Note to Self

Dear Self,

In light of recent events, including your current illness and feelings of purposelessness bolstered up by the seemingly endless piles of grading yet to be done, I thought I would drop you a line to remind you of your experience in Manasquan, NJ, last weekend. My hope and prayer is that it will lift your spirits and remind you, firstly, that you are not in control of anything--nothing, my dear girl--and secondly, that the Holy Spirit is on the move in your life, and nothing can prevent Him from accomplishing the plans He has for you.

I'm not sure you really expected to see so much fishing of men happen on this trip when you first volunteered to go. I suppose you thought of it as more of an opportunity to give some good old-fashioned tangible assistance to those in need--you really are more of an Acts-of-Service than a Words-of-Encouragement type--but as usual, your Father had a much greater idea of what you were going to be giving. 

As you will recall, the first day you were lending your time and efforts to Jerome, a local who owns two stores, one of which is on the Jersey beachfront and was destroyed when Sandy put a boardwalk through its doors. You and your team tore out drywall and pulled nails and swept up the resulting mess into trashbags for hours. There wasn't a whole lot of talking, yet everyone worked together like a well-oiled machine. When the job was completed, Jerome took everyone back to the house where you were temporarily residing. You were nervous inside, because you knew that on the consul of the truck you were riding in was one of about a dozen new Bibles set aside for the families and individuals helped. Your team leader, Bobby, presented it to him, and to your surprise, he accepted it with no hesitation. He willingly allowed everyone to lay hands on him and pray, and when Bobby gave him a set of Lowes gift cards to mitigate some of the store's future expenses, he had to hurry to his car to hide the tears coming into his eyes.

I think you will agree that this incident set the tone for the rest of your time up there? It seems to me that you had been entertaining the false idea that everyone who does not know Christ will be automatically opposed to any mention of Him.

The following day progressed much as the first--drywall and nails and piles and piles of junk out by the roadside and broken hearts all around....this time your team was assisting a lady named, ironically, Sandy. At the end of the day, you presented the Bible, and you asked whether or not prayer would be acceptable, and again you were surprised at the enthusiastic response. 

On the third and final day, your team took apart a tipped shed in Julia's aunt's backyard. Julia was one of the first contacts made by the team in New Jersey, and she connected your group to Jerome as well. Taking apart the shed and raking up the garbage and dead fish scattered everywhere was not that memorable in and of itself, but you will recall that you were struck by how beautiful it was that Lynn and Brad, a local woman and her eleven year old son who had been assisted Day One, had officially joined the team and were working alongside you all. Julia too had caught the fire, and she was the one who led the charge to assist another group of men a few streets over who were gutting a house.

People were paying it forward, and it was exciting.

But what was even greater than seeing almost-strangers reaching out to strangers was the fact that night after night, the new friends your team made would come to the worship and debriefing sessions. At first you thought that they would surely be frightened off by the prayers or the hand-raising or the constant God-references, but the opposite was true--your group only attracted more and more company. And not only that, but every time you saw a person who seemed to be at the least unaffected by the holy conversations, and at the most somewhat alarmed, wouldn't you know that a message would arrive from them soon afterwards stating how blessed and encouraged they had been by it all. 

After a couple of days of this, I think you finally discovered the reason: people are hungry for the Holy Spirit, but only when it's the "real deal," as they say. Your fears were, perhaps, based out of previous (unfortunate) experience with mission trips where, undoubtedly, the best of intentions were had, but the Holy Spirit's fire was not. You see, my dear girl, the truth is that people are disgusted by, or at least uninterested in, facades-- but authenticity has an almost magnetic power. When true joy and true dependency and true faith are present, who can help but ponder why? It was not simply the fact that your team traveled from over 12 hours away to lend a hand; it was not simply the giving of gift cards; it was not simply the offers of prayer--it was the sense of humor, the child-like trust, the bubbling laughter, the friendly hugs, the joyful enthusiasm, the openness, the wall-less giving of self--in short, it was the true image of Christ in your team that drew others closer to the light.

You rejoiced on this trip because it affirmed your belief that Christians can do more than just "scatter seeds" and hope they grow. You saw the seeds sprouting right before your eyes over the course of three days. And not only that, but you grew as well. You were praying over many a random and suspicious person by the end of Day Three.

If I may, I will remind you of the incident that summed up the feelings of the trip for you. You and Nathan had just been dropped off in front of a house with a pile of stuff by the curb, front door ajar, and when Nathan knocked, a voice beckoned you to enter from somewhere inside. No one came to the door to invite you into their home. It was as though all sense of pride and ownership had departed, leaving the bare bones and beams of a mere house behind. You and Nate entered, and there stood a middle-aged couple with their teenage son and a contractor, staring down through the torn up floor at the foundation beneath. You explained to the wife who you were, and handed her one of the cards made by the children, and her eyes filled with tears. You asked if you could pray for her and her family, and she said yes, absolutely, so you did pray over everyone, even the contractor, and then you left, and it was all over in a matter of minutes, just like that. For two minutes you were part of someone's story, but what affected you so much was the idea that your Father could do anything He wanted with those two minutes. You will probably never know what happened to that family, but in that simple awkward prayer and a few colorful childish scribbles on a piece of paper a spark of faith could have been ignited, and only the Holy Spirit can do that, not you. 

And so, O Self of little faith, allow me to remind you that when you make plans about what you will be doing and saying and attempt to control them, the result is never helpful to anyone, including you. But when you follow a calling and enter it with little expectation, trusting God to fill in the details, He does not disappoint. Live an authentic life, and stop trying to shape Christ into a form that you think will be acceptable to others. Don't cheapen Him. Let Him be Himself through you.

I eagerly await your reply, and trust that you will recover from your malaise in good time. In the meantime, I remain, as ever,

Lauren