in the mind...

To regard the imagination as metaphysics is to think of it as part of life, and to think of it as part of life is to realize the extent of artifice. We live in the mind.

- Wallace Stevens

These words make me both squirm and nod.

Imagination plays a huge part in life. It is imagination that finds beauty in the concrete, that reveals what could be in the dust and toil and grit of what is. It is imagination that gives life to words on a page, that expands the meaning of poetry, that works and reworks our understanding of the world every day, every time we are confronted with something new.

It is imagination that helps us know and be known,

It is my imagination that helps me dream. It is my imagination that allows me to picture myself doing things. It is my imagination that allows my perfectionism, and my imagination that helps me to receive grace.

Even Scripture is full of images and descriptions that appeal to the imagination. God will use anything it takes to describe Himself to us, to get our attention and give us a picture of His love.

We live in the mind.

And sometimes, we die in the mind too.

...

Every time it happens, I hope it will be the last.

The dark closes in on me. My head starts spinning, my stomach clenches, the fear rushes in. Often, it begins with the realization that I am not who I imagine myself to be. I stare hard and honest into my life, and I begin to loathe it. Gratitude goes out the window; I can't see God.

I spiral downward into depression intensified by my physical limitations. I feel as if I must literally blow apart in all directions.

My walls are stripped; my defenses are breached. Nothing I tell myself relieves the sensation that I must be what I do not want to be.

I'd rend my garments, toss my clothes, if I weren't concerned about physical modesty. My soul has been bared.

I am exposed.

Naked.

I vomit words and honest; pretense is worthless.

There is no escape.

...

It is never the last time, because I fight. Because I am often like a cornered, wounded animal lashing out at its helper - it does not matter what compassion is meant.

I fight by trying to keep myself out of situations where I may be vulnerable. I fight by criticizing others for how far short they fall of what I have attained. I fight, justifying my position, validating my existence and work.

And I am always right.

Until I find out I am wrong.

But that is human nature.

That is not humility. Human nature leaves little room for transformation by the renewing of the mind.

We live in the mind.

...

When I was younger, I went to church looking for God.

You would think I could have found Him there.

I didn't.

By the time I figured out that all I needed to please God was Jesus - every single day - my heart had been kicked around, knocked up, beaten down, and strangled as Christians I knew attempted to make me conform to their idea of right.

The lies I swallowed about God were many.

And they don't leave easily.

The condemnation they carry for me is debilitating.

I barely trust other Christians now.

We live in the mind.

...

Perhaps I make too much of reality. Or rather, sincerity.

It is the excuse I use to dismiss others who would speak the truth. If their lives don't reflect what they are preaching, I write them off. It is safer that way.

Yet I write here at my blog things that I struggle to live every day. I write about loving my family, and I hold back the stories of the times that I deliberately choose to secret myself away from them. I tell of Pete's love for me, but I don't share how I know: he is still here, in spite of my frustrated ranting against the God I'm not so sure about as the One I share here. He knocks at my heart and tells me who I am with patience and kindness I don't deserve.

I write here about grace, but I sit in church and withhold it from others as I watch them worship and preach and pray. I am so cynical, nitpicking the things I know - and I know a lot - writing whole sections of sermons off, writing God's people off.

Because I was hurt. Because I am afraid.

If I am hard enough, perhaps I can escape.

Yet here I encounter His Spirit.

I have been in few churches where He has been so free to move. Omigoodness He is free to move here.

I cannot hold back my tears. I cannot help but be humbled.

I try to hold Him off, push Him back, but He is answering prayer, prayer that He would speak to us - to me - what He wishes to speak. It is not the words of the sermon echoing in my heart. It is His words, His Word. Jesus who is raising my eyes to His wounds and His Life. Jesus who is my justification.

Jesus who can judge me. Jesus who doesn't.

My confession comes with the tears.

I am naked before Him here. I cannot hide from Him. I must acknowledge Him.

I must reckon myself dead to my sin. Reckon myself alive to God.

I live in the mind.

...

My understanding of God is too often limited to who I imagine Him to be in relation to who I imagine I am.

Saul must have been ignoring some pretty obvious God-things before he became Paul on the road to Damascus, when God opened his eyes to behold Jesus, asking him why he was fighting Him.

He was so right - until he learned he was wrong.

God blinded him to open the eyes of his heart. How often does God blind me to open mine?

Sometimes, all I can see is two choices: endless darkness and despair, or talking to a God I am often not certain I trust.

I cannot spin past this God, obscure my face from Him, hide my fear.

His compassion for me is incredible.

It is so necessary.

He has shown you, O man, what is good;
And what does the LORD require of you
But to do justly,
To love mercy,
And to walk humbly with your God?

- Micah 6:8

I learn to love His mercy. To be humbled at my need for it.

It is one thing to say it; artifice demands that I do. Being "a Christian" demands the artifice.

But the Life I live by faith in the Son of God - it requires the real.

Nothing is inexorable but love. Love which will yield to prayer is imperfect and poor. Nor is it then the love that yields, but its alloy…. For love loves unto purity. Love has ever in view the absolute loveliness of that which it beholds. Where loveliness is incomplete, and love cannot love its fill of loving, it spends itself to make more lovely, that it may love more; it strives for perfection, even that itself may be perfected—not in itself, but in the object…. Therefore, all that is not beautiful in the beloved, all that comes between and is not of love’s kind, must be destroyed. And our God is a consuming fire.

- George MacDonald

It requires the naked. The rending of my heart.

...

Therefore if there is any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and mercy, fulfill my joy by being like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others.

Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

- Phil 5:1-11

Reality confronts imagination, and my own ideas of God are rearranged as I behold Jesus.

In Him I live and move and have my being.

Crucified with Christ, this is how I present myself a living sacrifice. As I am laid bare before Him, He changes my idea of Him, changes my way of understanding. How can one help but be transformed when confronted with this chastening, refining Love?

...

If you made it to the end of this post, thanks for sticking with me.

I'm slowly digging through some things that have been happening in my heart recently, in between kids and meals and health and general survival stuff. The processing is landing here - I hope you don't mind. I'm not meaning to be a wet blanket; I just have to get this stuff out.

Somebody's praying for me. I'd ask you to quit, but His work is good, if uncomfortable, right?

Shallow-ish post coming soon. I promise. ;-)





(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

please pardon my dust

"Therefore, from now on, we regard no one according to the flesh." (2 Cor. 5:16)

In the beginning, God
created.

He created from dust
in His image, in
His own likeness.

He breathed His Life, putting
Word in empty mouth so that

He could have conversations.

"Even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer." (2 Cor. 5:16)

In the beginning, God
created.

He created from dust
One in His image, in
very nature God.

He breathed His Life, putting
Word on silent Cross so that

He could have conversations.

"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation." (2 Cor.17-19)

In the beginning, God
created.

He created from stone
a new soft heart, to
fill with His Spirit.

He breathed His Life, pulling
Word from empty tomb so that

He could have conversations.

Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. Also there was no more sea. Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.”

Then He who sat on the throne said, “Behold, I make all things new.” And He said to me, “Write, for these words are true and faithful.” (Rev. 21:1-5)

In the beginning, God
created.

He created new dust for
heaven and earth to
fill with His presence.

He brought His Life, sending
Word to reap the old so that

He could dwell with man and
have conversations.

The air was heavy most of the day here. Thickened with tension, fraught with child cries and voices that I know are not in the air but in my head.

Cries that carried need. Voices that carried shame.

I stepped silent around them, breathing hard, breathing deep, swallowing cries and frustration and the internal screams not meant for air.

I planned and re-planned and worked and re-worked and accomplished absolutely nothing at all because I was too distraught to move beyond necessity today, because my back ached and my head ached and my eyes ached from the unshed tears behind them, tears held back by confused anger. Anger held in, stopped up by fear.

...

"Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage." (Gal. 5:1)

Stand fast...

The words catch on the fear in my throat, choking me. How dare I think that I should stand fast?

I know this Gospel. I know this grace. I know what redemption is. I know what it means that I am reconciled to God.

Yet I hold Him at arm's length. Close enough to keep an eye on what He is doing, far enough to keep Him from tearing my heart open. I want to give my all to Him - really, I do - but the fear that thickens the air, that holds back the tears, the fear traps me. I utter the words on repeat, "I don't want to..." because I don't know what else to say.

Everything is "Christ, but..." in my head today. I feel that the Cross is not enough. That His coming was nothing, really.

But everything that is not of Him must be stripped away.

Even the good I mean to do.

...

The words spin and scatter and gather and fly now. They come with tears as I begin to pour my heart into the air that is heavy. They spill out and speak desire that is good, fear that is caging, wild hope that is true.

"You ran well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth?" (Gal. 5:7)

Yes. I ran well. I know I have lived this Truth, that in Christ I live and move and have my being.

My being that is too small for this great God. My being that is dying to dress up a little more, deliver a little more, surrender a little more before I come before Him. Oh, I do not want to need His mercy this time! I want to like the me I bring to Him.

So He lets me stew and watches me fall, waiting to catch my frightened heart.

"You ran well..."

"Stand fast."

I gather my courage. More words spill before Him, and before my husband who came early to hold me, to listen to me breathe hard and fast and hurt and scared. Words about prayer, about inviting God into our house, about doing only the things He has set before me now instead of preparing for China and martyrdom in thirty years when I just know He will require it of me.

...

My testimony is this: Jesus Christ and Him crucified. This is the grace, the Gospel, the mercy, the Redemption I own.

Here, I am not trapped. Jesus despised the shame He bore - MY shame - and He does not impute it to me.

I am not what I want to be. I am what I am, by the grace of God.

And what I am is a mess. What I am does not take the photos I want to take. What I am does not (and cannot most times) do the housework I want to do. What I am is too often afraid to love. What I am does not stop the words when they should be stopped, does not speak them when they should be spoken.

What I am is dust. Dust, and a broken heart.

...

"For we know that if our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed with our habitation which is from heaven, if indeed, having been clothed, we shall not be found naked. For we who are in this tent groan, being burdened, not because we want to be unclothed, but further clothed, that mortality may be swallowed up by life. Now He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who also has given us the Spirit as a guarantee.

So we are always confident, knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord. For we walk by faith, not by sight. (2 Cor. 5:1-7)

If you read my blog and think I am something, know this the truth: I am nothing.

I have spent much of the past weeks soul-searching - as much as one can soul-search beneath the constant hue and cry of my two - and I know that what I give and what I do and what I write will not be what I am hoping to give and do and write.

Because you see, I have been patterning my nothing after others who have done what I wish to do, and in the end it comes to nothing without Jesus for me, and my yoke of bondage is my own misplaced desire to be like them and not like me who God created and re-created and called good. If we all say the same thing, we become shadows of one another, and the best and brightest shadow is still a shadow - when we are really earthen vessels filled with the weight of a glory that is not meant to be earthbound.

He is so much There, and does not seem to be here at all. Yet the things that my heart knows call me to walk into what my eyes do not see, and my mess is propelled forward by faith into a Life I dare not seek in my own strength - who am I to know what Holy and Righteous is?

"For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him." (2 Cor. 5:21)

...

I cannot live the future now.

God asks this of me today (and I have been afraid to listen): to draw near to Him. To look at Him. To open my heart to an intimacy to take me beyond the limits of my imagination so that I will know that whether I live or die, I will be in Him.

There is a question that has been niggling at me recently, an inane question that offers more direction than I thought I needed: "Am I a blogger who writes or a writer who blogs?"

Tonight, as the words come, I know the answer.

I am a writer who blogs, and it is time for me to step back into my place - MY place - and write again, instead of trying the "blogging" thing.

Several months ago, I went searching for a community who knows God - and I found it. I found you. And you and you and you. And I have been deepened and encouraged, and I hope it will continue.

But I may not be commenting so much on other blogs as I have. I may not reply to every email or track my stats or link up elsewhere or follow too many prompts or Tweet endless links as I have.

I suspect the nature of my posts will change a bit too - when I write, I write for me; I write what is deep; I write what is Him in my dust. I have nothing else.

The voices tell me that is "self-centered," but I am feeling stronger this evening, more ready to stand, more ready to claim the free that is mine in Jesus so I may bow at the throne of Grace - instead of ducking my head, anticipating the blow.

...

What does it mean, that God destroyed the gap between Heaven and earth when Jesus became man and died and rose again?

Death, where is your victory?

I breathe out slow now. Long, and slow. A sigh, but not a sigh. An acknowledgment. That God created me the way He meant. That He does not mean to crush me, but to guard me, to hold me safe in His love. That the being I have in Christ is so much glory and not so much dust.

My flesh and my heart fail.

The groaning is a given.

My spirit is waiting for that face-to-face conversation. The one where I see Him. The one where I become like Him.

God, that's gonna be so good...





(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

love stories: the purse - part I

I was never one for the popular crowd. Or rather, they never thought they were one for me. I was always a bit on the outside - well, quite on the outside. It is odd to me to hear that I am pretty, that I say things that are worth hearing, that people would like to meet me, that they would like to spend time with me.

I do not think of myself this way.

...

I was a dork when I was growing up. I talked too much, laughed too loud, stood too strong. I did not wear the "right" kind of clothes, either. It took me a while to grow up into myself. It's not so bad now.

But then, I compensated.

I would do almost anything for the approval of people, particularly the people who insisted on rejecting me. I was terribly good at compliments. They didn't seem to make much difference, though. Nobody seemed interested in conversation - in fact, I still don't know what I didn't do to earn their friendship.

Still, I needed to find something to win friends.

...

By sixth grade, I had picked up on the fact that it is human nature to respond when someone offers something we need. I decided that I would be the one to have it, and The Purse Idea was born.

I packed tissues, highlighters, pens, pencils, gum, paper, journals, erasers, makeup remover, spare change, Chapstick, you-name-it into granny-size purses for years. Just so that I could have whatever someone needed when they needed it. As I became more style-conscious, I downsized my purse, but The Purse mentality carried over into my life.

It meant that I would go the extra mile to serve in church. I'd sing if there was no one else to do it. I'd play the piano - weddings, funerals, church services - unpaid. I'd babysit for free, every time. People took advantage of me; I didn't mind. I felt loved if they asked my help again.

But when I started collapsing during my freshman year of college, I dropped The Purse. I couldn't carry it anymore. It was too heavy for me. Others stepped in to meet needs that I couldn't meet.

...

My weakness only made me more determined. I learned to take pictures. I shot weddings for practically nothing. I wrote when asked, said "yes" to everything, volunteered whenever there was an opportunity to help. I was winning friends and influencing people.

I was restocking The Purse.

But I wasn't building relationship, and the people I helped weren't seeking it.

So I was left alone.

...

Having children has emptied my purse. I barely remember to pack a diaper bag when I leave the house, let alone make considerations for the masses of people around me who will have needs.

But need-meeting isn't always love. And it is love that fills us up, that nourishes relationship, that changes a life. I am only beginning to understand that. My two have a lot of needs. Some I can meet; some I can't begin to fathom.

The Purse I carried was really my way of trying to be God to others in my life. The love I thought I was offering wasn't love at all.

...

To be continued, next Thursday.





(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

the day after i turned 28

I meant to take a page from Robin's book to justify it. I figured since it was my birthday, it would be a fun gift to myself to do it.

To pull out one of the white dresses I dare not wear too often and pose in it for my daily dust project.

I pulled one out, loving the feel of the white that every girl dreams of wearing, that I wore twice just because. This was one of the four I had bought. My first, my favorite, I sold. (I do that with things I love most - push them away and wish them back again too late.)

I slipped into it, reached back for the zipper, which stopped midway.

Oh yeah. I had a baby three months ago.

But I'm stubborn, and I wanted to take that picture, so I went for another one - the one that had been a bit too big when I wore it last.

The zipper stopped again.

I struggled with it. Pulled the dress off, tried again, not quite believing what was happening.

Oh yeah. Change happens. And it has happened to me.


Most birthdays in recent years, I have simply not thought about the fact that I am getting older. My health issues have robbed so much of my youth, so many of my young dreams. I've felt eighty for years.

I just haven't looked at myself. Haven't really thought about it.

But lately, with my self-portrait project, I've been seeing. I have noticed my face is changing. My eyes are older. They carry more weight than they do in younger pictures.

I honestly don't know what to do with it.

Yesterday's post was about renewal, the rest I find in the love of God. Is it that growing in Him means we become younger, more eternal, more refreshed as we learn His life abundant?

The dust I see in the mirror doesn't reflect the glory of Him that renews me. It has never felt like such a stark contrast.

I think I've never been so restless in my own skin.


Pete went out of his way to make me feel loved yesterday. When I got up before seven, he already had a bouquet of tulips awaiting me at my desk.

After I finished writing my post yesterday, I felt cleaner. More finished. It was the post I wanted to write on my birthday, the one about God whose love for me came clear. The one about the best gift I've ever been given, the gift that reaches so deep to the very core of me, that teaches me trust - because I know now I can trust His heart.

Sure, I had to make two crusts for my cherry cheesecake yesterday because B was hollering at me while I worked in the kitchen. And Piper ate a hole in the second crust anyway, the little scamp.

I'm 28 now.

I'm a mom now.

A wife.

A woman.

Yet I am His. And all this that surrounds me, the dust I wear... He is more real than reality.

I'm caught between worlds now.

I suspect it's a good place to be.





(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

Love Stories: God and Me, Part V

For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

- Romans 5:6-8

God never had to prove His love to me. When you are Love itself, I suppose simple existence is enough. I Am, He calls Himself to Moses. Even I can't explain the depth of who I am.

Some things you just have to know.

...

I was in the dark again.

This time it was postpartum depression. It was financial stress. It was months of processing backlog. It was Pete not passing the Bar.

It was me trying to live without God.

My prayers were falling flat. I tamped down my desire. I grabbed hold of every gift I'd been given, refusing to open my hands and my heart to Him. To give Him place in my life to say "no."

To my understanding, there was nothing different about living my life with God than there was living without Him. Nothing except dashed hopes and expectations I couldn't meet.

There were things I didn't say then to anyone, but in my heart, I was building my case against God. I felt betrayed. Brokenhearted. I wanted to pay Him back.

...

Pete had retaken the Bar in February, 2008. Our financial limitations had driven us two houses from the home I loved, the home where we spent our wedding night, the home where I had my first baby.

I couldn't settle anywhere. I pushed Pete and Piper away from my heart, weeping silent in quiet dark hours, knowing God made no guarantees, knowing that I had lost deep once - nothing would stop me from losing again. I couldn't love and lose again.

My health had taken another turn downhill. The lack of sleep after Piper's birth (she didn't sleep through the night for two years) was too much for my system, and my depression cycled downward with the return of the collapsing and convulsions.

His whispers were the familiar broken record "I love you."

Yeah right, God. Sure You do.

...

Pete passed the Bar, and his office hired his replacement under him. He was working as a floating assistant for several different attorneys - too much work for too little money. We were looking for jobs in California; nothing was coming. I ate the stress, retreated deeper into my shell.

Our house didn't have any light. I hated it. I hated me there. I hated everything.

I refused to pray.

A job opportunity opened up in Charleston. He pursued it. Interviewed via phone the day after he'd queried back. Flew down for an interview a couple of days later. By the end of the week, he had an offer.

And it was too low for us to accept.

...

I was trapped.

When Pete called me to tell me the offer was too low, I clawed at the strictures of my life. I hung up on Pete when he tried to talk to me about God after telling me the news. I remember screaming into the woods around our house, looking into the trees and asking God where He was, if He bothered to care about me.

I remembered His "I love you."

Love?

No, He was God. He was going to do what He was going to do. He wanted me to lay down my life for Him, and guaranteed nothing in return. Nothing but Himself. I wanted to spit on His offer. Why would I want Him?

I told Pete that I was done with God. I couldn't un-believe His existence; it was the only thing that made sense. But I was as close as I had ever been to hating Him. I didn't want to have anything to do with Him. I didn't want Him to use me anymore. I felt manipulated and betrayed and... dead.

God didn't care about me. And if He did, I didn't want it.

He was nothing more than a concept to me. A concept I was supposed to believe. A concept that was supposed to change my life.

...

A day later, Pete was given a second job offer. We were moving, in a week's time. Our landlord flipped out. The landlord who had been okay with our five-times-telling-him that Pete was between jobs and we might need to break our lease. The landlord I'd respected and liked. The landlord I'd hand-picked to stop the freak-out from happening.

I succumbed to the shock and anger that day.

I screamed at God. Screamed and screamed and screamed. The events of the last several years, the bottled anger, the disappointment, the sense of betrayal, the obligation I had felt to be godly, my constant sense of shame, the repeated "I love you" in the face of my fear of loss - I threw it all up at Him with all the passion I possessed. I shook my fist at Him from my knees. I shook both fists.

And I curled into a ball and wept.

It was like a defibrillator. My deadened heart was shocked back into life and everything I had shut down and pushed poured out into real again. I dumped all that I had been holding against Him out that day. My case was big enough to convict Him of not loving me now.

...

Pouring my heart out before the Lord left me empty. Clean. My accusations had been flung at Him. My anger had finally been spent. Giving voice to my complaint against Him had freed me from it.

The next day in the car, I quietly tried to apologize to Him for my anger, embarrassed over my loss of control.

He surprised me with His response. "You were in pain."

All that anger, and that was what He got?

It was like He hadn't been listening. It was as if He hadn't heard. It was as if He had been with me in it all along, aching with me, dying with me, waiting for me to bring it into His love.

...

I had nothing left to hold against God. I spent the next months waiting, quiet, learning my dust, learning His Godness.

We moved to Charleston; I didn't like the house we moved to, but there was light here. The depression wasn't so bad as it had been. I began to give shy thanks for His provision.

Pete was home more than he had been. His commute was ten minutes long instead of forty. We got a chance to be a family, to get to know one another again.

I didn't say much about God. I listened. I filled my time with pictures; a Flickr addiction came and went; I learned what exactly it meant that Jesus had died for me.

...

It was morning. I can't tell you the date. I can just tell you the way the morning sun came through the window at the house I didn't much like. I had my camera, but I didn't photograph it.

It came deep, still, like a breath into the core of my soul.

God loves me.

You know how they always say that when you fall in love with someone, you "just know" you were meant for each other? I always hated that. I always wanted the explanation, the how, the why.

But it's true. The deepest love can't be defined, because God Himself is Love, because He is infinite, because He has no beginning and no end, because He is Beginning and End.

God loves me.

I just knew.

...

Once upon a time, in a time before time, a perfect, holy God loved me. Before I existed, before I knew I needed Him, He made a way for me to know His love.

I ask Piper when we go to sleep together if she knows who loves her. She gives her answer: "God loves you, and Jesus loves you, and Mama loves you, and Daddy loves you, and Uncle Kate loves you and Mickey Mouse loves you..."

He sent His Son Jesus, God-in-flesh, to be broken for me, to wear my dust, to be my sin so that I could wear His righteousness and approach Him in His holiness to obtain mercy.

I ask Piper if she knows how we know God loves her. She doesn't yet, but I tell her: "Jesus died for you." She doesn't know what that means yet.

This great God who loved me sealed my heart with His Spirit for the day that Jesus will come for me, to bring me finally into His presence to be one with Him.

I wonder what Piper's love story will be; how will God teach her heart His love for her? I can't wish my story on her; I can't wish away His love.

Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. Also there was no more sea. Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.”

Then He who sat on the throne said, “Behold, I make all things new.” And He said to me, “Write, for these words are true and faithful.”

And He said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. I will give of the fountain of the water of life freely to him who thirsts. He who overcomes shall inherit all things, and I will be his God and he shall be My son

- Revelation 21:1-7

And they will live happily ever after.

...

Love Stories: God and Me, Part I
Love Stories: God and Me, Part II
Love Stories: God and Me, Part III
Love Stories: God and Me, Part IV

...

On Thursdays in February (because I never know quite what to post on Thursdays), I was writing out my love story. Not the one about my crushes or my first love or even my love for Pete - though those stories all play a part. Bonnie Gray at Faith Barista and Holley Gerth at (in)Courage challenged us to write out our God love stories, and I had one to share.

This is my last official installment on this particular series. More love stories to come, though, as inspiration hits... Thanks for sticking with me.





(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

unsettled

I am blur and shadow lately. There is not much clear in my head; other things are more pressing than figuring it out.

Things like settling into our new house. Like spending time with a baby who is more awake than he was. Like fixing boo-boos against my toddler's will. Like learning to discipline her.

Learning to love them both, even if my love makes no difference, even if they push me away instead of seeking me out.

It is not the house that leaves me unsettled - since we moved only three streets over, we just transferred our things into their new rooms and didn't worry too much about boxes. And we have extra storage here to hide things we don't want to deal with yet.

Still, things feel choppy. Restless.

...

I revamped my blog the other day. Do you like it?

I should rename the thing "This Restless Blog Template." But it seemed to go with moving house, and I'd meant to do it for a while. I wanted less clutter, less distracting, something to give my photos a chance to stand out a little more without being overpowering.

I love the look. It's peaceful. Quiet. Unlike the noise in my head. Unlike the noise in my house and two lines on a blog post between interruptions.

...

The other night, I stayed up late after everyone was in bed. Wrote a few emails, caught up on my blog-reading. Thought my own thoughts and realized I am not as easy alone as I used to be. When I went to bed, I looked at Pete and saw me married, looked at Piper and saw me her mama, looked at Bredon and saw myself with a son.

Is it odd that I am shocked by it? As my own version of "what I want to be when I grow up" fades from view, I become an observer. I am not the me I was, not the me I thought I'd be.

Life happens with or without me, and sometimes in spite of me. Somehow, whether it comes in my way or in its own way, it comes if I am ready or not. Sometimes I try too hard to grasp time that slips too easily through my fingers like so much sand. I try to do more and be more, and I have more limitations than most.

...

My life is not all about me, but I am human, and we humans are the main characters in our own stories. Sometimes I don't notice the supporting characters in the midst of my own struggles, characters who are their own main characters in their own stories, however ancillary they are to mine.

But I have been seeing them, peering outside myself, observing me through other eyes, trying to put myself in their shoes.

I don't want my life to happen without me. I don't want to stay frozen so long that I miss the others the Author has placed in my story. Yet with that desire comes a knowledge that I must not do when God wants me to wait; I must not speak when He wants me to listen. Eternal God knows more about the work of time in hearts than I can imagine, and there is a time for everything - no matter how pressured I feel to make everything all right today.

I have never wanted to be "Supermom" or "Superwife." Living predefined roles is counter-intuitive to me. It means doing many things "the hard way" because I don't do anything by halves. God knows that. My yes is yes and my no is no. Too many years in between made me double-minded so I didn't know what I wanted. Now, He takes me slow into His will, renewing my mind, strengthening my heart to do within His grace sufficient.

And God knows this about me too: once I know something, I know it. And I am accountable to Him for it. So He does not ask me for everything at once. He remembers that I am dust; He promises not to break a bruised reed.

...

He knows how I struggle to keep up with the changes in my life - is all of life transition? What is it like to stay in one place for years and years and know all the same people and go to the same church and marry someone you knew when you were five and have kids with all your best friends?

I wouldn't know.

And I almost don't want to know. I don't know how to be that settled.

{This} Restless Heart - a name I stumbled on after a blog switch a few years ago when someone I didn't like was reading my words and commenting on them. I liked the romance of the phrase, the quote I had to go with it - I had no idea how it would come to describe my heart and my journey.

...

There are two deep things that I can see Him doing in me now. I don't know how to define them, because I don't know His end. I stand at the edge of something new, wondering how long the churning will last, staring fascinated at the whitecaps, trying to gain my balance. Looking down is dizzying.

...

One deep thing has to do with Piper. She is heavy on my heart now since my visit to my parents' house, since listening to their counsel, since acknowledging the thing I've been afraid to acknowledge, the hard thing, the coming-out-of-hiding thing I've been avoiding. I am learning to see her. To do more than react. To love her differently. I am learning what needs of hers to release to God, learning what needs I should be meeting. I am learning to listen - to her and to Him.

...

The other deep thing has to do with people. Specifically with other believers.

I read through the second half of Revelation on our way home from my parents'. There is an endless stretch on I-26 between Columbia and Charleston that makes for some very solid reading time.

As I read, I found myself overwhelmed with the amazing picture of God presented in Revelation. The Holy God who will endure sin no longer. The Alpha and Omega - the one who will finish it all. The triumphant Son of Man reaping the earth with the Word of God, the one who Himself is named the Word of God. The inescapable wrath of God that will supersede all platitudes and nicetudes and drive people to curse Him and be destroyed. The perfect justice in His judgment, long-deserved.

I am awed at that God. I love that God. I wept as I read, realizing that it is not for me because I am in Jesus. That before this God of wrath and judgment, my testimony is not "Jesus, but..." It is Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

It is finished.

And I am not afraid.

But when I face the prospect of walking into a church, of interacting with other believers, I am terribly afraid. There are voices in my head, lies long-believed, unfamiliar, frightening images of a graceless God who demands perfection as long as someone has a paintbrush in hand to wash my dust in faded white that pales in comparison to the light.

White that this photographer knows must disappear in the bright, for His glory exposes more than we imagine. Really, it is the Light that makes even the dust beautiful.

...

I stand on the edge, wishing the clouds away, but half-glorying in the storm and the wind and the blur and the shadow. My arms are opening. My eyes are opening in spite of the rain; I am learning again to love the wildness in this restless. It is passion. It is intimate. It is something I am doing with Him, something He is doing with me. I walk a path no one else has walked; no one else can walk for me.

I am unsettled lately, changing - yet I am deeply settled too. I don't understand it, but I'll take it for now.

...

I have no idea how much sense this post makes; it's the first real opportunity I've had to sit down and process anything since getting back to Charleston after my week in VA. I'm just thinkin' for right now. Thanks for bearing with me.

...

AND as a completely random aside, I'm a finalist @Greeblemonkey's March photo contest. Please click over and vote for my photo: "Learning to Breathe."





(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

a self-portrait: covered

The words were little more than a sigh.

She inhaled, exhaled, and still there was nothing, nothing but air and wishes, and not even that, if she was honest. Words don't breathe until they are said, until they are formed on the tongue, until they slip from lip and sing across empty space. And wishes, well, they need definition, and definition requires words.

So she sighed.

Her feelings were scattered, splintering in every direction but straight, focusing here, then there, trying to be everywhere at once, forgetting that omnipresence is better left to God-who-sees. The feelings were like that; they didn't remember so much as they should.

She didn't know what to say, so she couldn't write. She took pictures, and they said a great deal too much, and didn't say quite enough.

Grace is a slippery thing, she thought.

No, no it's not.

Again she sighed. Tried to focus her thoughts. Gave up. Sighed again.

Today, she didn't know who she was. Was she pastels and tulips or bright and daisies? Or was she somewhere in between? Was there a place for all of it? Why did everything seem that it needed to be compartmentalized? She felt she might blow apart with the things trapped inside.

God was so near some days; He was near now - she knew His presence. But drawing near to Him required a little bravery on her part. A little trust. A lot of truth.

She wasn't afraid of the wrathful God of Revelation; her heart thrilled at the blazing rescue executed by the fiery-eyed Son of Man from whose mouth came the Word of God that seared her soul. There was no wrath for her, no fear there.

But rejection - even the possibility - it asked faith of her. Faith that Jesus was enough. That grace was sufficient for her to come to Him and rest when she was weary. It seemed she was always weary.

She had heard that she needed to do more, to be more than she was. The voices in her head - the loud ones that lived on her mental tickertape - they said that God required more of her or else. The "or else" was never defined. She lived in fear of that dropping ball. Sometimes the prospect was too much for her. She hunkered down, shut out the world, dived beneath the radar of God-who-sees.

Ironically, she never escaped His gaze.

His wisdom wasn't supposed to be confusing.

She couldn't live a lifetime in a moment.

She couldn't change herself.

Everything was muddled without considering Jesus. She'd never be enough.

But there He was. Jesus, her free. Her Spirit-sealed guarantee that God would not reject her if she drew near. His gaze seemed suddenly more welcoming.

Her feelings focused; she needed to hide for now, but not from Him. In Him. In that secret place of His presence where there is no need for definition or caveat or explanation. She'd be safe there. Covered.

Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven,
Whose sin is covered.
Blessed is the man to whom the LORD does not impute iniquity,
And in whose spirit there is no deceit.

When I kept silent, my bones grew old
Through my groaning all the day long.
For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me;
My vitality was turned into the drought of summer. Selah
I acknowledged my sin to You,
And my iniquity I have not hidden.
I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the LORD,”
And You forgave the iniquity of my sin. Selah

For this cause everyone who is godly shall pray to You
In a time when You may be found;
Surely in a flood of great waters
They shall not come near him.
You are my hiding place;
You shall preserve me from trouble;
You shall surround me with songs of deliverance. Selah

I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go;
I will guide you with My eye.
Do not be like the horse or like the mule,
Which have no understanding,
Which must be harnessed with bit and bridle,
Else they will not come near you.

Many sorrows shall be to the wicked;
But he who trusts in the LORD, mercy shall surround him.
Be glad in the LORD and rejoice, you righteous;
And shout for joy, all you upright in heart!

- Psalm 32

(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

Love Stories: God and Me, Part IV

There was still the matter of the vow.

I hadn't made it lightly. And I had made it to God - a God of whose love I was no longer certain.

The months after the hospital passed under a cover of grace, grace I recognize in the looking back, seeing now the fear that stalked me then.

Pete's and my friendship deepened; I sought God with him, co-teaching a Sunday School class for the teens at our church. My pursuit of Him was rote, something I knew to do, something I'd always done.

I tried not to think about my friend, about the outstanding question of his return to me. I tried not to hope - for his return, for the return of my health, for anything at all. After several years of unresolved health issues I knew this: God was sovereign, and He would do what He wanted, regardless of my desire.

...

God told Pete to ask Him for me.

Not in the "ask Me so that I have the place to tell you no" sense. In the "ask Me for a sign and I will give it to you" sense.

So Pete obeyed and asked and fell in love with me.

I was not in love with him. But I knew I was no longer in love with my friend either. That wasn't something I shared with anyone. Not even with God. The inside jokes I'd shared with Him earlier in my story were over, the ready trust, the easy surrender, the passion behind my vow, the vow that kept me from returning Pete's love. The vow that depended on God's work in the heart of my friend.

Work that wasn't happening.

...

Christmas came. Questions about our friendship had arisen for both Pete and me. His family didn't know what to do with our relationship. They counseled him strongly against it; he shared his heart with his dad. His dad prayed.

My parents couldn't understand why I was still holding out for my friend's return. I explained the vow I had to keep. I told Dad that I'd shared the vow with him, that he hadn't said anything, that because of it, I was bound to it, for the sake of keeping the vow to the Lord.

My dad stared. "I never heard you. And if I had, there is no way I would have said you should keep it."

Humbling words. Frightening words. Freeing words.

...

I spent the New Year at a bed and breakfast retreat Pete had given me for Christmas. I intended to pull out my Bible and repeat the last year's New Year retreat - Genesis through Job seeking and discovering God. Pete figured if I found Him, he'd never see me again.

My heart wasn't in it. After my dad's words to me releasing me from my vow, I couldn't open my Bible. I was scared to find myself that alone with God. But He was pursuing me. He was so close, I felt if I turned and looked, I would see Him.

I ran.

I rented a movie. Hit two rental places looking for a VCR on which to watch the movie. The one in my room was broken. I bought one.

I didn't make it back to the bed and breakfast to hook the thing up and turn on the movie before He caught me in the dark of my car, so present, so real I couldn't escape Him.

"What do you want?" I remember asking Him, a little annoyed, a little afraid, gutsy enough to be the one to speak first, take the bull by the horns.

He didn't say anything. Not yet. I could feel Him looking at me, the pointed kind of look that says, "are you actually serious, asking Me that? You know."

I tried leaving Him in the car. Went inside. Set up the VCR. Put the movie in.

Turned it off.

"What do you want?"

It was Him this time, asking me.

...

Pete and I were married in October, 2005.

I had been freed from my first vow to make a new one, but I'd not been freed from my fear. I clutched Pete almost wildly to myself, waiting for the ball to drop, waiting for the inevitable loss that I was sure must come if I loved anything or anyone too much.

God wanted all of me. After I'd admitted my love for Pete to Him, I dived for cover, and He let me go, for a time. Let me live. During my first year of marriage, He spoke still and small His "I love you," over and over and over.

I acknowledged. "Yeah, God. I know."

"I love you."

...

Piper was born in July, 2007. A year of "I love you" culminated in faith to cling to Him during her birth.

I was ready to move on with life. I figured it was time to start growing spiritually again. Trying to find God again. Trying to love Him again. Which meant laying down my life for Him. And figuring out what it meant to lay down my life. I wanted to get to the "life abundant" on the other side of that "nevertheless."

Somehow, I thought I might be able to manage it without letting Him into my heart again. Without being so vulnerable as I had been. Without facing the fear that held me captive.

Somehow I thought I could lay down my life for Him without Him.

...

Love Stories: God and Me, Part I
Love Stories: God and Me, Part II
Love Stories: God and Me, Part III


...

On Thursdays in February (because I never know quite what to post on Thursdays), I was writing out my love story. Not the one about my crushes or my first love or even my love for Pete - though those stories all play a part. Bonnie Gray at Faith Barista and Holley Gerth at (in)Courage challenged us to write out our God love stories, and I had one to share.

It's been on hold for a couple of weeks, and here we are in March with what should have been the final post - but I discovered this morning that it won't be the final post. There is too much more that I cannot share today.

Thanks for your patience. More to come next Thursday.






(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

Something About Good

I've had so much time to think recently, and not so much time to process my thinking, to bring my scattered thoughts to real. But something is coming clear, something about inadequacy, my own God-gifted inadequacy.

The only solid thing that comes to me is this: that God has been very good to me and I have not deserved His goodness.

It is something about having a child whose high needs I can never fully meet. Something about her needing God too - for life, for help, for love, for discipline. It something about a place to begin teaching her of His care for her.



It is something about letting go, and about holding on, an almost-wish that these young, small days would last longer because I cannot get close enough to the smiles, the cooing, the giggles, the uncertainty, the pleas for time with Mama that will just never be enough.



This something is about a really big God. A really, really big God whose wrath is overpower, whose wrath will one day drive those who hate Him to curse His name without repentance. It is something about being held by this God, something about a strong love, eyes that burn like fire, a King on a white horse, a Gospel and a testimony that draws my eyes upward, outward, into Him who is Spirit and not like me.

Have I made Him too small in my need to justify myself, my life, my inadequacy?


It is my inadequacy that teaches me to embrace His power. It is my empty that begs His full. It is my dust that requires His glory.

I see so well where I have failed and where I must not fail. I try so hard to perfect myself, to be unbroken, to do the right thing every time. It is too much for me. I will never be enough. Not for this loving of my children, not for this serving of my powerful God. I can never cover all my bases.

If not for Christ, I would be destroyed. This something I cannot quite describe is at once terrible and comforting. It goes beyond all I have ever known, lives in a realm I cannot finger or photograph, draws me from the daily into the eternal and helps me trust a Person who provided for my redemption from this body of sin.

The uncontrollable pain I own in child-bearing, the transition and change in life that sends me spinning out of my comfort zone, the unrequited longing I know for my husband, time slipping through my fingers like so much sand - these are the gifts of His goodness to me, the painful, beautiful etchings of life under Adam redeemed in Jesus.


I cannot pretend to understand.

I can only be overwhelmed. Only offer up my thanks, wordless thanks that is more than emotion, that draws all of me up into Him, that bows me down before Him, and the eyes of my heart wonder beyond the dim reflection at the mystery that will be no more one day when I behold Him.

I can only taste this goodness that I will never be enough to earn.

...

Shared in the blog carnival hosted at Bridget Chumbley's One Word at a Time today.





(Images © Informal Moments Photography)

Again, Transition

Like labor,
the pains have been coming,
squeezing, stretching, opening
one, two, five
hours and minutes apart

and we are a little nearer to
new.

Today it comes
and I am breathing through
again

this hardest part, the beginning
of change,
the first pangs, then

the new.

I'm at twenty-some moves for my lifetime now. I've lost count and I don't have time this morning to figure it out. The Interwebs are moving first, with the phone. Then the piano. Then we hope to get the bedroom and the living room moved over so we can rest at our new house tonight.

There are some positives to having Piper prefer to sleep with us still, to having Bredon in an easily movable basket.

You all are awesome. Thank you for the comments and notes and prayers and encouragement reminding me of His love, revealing Him. How much more does my heavenly Father care for me than for the sparrows?

I don't know. But I think it is my time to learn.

We're moving today. We are almost through.

I'll be back when I can.





(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

Qavah

There are a lot of "oughts" in my brain just now.

There are words strung out in phrases, slipping "shoulds" and "need tos" and "haven'ts" and "didn'ts" mingling into restless, accusing syntax to bypass the grace I know with the other things.

The "you're not enough." The "you can't." The long lecture about standing too firm, too proud, the castigation for my humanity, the convenient oversight of the dirt and grime and splattering red of the Cross.

So many are giving so much up for Lent. So many care here and give there. So many pursue this or that with passion and drive that seems untouched by the weights I am wishing to throw aside. Weights that I am not even certain I may throw aside.

I try to live. I'm trying to gain my balance here. But I am an all or nothing person, and it seems I am wading through some quagmire in a valley of decision. Decision that has no clear direction. "Give something up." "Do more here." "Let's not do this." "I need to try that."

The voices are loud and insistent. They are not God's, I think. They drive me away from still.

I am not one to give much credence to spiritual attack. I generally try to ignore it, continue on my way, keeping my eyes away from it. But I'm living in a thin place right now. The photo above tells more than I wish to tell, yet it says so much that I have to say, that I can't admit, that I must admit or disappear.

There are places in me I dare not go without my strong God. There are cracks in my armor - not my Christ-armor - my own protective walls, the ones that must come crashing down in me before He will have all of me, before it will be all joy to embrace Him as my very great reward.

Fear has footholds in me yet; he drives me inward, makes me cower, curl into myself, poking and prodding until I lash out with the only defense the attack has left available to me - anger. Fury.

Where is your grace now? The voices taunt, and I try not to fall, hold back my tears, for I cannot be broken, they cannot break me.

I look for Jesus. This is my year of dust. Of looking at mine, of seeking His, for He became dust too. His wilderness was forty days long. Israel wandered forty years. How long is my own to last?

Why, oh why do I fight for this freedom?

I am being pressed. I am perplexed. I am persecuted. Yet I am not crushed. I do not despair. I am not alone.

How can I know these things and still struggle so within myself?

"It is your own fault." The hissing prods me, bidding vague decision. "You could end this. Just choose what you know is right!"

But right is not something I know so very well anymore. Right and Life are far from each other at times, when Christ is my life and right blocks my view of Him.

It seems the very air I breathe is murky. The light is shadowed.

Too often, I have surrounded myself with people, with voices that tell me the right. Too often I take their word instead of His, and even the good causes me to stumble. I am so weak; I cannot be strong like some. I used to think that I could. I used to think that having the right answer was enough.

Answers are cold. And they are often empty.

Everything inside cries for touch. Not for child-touch, need-touch. God knows I've had too much of that lately. I almost push them away to make room for full-touch, giving-touch.

Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, thou art with me.

With rod and staff He offers comfort. I receive it deep. I need both to steady, to guide, to hem me behind and before.

The light pierces now, sun in a baby's eyes as he emerges from the womb. Glorious light.

You have laid Your hand upon me.

It is so warm.





(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

Love Stories: God and Me, Part III

"Hope deferred makes the heart sick, But when the desire comes, it is a tree of life."

- Proverbs 13:12

I am told I met my Pete in February, 2004.

A coworker wanted me to go on a blind date with an online schoolmate of hers who was coming to town. There was no way I was going to subject myself to that. Not with everything that had already happened relating to boys and dates and the rest of my life spent waiting, because at the rate he was going, my friend was never getting married, and he sure wasn't coming back.

He told me so. I got the "never" to my face. And I was told not to expect God to change his mind.

I vaguely remember one day in the midst of the dark when I walked into the dining hall at the campus where I still worked after dropping out of school. I had a question for my coworker; really, I was looking for an excuse to be there. I knew I wasn't wanted by anyone in the room.

I asked my question; my coworker answered my question. I can remember a shadow behind her, someone moving quiet out of the light. I heard a familiar laugh across the room, too loud, too painful. I left as quickly as I could.

...

Pete told me much later that he went home to Connecticut and couldn't get me out of his mind. He said he'd never seen someone in so much pain. He said he'd prayed for me. I still say if I'd met him then, I'd never have fallen in love with him.

...

The spring came and went that year with me watching a calendar with silly hope. Each month had a focus on something beautiful, and for the life of me I can't tell you now what the themes of the months were, except June. I know what June was.

It was love.

Every month before, something had happened to fulfill the monthly theme. I was on a high with God, giddy that He cared to involve Himself in my life, giddy that anything could happen, that He could bring my friend back in spite of everything. He had told me to love him, after all.

There was only one thing that could happen in June that could meet the requirements of my love theme.

During the last week in June, I completely collapsed at the office with convulsions that sent me into the hospital. In the ER, I was given an IV containing what I was told was the same fluids that were in my body. I didn't realize it carried 5% dextrose into my bloodstream. I didn't realize it was going to make me weaker because of my sensitivity to sugar.

The first few days saw me accepting my suffering with hope. I read my Bible. I thanked God for the window in my room. I had landed in the old maternity ward. It was a safe place. I felt surrounded by love. I knew I was where God wanted me.

I had visitors, and the nurses were kind. They woke me every morning to draw blood, testing for God-knows-what. The person who got my room after I was moved was rather annoyed by all the callers for me.

Oh yes. I was moved.

And that is where the nightmare began.

...

I had known Pete for about a month at that point, but the month had opened such a friendship between us that I risked a call to him from the ER. I didn't know who else to call. I was still a kid in so many ways. I think it takes growing up to recognize how much you need your parents still, and too often, they're gone before you realize it.

He came. Every day except the three that he was gone on conference.

It was on one of those days that the hospital staff moved me. The nursing staff came in wearing masks at about 11:00 p.m. of the third day of what would be my nine-day stay. They were testing for something highly contagious, they said. I was being moved to isolation.

I was terrified. My sister had gone home that night, something she wouldn't do again for the rest of my stay.

Knowing he would still be up studying, I called Pete from my new room and talked until we were both too tired to stay awake. The room with a window that looked into a wall. The room on the hall where everyone was throwing up. I could hear them through the walls. It was in this room that I met Fear. It was in this room that he seared my soul with a perspective change that would forever challenge my childish view of God.

...

During my time at the hospital, I had been praying, begging God, really, to send my friend to see me. I asked Pete to ask him to come. I thought he might take it better from him than from me.

I wanted to ask his forgiveness. For what, I don't know. Loving him against his will? I still don't really know. I just wanted my friend back. At that point, I didn't care whether I "ended up" with him or not.

Every day I battled within myself over whether I should ask God for him to come. I expected him around every corner, waited for him to appear in my room - always looking, always waiting.

As I grew weaker and weaker with the dextrose in the IV compromising my blood, I began to wonder if I'd ever see him again. Finally one night, I fell to my knees, surrounded by fear, surrounded by the awful sounds of retching, by the weeping and the eerie hospital-quiet, and I begged. I begged God to send him. I turned my hands upward and surrendered my desire to God, for a final yes or no.

Pete found me beside the bed that night, too weak to climb back in. He helped me up and tucked me in as I faded into oblivion.

The last thing I remember from that night is his tender kiss on my forehead.

...

To my knowledge, my friend never came to the hospital. It was the closing of a door I didn't understand then, the opening of heart-questions for me that that simultaneously pulled me to God and drove me from Him.

How could He love me? What proof did I have that God really cared about me? What proof would I ever have?

In the weeks after the hospital, I cried through Job. I begged my friends for answers about God's love, about what it looked like, about what He meant. Pete stood firm that God loved me, that He didn't have to prove His love.

But how could I believe that?

...

I left the hospital with Fear, who would become my constant companion. Before I left, God had asked me to speak the name of Jesus to one of my doctors. I did. Before I left, one of my nurses came to me and told me that she was a Christian, that my witness had challenged her to live more loudly for Christ there in the hospital.

Before I left, the doctor told me I still had no diagnosis.

I left the hospital angry with God. How could He? How could He use me like that and leave me weaker, broken, without answers, without love?

The anger frightened me. As the days passed, I slowly shoved it away, behind the safer "Praise God, I'm out of the hospital. I'm in a wheelchair again, but it's okay. I'm not there anymore. My friend didn't come, but God is still bigger." The habits were there already. The patterns were set. I could act God, if I had to. And I had to, because nothing else made sense to me. "God" was all I had ever known.

I didn't know what else to do.

It would be years before the anger would surface again. It would be years before I faced those doubts and asked those questions, years before I opened my heart again.

It would be years before I faced God again.

I canned the calendar.

...

Love Stories: God and Me, Part I
Love Stories: God and Me, Part II

...

On Thursdays this month (because I never know quite what to post on Thursdays), I am writing out my love story. Not the one about my crushes or my first love or even my love for Pete - though those stories all play a part. Bonnie Gray at Faith Barista and Holley Gerth at (in)Courage challenged us to write out our God love stories, and I had one to share. BOY, do I have one to share.

So I know it's a little canned, being the "love month" and all, but I thought I'd take some time to write it out anyway. It's good for me to dwell on His love for me.





(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

All My Heart

There is a school of thought that says it is possible to love your husband more than you love God. It says it is possible to make an idol out of your husband. Logically speaking, this line of thought holds that it is actually possible to sin against God by loving your husband.

No way. I don't think so.

Eve's overwhelming desire for her husband may have been something God explained to her when He leveled the Curse against the snake and the ground, but He never said it was a sin to desire Adam.

He said Adam would rule over her.

In the head-of-the-house sort of way. In the Eve-you'll-submit sort of way. In the half-of-your-heart-walking-out-of-the-door-every-morning sort of way.

...

I'm guest-posting at Deidra's blog today. Head on over to Jumping Tandem to read just exactly what I wrote about this whole "loving your husband more than God" thing.

I'll give you a hint: I can't love him enough...





(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

Love Stories: God and Me, Part II

The journals.

They witnessed it all. They caught the tears, the dark-etched pencil (I never use pen for my handwriting), the play-by-play of my first love, my first deep heartbreak. I don't know now how many I filled.

...

As a teenager, I asked God to guard my heart for the man He had for me. I had as many (or more) crushes as the next girl, growing up. Maybe it was because we moved so often. There were plenty of new rooms with new faces for me to walk into and select which face to dream about. Dreaming about a Prince Charming is an occupational hazard for a teenage girl. At least it was for me.

During my first year at my second college, I got serious about God. More serious than I had been when I gave my life to Him for missionary work in the third grade. More serious than I had been when I rededicated my life for full-time Christian service at camp when I was eighteen. More serious about Him than I had been a full year at Bible college.

Wanna know why?

Because there were other people around me who were more serious about Him than I was. My competitive streak was up.

He'll use anything to draw us in.

But I was serious. So serious that September 12, 2001 saw me on my knees, finally giving my whole life to God for real, to do whatever, go wherever He would ask. At the time, I fancied New York City. A switch to a nursing career. Saving lives. Helping orphans. Even going to Africa. You know. The obvious ministry stuff. I was determined to want God more than I had wanted anything else, ever.

Two weeks later, I got my "whatever, wherever" from God when I started collapsing without explanation or diagnosis. There would be no glamorous occupation for me. Things were going to get messy.

...

Questions began to surface. The questions that come from suffering. The whys. The constant search for explanation. Little victories that I had performed well rejoicing in suffering crashed down as the suffering intensified. My circle of friends dwindled. They were tired of trying to answer my questions, I think. They were trying to survive their own Freshman year.

But there was one friendship in particular that would forever change my life. He was probably the fourth real guy friend I had ever had. And he was a good friend. A true friend. He was the first person I ever loved with God's love.

And my girl's heart fell in love with him. Hard.

He loved me too.

The logical end of the love that grew out of our friendship should have been a happily-ever-after.

I looked in the mirror one day after he left on a school trip, and I saw it there, the thing I'd read about but never quite believed. I was glowing. I looked in the mirror and I saw what he saw. I was sparkling. I was beautiful.

I never wanted to lose that feeling. I was amazed at the love God had given to me. Of course it had been Him. I had asked Him to guard my heart for the man He wanted for me. I simply assumed He had kept me for this one.

Nothing could have prepared me for what happened next.

...

My second year at my second college was the loneliest year I have ever lived.

My friend who I loved, who loved me, rejected me out-of-hand. He ignored me. He "was over it now." He pursued my best girl friend.

His reasons were many and complicated, but I watched that year as he systematically destroyed every part of himself that reminded him of me. I felt as if he were deeply ashamed of me, of my feelings, of my love, of our friendship.

My heart shattered.

...

God asked me to love him anyway. He wanted me to speak to Him the truth that was in my heart about my feelings. He wanted me to love my friend as He loved him. He wanted me to see him as God saw me, to give him the same grace I was learning to receive myself.

My sister listened to numerous friends who questioned my choice to love, who questioned my motives and my confusion, but instead of counseling the end of it all, she encouraged me. It was the first time in the whole of our lives that she had seen me reach outside of my own self-centeredness to care for the heart of someone else.

And the love God placed in my heart for my friend was a lifeline that drew me through my pain and confusion into God's heart.

I learned that love doesn't always look like hearts and flowers and sparkling eyes and the honeymoon stage.

I learned how incredibly we can hurt God when we rebuff His offer of relationship.

I learned how deeply He could love someone. I learned how deeply He could love me.

I learned that love - real love - cannot be killed.

All these lessons I held to my heart, waiting until God would be finished teaching me what He wanted to teach me, waiting for Him to answer my prayer and bring my friend back to me, give me the love and the wedding I longed for.

I journaled and I journaled and I journaled, hoping that one day my friend would read the words that told the story of my walk with God through the pain, hoping that he would be able to see how much I'd loved him in spite of it all, praying that one day I would pick up a pencil and write on the page how amazing God had been to bring us together, finally.

I wanted to believe God would give me what I wanted. But I never could quite bring myself to it. Something inside could not be released.

...

God had told me to ask Him for my friend, so that He could say "no" to me if He wanted.

I really, really hoped He would say "yes" if I surrendered. I even made a vow to Him. My part of the bargain, if you will. Just so He'd know I was serious. I intended to keep it too.

I vowed that I would wait for my friend until he was married to someone else. I knew then what I'll admit now - I just didn't want to hurt him more than he'd already been hurt through his own choices. I hoped one day to offer him my love, full and free - no bitterness, no hard feelings.

Still, a vow was a vow, and keeping a vow made to the Lord was terribly important to me.

So I vowed. And I ached. Oh, I ached. And I waited.

I would still be waiting now, but for God.

I had learned much about His love, but I didn't know it. Not deep. Not yet. I needed to know Him.

...

NOTE: For some of you who read, this post will be quite a throwback to conversations and old places in my friendships with you. For some who didn't know, it may explain a bit why I was the way I was during this period of time in my life. Please bear with me. It is a part of my story I cannot erase. I have written as much from my own perspective as I can; I have shared here what I may not have shared with some of you. Thank you, real people who have walked with me, for being in my life on many sides of this.

...

Love Stories: God and Me, Part I

...

On Thursdays this month (because I never know quite what to post on Thursdays), I am writing out my love story. Not the one about my crushes or my first love or even my love for Pete - though those stories all play a part. Bonnie Gray at Faith Barista and Holley Gerth at (in)Courage challenged us to write out our God love stories, and I had one to share. BOY, do I have one to share.

So I know it's a little canned, being the "love month" and all, but I thought I'd take some time to write it out anyway. It's good for me to dwell on His love for me.





(Image © Informal Moments Photography)