His heritage: my heritage

While I was obsessing over how to focus this post, I decided to combine two totally different ideas that really aren't that different. (At least, they aren't after you spend some time obsessing over them.) I was thinking about writing about my new heritage in Christ, which would mean writing a post and titling it "Heritage." But I was also thinking about writing a post about how when stuff bubbles to the surface in my life, God keeps telling me, "I want it." So, I thought it would be cute to combine those two ideas and title the post "I want your heritage," but that would sound really creepy. So, then I thought I could title it "I want His heritage," but the truth is that I already have it... hence the title. Was that TMI? Sorry.

That's kind of the idea.

"I will abide in Your tabernacle forever; I will trust in the shelter of Your wings. Selah. For You, O God, have heard my vows; You have given me the heritage of those who fear Your name." (Psalm 61:4-5)

Today is St. Patrick's Day. I don't know much about this holiday other than you have to wear green or you could get pinched. So, I wore green. While I was out and about today, I noticed that many other people wore green, too. Honestly, there wasn't a big fuss about the holiday at work, so that part wasn't any fun. I don't drink alcohol, so no green beer or wild partying for me. I'm a Baylor graduate, so I have a decent amount of green in my wardrobe already. So, my wearing green today under threat of being pinched (which turned out to be a non-threat, as it does almost every year) turned out to be pretty uneventful. Ah, well. Maybe you have to be a kid to fully enjoy it.

But this particular holiday is also an Irish-heritage awareness day of sorts. Yes, it's true that a bunch of us with Irish blood come out of the woodwork and suddenly appreciate our Irish heritage. Sorry, but this is the USA. If you have any type of non-Anglo blood flowing through your veins at all, it will totally dominate your heritage awareness. I'm half-Mexican, so my Mexicanness always ends up trumping any other cultural DNA that I have. And if I ever have kids someday, and if their father is, say, a 100% Anglo, non-Hispanic male, our children will more than likely identify their cultural heritage as 1/4-Mexican or 1/4-Hispanic. That's just the way the world works around here, honest.

But an interesting thing happened in my case. I disowned myself from my family, so technically I don't have their heritage anymore. So, instead of changing my name, one thing I did is decide which part of my DNA to emphasize when I identify my cultural heritage.

In my gene pool, I have white-Anglo-Saxon, Irish, and Scotch-Irish from one parent, and I have white-Mexican (which, as I understand it, is a mixture of European and Mexican Indian) from another parent. In addition, there was also some debate over whether or not we had French or Portuguese in our blood, but I think it was ultimately decided that the mystery ethnicity was Spanish. I think there was also some discussion as to whether or not we had some German heritage, but I personally don't buy that theory. Honestly, I think we were too wild to be German. So, the short answer to "What nationality or ethnicity are you?" has always been "half-Mexican" (which would offend my birth mother) or "half-Hispanic" (which would offend a half-Nicaraguan coworker that I used to have).

So, for the sake of re-identifying myself after my family breakup, and for the sake of my sanity, I now call myself Scotch-Irish-Hispanic. To me, that makes the most sense. Yes, my complexion is half-ruddy, half-olive. Yes, I am a laidback fireball. Of course that makes sense.

But that's just my physical heritage. My spiritual heritage is in a completely different realm.

"A father of the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in His holy habitation. God sets the solitary in families; He brings out those who are bound into prosperity; but the rebellious dwell in a dry land." (Psalm 68:5-6)

"He only is my rock and my salvation; He is my defense; I shall not be moved. In God is my salvation and my glory; the rock of my strength, and my refuge, is in God. Trust in Him at all times, you people; pour out your heart before Him; God is a refuge for us. Selah." (Psalm 62:6-8)

I sing in the choir at a megachurch. Our church is so big that we usually have about 5 services every weekend, so when our choir sings, we sing live at every service. I don't have family members in the congregation who show up to watch me sing, but since God is my Father, He shows up. He's extremely cool about it, too. He's sort of like a backstage Mom, and He likes to coach me pretty specifically. And He's never mean or overly obsessive. I like that about Him.

For the Christmas services at our church, our choir practiced for hours and hours and hours and hours and hours beforehand to prepare. (I think maybe we had 6 services that weekend?) So, that Saturday before Christmas, it was go-time. I remember getting ready for church (where our choir would sing all that cool stuff that we had practiced), and God suddenly said in a serious tone of voice, "Don't hold anything back. What are you saving it for?" Oh. No problem. I don't hear that serious tone from Him very often, so it caught my attention.

So, after we sang our special music during the first Saturday service, we were told that the worship-set list was too long, so they cut our first song from the remaining Saturday services. Hmm. I was really glad I didn't hold anything back, like God had instructed me beforehand. There was a very tiny bit of frustration in the air, but my shoulder-shrug attitude was, "I already gave Jesus my present, so I'm good." The next day, some adjustments were made to the worship-set list, so we were able to sing our first song after all.

But God my Stage Mom's instructions pretty much set the tone for this season of my life.

I remember showing up for some worship services a short time after that, and around the time that the music would start, God would be like, "You're here to worship Me. Don't hold anything back." No problem, Lord. You got it.

That's how it's been during my private, intimate times with Him, too. One evening, I sat with my guitar and sang my prayers -- sort of like a rock opera -- and after I had done that for a while, I was like, "I think I just vomited my heart out to You." He was like, "I want it." That was so much fun. I want to musically puke my heart out to Him more often.

But this type of thing doesn't just happen when music is involved.

Sometimes I'll be thinking about something, and my thoughts will really get out of hand, and they'll reach a boiling point, and I'll feel shy about talking to God about it, but I'm not totally sure why, because He'll be like, "I want it." I'll talk to Him about stuff that feels nasty and defiling and violent, and I'm kind of embarrassed that that type of thing was floating around in my mind and my heart, but He'll be like, "I want it." I'll begin to talk to Him about something, and then I'll be like, "Eh, I don't know if I should be talking to You about this," and He'll be like, "I want it." I'll squinch my eyes shut and wait for the Consuming Fire to burn me to a crisp, but He'll just come to me like the Safe Friend that He is, and He'll be like, "I want it." So, I give it to Him.

I'm at a place right now in my relationship with God where I can communicate more intimately with Him than I think I ever dreamed possible. And He doesn't want this type of relationship with just me. He wants it with everybody, and I'm pretty sure He wants it to go even deeper than this.

My new heritage in Christ is a heritage of honesty unlike any that the world could ever offer. In my new Family -- that is, with God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit -- I have a refuge, a safe place, a shoulder, an ear, a sounding board, the wisest counsel in the universe, the deepest friendship of my life, the most precious relationship that I will ever have or will ever know. With God my Stage Mom, God my Rock-Opera Audience, God my Most Intimate Friend, I can give Him everything inside me (it already belongs to Him, anyway), and He won't condemn me, judge me, criticize me, betray me, or hate me for it.

In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve had the perfect relationship with God. They were naked and unashamed. Then they ruined everything because they listened to a stupid lie from a stupid serpent. Now all of humanity, including myself, has to swim through all that stupid stuff that's floating around in our heritage. Even after we're reconciled to God through Christ, getting back to our original heritage can be a very very very very very difficult journey. It shouldn't be, but that's just the way the fallen world works, honest. And just as many preachers have taught before, after the fall of humankind, God has been on a mission to restore all of us humankind back to the way He intended us to be: enjoying a paradise of intimacy with our Creator.

That is what our heritage was originally supposed to be.

Aye, that trumps any four-leaf clover, lads and lasses.