Choosing to Wait

 [Read another great article on the subject HERE]

The lovely Gothenburg, Sweden

So, at the moment I live part of the year with some friends of mine in Sweden, and part of the
year back home in Rural Minnesota, with trips and visits to various people and places in between (obviously, England owns a massive chunk of my heart-- we'll call that part my handsome Brit & university friends whom have become my family!). But generally, this means I swing like a pendulum from the extremely conservative heartland of America of my childhood, to what is considered one of the most liberal societies in the world.

To emphasize this tremendous cultural swing, in Sweden I live and work with Atheists. In fact, the percentage of people who genuinely know the saving grace of Jesus in this part of the world is reported by European Christian Mission to be something ridiculous like less than 5%.

It is the strangest thing to speak to educated people in the western world who have only a very vague, foggy idea of what the Bible has to say (if that!), let alone what God is about and what Jesus offers-- all while assuming they know it all already. I find my heart gets routinely beat up by the spiritual climate. But, in turn, I find this calls me to actively seek to protect my heart of faith and learning to offer its hope out to those around me keeps me thoughtful and teaches me the compassion of Christ unlike I've ever learned it before...

I'm thankful for things which prompt me to cling to Him.
In the holding on, I always discover I love Him more than I ever knew when I discover more and more of His love and grace for me.

Anyway, my Atheist friends are especially curious about my sex life (if it can be called that when I'm not having it!). This is a little awkward to write about. But I can honestly say it's a rare day that it doesn't come up in some way in our conversation, so I have learned to be very open and honest in hopes that something I share with them might make them think in such a way that leads them closer to a light bulb moment with God.

In Sweden (as in most of Europe, I reckon) waiting til you're married to have sex-- especially if you are in an on-going relationship with someone you love-- is literally unheard of... I must admit my naivete-- it shocked me to learn that even amongst Christians here, it is rather rare. I have realized now, 3 years in, that waiting for marriage is choosing a lonely path, and just to expect to walk it alone. I always expected it to be hard-- back home it is expected at least of Christians, but it is readily acknowledged to be hard!-- but I don't think I expected it to be so lonely. I literally fascinate my Atheist friends here, and they delight in telling their friends that they know someone who is waiting til she's married to have sex. Yeah. Like a freak. Thankfully, God has given me a good, good man who aspires to being a spiritual leader to me and our someday family and whom reminds me we are not alone in this when I start to feel like a total freak of nature...

The other night one of my Atheist friends was poking fun at me on the subject yet again (It's okay-- it's just that it's fascinating to them) when suddenly the air became serious and he asked something he never had before. Basically, "Why?"

And it felt so good to be able to explain.

My handsome man being all studmuffiny!

They seem to understand it as something my boyfriend and I are not doing because God tells us not to. And if we want to "be good" we have to wait. But to be honest, if that was what it was about, there is no way we would have made it this long. I, for one, know I am not "good" and so don't bother striving to be. And, I mean, come on! My man is way too sexy to keep my hands off for who knows how long just to "be good". Puh-lease. I'd rather be bad. haha. Seriously. He's so darn handsome...

But knowing my God's heart, knowing that He never ever acts outside of His measureless love for us, knowing that He designed us and knows how that design best works, I trust Him when He says this is the best way. For me, it's not about being good, but about being loved... and also, it's about being loving.

Charles and I have spoken from the beginning about wanting to love and serve one another well. We really believe that by delaying gratification in this way, we are serving one another by not using one another for our own momentary selfish gain-- even if we are as much in love as we are. One of my Atheist friends explained to me that she doesn't regret any of her sexual encounters because they gave her what she was needing at the time... I think it's that self-focused attitude that we are trying to avoid, really. In the long run, it is most loving of us to sacrifice what we want right now, or "what we're needing at the time", for the greater good of what we can have if we wait-- a deeper sense of commitment in our marriage, which then lends itself out to a deeper sense of stability for our children, etc. We feel that by choosing to be committed to one another in this way (by not sleeping with people whom we are not married to and namely, by not sleeping with each other before marriage), we are not just avoiding STI's and unplanned pregnancy, as is often the argument for abstinence, but we are strengthening our commitment to one another in our marriage someday (assuming we finally get married someday, but that's another post entirely!). It's tremendously hard character development to choose this long wait. It goes against everything in our strong biological urges-- to put one another and our Father God above ourselves in this way. But we believe that that character development will come out in our marriage and in how we treat one another in our marriage. And as hard as this wait can be, it's a brilliant 'team-building exercise' to be in it together :) We recognize that being in love won't always come so easily to us. But having worked hard at our characters through this and many ways, and fighting hard for the good of our relationship already now, lays a strong foundation for when the going gets tough and we need to be able to reach into ourselves and find character and integrity and commitment to see us through.

But all that said, what it comes down to in the long run, is choosing to trust our God when He says this is the best way, no matter how hard it feels in the meantime. Knowing the character of our God, we can trust that this long wait will reap benefits for us, in this life and in the next.

My Atheist friends say things like, "But you have to sleep with more than one person to learn what you like. What will you have to compare your experience to and learn from?" Um.... I don't mean to make fun of my friends, but-- what in the world? Surely the fact that they have to ask that question says something already about how their promiscuous lifestyles have stolen from their sex lives. My man and I greatly looking forward to discovering together this realm of making love to one another when the time is right, and we have no worries about being able to figure it out :) We will have the freedom to be totally vulnerable with one another as we learn together since we're starting on equal playing fields and we're coming toward one another out of a place of deep deep love for one another. Sounds kinda like the perfect sex life to me! 

"Married couples take time out to please their partners and satisfy them thoughtfully. Love and a concern for one's partner shifts the focus away from the self in a sexual relationship toward the other person" (from an article written about a 2004 study on Christian married sex).

Besides all this, my Atheist friends were amused to find that there had been studies done on the quality and quantity of sex in a Christian marriage.

...contrary to popular perception, married people have much more sex. It quotes a 2004 study of money, sex and happiness, based on 16,000 American adults, which finds that married people have more sex than those who are single, divorced, widowed or separated, and that sexual activity is linked with happiness. .... better sex is the result of love and commitment.

The Rev Canon Paul Hayes, mission and evangelism adviser for the Church of England, said: "Often people think Christians say no to the world, but actually the Christian faith is about making the most of what is given to us, and one of those things is sex. If you commit yourself to another person, along with all the other benefits is a good sex life."

To top it all off, after this conversation with my friends here, I spoke to my man about it all and we had a chance to stop and reflect again on why we're doing this thing this way-- which is always helpful. Sometimes-- to downplay it quite a great deal-- the wait can grow a little wearisome!

So... did anyone else out there wait, or are you currently waiting?
Did you have much company in the wait or were you a total freak in your circle?
What was a helpful encouragement to you in the wait?

"Do not arouse or awaken love until the time is right..."
--Song of Songs 8:4

*** I feel like I should have a disclaimer. I don't want to come across like, "Anyone who has sex before they're married is selfish and unloving!" Haha. Girl, if he was as much a heartthrob as my handsome man, I so understand!! :) I am just doing the best I can with what God's shown me, is all. And praying that He gives us the strength and resolve to keep on waiting. If you didn't, there is grace for you, just like there would be for us. You'll find, if you seek Him, that He is a master Redeemer. There's nothing we can do that He can't turn over for His glory and for our good. It's just a whole lot easier on us and on every life we touch with ours if we go after His best for us in the first place :) You are loved, loved, loved. May you know it and live it!

[I borrowed the quotes on the studies done on Married Sex from these articles:]
-http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/3252952/Get-married-for-more-and-better-sex-says-church.html
-http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2008/11/25/the-christian-sexual-awakening.html

Beauty on a Bus

“Excuse me?”

I swung my head around back toward the bus I’d just exited and took in the image of the man approaching me. He wasn’t the kind of gent I’d hope to meet on a dark alley. Baggy pants, over-sized winter coat, the hoodie underneath it worn up, keeping the dark skin of his face in shadows. Whatever it is you’d call a grown boy of the inner-city ghetto, he looked and sounded it as he sauntered up beside me.

“I wanted to tell you back in Chicago,” He spoke when I responded to his ‘excuse me’ with slowing my walk and turning to him, “You are beautiful. Very, very beautiful.”

Of anything that I might have been expecting to hear, that was not it. I smiled, a bit taken aback, and squeezed out a timid, “Thank you!” with a bit of a nervous laugh.

“Very beautiful,” he repeated. 

I braced myself for what would follow, thinking briefly how I would navigate the uncomfortable come-ons gracefully and politely. I knew for a fact that I looked anything but beautiful that day. I had rolled out of bed at 6am, tossed on some comfy clothes, threw my hair up in a messy bun, and neglected all forms of make-up in anticipation of the 8 hour bus ride I would be making from Chicago to Minneapolis. I had just woken up from napping in a crumpled ball in my restrictive bus seat. It was surely an empty compliment delivered in hopes that he might achieve something with it… 

But as we continued to walk towards the station where our bus stopped somewhere in the middle of Wisconsin, he said nothing more. I held the door open for him, feeling obliged, and he waved it off, stopping outside for a smoke instead. 

I didn’t see him again the rest of the bus journey. He seemingly wanted nothing more than just to tell me that he found me beautiful; no strings attached... 

And as the fact of his random kindness sunk in, I was puzzled and touched.

For the first time in perhaps 8 or 9 years, I was in the Chicago area for longer than an airport layover. I had had the last few relaxed and pampering days with my dear dear Auntie Melissa. We had existed in an on-going soul-giving conversation of depth and laughter and tears-- while cooking, while going on walks through the neighbourhood, while having facials, while doing yoga at the gym, while driving, while enjoying a glass of sweet white wine. I cannot quite explain the beauty of such friendships as this. A few nights before my long bus ride home, I had the delightful opportunity of facing one of my many fears and speaking to my Aunt Melissa’s 8^th grade youth group girls about the journey God has me on, and His faithfulness in my life. I had spoken to them about self-worth, about the lies we believe as young girls and the truth of how He assigns to us our worth; how our beauty is intrinsic. Speaking to those girls, remembering being in 8^th grade myself, looking back over the years of His plan for me unfolding, was a powerful reminder to me of what it means to belong to this God.

And as I walked back out to board the bus and finish my journey, I could only look up at him with a smile. His beauty covers me. There is no striving in this beauty, there is no manufacturing it. It is Him, giving His gift of grace, regardless of what I do. 

And suddenly I am reminded again to rest on this journey of life. I am reminded again to stand before Him with open hands, receiving all that He has planned-- what I'd considered difficult as well as what I would consider sweet-- knowing that He is inherently trustworthy (and "why should the heart not dance" in all of it?), and He is all I need. Realizing that this is what Grace is-- His offering me His trustworthiness through every season, through every circumstance!

Somehow, it’s His beauty and grace which invites me to trust again and again and again as I walk on in all the unknown...

Intrepid Explorers and Awakenings

Being the most non-typical Minnesota winter I have ever seen, it was nearly 50 degrees outside today. I found myself out in it pulling my two favourite little intrepid explorers all over kingdom come in a little red wagon. We wheeled around Grandma and Grandpa's yard, petting horse noses, moo-ing at cows in the pastures, and having conversations at a 2-year-old level about all that we were excitedly observing (Only as the daughter of a funeral director/cattle rancher can you find yourself trekking through a horse arena past farm machinery on your left and burial vaults on your right...)

My little explorers chattered together as they were happily pulled along down the driveway of my childhood home. The unlikely January weather made it feel like a day in early spring, not the dead of winter, and the earth smelled like a hundred memories of growing up here, making "forts" in the woods, playing house where I pretended to be a settler like Laura Ingalls Wilder, or a Native American princess like Pocahontas, or a lost orphan from England (I grew up constantly putting on an English accent when I played pretend-- go figure!).  We turned that old familiar bend in my parents' long driveway and the memory of the feeling of His presence on so many night prayer walks down this driveway throughout high school and summers home from college just struck me like deja vu. The memory of that hunger for Him, that desperate knowledge that nothing else would satisfy but Him, speaking to my heart out under the bright stars hung over my childhood home, singing praise songs to Him as I walked down that dark driveway...

The day gave me a Spring-time feeling; that time when all that has been lying dormant is beginning to awaken, to come back to life.

So many friends in my life have been confessing to me a similar experience of so many elements of faith in our walks with Him feeling like they've been lying dormant. And we have been asking one another to pray-- pray that they will start to feel alive to us again. That moment today, pulling my little men in that red wagon around that bend in the driveway, was like a little experience of awakening.


I know that walking with God is just that-- walking; it is an active journey. It is a series of seasons of life. It ebbs and flows. The weather changes with the seasons and He changes me with them, forever inviting me to trust Him, whether in the summery seasons of faith or the wintery ones. To keep walking that road, exploring its contours whether blanketed by snow, covered by leaves, smelling of fresh spring earth, or humid from the heat of the sun as we walk...  And wherever I plant a foot, His have already trod that ground.


I am struck by His mercy. For the way he deigns to walk so close, to lead if we ask, to quiet if we don't genuinely want to hear Him, and to speak up if we do. I just want to live a life which is set up to amplify the sound of His voice, and to have a heart which is poised to receive what He says, and to have feet ready to move on it whatever the earthly risk may seem.

Lord, I know that everything comes from you and there is nothing I can muster up on my own-- Oh, that you would give me a ready faith. And always always make me an intrepid explorer of Who You are, Lord Jesus, in whatever season (And draw my little nephews to seek Your heart above all else as they grow into men, too!)
Amen.

Made More Faithful in the Wait

I read a comment left on someone's blog earlier:

"Time to get back to the basics, coffee with cream and sugar; Church with the Word and less fufu." 

And it made me smile because as I slog through this lesson on where church goes wrong, and seek Him to restore my faith in what's right about it, that's pretty much the Church I find He's set me in with Brunnen church plant. We are being Church with the Word and less fufu. We have no building walls. Just homes, and cafes, and a disadvantaged part of the city we want to be a Christ's presence in. We have down-to-earth teaching from the bible, in Swedish and English, which feel more like conversations because we can look into one another's eyes gathered around someone's living room. And we have accountability with one another for living out our struggles and our joy throughout the week too. Nothing fancy, just real and down-to-earth. Tangibly His hands and feet to one another. And He couldn't have drawn it all together at a better time.

This week my DNA (accountability/prayer group) friend and I are reading the book of John. We've both done substantial biblical study in our degrees and liked the idea of just focusing in on Jesus in the gospels, like being reacquainted with the story of His life which we've heard all of our lives. It is heartening to look again and again and again at this God as man, to let the familiar stories of what His disciples witnessed with their own eyes just play before my imagination.

John 6:35 stood out to me today. Mostly because it is Jesus Himself saying in no uncertain terms that anyone who trusts in Him will never be spiritually hungry or thirsty again, and I tell you what, I feel so deeply dissatisfied right now that I can't think of much else beyond how hungry and thirsty I am. Instantly, my disillusioned side starts going, "Huh. Well... You're saying this one thing, and I'm feeling entirely another. That's rather disappointing, God." He told me to look it up in more depth later... So, here I am, 29 minutes past midnight, looking up John 6:35 in the original Greek and seeking God to encourage me with it.

In English, the verse says, "Jesus replied, 'I am the bread of life. No one who comes to me will ever be hungry again. Those who believe in me will never thirst'."

The original Greek for hunger and thirst are peinasē and dipsēsei respectively, and they both conjure up similar translations; 'to have hunger, to have thirst, to have need, to desire earnestly'. The Greek transliteration for 'Never' is ou. There are many translations for this, but my favourite was more of an explanation. Strong's said ou means basically, "ruling it out as fact." All pretty straightforward to what I read in my NLT bible without going in deeper.

But then the Greek for "who comes to me" and "believe in me"...

The phrase 'who come' is transliterated erchomenos, and can also be translated as 'brought to,' or 'accompany'. I like the idea of being brought to Jesus. Like the little children he welcomed when the disciples wanted to turn them away. Because the kingdom belongs to such as these (Matt 19:14). But the richest discovery for me was 'accompany'. I love the image of "accompanying" Jesus. Isn't that what walking with Him is? "No one who accompanies me will ever be hungry again." And isn't it in that daily interaction with Him, that daily keeping company with Him, that we are refreshed for the journey? If there is one word to describe the overriding feeling around this time in life for me right now it is: dissatisfied. I have such earnest and frustrated desires I can barely breathe with them. But must just keep waiting and see the season through... Sometimes so deeply dissatisfied and seemingly disappointed that I don't recognize the sun when it pokes through the clouds as Swedish winter descends. How is that 'never hungering or thirsting,' Lord?

But then the final word I looked up. 'Believe' in 'Those who believe in me....' The Greek transliteration is pisteuōn: 'To believe, have faith in, trust -- to entrust, especially one's spiritual well-being to Christ'. This is not earth-shattering but for the moment, for MY moment, it's kinda huge.

Working through a book about Spiritual Abuse as I walk this journey of Him restoring my soul, the chapter which has most stood out to me has been a rather simple re-teaching on the foundations of my salvation in Christ. On how Grace works. It's only in admitting our brokenness, our neediness, our sheer not-enoughness, truly realizing that we NEED His grace, that we can then realize truly what He means when He says He has done it. If we believe, pisteuōn, to have faith in, TRUST, "especially one's spiritual well-being to Christ", it is DONE. His grace has done it all. And if we believe Him, we can rest and know His love, and be anxious for nothing, strive for nothing, have no lingering fear of not being good enough, or fear that the grace will run out, a bit used up for every sinful act or attitude. He knew every single one before He paid the price for them. He knew how messy this life would get, and how discouragement would sometimes knock us right to the floor. He knew how even His church would be deceived and tainted-- made of humans after all-- and how it would hurt and deceive ones of His. But He still did all of the work of redemption that day on the Cross.

I am recognizing again how truly poor in spirit I am, and so how the Kingdom of Heaven has been unlocked for me (Matthew 5:3). And accompanying Jesus, I must keep TRUSTING Him with my poorness and my neediness, my aching dissatisfaction and unmet desires, and laying it out before Him as I accompany Him every day, every hour... And somehow, it's in being hungry and it's in being thirsty, that I am filled with His grace. With purpose. With hope. It's in being empty, that I am full. It's in being full of emptiness, that Grace works.

And I cannot express how thankful I am for the richness of this grace...

"When I can't feel You, I have learned to reach out just the same
When I can't hear You, I know you still hear every word I pray
And I want You more than I wanna live another day
And as I wait for You, maybe I'm made more faithful..."
--Brooke Fraser, 'Faithful'

Life-sustaining Water

My God is faithful. Frustratingly beyond working out, yes, but faithful. And I am so thankful.

I am forever blessed by the church plant He has me involved in here in Göteborg for this season in life. Missional, authentic, genuine. We've called it 'Brunnen' which in Swedish means, "The Well". The well in Bible days was the meeting place in a community, a place of fellowship. A well is also where one can find life-sustaining water. I think that as the body of Christ, doing church together should feel like life-sustaining water...

We meet bi-weekly for a church service which helps refresh the faith in me-- and I think this is what meeting together as the Church was always meant to do. And we also break into little accountability groups-- prayer groups, really-- once a week. We call this DNA-- Discipling, Nurturing, and Accountability. DNA with my girls (there are 3 of us) brings the broken bits in me back together. I find this kind of authentic sharing of lives and hearts is to me the tangible touch of God in this aching world.

And I am so thankful.

Sometimes His beauty catches me unaware. Tonight after sharing lives, hearts, a meal, and prayer with my awesome friend and one of the leaders of our precious church plant, I took a walk with God across the Göta Alv under the stars. The city line on the shore of the river coming in from the North Sea was glowing against the inky black sky. And as the bitingly cold wind rushed over me, I found rest there in His presence on the bridge-- cars, trams, and buses bustling by.

Tonight after I'd poured out my heart to my dear DNA friend, we prayed, and as we prayed the song playing was saying, "It's only temporary, it's only temporary." I keep calling this time of processing my grief over church gone wrong and the way I feel so damaged by it sometimes "a season." Only a season. It won't always feel this open and raw and ambiguous and heavy. It was as if God was just laying a hand on my shoulder and reassuring me in common words, "It's only temporary, love. Keep working at this. You'll see. You'll come out the other side."

And one simple evening, over one simple meal, with down-to-earth, "this is really what's inside my head" conversation, He graces me with renewed strength for the journey. It is Who He is. This gracious, this strong, this faithful.

And I stand on the bridge overlooking the murky waters to the shining shore in awe.
So thankful to belong to this faithful God.

I'm not only wishing you strength for your journey, friend; I'm telling you where to find it.

As the deer pants for streams of water,
   so my soul pants for you, my God.
 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
   When can I go and meet with God?
My tears have been my food
   day and night,
while people say to me all day long,
   “Where is your God?”
These things I remember
   as I pour out my soul:
how I used to go to the house of God
   under the protection of the Mighty One
with shouts of joy and praise
   among the festive throng.
Why, my soul, are you downcast?
   Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
   for I will yet praise him,
   my Savior and my God.
Psalm 42:1-5