The Table

Our pastor asked a profound question at the beginning of his sermon the other week: Do you have enough faith for obscurity? Do you have the faith to be faithful even when no one notices? Even if you’re not asked to tell your story or share your thoughts about anything? What if you’re just called to be faithful in the back row?

Go Write that Book

I thought I was okay with being unseen. Turns out, though, my faith for obscurity was pretty solidly set in its ending. When I was in the process of finishing my degree last year, my father passed away on the other side of the country. In the last days of his life, my sister and I were leaving the nursing home and the maintenance man walked us to the elevator. He had been checking in on us throughout the day to make sure we were comfortable, bringing us water and whatever we needed. As we said goodbye and stepped into the elevator, he called out, “Go write that book!” I stopped in my tracks and turned around. “What did you say?” I asked, incredulous. See, my heart’s desire since childhood has been to write a book but I could never settle on a topic. “I said, Go write that book,” he repeated. “Where did that come from?” I asked, stepping out of the elevator. He pointed upward and said, “Sometimes He just tells me things.” I was reeling as I drove away, my mind racing with possibilities: book deals, speaking gigs, royalty checks. 

Fast forward a year and a half. I am surrounded by the first paragraphs of a hundred books. One day I’m sure this is the topic of my book, the next day I toss it aside in frustration, acknowledging I am an expert in nothing. Until this Sunday and my pastor mentions having faith in the midst of obscurity. That I might be an expert in. At least the obscure part. My whole life has been a lesson in hiddenness. Not that I have piously desired to just serve and never be noticed for it. Not at all. Truth be told, my attitude has often been, “What does a girl need to do to get some recognition around here?”

My Glory or His?

But God has a way of pointing to his Son and bringing my applause-loving self back to the reality of who I am called to bring attention to. 2 Corinthians 4:5 says, “For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake.” He must become more; I must become less (John 3:30). He made Himself nothing, so who am I to desire, even feel entitled to, the spotlight? Am I willing to never be recognized as a faithful follower of Christ? Is it enough that Jesus knows who I am and that I am His?

We live in a culture of influencers. We build platforms, grow our followers and our email lists, all for the purpose of building our brand; cultivating and curating our image. But is our image anything more than an idol to self? I think it’s a fine line, but for me God has been steering me back to the secret place, growing the part of me that no one sees but Him. He keeps impressing on me the absolute necessity of not seeking glory for myself, constantly correcting any self-promotion that tries to rear its ugly head in my heart.

Even blogging has been a balancing act of starts, stops, dead-ends and learning to be okay with writing for obedience, not applause. This lesson must be vitally important if God has been hammering it home for 30 years. Or maybe I’m just a slow learner or possibly dying to self is harder than it looks. I read a quote in the book, Anonymous, by Alicia Britt Chole, that speaks to where I’m at: “In spiritual winters, our fullness is thinned so that, undistracted by our giftings, we can focus upon our character. In the absence of anything to measure, we are left with nothing to stare at except for our foundation.” (2006). 

A Solid Foundation

When all superfluous activity is stripped away, we can begin to take stock of who we are; when it’s me and a quiet room and nothing to prop myself up on. When the word of God begins to penetrate the frosty layer of my heart, showing me where I have allowed myself to become cold and jaded. My foundation has always been God’s priority because, like the foolish man building on sand, if the foundation of my character is built on using God to promote myself, it will be too shaky to support me if I find myself in the spotlight. We’ve all seen people collapse under the weight of fame and fortune because the visible platform grew faster than the invisible structure needed to support it.

Finding Gratitude in the Hidden Season

God is teaching me not to despise this hidden season but to be grateful for it. The lessons learned in the secret place are priceless and I am realizing that God’s economy is not mine. Right now I have no great job to list when people ask me, “What are you doing now?” I have no great accomplishments to point to, no claim to fame or great talents for anyone to admire. But I’m learning to obey in little ways and to heed God’s voice when He brings people into my life one at a time. Maybe this is what He wants me to learn: That this life is not about me making my mark and creating a name and a platform for myself, but allowing Jesus to make His mark on the world using me; That we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us (2 Cor. 4:7). Maybe I will get past the first paragraph one of these times and a book will take shape, but if the only book of mine that people read is my life lived out before them, I hope it represents Jesus well and makes Him famous because His character is incorruptible and can handle a little fame!

I asked Maria a month ago if I could share her story in my blog, but just couldn’t seem to get traction on writing it. Then last week happened. God stepped into America’s headlong freefall down a dark, slippery slope and said, “Let’s rethink.” While the overturning of Roe v. Wade doesn’t end abortion, doesn’t visibly change it at all in states like Oregon, breaking the national covenant with abortion cancels the death culture in America and will usher in God’s spirit in a new way. 

For so long, I naively assumed that no one I knew was post-abortive. Being staunchly pro-life, I expressed horror over the evils of abortion with no thought to how someone I loved might interpret my comments. Maria taught me that for someone to feel safe enough to share such a deep pain, they need to be sure that our grace, mercy, and love for them trumps our opposition to anything in their past.

The Beach Trip that Undid Me

Maria and I can’t pinpoint when we met, but our friendship solidified about eight years ago when she invited me to join her and a group of other women I didn’t know at a beach house for a girls’ weekend. Normally I avoid situations that could get awkward, and a weekend with women I didn’t know ranked right up there, but I agreed to go. In the spirit of what this blog is supposed to be about, here is another way to create community! Just rent a house and invite random people! What could possibly go wrong?

There was no agenda on this trip, and one afternoon we organically started sharing our stories, crying with the recently widowed friend and laughing hysterically at the antics of another. When Maria started sharing, I expected to hear stories about her experiences as a foster mom to teenage boys. One thing you have to know about Maria is that she has some sass and a great sense of humor so I knew it would be good. That’s why I was surprised when she prefaced it by saying, “I’ve never told anyone this before.”

She painted a picture of a girl struggling to find her place in college far from home, finding community in the party crowd. A lapse in judgment combined with the culture of college life came together to alter Maria’s young life. The pink lines on the pregnancy test told it all.

We felt our stomachs clench as she described the fear she felt, the overwhelming  panic at the thought of being so young, alone, and responsible for another life. How would she do it if she had to quit school and had no way to support herself? And maybe worst of all, how would she face the disappointment of her parents and especially her grandpa? She didn’t yet know Jesus so that relationship wasn’t in place to guide her and reassure her that she was not alone.

Maria confided in a friend who offered to take her to a clinic to “get it taken care of.” With no other voices offering different solutions, Maria grasped at the only way she knew of to make the nightmare end. At the clinic, she was given an ultrasound to determine how far along she was but not allowed to see the pictures. She was not offered a chance to hear her baby’s heartbeat. Because she was further along than she realized, the procedure needed to be done in two steps over two days. As Maria was laying on the table that second day, she heard her friend’s newborn baby cry in the waiting room and instantly regretted her decision. That moment was the beginning of years of shame, depression, guilt, and hiding. Maria met her husband shortly after the abortion and it wasn’t until they tried unsuccessfully to start a family that the doctor informed her that she would not be able to bear a child.

But God…..

Now comes the good part. While Maria blamed herself for this latest disappointment, God had other plans for her and Dave before they even knew Him personally. They heard about the need for foster parents and, at the age of 27, Maria and Dave became the foster parents of a 16 year old boy. And they didn’t stop with one boy. Today, 25 years later, they have welcomed into their home more than 100 troubled teenage boys, with many of the boys staying all four years of high school. They have informally adopted several of the boys who have gone on to start their own families and 12 grandchildren call them Mimi and Papa. God has opened doors for Maria to share her story publicly in our church and to lead a support group for women dealing with the aftermath of abortion.

This story perfectly captures the heart of our heavenly Father. Satan thought he won when Jesus hung on that cross, but three days later came the ultimate backfire when God raised Him up victorious over sin and death. What Satan meant to end in stealing Maria’s joy, killing her hope for a future, and destroying a life, God turned into a way to bring boys that needed hope into a family that understands grace and introduces them to Jesus, the perfect image of that grace. As we celebrate the breaking of this curse over America, let’s never forget the lives caught in the crossfire and be the hands of grace, mercy, and healing, delivering one more sucker-punch to the darkness by offering up the light.

“When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dreamed,” (Ps. 126:1, NIV).

When did we quit dreaming? When the pioneers hit the trail, they did it because they had a dream. They pictured uncharted territories, land of their own, and the freedom to create a life they loved. They knew the risks, but the promise of the reward was greater. Even though they had to leave behind everything that was safe and familiar, still they struck out on the strength of the dream.

So what happened to us? Somewhere along our own Oregon Trail, we started believing the lie that the dream is dead; that it no longer works for people like us. We scroll through our social media feeds and see that everybody else has already arrived at a destination we never even thought to aspire to. We think, what’s the point? Or we hit our own Rocky Mountains and the thought of dragging ourselves up and over that obstacle just doesn’t even seem worth the effort. What’s on the other side anyway?

I have these conversations with myself all the time. I see situations in my own life that I pray about but don’t see any change taking place. I feel left behind, passed over, and pushed aside by a world that measures success in dollars and likes. Dreams feel like such a long shot, and I wonder if I will ever see the fulfillment of promises I was sure God gave me years ago.

Thursday Table

But recently, God began to birth a dream in my heart and mind to begin building the community I so longed for but hadn’t found on a Sunday morning at church. I envisioned women gathering around the table, sharing food, and conversation. Groups that include both men and women can work too, but I felt strongly that God wanted this to be a setting where women felt free to tell their stories and share more deeply than they might in mixed company. At first I hesitated, dreading the rejection I was sure would come. One friend agreed to be on board though, so I bravely soldiered on, sending out text invitations to seven women I thought might be interested. Exactly one was able to come, and although many expressed interest, the voice in my head said, “See. Told you no one else needs friends. Just you.” 

God kept nudging me to be obedient, so after a few months I sent out invitations again, and this time five women came! I made a breakfast casserole, set out supplies for coffee and tea, and lit some candles for ambience. We sat around the table with no agenda, just getting to know each other and laying a foundation of friendship. The second week, a few more women joined the group. Fast forward a few months and we now have a group text that includes 17 women from four different churches, even though usually 10-12 attend any given week. We have graduated from small talk to taking turns sharing our stories. There are tears and laughter as we learn things about each other we would never have known from a casual hello at church.

Bringing it Home

I chose this story to share first because I want to give you permission to dream; to picture friends around your table doing life together; to picture walking into church and getting a hug from a woman who used to be a stranger but, after sitting at your table, is now a friend. Jesus said, “By this, everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another,” (John 13:35, NIV). You guys, the world needs us to love each other. That will be the thing that sets us apart and shows Jesus to everyone around us. In a time when our culture is known for spewing hate, let’s build a new culture of love in the church by bringing it home and gathering around the table!

Ladies, pack up the wagons, pick up your walking sticks, and prepare for adventure! God is calling his new generation of pioneers to break a new trail; to birth a new movement of radical friendship and community. For too long we have sat isolated in our homes and churches waiting for an invitation. We have grieved our loneliness, believing life would always be this way.  We read about the first Christians in the book of Acts, breaking bread and eating together in their homes and dismissed it as a cultural thing.

But what if it’s more than that? What if God created us to do this thing called life together? What if the very core of who we are is designed for community, and this discomfort we feel in being alone is really a hunger we were meant to fill? What if God wants to use us to feed others with the gift of our friendship?

My Journey on the Oregon Trail

This journey is one God has had me on for over 25 years. Ever since he called my family to literally travel the modern-day Oregon Trail from Pennsylvania to our farm in the Willamette Valley of Oregon I have been wrestling with this concept of community and hospitality. By nature I am a people person. I love nothing better than a phone call or text from a friend inviting me to lunch. I am a socializer and a herd animal. Being part of a group is my safety net and is where I bloom. When we arrived in Oregon, I was desperate to rebuild the community I had left behind.

However, many times this desire for community was met with feelings of pain and rejection. I expected to find my people in church because we call ourselves a church family, right? If I’m honest, though, church wasn’t always the most welcoming place, and even if we were welcomed on Sunday morning, it usually didn’t lead to connecting outside of church. There were times I was tempted to give up on church entirely because I hated feeling alone in a crowd, but God kept patiently watering the seed of community He had planted in my heart that I had carried with me on the trail.

Enter 2020, a worldwide pandemic, and the forced isolation that went with it. I believe God used that to open my eyes, to sharpen my vision of what church was supposed to be. We had our sermons, our weekly “feedings” livestreamed into our living rooms, but worshipping from the couch got old fast. I realized that what was missing was the whole point of church: gathering with our people to worship as one body. But we couldn’t do that, even when the doors opened back up, if we didn’t know each other.

The Call to Action

That’s when God began speaking to me in my quiet times about pioneering; about stepping out and doing a new thing. He began to fine-tune this passion that was building over the years for hospitality and bringing people together to build friendships. I’m so excited to share with you in this blog stories of how women are making community happen in a multitude of scenarios and how God is using even the hardest moments in our lives to bring us together. Being the church is so much more than what happens on Sunday morning. A successful Sunday is birthed out of multiple small connections during the week on the trail with our friends. 

I would love to hear your stories of how God is using women doing life together in the trenches during the week to build the church, taking you from acquaintances to friends to sisters. The Bible says encourage each other and spur one another on to good deeds, so let’s do it! Let’s be inspired together to link arms and blaze a new trail!