Sanders Party of Five

As Jeremy and I lead our family into Mexico today, I can’t help but remember this post, written a couple of years ago after returning from an international mission trip. I had traveled to Peru for medical missions, convinced that I would only be treating the physical wounds of those who lived in remote villages in the Amazon jungle. God had different plans for me. Doesn’t He always? I learned much about myself on that trip, about God, and about grace. God has since taken me to many different places for the sake of His glory, but I must admit that today, I feel the same way I did when I wrote this post. Ashamed, unworthy, incapable. I certainly haven’t earned a higher level of holiness than I possessed during those hot July days in the jungle. On the contrary, scripture continues to show me what a wretched sinner I am, how I am nothing without Him, how I can only trust in His righteousness. Never in my own. Because of this, I can boldly proclaim His gospel to the world, without fear of condemnation. Here’s the post, exactly as I wrote it two over two years ago. 










Truth be told, it wasn’t all a mountaintop experience. There were valleys as well. This one was very personal, but very real.






The day has grown long and I am weary. Winged flight over foreign lands and now waiting for yet another flight to another far away place. Tears well, threatening to show themselves, but not yet, not in this crowded waiting place. I miss them and I know they wonder why I have gone. How to explain something that I don’t fully understand…


I wait with bated breath for what is coming. I am given a paper with my name and a date written in penciled letters. I am to lead the others on this day. Somehow expected to teach those who know more than me already, to lead those leaders. I question, but answers given make too much sense. I cannot argue, but must find a way. If they knew, they wouldn’t ask such. But they do not know; I have kept it hidden as always.


For weeks I have felt it…ashamed, unworthy. The others don’t have these feelings, though they claim to. Their shame can’t compare. They are the educated. The giants of all things spiritual. Those from a utopian childhood. The blameless. To my disillusioned eyes, this is how the world appears most days.




If they knew.


I try to not dwell, but it comes back. Shame surrounds. Guilt threatens to overtake. This simple me, with no education. On a good day, a spiritual infant. Memories swell in my mind. Memories of imperfect family, childhood. Wrong choices, plenty of blame. Most falls on me, this blame. I knew a better way, so why did I choose wrong?
Anguish gives way to prayer. Prayer leads to study. Study transforms into worship. I realize how great God is. His greatness isn’t dependent upon acknowledgement by a sinner such as me. But to know it… that changes things.






The sacred scripture words call to me. Paul, that old chief of we who are ashamed. Peter, the Rock who denies. David, the royal adulterer who murders. Rahab, made in His image, who sells her body. Moses, the murdering, stuttering coward.




I can identify; I feel the agony of their shame.




Paul, the missionary, writing of the early church, thorn and all. Peter at Pentecost, memories of denial fresh, proclaiming Christ to thousands. David, the man after God’s own heart, earnestly seeking redemption. Rahab’s scarlet cord, showing them the way. Moses, parting the Red Sea, leading God’s own people.




I feel this, too. And deep down, I know it is real, for He has taught me.




The words I speak that Wednesday morning in July, floating through another world, may have had an impact on some. The hearers tell me as much. Did they really understand, I wonder, what it did for me? This thing called ‘grace’, which I speak of in clumsy sentences, words stumbling around on top of one another, fighting for importance. Did I get it across to them, this miraculous thing I’m talking about? Will they ever know what I was, lost forever in my sin, wallowing? Do I truly understand what I was? What I am?




“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” 2 Cor. 15:17