Brenda Rodgers

Author: Brenda Rodgers

  • How to Overcome Christmas Expectations

    Christmas is not my favorite time of year.  A lot of times it’s my least favorite.

    I know, blasphemy, right?
    I am just being honest.
    It used to start the first week of December.  The tree would come out of storage (I had an artificial tree because I was single and me cutting down a real tree, carrying it on the top of my car, and then dragging it into my apartment was not a choice), and the decorating would begin, along with some baking and writing out a few Christmas cards.  Except that I never could seem to get those cards written.   Instead they turned into Happy New Year’s cards.
    Then it moved up to the weekend after Thanksgiving because starting the first week of December was way too late.  If I waited until then there was no point of even putting up a tree.  And who wants the chore of writing out cards lingering days before Christmas?  Starting early would help me get everything done and enjoy it for once.
    This year my tree is already up.  And it has been up since November 19th.  Part of the reason is because I want it up before my mission trip to Burkina Faso.  Otherwise I will be back to where I was a few years ago – writing out cards on Christmas Eve.    
    Last week I had some ladies from my small group over, and the minute they walked in I started explaining why I already had the house decorated.  I was embarrassed to have started so early. 
    Until I saw twinkling lights shining brightly on another house in our neighborhood.  Along with their tree – fully decorated in the middle of the window – just as big and beautiful as could be.  So I wasn’t the only one to have a tree up on November 19th. I possibly wasn’t even the first one.
    Each year Christmas brings more expectations. 
    Expectations that I can’t live up to.
    And so instead of feeling joy and peace and love through the birth of our Savior, I feel busy and cramped and tired which makes me not like Christmas.
    I want to blame it on our culture, and culture probably contributes greatly, but really I need to reflect on why I am doing what I’m doing at Christmas, and who I am doing it for.
    Christmas is a birthday party.  But not just any birthday party – the grandest of grand birthday parties.  It is a birthday party for a King.  A King who became the neediest of human existence – a tiny infant – then grew up to be the most lowly – a perfect servant – who died a sinner’s death. 
    If Jesus was here with me right now, in the flesh, and December 25th was his birthday, what kind of party would I give him?  What kind of party would my heart yearn to give him?  When would I start preparing? 
    That is what I am doing.  I am preparing for a Birthday Party.  And when my mind focuses on Christmas as just that I am able to take my expectations for myself and for others and put them back on Jesus.
    Christmas is not just for me and my family.  It is a Birthday Party for Jesus.  He is the honored guest. 
    As I prepare for Christmas with this thought I am energized because I imagine him sitting in our house on his Birthday and smiling. 
    Photo Credit: Creative Commons: J Jackson Photography
    How do you deal with the growing expectations of Christmas?

     

    Will you consider praying for our team and the people we meet in Burkina Faso?
    Your prayers are greatly appreciated, and I cannot wait to share all that God is doing there.

  • Are my tears worthy of thanksgiving?

    For a month now I’ve named how wonderful life is with all of my blessings. Thanking God for warmth and comfort and security. All things that are worthy of thankfulness because they make his presence known right here. And they allow me to see him the way that fits right for me.  Oh, that’s the God I hear and know and talk to – the one that gives me good things. Things I ask for and expect.  He is a God that loves me.

     But I have forgotten about those fallen tears, as I’ve counted all my blessings.  You know, the ones that make me turn my back and question his true love. 
    The tear that fell when . . .
    I lost my first friend at ten years old.
    I didn’t fit in with anyone around me.
    I was homesick and just wanted to come home.
    that college didn’t want me.
    my boyfriend didn’t choose me.
    I sat lonely in an empty apartment.
    I looked at my mom for the last time.
    gossip and slander took a friendship.
    my husband struggled to stay alive.
    I saw the baby I wish I had.
    I still don’t know where I’m going.
    I realized I am still so broken.
    My thankfulness is based on ultimatums and ones that I hold to tight.  If you give me, then I will give back thanks in return. Thankfulness is for the easy, but what about for those tears that fell?  Are they not worthy too?   
    Without them I would be a wreck of a person not knowing my own purpose.  For those tears may not have given me easy pleasantries, but they make the pleasantries possible. 
    Hope. Strength. Comfort. Perseverance. Worth. Protection. Faith. Rebirth. Purpose. Surrender. Wisdom. Humility.
    God doesn’t fit into my tears as nicely.  But I think they’re still worth his praise.  So today for each fallen tear I thank him and look from where he’s brought me.
    “Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.”
    1 Thessalonians 5:18
      
     

  • Prepare the Way

    Three months after graduating college I sat in front of that classroom – apart – and stared out at twenty-eight faces, sitting neatly in groups of five, staring straight back at me. Their look was one of anticipation. Anticipating me to do what I was trained to do – teach.  Except that in that moment I had nothing.

    Four years of learning theory and philosophy and pedagogy became meaningless words on a page.  All I could see were those faces and behind those eyes worlds that I never learned about.  Ten years worth of life filled with experiences that had nothing to do with two-digit multiplication or subject-verb agreement.  And it was my job to connect the two.

    Sunday morning will be my first full day in Burkina Faso.

    I have read the statistics.
    I have learned about the culture.
    I have seen the pictures.
    I have heard the stories.
    I have made checklists for packing.

    I have been immunized.

    Or have I – really?

    Is there anything I can do to prepare myself for those faces?  Those faces who will look out at me in anticipation?  Starving for Hope, the Hope that is promised, with no tangible evidence that it exists?

    My job is to connect truth and experience. 

    Or is it?

    What I am about to see, hear, and feel is impossible for me as a human being to take in, comprehend, and respond to.  It can’t be done, and it’s not my job. 

    Only the Holy Spirit within me.

    Only in His power.

    Prepare the Way, Oh Lord.  Go now before me. 

    Please join me in prayer for our team and the people we will meet in Burkina Faso.

  • Space to Be Filled Reaching Up

    “Are you excited?” they ask.
    “Yeah. I guess. I don’t know.” I reply.
    Am I supposed to be excited? What is supposed to be going through my head days before being transplanted into a different space – a space that seems to have stood still over thousands of years and I picture like I did this morning with my Bible in my lap reading Acts. 

    This whole Africa thing has come steadily for me. Steadily since I declared boldly that I didn’t want to go eighteen years ago. 
    He wasn’t going to push me. Demand me to go like an overbearing father who wants his will more than his daughter’s.  He knew my grip was too tight around this life of mine I wanted.    
    But subtly the loosening began.  He started small with simple requests – Is that friendship right for you? Are you honoring me with your time? Should you be dating that boy?
    My muscle grew a little bit and my trust did, too.  Maybe he really does love me.  Maybe he does know what’s best.  My clinched fist began to weaken, and my fingers began to soften.
    Until he asked some more.  Is that pride I see deep inside?  Are those dreams really idols?  What about that anger you won’t give up?  Are you going to allow only my one foot in forever?
    The stakes were higher now, and I just couldn’t seem to do it.  The muscle weakened and strengthened contracting with each failure and triumph.  But he stood there in that door frame, with only one foot in my heart, with no intention of leaving until I closed the door behind him.  One finger at a time began to fall from my fist held tight.  And there was open space.  Space to be filled.
    He came to me that August morning while my fingers pointed outward and that space in my hands faced up.  And he asked me if I was ready.  If I was ready for both of his feet to come in.  “I want you to give your life to me including all I will”, he said. “Even if you don’t understand.  With every hurt and ache I want you more than that.  I want all of you. Only then can I fulfill the days of yours I’ve already prepared.”
    That August morning I turned my head.  My husband rolling away to life support was all I saw.  And his other foot stepped in. I closed the door.
    This day has been prepared. This day to go to Africa.

    So am I excited about going?
    Yeah.  I guess.  I don’t know.

    There is nothing Africa needs from me.  I am just the surrendered vessel carrying Jesus to a place where his feet aren’t welcomed.  Standing with fingers facing out and space to be filled reaching up.




  • My Disguise of Serving in Africa

    In less than two weeks I leave for Burkina Faso, West Africa. 
    I am told the experience is going to change my life.  Or at least my perspective on life.
    That scares me. 
    Several months ago I sat in church and saw the video clip inviting people to join the team going back to Burkina Faso.  My heart started beating fast.  I knew right then the invitation was for me, and it wasn’t from the church.  It was from God himself. 
    I cried and I ignored.  Then I cried some more.  I didn’t want to go to Africa.  But God told me it was the Way – the way he wanted to answer my prayer.  That prayer that I ask so often for him to make me like himself. 
    So I am going to Africa to be like Jesus.  Jesus was a servant.  So I am going to serve.  To bring hope. To give life. To show relief.  To be a savior. 
    Or am I?
    The people I will meet have no running water.  They sleep in huts.  They cook in a pot outside.  They have never seen themselves in a mirror.  They have never seen a mirror. 

    Compared to me they are beyond poverty. 
    “Tell me they don’t know.  Tell me they’re oblivious.  Tell me they’re happy”, I said as I looked at picture after picture of the people there.
    “They are happier than you are or ever will be”, was the response.
    And yet they have joy.  And I sit hear in my warm house, in perfect health, with food busting from the refrigerator.  Consumed. Worried. Tired. Stressed. Miserable. 
    In a podcast I listened to this past weekend from Craig Groeschel he said this, “You want to know that you’re in need? Go to a third world country.  You feel good about yourself for a while.  For a couple of days you hurt with them, hurt for them, and then something switches along the way.  And suddenly you realize the more I do for them, the more they’re doing for me.  The more I give to them, the more I’m receiving in some crazy way I didn’t expect. Then one day you wake up and say, wait just a second.  They’re financially broke and empty, but they have something I don’t have.  You see the strangest joy in the middle of nowhere.  They have nothing and seem to have everything.  And you realize I’m in need, too.  We’re mutually in need, and we both need God.” summarized from Craig Groeschel’s sermon “Those People Part 1: Those Overly Needy People”
    God is sending me to help the needy as a disguise.  A mask shows a needless woman’s face going to the other side of the world to share her needlessness with the needy.    
    God’s intention is to strip back that mask and reveal that I am the needy.  I am the broken.  I am the impoverished.  I need the Savior.
    My culture puts the world at my disposal.  But joy is still lost in the abundance. 
    I am not going to serve the needy.  I am the needy going to relish in a joy I do not know.    

    “But as for me, I am poor and needy; please hurry to my aid, O God. You are my helper and my savior; O LORD, do not delay.” Psalm 70:5



  • The Dark Corners Come to Light

    Recently every corner I turned I found myself in a dark place.  Question marks defined my steps more than periods.  Fear crippled more than assurance energized.  The pieces didn’t make sense.  I was lost for what to think.
    I wondered if the lion was on the prowl.  I did exclaim to the world and all God’s will over mine when my teenage prayer went unanswered. And I have been warned that his attacks will come as I write out a list of things to pack, buy gifts for my Compassion child, and prepare to go to the other side of the world to proclaim the Truth once and for all.  Maybe he’s beginning to feel threatened, so he’s prowling around trying to devour again.
    All that I need is within me.  I know that.  But sometimes it’s allowing the Spirit to fight for me that is hardest. I try to fight with my only weapons – fear, anxiousness, uncertainty, control, pity – but they bring more of their own character.
    A wise mentor told me to stop fighting and ask for wisdom.  Every day, she said, get up and ask for wisdom.
    I have done that for the past few weeks.  And the corners have gotten darker.  Darker as God has taken me back into my past, to corners I never even knew existed, so far back to when I was a little girl.  He has revealed a specific scheme the enemy has used all of these years to try to take me from the One who bought me.
    With each revealed corner, darker than the night could ever think of being, the Light begins to shine.  Together it comes together to make the pieces fit, and I understand.  The Light opens my eyes to the darkness.
    The lion’s prowl is no more.  He is defeated by the Light.
    Has God revealed dark corners of your life only to help you overcome them?