The Place Where You Suffer

So there’s this song that has been hitting my soul a lot over the past 24 hours. I’ve had this woman’s music on my iTunes for well over 2 weeks now, and have listened to this song before, yet never heard the true meaning of it until I looked up the lyrics. I have always been one to appreciate music, and even more so the lyrics to those specific tunes. This song really doesn’t come off as one that “sounds” all that exciting, but when you take in the words and listen to the real message, it is beautiful, breathtaking, and gut-wrenching all at once.

For the last few days, the theme in my life has been on relationships. I have been struggling with how I am not only content with my life as a single woman, but truly loving and embracing it at the moment. Having said that, it seems to be easy for non-single people to call out that maybe I need to focus on finding a husband. Hmmm, maybe if I were interested in finding one right now, I would be okay with that statement. BUT, I have no desire to be in a romantic relationship right now. I love the ways God reveals Himself to me in my singleness, and I know that, for me, my relationship with Christ will continue to blossom much more if I don’t add a man to the equation. I’m not saying I never will get married, but I am saying that in this season, it’s really not even on my radar. I just wish it would get off of some other peoples’ radar, too. 

Anyway, because of much of these kinds of conversations coming up in my life,when I heard this song, "Come Close Now", by Christa Wells, I couldn't help but play it over and over and over again because it spoke such truth to me.

“I’m afraid of the space where you suffer

Where you sit in the smoke and the burn
I can’t handle the choke or the danger
Of my own foolish, inadequate words
I’ll be right outside if you need me.”

How often are we afraid of the pain someone else is going through? How often do we think “Man, I’m not going to be able to say anything or do anything that is going to help them, and I sure don’t want to make it harder for them. I think it’s best if I just stay away. I’ll make sure to pray for them, though.”?

Friends, prayer is a GREAT tool. It is how we can interact with God whenever we want and however we want. It’s what He constantly wants us to do because He always wants to be chatting with us. In this scenario, though, when we have people in our lives who we know, but don’t really ever get close to, what does that honestly say about our lives? Even more so, what does it say about our walks with Jesus Christ if ALL we're doing is praying for them? So many times in scripture, He was known to be doing life with people. He hung out with sinners. He spent time with His disciples. He showed He cared by more than saying, “I’ll make sure I talk to my Father about that”, and then just walking away. He sat with them. He ate with them. He listened to their stories.

In today’s world, He would have done more than just send them a sweet message via facebook or twitter or some other social media. He would seek them out. He would let them know He wanted to spend real, actual time with them.

This song’s main focus talks about people going through “fires”, which I will post more on that later. If we think about others’ trials, or just daily living, as fires, it makes it scarier. It makes it more real. It makes it even harder to approach them. Yet, here’s God saying, “Go after them. Go love them. Go sit and talk with them. Or even better, go sit and be silent with them.”

“I’m afraid of the place where you suffer, where you sit in the smoke and the danger” 

We’re afraid to enter in to that place with them. Why? I think the next lines help sum that up.

 “I can’t handle the choke or the danger. Of my own foolish, inadequate words. I’ll be right outside if you need me.”

It’s okay to admit that we don’t have the words to make life easier for a friend. Really, we don’t have those healing words that make the pain go away. We don’t have the power to erase pain. Christ does. And HE calls us to love people where they are by being there. By showing interest in them. By going the extra mile to make ourselves available to them. That last line of that verse above is what I keep settling on. Yeah, I don’t have the right words. However, I CAN come sit with you. I CAN make myself available. I CAN let you know by my actions that I really am here. We can all do that. These lyrics sound as if this person went to their friend’s house and, even though their friend is in pain, is saying, “I’m going to be right here for you, if you want to talk or if you just want me to come and sit with you.”

I want to embrace relationships. I want to embrace the opportunities I’m given to love those around me simply with my presence. Most of the time, those hurting friends of ours don’t want words, because they already know we will fail them with those words. What they want is us to be there. To love them. To not give up on them even if they give up on themselves.

Let’s go in and be part of that place where suffering occurs. Let’s go sit right outside and let others know that we’re here for them.

Best Day Ever? Yes!

I must say, life since my last blog has been full of little surprises, some welcomed, some not so much. For starters, a few days after I last wrote, I got a wonderful surprise on my doorstep! It came in the form of my good friend, Rob, who I was fully expecting to have to go get him at the bus stop. However, he made the trip straight to my school and 2 hours before I was going to leave to pick him up, he's right in front of me in the flesh!!! It's a super weird/awesome feeling to have someone here in this country who already knows all about my life before ending up here. It's like all the work and stress of having to explain yourself to the people around you just goes away. What was even better was getting to show him around town, introduce him to all my favorite foods that he'll never get to experience in the States. I think the coolest part is that neither one of us really tried to meet up here. He was doing some mission work in Guatemala and was going to be in Honduras for part of it. You can read his blog about his time there here: http://crobarnett.wordpress.com/2014/02/12/zions-gate/ . I just mentioned he should come visit since he wouldn't be so far away. God works things out in really incredible, incomprehensible ways sometimes. I mean, we went hiking one day while he was here and as we were looking out at the absolutely breathtaking view of the mountains that are almost anywhere you go in Honduras, we just couldn't believe that we were experiencing that moment together! Rob and I used to be on the worship team at our campus ministry, Christian Student Fellowship, together. If you would have told us 3 years ago that we'd be hanging out at my home in Honduras now, clearly we would have thought that was crazy. Yet, there we were.

     Not only that, but Rob got to meet my kids, and we got to have some good, deep conversations about where our hearts are at with where we both feel like God is calling us to next. Like he told all of my students, it's actually exciting to not know what's next in our lives, but to just blindly follow Him and keep constant communion with Him. It was so good to have him here and see life from his perspective. So thankful to have that time with him, and excited to see how our paths may cross again in the future!

Since returning back to school, I've seen absolutely no improvement in the classroom some days, and then other days I am filled with so much hope because it actually went WELL. Today, I just need to share that I had my "BEST. DAY. EVERRRR!" (Quoting from Tangled, of course!) I'm not saying it was perfect, or even great. However, looking at it as a whole, I didn't have a single class where I thought, "ugh, this is never going to get any better". My students have started getting used to this new behavior chart we introduced in high school, mainly for my benefit because we need a better way of disciplining them. To my great surprise, it's working!!! That doesn't mean it'll work every day, but for the days it does, I am so thankful.

I had my 9th grade students do a comparison of old English (aka New King James) and new, modern English (aka The Message) while looking at 1 Corinthians 13. Many of them made the comment, "we never get in the Bible." Sadly, that's all too true, and a fact I really want to change. As we read through what all the things love looks like, I saw them genuinely responding. I asked them if anything stuck out to them, maybe something they felt like they could work on more, or something that encouraged them or they just enjoyed reading. I gave them 10 minutes in class to write a response, and one of my more "in-tune" students said, "why don't we replace the word love with our name?" So, I had them read the verses to themselves again and put their own name in place of 'love'. As I watched them read it again, I saw them take it seriously, and as they wrote their answers, the bell was getting ready to ring and they all still had so much more to say. They not only like being in the Word, but they crave it. Just like we all should. I let them take it home with them so they could take more time to think up real, genuine answers. I am really excited to see where this goes, and even more excited an encouraged to do this kind of thing with them more often! I've made it too easy to just let those lessons go undone because we have so much else to do, but the reality is, some of these kids may never go deeper in their relationships with Christ unless their teachers (at their Christian school) not only gives them the opportunity, but puts it in the lesson plan.

Here's to an exciting, Christ-filled rest of the school year! I can't wait to report back again with even more ways the Lord gives me to reach these students with His truth!

See, if we really have Christ inside of us, then we have love, because that's what He is. God is love. In light of that, our lives should mimic this. I've still got a long way to go, but it's never a bad idea to evaluate where we're at and just what exactly we're doing for the Kingdom. Just in case you're interested in reading those same verses and replacing YOUR name with the word 'love, here you go:

Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.
Love doesn’t strut,
Love doesn’t have a swelled head,
Love doesn’t force itself on others,
Love isn’t always “me first,”
Love doesn’t fly off the handle,
Love doesn’t keep score of the sins of others,
Love doesn’t revel when others grovel,
Love takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Love puts up with anything,
Love trusts God always,
Love always looks for the best,
Love never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.

A Work In Progress

This week has been a new realization for me. Well, maybe not new, but definitely a difficult pill to swallow either way. You see, I’m discovering how bad I am at problem solving, especially right on the spot, which is really the only time I ever need to problem solve, anyway. I’ve had a rough few days of just total disrespect and kids not caring in one of my classes. It is super frustrating. We literally had one class where we didn’t get anything done because I kept waiting for them to be quiet. That time never came, though. The only thing that did was the bell. As much as I should have cared, I really just couldn’t wait to get out of there. Then, yesterday, the same thing started to happen However, this time, one of my students who really does want to learn practically begged me to continue even a midst the chaos that was my classroom at that moment. In my head, I was freaking out because I literally had no idea how to still teach the one of two kids who still wanted to learn and let it still be effective when the rest of the class was acting like complete idiots. I hate wasting time, especially when it is my own. I feel like when I talk and nobody is listening, I am making the biggest possible waste of my time. The ironic thing is that even if I only have ONE kid willing to listen anymore, it’s still enough. I became a teacher because I wanted to make a difference. Maybe right now my only chance to make a difference in this particular class is to only teach to the one who wants it. That’s hard to accept, but I should really be counting my blessings that I even HAVE one willing to still listen and learn!

Today, I had a double block with this same class, and man, by the time Friday hits, we are all just tired of one another. Go figure. Well, the same thing started to happen, only this time, I had two boys instead of one pushing me to keep teaching even though there was so much talking going on. I decided to only give the worksheet to the kids showing they were honestly invested in the activity. The other ones I told would receive a zero if they chose to act that way all class. Miraculously, they started to figure it out and every kid earned a worksheet to fill out. Now, I am a firm believer that your behavior should affect your grade, because grades area big motivator. I had that whole class quiet and attentive and ready to hear what I was presenting them with. Wow! It was a beautiful ripple effect where they saw their actions had direct consequences, but they could also choose to change their behavior and earn their chance back.

We did another activity afterwards, where they also needed a worksheet from me, and again, I only gave the paper to the kids showing honest attention. Even then, I had 4 more kids who earned a worksheet from the very beginning than I did with the first thing we did. Again, they figured out that I was serious, but they also understood that I wanted them to be involved, but they had to earn it at this point.

Who knows if this will ever work again for me, but I cannot tell you how thankful I am that it worked today. Yes, today was a good day! It’s exciting to say that, mostly because every single day, someone asks me how it went and I always say, “Not great, but it could have been worse.” Today, I was genuinely able to say that every class of mine was good. Again, not great, but shoot, I’ll take what I can get. J

The day ended on an even better note because we had another girls’ night for our high school ladies. I love hanging out with them outside of class time. It’s like getting this beautiful glimpse into what they will be like when they really grow up. However, at the same time, I get to see their childish, romantic side when we watch the movie, Frozen, and the girls all “ooh” and “ah” at seemingly cheesy scenes. I can’t talk, though, because it happens to be my favorite movie. It’s just great to see sides of them I could never see when I’m just Miss Brenna.

Although I feel it’s harder being back here now than it was for the first part of the year, I still feel incredibly blessed to be here with these people, both big and small, and get to do life with them. I have a long way to go before I feel like I’m really helping them along in a significant way as far as their academic career goes, but I know God has given me a gift to share with them. It may just not be found inside the classroom so much as outside of it.

Still finding my way, but either way, it’s a beautiful journey.

Until next time….