“Will you?” asks Jesus… (Text: Iona Community)
Will you come and follow me if I but call your name?
Will you go where you don’t know and never be the same?
Will you let my love be shown, will you let my name be known?
Will you let my life be grown in you and you in me?
Will you leave yourself behind if I but call your name?
Will you care for cruel and kind and never be the same?
Will you risk the hostile stare, should your life attract or scare?
Will you let me answer prayer in you and you in me?
Will you let the blinded see if I but call your name?
Will you set the prisoners free and never be the same?
Will you kiss the leper clean, and do such as this unseen?
And admit to what I mean in you and you in me?
Will you love the “you” you hide if I but call your name?
Will you quell the fear inside and never be the same?
Will you use the faith you’ve found to reshape the world around,
Through my sight and touch and sound in you and you in me?
(Response)
Christ, your summons echoes true when you but call my name;
Let me turn and follow you and never be the same.
In your company I’ll go where your love and footsteps show,
Thus I’ll move and live and grow in you and you in me.
Lately, this song has been on my heart a lot, so I decided I wanted to share it (made a simple Youtube video: “Will you (come and follow me)?”), and also to share a bit about why it’s such a signficant song to me.
I realize these days that when outsiders see my life, it is one of those relatively ordinary, not anything fancy or extravagant (except maybe the sparkly chandeliers my house came with), but definitely intentionally comfortably living within our means, and blessedly full of life, love and laughter, got-everything-except-the-white-picket-fence, kind of lives.
Happily married just past ten years, three children (two girls and then a boy — I was told not too long ago that research has shown this to be the “happiest” family formula, not that any of it is really in our control), and a golden retriever.
Basically, it’s like living a version of the American Dream up here in Canada, where it may be a bit more challenging to think about breaking into a higher wealth bracket, but it is also a place where I gladly happen to not have to worry about planning for things like unexpected healthcare costs.
I say this with a heart of gratitude, but also sometimes a bit of…not sure what…but just wondering if people looking in from the outside can ever realize that pursuing this was not ever my final goal — nor was it a “normal” expected life path for myself in any way. That there is more to this picture than what you see on the surface, whatever it is you may think of what you see on the surface..
I am sometimes just a little bit sad perhaps because I know most people can’t and won’t ever see what it took for Jesus to get me here, for Him to heal those deep deep wounds of my heart, to make it possible for me to get here, to make it even possible for me to even want to get here.
For a girl who used to wish nothing more than for her life to end as early as God would deem possible/acceptable, there was a lot of healing and reworking He had to do with my heart, and with my “desires.”
“Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart.” Psalm 37:4 (NIV)
He had to heal me just enough to hear His peace-infusing Voice speaking very personally to me, calling out specifically to me, that He had a purpose and a plan to bless and prosper me, even when I was at my rock bottom place for so seemingly long.
And then step-by-step, He had to restore hope to me, that I could dare to let Him reopen my heart and show me what dreams and desires He had very purposefully and intentionally put there from the beginning moment that He thought me up and knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I’m okay now that many, and perhaps most, people I meet may never know or care to know the story behind my life, BUT I also feel empowered by the power we each have to write, to share in a potentially public way, now that the internet has made it so easy to publish and share…about all that is going on inside and behind the scenes…the deeper story behind each of our stories…
Why do the struggles of my past still matter so much to me?
I’m realizing more and more, now that I am no longer defined by my past or honestly feel a need in my everyday life to even think that often upon my past anymore, that I don’t want to “forget” my past and completely move forward until I feel like l have done my duty in sharing about it, because only then does my life become (and hopefully one day remain, even as it hopefully continues to grow and move forward) a testimony of hope to people who may still, or may one day, feel like okay-ness and good-ness and full-ness of life are hopelessly out of reach for them.
Because depression, hopelessness, and inner pain and anxiety used to be the whole of my reality, and then the almost-whole of my reality…until step by step it became less and less and less… and then, one day, I am somehow where I am now in my calmer, fuller and good “normal” life.
When I first made the trip out here to Vancouver, B.C. from my hometown, Columbus, Ohio, to attend Regent College, a graduate school in Christian Studies, there was a song called “Will you?” that we often sang in Chapel that I fell in love with — it had a simple (and to me beautiful) melody, and the words were always like Jesus speaking directly to my heart, calling out to me, challenging me, and at the same time wooing me to His promises of a new life with each step I willingly relinquished to His lead.
There are times when I look at where I am at right now, and wonder if people who so graciously supported me back then both financially and with their prayers, would know that my years at Regent honestly sealed the deal for my adult life, that I would always cling to Jesus, listen for His Voice, and follow obediently and zealously in whichever direction He would lead me.
I guess because I am a mom of three, with my youngest only 2 1/2, living in Canada, I get a bit of a free pass at least in this season because it is now more widely recognized within the Church how sacred a calling full-time motherhood can be…
But I have my days when I wonder at the fact that I am not the missionary in a difficult mission field, or even currently employed in pastoral ministry, and whether “people” looking on my life would be able to understand the fervency and dedication that has always been and is in my heart to heed Jesus’ call with anything and everything I have…
The thing is, there was a time when all I thought I could manage was to throw myself into the mission field, because then I could at least make my life count and perhaps take a hit for the team (as I was fully okay at that time for my life to not necessarily be long)…
Specifically, the month before I began dating my husband, I had flown to L.A. to stay with one of my best friends who was (and still is) a pastor there, anxiously seeking to hear God’s leading and direction, feeling overwhelmed with life after a recent break-up I initiated because I felt like my emotional brokenness was just too much for me to figure out how to be functional in any sort of healthy relationship.
While there, I ordered a video on Mother Teresa’s life and ministry which I had seen once during my university years, and I watched it several times every day for about a week. I watched the simplicity and focus of her life, and the life of her followers, and felt like that was something I could happily do, that was something I could manage, and perhaps bless people in a tangible and practically guaranteed way before my turn to go to Heaven would come. Just leave all the pressures and anxieties that I felt about life here in North America, and relationships, and the task of thinking about and trying to want to think about building a future.
But instead of hearing God’s “yes!” or “amen!” I heard Him say to me something more like, “That definitely could work…but what if I want you to stay and get married and settle down and have a family? Would you still insist on going?” And so of course I had to say “no,” because it doesn’t really make sense to go if in going I’m actually saying “no” to God, for whom I would be going in the first place…
His response made me think about what He was suggesting, what He was preferring for me and my life, how if I was willing to say “yes” to that, that there was a whole lot of inner transformation I would need to submit to, versus if I could just leave all this behind and walk away to follow Mother Teresa…there was so much that I would need to walk through, in order for marriage and family to ever be possible and not just possible but reflective of any “good” that might have any hope of bringing Him “glory”…
For me, saying “yes” to the “normal” life I have today, with marriage and family, was the more difficult path, but also what God insisted would be the more fruitful path–and His preferred path–for my life.
After getting married, I did have the privilege of working full-time as a Youth Director at a Chinese Church for four years that felt like a perfect fit at least at the time for my background, personality, education, and skills (even my limited abilities to speak and understand Mandarin, in a city where most Chinese Churches were predominantly Cantonese-speaking)…
I thought that perhaps instead of missions, local Church ministry was the path that God had planned out for me, that this was how I would give my life back to Him, serving Him full-time building up the Church. Of course I was willing to say “yes!” to this path, but then again I felt like God was asking me, after the four years, was I willing to give it up? Was I willing to walk away, and trust Him once more, as He would ask and challenge me to continue growing more whole, learning how to be more content and full and find joy and peace focusing on building my marriage and a family, not having any obvious accomplishments or job titles from which to draw my significance and security, not having any “ministry” that made it easier for me to somehow justify “me” and my perceived “worth” to God and/or the world around.
I marvel these days at how saying “yes” to Jesus can lead down so many paths that are not necessarily what once were more the expected paths that would result from following Him…
I am rediscovering old passions and simple likes, reconnecting with good friends from before I moved out here, and also seeking to build stronger ties with my family. I am also learning lots, trying new things, and dreaming again of different possibilities for the future, for my husband, my 3 children, my family and myself …and really for all of my friends past and present too, as I realize that is just something I naturally do and like doing because sometimes I can end up playing some small role of encouraging or praying them into a next step.
And in the whole process, learning how to take care of me, because I know now that I am loved (by God perfectly, and by all the people in my life as beautifully perfectly as we are able to love one another in our imperfections and limitations as human beings), and that in order to live my life fully, I need to be emotionally and physically ready to live each day that comes my way. And that living my life fully really is God’s heart for my life, because that somehow is His design for my life bringing the most Glory to Him as my Creator as well….
I know that my journey is in no way near complete, and in many ways, I feel like mine is really just now beginning.
My hope is that you may begin to see (and enjoy) your journey as well, whatever it may look like, whatever path you may find yourself on…that when you say “yes” to Jesus, while it may not always be easy or straightforward or what you expect, it too will always be good! =)