At a Loss

I sit down to write, the first time I have attempted to do so in a week, and the words still aren’t there.

I keep waiting for inspiration, for some revelation- heck I will even take a nugget of something philosophical I can wrap my mind around. I have nothing.

How are you supposed to feel when your twelve year old brother suddenly dies?

I feel like Jacob in the book of Genesis. He was making a journey and God interrupted him and wrestled with him all night. Then, God tried to move on and Jacob wouldn’t let Him go until He blessed him.

My life is on hold right now because I am wrestling with God.

I have had this idea that somehow that the price of loosing Caleb will be redeemed if only I receive some awe inspiring word of wisdom that I could simply put into a blog and preach about sometime.

I want God to bless me. My inability to see past myself amazes me sometimes.

Things would be a little less confusing if I wasn’t coming off the greatest spiritual high of my life. Traveling with Missio Dei has completely stretched me and shaped me into who I want to be the rest of my life, and it has only been less than a month.

Monday night we were at the University of Tennessee and I was fired up. I didn’t think there was anything that could keep me from storming the gates of Hell until hours later I got a text message saying Caleb was being hospitalized and was proved wrong.

If I was already questioning God this experience would have been the final straw. If I wasn’t sure that God had a plan I would be accusing him of not knowing what He is doing. If I was only focused on myself I would be pretty angry at God right now for taking away this innocent life, who lived a lifetime of hardship anyway.

The problem is that none of these are the case with me. I was right in the middle of a God-ordained, God-provided, and God-supplied journey. Everyday God has surprised me with something new and this was just another surprise- a really big surprise.

Except now I don’t know what to feel. Everyone around me seems to only have advice for people who are angry at or questioning God. They all want to encourage me that eventually I will need to get back to everyday life but what if that is all I want to do right now?

It has been exactly a week since our lives were turned upside down and Caleb’s life was ended. In that time I don’t remember ever feeling like I would expect someone who just lost their youngest brother would feel. I’m not saying that I wasn’t hysterical in the early hours of Tuesday morning when my family was cramped in a little room and a chaplain sat down with us to try and bring comfort. I’m not saying that I wasn’t in denial before I finally accepted he was gone. I’m just saying I always knew God had it.

I know that peace can only come from God, and I am very thankful for it.

It helps that Caleb was such an extraordinary young man. He truly did impact so many people, and he was filled with the joy that only God can give. Every day was a miracle, and his perpetual smile reflected that.

How can I be angry at God when He gave us twelve beautiful years that we didn’t expect?

So now I am at the “Now what?” phase, which seems to be a reoccurring phase in my life and I imagine will continue to be. I am stuck between wanting to join my team on the mission field where I have been feeling God move and wanting to be here for my family. I know how hard it was for them when I left the first time and this time will be so much harder. They are leaving the decision up to me, which makes it hard.

I know they can’t get back to a desperately needed routine until I leave, and I know that Missio Dei is absolutely where God has placed me, but how can I leave?

This is also why I was hoping for some divine revelation. I figured that would make going back easier.

And so, I am at a loss.

Captains Log: Thursday August 12, 2010

WEEK 2

I thought that my second week would not be able to top my first week at Missio Dei. I was wrong.

Last weekend we were in Thomasville helping Pastor Mike with a family conference. I thank God for the opportunity I had to worship him with my ability to run a Powerpoint.

The husband of the family that we were privileged to stay with owned a seafood buffet while the wife was an incredible artist. Their house was probably one of the nicest houses I have ever been in and we were all very glad to have our own beds especially since we had been crashing on couches and air mattresses for the past week. They also took great pleasure in showing off their culinary abilities, and fed us constantly. It was pretty amazing. We were all thinking that if this was what it was like being a missionary then we were quite alright with the whole thing.

Sunday service at The Connection Church in Thomasville was awesome. We were very surprised to hear a song from the Gaithers, Sandi Patty and Hillsong all in the same service. Pastor Mike did an incredible job speaking, which is to be expected.

Sunday after church a family pulled us aside and told us they were taking us to Walmart so that they could stock our apartment. We stood in awe as they went down the aisle with a shopping cart grabbing things off the shelves with no regard to how much it was costing them. We now have plates, silverware and everything we need to survive. Ms Donna Willingham, our Discipleship director’s wife, also helped gather a lot of stuff for us including George Foreman grills and Hamburger Helper. Booya!

We got to spend our first night in our apartment Sunday night since our AC just got fixed -we prayed over it before we went to bed.

We got up Monday and headed to Baxley, GA where a pastor there had brought it before his board and congregation whether or not they should purchase a trailer for us. They agreed and proceeded to purchase a $2000 trailer for us! We drove down to pick it up and it is exactly what we need. God is providing every step of the way.

After leaving Baxley we made the long trip up to Elijay, GA where we would spend the next couple of days finishing off boot camp. Here the surprises began.

Tuesday, we embarked on what was called the “Handicap Hike,” which came to be known as the hike from hell. We were assigned random injuries like being blindfolded or having an arm tied behind our back. I had both of my legs tied together forcing me to hop for about 3 hours up a mountain. We had to stay physically connected at all times by holding each other’s hands. The experience broke us down in every way and we are so much closer to each other than we already were.

The week was humbling and completely tested everything about us. We are a team now, ready to begin a Movement.

Tomorrow we work our first Georgia Dome event, where we actually run the concessions stand at home Falcon’s Games for fundraising. It will be pretty exciting.

Speaking of fund raising, due to some promises that have fallen through, I am still a couple hundred short of my tuition. God has provided for every step of the way and I am certain that God has the rest of it.

Thanks to one of my fellow journeyman introducing himself to our neighbor we now have internet. The neighbor even made us our own network and called it “For the Church Group.” Just one more answer to prayer, and this makes up for the same journeyman hacking into my facebook a couple hours ago. Its all good.

I am enjoying the internet now because as of tomorrow we are going on a technology fast to prepare our hearts for our first tour. We leave Saturday for the University of Tennessee where our goal is to reach 1000 students in the 10 days we are there. Everything reeks of awesomeness.

Me Worship

I wish somebody would have smacked me. Someone should have put me in my place a long time ago.

It seems that I have been living the past couple years with an extreme arrogance. I have had this idea that I was the smartest, wisest, and strongest Christian I know- at least of my peers. I knew I wasn’t perfect but I always just assumed I was the most perfect of anyone I knew.

Someone should have smacked me.

My short time at Missio Dei has already humbled me. I have been surrounded day and night by people my own age that can quote just as much scripture and are just as passionate about their God as I am. The wisdom that just oozes out of every pore of these people astounds me. It is here that God is reminding me that I am no different than anybody else- that I did not deserve to be created who I was nor did I even ask for it. I have realized that all my knowledge and experience have come to me unearned and then to think of how much of it has been wasted disgusts me. This revelation came to me after I had given up trying to find something, anything, wrong with my fellow journeymen that would prove I was a better Christian than them.

So lately God has been showing me that Me is all I am concerned about.

In Mathew 15 a Canaanite woman approaches Jesus begging for the deliverance of her demon possessed daughter. Jesus is pretty harsh with his word choice here in reference to her being a Gentile (as in, not Jewish and therefore not a child of God under the Old Covenant). He says “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to their dogs (26 NIV).”

I am not sure what Jesus’ motive was for being so blunt but the point I am trying to make is in her response.

‘“Yes Lord,” she says, “but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table (27).”

This lady knew she did not deserve a place at the table but was content with eating only the crumbs of everyone else’s leftovers. She was so grateful to even have the smallest portion of God’s power when we can’t stop singing about how much more of God we demand.

Have you ever thought about how self righteous our worship is? Think about the big songs that have made it to the top of the charts of the genre we classify as “Praise and Worship.” How many of them are all about what God is going to do for us, or what we are going to do to worship Him?

Do we ever stop to realize that we don’t even deserve the right to worship the God who is above all things much less demand that we see or feel more of Him?

I’m just wondering.

In the book of Esther we get a glimpse into some Royal customs of an ancient kingdom.

“Before a girl’s turn came to go in to King Xerses, she had to complete 12 months of beauty treatments prescribed for the woman, six months with oil and myrrh and six with perfumes and cosmetics. And this is how she would go to the king. (Esther 2: 12-13 NIV).

Now ol’ Xerxes was a Babylonian king who was about to annihilate all the Jews from his newly conquered kingdom. He had this whole process that took an entire year to execute for anyone who wanted to just be in his presence. After completing all this Esther only had one night to be with the king and then she would have to be personally summoned henceforward.

This is what people did to be in the presence of an unjust and flawed king of mere men. All we have to do is simply desire to be in the presence of the God who created the universe and we are there.

That astounds me. I cannot wrap my mind about this amazing privilege I have neglected so long out of my own arrogance.

Now, I don’t start worship without first thanking Him for the opportunity. I don't deserve it.

The Captains Log: Friday August 6, 2010

My first week at Missio Dei

It is hard to believe that I have only been at this incredible place for less than a week. So much has happened it feels like I have been here longer. I am going to use my regular blog to keep all my friends and family posted on what God is doing in my life and where their support is going.

Friday night was spent in my driveway with no one but myself and my basketball; the same basketball that I received for Christmas at age 7 and now has nothing remaining on its’ smooth exterior resembling what one would recognize as a basketball and instead is completely black with rubber interior. I have spent a large portion of my life on that driveway with that basketball and that net (which I received the same Christmas). Everything makes sense when I am running around with that basketball talking to myself about whatever it is that is going inside me. I needed that a lot on the night before I took the biggest step of my life, so I was out there until about 12:30.

Saturday afternoon the infamous Semple mobile was packed with everything I had room to bring (the rest is stored away in the attic) and I saw Stockbridge for the last time in awhile. When we got to the office we immediately went into worship and the long process of goodbyes (that is a lot of siblings to hug). When the parents had all left we headed over to Pastor Mike’s to grill out and play with his family in the backyard.

Sunday morning we all headed to Christ Chapel @Sportstowne which will be my home church on the few occasions we are home. It is weird to be a part of any other church other than Stockbridge Assembly but the service was phenomenal and I know I will enjoy the times I get to be there.

From there we headed to the guys apartment to paint which we soon discovered was lacking in the area of air conditioning. It was crazy hot and we were all literally dripping with sweat. It has taken us most of the week to paint the entire apartment and then move all of our stuff in and assemble the bunk beds but it is finally ready, with the exception of air conditioning. I really feel like a missionary when I am in there. Thankfully, Pastor Mike has opened up his basement to us guys and I have come to find out that he has a pretty comfortable couch.

These first two weeks are what they are calling boot camp and I am definitely feeling it. We start everyday at the office at 7:30 in the morning with incredible prayer and worship that lasts for a couple hours. It is amazing to worship with people my age just as excited and passionate about God as I am. Then we have chapel, then small group, then more time of just being poured into.

I have to admit that I came into this pretty arrogantly. I had the expectation that I was here to stretch and not be stretched, that I would pray through breaking points with my fellow journeymen instead of having to be broken myself. I was a little surprised.

I am so used to being the “influencer” and not the “influencee” that at first I was at a loss as to what my role on this team was. I know that at school my job is to introduce everyone around me to the Love that I have found and at church it is to doing everything I can to get people around me closer acquainted with it. Here I don’t know what to do.

Every person on this team knows who they are and who their creator is. They know what passion looks like and how to live it out and I am humbled daily by how much I have to learn from them. I am not used to this at all, which is exactly why I am here. From what I have discovered by talking with them is that they feel exactly the same thing I do, so we are all in the same boat.

This week has been full of surprises; from finding out that we were going to spend the next three days on a Daniel’s fast (eating only fruit, veggies, nuts and water) to suddenly stopping what we were doing to leave the office and go to a mall to see how many lost people we could reach in a couple hours. The Daniels fast was a complete surprise though a welcome one (however I am not sure my stomach was very open to the idea, it is truly amazing how fast fruit moves through you) and the talking to strangers was exciting and-for me- largely uneventful. It is not that I am scared to talk to people but it feels so unnatural and like a bird stalking its’ prey. I am working on it though, and getting better. It is really hard not to compare myself to my fellow journeymen who are all doing an amazing job. I’m working on it.

And so it is Friday night and I am in Thomasville, Georgia in quite possibly the nicest house I have ever been in enjoying the rare internet access. We are here to do a Family Life Conference tomorrow. To be honest I don’t really know what that means, and no one in charge seems to like the idea of keeping us too informed about what is going on. They want to keep us on our toes. Speaking of the spontaneous, they woke us up at three in the morning yesterday for a prayer meeting after they told us we were having a day off. It was amazing and worth the lack of sleep.

Everything changes every day. I am in awe of what God plans to do with these 10 months. Today is only day five and I am already a different person than when I left.

Boldly Going

“Missio Dei, the first frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Kyle. His ten month mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where he sure as heck has never gone before.”

It is pretty common knowledge that I am a nerd who would find great pleasure in the aforementioned allusion. It is also common knowledge that on July 31st (Holy Moses it is only 15 days away!) I will spring from my parents’ nest and head straight into the vast and mysterious world everyone is calling the Mission Field. I will experience life on my own, completely new and unpredictable surroundings, and incredible amounts of spiritual stretching all within the first week. Needless to say I just might wet myself with excitement.
People keep telling me not to worry and that everything will be great, and I believe them- well I believe the God who told me all that before they felt compelled to share it with me. To the best of my understanding I am not nervous or scared at all, at least at the moment. I am fully aware that I am standing on the brink of something much bigger than I am and that this is just the start of my dreams coming true. I am also aware that there aren’t too many people able to say that, and I praise God every day for it.
It is not, however, what I am going to that has me a little on the edge but is simply what I am leaving behind. The bottom line is I am not in charge of the things I have always been in charge of. Things that have been under my control won’t be, and I have to trust that the same God who more than miraculously provided for me will provide for the things He is asking me to leave.
A lot of these things are selfish but not all. For the past couple years God has been stressing to me how important my influence is on my peers and now I have to let them fend for themselves. I have to trust that God has spoken enough wisdom through me that they will be ok and that God knows what He is doing. He always does.
I am also naïve enough to pray that certain things stay the same the entire time I am gone and that I can come back next year and pick up exactly where I left off. I am aware this is completely ridiculous.
I have to trust that God will be piloting my Enterprise as well as doing amazing things at the Earth station.

Graduation

In a couple hours I will walk across the most important stage I have encountered thus far in my mere 18 years of existence.
My gown is ready, my hair styled and my tie already on.
Recently, as everything swells in excitement to tonight, I have been feeling like I am missing something.
I am just not as thrilled about graduation as everyone around me seems to be and I don’t know why. It isn’t that I am scared for what the future will bring me or that I have had such a great time these past four years that I don’t want to leave, I just don’t seem to be enthused about the whole thing.
I realized a couple minutes ago why.
Everyone is saying that we have worked for 13 years for this night, but that is not completely true for me. I have been working for far greater things than a sheet of paper.
I was reading the signatures in my freshmen yearbook before school started and I made the declaration that this year people would write more than just about how I made them laugh or am a nice person, whatever that means.
I read over the signatures in this years’ yearbook and realized that the diploma means very little to me in comparison to what God has done through me in the people I come in contact with.
I feel like I did what I set out to do, but it isn’t my doing at all. I feel so humbled to see how God has used me and I think to myself that I didn’t do any of it. God gave me the opportunity to do the things I love to do and people were changed by it. That astounds me.
So tonight isn’t much of a transition to me (though who knows what hindsight will teach me), because I am still just going to do the things I love to do. To God be the glory.

To the Girl Who Carved HATE into her arm

To the girl who carved HATE into her arm,

I wasn’t being nosy I swear but I saw it anyway. I was standing behind you in the lunch line when my eyes caught sight of your left arm where you had carved the word HATE into yourself in big capital letters. I noticed the other scars there too.
This wasn’t a new scar, and I could tell you had done it a long time ago and judging by your uncovered arms I assume you aren’t ashamed of it.
I wanted to say something, anything but no words could follow the pain that welled up in my gut. I saw you yesterday and still am unable to get you out of my head, out of my heart. I cannot even comprehend the pain you have endured, and are still enduring, to cause you to deface yourself like you have done.
You see, I don’t know you but I love you. This is an odd feeling for me; my heart breaking for someone I have never met, but know that what I feel for you is nothing compared to what the God who created you feels for you. Oh if you only knew how much He loves you!
Believe me, I am not wishing you would “convert to Christianity” so that you can vote the same way I do, fill another seat at my church or so that I can feel good about myself knowing I added to our numbers. I just want you to be free of the pain that is enslaving you. I want you to know when the sun goes down and you are lying awake on your tear-stained pillow that you are not alone in this big dark world. I want you to know you are loved. I want your scars to be healed and your very soul put back together.
I have no idea what you have gone through but my God knows. He knows because all of it happened to Him too. 2,000 years before you carved “HATE” into your arm my God carved “HATE,” “ANGER,” “PAIN,” “ABUSE,” “DISEASE,” “ABANDONMENT,” “GUILT,” “LONELINESS,” “DEPRESSION,” “REJECTION” and “DEATH” into the sides of His Son with a bloody whip. He took all the pain that you would ever go through when He died like a criminal on a cross made of wood. Now He is just waiting for you to ask Him to take it all away. He really wants to.
Now I don’t know how you feel about God; you probably blame Him for everything that has gone wrong in your life. You probably carved HATE into your arm because that is the only feeling you have towards God and all the people you once loved who repaid you with just more pain. I am sure you find it hard to believe anyone who tells you a loving God would torture His children.
There is no way to account for the things that have been done to you, and I know that it may be near impossible to see, but God really does love you and has a purpose for you, despite what you have been through. When He designed you, He did it because He had been dreaming about all the things He wanted bless you with. He wants you to know Him like He knows you. He wants you to become who you were created to be. The God who holds the universe in the folds of His hand wants desperately to wrap you in His arms. He even died so that He could have you.
I don’t know what you think of people who call themselves “Christians,” but it probably is something along the lines of crazy hypocritical people who are stuck in our ways and want to send the whole world to Hell right after we empty everyone’s wallets. Sadly, you would be right in thinking this about a lot of Christians. This isn’t how it is supposed to be, or how it is for most of us. We are simply those who have found the truth. Most of us were at one time wandering around in darkness and despair plotting our own plan to kill God when He found us and gave us real life, not just thinking and breathing but actually living the way we were intended to live. I found the meaning of everything and the secret of happiness I want you to know it.
The scars on your arm may never go away, but the scars on your heart can disappear immediately if you want them to. I may never see you again and get a chance to tell you all this, all that my heart has been bursting with but I pray someone gets to you before it is too late. There are others though, so many people who are dying everyday inside. Some are not as bold as to carve their feelings into their flesh and blood as you have though, but that doesn’t make them any harder to find.
I sincerely hope that I will see you again in heaven. May God erase the HATE on your arm and write LOVE on your heart in it’s place.

As sincerely as humanly possible,
Kyle

The Pile of Shoes Under My Latin Teacher's Desk

My Latin teacher is an odd breed. She is a feisty little woman who takes any chance she can get to talk about how kids these days have it so much better than she did as a brilliant, determined young woman in Jamaica.
She has recently begun to remember my name and I have only been in her class for 3 years. She makes up a name for everyone else so I count it somewhat of an honor.
There is one thing, though, that for the past few weeks has baffled me completely.

My desk is directly across the room from hers and I am daily confronted with the view of a large computer monitor which hides the entirety of my teacher. Occasionally a small head will pop out from behind and interject something which no one in the room understands.
Beneath the desk I see feet that just seem to be content with having won the victory of reaching the floor. Beside them is a pile of shoes.
This pile of shoes bothers me immensely.
I could understand, though it would be a stretch, why someone would have a pile of shoes at their workplace if the shoes were all of a different variety. For instance a woman imprisoned in her 4 inch heels might want to slip on a comfortable pair of house shoes while typing away at the computer, or a runner may want to slip on a pair of running shoes to hit a few miles during their lunch break.
This is not the case with the pile of shoes that has accumulated under my Latin teacher’s desk.
They are all pretty much the same.
I know I am a guy and therefore do not know the slight nuances and variances present in female footwear, but I know enough to know that they all teacher appropriate brown shoes at varying heel heights. There are at least 4 or 5 pairs of shoes down there in addition to the ones on her feet which all look remarkably similar.
As I sat in class pretending to translate Vergil, I became bothered as to the cause of these shoes being where they were.
I began thinking of all these scenarios that would explain this phenomenon but none would suffice. Could my teacher actually have forgotten to wear her shoes home one day and be thus compelled to bring a new pair the next morning? Had this happened every day this week?
Was she trading shoes on the black market?
Or perhaps she is an elf who is simply catching up on her shoe making quota for the month.
I’m sure there is a logical solution for this but I sure can’t think of any. My inability to solve this problem directed my thoughts toward, well, my other thoughts. I began wondering why I wonder and the things I wonder about.
I spent so much time trying to solve a problem that I am sure has a very practical, reasonable, and boring answer yet I rarely wonder at the God who so perplexes my mind and is the ultimate answer to everything I could ever ask. I will spend the rest of eternity wondering about God, poking and prodding at everything I once knew, and daily discovering the previously unknown and still not be able to fully fit God in my head.
When was the last time I was so unsatisfied with what life on Earth could bring me that I begged to know God just a little bit more? Have I become so content with only wondering about the things that I think deal with me that I forget to ask God how He is doing today?
It sounds like a silly thought but have you ever stopped to think about the infinitesimal things God has done just today before you even had your morning coffee?
There is a reason why we are unsatisfiable beings, why it takes so much to come close to filling our satisfaction. We were created to be in a relationship with the one thing in the entire universe that is more infinite than our imaginations. Eternity is a long time to get to know someone, and we wont even get a fraction of all God is. He is that big. That’s why we have forever.

And so I have realized my frivolous ponderings, which are the result of my incredible desire to do anything but translate Classical Roman poetry, are really just instincts originally designed to get me closer to God. He knows everything about us, now He just wants us to return the favor.

Good Mourning

Good Mourning

Lately life has been giving me an atomic wedgie. I feel like I’ve been beaten down to a point where it is hard to get back up again before I am thrown back into the locker of depression. I don’t know how many more swirlies I can take, metaphorically speaking.
The worst part is that none of it is because I turned away from God or what He wanted. It is because I am going after bigger things that the world caved in on top of me.
I woke up this morning and frankly wanted to just stay in bed because being awake means being aware and that was not what I was looking for. As I was trying to convince myself that I really was asleep, a thought popped into my head.
Have you had a good mourning?
That wasn’t a typo, I’m not asking if the couple hours you have been awake have been pleasant but if you have had a good mourning.
As if any mourning could be good.

Webster defines mourning as “An expression of grief, the black clothing worn by a mourner,” but we know it is more than that. People as a whole have felt an obsession with digging themselves deeper into our emotional pits.
In the Bible, any time something bad happened the people affected would rip their clothes and pour ashes on their head (as to whose ashes I’ll never know). I am quite sure that Velcro was invented because of this practice since it is far more convenient than ripping your best tunic in half every time your son got leprosy or your fields caught on fire.
The point though, is that when they mourned, they wanted everyone else to know about it.
Victorian England was infamous for its’ strict mourning rituals. Books were written that described the exact period of time it was appropriate to mourn the death of a husband, brother, friend, or even 3rd cousin (twice removed). Queen Victoria stayed in mourning for her husband until her death, 40 years later! They had to wear special clothes and do special things so that the world would know they were grumpy.
So, have I had a good mourning?
I determined that I had. So far I have succeeded in making myself more and more miserable, which is the purpose of mourning right? Why do we do this to ourselves? Do we really think that it is the easier option than just getting up?
I’ve decided to quit. I am giving up on this mourning thing. I am picking out my wedgie and moving forward.
Sure I am confused, I’m hurt, and I don’t know where I am going anymore but I am choosing to let go of it and start living again.
I have said it before and I will say it again. Don’t live like there is no tomorrow, live because there is a tomorrow.
Living like there is no tomorrow is disappointing, exhausting, and temporary.
As Christians we are promised tomorrow, not necessarily on Earth but tomorrow nonetheless. It may not be tomorrow as in the next 24 hour period of time but it will come.
Jesus told His disciples in John 16
“I tell you the truth, you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices. You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy. A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come; but when her baby is born she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world. So with you: Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy.”
That means that all these things that are happening to me just confirm that I am finally on the right track.
That is why I am giving up on mourning, and looking forward to The Morning. That’s when the joy comes.
Give up mourning, not life.



Good Morning