Longing for More

I’m dreaming of a White Christmas. I’ll be Home for Christmas. Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas. The best Christmas songs are all about longing. Longing for snow, for home, for togetherness and for magic.

Christmas makes us feel like something magical can happen. Like if we just attended the perfect Christmas party or caught the right train, then we would meet the person of our dreams and find the funding for that cute little pie shop we long to open. Not to mention the fact that movies like Love Actually and White Christmas show us that a delightfully choreographed song and dance number is all that’s needed to fix our relationship problems (I’ve prepared something for the occasion, just in case that turns out to be true).

I long for the magic of Christmas in my life.

I haven’t always wanted to reveal my areas of longing to others. I am a private person (as evidenced by the fact that I wrote a blog for a year without sharing it with friends and family). Also, I don’t want to appear discontented with my life. I am so grateful for where God has me right now - working at an awesome church with amazing students, part of a supportive family who loves me, and hanging out with the best friends in the world.

More than my privacy issues and not wanting to appear discontented, I also know that sometimes my longing embarrasses me. My practicality seems to fight directly with my longing for dreams that are God-filled and miraculous. It feels foolish to admit that you want something you may never get. And I find myself vulnerable confessing year after year to people and to myself that I hope for things that haven’t yet materialized.

But the reality is I still long. I long for Christ. I feel pangs of loneliness. I ache for my friends and family to experience the life God offers. I cry out for healing for those closest to me. I anticipate and yes, long, to make a greater impact in this world. I am unsatisfied with the selfishness that infiltrates my life and I want to move beyond it. I long for more.

Advent is a time when we are invited to long for more. As we feel our longing for Christ increase during this season, our senses heighten to the reality of His presence in our lives. And as we walk in step with Him, we wake up to our deepest desire…Christ. When we long for Christ and for His best in our lives, we enter into longing that is not discontentment and that flies in the face of keeping our lives private. Our longings in life direct us to God and lead us to live honestly and vulnerably in front of Him and others. Allowing God to guide us in our longing also frees us up to experience His unexpected answers to our desires. We open our eyes to see God move us. And His work in our life answers our longings in the best way possible–by making us into the men and women he longs for us to be.  

Our longing for Christ also puts us right in the middle of the Christmas story. When Christ was born, people were longing for Him too. For Messiah. For salvation. For freedom. They longed for Him to come. And even though the reality may not have been what they expected, He did come. And He is coming again.

At Christmas time, there is magic in the air. As we long for Christ, we live in the magic of longing for the One who can actually make the impossible happen. We long for Him who can free us, heal us, and make us whole. This Christmas, I’m praying that we open ourselves up to God’s leading. That we walk honestly and vulnerably before Him with our longings. I’m also praying boldly this Christmas that God answers the deepest longings of our heart. And that we have eyes to see the unexpected ways He leads us into His best for our life.

Learning to Love the Wait

Waiting for Christmas Eve night proved challenging for my brothers, sister and I when we were growing up. My family always opened presents on Christmas Eve and my mom and dad allowed us on this one night to stay up as late as necessary until all the gifts had been unwrapped one by one. The night was full of magic and warmth and we couldn’t wait for it to get to us. So, every year during the day on Christmas Eve, I caught myself checking the clock, trying to busy myself, and generally just wishing the minutes and hours would speed up so that Christmas Eve night would finally arrive.

One year, in order to hurry the day, my older brother and I brilliantly planned to schedule out each minute of Christmas Eve leading up to the very moment when we would open presents. We mapped out time playing inside and outside. We added in food and bathroom breaks. The whole day was full of time together. And before I knew it, Christmas Eve night was there and our presents were ready to be opened. We didn’t feel the anxiousness of waiting that had marked so many years before. That day, I loved the wait because the day was full of adventure with someone I loved.

Through no design of my own, I’ve caught myself waiting on God more frequently during the past couple of years of my life - sometimes unintentionally, freely and innocently, and other times with tears and pleading. Although the waiting is not always what I expect or desire, God has allowed me to become more of the woman He wants me to be in the midst of it.  As I wait on Him, I gain the deepest desire of my heart…..Christ. I get to spend my days with the one I love the most and in Him I find the adventure that I seek.  In the waiting, I trust Him more.  I rest in His timing. I lean into His grace. And I see His goodness. Because Christ is with me, I am learning to love the wait. Many people have told me that waiting on God could be preparation for what He has planned for me in the future. I know that is true. However, waiting has become so much more to me than that. Waiting on God has become life itself. It is in the waiting that I find Christ and He is life.  

During this time of Advent, we turn our hearts together to waiting on the Lord. We remember and celebrate that He came once and we look forward with anticipation to His coming again. He was born as Emmanuel, God with us, and it is the reality of this name that makes the waiting on Him now something to love. He is with us. And His presence gives life to the waiting.

So I pray for you, my friends and family, and myself who are waiting….

Waiting for healing....

     Waiting for a job...

          Waiting to graduate...

               Waiting to get married or have a baby...

                    Waiting for life to get better or waiting for life to begin

I pray that in the waiting you find Christ. That He leads you into days full of adventure together. And that we learn to love the wait because He is with us.    

Job Interview Tips from the Master

I've been looking for a job with a church for the past two years so I know a thing or two about interviewing for a ministry position. But I don't really know more than 2 things. So at times, the process has been difficult. Today, I share my pain with you in the form of 4 bon mots that I've heard myself say in a job interview which may be a clue as to why I don't have a full-time job today:

1. Question from pastor: So you've considered the challenges in becoming Presbyterian?
Me: Why don't you tell me what you think those challenges are and I'll let you know if I've considered them?

2. Advice from pastor: If you're going to be a woman in ministry, you probably want to have a clear-cut view on women in ministry. Me: I'm purposefully imprecise.

3. Pastor: Mary Katherine, we're calling to let you know that we decided to go with this other candidate for the position but we really appreciate your time and effort applying. Me (genuine, not sarcastic): That person sounds amazing!  I definitely would have given her the job as well.  She sounds like a much better fit. 

4. Pastor: Why don't you tell people that you write a blog? Me: I'm just really bad at authentic self-promotion. Pastor: So, it's not full of statements of anarchy? Me: No, no. Nothing like that....yet.

Happy job hunting, fellow interviewees! 

In the chaos

I just came back from a week and a half of vacation. I spent the first week with my family up in Maine and the last few days, I got to be with one of my oldest and closest friends in Boston. Time away allows God to refocus my mind. To take the truths that I have been learning from Him and solidify them in my mind. He also shows me the beauty and security of our relationship. In my normal life (which is pretty abnormal), I sometimes take for granted His presence. We have developed a rhythm together. We spend long mornings together and He is faithful to teach me.

In new environments however, I wonder, how will He show Himself?  Will I have the time necessary to be with Him? To sit with Him? This vacation, I had plenty of time in the mornings to engage with Him and it was wonderful. But it wasn’t always quiet. My whole immediate family of 11 people was staying in the same house together. So there was constantly movement and laughter and conversations. I have two nephews that are 7 and 4 and in the early mornings they are active. I was definitely free to spend time with the Lord but it was never still and I was never alone. Anyone reading this who has children will certainly scoff at the idea of a quiet morning.

And that’s been one of the questions I've had in this process of slowing down in my life. I know that God has given me this time to be with Him and to learn from Him. But I also long for movement. I do wonder what my relationship will be like with Him when I don’t have the same environment. Without uninterrupted hours in the morning, will I still encounter the same relationship and the same God that I see now? It has also been my heart to share this journey with others. I want my friends and family to experience the same depth of God’s presence and His goodness. But is it feasible to think that someone working 60-70 hours a week with 2 kids could have the time or space to be quiet before God?  

What I experienced in the chaos, loudness, and chatter of my family together was that God was still present. He was unhindered by noise and was still speaking. As my nephews ran back and forth between rooms, my parents stopped me to ask questions about the day, and my brothers and sisters descended down the stairs to get breakfast, God still wanted to meet with me there. In the midst of a busy household, He was still speaking and still able to get through to me-someone who loves silence and serenity.

The below song has been my prayer throughout my time of waiting. The words have echoed so much of what I’ve experienced and long to experience. I am restored in the secret, quiet, stillness of God’s presence. And when God calls me to move in my life, I won’t delay. But the second verse took on new meaning as I watched the activity around me this vacation. It says, “In the chaos. In confusion, I know you’re sovereign still.” I’ve always envisioned this chaos and confusion happening in moments of tragedy and uncertainty in life. But sometimes, normal life is filled with chaos.  Sometimes, our family is buzzing around, our work is hectic and that’s normal life. God calls to us in the stillness and in the chaos of our lives and He speaks for us to hear Him. I long for ears to hear both in the quiet and in the cacophony of life. And I pray the same for you today.  

He has everything

Most mornings, I wake up to the very loud and disturbing noise of my alarm clock on my cell phone.  I wish I was one of those people that had an internal alarm clock-who woke up feeling refreshed and alive every day. But most days, I need the clock.  I need my cell phone to do the work I wish it didn't do.  

Recently, I've gotten in the habit of turning off my alarm and immediately checking my phone for email messages, Facebook posts, and Instagram photos.  I know in my head that not much could have had happened in the 6-8 hours I had been asleep but occasionally something important is revealed. This routine became the first thing I did in the morning. The very first way I engaged with my day was to look at my phone. And it is death. Most of the emails that I receive during the night are junk-from some company telling me about their daily deals, trying to sell me something, or get me to look at their brand.  Most posts from facebook are from the wee small hours of the night and will be available for perusal later in my day. 

This week, I have been in a fog. And one morning, I prayed for God to focus my mind and to remove the veil I felt so vividly. And He told me to put away my phone. "It has nothing and I have everything," I heard Him whisper to me. He is so right (per usual). My phone which I view as so harmless is eating up my first thoughts of the day. Thoughts that I wanted to direct to God. Or more accurately, thoughts that I wanted God to direct for me.  My phone was full of nothingness.  Full of empty thoughts. Full of ways for me to escape. Full of posts and emails that could definitely wait until later in the day. And although I didn't understand, my phone was filling up my mind with worries and concerns from the world. While I desperately want to be Kingdom focused, my phone in those early morning times was such a distraction. So here is my small offering. I have put my phone away for the first of the day. I wait on the Lord in the earliest part of my day. I seek Him first and leave the phone for later. And I trust Him to fill up my thoughts for the day. He has everything and that is what I want.

My Philippians 3:4-14

I could have great confidence in myself if I wanted to. I grew up in a missionary family. My parents (two of the smartest people I know) left everything to train local leaders in foreign countries. I accepted Christ at the age of 4. I performed great at church. I was the apple of my Dad's eye. I earned straight-As in school and teachers loved me. I always obeyed the rules (or skirted around them enough to be considered good). I led Bible studies in high school and in college. I was a leader among my peers and I was going places. After college, the corporate world challenged my faith and I sinned with the best of them. I abandoned the teaching of my youth for the taste of being a success. I excelled in my job, getting raise after raise. I had money, friends, position, and everyone liked me.

I once thought all these things were so important. My Christian activities and my secular ambition. But now...now, I consider them all worthless because of what Christ has done for me. Seriously, everything is worthless when compared with the actual truth of Christianity. We get to know Christ, our Lord, our God, our Savior. So, I have trashed everything else. I look at all of my striving and wandering as garbage. I must do this so that I can have Christ and be one with Him. My own goodness, my own "holiness," my own church-going, people-helping ways are not what will save me. I trust (and want to trust more) Christ to save me. For God has a truer way of making us His children and it doesn't depend on us at all.  It depends only on faith. All the time I was growing up, striving to be good, deep down God had placed on my heart a desire to know Him.  The ironic reality is that Christ is known not through my striving but through faith. And as crazy as it sounds there is the real opportunity for us to experience God's power (which is not at all like human power that we all hunger for).  God's strength raises people from the dead.  If I can experience that (and I believe that I have!), somehow that means that the dead things inside of me can be raised up to life. I can have life that is true and eternal. And the ugliness inside of me, that includes self-righteousness, arrogance, and selfishness can finally die. And my truest self (who God wants me to be) can be resurrected and used for His glory. 

I don't mean to say that I've arrived or that I've already achieved any of this to perfection (or anywhere near it). But, this is my aim. I will keep working until the day I die not on becoming a better, more moral person but on becoming the woman Christ Jesus wants me to be. For this is the reason he saved me at four years old. Not so that I could boast in my own righteousness but so that I can boast in Him. 

Family, I am definitely not all that I should be (and if you know me at all, you know this), but I seek to put all my energy into this one thing: Forget the past. Forget the striving, the school achievements, the self-importance. Forget the sin, the wandering, the laziness. And forget trying to go places where I will be considered important. And seek Christ only. Go nowhere He isn't. Seek out places where I'll be humbled. Find Him in serving others. I'm 100% focused on reaching the end of my life and not just dying but living. I want to live life the way Christ wants me to live. And one day to get my prize - to see God face to face and to live in His presence for all time.

Prayer of Obscurity

Below is a prayer I rediscovered today.  One that impacted me last summer and continues to find me.  

"Today I still long so much for honour. I am so pleased with myself, so rooted in my nature. I am pleased when others often ask for my opinion, when I am made to feel I am needed, when people know that I am clever, talented, and popular. I am glad when I am friends with everyone, when I can share with others what is in my heart, when I can shine.

But Lord Jesus, you were a servant of all.  Today I surrender all desire to be great, I renounce all pleasure I take in being important. Help me never to take pleasure in the things that do not please you."

A prayer of Basilea Schlink

May this prayer find all of us in the obscurity of our faith and lives. May it remind us that life is only found in Christ.