Hi, My Name is Tara . . .
My friend Lori has always been afraid of public speaking. In school, she once took a lower grade and wrote an extra paper in order to avoid having to speak in front of people. How funny, then, and how like Him (remember Moses?) that God would choose to bless her with an astonishing preaching gift. I heard her give her testimony some weeks ago--September 14, 2006, to be exact--and it was like watching a mantle fall on someone.
It was as if we were all huddled in the alley that leads to the ice on a skating rink just before a performance, and the spotlight was there on the surface, inviting, and Lori was scared, like a cat that sees the bathwater and suddenly clings to you when you try to put it in, and she was saying, "Are you kidding? I can't even walk here on the carpet in these stupid skates!" But of course, the skates are made for the slick ice, not the soft carpet, and as she got shoved out onto it, she just slid gracefully, steadily, and easily into the place she was supposed to be.
Lori has a pretty amazing testimony, and the details are so sensational that it's hard not to want to hear them, or tell them, every time. It's all there--heroin addiction! lawbreaking! life on a razor's edge, and God rescuing her on one harrowing night when she knew she was going to die!--and yet to focus on those things seems all wrong somehow . . . because what you notice about Lori is not what she was, or even what she's been through, but the wisdom, humor, grace, strength, and kindness produced in her by her experience of the indefatigable love of God.
Going to that meeting of our church's recovery ministry and hearing Lori speak was unforgettable, and yet the evening was tinged with sadness for me too. Lori has this desire for absolute obedience, but so many of the people there were painfully and obviously ambivalent about their recovery. Lori struggles, but the biggest part of her, the part that is winning out minute by minute, desires to know God whatever the cost. I think that before, I had believed that you'd either want to be in recovery like Lori, or you'd be completely at the mercy of your addiction. I didn't really think about all the time when you'd be trying to decide, and maybe not using at the moment, but pretty actively considering using later tonight. In this respect, it seemed more like just the way we fight plain old sin--our battles are not dramatic, but petty and tedious and recursive and boring to even our best friends. Our enemy fights a war of attrition.
And so when I think about the ministry I think our church is supposed to have, it's not like we are "bringing the addicts to Jesus!" or "bringing Jesus to the addicts!" And it's not that cloying sentiment of, "Oh, when we try to bless others who are needy, we're truly blessed ourselves!" . . . . all of which smack of smarmy self-importance somehow. It's more like this very simple question, and one that's the same whether our church has people struggling with addiction or people struggling in all the suburban garden-variety ways: Are we going to be the church, really, or not?
It was as if we were all huddled in the alley that leads to the ice on a skating rink just before a performance, and the spotlight was there on the surface, inviting, and Lori was scared, like a cat that sees the bathwater and suddenly clings to you when you try to put it in, and she was saying, "Are you kidding? I can't even walk here on the carpet in these stupid skates!" But of course, the skates are made for the slick ice, not the soft carpet, and as she got shoved out onto it, she just slid gracefully, steadily, and easily into the place she was supposed to be.
Lori has a pretty amazing testimony, and the details are so sensational that it's hard not to want to hear them, or tell them, every time. It's all there--heroin addiction! lawbreaking! life on a razor's edge, and God rescuing her on one harrowing night when she knew she was going to die!--and yet to focus on those things seems all wrong somehow . . . because what you notice about Lori is not what she was, or even what she's been through, but the wisdom, humor, grace, strength, and kindness produced in her by her experience of the indefatigable love of God.
Going to that meeting of our church's recovery ministry and hearing Lori speak was unforgettable, and yet the evening was tinged with sadness for me too. Lori has this desire for absolute obedience, but so many of the people there were painfully and obviously ambivalent about their recovery. Lori struggles, but the biggest part of her, the part that is winning out minute by minute, desires to know God whatever the cost. I think that before, I had believed that you'd either want to be in recovery like Lori, or you'd be completely at the mercy of your addiction. I didn't really think about all the time when you'd be trying to decide, and maybe not using at the moment, but pretty actively considering using later tonight. In this respect, it seemed more like just the way we fight plain old sin--our battles are not dramatic, but petty and tedious and recursive and boring to even our best friends. Our enemy fights a war of attrition.
And so when I think about the ministry I think our church is supposed to have, it's not like we are "bringing the addicts to Jesus!" or "bringing Jesus to the addicts!" And it's not that cloying sentiment of, "Oh, when we try to bless others who are needy, we're truly blessed ourselves!" . . . . all of which smack of smarmy self-importance somehow. It's more like this very simple question, and one that's the same whether our church has people struggling with addiction or people struggling in all the suburban garden-variety ways: Are we going to be the church, really, or not?
posted by Tara | 8:38 PM
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