life from death...

From time to time, I am going to use this space to make sure and remember the great conversations that make my life and my work worth every bit of struggle and confusion and pain.

Again, the theme of service and our life being ABOUT God has surfaced. In my conversation with a new friend/VFC connection (we'll call her S), we pondered and worked through and celebrated the reality that our lives are not about ourselves or our own happiness, necessarily, but that they are ultimately about serving other people as conduits or vessels of God.

Recent losses in S's life have left her with a sense of wanting to move to the next place in life, where she just serves others and focuses on that over things she has focused on our worried about in the past. Perhaps as she sees the beautiful legacy of service that those she lost left behind, she realizes that she wants to be part of something like that herself. In this moment, in this awakening, she is available to what God wants to do with her, she is open to being used in whatever way she can be used. This is how she wants to live. She has that sense of clarity about her that comes after great pain and loss. Life, in a very real, tangible way, has become this precious gift. Life for S has become simpler in a way. Life is not about us. Life is not about our own self-contained happiness or comfort or success. Life is something to be lost so we can truly live.

S is still figuring things out. She wants to know the Bible, wants to understand it. She sees she has a lot to learn. But in and of herself, S is this amazing gift. She is present, easy to talk with, encouraging, gentle, positive, deep. She already has so much to offer the world, its almost like learning about God and the Bible will shed light on what's already been richly at work in her. I firmly believe that as we grow fully into who we are in Christ, we become more fully us.

Our conversation brought us to the discussion of how every part of the Body is unique, how we all bring so much to the table simply in and of who we are... and every part of us that is God, IS GOD. God is so infinitely dynamic and interesting and complex and all encompassing-- every great thing about every person is Him. This is endlessly encouraging to me. I love how God has made this world and made us. Yes, brokenness and darkness and confusion abound... but there is this hope.

As S and I talked, I was reminded of this incredible quote i just read from Mulholland (again)

"We have so emphasized the Life dimension of the New Testament that we have avoided coming to grips with its death dimension. We have avoided the fact that in the gospel, Life comes out of death, not out of life. Trying to bring Life out of life attempts to escape the necessity of dying to the old parameters of our existence, the necessity of relinquishing the brokenness of our being, the necessity of letting go of those things that warp and misshape and distort who we are."

S has experienced death... literal death of those around her and, in a deep way, death of her old self, her old parameters of existence, her old being. And out of this death, Life.