Publish Me! (Come on, please?)

Those of you that know me well probably know that my only goal in life from the age of like 7 has been to be a writer. My mom thinks I'm pretty good.

Unfortunately, the process to get work in front of people who might agree is SO frustrating. I'm going to take a risk here, because I get nervous when people read my writing, it's like a kid - criticism hurts. But, since it's necessary I'm going to put the Introduction of a project on New Orleans thatI've been working on onto here and see if it can fall on eyes that can help (FYI - don't ask an agent for a meeting, they get really rude. I have no idea how you're supposed to connect with one. And the one publisher whose guidelines I followed and labored over to send a manuscript to didn't respond - RUDE!).

Anyhow: Here we go.

The project is called (tentatively) One Step Beyond, and it's a book about Youth Missions changing the world. It's written to both teenagers and to those that lead them in youth groups ...

Introduction to the Introduction: I Believe

“And I believe that what I believe is what makes me who I am.”[1]

I picked up the group of about seven from the corner of a street by the Claiborne Bridge in New Orleans after we searched and searched but couldn’t find a spare for the tire they had blown an hour earlier. I had been across town, but made it over as quickly as possible to make sure we could get the group to a work project and not waste their day.

They loaded into my mini-van and I led the guy from the missions agency up Claiborne since I knew the way to the 9^th Ward from there. Traffic slowed down right before the bridge.

About half a block up we could see a semi-truck with its flashers on. Before I knew it, one of the students in the car said, “There’s an accident. It just happened.”

As I slowed into the flow of stopped traffic, all of the doors in the car flew open, almost scaring me into slamming down on the gas pedal out of a reflex. Before I could say anything, the van was empty, so a few seconds behind them, I pulled over and walked to the intersection where the semi we saw had slammed into a tiny, old Chevy car.

There was a crowd watching, including two police officers, as two women stumbled, bloody out of the car and toward the sidewalk, hysterical. One was holding a small girl. In a flash, almost as if they were the only ones moving our teens and a volunteer dove into the melee, taking the women to safety, holding the baby, and praying for healing from the dazed stupor they were in.

The victims wept as they were prayed for, and within moments had collected their cool. The residents who had been watching from the porch of the nearest house started helping. Our kids had redeemed an ugly situation through the Holy Spirit.

I watched from across the street as I walked up. I cried a little bit seeing it. Our group had just changed the world.

This is what I picture in Matthew when Jesus tells Peter and Andrew and James and John, “Come, follow me and I’ll make you fishers of men.”[2] Essentially, he was telling them, Drop everything you know, leave home, forsake your family business and let’s change the world.

Do you hear him calling?

---

[1] Rich Mullins, The Jesus Record.

[2] Matthew 4:19 (NIV)

Fall is Upon Us

It's that time of year again: everything is new. At least, school is starting, so we have the New Year for Youth Ministry. We try new things, try to get kids plugged back in, get frustrated when it starts slow, hope that we can reach all, be all things, etc, etc.

Fall is about the weather changing, and killing everything green. But it's my favorite season - kind of funny. I like the shift to cooler (but not yet cold) weather, wearing sweatshirts and jeans, and turning the A/C off.

I think about how God preps the earth - trees shed their leaves and then, basically, die for a season. He freezes everything, and it takes all of the life away until he shifts it all again and makes it all truly new. Spring makes it all green again. Life is restored.

And, it's not that hard to see the line I'm drawing here...

I have spent the last couple of weeks in a down state, dead inside. I've been worried about everything, dreading everything, not wanting to even answer my phone for fear that I'll be asked to do more, help more. It culminated in me basically going off to my friend about everything under the sun. The look on her face said all I needed to hear.

And then something really weird happened: I woke up on Thursday morning full of life and passion, even though I was more physically tired than I could remember being in a long time. Suddenly, I was looking at everything differently than I had 24 hours earlier.

May my freeze be over, and may the Living God bring my limbs and my roots back to life, green and beautiful.

Arise From The Dead

I am really bad at sticking to a plan for my devotional time. I love My Utmost For His Highest and try to get back to it whenever I can. Today is the first time I picked it up in a bit, and I read the following:

"We all have many dreams and aspirations when we are young, but sooner or later we realize we have no power to accomplish them. We cannot do the things we long to do, so our tendency is to think of our dreams and aspirations as dead. But God comes and says to us, 'Arise from the dead. . .'"

It killed me. It hit me right where I needed to be struck. I am a dreamer, but also a person who tends to abandon those dreams to far corners of my mind because of fear, busyness, and other "real-life" issues. It was absolutely an inspiration this morning to read the line from Ephesians that tells us to rise fromt he dead and try to recapture our dreams and aspirations.

I recently found an old list of goals that I have let fall by the wayside as I pursue the life of busyness and burnout. It's funny because I even made a new-ish version of that list in my journal in recent months that is also sitting dormant. I am deciding this morning to grab ahold of the momentum that comes from allowing God to raise me from the depths of my own slumber that comes from letting busyness take over and joy to be stolen. 

I expect 2009 to be awesome.