Thursday, February 20, 2014

A Passionate Tension

The other day, I was having dinner with a friend and we got on the subject of things we feel very strongly about. She carefully thought through her answer and agreed that she was passionate about her children. She is a great mother; I can see her eyes light up when she talks about her kids. Then, of course the question came back to me. What are you passionate about? I drew a deep breath and ran through the litany of things that gets my blood boiling: poverty, rape, abuse, malnutrition, first-world arrogance, the commercialization of the Church, an education system that hasn’t changed since the industrial revolution, racism, sexism, foster care, intolerance, slavery, trafficking, people with too many opinions, people with no opinions, seat belts, people who can’t distinguish between you're and your … I realized my eyes were glazing over and I wasn’t saying anything.

The truth is, I feel strongly about a lot of things. I’m not sure if that’s because I’m a woman, a a believer or a Matchell (probably a strong combination of the three), but I do. The problem is that most of the things that I am passionate about are issues with no simple answers. Poverty? Seriously? That’s an easy one to tackle. Racism? Oh, it’s been around for hundreds of years, but I’m sure that I come up with a quick solution that will reconcile all races to each other. I mean, come on. These issues are issues because they don’t have simple solutions! They require humility, looking at the individual instead of an entire population, and really getting to know people. Except for the you're and your thing. Here we go: 


YOU’RE = YOU ARE. 
YOUR = SOMETHING THAT BELONGS TO YOU. 

Problem solved.

After five years of MARKED, I think I’ve finally figured out why I love it so much. We don’t claim to have all the answers. We know that the Lord’s heart is to see all men and women come to Him. We know that His desire is for women to be marked by His truth for them, not the lies that the enemy perpetuates. But we’ve searched and searched and have never found the silver bullet that kills every problem with one shot. We don’t promise that when you attend MARKED you’ll figure everything out. What we do promise is that if you agree to take this journey with us - to step into the tension of that which is and that which is not yet, we will walk with you. We’ll talk things through. We’ll help you explore where God is placing you and why. We’ll support you through the trials and errors of living a passionate life.


I have grown comfortable in the tension that surrounds those things that pull at my heart strings. I am okay when I realize that I can’t actually do anything in my own wisdom or strength to solve these problems. It pushes me closer to Christ. It reminds me that I serve a God that is bigger than any of these problems. Bigger than the abuse of women around the world. Bigger than war. Bigger than me. And He has called me to step in to a very specific spot at a very specific time. I am to obey. The rest is up to Him.

I hope you'll join me on Sunday, March 2nd at the OKC Farmers Market for MARKED. Check out the website for more details.

1 comment:

michelle said...

Oh man. Yes. This is (most definitely) why we are friends.