There’s a blog going around that makes my heart break.  You might have even read it…it’s yet another writing by a so-called Christian ripping apart the Church and how misguided apparently every pastor on the planet actually is.  And I don’t understand it at all….even if it’s true.

You see, if I were Satan, I would get some young, punk blogger to write an article just like that and then I would get embittered or confused Christians to share it all over social media.  That would be a sure-fire way to destroy the Bride of Christ one broken soul at a time.  Good call, Satan. Good call.

On the other hand, if I were Jesus, I would have some young, punk blogger write her stories of her deep love for the Church.  I would have her tell the tales of ministry in the Pacific Northwest…the least churched region of America.  Maybe if she writes, someone who needs a Savior will fall in love with an imperfect church in Vancouver, Washington and come to see about her Christ.  Maybe.  Just maybe.

So, I’m fighting with everything I’ve got to speak well of His Church.  ‘Cause I LOVE His church.  I love His church, all it’s faults, and the journey His Church is taking to find Him, exalt Him, and honor Him.  You may disagree with the means, but I haven’t met a pastor who wanted anything but the life-changing power of Jesus.  And I deeply honor each one for that very reason.  They get up every morning and keep loving people and trying new things to reach people.  Bravo, pastor, bravo!  Keep up the fight!

We’ve had our fair share of critics ripping apart our church over the years as well.  And one thing has been constantly true: while the critics are complaining, we are neck deep in the Holy Spirit’s beautiful work.  The dichotomy is heartbreaking at times. While one group is seeking the face of Jesus, the other is seeking the “problems with the church.”

Let me be clear: You will always find what you seek. 

If you want to find Jesus in the halls of our church, you will no doubt find His powerful presence in the midst of the efforts of a multitude of volunteers, prayer warriors, and passionate people.  If you want to find problems, you probably won’t even make it through the front door without a list a mile long.  It’s your choice, but it’s also your price to pay for that choice.

We spend our days walking with people through profound testimonies of salvations, healings from long awaited prayers, homeless families getting jobs and housing, the Holy Spirit changing a spouse’s heart against an affair, pregnancies that were said would never happen, and on and on and on.  His POWER is ALIVE AND WELL!  And then on the same note we weep daily over lives in our church that need an intersection of Jesus.  Lives broken by addictions, molestations, divorces, abandonment, and pain.  We carry a weight that walks the hallways of our buildings every Sunday that most will never see.  We weep daily. 

Ironically those moments are all too often followed with negativity from others over the music choices, the décor, our cheap seats, how we do the offering, some offense over an obscure sentence one of our “renegade” preachers accidentally said… We get accusations about how we don’t love Jesus and how we should love Jesus differently. We get told how ridiculous our website is.  And how everything would be better if we fixed our parking lots….Nothing we do is good enough, right enough, or godly enough….

And what do I wish I could tell the critics?

Hush.

It’s hard to hear the Holy Spirit over your voice.

HE IS SPEAKING.

He is calling His children home.

His love for His Bride is deep and wide.

He is here to change a NATION….OUR NATION.

Do you hear Him?

Get on your knees and declare Him Lord.  He is Holy. Righteous…so, so holy…

Hush.

No more division, no more dissention.  No more blogs about how terrible pastors are and how broken His Church is.  No more.  Correct or incorrect, the repercussions are devastating to the very thing that Jesus loves most.

You are frustrated at Church, because YOU are frustrated with your own lack of Jesus in your heart.  But this Sunday, do me a favor at whatever church your feet may fall into…

Seek Him with a precious abandon. 

Your frustration at the shortcomings of the pastor standing in front of you who was called by Godwill melt in the face of Jesus.  You will find that you won’t worry about the music, the lighting, the dirty nursery toys.  You will find that you have no choice but to hush in His holy presence.  You will also find that when you are standing face to face with the God of the universe, you won’t have the guts to speak against His bride.  You will find humility and honor in that moment.

You will just find His face.  If you really want to see the Church awaken…just find His face.

Hush.

This has easily been the most difficult year of my life. Every day seemed to bring about new challenges and each challenge seemed more daunting than the last. Weariness, depression and the desire to give up seemed at my heels each day. Perhaps you know the feeling.

I will also say that this year has been one of growth and dependence on Jesus that I wouldn’t trade for anything.  I feel like I learned to pray, learned to trust, and learned to worship on a level that I will cherish for the rest of my life.

This was the year that the Lord taught me that sometimes we just need to go home.  “Home” is often the place where we have felt the greatest peace, the most profound acceptance, and the least amount of strife in our hearts.  For me, home is a camp in Hungry Horse, Montana.

On a warm summer night in August 1986, I met Jesus at an altar at that camp.  I remember the preacher telling me about this Jesus and I remember my soul leaping at those words.  There was a Savior who wanted my heart.  The whole world disappeared as I listened to those words of hope.

I stood to my feet in the crowded room of people when he asked if anyone wanted to accept Jesus as their Savior.  I scooted down the aisle, bumping knees with my friends, and I found myself weeping on a dirty carpet at the front of a stage.  It was there that I gave Jesus my sins and He gave me eternal life.

I left the service that night all by myself.  As I walked out in the dark, my small frame stood among the large evergreen trees that surrounded the building.  My weakness stood among their enormous strength.  I bent my neck back to peer through a break in the trees at the navy blue sky dotted with a million stars.  If you ever want to see a glimpse of God, look into the Montana sky.  I felt in that moment so small, but it would also be the first moment that I would feel Him tug at my heart.  It was as if God was telling me that despite the largeness of this world or the enormity of the challenges I would face, He was there with me.

This summer I went home in August to visit my parents, but Mark wasn’t able to come due to the fact that we were in the middle of selling one of the church buildings.  It ended up being a terrible trip in my difficult year.  I had car problems on the way, alone with two children.  My brother came one day of my vacation to repair the car and when he finished, my dad told me to take a drive to make sure everything was good.  Where does one go?

You go home.

I rolled down the windows and set out for Hungry Horse, Montana.  It was the EXACT day of the anniversary of the day I met Jesus 29 years ago.

The hot air poured through my car as I wound through the mountains.  The river was rushing mercilessly on my left and with each mile, I could feel the presence of Jesus flood my car.  He had an agenda for me that day.

As I pulled into the empty camp, every memory flashed through my soul.

Here He met me.

Here He called me.

Here He sent me.

And here He would meet me once again.

I stepped out of my car onto the dry dirt of the parking lot.  There was no one there, so I crept up to the door of the chapel where Jesus first met me.  The same enormous trees surrounded me with their strength once again.

I laid my hands on the door in front of me with a posture of surrender and I began to sob uncontrollably.

The faces of those who played parts in my journey to Jesus came to mind one by one.  My tears surprised me because the source of them was not the pain that I carried with me due to a difficult year.

They were tears of immense gratitude.  Gratitude for the sacrifices of the people who came before me and lead me to this spot where my eternity was changed.  Although the journey had been long, I was so thankful that I had the privilege of being on it.

I drove away from that camp not truly understanding why God gave me that moment. And then the year continued to unload on my shoulders with a fierceness that I didn’t know what to do with.

Recently as I cried out to Jesus about our plight, He reminded me of that afternoon in Hungry Horse.

“Those people who gave up so much for you to meet Jesus…they felt like you at times.  Would you want them to do it all again if it was just for you?”

Hot tears stained my cheeks.

“Yes. Yes, Lord.  Even if it was all just for me.” I was overcome with such a selfish emotion, but my salvation is the most precious thing I have…I NEEDED them to go through all of those challenges, even if it really was just for me…

“Then you keep going for the ONE.”

Resolve poured down my back like a steel rod.  That was all He ever needed to say.  Greatness in the Bible was often seen as a man standing in a field with a shepherd’s staff, or a woman carrying a baby amidst the scrutiny of scandal, or seen in the eyes of an Egyptian slave.  When the outside world looked, they did not see what God knew to be true.  In His eyes, there before Him stood great leaders who said yes to the ONE time and time again.

My audience is Jesus and my mission is to do His will….come what may.

Come what may.

If you missed my previous post, catch it HERE before you read this one!

It was her last event and by far her biggest challenge.  How ironic that with all of the hurdles during this gymnastics season, it was about to come down to a vault.  She would need to run, block, and land well…symbolically overcoming a mountain of struggles through a difficult year.

And then she ran.  The same run that floods my eyes with tears.  A run that constantly reminds me of God’s promises.

She flew over that horse with determination and power.  And I erupted in cheers…not because I know if she did well (because I can’t tell a good vault from a poor one), but I cheered because she is fearless.  Brave.  A conqueror.  A fighter.  Everything I hope for her to be.

The wait for her score feels like an eternity, but I decide in that moment to watch her face instead of the scoreboard.  At this point, the score is only a number, but her face, that face…

This year had started off so well.  She had won the State Championship as a Level 3 and was ready to take on the world.  But the next ten months would prove to be a journey with life changing lessons marking it’s path.  She had joined a special group with a strategy change of focusing on strength instead of Level 4 routines.  It seemed like a good call at the time, but we began to see that her personality type was not the right fit for her new circumstance.  While some girls were thriving, we watched as day after day of strength training pushed and shaped her into uncomfortable molds for who she was created to be.  She deeply missed the performance training and missed the repetition of her normal systems. She never gave up, but her verbage began to change drastically…”I can do this” became “This isn’t something I’m good at”.  Her confidence began to falter.

Haven’t we all been there?  So sure we are a round peg in a square hole, but change is often scarier than just showing up day after day.  Maybe it will get better?  Maybe I just need to make it work?  What would life be like without these friends?  Without this familiar ground?  What is on the other side of the familiar?

As she wrestled with whether to change course or keep trying, she took another blow with an injury at her first meet in January.  Both of her wrists were damaged, which equated to extreme pain.  For the next eight weeks she agonizingly limped through competitions, all the while sliding even further backward in strength training.  Her scores often reflected her struggle and finally the day came when she looked at me and said, “I don’t think I’m on the right team.”

It was in that moment of desperation that the balance changed.  The fear of what was on the horizon became less than the fear of continuing on with the current course.

So, with tears in our eyes and trepidation in our hearts, Kennedy jumped in with another team in our gym and began the journey to salvage the end of the season.

Being placed in a team that was seemly crafted to her personality, she began to fight again.  I watched her determined spirit arise from discouragement and with it came confidence.  By the time Sectionals hit she had enough skills under her belt to feel better about her two nemesis’: bars and vault.  Her scores were still low for her, but her presence had changed.  She made it to State and used every moment of the next two weeks to sharpen and learn.

At State, I chuckled to myself to see that we were starting on bars.  Of course.  When I told Kennedy that, she quoted a video she had watched, “I may have lost some battles, but I will not lose the war.”  No, no you won’t, sweet girl.

The best bar score she had managed to pull out was at Sectionals with an 8.6.  When the score popped up at a 9.125, I fell off the bleachers.

She wasn’t going down easy.

Beam and floor were next and she got two more good scores.  Vault would be her big finale and with a personal best during the year of an 8.45, I knew it was still a long shot to end with four strong events.

And now there I was.  A long year behind us, looking at her face, not caring one bit what the scoreboard said.  She stood there in her little pink leotard…fearless.  Brave.  A conqueror.  A fighter.  Everything I hope for her to be.

And then came the smile.  Wide and contagious. I turned my head. 9.175.

Tears caught up in my throat and my hands cupped my face.  She did it.  She ended well.  Full of determination, confidence, and security in her strengths.

I cried that day because the war was never gymnastics…the war was fear and insecurity.  Fear of embracing the best path for herself.  Fear of disappointing other people.  Fear of failure.

And as always, our children teach us the most profound lessons: It is true that our confidence can be lost in the midst of life, but it can also be found.

Kennedy walked away that day with a 6th place medal, a 36.7 All Around score, but most importantly, she walked away saying, “I wish we had gym on Monday.  I am ready to learn something new!”

Rest, sweet girl.  God has new journeys for you just around the corner.

Today would you take a moment and vow to change what is shrinking you?  Rise up!  Dust off the “old you” and be everything God created you to be.  Recapture your spirit, your determination, your passion!  Shrug off your circumstance, your hindrances and the “what ifs”.  You’ve got this!  You’ve really, really got this.