i worry about god sometimes

there are times in my life--all too frequently, it seems--when one thing starts to get hammered home into my consciousness. this happens most in epochs of my life, it seems. for instance, when i was in zambia, it was the simple exhortation to trust: trust me, trust my son, trust my provision, trust my leading, trust me to blow your mind and change your plans and rock your world, because i'm going to do it anyway and you might as well enjoy the ride. in china, it was that he had already overcome, that the stomach ache i had and the difficulties in language barriers and the tears that constantly prickled at the back of my throat because a country of one billion people who were effectively blocked from ever hearing about jesus were transitory, that he had already taken care of it, that a brighter future opened ahead, he was god of this city, this nation, this world, and he would reign. in romania, it was service to others; stop putting yourself ahead, be humble, obedient, submissive, look for how you can serve others, amen. at cyia, it's nearly always about jesus, about meditating on who and what he was and is and will be, all the beauty of the cross and the empty tomb and the reigning king, sovereign above all.

and lately, it's been all about resting in christ. about trusting his grace. about knowing that he is god, above all, beyond all, and i don't have to fear because he is so.

fear not, for i am with you;

be not dismayed, for i am your god;

i will strengthen you, i will help you,

i will uphold you with my righteous right hand

(isaiah 41:10)

i always think that maybe i'm about to figure life out, that all of this will begin to make sense. it never does, sadly, and i'm starting to think that this thing they call adulthood is simply a series of half-informed decisions, bumbling against each other and getting all mixed up because nobody is quite sure where to put their feet. and i guess that's okay (after all, if everybody's screwing up as much as i am, that makes my mistakes okay, right?). so here i sit, contemplating whether i should go to school or not, what i'd go to school for, whether it would be a waste of more money than it was worth, whether the organizations i'm working with are where i'm supposed to be, whether i'm supposed to stay in my hometown. oh yeah, and i have a boy now. so that's exciting.

i have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace.

in the world you will have tribulation.

but take heart: i have overcome the world.

(john 16:33)

amid all this, god continues to tell me to rest in him. that he has it. that all things work together for good to those who love him, who are called according to his purpose. and i am called, and i love him. and so all things will work together for good, every snarly problem and unfamiliar emotion and misstep and hard decision. resting in him brings its own rewards--i can focus on every kid in my clubs, i can love my boyfriend and my family and my church and free myself from worry. live in eucharisteo every day. it's more fun that way--even if constantly being told to rest is a little worrying, because precisely what is about to happen?

- kyla denae

prayer without words

she presses into me, small limbs still overflowing my far-too-narrow lap. too narrow because i want to gather her up and never let her go, i want to rock her until she's forgotten whatever made her so desperate for this much love, this attention she craves from all of us but most especially me. i've become her favorite, this little dark-haired, winsome eyed girl with the too-jaunty smile, the ecstatic hugs and the quiet looks that let me know this one isn't any different from the others here.

she's been through the fire, and she's survived.

so i sit behind her on the floor, let her press herself into me even though i probably shouldn't--someone will get upset with me, surely, think i'm breaking rules--but this is the ranch, where kids are sent to be loved into knowledge of god's grace and their true potential. so she presses herself inward, the beat of my heart feeling loud and hard under her head. her hair rasps against my chin, the neat braid with its little flower, pressing into my cheek when i rest it on top of her head.

she curls her sparkly converse boots closer against my legs, pulls my arm around her. i pray for her, almost on reflex, pray love and healing and whatever else she needs into the tiny body that's wrapped itself against mine. the prayer is not so much words as simple impressions--as if by simply forming the intent of words in my mind, they will become so (but isn't that truly prayer without ceasing; sending every thought, like a rare bird, toward god, bringing every one of them into the substance of something worth going before the throne?).

in that moment, with the little ball of warmth against me and the unspoken prayer and the constant reminder that she should listen to the teacher instead of playing with my fingernail--or at least more obviously multi-task--i think i could do this forever. i could sit on a hard floor that's barely covered by ancient blue carpet, surrounded by kids who've been through things i could never imagine, for the rest of my life. i could do this, could pray prayers without words, could smile and laugh and gently guide, could pray some more when it seems nothing's going right.

and in that moment, i feel my heart open a little more, my dreams and hopes and plans flying away a bit more properly. i am content, i suppose, is what i'm trying to say. content to stay here, to love on what's in front of me, to pray the words that must be prayed. and i imagine this feeling will go away at some point and i'll be left desperately wanting out of my hometown, away as far as i can get, to the reaches of the earth, in places i can't speak the language and don't know how to eat the food...but for now, i am content with whatever is in store.

- Kyla Denae

wandering (pt 1)

"where are you going?"

"oh nowhere; just wandering"

"can i help you with something?"

"no thanks; i'm just wandering."

a week ago exactly, i turned nineteen. two weeks ago (minus a couple days, but who's counting?) i got a driver's license. a month ago, i was employed by child evangelism fellowship, wrapping up my last few days as a summer intern. five months ago, i was leaving cef headquarters, a cmi graduate. nine months ago, i was leaving home for cmi.

so much has happened in the past year. i'm in the process of changing churches. i'm trying to find a job. a couple friends and i are thinking about moving out once we're all on our feet, which will hopefully not be long. and here i sit. just wandering.

all throughout my adolescent years, there were milestones. i went to zambia, and god opened my heart to missions. i went to china, and god opened my heart for those who've never heard. he told me to go to romania, and i did, and it was amazing, if not in quite the way i expected. god led me to cmi, and back home, and to a summer intership with cef...

and now i'm just...lost. wandering through the beginning stages of adulthood, trying to remember all the pieces of advice that were given me, trying to remember how exactly i've seen people do this thing called life, trying to figure out where i'm supposed to be. and i'm waiting. waiting for a sign from heaven, i suppose, a disembodied finger to float down from above and write my instructions in angular english, tilted and supernatural, on a wall. i'm waiting for something to happen, something that will confirm what i'm supposed to do.

earlier this year, while at cyia, i felt that god was leading me to move four hours east to another city. i was going to be an intern there, and work within the cef framework, with the eventual aim of...well, i still wasn't sure, but it involved overseas service with cef and possibly directorships and teacher training gigs and being somebody who went and did things instead of just sitting still and waiting for life to run into her.

well, that whole plan fell through, as my own plans so often do. i didn't feel peace about it at first, and then other things happened, things that had been festering for a long while, things that could have called my entire ministry into question, through nothing i'd actually done. i had to do hard things and say hard things and generally be pretty damn ruthless and it hurt. i had to give up dreams of a future i'd been holding close for a long time, a future equal parts hopeless and beautiful, a future i would have gladly given much up for. a future that i'd already partly given up, because i knew there was no future in it at the beginning of this year. a future i'd been hanging onto with both hands, trying to preserve.

but i gave it up, because i had to.

and now i'm sitting here, at the cusp of, like, real adulthood, and i'm staring at all these other twenty-somethings who are bumbling through life, searching for the free food and the job that will Make Them Something, and i realize i'm just another cog in a dysfunctional machine that's slowly spinning into the sun, into an uncertain universal doom that will eventually claim all men, launching us off into eternity, into the hands of a loving god or a perfect judge.

and that's sort of depressing. and i'm still no closer to figuring out what the heck i'm going to do. maybe i'll end up just wandering through life. i hope not.

- Kyla Denae

and a little child shall lead them

sometimes, i get really confused. i start worrying. like now, for instance. i was supposed to have quite a big chunk of my internship funds raised by now, the end of july. for those of you not in the loop, i'm working at child evangelism fellowship this summer as one of the local interns. it's been an adventure, and i'm having quite a bit of fun. it's just...money. fundraising is not my favorite thing. i don't think it's anybody's. and i'm stressing (just the tiniest bit) about that, though i'm giving it to god and letting him take care of it.

last week, i went to camp good news, which is a camp in oklahoma run by one of my teachers from cmi. i came home to some stuff that i'd not expected, stuff that's been in my family for a long while, but is beginning to manifest in new and exciting ways.

can you sense the sarcasm here

i hope so

i'm being really sarcastic

it's not exciting

it sucks

i hate drama

anyway

i came home to this, and i'm sitting here thinking, god, you said you were gonna take care of me this summer. you were very clear about how this internship was where i was supposed to be. i wanted to go to thailand, and you said no, god, and i know there was a reason, but i'm having a bit of trouble seeing it right about now. god, i'm confused. i don't know where i'm supposed to go. am i supposed to go finish out my internship down south, or am i supposed to stay in amarillo for another year. am i supposed to help do good news clubs or am i supposed to get a job and be a good little member of the workforce. am i supposed to buy a car and get my own place or buy a car and stay where i'm at or am i supposed to go hunting me a husband and hope you work it all out.

another thing i hate

adulthood

it's full of all sorts of problems that my nine year old conception never did see

curse you unrealistic expectations about life

i could go on and on about my young adult angst, but it would bore you, so i shan't. to make a long story short, i'm confused and trying to figure out god's will in the midst of much weirdness. i'm in way over my head, and i just want out of most of it, and i'm unable to be.

at camp this past week, there was this little girl in the bible class i was teaching. on the second day at camp, she came to me and told me that she knew she'd believed in jesus, but she wasn't sure if she still was, because she'd done some wrong things and she didn't always feel that god was with her. one of my favorite promises in the bible is found in hebrews 13:5--it says, "for he has said, i will never leave you nor forsake you." it's a beautiful promise, full of truth and wonder and the awe-inspiring idea that out of all his creations, out of all the things there are to love, out of all the majesty and beauty that fills the universe, god chose to love me, to tear out a part of himself and sacrifice it, for me, and with that knowledge comes the idea that i'll never able to do anything that will drive god away from me.

so i shared that verse with jaylin. i told her what it means, what god has promised to us. and every day after that, i heard her repeating the promise. she told everyone she met. she put a marker in her bible at that verse and opened to it every chance she got. it was what she shared at testimony night. she made up a song with the words, so she could repeat to herself every chance she got the promise that "i will never leave you nor forsake you." to her, that was the most important thing of camp, the most important thing about god. the only important thing about god.

and so, as i sit here surrounded by a bunch of stuff i can't comprehend and can't see my way through, i am humbled by the faith of a little child. the faith that will accept something so earth-shattering as "god is never going to leave me ever" and translate it into a song and into a chant that is repeated to oneself over every meal and before every bedtime and to everybody i meet. i am left in awe at the sort of faith that can accept that so completely, and i know beyond a doubt that i want that faith, that that faith is something to be reached for.

so i'm going to reach for it. i'm going to trust that promise--that even when i can't see my way, even when everything's cloudy and weird and beyond my wisdom, god's got me. he will never leave me. he's sealed me in the palm of his hand. he's three hundred steps ahead of me, scouting out my life decades in advance. 

for he has said

i will never leave you nor forsake you

so we can confidently say

the lord is my helper

i will not fear

what can man do to me

hebrews 13:5-6, ESV

- Kyla Denae

falling in love with jesus

There's something about serving others. About reaching out to people who may have never heard the Gospel. About sincerely, genuinely getting down to a child's level and simply showing them how much you care. There's something about it that lifts the fog of a world that's broken and hurting, and for a few simple, beautiful moments, shows the wonder that Jesus brought to earth.

This year at Christian Youth In Action© (a training camp Child Evangelism Fellowship© holds around the country to train teenagers how to effectively share their faith), I was a team leader for the first time. My team and I, consisting of two fourteen year old teenagers, went to a Boys' and Girls' Club, community centers that bring in kids during the year and teach them respect, discipline...or, at least, attempt to.

Community center 5 Day Clubs are always difficult. A lot of the kids in these places come from broken or troubled homes. Both of their parents--or their only parent--have to work all day long, and so the kids get bundled off to these budget daycare facilities, because it's all they can afford during the summer. The school systems are, very often, failing these kids spectacularly. They're faced with parents who don't care, or are abusive, or try really hard but can't make ends meet. Many of them have absent fathers--some because their fathers are in jail, some because their dad just up and disappeared one day. Some, the ones who really break my heart, have different daddies than their siblings, and their mom has a new guy these days.

As a consequence of all these factors, many of these kids have behaviour problems. Respect is earned, not freely given. And it can only be earned very, very slowly, by continually pouring into their lives. Everyone else has left them; the chances of your doing so, in their eyes, is extremely high. They see no need to listen to some teacher they don't know. Add into this a racial divide that's still very much alive in some of these places, and it becomes downright impossible.

We walked into this community center, and I could only glance back at my team and say one of those quick "dear Jesus, please help us," prayers. Neither of my team was particularly prepared for the challenge presented by these kids. One of my team members was a second-year in our program. He's a great teacher, but he's also very focused. He has to focus entirely upon his lesson, or he'll lose it...and the discipline problems in this club didn't help the whole focus thing. My other team member was a first-year, a little fourteen year old girl who's almost whiter than I am, with perfect hair and nails and a bit of germophobia.

To say that I was a bit nervous about the outcome of this club would be an understatement. I could handle it. But I was the team leader. My job was to sit in the back of the room, observe, write things down on sheets of paper, and pray really hard that my team wouldn't tank. Okay, maybe that last bit isn't technically on the job description, but it fits. So that's what I did. For five days, I helped how I could, I gave pointers, I prayed for my team, and I loved the kids in our club. I loved them with every bit of me.

It was a hard club, I'll tell you that. My team wasn't quite sure what to do with them. Some of them smelled bad, and my poor little germophobe didn't know what to do with them. Some of them wouldn't sit down for love or money--or, what was more immediate, the promise of candy. Some of them were attentive and got as close as they could to the teacher. Some could answer every question at the end, but during the lesson looked as if they weren't listening at all...and did their hardest to distract everyone around them. My team wasn't quite sure how they were supposed to love these kids. How just standing up and teaching them a lesson constituted loving them at all. How they were supposed to reach into these kids' lives and make a difference.

How, in short, loving them was at all possible.

They're smelly.

They don't pay attention.

They're disrespectful.

They make snide comments about us.

They hate us.

Slowly, I got them to look past that...or, at least, attempted to. Yes, they're disrespectful. But God made them, and loves them. And it is here that loving others and loving Jesus intersects. Telling people about Christ--especially children, who Jesus loved above all others--seems to bring Jesus from the past, from the realm of abstract intellectual knowledge, and makes Him a present, living reality.

Christ lived and died. 

For each and every one of these smelly, disobedient kids. 

Christ gave His blood. 

For each child who turns around in their chair while they're supposed to be listening. 

Christ came alive again. 

For each child who complains as he's being led into the classroom on day three. 

When I really make an effort to think about the sacrifice Jesus made, about how much he suffered just for the love of sinful, horrible people who were, in that very moment, nailing him to one of the most brutal torture implements ever devised by human imagination, it's hard to ever despise the people you're trying to tell about Him. It makes it difficult to say bad things. It makes it difficult to undervalue those who've never heard that He did, in fact, make that sacrifice.

And as I ponder it, this incredible, immense sacrifice that was made on my behalf, it makes me fall in love, too. It makes me realize that, as I am loved, as Christ loved me, so these children are loved. And that's why the end of a 5 Day Club always makes me cry. Why I can only pray during our last few minutes with them, praying life and love and hope over them, praying for those who came so close to a knowledge of the Savior during the five days, yet still fell short of quite getting it, of fully grasping it, of understanding the truth we'd been pouring into their lives.

Yesterday, I was reading in 1 Peter. I was actually studying for a lesson, but then my eye landed on this, and it so perfectly sums up the reason I do what I do.

Knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things... but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. He indeed was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you who through Him believe in God, who raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.

I am not redeemed by anything I can do, with corruptible things that will pass away. My deeds cannot ever atone for the other deeds I've done, can't begin to cover the sin I've committed. Yet Christ came, a lamb without any defect. He knew this would happen, eons before it came to pass. And yet He still came. He came to earth and died. He came to earth and came alive again, to be a testament for us, to make a new covenant forged under his blood, by his suffering.

And now my faith and hope are in Him, in His Father. And that is why I go to these places where the kids are tough and hurting and broken. It's why I go into a sick, broken world. Because I know the One who heals all hurts. And can I sit by and simply not take it? 

I've fallen in love with Jesus. Totally, irrevocably, utterly in love with Jesus. I love Him who first loved me. And now I can't help but speak of this faith and hope that He has given me.

- Kyla Denae

loving jesus beyond all reason

sometimes, i just get to this place where i realize how truly amazing jesus actually is.

like, i know he's amazing.

i always know that.

but sometimes, i'll just be sitting there

listening to music

or reading

or studying

or in a lull at work

or about to drift off to sleep

and it'll hit me.

jesus died for me

God of the universe

creator

holy

beautiful

outside of time

outside of space

big

impossible

amazing

all-powerful

all-knowing

just

possessor of all things

that God

he came to earth

and he was born as a baby

and he grew up like a mortal man

and then he died.

think about that.

just let it sink in.

God can't die.

no god can die.

even the greeks couldn't truly kill their gods.

the idea that gods of any form or fashion can die is a relatively newfangled fashion

arisen from the atheistic idea that there's nothing outside of us

that we are gods.

but this God did die

and he didn't just die because he thought it'd be interesting

he died for a purpose

for a reason

for a person

he died for you

he died for me

he died for the lost

the broken

the powerful

the needy

the unknown

the wealthy

the sick

the hopeless

the hopeful

God of the universe

the everlasting

came to an end.

that's not the end of the story, of course.

because what a dull story.

the good guy always wins

everybody knows that

as Satan rejoiced--his enemy dead--something was stirring

and a stone rolled away

the brilliance of a heavenly being made two soldiers fall over in a dead faint

and jesus came alive again.

his death saved us from the consequences of our sin

his resurrection freed us from the power of sin.

and it was all paid for.

and he did that for us.

even though we are what we are.

so sometimes, i get to this place where i realize how truly amazing jesus is.

and it just takes my breath away.

and i can't do anything but just sit, and think, and stare into space and marvel.

because i am loved beyond all reason

and i can't help but answer that love in kind.

- Kyla Denae