My Life's Stories
Inspired by the testimonies of others and the invitation given to me a few weeks ago to share my own, I have created this space on my blog to share My Story. Here is the introduction and an invitation to read along as I share My Life's Stories to give a Testimony of God's Goodness. Along the way, I hope you will also be inspired and equipped to start recording your story.
The Lord said, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.” Choosing a verse or life motto is not uncommon. It is a way to put up some guardrails on the pathways of our thoughts, dreams and planning for the future. Even a single word can help us focus, giving us a guide for what to say “no” to and what to say “yes” to. I like words. I like focus. I also really like a plan. And as much as I personally like to make deviations from plans, I only like those deviations I choose--the ones that I believe adjust the plan but still keep my feet heading the intended direction of my heart.
In today’s, My Story, post I share about a time in my life when fighting to both adjust and stay the course meant to settle in for a longer season in a place neither my husband nor I had imagined we would stay long. We’d come “home” after years overseas with some pretty specific answers to the questions: What are you doing here?
And over the course of a few years, made significant progress toward some of those aims, and watched as God took the sick loved ones we’d come home to take care home to heaven. Which landed us back at: What are you doing here?
You can read the story below to find the answer God gave us for this question back in 2015. His answer was specific, yet took nearly two years to fulfill. And as I write this intro today, nearly five years later, I realize that this question--What are you doing here?--continues to guide us.
I will be honest, even after eight years of being set in this current location, actively pursuing God’s purpose for my life on Douglas Street, there are days when this question is not a voice of courage, or a gentle wind soothing my anxious soul. Some days I turn the question around to God and it leaves my lips in exasperation--with hands thrown in the air like a teen full of angst and frustration--I ask God, What am I doing here?
I imagine my angst and frustration would be a 2 out of 10 in comparison to Elijah’s, to whom this question was spoken in, 1 Kings 19:11-13 . God sent Elijah to a place inhabited by a people who were in desperate need of God, but who found their fill from idols and destructive ways of living. Elijah’s life was his answer to the question God asked. He spent his days using his words to get the people’s eyes and hearts pointed back toward God. But they wouldn’t listen, and even when God revealed his presence and power through mighty acts of his hands, the people still ignored the invitation to let God be the one and only true God of their worship.
Elijah was doing what he had been set in his place to do. And yet, his life was under threat, he had no co-laborers in his ministry, and he finds himself on a desolate mountain, a 40 day journey from home, waiting on the voice of God to direct his steps. I don’t think it is implausible to imagine that Elijah is hoping that when the Lord speaks it will be with a new assignment or permission to be done trying to lead God’s people back to His heart.
And what does God speak to Elijah?
After a powerful wind, an earthquake, and a fire (all of which the Lord was not in) came a still small voice. And that voice asked Elijah the question: What are you doing here?
No pep talk. No single word or phrase to interpret. No statement of permission to abort the mission. Just a question.
A question that gave Elijah space and permission to pour his heart out to God and confess his frustrations and loneliness. He didn’t even ask for permission to quit. But he made his loneliness known. He set his need in front of the Lord. And the verses that follow reveal that God responds to Elijah’s need with instructions on how to find a teammate to continue his assignment as a prophet to his people.
In my life, especially over the last five years, this question--What are you doing here?--has been instrumental in my continued search to understand and navigate my calling and gifts well even when I can’t see clearly that this really is where I am supposed to be right now. Sometimes this question brings quiet reflection. Sometimes this question makes me angry. But on both ends of the emotional spectrum on which my thoughts swing, I have found that God is faithful in providing me with direction, new ideas, and peace--often after a metaphorical wind, earthquake and fire shake up my heart and rattle my thoughts.
How about you?
What are you doing here?
After the wind calms, the earthquake settles, and the fire of your emotions and thoughts subside, do you hear that still small voice asking you, What are you doing here?
Will you answer God honestly, like Elijah, and voice your thoughts and needs. Yes, he already knows them. He didn’t ask Elijah this question because he didn’t know what was happening on earth. His question was a gift to Elijah--an opportunity for Elijah to build a two-way relationship with God and receive from the Lord an action plan for how to continue on mission.
How can we help each other hear God and lean on Him for direction?
One way would be to insert this question--What are you doing here?--in to our conversations, prayers, and devotional times. As you consider the ever popular question that comes up at New Years--What is your New Year’s Resolution?--perhaps you can turn the conversation in a different direction and ask, What are you doing here?
And then wait, and listen for what those around you express as their mission and the needs they have in completing what God has set them in this time and place to fulfill. There may be feelings like strong winds, emotions like earthquakes, and words like fire that come before the quiet voice. God can handle those. And He waits for them to pass before he speaks. And when they do, He simply asks, What are you doing here?
Can we do the same for others? Can we give them the gift of this question too?
What are you doing here?
How one answers this question will be an indicator of the desires of her heart and visions in her mind. Secondly, allowing oneself time and quiet space to wait on the Lord for an answer is an opportunity to speak to God and hear from God, letting Him know you see your calling and your need and are ready for Him to give you direction on how to persevere in the plans He has for you.
Find your mountain cave place. Wait on the Lord. He will come. He will guide. He sees you right where you are. God still speaks. Will you be honest with the answers you give to His questions?
He comes to your cave-like spaces to help you see He is your God, your creator and your answers matter to him. And his answers to you will give you the strength to press on in all he has for you this year.
Pixar-Style Testimony
What Are You Doing Here?, Story No. 9
Questions for Reflection:
Stay tuned . . . Coming next, Story No. 10, The Adoption of a Son
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Inspired by the testimonies of others and the invitation given to me a few weeks ago to share my own, I have created this space on my blog to share My Story. Here is the introduction and an invitation to read along as I share My Life's Stories to give a Testimony of God's Goodness. Along the way, I hope you will also be inspired and equipped to start recording your story.
In the introduction of Story No. 6, I shared that the greatest lessons I have learned about myself and my approach to God in hard-times came upon leaving a place and a people I had come to love more than I realized until I had gone. And even though I wouldn’t want to unlearn what I have learned from the last seven years of acclimating to life and ministry in America, I believe it is important for me to admit to you and myself that it has been one of the hardest set of years I have journeyed in my life so far.
For a long time, I believed I should downplay the hurt and disappointments brought on by moving from a life overseas back to one lived at “home.”
Why?
Because compared to the hurt and disappointments I have seen others walk through, mine seemed so intangible or maybe even made-up in my head. I have watched others tragically lose loved ones, experience the loss of babies, or live with constant strife in the relationships most important to them. I have watched as cancer, cystic fibrosis, and depression have robbed people I love of healthy living. And so I wondered how my hurt and disappointments could ever measure up to the devastation of such things. I assumed that my heart’s hurts weren’t worthy of acknowledging out loud or rightly grieving.
My loss just wasn’t that big of a deal. My loss didn’t happen to me. We chose to move. We chose to follow a plan we thought would be best for us and our children. My loss didn’t fit the categories of tragic or terminal and thus I truly felt like it should be dismissed and disregarded with the hopes that time would simply heal it all.
Loss. This is a word that I have had to come to grips with in a way that no one ever told me about in my younger years. For most of my life, this four-letter word seemed only tied to death. And loss by way of death was the only thing I had been taught grieve. The loss of a loved one brought with it permission to grieve, to weep, to mourn, and to let pain be seen by others. Yet, even this kind of loss, I did not know well because I had lost so few people in my life.
In addition, growing up in the midwest on a farm, emotions just weren’t of that high of a value. They were not often revealed or discussed. The term “emotional health” hadn’t hit the science labs or parenting books. Life was life. You took it as it came and prayed that if it was difficult it would be better soon.
No one pretended life was easy. It just didn’t do any good to grieve about what went wrong because most likely you couldn't change the circumstances anyway. I am no researcher of culture, but if I were I would hypothesize that my view of loss and grief in life were largely a result of the time period and location I was raised. And to be quite honest, I think this mentality was necessary to survive the life of a farmer. Every year a farmer experiences the ups and downs of crop prices, the unpredictably of weather conditions and markets thriving or failing. All of which are beyond their control.
So, because I grew up on a farm it is not surprising then that my approach to life was quite matter-of-fact. Until I experienced grief so deep and so unexpected that I couldn’t pull myself together with any of the tools I had used in the past. I guess one would summarize, that I didn’t know how to cope. But I also didn’t know how to name this shard that kept puncturing the hope, faith, and trust I had in the plans God had for my life.
And then I stumbled upon a little known book, Re-Entry: Making The Transition From Missions To Life At Home. And a new concept was formed in my mind. “Loss of place.” This was a real thing that real people experience. People out there in the world who had lived a little bit of life in a little bit of the same way I had, had also experienced this unnamed kind of loss. And they had come up with a name for it! “Loss of place.” The revelation of the identification of “loss of place” set me on a path to understanding myself, the journey I was on, and above all, helped me begin to let myself grieve, process, lean into the pain and believe it was okay to do so.
On this journey of understanding loss as it pertains to my story, I have grown. And I have learned that no matter the size or name of the hurt or disappointment, God sees it all as brokenness in need of healing. He doesn’t measure out his compassion, reserving it only for those who, by human observation, have the greatest hurts. Rather, his compassion and nearness are authentic and available in the dose necessary for the hurting one to find comfort in him--no matter what that hurt is or what caused it.
Yet I didn’t experience his comfort, compassion or nearness for in the early part of my struggle. I couldn’t see that even though what I had lost didn’t fit the categories that I thought deserved permission to grieve, I was reeling in grief without knowing what to call it. And because this loss was unnamed, undefined, and thus, unexamined, I didn’t know how to process it. Which also meant I didn’t know to ask God to help me grieve, to be near my broken heart. At that time, I don’t even think I knew my heart was broken because I had never realized one’s heart could break from choosing to move home.
What I have learned, and am continuing to learn to put into practice, is that transitions are hard. Our hearts are attached deeply to people and places that have provided for us fond memories, milestone moments, and experiences that grow us spiritually, physically or professionally. When we leave places, we don’t just get to start where we left off at a new address because much of who we were at our previous location gets left there. We also take much of who we are with us, but when we leave behind a place and a people who have impacted us deeply, our identity is intertwined with the days lived in that place. So, when we move forward, truly, pieces of who we see ourselves to be are left on the soil of that place.
The recognition of this can lead to a fear of becoming settled in a new place. What if the same thing happens again?
What if I become deeply rooted in my place and with my people and I have to do this all over again?
To choose to settle into the work of building relationships and investing in a new place is weighed heavily by a heart that has been broken by “loss of place” because it is to choose to jump in fully aware that when it comes time to move on, it will hurt. Beginning the work of investing in a new place is also hard because it requires setting comparing the past and the present behind. It is hard to accept God’s plans for making new things out of one’s life without wishing they looked more like the old ways of him using you.
Alfred Lord Tennyson once penned this now very famous quote, ‘Tis better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all.” I have learned this is true of not just people but places. To arrive at believing such a claim requires one to put her full trust in the Truth that God knows best. To be able to claim, even in the midst of loss, that His sovereignty is ruled by an unshakeable love that is rooted in goodness and grace, likely won’t happen naturally. Sorrow and sadness don’t often find close company with Truth and reason.
Yet, God uses seasons of loss to walk us slowly but surely to a greater understanding of his capacity to make us new, and our capacity to be made new. In His strength and through abiding in His word, we can see that the new he makes is built on the old he also made, and trust that as long as we are living and breathing, his love for us compels him to continue to set us on new journeys from time to time so that he can continue creating new things out of us.
All because of grace. Pixar-Style Testimony
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Photo credit: Abby & Brandon
Event: Go & See Retreat Spring 2019 Location: Lake Darling Resort, Alexandria, MN Caption: Jaclyn doing one of the many things she loves: inspiring, instructing, and encouraging women to live out of who God made them to be, no matter their season, location or vocation. |
Inspired by the testimonies of others and the invitation given to me a few weeks ago to share my own, I have created this space on my blog to share My Story. Here is the introduction and an invitation to read along as I share My Life's Stories to give a Testimony of God's Goodness. Along the way, I hope you will also be inspired and equipped to start recording your story.
I have stared long and hard at a blank page and blinking cursor, trying to come up with words that articulate accurately the memories and emotions that flood my mind when I consider the content of today’s My Story, "An Unexpected Redemption."
- How do I tell you of the magnitude of unexpected healing--not of the body but of the soul?
- How do I show you my most tender motherhood moment--a moment I had no idea how much I needed?
- How do I communicate the beauty of chains being broken--ones that I didn’t even know bound me?
- How do I wrap up in just a few words the tangibleness of the promise of deliverance that God provides--not just for our souls, but for all the human parts of who we are too?
Perhaps I start with this word--redemption.
If I asked you to define this word, redemption, I am guessing you’d provide something along the lines of, “the action of saving or being saved from sin, error, or evil.” Which is very accurate and most certainly true. But what I have learned, especially through the experience you will read about below, is that redemption is not simply reserved for our moments of error, sin or evil. There is so much more power to be discovered in the grace of this word.
Sometimes there are things that happen to us that bind us up and hold us captive in such subtle ways that we may not be consciously aware of their hold on our emotions or mind. Our soul is lacking in wholeness because of them but we have no idea that these little spaces of loss are there and in need of redemption. There is just this little piece of hurt that rests below the surface--undetected, unnamed, yet vulnerable to the arrows of the evil one.
Until the light comes and shines on them. Until healing enters through the most unlikely person, place or experience. Until the truth of Scripture moves from mind to heart to tangible representations in the testimony of our real, actual life.
Redemptive relationships. Redemptive experiences. Redemptive places.
And it is these light-shining-bright, healing, Scripture-coming-to-life parts of our life’s story that usher in a kind of redemption that doesn’t just save but restores, refreshes, and renovates the rooms of our memories and soul that are barren, boarded-up or broken-down.
You see, what I learned through the birth of my third baby was that redemption isn’t just for the day you choose to follow Christ and accepted his grace. Christ’s blood is still active--a flowing river of grace that covers every single part of your life. Redemption didn’t just come to save you from hell, it came to restore every morsel of who you are so that you can live full of freedom, power, and in wholeness.
- How did this part of my story teach me this?
- How did my soul feel and my eyes see redemption in a way I hadn’t fully grasped before?
A doctor. A doula. A back-up doula/birth photographer. A baby. A delivery. A promise from Scripture. And an intimate God who is intricately involved in the miracle of birth and the miracle of setting a soul free to trust He is who He says He is. A God who says,
“I see a lie you are believing that you don’t even see. And in my goodness, I am going to set you free from it. I am going to show you through this experience, these people, this place that I am your deliverer. You can trust me. You think you are being strong by telling yourself you will just take life as it comes and be thankful for what you have. But I am saying, I sent Christ for more than that kind of life and that way of thinking. I came that you might see that I see what you don’t see. I see what is holding you back. True strength is to know my promises and claim them--not just over your life’s journey, but over the human moments that make up your life.”
On November 28, 2012 a baby girl was set in my arms immediately after she came into the world. This was a moment I had never known. I believed I would be just fine if I never experienced this specific kind of moment because I thought that was trust. When I gave birth to my oldest I waited nearly four hours to meet him. And my second baby, I also had to wait for hours to meet her too. I had no idea how much missing out on the first few hours of my first children’s lives had hurt me until that day Elim Jo was set in my arms within seconds of being born.
Unexpectedly, I began to cry. I was completely overwhelmed and caught off guard. The tears were shed in gratitude of a safe, surgery-free delivery. They rolled down my cheek as I felt the truth of God’s nearness. Later, I would realize my tears were also for the loss of these moments that I didn’t get with my older children. I didn’t know what I had missed with them until I had it that day with baby Loween #3.
But God knew. He knew that hurt was deep, set in the uncultivated place of my heart and he used this precious moment to dig it up and help me see it. The ground that was dug up that day was ready to be planted with the seeds of some promises I hadn’t had the strength to fully claim or believe in before--redemption and deliverance. I had been praying for a safe delivery of my daughter, but God knew I needed my own deliverance of heart, mind, and soul. I needed to see he was redeeming those lost moments from my past experiences.
As you read the Pixar Storytelling version of this part of My Story, I pray that you too will consider reflecting on a promise of God that is hard for you to find the strength to claim. I pray too that you will be inspired to go to Scripture and find every verse you can that relates to the promise you need to claim for what you face right now. And I pray that on the day he answers your prayers with an experience, a relationship or a place that his answer will go deeper into the soil of your soul than you can even imagine.
You and me, we serve and worship a God who rescues us through miraculous and human experiences. A God who has given us promises He will keep. A God who has redeemed us at the cross. A God who never stops redeeming us from both the seen and unseen things that wound, bind or hold us captive.
Pixar-Style Testimony
An Unexpected Redemption, Story No. 7
- Once upon a time, there was a young mom, three months away from giving birth to her third child. Her oldest and middle children had been born in a hospital where the nurses spoke no English, the doctor’s English was limited and the technology and practices not quite as advanced as the place she would soon deliver her prayed for, long-awaited third child. This precious on would be born in her home country.
- Every day, she wondered why she had to leave the comfort of the foriegn country where she had become a mother, the doctor she loved and the place that had been the location of their first home as a family.
- One day, her OBGYN, asked why she had had c-sections with her first two children. She explained the circumstances and the reasons. But even after hearing the stories of the emergency and planned c-sections, the doctor said confidently, “Have you considered having a VBAC?” This American-born but foreign to the ways of women and their birthing plans in America requested an explanation of what the doctor meant. She said, “You mean I have a choice. I have an option to not have a c-section.” To which the doctor replied, “Yes. Do some research and let me know what you think once you’ve had time to think about.”
- Because of that, this third-time mother felt like she knew nothing! She researched and phoned friends and prayed and prayed. Based on her findings and God’s peace she decided that if she went into labor naturally, she’d request a VBAC delivery.
- Because of that, she went in search of a doula, and actually ended up with two. She was going to have two women coaching her through birth and be in a hospital in which everyone spoke English! What in the world was this going to feel like? She also felt that this path for her was going to be more than a physical journey. It was going to be deeply spiritual and needed to be covered in the claiming of God’s promises and prayers for a healthy and safe delivery. VBACs come with risks and she wasn’t going to ignore that. So she read the book of Psalms, writing out in her journal, and later onto note cards any verse that spoke of the promise of God to be a protector and a deliverer. She read them, prayed them, re-wrote them and claimed them over herself and her child.
- Until finally, four days late, but just on time, labor began. It had been over five years since she had felt such pains. And back then she hadn’t a clue what to expect or what was going on. When her oldest son was born, she hadn’t even read a birthing book or taken a Lamaze class. (Just so happens when living in a foreign country such things aren’t readily available.) But this time, she was armed with the word of God, the strength of motherhood, and a team of support, so she took a nap--only to wake up a few hours later nearly ready to deliver. And even though her body was ready, and the doulas prayed faithfully over her, reminding her of the very promises she had written down, after hours of pushing the baby’s arrival was still TBA. She turned to the doctor and said, “I guess my body just isn’t made for this. I think you need to order a c-section. Exhaustion is taking over me.” Turns out the doctor on duty that day (also an endurance athlete like this young mama) wasn’t willing to give up that easily. She said, “How about we try one more thing first?” Then she acquired her instruments, accomplished her plan and said, “Push one more time.” And walla, a precious baby girl was safely delivered to a momma who had never experienced the moment of having her baby handed to her in the delivery room. She cried giant, silent tears because in this moment she didn’t just know, she felt the truth deep in her being that God had used this moment to show her to never give up on His promises, to always believe that He delivers, protects and provides more than we ask for or imagine is possible in our hardest and darkest days.
Questions for Reflection:
- What part of your story helps you see God’s redemption starts at the cross but also extends to the broken moments of your human experiences on this earth?
- What part of your story helps you claim God’s promise to be your deliverer?
I said, ‘Plant the good seeds of righteousness, and you will harvest a crop of love. Plow up the hard ground of your hearts, for now is the time to seek the LORD, that he may come and shower righteousness upon you.’ (Hosea 10:12, NLT)
Stay tuned . . . Coming next, Story No. 8, A Loss of Place
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Photo credit: Abby & Brandon
Event: Go & See Retreat Spring 2019 Location: Lake Darling Resort, Alexandria, MN Caption: Jaclyn doing one of the many things she loves: inspiring, instructing, and encouraging women to live out of who God made them to be, no matter their season, location or vocation. |
Inspired by the testimonies of others and the invitation given to me a few weeks ago to share my own, I have created this space on my blog to share My Story. Here is the introduction and an invitation to read along as I share My Life's Stories to give a Testimony of God's Goodness. Along the way, I hope you will also be inspired and equipped to start recording your story.
Remembering is a fascinating endeavor, is it not?
What we remember, how we remember what we remember and which memories stick is something I can only believe God understands. Perhaps it is His greatest grace to allow some memories to become cataloged in long term memory and others to be left to the abyss of forgotten.
- Do you have any places in your past that you remember with mostly fond recollections?
- Is there that one place in your past, that if given the opportunity, you would return to relive?
- What made those days, months or years “the best” ones?
Today’s, My Story, tells of our going away to that one place that holds countless fond memories and connections to people I treasure. A place, if you asked, I would tell you I would return to if I could.
Why?
Because when I reminisce about this community, I see the milestones of my faith, marriage, and career, being set into place there. I see images of the birth or our family unit and the forming of our family purpose and vision. There I gained a visceral understanding that God is in ALL the world calling all nations to himself, an understanding that has helped me to always keep pressing on even today.
I left the America dream behind at the age of 23, one year into marriage, inexperienced in my career and ministry. My mind and heart were geared with the powerful contradictions of a young heart full of faith--naivety and confidence, carefreeness and belief, simplicity and vision.
I returned a very different woman. One perhaps I was a little less excited to be. I had gained a wealth of knowledge and training in ministry and education. However, what I learned about learning and encountering a diversity of experiences is it actually makes you realize how much you don’t know. This matured and wisened me, allowing me to understand that learning is a never-ending process of taking previous knowledge and adapting it to new information in ways that make the two work together.
And though learning all of these things is good and necessary, it took a bit of the naive confidence out of my sails, harnessed the carefreeness of my youth, and simplicity of vision became a little more concrete and complex. Maturity seemed to come at the cost of handing of my child-like faith.
Seven years in a community on the other side of the globe can change a lot of things. In fact, when we returned I was not sure I even knew the person who had left all those years before. I couldn’t remember much about her or her ways of viewing the world, God and the future. Try as I may, I couldn’t find the child-like faith that made her so brave before.
Another seven years have passed since our return to state-side living. I have learned more than I ever wanted to know about transitions, trusting God’s plans and adapting to God’s purposes no matter one’s location or vocation. I have come to rest in the reality that God’s going to always be making new things out of the old things because he is creative, faithful and good to me.
Yet, as much as I am settled into my purpose, vision and calling right where I am right now, I catch myself looking back in the rearview mirror feeling a bit of that loss again--wishing sometimes that I could go back in time to our first place, our first people, and our first mission. Cognitively I KNOW that even if my feet returned, I would not find what I am looking for in that mirror. But my mind still likes to wonder there from time to time.
And just like one cries years after she has lost a loved one, especially on the anniversary of that loss, I too find myself an emotional wreck every time June rolls around. It is in these weeks that my body, mind, and soul turn again to remembering the joy and excitement of going away on a mission.
Seemingly at random, memories of what was left behind in the place that made me a teacher, coach, pastor’s wife and mom arise to remind me of the thousands of firsts and the thousands of sevenths that happened there. And I stumble through my sadness and longing to be again in the place where 2,562 days of my life were invested into the mission of a school that to this day I esteem as one of the best educations a student can receive in the world.
It is hard to praise, write or find joy on these days. It is hard to see the blessings in the present when I am glancing back in the rearview mirror.
So hard that it has literally taken me three weeks to write this post. Every time I set my alarm to wake up to write, I shut it off, pull the covers over my head and say, “Tomorrow I will let myself feel all the feels and write all the things. For now, I am going to sleep.”
Today, I finally did it. I got up and I wrote and you are reading the words that came forth. And I wonder if any of them even make sense to you. I pray they do and that God uses them to help you be okay with the hard work of remembering and fighting for faith to praise Him in the day you are staring at right now.
Remembering is hard when it hurts. Especially when the hurt is birthed from missing the good times, the adventure, the simplicity of a time and a place long gone. I like to avoid such pain because I want to be happy about where I am and where I have been. But in order to get to that joy, I have to do the labor of letting myself miss the blessings of the past, journey next to seeing the blessings in the process of transitions, then continue on to praising God for the blessings in the present, and land at believing that the best blessings are yet to come.
A journey of this kind happens internally (in the heart, mind and soul) and slowly. For an avoider of feelings like myself, it has taken years. Actually, I think I am still walking toward truly praising God for the blessings in the present. It is an act of war, and most days I choose to fight for faith to believe in the goodness and perfection of the blessings at hand and the ones yet to come. Some days I win the battle, others I don’t.
All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only
saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth.
Hebrews 11:13 (NIV).
Just as the men and women recorded in Hebrews 11 lived their entire lives based on faith in what was yet to come, I am called and equipped to do the same: To let faith be my guide, not my review mirror. To let faith focus my eyes forward. To believe that I am a stranger here able to live for what is coming, even if I die waiting for my eyes to see fully the promises my faith is built on.
Maybe you too find yourself in combat to get your childlike faith back. Maybe like me, you are on a journey toward processing and understanding all that God’s plans have led you away to and back from in the years of your life. Can I encourage you to begin recording your memories and progress along the way?
There is nothing that heals quite like setting words to experiences and allowing God to work through your fingertips to teach you about who he is, who you are and how the moments of your life are building you up to greater purposes because he has good plans for you. I pray you can create space in your life to allow God to bring back those memories you need to recall in order to live well, by faith, the part of the journey you are on right now.
Pixar-Style Testimony
Away They Went, Story No. 6
- Once upon a time, there were newlyweds living in low-income housing buying groceries on the Target gift cards they received as wedding gifts. She was busy completing her last year of competitive running, student-teaching and soaking up every last drop of the educational experiences of college. He was working overnights and figuring out how to keep their bills paid while still having fun.
- Every day, from December to April they knocked on the doors of their future, trying to see which ones would open. He aspired to be back in school gaining a master’s degree in Christian counseling. She applied to the few teaching positions available in her area of licensure. The silence of no responses signaled God had other plans.
- One day, the husband said, “Why don’t we explore going to Taejon Christian International School in Korea. I know everyone has advised us to remain home in these early years of marriage, but if missions is what drew us together, and if nothing else seems to be working out, maybe it is because this isn’t where we are supposed to be.”
- Because of that, he contacted the headmaster, his former boss, asking if there were by chance any openings for an English teacher and a youth pastor. To their great wonderment and surprise, the voice on the other end of the phone said, “Yes!”(This was in May, usually international schools have all of their hiring completed by the end of February.) A couple with the same qualifications (English teacher and youth pastor) had just a few weeks prior decided they would not be able to return in the fall. Two days later the newlyweds sat on opposite ends of their tiny apartment, ears to pre-smart cell phones, answering questions via a conference call to complete the required interview for the jobs. They were hired!
- Because of that, two months later, one week before their one year wedding anniversary, the couple boarded a plane with six suitcases stuffed with what was deemed the most essential things for a living life together on the other side of the world. With hearts that believed they were setting out on a two-year adventure in missions and teaching, and great anticipation of loving every minute of it, they waved goodbye to the American dream and embraced the unknown of what was ahead. It didn’t take long for teaching, students, trying strange foods, learning new words, discovering where to buy what, and time with colleagues who shared the same values and mission became their everyday norm. Opportunities for investing in others were endless. Community living took on an actual physical meaning and changed their lives forever.
- Until finally, seven years later--after birthing two babies, moving four times, countless travels to other countries, growing deep, deep friendships, and falling in love with a place and people not related to them--they journeyed away. This time away to their home country. It was time to return and build a new way of life that would teach their children of the amazing roots of faith that created their family--gifting them experiences with grandparents and aunts and uncles that were hard to come by in the seven weeks of the year they had been spending state-side each summer. It was a transition of the most bitter-sweet kind. A goodbye that left a hole in their hearts and taught them that grieving the loss of a place is just as real as grieving the loss of a loved one. They returned different and as much as they craved ordinary, they knew they would likely never find it because time and travel had taught them to crave extraordinary. Home would be home but it would be a fight to settle in and believe God’s goodness was at the root of the path he had set before them. They would learn to adapt to American again, while still holding on tightly to this different way of viewing relationships, missions and education that had been molded in them during their seven years of living and serving the students and their families at a little school in the middle of a little country in the middle of the peninsula of Korea. And this country would hold tightly to their heart, drawing them back again several years later, on a different kind of mission that also changed their lives.
Questions for Reflection:
- How can you start looking back at the faithfulness of God from the past and asking him to see what he is doing to reveal his faithfulness to you in the present?
- How can you choose today to muster up the courage to ask God to give you back a childlike faith from your younger years and begin fighting to attain it for the present or the future?
Stay tuned . . . Coming next, Story No. 7, An Unexpected Redemption
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Photo credit: Abby & Brandon
Event: Go & See Retreat Spring 2019 Location: Lake Darling Resort, Alexandria, MN Caption: Jaclyn helping her daughter learn to start writing her own story. |
Inspired by the testimonies of others and the invitation given to me a few weeks ago to share my own, I have created this space on my blog to share My Story. Here is the introduction and an invitation to read along as I share My Life's Stories to give a Testimony of God's Goodness. Along the way, I hope you will also be inspired and equipped to start recording your story.
Love stories have all sorts of beginnings--sometimes serendipitous, sometimes years of admiration, sometimes the discovery of the girl next door. Yet, what every good love story has in common is unexpectedness. Sometimes the unexpectedness comes with surprise. Sometimes the unexpectedness burrows out from below the surface of a long-standing friendship.
In either case, when love strikes, the hearts caught in the cross-fire of its intentions and emotions find themselves surrendering to a mission bigger than themselves: To love and be loved completely--beauty and blemishes, confidences and inconsistencies, sweetness and scars. This stage of love is perhaps at its purest but most likely not at its wisest. And yet, perhaps, this pureness is designed to outwit the wiseness in order for love to woo and win.
Young love. It is one of the greatest gifts of a lifetime.
- Which begs the question, is it unwise to fall in love too young?
- Or are the blinders of young love necessary in order to set all the realities and practicalities aside so that love can be a sweet surprise and lead to a seemingly simple surrender?
- For some of us, is it necessary to be caught off-guard in love so that we don’t dismiss it based on previous plans, assumed outcomes, or well-manicured timelines?
In today’s, My Story, “Caught Off-Guard in Love” you will see that I am that kind of person. The one who fell in love with a man quite on accident--because it needed to be that way for me. What you won’t find in the story are the details of the many times my own naivety to the ambitions of two hearts moving in the same direction led me to do and say things that now in hindsight seem crazy. Yet, at the time were a result of me being both unassuming and true to my own plans--having fun, making friends, and hearing stories.
I was not looking for love. I was not looking to fall in love. I was content. I was planning on all of that coming later--when I was ready. To this day I am thankful that the opening sentences of this paragraph are the words that I can use to describe the state of my emotions and soul at the time when I met my husband. I think it caused him some stress because I was so oblivious to the affection that was growing in him for me! But for me, it made for the whole story unwrapping itself as an unexpected surprise. Some surprises in life are not a treat, but this surprise, it will forever be my favorite one.
All these years later, as I reflect on our love story, I can see through the glasses of wisdom (that are only accessible via the passing of time), that my unique design’s attributes were considered by the author of the love story of my life. God knew me. He knew how my brain works and the mission of my heart. He set me up! Yes, he did.
God took my no-nonsense ways and worked a love story right into them with a patient, persistent man who fell in love with the who of who I am. It stills comes as a surprise to me that he was not put off by my ambitiousness nor my matter-of-factness. I have said some really stupid things without filtering them through compassion or the fact that other people have more tender feelings than I do. I am a work in progress friends.
But here is the thing I most want you to see in this earthly love story of ours, God wrote it and we get to live it! Every day we get to choose to keep living the love story He has gifted us to participate in. And what really caused me to fall in love, after weeks of ignoring that such plans were in the works, is that we were one-hearted in the mission to love God and love others. Our deep felt connectedness birthed from conversations, so many conversations, about living on purpose, knowing ourselves (flaws and strengths) well, and not letting things of the world hold us back.
Though there was a lot of talking, there was just as much listening. And I wonder if it was really the listening that made all the difference in the world. Because as we listened we learned and we both felt known. There is nothing that can compete with a heart and soul that believes and trusts she is known.
In just a couple months our love story will turn 15 years old! And do you know what still sets us on fire and keeps us growing?
It is our connectedness to the heart of God and the mission he has for us. We have not quit talking about how to live well with the gifts he has given us. We have not yet quit dreaming of the ways we can work together to help others feel known and equipped to live on mission for the Gospel. Sure, we have our days of frustration, disconnectedness, and survival. But, by the grace of God and the intervention of the Holy Spirit, we always find our way back to the core of the why of our love story.
Love stories have all sorts of beginnings. Yet, all love stories will come to the same end as death does them part. Still in the middle of all great love stories are two people who choose to keep the story alive by continuing to love the other--beauty and blemishes, confidences and inconsistencies, sweetness and scars. And in it all, from beginning to end, each day is an opportunity to make true the vows professed at the start by living them to the end. Sacrifice may no longer seem simple, but it is if you let it be. Surpises may be harder to come by, but wisdom can help them to be found. Realities and practicalities will beg to take precedent, but the choice of where to focus one’s eyes and affection will always remain. Young love is made mature, wise and true by the love that is grown in the middle part of the story. Choose well. Love well. Keep the story going all the way to the end.
Pixar-Style Testimony
Caught Off Guard In Love, Story No.5
Caught Off Guard In Love, Story No.5
- Once upon a time, there was a 22-year-old Communications Arts & Literature Education major living with her pre-med roommate in a tiny apartment in an off-campus house in Arden Hills, MN. They were both juniors committed to their studies, and operated on opposite schedules but were both eager to pursue Jesus and make plans for travel and adventure post-college.
- Every day, looked mostly the same--class, homework, running, friends, cheap food, and work.
- One day, she asked her roommate, to help her throw a 20th-anniversary party for her parents. She said yes, and accompanied her to “the farm” to host 50 or so friends and family in the celebration of the marriage of her parents.
- Because of that, she met this out-of-college, living with his parents due to his mom’s illness, attractive and experienced young man. She remembered his family from growing up at New Testament Church. But she couldn’t place him into any of her memories of youth group or other events. To her, he was a stranger. But a friendly and inviting one who was full of stories of a what it was like to live overseas, working at an international school. She was intrigued--she had not heard of this world of international Christian education and as she listened to him talk she wondered if she had met this guy just so God could show her that her minor in missions wasn’t needed in order to go on mission. With this new found information she could see that as a teacher the doors were open to missions through employment at an international school.
- Because of that, and because he had asked for her email address before he left the party (and actually remembered it--miracles do exist!), they began weekly correspondence over email, which through a series of events including running a race in Iowa, and a few non-date, dates, frequent after-9 PM phone calls became the norm. (Because back then minutes were expensive, but free after 9! -- Who else remembers these times in the evolution of cell phone plans?)
- Until finally, just four months later they began making plans to get married. Getting married prior to college graduation was not what the girl had planned. In fact, “a Ring by Spring” was a stereotype she ran from. She had come to college to learn, fall deeper in love with Jesus and make good friends. Adding marriage to this plan wasn’t what she’d imagined, but when love was staring her in the face, and because she had learned to trust God with her life’s settings, she let peace come in to guard her heart and be her understanding. They were married 8 months later. And it has been a welcome adventure ever since!
I believe every married couple should revisit their love story from time to time. When we pause to reminisce on our own love story, we get to revisit the joy and grace found in the bliss of beginnings. Sometimes I think that memories are the best medicine for a tired and weary soul--to remember is to live those moments again with new eyes that see more than what was seen before.
Stay tuned . . . Next week, Away They Went, Story No. 6
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Photo credit: Abby & Brandon
Event: Go & See Retreat Spring 2019 Location: Lake Darling Resort, Alexandria, MN Caption: Jaclyn helping her daughter learn to start writing her own story. |
Inspired by the testimonies of others and the invitation given to me a few weeks ago to share my own, I have created this space on my blog to share My Story. Here is the introduction and an invitation to read along as I share My Life's Stories to give a Testimony of God's Goodness. Along the way, I hope you will also be inspired and equipped to start recording your story.
awe /ô/ · noun
- 1. a feeling of reverential respect mixed with fear or wonder.
won·der /ˈwəndər/ · noun
- 1. a feeling of surprise mingled with admiration, caused by something beautiful, unexpected, unfamiliar, or inexplicable.
These words, “awe” and “wonder” come to mind when I reminisce on the years that make up the in-between of me being an adult and actually becoming one. When I moved away to college, I was an adult--18 years old and independent. But becoming an adult--truly grabbing hold of my faith, interests, purposes, and calling--God did that through letting me experience need, providing me with adventures and setting me in a place to pursue knowledge among peers and professors who made richer my view on life and deepened my understanding of God and others.
No doubt about it, I carried some of my struggles from summer, home and life with me to college (See, My Story, Story No. 3 for more on that). It took me a while to make friends and overcome insecurities. But looking back all these years later, it is the provisions and answered prayers that I remember most.
- Had I not left, would have I come to a truer understanding of home?
- Had I not known loneliness, would have I found rich and life-giving friendships?
- Had I not known need, would have I gotten to see God as my provider?
- Had I not known chaos, would have I been as well-prepared for motherhood?
In my need and struggle, God, in very obvious and miraculous ways, met me there and showed me the awe and wonder of Himself. Namely, revealing to my soul His ability to be infinity glorious and intimately involved in the ordinarily human needs of my life all at the same time.
My favorite sentence from today's story, Moving Away & Closer to Home, is:
She had learned to embrace uncomfortable and unfamiliar situations with an adventurous spirit that believed no matter where her feet went, God and his purposes for her would be with her.
Why is this one my favorite?
Because this lesson has carried me through nearly every hard season that has come my way since. When I am shaken (and after I have complained, cried and questioned), I land back here, with this truth: God has a purpose in all that I experience. None of it is without meaning. And I can choose to see what I face as an adventure or an annoyance. When I choose adventure, the uncomfortable becomes a catalyst to comfortably setting my plans and objectives at the cross and praying,
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give me this day what I need. And forgive me as I forgive those around me. Lead me away from the temptation to doubt you and deliver me from any thoughts of evil. Increase my understanding of you and let me never forget the awe and wonder that you’ve set in my soul.
Pixar-Style Testimony
Moving Away and Closer to Home, Story No.4
- Once upon a time, there was a young woman ready to move away from home and all that came with living in a small town. As a first step, she ended a long-term relationship she had with a boy she truly enjoyed being around--he made her laugh and he gave her an escape from the tensions at home. But she knew their life goals were not compatible and that she really was wasting his time by leading him to believe their relationship was what she wanted for her life. So on the night she received her high school diploma, she told him the truth. So began one of the hardest summers of her life--living in the between of knowing she was soon leaving everything and everyone behind, but not having gone--wrestling with dreams ahead but wanting to keep holding on to all she had known.
- Every day, she fought her emotions that betrayed her convictions and beliefs that leaving was right. She often failed, felt weak and got back up again. Every day, she reported to work as a janitor at her little town’s school and scrubbed gum from lockers, snot from desk bottoms, and learned that sometimes the gross jobs pay the best. And since her workmates were some of her best friends, it was actually one of the most fun jobs she’d had.
- One day, the end of summer came, she packed up her car and her parent’s car and they all drove to Bodien Hall on freshman hill of what was then Bethel College. In a whirlwind of a mere few hours, her setting changed, the reality of knowing not a single person in this new place hit, and she felt very, very small. She realized making new friends wasn’t something she had done much of throughout her life. She tried summer camp one time in fifth grade and hated the experience of spending a week with strangers. Those memories suddenly flashed back to her and she wondered what in the world she was thinking when she decided to attend a school three hours away from home and even more hours away from any of the schools her friends were attending.
- Because of that, by October she had pleaded with her mom several times to come and get her. And even though her mom knew that paying the bill for this private Christian school education was something that made her wonder why her daughter was attending this school, she calmly and consistently reminded her daughter that when she made the decision to attend Bethel that it was because she felt God had asked her to and it was a part of His plan. She reminded her daughter to trust in God and give her new setting some time.
- Because of that, this shy small-town girl stuck it out at the big city school. Never to return home to live again. Not out of bitterness but because she had learned to embrace uncomfortable and unfamiliar situations with an adventurous spirit that believed no matter where her feet went, God and his purposes for her would be with her. During her first summer away from home she traveled to Europe with Rein Ministries as an adult leader for teens who were experiencing the trip as a discipleship program. On this trip, in a campground, among the hills of the countryside of Germany, she led a teen girl through a “track” written in German. The girl accepted Christ by praying the sinner’s prayer. Evangelism had never been on this girls list of “please let me do that when I grow” ideas. And here she was leading someone to Christ. Could there be a more amazing thing to do in the world? No site or adventure could compare to this. She returned to school in the fall with the hopes to add missions as a minor. But also broke because her two-month missions trip had left little time for a summer job. So, she took on three jobs to pay for school and the minor was never added because there wasn’t room in her schedule. Life was a little bit chaotic and she didn’t always know if she’d have money to pay the next semester’s tuition or buy the books she needed.
- Until finally, she settled into believing that God would provide. This was largely a result of God answering prayers for financial resources in miraculous ways--a check here and there arriving from home or from members of her church when she didn’t make her needs known to anyone but God. Life was full, fun and she had never been more in love with Jesus and all he had for her. He was her provider and she grew deeper and deeper in love with him through classes, Bible studies and weekly chapels, and the building of new friendships. Her move away from home had shaken her but God used this shaking to help her set her heart steady on the purposes of her only forever home--the one that has no specified address on this side of heaven.
Stay tuned. . .Next week, Her Love Story, Story No. 5
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Photo credit: Abby & Brandon
Event: Go & See Retreat Spring 2019 Location: Lake Darling Resort, Alexandria, MN Caption: Jaclyn doing one of the many things she loves: inspiring, instructing, and encouraging women to live out of who God made them to be, no matter their season, location or vocation. |
Inspired by the testimonies of others and the invitation given to me a few weeks ago to share my own, I have created this space on my blog to share My Story. Here is the introduction and an invitation to read along as I share My Life's Stories to give a Testimony of God's Goodness. Along the way, I hope you will also be inspired and equipped to start recording your story.
Comfort and ease, we all seem to long for these things. In fact, the craving for these two things can sometimes steer our lives in ways we don’t even want to go. We buy this or we avoid that. We commit to this and we cross off that. Often using balance, safety, and precautions as our guideposts. Somedays, I even catch myself avoiding certain routes when running simply because I want a more comfortable workout. (You know the ones that have too many hills or are straight into the wind.)
Does this make me stronger?
No.
Does this help me really get ready for the unpredictability of terrain or weather I will face on race day?
No.
As parents, many of us have bought into the notion that our primary job is to provide a safety-first, predictable, and stress-free childhood for our children. Headlines of blogs read:
- “How to Get Your Child to Obey All the Time Without Messing Up”
- “How to Pack the Perfectly Healthy Lunch You Child Will Swoon Over”
- “Create the Perfect Spaces in Your Forever Home and You’ll Be Perfectly Happy”
- “Give Your Kids the Perfect Experiences and They’ll Turn Out Just Right”
Okay, so I made the titles up, but they generalize the posts that float around the sphere of social media “helping” all of us know just what we can do to get all the things right. Sending the message, we need to get all the things right. (Those blogger people are doing it, so why aren’t you?)
We can easily get caught up in the “just right” and the “perfect life now” messages. Sometimes causing us to begin to believe it is possible to be doing it all right. And if we get it all right, we will have a happy life, happy kids, and a home that will make us feel comfortable and safe until the end of time.
But here is what I have learned from my imperfect childhood and teenage years, the not-so-perfect days, the ones that caused me deep pain and confusion, didn’t ruin my life! My parents “failures” (in quotes because I really don’t see them as failures) and the strife and chaos that is a natural part of the coming of age process, whisper of suffering but not of lack of love.
In fact, some of the growing pains of my youth (seemingly “caused” by the rules and boundaries set by my parents), I now see as the most sacrificial acts of love. They may have caused some momentary pain, but they kept me from the deeper more destructive pains that would’ve come from allowing me to do what I thought was best from the point of view of my developing brain, maturing emotions, and lack of experiences with real-world consequences.
Yet, the most amazing result of some of the pain I experienced in adolescence is that it led me to one of my greatest passions--running. As you will see in the story I am sharing today, running didn’t just become a passion, it has literally brought me wholeness of mind, soul, and body. It has developed into a physical spiritual act of worship. And no matter my address, running has been the onramp to many rich and life-changing friendships.
And why did I begin running?
Because I was hurting, confused, and feeling alone. I was lost and words weren’t what I needed to speak or hear. I needed space, endorphins, and destinations. I needed to learn to see the unique design that the Creator set in me before time began. God knew he would lead me to that understanding on dusty country roads, on 400-meter tracks, on foreign city’s pavement, along mountainsides and rivers, and on the quiet city streets around the places I would call home.
Jennie Allen, in her book, Restless, poses this question:
“What if the things that have caused the most hurt in your life became the birthplaces of your deepest passions?”
For me, this has been true. My teenage years were painful. Not just because of what happened at home, but because of other struggles at school, with friends, and life in general. Yet, I can see how all of it built me into someone both stronger and more compassionate than I would have been without the struggles that hurt.
I didn’t have a perfect childhood. I didn’t have perfect parents. I didn’t have a perfect home. I experienced some hurts from the the people who loved me the most (And I am sure I hurt them too!). It goes without saying, that certainly the good times built in me the security and confidence I needed, but the hurts had a role too. They pushed me toward running which would later pushed me toward God, which would later become one of the few steady things that stuck with me throughout my life. In addition, I believe my career in education has more to do with the pains I experienced in my teenage years than the fun times I had.
So, as you read, When She Started Running, Story No. 3, I pray you too will see how God has used some of the painful experiences of your life to lead you to a passion that gave you the opportunity to know yourself and your God more deeply and truly.
Comfort and ease won’t get us to the places that we want to go. They do not demand of us passion or courage. Let’s put down comfort and perfect and pick up doing the best we can with what we have. Let’s believe that our imperfect, self-sacrificing, boundary setting love will trump getting all the things just right. Lastly, let’s choose to believe that out of some of our most gut-wrenching pain can come a redemption story that sets our hearts ablaze for God and compels us to love our neighbors as ourselves (Mark 12:30-31).
Pixar-Style Testimony
When She Started Running, Story No.3
- Once upon a time, there were two first-born teenage children--a boy and a girl. Not born at the same time, as twins are, but Irish twins--children born of the same mother less than 12 months apart. In their younger years, they had experienced a harmonious home. Simple in size and provisions, and by their observations ordinary. At this stage in life, they were immature and self-centered like most teenagers, and their parents had decided to remodel the house, making most of it a construction zone--the chaos of which was a metaphor of the emotional atmosphere that had shattered the peace that once ruled the spaces.
- Every day the oldest born girl struggled to understand conflicts between her older brother and her parents. Her attempts to mediate, a hallmark of the a middle child, often were ineffective--creating more stress. Why couldn’t they just get along? Why was there so many arguments, disagreements, rigidness and an inability to see things from one another’s point of view? In all their years growing up, her brother had in many ways been her best friend and protector. One time in the 4th grade he was sent to the principal's office because he told a kid who was picking on his sister to stop it or he would beat him up. All these years, she too had been close to and loved her parents. In the 3rd grade when her mom paid for figure skating lessons because she had been spending hours skating to Amy Grant music in the homemade rink in the front yard, she went twice and then said, “Mom I don’t like going to skating on Saturdays because then I don’t get to spend time with Dad.” So she never returned to the lessons, and instead spent time at home helping with chores and enjoying the pleasure of an unrushed childhood.
- One day, when the arguing was more than she could handle, she ran out to the woods, stood among the trees and screamed as loud as she could for as long as she could. Her heart, mind, and soul could not process the chaos around her. In the stillness of the branches, her entire body quivered, unsure of herself, her role in her family, or who her loyalties should most belong to--brother or parents. She thought back to days earlier when the same feelings had overwhelmed her and she had hid behind a chair in the corner of the living room, literally pounding the ground, trying to beat the confusion out through her clenched, drumming fists.
- Because of that, chaos and strife, hurt overtook her and somewhere deep down inside she decided her voice didn’t matter. It was just screaming in a woods that, even though loud enough to have been heard in the heavens, seemed heard by no one.
- Because of that, she started running. She began to live life with a mindset that she was on her own. She looked for ways to be in control so that chaos could not be the dominant force in her life. Nutrition research and running became her hiding place, and all things in this space, in her mind, were in her control. Calories in counted. Calories out counted. Numbers on the scale monitored. Pace times around the track recorded. Hours of sleep specified. To her delight, success and recognition were the results--she had earned the approval of herself and others. She had a place and a voice of influence. She was in control and she was starting to be seen.
- Until finally, on the most pivotal week of the track season food poisoning became her nemesis and saving grace. Instead of taking her first-seat slot on the track for the 1600m run, she was in an emergency room with doctors explaining to her parents that running and eating had become a source of malnutrition and anemia. But more devastating to her than that was that she had just missed her best chance to qualify for state in race she had been dominating all season. That day, instead of riding the bus home, celebrating a victory with teammates, she was alone in the backseat of her parent's vehicle mourning her loss. But she wouldn’t change what happened next for a gold medal in the Olympics. In her silent sorrow, grace dipped down and God spoke to her through her thoughts. As she stared out the window she heard him whisper to her heart, "you are more than what you accomplish. You are more than what you can control. Your value doesn’t depend on you--your leadership, your self-control, your influence or your accolades." And that whisper has made all the difference in heaven and on earth. Because it has helped her to run her physical and missional races hard knowing that her value doesn’t hinge on her stride or pace. Running got to stay in her life because that day she began realizing it was not about the accomplishments but about being who God made her to be--a runner who would need, in years ahead, to see that her running brought her closer to God and kept her life free from the anxiety and depression that ran in her family’s heritage. Running would be her medicine through ups, downs, transitions, and loneliness--not an escape, but a road to the arms of a good, creative and trustworthy God. And over and over again throughout her life, God would remind her he made her a runner so she could find peace and companionship in even the darkest days with the legs, lungs and heart he gave her.
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Photo credit: Abby & Brandon
Event: Go & See Retreat Spring 2019 Location: Lake Darling Resort, Alexandria, MN Caption: Jaclyn helping her daughter learn to start writing her own story. |
Inspired by the testimonies of others and the invitation given to me a few weeks ago to share my own, I have created this space on my blog to share My Story. Here is the introduction and an invitation to read along as I share My Life's Stories to give a Testimony of God's Goodness. Along the way, I hope you will also be inspired and equipped to start recording your story.
If you have been following along with My Story the last couple of weeks, you have read been introduced to the objectives propelling me to share my testimony, Pixar-style. In the post, One Cold December Day, Story No. 1, you will find the top five objectives articulated in no particular order. And in, Most of Life Happens in the In-between, I shared how the story of the Israelites crossing over the Jordan river in Joshua 4 can be instructions to us on the importance of setting up "stones of remembrance" (stories that reveal God's mighty power to save, provide, and keep promises).
One of the reasons recalling our life's story and writing out how our experiences speak to an active, relational, and powerful God is that overcoming may be waiting just on the other side of remembering. Remembering may trigger pain but by grace, remembering can also help us see God's provision and promises--perhaps even better in the looking back than in the moment.
In addition, when we have taken the time to write out and gain insight on God's working of good throughout our own story, learning from both the successes and the failures, we build up a repertoire of tools for ministering to others. Yes, your testimony hold the power to help others overcome too. Your story isn't just for yourself, it is yours to use to show others that God is great, powerful and near.
And he said to the people of Israel, “When your children ask their fathers in times to come, ‘What do these stones [stories} mean?’ then you shall let your children know, ‘Israel passed over this Jordan on dry ground.’ . . . so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the hand of the Lord is mighty, that you may fear the Lord your God forever.” ~Joshua 4:1-24 (ESV)
And our testimony isn't just for now, it is for future battle. Revelations 12:11 says this, And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.
Why is overcoming found in the blood of the Lamb AND our testimonies ?
Why in this broken down, story inundated world is it the word of our testimonies that will save us from the Beast in the Final Days?
Because in remembering, we see God’s hand in our life, we see evidence of his promises, we see that we have experienced Him and no one can every steal the experiences we know we have had that give testament to peace, love, grace, forgiveness, overcoming. And in the end, the real one, it is who remember God has been to us that will tether us to the strength we need to stand firm in the truth that Christ has saved us and redeemed our stories so that we can overcome any battle that comes against us.
I am excited for you to read today's story, The Stars on Summer Nights. This "stone" brings me back to when my faith was childlike in the most precious of ways, my awe of God was born, and it reminds me that God set me in just the right place, at just the right time, to form the core of me into who he was calling me to be in the seemingly distant future. This is one part of my story I love because I struggle greatly to remember much about my childhood. But this, this I remember and it sings sweet melodies to my soul when I recall it.
Pixar-Style Testimony
The Stars on Summer Nights, Story No.2
The Stars on Summer Nights, Story No.2
- Once upon a time, there were four small children born to two hard-working, devoted and loving farmer-parents. Not much of the outside world influenced this home because the labor to keep the farm running kept everyone planted on those acres that needed tending.
- Every day the sun would come up, the cows would be cared for, the kids would go to school, the kids would come home from school, the kids would build forts and go on adventures and try to sell, at the end of their long dirt driveway, rocks they had split open with a hammer. The splitting revealed what looked like crystals or diamonds on the inside, leading the children to believe they were gems of high worth.
- Some days, when summer arrived and the alfalfa crop needed taking in, the farmer and his wife had no choice but to work until it was all harvested so that rain would not ruin the crops that would keep their animals alive through the other seasons of the year.
- Because of that, the work was not done at sundown. Instead, they would work together into the late hours of night, driving through the fields and stacking up the hay bales on the rack. Since their little tribe of four were too young to be alone in the house, they would join their parents out in the field.
- Because of that, when the hay rack was stacked 8-10 bales high, and halfway covered length-wise, the father would build an empty space just big enough for the children to scramble up to and lay down for the rest of the ride. The stars on those summer nights out in the field were magnificent. And the oldest girl felt like she was laying just underneath them. Some kids learn about constellations in science class, these farm kids had the thrill of finding them on their own. There was no fear of the night when riding on the top of the hay rack, the mother driving the machinery, the father stacking the hay, and the hum of all creation singing its own lullaby to four kids huddled together on top of a moving pile of hay. Childhood was filled with moments like these, instilling in these children a strong bond between one another. This family did everything together: Other than sleeping and school, it was rare to be separated from one another.
- Until finally, they all outgrew living life in these small, predictable patterns. Yet, this childhood spent outdoors and together breathed into the soul of the second born a wonder and awe for the creator of the world, and a sense of adventure that she never really noticed until her adult life began revealing that part of what made her, her was her love of adventuring to new places. What called her to missions, to do hard things, and to believe that God was real because creation shouted of his majesty, were all tied to the many days of her childhood spent on a farm with parents who chose Christ to be the center, siblings who were her best friends, and a God who molder her design by setting the beginning of her story at the end of a long dirt driveway in the middle of nowhere--exactly where he could see her, protect her and build the experiences that would become the foundation of his plan for her life.
Stay tuned. . .Next week, When She Started Running, Story No. 3
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Photo credit: Abby & Brandon
Event: Go & See Retreat Spring 2019 Location: Lake Darling Resort, Alexandria, MN Caption: Jaclyn doing one of the many things she loves: inspiring, instructing, and encouraging women to live out of who God made them to be, no matter their season, location or vocation. |
Inspired by the testimonies of others and the invitation given to me a few weeks ago to share my own, I have created this space on my blog to share My Story. Here is the introduction and an invitation to read along as I share My Life's Stories to give a Testimony of God's Goodness. Along the way, I hope you will also be inspired and equipped to start recording your story.
The Call to Remember
There is great power in remembering. There can also come great hurt in remembering. Why do we forget some moments and remember others? Why should we work to never forget somethings and also work at forgetting others? In what ways is our faith impacted by our ability to remember?
Before I set before you the first part of My Story, I hope to inspire you to consider the power that awaits your soul when you choose to see remembering as a spiritual act of worship. An act that isn't optional, but instead a command with a promise. An act of worship that will woo your heart to believe again, hope again, trust again, and delight in a heavenly Father who pursues your admiration through the ways he has predestined your story to speak of his glory and love.
I don't know if you are like me--forgetful! I get frustrated with my inability to remember things. I forget my grocery lists at home. I forget to make dentist appointments. Sometimes I even forget to put on deodorant. This forgetfulness also finds its way into my life of faith. I get particularly frustrated when I forget to remember who God is, who I am, and how the people and circumstances he puts in my life transform me. And that his sovereign love has redeemed all the moments of all my days.
This obstacle of forgetfulness is not a new struggle for humanity. The story of the Israelites found Joshua 4 shows us that God knows that his people have a hard time remembering his love and provision for them. It also shows that the stories of his love and provision are to be passed from generation to generation, and that we are to build up “stones of remembrance” for ourselves and those who will come after us to remind us of the times God has been highly inventive in changing our circumstances or our hearts. Because he knows we will forget, he commands that we set up physical reminders.
What then does it look like for you and me to apply this command to our lives?
I don’t know that 12 stones stacked in a pile is the answer. But it might be for those of you who are into landscaping. For me, the first step is taking the time to force myself to remember and reflect. I am a runner and a mom of four, so the best place for me to do this is either out on the road or with a cup of coffee prior to my kids waking in the morning. Being silent before the Lord lets him take my thoughts and soul on little mini journeys down memory lane. The second step is setting aside time periodically to write down a few of the thousands of thoughts that have gone through my head during my minutes of running and morning stillness. Most recently, it has been forcing myself out of bed before dawn to write the story of my life into "stones" that reflect pivotal moments in my life but more importantly reveal the hand of a mighty God being in control of it all.
In order to set up these "stones" of My Story in an efficient and effective format, I have adapted each them to fit some of the Pixar Storytelling rules. This was so fun! I highly recommend it. Using this predetermined format helped me organize my ideas, and also helped me to stay true to focussing on ending each part of my story with a truth about who God is.
As you read the "stones" of my testimony, my greatest desire is that you see bits and pieces of the following:
- Evidence of how my life’s story is, to me, the most powerful weapon in sharing the reason for my hope (1 Peter 3:15). No one else's story has the power to convince me God is real as much as my own story.
- Redemption and grace are woven throughout the fallenness and brokenness. My faith isn't built on mountaintop experiences or torn apart down in the valleys.
- People, places, and experiences of my life are markers of the amazing and powerful work God is doing on this earth, right now!
- I am using these words to help myself remember to believe every word that I have written is true. These are my stones, set up for all the people who see them to believe that the hand of God is mighty to save and he is worthy to be feared and adored.
- You can do this too! You can write out your story in little snippets that show the mighty saving grace of God.
There is great power in remembering, even the hardest of experiences hold within them a truth that could set another person's soul free to believe God is who he says he is. When we take the time to remember our past, we open the door of insight. We extend an invitation to the Holy Spirit to come in and turn our soul's eyes toward all that we have been given in Christ. In the looking back and recording of our stories we just might discover evidence we haven't seen before of God's faithfulness, pursuit, and promises. The result will likely impact both our present and our future by ushering in new hope, unexplainable peace, and unshakeable trust in God's sovereignty over our lives.
Pixar-Style Testimony
One Cold December Day, Story No.1
- Once upon a time, there was a young carpenter and farmer's daughter who fell in love. And despite their lack of knowledge of Christ’s salvation and his invitation to relationship, they began to build a home and family that would one day consist of four adults who loved the Lord, who would marry spouses who loved the Lord, and would provide a total of 18 grandchildren.
- Every day, they worked hard trying to make ends meet. Neither of them was a stranger to the necessity of hard work for survival and on principle. Neither had known monetary wealth or fancy living. Yet, both were rich in relationships--the husband having 12 siblings, and the wife having 8.
- One very cold day in December, with great complications and a near-death experience, they welcomed into the world their oldest, a son--Justin David, they named him.
- Because of that, they had now begun a family and the course of natural family planning had begun. But when the wife found out just three months later that she was pregnant again, fear seized her as she considered that it could very well cost her her life. Yet, she carried that safely for baby nine months.
- Because of that, on another very cold day (not quite 1 year later), their oldest daughter was born. Healthy, no complications but the name chosen for her before birth didn’t fit. For days they searched for just the right name.
- Until finally, it was found. Jaclyn Marie, that would be this child’s name. She would always be their second-born, but the first girl. She would be followed by a still-born brother, a healthy brother, and a healthy born-in-Alaska sister, who would complete the family because the mother could bear no more children safely. Jaclyn would grow up to love the Lord, admire her parents, and live every day grateful for the gift of home that was provided for her on a little farm on the “outskirts” of New York Mills, MN. Population 1,000: Memories and people who impacted her life, countless.
Stay tuned. . . Next week: The Stars on Summer Nights, Story No. 2
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Photo credit: Abby & Brandon
Event: Go & See Retreat Spring 2019 Location: Lake Darling Resort, Alexandria, MN Caption: Jaclyn helping her daughter learn to start writing her own story. |
Previous Posts in "My Story"
Inspired by the testimonies of others and the invitation given to me a few weeks ago to share my own, I have created this space on my blog to share My Story. Here is the introduction and an invitation to read along as I share My Life's Stories to give a Testimony of God's Goodness. Along the way, I hope you will also be inspired and equipped to start recording your story.
It would make sense to begin the telling of my life’s story with the day my life began, December 9, 1981. Yet, over the years and through various experiences inside and outside of the classroom, I have begun to see, literally see (note tree image below) that my life, especially my spiritual life, didn’t begin with me. I didn’t arrive on the earth tabula rasa, because I was set into a family, a generation, and the place that existed before me. I arrived on the scene one cold December night, a fresh new life, but my story didn’t begin there.
A couple years ago I wrote and taught a study title, Go & See. This study was birthed out of an observation that many of us believe we are called to the live lives of impact that require of us to use what we have to bless the people in our places, but often we struggle to understand what we have. Or many of us are in need of space, tools, and time to allow ourselves to reflect in order to find insight and vision for how what we have been given is meant to be used to multiply the work of God on this earth, right now.
The first step I challenged my learners to take in this excavating process was to create a timeline of her life. The objective in this was to put an image together that helped each to see that part of what she is given to guide her on her journey forward are the experiences she walked through in the past. Each experience, when set in light of Scripture’s truth that “all things work together for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purposes” becomes a gift that can be used to help frame vision, outline dreams and move to action with intentionally and focus.
As we do the hard work of reflecting to see how Jesus has walked with us, guided our steps, assigned our portion and cup, and made our lot secure, our confidence in him increases. In the wake of this increase, we become strengthened and able to live like we really believe our the actions of our lives matter. Not just to us, but to those around us. Many memories that stick are of experiences that include others. As we see this, we also begin to see that what we do is impacting those around us. And we get to choose to let that insight lead us to actions that align uniquely to the natural and spiritual gifts set in us by our Heavenly Father.
Did you know a timeline had so much power and insight waiting to be found in the dots and the dates?
Since I had already created my timeline before leading the learners through the activity, as they began to reflect and record, I decided to get a bit more creative with my content and create a tree to represent the people and experiences of my life. As I was “drawing” I looked at the tree and realized it was missing roots.
A tree doesn’t start growing from the base of the dirt. Rather, the seed is deep in the ground and the visible parts of the tree only come up after the roots grow down, tethering the tree to the ground. I couldn’t complete my picture without adding these important roots.
But what were they? Who were they?
As I brainstormed and sketched I began to see something I hadn’t really praised God for before. A part of my story that I hadn’t taken time to consider the impact of in regards to its relationship to my purposes and callings lay there right under the surface. My story really began with people whose life experiences and faith cleared the way for my life to begin, my paths to move in a certain direction, and established a heritage from which the faith roots of my life would grow.
This insight provided a great many things for me to think about and consider. But quite possibly the most important ones were that it humbled me, and filled me with gratitude for the family and places I had been set in. I had spent a lot my life reflecting on my choices, my places, and my giftsings. I knew and believed God had given all of them to me as gifts to use for his glory and to love his people. But taking the time to see how my story didn’t begin with me helped me to also see that my story doesn’t belong only to me. How I live and the faith I profess is also planting seeds in the lives of the people around me. My story will be told from my point of view but it isn’t my own, and it doesn’t belong to me.
Instead, it rests in the hands of the most magnificent author, God, who is orchestrating a tapestry of divine impact through the connectedness of our stories to one another. When I am able to step back and view all the ways my story is not my own--it is grafted into the stories of all the ancestors of my family line, all the believers from the beginning of time and the great, great story of the Gospel--I get to humbly look to heaven and say, “Thank you for all you have given me. Help me live the story you have for me in a way that keeps the trees of faith in this generation going.”
And so I write and share my story because my story didn’t begin with me, nor will it end with me. I reflect and record it so that I can be humbled and grateful. And so that it can be viewed by others as a testimony of God's goodness, presence on the earth and in my life. So that she too can believe He is at work in her life too.
Your turn!
- Take out a sheet of paper and a pencil to start creating a, My Story’s Family Tree.
- Set a timer for 30 minutes.
- Start drawing and adding names and experiences to your tree. These can be directly tied to your faith journey or be outside of it. In God’s eyes, nothing is outside of his pursuit of drawing you to himself. So, even those people and experiences who may not be directly tied to your faith likely have had an impact on it.
- Then move to the roots, add names of people and other details that happened before your birth that have impacted the story you are living out right now.
- When the timer beeps, set it again for 10 minutes and write about what you see on your tree. Let it inspire you to further reflection and action.
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Photo credit: Abby & Brandon
Event: Go & See Retreat Spring 2019 Location: Lake Darling Resort, Alexandria, MN Caption: Jaclyn doing one of the many things she loves: inspiring, instructing, and encouraging women to live out of who God made them to be, no matter their season, location or vocation. |
Previous Posts in "My Story"
Jaclyn Loween
Jaclyn is a wife, mom, educator, visionary, and avid runner who uses her writing to pick up and examine life, culture, faith and running, probing to discover the awe of God who is sovereign over it all. Join her on her journey at jaclynloween.com. She is a firm believer in the powerful, effectiveness of the body of Christ united together to live out theGreat Commission. Because we are stronger, healthier and lovelier when living on mission together, she desires to help others know their unique design and purpose for such a time as this.
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