woods, but we absolutely loved it. There was a bonfire and candy canes and the smell of fresh pine everywhere. We found the perfect tree for the corner of our living room, cut it down and then watched the staff get it ready to travel home.

Just before they wrapped our tree, a young man placed the base in a small box-looking machine, stepped back and turned it on. With wide eyes and a bit of confusion, Harper watched this machine shake our tree relentlessly, buzzing and humming as thousands of little pine needles fell to the ground around it.

“What is he doing, mommy?”

“Oh Harper, that machine is actually helping our tree. It’s going to make all the pine needles that aren’t healthy fall off, so that what we take home is a beautiful, strong tree!”

“Why is it so loud?”

“Well, it has to shake pretty hard to do its job. But once it is done, our tree will be fresh and ready to decorate!”

“Oh,” she said in relief, believing me when I told her what was happening to our tree was good, even though it looked intense.

I think I know a little bit how that tree felt, because this has been the year God took my faith, gently held it out for me to look at, and gave it a good, hard, much-needed shaking.      

And as much as I want to run to something new, something with potential rather than memories I cannot change, I know that God didn’t do all that shaking just for me to move on even though I so want to. I want to move on. I want to stop crying and feeling fragile when I pride myself on being faithful. I want to get back to genuine joy. I even want to write about something different, something that isn't born from the curveball life threw at us this year. I want to stop feeling like I am putting one foot in front of the other simply doing what I am supposed to do and start feeling like I am running my race with the energy and purpose a Christ-follower should have.

But sometimes, it’s not as easy as that. Sometimes, we just need to slow down, then take a good look at all the things that fell off of our heart during the shaking: the pride, the self-sufficiency, the correlation between my works and my blessings that I absolutely believed existed. The life that I wanted was also one that I thought was honoring God; but it was, in all honestly, equally honoring to me. And that life, with those motivations, that is what is left on the ground right around me.

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For 30 years, I have had a strong faith in Jesus, one I believe is grounded in as much logic as faith can have, but made true only by the work of the Holy Spirit in me. My belief in Jesus has, for as long as I can remember, been real and deep and even meaning-making for me. It is how I have always seen the world and three decades and many naysayers offering perspectives to the contrary later, I still cannot make sense of the world any other way but His. And yet, my faith has been the faith of someone on the balcony, not the faith of someone traveling down the road.

Sure, I’ve given my thoughts, offered my opinions on the best way to get there- wherever the destination might have been- even shared truths meant to motivate and encourage travelers. But I’ve done it from the balcony. I have talked about God being good, but it’s been from a personal place where it was really easy to believe that. I've never been one to ignore the pain and plight of so much of the world, but I never had to bring that pain and plight home. This year, I have, and I feel a whole lot more like a traveler. I still talk about God being good, but I have to watch a little boy hurt himself in my care and actually believe it; we have to face a very unpredictable and very unnerving future and say "but God, you are still good."

The balcony was not a bad place to be, but being a traveler is what finally shook all that wasn’t real off of my faith.

A year ago I would have offered you a little bit of Jesus and a little bit of me.

Today I know I have nothing to offer, I'm just sharing what I’m learning as I travel.

__________
 

A few days ago I went to leave a message for a group of friends about why I could not commit to something, and without warning the tears just started falling. It is in moments like these that I realize I might not be done being shaken. When my friend asks at gymnastics class how we are, or when a phone call across the country to my best friend goes from easy catching up to deep sorrow about a hard week in seconds. My unbelief gives me away in moments like this. I am shamefully prideful and still, at times, feel paper thin. I never know when I will be able to talk about our life and Cannon’s journey in a manner of fact way or when I won’t be able to get a sentence out before I’m choking up. But I do know this: we are not moving on from this year as much as we are moving in to what this year taught us. And in the midst of a complicated diagnosis that very much complicated our life, that lesson can be summed up pretty easily: God is faithful forever, perfect in love, and sovereign over us. 

My prayer is that I would walk in to a New Year knowing that my faith may have been shaken, but my soul isn't stirred. Jesus won it long ago and he will keep it until the end. I'll fail a thousand more times at doing this life well, but He won't. Maybe I'm not desperate for new so much as I am desperate for Him. 

The kitchen windows of our home face west, offering an afternoon sun shine that is warm and bright on our backyard view, and on the toddlers giggling their way down the slide and crashing the toy car into the fence. It also means that in the hours before dinner each day, the natural light flowing through my home is radiant. Everything glows with the warmth of sunshine, and my kitchen table becomes a welcome spot to take in the golden hues that our view to the west offers.

But this same light that I love and look forward to each day, it also makes me just a little bit crazy. The brightness that gently illuminates my home shows me every mark of filth in the room. Each fingerprint on the stainless steel refrigerator seems to grow, a dead give away that the toddlers have been attempting to help themselves to chocolate milk. Soft water rings dance around the counter, reminding me of all the places I set down my drink without a coaster. And every inch of un-dusted table space appears seemingly out of nowhere; the more I wipe it off, the more I find. A home that felt somewhat clean in the muted air of the early hours suddenly feels impossibly dirty as the light shines on it. I love the gift of the sun’s rays. I savor them each and every afternoon that the weather is kind enough to let them in. Still, I simply cannot clean my home enough to handle their revealing power.  

I think that my heart looks a lot like my kitchen on a sunny afternoon.

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Jesus is an alluring figure. As he walked the streets of the Holy Land people could not help but be drawn to him. Who was this man healing the sick and speaking of a kingdom yet to come; of a Father not here in the world but watching from a throne in heaven? All who came near him saw themselves differently; no one could be so close to Perfection itself without feeling their hearts react to its presence. But the reactions to Him were not universal; they were, and are, indicators of just how much of a dirty home one is willing to show others.

The proud and self-sufficient crowd recoiled in pride that this man was offering the goodness they thought they could achieve on their own. They approached him first with passive aggressive debates, and then with hostile false accusations of wrongdoing. When Jesus’ words revealed in their hearts a pride that they could not stand to be found out, their defense was anger. The light shined on their filth, and they accused the light of lying.

But the humble and desperate groups saw Jesus differently. They found in his presence a longing for what he offered, even at the cost of admitting that they had no ability to manufacture it themselves. Instead of holding up their own worth, with trembling in their voice they said things like the centurion did in Matthew 8 (v. 8): “Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof, but only say the word, and my servant will be healed.” Their response was one of meekness; a state of gratitude and wonder— not to be confused with weakness, though the world might give them the same connotation. When the light of Jesus shined on them, they saw their filth and instead of hiding it, they begged Jesus to clean it, offering to him genuine responses and sentiments of “I am not worthy. You are, though.”

Our lives are not so different from the masses that met Jesus. We, too, will encounter this man in our lives, and the closer we get, the more dirt we will see. Living our lives at a distance from Jesus, sin looks like innocent, fun, short-lived moments of indulgence that don’t really hurt anyone. It is easy to disconnect our daily comings and goings from scripture and settle in to a life of self-sufficiency. But when we press in to him, when we meet him in the pages of our Bibles, our sin looks like what it really is: damaging, painful, and with often long-term consequences for our lives and others. And more importantly, our sin is what keeps us from Jesus, both now and eternally. The light reveals what is really there; that is its primary function. And the closer we get to it, the more clearly we can see. Even places deep in our heart that we thought were worth offering to the Lord, the seemingly righteous acts we want to be proud of, in the light of a perfect Jesus we see they are actually thick with dust bunnies that we cannot, for all of our effort, get clean enough.

We have two options when in the presence of such revealing light: we can do what the Pharisees did, close all the window shades in the room, insist that we worked very hard to clean up on our own, and stand proudly behind our dimly lit lives. We may know that by doing so we are refusing to enjoy all the warmth that the light has to offer, and that anyone we invite in will only see a sterile version of our hearts. But we do not step into the freedom playing in the sunlight offers because the thought of being truly seen for the mess that we are is terrifying. We all default to wanting praise, to desiring the applause of men, and to being built up by others for all that we have accomplished. It takes a great amount of humility to hold this truth: we can work our entire lives to build a reputation or make ourselves presentable, but outside of the glory it brings Jesus it is of no lasting value and offers us no advantage, no high ranking, no more approval than anyone in the Kingdom of Heaven.

Or, we can respond with gratitude. We can look at all that is revealed and say, “open the windows even more and clean this all, Lord! I want the freedom to be seen as a sinner so that I can enjoy my Savior.” We don’t have to dwell on all that we cannot achieve on our own or on all the places we have failed to present ourselves right before God. There will always be rooms we cannot get clean enough, because no one could keep the law, and no one is righteous on her own. But Jesus says this: “My Father is not looking at the dirt you missed; he’s looking at me.” Jesus is the only example of perfect that the world has ever known. And his perfection is a threat to the proud, to those who do not want to admit their insufficiency and see the very real impacts of sin. But to the humble, Jesus is the answer to our insufficiency, the welcome reprieve from the façade of keeping up the appearance of a clean life when we know deep down the dirt that’s really there. He is the only peace in the chaos. He is the only joy in our sorrow. He is the only thing that makes real sense in a world that we will always feel just a little bit out of place in. He is the only One that calm our hearts when they ask, "Is this really all there is?" 

No, friend. This is far from all there is. 

__________

Each sunny afternoon as I both bask in the sunshine and shake my head a bit at the true state of my home, I’m learning in those moments that where I decide to look makes all the difference, and I want to look at the light. Constantly thinking of myself, and how I can attempt to hide the dust in my heart, keeps me busied with the wrong things; the futile building of a moment of recognition today when the joy of eternity is the only thing that will sustain me. And if someone were to walk in to my home, my prayer is that as I guide them to the back of the house, I would not apologetically interject my disclaimers of “Please excuse the dirty counters,” or “I haven’t had a chance to wipe down the refrigerator yet!” But rather, I would point straight out the windows and say, “How beautiful is that light!”

I’m starting to feel like these stories are everywhere.  I’m living them and hearing them and watching them unfold in front of me.  I’m offering prayers for solutions and being convicted of the ways I am part of the problem.  I bounce from frustrated to judgmental to empathetic to remorseful.  But the more I listen, the deeper I go with friends and trusted souls, the more I think there is something going on here.

I have some evidence for this theory: stories my closest people have told me about the way others have damaged them with words; experiences I have lived of being confronted about something that I immediately wanted to defend and scream ‘no, no, you are misunderstanding!’; and more than a few misjudgments on my own part, conclusions I had drawn about someone only to be told more information and realized those conclusions were arrived at much too quickly.  And in the end, there is a question sitting in front me that grows more powerful with each season of my life.  Simple in grammar, fully loaded in weight of conviction.  This question: Am I for you? Four words, that’s it.  But they are starting to undo me.

This all started almost a year ago, this thought that I could be caring for the relationships in my life much better. And then the evidence started piling in and making sense in my head, and then came Jonah, that short book of the Bible that most often gets reduced to a debate over the probability that someone could survive in the belly of a whale.  That, or it’s told as a reminder that God will come after you even when you try to run.  Which is true, and a very important characteristic of God to find immense comfort in: he is a pursuer, and how gracious of him!  But keep reading the story.  God was not just pursuing Jonah, and he was not chasing after him for Jonah’s sake alone.  He told Jonah to go, Jonah didn’t.  God taught him a lesson.  So Jonah went.  God was clearly thinking of the millions of souls in Nineveh, and he was not going to let Jonah’s judgment or cowardice stop His plan for the good news to reach them. 

God was for Jonah, but if we miss this I think we miss the whole point: God was so very for the people of Nineveh.  And even when the message finally got there and the sinners repented and mourned that their own choices had kept them from a loving God, the guy who was supposed to be the hero reveals something about himself that hits a bit too close to home for me: he still thought he was ‘better than’ the Ninevites, more worthy of grace, more acceptable to God, more holy, more spiritual, more right, just more.  Jonah wasn’t for the city of Nineveh.

I see myself so much in Jonah.  A woman who believes in God and wants a role in his work in the world, but so often misses this: I wasn’t saved so that I would have high self-esteem, or so that I could reach some elusive self-transcendent stage during my lifetime.  I was saved so that I can be for others, so that I can talk about grace in a real way, so that I can spend a lifetime on someone and something else.

Our default mode is just so much about us, isn’t it?  How we are perceived, if we have a good reputation, if our homes are nice enough, if our children are well-behaved enough, if the work we produce is enjoyed enough, if we have enough followers (can you even believe that is a thing?), and on and on.  And I think if we are really honest with ourselves, sometimes we use other people as the standard to make these judgments.  'Enough' sometimes simply means more than the next person, and instead of truly, from our hearts cheering on the people in our lives, we are secretly hoping they do ok, but not better than us.  We want them to take risks, start businesses, adopt children, be applauded and loved, but we don’t want it to take away from our own sense of acceptance and belonging.  There is this lie the enemy tells us that says if someone has a lot of one thing, there won’t be enough to go around for us.  And it is a lie; it’s the very opposite of the heart of God, whose message is lavish, abundant grace.

When I sat with these things, my perspective got rocked a bit.  And now I’m starting to ask myself this question every single day: Am I for you?  Am I a woman scratching and clawing for attention, or am I humbly offering my best and cheering on your best?  Because the gossip, the cynicism, the comparing, the false pretense and the manufactured measurements of success are all too revealing, and I think what they really show is a whole bunch of people preaching one thing and walking out another.  Are when really surprised that the gospel, and followers of Christ in general, are so misunderstood by people outside of the church?  In my life, I know I will never really fall deeply in love with Jesus unless I am for what he is for.  And friends, that’s everyone.

Time for the heart check: no more withholding words of encouragement, no more behind-the-back judgment, no more fancy rhetoric to prove how right I am, no more pretending.  There is so much work to do in this world and we have such a short time to do it in.  And I know the work pace will increase a hundred fold if we just can be for each other.  It’s only then that we can truly be for the rest of the world.  Let’s leave behind the things that hinder us, and let’s acknowledge that very often these things are of our own doing and from our own pride. And then let’s get to work, because we have to.  Oh goodness, does the world need Jesus followers to get to work.

"The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end, they are new every morning..." Lamentations 3:22-23

Easter Sunday has come and gone.  This season of lent, a forty-day stretch that I have “observed” in one way, shape, or form for the last twenty-nine years has officially ended, so we can all go back to our coffee and chocolate and television now.  I did not give anything up this year, mainly because I’ve only once been able to do that—it was ice cream in 2003, and basically it was a six-week diet of sorts with no spiritual implications for my eighteen-year-old self—but I did commit to an awesome lent devotion and to praying every day. 

Wait.  You don’t already pray every day?  The answer is no, not like I should be praying.  When I’m tired or weary or stressed I easily revert back to a six year old and start every Jesus encounter with “Dear God, please give/please bless/please be with…” basically a short running bullet point list of the things I need him to do for me.  I wanted this Lenten season to start something new in me: a new way to pray, a new desperate need for prayer, a new belief in its power.

And what happened was sort of that.  I still pray for the things I need think I need, but the last few weeks for me have been about one thing: repentance.  And that word, with all its weightiness, is changing the way I pray.  And I hope, the way I live, too.  When you sit with the scriptures and read about Jesus’ message, about his trial, about the way he was mocked and tortured and killed and how he never once opened his mouth with words indicating any sort of defensive posture, the only possible response is to repent. 

So I did, often, in my words and prayers.  I’m good with words, comfortable with them.  I can craft them and string them together in ways that sure make it seem like God has done a new thing in my life and heart.  And, oh, how I wish that could be enough.  But then like any good teacher, God gave me plenty of opportunities to practice repentance in real life, if only to remind myself how much I still need him and the grace he reached down from the cross and handed to me.   

I had a misunderstanding with a friend, and because, unlike Jesus I always take a defensive posture when questioned, it took me about twenty-four hours to even consider seeing her point of view.  I had hurt her feelings, yet wasted a day on my own case.  Repentance.

My daughter has dug her heels in and declared war on potty training.  She is twenty-seven months old, and more than once I’ve been so mad at her for another accident that I have treated her like a terrorist who purposely sabotaged my day.  Repentance.

My husband has needed encouragement for the leadership roles he taken on, and at times I’ve picked his methods apart and put them back together the way I would do it.  Repentance. 

A judgment about someone or something I know only the very surface about.  Repentance.

Gossip, comparison, jealousy, withholding my words because I don’t want to celebrate someone else at the moment.  Repentance.

All of life, every day, I’m starting to see how much I need repentance.  I often think that when one is a Christian for a long time, repentance can be the first thing that falls off the cart and sits on the side of the road.  Sometimes we travel days, weeks, months without realizing we left it behind some time ago.  What I’m learning is that I need to hold tight to repentance, not because it should be a somber reminder of my junk, or because I want to turn into a melancholic who always feels guilty for something.  No, the opposite actually.  I want to hold on to repentance because it keeps my heart near the cross, that place where grace poured down from heaven in the man from Nazareth, Jesus.

I truly want with all of my heart to be a “good” follower of Jesus.  But that has turned in to striving on so many levels, and I can’t keep up with my own efforts sometimes.  What repentance is teaching me is that striving does not get me closer to Jesus or win me more points with him than the next gal.  More points?  That’s not even a thing in God’s eyes.  When I start with repentance, I’m already at the cross, which is as close to the heart of Jesus that I could possibly be.  Everything else I do with my life is from there, not to get me there.  And that is a whole different thing.

Today, my prayers begin with repentance.  And sometimes that is as far as they get, because as I think of all the things I could start to list for God, I realize I have little need for anything more than the grace that comes with a humble heart.