.Reclaiming the Bride.

I first noticed it and began to understand it when we arrived home from our first trip to Ethiopia in January of 2011. I had been to a culture that wasn't driven by it, and it opened my eyes to my culture which is. Consumerism. We live in a country who is consumed with consuming. It has infiltrated our homes, our churches, our hearts, our lives - and our souls. Everything around us is positioned to help our wants, lusts, and desires to be met and to be met quickly before the next desire surfaces. We grasp for more and better and bigger, and we consume until we are bloated, lethargic shells of what we were created to be. Because it is all futile, fake, and fleeting, and it is never, ever enough. We can point fingers and say it is the world and those without Jesus who have fallen victim, but I dare say that the Church - the Bride - has swallowed consumerism hook, line, and sinker. I will go as far to even say we have amplified it. We cater to the needs of the saved rather then pouring our lives into making disciples. We are afraid to rock the boat - afraid to disgruntle that person who puts a fat check in the plate each Sunday. We grasp for bigger churches, better programs, flashier music, fuller offering plates, brighter billboards and advertisements that have so little to do with Jesus, and in return we exchange our souls for consumerism rather than the abundant life we were promised. Abundant life and consumerism cannot coexist. We sit on our bottoms on plush pews and complain about "not being fed" and "the contemporary music" or "the outdated hymns" and "the teenager worshiping in ripped jeans". We desire comfort and for it to be done "our way" to "our preference", and all the while the world around is dieing to know our Jesus and to know that His followers really are different.

But are we?

Are we really different? Are we really disciples of Jesus? If we attract people to our churches using consumerism, then the only way to keep them there is with consumerism. Or else they will just move on to the church down the road that will meet their needs and desires, and the nasty cycle spirals out of control. I look at the life of Jesus and study His Good News, and this consumerism that we have become enchanted with, is not found there. It is actually antithetical to the invitation that Jesus gives us to follow Him and to spread the news of His Kingdom and His Good News. It is antithetical to Jesus' Gospel. This consumerism is contrary to the teachings of Jesus, the One who beckoned us to deny ourselves and lose our lives in order to find them.

It seems to me in getting sucked into this pit of consumerism we have traded Jesus for a product  - a product that has fed and encouraged consumerism not true discipleship. A product that has just become a band aid, a facade, a mask - offering no real hope or change - because so little in us is changed. I want to erase the marketing, the product that I have helped to create, because I am so much a part of this problem. I want to tear off the band aid and replace it with His healing. I want to rip down the masks and walls and expose the imperfections that show off His perfectness.I want to fight the consumerism and my personal desires and comfort, and strip it all away to Jesus. I want to fall in love with Jesus again - or maybe really for the first time. I want to serve Him, love Him, and make much of Him. And when the programs are not flashy enough, when the offering plates are a little less full, and the music isn't my taste, when the sermon didn't resonate with me like I had hoped it would, and when people let me down, I want to know that all that matters in this world and in the Church is Jesus. I want to be captivated by Jesus, not by the video feed on Sunday morning, or the praise and worship band, or the promise of another Bible study and better coffee. I want to know the abundant life that repels consumerism and looks so counter-cultural to those on the outside looking in. I want a part in reclaiming the Bride and breathing fresh life into her. Mostly, I want to know Jesus.

And Jesus is enough. Because nothing - nothing else ever will be.

.Searching for the Middle {repost}.

This post was written a year ago yesterday, and so much of it still rings true. In a way I am thankful. I am thankful that my heart has not atrophied, that it is still pliable and the bruising still hurts. I was scared that I would forget. Yet, I am still confused and searching for how God wants me to use what I saw. I still do not know what to do with all of this.

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43 days ago I did something so horrible, that I never predicted I would have to be faced with. I kissed my second born son, the one born in my heart, goodbye and placed him in the arms of strangers. Then, not only did I turn and walk away - not only did I leave him, but I also left his country and flew an ocean away from him. And I literally feel as if I left half my heart behind with him. I am functioning here only half-heartedly, and in some ways that has numbed the hurt of the reality of what I have done.

It has been much harder than I ever expected to come back home, and not all of it is because of Jamesy. Africa - Ethiopia - burrowed itself into my heart and leaked into my blood, and I will never be the same. Much of what I saw was hard for us here in America to even fathom, and most of us cannot unless we experience it first hand. I now know that. My photographs, Jim's videos, and certainly not my words - none of it resonates like seeing it with one's own eyes. My memories are not only filled with the cruel truth that is life for many in Ethiopia, it is also filled with a sea of brown faces that were filled with JOY. A joy that did not come from possessions, status, or circumstances. We were met with kindness, some of the most genuine kindness that I have ever experienced. A kindness that is not found here. We experienced and witnessed community and relationships so full, authentic, and vibrant it left me feeling empty when I compared it to what I know to be true of relationships here.

I miss the beautiful people, the children, the babies, my street boy, our Ethiopian guides, the other adopting families who understood the bruising of our hearts for a country a world away from our everyday lives.

I miss seeing with new eyes and feeling as if I was truly Kingdom living - really making a difference.

I miss the coffee ceremonies and the popcorn and the sunrise on the roof of our guest house, and our cook with the kind, soft brown eyes, and the way the clouds looked so puffy and white against the dirty but beautiful city of Addis.

Not a day goes by without the remembering, the knowing, that my life here is far from normal for most of the world.

Yet, I am still terrified that I will somehow forget.

And I have yet to learn how to live in the middle.

Jim and I have talked a lot about how to go on from here. We are both changed, and we want this change to be permanent. We never want to go back to who we once were. But how do we live in the middle? Obviously poverty is not the answer. We do not feel as if God is calling us to a life of poverty - living homeless on the streets so that we can truly know and understand what we saw in Ethiopia . However, living in excess is not the answer either. Both of these are so extreme, and I believe neither is at God's heart for our life. But what measuring stick do we use for excess - certainly not America's. Yes, I know God's. But what is that? What does that look like? Is it different for every believer. I think it is different for us. I think it will be more extreme for us. It has to be, because we were given that amazing blessing to see the truth, and I pray that truth lives in our heart and our every decision and every purchase.

I do not think that God wants me to walk around Walmart, to yard sale - just because I might need something there, to shop on ebay without remembering the children I saw eating scraps from garbage on the side of the street wearing their entire wardrobe in rags that hung on their bones.

Is there a way to live in the middle and not forget?


Is there a way to live in the middle and continue to have the scales ripped from eyes?

I don't know, and that terrifies me, because maybe truly the middle is not where God has called me to live.

I am called to be an imitator of Jesus. Did Jesus live in the middle?


Open my eyes to see the wonderful truths in your instructions. Psalm 119:18

 

A mother on the streets of Addis begging for food with her young child.

Living Simply: What Does it {really} Mean?

“Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.” -William Morris

I was so badly bruised in Ethiopia. The bruising is manifesting itself in so many different ways.

I came home with a beautiful brown-eyed boy tucked into my arms and his country tucked into my heart. Though I felt so much joy, so much happiness, at finally having our son here in our home, my insides were also in turmoil. I can never look at my beautiful boy and not remember what I saw, what I now know, and that changes everything. I am living with a daily reminder of Ethiopia.

For the first three weeks home with Jamesy I could not breathe, I could not relax, I could not enjoy some of the most precious moments our family has ever been given. I was being suffocated in my home. The "stuff" that for so long I thought was so important was closing in on me, consuming me - my time, my energy, my thoughts. It was daily robbing bits of my joy. I thought about Ethiopia and what I knew, and I could not reconcile the two.

Jim and I have been wrestling through this knowing and how it must change our living. We don't believe God desires for anyone to live in poverty, so that is not the answer. But when people say God wants me to have nice things justifying their material possessions, well that sits in my gut like fingernails on a chalkboard. Where does the Bible say that? Yes, God wants our needs to be met. I do believe there is a standard of living that He desires for His children, but as Jim and I have been talking we do not believe that it is an American standard of living.

So, what is the standard?

{sigh} I'm not sure. Maybe it is not cut and dry. But this much I do know - we have not been living the way God desires our family to live - consumed with our stuff - cleaning it, moving it, storing it, sorting it - all of it steals the precious gift of time God has given us to steward. It is stealing our time away from loving people well. I was not stewarding my time in a godly way. I couldn't - not with all of the "stuff".

I happened on Tsh Oxenreider's book Organized Simplicity:The clutter free approach to intentional living. (I believe I first heard of this book via a blog post that I read of another woman who was reading the book.) What caught my attention was the intentional living part. That is what I so desire for my life - for it to be intentional - with purpose - my parenting, my wifery, my homemaking, my homeschooling, my ministries, etc. I read the book in a day (after ordering it for free with my swagbucks! ) and was hooked. I loved the author's perspective on simple living. She redefines it in a way that makes so much sense - especially for me as a believer desperate to live my life in a way that pleases my God. Tsh spends the whole first part of the book defining simple living - getting away from the "buzz word - going green" definition that we have all grown accustomed too.

Summing up her definition simply {grin} Living Simply just means simplifying your life (and it is not cookie cutter for everyone). Simple right?! {wink}

So for five days last week, I went room by room, closet, by closet, space by space in my house and simplified everything. (Yes, Tsh recommends 10 days. I am an overachiever, and I just wanted it DONE!) My husband was a huge help, although a few times he raised his eyebrows and I am sure wondered if meals would ever go back to normal. He helped me kick start the process on his day off with the toy room and living room. Tsh suggests tackling one room at a time and emptying the entire room - cleaning it top to bottom and then only putting back what is either useful or beautiful. Yes, I did that in my entire house. Yes, it was a ton, a ton of work.

YES, IT WAS WORTH IT.

The book suggests holding a yard sale. Just the thought of that made me break out in hives, so I opted out of that. BUT we eliminated at least 50 garbage bags of "stuff" {cringe} from our house - it is all GONE!

And I can breathe!

There are a lot of helpful things in the book such as recipes for homemade cleaning products, practical checklists to go room-by-room in your house and an appendix filled with great printables to help assist in running a home smoothly and simply.

Jim and I were also able to come up with a mission statement for our home upon Tsh's suggestion, and I love it.

Overall I am just so changed by Ethiopia, my son, God opening our eyes to the world outside of us, and now - this book has been added to the puzzle as we learn to live our life in a way that truly emulates Jesus Christ.

I know this is a life-long battle that I will have to fight with my flesh - the desire for more. I love yard saling and bargain shopping for things that we "might" need, and that has. to. stop. I do not believe that I am honoring Christ when I am doing that. I am wasting time and resources. I hope to go through my home room-by-room (not necessarily pulling everything out again!) and simplify every 3-4 months. Hopefully, it is never as massive as a clean out as this time was. I already know that there will be items that do not make the next "cut" and get eliminated, and I am okay with that.

I want living simply to be part of my life so that my time, my resources, my desires can be completely focused on Jesus Christ. I believe that is what God taught me the most last week as I went through our "stuff". Our possesions - our "stuff" had become my idol as I allowed it to consume my time, my resources, my desires.

I've had enough of the "stuff".

I feel as if I did not only spring clean my home, but more significantly my heart.