Dance, Candice!

I am sad to tell you that our dear Candice Lewis died in the hospital Tuesday night. In my prayer time yesterday, Jesus came to me and his face reflected my own sadness. I asked him, “Why? Why was her life so hard? Why did she have to die the way that she did?” Jesus looked at me and did not answer, but his face said a lot.
He sighed and showed the pain he shared fully with me and Candice and her family and friends… but only for a moment, and then he gave me a look that said, “You don’t know her like I know her… She is lovely, and winsome, and really fun. She enjoyed much of her life, in the middle of her brokenness and pain, and she embraced life with passion and curiosity and courage. Her love for cooking, and soccer, and church, and friends, and her beautiful and simple love for her daughter- all these things shaped her joy, but they did not ultimately define her- I define her! She is my precious daughter. That’s who she really is. I died so that she could live forever!”
And then he shook his head and smiled and said to me, “Believe me, you would want to be her right now! You would give anything to trade places with her right now…you can’t even imagine the joy and the abandon with which she is dancing at this moment…”

We will all be dancing like that someday, along with all of creation, because God will put everything back together in perfect harmony. God calls us to be a part of that work. It can be excruciatingly slow for impatient creatures like us. I am reminded today of the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.: “The arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

Let’s remember Candice by embracing our lives and our calling! Live to the fullest- become all that God made us to be! And let us renew our efforts to help others reach their God-given potential. God made us to be together, to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God.

God-given potential is different from what the world values and calls success. Jesus reached his full potential- on the cross, sacrificing all so that we can live! He calls us to give sacrificially and he sees potential in our weakness. In the same way that he was perfected in weakness on the cross, he uses our weakness and fills us with a different kind of power, the power of his spirit, which Candice demonstrated. Christ shone through her and the world, much of it, could not see this.

Some of us got a glimpse.
Open our eyes, Lord to the beauty all around us, hidden in the weak vessels, disguised by our frailty.

I read this today: From Listening Hearts by Suzanne G. Farnham et al.
Learning to listen within our hearts may not come easily. We muse, Does God call ordinary people like us? And if so, to what? How can we distinguish God’s voice from all the other voices that clamor at us- those of our culture, peer pressure, our careers, our egos? Amid our secular lives, where can we find support for our calls? And how can we remain faithful and accountable?
Christians have always struggles to understand what God would have them do. In 1835, Soren Kierkegaard wrote in his journal, what I really lack is to be clear in my mind what I am to do, not what I am to know….The thing is to understand myself, to see what God really wishes me to do….What good would it do me to be able to explain the meaning of Christianity if it had no deeper significance for me and for my life?

So I made a short list of what I think I am called to do, in light of who God made me. How about you?
Here’s mine:
Enjoy God
Love my family
Love all others- build bridges in unlikely places
Exude Life and Grace
Communicate God’s Word in Drama and Poetry
Encourage and Teach others
Learn and Grow
Play and Rest
Use Prophetic Imagination
Do Systemic Justice

Make your list today. Let’s celebrate real life, along with Candice, who now knows what life is better than all of us put together!