By Colleen Swingle-Titus
Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God’s Spirit is right alongside helping us along. He knows us far better than we know ourselves. … We can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good. (Romans 8:26; 28, The Message)
If I could best describe myself, it would be as a spiritual hippie. I’ve often felt I was born 10 years too late, as I would have reveled in the experience of the nomadic life of peace and love and VW vans going wherever the wind carried me. And, yes, I loved the song, “Blowin’ in the Wind” — it was part of my Lutheran youth group’s small and cheesy repertoire.
I was born in 1965, the youngest of three girls born to a couple of hard-working Midwestern parents blessed with a dash of whimsy. I am thankful for that upbringing. As set in their ways as they seemed to be — fine representatives of the Protestant ethic — they made room for their girls to wonder and wander outside of the mainstream.
Their eldest found joy in the written word and their second in the world of paints, metals, wood and even a chicken’s foot (too bizarre to explain). Their youngest was set free in the windy world of imagination and adventure, the Huck Finn of the trio — from her imaginary friend, dad’s all-boy, shirtless sidekick on the family farm, to playing church in the stairwell at her grandma’s house. Nothing was squelched in our individual expression, but encouraged, all the while immersed in a deep devotion to God and the church. Not a devotional-reading family, but a church-attending, church-working family and it was there we received our God-view, it was there my folks and their girls were spiritually groomed.
It was at Christ Lutheran Church that we learned to lean in and listen to the leadings of a gracious God. It was there without harsh lecture or fear that we knew God was with us regardless of our good or bad choices. It was to God we learned to turn without hesitation or question to offer our confession, to receive comfort, to be reframed as we were reminded of the forgiveness offered in spite of our shortcomings. In short, we learned and lived out the reality of God’s redeeming nature toward self-created messes.
We certainly knew of redemption drenched in abundant grace. At my parents’ side and my Creator’s feet, I learned not to become anchored to the anxiety of my missteps, but instead focus on my forever-connection to God. Remembering that by leaning in and on God would stir within me a sense of the next best step or the woefully warped if I would but only pay attention.
This way of being raised in the faith gave me permission to experience the love and direction of God throughout my life. My faith in this ever-present loving God has never wavered regardless of what my life events may indicate. My parents raised a woman of deep faith, but that is not to say they raised a woman of pristine and pious perfection as dictated by churchy norms. Armed with an abundance of grace and belief in God’s redeeming power, I have stepped boldly into a variety of situations which probably even made God wince. As a pregnant teen, a (formally) verbally abused wife, a divorced mother of three, a remarried wife to a criminal defense attorney, an impulsive, liberal Yankee in a southern, though not SBC, Baptist pulpit — well, here I am!
It is not as though I somehow took advantage of God’s grace and redeeming power, it is that in spite of my missteps, I truly believed and believe in it. And without hesitation, I share this Good News. From the lips of babes, I hear, and the lips of spiritual hippies, I guess. Though far from nomadic (and, there is no VW van parked in my drive), I certainly fully feel that free love and peace thing blowing in the wind, at least when I lean into it.
This commentary originally appeared in Herald, our bi-monthly magazine. To find out more about the magazine, click here.