Are You Going to Harvard Square? Parsley Sage Rosemary and Thyme. by Linda Maynard

…Remember me to the one who lives there

La – la – la – la—la—la—la—la

Oh, excuse me I got caught up in some old tunes.

My apologies to Simon and Garfunkel, for messing with the lyrics  of Scarborough Fair.

Why Harvard Square you ask?

 I was on a short term Missions Trip to the Boston area.

Oh boy, I felt like I jumped off a faith cliff, right into the seat of intellectualism. I remember the terror. Could my heart beat any faster? I was sure there was “Nowhere to Run to…No Where to Hide” (Thank you,Martha and the Vandellas)

Ok, enough with the songs Linda, gather in your thoughts.

One evening, began in the South End of Boston at an A of G Church. The Pastor was going to oversee this outreach. We gathered at his church for a strategic pep talk.

 I gleaned something from him that I have never forgotten.

He said, “Don’t be focused so on bringing these young people to the Lord, that you  miss what God is doing.”

He likened a person’s life and their exposure to the Gospel as being on a continuum, 1 through 10.

 “On one end is #1, representing the person who has never heard about the Lord.

Then going all the way over to #10, where a person receives salvation.

He said “Maybe you are going to bring a person from a 6 to 7. That person has had people and circumstances already happening to bring them closer to a decision.”

“Another could be stuck at a 2 and have some misgivings or fears. You might just bring them up a notch.”

“You could be the one to pray the prayer of salvation.

Trust the Lord”

This lesson changed the dreaded idea I had of evangelism. I thought anything less than 100% was a failure.

We left the church and walked down the street with Pastor Tony.  We stopped for C-rations at an Italian Bakery.

I chose a cannoli.

We sat with the owner.

She was a dear welcoming woman. She kept looking towards the Pastor and in her broken English, kept saying …father this and father that.

While walking away, I asked him about her father.

 He chuckled.“Oh, she’s talking about me. She calls me Father Tony all the time. I tell her that I am not a Catholic Priest. It just doesn’t seem to matter.”

 We continued on our way to Harvard Square, via the subway

We picked a partner to minister with. The plan was one sister would be talking to a person, the other would be praying silently.

The closer we got, the more nervous I became.

On previous days, I blew a shofar in front of City hall, as well as in the Old North Church. That probably would freak someone else out, but those acts came naturally.

This mission was loaded with fright for me.

Some know that I have had a struggled with not feeling smart enough. I didn’t go to college, except for a few courses. I know this is not a logical, but I felt ‘stupid”

Actually, we know from the Bible, words have great power, for good and for bad. I was affected by negative words spoken over me.

We arrived and I wasn’t feeling one bit more confident and said to my partner, “You go first!” She did. Then I said “You did so well, why don’t you do it again?” She obliged and all the while I am thinking “I can pray. I am an intercessor. Keep talking sister! Keep going! I am right there with you”

She didn’t know my struggle but she also was not going to be the only one to approach strangers either.

All and all, I talked to 2 young men and 1 young woman.

One of the first was not interested at all. He was with a group that kind of mocked us.

The second however, moved away from the group and asked questions. Maybe he moved from a 5 to a 6? Only heaven knows.

The girl was sitting, leaning up against a storefront drawing. She just seemed happy to have someone to talk to.

Conclusion:

I didn’t die at Harvard Square.

My intelligence never came into question.

Even today, as I have talked with quite a few strangers, my heart still beats a million beats a minute…but for Jesus, I have determined to jump off the cliffs that He brings me to.

Is anyone ready to jump with me?

Trusting God Outside the Zone

When I say that there are many times when I have stepped out in faith into an uncomfortable area of inexperience and the unknown, I am not bragging. I recently celebrated 30 years in the faith, and how flat that faith would be if my Lord did not continually challenge me to grow over three decades. He knows I would rather be curled up on a couch, reading a book, than facing the giants.

The giants we face may be different. What is a leap of faith for me may just be a walk in the park for you. God has created us each uniquely, in unique family systems and cultures. As a teen in the late seventies and early eighties, marriage and family were not on my list of goals. My friends in high school were aghast that I was not interested in getting married and having kids.

But even as a teen, before I understood how much I needed a savior from myself, I knew I was a selfish human being. Why would I want to replicate and raise a mini-me? I certainly did not believe I had much ability in parenting, and feared marriage.

The first major challenge to my goals after coming to faith in Jesus was meeting my husband. Prior to that, even leafing through Bride magazine would have been embarrassing. But, God used our relationship to shape both of us, and to challenge us to give up preconceived notions about religion and family.

The second for me was even tougher. My husband had always wanted children, and had married me even though I professed the opposite. Risky? Yes. Maybe that was God asking Tim to take a risk. But when we married, we dedicated our lives to Christ and to following His leading. Within 18 months, the Lord directly asked me to trust Him in this area of having children. It was not something I expected or even thought I would desire.

Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart.

Psalm 37:4.

Three children and 23 years later, the “comfort zone” has been breached often J. Psalm 37:4 is very real for me. God made me aware of gifts and desires I did not know I had or that I could actualize, and gave me delight in being a mom. Trust God in what He is asking of you today, even if it is something you have a lot of fear about. It may not be an easy journey, but He is trustworthy and faithful to bring you through, and to give you joy in it.

Pushing Through

This week on Kingdom Bloggers, we are posting from our personal blogs. I confess I am not very consistent on posting at earlgreygirl.com. The book I mention in this piece, The Gift of Fear, is an important one. I highly recommend the chapter on handling potential problem people/situations in the workplace before things escalate, given that violence where we work (whether from an outside party, such as in the recent shooting in Wisconsin, or from an employee within) is on the rise.

A recent race proved to be a character building opportunity for my daughter. A rower, she knows what it feels like to be in pain. Rowing (also known as “Crew”) requires nearly every large muscle group, and a good coach requires tough daily practices in anticipation of victory at a regatta (the rowing event at which several schools or clubs compete).

On the very day she had two races, my daughter was unwell and in pain. The racecourse was cold, the waves choppy, and she was scheduled to be in the top novice boat. She worried that she would get sicker out on the water, and then let her teammates down. “Push through the pain,” her coach and I told her. “We know you can do it--it may actually make you feel better.” 

Sound callous? Not really: her coach and I both know what she is capable of, and we were speaking truth (the demands of rowing would supersede the pain of the ailment). Many times our worrying about a negative result is simply that: a worry, not a result. Pushing through, despite our worry or anxiety, will reap the data that enables us to overcome the next seemingly insurmountable hurdle: “Hey, that wasn’t so bad!” “That did not turn out the way I expected at all!” “I accomplished much more than I thought possible.”

Gavin de Becker, in his excellent (and a bit unnerving) book, The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals that Protect Us from Violence, makes a distinction between situations that cause real fear and the worry that stems from imagination. True fear, which is connected to our intuition, causes action; worry, on the other hand, “stems from a root [word] that means ‘to choke,’ and that is just what it does to us.”

“Our imaginations can be the fertile soil in which worry and anxiety grow from seeds to weeds, but when we assume the imagined outcome is a sure thing, we are in conflict with what Proust called an inexorable law: ‘Only that which is absent can be imagined.’ In other words, what you imagine...is not happening’” (de Becker, p. 292).

Worrying is the enemy of action and “pushing through.” It consumes our imagination--and we make that imagined outcome the reality instead of pushing through to the real outcome! We sink our own boat, if you will, before even leaving the dock.

My daughter pushed through and realized the reality that her body did not fail her, and she actually felt better after the two races! How about you? What anxiety about your imagined lack of ability or courage is stopping you from taking action? Pray for strength and push through (as Joyce Meyer famously said, “Do it afraid!”). You can do much more in reality than you can even imagine.

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Ephesians 3:20-21.

Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life? Matthew 6:27.