No Tears Tonight

Being one half Native American, and one half Caucasian there have been times in my life when folks more into race than I am have looked upon me as representing “the voice” of Native Americans or Alaskan Indians.  If they knew my family nothing could be further from the truth.  We were raised very’ typical of anyone else in the US, with maybe the exception of eating a bit more salmon and fish eggs.

In the same way, these thoughts tonight belong to me alone and not those of singles everywhere. 

As I sit here on Valentine’s Day night alone, there are no tears.  I am not sad about being single, I am not mourning my years without a sweetheart, and I am not lonely.  Truth be told, if it weren’t for all the Facebook posts, I likely would have forgotten it was a holiday.

It seems to me that there are often only 2 responses to singles and singlehood.  Either we are pitied, or we are invisible.  Those who pity often see marriage as the only true path to happiness and so view singles as individuals deeply lonely, longing for true love.  The other group seemingly dismiss singles out of hand, almost like we belong to a different race. This group would rarely qualify us as close friends, nor recognize our gifting as being truly valuable until attached to another’s.

If one counts singlehood from age 18, then I have been single for 29 years.  I have known seasons of deep loneliness, with great desire to have one person to give all of myself to, rather than having to be satisfied with a number of friends knowing parts of my soul.  I have felt alone on holidays, and known what it’s like to sit amongst strangers to celebrate because those closest have not always been the ones to invite.  And I’ve planned my wedding more times than I could say, as age and circumstances have changed my tastes and close girlfriends.  It IS hard to accept that I will never hold a baby that has my genes, and just as hard to have tasted what its like to share a man’s bed and yet never now get to fall asleep in a man’s embrace. 

But these momentary sorrows are fleeting in the bigger scheme of Gods will.  I know that I know that I have had God’s best for my life.  He gave me 10 years of great adventure, including 4 years of working in the South Bronx, in the nation’s poorest congressional district, in the police precinct with the highest rape and homicide rate in the nation.  I passed junkies with needles still in their arms walking to the the subway, I nurtured a generation of crack kids, I was entrusted with the Fathers hardest little ones, right at the age of accountability. 

Singlehood has afforded many other adventures such as 11 weeks in Guatemala, traipsing all over the country, mixing with locals, making friends.  9 years in a powerful local church in El Barrio, NYC known for the prophetic, and marked by the presence of the Lord.  A summer in Lexington, Kentucky learning lessons from folks who could not be more different than I.

I do not know why my road has not yet included a husband.  But I do know that its ok.  My life is full, it is rich emotionally, it has its moments of great adventure, and of deep relationship.  God supplies All of His children’s needs through Himself and through the body.  He just uses a greater variety of folks to meet the needs of singles.

When you think of me, your single friend, I don’t want to be pitied.  I might be happier than you, and I am a whole, complete person, in and of myself.  I want to be respected as one who has learned to love and initiate, without having the emotional security of a spouse.  I want to be seen for what I've overcome and not for what or whom I lack.  I want to be seen for who I am and what I bring to the table, not seen as one who is awkward to seat because I’m not a pair.  I want to be a real friend, even if I can’t offer a matching friend for your spouse, and I don’t have children that can play with your children.  I want to be seen, not walked past, unheeded.

It is Valentine’s Day, and I am home alone.  There are no tears.  And I am not lonely.  I am in Gods perfect will and I know who loves me. 

Sehnsucht

This picture that I took from my first summer in NYC has always haunted me, and captured the gritty longing I have for a place which so many clamor to leave, or that so many long to make their fortune in.

I expected to love New York City.  I had been dreaming of it since age 13, when I had first began watching the show "Love Sydney" which had an opening shot of Tony Randall and a little girl (Kaleena Kiff) playing in Central Park.  I knew that the reality would be exactly as I imagined it.

And it was.  New York is one of those few places that the camera captures accurately.  When you watch crime shows and feel the steaming hot pavement and can almost smell the urine-soaked streets?  It is exactly like that.  When you feel that pull of the glamour and glitz of Broadway, and the excitement that those in movies have to go to "the city" it is exactly like that.  When you see the unquenchable crowds crossing any downtown street and feel claustrophobic just imagining their press, you feel exactly what a person crossing the street there feels.  And to me it was glorious.  All of it.

At age 17, I took it all in, with all the wonder of a child in Disneyland.  From the beaches of Coney Island (we handed out Bibles to newly arrived Russian Jews who had never held one before), to the shops on Steinway Street (where a Lebanese man kept fondling my upper arm, trying to get me to come with him in the back---even AFTER I told my entire team, and the guys insisted on going back so they could catch him in the act but DIDN'T) to our trip to Metro Assembly in Brooklyn to see the "Sunday School" of all Sunday schools, I LOVED EVERY SECOND OF EVERY MINUTE. 

I expected to love it.  What I didn't expect was the overwhelming all-encompassing feeling that haunted me from the moment I arrived.  There was an undeniable, unmistakable sense that I was in the place designed for me.  That all of my life I had been seeking the place I now stood.  That until the moment my feet set foot in Gotham, nothing had truly been right.  As the summer neared it's eventual end, the feeling got stronger and the thought of leaving seemed impossible.  In this place, I was alive, in this place I was at peace, in this place, I was who I was created to be.  I was heartsick at the thought of ever being anyplace else.

The Germans have a word.  Sehnsucht.  It's almost untranslateable and Wikipedia has a whole article devoted to trying.  It's that piercing longing, that force deep inside of my stomach that I got anytime I thought of the city.  It's the familiarity I had with New York before I ever saw it, and that sense you sometimes feel when you meet someone that you know was preordained to be in your life---that "Where have you been?" recognition that washes over you when they finally show up.  It's a deja vu to something new, it's an unanswered call that resonates from your entire being, the desire to be found. 

Jesus is like that.  When we feel lost, and discombobulated.  When we are deeply lonely, and deeply longing for that person who fits us perfectly, or that we think does.  When we feel outside of ourselves, like we don't quite fit our present circumstances, when we have a thirst that we cannot quite quench.  When we try to satisfy it with food, or TV or Facebook, or church, or coffee dates. 

He is there, calling us softly.  The great initiator who waits for us to realize what we really long for, is Him.  HE is our HOME.  He is the  old pair of blue jeans that come out of the washer and feel just right.  He is the scent that we remember but can't quite find.  He is the person, and THE ONLY person who fits us just right.  He is the drink which when we finally remember to drink---we take in in large gulps like medicine.  He is the answer, the only answer to Sehnsucht.

We all have our Stories

Kentucky Crew

Tonight I was talking with a dear saint from the church I attend. She was telling me the story of how her and her hubby got involved for a period of time in "tent-meeting" ministry. Her daughter was praying for her son who was moving to Seattle. The Lord gave the daughter specific coordinates of the address he was to move to. When they went to find the coordinates---it was the address of a church. They walked into the church and told the pastor that God sent them there, and eventually ended up in this tent meeting ministry.

I started to tell her, "I wish I had that kind of story." But I do . . .

When I was quite young I started dreaming of taking a missions trip as a youth. You had to be 13, so I was younger than that. About that time a TV show became popular. It was called "Love Sydney" and it starred Tony Randall. The opening and closing scene were of he and this little girl running thru Central Park.

God used this show to plant in me a desire to visit NY. When I was 17, I went on my short term mission trip. TO NYC. It was with one of the few charismatic teen mission groups around, Teen World Outreach. I fell hard in love with the city and vowed to return.

If I had my way I would have been back forever the next year. But as I waited for the timing of God, it was tough and I started doubting whether He had anything for me in the city.

The summer of my Junior year of Bible college, I felt led again to go on a missions trip. I researched all kinds of organizations and had settled on one and hoped to go to Italy. The morning I sent it off, I told the Lord, "If you want me to do something else, please let me know."

That afternoon I got a call from a pastor in Kentucky. He was leading a team to Mexico and I had filled out a card for his organization indicating that I spoke some Spanish. We got to talking and I felt led to go and spend the summer at his church in a discipleship program. At the end of the summer, my fellow students and I were slated to accompany him to Mexico. They did it every year.

Throughout the summer I joked with the director that we should forget Mexico and go to NY instead. Nobody took me seriously. Then one day we walked into our meeting place and there was another group there watching Dave Wilkersons "The Cross and the Swichblade." The Lord ignited something in the heart of the director and he asked us all to pray about going to NY instead.

I FELT very led this way. So did the director. NO ONE ELSE did, esp. not the pastor. We called up David Wilkerson's church and said, "We'd like to come to your church and help out." They said, "No, we can't use you. Don't come." The director continued, "When we come to your church, where should we stay?" They said, "Don't come."

We went anyway! It was the most horrible 10 days I think I've ever had. It was 105 almost every day. We went to NYC on a Mexico budget. Which meant our director felt led to have us fast for 3 days in 105 degree weather where we were ministering 10-hour days.

But it was glorious anyway. We helped a pastor plant a church in the South Bronx. We spent 10 days witnessing in the Patterson projects and I think in 10 days only one person refused to talk to us. The people were warm and welcoming and we had long divine appointments. God was faithful.

The point of my story is this:

God supernaturally changed the course of this church's history for ME. I needed to know that I was called to New York. Like Gideon, I needed a sign. God provided one.

I later moved to New York and gave my life for 10 years to the people and children of Gotham. My FIRST teaching job was in the South Bronx 2 blocks away from the place we ministered for 10 days. My SECOND teaching job was in the middle of the Patterson projects.

God supernaturally led me to the place of my destiny. He will supernaturally lead you too, if you cry out to him for your life.

We all have our stories. What's yours?

Jumping off my First Cliff

The South Bronx "hub" .

Everything I owned was packed into my Ford Escort hatchback.  Many signs and confirmations over the years had brought me to that August of '95.  My friend Jill, in a spirit of adventure, offered to drive across the country with me.  She insisted on buying a car jack, but I knew that we wouldn't get a flat.  Sometimes my faith is small in the little things of life, but I knew that I was way too stressed by the circumstances ahead of me for God to let a flat tire happen.

The trip itself was fun, if rushed.  We drove across the top of the US, and stayed with friends I had accumulated over my 28 years--a friend from PBC, a friend from my Teen World Outreach days, a friend from my summer in Kentucky.  We drove into NYC on a hot August day and spent our first night at the YMCA near Times Square.  

I was quickly reminded of the harshness of the city.  When I went downstairs to buy a sandwich from the cafe in the same building the teenager at the register insisted that I had to pay extra for tomatoes on my BLT.  "The menu says it right here," she said.  She was right.  The sandwich section the BLT was located in did state that there was a surcharge for tomatoes.  But it was a BLT!  I argued and won, the first of many times assertiveness was required for respect in Gotham.

Here I was in my new city, with no job and only $500 to my name.  I had known on some level, since age 13 that I was destined for this place, but even so it was tough to sit in on "mandatory" new teacher training not knowing where or if I'd have a job.  One speaker had everyone in the place who did NOT have a job raise their hand.  2/3 of the 1,000-or-so-member audience raised their hand.  It was daunting.

But then a union rep got up and announced a raffle for some off-Broadway tickets of "Scrooge."  Something inside me jumped, and I knew that I knew that I knew that I would win.  The play was in November, and if I won I knew it would be God's way of telling me that He would provide the job that would keep me there that long.  My name was called among the 1,000 or so I sat beside, and His assurance swept over me.

The actual finding of a job was simpler than I thought.  I was told by the Central Board to call the districts I was interested in working for and set up appointments to go see them.  I had eyes only for the South Bronx.  District 7 gave me a list of schools and principals.  "Call down the list until you find a principal in.  Let us know when you find someone YOU think you can work with."  The second principal on the list answered, and asked me to come into an interview that day.  After an hour conversation, the job was mine.

It's the small things in life which challenge my faith.  Moving to New York City jobless, friendless, poor was easy.  It was so big, such a leap of faith that God had to catch me--there was no other option.  I think we all need to jump off cliffs once in awhile.  To build our faith, and to keep life fresh.  Just be sure God told you to jump before you leap.  And if God told you to jump, don't let fear (or lack of a job) hold you back.