I've begun to notice a pattern in my posting: I do it after midnight when I don't want to do something too serious, too complex, or too superfluous. I usually blog when I'm pondering or my heart is hurting for someone or about something.
I've begun to fill out my Wycliffe Application (yay!) and discovered that the application process is hard! Especially for where I am right now. True, it would have been harder, say, three months ago. Much harder. A part of me is worrying that I'll go through the application process and they'll be like, "So, we've noticed you have a few issues. We want you to solve them and get over it before you can become a member." I'm not sure if that's absurd or not.
So much has happened in the past year, nine months, six months, three months, three weeks. I feel like graduation I went to in May was in eternity past. I feel like I've aged a decade, or slept a decade of nights, or cried a decade of tears, carried a decade of burdens since then. I'm weary. And maybe broken. Brokeness, weariness, feels differently than I thought it would.
I wish I could throw it aside and truly be me while going through this stage of my life. I'm applying to the organization I want to begin my adult life partnering with. That's amazing. Why am I afraid? Nothing can keep me from doing what God has purposed me to do.
I'm learning to trust God in new and different ways. These past few months, I believe He's teaching me how it feels to be Him sometimes. People you love are hurting. People you love are rejecting you. People you've proved your love to over and over and over only turn you away. People who have done nothing but crummy things to you and don't understand why you want to love them anyway...
I'm not saying I know what it's like to be God. But I do believe we've forgotten that He feels those things too. I respect Him in a way I didn't know existed. He's changing me in a way I never thought He could. I never thought about the deep emotional pain we cause Him. Love hurts. Among other things.
I've proven my statement to be true. I'm very philosophical and thoughtful when I blog. It could be that Brandon Heath has something to do with it.
If you're reading this post, congratulations on making it to the end. I ask that you pray for me and this scary, exciting journey I'm on. I don't know where the path He's put me on is taking me, but I'm determined to grab His hand every time I stumble, look to Him for direction when I can't see the path, and run to His arms when I need comfort. My Daddy.
That's all we really need, anyway. Our Daddy's love and affection. And He's already given us that.
~Christina
Saturday, February 23, 2013
Thursday, February 7, 2013
The Message Is Already Built In
I stole this from my lovely friend, London Cline. She got it from a friend who got it from a friend in a newsletter from a member of Wycliffe.
Translator Lee Bramlett was confident that God had left His mark on the Hdi culture somewhere, but though he searched, he could not find it. Where was the footprint of God in the history or daily life of these Cameroonian people? What clue had He planted to let the Hdi know Who He was and how He wanted to relate to them?
Then one night in a dream, God prompted Lee to look again at the Hdi word for love. Lee and his wife, Tammi, had learned that verbs in Hdi consistently end in one of three vowels. For almost every verb, they could find forms ending in i, a, and u. But when it came to the word for love, they could only find i and a. Why no u?
Lee asked the Hdi translation committee, which included the most influential leaders in the community, “Could you ‘dvi’ your wife?” “Yes,” they said. That would mean that the wife had been loved but the love was gone.
“Could you ‘dva’ your wife?” “Yes,” they said. That kind of love depended on the wife’s actions. She would be loved as long as she remained faithful and cared for her husband well.
“Could you ‘dvu’ your wife?” Everyone laughed. “Of course not! If you said that, you would have to keep loving your wife no matter what she did, even if she never got you water, never made you meals. Even if she committed adultery, you would be compelled to just keep on loving her. No, we would never say ‘dvu.’ It just doesn’t exist.”
Lee sat quietly for a while, thinking about John 3:16, and then he asked, “Could God ‘dvu’ people?”
There was complete silence for three or four minutes; then tears started to trickle down the weathered faces of these elderly men. Finally they responded. “Do you know what this would mean? This would mean that God kept loving us over and over, millennia after millennia, while all that time we rejected His great love. He is compelled to love us, even though we have sinned more than any people.”
One simple vowel and the meaning was changed from “I love you based on what you do and who you are,” to “I love you, based on Who I am. I love you because of Me and NOT because of you.”
God had encoded the story of His unconditional love right into their language. For centuries, the little word was there—unused but available, grammatically correct and quite understandable. When the word was finally spoken, it called into question their entire belief system. If God was like that, and not a mean and scary spirit, did they need the spirits of the ancestors to intercede for them? Did they need sorcery to relate to the spirits? Many decided the answer was no, and the number of Christ-followers quickly grew from a few hundred to several thousand.
The New Testament in Hdi is ready to be printed now, and 29,000 speakers will soon be able to feel the impact of passages like Ephesians 5:25: “Husbands, ‘dvu’ your wives, just as Christ ‘dvu’-d the church…” I invite you to pray for them as they absorb and seek to model the amazing, unconditional love they have received.
Around the world, community by community, as God’s Word is translated, people are gaining access to this great love story about how God ‘dvu’-d us enough to sacrifice his unique Son for us, so that our relationship with Him can be ordered and oriented correctly. The cross changes everything! Someday, the last word of the last bit of Scripture for the last community will be done, and everyone will be able to understand the story of God’s unconditional love.
-Story directly quoted from Bob Creson’s July 2012 letter to Wycliffe USA staff, entitled “One Little Vowel”
Translator Lee Bramlett was confident that God had left His mark on the Hdi culture somewhere, but though he searched, he could not find it. Where was the footprint of God in the history or daily life of these Cameroonian people? What clue had He planted to let the Hdi know Who He was and how He wanted to relate to them?
Then one night in a dream, God prompted Lee to look again at the Hdi word for love. Lee and his wife, Tammi, had learned that verbs in Hdi consistently end in one of three vowels. For almost every verb, they could find forms ending in i, a, and u. But when it came to the word for love, they could only find i and a. Why no u?
Lee asked the Hdi translation committee, which included the most influential leaders in the community, “Could you ‘dvi’ your wife?” “Yes,” they said. That would mean that the wife had been loved but the love was gone.
“Could you ‘dva’ your wife?” “Yes,” they said. That kind of love depended on the wife’s actions. She would be loved as long as she remained faithful and cared for her husband well.
“Could you ‘dvu’ your wife?” Everyone laughed. “Of course not! If you said that, you would have to keep loving your wife no matter what she did, even if she never got you water, never made you meals. Even if she committed adultery, you would be compelled to just keep on loving her. No, we would never say ‘dvu.’ It just doesn’t exist.”
Lee sat quietly for a while, thinking about John 3:16, and then he asked, “Could God ‘dvu’ people?”
There was complete silence for three or four minutes; then tears started to trickle down the weathered faces of these elderly men. Finally they responded. “Do you know what this would mean? This would mean that God kept loving us over and over, millennia after millennia, while all that time we rejected His great love. He is compelled to love us, even though we have sinned more than any people.”
One simple vowel and the meaning was changed from “I love you based on what you do and who you are,” to “I love you, based on Who I am. I love you because of Me and NOT because of you.”
God had encoded the story of His unconditional love right into their language. For centuries, the little word was there—unused but available, grammatically correct and quite understandable. When the word was finally spoken, it called into question their entire belief system. If God was like that, and not a mean and scary spirit, did they need the spirits of the ancestors to intercede for them? Did they need sorcery to relate to the spirits? Many decided the answer was no, and the number of Christ-followers quickly grew from a few hundred to several thousand.
The New Testament in Hdi is ready to be printed now, and 29,000 speakers will soon be able to feel the impact of passages like Ephesians 5:25: “Husbands, ‘dvu’ your wives, just as Christ ‘dvu’-d the church…” I invite you to pray for them as they absorb and seek to model the amazing, unconditional love they have received.
Around the world, community by community, as God’s Word is translated, people are gaining access to this great love story about how God ‘dvu’-d us enough to sacrifice his unique Son for us, so that our relationship with Him can be ordered and oriented correctly. The cross changes everything! Someday, the last word of the last bit of Scripture for the last community will be done, and everyone will be able to understand the story of God’s unconditional love.
-Story directly quoted from Bob Creson’s July 2012 letter to Wycliffe USA staff, entitled “One Little Vowel”
Wednesday, February 6, 2013
Why Bible Translation: 1) The Set Up
Again, I find myself looking at my computer screen, too awake from working, and wanting to write a blog post. I'm hoping to post my testimony sometime soon. I started working on it last week and it didn't go as well as I would have liked it. Instead, I'm going to tell you why, of all things I could do with my life, I'm choosing Bible translation.
Even at a young age, I was fascinated with foreign languages and cultures. I wondered what it would be like to speak words no body else understood or to grow up in a totally different environment than Lafayette, Indiana and Worthington, Minnesota. I loved to listen to the missionaries who were on furlough, see the countless pictures they were eager to show the congregation, hear songs for Jesus that Christians from those faraway places had written, and listen to my mother read missionary biographies to me and my siblings.
I loved to travel. I hated the idea of becoming a missionary. All missionaries went to christian schools and could only study missions and were poor and sick all the time and lots of foreign countries wouldn't let the missionaries in because they knew the schools they had gone to were christian. Missionaries only ever talked about Jesus. You had to be so good to be a missionary. I definitely wasn't good enough to be a missionary and I didn't want everything that had to do with being a missionary. How could I tell anyone about Jesus?
I went through a laundry list of different professions I wanted to pursue: Egyptologist, archeologist, artist, waitress, doctor, paleontologist, nurse, veterinary technician, writer, English teacher, and I finally settled on elementary school teacher when I started college. I wanted to be the light in a little boy or girl's life. I loved children and I wanted them to love learning as much as I did.
I didn't take any education classes my freshman year at Ivy Tech. Education classes didn't transfer; why would I take them anywhere other than my anticipated university? Summer and Fall of my sophomore year, I started taking education classes. And I hated them. I loved assisting in the school for a morning each week, but the course work, the papers, the projects, the discussions, the time I was called out for being anti-sex education were all things I hated.
That fall, I also took a linguistics class past the introduction level. I loved it. I couldn't get enough of the International Phonetic Alphabet, feature geometry, syllable trees, Arthur the Rat (so, maybe Arthur the Rat got old). Every class session was a challenge, every homework made my breath come up short, every theory was new and exciting, every homework was intriguing, my paper was oodles of fun to write. I absolutely loved linguistics.
Even at a young age, I was fascinated with foreign languages and cultures. I wondered what it would be like to speak words no body else understood or to grow up in a totally different environment than Lafayette, Indiana and Worthington, Minnesota. I loved to listen to the missionaries who were on furlough, see the countless pictures they were eager to show the congregation, hear songs for Jesus that Christians from those faraway places had written, and listen to my mother read missionary biographies to me and my siblings.
I loved to travel. I hated the idea of becoming a missionary. All missionaries went to christian schools and could only study missions and were poor and sick all the time and lots of foreign countries wouldn't let the missionaries in because they knew the schools they had gone to were christian. Missionaries only ever talked about Jesus. You had to be so good to be a missionary. I definitely wasn't good enough to be a missionary and I didn't want everything that had to do with being a missionary. How could I tell anyone about Jesus?
I went through a laundry list of different professions I wanted to pursue: Egyptologist, archeologist, artist, waitress, doctor, paleontologist, nurse, veterinary technician, writer, English teacher, and I finally settled on elementary school teacher when I started college. I wanted to be the light in a little boy or girl's life. I loved children and I wanted them to love learning as much as I did.
I didn't take any education classes my freshman year at Ivy Tech. Education classes didn't transfer; why would I take them anywhere other than my anticipated university? Summer and Fall of my sophomore year, I started taking education classes. And I hated them. I loved assisting in the school for a morning each week, but the course work, the papers, the projects, the discussions, the time I was called out for being anti-sex education were all things I hated.
That fall, I also took a linguistics class past the introduction level. I loved it. I couldn't get enough of the International Phonetic Alphabet, feature geometry, syllable trees, Arthur the Rat (so, maybe Arthur the Rat got old). Every class session was a challenge, every homework made my breath come up short, every theory was new and exciting, every homework was intriguing, my paper was oodles of fun to write. I absolutely loved linguistics.
How He Loves
Cheater. Deceptive. Liar. Coward. Adulterer. Deceitful. Hateful.
These are all words I've either heard or used frequently in the past few months to describe a person who doesn't remain true to their significant other. It was in the midst of pain that I carelessly threw these words around and used them to bring down particular people. Not to affirm truth. Not to build up. The main reason I used them was to tarnish the name of the one who hurt me. For my sake.
Then I realized, I am all those things as well. I've cheated. I've deceived. I've lied. I've been a coward. I've committed adultery. I've been deceitful. I've been hateful. You might be thinking, "What on earth is she getting at?" We're all these things. We've done all these things to God. When was the last time you had a great time in God's Word and sought comfort eating that piece of chocolate cake instead of falling in His arms? I'm consistently bad at just ignoring what's bothering me or running to work, school, friend time, cooking, and other distractions to get over it. That's cheating on God.
In Mark 8:38, we're called an 'adulterous and sinful generation.' Our relationship with God is THE move important than any other relationship we will ever have. What kind of spouse have you been? You may say, "But Christina, that's not my relationship with God works." If this is you, you are missing out on something extraordinary.
Isaiah 54:4-8
Fear not, for you will not be ashamed; be not confounded, for you will not be disgraced; for you will forget the shame of your youth, and the reproach of your widowhood you will remember no more. For you Maker is your husband, the Lord of hosts is his name; and the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer, the God of the whole earth he is called. For the Lord has called you like a wife deserted and grieved in spirit, like a wife of youth when she is cast off, says your God. For a brief moment I deserted you, but with great compassion I will gather you. In overflowing anger for a moment I hid my face from you, but with everlasting love I will have compassion on you.
This is an amazing relationship.
As I've continued to think about this, the more awe I have for God. The pain I'm experiencing is experienced by God. every. time. I cheat on him.
Let's be modest and admit that happens at least five times a day.
That's a lot of hurt.
I'm 21 years old, and Scripture teaches our nature is sinful, so 5 x 7665 (days I've been sinning and cheating on Him) = 38,325 minimum times in my life that I've cheated on God.
That's an awful lot of hurt.
And that's just me! Multiply that by the number of people who have ever lived or ever will live. People who live longer than I have or will. People who don't know the name of Jesus.
The amount of hurt that God feels from us cheating is astronomical.
Yet, he says 'I have loved you with an everlasting love, therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you.' (Jeremiah 31:3)
This is amazing love. God calls us to this relationship and he KNEW we would be unfaithful to him. For all the hurt we cause him, he continues to give us love.
And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:7)
This post has mostly become about cheating. It's a problem we need to think about. Our society has a tendency to blacklist carnal cheaters. But we're all spiritual and emotional cheaters on God. He the only one who deserves our affection, our hearts, our bodies, our minds, our very beings and yet we claim them for our own.
Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? (I Corinthians 6:19)
We're an adulterous generation. But if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness (I John 1:9).
Stop being a cheater. Learn from the Lover. He wants your heart.
~Christina
These are all words I've either heard or used frequently in the past few months to describe a person who doesn't remain true to their significant other. It was in the midst of pain that I carelessly threw these words around and used them to bring down particular people. Not to affirm truth. Not to build up. The main reason I used them was to tarnish the name of the one who hurt me. For my sake.
Then I realized, I am all those things as well. I've cheated. I've deceived. I've lied. I've been a coward. I've committed adultery. I've been deceitful. I've been hateful. You might be thinking, "What on earth is she getting at?" We're all these things. We've done all these things to God. When was the last time you had a great time in God's Word and sought comfort eating that piece of chocolate cake instead of falling in His arms? I'm consistently bad at just ignoring what's bothering me or running to work, school, friend time, cooking, and other distractions to get over it. That's cheating on God.
In Mark 8:38, we're called an 'adulterous and sinful generation.' Our relationship with God is THE move important than any other relationship we will ever have. What kind of spouse have you been? You may say, "But Christina, that's not my relationship with God works." If this is you, you are missing out on something extraordinary.
Isaiah 54:4-8
Fear not, for you will not be ashamed; be not confounded, for you will not be disgraced; for you will forget the shame of your youth, and the reproach of your widowhood you will remember no more. For you Maker is your husband, the Lord of hosts is his name; and the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer, the God of the whole earth he is called. For the Lord has called you like a wife deserted and grieved in spirit, like a wife of youth when she is cast off, says your God. For a brief moment I deserted you, but with great compassion I will gather you. In overflowing anger for a moment I hid my face from you, but with everlasting love I will have compassion on you.
This is an amazing relationship.
As I've continued to think about this, the more awe I have for God. The pain I'm experiencing is experienced by God. every. time. I cheat on him.
Let's be modest and admit that happens at least five times a day.
That's a lot of hurt.
I'm 21 years old, and Scripture teaches our nature is sinful, so 5 x 7665 (days I've been sinning and cheating on Him) = 38,325 minimum times in my life that I've cheated on God.
That's an awful lot of hurt.
And that's just me! Multiply that by the number of people who have ever lived or ever will live. People who live longer than I have or will. People who don't know the name of Jesus.
The amount of hurt that God feels from us cheating is astronomical.
Yet, he says 'I have loved you with an everlasting love, therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you.' (Jeremiah 31:3)
This is amazing love. God calls us to this relationship and he KNEW we would be unfaithful to him. For all the hurt we cause him, he continues to give us love.
And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:7)
This post has mostly become about cheating. It's a problem we need to think about. Our society has a tendency to blacklist carnal cheaters. But we're all spiritual and emotional cheaters on God. He the only one who deserves our affection, our hearts, our bodies, our minds, our very beings and yet we claim them for our own.
Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? (I Corinthians 6:19)
We're an adulterous generation. But if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness (I John 1:9).
Stop being a cheater. Learn from the Lover. He wants your heart.
~Christina
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