What Was

The first month after moving to PA I have really struggled to feel at home here. I still do, but maybe a tiny bit less so. I think if I could pack up and move back to Wheaton tomorrow, I would do that. That longing for the last place we called "home" was kind of surprising to me because I never felt fully at home there either. Plus I never stopped complaining about how ugly it is there. What I've realized though is that we've lived a lot of life in the last 3 years and that's what makes that place so special.

...We've made out first home together as a couple there (that didn't involve living on a campus in an apartment owed by school)
...We went through 3 super-exhausting years of school and work
...We have made some amazing friends there, many of which, I am confident, will be life-long relationships
...We were blessed to be a part of an exceptionally amazing church. It is there that I have had some very memorable encounters with God
...We conceived, birthed and baptized our precious son
...We have suffered many disappointments, unrealized dreams and discouragement, but have also seen God's provision and goodness over and over

I can say a lot more about that season, but the point is it was quite a special chapter in our lives (mine and my husband's). And the truth is, it does not feel like a FINISHED chapter. I really want to continue nurturing the relationships that were formed there. During the last 3 years, I feel like that's the biggest sacrifice the school has required of me--not having sufficient time and energy for nurturing relationships. Therefore, I feel a lingering sadness/regret/loss about them. I also feel like I never really got involved in our church as much (or even close to) as I wanted to. 

...I feel like I have better clarity as to why I felt so angry and sad about having to move. I can see that it is the unfinish-ness of the chapter that makes me grieve the losses that come from getting uprooted from it. I have moved a lot in my life and Wheaton was as close to a home as I have ever felt.

It feels right to leave this post a little unfinished, just like the chapter I was talking about :)

I am back!

It's been a long while since I've last written on this blog. Been a little busy finishing grad school, dissertation, having a baby and moving to another state...But I am back now, I think! I've missed writing. There is something that it does to my soul that nothing else can really replace.

I've been doing some reflecting over the past month or so, on what was, what is, and what is to come (hmm...can I get any broader than that?). I might make it into my next 3 posts here even. I think I will! Stay tuned ;)

A Microwave is Bad for My Soul

This past week my husband and I took a heroic step towards a healthier lifestyle. We stopped using the microwave. Crazy, I know…This means that every time we have to warm up leftovers, we have to get out a pot or a pan, wait until it heats up on the stove, then put the food inside, put a little bit of water and cover it with a lid so that it steams through and spend something ridiculous like 5 minutes on the whole process! It also means a host of other small inconveniences, like using a kettle or washing more dishes, and I must confess—at least once a day for the past week I’ve missed the microwave. Something else seemingly insignificant happened this week—we ran out of green tea bags (which we use every morning) and were “forced” to use leafy tea instead. For those of you who may be unfamiliar with the process of using leafy tea, you must pour some leaves in the teapot, pour some hot water in and actually wait about 4-5 minutes (vs. 30 seconds for a tea bag) until the tea seeps before drinking it. It’s beautifully aromatic and delicious, more so than the bag variety, but if I am honest, more often than not I usually reach out for the tea bag—because it doesn’t slow me down as much.

This got me thinking how much I both love and hate convenience and efficiency. I love it because supposedly it frees up more time for stuff that “truly matters”. But does it? Not in my experience. I find myself constantly finding ways to squeeze in more projects and activities in my day, and I hardly feel good about myself unless I feel “productive”. And I hate it because deep down I realize that efficiency hurts not only my mind, but my soul too. It makes it difficult to just sit and be with God without feeling “productive” in my devotional times. It makes it hard to pay close attention to His gifts—like pretty colors, or a soft feeling of bed sheets, or delicious aroma of leafy tea…It makes it challenging to be truly present with other people. It makes it…kind of hard to have joy! I am re-reading a wonderful book, Opening to God: Lectio Divina and Life as Prayer by David Benner, in which the he talks about the essential value of being attuned to God’s presence in our lives. Slowing down and being still form a pre-requisite for that attunement, and a pre-requisite for meaningful prayer. There are no shortcuts to intimacy with God. It’s such a simple truth but so difficult to internalize when we live lives of constant shortcuts.

I haven’t decided whether or not I’ll buy tea bags again. It was on my list to-do today, but perhaps I need more reminders to slow down. Perhaps I need more patience and more joy in my life…

On denominations, soul nurturing and art

In several of my theology classes at Wheaton, professors have used the following “get to know you” question: please tell us your name and your denominational background. My response to that is usually something like this: “Hi, I am Iryna. I was baptized as an infant in Ukrainian Orthodox church. I spent most of my growing up years in a Polish Catholic church. Ever since I came to Christ I’ve been going to various non-denominational churches as well as Northern Baptist, Southern Baptist, and Wesleyan ones. Currently I go to an Anglican church, but to be honest, I really don’t like denominations.”

As I reflect on my denominational journey, I find myself discontent with two things. First, I truly dislike the idea of denominations. I’ll go even further to say that as a Christ-follower, I find them embarrassing. I am always reminded of a poignant question that my mom, who is Roman Catholic, once asked me: “If Protestants themselves can’t agree what they believe and divide amongst themselves all the time, why should I listen to them?” Sadly, she is right. Today, “Protestant unity” has become an oxymoron. When the world observes the life of Protestant Christians, it sees more fighting, bickering and division than love, humility and unity.  That deeply saddens me.

Secondly, I find myself discontent with certain aspects of Anglicanism. Over the last couple of months, I found myself increasingly bored and restless with the routine of liturgy. Don’t get me wrong, Anglican liturgy is beautiful and deep, and I know many people who would say that it ushers them into worship like nothing else. Well, unfortunately, I am not one of them. When I hear liturgical order for the first or second time, I am blown away by its beauty and depth. But when I hear it repeated for 20^th or 50^th time, it loses its meaning for me and I have to work super hard to stay focused and not get distracted.

What I am slowly coming to realize is that the way God made me is good. This may sound like a no-brainer, but when you are surrounded with a bunch of Anglicans for whom liturgy is this amazing and essential way of connecting with God, and you feel like somehow God forgot to give you the “liturgical gene”, it’s easy to feel “less than”. Secondly, I am realizing that I must pay attention to how God made me and nurture the parts of my soul that do not get nurtured by liturgy and Bible reading. Specifically, there is a part of me that is creative, that loves nature, colors, variety and spontaneity. In the last month, I’ve been thinking a lot about how to “feed” that part of my soul and what does it look like in my daily life. I am still figuring it out. However, I’ve taken a small step and tried engaging in drawing/meditative prayer a few times. I absolutely loved it and below is anexample of what I’ve done. I simply cut out a circle out of paper and fill it in with colors, using crayons or pencils.

The one depicted below is called "Fear". Fear is what I was feeling in my heart as I set down to draw. I represented it as a light grey color in the background of the circle because it's kind of invisible, but it's always there. Then I drew the various things in my life (represented by colorful circles and rectangles), encircled by fear (darker grey). It made me realize how powerful fear is in my life. As I was thinking and praying about that, I drew some emotions that I felt in response to this realization: anger (red & black in the center), sadness (grey around the edges), repentance (purple around the edges), and some hope of redemption (red C-shapes around the purple). As I continued praying, I realized that God was already doing good work in me by convicting me of my fear and letting me sense His call to live differently. So, I added some intermittent green as a symbol of life on top of the purple and even amidst of red and black.

I would be very interested to hear from any of you about ways in which you pay attention to the way you are created and care for your soul. I would also welcome any ideas or suggestions about incorporating more “creative” forms of worship into one’s life.

Why I Am Doing This?

The question I’ve been living lately is “Why I Am Doing This?” Paraphrased, it sounds like this: “Why I am spending some of the best years of my life enduring the insanity of a doctoral program?” This question comes out of a chronic tiredness caused by 60+ hour workweeks, a bottomless pit of things to do, deprivation in social life, financial stress and the feelings of injustice which accompany it, and constant external as well as internal pressure to do more. On top of that, today I have realized that I no longer feel passionate about my work. Somewhere along the way I’ve lost “the big picture” of why I am doing what I am doing. Today I re-read an autobiographical essay I wrote some time ago in which my passions were very much alive and felt like it was someone else who wrote it, not me.

In my weariness, I opened my Bible and my eyes fell on Psalm 27:5:

“For in the time of trouble He shall hide me in His pavilion; in the secret place of His tabernacle He shall hide me; He shall set me high upon a rock”

This verse reminded me of a fall several years ago when my friend and I travelled to Boon, NC. While there, we drove to one picturesque place and sat on a huge rock overlooking a waterfall. While sitting on that rock, I heard God’s voice whispering, “I am your Rock. I am bigger, stronger and more secure than this rock you are sitting on” There was something about that moment and the tactile contact with an actual rock that made it a powerful and memorable experience for me. In my heart, I want to go back to it, if not physically, then at least spiritually. I want to feel the rock underneath me and God’s gentle and strong arms picking me up and setting me on it. From the height of that rock, I want to be able to look around, see the beautiful landscape and get lost in the majesty of God’s creation. I love the fact that “in the time of trouble” King David had confidence that the Lord would hide him in a secret and beautiful place, and that He would set him high upon a rock. Please pray that I can have that same confidence and experience God as my Rock all over again.

The Mystery of Weakness

“My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor 12:9)

The last few weeks have been weeks of much weakness for me. The demands on my time have been significantly larger than the number of hours available in each day. Doing has taken over my being. As a result, my heart has suffered from numbness and isolation, and my mind has suffered from anxiety and frustration. My joy and my passion have been sapped.

And then I read stuff like the verse above and it really bugs me. Everything inside me screams, “I can’t afford to be weak, I need to be strong!” I really hate my weakness and Jesus just has the audacity to say that I need to embrace it? Really, just like that??

Yes. Just. Like. That.

If I sit back and reflect on my life, I remember so many times when in one way or another I was at the end of myself. And those moments were precisely the ones when God came through and beautifully worked. His strength was indeed made perfect in my weakness. So why do I resent being weak and having to trust Him so much? Why, even though I have confidence that God had called me to the work I am doing today, somehow I think I have to do it on my own strength and if I can’t, that means I am a failure? Why does it take a mental and emotional burnout for me to finally start surrendering and coming to God with my empty cup?

“My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness”.

My heart so wants to believe this and live this out, but my flesh is weak.  Oh wait, that’s the point…

What kind of answers do I seek from God?

My mind is full of incessant questions lately. They are not deep and profound kind of questions, but the worrying kind. They are like a bunch of annoying loud flies that I keep trying to scare away, but they keep coming back. If you were to take a snapshot of my brain in any given 2 minutes, this is what you would see/hear:

….How will I survive this year? How are we going to pay off our student loans? What can my dissertation topic be? What if I am not able to defend my proposal on time? What if I don’t pass my comp exam next summer and have to take an extra year in school? What if I have a really demanding internship next year? What if I don’t find a pre-doc placement in Chicago and we have to move to another state for a year? How are we going to pay off our student loans? When do I have time to study for my licensing exam in November? When I have time to do work for my 1-credit independent study in biblical interpretation this semester? How are we going to pay off our student loans? What if I don’t get enough hours at my internship site this year? What if David doesn’t get into a doctoral program? What if he gets into one that is 2.5 hours away? How are we going to pay off our student loans? How are we going to survive this year financially? Why can’t we find a car to buy? When will we be able to go visit my family again? What if we won’t have time or money next summer? What if something happens to my parents? What if something happens to my husband? ….

I often allow these questions to eat away my joy and peace. Sometimes I feel really powerless over my anxious mind. This morning it dawned on me that I lot of the questions I worry about are “earthly” questions (which is not bad in itself), but the trouble is that I really want “earthly” answers to them while God offers me “heavenly” answers instead. Let me explain.

Recently I read a story about a man who came to Mother Teresa for advice and told her in great detail about all his troubles. Mother Teresa listened intently and then quietly said, "Well, when you spend one hour a day adoring your Lord and never do anything which you know is wrong...you will be fine!" At the first glance, it may appear as though she completely misheard him or discounted his experience. However, what really happened in this story is that the man was asking the questions “from below” and looking for answers “from below”, but Mother Teresa offered him an answer “from above”. God did that with Job too. Instead of directly answering all (or at least some) of Job’s “why?” questions, God simply said, “Hey, where were you when I created the earth?” In that God redirected Job from the concerns of his life to His person and character. Result? Job fell down on his face and worshipped the King.

Sometimes when we ask questions “from below”, God gives us specific answers and shows us the exact direction we should go. But sometimes He doesn’t. Then I am tempted to think that He does not hear or does not care, all the while He is wanting me to find my peace not in the answers, but in Himself. My prayer today is that God would help me dwell on His glory, His goodness, His sovereignty, His everlasting love, and His unchanging character. May my “worry list” and yours be dropped at the feet of the One who holds the universe and delights to offer us His presence!