The time that Jesus wept

"Jesus wept." John 11:35
In middle school this verse was the one I would memorize when we had to do a "pick your own memory verse quiz". It was the answer to the classic "what's the shortest Bible verse" trivia question.
But now, this verse holds much more meaning to me.

I knew coming home would be hard. I knew it would be a difficult transition and I would miss the Dominican and its people. But one thing I didn't expect- grieving. Grieving to me sounds like a really harsh word. In some aspects I could even understand how grief could be seen as a bad thing. Grieving is of no use. It only makes you dwell on the bad things. We need to focus on what we are blessed with and not be so self-centered! Right? Wrong. Grief is a deep sorrow. A type of sorrow that even our Savior experienced. When I expressed my sadness and longings to my mentor she quickly suggested that I look into John 11. In all honesty I didn't really know what that passage contained besides that infamous verse. Man was I in for some deep stuff.
On the surface these first 44 verses seem very normal. I mean besides a man being resurrected, nothing too out of the ordinary. But I dove deeper into it. I read it in different translations, read commentaries on it, looked up definitions of words, even read it in Spanish to see if I could squeeze anything else out of it. What I discovered was incredible and forever changed my view on grief and what it entails.

The passage opens with sisters Mary and Martha sending word to Christ that "he whom you love is ill." Jesus immediately responds to their message by saying that "This illness does not lead to death. It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it".
Wait what? Let me read that again....
"This illness does not lead to death. It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it". If I'm reading this correctly, Jesus right out of the gates tells them that first off, the illness that their brother has will not end in death. Secondly he tells them that what he is doing, is to bring Glory to his Heavenly Father and himself. Martha and Mary need not worry because well simply stated, this isn't about them.  This is about God and what he is accomplishing on earth through his son Jesus Christ.
Oh. Well okay then why do we even need the next 40 verses if we already know that it doesn't end and life, and it's not about us anyways? Cause we are human. Mary and Martha were humans. They were selfish and doubting and couldn't see past themselves and their grief to see that God was working on something outside of their comprehension. If this isn't a perfect example of the flaws in our flesh then I don't know what is. Jesus literally straight up told them to just chill and that he had it under control. And yet they still were worried.
Even worse yet, he reassured his people 3 more times that he had it under control and Lazarus's life was not ending there. In verse 11 he tells his disciples that "our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep but I go to awaken him." I mean c'mon guys. He literally says that the dude is asleep and he's going to awaken him. The disciples had known Jesus long enough to know that he was the kind of guy to use metaphors such as sleep to exemplify death. That seems pretty clear to me. But no, two times is not enough reassurance for our simple minds.
Twelve verses later, Jesus is back with Martha and once again says it as clear as possible, that "your brother will rise again". Ok so the sleeping metaphor may have been a tad confusing but this, this is not foggy whatsoever.
As humans we immediately assume we know everything and have all the right answers, which is exactly what Martha does. She says "I know that he will rise again int he resurrection on the last day". This part truly got to me because so often I do exactly what Martha does. Jesus tells me something and I said "yeah yeah I know I know" when in reality I don't know. I'm assuming I know what he's talking about, but I'm not really listening.
Skip down a couple verses and Mary arrives, weeping.
The "weep" being used in the context of Mary was the Greek word "klaio". This is a very simple, direct translation for weeping. Also to be read as a "wailing", deeply upset and hurt by the loss of her brother. Seeing Mary in such a terrible grief, brings an interesting response in Jesus. It says he is "deeply moved in his spirit and greatly trouble". But these words are far from sufficient when trying to encompass Christ's feelings. The Greek word used here is "embrimaomai". The definition of this word is similar to the "snorting of animals" but in a human context. Commentaries say that a better phrase to describe what Jesus was experiencing is that he "become angry in spirit and very agitated". 
Why was he agitated? Was he mad at Mary for her little faith in him? Maybe, but more likely, he was mad at death. He was furious with death and loss and its effect on his children. He despised seeing his daughter and friend in such distress. He hates death, he hates the sadness and grief that it brings along with it. He hates to see his people morn. 
The following verse is so simple yet contains so much power.
Jesus wept.
He wept. Jesus, savior of the world, creator of all things good, weeps. But thats not even the most interesting part. Remember that the word that was previously used for "weep" in Mary's context was "klaio". In Jesus's case, the word used for weep is "dakryo". This word holds a whole different meaning. It is a sadness because of empathy. A distress brought upon by witnessing someone in distress.
When I read this it began to trigger lots of thoughts in my head. I mean first and foremost Jesus knew he was about to raise Lazarus from the dead so why would he be deeply mourning for his death? So when reading the definition of this alternate Greek word it began to make more sense to me. Of course he wasn't crying because Lazarus is dead! But that doesn't mean his sadness is any less intense. He is still grieving but for something different. He is grieving for us. He is grieving for our grief. He feels our pain. He may not be feeling the exact pain we feel of losing a child, or a spouse, or a parent, or to grieve moving to another country or even another state. But he grieves just as deeply with us.
In the final few verses of this passage, before resurrecting Lazarus, he once again reassures Martha that his plan is greater. Jesus requests that the stone be rolled away, and Martha once again responds like she is already one step ahead of Jesus and informs him that the odor would be terrible considering he had been dead for four days. Patiently, Jesus responds to hear by saying "Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?". He wants her to trust him so badly. He would love to hear her say "Yes Lord, I'll do exactly what you ask because I know your plan is far beyond me." But she doesn't, and neither do I. I can't remember the last time I consciously decided to follow what Jesus tells me to do, grief included, despite what I think is best. Reluctantly, Mary asks for the stone to be rolled away and Jesus, in all his deity and glory, calls Lazarus out of the grave. That's a pretty epic ending. Through all the grief and sorrow, he does not abandon them. He keeps his promise. He is patient with their little faith and continues to provide.
This passage is loaded with tons of great lessons but there are two that really stick out to me.
1. God is good all the time. All the time, God is good. In our deepest moments of sorrows, we must remind ourselves that any and everything he is putting us through, is to one day, bring glory to his name. It may not be when we want or expect, but through it all, Jesus will be glorified. So the bad things that happen in life, death, loss, brokenness, well they just aren't about us. They effect our lives, tear us apart, test us, but they aren't about us. They're about God and the fact that in the end of it all, people will look to him and say "wow God is good".
2. Grieving is ok. When something tragic happens in your life, do not be afraid to grieve. Cry, yell, be angry, cry some more, but let it out. Do not turn off your emotions in tough times. If you try to turn off one part of your emotions (the ugly, crying side) then you subsequently turn off the good part of your emotions as well (the joyful, happy side). With no grief, we feel no joy. With no sorrow, we feel no relief. With no death, we feel no life. Life is not a buffet of emotions and circumstances where we can put the easy, good ones on our plate and forget about the gross ones. We get them all. The good, the bad and the ugly. It's all included in life.

So when something sad happens to you, cry about it. Jesus is crying too. But don't forget, he's seeing the big picture, not us.

Thanking God for the hard things.

Thank you God for giving me something so good that it makes leaving so hard. Thank you God for giving me people I love so much that saying goodbye is so painful. Thank you God for giving me a country so beautiful that makes going home so difficult. Thank you for this pain. Thank you for the hard things in life.Thank you for the hard things in life because that means we have something good.

Tomorrow I venture back to the States. Saying it is bittersweet would be the understatement of the century. The bitterness is painful, but the sweetness is pure bliss. There aren't words to describe the impact this country has had on my life and more importantly my relationship with Christ.  There also aren't words to describe the difficulty of being away from my family, my friends, and my home has been. I felt pain when i left home, and I praised God in through it because it meant I had something great that i was leaving behind. I feel pain now going back to the States, and I praise God in it because it means I formed relationships and grew to love this country and its people.
Thank you God that I can praise you through this pain.
Thank you God for joy that comes after the pain.
Thank you God for the peace you give us when we go through times like this.
I could go on and on thanking God for all he has given me but I don't know if this blog has enough space.
God has shown me many things this year but there's one that sticks out the most. Love. The greatest of these is love. His love, our love, the love we give, the love we accept, the love that surrounds the children of God, the love that nailed Jesus to the cross, and the love that brought him back to life 3 days later. There is truly not a more powerful force in this world. People fall in love all the time, people do crazy things for the people they love. But wait till you can fully experience God's love. God sent me to another country so that I could experience it in full force and let me tell you, it;s not something to treat lightly. It's big, it's great, it's unwavering and nonstop. It has no limits, no boundaries, and no exceptions. It was created for the least of us. The lowest of the low. The Neilly's of the world who seriously don't know how a God so great can love a a person so sinful. It blows me away that I can continually go against his will but his view of me does not change.
It's impossible to express this feeling, one simply has to experience it. I pray that all the kids I got know this year, some point in their life experience it. I pray that all the adults who believe it is too late for them to get their life together, can experience it. I pray that all of my family, my friends, everyone I care about can experience it. God's love was made to be experienced. Sometimes he takes you to another country to experience it, sometimes you experience it through your Younglife group, sometimes you experience through your church or school. The cool thing is, we all experience the same love from the same person! I can sit in this tiny house, in this rough barrio, with the power out, the sound of dogs fighting outside, the smell of rice and beans on the stove, and experience the same exact love that my friends can experience at college, in their youglife groups and small groups and church groups. We can be as close or as far to home as we want and it's the same love. The same overflowing, abundant love.
I'll leave you with this. This is the prayer I read over almost every day. I pray it over my family, my friends, specific people, and sometimes myself. When I read it, it has a sense of power and greatness in it that I love. Be rooted and established in LOVE.

Ephesians 3

14 For this reason I kneel before the Father, 15 from whom every family[a] in heaven and on earth derives its name. 16 I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your heartsthrough faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

²⁰ 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, ²¹ to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.

Amen. 

But I hate Nineveh

Last week I was talking to an older friend here who is currently married to a Dominican man, raising their two little children here, and running a school basically out of their own home. She was telling me how one day in the past few years her sister made the remark that "it's really good that you enjoy the heat because you live in a place where its 90 degrees in the middle of January". Her reply was something like "well I don't. I don't live here because I love to be hot every second of the day. I live here because it's what God called me to do. I hate the heat, but I'm obeying God".

Obedience. My mom always used to tell me that it's not obedience if I wanted to do the same thing she was telling me to do. Obedience was doing what she asked me when I didn't want to do it. It's giving up your own will and wants to submit to that of your authority.
Obedience is hard. Obedience is literally doing what we don't want to do. I believe that we as Christians don't obey as God as much as we are called to.
As a senior in highschool the big question was always "where are you going to college". Your parents ask like every day, your grandparents ask at Thanksgiving and then again at Christmas, your parents' friends ask every week at church. It's a tough question and a huge decision. But what is the main advice people give when helping each other chose a college? "Well what feels right to you? Where can you see yourself at? Which place seems to you like it could be home for the next four years? Oh, just go with your gut. Do what you want to do". Yes, we may get the occasional "pray about it" response, but the majority of the time, it's about what feels good to us. Obedience to God is literally doing what doesn't feel good to us. Obedience to God is searching for His will and following it even when it feels totally wrong to us. So maybe one college feels good to you, but God is telling you something else. And that's scary, that's hard, doing what you know is God's plan but having it feel totally wrong. God doesn't always make his plan happy and easy and feel good. His plan, though it will always end in a better place, is often the most difficult path we could take.
Paul in the Bible demonstrates this so well. From the second that he is converted from Saul to Paul, he obeys God. He relentlessly goes where he is called to go, sees the people he is called to see, preaches the things he is called to preach. Do you think getting himself thrown in prison or saying things he knew would get him stoned, felt good to him? Do you think God's path for Paul's life seemed like the right thing to do in Paul's eyes? I'm guessing no. But he did it, nonstop, till the day he died he followed God's plan despite the pain it brought him.
More often than not we take a Jonah approach to God's will rather than a Paul one. We hear God's voice, we see how his plan sounds to us, and when we don't like it or agree with it, we run. We go where we want to go because we think that our idea of a "good plan" is far better than God's idea of a good plan. We run the other direction but when we do God pulls us back. God's plan WILL happen one way or another. It might take pain and heartache and tough times to pull us back onto His track, but He will pull us back. We may hate our freshman year of college, we may not make any friends, or maybe we make bad grades, maybe money runs out and our families can't afford that college anymore. Then we have to transfer. Then God gives us a second chance to follow HIS will. He gets us swallowed up and then spit back out onto the shore so that we then have another to chance to go to Nineveh.
But here's the good news. We don't have to obey God alone. He doesn't give us this crazy hard path to follow and abandon us. One of the big "obeyers of God's will" in the Old Testament is Moses. In Exodus 3, God uses the burning bush to talk to Moses. Moses immediately questions God's instructions, but God tells him "But I will be with you..." And He was. This doesn't mean the path is any less tough or difficult, but He doesn't leave us to take it on all alone.
When we chose to obey God we are expecting that it will feel right to us, that God will give us peace about where He's calling us, that His will line up with our will if we pray about it enough. And sometimes it does. Sometimes we do feel at peace with God's will. But, more often than not, thats not the case. Obey God when it seems impossible, when it hurts, when it doesn't feel right, because that is true obedience. But keep in mind, when we don't chose to take God's path, He will do what he has to do to get back on His path, so we might as well just do it His way from the beginning.
Go to Nineveh even if you hate the people there, save your people from Egypt even if it's you against a whole country, preach the Good News even if it will get you sent to jail.

If's God's will feels good, then you're probably doing it wrong.

To love is to be loved.

Here I am, back on the island. Christmas break was incredible and I was so blessed to be able to see my family again. This first week returning has not been as difficult as I was expecting. There were some changes though. This semester I'm teaching English with another girl, Hilary. For the first day of class we gave each student an interview sheet to fill out, just so we could get to know them better. One of the questions on the sheet was "what do you want to be when you grow up?". What they wrote blew my mind. Here were a few of the answers.
"Doctora, porque me gusta ayudar a los demás" - A doctor because I like to help others. "Bombero, porque es ayudando gente"- A firefighter because it's helping people. "Dentista, porque me gusta curar las bocas de los niños"- A dentist because I like to fix kids' mouths. 
Those were some of my favorites, but many more of the sheets had answers with a similar theme.
Help.
They all want to help.
They want to help because they have been helped.
They want to give out the love that they have received.
They recognize what people have done for them and want to do the same for other kids.
The night I read these answers I also started reading the Gospel Mark. And just like that my mind was blown again. Chapter 1 of Mark has multiple subheadings. Some of these are "Jesus Heals a Man with an Unclean Spirit", "Jesus Heals Many" "Jesus cleanses a Leper". Chapter 2 starts out with "Jesus Heals a Paralytic". Chapter 3 begins with "A Man with a Withered Hand". As I read through these first three chapters the only thing I could think about was the worksheet answers I had read only hours before this.
Jesus loved people, and therefor He helped people. He didn't help people out of pity or because it was His duty, He did it because He LOVED PEOPLE. He loved all kinds of people. He loved those with unclean spirits, those who were ill, those who were diseased, those who were demon possessed, those with physical deformities, those with disabilities. He loved everyone and therefor He helped anyone who would allow Him to.
The kids in our program have been taken out of some pretty bad situations. Many of them carry strong similarities to the people Jesus helped in the Gospels.
Far too often as Christians we put the "helping" part of Christianity on the back-burners. We will donate money, go to church, worship, and truly mean it with all our hearts! But the going out, cleansing the unclean, healing the sick, praying for the possessed, is something we seem to forget. Why do we need to do this? Because of love. Because of an overwhelming, unimaginable, unbelievable, amount of love that we have been shown. Once we can truly comprehend how much Christ did for us, how much He really loves us, it is impossible to resist sharing this love with others. So maybe our lack of helping isn't because we don't feel it necessary, but because we haven't fully comprehended Christ's love for us. If you truly want to help others, first work on yourself. Dive into the word, explore who God is, discover His love for us. Helping others will become a side effect of the love you uncover.
My prayer for myself this semester, is that I can keep reminding myself of this love I have been blessed with so that I can better serve. If my goal is to serve out of myself and my own love and strength, I will fail. 100% of the time I will fail. My mom always tells me to "do something so great, that it is doomed to failure, unless God be in it". Unconditionally loving and helping hundreds of kids all day, 7 days a week, is not an easy task. Me accomplishing that is for sure doomed to failure. UNLESS, God be the center of it. Because when God is the center of it, when it's His love pouring out of me, His hands working through me, His feet walking me around, then it will be a successful task.
Search for His never-ending love. Take hold of it and never let go. Let yourself become full of Christ's love. Become overflowing with His love. Pour this love out to everyone you come in contact with.
Love and be Loved.