FMF {Five Minute Friday}: Break

I know it's already Saturday, but I'm jumping in with the FMF crowd! In case you're not in the loop, Five Minute Friday is a community of bloggers who come together each week to write like crazy for five wild, unedited minutes on a single prompt. This week, the prompt is "Break".

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I love being with people, even crowds. Six people spending the night? Woohoo!

I also love times of silence when I can just chill and think and organize that hall closet. Yes, I'm weird. 

Because of this tension, I've never been able to decide whether I'm an outgoing introvert or a downtime-loving extrovert. Regardless, I often fee a twinge of unease when I see a full calendar. Even if all the things on it are good, something in me starts gasping for air prematurely, and any little blank spaces suddenly seem very precious. If I'm not careful, I can become a downright miserly creature who hoards scraps of time like a dragon hoards gold.

Last week was Spring Break, and as a staff member at the university I got three glorious days off from work. #perksofworkingforacademia

In case you don't know him, I'm married to an extremely extroverted I-wanna-be-where-the-people-are type of man (cue Little Mermaid). When he began filling our tiny break to the brim with appointments and brunches and last-minute hangouts, I started to wonder if I would need a vacation after the vacation.

Dear God, I prayed, please help me not to be a blank space miser. I give you the time--you take care of me. 

Those three days turned out to be some of the most refreshing, fun days we've enjoyed in months!

We looked at dinosaur bones and butterflies at the Houston Museum of Natural Science.

We laughed until our abs ached with old friends.

We feasted at the Cheesecake Factory with my mother-in-love.

We played Phase 10 until after bedtime, and I didn't even care that I came in last place.

We caught up with precious old friends whose baby is now old enough to look up elephant pictures on my phone (how did he get so big??????)

Then--this was the whole reason we went to H-town to start with--we spent a delightful rainy afternoon celebrating one of my dearest friends at her baby shower.

Finally, my Dallas-bound family caravanned back to our place for the night. (There's that 6-person sleepover!)

Oh, and my new favorite thing to do is make my beautiful niece laugh. Click here to see how much she's grown in two months! 

P.S. I just realized that we went to the Cheesecake Factory on our last Spring Break too. It's actually a crazy coincidence, since we don't have one within one hundred miles of our house. Maybe we'll make a new tradition?

The story of how I freaked out and received a car anyway.

It was 9:32pm at the end of a long Tuesday. Work was still in crazy mode from the move, laundry sat in forlorn piles in our bedroom, and the empty fridge could not be ignored another day. My calendar was ballooning out of control with unexpected social engagements, and my head ached.

I called hubby on my way to the grocery store, hoping for a pep talk. Instead I heard:
"So, the car place called. They said it's the engine. The guy said they could probably sell our car for parts."

I gripped the steering wheel of our one working car. How could they offer so little for my faithful little Camry with the awesome gas mileage? And we'd just replaced the air conditioning that summer.

Suddenly, out of my mouth were coming fearful, panicky words that flung accusation on my man and fuel on my fear. It wasn't pretty.

Fear leaves little room for trust, especially when I speak it out loud. 

The next night I was still tense. I drove to the gym, popped in my earbuds, and clicked on a podcast by one of my favorite Bible teachers.

My legs and arms began to move in rhythm, and she started to tell a story of a whole nation who panicked. They looked into a new land, and instead of feeling excited that God had finally brought them to this beautiful place, they freaked out because the current residents made them feel small. They worried that they and their kids would be squashed like grasshoppers if they so much as stepped over the border.

The fear fostered amnesia. They forgot how God had rescued them out of slavery. They forgot how He'd fed them for 40 years. They forgot how He had already destroyed two nations for them.

I stepped off the machine and walked to the mats, feeling like the story was mine.

Those Jews looked at their smallness instead of God's bigness, and they shrunk back. Then she said something that made my pounding heart pause: "Their fear was rebellion."

After wiping away the tears that threatened to spill all over the exercise mat, I had an internal dialogue with God.

God, I'm sorry for not trusting you. I'm sorry for panicking instead of remembering how faithful you've ALWAYS been. You will always give me just what I need, even if it's not what I want. I don't want to forget your goodness. I don't want to rebel. 

There in the sweat and clang of the gym, I heard him say, Daughter, I forgive you. And I will always be your shepherd. Trust me. Stay close to me. Don't let your circumstances make you freak out. I am bigger than your circumstances.

A few days after my realization in the gym, hubby and I were actually feeling pretty excited about the one-car thing. After all, it was something we had seriously considered before. It meant less insurance to pay, less gas to buy, and less money to spend on up-keep. And it wasn't like we would be stranded. We have a bike, and we live a mere five minute walk from the University bus route.

We had just about decided that having only one car was the coolest move we ever made when my dad called. He said they had a car they weren't using, and wanted to know when they could drive it down to us.

"Aww, thanks, Dad! You're so sweet to let us borrow it for a while!"

He started laughing on the other end. "Oh, no sweetheart. We want to give you this car."

My jaw dropped, and I almost dropped the phone with the weight of what was being offered. After all my freaking out, my clenching and grasping at control, he was giving us a car.

So unexpected. So extravagant. So undeserved. And I thought to myself, this is what grace looks like.


Ok, I have to add this disclaimer--I don't share this story to say that God is good BECAUSE He gave us a car. Even if we had lost both cars at once, with no replacement, God would still be good because that is who He is. He is good, and He has already shown that goodness and mercy with crazy extravagance on a cross where He died in my place. 

I share this story because I want to remind myself to trust my Shepherd, and I hope that it can encourage someone else too. 

This month as the Christmas lights go up and the stores vie for our attention, I want to hope in Jesus, and not my circumstances. I want to cling to Him, the rock-solid constant, so that finances, social engagements, lack of sleep, or messy kitchens don't throw me for another crazy loop. 

Five Minute Friday::Glue

Today I am linking up with Five Minute Friday, a writing exercise where you set a timer for five minutes and write on a specific topic until it chimes at you to lift your fingers from the keyboard. You can join in here!

Today's word = GLUE

Yesterday was all unraveled and ragged. I flew out the door with my shoes barely on my feet and a granola bar in my hand. Seriously, God bless granola bar makers.

My house looks like a garage sale after all the good pickings have been picked over. Ever since our washing machine decided to re-create Noah's Flood two weeks ago, we've been living in a carpet-less home without baseboards or doors or basic organization. Just getting out the door is a feat of memory and agility. Where was my jacket again...? *wracks brain, bumps into furniture*

It really hasn't been too bad. Now that the thirteen rumbling red industrial fans and honking-huge dehumidifier are gone, at least I have a kitchen again. Even while the fans roared, we laughed about their white noise making it easy to sleep.

But yesterday at work my shoulders and neck creaked with painful lumps as the phone constantly rang and rang and rang and my throat grew dry from explaining. The papers piled up faster than I could sort them. My fingers clicked constantly, almost independent of my tired brain as the mental to-do list grew longer and heavier.

It felt like I was coming unglued. Can anyone relate?

I stumbled up the stairs to our homegroup meeting with only half a heart to be there. Heavy-eyed, foggy-brained from my desperate post-work nap, I willed myself to sit.

"Between the songs", they said,  "let's tell what God has been doing in our hearts". What have You been doing, Lord? I wondered. I'm so unglued and discombobulated.

As I flipped backward in the blue journal looking for scraps I'd chanced to record, I found the sweetest words. Words that had patched me together on another ragged, teary day in January.

"Cherise, you do not have less at this moment when you are exhausted and fighting a cold than you do on days when you are well-rested, healthy, and feel in control. You have Me in abundance at all times, and I am all you need."

Wonderful truth.

He is not diminished if I am depleted, and He holds even my unraveled, unglued moments together by his powerful Word.


Side note: My homegroup will notice that this journal entry wasn't what I shared last night with the group. It felt like a personal hug from Jesus for that moment, something just between the two of us for me to feel his love while I shared something else out loud. But now, in the light of a new day, it seemed  appropriate to share.  I hope someone else will feel His love in the middle of an unglued moment like mine. 

Global Week

Last week our church tried something new.

We have always been a “missional” church. We are dedicated to evangelism and discipleship both here in our college town and overseas. For years, we have had special partnerships with churches overseas in countries like Nigeria, Italy, and Mexico, and we send teams each year to those partners. (Shameless plug for the Italy mission trip! It will change your life!)

We usually talk about the trips in spaced-out spurts: Mexico one week, Nigeria another week.

Not this year.

This year, our leaders decided to streamline, focus, and intensify by creating Global Week: a seven day period of teachings, prayer, worship and information about Jesus' Great Commission. We had a free missions conference by The Traveling Team, a half-night of prayer, info lunches about each mission trip—the works.

To be honest, I was nervous about last week. I was afraid that all this talk of missions would rip the band-aid off the old, unmet desire to go to the ends of the earth. That it would poke the wound raw, stir up the discontent I had almost ignored.

Here is my old pattern:
1) I see a need.
2) It’s huge.
3) My heart breaks.
4) I jump to the rescue.

And just to clarify,“Rescue” usually involves prayer, tears, and an intense desire to sell my car and hop on a plane. In the end, I feel frustrated because I’m here, not there.

Like I said, this is the old pattern.

 On that Sunday as the last session by The Traveling Team ended and we folded our chairs to leave, I realized that something was missing. The heart-wrenching, hopeless, urgent feeling was gone. In its place was a quiet, growing excitement to be so stratigically placed.

I remembered with a jolt that almost every hero of the Traveling Team’s stories was a man or woman whose most meaningful work was the mobilization of students. They were willing to go themselves, but humble enough to realize that God’s glory is often more magnified through community than through a single man or woman's zeal. It made me feel honored—not displaced—to be living here among college students.

After all, what could be more strategic?

He has placed me here. Until he reassigns me, I will be faithful in this place, with these students, with these kids and the kids on our street. At this moment, I simply feel content to pray, trusting that God will tell me the next step.

If you’d like to read more, check out this post, in which I realized that staying and sending can sometimes be radical obedience.

A Report to Celebrate!

For all of you who read the last post about our (quickly!) upcoming mission trip, this is a celebration report of God's faithfulness!

A silly picture from last year at a Milano coffee shop. (I'm wearing the hat.)

Last Thursday was the deadline, the critical day when all of the funds had to be collected, in hand, and on their way to the bank. Only one week before, our team was falling far behind, collectively in the red by more than six thousand dollars.

The team was praying, but even they were unaware of another circumstance that threatened to add an additional two thousand dollars to the overall team goal. If the university in Milan would let us use their free classrooms for the English Clubs, we would be ok. If not...well, let's just say that renting hotel conference rooms would be pricey.

This alarming news had come Tuesday. To avoid a team-wide freak out, hubby and I were praying quietly between ourselves.

On Thursday, I went to work as usual and sat there praying between customers, waiting for news.

By the end of the afternoon, ALL the money had come in--to the penny!
AND the university had agreed to let us use their classrooms! Not only did this reduce the price of the trip, the convenience of the location will also make it easier for more students to attend and meet our team. We are thrilled to see how God will use this close location to connect students with the church in Milan.

So if you prayed,
or gave,
or did both,

THANK YOU!

We will need more prayer than ever as we go, so please don't stop! I know from last year that I can do absolutely nothing without His power. 

Five Minute Friday::Broken

A Christan radio station recently made an Easter comment that resonated with me. They said that Easter was about breaking: a broken world, a broken Body that redeemed us, and a broken curtain that used to separate us from a Holy God. (Ok, torn, but I guess that's what we call broken fabric.)

I feel broken. In many ways I am a person who needs fixing, like a broken lamp, shattered by anger or careless mistakes. 

I am also emotionally broken when I see the brokenness it took to fix me. And right now, on the Saturday between sacrifice and victory, I feel a kinship with the heart-rending brokenness his followers must have felt as they sat, fearful, their dreams shattered the day after He died. 

They waited, broken. But isn't waiting the thing to do in our brokenness? To wait on the One who heals?


Want to join or just want to know what Five Minute Friday is all about? Head over to Lisa Jo's blog and find out :) And while you're there, be sure to visit & leave some comment love for the other bloggers who linked up! 

Thanksgiving :: A Hard Discipline

Honesty time, ya'll.  Last Friday night, I had a world class emotional breakdown. (Or, as my friend would call it, an "EBD".)

Every abrasion of my heart felt like it had just received an alcohol bath, all my failures were hanging out on the line for the world to mock, my eyeliner was at clown proportions from tears, and the last thing I wanted to do was eat a cheerful Thanksgiving dinner with my homegroup. The last thing on my mind was thanks.

But I went. Mainly because I was bringing the salad. Teeth clenched, expectations nonexistent, I gripped the glass bowl and stomped out to the car.

And...of course, the pecan pie and laughter and paper football shenanigans softened my crustiness.

Give thanks in all circumstances.

Seriously--this is a hard lesson!  Can there be anything more difficult than thanksgiving when the car won't start? Does anything rub more against the natural grain when you and your hard work feel invisible and unwanted, when the card declines, when the future is murky, when your energy bottoms out and you get a paper cut on top of it all?

I'm learning that discipline can be a mercy, that the very thing that puckers my mouth may settle my stomach, that obedience is always best, even if I go kicking and flailing. Thankfulness--like love--is a choice, not a Norman Rockwell painting or giddy emotion.

I've read about a life brimming with "eucharisto thankfulness" in Anne Voskamp's book. I know that no other life is fuller, even if poverty is the discouraging reality of the bank statement, the pantry, or the social calendar. But if I'm going to stick to honesty, I have to admit I'm out of practice.

Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds...

So here we go: I'm going to practice this week. I'm taking the Joy Dare, and I hope it extends past Thursday.

Identity and my Job Search

If you know me, you'll be excited about this news! If you don't, maybe you'll at least be encouraged by what God is teaching me about his goodness.

When I got back to hot and humid Texas three weeks ago, I leaped headlong into the job search with all the intensity and drive of an Olympic swimmer. Translated, this means I came home each night from training my replacement at my part time job, perched on the couch with laptop and a bowl of dinner, and systematically searched and applied for any opening that remotely interested me.

For hours.

I edited cover letter and resume for each application. I kept detailed files of everything I sent. I even took copies of said cover letters and resumes to the taupe-colored offices in person, just to give it a personal touch. There were blisters on my feet from the flats I wore that day, but I didn't mind. And as you might have noticed, I hardly blogged. The computer was otherwise employed.

I was serious, and I was eager for the job market to take me seriously.

This employment hunt reminded me of my research papers in college.The harder I searched, the more blisters I acquired, and the less I slept, the more likely I would be to find a job, right? The underlying assumption was this: the grade depends on me. 

Then, about two weeks ago, I was at work, training my replacement in the art of balancing bank statements. Except...they wouldn't balance. I dialed our bank, and C___ answered. We've had a great working relationship for years now, ever since I started handling the finances for our church over two years ago.

"How's your summer been?" she asked. "Great! I've been in Colorado, and now I'm job hunting." I paused, and on a whim went on: "Are you guys hiring?"

"Actually," she said, "we are! Go online and apply, and make sure you put my name on it."

I sat across from them in an interview four days later. Two days after that, they called to offer me a full-time position at the bank!  Not a single employer had responded from any of my hard, Olympian work in the previous two weeks. But here, without me hardly lifting a little finger, God had dropped an offer into my lap.

But I have a hard time with easy gifts. They feel too easy. This whole week, my mind has spun with doubts.  I wondered if God wanted to encourage me with the offer, but wanted me to hold out for something ideal, something awesome and exciting. Would I feel trapped, doing something that didn't involve writing, teaching, or children? What if I got stuck there for twenty years! And what if the "ideal "job was waiting just one or two weeks away? What if's are torturous.

And then a friend tweeted a cool quote about identity that stopped my "what ifs" in mid stride:

We have been conditioned to find our identity in what we do. However, Scripture tells us that we are children of God adopted through the grace of Christ, through whom we derive our identity. My identity is not what I do; I do out of my identity. - Brad House

This reminder of truth was like salve to my heart. I'm not an actress, who, when she chooses a role as a ditz, will never be cast as anything else. I am also not living in Huxley's dystopia, where I was bred for one thing, and one thing only. My role simply does not equate to my identity. It doesn't come from my performance or my job title, or anything else self-generated. Instead, my identity rests in the fact that I am created, loved, and forgiven by the only One whose opinion matters.

If you know me, you'll know this is a familiar refrain. How many layers of performance-driven identity will Jesus have to peel away before I rest in Him? I'm not sure, but it's really reassuring to know His persistent love doesn't fail, even if I do.

So, long story short, I took the job.

I'm resting in the truth that it doesn't define me, limit me, or make me. Instead, at least for now, it is a good gift from a good Father who takes good care of me and my heart. 

More Than We Imagined

I am floored. I am blown away. I don't know whether it's more appropriate to jump up and down or to kneel--so I'm sitting here, shaking my head in amazement as I type. Have you ever asked God for something so huge that you felt nervous to ask, only to have Him completely dwarf your request with His generosity? Then you can understand. 

Yesterday, JC called an old friend. Just to chat, catch up, reconnect. I have always been amazed and challenged by my husband's talent for maintaining friendships through the years. This one in particular stretches back to high school.

New Isuzu transmission

As they traded recent stories, hubby shared the epic saga of last week's anniversary adventure: the car trouble, the attempts to fix it, the late-night rescue by our friend, the need for a complete transmission rebuild, and the reasonable price we found at a local shop in Denver.

We have been car-less ever since returning to Estes while our poor Isuzu has been in the shop, but we were just so thankful that the price was less than the $2,500 we were originally quoted. Yikes! We were thankful for savings to cover it, thankful that good friends came to pick us up, and thankful that to live at the Y, where walking is not only feasible but fun. Just a good story for a good laugh later.

But at the end of the conversation, our friend said, "I know you didn't ask, but I'm looking at our bank accounts. We have some money set aside for stuff like this..."

Yes. Our friend paid for our new transmission.

Not only did he pay for it; the amount he and his wife had saved to give away was the exact amount quoted to us by the repair shop.

I'm realizing all over again that God is bigger, richer, and more generous than I had imagined or hoped for. Here I was, asking for a fix that we could afford, never imagining that He wanted to do something like this!

If you're facing something that looks like it will drain you financially, emotionally, or in some other way, I hope that this can encourage you too!

The God who holds you is bigger than that giant.

"Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the Church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever! Amen." (Ephesians 3:20-21)

The Point of Deserts

"And you shall remember the whole way that the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not. And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. Your clothing did not wear out on you and your foot did not swell these forty years. Know then in your heart that, as a man disciplines his son, the Lord your God disciplines you." 

(Deuteronomy 8:2-5)

Everyone in the LT program has been using this book to study the life of Jesus this summer as our example of leadership. Even though the stories of Jesus' life have been part of my personal fiber since toddler-hood, I've found myself challenged in new ways and fascinated by details that I never saw before.

We were studying Jesus' relationship with the Holy Spirit, and I had just read about his 40-day stint in the desert without food.

In his humanness, he got hungry. He got thirsty. After 40 days, he was probably sunburned, with dry, swollen lips that cracked when he answered his tempter those three times. But what had Jesus said in the desert?  "Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord." Huh...sounds like Deuteronomy.

And it was after that desert experience that "Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee" (Luke 4:14).    

Many Christians--me included!--have often lived for the "mountaintop experiences": the times when life feels easy and joyful, God feels closer than ever, and it's easy to trust that He is good. Oh yeah, I like those.
But deserts?  Blech.  Just like real deserts, desert times in our lives are hot, sticky and uncomfortable. They're often lonely, seem endless, or even pointless. Parts of my life feel very desert-like right now, and it's been tough, stressful, and discouraging. 


But Deuteronomy says that "God led you these forty years in the wilderness" and Jesus was "led by the Spirit" into the desert. God doesn't do pointless things. 


But why?  
"...that he might humble you...
...testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would obey his commandments..."

Ok, yeah, I do want to be humbled. I need that, Lord. But this is painful! What if my needs for friendship, acceptance, or financial provision go unmet?

"...and he let you hunger and fed you with manna...that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord."


Am I willing to feel the hunger of not having what I think I need if it means that God can feed me in His way?
Am I willing to get filled from an unexpected source, just like manna was for them?

Maybe this is the point of a desert--to learn complete dependence on the One who is the real source of life.

God, if that's what you're doing, you can keep me here as long as you need to. I trust you. After all, you went through a desert too.

P.S.
Coincidentally, this summer, hubby will be co-leading a workshop entitled "Beauty in Pain". More related posts to come, I'm sure. Oh, the irony. 

Italy: My sick day

"Even to your old age and gray hairs

I am he, I am he who will sustain you.

I have made you and I will carry you;

I will sustain you and I will rescue you." (Isaiah 46:4)

I've always been touched by this verse, but always for someone else. Someone who had gray hair. Each time I read it, I would tuck it away in a mental filing cabinet with a little post-it note that said, "For one day when I'm a grandma." After my kids are grown, and I sit, fragile, next to an African Violet in a sterile-smelling nursing home, that's the day I'll need it.

Well, I needed it today.

I woke up late and groggy, with crumpled hair and eyes that refused to open fully. My normal jolt of morning adrenaline kicked in as I showered, but it seemed watered-down somehow.

I wasn't the only one who was feeling bad; Lindsay was fighting sinus issues. The team prayed for us, but as we began to sing, all I could do was sit with my hands open on my lap as if to receive. Jesus, fill me with energy, I prayed.

The previous day's devotion about faith was bumping around in my head like shoes in a dryer. I wondered foggily, would it be more obedient to plunge into the day as usual, trusting God to provide the strength, focus, and energy I lacked? That would definitely take faith.

Or would it be more obedient to lay my tired head down upstairs, trusting God to help the English Clubs go well even if I wasn't there? That would take faith too. And humility. I'm not essential. God can do fine without me. 


At the urging of wise friends, I reluctantly and tearfully rode the tiny red elevator back up to the room. I felt useless. Why am I even here?

I slept for four solid hours. When I awoke in the dim, cool room, I lay there feeling miserable.

Then words from God's Word began to crowd softly, tapping at my memory.

Does God break bruised reeds? No. Does He snuff out smoldering wicks? No. 


"Even to your old age and gray hair, I am he who sustains you..."


In our culture, the helpless are despised. Unwanted babies are discarded daily. Elderly people can't contribute to society. They drool too much. Put them somewhere else. They are smoldering; snuff them out.

How different from the way God sees them!

And today, I was like an old woman. I was fragile, exhausted, and emotionally drained. I was the one who He carried.

"I have made you and I will carry you..."


I think I'm beginning to see the truth: that my value has nothing to do with how much I contribute. It has everything to do with the fact that I am His.

P.S.
Today was our 11-month wedding anniversary! (Yes, we're still celebrating each month...stop rolling your eyes.) He was so incredibly sweet to me today. :) 

Choosing Excitement!

So much is poised to happen in the next 40 days.


1. I will somehow finish my three classes, including a slew of GARGANTUAN research papers.


2. Our student homegroup will wind down for the semester. *tear*


3. I will train someone for the parts of my job that I can't do from Colorado.


4. We will FIND someone to do my job over the summer (probably should have mentioned that one first!)


5. I will fine-tune my resume. (Anyone feel talented in this area? I'm not above asking for help...see, I'm asking now. :) )


6. I will graduate!


7. We will fly to Milan, Italy, to show the love of Jesus to students for two weeks.




Whew! I am choosing to feel excitement instead of feeling overwhelmed. Trusting instead of fearing.
I know that even though I may have moments when I'm dead-tired in the next 40 days, I belong to the One who couldn't be conquered by death.


He restores my heart daily, and I know it's gonna be a great ride!

...Oh, praise the One who

paid my debt

and raised this life up from the grave!...

Beautiful beginnings

I really don’t know how to condense my happiness for my friends into words! I’m sitting in a coffee shop, surrounded by people, and I can’t stop smiling. If they look up from their iphones long enough to see, they will probably wonder why.

The reason is because three of my friends experienced significant, beautiful, life-altering beginnings this weekend.

One of these earth-shattering changes occurred at my kitchen table.  

Four of us were sitting, eating pancakes, maple syrup and fresh strawberries as we discussed God. What if He asked you, “why should I let you into Heaven?” What would you say to Him, I asked, if you were standing in front of him?

As we talked, I illustrated on a rectangle of paper between us. The themes of holiness, lawbreaking, and an uncrossable divide were discussed and scrawled, and I saw understanding light up her face.

I told her a piece of my story. About the perfectionism that ruled me, guilted me, and tortured me with feelings of inadequacy as a little girl. About how I simultaneously thought I was better than others, full of pride, unwilling to listen to corrections. And then—amazing! How I learned that Jesus was perfect when I was not. How I learned that he—the perfect one—had been humble, paying the death penalty I owed.

In full.

And there, at the kitchen table, my friend gave her life to Jesus because He had given himself for her. I don’t even know if she realized the HUGENESS of what had happened in her at that moment! It was as earth-shattering as if King Tut’s mummy had suddenly come back to life.

The second beautiful change occurred the next day, my two friends standing hand in hand in the colored light filtering in through the stained glass of the church.

Her father officiated, and I heard his voice tremble with unreleased tears. We all sat as witnesses, alternately laughing at the groom’s hilarious facial expressions and crying at the purity of the moment, the beauty of the bride.

One change occurred at my kitchen table; the other under the vaulted roof of a church.

All three friends made life-altering verbal commitments: the first to God, and the second to each other. Both resulted in something completely new, something beautiful, something that had never existed before. 

And I am so excited for all of them! :)

Hopefulness

I’m wrestling with the idea of hopefulness right now.  Its definition is shifting in my mind, squeezed out of its usual place by the unusual  pressures aimed at me from within and without.

What is its usual place, you ask? Well, think of the word “hopeful”.  What comes to mind?  If you’re like me, you think of up-tilted chins sporting confident smiles.  You think of bright colors and optimistic decisions to “assume the best” of people and situations.  You think of a row of shiny glasses of water—all half full.  Hopefulness means positivity, sunshine, and dogged cheerfulness despite all odds. Right?

But at the moment, the odds are stacked higher than I’ve ever seen them.  I feel enormous pressure to perform to standards both real and imagined, but I consistently fall short of the mark. You know those days when you’ve been crying so hard that positivity and cheerfulness feel like salt rubbed in a wound?  Yeah.

I’m a self-sufficient gal…and it’s not a good thing. I’ve tried pulling myself up by my bootstraps so many times that my boots lost their straps. Sometimes I glued the straps back on and kept walking despite the blisters. But now the blisters hurt too badly. And I’m tired.

In the past, I hoped for better performance. I hoped that I could become stronger, run faster, do better, and that somehow I would attain perfection. Here, at the end of my strength and endurance, I admit that I can’t conjure up change—or hopefulness!—for myself even if I scraped the bottom of those boots. Now, I know that I just contradicted every Disney slogan I ever heard as a kid, but it’s reality.

Hope must be based on reality. 

This is where I CHOOSE to believe a different definition of hope. My emotions, as real as they are to me, are slippery and unreliable. My abilities, as great as I sometimes think they are, are NOT enough. Reality must be found in a reliable Person, one who never lies, never gets tired, and never runs out. Only God fits that bill. Here is what He says about the hope I have:

“No one who hopes in you [God] will ever be put to shame” (Psalm 25:3)

"Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character, and character hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us." (Romans 5:3-5)


"And the God of all grace...after you have suffered for a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm, and steadfast." (1 Peter 5:10)

On my own, suffering produces blisters and exhaustion. But when I anchor my hopes on the truths God tells me, the same suffering produces a bouquet of good things, crowned by hope that will not put me to shame.

Beauty in Smashes

A friend's car got keyed--on purpose--this week.  Natural reactions that the average human might have in response to this range from annoyed to downright boiling, but my sweet friend just reminded herself that cars are temporary...and then started praying for the angry jerk.  (Not her words--mine.)

I'm not saying that she didn't have some angry thoughts before she responded so beautifully.  The point is, the response was beautiful.

My own car was hit--accidentally--two weeks ago.  See exhibit A. >>>>>>

The fact that it was an accident made my own calm response far less heroic, but I'm having plenty of chances to continue practicing patience.  Today, for instance, I showed up for my 4pm appointment at the collison repair place, only to be forgotten in the waiting room for an hour.  I hadn't had lunch (because I forgot it at home this morning), and my stomach was pinching my ribs pretty fiercely while I sat there, craning my neck to watch the Whitney Houston coverage unfold on the TV.  Patience...

When the guy finally came up to me, my hands were starting to shake with low blood-sugar, but he might have just thought I was excitable. He crouched down by the cracked plastic to look, checked my odometer, and 30 seconds later, I was on the road. I waited an hour for you to do 2 minutes of inspection? Arg.

By the time I got some delicious soup in my tummy, I was fine again. But why should acting like Christ depend so firmly on whether I feel hungry or not?

Jesus, help me trust you, even in annoying circumstances.

Gifts from Jesus

If stress is an odor, then this week reeked of it. My emotions were out of whack, the mountain of laundry loomed ever larger, and my job felt like I was trying to juggle 200lb dumbells. Wearing a blindfold. And rollarskates.

It's interesting: Jesus didn't take away the situation. I still have a to-do list longer than the Amazon. Instead, he reached down into it, purposely, thoughtfully, and left me some beautiful gifts as if to say, "I am still here. I still love you. You are known and treasured by Me. Trust me."

Gift #1: Check out the picture! I opened the mailbox earlier this week to find an envelope from my parents. Inside, was a gift card to Wally World for twenty smackeroos and instructions to buy plants for my garden. My heart craves fragrant, green, growing things, and Jesus knows it.

Gift #2: I found a beautiful $40 sweater marked down to $10. Once I used the $9.47 gift card that I had saved from Christmas, I bought it for only fifty-three cents! Jesus knows that I love to feel beautiful while saving $$.

Gift #3: It stopped raining this morning just as I mounted my bike to ride to class. Jesus cares about the fact that I forgot an umbrella.

Gift #4: My sweet husband folded clothes for me the other night. Aww....

Gift #5. My boss called to tell me that one huge source of work stress is NOT due today, as I had feared, but at the end of March! At that news, I could almost feel my nerves unknotting themselves. Jesus is my Shepherd. He gives me rest.