Tuesday, February 28, 2017

5 years ago tomorrow

     My older brother, my mom's firstborn son fell in love.  No, this time it wasn't a girl, not a new car or delicious food but with a people.  He went to Sulaymaniyah, Iraq after graduating with a teaching degree.  It was just for a semester.  A short-term mission to get his feet wet in teaching before perhaps moving on to a Master's degree or other teaching position.  Then, 6 months turned into a year and then 2 and 6 and God compelled him with a calling and the people tugged at his large beating heart, and he had a vision of people transformed.  And then, almost as suddenly as it started, it was over.  He opened the morning, like the start of every other school day, in prayer and as he looked up expecting to see his classroom, instead he saw the face of God- the One whom He had just been extolling and beseeching. In that little classroom, the lives of his pupils would never be the same as three shots rang out, hitting their mark with precision, emptying my dear brother's pumping heart of it's life blood.  And then the conflicted and broken student shot himself, his own life ending a few ours later in an Iraqi Emergency Department.  Jeremiah's life became a seed spilled out and planted in the ground for others to water, cultivate and reap that the harvest among the Kurds might be great.  
        On this fifth anniversary of his escape into Glory, I thought it only fitting to share his thoughts on a hymn and a little of his life story.  You can get more of his thoughts in a small compilation called Reflections and here more of his story in the following links.  
 Excerpts from some of his email correspondence:

A couple amazing things and two other nearly amazing things have happened in the past week and two.  #1 amazing thing: A student in the school ... encountered a situation where he realized he needed to apologize to his brother and discovered in the process that the act of saying he was sorry destroyed his whole worldview and left only the truth... for him to turn to.  So he did.  “Suddenly it was like light, and I knew things I hadn’t known before and felt in ways I can’t describe; but God was there and I could speak with Him and He spoke with me.”  I was overawed to see how completely his pride and self-consumed interest has been turned inside out.  “I have so much pain for the people around me,” he said, “I want them to be healed; I never knew how special these people were; it’s like I’m seeing them for the first time.”  One has planted, another sown, one brought light, another a challenge, and the Spirit gave life.  He’s been quick to begin telling his family about his change and they accept the newness with what is somewhat amused wonder.  “I started saying ‘good morning’ and ‘thank you’, now everyone in my house is saying hello to each other and being more thankful.  It’s really cool!”

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Dear friends,
Tomorrow marks the beginning of another year of school (I count myself lucky in a way to start so late) and the 7th school year of work here.  The sameness surprises me.  One would think that leaving home to return to this home would get easier, or that starting out another year would be old hat, but no.  Saying goodbye to family and friends is hard as ever, and I'll step into tomorrow with as much fear of failure as ever I did.  

It's the days before the launch that terrorize me: I feel the weight of such responsibility and import in the things we have to deliver.  I teach history, philosophy, literature, religion, civil government, but I am to communicate the gospel.  Playing devil's advocate for Muhammad-ism, stressing the significance of Hellenism, fielding Nietzsche - all these are paths to the truth.  But what an unfit vessel of light I find myself to be.  So the nagging questions persist (what if I don't organize well enough, what if I am too heavy handed, what if I don't see and seize the opportunities) until I see them scattered as day rolls into day and wisdom and help are granted for each interaction and grace is revealed to cover many mistakes.  
I am grateful to know that the opportunities that come are not mine to make but His to give and that the eyes to see them are also His to give and not mine to try and find.  I'm reminded of the truth I discovered I'd been learning this summer: "Our prayers are not our own."  I fall to thinking that my prayers are a way of waking God to an urgent need that has grabbed my attention.
"Hey!  Look at this! and DO something about it!" I pray as if He needed to be shaken and prodded.
But believe it or not, He's seen it all along.  It was my attention that needed grabbing; I'm the one who has finally seen what He has seen all along - and the great thing is that now He's pulled me into His work by laying the burden of prayer on my heart and causing me, in some sense, to fear His not being involved.  He moved me to see and gave me prayer in order to join me to the work He was already doing.  Which leads me to another amazing truth - to be shared another time.
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1 comment:

  1. Reservoir of GraceFebruary 28, 2017 at 2:50 PM

    You've made me cry -- again. But they are good tears. Thankful tears.

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