Why Hope?

Piles of shirts are currently lining the floor of my living room, waiting to be delivered to friends and family. They seem to stare at me ironically. “HOPE.” Lately, hope has been the thing I identify with the least. When I chose these shirts to sell as part of my fundraising, I’ll admit, I chose them primarily because I found the design aesthetically pleasing. I didn’t realize at the time that hope would be the theme for my trip.

This March I was laid-off unexpectedly and found out that I didn’t get into my top choice Ph.D. program for this fall. I found myself without a job and with an extra, unexpected year out of school on my hands. I try to play it off as not a big deal, but to be honest, I’m terrified that I won’t get into a Ph.D. program and I’ll have to find a new direction for my life. For the first time in my life, I’m not sure of the next steps in my life. I’m not sure of success. I’m petrified of failure, of not being enough without being the best, the smartest, or the most accomplished. I’m not sure that I can achieve what I want most, what I feel like I’m made to do. My purpose.

So I’ve been desperately grasping for control in my life, which has meant pushing God out of my life. I’ve been avoiding spending time with Him because I’m afraid of what He’ll say. I’m afraid that the course for the rest of my life will be pain and disappointment. I can name and explain all the prominent theodicies, yet I find it difficult to understand why I can’t shake my depression. I have what’s called dysthymia or persistent depressive disorder (DSM-5). For those of you unfamiliar with the criteria for mood disorders, it is “characterized by a depressed mood that occurs for most of the day, for more days than not, for at least 2 years.” I was diagnosed with depression at 14, and have continued to struggle with it almost every day of my life. The longer this goes on, the more difficult it is for me to believe that things will ever get better.

I know that it is normal to feel unsure of the future at this point in one’s life, but coupled with my depression, I feel like Jeremiah, the weeping prophet. I wonder how he persevered when everything around him was so bleak. I wonder why I persevere and wonder how long I can keep going. I understand suffering for the gospel, but not suffering in general, and it’s easy for me to lose sight of the bigger picture. I lose sight of the hope that died so I could LIVE.

Going to South Africa is not only an amazing, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see the world, serve, and walk outside of my comfort zone, but also to give control of my life back to God, to say, “My life is in Your hands, and that’s all I need.”

Please join me in this adventure through your prayers, encouragement, and financial contributions. I will update you on my trip as I am able, but I will only have sporadic internet access. Learn more about the details of my trip at www.experiencemission.org/sponsor/swick

Weak Ankles

So I recently joined a new gym. I had been going to the same gym I went to in high school as a part of a family plan with my parents, but apparently you can't be on a family plan as a child past the age of 24. So that means A.) I must officially be an adult and 2.) I decided to look for a cheaper option and settled on L.A. Fitness. It's funny. I didn't want to pay the price of my old gym, but now I'm paying more anyway because I decided to start doing personal training. I get one 30-minute session a week and I love it because it helps me get better, but it's also super humbling. As in, if I weren't so secure, it might even feel humiliating.

Now, don't get the idea that these feelings have anything to do with L.A. Fitness or the trainers at my local gym — just the opposite. It's humbling because even though I know it's great for me and I'm growing, it also reveals a lot of weaknesses I didn't even know I had.

I'm not a typical girly-girl and I've played sports my whole life, so I'd like to think I'm not a beginner when it comes to training. I even took weight training in high school for a year.

NOPE.

I feel like I've never lifted a weight before in my life. I knew my back was weak because because it runs in the family. I knew that my knees were a little weak from the runners knee I got in high school. But I didn't know how weak my back and my knees are. Or that my ankles are weak. I sprained one before my senior year of high school, but it hasn't really bothered me since. I feel like an idiot knowing I have weak ankles, like a stereotypical damsel in distress who doesn't belong in the gym.




SAVE ME, WONDERBOY!

But really. WEAK ANKLES IS A THING AND I HAVE IT.

The point is, in order to get better, I need to keep going to the gym and to my personal training session every week. And it's not like I can pretend I don't need to improve while I'm there. I can't act like I've got everything together because I won't get better if I do. And even if I tried, it wouldn't work. My trainer can tell just by looking at me doing an exercise what parts of my body are weak. He asks me about my eating habits and calls me out on my bad form.

And you know what? IT'S GREAT and I wish it were this easy to have accountability in my spiritual life. I wish that once a week, I could show up at Starbuck and a friend could just look at me and say, "Your prayer life is really weak. We need to strengthen that up. Here, let's do some prayer curls," or "I can see that you haven't been working on your tithing lately."

But it's not that simple. It's easier to disguise your spiritual and emotional weaknesses, and it's often harder for our friends and families to call us out on them. But it's what we so desperately need, and we have to be intentional to cultivate it. Just like I'm not going to get healthier physically on accident, I'm not going to grow spiritually without putting in the work and allowing someone to hold me accountable.

How do you guys let yourselves be vulnerable and held accountable? Is it taking it too far to wear a sign around my neck that says, "Please don't accept my crap answers—make me be honest"?

Why We Should Keep Singing Oceans

I know this is totally behind the times, but today I heard the song "Oceans" twice while at work, so I couldn't help but think about this article that came out about a month ago.

If you haven't read the article, it is a good read and proposes that people need to stop singing a song about reaching new levels of faith in the Lord if singing about them is all we're going to do.



It says (regarding the bridge),

"NOTHING in those two lines of lyrics is going to feel good when you are going through it. You are singing, with your hands raised high, for God to make you uncomfortable… and then you feel the nudge- the nudge to buy a coffee for a homeless man or confess a sin to your small group or share about something that happened in your past, AND YOU DON’T DO IT.
I don’t either.
And every time I hear that song, I feel convicted for the way I sing it but refuse to live it."

And on one hand, I don't entirely disagree. It is no secret that hypocrisy, whether intentional or not, is present in the Church, and many of the points in the article are pointedly true. So what should we do with this information? Stop singing a powerful song? Ignore the issue and keep going as if we were none the wiser?

As someone who is passionate about musical worship, I think it's vital to address this issue.

Reading about walking on water naturally reminds me of Peter's story in Matthew 14:22-33.

As Christians, we laud Peter's faith that he was able to walk on the water, yet we rarely discuss the ramifications of the fact that it was only for a brief moment. Perhaps even a split second.

When it comes to the faith and actions of the church today, I think it is especially important that we ruminate for a moment on verses 30 and 31:

"But when he [Peter]  saw the wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink he cried out, 'Lord, save me.' Jesus immediately reached out his hand and took hold of him, saying to him, 'O you of liuttle faith, why did you doubt?'" (ESV)


So yes, I sing "Oceans" and continuously fail to live up to the bold claims I've been singing. Just like Peter. God demands perfection, yet that perfection will never EVER come from me. (CAN I GET AN AMEN HALLELUJAH??) That's kind of the whole point. I am so unbelievably imperfect that I will fail God until I am fully sanctified through His love and power (as in, not on this earth. Read more about that new earth in Revelation 21).

We definitely need to examine our hearts closely when we partake in musical worship, and not just for this song. Yet, blatant hypocrisy aside, I don't think we should discourage people from singing "Oceans" or any other biblically-based song. We all have a little bit of Peter within us -- we are quick to feel, yet collapse almost immediately upon acting ::ahem, Peter ALL THE TIME::  (Luke 22:31-34; 54-62). We may truly desire for God to lead us away from our borders, no matter how uncomfortable that may be in the moment, but at some point we will undoubtedly fail. I can actually guarantee it.

This need not keep us from worshiping and seeking deeper relationship with our God, for Christ has bridged the gap. He has achieved perfection in order that we may be counted righteous (Romans 3:22-24)! I love that upon rising from the grave, Jesus gives Peter the chance to affirm His Lordship three times, as if to say, "See, how I am wiping the slate clean," (John 21:15-19).

Musical worship can be a powerful time of communion with God. Let us not limit that because of our inability to perfectly live out everything we sing. Instead, let us strive in God's power while remembering to walk in His GRACE.

Holes in my Heart

Sunday went all wrong. I didn’t wake up begrudgingly from a deep sleep to walk downstairs to go to the longest church services in the world. I didn’t wake up five feet from a mermaid and an almond-eyed beauty. No one showed me a postcard of “cats doing people things.” There were no tambourines. I didn’t wear my EM shirt for the first time in months. I didn’t long for an afternoon nap. I didn’t meet a group of people I would learn to love and cherish over the next week. I didn’t dance to the radio while making salad, spaghetti, and garlic bread with my roommates. A seven-foot tall man didn’t tell me a story about a woman named Mildred. I didn’t convince anyone that I’m from Russia or laugh through the rules in the group meeting.

Monday, I did not walk six miles through the Bronx or sing the Ninja song first thing in Harlem. I did not sing the Ninja song at all. No one got into an argument over whether my name is Swick or Swift. I didn’t get mobbed by small children in the hallway. Making coffee was not my top priority. There was no one to make coffee for, anyhow. There was no crisis to be averted and I haven’t eaten rice and gondule in several days. No one has tried to speak to me in Spanish. 

My world has been turned upside down.

I did, however, run into my first grade teacher in my local Target. She has always been my favourite teacher – hands down. She remembered me and couldn’t believe I was already old enough to be starting grad. school. She said I had the same smile. And suddenly, dozens of smiles flooded my mind. Some old, many new. And though my heart ached for little bodies in New York I may never hug again, there was a healing warmth that covered it all. A warmth that even though I am far from Harlem, my work there is far from over. Just as even though I hadn’t seen my first grade teacher in years, the love she gave and the things she taught me never left me. And new people came and went from my life, watering the seeds she’d planted.

The Salvation Army was there long before me, and will continue to be there long after my teammates and I are gone and forgotten. Or maybe, just maybe we won’t be completely forgotten and the love we gave will have been more than a seed. Regardless, something powerful happened there this summer…or perhaps I should say that Someone powerful happened.

I struggle to tell people about my summer because I feel like they expect me to tell them about all the families I helped and to show them tangible pictures of the ways I changed the world. But I can’t. To be honest, I didn’t even really meet most of the families I served. I served hundreds of families at the New York Common Pantry, but since I often worked in the fruits and veggies section, I interacted with almost none of them. I never saw their faces or heard their laughs.

“But what about the food pantries or soup kitchens where you worked?,” people ask. Okay, this one is a little easier. I can tell them about my friend Robert, who went out of his way to make people laugh, or the hour-long conversation I had with him one day about faith, his life, and everything in between. I can talk about how that was the first real conversation Robert had had in years because his son doesn’t speak to him and he spends most of his time alone.

But that’s just a small glimpse. How do I tell people that I only got to spend two weeks with Robert before moving to a different location and that it broke my heart to not see him two or three times a week after that? How do I share how much hurt I encountered during my trip and how it hurt my heart to walk alongside these people? How do I share the pieces of my heart that I left behind?

Or what about the Hispanic ladies I met in the park? I saw them several days a week for two weeks, and again had to leave them. They welcomed my groups and me every time with a hug and a kiss on the cheek. Even if they already had their own water bottles and didn’t need the ones we were passing out, they waited expectantly for us with smiles and welcoming hearts. It seems so small and unimportant when I try to tell people, but I looked forward to my time with them and part of my heart is still on that bench in that park.

And then there’s Goya, whose name I’m not even sure I can spell, who was one of my favourite parts of working at the Bronx Tremont. There were one or two days where I didn’t see her, and those days were the worst. She’d teach me a few words in Spanish to help me communicate with the ladies who cooked lunch for the kids and us, and she made me feel like the most important person in the world just because I existed. It was surprisingly humbling to talk with her because I recognized how my love paled in comparison to hers.

How can I talk about Joseph and his siblings, who became some of my closest friends even with a severe language barrier between us? How can I possibly tell people about all the kids at the Harlem Temple who swarmed me when I once made the mistake of sitting on the floor next to them? Never before have I thought that I’d drown in an ocean of small children.

How can I show you the missing parts of my soul or the parts that I’ve gained?

 How can I possibly say how I’ve been unalterably changed by this experience except by baring the scars of the parts of my heart that didn’t come back with me?

Bean Bag Blessings

Hey all. I just couldn’t wait for the weekend to share a bit about this week. I won’t be able to write it all now because I’m exhausted and it’s late. Today we took the kids into the gym to play a little bit, but I was feeling pretty lightheaded, so I was sitting against a wall relaxing when the two kids started fighting over a balloon. Mind you, these are the two kids in the VBS group that push my buttons the most. Like every day. I have to keep my eye on them at all times because they’re constantly doing things they know they shouldn’t be because they desperately crave the attention. I try so hard not to get frustrated with them, but when I have 20 other kids running around and screaming, it’s hard to keep the hairs on the back of my neck from standing on end.

So today, (we’ll just call them G & N) were fighting over a balloon and one of my girls, Amy, took it away from them. So N, in her natural fashion, started sulking. She picked up a bean bag and started throwing it. I told her to keep in near where we were because I was afraid she’d get it in the middle of the game of tag the other kids were playing and someone would get hurt. So she brought it back and we started tossing it back and forth to each other. I wasn’t particularly interested in playing with her since I was feeling dizzy and she had already used up her sass allotment for the day, but I knew that I needed to love this little girl the way Jesus does.

So we start adding variations to our game of toss. We tried tossing two at a time and other things like that, when eventually N started trying to catch it behind her back without looking. So, having played softball for the majority of my life, I would throw it right to the target of her hands every time. And every time, she dropped it. She would try to grasp it when she felt it hit her hands, but it was too late. It was keeping her amused, so I figured I’d let it keep happening.

And then it hit me. Not the bean bag. Well, actually, that hit me a few times too; she doesn’t have the greatest aim. But something else hit me too. She kept missing the bag because she just wasn’t looking. And I thought, “How often do we miss what God is doing or what he has for us because we’re just not looking?” What would we catch if we would just look? God will hit every target we give Him, and He’ll throw us the bag over and over and over again until His arm feels like it’s going to fall off, but we’ll never catch it if we don’t look. And I wondered how much I’ve missed.

So fast forward a few hours and I’m cleaning up after our very messy craft. And one of my guys, Robbie comes in asking if I can talk to N because she’s “acting up a bit.” So I of course agree and walk into the chapel where the kids are playing a game, and I hear N wailing at the top of her lungs and I see that she’s on the floor, crawling under the pews away from everyone.

I rolled my eyes because she tends to pout dramatically whenever she doesn’t get her way. I went to talk to her and she started to crawl away, still wailing. I touched her leg gently to try to keep her in one place to look at me, and somehow God gave me the grace to be gentle, patient, and kind with her. I wanted to scold her and tell her to rub some dirt in her emotional wounds and deal with it. But I didn’t. I asked her what was wrong – what happened. I told her I wanted her side of the story. She wailed that her sister said she didn’t want to play with her. Her sister, who was several years older, was also at the VBS. I told N that I’d go talk to her sister and try to them to talk it out. Her sister declined and I didn’t feel like it was my place to force it, so I didn’t.

I went back to N and she was upset, but I talked to her a while longer, and she started to crawl away again, so I let her. I talked to Robbie, the guy who brought me in, telling him just to let her be unless she starts interfering with the other kids, and if so to come and get me. But by the time I turned around, she was already standing up, calm, and playing with the other kids. And I thought of what would have happened if I had been short with her. And I got to see God’s heart for her for a moment.

So that’s a little update. I hope it encourages you. Peace and blessings, y’all.