Just Beginning

A few weeks ago, I sat in a room full of tools (actual tools, not the people kind) and had a heart-to-heart with an incredible woman who has become a sort of mother-in-faith to me.  As I've been preparing to leave my position with Teen Challenge, go jobless and head off to southern Africa, these talks have become increasingly precious to me.  When walking through a hefty period of transition, things can be both exciting and overwhelming.  All the while, this little spiritual powerhouse continues to breathe truth into my shaky soul every time we meet.  

Here she sits, 30-some-odd-years my senior.  We're sitting in this room full of tools and machinery through which she serves, doing the dirty jobs no one else wants to do day in and day out.  She works with her hands, but she lives from her heart.  She fixes a sink and mentors the girl living in that room while she tampers with pipes and drains.  She tells us when we are wrong and when we are right; she inspires us to turn our eyes upon Jesus in the mundane and in the magnificent.  She opens the Word of God to us humbly yet powerfully and we want to be more like her.  Then she says things like, "Oh no, I'm just the maintenance lady."  And I think, "Oh, you are so much more than 'just' the maintenance lady." 

I am full of gratitude for the women of faith and prayer that God has placed in my life.  As this friend and I talked that day, she ended our conversation by saying something I will never forget.  This woman who I so admire, who I pray I might have even a measure of her humility, faith and love, tells me:

"I think I am just beginning to find God's call in my life..."

Just beginning?  

Wait, you're like, 60-something, AND you've been serving God like a superhero for years now.  Just beginning?  

Yup...just beginning.

This is how it is with Him: beginnings...always new beginnings.  Beginnings that arise out of other beginnings, one creative move of God after another in a soul wholly surrendered to His love and His ways.  My dad used to say, "You will never come to the end of God."  I'm inspired tonight by the example of this mother-in-faith to me, who is living proof of this truth - you will never come to the end of God.  He is always working.

So this afternoon, I found my way back to a quiet room for some precious time alone with one of my favorite 60-something-year-old friends who is "just beginning" to find God's call in her life.  We talked about Jesus and how we love Him and desire Him; we talked about how He is drawing us nearer to His heart.  Once again she spoke truth and life into me; she challenged me and, in many ways, dared me to BE what I believe.  Then she prayed for me and we said, "Amen."  

And I walked away believing it too: "I am just beginning to know God's call in my life."  

Just Beginning,

Tara

His and Hers

I haven't written for about 6 weeks.  Somewhat intentional, somewhat unintentional, I've steered away from the public writing scene for a bit.  As I'm heading off to Africa next week, I'm certain there will be increased frequent writings and ramblings again, processing thoughts and experiences and sharing them with you.  But a while back, I sat down to write some things that were on my heart, and I felt the Lord whisper:

Tara, sometimes I want to talk to you just to talk to you, not so you can tweet about it. 

I reluctantly put my screen down, leaned back and thought for a moment.  

"I'm sorry," I whispered.  "Talk to me."

He's right.  In so many ways, I have allowed our conversations and experiences together to become material to share with others.  I know He's not asking me to never write or never share, but He's leaning up against me and nudging: 

Don't forget: I want you for you.  Not for the good you do or the significance you seek.  I like you, Tara.  And I want you for you.

So we've been quiet for a while.  Sometimes it's like that fire Jeremiah talked about - shut up in my bones.  Hard to contain.  I want to tell someone about it.  I want to get in long talks with a human being about the mysteries, beauties and complexities of this God I so love.  But sometimes I let those human beings take His place, and I end up talking way more about Him than I do to Him.  

I need to... I WANT to... talk to Him more.

I like singing in church.  I love leading worship anywhere, anytime.  But it is absolutely my favorite to sing when no one is listening but Jesus.  There are things that should get to be just His sometimes.  Things that we do because just HE will see us, just HE will hear us, just HE will know who we are and what we have done and how we have loved.

As I finish reading a Thomas Merton classic this week, I'm challenged by the idea of spiritual privacy. I champion the cause for authenticity and vulnerability in the Church (and society in general).  But in some ways, that leaning toward authenticity has moved me to think I should share pretty much anything and everything with everyone, all in the name of authenticity and vulnerability and joining in the grand conversation of the human race.  But maybe in that tension between authenticity and hypocrisy, there is a sweet value to be found in spiritual privacy - in allowing some things in our lives to belong to just Jesus:  

Things we say only to Him.  

Glances we give only to Him.  

Smiles that are "our smile."  

Thoughts and movements of our hearts and souls that we do not have to share with everyone else in order to be affirmed or applauded, but that we let just be... 

Just be His.

So today I am living in the "I am my Beloved's and He is mine."  I'm staying alert to those moments that clearly read: "His and Hers."  Sometimes I'll share them, and sometimes I won't.  I hope you will do the same.

Now... to be His.

*If you are wondering, yes, I realize the irony of writing a blog about spiritual privacy all the while sharing private spiritual moments :)