The World Needs Clones of Rebecca Ellen Jones

Yesterday was the last day of classes before Thanksgiving break, and like any day before break, I almost felt like every element of my day was telling me to simply skip my classes in order to soak in the surrounding joy and excitement of a looming holiday. Normally I do succumb to these pleasant little "whispers" and take the time to spend that extra hour or so with a friend or even just with myself. Amid it all, I am spending some legitimate time with God. See, it's days like yesterday that bring me perspective. Life looks better. Pursuits look purposeful. God seems bigger. Friends seem closer. Love is inevitable, and home is the perfect destination. Though not before I decided NOT to skip that Hebrew Bible class only to find out we had a paper due that I was *somehow* totally unaware of. Whoops. (It turned out alright. I rushed back to my apartment and churned out a decent paper in 30 minutes, turning it in right at the end of class. Probably not the best in show, but hey, it exists.) I did, however, wind up skipping my 3:30 class to take my friend Katie Titus to the train station, as she was en route home to Long Island at 3:20 or thereabouts. We had a lovely chat before her departure, and one question she asked in particular still stands out to me: "What are you looking forward to most about going home?" It didn't take me more than 2 seconds to say, "Rebecca." That is, Rebecca Jones my beloved 16-months-older sister. And I'm not gonna lie, my expectation to absolutely love being with her has yet to let me down. Even just sitting next to her right now as I am blogging and she's watching NCIS, I can't think of anything much more comforting to me than her mere presence. She's always been the calm to my crazy and added the punchlines to my jokes. Her essence complements mine so beautifully. Perhaps you're thinking: Well, yeah, you're sisters. But I don't think such a phenomenon can be reasoned so simplistically. This is the work of God. This is God knowing how much I have needed her in my life from the moment I was born. I spent the greater part of my childhood taking advantage of (I was good at taking advantage of stuff) her generosity and her love. It was probably during my latter formative years when I finally recognized how necessary it was to not only reap the benefits of these beautiful qualities of hers but to also let them penetrate my very being. I can with all honesty say that any amount of kindness one might attribute to my personality is only present because of how much I emulated it in my sister and wanted to follow her lead. My big sister, and my inevitable role model. No, she does not fit a stereotypical role model mold. She's never been in the cool crowd, and she doesn't stand out in a crowd. But she's the coolest person I know, and I would seek her first out of any crowd. I know I still take advantage of her sometimes, but I earnestly pray that my perspective can stay true, that my hugs will envelope her in the knowledge that I love her for all that she's ever been for me. My sister. My role model. My best friend. My listening ear. My encouragement. My calm. Thanks be to God for such an incredible gift that I received before my own conception. He really is so Good like that.

Psalm 111

¹Praise the LORD! I will give thanks to the LORD with my whole heart, in the company of the upright, in the congregation. ²Great are the works of the LORD, studied by all who delight in them. ³Full of splendor and majesty is his work, and his righteousness endures forever. ⁴He has caused his wondrous works to be remembered; the LORD is gracious and merciful. ⁵He provides food for those who fear him; he remembers his covenant forever. ⁶He has shown his people the power of his works, in giving them the inheritance of the nations. ⁷The works of his hands are faithful and just; all his precepts are trustworthy; ⁸they are established forever and ever, to be performed with faithfulness and uprightness. ⁹He sent redemption to his people; he has commanded his covenant forever. Holy and awesome is his name! ¹⁰The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom; all those who practice it have a good understanding. His praise endures forever! If you read my previous post, you may or may not be assuming that my father preached on this passage from Psalms today. Of course I couldn't just announce he was preaching and leave you hanging on the message. Please. Disclaimer: This is my interpretation of my dad's sermon. I didn't take any notes (a-cuz I don't do notes), so keep in mind that I really cannot do his words justice. I'll just start with my favorite dad joke from the sermon: "I haven't always been the social giant you see standing before you today." (my dad is a hermit) He opened with an anecdote about having taken a biology course back in the day during which he simply learned biology through a textbook without the aid of hands-on lessons, such as dissections. He compared this to a biology course he took later at college during which he got to dissect all kinds o' crazy stuffs. He absolutely loved being able to dig in and see and be part of the lesson he was learning. This is much like our appreciation of God's works. We have to wonder how much we're getting out of God's Word, and on an even broader spectrum, this world, unless we're actually cutting it open and pulling out the organs for closer examination. Dad also likened this to the improvements to speech made by a thesaurus. Remember in 5th grade when you'd write stories and everything was either "bad" or "good" (i.e. "The bad kid took the test and he did a bad job on it.")? The teacher would return the paper with suggestions to use words other than "bad" in order to enhance the story. Get a thesaurus, kid. Thesaurus is, quite literally in Latin, "treasure," which parallels the treasury that is the Bible in that the Bible enhances our story. Sounds corny when I write it, but I promise it was much more eloquent and poignant coming out of my father's mouth. My dad even went on to make a solid point for those of us who are students wondering, "Why am I even taking this pointless algebra test?" Because the knowledge required to pass that test is a part of God's magnificent creation. He made this world interesting and worth trying to understand. "Great are the works of the world, studied by all who delight in them (v.2)." Of course, there was more to the sermon, but I give you these snippets to say that this is what I know I need to work toward. It's easy to simply say, "Praise the Lord!" from the mouth. But really, it's just as easy to say, "I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart," because He reveals Himself in every facet of existence. I don't mean to bring up thankfulness just because it is a season of thanksgiving (though that's not a bad reason to do so). I bring it up because it's what I haven't had for the longest time. I've wallowed in my doubts, and I've been diving in the deep end of a depression pool. It's just about time to bring my head above it all and breathe in God. I know He's there. He's everywhere. "He has shown his people the power of his works," and "the works of his hands are faithful and just."

On a lighter note...

My daddy is preaching at my home church tomorrow. Yes, that dad - the one in the sombrero. This means I will be waking up early, departing from Fredericksburg at 7:30 with my dear friend Katie Matusik in tow, and arriving at Redeeming Grace Baptist Church by 9:30 to attend the Women's Sunday School class at my church led by my grandmother. I just thought now would be a great time to remind myself how blessed I am to have a family that loves me, friends who love me, and most of all, a God who loves me. And no, it's not hard to see how huge these blessings are. I just found an unexpected voicemail on my phone from a friend checking up on me and letting me know how much she loves me. Before that, I got invited by another friend to have a snuggle date tonight. I have a mother who will go to any end to try and bring joy back into my life. I have sisters who crack me up and miss me when we're apart. Despite my mind and despite the depressing blog posts, I have these things, and I know I don't deserve them. But I am so beyond thankful for all of it. And there's still this guy: This is the man I call when I really don't know what else to do with myself. He offers me perspective when I've lost it and answers when I need them and encouragement when I feel empty. Unfortunately, I can't remember the last time I've really thanked him for this, but I figure tomorrow morning is as good a time as any for that. Cuz my daddy's preaching tomorrow!!! :D

Alone

I don't like being alone. When spanking became an ineffective punishment for me when I was little, my mother simply started isolating me for long periods of time for punishment. It killed me. Whenever my sisters decided it was a great day for ignoring me and I was left to myself, it killed me. But then sometimes company doesn't do it for me either. And even sometimes company is too much. Sometimes I want it all but none of it at all. Sometimes I drive myself crazy, especially when I am alone. I don't like being alone. This is when my mind starts going full-force onto... well, everything. My relationships, my schoolwork, my laziness. Objects of focus become increasingly negative. I am not doing this right. How does that person really perceive how I treat them? I am such a jerk. I don't know how to defeat that. Should I defeat that? Oh, I should probably be concerned about where God is in my life. Is He there? God, are You there? Yeah, you are, but am I there? Probably not. I'm not sure how to fix that. Maybe I should read the Bible and pray -- the two answers to everything. Maybe I should stop thinking so much. I don't know how to do that either. I don't know. I don't know. But I want to. But I want to. I want it all. But I don't. Which really means I have no idea what I want. Which really explains a lot about me, myself, and I. I can't quite pinpoint problems. And so, I can't beautifully wrap resolutions to problems. Optimism takes a conceded effort. Hope is contrived. Love appears to be lost. Peace is in the other camp. Joy has deflated. Patience won't cut it. God, I don't know how to know that you're enough. And I'm not going to pretend like I do. I'm not going to throw vacant words of possibility in random directions in hopes that they're really coming from my core. Maybe this is depression talking. Maybe I shouldn't resign myself to this. But I really just don't know. And really. This is me.

An Adequate Title

I want to glorify myself. So. Bad. I'm trying to fit God into my picture, and what's worse is that I realize I am doing this. I really do. I'm taking a Hebrew Bible class this semester, and my professor's basic intent behind his teaching is to get us to look at the Hebrew Bible in a purely historical manner. This means we can't assume that the stories being told are true but are rather representations of the actual cultures from which they came or for which they are about. Basically, he boils it all down to the Hebrew Bible being a tool for faith -- a faith that was constructed by the Jews and is projected onto what we Christians now know of as the Old Testament. Yeah, I don't quite get it either. And I'm slowly coming to realize it really doesn't work. There was a time when I wanted to believe these things about the Bible. I thought it'd be fine to step back and say I simply can't know whether this Bible is factual or not, but that I can still have faith in God the way that these characters had faith. Is it necessary for me to say here that I was rather atrociously wrong? Turning the Bible into a bunch of moral fairy tales will not conjure the longing for God, and more specifically for Christ, that these self-affirming Scriptures demand that I have. My dad has loaned me a book called All Truth is God's Truth by Arthur F. Holmes. It's a bit too pedantic for my ignorant mind, but I've pulled a lot out of it as far as understanding how God's reasoning really can't be matched. "The relation between faith and reason should be understood accordingly as the relation of the whole person, with his most basic and inclusive commitment, to his intellectual activities. It is a whole-to-part relation, rather than part-to-part. Reason properly operates under the motivation of faith, with the purposefulness of faith, with the integrity of humility and teachableness of faith, and its path is illuminated by knowing what it is the person so heartily believes. 'By faith we understand that the world was created...' (Heb. 11:3) does not mean that faith is itself either a source of knowledge or a substitute for knowing, but that the whole person's faith in God includes an understanding that God is the creator and that this affords the starting point for further thought. Faith gives perspective to reason, but it has no royal road to learning that can bypass difficult questions and hard thinking. The Christian believer knows God to be the ultimate source of all truth. In principle, all truth is God's truth. But the working out of this principle in regard to all the arts and sciences as well as theology is a job that reason itself must do." There is no way for me to succeed in even trying to understand this amazing world without a greater desire for trying to understand God, who I am told I can never fully understand. But doesn't that make Him all the more worthwhile? "But when the archangel Michael, contending with the devil, was disputing about the body of Moses, he did not presume to pronounce a blasphemous judgment, but said, 'The Lord rebuke you.' (Jude v. 9)" Even the archangel Michael knew he couldn't speak out of his own reasoning and judgments. What he knows is what God reveals to him, and that is where he draws his reasoning... without plagiarism, at that. This pride in my own abilities and reasoning is continually tripping me up. The more I feel like I am not only recognizing it but also coming out of it, the more I see how so many facets of my existence are clinging to... me. I know that I have not been seeking a relationship with God. I really don't know when I ever have, and while that scares me, it also gives me hope. I can at least know that there is more -- that there is a God who truly loves me, not me going to church, not me putting on a happy face for my friends and family, not me attending BCM activities. All I know is the John 3:16 business. The business that says God loves me. Not only that, but God gave me the ability to love in a way specific to me. He wants me to love Him and love others in the ways by which he has given me the ability and even the desire to do so.

(Un)belief

"If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations -- 'Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch' (referring to things that all perish as they are used) -- according to human precepts and teachings? These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh. "If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory." -Colossians 2:20-3:4 It's funny how I allow myself to drown in questions and confusion when the revelations I seek have already been given to me in the Bible. Every time. Without fail. Mama Jo's been telling me not to discredit the Bible since it is so beautifully and perfectly compiled, lacking in nothing, abounding in truth. Some may call this closed-minded. Sometimes that's me, but I am continually knocked off my high horse only to realize God has been there all along. In the Scriptures. Where He says He is. It's almost like playing hide and seek and ignoring the loud rustling in the bush. "O foolish [Katie]! Who has bewitched you? ...Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?" -Galatians 3:1-3 What do I say to that? "Let me [request] only this:" "Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief! (Mark 9:24)" (And I'm also learning God is not confined in the Bible as well, btw. Perhaps more to come on that front.)

Hallowed Hollow

In Zach Braff's film Garden State, Natalie Portman's character accuses Zach's character of being "in it" when she sees his face contorted in such a way that would suggest he was in a deep contemplative state. A couple of weeks ago I laid on a friend's bed, lost in thought, and was brought back by my friend's words: "You're in it right now." And by right now, she meant for the last several days... weeks... months. Good grief, I've been in it like mad. Meaning I have not been here. I've been within myself, feeding into my own revolutionary thoughts. I would liken the situation to Rasputin in the animated version of Anastasia when his head pops down into his hollow body. That was me. Hollow. A Body. Head trapped. Within this hollow body, I decided to create new organs of doubt, despair, hopelessness, irritation, frustration, and hatred. (Sorry this is sounding so Pilgrim's Progress (dang, lots of references).) It was fun and exciting at first. You know, before the organs were completely created. Before they could actually function within my body. I got to forget about who I once called Creator. I was the creator. I thought I could dethrone God in my life by suggesting He wasn't who this or that guy said He was. Nobody could get it right. Not a single person could really define God. So, God became an obscurity. He simply became Truth. He was fuzzy and unattainable. He existed alright, but He didn't seem to have an agenda. Not in my life at least. And all the while, in the process of dethroning and trying to create anew, I spun around in circles. My materials were limited. I had to take that piece from this thing and put it over there instead. Oh no, that doesn't look right either. Let me put it over here on this thing. Dang, that's not right either. Oh well, I'll try again later. Try and try as I might, I finally hit that inevitable brick wall. I was tired of spinning in circles. My mind was mush. My head was full of the most sincere form of nothing. It was gross. Just plain gross. And so I fessed up. Not to God but to my parents. Here's a snippet: "Sometimes I just feel trapped. I am always convinced that there is Truth, and I never doubt that, but I often doubt any sort of ability to really understand what it is and how it applies to us. I like to stress the importance of the big picture, but that doesn't help me but so much in the here and now. The only times I get any peace about this are when I suppress these thoughts and go on with the normal Christian life pattern, which is what I did when I came back to school... but then I got frustrated with the pattern again. It's gross to see life as cyclical because that feels like entrapment." Both of my parents responded, but what left the biggest impression in me was something my dad suggested: "If I hear you right, you are saying that even if you believe that the Christian faith is true, what difference does it make? It is hard to transfer that belief into practice with a passion that makes life worth living. I would ask you to read Romans 12:1-5 carefully for I believe that Paul takes that problem head on. We cannot be spiritually inert, we are going to move in some direction at the prompting of our own hearts and desires. That is the beauty and power of the transformed mind in that God actively does for our minds and hearts what we cannot rise above ourselves to do." Following his suggestion, I opened my Bible to the familiar passage, Romans 12:1-5: "I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect." After some ridiculously feeble attempts at dabbling with power and control over my life, I really have nowhere to turn but to God. I've known this was coming all along, but I didn't want to go there. I still kinda don't want to because it's scary. Fear God? Yeah, I fear God. Why? Because I am coming out of an experience that has shown me an extent of God's power and supremacy that I never really could fathom before. And to think that even this is a limited view? Man. Get me out. But don't. Because I need it. I need God. I can't care whether I want it anymore. I am hollow. All I can create are distortions and lies. Just a little bit before Romans 12, Romans 11:33-36 reads: "Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! 'For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor? Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?' For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen." And that says it all. That says it all about God at least. What does it say about me? Romans 12 calls me to be a living sacrifice to God. This is my spiritual worship, Paul says. I am not supposed to dwell here in this world, in my hollow mind. I am supposed to let God dwell. God fills up the hollow, "for from him and through him and to him are all things." I am from God. I am through God. I am to God. That's where I belong. BRB. Repenting. "From Depths of Woe" Words by Martin Luther From depths of woe I raise to Thee The voice of lamentation; Lord, turn a gracious ear to me And hear my supplication; If Thou iniquities dost mark, Our secret sins and misdeeds dark, O who shall stand before Thee? To wash away the crimson stain, Grace, grace alone availeth; Our works, alas! are all in vain; In much the best life faileth: No man can glory in Thy sight, All must alike confess Thy might, And live alone by mercy. Therefore my trust is in the Lord, And not in mine own merit; On Him my soul shall rest, His Word Upholds my fainting spirit: His promised mercy is my fort, My comfort, and my sweet support; I wait for it with patience. What though I wait the livelong night, And till the dawn appeareth, My heart still trusteth in His might; It doubteth not nor feareth: Do thus, O ye of Israel's seed, Ye of the Spirit born indeed; And wait till God appeareth. Though great our sins and sore our woes, His grace much more aboundeth; His helping love no limit knows, Our utmost need it soundeth. Our Shepherd good and true is He, Who will at last His Israel free. From all their sin and sorrow.