God With Us

As I have been reading the Christmas story out of Matt 1, I am astounded at what it must have been like for Mary to go through those experiences and to find herself pregnant through the Holy Spirit. Even if I had responded as well to the angel's announcement as Mary did, if it was me, I can just imagine the fear and uncertainty that would run havoc in my mind as the pregnancy started to show. "What now? This is the end of life as I know it. I can never recover from what other people will think of me. I can't escape this situation or its effects for the rest of my life." I think I would have been angry at God, feeling like the life I had planned on was falling apart around me. (maybe there's a good reason God didn't pick me to be Mary!!)

As I come to the Christmas story this season, like all of us I read through the lens of the season I am in, a season where I have been asking God, "Will you lead me into situations where I feel like all my dreams are destroyed? I have committed myself to following you but some days I am terrified of the possible costs."

Yet even in the midst of my fear, I can't help but see and acknowledge the ways that God then proceeds to provide for Mary what she needs. He sends an angel to Joseph instructing him to still take her as his wife, thus ensuring that Mary will be taken care of financially and that she won't face the scorn of the town or the struggles of raising a baby on her own. The book of Luke tells about the sign that God gave Mary to reassure her through her cousin Elizabeth's pregnancy, and the companionship and encouragement that he provided her through her cousin.

Left to myself, I question if God will provide me what I need to survive the dark times--but this story tells me that he will. He is. Even if I don't recognize it in the moment.

Most encouraging, Matthew tells us that Jesus is Immanuel, "God with us." God with us in the midst of questioning. God with us in the midst of suffering. God with us in the midst of the darkness in ourselves and in the world.

Another Hidden Cost of Poverty

Apparently my recent move into a house one main street south of my old apartment has put me into a new zipcode, which just made my car insurance go up. :( Personally, I think my new street is negligably more or less safe than the old one. I suppose I should count my blessings--I remember talking to friends who said their car insurance soared when they moved into South LA. From an insurer's standpoint, it makes sense to assume there is a higher risk factor in areas with more accidents, or more vandalism, or other problems. But from the customer's standpoint, I personally am annoyed that moving from one zip code to the one next door can increase my cost. It's just another example of how it is more expensive to be poor (how ironic is it that wealthy individuals living in "better" areas are charged less than poor folks in my neighborhood for car insurance?).

CNN on homelessness and social media

My friend made it onto the front page of CNN! Here's the article about him (he does great work). http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/12/01/horvath.homeless.website/index.html

After a Long Silence

It's been a long time since I have written a post--or even thought about my blog! Since the last time I wrote, I've spent two months in Thailand, changed addresses and roommates for the third time in 6 months, changed job positions, killed a cockroach in my sleep, and had a host of other adventures that I shalln't share here. ;)

My internship with Servant Partners is over but I will be sticking around Pasadena for the time being and continuing to volunteer with Northwest Neighbors, which means living in a low income neighborhood in NW Pasadena and coleading a Bible study for junior high and high school girls from the neighborhood. I am excited to see what God has for the girls and for us in this coming year.

This week we studied the story of Jonah, who runs away from God, gets thrown overboard in a storm, and then God sends a fish to swallow him and spit him up. We talked about second chances and is it fair when God pursues and redeems "bad" people. As I was driving two of the girls home that night, we passed a police car busting someone on their street. The girls immediately told me that we needed to pray and proceeded to do so, instructing me to keep my eyes open since I was driving! After we prayed that the policeman would do his job right, that the judge would make a wise decision, and that the person being arrested would meet God in the middle of his troubles, decide to change, and have a second chance, one of the girls turned to me wide-eyed and said, "It's just like we read in Bible study! For him to have a second chance!"

Some of the best moments of my whole life are moments like that, when I see people encounter the gospel incarnate, made live in the daily moments of their existance. It's what makes everything else worthwhile--the roaches, the cross-cultural awkwardness, the hours of preparation, the struggles over discipline and boundaries. All made more than worth it for a single moment of witnessing another person encountering God in the midst of darkness.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Random quotable moments from study so far this year...
"He's so skinny! He looks like Jesus!"
"I want to raise my kids like white people do." (what this means I have no idea!)
"And God said to it, 'Vomit him!'"

lol. I love junior highers and high schoolers!

Out of the Mouths of Kids

As I was taking two of the junior high girls home last night...
"Jenny, you drive fast. But not as fast as Hilary!" (as my coleader zooms by us)
Oops! So much for being driving role models! Kids notice the littlest things. :P

Commitment

Some days I am beginning to wonder if grown-up life is all about commitments. I committed to a collage for four years. Then I committed to the Servant Partners internship for two years. Now that the internship is coming to an end, and I am looking at other organizations that I might want to work with overseas, they all seem to require some kind of 2-5 year commitment. I'm currently thinking about a rooming situation with someone that would require committing to staying in Pasadena a year. And marriage and kids, both future hopes, are both lifelong commitments.

I am feeling a little commitment-phobic coming out of the internship. Maybe it's because I like to be sure when I commit to something, especially when it involves multiple years of my life. And I feel like there are so many pieces of my life and what I want that I don't have clarity about right now. Is it ok to have stages in one's adult life with minimal commitments and a lot of freedom to explore? Or is adulthood just a series of transitions from one commitment to another?

Should I take some time and space to be uncommitted, or is that simply creating dead space in my life and refusing to engage with reality? Am I simply burned out from the internship or is this the emergence of some kind of latent third culture kid issue about being unable to be decisive, commit, and settle down for fear of whatever other options may be closed off by doing so? Sigh.

Work Status

I have been reflecting lately on the issue of status in the workplace. It really bothers me when people call me a "receptionist," or talk down to me, or insist that I get another staff member for them to talk with instead of me. "I'm the Intake Case Manager," I emphasize, when someone calls me the receptionist. Even our Exec Director introduced me to a possible funder today as "the person who answers the phones." :(

But what these little trigger spots have done for me is to open my eyes up to how much my status at work matters to me. I know that the corporate world would probably say to brand oneself as positively and as importantly as possible, in order to advance one's career and one's own interests. And on a personal level, it's more flattering to one's ego to be referred to as a case manager rather than as a receptionist. But that's not the person I want to be.

I want to be secure enough in my identity that it doesn't bother me when people miscall me a receptionist. I want to appreciate receptionists and other people in service jobs and to see them as equally beloved and talented children of God--and then it won't bother me to be called one of them. I want to care more about whether staff and clients can see God's love, compassion, and character through me than what title they choose to call me. I am not there yet--but that is who I want to become, by the grace of God.