"100% Natural"

I wrote this about a month ago and never posted it. Here it is: Hello Dear Friends, I know it has been quite a while since I have written anything. It's not that I haven't been doing anything. I was just busy with other things. As some of you have seen, I have been working on quilts some of the time. I enjoy the ability to create even though I might not be very naturally artistic. It is also an opportunity to show love by giving the final project to someone you desire to touch. Today it is finally a very nice spring-like day. I have had a large rug rolled up on the terrace for almost a week that I have wanted to hose down and scrub but I have been waiting for a day when I not only had the time but also the temperatures to dry it before the evening! Today is just such a day. Last week we moved Jonathan from his bedroom into the room that has been the 'music room' but also my office. But with him leaving his instruments and music - plus other sundry things - all over the place and me with the ironing board in there piled high with my projects along with the cart I have been keeping the sewing machine on and wheeling back and forth to work in the living room when I have time, the room has been a mess and, I must confess, we have been getting on each others' nerves. :-) Sooo, he is now living in the music room (he has been required to allow David in whenever he wants to play his drums or the piano) and I have my own room!! Anyway, as I was washing the rug, of course, I was musing about things that have been on my mind. Yesterday, I was cleaning out my e-mail inbox and catching up on some posts that I have been reading in a blog I follow called Communicating Across Boundaries. I will, hopefully, include a link in this blog - I am still figuring this thing out. Anyway, she grew up as an MK in Pakistan and then lived internationally in Pakistan and India as an adult with her family and husband. She has so much insight about what it means to see the world through God's eyes and what it is to live and grow up and parent internationally. She is so better able than I am to put it into words. I so enjoy what she has to say. I read several of her blogs yesterday and so the thoughts running through my head this morning I will call 'Labels'. Thus the title above. Labels are useful. The FDA has required labels on all our food and clothing and medicines so that we know what we are buying. But labels can be deceptive. The other week, I bought orange juice that said 'no sugar added'. The one I usually buy wasn't available at this store so I thought, 'OK, I'll just get this one'. Later, as I was reading the label, I realized that it DIDN'T have added sugar. But it had artificial sweeteners added. Not something I want to buy. But others say '100% natural' and so people buy them without realizing the amount of sugar that has been added because sugar IS natural. :-) The labels I am thinking of, however, are the labels we put on people. And on ourselves. Most of the time, this is on what we base our identities. I am an American. I am from Ohio. I am a mother. I am a daughter. I am a wife. I am a Christian - and this one we feel the need to 'clarify'. Our labels are based on our origin, our profession. Our ethnicity. Our past. Our future. Our stand on an issue. Labels aren't necessarily bad. They help us define things. They help us anticipate how something might be if we have had experience with something in this 'category' before. They help us define our identity, our role, so many other things. But too many times we allow our labels to divide us or to make people (as my husband says) two dimensional. It helps us to put ourselves or others in a box and not really pursue the 'whole story'. And that's another thing that's been running through my mind - the idea of our story within the context of the 'bigger story'. Many times we don't even look at our own stories very deeply yet many times it is our story that we allow to define us. 'I was abused'. 'I am adopted'. 'I am handicapped'. 'I am stupid'. Why are we so drawn to when someone tells us a story? Movies, plays, books. We love stories - at least most of us. Stories touch our hearts. Stories bring tears. Stories bring laughter and pain. Stories can bring so much insight into our own stories. Yet when we use labels, we aren't looking at the person's story. We are looking at one facet of who they are and are defining them by it. A friend of ours from Zaragoza, where we lived for 14 years here in Spain, came to visit for about 4 days this past weekend. It was so nice to spend time with him and Sam took him to some of the meetings that he has been involved with. At one of the meetings, he got talking with a young lady who talked a lot about running. When he talked to Sam later, he commented about how she was 'obsessed' with running. He had judged her as being one of those 'shallow' people probably, who are so into physical fitness that she allowed it to fill her life more than her walk with God. But Sam was able to tell him more of the 'story'. Up until Christmas, she has had problems with her legs. She had been unable to run. Or do other things that most of us take for granted. So, now that she is better and is ABLE to run, she is quite excited by it and can come across as 'one of those physical fitness-aholics' - if you don't know more of her story. She was two dimensional to him until Sam could fill him in. Living internationally, I have had to think about this - in what or who do I find my identity? Part of my identity is being American. I can't do anything about it. It is part of what makes me who I am. The experiences I had growing up in the United States. But I have allowed it to define me more than I might like. There are advantages to being American. There are disadvantages. But what percentage of who I am do I base on my American-ness?? I am a missionary. Yes. That is what my vocation is. My heart's desire is to help people. Help people learn of the love of my Father. Help people live better. Help people find healing in the Great Healer. But I don't like to be defined as a missionary. A lot of people put me in a box when they hear where I live. I have cringed inwardly when it finally comes out -"Oh, you're the Missionary". I have tried to avoid it. People define me by this word - especially when I am at churches in the USA. It stereotypes me as 'more godly'. Ugh. I'm me. I struggle and fail just as much as anyone else. I am ME. I am Jill. In Spain, being a missionary can put you on a pedestal too. Or the titles we have. 'I have a DMin'. 'I have a Doctorate'. 'I am trained as a Life Coach'. We put it on our cards. We 'drop' the title when we are with others - and we use them to validate ourselves. But I think the worst labels we put on ourselves and others are the labels we put on other people depending on their theology or how they choose to practice their faith in Father. We allow our sub-divisions to divide us. I have no problem with there being different kinds of churches that express their faith and worship in different ways. My God is so big, he isn't limited to just one culture or one expression of who He is. I may not choose to worship as they do but that is their choice. There ARE theologies and ideas about my Father and what He says that I don't agree with. If you say something that is contrary to what God has told us in His Bible, I will defend that. But will I allow it to 'divide' me from you? Sometimes I think we see other as finished products rather than people in a 'process'. The process of being transformed to be more like Him. We can sharper each other and God can use that in each of our transformations. But if you become 'suspicious' and two dimensional in my mind so that I can dismiss you and what you say because you don't follow my 'party line', then I don't believe that is a characteristic of my Father. He was firm on what he needed to be firm - usually to the 'religious' people who were against him and whose power grid was threatened by his 'out of the box' thinking. But he was compassionate with those who were most broken. That is our Father's heart reflected in Jesus' life and ministry and what the Holy Spirit teaches us as we walk. We were talking with my older son, Troyer, who is in his first year of college in the States. He told us yesterday that - let's see if I get it right - widows, orphans, foreigners and other socially vulnerable people groups are mentioned in the Bible 2350 times!! This is who Jesus came to save - to heal. Those who know they need a doctor! He love the bruised and the broken. The marginalized. The unacceptable. The vulnerable. Because they can't continue to deny their need like the rest of us can who can stuff or hide or avoid or fill our lives with stuff. The Apostle John put a label on himself when he wrote about himself in his Gospel of John. He called himself 'the disciple Jesus loved'. I believe THAT is the title we should all give to ourselves and those around us. Because God does love us all. He has offered his free gift of salvation to all. Not all will receive. But God loves us all. He is against those who are against him, but that is not where he wants us to be. I really want to see myself and others through this lens. The One that Jesus Loves. There is love and mercy and grace and compassion. There is gentleness, kindness, humility and fullness of relationship with Him when we are filled with His love for us and it overflows to a broken and needy world.