I was also a dyed-in-the-wool good little Presbyterian girl who rarely missed Youth Group on Sunday nights. My understanding of Christ was wrapped up in Advent Wreaths, and a tiny sip of wine every sixth Sunday, and in the Christening of sweet, milky-skinned babies dressed in long white dresses.
The first time I remember experiencing the presence of God in a tangible, identifiable way was when I was about seven or eight years old. We lived in that old country house out on Blue Springs Road, tucked into the corner behind fields of cantaloupes, watermelons, and tomatoes, just in front of a dense copse of woods into which we were only allowed to venture a visible ten feet.
I honestly can't remember if it was Easter time or Christmas, but it was one of the two. There was a sense of holiday in the kitchen, brought about by the smell of baking cakes and brown-sugar ham. Mama stood barefoot on the mat at the kitchen sink, washing dishes. I sat at the white-tile table, doing something that escapes my memory (drawing? writing stories?). All I remember is turning to Mama and saying, in a voice more timid than usual, my first words of dialogue about my inner faith.
"Mama?"
Mmm hmm, she replied, hands soapy.
"You know how we've had all these special church services lately?"
Yeah?
"Well, I think I.... I mean, I'm not sure, but...."
She turned to look down at me, the embodiment of motherly love. What is it, Katie?
"Well, it's just that I feel like I can feel God. Like, I'm closer to Him now. It's like He's with us. All the time." I looked sheepishly up at my sweet Southern Mama, unsure of what she'd say. Unsure if this was something we openly talked about outside of Sunday School. So much of my conversational skill at that time was influenced by topics chosen by my older siblings (who were around nine and twelve at the time), and I had never heard them talk about God in this way at home. Of course we said blessings at every meal and we didn't take the Lord's Name in vain, but our innocent topics of conversation tended more toward who was the best Ninja Turtle.
The tension broke as Mama smiled down at me with a glisten in her eyes (were there really tears there? or has time painted my memory with emotion for nostalgia's sake?). That's wonderful, honey. He IS with us all the time. I'm so glad you feel that way.
That's all my memory affords me now. Just that snapshot of a few moments in a kitchen decorated with black and white cows (we lived on farmland, after all). Just a mother and daughter and chores and an afternoon. But it was the earliest moment (to my recollection) that I spoke about my faith.
Fast forward a few years to those Sunday evenings at my local Presbyterian Church. A tall, lanky man in thick, round glasses always carried Warheads (our favorite sour treat in middle school) and a tattered copy of The Message. I can't think of my days in Youth without thinking of him (our Youth leader throughout adolescence) and what was then the newest and most radical translation of Scriptures. I received my first copy of this version of the New Testament, Psalms, and Proverbs before Eugene Peterson had even translated the whole Bible. Reading this "liberal" translation colored my understanding of faith more than I could've known at the time, and I know now that my experience with it is another definitive stamp on my '90s kid passport.
I was once again struck by the beauty of the diction in this translation when one of my favorite authors posted a verse from John 14 yesterday. Verse 27 begins on the second line:
When I was a teen reading The Message, I didn't understand this verse. I had never felt abandoned, bereft. I had a wonderful family who loved me, fed me, hugged me every single day. As I teen, I had nothing about which I was ever truly upset or distraught (save the typical adolescent romantic heartbreak here and there).
I'm sure - on one of those Sunday nights, on one of those Youth Retreats to wooden cabins or beach balconies, during one of those sporadic quiet times I had at my little white desk in my bedroom - I had to have come across this verse back then. But I had no point of reference, no connecting experience to help me truly understand what Christ was saying to His disciples.
It has been more than twenty years since I made those first statements of faith to my mother, and I have since experienced the true depths of the words in this translation of the verse: abandoned (how else does a twenty-year-old child feel when her father dies too young?), bereft (when the guy who had said he would marry me changed his mind and said he didn't love me), upset (when life feels out of control), distraught (when the precarious scale of anxiety tips in the wrong direction). So when I saw that verse again last night, I had absolute points of reference by which I could understand Christ's message.
What's more, my reading of this verse last night has been colored by a fabulous book I'm currently enjoying:
Set in 33 A.D., the protagonists of The Centurion's Wife are in search of the truth of what happened to the crucified prophet's body. Leah and Alban are under the rule/employ of Pontius Pilate himself, and as they seek answers, both draw closer to Christ's disciples in the forty days before His ascension. I'm not done reading the book just yet, but I have come to truly love the heroine, Leah. As she seeks the truth for her demanding Uncle Pilate, she interacts with the female greats of Scripture (Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of Jesus, and my personal favorite, Martha of Betheny). The snippets of conversations with Jesus, as relayed by these women to Leah, have given voice within my spirit to the Savior Himself. Just as those church services made me feel closer to God as a kid, so, too, has reading this book. The women in the story speak of waiting to see what The Lord will do next, but they know no matter what is to happen, they are now the torchbearers of the Peace of Christ.
The PEACE of Christ. He leaves us with PEACE. Peace. Not worry. Not anxiety. Not fear. Not timidity. PEACE.
I knew peace as a seven-year-old when I voiced my growing faith to my mother. And right now, at least in this moment, I know peace as The Lord weaves words and stories and translations and memories together in my mind and heart, reminding me that when I follow and trust in Him, I will be well and whole.
We don't have to wait to be WELL and WHOLE, Dear Hearts! God invites us to be so NOW.
He invites us to come close and listen to the stories of His miracles. We find these stories in ALL of the God-breathed translations of the Scriptures, and in all of the tender historical fiction novels rendered by a generation of Christian women who are devoted to creatively sharing the Message of our redeeming Savior.
God invites us to be well and whole by believing - by having faith that Christ Jesus died, was buried, and rose again so that the tragedies of this earthly life which make us feel abandoned and bereft, upset and distraught would NOT have the last word in our lives. He conquered those things for us on the cross. And because He conquered, we get PEACE.
I shake my head in awe tonight as I close this, Dear Hearts. I pray you will see the magnitude of this message of peace and let it transform your tonight and all of your tomorrows.
By His Grace,
K
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