Grown-Up Things.

In an email from a friend this week, she listed off all the things she was getting done, from house-cleaning to Christmas shopping, and ended with "sometimes I just hate being a grown-up."  I could hear her sign and feel her slump.  Like the pen thrown down the page in surrender to the list of the demands of life.

I found myself casting loud echo with her statement.  Yet I would need to add my grumpy tone and sour scowl.  Fully knowing and aware that: my attitude stinks.  Somehow recently I've elevated myself above anything that could be considered a task, then given myself a Cinderella complex with pity party as I boar over the job.

I've lived on my own for twelve years, eight of those post college, but somehow my attitude, heart, and mind have twisted in the past year.  I've found myself prickling about grocery shopping, humphing about loads of laundry, sighing about vacuuming, snarling about meal-planning, and brewing about having to go to work.

The thing is, everyone does these things. All the Mercedes owners pump gas.  All my neighbors lug in their bags of groceries.  All my friends do piles of laundry.  All homeowners roll out the garbage.

I'd like to crawl back into my parents house and have my mom do all the "grown-up things" for me again.  But I can't.  I'm the grown-up.  I'm the one living the life.  I'm the one who also gets to do grown-up things like go out for dinner, sip wine with friends, take airplanes to far places, and attend the theater with my love.

I am a terrible grown-up.  I'm a grown-up praying for an attitude change.  I'm not there.  At all.  But I know God well enough to know he will put people in my life to train me as such, offer Truth in my dark spaces, and prune me so that I will have the grown-up attitude of a servant, to do my grown-up things in the Light of Christ.

"You were taught with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness."  Ephesians 4:22-24

"Therefore, if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose.  Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit.  Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interest but each of you to the interests of others.  Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus... taking on the very nature of a servant..."  Ephesians 2:1-7

Look Up.

Today, I am thankful for the sky.  For the perspective that it offered on my morning commute.  I've been churning a lot inside and looking at myself a lot.  And as I was driving, I cognitively told myself, "Look up!  Your God is bigger than you have made him out to be!"  And I looked up.  And I smiled.  Clouds smoldered with the morning grays and brought perspective in the vastness.  My God is so big. My life and thoughts and self are so small.  His wisdom, ability, sovereignty, and strength are only reflected in slight through that expanse of sky.  My God is so big; I just need to learn to look up.

Things I Didn't Know I Wanted.

I find myself wishing, envying.... everything.  Things I didn't even know I wanted.

I wanted to live in Africa, in a hut, ministering to the local women and children.

I wanted to be a mother, and have children who I loved and prayed and nurtured over in my home.

I wanted to be a friend, who sat with tea and cookies and listened and cared.

These are the things I wanted. These are the things my life geared toward, motioned into,  and fostered forward for.

But now I find myself in several months of looking and listening and hearing... and coveting.

I see houses so big and broad that they feel empty or boasting, now decorated in my head.

I notice cars that before seemed frivolous, now on my have-to-have list.

I see children and women and families dressed perfection, now idealized in my plan.

I live in South Charlotte.  I roam in circles of wealth and find their norm becoming my concept of common.  I gloat over their money, their families, their homes.  And paint it as my dreams aimed for reality.

Which then leaves me struggling, straining, and strangled.  Strangled by dreams that aren't mine.  Struggling against values that I don't hold.  Straining for wealth I won't attain.  Striving for things I didn't know I wanted, and I don't want.

The Flip Side.

I feel like I've been writing a lot of Eeyore-type posting, slightly ho-hum with a saddened bent to them.  So I'm trying to offer a bit of balance to those with a few pictures of what else is going on in life this fall...  of goodness.

 

 Labor Day weekend games with our family.

 Our new adventures: biking the greenways, near home, and getting outside...

 Of course:  fall brings USC

 Trips with friends: here at Lazy 5 with Daniel and Lauren

New BFFs (who went back to South Africa now): Kendra & Daniel.  

What fun we had so often with them!

When Family Lives Close.

When family lives close...

You stop byfor Saturday morning baking with niece and nephew.

When family lives close...

You call up Aunt Ruth for to schedule game night for two.

When family lives close...

You drop by Grandmas on a Sunday afternoon.

When family lives close...

You arrive on Aunt Pat's doorstep, hosting dinner for you.

When family lives close...

You boat with your siblings or take kids to the zoo.

When family lives close...

You meet parents for dinner, and Sunday lunch too.

When family lives close...

You have places and spaces

Always and immediately

Open to you.

You have hugs ever-waiting

And bonds ever-present

And people you love, who love you,

Close.

Oh how many days don't I wish that family lives close...

Prayer Works.

Trish and I read an incredible, instant classic last summer that melted itself into our heart and life.  A Praying Life by Paul E. Miller was intentional, narrative, poetic, simple, and profound all in one little blue wrapping.  But its impact on my life has far left the words scrolled on pages, and moreso imprinted itself in my world.

I was reminded of it last night, when my dear friend and Charlotte dad, J.D. Lawson was talking about prayers and tithing and money and philanthropy and hardship.  At a time in their life when tithing made the least 'sense', they started.  They were married and out of the military and now new Christians, when financially everything seemed to collapse.  But they felt called and convicted, so the giving began.

In the same season, he was alongside the road and his car broke down.  He was so angry he shoved the door open, smacked it closed, and hissed at the engine.   Then, in one movement he laid his hand on the engine and prayed over it, got back in the car and chugged away.  It wasn't until he stopped at the stop sign that he realized his car was even working.  And... prayer was working.

I left last nights table full of thanksgiving.  Thanksgiving for the comfort of the home of my Charlotte mom and dad, whose door is always open and in whose arms I can always find a hug.  Thanksgiving for the friendships that seem always available and open handed and happy and rejoicing in me.  And thanksgiving for the reminder that prayer does work, and God is involved in life, and Christians can encourage the faithful.

Thank you, JD, for being the faithful and encouraging me with your stories, and prayer.

Kingdom Work.

I've learned valuable lessons in the last three months, about time and space and life and work and meaning and play and calling and rest.  Because it all came in one bundle of thought, through struggle of experience:

Work is part of the kingdom.

I spent two and a half of the last three months without "work."  Without a schedule, a community, a need to arise and be productive in the morning.  And this turned into sloppy emotions, sloppy thoughts, sloppy behaviors.  Though there were things to be done, without a schedule or need to get to done that moment, I just fumbled and lost the ability to feel purpose and my place.

I dwelt on this in the moment, and especially at church, as we walk through the Old Testament this year.  And I land on Genesis One.

Work is Pre-Fall.

Work is created by God.  Only after the curse does it become laborious and long and tedious and exhausting.  But all things of God desire redemption.  Including work.

Work is created to give meaning, to satisfy, to create bountiful days, to create beauty, to sustain our hours.  Work can, and was intended, to bring relationship with others and our Lord.  It was created good.

As mornings roll around and I crave those few extra minutes in bed down before heading off to my out-of-home work, I am reminded of this lesson and given purpose.  In what I do each day, I am doing Kingdom Work.  I am being part of the Kingdom simply in working.  Especially when I work as for the Lord, and with a steadfast heart holding fast to him with grace.

Messy notes

When my mom died, I went through a long period of things in my brain not transpiring.  I couldn't think straight, plan meals, cook, or seem to make sense of the world around me.  My friend Kate came and stayed for 3 days in June and cooked and grocery shopped and listened to my whirlwind of everything that I couldn't place in my brain.

When I moved to Charlotte, I found the fall so difficult.  Everything was new and I was splattered in it -- new job, new house, new roommates, new grocery store, new church, new everything... And it felt so displaced.  Like - did my life really happen?  how did I end up here?  Is this me?  What is all this around me? Because nothing stayed the same (except Christ and my phone-call friends).

Its been two years now since that and I regained my footing and created a home and began to settle...

Now I'm back in this transition with 10 weeks without a schedule, friendships that seem to have faded, with lots of my energy trying oh so hard to make new ones, and this cloud of transition and waiting getting darker over my head.  I'm a woman that needs heart friends, that needs a schedule, that works best with a project underway... But right now I'm fumbling and just wishing I could somehow get back on that platform of steady -- I'm not even asking for green grasses -- just steady for a while...

So it makes me want to buy flights to send my friends here, so that I have them deeply in my world, and somehow convince them to move here.

Or sit down and ask my mom a million questions.  Literally a million -- like: how did she stay home all day? how did she organize her morning? what is so important about dusting each week? what does it mean to be a wife at the beginning? how did she survive when both her parents died?

So here I am in transitioning, wishing I could lean on her faith and her wisdom, and somehow find schedule and forward movement in order to regain my footing once again...

Messy Words on New.

When everything is new
You can't find your footing
When everything is unknown
You grasp harder
But find no familiar control.
Whenever thing is new
It seems to send a whirlwind

I wish everything weren't new.
I wish I lived near family
Where faces will recognize me
For thirty years
And hugs and memories
Are deeply held near.
They know, they understand,
They have walked the shifting sand.

When everything is new
I wish for my "old" friends.
For those of Charlotte 3 years
And college of 12 years.
For those who see the Big
Bad and Ugly,
But know you are more than this
Instance you're in.

When everything is new
You long for fimiliar
For faces and memories
And places and talks
And anything to make you feel
Known.
Not wind or tossed by the sea.

I long for something that is not new
New job, new schedule (or lack there of)
New husband, new "roommate"
New roles, new responsibilities
New season, new Bible Study
New friends (acquaintances really)
None of these are bad, and most blessings.

But in this season, so much has changed
That everything feels new
And leaves me wondering,
whirling
for the familiar
Because somehow the
Un-new
Makes me feel known.
Settled.
Rooted.
Okay.

A Foothold.

"Do not give the devil a foothold"  Ephesians 4:27

I was wrestling.  I mean wrestling.  Wrestling against myself, against my words, against my will, against my attitude, against my behavior.  Everything inside was a tangled mess of tight rubberbands waiting to snap.

It was Friday night.  I came back from helping set up for the Women's Kick Off Brunch at church.  What fun it was with the ladies!  And by the time I got home, I was angry and angst and fighting... myself.  The devil knew the Lord was going to use me, and so he grapsed for a foothold.

Bikes went in and out of the storage shed, Mark working away with me doubting and questioning and wanting to throw things.  I wanted to be mean, be angry, be what I felt inside.  But I didn't know why I felt the way I did, and I knew it wasn't him, so I tried my best to hide my turmoil, but I'm sure tension was still his intuition.

Saturday morning, much the same.  And all weekend was full of church emails and texts, and my (oh my shame!) grumbling...

The devil had a foothold.  He took one edge - turning me against myself, and then to my husband and my ministry, and coiled me in knots.

For the Lord was going to use my story to encourage and challenge others to pursue him.  And until sitting in the church pew Sunday morning, I didn't realize all my uncharted and unaimed against was only because of him.  Because he used his warfare weapons to gather footholds in my heart.

It was Saturday morning that a quick blurb video was shown of me talking about a sect of women's ministry, encouraging a flock.  It is this week that Bible Studies begin, and I facilitate/teach one at this church for the first time...  It's this week that the devil took a foothold to turn me against myself, and most of all, my (by meaning, His ministry with my physical presence) ministry.

"Do not give the devil a foothold" forces Ephesians 4:27.  So I clamor for armor, now that I can Label It Satan, and take my stand against the devil's schemes, without his foothold.

Knees & Buns

I am sitting here, on buns with crossed knees.  And thinking, yes, still thinking, about "Knees & Buns."

Now, unless your name is Bekah or Kate or anyone else that has an obsession with Shauna Niequist (you can google "Knees & Buns" and read the chapter online), you have no idea what I'm talking about.  But, if you are Bekah or Kate, or a writer of any means, you know exactly what I'm talking about.

It's about the war of writring.  About actually sitting and straining and pumping words through your fingers.  It's about battling the fear of starting, about couraging against fear of being wordless or wisdomless, and throwing arrows at doubts nailing them hard and fast for deliverance.

My friend Katherine posted a quote I captured grasped:  "An essential aspect of creativity is not being afraid to fail" quoted Edwin Land.

I am afraid to fail.  I am afraid to start.

Most of my life, I've been a writer.  From Young Authors Conference in third grade to my English teacher's reviews in eighth grade, to detecting and composing a research book in sixth grade writing to an 200+ page novel in eighth grade.  My mom, my teachers, my writing friends were my editors, and I wrote away.  I mailed letters to authors to ask about their journey as a writer, and shadowed authors in high school to glean from their world.

People used to ask when I would publish, and I never wanted to.  At school age I was interested in the joy of writing, in college and recently, the art of writing.  In times of hardship, the processing of writing.  And in random days, the fun of writing.  But publishing, thats whole different sphere... that's intimidating.

Over the last five years, I have thought more and more about writing, and its unique presense in my life, and what it means to me.  I've started thoughts for books, then wrote a chapter or two, then pushed it away.  I've said the words, "when I have time to write" so many times the words at this point seem still allusive, and I like them that way.  Because it demands nothing of me.

To write is to give my soul.  It's to ask for wisdom and put it into words.

I don't want to write to just write, or write to simply entertain.  I want to write because I feel I have something to say, called to gift and challenge it to others, and know there is wheat to glean in their hands.

But then I freeze again and stare at the wall.  Because now I have time to write.  Because it is time to write.  Because it is time to courage the demands of fear and discouragement, the ones that tell me I have nothing to say, or that I don't know how to say it.

So today I sit on my buns and cross my knees.  Still frozen, for it's easier to write about writing, than to write.  It's easier to talk about writing, than to write.  Its easier to think about writing, than to write.

Okay, so then I leap forward a distance and cross the mountains to dare to start.  But then the next Everest looms at me: what to write.  To write fiction?  Fact?  Life experiences?  Bible Stories? To write in blog form or novel form?  Bible study composition or inspirational literature?

My favorite authors are those who can write a novel with religion so delicate into it, that the poignancy of the Truth is so covered in fiction that you are entertained while challenged with such severity that reading for fun reacts to reading into your life.

Examples as such are: Lisa Sampson's A Quaker Summer and The Church Ladies.  And Charles Martin's novels with characters words I scribe into quotes.  Or Francine Rivers novels that begin with her theological questions and spin it into stories, woven with Truth.

I want to write.  It's time to write.  But it's a war to write.  It's a war for knees and buns, words and truth, and wisdom into word.  It's searching for the style of the language in my soul, and composing into an art form that pierces others.

For now, I am stuck in the war of writing, the discipline of buns and knees, and the will to brave the starting.

To Be Alone.

The scripture reads, "It is not good for man to be alone."  But I think this isn't just God talking about "man" as in the male species, needing a wife.  I think it is much broader.  Humans need humans.

The last couple of weeks have been unusual for me, with long days stretching out over time, and myself alone much of it.  Either with little babies or by myself.  And I find myself wilting as the days go by.  Needing the vigor of good friendships.  But my life has altered, and most of theirs have not.  My girlfriends are still off to work during the day, my Charlotte friends are out to enjoy city nightlife on the weekends and my out-of-town friends are still... out of town.  And my days find gaps and space of life with just... me.

So I pick up the phone and talk to Amy, our giddiness apparent across the lines.  Or gab on for an hour with Kelsey, connect with Kelly, or discuss life with Mark's mom... These conversations can make me jump with spark, excited to hear another voice.  But there is still something that lacks when you simply need the person side-by-side, physically, across the table or at a soccer game or walking through Target.  A phone call can only carry each person so far...

To be honest, sometimes I love my quiet. I spend Mondays cleaning and laundering and creating a meal plan for the week.  The quiet with the preparation is like gentle streams of water.  And pockets of this through the week, too, are my solace.  Working from 9-12 with a break at home for a couple hours afterward is like a gentle reward, relaxing and gaining back my energy.

But somedays, its just me.  Home.  And alone.  So today I wandered, created to-do list, and finally at 1pm took myself out to Dean and Deluca for coffee to actually get my brain stirred and moving.  There are things I need/should do, but my soul has just kind of shrunk in the quarters of being home alone the third day in a row.  So I mustered myself and just simply walking out the door felt bright and cheery and worth doing.

And it leads me here to ponder God's Word: it is not good for man [human] to be alone.

Kelsey and I were talking about it the very subject this week.  About young couples who disappear or singles who assume the want to.  Both of these are hurtful and can be harmful, to both couples and individuals.  We are called to community, to live as the Church, to bear one another's burden, to mourn with those who mourn and rejoice with those who rejoice.

In relationship, we flourish.  We laugh louder, we hug tighter, we discuss deeper.

Research shows that human beings have an innate need to physical touch.  Babies don't develop appropriately without it.  We need this touch to feel loved, to know we are connected.  How much more than as adults do we need people who touch our souls with their laughter, understanding, input, and presence.

Practical living shows it:  rather than sitting alone to watch a football game, people gather at homes or stadiums, for the coming together heightens the experience.  Rather than eating at home alone, women invite others in or meet for lunches or coffees for fellowship.  Rather than studying God's Word alone, we are enlightened through Sunday teaching or Bible Study and discussion with application.  Rather than runners preparing alone, they run Cross Country side by side to spur, encourage, and challenge each other on.

There is something about being together, in community, that is scriptural as well as practical.  I find myself with little to think about, little to write about, little to pray about if I hole up in my home.  But in the presence of others, all of these come to life, and I, too, feel alive.  And also prepared and full to be alone once again, and then to cycle again into community.

People need accountability, enjoyable events to attend together, a forward motion towards something bigger than themselves.

Being alone has its time and its space.  Its beautiful at times, trust me.  But being alone is not created for the human soul, solely.  We are created for relationship with God and others.  I wilt without it.  So I find myself looking back to the original Garden for words and wisdom in order to once again, bloom.

Dinner At Seven.

Dinner at seven is marriage in the Stone household.  It's Mark leaving working early evening and arriving home at seven in the summer season.  It's Christina gathering her grocery list and heading to the store and compiling meals from old family recipes or pinterest or her own creations.

Dinner at seven is marriage in the Stone household.  It's two ways of life blending.  It's Wever casseroles and Stone meat and three finding a rhythm usually of neither -- pastas and enchiladas and crockpot roasts.  It's salads and late night ice cream for the usual dessert.  It's water with lemon, it's two at the table.  It's special napkins with white plates spread.  It's taking two lives and committing them to one.

Dinner at seven is commiting to the dinner table and to the coming together routine.  To being present with each other, to setting aside the day, to being purposeful about that time.  Dinner at seven is Mark laying aside the freedom of work hours, to come home at a spoken time.  Dinner at seven is Christina snacking at four to wait for his hug at seven.

Dinner at seven is commitment, compromise, unity, protected.

Dinner at seven is marriage.

And You'll Grow, Grow, Grow.

When I was a kid, we would sing this song in Sunday School and grow like little sprouts from the ground.  Our arms would stretch wide and our fingers would stretch like limbs off branches, as large as we could go.  Then the verses would switch and we would end bundled and balled, wilted and scrunched into plops mashed into the floor.

Read your Bible, pray every day, pray every day, pray every day 

Read your Bible, pray every day and you’ll grow, grow, grow 

And you’ll grow, grow, grow and you’ll grow, grow, grow

Read your Bible, pray every day, and you’ll grow, grow, grow

Neglect your Bible, forget to pray, forget to pray, forget to pray 

Neglect your Bible, forget to pray and you’ll shrink, shrink, shrink 

And you’ll shrink, shrink, shrink and you’ll shrink, shrink, shrink

Neglect your Bible, forget to pray and you’ll shrink, shrink, shrink

These lyrics fumbled through my mind riding in a white tour van across the Costa Rican highway, I heard the words in my heart in a fresh way.  A convicting way.  I sang them with Mark, bumbling across bridges and through rainforest, and near alligators, and wheeled them through my mind for miles since.

Praying, reading, growing.
Neglecting, forgetting, shrinking.

I am [almost] always a woman who is praying, reading, growing.  I live in these words, I harvest in this garden.

But I know my recent days have been full of neglect, full of forget.  And I know it more in my heart than in my head.  My head knows it, a poignant fact.  My heart knows it, a worried soul.

Shrink, Shrink, Shrink.

I now know shrink.  I now know neglect, forget.

The old children's ditty has spoken to my heart.  The lyrics set to simple tune, strumming strings in my soul.  I wish I could go back and tell the writer the words sting me at thirty.  I wish I could go back and tell my 28 year old self to keep trucking, keep reading, keep growing.  But life swallowed me up this year, like Jonah in the whale, and now I find myself spit-out and sand-sitting, and wondering how I turned into neglect and forget.

Yet the woman on the sand, the flower in the soil, knows the way to grow again:  Read, and Pray.

I sing the little children's sonet in my head and grab the Gospel words from my memory, my Biblegateway, and my NIV, and I begin to read.

I lay in my bed under covers and mull over the days conversations, and I begin to pray.

And I begin to grow.

~~~
*If you haven't heard this little children's ditty, you can see/listen here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfScu505a2o

** I praise the Lord, too, though for these days where I haven't read and prayed, because it has allowed me to grow in purposed faith, without [at least, with less] worry and pushed me to simply move forward with greatly abundant trust.

My Heart, A Welcome Home.

I meandered around the courtyard yesterday, church goers and attenders and newcomers strolling to and fro.  I watched, read faces, analyzed walks, then created an approach.  Some woman stood singlely by a post, waiting for another.  Others bee-lined to the cafe or sanctuary, sunglasses covering their nose. Others clasped childs hands, or strolled confidently.

My eyes were captured by the bee-liners.  The women covered with their own lashes, or hugging their purses tightly.  There was a noticable fear in them, approaching the worship grounds.  Scared for how to fit, who to see, how to behave, where to go.  I know them, because I know that look in me.

I talked to the wanderers, or the ones standing at the info booth, looking for links, for lifelines, for a place to connect, a niche, a home.

And I sat in the pew, minutes later, and thought about Jesus.  And thought about strangers.  And thought about visitors. And thought about me; us.

Who are we to strangers?  Who are we to visitors? In our hearts, in our home, in our church?

Women walking into church, feeling unaware, feeling vulnerable, feeling insecure.  Who greets and welcomes the strangers, like angels unaware?  (Hebrews 13:2)

Robert Boyd Munger titled his book My Heart, Christ's Home.  I sat in the pew and thought: Is my heart, a welcome home?

Is my heart a welcome home to strangers?  Is my heart a welcome home to those it meets, those it greets?  Do they feel a sense of rest there?  Do they find it shelter, find it home?

Do they read that on my face?  In my greeting, in my smile?

Do I walk around and visit strangers, with a heart that is a welcome home?

~~
Note: Think of this too, as an encouragement.  I never realized how much my church was a church of visitors, and greeting this day reminded me how much I need to be heart that is a welcome home to those who approach the throne of worship.  What a difference it may make to have a hug, a word, a handshake, as they come to the church, to my heart, to Christ's home.

Grace These Days.

What grace looks like these days is women in sweatpants, women running late, women with unmade beds.  What grace looks like these days is women canceling for a party, women late to pray, women who don't work out.  What grace looks like these days is women grabbing to-go dinner, women having husbands iron, women who let weeds grow.

Grace in these days looks different.  Grace in these days is these women.

I came back from my honeymoon and knew I would tackle this issue, and know I will forever, but still need and covet the way that grace looks in these days.

I want to be the perfect wife.  I want perfectly laundered clothes, flowers that blossom full each season, meals from scratch each night at the table.  I want lipstick that seals and stays, coffee that is consistent each day, and little "love yous" posted everywhere.

I want Etsy, Real Simple, and Giada De Laurentiis to stare in awe of me.

And I want it all with a calm, confident, and "fresh beach day" look on my face and curls that bounce along with my pleasant lipsticked smile.

Here is where and why, God has intercepted and given me little glimpses into grace these days.

His grace to my perfectified idol, is his people.  His women.  Who laugh when they haven't made the bed, who miss meetings because they have missed their morning coffee, who show up to events with sweatpants.  And yet are the most godly women I know.  And they care for their home and their families with deep love and commitment.

His grace is his words through my Mother-in-Love, retold over me four times in the last week: that being a wife is being.  That it's the smile in the "welcome home", the calm love evening night, the sleepy kiss in the morning good-bye.  Its Bekah's words about rest and doing one single thing each day, and being the well to come home to.  Its the WLT ladies and their laughter and words that remind me that "godly" doesn't mean my painted perception.

Grace these days is women.  Women who love well, who love whole, who let grace be the guide and love the statute.  Grace these days is their story, God's story, given to me through them, so I can learn, and teach, and accept it myself: Grace.

I Am Sarah.

Genesis 18 tells the story of Sarah and her faded heart.  I say faded, because years had gone by and hope had waned.  I sense her as strong in her youth, risky and daring if you read her efforts in Egypt, but as life rubbed against her flesh and will, she simply learned to live without.

She had longed for a child, longed so much she gave her husband over to her servant to birth offspring.  She wanted a heritage of her own.  Yet jealousy ate at her to despise Hagar and cast blame on her husband.

But the Lord wasn't finished with her story.  The Lord had a call yet for Sarah.  A plan yet for her heritage.

Yet Sarah had lost trust, had surrendered hope, had let faith recluse.

With three men [angels] the Lord reminded her of the promise he had made years before to Abram, the promise of generations under his care.  A nation as his flock.  She listened from inside the tent and felt the years tug at the wrinkles of her skin, turning belief into sarcasm.

I sat on a wall, tall and thick with rocks and mortor upholding the hedges growing thick.  The Barbados sunrise screamed with brillance: reds and oranges and yellows blistering over the sea.  The five o'clock sun beckoned and awakened me, I stretched with the morning light to be quiet with the Lord.

And as morning drew, so did the Lord.  His words so pristine, made audible to my heart.  I would have a husband.  His call and plan were clear.  My heart left to no doubt that it was He growing in me faith, due to his assurance.

Years wore down my conviction, and belief turned to doubt.  And I, like Sarah, hid in behind a tent.  Not knowing, not trusting, not believing.  Letting go of the words I knew to be so clear and True.  My trust turned to embittered laughter, my hope turned to defeat.

Along the way I would remember, and see that bright sunrise and feel my heart testify:  I know that I know that I know... then life would remind me still, it wasn't so.  Anne recalled his promise over me one summer (she knew, but rarely anyone else) but I shook with doubt and let tears stream hot down my angry cheeks.  And I, and like Sarah, let laughter aim towards heaven, and my heart harden to the hope of the dream.

Hebrews 10:23 says: "for he who promised is faithful."  Sarah and I both had heard, had known, had clung to his promise.  Then doubted that He was faithful.  Time aged our belief, our strength, our hope until it dried up like a raisin in the sun.  We let it wither and die.  But God speaks boldly back to Abraham, and Sarah, and me, and questions: "Is anything too hard for the Lord?"  (Genesis 18:14)  and lets us choose our response, despite his knowing the rhetoric answer.

Sarah lay one day with child in her arms: Isaac, the Lord's called and sacred lineage.

I fell in love with a man: Mark, my beloved, the Lord's assurance of his plan.

Sarah looked down at Israel, and felt the breath and conviction of promised hope.

I placed a ring on Mark, and know it as testimony of covenant fulfilled.

~~~
Thanks to Megan Holst Besemer who rose with me for those Barbados mornings, and Anne Visker Harbough who reminded me of his promise in my tears.

Unbuttoned.

I ran into the meeting, a Wednesday night, with my hair all a flutter and my sandals slipped on my feet. Smiling and greeting, then looking down and laughing.

"Oh boy! I'm unbuttoned!"

My shirt hunt open everywhere but the top knot, exposing just the white tank top underneath, the wind caught the sides and there I laughed, and hung.  And the women laughed with me.  Good 'ole WLT (Church at Charlottes Women's Leadership Team).

I laughed and shook my head, rolled my eyes.  "Oh, this is so exactly the epitome of me right now!  Trying to look all put together, and calm, but inside I'm all unbuttoned and coming undone!"

And so true it was!  My pleated Banana Republic skirt looked pressed well, the yellow silk of the Ann Taylor shirt matched to a "T" and I had my WLT binder ready to go...  Appearing all together...

Then we sat in the meeting, and I had paint still drying down the side of my leg, and splotted in my hair from working on getting my house ready for Mark and guests.  I had a flurry of emails I couldn't keep straight, and shoved sunglasses on my head to try to convince my hair to look tame.

Unbottoned.  I laugh about it. Its truly the epitome of me, in these days and moments.  Trying to be calm, cool, collected, and casual...  but typing to-do list on my phone during sermons, scrounging through receipts for a centerpiece return, and filling my bathtub with boxes of decor.

Unbuttoned.  Oh boy, this is me.

Orpah in Black Veil.

She's wrapped in headdress, concealing her Moabite features, her dark eyes hid beneath cascading veil, and all limbs and visage undisclosed for vanity. She hovers still in black, robed in mourning, her head still cautious, heart guarded from the wounds of hurt and burden that carry so closely with burial.  She does not speak of him, Kilion, the look of lost bewilderment in her eyes.

For ten years she knew him and watched him and lived with him and loved him.  For ten years she forsook her own family to marry from out, to marry a Judean.  For ten years she learned from him, followed him, and gathered customs of him.

And now he lay: dead.  Now he abode the grave.

No questions are asked, for her eyes hold all, the dark dressings over them like thick Arabic coffee swirling with doubt and darkness and concealed desperation.  As if thoughts evaded words and spoke through:

Years of her mother's chiding, enamored for this Judean man.  Words of her father, as she left and married him.  Begging and wishing Kilion, eluding him not to go to war.  Haggard men returning, her husband lost from line.

Naomi gave her words.  Her wavered strength pouring through, tight hugs of known commencement, fathers and sons and husbands that both she and they too, the three, knew heavy.  "Go back...to your mother's home"  (Ruth 1:8).  Like love, she tried to set them free.

But both Ruth and Orpah clung, like sisters and daughters to she.

Her eyes moisten, her lips bitten to close.  As if she watches them again, like two souls of hers on dirt.

And she stood there alone.

Naomi gave her permission, but was her mother now too.  And now she walked away, down the road with Ruth.  Her quiver still Orpah heard, "Return home, my daughters...find rest in the home of another husband"  (Ruth 1:11, 9).  The words stung, in senile truth.  Another husband?!  Like blasphemy, the words catapulted her, piercing with Kilion's depleted existence.

I want to ask her about him.  I want to ask her of her mother's hug, or if she even offered one. I want to ask her if her heart made room for another, if her fallen grief revived, if her Moabite family took her in.

But her veil keeps her from him.  Her dark, quiet eyes shelter her secrets.

I sit with Orpah for coffee.  But am afraid I will not find the truth.

Tuesday Nights

Tuesday nights.  Tuesday nights were breakfast food: dad eating eggs or Grandpa forking Belguim Waffles.  Mom swirled new recipes to dollup oatmeal pancakes and Kelly stirred her famous cheese eggs.  We'd gather at the big wood dining room table and listen to dad tell stories, and eat our "breakfast for dinner" with orange juice and all.  I loved Tuesday nights.

Tuesday nights turned intentional family, when mom watched Jaxson each Tuesday and Josh came for dinner.  I drove in from Grandville or Grand Rapids, and Grandma would often come too.  Tuesday nights were everyone come, everyone served.  Tuesday nights were open table, open conversation, full of lingering coffee and voices mulled and stirred.

Tuesday nights were Josh growing, seeing him blend and become family, flourish at being a dad.  Tuesday nights were his purposed spot at the table, and his chuckle interwoven with dads.

Tuesday nights were Melissa.  Melissa modeling mom to cook and befriending in the process.  Tuesday nights were the two of them preparing and sharing meals, figuring grocery list, and all of us coming to take part.

Tuesday nights were all of us.  Learning grown-up family.  Being together.  Being fed, in heart and body.  Tuesday nights were no one rushing out, were real estate discussed, cars bought & sold, and laughter all around.

One of the most difficult things about getting married, is absense of giving Mark Tuesday nights.  Is the space void of his place at the table, his knowing of our memories, his viewing of how we all reminisce, his understanding of the men's interaction.  I wish I could give Mark Tuesday nights -- for him, and for me.  I wish I could give him the taste of my moms homemade blueberry pancakes, of rides on the quad out back, of hugs walking in the door, of the smell of fresh-mowed Homerich grass.  I wish I could give him wild rides on the boat, where hands grip the handles, and days rocking on the green chairs at the lake.

I wish I could give him Tuesday nights.  I wish I could give him that understanding of me.

To Those Who Say It's Good.

These are the ones I lean into.  They are the stories I long to hear, the messages I take notes from, the carols I memorize to repeat, the friendships I hug into.  They are the words of people I hold dear, the words of wisdom, of smiles, of goodness.  The words of years won, of hands still held, of enjoyment continually shared.

People say marriage is hard.

I know that.  I know that I know that I am naive.  But that's okay.  Let me be that way.

Let me hope for tomorrow.

Let me hope for good.

I watched my parents.  I watched them laugh and share and boat and travel and errand and eat.  I watched them enjoy.  I watched them: I watched hope; I watched good.

Some warn, some paint furrowed pictures.  But I crave and listen in to those who say it's good.

In this season of planning, in this particular time of preparation, what I am most thankful for, is those who say it's good.

~~~
Thank you Bekah and Patricia and Kate and Amy and Rachel and Heidi and Aunts and Sisters and WLT...  all those, who say it's good.

Waving Transition.

I live a life of transition.  Always moving, always changing, always growing, rarely knowing.  In a 10 year span, I moved more than 30 times (move=unpacked into drawers), lived in 3 states, traveled to 5 continents, endured family reconfiguration, and worked 13 different full-time jobs.

I used to feel jolted by every transition.  I can remember crying the days I packed boxes to move from one house to another.  Now, life has taught me to brace myself, and ride the waves of transition.

I stand in camp between multiple phrases.  Between single and married.  Between teacher and nanny.  Between roommate and lifemate.  Between individual and couple.  The cognitive shifting, the psychological process, the physical preparation all live in limbo between what was, and what comes, and struggles to find a sandbar of what is.

Files fill boxes of school supplies to keep, rooms are tested with paint color to rotate, budgets are examined and restructured, weekend activites move from "me" to "we", student letters are stashed in binders with degrees, registries for new lead to releasing the old, and I live between what was, and what will be.

What was, what is, and what will be.  The transitions find me in waves, both in the pace of the flow, and in the depth of thought.

Yet, I have learned to "wave" at the waves.  Not clutch for shoreline, or sink in overwhelm, but feel the movement, then raft on faith.

Transition has taught me, is teaching me still, to wave from waves.

Grace.

Grace.  Its a word I'm coming to know.  I'm coming to learn.  Grace is it.  Finished.  Done.  There is not more of it.  There is not less of it.  There just is: Grace.

Grace is God.  Grace is His stamp.  Grace is His offering.  Grace is His love.  

Grace is his answer to my self.

Grace.

I sang in church last Sunday, word chorusing from my lips, but my mind far off, dwelling on grace.  Hearing the word "Redeemed" like an embossment, over me.  Redeemed.  No more, no less.  Done.  He has redeemed it: me.  

He hasn't asked for more.  He isn't waiting for more.  He's isn't skeptical with a check list.  He isn't waiting for me to fail.  He isn't measuring my identity to the standards I measure my own.  He isn't comparing to my forayed image of perfection.  He isn't asking for performance, or productiveness.  He isn't judging the use of my minutes, my hours, my moments, my day.

He is Grace.  Done.

The word is prayed over me, known over me.  She speaks, "Satan is telling you that...  If God wanted you to be Ghandi, he would have made you Ghandi."  And she prayer His Truth over me.  His desire for relationship.  He's words, "Be still and know that I am God."

She writes, "But for now we need to see that we begin to rest in God when we cease to keep up fronts and pretenses with Him..." (The Glorious Pursuit) with her encouragement.


I read, "...trusting God's grace to overcome that inadequacy... to accept that we will never measure up, but that we do not have to... anything that makes me feel discomfort with God's forgiving love is also a cruel deception." (Grace Notes, Phillip Yancey)


I ponder, "It is by grace you have been saved..."  (Ephesians 2:5) and "there is now no condemnation in Christ...."  (Romans 8:1).  Do I even begin to understand this grace?  To know there is no greater love?  There is no greater Truth?  There is no greater, final acceptance?


And so I begin to understand the living, the loving, the accepting of Grace.

Weekends are for...

I find myself sitting, with instrumental music playing softly in the background, my body bundled against the April chill in layers, a microwave-made molasses cookie in my dish, a cup of hot Teavana steaming in my palm.

A writer I know posts each weekend, "Weekends are for..."

I write, Weekends are for... Grace. Friendship. Adapting.

Soul Strength.

What was in Ghadi that made him follow through?  What was in Martin Luther King, Jr. that pushed him forward even after his family and house were in jeopardy?  What was in Hudson Taylor that urged him despite his surroundings?  The souls of men that did not falter.

I sometimes stare at the wall and marvel at them, then self-defeat myself into inward oblivion, casting curses on myself for who I am, and who I am not.  There are these posters and billboards which echo men's names.  Champion of a different sort.  Those who pushed against and for diversity, justice, truth, change.

I never recovered.  I always thought I had it in me to be "one of them" but after April 17, 2009, it just never quite came back.  That inner strength gives way to falter, the tired of my soul weakens quickly, and the stamina that once was, has very little surgance.

So I look at these other people and wonder, with filtered jealousy.  What was in them that kept them pushing?  What was in that them outlived their call?  What was in them that pulled them out of bed in the morning, squeezed them past the afternoon slump, and left them still prevalent to fight at night?

Growth.

I walked out this morning to see my first gardenia bloom of the year popping bright and white. How fitting, I thought, that today it boast in brillant resurection, like proud joy. Just yesterday, I had watered it, but today it bloomed.

A few years ago, my friend Sandy sat down with me amidst my tears and spoke that God was tilling up the soil of my heart. It was a painful process. A tearing, ripping, straining, yanking, scraping process. But the soil was tilled. My soul was tilled.

Over the next season, a process of pruning began. Figuring out friendships, family, relationships. Analyzing and picking apart the ones that bring green, that spur new life, that flourish. And, then cutting away, or cutting back, the ones that don't. This too, was hard. Difficult. For me, and the relational branches that beckoned to take away the nutrients to my heart. But the pruning was fruitful. It shed to bring full bud to new friendships, and fully care for old ones.

And in the recent season, I see blossom. I see fruitful colors leaping up all over the place; the garden of my heart is full! There are vibrant pinks and yellows and purples, like flowers bursting to the sunlight -- my home, my church, my friends, my fiance. They are grown and grounded, rooted and reaching.

Today, as I walked out and saw that first gardenia, I saw growth. Today, as I see the Gardener's work in me, I see growth.

Age is Artificial.

"Age is an artificial line" she said as we sat gathered, twelve to the table, gourmet chicken salads overflowing our plates and crispy grain bread slathered with brie on the side. Crystal Light swirled pink in our glasses, our laughter and hearts the same. We were women united, women of faith. Beyond time and experience and age.

I once found myself having a conversation with my mom about this. About how I tend to unite more with women a generation older with me, than those my own age. She said, "That doesn't surprise me?" For, what is age?

What is age when your passions are the same? When your heart knows the same language? When your ministries align? What is age when you are tough, and tender and listening and endearing? What is age when you are learning and grieving and growing and knowing? What is age in the embrace of hugs or tears or hands or grace?

Age is an artificial line. I am thankful for women whose love bypass age.

Upstage.

Upstage. The focal point. The most captivating. The catching.

At a wedding, the bride is supposed to be upstage. The white dress. The shimmers or silks. The curls or swirled do. The make up, the lipstick, the crowning glory.

It dawned on me this week that I may be upstaged. That someone's dress may steal the talk of the ceremony. That one girls' hair may be more intricate. That one persons shoes will surely outspeak mine.

To admit my reaction is embarrassing. I look at my self through the naked eye and feel and hear my own head and heart reactions. And yet I picture my friends stealing the look of every male eye. And my sister stunning and glamourous. And bridesmaids so flowy and lovely.

And then... there's me. Just a white dress. Just looking like... me. Nothing unique, nothing interesting. Nothing but one more fashion version of a white dress.

I'm ashamed of my thoughts and can't believe such trendles of conciet flowed through my mind.

The embarrassment of such perversion raised my consciousness.

And then, a new thought came to my mind.

The wedding isn't about who is upstaged. The wedding is about Who is Upstage. Is God glorified? Is God the center? Is God the one that is noticed, glorified, honored, praised?

A white dress will box or ruin. A photo will last fifty years. A conversation will last a night, or a memory. But Christ glorified will last eternity. God praised will carry forevermore.

In the day, in every part of the wedding, the marriage, the union, the gathering, may God be praised. May He be Upstage.

Midwestern

Some days I miss being Midwestern. Today, I do.

I miss the rolling cornfields. The tall red silos. I miss hearing the voices of my cousins and the laughter of my aunts. I miss water and lakes all around. And trees and forrest that abound.

Some days I miss being Midwestern. I miss family who gets "lake days" and children camps galore. I miss women who shovel soil and farm and get dirty planting the ground. I miss lake towns and cute cafes and boutique-lined streets.

Somedays I miss being Midwestern. Today I do.

~~~~~

And this is where I must post, some Pure Michigan... :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9airTfXqd8k&feature=relmfu

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZ8Sj-ow_wI&feature=relmfu

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgfE5xNiEz4&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7Ow2cEqbmE&feature=relmfu

Young Life.

I don't know how to summarize, how to wrap up Young Life, in a post, in an essay, in a conversation. But I can do it in one word:

Freedom.

What Young Life taught me, what Young Life gave me, was Freedom.

I grew up living safe, cautious, careful. I did all the right things, got the right grades, went to the right places, and hung with the right friends. I did my devotions. I knew my scripture. I had the Word of God hidden deep in my heart. I calculated the work of missions and knew my place in the church. I loved. I served. I read. I cared. I devoted.

"And so instead of living free, I lived safe."

~ Grace for the Good Girl by Emily P. Freeman. Page 27

Then a friend invited me to Young Life Club freshman year, and the only thing I can honesty remember, is people licking peanut butter clumps off of a window, with us on-lookers staring in from the other side, as this "race" took place.

But I was hooked. I had never been a part of such a crazy, fun... just genuinely "good" time. And thus, those peanut butter splotches began my escapades with this organization, in turn, with this Jesus, who has... fun!

I didn't realize that Christianity could be fun. That Christians could be crazy and silly and extreme and adventurous. I didn't realize that loving and pursuing Jesus could be this all-out heart-open wild chase after the God of Love... who Loves it when his people enjoy loving him!

So I gobbled it up. Give me Monday nights Club, Friday morning Campaigners, Castaway Camp, Campaigner leader, Club host, Wilderness Backpack Excursion... I was there. And in being there, I was... free!

Free to be crazy. Free to have fun. Free to love Jesus. Free to learn spontaneity. Free to get dirty, to hike mountains, to parasail, to sing "Free Falling"... all in the joy of Jesus. I still here "Jack & Diane" by Mellencamp and can't help but belt the lyrics. I still strap on my Merrells and see the Continental Divide sky before me. I still see pool covers and hear Jag's talk about being stuck under sin.

Young Life. This group of people who captured me with their vision. Who brought me the phrase: It is a sin to bore kids with the gospel. Who took the story of Jesus, and brought it to life. Who took my faith, and gave it freedom.

Slay the Dragons.

I've written before about my dear friend and her husband and how I say he carries a baseball bat: how he steps and and protects her and shields her and makes it his duty to armor and protect her. I absolutely love this about him, and for her.

I talked to another friend today who gives her husband a morning good-bye with: "Go slay some dragons!" as he heads off to work. The words empower him from her lips, as she acknowledges the tasks he takes on during the day in order to protect and provide for her.

Today, I saw a need for another to do the same. To stand in the gap, to bring a baseball bat, to slay a dragon. Today I saw a guy with a really fancy car walk out and cuss a woman out because her fancy car bumped his. No scratches. But I have never seen a demonor more full of angst and uproarus and almost... evil... as his was. She was shorter, polite, and well spoken. He was well over six feet and cursing and calling her every name possible, hands flailing and temper full of firey rage.

I have never, never, never seen a man disrespect a woman so much.

And all I saw were many passerbyers who stood and watched her be belittled by a giant grunt. She held her ground, "Sir, you may not disrespect me. Sir, you intimidate me." And yet he continued to pervert the air with his lips, the space with his presence.

I wouldn't be able to live with myself today if I too, watched. If I too, saw and watched a woman disgraced. There was no one with her to stand in the gap, to come along her side and empower her against this monstrosity of a masculine figure who made it his job to ream her. She had done little wrong, an accidental tap on his bumper, which was reported, but again, no scratches.

How often to do we stand in the gap for injustice? How often are we Jesus at compassion's side? How often are we instead passer-byers who watch in omission? How often are we like the others of Jesus' day, who watched without word as he was crucified? Not their business? Pagh! Indeed! The honor of justice, of care, of human dignity, is our business. Is our call. Is our command!

Who are we, if not created for this at this time? Who are if we let injustice unroll?

Jesus calls. Jesus commands. Jesus quests:

Stand in the gap. Fight in justice. Be a Baseball Bat. Slay the Dragon.

___

P.S. If I ever have a car that is worth more to me than human dignity, please hit it with more than a baseball bat. Let my sights be on the individuals created by God, not the possessions created by man, and my heart show it forth.

A Malnourished Heart.

Dozing off to sleep, worn green leather spread across my chest, is pages flopped between my fingers, chapters and books falling apart, cradled in my arms. Spiritual milk.

I've spent several nights lately this way, falling asleep with my spiritual milk upon my breast, its contents like lifeblood that I suck. Feeling its words and truth and authors and empathy and stories refresh me, as it has refreshed the hearts of saints for centuries. Its words I pull in and ponder.

"Like newborn babies, crave spiritual milk,

so that by it you may grow up in your salvation,

now that you have tasted that the Lord is good."

I Peter 2:2-3

Last week, a friend commented on an acupuncture experience, talking about the distinction the doctor made of her heart to her limbs, and the lack of blood flow in-between. Her heart was starved of the blood flow it needed, ceasing energy to the limbs to stay heated and energized. The doctor explained it to her in words: "your heart is malnourished."

Her reflection drew Truths and parallels that expounded on her spiritual life, and gave great depth of heart-thought to the movement of true Life in side her. I appreciated her terms of explanation, her "heart was malnourished" needing time and space and words and Life to inwardly grow and flourish too.

I laid against my pillow, pages sprawled across the blankets. Spiritual milk. Life to a malnourished heart.

Closer than a Brother.

"There is a friend who sticks closer than a brother."

Proverbs 38:24

Found a Home.

"Even the sparrow has found a home,

And the swallow a nest for herself,

Where she may have her young --

A place near your alter,

Oh Lord Almighty

My King and My God."

Psalm 84:3

I wrote a year or two ago the sparrow and the swallow. About the craving for a home, for a nest, for young. I wrote with deep desire and trying to understand the Lord's word and call her, and his desire or promise for me as a single woman clinging to these words.

New words now follow them. My friend Kate Vasey said came here the other weekend and said, "You feel peaceful." Her words suprised me, in my scattering state. But her "known" is right, is true. Our conversations followed and expounded...

I have found my home. I have found my nest. I am in the place God wants for me, and preparing for the life he has for me.

I have always felt, always known, always been at home, in the life of "home." In the tasks and joys of that creation -- of table setting and dish making and children raising and man loving and garden growing. I have always been a heart at home here.

And now, this fallen sparrow has found a home. This wandering swallow has found a nest.

And so tonight, as I rest and find my place near His Alter, I conclude in contemplative worship. In praising him, for home.

Praying Through Pain.

I've been speaking with some women about chronic and physical pain, and was reminded twice to night, to PRAY through pain.

To ask and seek the grace to walk through it.

To ask and seek revelation of the problem behind the pain.

To ask and seek the Spirit to reveal the cause, the course, and the care for this chronic pain.

To ask and seek intercession for underlying psychological/spiritual layers of pain.

Please join me, and remind me, as I learn and challenge the journey, to pray through pain.

Higher Than I.

"Lead me to the Rock that is higher than I."

Psalm 61:2

The Lord has something to teach me here.

This verse has been floating around in my brain for at least a week, with no "note" attached to it...

"Lead me to the Rock that is higher than I."

Psalm 61:2

I See You.

I have a friend who always says, "I see you" with exuberance and a twinkle and bright white smilie on his face, often with that little head nod that guys do.

There is something in that phrase. Something in those words that is more than language.

Its being known.

Deep in the heart of all mankind is the desire to be known, to be seen. I feel it in myself, the craving and longing to be known inwardly, within every facet and canal of my workings.

When I hear my friend say this, when I feel the desire to be known, I feel the core of my humanity. I feel that inner need, that longing. I feel the friendships who know, who 'see' me. I feel their presence and the power of that kindred heart to carve through the layers and know, and see.

Yet I also recall his promise: that He is El Roi: The God Who Sees. That He is the God who made, who created, who designed, who breathed life. He is the Psalm 139 God. And He is The God Who Sees.

I am thankful for my friend, for his true, so deeply genuine heart. I am thankful that he "sees" and that with laughter and a twinkle, his line has spoken so clearly to me and others: "I see you."

And I am thank for my God. That I serve the God Who Sees. That the God I know, knows me and makes himself known to me. That he is El Roi: The God Who Sees.

In God's Image.

"You disrespect God in the image of your wife, and you disrespect God."

~ Dave Huber (Community Life Pastor; Church at Charlotte)

My Special People.

Every night, every day, every week: candles lit on the table. It was the constant, the norm, the un-remarkable. Of course, candles on the table. "Christina, please light the candles" was my Tuesday night task, following the table setting and prefacing the prayer giving.

Candles. The norm. At home. At the table.

It wasn't until college that I realized, it wasn't the norm. That having candles lit at the dinner table every night was instead, an anomaly.

I leaned over the counter, trying to glean her wisdom and understand her perception,thoughtful intentionality, and meaningful tradition. Before, I had always seen it as a task, a setting of the table - the candles. But now, I grew to recognize the art of candles as my mom, as personal.

"Why do you light candles?"

And I'll never forgot her response:

"Because people light candles for people that are special to them,

and you're my special people."

My special people. Ah, warm sigh. My special people. My mom.

This Warrior.

"For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against...the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces in the heavenly realm." Ephesians 6:12

4 cell phones to the office, simply out of belligerence. Freshman honors students in four corners, like dunces, for the second day in a row, still not working, still goofing off. Junior Honors student leaving in the middle of class, in no anger, nor explanation. Administration calling and tracking parking spaces to see what went amiss. The "f" word use profusely, 3 more students removed to ISS, remarking to administrators "She's crazy!" And I put my head down on my desk.

Defeated.

I am full of angst. Feeling completely abused, disrespected, and frustrated. At my wits end.

I wrote two months ago about piercing the dark. Full of ferocious empowerment for the gospel at my school. I live it, I talk it, I breathe it, I push it. Just last week I had out my projects from Bible class at Calvin Christian, displaying their work about the Passion week and Pauls' missionary journeys. This week, I explained the B.C. -- A.D. breakdown, and everything in history revolving around Jesus, all centering on Him, the cruxic of all time and history. Then the next class, I spoke about slavery, singing aloud the sweet anthem of "Swing Low, Sweet Charriot" with depth of explanation of the story of Elijah, the need for hope and heaven. I furthered it with the Moses connection of Harriet Tubman, and the slaves needing the empathy that comes from Jesus suffering. I communed today about Mormans and Jesus and Truth and persecution and the difference faith makes.

The gospel is presented everyday in my class. In my life, but also in my blatant words and assumed connections of Jesus and stories and life. He is real, he is present, and he is powerful in F202.

One of my favorite songs, the song I always pick up and play and sing to at my piano is "The Warrior Is A Child" by Twila Paris. Its lyrics read:

Lately I've been winning battles left and right
But even winners can get wounded in the fight
People say that I'm amazing
Strong beyond my years
But they don't see inside of me
I'm hiding all the tears

They don't know that I go running home when I fall down
They don't know who picks me up when no one is around
I drop my sword and cry for just a while
Cuz deep inside this armor
The warrior is a child

Today this Gospel Warrior came home and collapsed. Today, this warrior was sustained by no armor, by no might, by no power. I just simply dropped my sword and fell down.

But I didn't realize it until now. I didn't realize the spiritual depth and connection of my awful day, until I ended it looking up verses, trying to re-arm myself for the fight and refocus from my darkness. And I thought: I wonder if today has less to do with each individual incident and and each student and coarse word and harsh interaction, and if instead, today was a spiritual battle. If today was the presence of darkness, the spiritual forces, fighting against the Gospel Message in my room (Ephesians 6:12).

So this wounded warrior sits, reflecting and praying. Defeated, but arming. Reading:

"Put on the full armor of God so you can take your stand against the devils schemes..."

And I dig into the Word, "so that when the day of evil comes [I] may be able to stand [my] ground, and after [I] have done everything, to stand" (v 13). I search around for my belt of truth, my breastplate of righteousness, my gospel of peace, helmet of salvation and sword of the spirit. And most importantly right now, my shield of faith -- extinguishing the flaming arrows of the evil one (v. 14-17).

I end tonight, I end this battle, with prayer (v.18), and searching scriptures for my armor. My classroom needs a mighty warrior. My school needs a mighty warrior. My heart needs to be a mighty warrior, fitted with the armor of God, standing against the devils schemes.

"Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power." Ephesians 6:10

~~

P.S. Thank goodness for Lamentations 3:22-24!

The Difference A Wife Makes.

"Xerxes didn't need what 100 concubines could give him. He needed a wife...."

Four years had brought kingdom growth and decline, decrees made and established, and beautiful women to entertain and entrance. But Xerxes remembered his wife and something different inside him felt the emptiness remain.

I have often wondered the difference for men in pornography... and relationship. This is such an industry, that my perplexion is distraught, as well as peaked. It seems all society realizes that women long and crave and need relationship, but it often paints that men... don't.

But scripture points out, and Xerxes captures:

They do.

The reference, the verses, the chords of his emotions all point to:

The difference a wife makes.

He had concubines and harems galore. He had beautiful women, dancers, and women exposed. But something in his heart longed for me. Something in his heart felt the absence. Something in his soul needed a friend, a lover, a companion. His spirit craved the depth of having the one person, the intimate one.

The one who is: wife.

~

*Quote from Esther study by Beth Moore

Held All Of Me.

"All I want is a man strong enough to hold my hand."

I sat in the car weeping, driving Kate and Kelsey back from a day in Charleston. My heart wrenching, reminiscing about an experience a couple weeks before. I had told a guy about the awful experiences of that year, and all he did was stare back down at as plate, wordless and awkward.

Tears tumbled down my cheeks like Victorian Falls, my breath hiccuping in-between. And my words were thought and sovereign: "All I need is a man strong enough to hold my hand. He doesn't have to have the right things to do, or the right things to say, just sit with me and hold my hand while I go through it." My friends listened intently, with earnest, and the words trailed with me for months of roads to come.

Mark and I sat on his couch, side by side. I was clear-eyed, but thinking. I knew he needed to know. He needed to receive the all of me, the inmost of me. So I looked at him and said, "I don't know if you already know this, but my mom died."

He was quiet, compassionate, listening. His arms came around, pulling me close, encircling me. I could feel the warmth of his body, his tenderness like soft caress, his emotions meeting and caring for mine.

I explained parts of the story, details of the day, the unraveling years since then. His hands smoothed my shoulders, his fingers softening away my tears, his heart listening to mine.

I prayed for a man strong enough to hold my hand. But the Lord gave me more. A man who:

Held all of me.

The Fat Pants.

Ladies have them. We all have a stash. That pile in the closet you refuse to look at, yet find unable to ignore. Its the "fat pant" stack. That size too big, or two too big. The ones you had to buy once, but refused to admit to. The layers of fabric wider than your will.

I looked again at the "fat pants." The glare of my hatred full of demise. No. Not them.

There is a a new meaning. A new perspective I find myself in. Revealed under a microscope labeled not my own.

Middle school consumed me, battling the fears. The tremors of worry, the weight of weight. Erupting skin and altering figure found me full of heaviness both inside and out. The months of summer, between seventh and eighth grade, striped off pounds and regained my self-esteem.

And now I look at my fat pants. The years of struggle well-behind. The confidence gained and fought for, protected and pursued. Striving to be me. And trust the body of me. Not in its perfection, but in its "me" and loving and learning to be okay with that -- "me."

The pile holds new meaning. New thoughts. New perceptions. It was always the struggle, the confidence, to find and defend the figure of me. And be comfortable and love the physical, me. But now I find myself in his love and arms and opened anew. Afresh to his knowing, and his knowing the "fat pants" me too.

Its not about me. Not anymore, just about me. Its about the fat pants, and how I want to be "me" without the fat pants, for He. I want Mark to love me, to find me, to seek me, to know me. To understand the girl of me, the woman of me, the physical of me. Without the fat pants. And beyond the fat pants.

He says nothing. He loves the deepest, the heart of me.

But I feel it inside. Knowing again and seeing this struggle in me. And work to defend my honor and self and body, not to him but to me. Its strange that I wrestle, this same tune again. In a whole different light, in my perspective of the perception of He.

Its more the struggle of me

Not of He

And though he would never say

I still feel the struggle

In me.

The Fat Pants.

Dinner With Vashti.

I think we would be swirling wine in our glasses, staring off into thoughtful gazes as we struck up conversation. An air of Persian class and banter and gold and finery would dance all around, like an exotic display of Arabian royalty and grandeur.

Her poise would be prompt, sharp, aristocratic. Yet I don't know if her eyes would hold the look for forlorn, withdrawn, shame, or demise.

She is a mystery.

And I am Diane Sawyer, Oprah Winfrey, Katie Couric, and the woman-next-door all rolled into one. A journalist at half, a friend at best.

We find her in the pages of Esther. Her beauty striking, probably dark arched brows, bronzed face, chocolate eyes, thin wide lips, sprawling lashes, elevated cheekbones, and hair as luscious as the Persian gods themselves - long and shiny and falling in cascading splendor. She is the wife of the King, the greatest woman in the land. The female remarked by all, known by all, and A-listed by all. She is Angelina Jolie.

She is The Queen.

And now, she sits across from me, and I spiral through thoughts, perceiving questions, and wondering her mystery. Who is she? Whose daughter was she beloved? Whose friend was she companioned? Whose mother was she embraced? Who is the woman behind the veil? The Veil of the Queen, the veil of her secrets, the veil of her betrayal.

It was customary for her to throw parties. To exchange the lavishness of the Kingdom. A great banquet was hosted by Xerxes, her husband of the royal throne. "Couches of gold and silver on mosaic pavement of porphyry, marble, mother-of-pearl, and other costly stones" dotted the grounds of the garden, itself robed in silk and linens and servers throughout (1:6-8). And she held her own affair, the richness of the palace dancing with light cast from reflection of gold.

We sit at dinner, her and I, and a lean forward, looking into the dance of the history she beholds, and ask her about that day, about that night, about the extravagance. She looks away, as if in memory, as if hearing and replaying the sounds of the lyres and harps and timbres and dancing and intoxicated laughter. She tells me of her giggles, of the women all rushing about amid the castle, each doused in myriads of the finest oils and spices, their skin warmed to the scent, and their Persian maids ruminating at each beck and call. It was a flurry of activity, of chatter, of color, of silk. Only the grandest fabrics present, only the greatest of guests invited.

She remembers it well, her foreplay to the evening. Her own personal dance of pulling together the means of her royal affair. She seems to love this moment, to dance in it too.

Then I ask her about the entrance, about the attendants demand.

And her face casts shadow. Her looks grow gaunt. Her tension immediately snapped. I'm trying to understand her life behind The Veil, and read into the shadow. Is it regret I see? Remorse? Anger? Contention? Retribution? Or is it hurt? Brokeness? Longing? Or loss of love?

For the King had turned his face from her. Her Lover, her Love. Her other part of the whole. Surely, he had women gushing to be his own, and laid with many, but none was she. None was Vashti. None was the wife as she. None was Queen.

The moment was caught in her eye, stark and startling. Then gone. Ripped and removed. As if she wanted the reminisce to lay dead. Away in the grave.

My silence is poignant. Waiting. Letting the flick of all emotions settle, the flame calm to kindle. To strike when the fire gave way to ashes.

They smoldered, her emotions solemn and her face turned away. She remarked his words, his command, asking her to flaunt her self. To make gestures and dances and expose what she beholds.

It is this moment. This moment that I surge into. Every beat of my journalist heart wants each detail, the mesmerizing script only she knowns and can behold. I linger forward, wondering if the wait will open her soul, will open the words of her to me. My fingers grip the pen and feel tension mounting, willing her to unravel.

But she stares off. Says something about his arrogance, and a line or two about her disgust. Its as if a cement wall rises to protect her shattered soul. Pauses pass and I wait. The she reaches in and speaks forth: the gasping of the crowd, the shocked stares of the attendants, the immediate silence that billowed through the room like a tsunami, rippling through the clinking goblets and music until only absolute stillness and sharp contrast hung like thick judgements in the air.

She had tried to stay, to partake in her own ball, but the exuberance was gone. The party vanished. People swirled, but only to stare. Gazes still fell on her, but only to cast hatred through a glare.

She removed herself, but they had already removed her. From their respect, their awe, their role of her as their Queen. And then worse, he removed her. Her lover, betrayal. His pride his armor; her heart, his stone.

And now here is she. She once exalted. She once Queen.

Her life has turned to quiet corridors. To small gatherings of the friends allowed to see in, the harmen of the King beckoned her way, the women whose husbands have too left them unchained. Her life has turned to darkened rooms, to candles once lit.

I look at her again, and wonder what she sees. A woman once beheld by all, now gossiped by all.

I sip the end of my red wine, and land the goblet down, my fingers encircling the stem and tracing the gold. My journalist pen I set to the side, and lean back, perplexed in my chair, and softened by her tone. Her stare falls downward, her own glass pushed aside too.

She is the institution all men have been decreed to control. She is cast-off, the society removed. She is the one now, all looking to replace.

She is Vashti, the once-was Queen.

Freed for His priorities.

I ramble on and on about my busyness and commitments and being pulled here and there and everywhere.... And more than anything, I think what the truth of the matter is, is that I want so much more of myself than my finite self is able to be.

So then, of course, I turn into self-bantering about how other people can do so much more than me and how I'm just less of an incredible woman...

But alas, there is Truth! I am finite! I am meant for Sabbath! I am meant to do only what God has called and intended me to do -- not everything I seem to want to do or find to do!

Ah, and with this, I smile...

And direct you elsewhere.

For someone has said it much better than I.

Yes, admittedly, I am not the super-hero woman here. :)

I am, woman. Finite. And freed in that.

So read on ahead....

Here

About editing life to be clutter-free, freed for His priorities. I got this posting sent from a friend, and it was everything True and good and holy.

Oh, praise the Lord for friends and bloggers!