Sailor Moon: fighting through fears and tears

I've been feeling pretty nostalgic lately.  Luckily, or maybe unluckily, Hulu has helped me indulge in this nostalgia by having nearly every television show I loved as a child available for streaming.  I mean they have all of the TGIF shows!!!!

A week or two ago, my sister Ashley texted my cousins, Mercy and Merlin, and myself to let us know that Sailor Moon was on Hulu.  All of us were very excited because Sailor Moon was THE thing for the four of us as kids.  We spent hours pretending to be the Sailor Scouts as kids.

Mercy, as a kid wanted to be a doctor and had somewhat of a bob so she was Sailor Mercury.  Ashley, was the most athletic of us and could do a kickass high ponytail so she was Sailor Jupiter. Merlin was Sailor Mars, for really no other reason than she had really beautiful long black hair and looked particularly good in red.  I, of course, was Sailor Moon, because I was the oldest and could make myself the title character. Also, I had such a crush on Tuxedo Moon!  We had no Sailor Venus.

(Please note that the pictures are just to show off my beautiful family, and highlight why we chose each person for their role, obviously we were not playing Sailor Moon well into our teens and early 20s!) 

As a kid, I had this image of Sailor Moon as this brave epitome of girl power who "fought evil by moonlight, won love by daylight, and never ran from a real fight!" However, as I've been re-watching the show, I've realized how off my perception of her was.  She was constantly afraid and crying about how dangerous the enemy was.  She usually had to be dragged/shamed into battle by her talking cat, Luna, and the other Sailor Scouts, particularly Sailor Mars -- who always ran head first into battle.  And yet, somehow, she's the hero of the show!!! (Side note, Merlin is Sailor Mars- today she lives in Medellin, Columbia, which Time Magazine once named the most dangerous city in the world, as a full time missionary.  She is running head first into battle!)

The more episodes I've re-watched, the more I've realized how similar I am to Sailor Moon.  I say that I want to do God's will- whatever that may be.  I want to face the enemy, win the battle, be the hero, live an extraordinary life! -- but I am scared.  And fulfilling God's calling comes with a cost. There will be battle wounds. 

Over the years, I have faced many storms - my illness, my parents' illnesses, ministry hurts and obstacles, employment woes, and a failed marriage.  Each situation, which I know God allowed into my life, has caused me to think, if I continue to walk in God's will, what painful situation will I have to face next?  Life is so much easier if I just stay in the safe places, and never fight. I could have a comfortable life, free of most of that pain. Or at least with less pain, and less pain is good, right? Many times I've just wanted to sit down and cry -- right in the middle of the battlefield.

And to be honest, sometimes I have.  But like Sailor Moon, I didn't stay down.  Why? Because of my Sailor Scouts and Luna!  God has graciously surrounded me with amazing parents, wonderful sisters and brothers-in-law, cousins, friends, and pastors who -- sometimes with words of encouragement, and other times with a swift kick in the pants -- call me to get up and fight!  Moreover, the Holy Spirit is always counseling, advising, and directing -- "Asha get up, keep moving, press on, this battle belongs to the Lord."  And suddenly a faith swells up.  A confidence that my God is with me.  A resoluteness that the victory is mine. 

Life can be overwhelming.  As my pastor reminded me this week, we have a real enemy who will use the situations of our life to try and take us out.  At the same time, we have a real mission -- to win souls for Christ.  The enemy will throw anything he can in our way to keep us from that goal, but like David in 1 Samuel 30, we need to encourage ourselves in the Lord.  We must remember that "God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, and of love and of a sound mind!"  Fulfilling God's will for our lives means that we can't just cower in fear, or hide in comfort.  We must get up, dust ourselves off, and press on.  Even when life's storms hit us like a hurricane, or like a cascading barrage of waves in the middle of the ocean, we still have to move forward.  We need to fight through the fears and tears.  Doing anything less, means living a second best life that never really accomplishes anything.  We are called to more.

If you are having trouble coming back from the hardships of life, I would encourage you to get yourself some Sailor Scouts.  We are not called to walk this world alone.  The Bible repeatedly tells believers to encourage each other -- 1 Thessalonians 4:16-18, 1 Thessalonians 5:11, Hebrews 10:24-25, Hebrews 3:13.  So find people who will encourage you to get back up!

Finally, I leave you with an oldie but a goodie, Twila Paris's The Warrior Is A Child.  It has brought me years of encouragement and boldness.  I pray it does the same for you.

           

Intentional Love, Intrinsic Value

I love to sing! And outside of early 2000s pop, my favorite type of music to belt out is worship music.  No one knows this better than the poor guy who shares a wall with me at work, (sorry Mitch!), because apparently I randomly, and somewhat unconsciously break into song.  One of the songs currently in the "Asha do you realize you're singing out loud?" playlist is "Reckless Love" by Cory Asbury.  

It is a really great song based on the parable of the lost sheep. It's about how God's love for us is so deep that He never gives up on us. In stating his motivation for the song, Mr. Asbury has said: 

When I used the phrase, 'the reckless love of God,' when we say it, we're not saying that God Himself is reckless, He's not crazy. We are, however, saying that the way He loves, is in many regards, quite so. But what I mean is this: He's utterly unconcerned with the consequences of His own actions with regard to His own safety, comfort and well-being. ... In fact, all things considered, it’s quite childlike, and might I even suggest, sometimes downright ridiculous. His love bankrupted heaven for you. His love doesn’t consider Himself first... He doesn't wonder what He'll gain or lose by putting Himself on the line, He simply puts Himself out there on the off-chance that you and I might look back at Him and give Him that love in return. His love leaves the ninety nine to find the one every time and to many practical adults that's a foolish concept. Well, what if He loses the ninety nine in finding the one, right? What if, finding that one lost sheep is and always will be supremely important?

From a human perspective Mr. Asbury is absolutely right.  The math does not add up, not just with the 99 sheep compared to the one, but even more so for Jesus, the sinless Son of God who steps down from Heaven, to go chasing after a sinful and wretched man.  It does indeed seem reckless, and embody a complete lack of self concern or preservation.  And yet when we consider this description we are making a value judgment.  We have a assigned a value to that sheep, and determined it cannot possibly be "worth" leaving 99 or risking the shepherd's safety.

In finance there is a term known as market value.  It is defined as " the price an asset would fetch in the marketplace."  Essentially this means that something's worth is determined by what the general public is willing to pay for it.  Now, of course we understand that sometimes an individual person  might be willing to pay more for an item than the market value.  For example, if it has some sort of sentimental value.  And I think this is how we sometimes view God's love.  God was so overcome with his emotional attachment to us, that because of his reckless love, He was willing to pay a price vastly higher than we were worth.  And so, He sent Jesus to die on the cross for our sins so that we would not be lost to Him.  

But what if God's decision to send Jesus to die on Calvary for us wasn't an act of reckless love but rather deeply intentional love.  In Hebrews 12:2 it says that Jesus "for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God." To me, this sounds like Jesus did the math.  It was not that he did not consider the consequences of His actions, but rather made a calculated decision that enduring the cross, the pain and the shame that accompanied it, was worth it to redeem His people.  

Why? Because God, as our creator, knows our intrinsic value.  This is our actual value and true worth.  It does not change because of what has happened to us, or what we have done.  It does not shift with the marketplace's valuation of us.  Asha just graduated top of her class, her stock just went up.  Oh, her marriage just fell apart, 100 points down.  She just won a case, 30 points up.  She just gained 10 lbs, 20 points down.  This valuation is set by the omnipotent God who knows the true value of everything.  Jesus determined that every living soul of his creation, humanity, no matter how fallen was worth enduring the pain and the shame of the cross so that they might be redeemed. 

So, here’s what I know: our perception of our value often affects our behavior.  If we feel we are worth less (less than the price that was paid for us) then we act less. We believe our purpose is less. And we work to achieve less.  If on the other hand, we believe that God sees our value as worth the death of His son just to save us, then how great is the purpose for which he created us?! And how hard should we strive to achieve and live up to that purpose!?!

Hebrews 12:1 says that there is a race that is "marked out for us."  He created us having set out a particular course, a specific purpose, and a definitive calling.  He left the 99 and came after us, not seeking a quid pro quo of what He could gain from His sacrifice, but rather with a knowledge of what we are capable of achieving for His kingdom if we were no longer lost, but found.  So let's live like it! Let's"throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us."

Donna Barclay and the Rage of Loss

          After a four year unintentional hiatus, apparently I am back. I know all five of you that read my two posts back in 2014 missed me dearly.  Now lets jump in!

     This year my sister got me the best birthday gift ever!!!-- a subscription to the complete library of Adventures in Odyssey, a Christian children's radio series.  The series centers on the fictional town of Odyssey, and in particular, an ice-cream emporium named Whit's end, and its owner, the ever wise John Avery Whittaker (but you can call him Whit!).

    In one of the earlier episodes, Donna Barclay, a regular at Whit's End, deals with her best friend Karen's cancer diagnosis and eventual death.  It is a heart-wrenching episode where a middle-schooler not only faces the fact that she is going to die, but helps her family and friends deal with it, all the while holding onto her faith in God's plan for her life.

     After this experience Donna seems to move on with her life and no further reference to Karen is really made. That is until nearly a year later (in radio time) when a school event, which Karen participated in before dying, triggers Donna.  She explodes in bursts of anger toward her friends, family, and even Whit.  Eventually, Whit gets Donna to admit that she is angry at Karen for dying, at God for letting Karen die, and at herself for having those feelings in the first place. He helps her deal with that anger and finally come to terms with Karen's death

   While listening, tears streamed down my face as I realized that I was Donna. A little over a year ago I found out that my marriage, after just three months of living together was over, the person I married turned out to be a complete fraud. Everything he said about himself was a lie, from his education to his moral values, even his previous marital status was questionable. Essentially, he was living a life not compatible with my Christian values or being married generally, and had never intended to stay married past the date when he got his permanent green card.

    Now those who know me, know that I am not a person unaccompanied by pain and loss. I  have watched my mom battle cancer for the last nine years, and have went through numerous other ministry trials and personal losses.  But this situation rocked me in a way I never expected.  It turned my worldview upside down.  I had waited on God for a long time to get married.  All of my prayers for a spouse had been that God would bring me a ministry partner.  I had an arranged marriage in India (without my older sister or best friend present) fully trusting that God would honor my commitment to Him, my parents, and the culture that He set me in.

    In one moment, I saw the death of everything I had ever truly cared about---  my ministry, my place in my community, the reputation I had carefully guarded and maintained for thirty plus years. Gone was the dream of having a  family like my parents had built--with children and a marriage spanning over four decades. It was all just gone, like the work of some evil magician. Poof!

     So what did I do? I pushed down all that pain and despair, put on my lawyer hat and got to the business of extricating myself from this situation by getting an annulment. I got an amazing lawyer, and  concentrated on things like pleadings, discovery requests, legal research, and motions. I did my best to pretend that life was still normal-- that I could have a heartfelt discussions with my pastors and  continue with my normal church activities and no one would look at me like I was any different.

    But the emotions and thoughts I wasn't dealing with were not gone. They  would bubble to the surface when I had to face Malayalees at PCNAK and friend's weddings- where I felt like a social pariah.  They burst forth in a sense of worthlessness when people in my church told me that they didn't think I should be serving in the roles I had been serving in because of my situation. What good is a Christian who can't serve God in His house?

    Eventually, I realized that I needed to deal with what was causing those bursts of emotions.  Early on, my pastor had warned me not to let a root of bitterness take hold of my heart.  But I had let that bitterness take root, not towards the human that had caused me this pain, but the God that had allowed it.  I was angry at Him.  I was angry at Him for letting this happen to me even though I had done nothing wrong. I was angry at Him for placing me in a ethnic and cultural community where my place in it would be lost because this happened to me.  I was angry at Him for giving me all of this talent and desire to use it for His glory and taking away my ability to do so.  I was angry at Him for letting my life bring shame on my parents, when I had spent a lifetime ensuring that I never behaved in a way that would do so.  I was angry at Him, because I wanted a marriage like my parents had, and now all I had to offer someone was the leftovers of what someone else had fraudulently stolen from me.

     A lot of my anger was based on the fact that I had exalted the idea and ideal of  marriage.  God hates divorce so there could never be a situation where it was the only possible result. A person using marriage as a means to an end was unthinkable.  To me marriage was the means and the end.  My marriage falling apart when I had done nothing wrong was as anathema as an 11 year old child dying of cancer.  It just shouldn't happen.  It was outside of the parade of evils that my  mind could've ever come up.  Unlike Job, it was not a fate that I had feared. I did not know to fear it.  I knew that marriages, especially early on, were delicate and that I needed to be careful not to behave in a way that could ruin mine.  But to have it fail because the person you married lied about not only every aspect of themselves, but their very intention for getting married was just unfathomable. It was strange and bizarre.

     And yet, as my dad loving told me (repeatedly because I needed to hear it more than once)  the Apostle Peter tells us in 1 Peter 4:12 that we should not surprised by the strange things that happen to us, they are a part of the testing of our faith.  And any test that God allows is ultimately for our good.  To be honest, while I knew this to be true in my head, to my heart it was an infuriating concept.  The fact that the painful, strange, bizarre things that happen to us are purposeful tests seems cruel.  So how do move past the anger and hurt that we feel because the God who says He loves us has allowed such a situation in our life?
   
      Firstly, we need to face that anger head on and not avoid the fact that we are feeling angry. Burying our head in the sand when it comes to our anger towards God, because we feel guilty for being angry at Him, does not help us resolve said anger.   And as crazy as it sounds,  God understands and sympathizes with our anger at Him and confusion at the situations that He allows.  "For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin." (Heb 4:15).  Our God empathizes with our pain, our sorrow, and even our anger.

     Secondly, to work through the anger brought on by extreme loss, we need to submit to God's sovereign will for our lives in a deliberate manner on a daily basis.  The pain of this level of loss will not go away in a single day, so we need to choose to accept God's will for us every time that anger bubbles up within us.  Romans 8:28 says "And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose."  Moving past our anger requires us to trust that God wants good for us, and that He will work in every situation to make it for our good.

     It takes real work to deal with our loss, without losing ourselves or our faith.  All of that pain and anger we feel can only be healed by God.  And God can only do so when we submit to His sovereign will, and trust that if He allows it, He will use it for our good.  It's been nearly a year an a half since the most painful day of my life, my annulment has been granted by the courts, but I am not at the "other side" of this situation yet.  I don't know what the good is yet, but I feel His presence with me.  I see Him using me in ways that He hasn't before.  The fear of how people will see me now is still there. The fear of not knowing what my future holds, or that it won't be what I always thought it was supposed to be is still there. But at the same there is a peace, and a trust that whatever it is, if He's allowing it, then it will be for my good.  Maybe that itself is the good.

The Pit

     Does God ever speak to you in weird or unusual ways? I feel like I often clearly hear His voice in what most people would consider distinctly nonspiritual situations. For example, I was recently watching an old episode of Parks & Recreation and Andy Dwyer, a lovable man-child musician, who had broken his legs when he drunkenly stumbled into a giant pit in the vacant lot next to his house, was singing a song he wrote about the pit incident. Here are the very literal lyrics to the aptly named song, The Pit:

The Pit.

I was in The Pit.

You were in The Pit.

We all were in The Pit.

Oh, The Pit. 

I fell in The Pit.

You fell in The Pit.

We all fell in The Pit.

Sometimes life's gonna get you down,

Hit the ground running, take a look around,

You think you found love, but you're standing in The Pit.

      Anyway, as I was watching, and cracking up about Andy's incredibly intense performance of the song, I felt God say to me, "You know, that song's about you" WHAT? "You were stumbling around, drunk on the things of this world, searching for love and fulfillment in all the wrong place, never realizing you were standing in a giant pit." WOAH. Andy Dwyer has some serious theological chops. We all WERE in the Pit. 

     And you know what's crazy, at least when Andy fell in, he knew it, but most of us are standing in it with no knowledge that we are in trouble. And even if we do realize it, we are in absolutely no position to do anything about it. Lucky for us, there's a God who's able and willing to reach down and pull us out!

     How amazing is it that God, the creator of the universe, loved us enough to send his son to save us from that pit. How incredible is that when we, in our stupidity, walked away from Him and directly into a chasm of sin, He felt compelled to outstretch his arm, grab us, and set us on solid ground. In the words of the psalmist "He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand." (Ps. 40:2). He didn't have to, he could've left us there, justified, since it was our own fault for falling in. But he didn't. He had mercy on us, and set us free. In the words of Paul, "But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." (Rom 5:8) How awesome is that?! 

     I hope you hear God speak to you in weird ways too. I think He's always trying to reveal himself to us in all sorts of ways. Maybe we just need to be more open to hearing his voice?

     As a parting gift, enjoy Mouse Rat (Andy's band) singing The Pit:

the Pit

Welcome...

Hello World! To be honest I never pictured myself as the kind of person who blogs. To me, it’s a little self-indulgent to think other people actually want to hear what you (I) have to say. But, at the same time, I’m really opinionated, and have a lot to say on a variety of topics, and apparently just saying them out loud to an empty room is a sign of psychosis. Before you ask, yes I have considered forcing my friends to sit in a room and listen to me, whilst I block all the exists, but I’m pretty sure that’s kidnapping, and as an attorney I don’t think it’s worth losing my law license. So instead, I will blog. That way the victims of my mini-rants will be self-selected!

I’ll write about things that interest me, like politics, law, history, television (I’m a bit of a vidiot), books, food (oh how I love food, not just eating it, which let’s be honest I more than enjoy, but also cooking and baking!), and music (singing and writing music are some of my favorite pastimes, not sure I’m any good at either one, but they make me happy); and things I love, like my family and friends, and Jesus. I LOVE Jesus. Him and his word are the rose-colored glasses through which I see the world. So often, when I watch TV, or read a book or even a case, I feel like God is teaching me something about himself and his world. He seems to do it in a way that’s specifically designed for the way my mind works. Once in a while I hope to share those little revelations with all of you (or none of you, depending on if anyone is reading this or not).

Final note: As those of you who actually know me can attest, my parents did not give me as unfortunate of a name as “Arrogant.” I knew I didn’t want to use my actual name for the blog (because that would be totally boring), so I came up with the name the same way "Childish Gambino" came up with his, by using an awesome Wu Tang Clan name generator! But, while initially I was playing around, the truth is, Arrogant Pupil is a surprisingly apt name for me. The “Pupil” part I’m quite proud of. I LOVE to learn. I love information! I actually enjoyed being in school and taking tests to show (my teacher) and realize (for myself) how much I had learned. As one friend put it, I’m like the Superman villain Brainiac, except that I don’t feel the need to destroy things after I have learned all about them. Sadly though, I am also embarrassingly arrogant. I’m the kind of person who is smart, knows it, and is regularly being reinforced in that belief by others. I am used to considering myself one of the smartest people in a room. But, thankfully, the more I learn, the more time I spend with my Savior, the more I have come to realize how little I know, how deeply I want to learn more, and how awesome it would be to share whatever I learn with someone else. So hopefully, through this blog, and my ever-growing relationship with God, I can be transformed from an Arrogant Pupil into a Humble Teacher.