please don't skip right to "Joy to the World"

I love Christmas. 

I love the “holiday” of It, with all the American nostalgia: the “chestnuts roasting” and “all I want for Christmas is you” music, the cold weather, the presents, the family gatherings, the cookies.

And (differently but necessarily simultaneously) I love the Christian’s celebration of it: after many years of waiting, God did what He promised. He sent a Savior for the world! The Messiah was born! And how surprising and awe-inspiring the details of His birth and life and death were.

I LOOOOOOOOOOVE Christmas.

But it isn’t Christmas yet. And that matters to me.

This December, Is there room left in your decorated home and is there space left in your rightfully excited and expectant heart for “Come Thou Long Expected Jesus?” and “O Come, O Come Emmanuel and ransom captive Israel?”

Because now is the time for Advent. A time of waiting. A time of remembering the longing of the Jews for a Messiah to come. In advent Christians (on this side of Jesus’ birth/death/resurrection) are invited to reflect on how much we ourselves and our world is still in need of a Savior and that helps us to both celebrate His birth and to anticipate and ache for His second coming.

We live in a world that’s still broken, that’s still very much in need of a Savior and when with songs (but worse in reality with how we engage our broken stories and those around us) we skip right to Joy to the World all the time, we miss out on really valuing His coming and really loving each other.

I love the line in Joy to the World that says “He comes to make His blessings flow…far as the curse is found, far as the curse is found, far aaaaas, far aaaaaaaaaas the curse is found.”

That line invites us to WEEP AND CLAP ALL AT THE SAME TIME! He really promises to do that? That’s why He came? That’s what His birth meant?! But I think many of us are out of touch with the joy available to us when we sing that song because we’re out of touch with knowing the sadness and ache of the curse.

Would you be willing to let yourself imagine what you’re waiting for? Areas in your life that feel disappointing, broken, incomplete, still longing. Is it your job that still feels unfulfilling despite promotions or career change? Is it your relationships that feel distant despite desire for more? Is it that deep wound that still feels so far from healing? What is it that makes you ache for more than this? What if allowing yourself in those spaces to cry out for a Rescuer would allow your heart to make room for His arrival? It opens you to longing that might not go away until He returns—no doubt—but at least then you’re alive and honest! And I believe then it accesses some of the deepest truest parts of your own need of a Savior.

Or if you don’t want to go there, would you be willing to imagine what the world is waiting for? What kids in the inner-city of Richmond are waiting for? What wealthy lonely friends might be waiting for? What kids at Home of Hope are waiting for? The more you deeply engage the real darkness and sadness in this world (and in your own life), I believe, the more you’ll see your insufficiency and the need of a Savior to really rescue and heal and make things right.

My dad and his 8 siblings lost their mother when he was in elementary school and his whole life he has felt a deep sadness for all of December (the month that has both her birthday and the anniversary of her death). You could see it coming at Thanksgiving. My dad is always a teddy bear wearing tough guy skin (he’s not fooling anybody…but he did have to raise 4 girls so he couldn’t always wear his tender emotions on his sleeve). But December was different than teddy bear. Without fail, right before or after Thanksgiving there was a tenderness, a sadness, a deep ache and sensitivity to everything for him. And it lasted through Christmas.

I used to only feel so sad about it for him. And I still feel sad. But I also feel a real thankfulness at his achy heart that happens to be during Advent season every year. He knows what it is to cry out and ache for more. He knows what it is to agree with something deep inside that says mommy’s shouldn’t die when their kids are babes. Yes he knows that Jesus came and that gives him hope and joy, but every December (in particular) he is in touch with the truth that we are still waiting people, needing  a Savior to come. Come Thou Long Expected Jesus!

My mom lost her mama this year (and she already lost her dad). She and I are in agreement that having someone live a relatively long life doesn’t mean that we don’t ache, mourn and cry out against death. We weren’t made for death! Apparently she isn’t decorating for Christmas this year and isn’t doing some of our typical celebratory pre-Christmas traditions. I don’t know if she’s named it this, but I have a real respect for her Advent-like attitude as she mourns and aches for a Savior to come and return and make all things new. To take away death once and for all. She’s waiting with hope and longing for a Savior who has promised to wipe away every tear. Far as the curse is found.

I’m thankful for both of their Advent examples, though perhaps you could see their behavior as merely putting a damper on the excitement of Christmas. Instead I see it as instrumental in helping me prepare for the real Christmas.

I believe that when Christians have underdeveloped Advent hearts they also have underdeveloped Christmas and Easter hearts. Yes we wait and ache and grieve as those with hope of a Savior who actually came! Who took the curse on himself and was raised from the dead whose power is at work in the world! Yes, yes, yes! But I find when I’m in tune with the sad realities of a broken world, it doesn’t make me less joyful or hopeful, it makes me more appreciative of a Savior and makes me long for His reign to come in fullness.

Come Thou Long Expected Jesus.

where fierce, unyielding compassion and wisdom meet

Sometimes when I face the needs of someone remarkably poor and desperate, whom I don't think I'm actually supposed to be helping, I choose to lower my eyes. To keep emotional distance. To come up with reasonable sounding excuses as to why I shouldn't get involved (physically or emotionally). I did it in the States when pulling up to a light and someone hungry, homeless or lonely tapped on my window. "They'll probably use the money they're asking for for beer." "I give to places that help men like him...this kind of mercy is actually toxic." And I do it here when someone desperate pleads at the gate. Or incessantly calls my number. "This is what he means in the book "when helping hurts." It isn't good for our long term relationship or their long term good for me to help with that."

That train of thinking isn't lacking knowledge necessarily--it even has wisdom, perhaps--but there can be a significant cost to our godly compassion when we remain exclusively in our heads. Being able to say "no" to someone without it creating angst, longing or compassion is a deadening, hardening reality for many. There are thousands who've grown cynical and cold to the needs of the poor, but mask their unbiblical indifference with wise-sounding arguments.

But wisdom should never need to diminish compassion. Never. With God these things always work congruently.

But then, of course, there are a lot of passionate but not weathered college students and recent college graduates who judge those who they feel have burned out on their former passions (me 10 years ago). They look down their noses at those who have burned out but still care deeply and others who have grown cynical and (seemingly) indifferent to the never-ending needs of those who are poor. "That'll never happen to me" they proudly assume. "Those guys must have just not really had it in them. They must not have cared as much as me."

There's a significant cost, too, for those zealous twentysomethings (and older!) who compassionately engage real poverty without knowing how and when to say no. There are thousands of stories of these (aging) young ones neglecting spouses and children, never resting, doing more than they were made to do; all, of course, in the name of compassion for those who are desperate and needy.

I think the Bible shows us that there's something wise and deeply good for us in these moments and stories that falls somewhere between lowering our eyes and exhaustive involvement.

With Jesus wisdom and compassion always meet.

Matthew 9: 35-38:
"Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, "The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field."

Within the first few months of living here we were inundated with ideas, desires and compelling needs. We had known about a lot of organizations both large and small in advance of moving to Rwanda, so it wasn't long upon moving here that we were feeling the pull of many needs.

I think as I've grown in my faith and asked for the Lord to break my heart for what breaks His, my compassion has grown. Which means I've grown to cry and ache in many ways where people (all) are lacking something that is part of our design: Family. Food. Shelter. Health. Love. Some affect me much more deeply--He's given me some deep aches that orient my calling and schedule, but I've grown aches and longings for things that don't pull my heart strings so naturally, too.

And this is what kept happening in our first months here. And what happens anywhere in the world. You encounter a need. You sense someone's lonely. Someone's marriage is struggling. Someone's kid isn't getting adequate education. Etc. It isn't a need you're necessarily supposed to/made to engage (but it might be). But you don't want to just be cold and indifferent. But you don't want to just say yes, either. So what do you do?

I think this passage suggests that in that moment we're meant to feel compassion but that compassion can lead us in a few ways. Sometimes in leads us to activity. Like the many times Jesus' heart when out to someone and He healed them. And the many times He calls you/me into activity to be his healing hands and feet that bring good news. But in this passage, Jesus' compassion was followed-up by reminding his disciples to pray. There's so much need. Pray.

What does that say to me? It says: be careful not to let your heart stop feeling compassion in order to make wise choices for yourself or others in these moments. Let your hearts move with the Lord's heart. But ask him to give you the wisdom of when his compassion is meant for you to cry out for more laborers who are made to engage with that person's story. And ask him to give you the wisdom and willingness to engage deeply and messily when it is something into which He's called you.

I'm so thankful for a Savior who has infinite wisdom, who knows most deeply what people need, and when he walked the earth who regularly engaged individuals and looked out upon crowds and his heart was always filled with compassion. May that be increasingly true for me and you.

I'm so thankful that He allowed me to read these words with the Spirit's help to apply them in our first few months here. I imagine I'll keep revisiting this passage throughout my life.

*I have a lot of respect for the men and women who have written articles and books around the topics of (and titles) Toxic Charity and When Helping Hurts. Their hearts are compassionate and wise and they've helped make a lot of progress in ensuring the kind of involvement activists engage in is actually deeply helpful. But sometimes I think readers have allowed some of their ideas to be extracted without their aching hearts of compassion. And there's a lot of danger in that space.

A year ago today

A year ago today my husband boarded a plane alone to Rwanda. He carried more baggage with him than a 3 day trip required. Not just the baggage filled with treasured goodies for expat friends, but the phantom weight of the emotional marital baggage we'd carried, wrestled through, fought, ached, cried and longed over. Baggage that had left us weary, humbled and broken. Baggage that by God's grace had largely been resolved and restored. Would this be the next step in not only resolving but redeeming it?

The summer before we married I spent living with beautiful girls not unlike my daughter Lucy but who happened to be born in Zimbabwe. And who happened to have been orphaned by AIDS and poverty. I arrived back in the States five weeks before we said "I do" and I came home with a newly planted but deeply rooted part of me. A part of my image bearing dignity had been catalyzed in those months away. 

As I deplaned and set to life in Richmond, VA, I thought that catalyzed seed was a fully formed plant. Oh, but it was embryonic at best, and I had no clue. It seems that God planned many years of nurturing and carefully cultivating that desire, but I thought it was ready for launch. And so obstinantely, passionately but with good longings, I demanded that it be launched immediately. And so it sort of was. But not without its years of tantrums, demands, self-centeredness, and judgment that belies a lack of grace and wisdom. Though plenty of other parts of us thrived and developed, the incongruence felt in our marriage regarding how terribly I dealt with my good longings and passion created many painful and difficult conversations, fights and years of marriage.

But through many "I'm sorry's" and "I was so wrongs" and a generally humbling seven years, God healed that part of me and us. And He maintained and sustained in both of us a part of the LORD's image created and purposed in us before our parents celebrated our births: a desire to show what God's kingdom is like by using our gifts among the least of these. 

Despite deep wounds inflicted, our desire and passion and dignity still had a pulse.

But in August 2012 when Hunter (somewhat accidentally) initiated a potential job in Rwanda at Karisimbi, we walked with trepidation, knowing the marital minefield surrounding us. We walked slowly and we walked together, neither of us rushing ahead. Both of us still very aware of the scars of past wounds. Both of us still feeling the desire and hope for what could be. 

We walked together until November 8th when he boarded the plane alone. And we both knew that this choice and decision was his to make. The decision, final interviews, in-person impressions--all of that was his responsibility, not mine. Yes he would yield to and obey God if it felt like that was how the LORD showed him to make the decision. But we knew it might not come down that way; God doesn't always make our choices matters of obedience. Making the decision felt like a weighty responsibility to him, but by God's grace he didn't feel pressured or like I wouldn't support him if he said no. And he was ready to make that decision. 

I wish I could say I only delighted in the reality that the decision rested with Hunter. I certainly had an appreciation for how that was Planned. But OH how my heart cried out over that weekend, wrestling with God, writhing for power I didn't have and control that wasn't mine. Until the LORD quieted my soul. But he did quiet my soul.

a picture of me from that weekend that captured my excitement and angst

As I drove to the Dulles airport to pick up my husband knowing very little about how the weekend and interviews had gone, God settled in my soul that my main desire and pursuit that day was toward my husband. He was not a means to an end. As he arrived I felt curious about how he felt, how God had moved in him. I didn't rush the conversation along wanting only to know "SO, DO YOU THINK WE'RE GOING TO DO THIS OR NOT?!" I wasn't manufacturing that patience, I actually felt different. I was less concerned about the outcome and more concerned about knowing him. That was one of the biggest miracles and blessings of that weekend and of this move.

God wasn't only good on August 6th 2012 when Hunter initiated the job or on November 8th when he left for Rwanda. He wasn't only good when he came home on November 11th still shockingly (to both of us) open to the job. He wasn't only good on November 23rd when we got the job offer or on December 15th when we accepted it (don't worry I won't write anniversary posts for all of those).

He was good on September 4, 2004 when we said "I do." He was good on the most humbling and difficult days of our journey to living here. He was good on the days I wept in Richmond because He had legitimately made me want to stay and live and serve there. 

He is always good. 

"Many, O LORD my God, are the wonders you have done. The things you have planned us no one can recount to you; were I to speak and tell of them, they would be too many to declare." Psalm 40: 5

"For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God--not by works, so that none can boast. For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God planned in advance for us to do." Ephesians 2: 8-10.


PS, In November 2011 (a year before the interviews), this was the email exchange between Hunter and me:

subject line "thinking about contacting Karisimbi again"
Hunter: you game? nothing imminent but I think I want to start the conversation that I thought about beginning a year ago.

my response:
"you just trying to get in bed with me?"

He was good that day too. 

these are a few of our favorite things...

Friends have been asking about how/what to send to us for our first Christmas away. Thanks for thinking of us!!

Our address is

Hunter and Adrianne Thompson

PO Box 7164 

Kigali, Rwanda

Christmas cards (which we would LOOOOOOVE) need 3 stamps to make it to us!

Here is a dream/wish list! thanks so much for loving on our family!!

• copies of your itinerary to come visit us!! SERIOUSLY!!!!
• ITunes Gift cards
• cereals
• honeynut cheerios
• regular cheerios
• cinnamon toast crunch
• cocoa puffs
• raisin bran
• life and cinnamon life
• chocolate chips
• light brown sugar
• 2 Cup liquid measuring cup
• goldfish
• wheat thins
• Jif peanut butter
• oreos
• brown sugar poptarts
• creamy parmesan risotto
• 0-3 month onesies (for the few weeks we'll be here before coming home to visit!)
• Les Miserables movie
• nalgene bottles (2)
• magnetic fridge picture frames
• "real" bacon bits
• parmesan cheese
• graham crackers
• oatmeal packets (not the fruity ones... we like cinnamon, banana bread, brown sugar)
• cracklin oat bran
• taco shells
• tostitos
• Isaiah wants a "real wand"??
• Lucy said "a new barbie" 

some exciting news!

for our non-Facebook and Instagram friends:

Thrilled and thankful to announce that Thompson baby #4 will arrive in mid-May!

And there-in lie my apologies and excuses for being slow to respond to gracious and thoughtful emails. I'm counting on the second trimester bringing with it a resurgence of energy and health!

I'm made for more than this

I have a new friend, Innocent, who lives at Home of Hope. He cannot speak, cannot walk without significant help, and cannot feed himself. It is true: he cannot do almost anything to care for his own basic needs, and yet each time I’m with him he wordlessly communicates clearly to me one of the most important theological truths in this life: “I’m made for more than this.”

It is actually quite stubborn and sometimes exhausting. I’m not sure if I was there every day that my appreciation would remain. But today I’m listening and learning, and today I’m thankful for his reminder to me.

Almost every time I’ve had the opportunity to take Innocent out of the high chair in which he sits for so much of his day, and take him for a walk, his face lights up. He’s radiant. It is as if he is screaming with joy, “YES! Get me out of there! Let me try! I’m made for more than this!”

But inevitably, even if he is exhausted from a long, difficult walk, when you go to put him back in his seat-- *a seat made for babies for meal time not for sitting for a significantly large percentage of a day-- inevitably you try to put him back in and he puts up an ENORMOUS fight. He kicks and twists, he refuses to cooperate to put his feet into the vacant holes. It is as if he is screaming with his contorting body, “I’M MADE FOR MORE THAN THIS!”

And then the waiting for mealtime begins. With so many to feed who cannot feed themselves, the wait can be quite long sitting in that chair, and inevitably when I visit I hear a loud thud, thud, thud, thud. And I look over and there’s Innocent rocking his seat back and forth and back and forth, dangerously almost tipping himself out of the chair each time. But it is as if he’s rhythmically yelling with any means he has “get me out of this chair! I’M MADE FOR MORE THAN THIS!”

His body might be wasting away and he may only be able to do a small fraction of the things bodies were made to do, but he has not forgotten his dignity. He has not forgotten what he was built for. He is physically crying out “How Long?” He has not given up and resigned himself to a broken body in a broken world. He somehow has the wisdom to fight it every day.

Which brings me to us. Is that true of you? Do you believe you were made for more than this or have you grown content with this place as your home or forgotten how to call out “how long?” Dietrich Bonhoeffer once wrote: “We Christians need not be ashamed of showing a little impatience, longing and discontent with an unnatural fate.” Sometimes I think we’ve become confused and convinced ourselves to pursue contentment at the expense of pursuing redeemed lives and our world being made right. But those don’t have to be mutually exclusive. I agree with Bonhoeffer, I want to have eyes that see my brokenness and the world’s brokenness not just with fatalistic resignation and a shallow version of contentment but with faith and longing and fight and hope for the future.

I don’t think Innocent’s literal railing against his fate bothers the LORD. In fact I believe it defends His glory and the dignity with which He made man. It communicates that the power that raised Jesus from the dead is at work in the world and who are we to just quit? And when we fight for justice and when we join the LORD in his pursuit of healing in the midst of our broken lives, broken marriages, broken families, broken bodies, broken intimacy—which includes saying “WE WERE MADE FOR MORE THAN THIS!”-- I think we have the privilege of joining the brilliant theologian Innocent, and the host of saints before him who with great faith and respect for God cried out, “How Long? I was made for more than this!”

It is true: we might wait until the LORD returns for these things to be made right. And like Innocent, rocking unstably in our broken bodies acknowledging and even drawing attention to our pain and longings can be quite vulnerable. I feel that. But that feels like an honest option of faith and hope in the midst of living in a broken world. We have an option to wait with hope and expectation, trusting his power, his love and His promises, and that looks VERY different from waiting as people resigned to remain in a broken world. Less comfortable to be sure. But I think closer to how we're meant to live as we wait. 

And let's not forget, friends, he was actually raised from the dead and His power is at work in the world. He could breathe new life into you, into your body, into your marriage, into the world. It is what he is actively doing and pursuing. 

What parts of you are broken and you long to have made whole? How might your day and life look different if you actually let yourself imagine what the LORD intends for His people and live into participating in announcing “the Kingdom is at hand!” Where have you been submitted to an unholy acceptance instead of crying out “how long?” What were you made to rail against? What were you made to fight for, alongside the One who cares even more deeply than you?

      

*I have tremendous respect and gratitude for the work the women at the orphanage do. I might be wrong, but I don’t believe they would feel criticized by my longings for more for the kids. And I don’t believe they would argue that with their limited capacities currently they are unable to create an environment in which Innocent can thrive. I think they would agree: he was made for much more than this.

who is the thief?

Someone we know is stealing from us (*not someone who works in our home). it is mostly little things: a huge bag full of avocados from our tree to sell at the market; cups of oil here and there when we're not around. adding to the price of things they buy for us to take a cut. a lot of little things adding up.

But I'm torn. 

who is the thief here?

In Isaiah 3: 14 the Bible says:

"The LORD enters into judgment against the elders and leaders of his people: "It is you who have ruined my vineyard; the plunder from the poor is in your houses."

I look around my house. I see our three computers. our ipad. 2 iphones. 2 kids "ipad"s. 2 DS. A trampoline. A pantry full of food filled to overflowing chaos. bins of extra clothes for the next season. closets full, full, full.

it all feels like evidence against me. and temptation and infuriating injustice to others. 

People are starving. Today people are selling their bodies and their children's bodies to make enough to feed their family. A woman felt it necessary to revoke her rights to one of her children somewhere (MANY PLACES!) in the world today because she doesn't have enough to feed them. 

where's the plunder? it is in MY house. the plunder of the poor is in MY house.

My husband, so tender and growing in wisdom. His response to finding out more about the story: "I found out _____ has been taking more things. avocados. oil. etc."

Hunter: (big sigh and achy voice). "oh ____ must be so desperate." (big sigh).

stealing isn't the answer and has to have consequences. but my hoarding and consumerism is somehow a connected issue in the equation. we belong to each other in the world. There are many injustices that happen in the world, for which we all (rightly!) demand justice. And as Christians, instead of vengeance we encourage one another to wait for the appointed time and the appointed judge (not us). 

Someone in the world--my neighbors here in Rwanda-- are waiting for me to receive justice for my hoarding and their starving. my plenty and their not enough.  

Back in the States my body ached and sometimes I limped along knowing that my house was full of treasures for here on earth, which moth and rust were destroying. and yet I kept them. and now I'm here, living the life some people wish they could because their passion draws them to it, and what are we doing? 

the plunder of the poor is still in my house.

mercy, LORD. that's the only way to you. I can't live closer to the poor and snuggle babies enough to clear my debt. we cannot use our vocation to do good enough to make our way to you. 

Not the labors of my hands can fulfill thy laws demands. Could my zeal no respite know. could my tears forever flow. all for sin could not atone, Thou must save and though alone.

I stand hand in hand, brothers with the bloody murderer asking for mercy from the LORD. I have sinned.

But He has saved me. Paid the penalty I deserved.

I want to live differently, not to earn God's favor or OUT OUT OUT damn spot wash my way from the guilt. but out of his generosity towards me (in every way) I now want to truly share. to truly consider others brothers and sisters, for whom I would give up anything. 

someone we know is stealing. and it is both of us. 

let him who is without sin cast the first stone.

Proverbs 30: 8
Keep falsehood and lies far from me;
    give me neither poverty nor riches,
    but give me only my daily bread.

(PS, you can pray for us. we do need to have some hard conversations with this person. our added sin of consumerism doesn't take away their guilt. but I do pray it softens us).