God of Second Chances

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from People of the Second Chance

Here I am, spending seven days at home before I'm off to my next adventure: 10 weeks at summer camp in Alabama. And I'm excited for it, albeit a bit terrified. I have hope it will go well and I will learn a lot.

In the meantime, I've been getting up to date on the blogs I follow, and I came across a post referencing the "Purity Culture," that is, something along the lines of True Love Waits with a heavy emphasis on the sanctity of the marriage bed and chastity before marriage. The post (you can read it here) is not only expressing concern over the Purity Culture for keeping men and women from a healthy expression of their sexuality (it's bad and wrong until you get married, but then it's 100% perfect and encouraged), but is also offering up the hope of second chances. Jonalyn argues that much of the Christian community has an inadequate understanding of God's gift of sexuality. I would agree with her. 

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Let's explore that idea of second chances, because I don't yet have an answer for the "problem" of the Purity Culture. My pastor and his wife will have been married for ten years this summer. She was not a virgin when they got married and she told me once told me how heartbreaking it felt that she couldn't give her husband everything. I guess it was the realization that someone else had also known her intimately.

Yet her husband, my pastor, is truly in love with her. He does not see her as damaged goods. He sees her as beautiful. When they first met, he had hope for her. When I look at her now, I see a life changed. She left behind a girl of addictions to become a woman of faith. She shared her story with us on Mother's Day this year and I was reminded that God is a God of second chances.

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The summer after I graduated high school, my oldest first cousin got married at a lovely ceremony I had the privilege of attending. He and his wife moved up north after the wedding and were together for less than a year before separating and subsequently divorcing. When I heard of their divorce, I wrote a painful and probably much-too-harsh post (that I happen to have located) detailing my frustration. I had high hopes for this couple and I felt broken when I learned that my hopes that this marriage would be the one out of our family to last were dashed.

It's been three years this month after that wedding, and I am proud to say that I saw a tweet slide up on my Twitter feed that indicated that my former cousin-in-law is happily remarried to a fellow believer. There was a spark of happiness in my heart when I saw that. What a God of second chances!

Even though this young woman is no longer a part of my family, she is still a member of the body of Christ, and God provided her with the gift of second chances that he willingly provides each of his children.

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As I write this, my great-great uncle is lying on his deathbed. After almost ninety-one years on this earth, he spent his life well and is nearing the end of his time with us. As the story goes, he was in the Navy back in the day and was taken by helicopter off of his ship and out of the war zone for some reason. While he was gone, his ship was attacked and lost, and none of his friends and shipmates survived. The helicopter could not locate the attacked ship, and my uncle's shipmates were gone.

The story has been told to me multiple times, and it always ends with my uncle's feelings of guilt for leaving his crew behind and being the only one who survived. He never talks about it. But yesterday, as I sat beside his bed and stared up at his plaques and photos lining the wall, I came to the conclusion that God gave my great-great uncle a second chance. After leaving the Navy, he went to college and seminary, became a Methodist preacher, got married, and had two sons. He also helped raise my grandmother and her sister, who never knew their father. He wrote and published a little book and was able to move back to the area where he grew up. He and his current wife are presently living in the home where she was raised.

And God gave him another chance. I think the reason God gives us second chances (and third, and fourth...) is because he has something better for us. God doesn't want the mistakes men and women made in their pasts to mar their futures beyond repair. God didn't want my great-great uncle to die that day when he was in the Navy. I believe that God has great plans for his children, and if that means structuring events and circumstances to provide them with another chance to choose good, even another chance to choose him, I believe he will do just that. God is in the restoring business, and that includes second chances.

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Speaking of second chances... I am preparing to move my blogging-self over to http://deannalexis.wordpress.com/, to a blog tentatively titled "Grace Upon Grace." I would love to have your insight into the next stages of my blogging career. If you are able, please take this quick survey and answer how best you can. I appreciate it greatly!

Need that survey link? Click here. Thank you so much!

A Good Gift

This is a story of a father who knew how to give good gifts to his children...

One day a father gave his two children a present. He was a good man and a really mindful and caring dad, and he gave his children everything they needed. This gift was really special, over and beyond simply meeting a need. He carefully designed the gift himself, crafted it with both of his children in mind, and even got custom gift wrapping. When it was just the right time, the perfect occasion, the father gave the gift to his children, and they both appreciated the gift. He gave them specific guidelines for using the gift, but they found no problem with keeping to the guidelines.

Sometime later, no one knows exactly how long, the children disobeyed their father. They had been coerced into doing something that he specifically told them not to do. Even though they felt like they had been tricked, they willingly and individually chose to disobey their dad.

The children were ashamed and felt guilty, and they hid from their dad. When he came home and couldn't find them, he realized what had happened. It broke the father's heart, but he had to send his children away for a time. They had broken his trust and they needed to experience his discipline.

So the father helped his children pack their things, although it wasn’t much. Before they left, he wept with them. He told them that their choice to disobey him had disrupted not only both of their relationships with him, but also their relationships with each other. He assured them that he still loved them, but that this would be best for them. Then he reminded them to take with them the gift he had given them earlier. Their father explained that it would be more difficult to enjoy it now that their relationships were marred, but that it was still good. He sent it with them as a reminder of the perfect relationships they once had with him and with each other, as well as a reminder of the plans he had for them. These plans, he explained, were that one day they could both have perfect relationships again. “One day,” he told them, “We will be together face to face again, but until then, you might not be able to speak directly with me. It may feel like looking into a cloudy mirror, but I will write letters when I can, and I will send you messages.”

So his children left home, got jobs, and moved to different areas. They each had their own children and, eventually, grandchildren. When their children were old enough and mature enough, they passed the gift on to their children, and their children passed it on to their children. As the years went on, some parents did not instruct their children in the correct way to use the gift. Even when parents gave instructions, some children rebelled against these guidelines. The gift became misused and mistreated. Some people used the gift against others, perverting the purpose of the gift.

As a result of this treatment of the gift, many people experienced the shame and guilt that the first two children felt. Most of this guilt and shame forced the people into hiding, just as the first two children hid from their father. Because of this, the marred relationships the father spoke about grew even more disfigured. Yet some people who were broken by their guilt and shame realized that they did not want to or have to stay in that mistreatment of the gift. These people told each other of their guilt. They shared with each other that they didn't want to keep hiding.

By this time, the first father was a wizened old man, and many people would come to see him. He regretted that his children had disobeyed him and that the gift had been perverted over the years, but he knew that through this, many people would come to know him as their adopted father. While the time had not yet come for the children, both the first two children and the adopted children, to be reconciled completely to their father, he was ready to provide them with hope and healing despite their shame. When people sought out the father and asked him for hope and healing, he forgave them for misusing his gift and then gave them a renewed desire and strength to pursue the gift in its pure form. The people weren't perfect, but they tried, and the father met all their needs. And when the people messed up? The father continued to show them grace upon grace.

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In light of recent interpersonal and community-wide discussions on sexual brokenness, I was challenged to think of sex as God's gift. This has been really difficult for me, and I wondered whether I should write or post about it at all, but I find that silence is the worst choice in this area. One of the causes and contributors to sexual sin, especially hidden sin, is loneliness. Shame from the sin breeds silence, which breeds loneliness, which leads to more sin, which causes shame. It's a relentless cycle unless someone knows, unless it becomes one less person struggling alone.

I wrote this simple retelling of the Garden of Eden and sexual sin to encourage us to find the goodness in God's gift. He is a good father who gives good gifts, but he gave instructions and parameters to this gift so we could enjoy it wisely. (This is an interesting parallel to his command that Adam and Eve not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.) In terms of parameters, I was once told that we don't build fires on our living room floors - we build them in fireplaces. These guidelines are good and wholesome, but there has been a lot of confusion. I think Satan loves to corrupt God's good things, and he has corrupted this quite a bit. There is much brokenness, guilt, and shame as a result of the misuse of God's gift, both because we live in a fallen world and because of the sinfulness of ourselves and other humans.

But God is good.

"But God" is my favorite phrase in the Bible. It shows up 59 times in the NLT. Therefore, despite the corruption, the misuse, and the guilt and shame, God is good. I believe that he gives us good gifts and he is heartbroken when they are misused, but it is not his plan to leave us in that. He is a God of grace and forgiveness and freedom.

What does that look like?

In February of my sophomore year, I started counseling in response to some difficult stuff that had happened earlier. One of the ways that I was able to heal during counseling was by changing the way that I saw God. Through counseling and prayer, I came to see God as a daddy whose lap I could climb up in. It came as a new revelation to me at the time that God would want to listen to me. I pictured having chai lattes with him at my kitchen table or sitting on his lap in a big, comfy chair. Interestingly, just the summer and semester prior to counseling, I had been reading and studying Captivating by the Eldredges. Every time I read it, something else jumps out at me, and that time I just faintly underlined (and didn't even put a tab at) one sentence almost half way through the book. Looking through the book now, I randomly found that sentence on page 100 and nearly cried when I saw it. It says:

The best thing we can do is to let Jesus come in, open the door and invite him in to find us in those hurting places.

God wanted me to let him in, and he continued to give me that image when I wasn't getting it the first time. That's what healing, forgiveness, and freedom looks like. It starts with letting someone in. For some people, the first person is Jesus, for others, they have to tell someone else before they can open up to the Lord.

The key here is that loneliness solves nothing. Shame will try to keep you down, but it will not define you. We are not defined by our failings and shortcomings, in this or any other area. Accountability and community are the safeguards.

And grace is the cure.

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If this post hits home for you, I encourage you to seek out someone you trust who will listen and can help. If you're a TFC student, I pray that you'll get connected with the Breaking Free ministry (this chapel and others) or free counseling on campus. Let me know if I can help in any way.

Second Chances

After a lovely graduation at my alma mater and an awesome commencement speech from one of my favorite high school teachers, I had every intention of welcoming friends into the high-school-graduate club, taking a few pictures, and heading home to enjoy the beautiful and warm evening. I planned to write a blog post and add some supporters to my e-mail update list for while I am overseas before going to bed.

 I was feeling like quite the independent woman, to say the least. (Cue the “independent black woman who don’t need no man!”) Walking back to my car after the ceremony tonight, in my heels with my fancy purse, I relished (maybe a bit too forwardly) that I was a twenty year college student with my life before me and trip to Asia on the horizon. I even got the random urge to roll down my windows and turn up the radio and sing Abandon’s “New Years Day” much too loudly on the thirty minute drive home. It was fantastic.

Then I glanced down and realized I had missed a call from my mom. I called her back and we played a short round of phone tag. She called me back again and asked me if I had left graduation yet and where I was.

Pause with me for a moment. Here I am. Independent. Driving my own car. I have been at college on and off for two years, during which time I do not call my mom every time I leave or arrive somewhere, like I once did during my first years as a licensed driver. My mom was even at graduation, though she was required to sit with the other teachers while I sat with a friend, and she told me she was leaving as soon as the ceremony was over, but that I could stay as long as I wanted. So why did she call me? It felt like overkill.

Believe me, I absolutely love my mom. But there was something that irked me about her phone call. Sometimes I feel like I am at this strange and confusing crossroads between child and adult. Legally, I can order things online, drive unrestricted, live by myself, and a host of other things. One more year and I’ll be legal in more ways as well.

Yet at the very same time, I am so incredibly dependent. Just hours earlier, my mom bought my dinner at Moe’s and was reminding me that I have to rely on someone to come pick me up from the airport when I fly back to the US from Asia.

And when it comes to God, I need him to. Sometimes I hate admitting that.

I came home from college excited about this trip to Asia. I came home tired, so tired, but ready to learn and grow (and read and knit and run) this summer. And I was doing well, too. I had a system for getting up at a decent time, eating a healthy breakfast and doing a devotional time, then heading to the YMCA for a good workout and practicing for a 5K.

In time, I began slipping out of the schedule. I got prideful. I stayed up too late and woke up too late. I didn’t do my devotions; I stopped seeing God in the little things. I slipped up. Earlier today, I got upset for no reason. I lost my phone and blamed it on everyone but myself. I became disappointed in myself for a side cramp and a leg-spasm-thing that kept me from running today. I yelled at my brother.

When I don’t go to God for the daily (spiritual) bread I need each day, I sometimes wonder how I make it through the day. It’s awful. There is this God who is sovereign over everything and who loves me and I continue to ignore him and his pursuit of me because reading the Bible is “boring” or I’m “tired” or there’s “so much” to do. How stupid is that?

Tonight, driving with the windows down and “New Years Day” loud, I thought about second chances. Today did not go exactly as planned, although it ended well. When I mess up, whether I’m struggling with a bad habit sin or a major struggle sin, whether I’m just not seeing God or actively rebelling against God, it should bring me to (good) guilt - the kind that leads to repentance.

Repentance is not an “I’m sorry” and move on. It’s a changing “I’m sorry.” Repentance means that I hate the sin and I am so grateful that God would love me through and in spite of it. In reality, God does not see my sinful self, but rather the holy Jesus covering over me. And while God sees Jesus covering me, I am being redeemed and made holy. I am in the process of sanctification. I am being saved.

Am I there yet? Definitely not. But I must believe that God is working. God is moving. I am being sanctified. I am being made to look more like him.

And I must have patience with myself along the way. God is a God of second chances and it’s okay to need him desperately, because I do. A lot.

What I'm Listening To...

"New Year's Day" - Abandon

"You Are" - Tenth Avenue North

"You Are My King (Amazing Love)" - Newsboys

Check out my 30 Before 30 Blog: doing thirty things in the next ten years. Want to get e-mail updates  while I'm in Asia for five weeks? Use the form in the post below. Comment with your thoughts on repentance!