New Orleans, trip 5

Coming around the curve said it all. We started in St. Bernard’s, worked our way through the lower ninth, stopped to try imagining what the wall of water must have been like… we kept going across the canal, down Elysian Fields, into Lakeview, over to see the 17th street canal, then to Sal’s for a taste of heaven. The elevated traffic circle fascinates me – we drove around it four times. It was only when we started back on 10 toward the city that I felt it. The first time I felt it was when I was 8. The last time, I was 10. Glimpsing the buildings, knowing what’s ahead, going around the curve. It’s coming.

You see the top. It emerges. It gets bigger. It gets closer. The second it comes into view, you let out a sigh that says, “I love this place.”

This is my New Orleans. The places invite you in. The people smile. The love that connects and enjoins the people of this place can be felt as soon as you turn the corner. But that’s not all.

God is here. Say it all you want, condemn the drunks, the gays, the homeless, the drug addicts… say all you want. Get it out. Go ahead. Think I’m a horrible person and blasphemous for loving them. God is in this place, God is with the drunks, the gays, the homeless, and with the addict every time they shoot up. He is here… always has been, forever will be. This is His promise to us. God loves every soul here just as much as He loves you and me. For us not to recognize this is the foremost mistake we encounter with such an amazing city. We cannot come to get past the television images of angry people for being pooled up in a rank, foul smelling place with thousands upon thousands of others packed into such a small place. Would we not be the same way? How dare a person who has not been showed love but rather condemnation by an entire nation for days on end be the least bit angry. Are we not called to love all, despite who they may be or what they may say?

This is the time for love, for action, for coming to this place and doing what Jesus calls us to do. Our Father and his Son, in the words of one much wiser than myself, “bid us to come and die,” to our old lives and begin to live a life of love to all. To reach out our hands and be the hands and feet of Christ in a place that is longing for such a presence. This is our time, as followers of our Lord God in Heaven, to begin bringing the Kingdom of Heaven to earth. This is the time. This is the place. He calls us here to do just that. Now is the time. There is no wait and see. The need is great. The call is now.

May we not run from the love of our Father and his burning desire to instill in us His great love so that we may share such a love with those who are around us and in the places of the greatest need. This is one of those places – a place that the love of Christ himself can change this place forever. The Father’s love will multiply as it is shared and continue to multiply and spread for all to see – it is a glow that will grow to shine upon all the world. Whatever you do, though, spread this love by using words as little as you can. May our words be few and our love be great. May we follow the calling of our Lord, as we allow Him to become Lord of every sphere of our lives. May we come to embrace his awe-filled love and be overcome by the truth that He brings. To do so will leave you breathless, speechless, and amazed. Our God is great… he is on the move. He is seeking us. He is calling us. Are you ready?

Let’s go.


“Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due,
When it is in the power of your hand to do so.
Do not say to your neighbor, ‘Go and come back,
And tomorrow I will give it,’
When you have it with you.”
Proverbs 3:27-28

Smile!!!!!!

So I thought I'd add a picture of myself to my blog. It's been up for over a year... who knows, somebody out there may be reading it that's never seen me before.

Prior to this picture, I had braces for about five years. Yeah, that's a long time... my teeth are stubborn and didn't want to move. But they finally did, and here they are! :)

Leaving

Saturday was one of the toughest days I've had in a very long time. Saying goodbye is not something that comes easy when you don't know how long you'll be apart from somewhere. It was like a piece of my heart was being left behind as I drove further and further away - memories flooding my mind as tears fell from my eyes.

This past week was my fourth in New Orleans since Katrina. The experiences I've had there have been amazing; the relationships formed will last a lifetime and beyond. But that's not all. South Carolina is my home, yes, but if I have a second home, it is Louisiana. Three years of my live have been spent there. My brother was born there. It is a home to me. We moved back to SC in 1995. As we drove along I-12 and then I-10 in November, I did everything I could to hold back the tears. This time, nothing could stop them.

It was that same road we drove down to come back home for Thanksgiving in '93 when I missed all of my family in SC so much. It was the same road we drove down in the wee hours of the morning the day my great-grandfather died. It was the same road as I rode with my mom in our bright red Chrysler minivan that, just 2 miles before Mississippi, a piece of gravel flew up and cracked the windshield. Three years of living in the state with everyone else getting cracks, ours came just two minutes before we left for good.

My first memories of Brooks are in Louisiana... after all, he was born there. I remember when Dad brought him through the front door of our house and he was home. I remember holding him in the blue and white striped chair in our den so happy that I was finally a big brother. I remember the pool in the backyard, playing with Carly (who is still going strong at 14 years old now), meeting some incredible friends who welcomed a stranger.

I remember driving down I-10 every few weeks to New Orleans to see the sights and sounds of such an amazing city. I remember the fun and mystery the city had to offer. The Audubon Zoo. The aquarium. The river. The Cathedral. Margaritaville. The lake. The music. The jazz. Everything. There was so much. It was a place I came to love.

Nine months ago I did everything I could to hold back the tears. Driving up and down street after street after street... homes with water lines up to their shingles endlessly scrolling past the window. I got home and cried my eyes out for days. I knew then I'd go back as many times as I could. I knew then that my heart was being split between my home and my second home. It still is today.

To truly see what is there, you have to look past the few dozen bars on Bourbon Street. You have to look past the crime rate caused by less than 1% of the people there. You have to look past any stereotypes you've come to spread. You have to go. You have to see. You have to feel the love that these people have. So many have said that Katrina was sent by God to desecrate a city of sin. The thought that people believe this makes me cry. Look in your on backyard. Look at yourself. If you're without sin, then go ahead and cast the first stone. If not, why didn't God send Katrina to flood your house?

I've known New Orleans before and after this storm. I've loved New Orleans before and after this storm. I've been loved by those of New Orleans before and after this storm. Love is there. Only if you look. If you do look, you will find it. You will be loved. You will be blessed.

Our God is a god of Love. I've experienced this Love in New Orleans. I've experienced this God in New Orleans. God is there. Go. Look. Find.

To everyone in New Orleans, St. Bernard's Parish, Jefferson Parish, and everywhere else in Louisiana: I love you. We love you. Our prayers are with you. May the God of peace and love watch over you and bless you until we meet again.

Goodbye is not forever. We'll be back. There is a Light at the end of this tunnel... for you.

overflowing with a love greater than my own,
chris

Rain... thunder... lightning...

Rain falls... thunder rolls... lightning makes the night become day. God. No other is capable of such greatness. Some might call it rain. It is God. Some might call it thunder. It is God. Some might call it lightning. It is God. Beyond these things, it is good, because it is God.

Sorrow fills my soul this night. These are the times when you come to know who true friends are and come to doubt others. Do these others have an agenda? Do they love so that I might do something? Or do they love because they are called by Christ to love with no condition? Do they really love at all?

Children, women, men... all over the world... dying from hunger. In pain. Loving. Being strong. Even with death near. Do we care? Do we know? Do we love?

Answering the call of Christ is not to love when it is convenient to us. It is to love when it pains us most. When we'd like to not love. When we'd rather turn our eyes to a more joyous time... to pretend for a moment that pain is not there knocking on our door. Through this, we must love. To follow Christ is to love in the dark corners... in the homes of sorrow and pain... in the places and to the people we'd rather not encounter. It is not easy. Yet it is our call. To love Christ is to do these things. To ignore these things is to ignore our Father's desire for us.

We must never surrender to any way of this world, even for a moment. To have a moment where we strive for anything less than perfection is to spend a moment outside of true desire to follow Christ. For Christ calls us to come and die from our old life and be born into a life of discipleship. Do we know this? Do we seek this? Do we strive to be this each and every day?

To truly follow Christ, we must love with our all every moment of our lives. This is our call. It is not new - it is everlasting and alive today, just as Christ. He lives within us to remind us of His love - that we may share this love with all whom we encounter every second of every day.

The love of Christ fills my heart with joy this night. Joy that overpowers the burden of sorrow. When we cry out to Jesus, He will guide us, He will comfort us, He will love us like no other. He alone turns darkness into light... a light that can never be bright enough. It only grows, as we let it dwell within us and become brighter with each day we continue to follow Him. May we learn by this example, so that we might be the hands and feet of Jesus upon this earth - to share His love with those who need it most - and by spreading the Kingdom upon this earth, prepare the way of the Lord.

Praise be to our God, for He is worthy. Hallelujah. God is good.

all praise be to you Jesus,
chris

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Time to Unload

Whew. It's been a while. I'm becoming very frustrated with some stuff, so I'm going to use this journal entry to unload a lot of different stuff that's weighing me down right now. Some of it is things about others frustrating me... some of it is stuff about me that frustrates me... some of it is good stuff that fills my heart with joy beyond belief. With that said, here goes...

Selfishness irks me greatly. In others. In myself. Why do we allow ourselves to become so self-centered that we become ignorant to living our lives for others? Why do we put ourselves before others? Why do we veer so far away from living a life of serving others with every breath that we take? People wanting things just because they 'want it their way' annoys me a lot. When I see it in myself it annoys me even more. I pray that all of us might do less and less for ourselves and more and more for others.

Worship is not a song. Going to church or experiencing worship is not 'going for the music' or picking a church with the best music. Music is something we enjoy... we call it "praise and worship" all the time, but something deep inside me leads me to believe that we're letting it replace real praise and worship. The disciples didn't hang out in nice buildings with cool sound systems trying to find the best music to minister to people. They "praised and worshiped" the way Jesus calls us to live... by loving God and loving others, and taking that message to the multitudes. It wasn't through a song, but in living it out in their lives and going beyond words... bringing their words to become a reality. That is our challenge. Our worship cannot be comprised of a song we enjoy singing. True worship is giving God everything that we have of worth - namely, our lives. That's the nature of the word... worth ship. In Jesus' time, if you were a fisherman, your ship was everything. No ship = no food, no money, no sustenance, no life. If you brought your ship to Him and gave it up to Him, that was offering everything. This is what Jesus calls of us in true worship. Repeating words that somebody else wrote to a tune that we really enjoy and that excites us is not what God ever asked for. Living our lives in the way that He asks us to is exactly what He asks for. Let's not let songs and theatrics take us away from what true worship and discipleship is.

To truly seek, you've gotta truly seek. Too many of us are letting things slide and yet trying to lead others and thinking that we know more than we do. Read. Study. Pray. Meditate. Let His thoughts fill your mind and your own thoughts ebb away. To serve our God best, we must learn as much as we can from the story He has left for us through time. We are being very poor stewards of our own time and of others time to try leading others while neglecting to lead ourselves to a life of holiness. We must seek the Word before we attempt to describe and paint it for another.

It never ends. Too many of us are content with where we are. We find a spot that we feel comfortable and stay there for as long as we can until someone else shoves us out, and then we find another spot of comfort. Never stop searching. Never stop seeking. Never stop working to bring the Kingdom to where we are on earth. Becoming a Christian is not a one-time event where you say a prayer and it's over. Truly following Jesus involves just that... following Him. When you follow someone who is literally everywhere, that journey never ends. It will take you to the ends of the earth and beyond. Never become comfortable... that is the first sign that you are slipping. Let God be your guide, and never be afraid to jump on the journey He takes you on. Keep going. "Oh, if this should be the last day that I have before I breathe the air of heaven let me live it with abandon to the only thing that remains after my last day here on earth." Keep going. Never stop. God never stops. Why should we?

Apathy is a killer. Maybe apathy isn't the best word. I don't know. This attitude makes me want to lie down and cry in pain: 'We can never be perfect, so it's okay if we don't do stuff right! Plus, if God's really in control, it'll all work out and it doesn't matter what we do.' If that is true, then why would God send his Son to bring us a message of how to live and because of such dying upon a cross for the sake of bringing us this message and living it out in perfection? If we're so dead set on us not being perfect, why would Jesus say to us, "Go and be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect," or why would He say, "Love others as I have loved you," if He didn't think we were capable of these things? "Time's up! God's kingdom is here. Repent and believe the message." Believing is doing. Is the message coming alive in your life?

Don't let anything ever come between you and your desire to praise God with your life. Let all good things come only from the love you have for your Father and the infinite love He has for you. Do all things in the light of His glory. He is here. All is well. Believe. Do. Bring the words to life through your own life. Embody what is true and holy, and never seek anything less.

All glory be to God, for He is good. Hallelujah. He is good.

seeking to love with all of me,
chris

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New Orleans, trip 3

From wherever spring arrives to heal the ground…
From wherever searching comes (the look itself
A trace of what we’re looking for).
So be quiet now and wait. The ocean is growing.
The tide is coming in.
Here it is… Here is our King. Here is our love.
Here is our God who’s come to bring us back to Him.
He is the One. He is Jesus.

And what was said to the rose to make it unfold
was said to me here in my chest, so be quiet now
and rest. The ocean is growing. The tide is coming.
Here it is… He is our King. He is our love.
He is our God who’s come to bring us back to Him.
He is the One. He is Jesus.
Majesty. Finally. Here…

- “Here is our King” - David Crowder*Band -


Two days from now will be seven months. Seven months since the ocean grew… since the tide came in. Spring is arriving to heal the ground. Green grass is emerging. Colorful foliage spreads out across the land. Hope is there.

In the week that we worked in homes, came to know the stories of the people, and absorbed the entire experience, there wasn’t a doubt to be found that He was there. God was in this place. The truth is, he was there before the storm. He was there in the storm – in every droplet of water. He is there now.

You cannot take enough pictures or video to describe what is there. Homes atop cars – cars atop homes. Families searching for where remnants of their home might be, after days still struggling to find a piece big enough to identify it as their home. Homes collapsed. And yet beneath the rubble of brick walls and a roof torn in two, a fragile light bulb remains untouched. A photo still remains intact and clear. A dog survives for forty-two days on its own.

Amazing. It is the only word that fits. Indescribable.

We found God in a light bulb. In a photograph. In a dog we never met. God is in this place.

Hope in voices of the people. Workers doing more than they could ever do on their own. Scenes that look impossible. There is no logical explanation. There is only God.

We went to be in mission – to take God to these people. We left discovering that God was there all along, and that we’re only left to bring a little piece of Him back with us.

We were inspired. We were welcomed. We were loved. Good things are to be found there. In the midst of the destruction of such worldly things, hope remains, love remains, God remains.

No words can ever describe how this trip left us speechless… in awe of a God beyond description. We are only left with a smile. Knowing that He is our God. Our creator. Our love. The One. He is Jesus. And He came to bring us back to Him.

One Year Later

Wow. It's been a year since I started blogging. I just finished going back and reading every blog entry from the past year... it's amazing how far I've come since then. A year ago doesn't seem to be all that long ago, but in reading tonight, it seems like ancient history. There are some similarities, though. A year ago I was getting ready for an awesome spring break trip - and very excited about getting out of town for a week and maybe helping some others in the process. I'm sitting in the same seat again, at the same desk, with the same excitement.

With this excitement, and knowing how much the last spring break trip changed me and really shaped the last year of my life, I thought I'd reflect on some of the bigger things I've learned in the past year...

1. Firstly and most importantly, seek God with all of your mind, soul, heart, and strength, and love Him likewise. I could never convey anything more important than this.

2. Never become comfortable (this and others probably go along with numero uno). It is the moment that we become comfortable that we will find ourselves drifting from God. Why should we ever become comfortable in a world that we were not made to live in? In the words of another author, we are aliens in a foreign place. We should most certainly enjoy the gifts God has blessed us with (eg - His other creations), but being comfortable isn't really what we're called to be.

3. Be careful of finding one person (author, musician, preacher, leader, etc) that you learn most from. In other words - don't do it. Let the Word of God be your only source of guidance. Read other people and listen to others and definitely check out some of the awesome music out there - but don't let it replace the Word. Without the Word, where would we be?

4. I hear a lot of talk about unconditional love. About being a real friend to others. About doing anything for anyone else. About loving others as ourselves. If you're going to claim the name (or words in this case), do it in actions, and let the words follow (if they're needed at all). Too often we use words to say who we are... words can never describe some things - only our actions will define who we are... where our treasure is, our heart will be also. What is most important to us? What is our treasure? Seek to make the words you speak a reality.

5. Do everything in love. When you see wrong being done, speak up. When you see someone else falling, reach out a hand and try to pull them back up. Never do these things because you see yourself as elite - for the truth is that none of us are elite... we are all equally children of God. None better, none worse. God loves each of us equally. It is because of this love that we are called to love everyone whom we encounter, and help them as much as humanly possible (or maybe more?) to love our God with their all and everything.

6. Dream. Wonder. Think with the simplicity of a child. Anything is possible. We too often see our effort to give God everything as unreachable or with too many obstacles. The path he calls us to travel is not one we can do on our own... this is why He tells us that all things are possible. When the journey and life that He calls you to lead seems to be tough, read His words from Matthew 7... with God, nothing is impossible.

7. God's timing is perfect. He calls us to be patient... we should learn this trait as soon as we can. We can pray about something all day long and until we're red in the face, but ultimately, we must learn to be patient for God to act. Do not be anxious... so many times this past year I've been in a very bad situation, but by a miracle God alone is capable of, everything worked out.

Well, those are a few things. This past year has taken me to places I'd never thought I'd end up, and led me to some of the most incredible friendships I could have ever imagined. From Clemson to Florida to the Bahamas to New Orleans... God is awesome. Really. He leaves me in awe. So many times. Words could never do it justice.

I pray that this next 365 days might be as incredible as the last... with God as my guide, who knows where I'll end up. May I glorify Him in all that I do, and love without strings everyone whom I might encounter.

soooooooooooooo thankful, and with a smile bigger than the sun,
chris

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