The Night My Future Dreams Came True

Each month, hundreds of texts speed between my phone and that of my best friend, Katie. I am not addicted to texting in general but when it comes to keeping up with my alter-ego who lives near Atlanta, daily conversations via text are an absolute must. It is my one vice, if you can call it that. Those of you who have long-distance best friends will understand how a person who lives half a nation away can know you as well if not better than some family members. If Katie takes a technology detox for the weekend or I'm out of cell reception for a few days, there is a world of business to catch up on when we return into communication. And not your legendary white-girl emoji wars or dumb chick-flick quote wars. We have real things to discuss. Trips to plan. Georgia State Senate sessions to cover. Parties to report on. Fashion advice to dispense. Prayer to be requested. An ear to which we can vent. Art and history to discuss. Movies to recommend and then shout over. In an only half-joking way, Katie is my sanity.

But this is not a post about how much I value my sassy, Southern friend because much as I wouldn't mind soliloquizing, you mightn't enjoy hearing it. Just for fun, I asked Katie to describe in three sentences her dream life six years from now: where she'd be, what she'd be doing, who she would have in her life. Then I did the same for my own life, rattling off the first mental picture that came to mind:

“I will be my own version of Elizabeth Burke: a 28 year-old Mama to a little girl with light brown curls (age three) and an auburn-haired baby boy, perhaps ten months old. I will live in an 1800's farmhouse with a husband who works somehow with his hands. My writing will have fallen a little by the wayside but I will still keep it up and I will spend my days making beauty out of everything: food, my home, the people around me, my art, my words; I will keep a blog of all this and photograph the food and share the stories and make a quiet place for frantic readers to rest a while.

That will be me. In three sentences. If I went on longer I could tell you of the children's books I write and the roses twining up the trellis which I jealously tend, and the little streets in the town nearby where I take airings with my babies.”

Katie and I both know our lives in six years will probably be quite different than we think they ought to be from our vantage point pre-2021. That dream I share above is a fond dream but I am conscious that it might not be my reality. That there will be something different and something better that I can't see from here. But for now, the dream is beautiful and tantalizing and last night it felt so ridiculously close. I knew our game was dangerous but I didn't realize how dangerous until I spoke that dream into being, sent the text, and watched the scenario play out in my head.

It was almost as if I stood on the other side of a pane of glass separating me from the life of which I dream. If I could break through the glass—even tap on it and get the attention of the players on the other side—surely, surely they would notice and see me and invite me in. The little girl with soft brown curls would light up with joy to see her Mama, and the baby boy would giggle, lift chubby arms and bring them down chubby-handed on the soft bread dough left to rise in the sunlight shifting through the wavy glass of the old windows. But I'm here, in the first few months of 2015, and that vision is only a fancy of mine. Six years will tell whether those good, good things are my good, good things, or whether they are only fancies. Frustration curved through my breast-bone and hurt me. The feeling was not simple discontentment, out of which I can easily talk my myself, but impatience. I could see, hear, taste, feel that six-year dream through the glass and by George I wanted to break the pane. I refused Katie's invitation to browse Pinterest with her and send each other photographic evidence of that dream life and instead went up to bed. There, I pulled my heavy, battered Bible off my nightstand onto my lap and breathed a prayer for the families of the 21 martyrs in Libya whose hearts are aching. Yes, my heart ached with the impatience to see the underside of tomorrow, to flip the future on its back and see what it has in store for me, but their hearts are breaking with the fact that their husband/brother/son/best friend was severed from this life by the sword of an enemy of our Christ. I flipped the pages of my Bible to the Psalms, to my sweet-spot in the Scriptures where no matter what I'm feeling, I am assured of finding comfort. This night, I found my eyes running over the familiar words of Psalm 16. Just running ahead. Running and running and running ahead like my mind. Not comprehending, not understanding, not trying to understand. Just running because it did not want to wait for fear of missing out.

I pulled my Bible closer, read the words aloud, smoothed the crinkled pages with impatient fingers and took it slower. Through the opening plea for God's protection, through the assurance of the end of wickedness, through the declarations of love to the Lord. And at the very end, deep in the back-verses of this old-faithful Psalm, I found my answer:

“You will show me the path of life;
In Your presence is fullness of joy;
At Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.” (Ps. 16:11)

I curled into the warmth of my bed and smiled at the arrest of my heart which had finally stopped running, finally started listening. Oh, the irony of Christ! The impatience driven into my chest by my six-year dream was foolish but not wrong. I saw myself now as the curly-headed little girl in my own dream, clinging to her Papa's hand and begging, “Hurry up, please! We'll be LATE.”

As a child, did you ever hurry ahead of the adults, perhaps toward a scene of infinite pleasure and delight, only to realize quite pink-faced that you didn't know the route and might, perhaps, miss the “Way-In” by insisting on taking the lead? My current impatience was stemming from excitement rather than discontent just as the little girl's frantic tugging on her Papa's hand stems more from the glossy allure of promised joys than any real crossness with her parent. Much as if my Papa had settled his big, daddy-hand over my tangled curls and told me we'll get there when we get there, God's word settled on my heart.

He will show me the path of life. (Application: I can't find my way to the future alone)

In His presence is fullness of joy. (Application: My joy depends on teaming up with a Traveling Companion.)

At His right hand are pleasures forevermore. (Application: the pleasure and delight I crave and anticipate can only be found by tucking my little, sweaty fist into his great, calloused palm and agreeing to take it at His pace.)

Boil down my six-year dream and what essential components do I find? A joy in appreciating and creating beauty. A full and loving life. Pleasure taken in simple things. All the components I am promised in God's own living and breathing Word if I'll have a little patience, please. He has promised me joy and purpose and pleasure which is the core of what I want. For though the particulars of God's plan might look very different than the particulars of my six-year dream, I am promised the heart of it. And for that matter, the heart of it requires no waiting. It can be and is mine already:

A joy in appreciating and creating beauty.

A full and loving life.

Pleasure taken in simple things.

Then, for heaven's sake, the future is today and today is tomorrow and maybe this is the thing on which real fulfillment hinges: that we ought never to hurry ahead because there is no ahead just yet. Ahead is chance and a gamble and an imagination. Life is only real in the exact moment we hold it in our hands and to rush ahead would be to leave all the realness behind to chase vapors.

Flushed with the simple GENIUS of this revelation, I texted Katie the verse and an explanation with as eager a spirit as when I'd texted her the six-year dream. And then? Saccharine as such an admission seems, I went to sleep with a heart as quiet and full as if the six-year dream had been dropped in my lap in all its pretty fullness. And really, in a way, it had been. May we all learn to walk in pace with the only One who knows the real Way-In.

My Ragamuffin Heart

The sun is sifting down below the up-thrust of pines across the cotton field. Silver clouds stretch greyhound-shaped across a pure blue sky, trying to outstrip the dusk that will overtake them with a Midas touch and spin them into gold threads. I have spent the afternoon reading aloud a good novel to my younger sister while she practices drawing portraits. My seven year old sister, Grace, was baptized today with ten others. After church, my cousin and I went out to lunch--the cousin I scarcely see anymore, since we both took up the professional life. He paid, though he knew I didn't expect it. For dinner this evening, we have leftovers from Dad's birthday: the most delicious sort of leftovers. My trench-coat smells of adventure, or maybe it is only last night's bonfire.My sisters and I have saved our portion to eat at another bonfire tonight: sourdough bread toasted over open flames, pork tenderloin crisped over a wood fire. Perhaps my cousin will come over. Perhaps we'll have one of the Good Old Times. It's cold tonight and October is reckoning. Yesterday, I saw one of my girlhood friends and her new, velvet baby. In three short weeks my beloved older brother is marrying my best friend.

Grace abounds; overflows; caresses; shouts.

But am I content?

I wish I could say yes, without telling a lie. I am thankful for all these blessings--recounting them now, I am ashamed at the discontentment blotting this beautiful, autumn page. But if I am going to be entirely honest--and how am I to be credible if don't?--than I have to tell you that my heart is weak tonight. Tonight, my heart looks at all this and thinks, "Yes, it's very nice, but it's not what I want most." What do I want most? I hesitate to ask myself this question because I know my answer and I know the right answer, and they're not the same. Not tonight.

Tonight, what my heart wants most is a husband.

There. I said it. Be shocked if you want, or agree with me. Tell me that isn't where I will find my fulfillment. I know this. I know this deeper than deep down in my soul. But for all the knowing, it doesn't mean that I don't want it. And the reason I want it so badly, is this: my heart doubts He can do it. My heart doubts that God can overcome the details of my desires vs. current realities. My heart doubts. I've finally said it. I laugh, like Sarah, at the idea that God could do it. I tally up on burned fingers the number of ways in which I'm not good enough, pretty enough, clever enough, talented enough, attractive enough, busy enough, traveled enough, holy enough to even come close to thinking there's a chance I'll win the heart of any man, if I knew of a man whose heart I wanted to win. It isn't easy to write this here for all of you to see. I would much rather put a brave face on, be the sensible woman I usually am, and say I'm perfectly content with my admittedly beautiful life. Tonight, that's not where my heart is.

But there's this thing about hearts, a secret I learned by rote a long time ago. A secret whose import I haven't bothered to understand until now. Now I think I understand what it really means. Funny, how seven words can change from meaningless to meaning so much in an unholy moment, made holy by the revelation. "The heart is deceitful above all things." Deceitful. Lying. Cheating. Unfair. Dishonest. My heart is all these things. Tonight, my heart tells me that God can't do it. GOD. The same God who made this entire universe, who, this March, turned an unsuspecting me from unemployed to having a precious job, who has acted like the best sort of romantic and caused two of my favorite people to fall in love with each other, who has given me the gift of having a house in a quiet corner of the country where I can see the sunrises and sunsets each day and the stars like crystal-shards at night. God can't do it. Or He won't. Or can't and won't. God isn't going to do it, my heart says. It thinks it is right.

My head knows this isn't true. My head hardly ever wavers from a circumspect course. But heads can't feel and hearts can. They can hurt like hell. Hearts can throw back their heads and howl and blur away the blessing from the moments, steal the breath, beat the temples with an almost physical blow. Hearts can speak louder than any thought, and their words are poison. A head, in this situation is useless. My soul is another matter. It is quiet tonight. So quiet, I almost worry I have killed it in my perversity of spirit. Thank God that's theologically impossible. "What's up, Soul?" I wonder. "Can't you crush my heart with some grand dose of spiritual common sense? My head's on your side, but my heart's over here standing on a chair with his head thrown back, shrilling. My ears hurt. My body hurts. My heart hurts."
Still, my soul is quiet. It's a little unnerving. I go out to the front porch to breathe in the sunset, breathe out the poison, breathe in the chill air, breathe out the doubt and pain. I bring my heart, kicking, screaming, digging its fingernails like bloody half-moons into the tops of my hands. "God," I whisper. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry that I my heart doesn't believe you. I need you to take this and show me how to quieten it. Show me how to believe again. I am so sorry."
And then my soul lumbers to its feet at last--I feel relieved, as if I really had killed it--and puts a heavy, clumsy hand on my heart. Heart, fitful, fretful, fractious child that it is, kicks a little. Screams once or twice. Bites the hand. But the hand is calloused in the best way, accustomed to the throbbing of my deceived heart. My soul remembers, suddenly, the set of words that have fed me this weekend:

How precious is your lovingkindness,

O God!

Therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of Your wings.

They are abundantly satisfied with the fullness of Your house,

And You give them drink from the river of Your pleasures.

For with You is the fountain of life.

In Your light we see light.

(Psalm 36:7-8)

The clouds like greyhounds have given tongue to the dark and fall in a heap of golden glory. A long slide of silver light reaches toward where I sit on the cold bricks. My heart is still yelling like an infant, but the tantrum feels strangely futile because of my soul's hand. I taste the words of the Psalmist, say them aloud, bring the promise to my God. I have put my trust under the shadow of His wings, whatever my heart tells me to the contrary. He has promised that I will be satisfied with the fullness of His house, that I will drink from the river of His pleasures, that His fountain is life. He will keep His promises. This I know with the full fury of my soul.
Why, then, won't my heart feel it too?
Why does my heart persist in its shameful refusal to believe?
Then I realize why. Because it has withdrawn into a dark corner, wrapped a blanket of dishonesty about its shoulders. This time, the dishonesty is the very secret I just spilled: that my heart doesn't believe. In the darkness, it can't believe. It can't possibly see the light, because the only way in which it can is through the light of the one it has chosen tonight to distrust. As I whisper these words and force my heart to stand in the truth of the promise, I feel the silver of that sky slide into my soul and shore up its faith. My ears are ringing, and I realize it isn't from an increased pitch of my shrieking heart...actually, my heart is muffled by something strange: a flood of joy. It rushes and foams with the voice of many waters and I can barely hear my heart under the sound. If I look for that ridiculous, lying heart, I know it is still hammering its fallacies, trying to work its way to my steadfast soul. But my soul has been fed by the light, both figuratively and literally. My soul is in fighting trim. It feels like laughing. And just to annoy my ragamuffin heart, he leaves his hand there, just a little longer.

"When my heart is overwhelmed, lead me to the Rock that is higher than I."

The Little Green Road

"Keep it secret; keep it safe."

-Gandalf

There's something precious about keeping secrets. I don't mean harmful secrets or things you really ought to tell other people, or prayer requests or your own faults or failings.

I mean things like modesty: keeping the secret of your body from everyone else but the one person God has ordained to be your spouse.

I mean beauty: "I gazed--and gazed--but little thought what wealth the show to me had brought. For oft when on my couch I lie in vacant or in pensive mood, they flash upon that inward eye which is the bliss of solitude."

I mean the thousand quiet things that don't need to be told/shown/spoken in order to be enjoyed.

I mean the things that are most beautiful when kept silent:

The tremendous figure which fills the Gospels towers in this respect, as in every other, above all the thinkers who ever thought themselves tall. His pathos was natural, almost casual. The Stoics, ancient and modern, were proud of concealing their tears. He never concealed His tears; He showed them plainly on His open face at any daily sight, such as the far sight of His native city. Yet He concealed something. Solemn supermen and imperial diplomatists are proud of restraining their anger. He never restrained His anger. He flung furniture down the front steps of the Temple, and asked men how they expected to escape the damnation of Hell. Yet He restrained something. I say it with reverence; there was in that shattering personality a thread that must be called shyness. There was something that He hid from all men when He went up a mountain to pray. There was something that He covered constantly by abrupt silence or impetuous isolation. There was some one thing that was too great for God to show us when He walked upon our earth; and I have sometimes fancied that it was His mirth.” 

-G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

It will seem to you that I've been in a reflective mood recently, what with the post on flirtation last time and now this, and perhaps I am. Or maybe I'm just finally finding time to write the things down that have been living in my brain, unrecognized for the longest period because my schedule has been so wacked. I'm not a huge SAVE THE EARTH person. Not at all. But in the same vein of keeping things secret, I found the perfect illustration:

I live in the countryside and there's this lovely bit of a triangle made from three different roads. The patch between the three is a secret patch of forest and I love it because it's so forgotten; nobody uses it for anything because it's too small to hunt on, it's too tangled to walk through, and I'm pretty much the only person who goes for a walk these days anyhow. On the opposite side of one of the roads, there was another patch of forest--this one rather large. And winding back into the forest was this lovely little green road that always looked like Ireland with the sun coming down, filtered through the leaves. I liked to think what sort of road it was: who took their ATV's down it to go hunting, or drove down it in their pick-ups to go fishing in one of the copperhead-infested ponds way back on Mr. Byrum's land. And someday, I told myself, I'd get brave enough to step past the No Trespassing sign and just set foot on that little green road. It was most beautiful to me because it was overlooked, unnoticed, and entirely mine. After all, when you're the only human being who cares to take walks in the country, you're bound to feel a little possessive.

The saddest thing happened...

They cleared that piece of land this past week--harvested all the pines and other trees--and my bit of Ireland is gone. Entirely gone. There's nothing secret and sacred about it. It's not even green anymore since all the equipment dragged brown pine-needles and covered its beauty over in a pall of Business. It's almost enough to make me feel like crying which is entirely silly, I know. I mean, if they planted the pines on purpose to harvest later and took the care to thin them as they were growing, then they've a right to do anything they want with them; in fact, that's good business. That's what it means to work and live in an agrarian society.

But it's not secret anymore. Someone exposed the bit of green road. It's not innocent, but ravaged. It looks like a war-zone. And worse yet, it's not mine. I don't know that piece of land anymore. It looks rakish and wretched and like the difference in Fantine between "At the End of the Day" and "I Dreamed a Dream" in Les Miserables. I hate the new look and I'm trying not to be upset and making myself drive that way and stare at the barrenness and think, "Someday it'll be secret again." Even the Triangle Bit across the road looks different because now the sun stares right in like a nosy neighbor, ferreting out any secretness it used to possess.

I guess this post doesn't have any point except that I think we're way too obsessed with moving forward and telling everything. We over-share the secret, beautiful bits about our lives and Facebook and Instagram and Twitter and even on our blogs. I love to share the beauty with you. I love it so much. I'm a huge fan of taking pictures and helping other people see the fragile beauties. It's a small way I can minister. And yet I never want to lose the wonder of knowing things not everyone in the world knows. I was the only one who cared about the little green road and so it was mine. Now it's gone and no one else will know and that's kind of a really special feeling.

Keep your innocent, pretty special-secrets; they're never going to lose value by being yours. 

My Crazy-Single-Writer's-Life Includes...

Editing.

Playing with Paper when I'm not Writing On It

Sending Belated Birthday Gifts:

Turning Utter Chaos into Chic Order:

I have a Writer's Lair now!

Making Shrinkage-Worthy Pies:

And filling blue-glass vases with flowers:

What about you?

:)

"Yeah, you gotta go deep//Way on back//Cross a few creeks//And a couple little shacks//You gotta get lost//Way on out//Crickets and frogs//Yeah you're getting close now//then you kick it into 4-wheel drive//till you run outta road//then you go//and you go and you go and you go//till you hear a banjo//

-"Banjo" by Rascal Flatts

Burdened with Glorious Purpose

“Often a Christian man or woman falls prey to that cruel and vexatious spirit, wondering how to find marriage, who, when, where? It is on God that we should wait, as a waiter waits--not for but on the customer--alert, watchful, attentive, with no agenda of his own, ready to do whatever is wanted. 'My soul, wait thou only upon God; for my expectation is from him.' (Ps. 62:5 KJV) In Him alone lie our security, our confidence, our trust. A spirit of restlessness and resistance can never wait, but one who believes he is loved with an everlasting love, and knows that underneath are the everlasting arms, will find strength and peace.” -Elisabeth Elliot

Looking back, the month of April was the best month of my life so far. So many new experiences! The two major ones that stick out are, of course, Romania and seeing Les Miserables live. But I am not only speaking of physical experiences.

You see, the month of April was a gift to me in direct answer to my prayers.

Sometime in March, I was pretty much at the end of my rope, feeling that all the patch-work responsibilities and endeavors of my stay-at-home life were useless. How on earth could God piece them together into something worthwhile? Was I wasting my time? Am I wasting my single years? Am I supposed to be a writer or is there something I am missing? So many questions--fears, really--crowded my mind. Finally, in desperation, I asked God for one thing:

"Lord Jesus, I don't care what it is I am doing." I prayed.  "I am willing to do and be anything. But please give me a sense of Your pleasure, a sense that I am exactly where you want me to be."

April came, and with it, the answer to my plea.

I lived in God's presence this month. I can't really describe it any other way. The two weeks in Romania effected me in so many ways, but one thing they gave me was a hunger for holiness. The constant putting of myself before God, and rejoicing in His nearness, and thinking on His goodness and His word. This was, at first, a response to being in church every day while we were there. Then it became a habit. Then a desire. Then when I came home, I found myself...well...to take Loki way out of context:

"Burdened with glorious purpose."

But truthfully. This month God awakened a fire within my heart, and my prayer since coming home has been that He would keep it cupped in His hands and breathe life into it, that it might blaze within me from now on. Because I don't want to lose this sense of living in His presence and His peace.

My circumstances haven't changed.

There have been trials this month as well as blessings. I have watched the Lord give form to some of my cherished dreams and strengthen my longing for them, and yet put out His hand and say, "Not yet, my darling one." And it would be desperately hard to wait except that His hand is gentle and heavy upon my shoulder, and I know that somehow He is sharing in my waiting. I have felt His pleasure alongside me as we look at a wheat-grown field, almost luminous in the half-light of dusk. I have cried and known that He is sharing my tears and my pain and I am not alone in this thing. He has given me the privilege of meeting beautiful, passionate fighters for His kingdom this month. I am so humbled by getting to know Pastor John and his story. His childlike, iron-clad faith... It seems too much that Jesus would allow me to spend two weeks in the company of magnificent men like him and his son and the others I met on that trip.

Jesus heard my desperate cry in March, and He held my hand and hoisted me to my feet, because He knew that April was coming. He knew that I would stand on the brink of Maytime and smile with a heart full to tears because of His goodness. He heard my cry. "In the day when I cried out, You answered me, and made me bold with strength in my soul." -Psalm 138:3 

I suppose there is not a very large reason for this post, except as a testimony of praise to my Jesus of His great lovingkindness. My life is still shards of tiles waiting to be formed into a mosaic. My dreams are still only shadows, and I still don't have any idea of what I am doing. But oh, my heart is at peace. Because I have tasted of His presence and I have lived in the light of His smile and I can feel His pleasure and His guidance. I have thrown my lot in with the only One who knows what is going on in this mad, merry world, and I have made myself available. I'm not clinging to any ideas of what I'm doing. I've only asked that He use me. 

No idea where I'm going. No idea what's next or what isn't next. But the joy of this month was not built off a trip to Europe or to the Theatre. The joy of this month was built off of putting my hand in the Lord's and living with Him.

Maytime? I claim you as His. 

The Half We've Known...

"If it's half as good as the half we've known, here's Hail! to the rest of the road."

-Sheldon Vanauken

Reading A Severe Mercy has been one of the highlights of this autumn. There are books you read and think, "ah yes--I am glad I read it so that I can say I've read it. Besides--it was a good enough book in it's own right." And then there are books that draw you in and play upon your heart and are so enjoyable that you eye the receding number of pages nervously, knowing that the end draws near. I am not finished reading A Severe Mercy yet, but I've come to the part where Van is going through an Illumination of the Past and "reliving" his life with Davy after her death.

Every memory of their life together--journals, letters, music, smells, books, everything--comes alive and he is overwhelmed with the blessing of their time together.

"As I travelled through the past, month by month, year by year, so it leaped into life. I remembered not only that which was written down but a hundred things besides...without exaggeration, it was one of the two or three most amazing experiences of my life. Even though I had planned it, I had not had the faintest idea that the past could be recreated with such extraordinary brilliance and reality."

-A Severe Mercy

It set me to thinking, as good things will, about my own life. Memory, as Longfellow said, "is the bliss of solitude"...so why do we keep it for the days when all memory-making is past? When the people, the pleasures, the events of our lives are nothing but faint watercolors on parchment? When we have no abilities besides watching the merry play of our lives in retrospect. Everyone takes pleasure in reading a memoir, yet when were the memoirs written? Likely at an after-period in the person's life when they had nothing left but memories.

I started to think about the things I love so well in this life. The small pleasures that I will probably forget by and by, and yet the ones that have shaped me, perhaps, more than the greater things. I am a firm believer in the idea that everything that happens to a person--good and bad--somehow shapes their lives, unconsciously or not. And I don't want to lose track of the Beautiful in this helter-skelter world we live in. These blessings we think of as expendable...they are blessings all the same and are from the Lord for: "every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father..." We are greedy in our very nature. Because we've been blessed with so many beautifuls in our life, we tend to think, "Ah--why remember that? It's not important." But it is...so very important. And the small things are the most important of all.

So I've created a blog event for us to remedy the situation. I'll call it "The Half We've Known," (taking its name from the Vanauken's yearly toast to their marriage) and you can even take the picture off my side-bar and add it to your own.

There won't be a set time for this blog event--do it as you feel like it. But I hope to do it at least twice a month. The rules are simple:
Write about a memory you have. Something elusive and gentle. I'd even say keep it to the smaller things you're in danger of forgetting someday. Write about something you take pleasure in, or something that has happened to you. It could be small like the time I watched the moon rise above the ocean and realized how bright a moon could be...it could be larger, like the first time you realized you loved a person. But whatever it is, I want you to devote a whole post to it. Describe the moment to yourself and your readers in a way that gives us the ability to almost touch the memory. Don't be skimpy on details. The idea is to remember. Remember with everything inside you.
And when you're done, if the memory has become vivid through its writing, you might even print it off and save it somewhere and by and by you'll collect a deal of The Half We've Known and be able to sing truthfully, "here's Hail! to the rest of the road."

Who's with me on this?

Crashing the Pity Party

    Following a wonderful post by Miss Raquel, {yes, I was clever enough to link to the post} I was thinking about Love. What a capricious word "Love" is in our English language. By "love" we English mean anything from Nutella to babies to period dramas, to Sherlock, to Thor, to our guy and our God. We are quick to say the word--indeed, "Love" is probably one of the top words in English vocabulary simply because it has so many definitions.

    As single girls and women we long for the day we will be loved by a good man, and most of the time we are content with God's love for now. Yep. That's the problem. Those two little words tacked onto the end of the sentence. "For Now." Don't lie--you know as well as I do that those two words chase after your thoughts like hounds after a hare.
    I am as guilty as the next woman of viewing this single life as an in-between-time. I seem to view these years when I am unmarried as a "waiting period" as if: "Oh, the Lord's love is good enough for me now until He decides to bring my man along and then...then it'll be over and we'll all run along merry as the day is long."

     But therein lies the whole problem. I've been reading C.S. Lewis' The Screwtape Letters and came across a very intriguing bit of correspondence between Screwtape and his nephew:

“You must therefore zealously guard in his mind the curious assumption 'My time is my own'. Let him have the feeling that he starts each day as the lawful possessor of twenty-four hours. Let him feel as a grievous tax that portion of this property which he has to make over to him employers, and as a generous donation that further portion which h allows to religious duties. But what he must never be permitted to doubt is that the total from which these deductions have been made was, in some mysterious sense, his own personal birthright.” 

     I had to feel convicted over that quote. I, like many others, seem to view my time as my own. I assume that my life as a single woman will come to an end someday, and in the meantime I look forward to that end with great expectation. What none of us take into account is that we don't know which part of the future we will have.

     What  if this "season" is one God has called us to for the rest of our lives? What if we aren't to be married or--and I am not being morbid, just philosophizing--what if we aren't to live as long as we expect? Do you really want to live life as a single woman with your eyes fixed on the horizon, never seeing all the gifts strewn around your feet?

     The thing is, Jesus isn't interested in convincing us to wait. What He wants is for us to fall so completely, unutterably, wholly in love with Him that we don't count moments and hours and days and weeks and months and years. He wants us to be consumed with a passionate love for Him that outer circumstances don't affect our willingness to be His. Yes, even marriage. Because for all the "Love" that we might share with a godly man someday, it won't last. The warm fuzzies will fade. You will discover he's a man after all, and even Mr. Knightley sometimes props his boots in the middle of the good china. Marriage is simply another step of life. A precious one, yes, but no more important in the eternal scheme of things than any other event you experience.

    Sometimes I think I'm guilty of using my love for Jesus {or His love for me} as an antidote. "I love Jesus--I really do. And I'm loving Him so much today that I don't feel anxious to be married at all!" Such a love can hardly be deemed a whole-hearted, selfless, tender affection and devotion to a person. It smacks singularly of selfishness. "I love you till" or "I love you because"--not a bit of that profound way Jesus loves us:

"I love you."

    No reason, no conditions, no expiration date. He loves us simply because that was His choice. And in return we learn to love Him. (1 John 4:19)

     So this is not another post on How To Wait. It's not even a post on Waiting Is Hard. {which sometimes runs closer to my frame of mind} I really want you to understand that. I've written and you've read plenty of posts about Theory. I'm asking for some Practice. Some determination to crash our pity-parties and get going with this beautiful life God has given us. How it must sadden Him and make Him shake His head to see us entirely missing the point of Life.
Life isn't an endurance test!
     It's a privilege. We can't just sit here tolerating singleness as if it was a dry, bony desert we couldn't wait to get to the end of. I'm not writing a Guide Book To The Piteous Desert.
     Instead what the purport of this post is, is a challenge to each of us to build a vibrant, sweet, lasting relationship with Jesus. A relationship that begins today and extends to death and beyond. A relationship that will still be the source of your joy, your contentment, and your peace when {and if} you are married, when the children come, when the children leave, when you're retired, and when you're eighty years old, toothless, and mental to boot. A relationship that is based on His ideas of love--not your idea of an antivenin. Because really...when all's said and done and Jesus is in the equation, who gives a wimpy hairpin if you've got a man?

{Dear World} In defense of sunset-watching

Hello everyone! This is a post I wrote up for Two's Company {the blog I share with Sarah} and I thought some of you might enjoy reading it, so I copied it here for you. Enjoy.

 
Dear, Darling,World,
     Tonight I took time to lay aside my broom in the middle of evening chores and watch the sunset. A simple thing, but one that might tell a lot about a person if you'd only listen.
It is a maxim of mine never to grow too busy to watch a sunset. You see, a person who is too busy to watch a sunset now and then is to busy to live, and if one is too busy to live, then one had much better die. It sounds harsh, yes, but if you'd only bear with me a moment longer you might understand...

What do we rush through life for but to get to the end and look back with a sigh of relief? Then it is the end you are rushing after, so go ahead and rush toward it if you will. I'm afraid I take a rather Peter-Pan-ian view of this life:
Of course I want to be in Heaven with Jesus, but I am not one of those cardboard people who think this world is rotten through and through with nothing to enjoy. Heaven will be marvelous, I know. Far better than anything I've imagined it out to be. If I knew what perfection is I'm sure I'd die here and now from sheer longing to be there. But how can one be quite certain that there will be sunsets? One cannot be certain of anything on that account because there won't need to be a sun with God's glory shining. Now wouldn't it be a shame to get to Heaven only to realize that you'd missed all the sunsets on earth? Heaven will undoubtedly have things far more beautiful than a sunset, but think of the benefits of taking a bit of time to lay aside your broom! What a longer life it might give you, just because you watched a sunset. Think of it in a logical manner:

1. You lay aside your broom, therefore you add a moment of leisure to your life that might never have existed.

2. You step out onto the porch and your skin soaks in the last rays of vitamin D while you heart and soul are fed by this beauty of the Lord's making. Right there, one has ministered to all three parts of one's body.

3. You let your mind wander a little which improves brain capacity and intelligence.

4. You watch this sunset with your senses alive to the beauty of the world--the colors flooding the sky, the sound of the frogs and crickets, the feel of the cool air against your skin. Thus your awareness of your five senses will be heightened and your dinner will taste better

5. You go back inside and you are in a happier mood.

6. You finish sweeping and probably do a much better job because now that it comes to it, you can see all those spots you missed.

7. You live your life this way, stepping outside to watch sunsets. Once you get to Heaven you see there might not be any sunsets, but there is something infinitely better--you are slightly prepared for the glory by absorbing beauty in little doses.

8. You are twice the winner--you tasted heaven on earth, and you'll recognize earth in Heaven.

So you see, watching the sunsets will extend your life, make you healthy, wealthy, and wise, and all around improve you in every manner. How the philosophers would laugh at my reasoning, but I say Let Them. I guarantee that I'll be the happier by the end of this life while they argued that I was the one in error. :)

Love Everly,

                  Rachel

Blessings in the murk :)

Even though the campaign work is crazy and stressful and fun and hideously tiring all at once, a friend did playfully challenge me to make this month a month of thankfulness rather than a month of ungratefulness. :) [Yes, even when I'm so tired my head feels floaty.] So, in an effort to smile past the shabby bits, I'm starting a sort of "One Thousand Gifts" list for this month. 'Course I won't get 1,000, but I'll get plenty if I work at it! So here we go:

1. friendly, outgoing people
2. a cute little ol' town to base out of
3. a nice hotel room
4. "Touchable Softness" shampoo
5. an episode of the Reba Show (it was like a modern-day Lucy! :)
6. red campaign shirts! (They could have been yellow, and then I'd be sunk!)
7. jeans
8. flipflops
9. Ankle socks
10. highlighters
11. highly organized bags of snacks. 
12. gatorade
13. Googlemaps
14. Julia
15. emails from friends
16. MOHL
17. southern courtesy, even when inconvenient
18. town squares
19. "yes" when you ask if they're voting for your guy
20. pictures
21. sunglasses rescuing
22. little girls
23. laptops
24. the luxury (even though I'm ready for home cooking! :D) of eating out 3 meals a day
25. lemonade
26. Steak n' Shake milkshakes
27. new friends
28. timely scripture reminders. :)

Shimmering Threads

Because sometimes it's important to recount the awesome blessings woven into the tapestry of life...

(via pinterest.com)

Sarah won a 2nd Blogoversary giveaway in which she won not 1, but 5 prizes!!!

Daniel and I are going off to the deep South for a month to work on several primary campaigns (long story! :) I'm not sure how much blogging I'll be able to get in, but I am thinking about opening an FB page to keep updates going. :)

Abigail is visiting and we are having a deal of fun, such as Being Pounced in bed, and giggling over the smell of each others hands. :P (Lemon and soap and Mexican? :P)

On Monday I've got an elaborate Box Hill plan with Morgan and Katie who I haven't seen enough of this past year. We're going wild. ;) Actually, we're going historical. It includes a photo-shoot, and a picnic! :)

My cousin Matthew was in an accident today and escaped unhurt, except for some glass shard-cuts. (Huge praise here!)

I got to go shopping for several clothing items I need for my trip, and spent a shocking amount of money on myself. ($91! I felt awful till Mama assured me it was okay--I never spend money in that way.)

And while I was shopping I got two pairs of shoes for under $20.00! (Score!)

Levi is learning to say "no" and "what's that?"

We've had beautiful, wonderful, magical thunderstorms the past several nights.

The moon is nearly full.

(and I have black beetles dropping down my back from the ceiling! Ew.)

Goldberry hijacked my Summer Reading List and made me very happy. :) More on that in another post.

Dombey & Son in a hardback, illustrated edition came to my house wrapped up in brown paper and string via the Abigail post, from said Goldberry, and made my heart go pitter-patter-flutter. <3

I've been using Tresemme "Touchable Softness" shampoo and my hair feels marvelous.

What are your "shimmering threads" for this week? :)

Umbrella-time!

Who ever heard of God holding an umbrella over a certain spot? I'm not sure, but all I know is that while we were getting absolutely torrential, tropical-storm-style rain, Dad, Sarah, Leah, Benjamin, and Justin W. working on a belated sod-job forty-minutes away. All afternoon I was feeling terrible for them--the girls especially have been so willing to work out with Dad while Daniel has been away. I ran around the upstairs shutting windows and sopping up the puddles and stood at the window praying for them while the wild wind blew the rain in sheet across the field. I began to have vague thoughts of making a parody of "Edinburgh after Flodden..." it might go something like this:

"Dribble-patter, Dribble-patter,

Hark! 'Tis raining down the street

And the green fields and the orchard

Bear the rain in scurrying sheets."

-"Virginia when it's Sodden"

But I digress. I ran downstairs and helped Mama with dinner and a little while later she called to check in with Dad. There had been not a single drop of rain over there, and we had 2+ inches just standing in puddles around our yard! Isn't that such a blessing? I was so happy for them--they've really needed to get this job done so we can get paid for it. :D Not to mention the fact that the rain brought in a much-needed cold front; the air feels so clean and delicious!

What was your miracle today? :)