Painting Pictures of Egypt

So there is this place that my mind goes back to when I’m beginning to panic and I’m trying to hold back tears. And a place I am reminded of in my sweetest moments. This place feels like bare feet stretched out in long grass, like the smell of a summer forest after a fierce rainstorm, like warm river water washing over my shoulders, like the feeling of complete and utter freedom in waking up from a night sleep under the full moon and stars. It is a place where I first discovered the communion that is possible when friends shed the masks and layers of youthful self consciousness until all that remains is the nakedness of words and the truth of our souls laid bare before one another by firelight. It is a place where I discovered that there are others who are willing to care about me unconditionally and be concerned enough with my soul to shepherd and mentor me and give of their life to me for God’s sake. It’s a place I learned not just to believe in myself- though that began to happen-, but to believe in God.

And it is a place I was given, though I didn’t deserve it, leadership and opportunity to give of myself and serve Jesus until there were days when I wasn’t even conscious of myself – just the community of believers and those we served. I was wood consumed in the fire, joyfully, having tasted that place never wanting to return to the world outside. The rhythm of the day could not be replicated elsewhere… I had formal times of prayer alone or with others no less than 12 times a day – taught 3 hours of Bible study and leadership classes, was taught and mentored for an hour, and found myself doing all matter of tasks in between from washing dishes and toilets to leading songs and telling stories, to writing curriculum and leading children to Christ. I saw miracle after miracle there. My muscles were strong and my skin dark from the sun.

I met people there unlike any I’ve ever found elsewhere. I found people like me. I found a place where I didn’t have to pretend, didn’t have to hide, didn’t have to try so hard to figure out the game that I forgot to laugh. I hold onto the remembrance of this place fiercely.

A few weeks ago I was in the car, praying and thinking as Jason drove and the kids slept and I had put on a new cd that a friend had given to me – Sara Groves Conversations. And I was just praying for Camp Cherith (the place I went to camp every summer for 8 years as a child, and spent 10 summers of my life as staff) that God might give me a chance to return there in some way, or find a way that I can help the ministry of the camp from where I am.

And this song comes on : Painting Pictures of Egypt. And being the first time I’d ever heard this song, the following lyrics struck me like a blow to the stomach:

And the places I long for the most
Are the places where I’ve been
They are calling out to me
Like a long lost friend

And the place I was wasn’t perfect
But I had found a way to live
And it wasn’t milk or honey
But then neither is this

I've been painting pictures of Egypt,
Leaving out what it lacks
The future feels so hard,
And I wanna go back!
But the places that used to fit me,
Cannot hold the things I've learned
Those roads were closed off to me
While my back was turned!

And it definetly struck me – I have been complaining to God and begging him to show me how to be fruitful where I am, because daily I am frustrated at feeling worthless, fruitless, living a life void of purpose which is the exact opposite of how I should be spending my days! But perhaps the reason I cannot be fruitful in any of the endeavors I have tried to pour myself into here – on the other side (post-Cherith) is because I haven’t let go. And I haven’t come to accept that there may be other things for me to do and to be now.

Maybe I have to accept that for a long while, it might look like nothing.

Five years ago, it was about this time that I was sitting in the auditorium of Willow Creek church, watching a gangly man with a charming voice prepare to address 5 thousand children’s ministry workers and explain in words we could understand what had lead to the downfall of Big Idea. I feel blessed to this day to have heard Phil Vischer speak. He told of his chase after a vision he thought he was supposed to have and how it ruined his life and the lives of hundreds around him, and that God pulled him from that wreak to show him that now, where he is in 5 years is not his business, it’s God’s. It is interesting in the Christian world today – especially in some ministry circles it is pretty cool to have a ‘vision’ to deal with strategic planning to have a growth plan and to treat God’s work that you just happen to be a part of as something you can actually control by reading enough books by John C. Maxwell. I was getting on that train myself. I had plans and a vision for myself in children’s ministry. I thought if I worked hard enough at it, read the right stuff I would actually begin to like it as much as I LOVED working at Cherith and I would have success and fruit and I had my plan as to how I was going to get ‘there’. Well, Phil up on that stage, who is as successful as any Christian these days could possibly get posed the question : For the first 100 years of his life, what did Noah do to prepare for his BIG JOB of building the ark? Huh. I don’t remember anything in my Sunday School memory of the first 100 years of Noah’s life. No mention of shipbuilding school, zoology degrees, internships with the great carpenters. All the Bible tells us is that for one hundred years Noah walked with God. That’s all. And he didn’t try and plan it, create a strategic plan to get himself there. It happened to him, because he was walking with God.

Phil Vischer – creator of Veggie Tales - now has a new company – Jellyfish Media. He chose the Jellyfish because it is unable to locomote – all it can do is go where the tides take it.

Reminding myself of this doesn’t stop the nostalgia for a place where I felt loved, and fruitful, and useful to God. A place where I was in constant community. But it seems I have a lot of praying to do about this. Now is not the right time in the life of my family to give myself over to a ministry, no matter how much I believe in it. Now is the time to simply walk with God. And it might mean I never get to go back there. Being in the wilderness for a while is okay, and won’t last as long if I am following God. And of course – at the other end is what?

Hope.

The promised land.

Whatever it looks like I must remind myself if where I have come from was so beautiful, My God will provide beauty in the now, and the what is to come too.