We Will Never Forget

I woke up this morning to fog outside. I don't live in a valley or near a body of water, and yet from time to time we wake up to fog. The sun is now out and has burned it all away, but the fog of the morning sticks with me. It reminds me of that foggy day 10 years ago today when Holly died.

I can't believe that it's been 10 years. In some ways, it seems like just yesterday since everything about that day is so vivid in my memory. And yet, it seems like a whole lifetime has happened in the decade since Holly died. It was the Monday morning after the Super Bowl and Leslee, Danny and I had just come from Responsibilities for the Future, a capstone class for graduating seniors that we had affectionately dubbed "Death Class" since we had spent the first 3 weeks of class talking about death and dying. We had just read Tuesdays With Morrie and discussed what it meant to die well. As we were walking down the hill back to our apartment in Reid, Martin met us on the hill and told us that he needed to tell us some bad news. The world was spinning as he told us about Holly's accident on the way to work that morning in Wichita. Leslee cried, Danny supported her on the walk back to our room, and I tried to tell Martin all the reasons why I was sure that she was not really dead.

I didn't know what to say to people. I remember when they gradually started flooding our room. First, Amy came and told us that Dawn had told her in the stairwell in the Student Center. Then Kellie came. Then Amber. Gradually all our roommates and neighbors gathered in Reid 204. All our roommates except for Holly. She was notably absent. Her stuff was everywhere in the room, reminding us at every turn that she would never come home again. We still didn't believe it, but we knew that it was true, expecially after we went to the funeral home and saw her with our own eyes. Someone had come by our room earlier and gotten some of her sweats and a t-shirt so that they could dress her in her own clothes as they sent her body back to Colorado. When we saw her in the funeral home, she was wearing her high school track t-shirt, had her eyes closed, her hair slightly damp. She looked asleep. And that's when we realized that she wasn't just asleep.

Over 100 people came by our room that day to mourn with us. I didn't even realize that I knew 100 people. And yet, they came--some of them to talk to us, some of them to sit on Holly's bed, some of them to just say that they had "heard" and Holly would be missed. We looked through a HUGE box of pictures and began a memorial for her. Pictures of her laughing, her Homecoming Queen portrait (which she HATED because one of her eyes was squinty!), pictures of us girls going out, and of her boyfriend and her. We laughed, we cried. We felt guilty because we were able to laugh and cry and she wasn't. And then, the memorial wall outside our room began to appear, like what happens with celebrities when they die unexpectedly. First, our posterboard filled with pictures, then notes we left for Holly, then flowers, cards, signs, pictures and gifts left by others. We all wanted to say something to Holly. Things that had been unsaid when she was still alive. Things that needed to be unsaid now that she was gone. Things that would bring us peace and solace during this time of grief and sadness. It was almost unbearable, and yet, in the awfulness of it, we began to heal.

The room that Leslee and Holly shared felt cold. We didn't want to abandon that room where Holly had slept and we didn't want Leslee to stay in there alone, so Amber and I moved our beds into that bedroom. Somehow we felt reconnected again, all 4 of us. We began to be able to talk about Holly without crying, then felt guilty for that, then realized that she was the first to flash a smile and we should not let her smile alone, so we laughed--at her, with her, at ourselves, now without her. We didn't want to forget about her, so we talked about her. I still think that she got the last laugh on that one as two years later I was finally able to find the beeping noise that went off every afternoon at 2:20. It was the alarm on her sports watch that had fallen deep inside my couch. The watch still works and I never have shut off the alarm. I don't hear it often due to my schedule, but it reminds me of Holly's presence.

The last decade has brought laughter, tears, joy, pain, marriages, babies, and careers. Our friends and our neighbors join in our celebrations and our pains, and yet, one is absent. Holly remains in our hearts and in our minds as we "carry on" with our lives. The foggy weather appears every now and then, hanging heavy, reminding me that I am surrounded by something that I often cannot see or feel. Like the air that always surrounds me, so does Christ's presence surround me. There are many days, like the one 10 years ago when Holly died, that you wonder where he is. Some mornings, however, the air becomes visible, and in the midst of the fog, the Son comes out.

Holly Jo Mitchek, '98
We will never forget you

Living God's Call in Hard Times

There is a caricature of the “Christian Life”, sometime propagated by Hollywood, sometimes by TV Preachers, that says that a person who has a messed up life can bring all their problems to God and, snap, things are going to be perfect. The birds will sing, you’ll always find a great parking spot, and your team will always win the big game. Well, unfortunately, this is simply not true. “Bad things happen to Good People,” accidents happen and the Moundbuilders occasionally have a bad game. It’s true that we can bring all of our pain and sorrow to God and he can rebuild our lives, but unfortunately it usually doesn’t happen overnight.

We pick up our story today here, in the book of 1 Samuel in the Old Testament:

Scene 1:
They’re living in hard times—a couple hundred years ago their people, the Israelites, came from slavery in Egypt where they were being oppressed. They are ruled by a group of people who are known as Judges—not really a king, not really a priest, but they’re called by God and given insight into what God wants to do with this group of people. A woman, Hannah, is married to a man, Elkanah, who loves her very much. She’s got two problems, however. Problem #1: she is barren and has been unable to have children. The only thing worse is problem #2.) Elkanah is also married to another woman, Peninniah (they used to do that in those days). Peninniah isn’t her husband’s favorite, but she feels vindicated b/c she has a slew of children. Each year when they go up to make sacrifices, Hannah makes an offering to the Lord and prays before God. The typical way that they prayed included them gathering in their place of worship praying aloud. However, this particular year, Hannah was so overcome with grief over her barrenness that she poured out her heart before God in silence, moving her lips, but not able to express her prayer verbally. This caught the attention of Eli, the priest, who noticed her abnormal behavior and even accused her of being drunk! Hannah even offered her son in service to the Lord, as a Nazarite, never to cut his hair or give him wine to drink. That was the ultimate offering, it seemed, to give him back to the God that gave him first to her once he turned 3 years old. After she explained her situation, he blessed and said, “Go in peace; the God of Israel grant the petition that you have made to him.”

Scene 2:
They’re living in hard times—the word of the Lord was rare in those days; visions were not wide spread. Eli, the old priest tried to be faithful, but the task felt too big for him. He had just been warned by a man of God about the bad behavior of his two sons, Hophni and Phinehas. They served with him, receiving sacrifices and conducting religions ceremonies which made matters worse. They skimmed a little off the top of the sacrifices, taking more than their fair share and cutting into what was supposed to be offered to the Lord. No only that, but they also copied the practices of those in the land of Canaan that they were trying to replace and had sex with temple prostitutes—not quite the example that you want your children to set when you’re the religious leader! Eli was grateful for one thing, though, that’s for sure: Samuel, the boy who had been serving with him the last couple of years was sure an answer to prayer! Eli remembered that he had first thought that his mother was drunk, praying like she was with her lips moving, but no sound coming out! At second glance, she prayed reverently, desperately even, imploring the God of the Universe to grant her one prayer: to have a child. Eli was grateful for Samuel’s ministry among them. It seemed almost a “do-over” to him, an opportunity to discuss who the God of Israel was, to teach him of God’s mighty acts in bringing them out of oppressive Egypt and to carry on the work of God.

This story isn’t turning out well at all! Our hero—Samuel—is thrown a curveball and given an unglamorous task! If we were writing the story, we might write the story differently:

• Hannah—God blessed her with a child, Samuel, and he did grow up to be a faithful servant of God, but she didn’t have to give him up at age 3. He matured on his own and chose to follow God as a priest.
• Hophni & Phinehas—They repented of their wicked ways and once again were used by God to minister to the people.
• Eli—He saw the repentance of his sons and died and old, happy man.
• Samuel—He lived his life knowing that he was an answer to prayer, feeling blessed and lived his life in response to God.

These things COULD have happened, but they didn’t. We often have the desire for things to turn out with a fairytale ending, but they often don’t.

So how do we live God’s call in the hard times?

We learn a lesson from Hannah. She gave up her son in service to the Lord. She didn’t try to make excuses to God. And she didn’t know if she would ever have any more children. But she remained faithful to her promise to dedicate her son to God’s service. We learn from Hannah that living with integrity—keeping one’s promise—is one way to live God’s call in hard times.

We learn a lesson from Eli. While Eli was reluctant to confront his sons about their bad behavior, he did maintain an open heart to God. He taught Samuel to be able to hear God’s voice and even encouraged him to share openly with him about the message that God had given him, even if he knew that it would be at a personal cost to him. We learn from Eli that pointing others to God is one way to live God’s call in hard times.

We learn a lesson from Samuel. Samuel did not get a say in whether he would be raised in service to the Lord. He was handed over as a 3 year old to be shaped and formed by the priest Eli. And yet, Samuel was obedient. He acts heroically when he is faithful despite the fact that he really has been dealt a difficult hand. We learn from Samuel that God speaks to us when we are listening and sheer obedience is the way to live God’s call in hard times.

We even learn a lesson from Hophni and Phinehas. While it may seem that you’re living a self-indulgent life without any consequences, eventually sin and obedience catches us to you. We learn from these two guys that God has a standard and we are to keep it even in hard times.

The rest of the story:

Hannah went on to miraculously have more children—3 sons and 2 daughters—and was blessed for her willingness to serve God faithful. And Samuel, despite his difficult first task, went on to live a blessed life with all his enemies slain by just a simple nod of his head. His rule as a judge ushered in a time of peace and harmony for the people of Israel and his team always won….Uh-oh, there’s that tricky caricature, again! The first part about Hannah is true, but that’s not quite what happened. Even though he encountered many difficult days in his life, Samuel did grow up to be a figure in the history of Israel that ushered in a new period: the Monarchy. He anointed the first king, Saul, and then the Greatest King, David, preparing a new chapter in the lives of the people of Israel. His faithful mother would never have known that day when she prayed desperately for a child that her son would grow up to play such an important role in the history of Israel! That he would become a mouthpiece for God during a time of much silence. That he would speak words of truth to King David, preparing him for his role as the unifier of Israel (even a unified Israel lasted for only a brief time).

Scene 3:

We’re living in hard times. We often feel tossed and torn by the pressures that come our way. We have relationship pressures, academic pressures, and financial pressures. We vacillate between silence of God and steps that seem impossible to follow. The word of the Lord seems to be apparent to everyone around us except for us! We try to pray, but our prayers feel as though they hit the ceiling and never reach God’s ears. We compare our faith to those around us and seem to never match up. We ask forgiveness for the same thing over and over again, never quite feeling like we’re back in God’s good graces. And we forget that in the hard times, God is present here with us.

It’s good that we don’t write the end of the stories. It’s good that we learn how to live out the call of God in the hard times. It’s good that God has left us with the image of a Savior that endured difficulty, and we can look not only to what Christ did, but also to what he is doing in the world today.

Newly Resolved

It's that time of year when we make all sorts of new resolutions--to lose weight, to exercise more, to de-clutter our lives, etc. We start out strong, but after a couple weeks, our newfound resolve starts to shrink and we throw caution to wind and drive through the Dairy Queen for a Peanut Buster Parfait, throwing our trash in the backseat with last week's Wendy's bag (I'm only throwing out an example--I would never do that!). Well, while I do have some healthy goals (like drinking more water, less Diet Dr. Pepper and running a 1/2 marathon this year), these are my resolutions for 2008:

1.) I resolve to have more fun! It's so easy for me to get focused on tasks, to-do lists, and responsibility that I neglect leisure. But, this is the year of fun for Ashlee Alley! Watch out! Seriously, often I end up so tired of planning things for work that I don't initiate social things, but this is the year!

2.) I resolve to enjoy music. I love music, but somehow I tend to get stuck in a rut of that unnamed national "positive, encouraging" Christian station (embarrassing, I know) and live in the Christian ghetto of 2 or 3 new hits and a bunch of old stuff. Yikes! Well, armed with my new iPod nano (which I love, by the way), I'm going to try to step out and really enjoy music in '08. Let me know if you have some new suggestions for me!

3.) I resolve to slow down. Really, I do. I tend to feel like much of my life is lived on a hamster wheel--lots of running and not much "progress." Well, I know that this is not the way that God has wired us to live. It's not honoring to God, to others, or to myself and I'm going to learn how to avoid this trap in which I find myself.

Well, these are pretty big aspirations, but they're my resolutions for this year! I can resolve as much as I want, but really, only through the grace of God can I become who Christ is calling me to become. Here's to 2008...

Planning for the Future

One of the students here at Southwestern is putting together a devotion book based on Proverbs 31. She asked me to contribute something...here it is:

“She considers a field and buys it; out of her earnings she plants a vineyard.” Prov. 31:16

One thing that we become very good at in life as women is crisis management. As children, we play referee in a friendship circle that is feuding. As college students, we stay afloat amidst competing homework, career, and activity requirements. As adults, we balance family, career, health and personal obligations. There is never enough time in the day in order to accomplish all that we have to do, and so we must learn to prioritize our responsibilities. The Noble Woman of Proverbs 31 knew this. She never let the important crowd out the essential.

One of the essentials that she understood was that of long-range planning. We see our busy woman not just putting her earnings up for safekeeping in a savings account, but she’s putting them to good use and investing them in a field that will bear fruit…in time. We’re led to believe that she doesn’t just make a snap decision; rather, she weighs her options, probably selecting the one with the best natural irrigation, least amount of weeds, richest soil. She thoughtfully makes a decision that she knows will pay off in the long run.

And yet, this is more than a good time-management skill. There is a character lesson in this for us. As we submit ourselves to the discipline of long-range planning, we are being formed to become patient people. Planting a field is not something that has a quick return. It takes time for the seeds to grow. It takes diligence to root out the weeds that threaten to overtake. It takes faithfulness to harvest a crop and make it usable. And that is exactly the wisdom in becoming a woman who can spend the extra time today to do something that will have a payoff long into the future.

Question for reflection:
What is something that you know is important that is in your future, but you haven’t taken the time to adequately prepare for it? As you look ahead, ask God to set your priorities and help you have the patience to do that hard work today so that it might pay off tomorrow.

Finding a Balance

It’s a precarious path we walk in helping students identify the areas that can help them to grow spiritually. There are two extremes: 1.) They are so eager to please those in authority that they set many goals for every area of their life. 2.) They fear being legalistic and so don’t set any goals, but hope for the best. The former is characterized by the student who decides that they are going to read through the Bible in a year, pray for 30 minutes daily, and be involved in 2 small groups each semester. The latter is characterized by the student who loves philosophical discussion and even hangs around for hours talking after a weekly worship time, but can’t ever make it a priority to regularly commit to involvement in a ministry. Neither thing I’ve described is bad, actually, both have very important elements. However, they represent the tension that students sometimes feel as they are learning how to follow Christ out of love, not obligation, yet fully sacrificing their agenda to follow him.

I think that there is a nice middle ground that is possible for students to set goals and make commitments, but also freely offer themselves up in service without trying to meet some “objective.” The challenge for students in this is to see that as they set goals with the intent to grow, they are being conformed to the image of Christ. There is grace for them as they strive toward the transformation of being who Christ has called them to be—they will fail from time to time, but that does not mean that they do not allow Christ to set the standard high!
For some time in working with youth and young adults, I’ve used the following exercise after speaking about ways that we can become transformed to the image of Christ. I do it about once a year to help students set goals in different areas of their lives that work toward that process:

• Social—with friends
• Self—character traits and physical health
• Spiritual—prayer life, Bible Study, small group, worship, etc.
• School—grades, classes, studying

I ask students to listen to God as they set specific goals in each of these areas that will help them to continue to develop the mind of Christ at work within them. Sometimes I’ve asked them to copy the goals and put one copy of them in a self-addressed envelope that I will then mail out to them in 3 to 6 months as a means of reminding them and holding them accountable (to a small degree) to what their desire was in following Christ. This isn’t a “magic formula” that will automatically teach students about how to submit every aspect of their life to Christ, but it can begin a journey that starts with the first step.

Training Others to Lead In the Name of Jesus

It’s a thin, small book with a non-descript cover. Just a faint green form, that you assume to be a cross, with black font on the front. The title: In the Name of Jesus: Reflections on Christian Leadership by Henri J.M. Nouwen. The message: the three temptations of Christ can entice you as a leader, but we can resist those temptations with spiritual disciplines and learn to lead as Christ led. It’s more than just another sermon on resisting temptation. It’s more than just a model of spiritual discipline that creates a Christ-centered life. It is instruction, challenge, and encouragement that reveals the state of our human hearts and invites the reader to learn how to truly be led by Christ.

This is one of my favorite books to give as a gift and introduce to students. Often they think that it’s just a “quick read” that they can pull a nugget or two from and put in their pocket of spiritual truths. But as they read it, they find, just as I’ve found, that it challenges their core understanding of what it means to be used by God in leadership. The first chapter in and of itself challenges this post-modern generation who have been formed by church leaders who preach about “being relevant.” It challenges the reader to move “From Relevance to Prayer,” stating that, “The leaders of the future will be those who dare to claim their irrelevance in the contemporary world as a divine vocation that allows them to enter into a deep solidarity with the anguish underlying all the glitter of success, and to bring the light of Jesus there.” This isn’t a popular idea at all. Who wants to enter into “solidarity” with “anguish”? And who identifies this desire with leadership, anyway?

But, according to Nouwen, this is part of what it means to become a Christian leader. I’m inclined to agree with him. No, it’s not the way that we usually talk about leadership, but I believe that it’s the way that Christ would have us be leaders. Nouwen identifies that contemplative prayer is the antidote to desiring to be relevant. He says, “To live a life that is not dominated by the desire to be relevant but is instead safely anchored in the knowledge of God’s first love, we have to be mystics. A mystic is a person whose identity is deeply rooted in God’s first love.” He’s got it right: I can’t be used by God to influence others until I’m no longer looking to them to meet my emotional and spiritual needs. The other 2 chapters give similar challenges, moving us from “Popularity to Ministry” and from “Leading to Being Led.” It’s not full of advice that would receive “Amens!” from most of the leadership material out there. It’s no quick fix or list of tips and techniques. But, it does keep in front of us the cost that is associated with being a follower of Christ.

Over the last 5 years, I’ve used this book with probably 6 or 8 groups of students as I’ve trained them to be student leaders in their campus ministry. It’s usually the first thing that I do in training with them. I’m trying to set the precedent that until we have humbled ourselves before God and spent the time being formed, we cannot stand in front of others and ask them to follow. I’m learning this lesson every day in campus ministry and it is my prayer that my students, especially the leaders among them, learn it too.

Here’s another important article by Henri Nouwen that was originally printed in Leadership magazine in 1995. It is entitled, “Moving from Solitude to Community to Ministry.”

Answered Prayers

Two days ago I was flipping through a book that I literally have not picked up in 10 years. It was a book about youth ministry, as I'm preparing to teach a class and I was considering using the book for the class. I found a note, scrawled on a small piece of paper from one of my college roommates, Lindsay. It was a sweet note of encouragement that she had given me, and it ended with this: "I pray that someday our prayers for our campus will be answered."

When I was in college, occasionally my friends and I would gather in various places--our dorm room, outside, the little tiny prayer chapel in the library--and we would pray for our friends, for our studies, and for our campus. To be honest, I had forgotten the little note that Lindsay had given me, but as I looked at that 10 year old note, I was reminded of several things.

First of all, God hears our prayers. Those prayers, lo those many nights ago, are being answered. I've said to anyone who will listen to me that God is doing a good thing on the campus of Southwestern College, my alma mater and now place of ministry. We struggled to get together even 30 students to worship on campus when I was a student, and now, it's not uncommon for us to have 150+ at chapel (not too shabby for our campus of 650 students). Those heartfelt prayers that our little group prayed for our campus have multiplied as there are many groups praying for the campus: prayer group on Tuesday nights, a group on Friday mornings, the Nurture Committee weekly, and the morning prayers in my own office. God is truly stirring up our campus to action--and it begins with prayer.

Secondly, I was reminded that somtimes answered prayers take time. How many prayers have I prayed that sometimes feel like they have been stifled? I've lifted prayers to God time and time again, for years even, that I'm not sure if there is any progress on them, but I'm reminded by this simple little slip of paper that God's timing is not my own, and to be patient.

Finally, I remembered how important it is to use our words. Lindsay encouraged me way back then, and her words encouraged me as I found them 10 years later. May I always be free with offering a word of encouragement.

As we enter this new month, may we remember that God is always at work, even (and should I say especially) when we don't see him. May we be faithful in prayer, and diligent in doing the part of the job that we know to do.