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.

Altar-Gleam

Let go.

Let go.

Trust Me.

It's what He's been saying, and what I've been trying to swallow, and great Scot, at least something's come out of it all:

"Altar-Gleam"

Oh, Lord, it rends my soul to give

this wish--desire--full away,

Not clinging to a piece of hope;

A piece that says, 'Perhaps someday...'

For now the thing--so frightening clear--

Is to release it dark and full

and keep no sliver-thought of me,

though giving leaves a gaping hole.

Desire--oh, how sharp the spears

of joy that haunt this favorite dream.

But am I Your's enough to push

this treasure toward Your altar's gleam?

The thund'ring toss of straining mind.

The clashing knowledge: this is right.

The heart's own cry: 'Oh, please, not yet!'

The beckon of Your fire bright.

No looking back, no holding on,

I watch my treasure dance in flame.

And then I feel inside my soul

the power of Your tender Name.

I've given what was dearest mine

but just before the wound bleeds free

You staunch the flow and catch my heart

and with Your Lover's arms hold me.

What looks as ash is only just

the dust from which Your plans arise

And though I feel the burning here

I see the mercy in Your eyes.

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. 

Time is love

When you're younger you take a lot of things for granted. Like snow in winter and sugar in tea and so many other things you saw and assumed would always be there before you learned about "global warming" {myth} and counting calories. {unfortunate fact.} But there are some surprises in growing up, and one of them I've stumbled over this year is the category of friends.

Being grown-up means busy schedules. It means you won't "bump into" each other as often. Through no fault of my own and through mutually hectic schedules, I haven't seen two of my dearest friends {Joanna and Maryanna} all summer. Okay. Haven't really seen them. And then one of these girls--a friend who knows my heart inside and out--begins a relationship with a guy I'd only heard shadow-things about and it struck me:

Friendships can't survive on accidentals. 

I can't wait for visits to happen and chats to occur. I can't assume that some time or other my schedule will clear and their schedule will clear and we'll have that heartfelt talk I've dreamed of for the last six months.

Relationships are built off of time spent.

Memories made.

Life shared.

But being grown up and having had a halcyon time of it the past six months, I felt out of touch with my sweet girls. I didn't know anything about the ins and outs of their lives lately. Though I had met this David-fellow, I hadn't even heard the whole scoop. I got most of my updates on the gals through a mutual friend who somehow has made time in her grown-up schedule for visiting. I felt like while I'd been focused on politics and family matters they'd gone and grown up and spun out of my reach. A dastardly feeling.

I am a growing fan of select country music and one of my favorite singers, Josh Turner, pegged this lesson in his song "Time is Love"...

But thankfully God--Who set up my summer and fall schedule and lead me down so many intriguing paths--in His mercy is on the look-out to protect friendships with these friends so when I spent the day helping out at one set of friends' farm and got a call from Joanna that she and Maryanna were going to be home by themselves all evening, I rushed to call Mama for permission to go visiting.

Mama said yes... and I got to spend four hours of uninterrupted conversation with these dear girls. Our time was punctuated by hearty laughter, numerous cups of P.G. Tips, a blush or two, a brief match-making splurge in which Joanna and I agreed on the case of spindly men and ourselves and added "short" to the list of no-gos, an animated discussion of Broadway musicals, and the occasional companionable silence spent down in the blue slate den with the pine wainscoting and the roaring wood-stove hard by. I haven't spent an evening like that in too long, and I came away so blessed. Our friendship was renewed and revived and refreshed as I'd always known it would be if only we had the sense to lay aside our craziness and simply be together.

Mare and Jo? I love you both so very much. Thanks for being patient with me while I figure out this whole grown-up thing.

Everyone else? Time is love. Never let it slip through your fingers and fade any relationship in your lives: God first, then your precious family, then the dear friends who know you better than you know yourself. Such things are what makes life worth living. Hold fast to them.

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?

Trios are my lot in life.

"I feel it a shelter to speak to you."

-Emily Dickinson

It's funny to think about life these days.

Dad always likes to remind us that the essence of life is Relationships.

Relationships between us and God first, then between us and our families, then sweethearts, and friends, and so on down the line.

I have such a variety of relationships right now that it really makes one's head dizzy. Especially when you think about the intricacy and complication of some of the individual ones. I have family relationships, I have here and now relationships with friends I see fairly often. I have relationships with friends I see not-so-often. I have a whole group of online friends like you girls, a group of writing friends, a group devotional blog friends, and then my relationships with my characters. (Which, for a writer, are real ones!)
These relationships vary in intensity and complexity. :D For instance: Levi and I are nearly twenty years apart, so that means that when he is just getting married I'll be The Older Sister Rachel who may or may not be married and will probably stand like a specter in the corner smiling benevolently while Levi swaggers down the aisle with a beautiful bride on his arm. ....it's strange to think about the future in that respect. :)

Then you have current-day relationships like making sure I'm spending quality time with all of the wee ones who surround me right now. I have five younger sisters...am I behaving in a way I want them to remember me on that day when Levi and Grace are starting families on their own?

Then, of course, you have what I have mentally termed "The Triangle" which consists of me and Daniel and Abigail...Daniel and Abigail increasingly close and me tagging along behind, learning to let them go and love this new relationship between the three of us. It is going very well, I think. I am tranquil and peaceful and make fun of them for setting their watches in the Lover's Time Zone which has no concept of hours and minutes. ;)

It's actually very funny to think back on my life and how the Lord has prepared me for this Triangular season. You see, much like Anne Shirley always had her twins, I've always had my Trios. It started five days after I was born when Katie Wilson was born. We've been friends since that first day, along with her older sister, Morgan. I grew up learning the fine art of busting that myth that "Two's company, three's a crowd." It just couldn't be true for me so I didn't let it be true.

Then when I got to be fourteen, fifteen, sixteen...somewhere around there, I met two more dear sisters who made up my second trio: Joanna and Maryanna. Our relationships weren't perfect then either. We had to work out the kinks of spending enough quality time with each person. And really, I've always been on the business end of the trio. I've always been the one dividing myself between the two. :] (At least in these cases)

Right now I have a triple set of trios...Morgan, Katie, and I, Joanna, Maryanna, and I, and Daniel, Abigail, and I.

"Trios are my lot in life!" ;)

God knew that He had this season between Daniel and Abigail coming up and He's been training my since I was five days old for it. :D Isn't that wild? But He does work in these ways sometimes and I am so glad that I have some experience in dealing with a threesome so that getting used to these new dynamics isn't as painful as it might have been.

...But it still feels at times like I'm stuck in a period-drama....everyone getting married and moving off and "saving China." ;) Ah....that's life! <3

to love at all is to be vulnerable.

"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken."

-C.S. Lewis.

The Lord has been teaching me much in the last month or so. :) Some of the lessons are only half-learned, some of them still on the road ahead. But I am learning one lesson that--though it is still fresh and raw and a tad painful, I felt that I needed to share.

I speak of loneliness.

You see, this issue didn't come in the manner I was accustomed to seeing it in. It didn't come from watching yet another period drama and wishing I had a guy of my own. It didn't come from watching other friends' romances and wishing dismally for my own. No. It sneaked in at a back door. It came from an unexpected source.

It came in through one of the greatest joys of my life.

Bet you didn't see that coming, did you? By now I know you're wise to the cause for my loneliness. Yes, the Lord began putting His finger on this subject when Daniel and Abigail started a courtship. I prayed so so hard for a courtship between them. I had long nights of mental agony over the possibility of it not happening. The Lord blessed our family with the exciting news. Daniel and Abigail were officially starting a courtship. I was ecstatic. (and still am.)

But something unexpected began seeping in. Loneliness. The realization that something was going to change, whether I liked it or not. Daniel and Abigail have each other now, and though they both love me as much as ever, it is natural and right that I should take a back-stage seat and let them sail out of the harbor and onto the open seas.

And that was hard for me. I'm a passionate little creature and those I love, I love with a fierceness un-matchable. It made my heart ache fiercely to realize that I had to love them enough to let go.

That was the first lesson. I weeped a little weep over it one day and the Lord asked me clearly: "Are you willing to do this for me? Are you willing to be left behind? Because I need you here for now. Not out on the high seas. That is for them. This day I want you in the harbor, working among the docks."

Ouch. Lesson One choked down and swallowed and saved for a later date when I might need it again. I tried to let go completely. Of Daniel, of Abigail. Of my own need to feel loved and to have a special place in someone's heart. I thought I had let go. I really did. And then came the first, beautiful weekend Abigail and Daniel spent together as an official "couple."

It was hard for me.

Hard enough that I pinched myself repeatedly and scolded myself for being a selfish girl and then felt like bursting into tears every half-second. I was confused. Hadn't I let them go out to sea? Wasn't I content to stay in my harbor? What was wrong with me? Was it jealousy?

My eyes widened at this idea, but as I examined my heart I found (to my great relief) it was not jealousy. It was misplaced love. I love Daniel so much and I love Abigail so much that I was...well...to sound quite dragon-ish, I was hoarding them.

My Lord and I had another conversation on the subject:

"Lord, I love them so much! It is hard to let them go!"
Do you love them?"If this isn't love than I don't know what is. It hurts enough."
But do you really love them? Because I've given you an example of true love...love is patient, love is kind, it does not envy it does not boast, is it not proud, it is not rude, it is not self-seeking...

By this time I knew where the conversation was going, and I tucked Lesson Two away beside Lesson One. I was getting quite a collection, you see. I asked Jesus to help me love Abigail and Daniel the right way. To love them selflessly and to rejoice in this beautiful answer to my prayers. My heart was more cheerful and I felt that the serenity I'd tacked onto my face was becoming natural and unforced. But I suppose I still had rather more of the coal than the diamond about me because God was not quite finished. He's a Trinity, after all, and likes to give me gifts in threes....(actually, most of my best friendships in my life have been threesomes. Odd, that!)

Yup. Lesson Three still to be learned. He has sent one of my dearest friends to work at a camp all summer long--something she's prayed about for a long time. Since they began attending another church, I seldom see two of my other long-time best friends anymore. There is still no knight on the horizon.

I began to grumble within myself:

 "Lord, You're taking away my dearest friends and companions! You're changing everything I love so well as it is! What is it You are trying to teach me?"
Do you remember our conversation, my dear child?"Yes," I admitted.
And do you not remember that I have asked you to stay behind? His voice was not harsh or exacting, only gentle and grave.
"Yes." 

By this time I couldn't stand to be downstairs amid all the hubbub. I had a headache. It was about 10:30. I said my good-nights and hurried to get ready for bed, turned out the light, and took up the conversation again. (This time with some tears thrown in for emotional relief. I'd been needing a good cry.) "Lord...it does seem a very hard lesson to learn...being left behind. Why is it that You want me to be alone?"

I could almost hear Him laugh. I could almost see Him smile. Rachel, He said, am I not large enough to replace everyone? Abigail, and Daniel, and Maryanna, and Joanna, and Morgan and Katie and all the rest of them? I am the Lord of the Universe. Can't I fill the holes they leave in your life? Can't I fill them so you don't even know they are there, or ever had been there? Depend on Me. In Me and only in Me is true joy, and affection and Love. I am all you need.

His voice in my heart quieted me, dried my tears, and lulled me to sleep. Lesson Three. Learned for real this time. 

I share this with you, hoping you know that I'm not perfect. I've not arrived. For all I know there's still a Lesson Four ahead. Okay. I'll even confess that the last conversation related...yeah...(up there ^) only transpired last night.

It's that new. 

It's that fresh. 

But it's that important.

 I share these things with you because I know that some of you girls are in a similar spot. God is leading you in a quiet path of seeming loneliness. New relationships aren't happening, and old ones are changing. Fact is, you aren't even sure you want the change if it hurts so much. You see the beautiful things the Lord is doing, and yet it hurts so much you aren't sure if the old shabby things weren't the best after all. Recently on Google+ I posted this status: (Yes, vanity! ;) 

Learning to let go of How Things Were is the only painful part of receiving the gift of How Things Will Be...there is always that little moment of panic when one begins to wonder whether the old ways were pleasantest after all. But the Will Be is the real joy, the real end...everything else is just shamming about and Pretending. 

I hope this post encouraged some of you, boosted a spirit or two, and did a bit of good. But if it didn't do any of those things and if I am the only one who can relate, I know one thing. It was good for me. Thanks for reading. :) 

                       Love,

                              Rachel

"Hi, what's your name? I'm better than you."

I have said before that my character is like Elizabeth Bennet's of Pride and Prejudice. In many ways this is a good thing--something to be proud of. But then, that pride itself is one of the points against me. You see, I am also like this character in that can be quick to judge at times.
What is it about me that makes me think I have the authority to judge anyone? Is it because I am a Christian? No! No--I've got it. It's because I'm a conservative Christian. Aha. I thought so. And of course I'm extra-qualified because I'm a stay-at-home daughter, and I wear skirts most of the time. Score!

--Now, as ridiculous as that sounds, I have now and again thought something along those lines and I know I've met people who do so frequently. I even feel a tendency to laugh at that term: Conservative Christian. As if being a Christian isn't enough! I must be conservative in my dress, my speech, my habits, yes. Those are all worthy things. But we don't stop there. We are conservative in our approval. Conservative in our love. Conservative in the extension of God's grace. God's grace! The grace that we think we somehow own and are able to dispense to whom we will.

Excuse me?!?!

And yet many of us (unconsciously sometimes) live with this world-view. Oh yes. We are redeemed. Redeemed. Therefore we can't let ourselves be touched by you. It's such a false stance on God's grace. Frankly, I would think it would be obvious to every single one of us who has a strain of honesty in them, that without that very Grace, we are just as lowly, unworthy, filthy as those who we are berating for not having grace. It's plain and simple stupidity.

"For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith. And this not of yourselves; it is the gift of God."

 -Ephesians 2:8

The other morning we were listening to an excellent message on God's grace. It was eye-opening, really, because the man was speaking on the subject. He said that we are all looking for freedom...

 Some people figure that by putting up more and more fences, by following more rules, and getting more convictions they will feel sanctified and therefore find freedom.

Some people figure the opposite--they can't follow any rules, be ruled by anyone, listen to anything--then by being entirely "independent" they will find freedom.

What both parties are missing is the fact that the only freedom to be found is in God's grace. If you think about it, both the legalism and the rebellion are indicators of a soul trying to make it on their own. The legalistic figure that they can somehow get to a clean, tidy, state in which God will accept them. The rebellious figure they could never get to that clean, tidy, state and therefore they'll have to fight through on their own.

As Martin Luther said: "The devil is forever attracting people to good works to make sure that they do not reach the point of thinking that they need the grace and mercy of Christ."

There is a marvelously simple solution to this. Realizing that we are nothing without Christ, and that He knows that. It's not like Jesus came onto earth, looked around him, sighed, beat his breast and said, "What on earth happened to these jokers?!"

He came knowing full well that we are lower than lowly. Disgusting. Vile. Adulterers. Murderers.

And He still extends His grace to us without a thought for all that. It is finished. It is done. You are accepted.

And I think we Christians forget that. We forget who we are without Christ, and we forget who we are in Christ. We live in a constant limbo, feeling that we cannot touch the unclean, we cannot climb off our pedestal because of course we must be leagues above all of them and if they touched us we'd be...tainted. We have a vague fear that because of the way we act we are holding onto our salvation. If we took off even one of our ultra-religious-bungee-cords we'd plummet away from grace.

To insure this quarantine, we sometimes put up false-fronts. We stay at home. We wear long skirts. We have long hair. We don't listen to this kind of music. We don't watch that movie. And heaven forbid we read that book!

We do not stop there. Oh no. We shun people who do. We despise them because they are lost. 

(Oh...um...news-flash--I hadn't realized that not wearing a skirt makes you an infidel.) 

This saddens me. This thinking of ourselves as so separate. Yes, we must be in the world and not of the world. Yes we must honor Christ in all our choices, including that of dress and music and movies. But we are not angels. We are those who had been sick and are healed. Does it stand to reason then that those who are still sick ought to be shunned, despised, mocked? No. Take away the grace of Christ, and what are we? Humans. Sin. We are nothing different than those people we look down upon.

It is as cruel as if we saw a child sick with the small-pox and thought, "No! No--I won't give them any medicine--they are too sick. Besides--if I stand around them any longer I might catch it again and need the medicine for myself." And off we scuttle with our little Pharisee-smiles and pity the sick people while clutching the Cure to ourselves as if we owned it.

How this must make Jesus grieved.

A friend was telling me the other day that there was young man who worked at a camp attended by dozen of conservative Christian girls. The friend stayed on past that week and the young man (after getting to know her a little better) confided, "I'm surprised you're interesting."

"What do you mean?" she asked. Then, ever frank she said, "Did you judge me because I wore a skirt and had long hair?"

He laughed. "Sort of. All those girls are just so stuck-up."

Ouch. You see, I was one of those girls. Not that I was intentionally stuck-up, but I certainly didn't go out of my way to be friendly to the poor chap. Neither did any of those other girls. They all walked around fearful that if they talked to this guy they'd somehow be sinning or at least it would have the appearance of sin and anyway, he probably wasn't a conservative Christian.(There's that little word again.)

I know this is a controversial topic. I know I am being blunt and frank and not mincing words. I know I'll probably step on people's toes. But the message and the conversation with my friend both stepped on my toes. It was as if God seized me by my shirt collar, turned me about and said, "Look at that. Look at how you are treating the people I came to save."

Guys, our mission on earth is not to shun the sick and weary and heavy-laden. Look at it this way. Jesus spent much of his earthly ministry healing the defiled, ministering to prositutes, robbers, tax-collectors...the people that we, if we lived in Biblical times, would have on our black-list. It's something to think about.