The Call of a Peculiar Poet

Everything in life has its own series of road bumps. Every category of anything on planet earth has its own sets of pros and cons;  a strict series of characteristics that defines a thing as acceptable to the party affiliated or unacceptable to the party members. 

That may sound pretty fancy word-wise, but to relay the reality of the message is something that is a deep desire of mine. 

Within writing,  there are those in the writing world that are experts on English, literature, styles, rhyme and meter (hello, Dead Poets Society), etc. Within the flower society, there are notable florists, flower-farmers that redesign the farmer-florist structure, regarded breeders, designers and voices; there are tricks of the trade that are widely recognised by the collective group of world-wide florists, and anything outside of the prescribed norm, are considered with a skeptics eye. 

Within the car-guys world, there are ratrods, dragsters, classic-enthusiasts, and all manner of in-between. Those in categories have a mind with knowledge of what is before them, techniques for their projects, and a strong inclination towards their lifestyle.  I was raised in the in-between, where my Dad was exceptional at everything his hand touched, and so to be given to any caliber of specific car-people, would immediately place him in a category. 

The nearest and dearest category to my soul is the Christian world. Raised in the church, Sunday mornings were a mad dash in a small house with a million kids everywhere getting ready - my Mom frantically blow drying her hair, my youngest sister crying over her ugly outfit, my older brother beeping in the van, and my Dad knocking on the bathroom door telling someone to “hurry up” because we only had one bathroom. Rushing out the door, I’d nearly have a panic attack that we left the house as though we were the real-time Wet Bandits from Home Alone. We would make it to the church with half the kids laughing full of it, the other half wiping frustrated tears from their face, and my parents run-walking to get into the back pew in time for songs. 

Between visiting a small circuit of local churches and trying desperately to have God make sense to me at a young age, I always felt a shift as if I was the opposing magnetic and the concept of the church kept pushing me no matter how hard I wanted to connect. 

From youth groups, to VBS, special music, girls groups, church camp and all the stereotypical Christian kid stuff, the recurring theme in my memory is simply this: no one in any church I attended ever made me feel as though God’s love was a convincing power in their life. The most impactful souls I DID meet in the church vicinity, were transient people that thought that they’d find community in the church, but were met with glares, silence and looks of disapproval when they timidly sought a fig among the tree that appeared to be full and thriving. 

But the tree was dead. Twice dead, pulled up by the roots. 

Growing up, I fantasized about foreign missions. I was going to be a missionary nurse to India or Africa. Wherever God opened the door. I believed this with my entire heart, and thought any other life path would be a sin to pursue. I adored Mary Slessor, Amy Carmichael and Cameron Townsend. Missionaries, bringers of the Light, and devoted apostles of the Father I loved and wanted to serve more than anything. 

Missionaries would visit our church, and I would feel this deep connection to their life, afterall, this is what my life would be someday. I would interrogate them after their presentations, and I remember being so enamored, but sorely disappointed by their depth. If they were supposed to bring God to the world, why were they so focused on getting money and our support rather than sharing their heart and surrender to God’s provision? 

Fast forward. I found my ministry to be unorthodox compared to the dream and vision I had as a child. 

Within the Christian world, I never did, and still do not find a place among religion. The unspoken demands to conform, do as is told, not as is shown: 

Be perfect while claiming imperfection; claiming a sinful nature while despising those struggling; loving missions while overlooking the souls before them; believing the church is necessary, but failing to be faithful each day; get saved and get serving without any reformation or surrender to God’s work and sanctification needed in the soul. 

I am in a season of life where I am being told by society that the godly woman is only characterized by how young she is married, how many kids she can have by the time she is 23, how quiet she can be, how busy she is in the church while her kids run wild, how much she claims to be godly. In other words, the godly woman is supposedly defined by what she says she is. Not how she lives. 

Foreign missions did not come true in my life. But God placed me in the garden…. Funny how that works, eh? He really has done a number in my life, and surveying the garden He has tended that is my soul and life, I am deeply endeared to the work. The wild thing is, that to many, many, many “christians” my life is not marked by faithful devotion, but by wayward living and a loud, extreme life. 

This is the key. This is what always kept me separate. I was always loud. I was always extreme, no matter what I did, I was 100%. That sounds rather prideful, but think about it: Christianity - TRUE Christianity (um, our Example, Jesus?!) is literally marked by extreme devotion, loud committal, and a staunch bend towards the surrender of human will to the will of God. Not in a ruthless, reckless way, but in a ruggedly independent, wilderness-dwelling sort of way. The sort of devotion that often commands wild, bizarre, extreme obedience (see the Old Testament Prophets). I was never, ever impressed by those that turned up their noses at me for going to church barefoot, or for eating a meal without praying. 

The thought has been in my mind lately, and it has been a sweet morsel to eat, but bitter to my stomach: agreeability is more desired than authenticity. 

Especially in the christian world. You better not say or do anything or act in a way that goes against the religious script…. But you DEFINITELY should not seek God and follow Him and have a personal relationship with Him that calls you out from among them. God is Authentic, because He has created people to represent Him very specifically in the way He is working in their life. Conformity to something man has implemented as “of God” shouldn’t be so hateful to you, should it? If they are of God, and you are of God? Why is there this division? Why do I feel it deep in my guts, that those that suffer and live messily, are those that are most willing to be laid bare and obedient to God? 

I never fit in the category. My family was never commonly agreeable, but we have, and I am severely biased, always been authentic. We speak our mind, and our natural humanity is openly known. 

But you know what? By being open and authentic about the often painful path that God calls us to, it shows others that to follow Christ, is to enter into the joy of His suffering …. NOT all sunshine and happy days. 

I didn’t become a missionary-nurse, sorry little Esther, but I did become a missionary of sorts. 

By finding no place among prescribed religion, I found that what God has provided, is sufficient in the season He has me in. 

In other words, to follow Christ is hardly relegated to a category. 

It is a wild pursuit that is the most narrow path I’ve known, and often too dark to see- this is something that  many christians will not admit, because many christians do not walk that narrow path. 

I fall off the path often. Too often than I think a true Believer should falter…. But I find it more needful to live authentically and bear the scars within me, so that others may see and glorify the God within me.

I do not condemn churches. I now know a few lovely people that are affiliated with churches. The difference is, I discern more. I seek God for my main source of information, and believe that by learning from Him, I inevitably become a missionary to each individual I meet on the daily – my life must be the loudest testament to my ministry and the One I serve. 

I still long to find a place where believers all share the mind of Christ and are found to be faithful stewards of the call. Whether I find a semblance of that in a fellow believer, in the garden among the flowers, in a church on a warm summer morning, or with a friend riddled with stress, sorrow and fear. 

Christianity is a category I do not want to be stereotyped into. 

Good and Faithful servant is the goal… and that is quite often the most unorthodox of all.