Either / Or's

I think people severely misunderstand who I am. 

A while back a friend was talking about my life in the house w/ at-risk teenage girls, then asked me, "So what exactly do you do in your free time?"  Taken back, I retorted, "What exactly do you do in your free time?" - i.e., unless you're going to strip clubs or snorting coke, I probably like to do much of the same things you like to do in your free time.  Just to clarify: I like going to concerts (all kinds), sports events (all kinds), movies (all kinds); theme parks, theater, restaurants, coffee shops, camping, hiking, beaching, boating, jet-skiing, traveling, reading books, writing, singing, listening to music, driving fast and getting away with it, laughing, talking, shopping, just hanging out... 

Yeah, I love working with hurting teens.  I love going as often as possible to love on children in Africa.  I love talking about Jesus, and helping other people find out the truth about who He is.  But, I also like going to a sports bar and watching football games.  I like going to shoot guns that don't belong to me at a firing range.  I like doing all kinds of new things and old things, exciting things and ordinary things; I like being with people I've known forever and people I am just getting to know for the first time.  Surprise!... I like to do all kinds of things with all kinds of people, and they're not all church-related.

This turned into an extended conversation about how (as I was told) people get a certain impression of me because I talk or sing in front of church sometimes, I occasionally lead a small group, and (oddest of all) I live with a house full of girls going through the process of recovery.  At one point in this conversation, I finally responded by saying: "Yes, I am spending my life on something profound, meaningful and redemptive, because I want to and I love it - but that doesn't mean I'm not a person with the same longings or desires as any other person.  Hellooo...I'm not a nun!" 

Fast forward to tonight, when a totally cool couple told me, "We were talking about you, and we decided you are the only person we know personally that we would call a modern-day saint or nun."  Uhhhh... Really guys, I'm trying to shed that whole "nun" image, but I don't know how to help you all with this.  They actually meant it as a compliment, and I sincerely appreciated their kind words, but I have to be honest - there is a part of me that cringes when people say things like this:

It's the part of me that wonders - God, is this really what You're asking of me?

I'm pretty sure it's not (fingers crossed).  I really do not think God is asking me to be a nun.  I absolutely do NOT think I have the "gift" of singleness (Please God, no!).  And I know better than anyone that I am the furthest thing from a "saint."  But for whatever reason, no matter how hard I try to show people that yes, I am normal - there always seems to be some kind of disconnect.  Those who get to know me well enough know that I am just a person; that I'm just a girl who loves Jesus and loves people in her own unique way, and I still live and enjoy life to the fullest. (Unfortunately, I can also still be a total jerk, inappropriate, rude and hurtful). 

But apparently there are also those who don't understand that those people who spend their lives on the redemption story, they don't all have to be so 'elite.'  We probably don't have to consider them all "saints" or "nuns" or whatever else you want to call it.  Maybe...just maybe, they are right here among us - ordinary guys and girls, moms, dads, kids, teens, whatever... maybe those "saints" are not all people doing "extraordinary" things.  Maybe they are doing things that are ordinary - or maybe, things that should be ordinary.  Maybe it should be normal for each of us to be living out extraordinary obedience and love in our own unique, passionate ways. 

Maybe those people we put on pedestals are just normal people finding uinque ways to live in obedience to what God has asked of them - and maybe, just maybe - that doesn't have to be so rare. 

Maybe God is bigger than "Either / Or's."  Maybe He is fully capable of taking all the bits and pieces of our lives and fitting them together in ways we never saw coming.  Maybe we belittle Him when we start our sentences with "But..." 

But I don't know how this will all work, God.

But I don't have the money to make this happen.

But I can't do this and that...

But how...

"But Tara, you'll never meet 'someone' if you're living in a house full of teenage girls..." 

(Someone actually told me this.  Fyi: that was lame, "someone.")

The truth is, if it comes down to "Either / Or," then I choose Jesus every time.  I choose Him first, because I love Him first.  All else is bonus.  Is that easy?  No.  Does it come naturally?  No.  If God made me choose Him alone over every other desire of my heart, I would do so with tears of grief sneaking down my cheeks: but I would do it.  I would do it, not because I don't desire anything else, but because I desire Him most. 

But why should I restrain a creative God?  Why steal the brush from His hand?  Perhaps He is painting with colors unique.  Perhaps He is mixing a color, "my own."  Perhaps He is blending and mixing, creating not "Either / Or" but, "...and..."

Maybe God is creative.  Maybe He takes ridiculously different shapes and matches them together in perfect precision.  Maybe He enjoys the challenge. 

Maybe He's inviting us to enjoy it, too.