Lost at Sea

I’m a crier. Like, I am not sure it’s normal. Ask anyone who knows me well. Actually, ask anyone that knows me even a little. If you’ve ever watched a touching movie with me, or Oprah, or good Lord … a sweet commercial, you’ll know that I get misty eyed reeeaall easy-like. For that matter, if you’ve ever looked for a shirt in my store, you’ve seen me cry. This is not made up, people;  I cried the other day with a customer named, Stacey, because I was telling her the story of what we do – that we strive to help women love themselves, and I just plum lost it. Every email I send to my employees, telling them stories of who we’re capable of reaching and touching, has tears behind it; I assure you.  When my mom and I talk, we spend at least 30% of our conversation stumbling upon the subjects of children in poverty, uneducated good-folks trying to make a living, and gallant Christian women we admire. And yes, we end up crying. I have had to tell my mother to be careful about calling at work … because, well, I don’t know why I care – because I’ve already cried around those people.

I admire crying in other folks. My husband is fairly even-keel, but let me tell you something – and please keep this between you and the other 500 folks that view my blog – that man cries at inspirational YouTube videos. We joke at my work about how “fun” it must be to get invited to our home … Keith and I have literally found ourselves lost in a pile of used Kleenex, after a good run of “No wait, watch this one …”. My daughter cries when “cute birdies” get hurt in cartoons, and I find it endearing.  My father, a police officer and picture of controlled professional-emotion, is not afraid to cry. I have watched him in the pulpit, as he speaks of God’s tremendous grace, cry. And I have sat with him in conversations when I was twelve about his hurting over my abusing his trust, or at age twenty-eight when I wanted to know how to move forward when marriage got hard. His advice has many times included honest tears.

Just this past Sunday, at the end of a long and emotional debate within ourselves over where we should attend church, the answers were suddenly clear as we sat in the congregation of a priest who freely cried in the midst of the pomp and circumstance of his dress robes. Reading from a book, he began to describe a character’s experience of serving AIDS patients. The prose, a beautiful and vivid picture of humble servitude, brought him to choke on his own tears and emotions as he, no doubt, reflected on this phenomenon in his own life and in the life of his congregation.

And I, a product of parents who see Jesus in the lowliest of folks … I, who sees God most clearly among those who cannot possibly repay a favor … I, who struggles to accept God has placed me in a position to serve those in privileged classes … I, who feels most at home in the tiny impoverished town I was raised in… I felt God speaking to the very core of me and I … I held my breath in the most vigorous of attempts to not cry in church. Because, my Friends, I hate crying in church and I avoid it in high stakes.

Is this to say it never happens, that I never lose that tiny bit of control I hold in the tightness of my throat and swift swipes of my finger to my eye? Of course not, it’s happened. But it doesn’t when I can control it. And I assure you, it’s a practiced discipline – the art of keeping my natural tendencies from happening at the foot of the Holy of Hollies. But at some point in my adult life (I recall freely crying as part of worship during my adolescence when I didn’t know better than to bring honest emotion to the Father), I decided it was embarrassing, possibly inappropriate, to cry in church. Or, perhaps, at one point I realized I wasn’t crying tears of appreciation and love for the Father, but tears of remembrance for the mistakes I had made. Maybe I was afraid that people would judge me, or assumed they would know they were seeing tears of guilt. I dunno. But I don’t cry in church.

And then I think of the old hymn, “There is a fountain filled with blood, drawn from Immanuel’s veins; and sinners, plunged beneath that flood, lose all their guilty sins”. There is a fountain, in all of us who profess to know Christ. And wouldn't it make sense that when we are in His presence, when we are hearing His word, and listening to Him speak through His loyalist of servants, that something would spring from that well? It makes sense, too, then – that in those every day moments of grace, my fountain would begin bubbling up. From the Life Source, the Ultimate Spring, comes the physical outpouring and offering of grace in the form of salty tears. So what’s the catch? Why a generous well in my every day, and the nervous turning off of a valve when I am in the presence of other Believers?

Ah and there it is. It’s not a matter of crying “at church” I am afraid of, it’s a matter of crying with “The Church”. Sniffle a little with someone who doesn’t share my faith, and I have provided a powerful witness. Get misty-eyed with another Believer here and there, and we feel the very real and comforting presence of The King. Cry with a body of Believers, though, and suddenly one risks (or perhaps seals a fate of) merging one fountain with many. The Spirit that lives in me longs to pour out and meet you where you are, as parts of the Body that He lives and functions in this world through. And I guess, as marvelous as it all sounds, the recognition of my small part in an infinitely larger purpose that I cannot possibly see or fully understand, causes me to gasp and hope I don’t let my small sense of control be lost in the sea of Who We Are.

The uncomfortable, and equally undeniable, truth is this: I don't want to know what God is capable of doing in my life. And while the smart seventh-grader refuses to do his homework in hopes of being "cooler", and the talented young-gymnast rebels by not going to practice, so do I refuse to plug into anything that would bring about the full greatness of God's work in my life. Let me taste Your Goodness, oh Lord, but keep me, I pray, in the smallness of the world I know and love. Baptize me in the cool refreshment of your Blood, but keep me from the immersion of living and sharing with Your People.

Perhaps you're not a crier. Perhaps when the Spirit pours out of you, it is in song - and yet you will not sing at church. Perhaps the Anointment in you touches and collaborates with the Anointment in fellow Believers when you share revelation of Scripture - but you're much more comfortable doing that with close friends, certainly never in you small group. Perhaps you are a Truth Sayer, and you know this - but also know it offends people, so you keep it for the friends you know won't abandon you. Or, maybe you've prayed for deliverance, and have seen answers, but wouldn't want attention on yourself by sharing this at church. Consider this, my Friends: maybe it is not the possible negative consequences of your sharing that you fear at all. Maybe what you fear is the powerful potential of a great spiritual confluence. Maybe you know, as I do, that life would never be the same - and something about the same seems comforting and safe.

I think of the aging praise-song, "Let. The. River. Flow."

Father, you are an all-knowing, all-powerful, and unknowable God. And yet, we know you. We know you on an intimate level, in a way servants rarely know their King. Lord, know that within my love for you lay the confusion of what it means to fear you. Remove the unhealthy desire to be afraid, instead of to fear. Give me the sort of reverence that causes quite the opposite of hesitancy, but a passion to jump right in. Draw out of me the pieces of You that to connect with the places You reside in others. Let my willingness to spill You out be what draws Your Spirit from others.

May we all dive in.

JNACK