This has been a different Christmas season for me. I have tended to find Jesus hidden where I least expect him. I found new meaning in gift giving for this reason. We hide our great treasure that we've made or bought for a loved one behind a pretty exterior. We spend hours do wonders to hide our gift (some of us, and some wrap it in a grocery bag.) Everyone either oohs and ahhs at how pretty it is or wonders either inwardly or sometimes outwardly why it doesn't look so good. But the treasure is inside-- hidden. Does the exterior really matter in the long run? When our loved one receives the gift they don't even remember the outside. In fact that pretty exterior gets ripped right off the gift and ends up being thrown out. It is the gift that gets their full attention.
With Jesus sometimes we look at the exterior-- the church, the activities, the hoops we jump through to make us look like Christians/Catholics/Orthodox/Protestants/whatever we are- Jesus followers. When what we really need to look at and focus on is just Jesus. Faith without works is dead- yes, but also it isn't works that is going to get us to heaven -or even heaven on earth. Debate this for a moment. Think of Mary's words when Saint Gabriel came to her-- "I am the handmaid of the Lord, be it to me as you have said." She didn't say "Oh well let me help- I'm engaged to this great guy Joseph and he could help me and we could have a baby and make this happen!" She simply submitted, even though she couldn't explain how all this was going to take place. She allowed God to work in her and create his son. He was hidden inside of her for nine months, then they were hidden together in a cave/stable in a little town that you could blink and miss. When they were threatened with certain death they were hidden in another country. God took care of it. It wasn't fun, nor easy. In fact in reality Mary almost was stoned, then almost divorced, then almost had her Son yanked from her arms and killed. Key word almost. God took care of it.
Jesus still is hidden. He hides in our quiet time. In the church service we only went to because we promised him we would he's waiting. In the little things that we could blink and miss, but somehow we paid attention he showed up-- unexpectedly. He's there whispering in our ear as we wrap a gift then place it in yet another box and wrap it again as a joke-- "I am like that gift. I am your surprise. Will you receive me for who I am?" He's there if we will look. I don't want to miss him. I want to slow down and help my family find him also. I want to see his smile as he becomes my daily surprise. He shows up in the man who opens the door before I get there and smiles saying "Merry Christmas." when I hadn't even given anyone a smile in days. In that moment I am reminded, and I smile back and give the birthday greeting. I want to change the life of my family, but in those moments I am reminded it starts with me finding my Savior, then doing my best to reveal him to others. Maybe his hiding is what's changing me. Or maybe it's me changing that is making me think to look. All I know is I want to find him in all that I do. I don't want to miss him. I want him more now than at any other time in my life-- and very honest I've always had a craving for God. Lately though, it is so strong! He is everything to me, and if I would miss him somehow I don't know how I would even handle that.
It is the same with our planning on moving.
I want to do this his way. You see I am Eastern Rite Catholic. My church is four hours away, and for ten years I have traveled to be able to spend time in fellowship because my husband's job is here. We've tried to move before, but it hasn't worked. The 'doors' would get slammed in our face. I have been trying to raise my family to love God, but when your fellowship is so far away that is hard- maybe harder than I first realized it would be. I wasn't always Byzantine Catholic (another way of saying Eastern Rite Catholic or you can shorten it to just Byz). I told you a little of my journey in my last post - 'What Christmas is all about to me' http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2343243747680291065#editor/target=post;postID=6680885258977523207;onPublishedMenu=posts;onClosedMenu=posts;postNum=1;src=postname. Twelve years ago I was confused. I was technically protestant and I had been in more denominations than I can count as I searched for the truth and what I was missing. For three years I studied scripture and history trying to understand what I was hearing God say to me. Why did I have a problem with every church I was in? Why did I see all the faults and have to be so stiff backed about having perfect clarity? Finally I broke down and cried to God to allow me to go back to the church closest to the Acts of the Apostles church. A church that hadn't been shredded by all the fractures that I saw within all of Christendom. Then we began working on the adoption for my son. My son in from Bulgaria-- about two hours or a little more from Istanbul (use to be Constantinople-- the capitol of the Byzantine Empire). At the same time my friend Mary that I told you about in my last post began at a new church. She had been Byz for about a year or two and part of the Roman Catholic church before that. She kept telling me about her new church and I could feel God calling. I could hear him speaking, but I was afraid of being even more different than I already was. Besides we had just moved because of my husband's job to this new city here in Northeast Iowa. I had gone to the Greek Orthodox church here a couple times and it was definitely close to where I felt God leading. I put off going to my friend's church for almost a year until after we knew we were going to adopt Peter. Then I knew I couldn't put it off any longer.
I walked inside that Sunday in July of 2003 and I knew I had a problem bigger than any problem I had ever had before. I had found my church. That day, without my husband there even, I talked to the priest and began figuring out what I would have to do to become Byzantine Catholic. The next Sunday I brought my husband to the church, and he didn't feel the way I did.
For another two years we split our Sundays between our Baptist church and my Byzantine church until both of us knew we could not keep having our family church and my church-- or by then Hope, Becca, Peter, and my church. Megan had decided as had Todd that they were not going to be Catholic- no animosity, just it wasn't something they could do at that time. So in 2005 we all began going to the Byz church four hours away twice a month-- at least most times. The problems came-- What do you do when it is snowing? What do you do when one of your children are sick? When the friends hosting you overnight can't? When the wind sends your van sailing into the muddy grassy area in the middle of the interstate? When you hit a deer-- or rather a deer hits you and skirts around your van while you're going 65 miles per hour at dusk? When you don't have a working vehicle to drive that far that will hold your family? When your sister's daughter is baptized Byz and you've made a promise to raise her within the faith then your sister moves out and won't let you even see the niece you made this promise to God and the priest about? What do you do when your young teenage daughter refuses to go?
What do you do as you watch your children rejecting their faith simply because they haven't gotten to know it as well as they could have if you were there like most families are? Does your husband leave his job for a new job to become closer? Does he request to move to the closest office where he works which will cut your drive down to two hours? Do you become Orthodox? Do you become Roman? These are all questions we have had to try to answer. Sometimes not having a good answer. We are not independently wealthy, and we are not entrepreneurs so we are dependent on a fulltime position with a company to support our family. My husband has been with his company since May of 1998, and so just switching companies isn't really a good answer-- especially now when most places are laying off people and my husband's position is pretty secure.
In late 2007 things began to change rapidly. My fifteen year old had snuck out of the house to go to a party, and while there had been drugged and raped. She didn't tell anyone. I didn't find out until two years later. By that time she was on drugs, alcohol, smoking, and doing a host of things I cannot imagine to talk about here. June of 2010 as we found out Megan was pregnant (she was also raped when she went out with friends, but she did tell)-- Three weeks later she found out she was pregnant while Becca stoned and drunk became pregnant with my granddaughter. We still do not know who her biological father is, and probably never will. Megan was engaged, but her to-be finally could not handle things and so a few months after my grandson was born they split up which has been hard, but she's a good mother, she works hard, and life is coming together for her and her son.
All of this changed my perspective-- plus several more things I could write a whole book on by themselves-- I realized where we are is not where we need to be. That's not to say that I would ever stop being Byz-- I can't it's part of who I am.
The problem is Bec was raped in this neighborhood. Peter has had trouble with friends in this neighborhood, and we've had trouble with break ins and things being stolen and cars being broken into. This is a 'good' neighborhood. This is scary. Worse yet, without the influence of a community I've seen the influence of the world with my children. I've seen how having our church so far away has hurt us. Yet I've also seen when during Easter when we stay for almost a week how attitudes and bad habits change and almost disappear until we get back 'home'. I feel the tears inside me as we have to leave to come back home. I don't want to be here. I want the community twelve years ago I didn't think I needed. Now I realize you need truth, but you also need not to forsake your fellowship. I've realized for sometime that where we are is not good for our kids. Then sometimes I get glimpses of the future-
This last October I received a flash of days not so far away. I didn't like what I saw. There was about two weeks I battled and prayed on what to do. Why had we stayed here so long really? Would moving really help? Did I have any hope of saving my family from any more tragedy? Around that time I posted -- http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2343243747680291065#editor/target=post;postID=7441827288169716970;onPublishedMenu=posts;onClosedMenu=posts;postNum=8;src=postnameI
Then God in not so silent words ask me a question. What would I sacrifice? If we stayed here I knew the sacrifice was my family. I saw us all falling and not recovering. I saw the future ten times worse than it had been since we had lived here. That was something I could not live with. So what was I willing to sacrifice?
The answer was whatever I had to, but not my family. So moving became the only choice. As this was becoming apparent so many people began to 'see' things, and speak to us. Funny thing was it was always the same everywhere we turned we were given the same advice. To move, and in that advice and our prayer we knew where. Now we know where and we have found a church that will give us community there during the week, and we'll only be a little less than two hours from our church home so we'll be able to be there most Sundays, but now we are waiting on the position. It should happen. We've been praying for it. If this is God he will see us through to do it too. Yet we're still stuck here, and I am learning-- all be it slowly-- to trust God and to believe-- and to hope even when I can't see it. I'm learning to find Jesus in the places he hides. I don't want to be stuck here anymore, but I also don't want to miss Jesus even while being here. I think I am more scared of missing Jesus than even not moving-- And that's huge because seeing what is to come would scare anyone! But missing my Savior? That's absolute destruction. I've already had enough of that. Still we are in a weird place between moving and being stuck. Even here Jesus hides waiting for us to find him, and I think he is even more excited than us when we do.
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