All My Life, In All I Do, Soli Deo Gloria

Audience of One

Slowly shuffle/limping from the gym floor to the locker room last night, I was so proud, so excited that I had overcome me.  But I was a little sadden that I had no one to share my butt-kicking accomplishment with.  Well, I have friends, I could've texted.  I could've emailed my trainer, she would've been proud.  But no one would have understood how tired I was when I got to the gym.  No one would've understood the long pep talk I had to give myself just to go to the gym as opposed to going home after a mentally draining 12-hour day.  No one would be able to relate to the three times I almost walked out of the gym, abandoning my workout, but continued anyway.  No one would be able to understand the mental mountain I climbed to do what I did.

So I didn't make any calls or shoot out any emails.  I blogged about my workout, but what I wrote could not capture the depth of persistent fortitude that I had to mine.  Although I fancy myself a creative wordsmith, even I, in my vast vocabulary could not communicate the personal meaning of my accomplishment.  But all that doesn't matter to me, because I know what I've accomplished.

I once heard a speaker talk about how he doesn't care what others think, because he plays for an audience of one.  God.  His life, his ministry, his words, his every breath is orchestrated that he would please only one, The One, God. 

It doesn't matter if no one ever knows how hard I work on a daily basis to prepare myself to compete.  It doesn't matter if no one ever congratulates me on a workout well endured or a personal goal obtained and surpassed.  All that matters, to me at least, is that I know, and MY audience of One, The One knows.  For He is ever with me encouraging me,  emboldening me on, ever closer to my goals. 

Return

I used to have a pet roadrunner. No really, I’m serious!

The first three springs I lived in Dallas, he usually showed up around the beginning of May and disappears around mid-November when the temps dip closer to freezing. He hung out around the house in the early morning and then again around dusk. During the day, he roamed the neighborhood, and returned to his nest close to the side yard at dusk.

I don’t know why, but I’d become attached to the roadrunner. One Spring, I’d watched for him to no avail.  When he didn’t show around the normal time in the season, I became a bit concerned that maybe he had died during the winter because I hadn’t seen him.

Then one afternoon in May, as I drove the last 100 yards to my driveway, WHOOSH the roadrunner ran in front of my car! He’s back! He’d returned!!!

I honestly wanted to slam on the brakes, jump out of my car and run after him and hug him and tell him “welcome back, welcome home!”…but I didn’t, only because he can run considerably faster than me, and that particular day wasn’t my day to be a ‘spectacle’ for my neighbors to mine their entertainment from.

My excitement to see the roadrunner indeed had returned for another season got me thinking about how God must feel when one of His lost returns home.

Outside of my block of the neighborhood, no one was aware that that roadrunner existed. And I’m quite comfortable in saying that no one was as happy as me to see his return year after year. I’m sure no one held such a diligent vigil in anticipation of his return as I did yearly, peeping out my windows checking the top of my car and the deck every evening around dusk.

Think about the millions of people who think that God doesn’t care about what they do or where they are.

I wish they could feel just a pinch of the excitement I felt when I saw the roadrunner. Then maybe they’d understand on a small scale what their Creator is feeling on a magnanimous scale when He thinks about them.

I wish they could’ve held vigil with me every year in May searching for something, like them, that has no idea that it had been missed. Then possibly they’d know the anticipation their Father has felt for as long as they’ve drawn breath. The vigil He’s posted for them and them alone since the beginning of time.

The dogged vigilance of my “roadrunner watch” those three years is an anemic parallel to the perverse tenacity the Creator exhibits in His bid to draw each of us believer and non, to the calming certainty of an eternal relationship with Him.

Think of it, every time someone lets go, capitulating their reins to Abba, every time they drop their arms, standing aside, to allow the towers they’ve built to topple, every time they trade in their aspirations, their castles in the air for a concrete foundation of truth, every time they return, I betcha God slams both feet on the brakes, stops whatever He’s doing and runs after them giddy with excitement to welcome them home. And I feel pretty safe in saying that creating a spectacle is not on His list of concerns!

My Deepest Fear

A quote I heard many years ago,

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. 

And as I march on ever deeper into the jaws of twenty ought twelve, facing fears, steeling myself, rising above those things I’d previously thought insurmountable, I can’t help but pull it out and read it again and again.

It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.

I’ve spent a lot of time these last few weeks yelling at my personal trainer, telling her “I can’t”, “I’m too fat”, “I’m too weak”, all of which she shakes her head at, doesn’t listen to and forges on with my training.  But I know deep within myself, that I CAN do whatever she puts in front of me.  This one thing I do know.

We ask ourselves
Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? 

I’ve pounded through five weeks of preemptive triathlon training, and daily I gain strength, weekly my tenacity to toe the line grows just a little more.  I’ve spent more time in front of my laptop massaging my writing muscles than I have in a REALLY long time.  Some posts have been great, some, well not so much, but I’ve kept writing.

Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God
You're playing small does not serve the world.
There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you.

I’ve worked on putting myself “out there” more.  Spending time with friends (even when I wanted to hole up in my house, curl up on the couch and nap), trying new activities, accepting invitations on weekends to participate in frivolities.  It’s been a bit uncomfortable, but I’ve established a nice foundation of consistent effort.

We are all meant to shine, as children do.
We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.
Its not just in some of us; It’s in everyone.

And most of all, I’ve commenced the excruciatingly slow process of examining my relationship with God.  I’m quite aware that the relationship between Him and me will never be perfect on this side of death, but that won’t stop my continual work to be more like Him.  More like the person he conceived me to be.  One who is kind, compassionate, selfless, gracious, forgiving, loving, joyful, patient, faithful and so many other attributes He is weaving into the fabric that is me.  Sometimes those threads break and I revert back to the sarcasm that has defined me for too long, but for the most part those changes have taken hold, a palpable difference in my attitude, my countenance.

And as we let our own light shine,
We unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we're liberated from our own fear,
Our presence automatically liberates others.¹

Five weeks in and my goals for 2012 are not yet within reachable distance.  But I persist in churning away at them nonetheless.  Hoping someday soon, my journey to liberate myself from fear will unwittingly liberate others.

¹Red Italicized portions excerpt from Return to Love // Marianne Williamson // Harper Collins, 1992

When The Old Guy Quits

This past weekend, I was cataloging stuff I'd written in the past four years and came across this, and had to repost it, because this is the way I've been feeling lately.

The line I’d been standing in began to move pouring its way into the darkened room that had been cooled to a blissfully comfortable 65 degrees. I’d just finished a speed workout on the treadmill and was not looking forward to the next thirty minutes, but the class was a part of my training and I knew ‘phoning-it-in’ wouldn’t cut it.

I followed the people in front of me dropping my iPod, headphones and towel on the floor, marking my spot and headed for the wall to grab an exercise mat from the quickly diminishing pile.

Two times a week I find myself in this same room with these same people moaning and groaning, bending, pulsing, extending, flexing, relaxing, retracting molding and strengthening my core muscles. I hate it! Everything we do hurts, and it’s hard! It doesn’t matter how many times I attend the class, the instructor constantly changes the workout, meaning the class never gets easier.

I’ve found that the only way I can make it through the class without crying or getting up and quitting is to find an old guy and position my mat beside his. And my mantra thus becomes “when the old guy quits, you can quit.” I figure if the old dude can do it, I in my spry youthful vigor can cowboy up.

Last week, exhausted from the speedwork I had done previous to the class, I found my old guy, set my mat down, grit my teeth and steeled my way through the night’s workout that focused on the obliques and the erector spinae.

We opened by stretching our backs, so easy, and it felt so good. Then we moved on to our sides where we were told to bend our legs, lifting them sideways and then bend our torsos up to meet our legs. Within the first five reps I was feeling the undeniable searing pain of my obliques being torn up and my lower legs, already fatigued from my run, screamed in protest as I squeezed them together and lifted one, two, three, four…the relentless combinations continued. One after the other, we were on our backs, on our sides, standing up, holding dumbbells.

Halfway through the class, I snuck a peek over at the old guy, and he was still going, he was struggling, but he was still going.

In the past, when I’ve grown fatigued during a race, instead of dwelling on how tired I was or how much further I had to go, I’d focus on those passing me. The woman with the stroller, the overweight guy I’d seen walking back at mile six, the guy with the full rucksack and combat boots, the man that had to be older than my dad and I tell myself, I WILL NOT BE BEATEN BY THEM!

I frantically search around within my fatigued being and smush together the remaining crumbs of energy resolute to finish the race, cross the finish line, all the while yelling in my head, YOU WILL KEEP GOING ‘TIL YOUR LEGS FALL OFF, WHEN THE OLD DUDE QUITS, THEN YOU CAN QUIT! Those words have carried me across many a finish line, over countless hills, thru innumerable rain storms and sub-zero runs.

Last night, as I positioned my mat beside the designated ‘old guy’ I smiled at him, and he at me. He said to me, “you gotta be my motivation tonight, you’re young and full of energy, so if you don’t quit I won’t.”

Pressure old man, PRESSURE!

With ten minutes left in the class, I was close to tears from the discomfort in my core and the weariness of my legs from the squat workout I had done prior to class; the old man snuck a peek over at me and said, “hey young buck, if the old man can do it, you can do it!” I rolled my eyes, said a few choice words in my head and persevered those last few minutes.

At the end of the class as I gathered my iPod, towel, and headphones and replaced my mat the old guy approached me smiling, wiping sweat from his eyes, he said, “hey, young buck, I’ll see ya Wednesday.”

Thanks old guy, I will see ya Wednesday, and when you quit, I’ll quit, but it doesn’t look like that’ll happen anytime soon.

Erica and Job

A few days ago I was going through my morning routine which includes listening to the daily audio bible podcast, a wonderful resource available online and on iTunes. That day, the narrator was reading a portion of the book of Job.

At the end of each podcast, the narrator gives closing remarks/commentary on what he's read, and a comment he made, struck me as an 'aha moment'. He said: "The advice, admonition and criticism that Job's friends were giving him seems wise for the most part. If you were to read it in any other context, you'd realize that in its counsel and scope, its right. But when God shows up, He let's them know they’re all wrong...Conventional wisdom isn’t always wise."

And as I processed what he was saying, I thought back to college where I had a great friend who when I needed advice would always ask, "do you want 'Christian Erica' or 'Regular Erica'?"

'Christian Erica' would tell me what thus saith the Lord!!! While 'Regular Erica' would go get the chips dip and soda and make all the necessary arrangements to throw me a first class pity party. I loved 'Regular Erica', because she said what I wanted to hear.

I wonder what God would've said if Job's friends had kept their conventional wisdom to themselves and simply said to him, "you know what Job, we don't know why this is happening to you, but we love you, we're here for whatever you need, we'll hang with you, we'll wait right here on this ash pile with you and all your scaaby, stinky, torn clothedness, until God comes."

Not espousing their perceived wisdom or even moping or bringung chips to the pity party, but doing just as Hur and Aaron did for Moses, simply coming alongside and holding up Moses' hands when he could no longer do so himself, until the war had been won.

Sometimes we need our 'Christian Ericas' to go all upside our spiritual heads. And yes, sometimes we crave 'Regular Erica' to sit and lament and commiserate with us. But sometimes God simply asks our Ericas to come alongside, wrapping our arm around their necks, placing their arm around our waists, not saying one word, just helping us limp our way thru our fires.

When Job's mantel finds rests on someone close to you, which Erica will you be?

Calamity Behind The Facade



I attend a rather large church, that in Christian circles would be called a "mega-church".

My church is located in an area where the median income is upper middle class.

Often, I hear comments about how 'megachurches' are shallow, or others will say 'a megachurch is not for me, I get lost, and no one really cares about me.' Or someone will decline my invitation to attend because they feel that they will not 'fit in' socio-economically'.

In the past, I've become involved in a home-team,  a group of around 20-30 people that meet every other week at someone's home where we fellowship and discuss God's word.  The home-team concept is modeled after the early church in the book of Acts.  I've built some awesome realtionships with some increcible individuals in the group.

I've also played on a co-ed sports team in the flag football league sponsored by my church.  Where, once again, I've had the precious honor of meeting people from asundry backgrounds.

The one thing that has remained a constant in all of the folks God's allowed to cross my path when serving as a volunteer at church to my home-team, to running around pulling flags on the football field, is the pain and brokenness that I find when I invest time in cultivating these relationships.

Outside our faith the common strand seems to be, people that 'present' as 'put-together', but should you take the time to tear away the facade and dig deeper, they're hurting, broken, devastated, longing, reaching out for and finding God's love not only on weekends when they attend service, but also throughout the week as they immere themselves in the life of the church.

I get angry when someone writes my church off as a 'mega-church' that's just about glitz and showiness.  I wish those people, so hasty to judge the book by its cover, could see the hearts of the folks I've met through my involvement.  I long for them to see that the perceived 'glitz' is not what we're about, not what defines us. 

While a fun and creative church service may bring people in, should those same people stay, get involved and get to know the people that make up the church body, I know unquestionably they would see that behind the glitzy facade, we're just a broken group of people daily turning to and trusting God for restoration, leaning on each other for encouragement*. 

There is untold, immeasurable calamity behind the facade.  Such hopelessness that is only righted by the continual cleansing renewing blood of our Saviour.

*Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.
-Ecclesiates 4:12

This I Believe

I was spiritually parched.  My soul had not tasted of spiritual rain for longer than I cared to admit.  In my wasteland, I’d continued to go through the “motions,” all of them, except for communicating with God.  Once again, another temper tantrum (on my part) had prompted me to stifle He who daily guides me.

I stood in the pew, stumbling through the words of a song I’d never heard before. 

“Formed my every moment, calmed my raging sea.”

It was a pretty song, full of alliterations I related to

“walked with me thru fire, healed all my disease,”

They were great lyrics, the melody was easy to pick up and I began to sing along effortlessly following the melody.  However, I quickly shut my mouth and ceased participation as I read the lyrics of the chorus,

“I believe You’re my healer, I believe You are all I need.  I believe You’re my portion, I believe You’re more than enough for me.  Jesus You’re all I need.”

In the 30 some odd years of being raised in church, I’ve sung hundreds, possibly even thousands of songs to God, about God, for God, but never had I sung lyrics TO Him telling Him what I believed AND putting the phrase “I believe” before it, for extra emphasis. 

I COULDN’T sing those lyrics, for I don’t believe He’s all I need.  Even though He’s stood in my proverbial shell of a life and spoken peace over many a raging sea for me.  And although He’s walked with me…scratch that, carried with me through too many fires to enumerate here.  And despite my knowledge that every one of my steps are ordained by Him, I couldn’t vocalize that.

For me to open my mouth and say such things, means that they’re true, means, that I believed.   Means that, the pity party has to stop where the believing begins and if I’m being honest with myself, the believing began a long, long time ago.  For me to speak those declarations of my beliefs, I knew my behavior had to match my words, for how could I stand and sing a song of lies to my Savior?

I’ve spent most of my working life doing jobs I wasn’t qualified for on paper, but I possessed the moxie and stupid determination to do the tasks put before me.  I more or less faked it until I maked it (bad grammar intentional).  Over the last 16 years since graduating from college, I’ve made believers out of many a doubter.  On the way home from church that afternoon, I realized that this was one of those fake it until you make it times.  Because even though my sarcastic earth bound mind struggles with total belief, my heart and my soul run day to day on the fuel of hope, the  nourishment of past victories that have come only at God’s hand.

I’ve spent most of the last two weeks playing that song.  Obsessively over and over and over and over and over, in the car, at home, at work, at the gym, when I was grocery shopping this past weekend.  I sing the words over and over, willing them to become more a part of me than the nose on my face, than the brown eyes that stare back at you, more so than the name that identifies me, I believe. 

If that’s what it takes, repetition over and over, singing it until I truly believe without a doubt, then I’m okay with that journey.  At least I started, and I know (that as in the past) eventually I’ll get to the point where my actions and words meet up and walk hand in hand.

I’m confident of it.  This I believe.

What Lies Beneath

I'm a pretty fastidious individual when it comes to keeping a clean house.

I pick up the house before I head to bed every night, make sure the floors are swept/vacuumed and the bathroom is kept clean.

I'm a bit obsessive about keeping a clean/empty sink in the kitchen (the dishwasher is the most used appliance in my house) and I truly believe that the folks in R&D at Proctor & Gamble who created the Swiffer line should be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in Science for the amazing stuff they put on the shelves at Target.

If you were to walk in my humble abode right now, you'd be greeted by a pleasant aroma of my clean home, afforded by the many odoriferous cleaning agents I use and the hundreds of plug-ins scattered around the house (an empty outlet is a cardinal sin)

BUT...

This evening, when I got home, there was a note stuck in my door from the managment at Austin Ranch saying someone would be in my home on Monday to check for needed repairs, and do general maintenance.

You would think that someone REALLY important was expected at my homestead, because I've been in a frenzy pulling out furniture, vacuuming behind it, cleaning under sinks, cleaning out closets, using the crevice tool, wiping off baseboards, and the list goes on and on and on...

Why the frenzy? Because the maintenance men go where no one else goes. They go to those deep dark recesses of my house. They'll see the dust balls and crud pileup in those hard to reach places that even I refuse to see 99.9% of the time, my deepest, darkest, cruddiest, ickiest, dirtiest corners....

That got me to thinking.

When you look at me, you see a runner (cum fledling triathlete) who's obsessed with eating 'clean' foods and getting at least a gallon of fluid in my system everyday. Taking care of myself physically and presenting a "put together" individual is important to me.

Getting my workouts at the gym in three to five times a week is like unto what purgatory would be if it existed, but I do it anyway. For the most part, I try to get at least seven hours of rest and do more reading than watching television and have become a freakishly-addicted player of Sudoku in an effort to "exercise" my mind.

So when you step back and take a birds eye view of me, you see the clean house with vanilla plug-ins filling every empty socket. Beds made, kitchen and bathrooms clean, you see a facade of tidiness.

But daily, when Christ looks in the deepest recesses of my house, my heart...hmmm...wow...He sees....

...I've gotta go, I've got some corners to clean....

...because you can

My former running coach  Diane Proud lost her three year battle with ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease)  last fall. A couple years ago, I got an email from her responding to my feedback from my workouts. In her email she told me about the triathlon she’d just competed in in Australia and how she was headed back to the states to compete in what would be her last duathlon.

Her email talked about how because of the nerve degeneration, her breathing had become way too difficult, and the training to maintain her world class conditioning is making it more and more difficult and taxing for her to talk. She closed by simply saying “keep running…because you can.”

I’ve thought about that simple statement a lot the past couple of weeks as I've ramped up my training in preparation for joining my triathlon training group. And the more it gets into me, the harder I’ve worked in my running and my workouts. But on a spiritual level, I’ve also internalized those words.

Across the world in many countries, there exists ‘the persecuted church’. Believers who are afraid to worship together in public, believers who ‘disappear’ because their beliefs go against the government’s beliefs, believers imprisoned, churches burned, even worse. Yet, I as a believer who lives in a country that allows me to worship however and whenever I want, can find many valid reasons why I can’t make it to weekend services, why I can’t volunteer my time, why I don’t want to go to my hometeam, why I don’t want to, can’t make the time, don’t have the time/energy to serve/worship/spend time with God.

Diane’s words have made me rethink every one of those excuses. There exists right now someone who cannot worship freely like me. And on behalf of that person, I lift my hands freely and lift my voice in worship.

There exists right now someone who has no group of believers to meet with and on behalf of that person, I set my excuses aside and take advantage of all my opportunities for corporate fellowship and worship.

For the persecuted church I pray and on behalf of the persecuted church, I worship…because I can.

And for you Diane, I train, run, bike and give every workout my all, because I can.

Better Than Life

A couple years ago I shared with a friend a huge praise that I was finally “in the light” after having emerged from a dark time in my life. I painted the word picture of being on the back side of a storm in the flatlands of Kansas or Oklahoma, and looking in the rear view mirror and seeing how black and menacing what you’d just driven through actually was. I reminded her that when we drive through storms like that, most times we don’t realize how dark they are until we’ve exited the storm.

Last fall, on my way to watch a friend’s son play in a JV football game, I got a text from her saying the game had been cancelled due to severe thunderstorms that were slowly advancing toward the metroplex. So a block away from the stadium, I turned my car around to head the 10 miles south back to my house. The closer I got to my house, the darker the clouds got, the closer the lightening flashed, and in my rearview mirror I watched as the last rays of the sun were slowly engulfed by magnificent, prodigious, bruise colored thunder heads.

As I drove into the storm, I couldn’t help but smile as God brought to my remembrance all the storms he’s ferried me out of. When I shared my praise report with my friend, I told her how I’d been playing the song “Better Than Life” all that day. Blasting it in my car, singing equally as loud, hitting the ‘back’ button at the end of the song, and starting all over from the top again.

Your love is everlasting
Its an everlasting love
Your mercy is as new as every rising of the sun
And your loving kindness,
loving kindness is better than life

Fairest of 10,000 of 10,000 you are fair
Nothing in this world could ever measure or compare
And your loving kindness
Loving kindness is better than life

While I agree with the songwriter here, I must take artistic liberty and say, “your loving kindness, loving kindness has given me life”

Lord, I thank for your mercy that renews with every breath you allow me to take. I thank you for the storms that wash away, blow away, tear away what is not of you. I praise you that you set up camp with us in our storms.

I extol you that the storms will not last always. I exalt you because your very words, “Peace Be Still” have the power to extinguish the most violent of storms, and should you choose to remain silent and allow the storm to roll, your lack of vocalization does not mean that you have abandoned us, for you have promised us that you will never leave us, you would never forsake us.

I thank you for reminders, such as past thunderstorms of your past mercies and providence, and I pray that when those small reminders blow across our paths that we would take a brief moment to remember and celebrate your loving kindness, because it is better, so much better than life itself.