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Greetings!
Longing for the Perfect World
Ten years ago, September 2001, was the beginning of another church calendar year, school year, car pool schedule, fall sports, children's church, new member lunches and the ongoing revolving door of people who came through our home. We were heading into the fourth year of our church plant. What most weighed on me, however, was not my crazy schedule, but my kids. Our oldest daughter was entering her first year of high school and not doing well with the transition from a nurturing private school setting to public school. Our son was 13, our youngest daughter, 11 years old.
Our church was drawing a unique group of postmodern skeptics, de-churched young adults, and many with a plethora of addictions. Visiting families rarely came back. Our struggling children's ministry experienced more kids leaving than joining.
And I? I was the frantic wife behind the scenes trying to keep too many balls up in the air, the worried mom wondering how all this was going to impact our family. In the following years every attempt at a youth ministry eventually dissolved leaving our kids, one by one, disillusioned that our church might hold something for them. One day our youngest confused the stories of Abraham and Noah, and our son looked at me in shock, "Mom, have you and Dad even read the Bible to her?!" For a few bewildered moments, I couldn't remember if we had.
On 9/11 we were horrified and numbed as we watched with the rest of the world the events that transpired. While I recall exactly where I was that day, the subsequent months are a blur in my memory as I tried to keep my own world from collapsing in on me. Fall 2001 was bleak and I had little imagination for how God could possibly work with the mess I daily encountered.
Ten years later, September 2011 in our new home city of Manhattan, we listen to stories of the many lives impacted by 9/11. Friday we rode bikes down to ground zero. On the phone with my son today, we talked of what influenced him most from his youth regarding his leadership development and the direction his life has now taken. As I already figured, 9/11 had deeply impacted him as had several unique situations in his childhood. However, with little exception, it wasn't the areas I had laid in bed worrying about.
The prophet Isaiah also encountered a desolate period in his nation's history. The good times were over. The dream of a perfect nation was gone. In that empty, barren period he encounters a God who is wholly other. And the very thing Isaiah longs for; perfection, justice, beauty, a world that works the way it's supposed to, undoes him. For in seeing God, Isaiah comes face to face with himself, with whom he really is. We know his response, "I'm ruined, I'm a man of unclean lips and I live with a people of unclean lips."
Like Isaiah, God has placed eternity in our hearts, a desire to look beyond the walls of this crumbling world and dream of a world, a church, a community, a home that is perfect. But we can never get to that perfect world until we first know whom we are. If we're allergic to the idea of sin, we can't really see holiness. It was G.K. Chesterton who responded to the question, "What's wrong with this world?" by answering, "I am." I think many of us truly grasp that concept. What's wrong with our parenting, our church plant, our community? "I am what's wrong with it", we readily respond. But are we daily encountering the answer? We know what Isaiah saw in his vision because it's spoken of in John 12:41. He saw Jesus' glory. He saw Jesus next to The Alter. And a few chapters later in John we see this same glory is not next to The Alter but on it. The holiness of God laid down for us. As Isaiah is cleansed, is made holy, as are we, it sets him and us apart. This encounter is so obviously clear that it's nothing of Isaiah's doing, nothing of our doing that makes us holy that our response is one of utter humility; "Send me, God. If you can, use me." Oh yes, people will laugh at us, criticize us. They won't listen. They will complain. They will turn away. Our kids may or may not follow God. We will experience the good, the bad, and the ugly. But there is one thing I know, of one thing I am convinced- there is a God who is acting and working to bring in that perfect world.
Our son wasn't in worship with us today, September 11, as he reported for duty as an officer in the 82nd Airborne Division of the US Army at Ft. Bragg, NC.
Still longing,
Shari Thomas
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