Jesus in the Jungle

Here I am twisting my hair on a Sunday afternoon, trying to unwind from the weekend. I feel like I'm recovering from something...I don't know what. Too much social activity, it feels like. I spent most of it staring into space, but it still counts. Staring into space public and staring into space in the privacy of your own lamplit room are two entirely different things.

Last night I was at the Rz. ladies meeting at Priscilla's house. There were fifteen of us there, I think, and I was laughing because when we went around the circle saying our names, there were I think 2 Lena's, 2 Sveta's, 2 Olya's, and 3 Lesia's. Ukrainian names are so pretty that I guess they just like to use the same ones over and over. For my part, it drives me crazy. I guess it just shows a cultural tendency toward individuality. It would bother me to know five people with my name :)

Priscilla shared last night about an anology she read in a book by Ann Ortland (I don't know who that is, but that's where she said it was from). It really resonated with me. It was comparing life to a river that we are floating down, each in our own boat, happily doing our own thing. We don't know that there is a treacherous waterfall ahead, and we aren't preparing for it. But along with the waterfall, there is also Someone with a strong hand, reaching out from the shore to rescue us. We can choose to take His hand and be saved.

Our Rescuer then takes us on a journey to a beautiful city far away, a city where there is no more pain, sin, sadness, or danger. Of course we want to go, but the journey is a harrowing one through a wild jungle. There are poisonous plants, dark pathways, tangled vines, ferocious cats, and poisonous snakes. It isn't a "safe" journey, or a comfortable one. But we have the promise that we'll get through safely if we hold on to our Savior's hand.

Lena N. had drawn a beautiful picture of a strong hand with a tiny one clinging to one finger, representing us walking with God. I think the holding on is simply our faith.

I was fighting tears all the way through, not very excited about breaking down in front of 14 or 15 women, no matter how nice they are. I was thinking, "Lord, I said I would follow you, and I want to...I just...I have this desperate craving to be safe." I want to feel secure. I don't want to be uncomfortable. There's something in me that yearns for wild adventure, but I feel so vulnerable. Every day I wage wars with resentment at being so "alone." I'm not that alone, and when I am, maybe it was my own choice.

I think all the sins I commit stem out of this longing for security and comfort. I try to protect myself, preserve my little world so that nothing hurts and nothing is too risky. But Jesus says those who save their lives will lose them, and it's the ones who lose their lives who actually save them.

So here I am in Ukraine, wanting a comfort zone. Working very hard for one. You have to work very hard for it, because it's about impossible to obtain. When you've lived elsewhere and spoken a different language all your life, that is. And here I am realizing (again) that no, no, no, comfort zone isn't the goal here. But I want it, God! I want it like a child wants another cookie he's not allowed to have. I want it knowing the answer is no, and almost stomping my foot. I didn't sign up for this pain. Or did I?

It's in Luke 14 I think that we're told to count the cost of following Christ, and see if it's too much for us. And I've counted the cost before. Not that I actually could do it accurately. But that's not the point. The point is that I know, I know with a crazy knowing that I have to follow Jesus, and it's both unexplainable and indisputable. He's not making me, something in me just has to. I'm in for the jungle and now it's time for some major hand holding. Gripping. Clinging. Climbing up in terror and burying my face in His broad shoulder, clutching at His shirt, afraid of wild noises in the dark.

As I was crying out for security last night, I had a picture in my mind of a baby in one of those slings...those baby slings that remind me all at once of midwives and hippies and native American indians for some reason...and Deb, just because she used to have a brown one for Noah. And I think of myself in that sling against God's chest, and Him holding me so tightly I can hardly breath. That kind of security. And that is what I have in Christ Jesus.

"Who can separate you from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation or distress of persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword?...no, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

Romans 8:35, 36-39