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The Vision

11/01/02

The Vision

Permalink 06:23:00 am by cassie, Categories: Announcements [A]

I have visions that I cannot contain to myself. The are not as the men of the Bible had, but of a different kind. Visions that spur me toward acting my part, towards living up to my calling. Every day I wake up to a new day and for a moment, I am content with who I am ? the average, Christian, middle-class, stable-family-smiling teenage girl. Every day I wake to my image in the mirror and look with distaste at my imperfect skin and my visible physical and inner flaws. It is then that I have my visions as I gaze into the mirror. I write this not to mystify, but rather to make my purpose in sharing these things a bit clearer. I write this because I am tormented by these visions. I see myself destitute, waiting for hope from a Christlike-one. And I see another version of myself walk by me, as I sit on the ground, and the other version of me walks by with unseeing eyes, assuming my own lost cause. Whether my indifferent version of myself chooses to acknowledge it or not, I see myself destitute and lost. Moreover, while the Indifferent Me does not change, and Destitute Me does not change, one touch of a hand and one kind word, and one word of God's mercy and grace could change my destitute world. Whether I decide or not to notice, or care about the needs of my brothers and sisters in Christ is not indicative of whether or not the people are hurting. Apathy does no good to the world, and God has not called us to apathy in the first place. With that thought, I am a broken woman. My face in the mirror stops my breath and I am lost for a lone word to say in defense of myself, for I am so ashamed of what I see, of the dirtiness of even my already-redeemed soul.


Every day I wake to my closet full of clothes, and every day I am afraid of them. I am ashamed to have so many when I could live off two sets. The dirty-faced, downtrodden people of the world look at me reproachfully. "Cassie, where did you get such wealth, and why do you hoard it so?" I am so burdened all the time that I do not know what to do with myself. I do not know how to handle this weight that I hold, and I do not feel worthy of it. Why me, Lord? I know that little can be done through my stubborn self, but the burden never lifts and the weight never gives. I know, only, that this burden is of God, because why else would I care? I know myself. I know that I am as selfish as they come ? so why does the world pain me, and why does it entreat me to its service before God? I know, I know, I know. Yet, I do not know what to do with this weight, for I simply know that it is my calling to bear it. My own faithfulness to God comes in waves, I again must confess, but the burden is what ultimately shames me back to His arms and his forgiving love. My people, my God's people, are suffering for Him. They are being stuck with needles beneath their fingernails, and they are being clothed in rags and imprisoned. They are tortured until they become skeleton-men, with nothing left but a shred of life and their souls hanging feebly in the balance between earth and heaven, imploring their bodies to let them free from their misery, just to see God. The persecuted church - the persecuted people - is a reality that is not dependant on our level of respect for the facts.

I can't understand why God gives this to me, this emptiness than I sense can only be filled by my willful service towards His tormented children, because I know that if I do not fulfill the commands of this weight, that I will waste away. I am haunted, followed, and all too aware of this, and I can?t eat for the thought of it. There is a tangible quality to my awareness that I know is not of myself and that my apathetic and selfish soul could not have conjured up on its own. Yet I find myself wishing that perhaps God's guidance for my life would change, and that instead, suddenly, He'll give me a simple, uncomplicated desire to be a sweet wife of a pastor in the United States. I know many nice men who want to be in the pastorate. I could easily find someone, date, and marry, and live a life serving God as a pastor's wife, or in simple service as a mother, or a businesswoman, or a florist ? anything but this heavy work of which I feel so unworthy. But if I did not go where God called me, my weight would not lift. I can tell it would not. The Spirit tells me that I am deceived if I think that I could get out from beneath this heaviness so easily, and with so little a struggle.

I have a passion for souls, yes. I have a passion to see souls saved, yes, but I have a burden for those who are already God's people and who are suffering. I see their sorrows and I feel their poverty and their grief and their singular desire to be Christlike-ones. I know that they do not sit around in their comfortable recliners and debate about the value/non-value of Christian Contemporary music as opposed to hymns. Their children are shot while singing, and their blood spatters upon the hand-copied contraband song-pages that had been lovingly smuggled to them by brothers and sisters of the faith. I know that many may never have the knowledge to discern whether baptism by immersion is the correct way; they only baptize in sincerity of spirit, knowing that they may die for being in that river and pledging themselves publicly to the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Most have never and will never have impressive discussions on the Biblical amount of money to tithe to the church ? they tithe with their lives. And the persecuted church does not call a church meeting to discuss the need or non-need of new carpets for their underground church. The people are there, they are here, in this world, on this earth, and they are not so far away as we may like to think. They live across the world, but is the world so large and God so small that we could so easily write them off? Why do we ignore them? Why do we not spend a church service without makeup, without food, without proper clothing? Why do we not spend a meeting together of the saints kneeling on our knees and drinking in the Word with the eagerness that God desires from us? The people are true, they are real. The martyrs did not die in the sixteenth century only, they die now as well. The martyrs of today do not often get the luxury of being shot and taken to a hospital to be cared for, or even to die quickly. The martyrs are beaten, bloodied, and distasteful to look at with their black-and-blue bodies, and we do not like to believe they exist. Because that is truly what becomes of our apathy. We simply do not want to believe the truth of it all. But the babies cry because their pastor-daddies have bled to death before their eyes, and they weep on the rough caskets and aren't afraid, at four years old, to say that their daddy is now in heaven, knowing that days from now, weeks from now, years from now, they will die the same martyr's death that their daddies claimed. Second Corinthians talks about "always bearing about in the body the dying of our Lord Jesus Christ, that the life also in Him might be made manifest in our body." Our body, our church, is forgetting the sufferings and dying of Christ, and that is why we stray. Our forgetfulness gives reason for our churches to slide. Our forgetfulness shines no light and brings no sinners to ask, "Who is this God you serve?" God so often reminded the Jews of things. He placed ordinances, restrictions, and rules on them so that they would not forget. Bearing is not simply thoughts; it is a lifestyle, a mindset, that all is given to Christ for the cause of the cross. It is a remembrance and honor for the gruesome pain that Christ endured. These people who we forget about so often are bearing about in their body the dying of the Lord Jesus Christ to the extreme. They bear it about and expect to die for the cause of Christ. Movies cannot do their sufferings justice. In real life, the martyrs die to the sound of angry mobs, of their wives crying, and of their husbands turning them over to die because they bear the dying of Christ in their body. If only we, our sodden and tired churches in America, could bear that as well. If only we could constantly see the image of the dying Christ and His unwavering passion for us through it all in the fullest sense, I have little doubt that we would be so changed as to think of nothing else.

The fact remains. God's people suffer, AND WE IGNORE. We turn the other cheek. We send a check to our missionaries once a month, if we have not yet used the money on a new wind chime for the church door. Lord, why are there curtains on my windows? Why does my room have heat and blankets to keep my comfortable when I want to suffer with these people? I want to starve myself and see how it feels to have an empty belly, and to feel the torment so that I might empathize with my brothers and sisters whom I love with a love of which I do not understand myself to be capable. I want to put my hand into the flames to feel a taste of the fire that God's people have felt touch their skin and consume their children. And they cried, "Glory be to God, my Savior!" I want to be beaten for the Lord and know that He alone is my stead and my rock and that all else fails. I want to know more vividly that Christ is all that I need. Why do I have so much, when it would be better to be with nothing but a yearning for You, Father? Why am I so blessed with such a double-sided curse as being rich, relative to Your people who are so much more in love with You than I am? These people clutch their Bibles to their chests and refuse to spit on them, despite cold steel barrels pointed at them. I have two Bibles to choose from to read, a large and a small, and I forget to read them all too often. Have we suffered so little that we forget about God? We ignore, I ignore. Everything that I have is of God, and yet I am afraid to grip it too tightly, because I know that everything I have IS of God, and He has free reign to take it all from me at any moment He should choose.


I am thankful for my life, yet I cannot forget the faces of the dying. They haunt me day and night. They haunt me when I eat. (Why have you stuffed yourself, Cassie, when we starve?) They implore me when I sleep. (A bed?). They weep when I hold my baby brother. (He would not live here, you know.) They despise my affluent ignorance towards them and I find that I cannot tear my eyes away from their faces, smiling with the joy of Jesus despite all they carry on their shoulders. They chip away at the apathy that hides my soul, until all I can do is beg of God to allow me to Go To Them. I am terrified of my burden, but I know that there is only one way to alleviate it. My personal preferences and comforts mean nothing. My possessions mean nothing. My body means nothing. My life means nothing. Nothing except for the service of Christ. I know that I will never lose this weight. It will never leave me. I may hide it. I may smother it. But God does not change, and His people will still suffer on while I may ignore them and stifle their cries, trying to hold back my gagging stomach. God's people will suffer on with or without me, and I fear that I will not be able to live with myself if I do not follow the path which my burden instructs. And I know, I know, that even as I pray that I will act on this burden and follow the path that God may lay out - that even should I follow that path, even should I someday serve these valiantly fighting people - that my burden for their suffering, in the end, can only grow heavier.

12 comments

Comment from: Pham [Visitor]
PhamGinosko sou, Ioannes Pham, emou adelphos este. wah u said to me earlier tday cassie.
11/01/02 @ 20:51
Comment from: jason [Visitor]
jasonhey cassie well its been a while since we have heard from eachother i dont know if ya remember me or not but any how i was wondering if ya would like to once again if your not to busy these days being pen pals once again i know time is not the easiest thing to make with a job and college and all but if ya have a little time email me k at cadillaccowboy01@yahoo.com YOURS in christ jason
11/03/02 @ 16:34
Comment from: Jen [Visitor]
JenCassie, your soul is beautiful.
11/05/02 @ 19:35
Comment from: Heidi [Visitor]
Heidicass you found your pen!
11/06/02 @ 12:04
Comment from: Cass [Visitor]
CassYay for found pens! that one was a'waitin to be written for, like, three months...
11/06/02 @ 15:40
Comment from: Heidi [Visitor]
HeidiI'm glad u wrote it. it feels SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Good when it comes out!!!!!!!!!!!!!1
11/07/02 @ 17:41
Comment from: Mike [Visitor]
MikePuts it all into perspective. I wouldn't consider myself materalistic. But what I worry about...there aren't soliders at my door, waiting to take my Bible. God bless you, Cassie. Keep telling 'em.
11/12/02 @ 22:02
Comment from: brian [Visitor]
brianrandom thought -- whenever I hear this song I think of cassie. it just make sme think of her for some reason. listen to it here (now featuring the correct thread! w00t!)
11/27/02 @ 14:59
Comment from: Cassie [Visitor]
CassieHee! I'm speechless, Brian, speechless.
11/27/02 @ 17:52
Comment from: brian [Visitor]
brianso, do you like it, or dislike it? i simply must know. ;-P
11/27/02 @ 18:06
Comment from: Cassie [Visitor]
CassieI definitely like the song itself. And it certainly sounds like me, talking about the ever-elusive guy-who-never-really-materializes. :P But yes, good song. Peppy and fun.
11/28/02 @ 19:09
Comment from: brian [Visitor]
briani've always liked "one-eighty" (now "Flight 90210" thanks to copyright problems). they're a great ska/swing band. gotta love that stuff.
11/29/02 @ 07:24
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I like to multi-task: wife, writer, nurse, Christian, ne'er do well. I do all with equal gusto.

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