A Letter to You

Class prompt: Spend one hour right now responding to a letter you received from a friend who is struggling with the Christian faith. For the next hour, I cried, I prayed, I scribbled, and I erased. Ultimately, I didn't write this; God did. I am the pen; He is the writer. I tried to edit the grammar mistakes without recrafting sentences I don't like.
Feel free to put your name in when it says, "Friend."
In Christ,
<>< Katie

Dear Friend,
It saddens me to hear about your struggles regarding faith. First of all, I would like you to understand that I am praying for you as you go through this challenging time.

God adores you, Friend. Psalm 139 talks about how He knit you together before you were born. He's chosen you to be His creation, formed to be exactly who He wants you to be. Here's the kicker: He's not done yet. He's still working on you because you're a work in progress. He hasn't given up on you, so I'd encourage you not to give up on Him.

In your letter you talked about how to know God is real. You're right, it's hard when you can't run in to Him at Wal-mart. Not in a physical way, at least. However, just because you can't see and touch Him doesn't mean He isn't there. Personally, I find that to be the cool part: He's always there, even when I can't hear and feel Him. Sometimes He likes to be silent. I like to imagine He's watching and observing and just enjoying being with you. He's not gone. He hasn't moved at all, actually.

You mentioned one of the hardest parts about God is the whole prayer thing. You're right, sometimes it is like you're talking to wall. You talk and pray and pour over your words unsure what to say. Don't give up before you say anything at all. It's just like talking. Nothing special. No fancy words needed. In fact, you can completely eliminate all of the "thees," "thous," and "shalls," if you want. I mean, if you really love those kinds of words go ahead and keep going with them. My suggestion is a simple prayer Bob Lenz taught us back in 2004. Remember? "God, help. Amen." Simple. Yet profound. I also love the Lord's Prayer and it can be found in Matthew 6.

On Friday I was reminded of something cool. Christianity is potentially the only religion that offers forgiveness. Sure, you messed up. So have I. God knows our mess-ups. That's terrifying, right? I know. But it's also cool. Cool because He knows everything we've done but He still loves us. He's still forgiven us, still accepted us, still died for us. That's the beauty of grace and mercy. Mercy is God not giving us what we deserve (death because we've messed up). Grace is God giving us what we don't deserve (life, namely eternal life). My friend Ron explained it to me once like this: say you're outside playing and you get all muddy before running through the house and making a huge mess. Mercy is your mom not getting mad and punishing you. Grace is when she hands you a plate of cookies even though you made a big mess. She still loves you. God loves you through your skrew-ups and your questions.

Questions are good, my friend. Questions help us know people are thinking. Never be afraid to ask questions. The challenge is that sometimes we ask questions and don't get answers we want or worse don't get any answers at all.

Silence stings.

I've been there. Sitting in the silence waiting, wondering. However, I am learning to enjoy the silence. Learning to realize I don't need answers to all of my questions. If I knew everything about God then there would no longer be the need for faith. "Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see" (Hebrews 11:1). We all memorized that verse in confirmation class way back in the day.

Back when we studied baptism, communion, the ten commandments, confirmation, etc. All of the things that you find challenging now. I suppose 8th grade as a long time ago. Have you been asking unanswered questions since then?

I will confess, I have. They're not all unanswered, of course, but a lot of them are still unanswered. Especially the "why" questions I don't anticipate those answers on this side of heaven. In fact, many of them I've written down and set aside as if to say, "I'm not dwelling on this anymore."

I've got to head to class and I want to get this in the mail before the post office closes. Can we get together to chat in person? I've love to hear more of your thoughts, questions, and uncertainties.

Until then, realize God loves you so much that He sent His Son to die for you. Have you ever had anyone die for you? What about Someone who died for you but didn't stay dead? Someone who knows your anxious thoughts and desires to soothe your fears? Someone who cares a lot about you.

Have you ever watched an engaged father play with his young child? Whether they play baseball or ride bikes or paint the house or just plain be together. The joy you see between the two of them sharing life together. That's the joy God wants in sharing life with you.

He loves you, Friend. With an immeasurable love that is beyond what we can fathom.

In the words of Max Lucado, "God thinks you're great."

And I do, too.

Love,
Katie

Forgiven

Last night, seventeen of us went out to dinner. Of course, with a group that size you need four cars, and somehow I ended up in the Deep Theological Conversation Car. I should have guess that by noticing the four men in the jeep with me, but I didn't mind.

"Ok, what kind of cool thoughts has anyone had about God lately? Let's start there," Keith said nonchalantly.

For the next hour or so we discussed forgiveness. One of the many conclusions we finally drew was that forgiveness is more for the forgiving than the forgiven. Forgiveness also doesn't mean what the other person did was right. Forgiveness does not make the sin acceptable. Rather, forgiveness is admitting, "Yes, what you did was wrong, but I've decided to put in the the past and move on. I wish you well."

This conclusion became important at dinner. Trey tried to throw an empty sugar wrapper at Matthew and missed, hitting me in the face. Me getting hit in the face is actually incredibly common. I narrowly avoided being hit in the head with a bowling ball tonight. I'm actually kind f sad it didn't hit me because that may be the only sports ball that has never collided with my face at some point in my life. Sometimes I really wonder if there is a magnetic field connecting my nose to anything being thrown.

Through laughter and tears, I told Trey I forgave him. I wasn't saying hitting me in the face was ok, but I was willing to move past it and be friends with Trey again. I wish Trey well.


While I was home for break, our church service times changed and no one bothered to tell the college students. Of course, we all showed up this morning and realized there was 45 minutes before the service started. Emily figured Matt told us. Matt thought we were on the email list. Really, it came down to John who completely forgot to mention it to us.

"I'll forgive Emily and Matt; it wasn't their responsibility. But I won't forgive John," Amber said, kind of in jest. "Ok, I'll forgive him, but not until after I tease him for it."

One of the things we pondered last night: is it ok to tell someone you forgive them if they don't know they wronged you? We concluded: no, you're shoving it in their face. Your sole motive is to hurt them back. That's wrong.

John came over and apologized. We teased about it for awhile. And then expressed forgiveness. We admitted what John did (or didn't do) was wrong, but opted to move on and wish him well instead of holding a grudge against John. After all, what had it hurt us? We lost forty-five minutes of precious sleep but that's it. No real harm done. Yes, Kevin, no real harm done; it was only 45 minutes.

Find it within you to forgive someone today. That doesn't make what he/she did right. It makes you willing to move on and wish that person well.

<>< Katie

Amazing Love

Six consecutive days and the daily blogging has come to an end. I'm terribly sorry, but I was only home for a grand total of nine hours yesterday (8.5 of them being before 8:30 in the morning). It's ok; it was a fun day!

There's a worship song entitled "Amazing Love" that almost everyone has sung at some point in time. I grew up singing it and don't even know who wrote it. Part of the song goes, "I'm forgiven because You were forsaken. I'm accepted, You were condemned. I'm alive and well, Your spirit is within me because You died and rose again."

I'm forgiven. Check. You were forsaken. Check. I'm accepted. Uncheck.

It's a great song, and I hear it all the time, but sometimes I feel bad singing it. Sometimes I feel like I'm lying to God. Those words, "I am accepted" don't roll off this tongue very well. I always hesitate because there are many days when I don't feel accepted. Many days when I'm picked on, laughed at, and rejected. Singing "I'm accepted" seems untrue.

The next line always catches me, "You were condemned." Maybe I'm not every one's favorite person (Maybe that's for good reason), but I have no been condemned. I haven't had my life threatened. I haven't been forced to die on a wooden cross. Maybe I'm not accepted, but I'm definitely not condemned. Thank God for that. :-D Instead, "I'm alive and well". How so? "Your spirit is within me." Why? "You died and rose again."

"I'm forgiven
because You were forsaken.
I'm accepted.
You were condemned.
I'm alive and well
Your spirit lives with me
Because You died and rose again.

"Amazing love, how can it be?
That You, my King, should die for me?
Amazing love, I know it's true,
and it's my joy to honor You in all I do.
In all I do, I'll honor You.
You are my King.
Jesus, You are my King."

Accepted or Rejected by men, accepted by Him. He is my King.

In Christ,
<>< Katie

"Whenever you are arrested and brought to trial, do not worry beforehand about what to say. Just say whatever is given you at the time, for it is not you speaking, but the Holy Spirit." Mark 13:11

Show them Christ

My sister's an expensive kid. She always has been. (No, I'm serious. She was born nine hours too late for a major tax break). This week ranks right up there as her most expensive weeks. Her iPod died this weekend, and her cell phone and camera were brutally murdered yesterday. It's only Tuesday! She's been waiting for two years to get a cell phone, gets it, and two weeks later it's killed when she's pushed into a pool with it in her pocket. There were some choice words thrown around yesterday regarding the kid who pushed her in. My non-confrontational mother even called the parents and informed them of the situation.

Today, the kid's last name appeared on our caller ID followed by "Christ." Apparently one of the parents' names is "Christopher" or "Christine" or something, but the caller ID cut off the latter half. Instead, it read "LASTNAME, Christ."

We are Christians. We need to show Christ's love to this kid even though the choices made were not good and the repercussions are less than desirable. We need to forgive this kid for pushing my sister into the pool and for ruining her stuff. This isn't the first time we've had issues with this kid, and we need to express forgiveness 70 times 7 times.

Oh, if only forgiving were easy...

In Christ,
<>< Katie

"Forgive, and you will be forgiven." Luke 6:37b