Hope is Hard

Today I read a short passage from Henri Nouwen’s book, “Finding My Way Home.” I cannot do it justice in summary, so I will just write it out.

“I have found it very important to try to let go of my wishes and instead to live in hope. When I choose to let go of my sometimes petty and superficial wishes and trust that my life is precious and meaningful in the eyes of God, something really new, something beyond my own expectations begins to happen for me.
“To wait with openness and trust is an enormously radical attitude toward life. It is choosing to hope that something is happening for us that is far beyond our own imaginings. It is giving up control over our future and letting God define our life. It is living with the conviction that God mold us in love, holds us in tenderness, and moves us away from the sources of our fear.

I also read John 16. This is a section of the gospel where Jesus is speaking frankly with his disciples regarding what is about to happen to him and to them. He says, “You will weep and mourn, but the world will rejoice; you will have pain, but your pain will turn into joy.” (John 16:20) He also says, “In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33)

Hope is not something I grasp easily. Though I am often optimistic, cheerful and confident I easily turn to hopelessness. When I realized I had to leave San Diego all the hope I had came crashing down. It wasn’t hope in San Diego; it was hope that God has good plans for me. It seems like I would have learned by now good doesn’t mean easy and it certainly doesn’t mean I will get what I expect. Early on in the summer I wrote a blog talking about good not meaning easy. I didn’t expect San Diego to be easy, but I did expect it to work out and I expected God to have a plan for a job and a place to live and a people to love. When none of those expectations turned out to be true I felt like God had abandoned me and I felt like he never had a good plan for me in the first place. I also felt like Samwise Gamgee at the end of the Two Towers movie, “How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened?” All the bad that has happened, all the hard stuff I have been through over the past several years was piled up in front of me and I could not see how anything could ever be good in the face of all the hard and bad I have suffered. I could not see hope at all.

This is still true, my friends. I still do not see hope. I would like to lie on the floor and kick and scream like a two year old having a tantrum because I am so frustrated at how life is going right now. When I read John 16:20 I felt like most people are rejoicing that I am going back to school. I often get responses of hope that I am choosing wisely and that finally I will stop wandering and drifting around the world. My soul, however, is in mourning. As hard as drifting and wandering is I find staying in the same place much harder. Surrendering myself back to school feels very much like death. I wish people would stop rejoicing over the choice I made and stop trying to convince me it was a good choice.

The Henri Nouwen passage reminded me that my future is not really mine, but it is God’s. It reminded me of the calling to surrender my whole life to him. Though I know I was following God to San Diego I see now that I filled it with my expectations and dreams and plans. God had asked me not to plan anything and to just go but I still planned, I couldn’t seem to help it. This might have been easier if I could have resisted the need to plan.

Giving up control, surrendering myself to wherever God leads me and choosing to hope that he does have good plans for me even when it appears that he doesn’t is one of the most frustrating things I have attempted. Right now I am doing it with my heart full of frustration and anger and confusion, yet I am still doing it, I think. God commands my future no matter what I do, it seems. I know it would be better to follow him with a cheerful and thankful heart and to rejoice in his provision, I just don’t the will in me to do that today. So I grumpily move towards his leading. Today I realize God didn’t ever say life would get easier or smoother or safer, instead he said our pain would become joy and though we suffer trials and tribulations in the world he had already overcome the world. Life won’t be easy, but it will be painful. I know God is able to turn that pain into joy but right now I am pissed that I cannot expect anything easy to come my way. Seems like a shitty deal to me.

One Year Ago

I was going through some writing I have done over the past year and I found this excerpt from my journal from one year ago. I wrote it during a day of fasting and silence on our debrief retreat.

12/13/09

Debrief, from your journal.

“Out of here! Out of here! Leave this place!

Don’t look back. Don’t contaminate yourselves with plunder.

Just leave, but leave clean. Purify yourselves

In the process of worship, carrying the holy vessels of God.

But you don’t have to be in a hurry.

You’re not running from anybody!

God is leading you out of here,

And the God of Israel is also your rear guard.”

Isaiah 52:11-12 (Message)

It is time to leave. It is time. I cannot stay here because it is time to leave. There is a time for everything. And now it is time to go. There is no use trying to hold on so tight to what is over. This semester is over. And with that the community I have been living in. and with that the friendships I have. Not over in the sense that I will never see or talk to them again. But now they must change. My friendship with BJ must change. We live in different states and cities and have very different lives. What it was, was good. So much healing of my heart happened as his brotherly care was lavished on me. I love his friendship and it has done for much in me.

But now that chapter is closing. But this is a good story, so the end of one good chapter means the beginning of another. And, as God and I are writing this book together, no chapter will be a waste. Each is full of beauty and brokenness and life and death, giving, taking, remaining, learning and loving.

This retreat, debrief weekend, is a process of worship. In that process I am being purified. I have taken on a slightly different appearance as my Maker is continually creating me. But the dust and the residue from the creation process, the particles of dirt that harden and blemish the sculpture, must be wiped off, blown away, washed off in a bath.

Worship is the holy bath and wind that remove what is not needed. As I worship my Maker I am purified for the journey home.

But there is no need to rush. I am not fleeing from danger. This is a beautiful process to be savored; chewed slowly and enjoyed fully. God, my Pappa, is leading me out and he has a slow pace. I can stop and rest here a while as I am purified. For my Pappa also comes behind, dusting off the picture to make the images clearer, and holding forces at bay that would seek to clutter the memories and harm the beauty that has been created. Pappa is watching out for me so I can rest here and take it slow, relishing this time even as it slips from me. Every passing moment brings me close to an inevitable departure. And I cannot control it, I have no mastery over the fourth dimension. But there is a time to let go, and this is it. This is the time. It is a horribly beautiful gift we have. We can let it go and move to the next phase of life.

“‘Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back only they didn’t, because they were holding onto something.’ ‘What are we holding onto, Sam?’ ‘That there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo, and it’s worth fighting for.’”

I can hold onto my Pappa. He does let me hold his hand through life. I cannot hold into time, or these people, or anything except my Pappa. There is good in this world and it’s worth fighting for. But it cannot be fought for if I have both hands desperately clinging to a time they cannot hold. It can only be fought for by releasing what I cannot hold and grasping the hand that slowly leads me forward.~

A year later I am not sure I have let it go. How can four months have such a huge impact on a person? The impact is so huge that a year later I am still trying to figure out what happened and what I should do now. Everything has changed and then it changed again. It seems so simple in the words I wrote back then; just let go and follow God to the next chapter. I thought I did, but maybe it was a continuation of that chapter. I found myself thinking, a couple days ago, that maybe if I could go back to Uganda I would understand the past year a whole lot better and maybe I would even know what to do next. It feels like Uganda started it all, but I don't know what it is. Maybe in Uganda I can find it and understand it enough to know where I am going now. As I write that, however, I know I probably won't find it in Uganda. My task was to move forward. Have I done that? It doesn't really feel like it, especially as I prepare to go back to school in a couple weeks. It feels like I went in a circle. But hey, that's African time so maybe it was progress in a backwards sort of way?

I know you all were probably wanting more of an update on my life since I left San Diego. I tried to write one a couple of times today and I couldn't really begin to say how my life is right now. Instead I wrote about Uganda and what happened a year ago. Obviously I made it safely back to Yakima, WA. I will be returning to school the first week of January. Until then I am at my mom's house - home is what I call it, actually. I am grieving and it isn't pretty, therefore I didn't feel like I could post anything readable cause there were way to many F-words. Maybe in a year I will be able to look back at this time and tell people about it, but I still can't do that very well with Uganda so don't hold your breath.

Blessings, my friends.

When Africa Comes to Mind

Sometimes I get visions of Africa stuck in my brain. Tonight I saw a movie, The Last Three Days. A woman gets her face smashed with a fire extinguisher. It isn’t as gruesome as it sounds, at least it didn’t seem that way. As we drove home from the theatre, however, I couldn’t get pictures of Rwanda out of my head, specifically the church we visited where 10,000 people were slaughtered over three days. Our guide through that afternoon was a survivor of that event and he walked us through exactly what had happened those three days. My brain made pictures out of his words and I could see the church floor flooded with blood and bodies; broken, scattered bodies. That vision is stuck in my brain tonight.

All day I have been thinking about Africa. When I returned from my semester I thought I would never return, that I would never want to return. I left knowing living in Africa was not something I was made to do. I left knowing I was made for a quiet life back in the states: get married, raise kids, live on a farm in peace and quiet.

I seem to be made for bigger things, however. Not that being a wife and mother and running a farm is small, not by a long shot. What I mean is that I have an insatiable desire for adventure and risk. When I talk with God about where my life is going and what we are doing I tend to ask him where the next adventure is that he wants to take me on.

When I look at the pattern on my life I also see an astounding ability to step out in faith even when the risk great. In 4th grade I shared the gospel with my friend on a school bus; we prayed the prayer hastily, just before the bus got to her stop. In 7th grade I felt God calling me go to public school. My parents said no, but in 8th grade I felt the calling again. I was scared out of my mind cause I was such a shy kid, or I thought I was. I still did it, and I managed to make good friends and take even more risks in attempting to share the love of God with them. I messed up so many times doing it and hurt some of the deeply. I see, though, that I was doing what I felt God asking me to do.

I am bold in relationships with friends, perhaps too bold at times. If I feel strongly they need to hear something I will say it. Sometimes I don’t realize the risk of what I said until afterwards, when they are upset or shaken. I dropped out of school because I felt God give me the freedom to do it, and then I moved to San Diego because I heard God tell me that’s where he wanted me to go. Then, I didn’t plan a thing, or tried not to, because I felt like God didn’t want me to. All of these are bold moves, risky moves, foolish moves. All of these took a great deal of faith and trust and that same insatiable need for adventure. I fell hard when it didn’t work out as I thought it would and I didn’t want to ever follow God on an adventure again.

Today I thought about Africa; I thought about going there again, living there, even. I couldn’t help but desire another chance at something dangerous, risky, full of adventure and requiring of great faith and trust and hope. Yes, all of these require hope. I laughed at myself, wondering if I have a learning disability or something. Didn’t I just tell God last week I was done following him on these crazy adventures? Africa nearly killed me and San Diego broke my heart, yet I am already dreaming of the next big thing I get to do.

Friends, I don’t know if I am made for a quiet life on a farm in the country. I wish I were. I wish I could be content with a life of quiet, settled into a place and people, content to stay and allow people to find adventure at my house with goats and chickens and flowers. I wish I could avoid a life that took so much risk and so much trust I feel I may break at the strain. Look at what my life has been so far, though. Have I ever sought a quiet life? Have I ever been content to stay in one place for more than a couple months? Have I ever been able to tell God no when he opens a door or pulls my heartstrings towards an adventure?

In the movie Little Women the character Marmee tells her daughter, Jo, “You have so many extraordinary talents. How could you expect to lead a normal life?” How can I expect to lead a quiet, settled life when I rather crave unsettledness?

That life feels so scary, though. I fear loneliness and never having a place to belong. I fear if I surrendered to that life I would always be a wanderer and I would never know where I lived or whom I belonged with. I also desire deep roots and community I can count on. Would I be giving up on ever finding that by allowing my desire, and my talent, for going on risky adventures to take more of a lead?

I have found, however, that I grow deep roots so fast. It only took four months in Uganda to develop deep roots with those friends. I have friends all over the country from so many experiences that I somehow maintain contact with. Does one have to remain in one place in order to grow deep roots?

I still don’t know. I don’t know where I am going or what I am doing, except I leave next week to drive back to Seattle and to finish my college degree, the one I made up. Today my mom told me to stop planning, cause I was trying to plan my next summer already (including a possible trip to Uganda). She said I need to just give it a rest and let myself be settled for a moment before taking off again! I’m really bad at that. A few hours after talking with her I was looking at the Peace Corp website. Will I ever learn?

What Happened: Bring Joy Home

Hello Friends,

Those who make a habit of stalking me on Facebook already know, but for those who don’t, and those who do, I thought I would actually explain what happened as best as I can.

It has been a long week. It’s been a long 6 weeks, actually. Last week I had to face the hard question of what to do if nothing worked out down here. This week I answered that question.

I thought I was following God. I still think I was following God, actually. For whatever reason God brought to San Diego for just a short time, and that time is over. However, my heart feels quite broken about it all. God kept telling me not to plan, yet I see now I cannot help but plan, and I had so many plans for my life in San Diego. One by one those dreams died before my eyes. Things I thought were meant for me, places I thought I was supposed to go, people I thought God had given me to be with… all have been taken from me, or never given in the first place. I guess I cannot help but believe God’s hand is still in all of this and that he is working for my good, it just hurts like hell to have dreamed and hoped so much only to have those dreams and hopes killed as I stood on them. Maybe my hope should not be in good things, but in God?

I had to make fast decisions. I wanted to stay here, but I cannot make it work; the way is shut. Even as that door was slammed in my face, however, the door to go back to school in Seattle was flung wide open, though I barely tapped on it. The only door to walk through now is SPU, a college degree, living in Seattle. All the things I desired to be free of I am walking back into. For whatever reason, I am sure I do not understand it, school is where I have to be, and Seattle is where I have to do that. It’s too late to get in anywhere else, plus my degree only exists at SPU (that’s what I get for making it up).

I know I am returning a little wiser and a lot more patient, also quite humbled that the place I was s determined to leave is now where I am willingly going; pride could not follow me down that path. What else will come of this change in direction? I don’t know, and I don’t understand any of what has just happened to me. Really, I just don’t understand the past year of my life.

On a more practical note: I cannot actually get myself home cause I am out of money. It’s only $200-ish to get home in Jose, my van, so if you feel so inclined to send me $5 to pay for 1.5 gallons of gas (that gets me almost 40 miles!) I would so appreciate it. If just 40 people send me $5 I can make it home! You have two options for ways to donate, too! You can mail some money to this address:

Joy McCracken
231 Tibbling Rd
Selah, WA 98942

My mom will get the money to me from there.

OR

You can donate through Paypal!

Seriously doesn't get easier... and I am amazed at my technological abilities on that one.

Note: I am not sure if the donate button worked... you can also go to your own paypal account and select the send money option (or something like that) and simply enter my e-mail address (mccraj@spu.edu) and my name (Joy McCracken).

I’ll keep you all updated on the next phase of my life: SPU Round 2

Love,
Joy

One Month

I have been in San Diego a whole month now. When I was younger, like a month ago, one month seemed such a long time. So much can happen within a month. My whole life could be changed in one month. When first got here one month seemed like when I would finally find life settled again. I figured I would have a job, have some idea of their area I would live in and therefore be able to start building friendships and community, and that I would be able to support myself and not have to depend on other people for EVERYHING!

One month has passed. I am jobless, living even more on the graciousness of others, have no idea where to build community or friendships, and have no money. One month wasn’t a magical number. One month was just a series of weeks spent searching for jobs and aching for a place to call my own home.

I hit a wall yesterday. I know, I seem to hit a wall at least once a week. I guess this one looked much like the others, too. I asked God, again, what the Hell I am doing here, where the Hell he is, and if he really has any sort of plan for good things like he told me. I cried alone, cried to Deanna, cried to my mom, cried before I fell asleep. All day I was trying to figure out what plan B was. Then I realized, I didn’t have a plan B. I felt like God said don’t plan anything, so I didn’t, I just followed. Now I am realizing that I risked all I had, which wasn’t much compared to other people, for me it was all I had. I risked all the money I had and any sort of plan for myself I had had. I put everything on the line because my spirit heard God’s voice say, “San Diego.”

I don’t think I heard wrong. I don’t think God has left me here. I don’t think he forgot about me nor the good things he has for me. I just don’t know where he is or what he is doing. I don’t understand what the point is anymore.

Yesterday I had to ask myself the hard question. When do I have to call it quits, or at least time for a retreat? At some point I have to try something else, because I can’t continue like this for that much longer. I am not ready to call it quits today, though a part of me would love to be able to do that. Calling it quits doesn’t help much, though, because I no matter where I go I have the same problem.

Yesterday my mom told me she would pay for me to come home if I needed to. She also told me not to come home like a dog with my tail stuck between my legs. She said I have nothing to be ashamed of.

I feel ashamed though. I feel like everyone told me it wouldn’t work out, or that the job market was crappy and it would be really hard to find a job. This isn’t entirely true because I had lots of people encourage me and tell me to go for it. I think it is my own self telling me, “I told you so!” The ashamed part of me wants nothing to do with the brave and maybe foolish side, cause the ashamed part is super prideful.

I don’t need to feel ashamed about trying this, though. If I have to go home for a while and regroup that isn’t failing, right? I was being obedient to the Lord, giving him my whole life and doing my best to live it in surrender.

I have no neat conclusions, no fantastic revelations about the kind caring of God. I know he loves me, he cares deeply for me, he is kind and full of gentleness and that he loves my brave and willingly foolish spirit. I just don’t understand why it seems he has left me.

Help

Is not found in me, or in you, or in any magical remedy or spell or concoction. It is found in God. I forgot that.

Why did I leave school? Why did I say God could send me anywhere? What on earth was the original point? Obviously it wasn't farming.

When I was first back from Africa, after I had realized I was not suited to love African's very well, I asked God who I was suited to love. Who did he make me to love? My purpose was not in another country as I first thought, nor was it in school. I asked God to send me to the people he created me to love. He has given me a unique set of traits and gifts and weaknesses in order to bring him glory and to love him and to love a unique part of his creation. If that is the case, if I was sent here to love people, than why am I fighting so hard for my own security and success? Why am I so worried about making my life how I want it when that isn't what this is about?

My life will never be what I desire it to be until I am in the arms of my Lord, and until then what better way to spend my life than helping other people know what it is to be in the arms of God?

Today it was the love of Deanna that filled me just enough to be able to see the bigger picture. I still need love in this place, I still need people to care about how I am doing aside from jobs and housing. With the little bit I received today I could breathe again and see that I am fighting way to hard for this. I am trying way to hard to make this about what I want and what I need. Those are things God didn't ask me to carry, yet I have ripped them from his hands and insisted he wasn't doing a good enough job.

So what if I don't get a job or a place to live in the next month? That isn't the point. The point is love. That is the whole point of life, big picture and small picture. If all I learn from this is how to let God freaking love me no matter what the road looks like (even if it looks like there isn't a road) then it was worth it. Right?

Yesterday and today I think I lost it because I felt left in the lurch and as if no one loved me, not in a way that I wanted at least. I guess love doesn't always look how I want it to look. Sometimes it looks much different. The point isn't to get the love I want, it is to be open enough to receive all the love that is given to me. I am here for the continued romance between my Lord and I. I am also here because there are people all over this city God has created me with the special ability to love in a special way.

So fuck job searching. Obviously I will have to do some of that still, but that should not be all I do right now. My purpose is not job searching and making money, my purpose is love.

What It Means To Survive

After my freak out last weekend I have been better. I kicked my butt into gear and applied to nearly 40 jobs in about 4 days. My brain hurts just thinking about that: so many applications and hope going out with each one. I held it together for a while. Tonight I lost it again.

I guess reality is that I will lose it often. I think I did a really brave thing. I do those often, it seems, and I always wonder what has made me so brave and what drives me to make such big decisions and moves.

Being brave is usually praised and admired and celebrated. I am learning that bravery is a terrifying thing, though, and it gets me into situations I am not crazy about. Like being in San Diego searching frantically for a job and hoping I will be able to come up with enough money to cover my bills.

How do I survive this? How do I make it through such a huge leap when I cannot see if there is a bottom to land on?

Tonight I got frustrated and angry again. Not as much as I was last weekend, at least not yet. I realized that I had worked my butt off this week trying to find a job. Something may work out soon, or maybe nothing will work out. I hate knowing that I put in a whole week of nothing but job hunting and I may not get anything back from it.

Tonight I had no energy or desire to be with God. Every night since I was 12 I have spent time with the Lord. Well, most nights. On a night when I skip it I know there is something wrong. Tonight I avoided Him by talking with mom for an hour and then watching Grey’s Anatomy. Why? He gives me peace beyond understanding, joy that doesn’t depend on circumstances, and confidence that doesn’t make sense. Why avoid that?

I want to understand, I want to see why I have peace and I want material and monetary comforts. I am tired of living on faith and prayer tonight. I realized tonight that nothing I do makes things happen. Last week I waited, this week I made finding a job my full-time job. There haven’t been results from either of those strategies. There is nothing I can do to make this process easier, or faster, or even purposeful. Everything rests on God. He’s the one who came up with this crazy idea anyways, right? Tonight I hate that. I hate that I have no control. My whole life has been put into God’s hands and I wish so much I could take it back. I wish I could stop being brave and full of faith and confidence in God. I wish I could have chosen any one of the safe options presented to me over the spring and summer. They look so tempting from this vantage point.

I think I am frustrated with God and feel that there isn’t anything I can do to change anything. When he pleases a job will come my way. I know he is caring for me so well and I do not fear what will happen before then, not too much at least. I am just tired and bored and lonely. I long for something to do and people to do it with. I long for my life down here to really begin.

I keep hoping there is a cheat sheet or a short cut to take in this season. Maybe if I learn whatever lesson really quickly we can move on to the next part even faster. So I try and come up with lessons I should be learning: don’t listen to anyone but God, work really hard and God will meet you halfway, trust God even when you are upset and scared and it looks like he has abandoned you… what more do I need to learn?

This isn’t a strategy game; this is life with God and with humans and I just have to live it. Maybe there is a lesson to be learned, maybe there are many, or maybe this is just how it works. I really have no idea anymore. I do not know what I can do to make anything happen, and I do not know what the heck God is doing with me on this adventure. I don’t know anything. I have no power. I am completely dependant on God for everything and there are no tricks I can play on him to manipulate him into giving it to me early. So I don’t want to talk to him tonight. I don’t want to be with the God of the Universe even when I know he wants to be with me. I can control that one thing, it seems, and I am choosing to avoid him.

Truth is I don’t know how to survive this. I don’t know what my part is or how to make the process happen.

Being brave. Celebrate it, but don’t be naïve about its consequences. There is nothing easy about it nor does it come without sacrifice. I just hope there are also beautiful things on the horizon and that it is not far off.