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."

Koinonia: A Crazy Blessing

Throwback to the last night in Romania

I had meant to write that post about Orthodoxy and The Mind of the Maker like I said, but tonight something else came across my path and, being the little fox I am, I took a detour for a bit. This post was inspired by a post by my friend, Brittany Barden, on The Ivory Cubicle. Her article is excellent for many reasons, (a testimony of her recent mission's trip to Uganda--you should read it), but there was one section that tapped me on the shoulder with a "prickle of recognition". She mentions that she left America prepared to be changed, convicted, and challenged, but said that she did not expect the experience to feel so normal.

I didn't expect to sit in a mud hut, hearing that young boys and old grandmothers are the same the world over. I didn't expect selfies to be a thing with little African kids intrigued by my iPhone. I didn't expect to hear normal conversations about meeting friends for coffee, movie nights with neighbors, or a crisis pregnancy center on the other side of town.

This next bit was what really struck me:

My expected--even desired--lesson of better stewardship to result in greater giving flew out the window of that crowded van as God gently lectured me.

"These people do not need YOU or your money. They already have ALL that they need for life and godliness because they have Me. And before you can help them, you must first realize how much they have to teach you."

This is exactly how I felt when I went to Romania. I didn't expect to find people there who were exactly like people here. I didn't really think I'd be the one who felt given-to. When I came home from Romania and would talk online to the friends I made there, there was this funny give-and-take:

"You challenged us so much!" we would say.
"No, you challenged us!" they'd reply.

 It's a constant thing within my church-fellowship and among other believers that we're always deferring to the other person. That's a biblical trait, yes, but we take it too far. I can be guilty of discounting the effect I have on other people, telling them (in essence), "Oh, you certainly can't be feeling blessed and exhorted by me because you're the one teaching me stuff. I haven't done a gosh darned thing."
 Though my intentions are right (trying to be humble), I can sometimes actually begin to rob the blessing of being used by God by telling the friend that I didn't mean to bless them. We want to put others before us but we are also called to be aware of our ministry.

Maybe my Romanian friends and I were correct. Maybe the Ugandians and Brittany are both right. Maybe this is the principle on which the secret joy of Christian fellowship hangs. Too often in my life I have discounted the great strength which is to be found in fellowship with other believers. I mean, think about it; the word "fellowship" holds about as much meaning for us these days as terms like "get-together", "hanging out", "getting to know that seriously attractive person in a group setting" and "OH GOSH, SHE JUST ASKED ME ON CAMERA WHAT I LIKE ABOUT THIS CHRISTIAN CAMP." But what does "fellowship" really mean?

The term "fellowship" when used in the New Testament comes from the Greek word "koinonia". I remember when I was little we attended a church where they had a time before the service that we were always too late to attend; it remained rather shrouded in mystery and eclat for that reason. They called it "koinonia" and in my young mind, the word held associations of being successful (early enough for once!), getting Amish friendship bread, and something about cornucopias. (Don't ask me why about the last one.)
But back to koinonia. The word itself has roots meaning "joint participation". It comes from a family of words among which are meanings such as "the willingness to fellowship" and "partnering".

Koinonia...fellowship. Willingness to be a part of something. Willingness to be used in a partnership of mutual blessing. I think what Brittany felt in Uganda and what I felt in Romania 9 months ago and in my home just this afternoon...that humbled sense of unconsciously ministering and consciously receiving ministry...I think that's the real definition of fellowship. Perhaps we are more susceptible to realizing the beauty and importance of koinonia while away from our normal surroundings, surrounded by a peaceably foreign normalcy. The need for the richness of our sisters and brothers in Christ does not leave us when we board a flight back to America. It doesn't leave us when we've almost forgotten the heart-rending pain of having to leave that vivid willingness to fellowship we experienced while abroad, nor does it abate when we have begun to wonder if it was quite so beautiful as we remember it after all.
The hunger might be staved off, the pain might be dulled, and we might be like the dwarves in The Last Battle who convinced themselves their mired stall was a gilded hall. But we taste the koinonia sometimes when we least expect it, even here at home when our minds and hearts are dulled by the old normal,  and that is what makes one feel like crying in the last scene of The Return of the King when the fellowship is breaking up: they were a family of fools, gone through fire together, holding onto the light unflinchingly. They did life together. They had each others' backs. When one was weak, the other was strong. Sometimes they were all weak and in those moments someone would at last manage a grim smile and mention something about what they were doing on this Quest anyway, and they straggled onward and upward in the homely comfort of knowing they were in the company of those fighting for and against the same things.

A willingness to fellowship. Koinonia.

So next time you feel that odd sense of having gone somewhere to be a blessing and achieved nothing but having gathered blessing for yourself, don't freak out that you've somehow missed the ministry you hoped to have. Chances are, God has used you in a gracious display of koinonia. Chances are, the people you have gone to were ready for your message and you were ready for theirs. This is always our Father's way; just when we think there's a limited quantity of blessing, He grins and dumps something like honest to goodness fellowship in our laps in that insanely generous way of His.

The Partnership of Mutual Blessing...Just think how awesome Heaven's going to be.

A Southern Mix of Lost and Found

"I grew up in a little farm-town, a Southern mix of lost and found, but most folks seemed to stick around.... whoa-oh!"

-Andrew Peterson "World Traveler"

Hello, Friendsies!
      I am sorry the post about the DIY coffee-house decor hasn't gone up yet! My internet has been spazzing out and wouldn't send the pictures from my tablet to my laptop so I need to figure that out before I can do it. :P

      Oh my goodness. Guys, life is so hectic but SO exciting right now! In just over a week I am leaving for Romania. I will be on the plane and in Paris a week from Saturday. CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT? And then from Paris to Hungary and from Hungary to Romania! My brain is already ticking with all the things I plan to draw and write in my travel journal. I have made a solemn vow and promise to keep up my travel journal even to my own annoyance because I know that when I am seventy years old, I will be wishing I was more patient at twenty and had taken time to write about my journeys. Plus, I don't want to lose any of the writing inspiration I am assured I will collect. :) My friends and family have been SO supportive of this trip. I really want to thank Mama and Leah and Anna especially since they aren't going to Romania but they have worked just as hard as Sarah and I.

      One sweet friend saw I was looking for a crossbody/messenger/tote bag for my trip and offered to buy Sarah and I each one of our choice. I ended up choosing this beauty:

The Baccini crossbody-shoulder-gaucho bag 

     It is made of Italian sheep-leather (isn't that cool?) and supposedly comes with a long strap for carrying cross-body. I love the look of this bag...it's PERFECT for a trip to Europe, don't you think? And it is leather like my travel journal. Woohoo!

      Yesterday I took Matthew and Sarah into the Beach to catch the Wednesday 50% off all clothing sales at Salvation Army so we could load up on the few items that our whimsical Virginia weather doesn't require us to have; Sarah has spent almost the entire winter wearing short-sleeved shirts, and I don't even own a coat! Or at least I didn't till...

Yep! It's a plum-purple woolen, double-breasted pea-coat! 

   A very tiny thing few people know about me is that I have always wanted a pea coat, and I have always wanted a purple pea-coat. God was totally behind this item because it as at the Goodwill that doesn't have 50% off sales, but for some reason yesterday ALL the winter coats were 50% off! It's the most beautiful thing...there was a London Towne brown coat that was cute too, but when I saw the plum colored one, I knew it had my name on it. God also provided the shoes we needed (Mine and Sarah's black shoes were both literally falling to pieces. Like...soles flapping. It's what happens when you live in the countryside), as well as other items like a brand spankin' new pair of dark-wash jeans (I despise light-colored denim) and several adorable sweaters. When we got home Leah slightly complained, "How is it that we go out for weeks in a row and never find a thing and you go out one day and get it all?" I could only answer with the truth: I guess the Lord knew I had just over a week to get it together and hardly any time to be spared. :)

      But Sarah and I weren't the only ones that scored big...we turned Matthew into Neal Caffrey. :D

And do you see Sarah and I photo-bombing in the background?
 NO idea what that was about. I am very interested in what she was staring at on the laptop, apparently.

      The time is soon approaching and my wander-lust grows with each day. The stress I had been formerly dealing with before we got the kinks with funding worked out has been lifted, and I just feel that God is going to do wonderful things in my personal life with this trip. :) 

      It y'all could pray for Sarah and Matthew and I (and the rest of the team) that would be great because we are going to be writing up our testimonies, including how God is working in our lives and how we are affirmed in our faith and then speaking those testimonies over in Romania. :) Exciting! But a little nerve-wracking, as the things that are so beautifully simple in my heart and head get knotted when I try to make them come out. :D I have asked Jesus to give me His words, and I know He will. Pray that my heart will be quiet enough to listen. :D 

    In other news, I am re-reading A Severe Mercy by Sheldon Vanauken and finding I love to write in books. Haha. Sing ho for funny new habits! Also, some friends of ours are coming down from the Richmond area to conduct a Seder meal for our church family...can't wait to celebrate Jesus as our Passover Lamb! <3 :) 

"children drop your chains and sing"

A benefit of having a brother and cousin (who are rather on the up-and-up when it comes to Christian contemporary music) is they keep you well-informed on the best songs out there. So when Daniel bought Tenth Avenue North's The Struggle c.d., I had high high hopes.

 Mike Donahey's music blesses me more and more the better I get to know it. This c.d. is full of wonderful songs, but one in particular I have taken as my catch-phrase for 2013...

"The Struggle"

"There's a wreckage, there's a fire

There's a weakness in my love

There's a hunger I can't control.

Lord I falter, and I fall down 

Then I hold onto the chains You broke

When You came down and saved my soul.

Save my soul."

This verse is my heart's cry when I'm hurting...it was David's heart's cry in the Psalms, and I think it is the prayer of every Christian at times. (And as a purely aesthetic thing, I love the play on S.O.S. "save our ship" turned to "Save my soul") This verse just pins those moments of temptation and weakness and mourning. Then comes the chorus:

"Hallelujah!

We are free to struggle,

We're not struggling to be free.

Your blood bought and makes us children

So children drop your chains and sing."

So profound. So beautiful. "We are free to struggle. We're not struggling to be free." When I first heard this song I got chills...and it's happened every time since. God's love for me. His passion and longing for His wandering people to repent and come home to His arms.// I love how the author of this song pegged the difference grace makes: as Christians we are free to struggle--the battle and war against and wrestle temptations. But we're not in bondage. We're not struggling to be free.

"So I look. Do I still fail?

Do I withold? Do I give into temptations?

On my own I am bankrupt

I will trust You. I will take You at Your word.

You promise."

Then the chorus again. A cry for the fulfillment of this promise from Jesus...and the piercing knowledge that He will give it. This promise, this oath, this glorious, incomprehensible grace. 

"Hallelujah, death is overcome

And we are breathing.

Hallelujah our stone hearts become flesh,

a flesh that's beating.

Hallelujah chains have been undone

and we are singing.

Hallelujah the fire has begun.

Can you feel it?"

The victory in this verse reminds me so of that passage in Romans: (8:38-39) 

"For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord."

"Hallelujah!

We are free to struggle,

We're not struggling to be free.

Your blood bought and makes us children

So children drop your chains and sing."

Floored: The Shadow-Giver

Because I know so many families in the same boat, I haven't mentioned that our family has been going through a hideous time financially. The Recession, during the first couple years, didn't seem to hit our family much at all, but as everyone--even the moneybags--had to start tightening their belts, "extras" were cut...like landscapers. And when Landscapers aren't needed anymore, that means we're out of a job. It's an old, old story and we certainly aren't the original Dorrits, and I don't like to focus on it, so I haven't mentioned it much. You know. The less you think about it, the less it bothers you.

Throughout the month of December we received SO many financial blessings that happened in crazy ways. It was humbling, truly. Sometimes it was a family we know who dropped off huge loads of fresh fruit they had picked up for their farm from the food bank. Sometimes it was the bit of money left in Dad's wallet after church on Sunday. Once it was the 50 dollar bills scattered through the house by a generous and secret giver. Once it was the freshly killed doe a friend of ours shot for us that provided 60 or 70 pounds of good, fresh, all-natural meat for our table. I have seldom felt more love and support through family and friends' generosity than I have in the past few months.

Until today.

The first few seconds of my morning were pretty much average. I slowly fluttered to consciousness and cracked open my eyes just enough to notice Abigail Taylor packing her things in preparation for going home. I yawned, stretched, and then it happened.

A scuffle downstairs.

Shouting.

Yelling.

A charge up the stairs and the sound of Dad crying.

Dad crying?

Benjamin busts into our room. "GUYS!" he yells. "SOMEONE LEFT A VAN IN OUR DRIVEWAY!"

Abby pushed past him. "AND MONEY! AND A GIFTCARD!"

My sleep-drugged brain had a hard time processing this information. I squinted across the room at Sarah who looked much like I felt. We both looked at the doorway full of excited kids. "What?" I heard Dad crying and talking to Mama in the hallway. Sarah and I tumbled out of bed and pulled on our day clothes, then spilled downstairs with the rest of the family.

"We thought it was Jehovah's Witnesses!" Abigail offered.

We stood there shivering in the damp, cold grass and stared at the beautiful 12 passenger van parked in our driveway. Inside was a gift-card and money to go out to dinner as an entire family--something we never do. And more money--enough to make our next mortgage payment.

Some of us were crying, overwhelmed by the relief and joy pouring over us--I don't know how the giver knew, but we've been out of a vehicle that fits our family since June. And we've been behind on mortgage payments. There was a card tucked in amongst the money and things. The only signature? James 1:17

"Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows."

We took it for a short test-drive--the whole family piled in the car--and bit by bit it started to sink in through my brain just exactly how monumental this gift was:

A van (with a full tank of gas)--that means that we can go places as a family without having to take two cars. We can be together. We can go on a roadtrip if we want to!

The giftcard--We can go out to dinner and not have to hope they'll give us free chips to counteract that price of feeding a dozen people.

The money-- Through the generosity of the Shadow-Giver(s), God has provided our mortgage payment this month. I hope the Shadow-Giver understands just how huge this is to Dad, especially, but to all of us. The van is an enormous gift and one that we are still in awe over. I think I'll need 3 days at least to fully comprehend it. But the money--? I know it takes a huge burden off Dad's shoulders as a provider who finds provision hard to come by.

So dear, dear Shadow-Giver....I hope you read this. Somehow. I hope you know that if you were standing here, whether you liked it or not, I'd fly at you with a hug and possibly bury my face in your shoulder and cry just because. I hope you know that you will go down in the annals of the Heffington family as a legend of God's providence. I hope you know that you made me cry and you gave me hope, and I am just praying as hard as I ever can that God blesses you beyond all you could ask and imagine. You've given us more than a van and some money, Shadow-Giver. You've given us a hug straight from God--an assurance that He's got our back and He sees our needs and understands them. You've given us a love-gift. I know that somewhere out there you are sitting back, wondering what our morning was like.
If you want to know what our morning was like, Shadow-Giver, just think of any of the most precious moments in movie history. Think of the Extreme Makeover "revealings". Think of barefooted children bouncing up and down and yelling. Think of a strong man reduced to tears and prayers of gratefulness. Think of smiles and hugs and repeated oaths of "how can this be?" In short, think of joy--unsullied, pure joy--and you'll have a general idea of the effect of your gift.

Thank you. Thank you so so much.

I know you don't want to be found out, and I respect that. But I wish there was someway I could thank you. And I pray, somehow, that I can be a Shadow-Giver too. Because this gift has been the brightest, most amazing way to crack in 2013.

The Doorstep of the Ever-After

Our speaker at the Girls' Retreat covered a wide variety of topics. However her talk the first night stood out to me as my "nugget" for the weekend.

She spoke of the fact that there are many unknown things ahead in our lives. The temptation is to fear and hold fast to our own desires because we fear that God's desires are not as good as our own. We are like little children who are holding fast to our own plans and hopes and dreams because our faith is too small to see what our Father holds behind His back, waiting for us to open our arms to Him so that He can give it to us.

“God never witholds from His child that which His love and wisdom call good. God's refusals are always merciful -- "severe mercies" at times but mercies all the same. God never denies us our hearts desire except to give us something better.” -Elisabeth Elliot

She spoke of fear as an apprehension before the need has arisen. Thus we worry that God will not bring us a husband when we wouldn't exactly know what to do with him if we had one! We worry that when we do get married our husband will die and we'll  be left a widow. We worry that our house will be foreclosed on. We worry, worry, worry, worry and are left with empty hands and hearts in the end.

What is it that makes us worry so? It is from a misunderstanding of our true God. As 1 Corinthians 10:5 says, we must take "captive every thought to the obedience of Christ." We can't leave our understanding of God up to how we feel God is. We must learn to know Him from what He says of himself through His word.

With that foundation we can surely learn from the Israelites that the God who takes care of us today will take care of us tomorrow. God doesn't change like a shifting shadow. He is a constant--the beautiful Rock on which we build our faith. As I listened to Mrs. Cloudt speaking on this strain, the Lord brought to mind a piece of Ann Voskamp's 1,000 Gifts book. She writes that the very word "manna"--that miracle of the Lord to His people in the desert literally means "What is it?" And yet they gave thanks for the "What is it?" every day of those 40 years.
It put me in mind of God's plan for my life. I won't know God's plans. I mightn't even understand them half the time. And yet if I can say with my heart on my lips, "Thank you, Lord, for the what-is-it?" I have understood in part the joy to be found in Christ.

As Mrs. Cloudt says, "It is not that the trials will not come, but God will give us the strength to withstand."

We have the power of heaven and earth at our back and we shiver and shrink before the Unknown as if it were a precipice and we dangled above Hell's doorstep. We forget the palm of the Hand that cups us. We forget His mercies and His grace. We forget everything because we are so stupidly focused on the here and now. We exchange or immortal souls for mortal minds with their worries and cares.

"We must live for eternity---that life is more real than this," Mrs. Cloudt said.

And it's true. This is only the title-page of our ever-after life. It is the prelude to the real song. It is only the doorstep to the palace of Heaven. Hold fast, girls. Hold fast to Jesus Christ and His perspective on the world, and things will fall as they ought. He has not left us to fend for ourselves or beat through the briars. He has not forgotten us or ignored us. He is just waiting for us to loosen our sweaty, grimy grip on life so He can pour His blessings into our lap and sing over us.

Marriage...an idol?

Marriage is a beautiful thing, and one I have dreamed of since I was a tiny girl. Come to think of it, I believe nearly every dream I've had since my girlhood has been wrapped up in a man of my own, a family of my own, a house of my own...living in a large family encouraged such thinking, as my heroes, my examples, my life was made of such stuff.

But let's be candid, girls. Sometimes our dreams do not reflect the Lord's plan. As a "fortune cookie" my brother got the other day said, (Gracious me, we know not to depend on those!) "The only thing we can know for sure about future developments is that they will develop." (Truism, anyone? :P) And as a Christian, we have the assurance that those plans are made for our good. (Rom. 8:28) It is tempting to think we know more about our own hearts than Christ does. It is tempting to think we ought to "help" Christ orchestrate the plans because after all, we could never tread that path--He must be confused.
Girls, girls. We must learn to give our idols up. Even the idols unconsciously made. For me, for a long time, that has been marriage. Not that I have worshiped the idea, or even made overmuch of it. But I have feared and dreaded and balked against the idea of being what people have termed "An old maid."
I am reluctant to admit it to the world, but hitherto my thinking has been more along these lines:

"And if I am called to be single my entire life [God forbid!] then I'll do such-and-such." 

Living my entire life without marrying? Just sitting here for 80 years with no change in my daily habits? Sheesh! Not me, Lord. You must have another plan for me! I don't think I have the gift of Singleness.

 But lately my precious Savior has been showing me otherwise. He has not told me that I will never be married--for all I know I could be a wife within a year or two! But He has shown me that He is enough. I cannot live these days as a single young lady waiting for a husband. I could very well never be married--I don't know God's plan. So what good could it do me to sulk for ten years until I turn 30, resign myself to the idea of never being married, and finally get my act together?
No. If being a single woman all my life is what the Lord calls me to, I want every day from now to 30 and from 30 to 100 to be full and vibrant and joyful. I want to pursue things I am interested in, honing my skills and talents to be used for His glory. I want to be an inspiration to my sisters, I want to help my family and friends.

I want to go places and do things and live a full life.

If that includes marriage and my own family, praise the Lord! If not? I don't wish to be a dusty parlor-decoration...a proverbial bowl of potpourri dry-rotting in a corner while making sweet smiles and sighs over dried up, youthful dreams.
I have gained much encouragement from the biography of Amy Carmichael that Elisabeth Elliot wrote: A Chance to Die. (The best of both worlds, anyone? ;) Amy Carmichael is one of the most beloved women of all time, lived to a ripe old age, had a huge family in India, and yet never ever married. She was an amazing woman of Jesus--charming and vibrant, lively and merry....real.

I look at her example and I think, "Would I have the courage?" and then Jesus puts a gentle hand on my shoulder and whispers, "You don't need courage--all you need is Me."
And really, girls, that's the whole of it. We don't need courage. We need Christ. I am confident that the same Lord that keeps me today, that blesses me, prospers me, and holds me will be the same Lord that will keep me in whatever path He has prepared. That is all I need, and that is all that matters. We have Jesus, and "the fullness of Him who fills all in all," as Ephesians 1 says.

"All the paths of the Lord are loving and faithful" Psalm 25:10 I have pondered this verse lately, and have found that it feeds my spirit. All does not mean "all - except the paths I am walking in now," or "nearly all - except this especially difficult and painful path." All must mean all. So, your path with its unexplained sorrow or turmoil, and mine with its sharp flints and briers - and both our paths, with their unexplained perplexity, their sheer mystery - they are His paths, on which he will show himself loving and faithful. Nothing else; nothing less"

~Amy Carmichael

Just a bit of Love.

Do you ever get to that point in your personal Bible reading when there are just so many choices of where to read you get overwhelmed and end up reading a Psalm? :D Lately I have been doing that, but it was not entirely satisfying, so I did a sister-ish thing and asked Sarah to assign me a book to read.

 "Ummm....First John?" she answered, looking at me as if to be sure I was okay.

It was an off-the-cuff answer, but Sarah? I'm so glad you gave it to me! :D I hadn't read 1 John in awhile, but ever since I started reading I've been overwhelmed and delighted by the richness and tenderness of this book of God's word. Right from the start John gives the Gospel and tells us that he writes these things to us that our joy may be full.That, right there, is such a great reminder of what the Christian life must be. Full of joy and abundant in it.

Maybe it's because I'm a writer myself and I pay attention to little things like sentence structure, but I was also impressed by the very word choices John used. He piles words upon words in a way that leaves you feeling as if your arms were full to the brim with packages of God's love. There is no condemnation in the way John writes, only a desperate plea for us to recognize the love of Jesus for us. I love the first part of chapter 2:

"My little children, these things I write to you, so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world."

Wham! The richness of the gift of grace is seen so clearly here, even by how we are addressed as "Little children." Not Dirty Little Sinners, not You People Out There, not Everyone in the World Who Needs a Savior, but as if Christ stooped down, gathered us in His strong, all-encompassing arms, and whispered, "Little Children, come to Me."

 Then in 1 John 2:22 he says, "Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father either; he who acknowledges the Son has the Father also."

This verse is worded so flawlessly. It states the case of things with clarity and conciseness, without pointing fingers. It is so beautifully black and white and loving. Deny the Son and you won't have the Father either. But acknowledge the Son and you have both of Them. :)
In the end of Chapter Two there is a whole paragraph that strikes deep chords with me:

"These things I have written to you concerning those who try to deceive you. But the anointing which you have received from Him abides in you, and you do not need that anyone teach you; but as the same anointing teaches you concerning all things, and is true, and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you will abide in Him." (1 John 2:26-27)

I will admit that I struggle with loving the Prunes & Prisms variety of Christians--those who value propriety above a personal relationship with Jesus. We have all met these poor, constricted people who put on so many garments of "convictions" that they can scarcely breathe, they are so pressed on from all sides.

 I want to caution us all to only put on the convictions God hands us, not ones that Men, fallible Men tell us to put on. There are times when God may use Men to convict us, but listen for the Shepherd's voice and listen only to Him. As he says, we do not need to be taught by Men, for the Holy Spirit and God's word will teach us all things, as it has already taught us.
Did we need people to tell us taking a cookie from the jar was wrong as a child? No, we knew it was wrong because the Holy Spirit was teaching us. Do we need people to tell us to do or not to do something? No. Ask Jesus about it and He will show you His stand on the point. He will answer, and after that don't mind what Men say--you've got the approval of the Most High Lord.
 Anyway, I think I've succeeded in taking you for a hopeless ramble again, but I just thought I'd share some of the things the Lord had been teaching me recently. I hope it encourages one of you!

A Tale of Turkeys, Pollyanna, and A Selfish Girl

"Happy Thanksgiving!"

 It has become a trite expression, and one I'm sometimes reluctant to say because I don't get that excited about turkey. I mean, come on! And then I mentally stagger backward, realizing what I just did. I just succumbed to America's holiday illness--that of commercialism! The word "Thanksgiving" now means nothing to my imagination except for another family dinner and a big turkey? I refuse to accept that.

Some years I am overwhelmed with gratitude on this holiday. Other years, the stress of life has caught up with me and I am not even in practice at recognizing blessings for what they are. As little as I want to admit it, this is that sort of a year, in some ways. Not that I am ungrateful for the big things: food, shelter, family, etc., but I've been feasting on God's goodness and not even stopping to thank Him for it. It's not easy for me to admit it, because it sounds so...horrid of me! Truly. If I stop to think about it, my heart crinkles up inside me with shame. I feel like precisely like Amy March when she said, "I'm a selfish girl."

I will admit to focusing on everything that is either happening too quickly and too much, or the things that are not happening at all. I've labeled my blessings as things I'm entitled to, and I have not recognized them as God gifts. Now that I'm stopping to confess this spirit of ingratitude in myself, I am ashamed. What is it that I've let myself slip into? And as silly as it sounds, the first person I think of when I think of someone who has the best heart of thanksgiving I think of....

Pollyanna.

I never much liked her in the Disney version--it seemed she knew the Glad Game was just a game. But recently I watched the Masterpiece Theatre version of Pollyanna, and I found my heart reaching out to this little girl who was so full of the joy of living. It sounds sappy, but it's true. There was one scene where she was just laying on her stomach in the grass, staring at the lake and singing a hymn...it was so simple, and yet it was so right. I know in my own life I am guilty of the sin of trying to fit too much in the cracks. Every moment is filled with something. I am always doing things, and this year in particular, I've left no time for being. It's a lesson children know well. Pollyanna asks her aunt, after she hears her new schedule: "But when will I have time to live? I know I shall be breathing, but it's not the same thing as living, you know."

A.A. Milne said it well: "Don't underestimate the value of Doing Nothing, of just going along, listening to all the things you can't hear, and not bothering."

I think of the story in Luke 10:38-42....

³⁸ Now it happened as they went that He entered a certain village; and a certain woman named Martha welcomed Him into her house. ³⁹ And she had a sister called Mary, who also sat at Jesus’ feet and heard His word. ⁴⁰ But Martha was distracted with much serving, and she approached Him and said, “Lord, do You not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Therefore tell her to help me.” ⁴¹ And Jesus answered and said to her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled about many things. ⁴² But one thing is needed, and Mary has chosen that good part, which will not be taken away from her.”

I have been a Martha this year, and I've been wrong. Oh Lord Jesus, forgive me for my ungrateful, busy heart. Let me be Mary, before Your feet, enjoying life as You give it to me, and contenting myself in Your gifts to me. Now the only thing left to do is to say with Lady Harriet, "I feel chastened...truly." And to make a list of the first twenty things I am praising Jesus for.

1. I thank You for your loving arms that hold me, even when I am as fractious as a croupy baby
2. I thank You for my sisters
3. And my brothers
4. I thank You for parents who are bringing me up to love You, and to trust You
5. I thank You for godly men like Peter Marshall who have taught us to love You better
6. I thank You for literature and the ability to read
7. I thank You for quotes. :)
8. I thank You for distinct seasons
9. I thank You for laughter...what would I do without it?
10. I thank You for the gift of music
11. And for the way You with-hold some gifts, only to pour others into our laps more richly than before.
12. I thank You for whoever thought up baking
13. I thank You for holidays were everyone pauses and remembers the simpler things in life.
14. I thank You for inspiration for so many projects
15. I thank You for health
16. I thank You for dancing
17. I thank You for dear friends
18. I thank You for your vast, unending, incomprehensible, enormous love that NEVER leaves me
19. I thank You for cranberries
20. I thank You for Cricket (my cuddly black pussy)

Thank you Jesus! Now all the rest of you have a blessed Thanksgiving, and please, let's not underestimate the value of Doing Nothing. :) I pledge here and now to take some time to Do Nothing each day...will you? :)

                                               Love,

                                                    Rachel