april thoughts in bullet points

• ^ This is my favorite person. It was fun (and also very scary and stressful at times) helping him and his dad take a tree down by our carport over the weekend. I have been struck anew lately what a privilege marriage is.... a privilege and a responsibility that together we get to be a mini-model of God's love, honor, and grace toward us.
• I used to think it was normal and right to refer to myself, as a Christian, as "a dirty, rotten sinner saved by grace." It didn't begin to occur to me until recent months and weeks what a flawed viewpoint that is. Yes, it's right to identify sin as what it is: sin, rebellion, unrighteousness, offense against the holiness of God Himself. But as a saved person it can't be right to identify myself with that sin any longer. I do not find Jesus or Paul or Peter or the other major characters of the New Testament referring to themselves and their followers as sinners - I find that they, almost without exception, use the word "saints" instead. I am not a dirty, rotten sinner saved by grace; I am a saint who, yes, still sins, but who is being perfected by the gracious hand of God every day. Can it be anything but damaging and wrong to look at myself differently than HE looks at me? Can I be so arrogant as to think I'm being super-righteous by getting more down on myself than God Himself does? Can His precious blood sacrifice possibly be "not enough" to WIPE AWAY my sin and change my identity completely?! I don't think so.
• Speaking of being a saint who still sins... who is still in the process of being sanctified... sometimes this sanctification hurts. The breaking of pride hurts. I experienced this afresh last week and sometimes I would just rather say, "Nope, not going through this, God, not even for You." But I have found it true again that God draws near to humility, and that what is lost by the painful destruction of my pride is gained back tenfold in the way He picks me up from my epic fail and gifts me with His presence and closeness so much more richly. The Lord loves those He chastens! Hallelujah that He values His children enough to guide them to righteousness, even when it hurts.
• I have been thinking about the concept of lament. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of examples of lament in the Bible; most of the Psalms fall into this category along with (obviously) the whole book of Lamentations. I wonder sometimes why we don't see more lament happening in our worship and prayer times in the church. We sing a lot of praise and joy, which is needed and right, but it is only a small facet of worship. Huge depths of spiritual truth and growth and understanding of God are found in the laments of the Bible, and when we act like coming to God from a place of pain isn't okay, I think we miss out on a whole aspect of His character. God isn't too small to handle our pain or our anger or our fear or our complaints. And I sometimes think He would rather we come to HIM with these ugly things than do what we normally do, which is (for me) take them out on other people or to the all-knowing Internet. God is ready and willing to hear our deepest hurt and offer His grace, comfort, and healing. And it's usually in these places of pain that we find ourselves softened to the truth of God's Word that can help redirect our perspective and set us free.

So yeah... that's a little tip-of-the-iceberg taste of what has been whirling around in my head lately. There is so much wisdom and knowledge and truth to be had from our God and it just makes me excited. :) What's been on your mind recently?

untitled

There are so many ideas swirling in my brain, waiting to make it to a page, but they're still so clumsy and undeveloped, like baby birds fledged too soon. I sometimes hate this stage of mental processing, when there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to my thoughts and yet I know that somehow they all interconnect. But I have also begun to get used to it, begun to accustom myself to flailing a little, to taking the time to slow down and listen and breathe and wait for God to clarify and redirect. I have started to appreciate the in-between period when I can both see the hand of God in the process of working and wait expectantly to see the result.

God has been teaching me, and this place of learning is such a delightful and refreshing place to be. For awhile I thought I was utterly isolated, irredeemable; I know what it is to panic in the pitch-black and feel irrevocably lost. And I think that's what makes this awkward time of idea-fledging and humble re-learning so sweet: just being able to see again a shaft of light, and know that the Truth still reigns and that whatever I have been or failed to be, I am not alone.

i am not as fine as i seem

I'm scrolling down my screen and it's filled with names. These are my friends, I'm told. Facebook points out which name has shared this and which name has liked that, as if I'm expected to care. But the more often I see a name typed across the screen in dark blue, it seems, the more fake and far away it becomes. These are not friends. These are not even people to me anymore. They are just names, just symbols of my popularity; I wait on their likes and comments because I think maybe that means they care, but I know that's not what my own likes usually mean. So why should I expect it of them? This social media phenomenon, this invention that was meant to draw people closer together, has become no more than what its name implies - a book of faces. Faces that mean less every time I scroll past them. Faces that hide stories and struggles and real lives, faces that overshadow souls and sins and the image of God. Faces that are more like facades.

I have one too. A facade. My profile picture is always smiling so you wouldn't know that behind it is a heart breaking with loneliness. I post Bible verses and pretty pictures and all the while I want to scream, "I am not as fine as I seem!" But that does not seem safe when I am surrounded by people as fake as myself.

I think my dad got social media right all along. He calls it Farcebook. And that's petty much exactly what it is.

Friendships aren't created or maintained on Facebook. Ministry isn't sustainable on Facebook. Discipleship is impossible on Facebook. A tenuous connection, yes, maybe that can survive; but in truth, the more time I spend among my 200-something virtual "friends," the more terribly alone and empty I feel.

But maybe it's not all Facebook's fault. Maybe it's mine... maybe, over time, this would have happened regardless of my social media presence. Maybe (gasp!) I am by nature a sinner, a selfish human being who wants to appear whole and righteous and desirable to those around her even when the cost is destroying herself with loneliness. Facebook was made to make connecting with people easier, but I think what it has truly made easy is the ability to appear connected while keeping everyone at an arm's length. Responsibilities like accountability and relational investment - which are nonnegotiables of functioning as a biblical part of the Church - are removed when you are able to erect a charade of virtual spirituality. Post enough selfies at a coffeeshop with an open Bible - #blessed - and you can deceive yourself, along with the believing community around you, that you're a healthy and fruitbearing branch that doesn't need training or equipping or the asking of hard questions. Post enough Bible verses and holy-sounding thoughts, and I can maintain a comfortable bubble of space between myself and the probing spiritual edification of those around me, who might discover in the end that (what!) I'm not perfect after all.

But the reality is... if I'm honest, the kind of relationship that comes with probing spiritual edification (even, and especially, the kind that knows me for what I really am) is exactly what I most intensely crave.

yoda and paul on purpose

 

If you know me, you should know that I love Star Wars. It’s pretty much been my favorite trilogy for as long as I can remember… even before the prequels came out. Sam and I watched The Empire Strikes Back last night, and in the scene when Luke first meets Yoda in the Dagobah System, one of my favorite Yoda quotes again struck a chord with me…

“Ready are you? What know you of ready? For eight hundred years have I trained Jedi. My own counsel will I keep on who is to be trained. A Jedi must have the deepest commitment, the most serious mind. This one a long time have I watched. All his life has he looked away... to the future, to the horizon. Never his mind on where he was. Hmm? What he was doing. Hmph! Adventure. Heh! Excitement. Heh! A Jedi craves not these things. You are reckless!”

So what does a curmudgeon of a Jedi Master have to do with the apostle Paul?

Maybe nothing to you. But an hour or two after the movie ended, as I was lying in bed reading my Bible, I came across these words from Colossians:

We proclaim Him, admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom, so that we may present every man complete in Christ. For this purpose I also labor, striving according to His power, which mightily works within me.    - Colossians 1:28-29

And in light of these two very different quotes from two very different sources, I am convicted.

When it comes to my life, my “purpose” or whatever it is that this millennial generation seems to idolize, I’m Luke Skywalker. Always looking off to the distance, looking for something bigger and better; mind absent from the here and now because it’s not big enough, not radical enough, not exotic enough. Because other people don’t recognize and applaud those who are faithful HERE and faithful NOW in boring small ways. We are inspired by the seekers and strivers who are never satisfied where they are, who are constantly reaching for something bigger and brighter, who are traveling the world in the name of Jesus and who seem so much more “spiritual” because of it.

But Paul poured his labor into a purpose that can only be done here and now. It can only be accomplished by investing into where God has placed me and who God has placed in my life. And what higher purpose can I wish for than to proclaim Jesus Christ, and train up disciples who are complete in Him?

This can (and must) be done in my home. How would my life be different if my mom had been staring off at a bigger, better horizon instead of training me up in the knowledge of Christ during my growing up years?

It can (and must) be done in my church. Would my year of Bible school have yielded the same fruit if not for the incredible investment that Grace Church of Sebring made in me?

This labor, this purpose is not optional. But it can’t be done if we insist on passing it by for something “glamorous” or “radical” instead. And it won’t be done if we don’t consider it important enough to pour our whole life’s labor into, like Paul did.

Adventure? Heh! Excitement? Heh! A disciple of Christ craves not these things.

Do not work for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will  give to you, for on Him the Father, God, has set His seal.  -  John 6:27

on weakness and trust

Sometimes… at night… I think too much.

The fall of the dark curtain seems a veritable power switch for my brain, and all of a sudden I might be analyzing end times events or manufacturing the sounds of a break-in or remembering, vividly, near-forgotten scenes from a long-ago childhood.

Me and my sister Hannah, with baby Lenny and another kitten we only had for a little while before it died.

Last night, at 12:19 AM, it was grief that came to mind.

Bold, sharp memories of some of the saddest times of my life.

I can’t complain that I’ve had a particularly difficult life thus far, but I can’t claim that this earthly existence is ever quite an easy ride. And in the dark it was like all my forgotten wounds began to open again, like a fist hit me in the gut with breath-catching force… scenes that pour back into my head and flood my eyes before I can put up a defense.

The hot tears blotching my lined notebook paper that morning after they called to say Grandpa had died, and the ache that I felt less for him than for my mom, his youngest daughter.

The strangled silence at 10:25am on August 3, 2010, when they told me they couldn’t save my precious kitty, and the strangely delayed convulsing sobs that came after as I wondered at this new experience of intimate loss.

The odd mix of relief and heartbreak when I watched Mt. Hood go by on the left as my flight ascended eastward, bound for Orlando.

The bland coldness inside when I learned that my grandma had died days before, 2,000 miles away in Washington while I was trying to plod through one more week of counseling at camp in Pennsylvania.

These are all times that I survived; and yet in the night when they stampede my brain, I wonder if I really did pull through and conquer, or if the battle of mourning is only still in process after all. I still strain to hear my grandpa’s throaty voice or see him dip dinosaur crackers in his coffee. I still feel a little raw somewhere inside when I remember the taste of biscotti or the softness of Grandma’s voice or the cooing of their pet dove; the speechless hollowness that first appeared on August 3, 2010 at 10:25am is still there too.

Grief is a mysterious thing. In the beginning, it might be a hurricane… only to morph into a deathly stillness that is almost worse than the storm. It might become easy to ignore for awhile, until without warning, it puts a fist to your guts and you reel, blindsided, groping for balance, gasping for breath.
I wonder if greater maturity will someday yield me a surer hold on these wild parts of my emotional self, or if grief levels us all to an equal state of helplessness, regardless of age or life experience or personality. Perhaps we are all meant to need the muscle of someone else when we have been battered limp by this kind of pain. And yet it is incredible how often we collapse alone instead. Afraid of being preached at, afraid of being misunderstood, afraid of being judged, afraid of more hurt; too proud or too insecure or too confused—at least, these are some of the shackles that have kept my own heart bound up in the face of compassion. But what did Paul say…

“Our mouth has spoken freely to you, O Corinthians, our heart is opened wide. You are not restrained by us, but you are restrained in your own affections. Now in a like exchange—I speak as to children—open wide to us also.” 2 Corinthians 6:11-13

Opened wide. It’s risky. It feels unnatural to relinquish our only source of control when our first concern is to avoid being hit again where we’re already wounded. We are required to trust the grace and love of someone else if help and healing is really what we want.

Does that sound familiar? Maybe this is truth in more than grief... maybe in fear, in doubt, in sin, in loneliness, in anger.

“For the Word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intents of the heart. And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do. Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin. Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” Hebrews 4:12-16

five years

 

August 3 marked five years since my first fluffy orange kitty died. Just a couple weeks ago I learned that his mommy, Junebug, has also passed away at age 17. It felt a little like the end of an era… the end of several generations of mighty orange hunters. I adore my obnoxiously affectionate Thor and infuriatingly sly Loki, but there will always be a special part of my heart reserved for Lenny the Lionheart. :)

this is my song

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXRviuL6vMY

^ This is my song… this is exactly how I feel so much of the time.

But there are times when I don’t feel that way quite so much. And this is one of them:

untitled (aka, ramblings)

 

 

I went home for the weekend, and it was a delight to absorb the sunshine and the wide open sky. I took Amy riding, threw a Jamberry party with Hannah, went to (most of) Amy’s tenth birthday party, helped Dad with the last heifer to calve, spent time with my horse, and looked in awe upon all the beautiful mountains that I don’t see often enough anymore.

Tonight, I went to home group and, very typically, sat in the corner without saying a thing while everyone else engaged in an interesting debate on the topic of prayer. I wanted so much to participate but found I didn’t have anything to say that had not already been said. I am not the kind of person who processes information verbally; I can’t speak up in a group unless I have carefully thought over what I’m going to say. So I am perpetually “the quiet one” and tend to be talked over, for the simple and understandable reason that no one expects me to speak in the first place.

I wanted so much to participate, but I find that regular conversations move too swiftly for my slow-churning mind. I am still deep in thought about the initial statement when everyone else has moved on into debate. My mind works quickly, filtering through the information and making relevant connections and throwing out what is worthless, but my tongue is unwilling; not until my brain reaches a place of rest and satisfaction with its conclusion is my mouth ready to share it. And by then the moment of relevancy has passed by.

I don’t really know why I’m writing all this, except that this is how I process things—in writing. If only our two hours on Monday nights had a pause button so that I could write an essay on our topic of discussion in time to share my actual thoughts... If only there would be some occasion in my life when I felt like I “fit in” with a group instead of always meandering in the outskirts, mulling things over behind the scenes of those with quicker minds and tongues. Honestly there are times when I’m sure I must seem like a brain-dead mute.

I told my sister the other day that sometimes, I feel like I have no place in the world. That I feel lost and wandering, ever searching for the actual, non-cheesy, non-Sunday school answer reason that I exist. Her reply, at least, made me smile: “Hey, you know, that’s the first attribute of a superhero.”

I guess that’s one way of looking at it. ;)

some long-promised wedding pictures

 

It has occurred to me that I promised to post wedding pictures several months ago… and never did. Whoops. Sorry about my tardiness (mostly forgetfulness)!

I hired George Street Photo & Video to document my wedding day. The photographer who did the actual picture taking, Gwyn, was very talented and I enjoyed her work immensely; however, the company itself is rather poorly run in terms of customer service, communication, and workflow. I received all my images either unedited or very poorly edited (not Gwyn’s responsibility at all—the pictures were out of her hands almost immediately), so I actually edited my own wedding pictures in Photoshop after I received the digital files! It’s a good thing I love editing. :)

For example:

^ Probably one of my favorites once I got it all fixed up!

 

There you have it, friends! It was a beautiful day, February in Goldendale—almost a year ago already and that seems insane. I’m so thankful for that day, for the covenant vow Sam and I took. For the beautiful pictures I have to remember it by.