Tag Archives: future

Undercurrents

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188 compressedIt has been an interesting week. I’ve spoken twice this past week, and I spent my entire weekend in silence and in small tasks about my home.

Under all of this is an undercurrent of unrest and agitation in my spirit. At the same time a deep rest has been pervading my soul.

It is an odd mix of energy and depth that I am not quite sure what to do with.

My own last month has been incredibly fruitful. With a myriad of projects completed, with a focus established for the next year and with traction on many fronts there is much movement.

And yet this unrest has me a little baffled.

Yet I suspect I know what it is.

I’ve raised five of my own babies and cared for numerous others over the years. Now babies are always growing and learning new things and moving through developmental stages.

At each stage of development, right before a babe learns to sit or to stand or to walk there is much fussing and frustration, tears and general fits of discomfort. It is easy to observe this in infants.

Yet as my children grew I saw it all along the stages. A little more difficult to see, as the development was no longer about sitting or walking or talking, it was there nonetheless. This same discomfort and frustration, a generally irritated state would precede any new stage of development.

Learning to pump on a swing, tie ones shoes, learning to read or ride a bike. Be it moving from childhood responsibilities to adult ways of thinking and being, all these stages and more were preceded by agitation.

I’m thinking this is where I am at and is the cause of my current unrest. For I’ve noticed in my own past years a similar process of growth and development and the agitation and deep frustrations that occur concurrently.

I’m thinking this continues on for all of us as we go through life. When do we ever really stop learning or developing?

Personally I’ve been on a growth spurt for a few years. I no longer recognize my old self, and really have little idea of who I will be in a years time.

But I do know that I won’t be the same. So I’ll settle into the growth spurt that is in process right this moment. I’ll take the frustrated agitation and give it space alongside these deep silent spaces.

Mixed emotions are difficult to navigate but are hallmarks of growth and maturity and emotional wellness.

I guess it could be said that growth isn’t easy for any of us. Whether we are seven months old and finding out how to crawl or whether we are forty-seven and finding new strengths, it doesn’t matter.

We go forward, growing forward, feeling our way, gaining in strength and new skills day by day. Who we need to be tomorrow we are not yet that person, so growth is simply and always necessary.

Faithfulness

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P1290233 compressedSome of you may not know that I home-schooled for sixteen years. With five kids, I at one point in time was overseeing five different grade levels. In addition to this, we had Korean students joining our homeschooling for more than five of those years. And I was tutoring English on the side as well.

I write this today, because I am struck by the themes of our lives, and how they seem to unfold before us, almost unbeknownst and certainly never foreseen.

Looking back at my own school years, the one thing that came through time and time again, year after year, report card after report card, was this, “Cyndy is not living up to her potential.”

Looking back at high-school, where I would bluff my way through Biology 12 with ridiculous rambling balder-dash answers to test questions (my teacher passed me because he was so amused, really, he told me so), the easy A’s I got in Psychology 12 without any studying whatsoever (a girlfriend was quite miffed with me about that ), and the Art class that I made sure to have each year, where we would spend our time practicing dance steps…

Who woulda’ thunk that my life would be marked by education and learning and mentoring.

I missed a phone call from Uganda early this morning, not sure who it was, and so I simply add this to the many calls, texts, and emails that remind me quite regularly of the same thing, “Please come to us.”

“It is time to make this work more official Cyndy, please mentor a small group here in Uganda that we might carry on the work.”

“All we know Cyndy, is that we need you in back in Uganda.”

When are you coming to Mozambique?

When are you coming to Pakistan?

When are you coming to…?”

When I was homeschooling, the routine was grueling. At one point in time, at the fullest point, I began the day at 7am with my oldest, checking on her work, reviewing whatever was new that day, and assigning the next work. Then at 7:45 the same with my oldest son, and then again with my third.

We would then fit some breakfast in, and have the youngest working at their stuff, with all of us ready for the Korean student/s to arrive at 9am. I’d get them set with what they were doing, then time with my third and fourth, and the projects they were all doing together, and later one-on-one time with my youngest.

I’m not even going to finish the full extent of our days. Pretty sure you get the picture. On top of all this, three of my five kids had various degrees of learning disabilities. And so there were the challenges of working alongside and through those realities.

During those years I learned a number of things. I learned how to schedule my time, and to self motivate. I learned how to juggle  and I learned to put down the balls that needed to be put down for a time.

I learned to meet and to pour into a life and to grieve when that student left us. Again and again. I was always saying goodbye to Korean students, and I missed each of them deeply when they left. It was those years where I learned to grieve so well.

I learned to stop in the middle of a day, a couple times a day, and just sit. With my cup of tea in hand on the front steps of my house, I caught 15 minutes of silence and quiet deep inside myself. I learned to work hard and to rest hard.

Most of all I learned faithfulness.

And as I look ahead at the years to come, pouring into the spiritual lives of hundreds of people, mentoring small teams across the seas, encouraging and training and teaching, all the while holding each commitment, each church body, each pastor, deeply in my heart, I clearly see, that homeschooling, was just the start.

It was my training ground. A pressure pot of responsibility, of creativity, of time management, of patience, of honoring others over myself, and most of all, of faithfulness.

I’ve been asked many a time, “How did you do that?” To which I always respond, “I have no idea.”

And it is true. I look back and really have no clue how all those homeschooling years happened. I do know that I am so deeply glad for those years. There are numerous warm memories and crazy things and beautiful routines that happened in the midst of simply growing alongside my kids.

But I don’t really know how I did all that.

Looking ahead, I have no idea how I am going to ‘do all that’ is being asked of me in Africa and beyond. But I do know that I don’t have to know at this point in time.

For anything we do is done a step at a time. A month at a time. A year at a time.

We don’t walk in decades, we walk in days.

And all that is really required is faithfulness, and a heart that carries others, and will to make some things happen.

From responsibility to responsibility, we grow and are grown, we bless and are blessed.

Lessons

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real emotions and strong livesI am the Mom of five kids. They are mostly grown, and over the years I’ve been a relatively unorthodox Mom in many ways.

Pretty laid back, seeing the big picture, relaxed and generally trusting, they too have come to realize that I’m a bit abnormal as Moms go.

Over the years they themselves have affirmed, “Wow Mom, I didn’t realize how cool and chill you are!”

Of course there were the oddities. I didn’t let them watch Walt Disney movies when they were kids (just way too much deception and lies cloaked in niceness, BLUCK!)

(they still give me a hard time about this)

But they did watch ‘real’ movies much sooner than any of their friends did. Movies that portrayed real emotions, real situations, real truths and real lies; all upfront and easy to see.

We scrapped the manipulative ‘here is how to be a good girl or boy’ children’s stories. I figured if I felt like throwing up glancing through them, why would I subject such stuff on my kids!

Instead we relished in honest tales, like The Bronze Bow, Who Owns the Sun, and Bruchko, just to name a few.

I’ll never forget the week we were reading the story of Jim Elliot. A missionary in the Ecuadorian Jungle who was speared to death by the Waodani Tribesmen living there. And how we ended our week at Missions Fest to witness Steve Saint (whose Father was also killed the same), and one of the men who done the killing, there, live and in person, sharing their grand story of redemption.

Real life learning. Tangible lessons.

Honest emotions.

Thing is, the goal is not to be good. The goal is definitely NOT to be nice.

(Going after nice or good become their own idolatry!)

And though we are not on a quest to be bad or mean, when we hold up outer accoutrements rather than inner honesty, we walk in falseness.

And when we don’t know ourselves, we cannot know others or God in any real emotional intimacy.

Our body language will tell one story and our words will tell another. Emotions will frighten us, and strong passion will make us uncomfortable. We will not be able to manage groups well, for which of our many personalities do we present when with many?

Congruency and honesty within our inner core takes a lot of work. Initially it means that we shed good and nice, and that we get on with real.

The lessons I hope my kids have learned:

– Be yourself

– Stand tall

– Live honest

– Hold your space

– Walk in passion

And finally – God is big enough

No one is fooled by veneers. We may think others can’t read us. But its just not the truth. Everything about you screams… everything about you.

Go for the honest. Go for the real. Go for healthy.

Exaggeration

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Beauty in DetailHow far can we go?

It has become most evident over the years that we can only go as far as our hearts can go.

While our minds think they have dominion over our beings, it is really our hearts that determine the extent of our movements and manner of life.

We only go so far as our hearts will take us.

It is NOT the government, or your teachers, your boss, or your parents or your spouse, your pastors or your local leaders, it is NOT the circumstances of your life, the size of your house, the income level that you earn, the kids or family that you have, nor is it your past, present or future that determines your life.

It is your heart.

Pure and simple and horrible as that.

Now, our hearts are multi-faceted organisms which are influenced by many things and a profound dynamic is the attitudes of our hearts coupled with the law of sowing and reaping.

First off, the law of sowing and reaping is a given and is inviolable. There is no way around it, no discounting it, no wishing it away.

It is a fact of life that what we put out we get back; that what we plant we harvest.

The equation is this:

Law of Sowing & Reaping + Hearts Attitudes = Your Life

The attitudes of our hearts are basically the lenses by which we see life. And the lenses can be clean or dirty, smudged or clear, colored or transparent. But not both at the same time.

And the state of our lenses can be determined by the words we speak, by our body language, and by the decisions we make as we go through life.

The law of sowing and reaping takes all of who we are (what we do is only 1/4 of that) and multiplies it.

We may be doing the right things. But if we are filled with bitterness or judgment or envy or despair or fearful responses or  (fill in the blank yourself), that is what is multiplied.

Actions always outweigh words. And Words always outweigh intent. And Intent always outweighs action.

And pretty soon there are patterns of a life set well into place.

It is the intent of our hearts that are multiplied.

What are the intents of your heart?

If for instance you were to die (and become more alive than you have ever been) and were then to forever more reap the intents of your heart back on yourself thousands-fold forever and ever, how does that sound to you?

How are the intents of your heart looking now?

It is no secret that to find truth in anything we exaggerate it. Story tellers do this, movies do this, plays do this, and I do this time and again.

“If we take this line of thinking to its most possible farthest extreme what do we get? What do we find? What is the fruit?”

It is sort of like microscopes that can see farther and farther into the detail of creation, revealing what is really there and by whom it is by.

When we do this in nature, we find fractals. Beautiful and intricately designed characteristics of the maker of this universe. Exaggerate what God has made and we find stunning beauty and detail. Pattern upon pattern that just gets more beautiful the farther we take it.

And then we have our lives. That exaggerated and over time become more ugly and more pinched and more narrow and more fearful; more bitter, more negative, more (you add in your own) as time goes by.

It is because of our hearts.

We decay and die and degenerate in the natural course of life.

Our hearts take a beating, we add judgment to our observations, and we begin to reap what we sow.

It doesn’t matter if what we are doing is right or good or worthy. We in our hearts are not.

And it is our hearts that ultimately lead us to life, or away from it.

Exaggerate your heart and what do you get?

Freaking Out

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Bigger PerspectiveI wake up almost every day freaking out. With new things on the horizon (with new things right in front of me), it is way too easy to be overwhelmed and unsure.

Therefore, every morning I spend considerable time quieting my heart and mind, praying, meditating, journaling, until my center has been reestablished in the character of God rather than my own immediate realities.

I’ve learned to not move until there is peace.

In less than eight weeks I will be in Uganda once more. And though there are many things about this trip that I do not know about, details not yet fallen into place, provision still to come, I’ve learned that peace comes in the character of God, and not in my own immediate realities or understanding.

None of this is about you or I. And I wonder sometimes if we really get this.

Though our lives feel ultimately personal, when our lives are intersected by the spirit of God we simply become the canvas for God’s painting.

It’s really not about us.

Simply the conduit by which God is translated to the world, our lives take a back seat. My own freaking out places are simply my humanity that has trouble seeing the bigger picture, trouble seeing past myself.

Freaking out is simply ‘myself’ in the midst of the picture. I’ve got to remember, I am the canvas, God is the artist. Period.

Are we given over to God?

Given over to God is the ultimate opportunity and adventure. While everyone’s experience and specifics are as numerous and different as the sands on the seashore, ‘our lives given over as a canvas’ is there for everyone.

It is in fact the call of the gospel and the invitation of Jesus Christ.

This world has gone bad. We can all agree to that. With illness and atrocity, chronic discouragements to trauma (and this is the short list), life certainly is not what its all cracked up to be.

Things have gone horribly wrong.

Spiritually blinded by the fracture between ourselves and God, Jesus came onto the scene to give us back our eyesight (Thank-You Jesus). That ability to see and know things beyond our knowing, to access wisdom beyond our own smarts, and to have the finger of God sweep through our days leaves whisps of godly presence behind.

Good presence, honorable presence, right presence.

And in that presence of God we are invited to join in on setting things right in the world. The redemption of all that has gone wrong (while completed on the cross) is brought into our realities as a continual present tense happening that you and I can partake of, enter into, and move forward through our own involvement.

We come to ask, “What is on your heart God? How might I make happen today what is important to you?”

And the world begins to be set right. Bit by bit, little by little, the lost land taken back, things set straight.

The message of “God so loved the world”, doesn’t end with you and I, it is in fact an invitation,

“Will you love the world alongside me? You and I together.”

We are all better together.

Freaking out is simply us in the middle of the picture. But Us doesn’t have to stay there. Us in the middle of the picture makes for pretty small perspective and shortened eyesight.

God in the middle of the picture is the great exchange.

“My own eyesight is pretty narrow God, I’d like your eyesight please. My own life is overwhelming and nerve wracking, I’d like to live through your life God. My own perspectives are small, I’d like to move and have my being through your perspectives God.”

We simply give over our humanity for an understanding of and relationship with God and his glory and love and presence poured out on this earth.

And we don’t have to freak out any more.

Aligned Just Right

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P1260728 flipped compressedI’ve had time today to reassess all the opportunities, invitations and open doors before us, knowing full-well that the most important job that a leader does is think.

Leaders are responsible for the steering of the ship, and whether that ship stays on due course or not.

I’ve spent my day thinking. Making sure that the ship I am steering will stay on due course.

And into the conversation with myself and the Lord has been this issue of doing the work or preparing the work.

Let me give you an example of what I mean:

I worked in the hospitality industry for a time. We served a lot of weddings and other such large banquets.

And when setting tables for say 300 people there are two styles of doing the job.

The First Style:

Count out eight plates and carry those plates to the table. Count out eight glasses and carry those glasses to the table. Count out eight forks, knives, spoons, spoon again, and carry those to the table. Count out eight napkins and carry those to the table.

Do this 37 times.

Make note that the tables are not yet set. In order to set the table, one must move the piles around and back and forth as the setting is finally made complete.

The Second Style:

Take a stack of plates in one arm, walk around the tables putting each plate in its proper place, continuing from table to table until the stack is gone. Go get another stack and repeat. Take a large handful of (in turn) knives, forks, spoons and spoons again, and walk around the tables placing the silverware at each place setting. Repeat until all tables have cutlery.

Take a bin of glasses on your hip and walk around…

You get the point.

Let me ask you, which style is preparing the work, and which style is doing the work?

I’ve got to say, in case you can’t tell, that the first style is merely preparing the work. The work is not to get piles of stuff to each table, the work is to set the table.

(Reminds me of a conversation with my daughter a few weeks back. She was mopping but left some spots on the kitchen floor to which I called her back saying, “The job is not to mash the mop over the floor, the job is to clean the floor” She could only chuckle in response as she went over the floor again.)

But getting back to setting the tables:

Which way of setting the tables takes more time?

I actually walked off a shift that insisted we do it the first way. There was no way $11 an hour was worth that much insanity and frustration. Actually, you couldn’t pay me $50 an hour to do a job that way.

And I’ve never lost the lesson.

Thank goodness. Just this evening I was asked by a gentleman what my strategy was for moving forward. I told him the strategy. It is simple and elegant, but not unwieldy nor over-planned. It is sustainable, but I must admit, it doesn’t look like much on paper.

But I am determined to do the work, and not over-plan the work, for only then am I am freed to be doing more work.

There has been suggestions of showcasing individuals on the website. A great idea at first glance. Why not? Well, I or someone else would be spending all their time at the computer. And we are not called to computer work.

Thoughts of planning curriculum (which I could do, wrote a book about how to do that for homeschoolers), but again, that is not the work I am to be doing. I could plan ad-nauseum and never actually get to what was planned. Don’t we do that all the time?!

We could build a building for training, or build a home base in Africa.

There has been talk of both these things from a few different folks.

The problem is, while we could say, “We have a base in Uganda” or “We have a school in Uganda” and sound very important and official and grand… I wouldn’t be actually doing the work I am called to do.

And all of a sudden we would be maintaining that building, caring for the building, improving the building, administrating the building… it wouldn’t end.

Caring for the school, administrating the school… you get the picture. The school is not the point, education is the point. And that we can accomplish much simpler through routes already established.

The same holds true of so many things, so many types of jobs. Where we spend our time planning and preparing and ensuring everything is set to go, and then planning and preparing and ensuring everything is set to go.

Meanwhile, the actual work is not done,

but boy do we ever feel great! (busy-work is a false placebo)

It can be quite a lot of balderdash.

All that to say, we must be about the work, the real work, the actual thing that is the job.

We do not shrink back from the real work, rather we engage, pour ourselves into the real work, risk for the work, fail and get back up again for the work…

There is no risk putting piles of dishes and cutlery on the table,

But setting that table, perfectly and aligned just right,

Now that take some guts and some willingness to engage

Anticipation

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P1080807 compressedAnticipation

I’m sitting at my table with the sun shining through the windows, splashing across my back and along the floor.

The smell of it is sweet, and it makes me think of summer and spring just around the corner.

Even though it is freezing cold outside!

Anticipation

My daughter is expecting a baby. Still 9 weeks away and yet we all know those weeks will fly past.

Busy crocheting blanket and booties, making piles of baby things, decorating his room, we are all getting ready.

We are waiting for you Dorian!

Anticipation

I’m heading back to Uganda in less than three weeks.

A myriad of little details must be done. This and that gathered: I’m remembering sun-screen this time!

Emails and messaging, texts and calls all to the folks there; we are all gearing up. Getting ready. Preparing hearts and minds and spirits, peoples and communities.

Anticipation

A Renewal Weekend coming up. Four short days away.

Women are preparing, we are food shopping, ensuring the menu is set. Finalizing the group sessions, setting the stage for deep internal shifts by which none of us are ever the same.

… and the Purdy’s are bought!

Anticipation

Such a sweet, sweet thing is anticipation.

Though my kitchen is a mess, though my kids like to fight each other, though there are a million things that could go wrong, anticipation harnesses our most joyful expectations and bathes our days in gladness.

It’s much like the sunshine that graces my neck of the woods this day.

Anticipation is half the fun, maybe even more!

Anticipation

What are you anticipating?

Dancing

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P1180368 compressedPulled back and forth between what is pressing and immediate to the long-term big picture of things, can be a bit of a trick.

As individuals we are often and naturally wired one way or the other.

We may be good at big-picture long term thinking but lousy with day-to-day immediacy’s.

Or we are good at the details of living but never really think about what any of it might mean in the big scope of things.

Thing is, we need both of these abilities. And both of these can be cultivated.

We need to be able to face our day-to-day and the immediate details of life and work and home and family.

Visions don’t happen unless we put some ground-work into place.

We also need to be able to step back, widen out the camera lens so to speak, and see ‘the point’ of what we are doing, how we are spending our time, and where our efforts are going; what is the map of our lives.

Ground-work means nothing without a larger scope of understanding.

Last week I was confronted by an immediate and traumatic need that required I  bring some stability and sameness into a situation. All of a sudden there was nothing else that needed attention but a very ‘in my face’ need.

It took a few days of my life, and extended in small ways throughout this past week. With that week’s time revealing that some details of my days will in fact be changed from here on out.

At the same time, the week went by and perspective opened up once more and long range vision cried for some attention.

Life often feels this incredible mix of all that is imminent and pressing contrasting with the much bigger point of everything.

It is not either / or

It is both / and

One day I am dealing with a crisis that demanded every ounce of my being to enter in and engage and simply ‘be’ in the pain, adding what comfort I could, and within a few days I am considering this years trips to Africa, and am reminded by texts and emails and phone calls that there is a much bigger world than my little pocket of crisis.

That world I am also to engage, bringing what I can to the table; being fully present.

The crisis of mental illness / the task of extending deep spiritual freedom to nations

Extending deep spiritual freedom to nations / the immediacy of being a single Mom

We all have conundrums and dichotomies that must be faced.

I’ve found, that the farther into leadership and influence one goes, the larger the dichotomies become, and the more humility is necessary to walk it.

It takes enormous focus and discipline of ‘setting oneself aside’, our fears and inadequacies and self-doubts and what doesn’t make sense, to in fact step into bigger pictures.

The farther one goes into influence, the less and less it is about us.

Our lives becoming one of service means…

We mustn’t be distracted by our stuff

It’s not about us!

Fancy that

So we walk faithfully with our days. The days that have us with a microscope gazing at our imminent and personal realities, and then the days that have us engaged with something that is far, far bigger than ourselves.

The camera lens zooms in, the camera lens zooms out.

Big picture, then the details, big picture, then the details…

Hmmm, sounds like a dance to me!

It’s Not Okay

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P1220657 compressedIt was Saturday evening in Madudu, Uganda. I’d been in the village since Tuesday simply basking in the beauty of the people and the land.

Sitting that evening on a bench at a wedding reception, a young girl came up to me to say hello and to shake my hand. Nothing out of the ordinary, I shook more hands and looked into more eyes that week than the previous months.

It is custom in Uganda to give respect and honour by kneeling before one to whom you want to show respect. And more than this, I suspect, one to whom deference is due.

I don’t know where this custom first took root. Whether it comes out of the colonization of the country or was there beforehand, I simply do not know. (And it should be noted that it is a sign of respect not only towards whites, but anyone of significance.)

Needless to say, there were a number of women who would kneel when they met me or shook my hand. I did not create any scenes, made no drama even when in my head I was screaming, “NO! do not kneel before me!”

Until the night of the wedding.

As the young girl and I shook hands a gentleman near me instructed, “Kneel down in front of the white woman.”

He spoke this in the local language, but I could pick out ‘white woman’, and I could tell by the tone that a command had just been given, and from the immediate kneeling of this little one before me I knew exactly what had been said.

I immediately countered, “Do NOT tell her that!”

And just as quickly my own and a few other hands to my side, reached out to lift her to her feet.

This all happened within seconds. I was horrified. To teach this to the next generation simply made me enraged.

The next morning was Sunday, and I was preaching at church. Now I preached quite a bit on this trip, averaged out it would have been at least once per day. But this day was a bit different.

I woke in the morning with the heaviness of that little girl being told to kneel before me simply because I was white, crushing my heart and mind with grief.

Colonization of countries is the same evil in the hearts of white folk that led to slavery in untold proportions around the world.

My heart has been breaking over this for some time already. Most recently, the movie The Help has me simply weeping, with no other adequate response, each time I see it.

And so to find myself in a country that had once been colonized. To be on the receiving end of this… idolatry of whites, was simply not okay.

That Sunday morning I could not stop crying. My heart broke further.

And so as part of my message that day, I apologized.

“On behalf of white folk the world over, I am so sorry”

Quite frankly, the many many things that have gone wrong in times gone by, from one people group to another, continue to have profound effect and carry on strongholds within the lives of people and communities and nations.

And it takes someone to stand in the gap and to say, “That was not okay!”

“I am so very sorry”

And then, in the authority that God gives, to declare that the poison of these tragedies and of this evil be removed from the people, from the communities and from the nations.

Amen and amen.

Something I am profoundly glad to do.