What's he worth?

Today I was reading this post on the Your Other Brothers blog, and Aaron included this passage of scripture.

Renounce.
Well, that’s an extreme word isn’t it?

I pulled out my Bible to check what the two versions I generally read said,
”any of you who does not give up everything” reads the NIV.
”if you’re not willing to take what is dearest to you, whether plans or people, and kiss it goodbye.” In the Message.

What is dearest to me? Plans . . . people??

The study/translation notes in my translation say, “Jesus did not want a blind, naive commitment that expected only blessings. As a builder estimates costs or a king evaluates military strength, so a person must consider what Jesus expects of his followers. The cost, Jesus warns, is complete surrender to him.”

Finally I turned to a more recent translation that has become a new favourite of mine - The Passion Translation.

“Unless you surrender all to me . . . . you cannot be one of my disciples”.

And the translation notes state - pulling in the verses that follow -, “Followers of Jesus who are unwilling to pay the price are like worthless salt, unable to affect anyone or anything.”

But let’s also go back a few verses in this section, “When you follow me as my disciple, you must put aside your father, your mother, your wife, your sisters, your brothers, - yes, you will even seem as though you hate your own life. This is the price you’ll pay to be considered one of my followers.”

Wut.

This seems so anti to what I was taught Christians and church should be about.
Aren’t all supposed to be included?
Isn’t it just supposed to be as long as someone can say, “I believe Jesus existed” and BAM they’re in?

But here Jesus says that this costs you everything.
Being his follower is not a decision to be taken lightly, and not everyone is going to choose this life, because it is going to cost you something, and you must be willing to surrender it all. Dreams, loves, hopes, family, riches, meaningful momentos. Even possibly life itself.

“So don’t follow me without considering what it will cost you”

All are welcome.
But the way of Christ comes at a cost.
And Jesus himself says to consider what that cost is. To ask yourself if you’re prepared to surrender all of you and everything you love. Am I?

Am I honestly willing to count the cost?
I’m not sure.
I like to think I am, but each time I have to surrender more of my ways and wants I get faced with the question - am I ready to renounce that hope, that dream, that love to follow? Are you?

You are welcome on this path.
This narrow way.
And life itself, and love itself, and God himself is waiting for you.
But like the parable of the treasure in the field - are you ready to sell everything you have to obtain it?

As Aaron says in his article, “All followers of Christ will find themselves in nearly unbearable conflicts between flesh and spirit; this is the cost of denying ourselves and bearing the cross of Christ. … It’s what Christ forwardly states at the beginning of that passage in Luke — following Him costs everything. Our family, our friends, our jobs, the whole of our lives. … What is Christ’s value to me? He costs everything, yes, but is He worth everything?”

Aaron goes on to talk about his own journey in relationship with Christ. Of asking God if following him would cost him a particular relationship, “asking if He would still be worth following, even if it cost me my dreams. If I could never accept His saying “no” to a husband for me, then why go on asking in the first place?

I am not yet prepared to ask if I’m not ready to follow Him regardless how He answers.

If the answer is no, if I could not follow Him even into celibacy, then the problem is my faith — that Christ isn’t worth everything to me — not my sexuality.”

His story echoes so meaningfully, so painfully my own.
Growing up I dreamt of two things - living a life that matters and being married.
Why? I don’t know.
Was it a dream built into my heart by its creator, a dream woven into the biology of my being by evolution and chemicals and cells, or just one instructed by my culture? I don’t know. And I’m not sure it matters. Because whatever its founding it feels like it’s me. Who I am. I suppose I always assumed this meant that even in surrendering all of me to Christ that finding the (a) person to marry was inevitable - a matter of time.

Then when I was nearing my 30th year I came face to face with my deepest fear.
It presented its dark, overwhelming face in the vulnerability of sleep.
I began waking up in the middle of the night, heart pounding, mind racing, panic coursing through every inch of my body.
What if I never got what I wanted? What if I remain single my whole life? What if no one ever loves me enough to choose to bind themselves to me?
To those of you who marriage came easily, or perhaps whose deepest desires was something other than this - maybe this seems silly.
Ridiculous.
Maybe you’re rolling your eyes.

So what would it be for you?
Having children?
Losing a family member?
Living without the security of a job? Knowing how you’re going to afford the things you need?
A specific dream or job?

And with the help of a wonderful Christian therapist I began the hard work of asking myself, is Christ worth it?
If the cost of following him is submitting the possibility of all I’ve dreamt of my entire life.
If it’s watching the people I’ve loved love others?
If it means I never experience a romantic relationship, being chosen, sex, a first kiss.
Do I honestly believe he is still worth following?
And my answer was yes. And maybe that’s easier to say now at the beginning of my 30s when the dream of finding someone to marry still lingers hopefully in the back corners of my heart then it will be at 40 or 50 or 70. But I hope I find my answer to be yes, no matter the cost.
I hope I, like Jesus told his other disciples before me, have considered what it will cost me, and found myself willing to pay the price. Found that he truly is the treasure worth selling everything else for.

WHAT’S A DREAM THAT YOU’VE ALWAYS HAD? SOMETHING THAT FEELS LIKE YOU WERE BUILT SPECIFICALLY FOR THIS, OR THAT IT JUST ‘IS’ YOU? LET ME KNOW IN A COMMENT

Word Vomit || I Have Way More Interesting Things To Do . . .

My friend Sarah was in town this week for a conference.
We went out for coffee, and while we stood waiting for our coconut milk latte (mine) and salted caramel hot chocolate (Sarah’s). She turned to me, “So,” she asked. “How are things with (that guy you like)?”
She already knows he rejected me awhile back and is wondering how I’m feeling about it.
How I’m feeling about being (still) single.

It’s a fair question.
This rejection was harder than most for me. I wanted it so desperately.
Dreaming of a future where we travelled and changed the world together.
A lifetime of staring into those blue-hazel eyes, laughing til our ribcages hurt, and finding creative ways to help humanity.

The problem is that this is always the question.

Only a couple weeks before I had run into an old friend from Waterloo, and one of the first questions he asked is if I was dating someone.
It’s the under current of my life.
Being single.
Not wanting to be single.
People wanting me to not be single because they know I don’t want to be single.

It’s like that scene from Mean Girls:

Cady: [voice-over] I was a woman possessed. I spent about 80 percent of my time talking about Regina. And the other 20 percent of the time, I was praying for someone else to bring her up so I could talk about her more. […] I could hear people getting bored with me. But I couldn't stop. It just kept coming up like word vomit. 

Except change Regina to my relationship status.

Today I’m sitting at the lunch table at work.
I’m drinking coffee out of my re-useable S’well bottle. The Cinematic album from Owl City vibrating through my headphones; pumping hope through my veins.
Thirst by Scott Harrison, the Founder & CEO of charity:water, open to where I’ve paused reading in front of me - midway through chapter 18. Scott’s in the midst of a life transformation and is currently planning a huge fundraiser for Mercy Ships.

I’m staring out the window blankly.
I’m not paying attention to what’s happening around me.
I’m way more interested in what’s happening inside me.

I think I’m over it.

I think I have way more interesting things I want to do with my life than obsess about getting some guy to like me.

Don’t get me wrong - I want to get married someday.
It’s still a dream etched in the core of my being.
Who doesn’t want to be loved and chosen?
To have a hand to hold.
And a favourite pair of eyes to gaze into for the rest of forever.

But I can hear people getting bored with me.
And maybe they’re right to be.
Maybe somewhere along the way I became the one dimensional support character with no story arc.
Maybe I’m missing some depth because the pursuit of a love I can never quite reach has consumed me.

Heck. Let’s be honest - I’m bored with myself!
It’s like hearing the same story over and over.
Predictable.
Nothing new.
Same old.
Like, does no one else notice this same song has been playing on repeat for the last 30 years?

The repetition is kind of soothing.
I know how this ends.

But today, staring out the window at the trees relinquishing their changing leaves to the brisk fall breeze, I’m ready for something new.
A life of let go and adventure.
I’m ready for a life where the ending isn’t one I know.
Doesn’t that seem way more interesting?

Like a Bible verse I read during church on Sunday:

Since this is the kind of life we have chosen, the life of the Spirit, let us make sure that we do not just hold it as an idea in our heads or a sentiment in our hearts, but work out its implications in every detail of our lives. That means we will not compare ourselves with each other as if one of us were better and another worse. We have far more interesting things to do with our lives. Each of us is an original. (Galatians 5:25 & 26)

“We have far more interesting things to do with our lives”

I want a life worth living.
Filled to the brim with stories worth telling.

I have no doubt that someday I’ll get married.
I am brilliant, kind hearted and laugh-out-loud funny.
I am passionate and empathetic, optimistic and filled to the brim with purpose.
I am loving and lovely and worth chasing.
And one day I’ll walk into a party, or a conference, or maybe a wedding reception.
It could be coffee with an old friend, a blind date, or someone who messaged me on Instagram.
Or it could be adventuring with someone I already know, while we’re singing our hearts out, laughing till we can’t catch our breath, or almost crying while we talk about things that matter.
One day a man will finally look up and in one of those flashes between moments he will see me.
With all my facets
And I will be loved.
And in the blink of an eye everything will shift.

But until then I refuse to be boring.
I refuse to read the same chapter one more time.
I will no longer have the same conversations or let the same responses fall from my teeth.

This is my life.
My adventure.
And I have far more interesting things to do than be the side character with no story arc, obsessed with love.
I am brilliant and capable and in the middle of an epic story, and I refuse to live like anything less than the main character.

I don’t want to be “that girl - she’s single.”
I want to be “that girl - she’s going places. She’s changing the world.”

So when you talk to me - don’t ask me about my relationship status.
Talk to me about my passions.
About the things I’m learning.
Friends made.
Places visited.
Ask me about the plants I’ve grown.
My current dance party playlist.
The last dream I remember.

Talk to me about something a little more interesting.

Photo: Allysin Van Ysseldyk