veritas: one woman’s journey

For a friend.

“The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blindside you at 4 p.m. on some idle Tuesday.” -Mary Schmich

Sometimes God answers prayers directly and swiftly but sometimes the answer comes when you least expect it and had almost forgotten you needed it. You find yourself on a Tuesday afternoon, blindsided, quite sure that the world is beyond cruel.

But after gasping from the pain, you laugh and you cry and you sing His praise, and somehow, in the midst of all that, your trouble turns to joy because He is sovereign and you trust in His goodness.

When the lie is deeper than I know
You capture me and You carry me home
You see these wounds and rescue me
You always heal things beautifully
-Watermark, “Where to Find Me”

You smile through your tears — knowing that He knows you better than you know yourself, and you thank Him because He is faithful to muck around the deepest crevices of your soul in order to bring you to a place of complete healing and freedom. And in the midst of that process, you fall on your knees and learn once again how to receive His mercies, which are new every morning.

You learn the things you thought you knew; you learn again what it means to forgive, even when forgiveness is the last thing your shattered heart is prepared to do.

Thank goodness it’s not left up to you.

And you smile over the way God intimately and tenderly loves you - giving you small gifts each day — in a phone call, in a hug, in a song. In a girlfriend showing up on your doorstep with flowers, ice cream, and a lotta love; in India Arie belting out your heartbeat when you have no words left to sing; in learning what it means to be a little girl again, receiving love from God the Father.

And the healing process continues, one breath at a time.

And with a smile, you dance and embrace your new found freedom.

–

I got the call today, I didn’t wanna hear
But I knew that it would come
An old true friend of ours was talkin’ on the phone
She said you found someone
And I thought of all the bad luck,
And all the struggles we went through
How I lost me and you lost you
What are these voices outside love’s open door
Make us throw off our contentment
And beg for something more?

I’ve been learning to live without you now
But I miss you sometimes
The more I know, the less I understand
All the things I thought I knew, I’m learning them again
I’ve been tryin’ to get down to the Heart of the Matter
But my will gets weak
And my thoughts seem to scatter
But I think it’s about forgiveness
Forgiveness
Even if, even if you don’t love me anymore

These times are so uncertain
There’s a yearning undefined
And people filled with rage
We all need a little tenderness
How can love survive in such a graceless age
And the trust and self-assurance that lead to happiness
They’re the very things we kill, I guess
Pride and competition cannot fill these empty arms
And the work they put between us,
You know it doesn’t keep us warm

I’ve been trying to live without you now
But I miss you, baby
The more I know, the less I understand
And all the things I thought I figured out, I have to learn again
I’ve been tryin’ to get down to the Heart of the Matter
But my will gets weak
And my heart is so shattered
But I think it’s about forgiveness
Forgiveness
Even if, even if you don’t love me anymore

All the people in your life who’ve come and gone
They let you down, you know they hurt your pride
Better put it all behind you; cause life goes on
You keep carrin’ that anger, it’ll eat you up inside

I wanna be happily everafter
And my heart is so shattered
But I know it’s about forgiveness
Forgiveness
Even if, even if you don’t love me anymore

I’ve been tryin’ to get down to the Heart of the Matter
Because the flesh gets weak
And the ashes will scatter
So I’m thinkin’ about forgiveness
Forgiveness
Even if you don’t love me anymore
Even if you don’t love me anymore

- India Arie, “The Heart of the Matter.”

–

Goodbye.

July 2007

[I randomly found this sketch that I wrote a while ago…it may reveal more of my passionate nature than I generally reveal, and for the record, it was not written to any one specific person, but upon reading it over, I thought it was worth sharing, if only to provoke thought.]

on love

Honestly, I’m really tired of people making assertions about my love or questioning it. I am told, “There’s a difference, Christy, between ‘love’ and ‘love.‘” Oh, is there? Is there really?

Is not love a choice? Why must I ascribe to society’s idea of love being a feeling of falling “in-love” in order to say “I love you” to the person I’m dating? Is not love so much more? Is the assumption that if I say “I love you” to the person I am dating, that I am only talking about the “falling-in-love” type of love? Do not people know me better to know I have a deeper understanding of what love is and that I don’t use that word lightly when I say it?

Is not love a deep desire for another person’s best? Is not love a choice to be at someone’s side, even when the “feeling” is or is not there? Is not love so much more than what Hollywood and our culture screams at us? I don’t want to give or receive “shallow” love; I never have. If “love” is only, or primarily, to be determined by the butterflies in your stomach, by the excitement of another human being investing in your life, by the thrill of growing closer — mentally, physically, spiritually — then, yes, perhaps it’s “dangerous” to tell someone you love them before, oh, I dunno, six months. That seems like a good number, a good formula, a good rule to follow, doesn’t it? I wonder if it’s that my choice to tell others I love them is threatening to so many others who wouldn’t and don’t do the same?

Maybe it’s because I’m not playing by the rules. Is that it? It makes you uncomfortable; it’s outside the ordinary; it’s risky. Well, you know what? Loving anyone is risky. Ask C.S. Lewis, who wrote:

There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglement; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket - safe, dark, motionless, airless - it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.

Ask Christ, who loved to the point of entering humanity and dying for us. Why are we so quick to judge other people and their love? Is it out of fear for them (she’s confusing “love” with “infatuation”) or is it out of fear for ourselves? Our constructs are being questioned; our boundaries are being challenged; our thoughts about love are being threatened. No one could possibly know whether they love someone until a certain period of time, right?

Who sold us that lie and when did we start to buy it?

I’ve heard so many times, “Love is too big of a word to use lightly and I hate when people use it often.” Rarely is that statement aimed directly at me, but in being stated, it is implicitly implicating me of “cheapening” the word because I do choose to use the word “freely.”

But am I cheapening it? Is my love for someone somehow less because I love many others? Do I only have a specific amount of love to give, and therefore, am spreading it “too thin” on too many people? When it really comes down to it, is not our fear of using that word “too much” and “too freely” a reflection that we are fearful of being hurt? It doesn’t have to be just in a dating relationship. We do this in other relationships as well. We don’t want to extend ourselves by saying it and giving it until we are SURE that our significant others, closest friends, and family members feel the same way and aren’t going to hurt us by their lack of love, or lack of love being equal to ours. So we hold on to it, selfishly not wanting to give until we have received, or until we are quite sure we will receive a reciprocal love. But is not loving someone in the way that Christ loves us a love that “does not seek its own”? Gives without thought to its own needs? And if we base our decisions about who we love upon a Biblical understanding of love, upon how God and Jesus love, does it not change how we should use that word and how we choose to interact with others?

Love is a choice; when it comes to significant others, the feelings of being “in love” may come and go; love is a commitment; love is an earnest desire for another person’s best; love is a desire for them to know the one, true Lord better and more intimately. If love is those things, can not - and should not - we be using the word more often and let go of our small-view ideas of “love” and start practicing Biblical love in a way that brings honor and glory to the Father?

Are not five sparrows sold for two cents? Yet not one of them is forgotten before God. “Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Do not fear; you are more valuable than many sparrows. (Luke 12: 5-7)

God is a very personal God, who knows not only the number of hairs on our heads but knows our personal struggles. And I am humbled daily by his love.

–

We as women struggle with our identity and self-worth; I have not met one woman, no matter how confident she seems to be, who does not at some point ask, “Am I beautiful?”; “Do I captivate you?”; “Do you love me?” - whether the question is posed to our fathers, or significant others, or our husbands does not matter, we still ask the universal question.

It seems that at the core of every woman, this cry pervades. For some, the question dictates their lives and sometimes as a result exhausts others; for others, it is a question that crops up every so often. Nevertheless, it is a common question for every woman I have ever come to know on any personal level.

I have found that the only source who can confirm and affirm that silent cry of our hearts is our creator and maker, God himself. It is only when we believe what he says about us that we can be truly whole and truly able to not always be asking everyone around us, whether explicitly or implicitly, “Am I okay; do you value me?”

This is a lesson I’m continually learning; I have come farther than where I was five years ago, but it’s a continual journey, especially in a society that screams that your value and worth is based upon your physical appearance; advertising shouts to us this lie almost every time we turn around. And inevitably, when we walk into a room, whether we want to admit it or not, we size up the other women in the room, comparing ourselves to them.

Lord, have mercy upon us.

It is only by the grace of God that we can break out of the tendencies we have rooted in our flesh.

–

Today, I was unpacking my office/bedroom (I still have some boxes to get through from my recent move) and came across a brown paper napkin and smiled.

You might wonder why I saved a brown paper napkin — I saved it because it’s a love note from God.

Yes, God. Before I sound absolutely crazy, and I’m sure there are many who would ascribe that label to me (something I rather revel in, to be honest), let me back up.

A couple of months ago, I was not feeling particularly lovely; we all have those days - days in which we just feel “blah.” That morning was such a day for me. And as I was in the shower, I started talking to God as I am apt to do and asked him to remind me that he has created me and that I am “fearfully and wonderfully made” (Psalm 139:13-14). To remind me that he has called me beautiful and delights in me. And so I purposed through my conversation with him that I would not dwell on any feelings or emotions to the contrary but dwell on both what he says about me in Scripture and what my worth in him is. And in my childlike faith, as a daughter approaching her father, I asked if he would remind me that I am loved and that I am beautiful. And so I went through my workday with that mindset and attitude; when any thought to the contrary encroached upon my emotional well-being, I refused to entertain it, willing myself instead to cling to the Scriptures God has given us to remind us of truth.

Later that night, I had a date with a girlfriend for dinner. As she was running a few minutes late, I called my roommate, Anna, and stood inside a Panera restaurant laughing and catching up with her. I had had a long, tiring day at work and had just driven through 90 minutes of rush hour traffic and so I was weary, but I was looking forward to having dinner and just relaxing. When my friend arrived, we both ordered soup, and I was so excited to see her and catch up that I was oblivious to the crowd around us and was just focused on her. We found a booth and sat down and prayed before we started eating. As the two of us were excitedly catching up with one another, I noticed my girlfriend pause and look past me. I stopped mid-conversation when I saw a brown paper napkin, folded over, thrust on our table, near my elbow. I immediately turned around to find a solitary man that could have been a cousin of Denzel Washington standing behind me. He shyly smiled and said, as he nodded towards me, “This is for you; I’m too shy to say it in person.” And with that, he turned around and left the restaurant.

The first thing that crossed my mind as I was processing what he said was that maybe I needed a napkin and had some soup on my face or something (I’m quite serious) and then it dawned on me that there was probably something written on the napkin.

I opened it and burst out laughing, sure that God works in mysterious ways and loves me so intimately that he would answer my prayer from that morning, a prayer I had forgotten. It could not have been clearer if the message had actually been signed, “God.”

The napkin read: “You are so sexy. =) Just want you to know.”

No phone number (I was a bit sad and tempted to run after the man but restrained myself =) — just that statement. And I thank God for a reminder from him to his girl, “You are loved and you are beautiful.”

Let us remember the truth God says about us when we start to doubt it. Let us live boldly and confidently, rejoicing in how our God has created us and celebrating the beauty he has ascribed to each and every one of us!

-Christen Patterson
July 1, 2007

“Had you not heard about the situation in the Sudan yet?” she asked gently.Perhaps it was the tears streaming down my face or the obvious brokenness my countenance graced that prompted this college student to wonder if this was my first time coming face to face with the plight of the “invisible children” in the war-torn Sudan.

“No,” I assured her. “No, it’s not the first time.”

I didn’t explain that I had been reading news magazines and online accounts of the situation in the Sudan for years; it didn’t matter because I didn’t intend to explain away my tears. Sometimes weeping is the only response.

–

It was a Thursday evening, and we had just finished watching “The Invisible Children,” a powerful documentary detailing the hell the Sudanese people are facing at the hands of rebel forces in a war-torn country. The documentary particularly focuses on the thousands of Sudanese children forced to flee their homes every night to seek refuge and shelter in the cities out of fear of being captured and enslaved by rebel forces — enslaved into a life of calculated killing and terror, brainwashed soldiers-in-training.

As the images flashed upon the screen and the stories were told, my response was an emotional, broken response. As I sat there, with tears streaming down my face, I thought to myself, “Christen, pull yourself together.” Thirty college students surrounded me, thirty students who will be, in part, my students next year when I come on full-time staff with Intervarsity, and here I was, sobbing. It was an uncomfortable few minutes as I wrestled with what my response should be; students looked at me out of the corners of their eyes, unsure of what to do. I am one of the ones who is supposed to be strong, and yet I found myself with tears streaming down my face. My heart, broken. Answers, I had none. Except the plea, “Come quickly, Lord Jesus” and the prayer, “Have mercy, Lord.”

And I couldn’t help but question how many times are we faced with the uncomfortable fact that we have been born into privilege; how many times have I genuinely faced the hard, cold fact that for the first twenty-three years of my life, I lived in the third richest county of the United States? I am one of the “rich” Jesus talks about who will have more trouble entering into heaven than a camel will have entering in through the eye of a needle (Matthew 19:24). Yikes. I wish Jesus had never said that. It’s not something I want to deal with. I remember a conversation with my father during a car ride years ago; he pointed out that we were the “rich” ones Jesus was speaking about in that passage. I remember thinking to myself, “What in the world are you talking about, Dad? We’re not rich; our couches have stuffing coming out of them, we have duct tape on our stairs, we drive old cars…” but the older I become, the more I realize my father in his wisdom knew something I didn’t.

Compared to the rest of the world, I am faced with extreme richness and opportunity, and here I am, talking about trying to “make ends meet” in the struggling Michigan economy while the children of the Sudan are living a literal hell. And what provokes me is that despite their circumstances, they are still both praising Jesus and displaying great joy and hope. I should be ashamed of myself for ever complaining about anything or being tempted to complain. Period. I confess that I have been jealous of those around me who aren’t struggling financially; who by their financial status make me feel poor and who give me the “excuse” to feel self-righteous because of the way I choose to spend my finances. I think “Well, God, you’re pretty lucky to have me because I’m frugal and I manage your money well.” What a dreadful disease pride is, allowing us to rank ourselves, consciously or unconsciously, against those around us. And then I am confronted with the documentary “The Invisible Children” and I am immediately brought to my knees in repentance for being a Pharisee and priding myself on how I am not materialistic.

And I sit there, sobbing, because the reality is that the tears streaming down my face expose the realization that I could be doing so much more. As I watched those beautiful children, scarred — emotionally and physically — praising our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, with joy, hope, and resilience etched upon their faces, I was forced to examine my own heart; if I faced the same circumstances, would I have the same response, and furthermore, with the privilege and power that I do have, what is my response to their plight and the plight of so many others around the world?

It’s one thing to have empathy for another, and empathy is certainly one of the first steps, but the true question we should be asking ourselves is, what do you do with that empathy?

So I ask you: in light of this broken, messed-up world, with nations being torn apart by war, with men and women committing atrocities, with children growing up with delinquent or absent parents, with disease ravishing bodies, with the poors’ needs not being taken care of, what are you doing? What is your emotional response? What is your physical response? Or would you rather not think about it today and deal with it tomorrow?

Some of these children will not have a tomorrow.

- Christen Patterson
April 2007

“Yes, you’re damned to hell,” I said in exasperation. “Technically,” I added as an afterthought, as if that would soften the sledge hammer I just tossed his way.  

Silence screamed, clawing at my heart, as my friend sat there. I wanted to crawl into the nearest cave, but seeing as I was sitting in a computer lab on a university campus, the prospect of finding a cave didn’t seem likely.

Not one of my finer moments.

To be fair, that declaration had been spoken only after an hour of dialogue and being repeatedly pressured for my theological beliefs — in particular about those regarding those who don’t confess Jesus as Lord and Savior. I think I had phrased the doctrinal belief in as many ways possible hoping to avoid putting the words “damned” and “hell” together in the same sentence (especially since my mother taught me to never say either word). The Democrats and Republicans would have been proud of my sidestepping. I was a pro. But he wore me down after an hour or two, and finally, in exasperation, I made my declaration.

He never spoke to me again.

Just kidding. But that could have easily been the ending to my story. But God is merciful to sinners like me, and in fact, that was the start of a very long friendship, proof that miracles do happen today. The discussion leading up to my loving statement all started with friendly bantering; I was “Christian” (but refused to be labeled as such, instead introducing myself as a “born-again, nondenominational follower of Jesus” hoping that providing that mouthful would allow me enough time to break down any preconceived stereotypes one might have; I was hopeful); he was Muslim. We’d go back and forth about our respective beliefs; he’d ask me question after question about Christianity; I’d reciprocate, asking about Islam. He was a senior; I was a freshman, and I had this odd feeling that he knew something I didn’t; later I learned it was years of experienced critical thinking/arguing learned in university classes; I had yet to embark upon my college adventure, so I wasn’t as fine-trained to dialogue or proffer arguments, and trying to unpack my beliefs was like trying to unpack my family’s van after a week’s long trip (there were nine of us) – it was a messy, chaotic activity and you just hoped everything was accounted for in the end.

But through many future dialogues (years’ worth, to be exact), I learned that sharing my love for Jesus, for the person of Jesus, with others wasn’t so much about what I said or didn’t say; it was more about how I lived; I made many blunders through conversation; said things I cringe to think about; said other things I have conveniently forgotten about, I continue to say things I’d rather erase and have decided it’s much better if I keep my mouth shut. However, he and I are still friends. And I realize time and again that by opening my mouth, I become the object lesson of why Jesus entered humanity to save us from ourselves. And I am humbled.

The lesson I walked away with after that night, well, after many countless such nights — actually make that over the course of a few years (it takes me a while, sometimes) — is that it’s much better to stick to the person of Jesus and what He offers us relationally than to argue theology; theology doesn’t heal a broken heart but Christ Jesus does. Theology doesn’t stop the pain we face in life but Jesus comforts; theology doesn’t love others, but Jesus does; theology doesn’t restore us back to a right relationship with our Creator God, but Jesus Christ does. It is said Christ-followers are known by their love; if we win a theology argument but fail to show and demonstrate love, we argue in vain.

Christen Patterson
November 2006