Faith

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Baby Dedication

05.11.10 in Faith, Mommyhood | 8 comments

Two days ago, Dennis and I stood in front of our church and “committed ourselves to the Christian nurture” of our daughter. It was a precious moment, celebrated with family and friends. Micah won’t remember the day. She won’t remember the prayer. She won’t remember the way she wriggled in my arms and tried to eat her shoes.

But we will remember.

I’ve always been amazed that God would give me a job so important…that he would entrust me with the task of raising one of his sweet little children. I try to be a good mother not just because I love my daughter. Not just because I’m a perfectionist. But because for some crazy reason, God gave me this task. I want to do well because I want God to be pleased with the job I’ve done.

Micah is a sweet little girl. We rarely have days when I want to call a do-over. She’s got an infectious grin and a laugh that bubbles out of her. Every day, she shows me a new facet of her personality, and I’m quite surprised that so much life can fit into such a tiny package. She’s a sweet and precious gift from God. She’s cute as a button too; that doesn’t hurt.

It is my prayer that she will grow into a beautiful young woman who loves the Lord and chases after him with abandon. I know that I can’t shelter her from pain, but I pray that the hard times she faces will help her appreciate the good even more. I pray that God will transform us into the kind of parents that he created us to be. That he will grant us patience, and kindness, and grace and mercy as we raise his baby girl. I pray that God will help her forgive us when we make mistakes, that he will cultivate a gentle spirit, a contrite heart and a sweet disposition in her. I thank God for Micah every time she falls asleep in my arms. I pray that she will make her heavenly father proud. I pray that she will love him. I pray that she knows how much we love her, how much we care for her, how often we pray for her. I pray that God gets ahold of her in the same way he got ahold of me – in a way that will leave her forever changed – for the better.

These are the things I pray.

Some of them, anyway.

Will you pray with me?

The thing I love about baby dedications is that I get to pray for a tiny little person and his parents. That I get to call that child by name and ask God to protect and nurture, to guide and bless him. It’s a privilege that I love to be a part of.

I love it, because I feel like we’re really being the church when we commit to help raise a child. Will you be the church for us and pray for our family as we raise this precious little girl?

Until next time, grace and peace.

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Gone to Ghana, Part Two :: Redux

03.13.10 in Faith, My Crazy Life | No comments

I originally wrote this post on my personal blog on February 1, 2008, but last weekend I realized I needed to relearn some of the lessons I learned in Africa. Aren’t you glad you get to revisit Africa with me??

So. When I last wrote, I gave you a rundown of the trip and told you how I felt before we left.

Anxious. That one word wraps up all of the emotions I felt preparing to leave for Ghana. I was frustrated because I didn’t know much about what would happen there. I didn’t have an itinerary, much less the names of places we would be staying. I didn’t know where we were going or what we were doing. I wasn’t even sure who was going on the trip. I didn’t know what to tell people when they asked about it. They always wanted to know what we would be doing. When asked, I usually laughed nervously and responded, “That’s a good question.” The feelings of anxiety didn’t stop when we flew away from Birmingham. They remained for three or four days after we arrived in Ghana as I wondered what in the world I was doing there.

When we arrived in Accra, I wanted to get back on the airplane and go back home. I got separated from the rest of the group. They all went ahead of me, and as I passed through the last security check at the airport, a Ghanaian man walked up to me and insisted that I needed another stamp on my passport. This stamp would cost me $20. I was already confused, because I had seen the man talking to Parker. I thought that he could have been with the seminary, someone sent to greet us. But as he continued to insist that I give him $20 for another stamp, I knew that he was just trying to scam me out of money. I asserted that if I had to get another stamp, I would ask one of the people wearing a nametag from the airport. He backed off at that point, but he didn’t go away until after I got out the door of the airport and met up with the rest of the group. The encounter rattled me. I was all alone and unprepared for the situation, immediately set on the defensive. At that point, I looked suspiciously at every Ghanaian I saw. I didn’t care if “helping” Americans at the airport was a good way for them to make some extra money. All I cared about was protecting myself, my money, and my bags from the hands of people who just wanted to take advantage of me.

It’s unfortunate that my experiences in Ghana began with such a strong negative image of the Ghanaian people. It took several days for me to get over my run-in with the con artist; I couldn’t imagine that anything good would come of the trip. All I wanted to do was criticize and withdraw from the culture, but after I had a little distance from the situation, I approached the Ghanaian culture with more openness. A little observation helped me realize that no one else I had met in Ghana acted in the same way as the man at the airport. Quite the contrary, in fact. All of the people we met were extremely kind and hospitable, and they welcomed us to their country with open arms. They were more than willing to help us in any way we needed, whether that meant giving rides, supplying cell phones, providing meals, or making hotel arrangements. Once I understood this, I began to relax, and my expectations for the trip took on a positive tone.

We spent the first several days of the trip studying at Trinity Theological Seminary in Accra. We heard several lectures from prominent Ghanaian theologians and learned a great deal about the intersection of African Traditional Religion and Christianity. That will be the subject of your next installment, which will come Monday. Until then…

Grace and peace.

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I’ve Gone to Ghana :: Redux

03.08.10 in Faith, My Crazy Life | 2 comments

This post originally appeared on my personal blog on January 30, 2008, but over the weekend I realized I needed to relearn some of the lessons I learned in Africa.  Aren’t you glad you get to revisit Ghana with me?

OK – so last week I promised that I would write about my trip to Ghana. I’m going to do my best to be concise, but it was a 17-day trip, so I’m not sure how concise I can be.

I went with a group from school. Beeson requires us to complete three internships. One of them has to be have a cross-cultural component. You can either complete an entire semester-long internship, OR you can go on a two week trip to a foreign country and get your credit that way. Which one would you choose? I, obviously, went for the two-week trip.

Instead of giving you a blow-by-blow account of the trip, I think I’ll start by including part of a paper I wrote before we left:

Inevitably, when I tell people I’m going to Ghana, their reaction is one of anxious enthusiasm. They know that this is an amazing opportunity for me, but they also fear for my safety. The news is filled with riots and demonstrations in Kenya, and if Kenya is in turmoil, the rest of Africa must be as well. “You know, Africa isn’t known for its political stability,” they say. Even if I explain to them that Ghana is one of the more stable countries in the continent, I can tell they don’t believe me. “Don’t drink the water…or eat the food,” they caution me. I tell them that I have to eat something, and no matter how many granola bars or water bottles I stuff into my luggage, it won’t be sufficient. My mother, knowing that mosquitoes eat me up like crazy, points out that my chances of contracting malaria are higher than others. Thanks for the reminder, mom. These are just a handful of the concerns I hear. They range from the downright silly to the deadly serious. If I’m honest with myself, I will admit that these fears are not just the fears of my friends and family. They are my fears as well.

When I woke up this morning and turned on the news, images of burning churches in Kenya filled the screen. It’s not that far away from Ghana, just a hop, skip, and jump across the continent. Uneasiness filled the pit of my stomach as I packed the rest of my belongings. Surely, everything will be fine, at least I think it will. This is the biggest judgment of the country I will have to lay aside. The notion that it is dangerous for me to be there pervades my mind. Even if I take every precaution necessary, I am still afraid that someone will snatch my money in the market, rioters will burn down a church I am working in, or I’ll catch a disease from a loose chicken on an overstuffed tro-tro. I constantly have to remind myself that their way of life is not wrong, it’s just different. They are not uncivilized: their civilization simply looks different than mine. Aspects of Ghana that make me raise my eyebrows, like overcrowded cities and animals wandering around, are just part of their way of life. There is nothing wrong with it. Political riots break out in the United States, and there’s no guarantee of my safety here either. These are the things I try to remember.

So I went, and lo, and behold, I survived to tell about it. We spent the first half of the first week hearing lectures from various African theologians, church leaders and missionaries. Then we started the trek around the country. Hang on, let me get a map for you:

We started in Accra, down at the bottom of the map. Then we traveled to Ho, in the east. From there, we drove to Kumasi, in the middle of the country. We left Kumasi and went to Mole National Park, in the far north. After visiting the park, we drove to the small village of Carpenter, not on the map, but between Mole and Kumasi. Then, we traveled south to Cape Coast before heading back to Accra and flying out. How’s that for travel?

The country was beautiful, but impoverished. Most of the people there live on less than $1 a day. Don’t get the impression that all of Africa is mud huts and loin cloths. Accra is a city of 4 million people, and Kumasi has over 1 million people. There are definitely urban areas, but when we started driving around and visiting the rural areas, things started changing.

There is so much to say, and right now, I am just too tired to say it all. So let’s do this. In the coming weeks, I will write about my trip to Ghana in sections. Your next installment will come Friday.

Until then, grace and peace.

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Philosophy 101

07.10.09 in Faith, My Crazy Life | No comments

Nearly eight years ago, I took Intro. to Philosophy at Mississippi State with Dr. Michael Clifford.  He scared me.  I had heard that he could be rough on Christians, and when I saw the first assignment on our syllabus, I knew I was in trouble.  In one paragraph, answer the question “What is the meaning of life?”.  I swallowed hard and dreaded the assignment, but that night, I sat down at my computer (the same one I’m typing on now, if you can believe it) and wrote the following words.

To understand the meaning of my life, you have to understand my God.  I serve a holy and mighty God, and the sole purpose of my life is to glorify my Lord and Master; I live for nothing else. My life revolves around developing a deep and personal relationship with the One that I call Savior.  Life on this earth is just the beginning of our existence; I will spend eternity in heaven with my Father. Maybe this sounds strange to you.  Maybe it sounds familiar.  Can I prove this to you?  Well, no, I can’t, but I also can’t believe anything else is true… It would be a sad world if we had no reason for living.  If everything ends at death, then what is the point of life at all?  I have found truth in the teachings of the Holy Bible, and it is the standard I follow.  I live my life by faith, trusting that a God higher than anything we can ever imagine has my life in his hands, and he knows what’s best for me.  So, if you ask me the meaning of life, I can only give you one answer, and that is to serve my God.

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Identity Crisis

07.02.09 in Faith, My Crazy Life | 2 comments

I spent the first five months of my marriage cooped up in a 750 square foot apartment watching the Food Network and HGTV all day long.  I couldn’t find a job anywhere doing anything. I couldn’t remember who I was or what I was doing.  Prior to the wedding, I had commenced work on a Master of Divinity degree in Texas, but when my fiancé, who lived in Mississippi, struggled to find a job anywhere near me, I took a deep breath, finished up the semester, packed my bags and moved home.  It was a voluntary decision, but when I became the woman who followed her man instead of the woman who followed her dreams, I lost my identity.

I transferred schools and resumed classes just one school year after I left Texas, and soon got caught up in the busy-ness of school life.  I was back on track with my calling and dreams in sight.  When people asked me about myself, I had an answer: “I’m working on my Master of Divinity.”  My identity as a student was restored, and I had a nametag for people to read: “Leslie Ann Jones, seminary student.”

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Writing to Remember

03.27.09 in Faith, My Crazy Life | 2 comments

Last night I spent a long time flipping through an old journal and remembering where I’ve been.  Reading the old memories and the old prayers helps me see how far I’ve come and how far I have yet to go.  The journal I read last night contains some of the most important moments of the past five years of my life.  It holds memories from the year I lived in Texas and the months preceding my wedding, my first year of marriage and the beginning of my work at Beeson.  I scribbled countless prayers, scripture verses and endless musings in those pages.  Sometimes I laughed.  Other times I cried.  But I always wrote to remember.

I’m ashamed to admit that I have a bad habit of losing my train of thought when I pray.  I start my silent prayers with good intentions but before I know it, I’m chasing rabbits down overgrown paths, and I forget not only what I was praying for but also that I was even praying to begin with.  Even worse, sometimes I forget the things that I pray about, and I have no way of knowing when God has answered my prayers.  I began writing my prayers down the summer after I graduated from high school.  I had kept a diary since the fifth grade, but that summer, something shifted in my relationship with God, and I began to write to him.  My diaries grew up with me, and they became journals, a written record of my spiritual life.

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The Love Chapter

03.22.09 in Faith | No comments

Love has been in the air lately. And on TV, the radio, and billboards. Valentine’s Day came and went, but love has remained on my mind.

When Christians talk about love, we tend to gravitate toward 1 Corinthians 13. It is, after all, THE love chapter. But as I sat in church one morning, I started wondering what would happen if we quit trying to make the chapter fit our notions of romantic love and started applying it to our relationships inside the church. What if we actually loved one another the way that Jesus says we should? What if we allowed 1 Corinthians 13 to define the way we treat one another in the church? I bet things would be a lot different.

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The Word

03.12.09 in Faith | No comments

Lately, I’ve been reading through Jeremiah, and the more I read, the more I’m stricken by what it means to speak the word of God.  When I began reading the book, I prayed that the Lord would grant me words to speak just as he promised Jeremiah, but the gravity of Jeremiah’s message is making me have second thoughts about that prayer.

God was faithful to his promise.  He “put out his hand” and touched Jeremiah’s mouth, granting him not only words but also an audience.  He never promised Jeremiah that the audience would like what he had to say.

Which is why a few short chapters later, Jeremiah wishes he had never been born.  The promised words were not pleasant words for the people, and when Jeremiah tried to keep his mouth shut and save his own neck, the words burned within him and demanded release.

“If I say, ‘I will not mention him, or speak any more in his name,’ there is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot.”  [Jeremiah 20:9]

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Remembering Ashley

10.23.08 in Faith, My Crazy Life | No comments

A little over a week ago I sat in a pew at my home church and wept as I remembered the life of one of the most beautiful people I’ve ever known. It’s been a very long time since Ashley and I were close, but at one time, we were good friends. We had a special relationship and special names for one another. She wasn’t Ash. She was Shley. I wasn’t LA or Les. I was Lie (like Les-lie). I, being three years older than her, considered her my “little sister” in the youth group. She always made me laugh, and we had such wonderful memories.

I remember teaching her the alto lines in our youth choir. Leaning over and singing the notes into her ear so that she could hear the harmony. We went to Knoxville and painted that falling-apart house that was scheduled to be torn down and replaced. But we did it anyway. Ashley kept taking a break to talk to the owners of the house. She shared her light with them. We were just trying to make things better for them in the short term. We got in trouble on that trip. If you ask me why, I might tell you someday.

I remember when she found out she had cancer, six years ago. I was a sophomore at Mississippi State. She was a senior in high school. When mom told me the news, my jaw dropped in shock. Ashley? Cancer? It couldn’t be. She was one of those girls that everyone loved. She was gorgeous, one of the most popular girls in her school. Captain of the soccer team, on the homecoming court and student council. If you didn’t know her, you would assume that she was one of the “pretty people” who couldn’t care less about others. But that wasn’t the case with Ashley. She was a kind and gentle person, always willing to widen her circle to let others in.

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Isaiah

10.09.08 in Faith, My Crazy Life | No comments

My Hebrew class is translating passages from Isaiah, which is a bit of divine humor, since everywhere I turn around Isaiah is staring me in the face. Anyway, if you don’t know much about it, Isaiah’s one of the major prophecy books in the Old Testament. It’s a sobering message to God’s people about all the ways they have failed him. Even though they go through all the right motions of worship and sacrifice, it’s all for naught because their hands are covered with the blood of the innocent. They refuse to take care of the orphans and widows in their midst, and they fail to be the bearers of justice, grace and mercy to vulnerable people. Therefore, they have failed to keep their end of the bargain with God (the one that they agreed to when God through Moses led them out of Egypt), and Isaiah delivers a scathing message of judgment and indictment to them. But the book is beautiful because it also testifies to God’s mercy and grace. Even though these people, who are supposed to be God’s own people, have failed so miserably, he preserves a repentant remnant. He restores them. So the book can be roughly divided into two parts: messages of condemnation and messages of consolation.

All of that to say that in one particular passage, Isaiah 6:1-7, Isaiah has this vision of God in the temple. And it’s awe-inspiring. God is so big and mighty that the hem of his robe fills the temple. Angels are flying around overhead shouting praise to the Lord, an incessant chorus of “Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of Hosts!” Their voices are so thunderous that the temple starts shaking and quaking, and Isaiah’s response is one of despair. He knows that he cannot see the Lord. He knows that he is not worthy to see the Lord. He knows that he is a part of this sinful and rebellious people. He knows that he is about to be destroyed. And he says, “Woe is me! For I am a man of unclean lips.”

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