Saturday, December 29, 2007

THE ADVENTUROUS LIFE OF ANN LOUISE

I wanted to do one of these Christmas/New Year's letters, so I thought my blog was a good place to put it. I am still living in St Louis. Let me tell you about my life in sections.

My Church
I am totally a part of this Body. I get to serve right alongside many and get to use my gifts. There are dear dear friends here too. I get to serve on the women's ministry team, the worship music team, and the servant ministry team. We have small groups in our church, and I have been in the same one the entire 5 and a half years I have been here! One of the women I get the privilege of discipling right now is in my small group, with her son.

Here's a fun story - two Sundays ago I received a phone call at 5:45 am and it was a member of my small group who has 4 kids, and he said "Get up! We're going sledding!" So Bob and his kids, me, and others all went to Forest Park and of course there was no one else on the hills and it had snowed all night so it was fresh! Here are some pictures:

Jonathan and Bob (his dad)


Weez sledding


Snow Angel



I taught the elementary age kids Sunday school class until this summer, when I decided to take a break and be an adult for a year. Here's my class that I love!




My Friends
I've already mentioned some of my friends above. I have the most awesome friends. I have had health trouble some this year with different gland problems causing fatigue, and my friends have been a sweet refuge where I can be myself and call for help when I need it. I have cool friends who know how to worship and celebrate well. One of the neatest things of my year was a Christmas feast where there was only a dozen of us sitting around the table, we had 5 courses, and in between each then we fellowshipped, drank good wine, sang Christmas hymns, and read Scripture about Emmanuel. How cool is that? Here's a picture from the feast:




My Growth Spiritually and Emotionally
Oh and I got my hair cut short this year. It was a monumental thing because its the first time I've ever chosen a haircut for me and not because of any people pleasing pressure from any source.



This has been a growing year, as has been all of my life. I am so much the same and so much changed. I still am so passionate about setting a vulnerable example for others in the Body, as well as helping others grow in vulnerability, as this blog shows.

Another thing that is significant is that I am on a quest for Joy. I am learning that sometimes I'd rather stay in joyless-land simply because its familiar and its easier that way. But that reminds me of that passage in the Bible where it talks about the dog returning to his vomit. I don't want to return to my vomit. There's a glorious banqueting table and I want to eat there. Sometimes I feel obligated to show joy because its in a legalistic way where I feel like I am not praising God enough if I don't feel it. Sometimes its in an idolatrous people pleasing way that I feel like I should show joy. But then there are the times where I genuinely get a taste of real Joy from my Lord and Savior. I am seeing how it is not an all or nothing thing, learning joy, just like so many other things are not all or nothing in life. As I have begun healing physically, we have seen that a lot of what was ailing me is a source of depression (like mild hypothyroidism) so I have more and more reason to believe that I can be even more free of depression. Even though I will definitely have pain and sorrow, I won't necessarily have to be despairing and joyless. There's a definite difference between the dark nights of life and the despair that says you must die because there is never any hope for this life. Peter Scazzero says in his great book Emotionally Healthy Spirituality: "Receiving God's gift of the dark night, or the Wall, is the ordinary way we grow in Christ. How do we know we are in the dark night? We feel the door of heaven has been shut as we pray. Darkness, helplessness, weariness, a sense of failure or defeat, barrenness, emptiness, dryness descend upon us..." Oh my friends, depression is much worse than this. I know that many of you struggle with it also. Mine has been a combination of physical, emotional, and spiritual issues. Its likely we won't find freedom unless we deal with all 3 areas. Oh, please fight for joy if you are depressed. But you need to ask the Lord to help you reach out to the Body and ask for help in the fight. And you will probably need to tell them specifically how to love you, because even though that can be so hard, you will find love there if you do it.

I still long to be married, and I am still not. At the same time, I really enjoy the independence of being single. I had many dates with different men this last year, teaching me much about relating to the opposite sex. I can hardly imagine being married, but I believe that it is something the Lord is probably going to bring my way, to teach me about dependence and vulnerability and love. I think that maybe God will give me an earthly husband who will love me for all I am, who I will respect so much that I'll be eager to follow, who through I learn more about serving and loving more than I ever have, and who through I'll become more softly vulnerable, which is a big area of continued needed growth for me.

My Work
I love physical therapy better than I ever have! Its because I've come to be able to intertwine my heart for the poor with PT. I cover places that are full of people who are very needy and very forgotten and are usually considered by society to be worthless. Prisoners and inner city children and mentally ill. This job fell into my lap over a year ago and I have an incredible boss who helps me make it my dream job. I work with mostly African American co-workers, and that is a blast to me! For one thing, African Americans are the same culturally all over the country, and that culture is so very similar to the Southern culture. So being that white culture is different by region, being with blacks makes me feel more at home (the Southern girl has never left me!) But then I have always been fascinated with and enjoyed the African American culture. Its just more surface differences of course, because deep down we still all cry about the same things no matter what culture we are. But I really enjoy being around their more relational, laughter filled culture. I've begun to enjoy hip hop and R and B more! Check out this radio station:

http://www.kmjm.com

My family
My mother and I are closer than ever and have better communication than ever, and that is a very sweet thing.


And I just absolutely delight in and find so much joy in my relationship with my niece and nephew:




My brother and sister in law have moved to TN and so that has been a huge change for my life and for theirs. We are all learning good things from being apart. And we all miss each other a ton too. As in every one's life, the year was filled with a lot of hard and painful events, and a lot of fun and joy filled events. I used to not get Michael Card's song Joy in the Journey because I thought that life was about reaching some moment of perfection and enjoyment. But thankfully I am coming to see the Lord's plan for the journey of life and how it is so good. I pray you all are too.
Love,
Ann Louise

ADDENDUM TO THE FAMILY BLOG

I've realized something huge as I've asked for help from the church and they have come along side me. Its that I had to ASK. People were so happy to know how to help and to help. But they didn't know how on their own. Its not fair for me to expect others to read my mind. And many people's personalities are not ones that bust into your home and start cleaning your kitchen. We need to do more asking in the Body! Give others grace when we are hurting, by not expecting them to know what to do, but to instead learn to humble ourselves and ask for what we need from them.

VULNERABILITY IN DISCIPLESHIP

I loaned the book "Search For Significance" by Robert McGee to the woman I am discipling. Its where she needed to go next to grow in the Lord, and she has recently finished it. She told me last night that it really drew her closer to the Lord and helped her understand the gospel better. Here's the thing I'm writing about today - I gave her my copy that I went through 9 years ago, which has a workbook in the back. Therefore she could read the notes I wrote in the margins and the answers in the workbook. She also told me last night that it encouraged her to be able to read where I had been and to know that someone else had been there too. It also encouraged her to see that the Lord has grown me since.

What do you think about this kind of vulnerability? Appropriate? Too much? We should or shouldn't do more of it?

Sunday, December 02, 2007

MY FAMILY

While I have an incredible biological family that I love dearly, I want to write about my church family. I have had some health problems lately with certain glands not working right, making me really fatigued and feeling lousy. Hence the long gap of over a month in my blog. My health problems are on their way to being fixed. And for a while I was very scared to be alone with all this since my family recently moved away. But I haven't been alone. My pastor and elders have laid hands on me and prayed for me. My small group and my women's Bible study, among others, have regularly prayed for me and encouraged me. My pastor has listened to me sob on the phone. I don't have any children of my own, and my nephew and niece have moved away, but all day yesterday at church, my lap was constantly full, with at least 3 kids at a time. One mom told me that her little girl went home last night and wanted to pray for Miss Weez. I am getting ready to be put on a very restricted diet for a season to help me heal, and 3 friends have volunteered to do it with me so that I can have support. Many friends have told me that they want to regularly cook for me while on my diet since I am already fatigued. One friend brought to church tonight a whole bag full of foods I can eat already prepared and cut up into ready made snacks. Another is going to call me every morning to remind me that God loves me. My problems are messy - its not simply physical, but there's always other stuff tied into everyone's stuff - relational, emotional, spiritual. Yet even in the messiness, my church is doing the best they can to reach out and come around me to walk through the hard spots. I am so thankful for family.