Hard Heart

Our Sunday school class discussion today pretty much preached the sermon that we heard afterward.
We've been looking at the most difficult book in the Bible: Romans 9. Election and free will. Sovereignty and personal responsibility. God's purposes, his holiness, his inconceivable mercy. It's rich, difficult stuff.

Today a lot of the discussion and preaching was about hardened hearts, being dead in sin and helpless, whether we harden our hearts or God hardens them. Whether we cry out to him from our position as the dead, or he lifts us out and resuscitates. Whether passing over a rebel is the same thing as causing that person to rebel in the first place. Whether one can really blame God for giving a rebel the desire of his heart--to resist his creator--while choosing out of mercy to give another rebel something BETTER than the desire of his hard heart, changing that desire to something outside himself.

It all reminded me of a poem I wrote years ago about my own conversion experience. Yes, I understand the hard heart. I understand what it is to WANT to be on a team other than the one God's leading. I understand also what it is to have my hard heart softened by something outside myself. It hurts and it's dangerous--having a softened heart. I'm pretty sure, yeah, I'm sure, I wouldn't have chosen it myself. It was given to me. And yet, I'm still thankful. Oh, so thankful.

I wasn't reading Romans when I wrote this poem. I was drawing from the Old Testment book of Ezekiel.
But scripture supports and interprets scripture, so it should come as no surprise that the two have some overlap in content and result.

Ezekiel Sonnet

Rebecca Cochrane

I build me up with purpose to defend

Against what stone my foot may fall upon

Or that which, hurled, may mark beyond the mend

My feeble self can manage on its own,

While in my midst itself is formed a stone

Where should be beating flesh and blood and bone.

My adamantine heart is ossified,

And I stand safe and strong within my pride—

Until the wind of word by breath finds chinks

And still small voice dissolves the citadel.

Exposed, unnerved, the rampart built so well—

Tumbled rubble, crusted ore—unlinks

And leaves me soft where once was bastion.

Pitted, peeled, I am inside out and all my armor gone.

Meeting My Younger Self at the Park

First one, and then a second, and then a third girl darted across the sidewalk, down the hill past the park bench, and into the playground. They ran exactly in order counter-consecutive to age. (Yes, I just made up that term. It means youngest to oldest.)

I was planning to go play with them, just taking my time a little bit on the way down. But as I passed her, she spoke to me. “Three girls, huh?”

She looked just a little bit like me, but taller, lighter hair (strawberry blonde), probably ten years younger. She was nursing a tiny but plump red-headed infant. She looked tired.

I looked back at the playground, and then at her. Something told me the kids would be OK if I didn’t join them on the slide this time. I sat down next to her. “Four, actually,” I said. “One is with a friend tonight.”

“FOUR? All girls?” (I get this a lot.) “Wow,” she said thoughtfully, slowly. And then it all came out. “Is it hard? I mean, motherhood? Is it hard to be a mom? I think it’s hard, is it?”

I didn’t hesitate too long, while I watched those three beautiful creatures laughing, leaping, owning that playground with pure delight. My heart almost breaks with love when I actually take the effort to see them. But is it hard, being a mom? I cast quickly back to just the events of the last 24 hours. Joy and sorrow mingled. Repercussions of choices impacting their lives. Very tough decisions ahead. Tears and also moments of sheer delight. I looked her directly in the eye.

“Yes,” I said. “Yes, it is hard. Don’t ever doubt it.”

She looked relieved even as she said, “I’m really scared. I don’t know what I’m doing.” The baby was three months old, and down near the sandpit, her three year old was playing near another toddler. “Nothing’s right. I say no all the time. I’m afraid I’m doing it all wrong.”

She switched the baby to the other breast, then whispered gently, “Oh, the sun’s in your eyes, isn’t it?” She moved the blanket. “Now are you going to go to sleep on me? Won’t you eat?” The baby’s arm fell outward, straight at the elbow, away from her body. Clearly the pose of that instant infant sleep fully set in already. I looked at the absolute security of that infant in her arms. Satisfied. Comforted. Safe.

“You’re not doing it wrong,” I said gently. And then my own friend’s advice came back to me. “I never thought I could do anything right either. I second-guessed myself all the time. There are so many opinions out there, and each one is so strong. If you can, learn to recognize which ones encourage you. Listen to those voices. And the ones that make you fear, criticize you, lack compassion, those are the voices of despair. Filter them out.”

She repeated the word. “Despair, yes. That’s what it feels like. There’s so much at stake.”

“There is,” I agreed. “But it’s OK. You’re loving them. Love covers over so much. Love them, and it will be OK.” I told her then how I tried so hard to be strict in the early years, following that “parent not friend” model, and the “be consistent” model, and the “because I said so” model. But all the while, I confessed, I was craving the day when I could let them begin making their own decisions. Trusting them to choose wisely. Not having to say no all the time. By age five, all were moving in that direction. We’re there now.

“If it’s not unsafe and it’s not immoral, I try to say ‘yes’ whenever I can,” I said. “But don’t just say, ‘oh, OK, I guess so.’ When you can say ‘yes,’ really make the most of your ‘YES!’ Tell her it’s a good idea. Tell her you can really get behind her on that one. Make it enthusiastic so that when you do have to say ‘no,’ she’ll remember that not every answer is no. She’ll remember the past ‘yes’ and look forward to the next. She’ll know you’re not just grudgingly giving in, but truly affirming her, being ‘for her’ in her choices.”

“YES! I can do that,” she said, smiling for the first time.

I wanted to offer to hold the baby while she wiggled into the front pack carrier with only one arm, but it seemed too soon. I wanted to hug her and tell her she was really, really on the right track. It wasn’t the right time for that either. So I told her my name. She shook my hand firmly and told me hers. “I hope I see you again here this summer some time,” she said. And I do too.

Then she went her way and I went mine, little girls dancing all around us.

Yes.

Voices of Despair

I have a beloved friend who, for several years now, has kept reminding me that I should not listen to the voices of despair which discourage me, take the wind out of my sails, speak without trying to understand intentions, limit, squelch, squash, overpower, doubt, and so on. I am so very susceptible to those powerful voices, and they have dealt me many crushing blows over the years or directed me away from actual Truth for a time, thin-skinned people-pleaser that I am.


I have another beloved friend who doesn't live near me now and so doesn't know the specifics of my life's challenges like she once did, but she still speaks truth when she has the chance, to help drown out or identify those voices of despair for others. She knows how powerful they can be. She posts things on Facebook to encourage. Here's an example of the kind of content she often shares:

God’s Voice	Satan’s Voice
Stills You	Rushes You
Leads You	Pushes You
Reassures You	Frightens You
Enlightens You	Confuses You
Encourages You	Discourages You
Comforts You	Worries You
Calms You	Obsesses You
Convicts You	Condemns You

Today, I think maybe, if I can keep remembering this, those voices got an identification which takes away a lot of the power.

There's an oft-misused, taken out of context Bible verse that keeps getting bounced around when people feel the need to warn other believers against really living their faith in the power of God. It's probably second only to the mistranslated, taken out of context, and misapplied colloquialism of American Christian culture that's generally spoken as "Avoid the appearance of evil" in its misuse and potential damage (that one is one of this blog's Top 10 most-read entries; revealing the error in the usage of it generated in another fatigued and over-burdened Christian friend a robust and joy-filled response: "You've broken through the very foundation of Christian Fake-itude!"). The verse that's the topic of this blog post is: Your adversary prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour.

This is typically used as if it is a warning that your foot might slip and you might fall into some sin you could have avoided if only you'd been more cautious--built your fences higher, avoided interacting with people, kept your happy mask on. It's usually used when your action or lifestyle or personality is making someone else uncomfortable. And it's a misuse of that verse to use it as such.

The verse is from 1 Peter 5. 1 Peter is one of those favorite books for me. It is so full and rich that I've underlined almost the whole thing in my Bible. And yet as many times as I've read through it, cried over it, prayed along with it and quoted it to encourage others who were struggling in their trials, I never before this morning saw what that verse really means. I've always heard it used that way above: Be careful or you'll accidentally slip into sin. I've heard it so many times that even though it seemed so oddly out of place (if that was what it meant) in the book of 1 Peter, I didn't know what to do with that until now.

I realized this morning that that verse really isn't just randomly placed there in the passage, like some schizophrenic non sequitur. Let's take a look at this book: Peter is talking to the believers who have been scattered. They are living among unbelievers. They are largely Jews but there are Gentile believers in the mix now too because the church is growing, the gospel spreading. Peter personally knows so well how essential it is--God spoke it to him directly as a rebuke--that the church be inclusive in loving all believers, all who have been made clean by the Holy Spirit. Exclusion and division are simply NOT of God's plan for those whom he has made clean. Peter makes sure we hear from the start of the letter that we who abide in the Word have been purified and cannot lose that purification, THEREFORE, love one another sincerely from the heart with a deep brotherly affection.

He goes on to acknowledge all the hardships there are that would keep us from living that faith. Wives are being abused by husbands. Slaves are being mistreated by masters, rulers are of questionable intent (and Nero is coming). We're going to be tempted to return evil for evil. We're going to be tempted to shrink away and not call attention to our faith, to hide our fellowship with other believers. But it is supernatural power in us that lets us respond to evil with kindness, and to keep doing good for one another, to keep BEING the church to one another (remember Peter heard Jesus pray to God in front of the disciples that the world would be changed only by seeing God in THEM and in US--the supernatural unity of believers is how unbelievers know that God is in us and how they are challenged to know him too--John 17; Want to reduce persecution? Violence against other people? Be the visible church MORE, not less. They will know you by your love.). It is supernatural power, the power they first believed in, the power that raises the dead and purifies human hearts, that enables them to act with love to one another despite their fear and to act with respect to those who harm them. This setup of the supernatural nature of God's involvement in their lives is essential to the letter. It's essential to the Christian faith.

Peter then addresses suffering and persecution. Jesus suffered. We will too. But God will call to account those who persecute. The end is near. Do not lose heart. But (4:7 and forward) be clear minded and self-controlled. Why? So that we don't accidentally sin? That's what we tend to assume. We assume that we must be clear minded and self-controlled so that we can keep controlling that dark heart of ours. Now that's not at all bad advice, and there are places in the Bible where, even after the indwelling of the Spirit, people are still sinning and it needs to be addressed and stopped. But that is not what he's talking about here in this letter. That's not even on his mind. We are to be clear minded and self-controlled so that we can pray. Stay close to God. This is absolutely essential too. Pray, be in communication with the one who is empowering you and doing this work in you. And now that you are clear minded and self-controlled and praying and close to God, what are we to do ABOVE ALL ELSE?

Above all else, Peter says, do this: "Love one another deeply, because love covers [not causes] a multitude of sins. Offer hospitality without grumbling." This is what we are to do Above All Else. Next he says Use your gifts. If your gift is speaking, then speak. If it is serving, then serve. Do it with ALL THE STRENGTH GOD PROVIDES. (i.e. Live it out loud!) As an exuberant, cheerleader type personality who is sometimes squelched by those who are made uneasy by enthusiasm, a passage like this brings me to life. It reminds me that my design is from my Creator, and he takes delight in seeing me live fully, abundantly, in relationship the way he designed me to be. Through this, God will be praised for the glory and the power for ever.

Now that he's called us to this kind of action, without any excuse for ceasing, Peter hits us again with the suffering part. It's as if he has to weave this together: Love one another deeply. You're going to suffer for it. But love one another anyway, above all else. Use your gifts even when you're being suppressed. But remember, you will suffer: Don't be surprised by the fiery trial. You knew there'd be a cost.

What's really noteworthy here is that it isn't for sin that they are suffering. It's because they're being the church, to one another and to the community. They're living it for real, and it's hard and it takes perseverance, but that's the Christian's calling. So then suffer, he says, and while suffering, continue to do good.

Up to this point, Peter has been talking to the laypeople but here he shifts to the elders: Elders, show them how! As shepherds, you are to be an example of all this--how to love and continue on in the midst of the persecution. Don't let your zeal for the brotherhood fizzle out. Don't let the smoldering wick be snuffed out (to borrow from another place in scripture). Elders are to model for the flock how to keep loving earnestly, deeply, using gifts for one another's good, in the midst of persecution, naysayers, social and political opposition, family and work struggles.

Then again, after calling the elders to lead by example, Peter speaks to all of us: Humble yourselves. What does this mean? Beat ourselves up with self pity? Grovel before God? No, it means don't try to do this on your own--it's not your strength, no matter how good you are or how high your fences are, but remember you are "under God's mighty hand." Don't worry. Don't fret. Don't freeze either. Cast your anxiety on him. Again he says to be self-controlled and alert. Again, is this so that we won't slip into some sin? Again that answer is No. Taking this verse out of context misses the real point, which is so much more important. We are to be self-controlled and alert so that we can see what the enemy is up to, and here it is: The prowling adversary, the roaring lion, is seeking someone to devour. What is the lion roaring about? These are the voices of despair! What is the goal? Not a one-time slip into sin, but the complete renunciation of our faith and our calling to live that faith in this world!

The adversary is trying to bring us down from the faith that empowers loving action in the face of hardship and in the power of God to love in all purity because we have been purified by God's Word and because we are under his mighty hand. The adversary is the persecutor, the againster, the doubter, the skeptic--all the loud voices trying to quench the Spirit in the active believer. The adversary is the voice of fear that says God doesn't really change hearts, doesn't make new creations, isn't powerful enough, isn't greater than our hearts (to borrow from John). The adversary roars when he creates doubts, and roars to devour when he communicates that it is up to you, and not your Savior, to keep you on the straight and narrow, to deliver you over at the end of your days to God's favor.

Resist him, Peter says, standing firm in the faith. The faith. Which faith? The faith that says this grace is the gift of God and not of ourselves. This faith that says nothing can separate me from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus. Losing that faith, denying that strength, the "mighty hands" that have you: that's the devouring the adversary is after. Don't lose your faith because of the critical ones who don't want you to live it. This verse is about withstanding persecution. To reinforce that this is about persecution (and not just the possibility of sin you might encounter in your life if you walk too confidently in God), Peter reminds them of the brothers throughout the world who are undergoing the same thing. It is a known fact. Christians will be called to recant the power of God.

And this understanding is what brought me freedom this morning, from those powerful voices of discouragement and despair. The roaring lion is about persecution! It is the voice that says "Don't believe what you say you believe about God." But it is the God of all grace who called you to his eternal glory in Christ (the risen conqueror!). After you have suffered a little while, he will restore you and make you strong, firm, and steadfast. It's HIS power and not my own that enables me (or anyone else) to be the church.

And now I know. Voices of despair are the voices of the roaring lion, trying to limit and suppress and hold back the Holy Spirit because of this very fragile jar of clay. Naming the voices that claim this much wrongly applied verse, and seeing this verse here, written for me and my weakness as a people-pleaser more than a God-pleaser, has taken away a lot of the power that has so effectively crushed me over and over again. That in itself is a biblical principle: To name something is to take dominion over it.

I feel stronger and happier today than I remember in a long time. It is for freedom believers have been set free. Do not return again to the chains that once bound you. Don't throw off that saving faith and all it calls you to when the going gets rough. Never use your freedom as a license to sin, because it is the power of the one who cannot be defiled that dwells in you now. But use that freedom, knowing you are safe in your Father's mighty hands, to resist the evil one, reject his roaring lies, and live fully, confidently, and joyfully in loving relationship with the brothers and sisters in the faith--the gift of the Church which was established even before the indwelling of the Spirit, for the mutual building up of one another to persevere. Live! Imperishable. You cannot lose your standing of righteousness if you have claimed Christ. May the voices of despair drown themselves out. Let the lion starve. There's nothing to satisfy him here.



Oh, getting to a point of clarity and contentment in God's word always means another blow is right around the corner, but maybe this time I will recognize the roaring and face it down with the Power not of myself that is within me.

What's in Your Shack?

I have to admit, I tried to read The Shack by William Paul Young.
I didn't finish it. I got lost somewhere along the way. The horror of the opening. The unusual, atypical depiction of the Trinity. I set it aside, and I didn't go back.

But hearing the author's own story and being able to understand a little bit about the Shack inside him has my interest again. This first part of his story is about 22 minutes long. That's an investment to watch, but it is so very worthwhile.

If you're hiding secrets, shame, guilt, fear inside The Shack that is your true person, take the 22 minutes to listen to this. There's a part 2 as well. This is a man who is now free. Free to be who he really is. It took eleven years from brokenness to wholeness. There's always hope.

"Trust is the fruit of knowing you are loved. Love and fear are opposites."--William Paul Young

**Revision. After watching part 2, I have to link to it here as well. It's even better. Such transparency and such hope.

Proof

For most of the last six years of my life, mornings were the worst time of day. Anxiety would set in with the alarm, as I instantly thought of all the ways I was going to fail in the day ahead. And then, right on anxiety's heels came depression. Why get out of bed? If I'm already a failure before I start the day, why get out of bed at all?

The snooze button was depression's accomplice in what became a debilitating cycle. Hit snooze and another 10 minutes were consumed by depression, avoidance, attempt at escape. But with the next alarm, anxiety doubled: now you're another 10 minutes behind. How much less you can accomplish, you worthless failure!

Anxiety fed worthlessness, and worthlessness fed despair and depression. Depression feeds panic. And panic sometimes lashes out in neglect or harsh words to little ones.That creates a greater sense of anxiety and worthlessness and failure.

Pull the covers over the head and push the snooze one more time. Beg for sleep to numb the other emotions. And wait for it to get worse.

That was my reality. And it was all a lie.

It's not that there's not some truth in it--I will fail today. That's a given. My to-do list won't get met. Some things will be done badly rather than well. I'll probably burn the dinner again, or forget something. Even though I start out with best intentions, I will respond imperfectly to some small person's need or request. Or not respond at all.

I will fail. I will fail in ways I'm aware of, and I will fail in ways that haven't even occurred to me--ways I may not ever realize today: missed opportunities, focus on the wrong thing, selfish priorities. The one thing that is truly guaranteed is that I WILL FAIL TODAY.

But the lie is wrapped up in how important I've become convinced my failures are. I've let that define me and define my worth. And that's toxic. It's toxic poison, and even a little works its way through the whole person if allowed to steep and ferment there. It paralyzes.

For 18 months now I've been actively waging war against that one deception: capturing the thoughts when they arise, rejecting the lies, replacing them with biblical truth, confessing to Christ and if possible to another person who can brace me in this battle, and expecting my God to respond. I've seen progress most of the days.

But not in the mornings.

The conditioning of the morning alarm is deeply wired into me. The radio snaps to attention with its cheerful morning chatter, and simultaneously my eyelids pop upon and my gut clenches into desperate anguish and fear: Get ready to fail! Here it comes!

For the last week, I've noticed however that something here is changing, finally. Oh, the waiting is so long one might wonder if it ever comes. But for the last week, my first thought was not about me. It was not about my failure. Instead, my first thought has been thanksgiving to my Maker. It's just been a fleeting thought, quickly replaced by the selfish, sinful, performance-oriented ones, but that's hope. Is He becoming my Vision, Lord of my heart, instead of my own self? I believe it.

This morning started that way too. My first thought by morning was my Lord and gratitude to him. It was gratitude, actually, that I did not get gripped first by the anxiety, but even in thinking it to thank him, it woke the sleeping monster and I felt it flooding in. Capture the thought! Even before I've gotten the cup of coffee? Is it possible? And here's how it went for me this morning:

"I'm going to fail. Father, show me! Please show me that you will love me, even when I fail today. Make me believe it."

And then I realized, heard it spoken inside me: "It's Good Friday." Rebecca, it's Good Friday.

That was the answer to that desperate prayer. Good Friday.

What other proof do I need?

Lell-Funt, Part II: Glorification

A little over two years ago, I wrote this entry about the discarded Lell-Funt who was redeemed from the Giveaway pile by little Jill. It's necessary background to this next chapter in the well-known pattern.

Living Out the Redemption Process in Preschool

Lell-Funt was created somehow. He came into our family through our friends the Georges at Jill's birth. To Jill, he was loved and known from before the beginning of time--at least as it applies to her.

But Lell-Funt fell from grace--again, at least in the limited context of this story. He lost favor in Miriam's eyes, and she discarded him. But Jill, who had known him from before the beginning, would have none of that. She redeemed him from destruction and permanent separation.

Today, Jill has a friend over for the afternoon. It's a big deal for a 5-year-old. Though we just got the details worked out last night, she has been planning this for weeks. "When can Maddy come? I want Maddy! I miss Maddy!" And so Maddy is here, and Jill has set her entire mind and focus on showing Maddy everything that is important to her, here in Jill's Little World.

The discussion in the car was precious. "We have an attic," Jill said. "There are some toys up there, but we don't need to get any down. I have TONS of toys. Wait till you see!" Maddy seemed appropriately interested. "Do you have blocks? I'm a good builder. I like to build." "We have blocks," said Jill. "In the attic. But wait till you see what I have in my ROOM."

I'm wondering what Jill has in mind. She got for Christmas an 18-inch doll along the lines of the American Girl dolls (but FAR less expensive). Just last week, we brought down from that mysterious and intriguing attic place the big, brown chest full of American Girl clothes and accessories that the bigger girls were willing to stash away for now. Jill and Miriam have been enjoying sifting through those. Was it the doll and all its gilded toys that Jill wanted to share?

Or was it the big plastic horse--large enough for little ones like Jill and Maddy to sit on? Or maybe the Pirate Ship that really makes sounds?

No. None of those.

When the most-favored and anticipated guest arrived, Jill had one special toy to introduce to her. She brought him out in her arms and held him up: "This is Horton!" she said with utter pride. "He's a ell-funt. He is all mine. I 'deemed him. I love him. Want to play with him?"

I couldn't believe it. Lell-Funt had graduated to his New Name. And he, this humble outcast, was now the one most treasured possession that little Jill wanted to show off to her friend. She remembered how she had rescued him. And now, here he is, presented as spotless, perfected, mature. Desirable. The perfect possession. Lell-Funt the outcast has been brought to Glory.

I wonder how long two years is in the life of a stuffed animal. The blink of an eye? Or more like a thousand years? Impossible to say. But the encouraging thing I heard today is that he made it. And so, let's just press on a little longer.

For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified. -- Romans 8: 29-30

The Seminary Essay

I'm thankful to a couple of you who read my seminary application essay and gave me feedback. I've heard from a few more who said they wanted to read it. So, here it is. Very long, but if you have some spare reading time and want to know more about who I am and what drives me, then have at it. Only one step left to complete the application process.

My interest in attending Covenant Theological Seminary to pursue a Master’s degree in Christianity and the Contemporary Culture began in the early 1990s. It was at that time that I had truly embraced the Christian faith of my culture as my own—a living, abiding, active, transformational relationship with a sovereign Creator God who raises the dead. And with my conversion to Christ, I immediately felt an immense desire to live honestly, intentionally, submitting every aspect of life to his Lordship.

The importance of Christian worldview thinking and the recognition that God in his sovereignty and perfect plan chose with intention to call me to himself after placing me in this very point in history, in this very culture that we do live in, infiltrated my thinking. It continues today to hold a primary position in my own awareness as I attempt to “seek first the kingdom of God” in all things. God put me here, now, for his purpose.

I was a senior in college at Clemson University pursuing a Bachelor’s degree in Design when I first came in contact with Reformed theology. I had been raised in a Southern Baptist culture in the midlands of South Carolina. My grandmother was a believer. I would have to say I believe my mother was a believer, but how that worked out for her was very private. She taught me the existence of God, but she didn’t speak about how that knowledge informed her life’s decisions or goals. My father is a good man, hardworking and caring. He wanted my brothers and me to have our needs met and to climb the ladder of social and professional success. He taught us personal responsibility, work ethic, and self-sufficiency. He believed in community and both my parents held to an open-door policy to our home. But my father never taught or modeled a Christ-centered purpose to our human existence.

So when I met Reformed theology in 1991, my understanding literally exploded. I had always known I believed in God. I believed in Jesus—a real, historical man who was born from a virgin by the power of the Holy Spirit. I believed he was God in the flesh, walking among men. I believed he lived a perfect life and died for some general and vague concept called “sin” which infected all of us somehow. I believed that he was bodily resurrected. Then, once I had gotten all that believing established, I went back to my daily life: what I was going to do, what I was going to study, whom I was going to spend time with. Jesus had nothing to do with me. I was busy and on a path of setting up my own future. That included finishing college but staying in the area in order to wait out another year until my fiancé graduated.

I took a job that was below the level of my education but adequate to support me after graduation while I waited on my future to begin. And it was there, in that job, that God began to work on me. I still had a few months left until graduation, but I was thinking of myself as a full-fledged adult. I needed to begin to do “adult things.” In my mind, one of those adult things was to start attending church. It is what “good people” did, after all, in our Southern culture, and in accordance with the morality of outward appearances I had grown up with, I certainly wanted to be perceived as “good people.”

I visited a few churches that were within walking distance and found reasons with each to reject it immediately. It was at the First Baptist Church—which I had saved until last because of how common and traditional it was to me—that I found a church to call home for a time. During the worship service on my first visit, the pastor, Mike Massar, seemed to look me in the eye directly when he said, “If you’re looking for a church home, I hope you know that none of us here are perfect. That’s exactly why we need a Savior, just like you do. So I trust you will give us more than one shot before you make up your mind to leave.” It hit like an arrow through my heart. I wasn’t looking for a church to belong to. I was looking for a reason NOT to be there. I stayed for the next three years. A Vietnam veteran and converted atheist named Michael van Strien taught a Sunday school class for post-college aged adults and young professionals and the very small group of us spent a significant amount of study time absorbed in the scriptures, devouring both their prophetic and symbolic meanings as well as real-life, practical applications. Michael was a literature professor, and he saw God as a great artist and author. I was a Design major, concentrating in humanities. Michael spoke my language. The meta-narrative of scripture began to unfold before me, and I knew it was true. It was too well ordered, well developed, self-supporting on too grand a scale to be written by even one human, much less by dozens over the course of many centuries, without Spiritual inspiration. I began to develop a sense of awe at this Creator/Designer/Author/Story-telling God.

A few months after those seeds had been planted, a new employee arrived in my office. She was also a Clemson student who was working up until her graduation the following year. We shared the same name, phonetically. She spelled hers Rebekah, while mine is Rebecca. I came in to work one day after a long weekend and found her sitting at my desk. While my first response was a combination of intrigue with no small amount of jealous intimidation—I mean, was she taking my place or what?—we quickly became great friends. And though I was aware that I had experienced an eye-opening about God, it was Rebekah who showed me Christ. It was Rebekah who had such a comfortable, personal, non-defensive, and joy-filled relationship with her Savior—in no way judgmental or overbearing, demanding or insistent—that I often found myself thinking, “I want what she has.” She made Christ so appealing, simply by living all of her life in his presence, in submission to his will, in trusting him to be for her good, that I saw him through her and wanted to know the person of Christ.

While I was quick to invite others to come to church with me for worship and Sunday school, Rebekah invited me to come to a Reformed University Fellowship small group Bible study. It was on the book of Hebrews, but the intern, well prepared by the RUF leader David Sinclair, led us through all of scripture as we looked into that New Testament book. It was during that Bible study that I began to see how Reformed theology could take all the little bits of truth I had known and begin to put them together like the pieces of a cosmic jigsaw puzzle. It all made sense. It all fit. Scripture interpreted scripture, and I was hooked.

From that point I knew that I had to study Reformed theology. I began to attend the Reformed University Fellowship large group meetings. I asked for books to read. I got a copy of the Westminster Confession of Faith and went through it, line by line, checking every scripture reference. I realized that if Christ was who scripture said he was, there was no turning back. He was what I needed. He was the union between that amazing Designer/Artist God and me. It was all or nothing, and I was in. I could literally feel the presence of the Holy Spirit blooming in the midst of me, and I fell so totally head over heels in love with this amazing, sacrificial, gracious, revelatory, humble, powerful, majestic, meek, PERSONAL God that my whole external appearance and outlook on everything changed. I had not yet learned about Abraham Kuyper at the time. But I had gained my own sense of understanding along the lines of Kuyper:  If Christ was over all and in all and through all, that meant every aspect of my own life as well as the very culture I had been specifically placed in at that moment in the whole of history was also fully his. I had found meaning and purpose in existence—it was all about God and his grace and his work and the spread of his kingdom!

About that time, I picked up two more important connections. First, I took a sample copy of WORLD Magazine from an RUF gathering, and second, I started listening every time someone mentioned Covenant Theological Seminary. I hungered to learn more and I felt almost certain then that God was calling me there to study. I knew I wanted to teach. I wanted to tell young people—teens in particular—what I had not learned in my own adolescence and young adulthood. I wanted to help open eyes to the fullness of God’s involvement in the world. I wanted to develop worldviews and to prepare immature believers about to enter the world with a foundation of certainty and apologetics to stand confidently, but not defensively in a negative sense, before and within their culture. I wanted to equip others to go boldly and full of joy and love into the world’s arena, putting Christ on display before the nations and going as workers into the harvest whether they were teachers, musicians, actors, architects, infantrymen, nurses, cashiers, computer programmers, mechanics, writers, or anything else God had called them to. My understanding of God working in all of life was ripe for application, and I saw the vast potential for the growth of his kingdom through the placement of prepared believers in every vocation.

But I couldn’t get there. I couldn’t get to CTS at that time. I had graduated from Clemson with no college debt but no savings either. My parents were finished with financial support. They needed me to work and provide for myself. They could not fund graduate school. And I was a young female with no contacts in St. Louis. So even though I spoke a number of times in the early 1990s with admissions representatives, and I had those white cassette tapes of Jerram Barrs’ lectures mailed to me often, I never made an application to attend. I kept the dream, but I backburnered it. Another big event also changed my course. I became acutely aware that the man I was engaged to marry was not the one God intended for me. As I had been drawn first to the church and then to Christ himself, he was being drawn more and more into the world and away from anything he considered old-fashioned or traditional. He outright rejected God, and I ended our engagement.

I spent the next year in Clemson, working and enjoying being single, even though I am an exuberant extrovert and all my college peers had moved on. I was loving the time I had to immerse myself in my new relationship with the Lord and I grew rapidly, all the while feeling as if he was working to prepare me for something. I knew I would never be satisfied with purely secular work. I needed a ministry or mission focus. I found it in December 1993. My friend Rebekah had moved from Clemson earlier that year to Asheville, North Carolina. She went to be close to her aging parents, who lived in Asheville then. While there, she had taken an editorial assistant position with God’s World Publications—the publisher of WORLD Magazine and God’s World News, and the parent company of the WORLD Journalism Institute and the now-defunct God’s World Book Club. But Rebekah had become engaged to her now-husband Stephen Speaks (a CTS alumnus), and she was going to leave her job at God’s World after their wedding.

I had the equivalent of a minor in humanities, a passion for literature, and an even bigger passion for impacting the thinking of young people for Christ. I applied for the open position, and began work in March 1994 with God’s World Book Club. I met my husband Bill later that year at Arden Presbyterian Church, where he had come to faith, and it became clear that Asheville was my new home. Within five years, I was managing the Book Club division. Our mission was to select the best of the best reading material for homeschool and Christian school students—a broad range of books from both Christian and secular publishers—which represented the “all of life” worldview that the Reformed faith taught. It was a dream job. I have been with the same company ever since—except for a few breaks here and there when some of our children were born. My position has changed much over the years. I have seen most of the company from the inside.

Currently, I am the editor of the children’s magazines, God’s World News. I love my job, as we write today’s current events for young readers, ranging from Preschool to 9^th grade, presenting the news with a specifically biblical perspective. My job gives me opportunity to speak biblical truth into the specific instances of noteworthy events occurring in our culture. It lets me challenge our readership to apply their own evaluation through a scriptural lens, and our goal is to encourage them to incorporate biblical thinking and putting Christ on display in all areas of their own lives, for God’s glory and their future impact on the culture they live in.

Bill and I have been blessed with four unique and outrageously amazing daughters. Our youngest will begin first grade in the fall. Modern technology and a flexible, willing-to-be-cutting-edge workplace has allowed me to continue to work while never having to put any of our children into daycare. I have even been able to do some homeschooling over the years, though we have found the environment and opportunities at the Christian school to be the best option for preparing our children for all that God might have in store for them as they seek to walk in his will for their own futures. And so, with the little one going to school in the fall of 2013, I find myself now freed up some, with some time to return again to that dream of graduate school at CTS which I could never quite close the door on in the last two decades.

In late October, Bill and I made the road trip to St. Louis to visit the campus of the seminary for the first time. I needed to know that the gilded image I held in my mind of Covenant was real and had held up to the vision I had so cherished all this time. I was prepared to find that CTS indeed did not meet my long-held expectations, but quite the opposite was true. I have to say it exceeded all that I had built it up to be in my memory and mind. The visit was nothing except affirming. It was clear that technology has come to the point of allowing me to do most or perhaps even all of my degree work through distance learning, while managing a level of interaction that is satisfactory if not absolutely ideal. But a move to St. Louis for our entire family is not feasible at this point. I do hope to be able to take advantage of some low-residency, intensive classes on site, perhaps once per year, but for the most part, I will be working from our home in Asheville.

It is my hope that the Master’s of Arts in Theological Studies in Christianity and the Contemporary Culture will further equip me to do the work I am already doing as editor of God’s World News, writing for children and teens and helping to build both their scriptural knowledge as well as their biblical worldview integration and application. But in addition to continuing the job I currently have—perhaps with just a larger or more full “toolbox” to work from—I also hope to travel for God’s World, speaking to parents, teachers, journalism students, and young people about integrating their faith into all of life, engaging and relating to the culture in which God has placed them, and finding the common ground of humanity that needs a Savior, so that God’s kingdom may grow and flourish through them in all areas of life. Additionally, I am interested in taking the courses on educational foundations for teaching teens and young adults. I have a passion for the place in life that high schoolers and college students find themselves, because that is where I was when God claimed me and brought me to himself. It is a time of great potential being realized and focused, and thinking and owning one’s own thoughts, beliefs, and opinions. It is a time in which optimism about life’s opportunities, when powered by a real and confident faith in an omnipotent God, can, if fanned into flame, change a culture—a generation on the brink of adulthood. I would love to teach Bible and Christian worldview, particularly in regard to living actively and intentionally for Christ in this culture, to high schoolers, college students, and even on the institute level if God were to lead that way.

For the last two years, this idea of seeking seminary has been in discussion again between Bill and me. We’ve prayed and wondered, inquired once before and then withdrawn that inquiry. We believe God has led and developed, pushed the pause button on my dreams at times, but now is opening the doors through timing, technology, the age of our children, and even the transformation of this particular degree to the distance program to make it possible for me to finally get started. That same God looks over the universe and lays claim to every single inch of it. There are still details to be met, and I may not be able to see how he is going to do it all yet, but I am confident that he will. It is an approach he keeps teaching me as hardship and trial come—and they have. I stand ready claiming only this much. If it is of the Lord, he will provide all that is needed. He has given me enough to step out in faith and begin the program. And like Abraham, I will go until he tells me to stop.