Transitions

Each year since we’ve been married, we’ve sent out a Christmas card. The earlier years included letters that provided reflections of the year. We compiled them into their own archive into a box last weekend and marveled at the nine years we have lived in NYC and the history and memories yielded as a result.

We signed our first (sub)lease on our one-year anniversary, culminating a goal of working towards living in a place we felt called to and desired to challenge our careers in. Nearly 10 months between graduation/marriage were spent living at John’s parents’ house as we worked jobs to save money to move out here. We applied to countless jobs in NYC that year, seldomly hearing back from a single one. As practical as we are, we felt we should have jobs before we move to the most expensive city in the country, but God challenged us to walk in faith and not a “but first” requirement. So we rented a Penske truck around the 4th of July, 2011 and began a 3-day road trip with our sparse belongings to NYC. At the end of the first day, as we neared the Nebraska border, I wondered what in the world we were doing and wanted to turn back. Yet 10 minutes down the road in the middle of nowhere was a glass chapel on a hill where we stopped to reflect and pray, once again reassured that this is where the Lord was leading us, even with all of the unknown things ahead. We arrived on July 9, 2011, to sweltering hot weather, sorely sticking out in our dominantly Hasidic Jewish section of Crown Heights, and began our journey that has remained to this day, our lives in NYC. Each step of the way, we have seen the Lord lead and provide.

Fast forward over nine years later, we are on the cusp of another cross-country move back to Colorado with our long journey in NYC coming to a close. In many ways like the first, there are practical reasons that lead us back and also faith-led ones as well. There are some things we know, like where we’re living (Broomfield, Colorado, a central location between our families), we’ll continue working as we have, and we expect to have little girl #2 join us in April of next year. There’s a lot we don’t. We don’t know what community or church will look like, especially after having such a rich community here in NYC. We don’t know the area we’re moving to well, as it’s new to both of us. We don’t know what getting established looks like in an increasing COVID Fall/Winter. We don’t know what it’s like to have family become such a big part of rhythms and presence after essentially our entire adult lives far away from Colorado. We don’t know what it’s like to go from an urban lifestyle in incredible density and diversity to one that’s more typically suburban. I personally don’t know how to get the same level of exercise without being on foot everywhere I go!

Yet, much like the first transition, moving forward in faith in all that’s unknown is not about what you do or don’t know, but rather, Who you know. And as we’ve thought and prayed about this move for years, there is much peace in walking forward to Colorado in this season here and now.

We first moved to NYC with conditions: we wouldn’t stay longer than 5 years, and we most certainly wouldn’t have a child here! And then we thought we’d move in 2018, but then John lost his job and took his current one, finishing up a three-year-build any day now—our commitment to stay through 2020. We lived for four years and moved from an apartment built in 1890 on the water that was a 6-floor walk up to a new building in downtown Brooklyn five years ago. We’ve shared our 700sf 1-bedroom apartment with Amelie for almost three years. We were part of the initial launch group for a church plant called Apostles Brooklyn that just celebrated its 7th anniversary, and we have walked, served, and loved the church in all of those years. We’ve said goodbye to many people over the years, a byproduct of NYC, while I have been fortunate to have nearly all of my friendships intact in NYC for the entire time. We’ve invited new people into our family to live life alongside us in different seasons. We’ve learned to do life with people and allow them to become family in their own sense of the word. I learned how to build my own business here alongside incredibly creative and entrepreneurial people who inspired and challenged me. John has grown his career through the provision of the Lord with specifically-timed jobs and is finishing up a project of a lifetime. We’ve had four hospital stays/visits and health challenges and scares that required us to trust the Lord. We’ve seen brokenness first-hand time and time again and continue to learn how to enter into it to help with healing. And we’ve learned how to raise a daughter in an urban environment and the importance of showing her the beauty, perspectives, and challenges of a diverse world while the Lord reigns over it all.

And all of our adventures…! What a place to live, not just the city, but this state, this region. It has forever captured my heart and is not the last we will see of it.

So where are we at now? We’re at eager hope and expectation for what we are walking into and get to receive in our move to Colorado. Yet, we are equally grieving all that we are leaving behind. In a sense, we don’t really know ourselves without being ingrained in this place. It has shaped us in more ways than we truly have to understand.  We leave behind people we hold so dearly and have loved us fiercely and faithfully—truly lifetime friends that we now have to learn to do friendship from a distance. We leave behind not just peers in all of life that we have done together as 20 and 30-something-year-olds, but people we deeply love, respect, and admire.

Too often, we’ve seen people leave NYC with a “good riddance!” attitude, either because they were burned by the city in some way or because they seemingly feel the need to justify why they would leave this place. We’ve heard all the reasons there are, and while we don’t disagree with some of them, to make them bitter conclusions of leaving a place you have invested your life in, for however long or short, makes me sad.

With this, we believe there’s a deeper challenge—to hold what is true, whether good or bad—and truly embrace each season for what it has been. They are part of our journey and our lives can’t be edited away to create the narrative we want it to be. Trust the Lord in all things; yield to Him for what it may be. Walk forward in faith confidently, regardless of place or being. 

We remember all that He has allotted for us, the boundaries of our dwelling place, that we may seek Him and find Him. He is not far from each one of us, for in Him we live and move and have our being. In this moment, we say goodbye to the allotted boundaries He’s had for us to live in Brooklyn these last 9 years and remember all that He has done while trusting NYC will always be a part of our lives and story in some way.

The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, for “in Him we live and move and have our being,’ as even some of your poets have said, “For we are indeed his offspring.” —Acts 17:24-28

Living in the loom

Days of life over the past two years are as if I sit at a loom, with each day a strand. Back and forth, in front and behind the weft to create a pattern. Repeated day after day with varying degrees of difference; each one its singular but part of a larger whole. It’s an active and unending work, and I seldom step away to understand what is being made. Looking back shows a pattern formed with elements of beauty revealed that lend its way to the present. Looking back also shows the messy areas that are blurred time and memories, actions and days passed that I seldom remember a short while later. I stand too close to have perspective but am still able to feel its implications.

I wonder, how do you unravel what you are wound up in living? Understand the fibers that make up the garment of life you are intimately wearing?

And how do you see who you’ve become, both by the grace of the Lord and the shortcomings of self? And in it—to know your identity ultimately as beloved—yet, desire a deeper understanding of self as a unique creation still taking shape, refined day by day?

I watch my daughter, 17 months young, as she takes in more of the world around her and at the same time, becomes more of an autonomous self. She fake cries this morning when I don’t share my waffle quick enough for her. I look at her with eyebrow raised, and she stops and smiles knowingly. There is much shepherding from this point forward. She is a unique creation, beloved by the Lord, but young and unknowing of many things. As she forms and grows, the wonder of becoming is revived again.

We find our rhythm, day after day. I give, she receives; she gives, I receive. A cadence to our days, from sunrise to sunset. I lay her down each night to watch her sleepy eyes surrender, and for a brief moment I hearken back to the days where life felt light, sweet, and simpler—when the occupations of mind and heart were fewer. Seeing her live it makes it seem within reach again. But as I depart her room, my hands return to duty; my mind to preoccupation. I call to mind a truth of my faith that I hold steadfast: “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside still waters, He restores my soul.” I need to remember the very thing I want to emulate for her is what the Lord has already given to me.

He is the Shepherd.

I am the sheep.

And in this moment, I invert my perspective. If the Lord were also my shearer, it means he knows when to keep me bearing my fleece, and when to take it off for it to be made anew again. What was cast aside in the shearing of my locks could be spun…like into threads to be woven through a loom.

A loom where He ultimately creates the garment of life I am intimately wearing. For now, meant to be bound together in what I’m wound up in living.

And in a season to come—with time, distance, and perspective—He will unravel for me to understand the present moments and what they have created.

Until then (and always, really), I am to press into my Shepherd, my Lord. I press into the moments I live and trust that the significance of them doesn’t amount to the sum or shortcomings of my own efforts—which I simultaneously wish could be both more and less. Day by day, I raise a daughter; an undertaking which supersedes everything else. And in all I want for her and with all the love I bear, it calls me to remember the reflection it is of the Father’s love to me, to us.

I am known. I am beloved.

He is Lord.

And even though I crave all of the perspective and understanding about this season’s weavings, those truths are ultimately enough. 

Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

God's Grace Made Evident

Ever since I was seven days old, I haven’t known what it is to hear with my own physical ears. Over my babyhood, my parents first noticed some quirky things about me—such as me screaming through the night if I couldn’t see them in my room to me crawling on my back—effectively creating a bald spot on the back of my baby fuzz head from carpet friction so I could see everything going on. They then noticed I wasn’t picking up on noises and had my hearing tested again at around a year and a half old, revealing a severe hearing loss in both ears. My parents, who had also adopted my older brother just a year before I was born, were suddenly thrust into an uncertain future. They resolved to do everything they could, starting with getting me my first pair of hearing aids when I was close to two years old.

My dad, an avid lover and creator of music, recalls the car ride home that day. For the first time, I sang out loud to myself, because I could finally hear my own voice. He wept.

God’s grace made evident.

When I was four, I lost even more hearing, putting me now at the severe-to-profound hearing loss level. I had exploratory surgery to see if there was a cause why but none was determined. My parents consulted doctors and specialists, one of which gave a reason but also with a sentence, and this is a quote: “With the degree of the patient’s hearing loss, there is no reason to expect her to read past a first grade level or develop more than rudimentary communication skills. While there might be a genius locked inside her, you will likely never know her full potential.”

My parents sat there, dumbfounded, and wondered what to do with such information. It quickly turned into anger and indignation at said doctor for putting such a sentence on a child who is still so unknown and unexplored. They resolved not to believe a word of it, and instead, do everything they could to help me and have faith in God with the rest.

And the ironies began—in Kindergarten, I was pulled up to first grade for half a day specifically to be in reading classes because I was reading too advanced for my age.

God’s grace made evident.

My childhood was full of contrasts: I worked with a handful of specialists to develop what auditory capacity I had left, along with extensive speech therapy. I had close relationships with my teachers, as they wore a microphone in class where I wore an FM system with a receiving box strapped around my waist every day with the cords running up to the hearing aids in my ears. Yet, I was also a girl who excelled in school, taking classes above my grade level throughout, and even four years of French. I was a girl who started on the varsity basketball and soccer teams as a sophomore in high school. I was the girl accepted into a prestigious architecture program in college and moved across the country to attend. I was the girl involved in a million things, always seeming to surpass all expectations expected of me because of the disability I have.

God’s grace made evident.

But I was also a girl that struggled deeply with being different and did everything I could to make it not so. For whatever help the hearing aids gave me, whatever accommodations I received, the reality is that I was not like everyone else. It was obvious through the bulky hearing aids I wore and the cadence of speech I have. My parents took me to gatherings of the deaf and hard of hearing communities with peers—but I was not like them either, for I did not use sign language. I didn’t feel I belonged in either world—the hearing, or the deaf. I often felt utterly alone, because for a long time, I didn’t know a single person who could exactly relate.

At the age of 13, through my best friends, I came to know Jesus as Savior. And while that’s a story in itself, entering relationship with Him brought a peace I had not experienced before, and finally, a supernatural feeling of being known and no longer alone. For if no one I knew could relate, I had finally found peace in that He knew me and loved me, and perhaps, even had a purpose for this lack of hearing and its role in my life.

God’s grace made evident.

However, God always wants to refine you. In my teenage years and early college, He shed the light on my pride and self-sufficiency that came as a result of overcoming the disability that I have. Pride because though I finally started to learn and accept that my hearing loss does not define me—my accomplishments and abilities became the pillars on which I chose to stand. Self-sufficiency, because I had become a rather well-oiled machine that knew what I needed to do in different situations—turn the hearing aids up, switch positions in the room, avoid loud places, get notes from a friend, etc. and more.

In college, I began to see some of these clearly. God continued to ask me to strip them away and trust Him—to truly allow myself to become weak so He could show himself strong. One of the pinnacles came a season nine years ago, where through prayer, I felt him asking me to trust him by not wearing my hearing aids any longer. That’s one of the most flabbergasting requests, because, as in the words of my parents—you wouldn’t choose to not wear eye glasses or contacts if you can’t see, right? But He pressed it upon my heart, and pressed it—leading me to take out one and then a few months, take out the other. And since then, they haven’t been back in my ears.

What then?

He challenged me to radical faith—to believe in His healing and restoration of my hearing, like the miracles we read of and the miracles we hear of, made possible by the power and indwelling of His Holy Spirit. So I prayed. I asked, I shared boldly. And I had beautiful, brief and fleeting moments in that season where my ears would open during music at church, or during my now husband’s prayers over me. Moments where I knew and believed this was possible.

God’s grace made evident.

But the full opening of my ears did not come. And the challenges in that season grew, prompting a whole new series of lessons for how I communicate and function in the world, not just for me but all those close to me. And while I felt so incredibly close to the Lord at times, the loneliness I had previously felt was only magnified more. For then, I sat in a living room with my college roommates, watching them keel over with laughter but no longer being able to hear it. Then, I could no longer hear the voice of John singing next to me at church, no longer the cues that my hearing aids could bring me of all the things happening in this world—the phone ringing, the door closing, sirens running, someone calling my name instead of having to tap me or wave me down. It felt a huge loss. So why, if God pressed this on my heart—why was his grace not evident in restoring my hearing—the very thing I set out to trust Him for?

How was God’s grace evident now? How, when it was not being manifested in what I was trusting Him for, and all that I gave up by forsaking my hearing aids?

It was a slow and steady work in my heart—to truly embrace my weakness and how He can be made strong. To not let my pride bulldoze every situation where I thought I had to prove that I was no different than anyone else and just as capable—if not to convince them, but to convince myself. I had to accept more grace from people in that first year than I ever had before, and continue to to this day. And that vulnerability is a beautiful thing. God makes Himself known in the people He provides around you, and I have been deeply rich through my community.

So what since then?

Even in all the silence, God has been near. There’s an intimacy with Him experienced in the quiet, and my dreams are full of sounds that I miss throughout the day. There’s moments it comes up—like when I cannot follow a conversation or understand what someone is saying. I remember my nearing wedding day in 2010 where I couldn’t imagine not hearing the events of the day without hearing aids, encoding them as memories in my heart and mind, not being able to hear the music of my first dance with John—but there, grace is manifested through a man who deeply loves me, and practiced our dance with me in the weeks prior to our wedding. On that day, during our song, he tapped my back throughout the whole song to keep us on beat and step. And that may have been one of the most beautiful moments of the entire day.

God’s grace made evident—He knows how to lead us.

We moved to Brooklyn nearly six years ago. And in ironies of ironies, suddenly I became the one who could have a conversation nearly anywhere—including on the Union Square Platform with 120 decibels of trains roaring by (though I can hear those—I think everyone can!). I can’t have a good conversation in a dim bar or a dance party here—of both there are so many!—so if you’ve invited or tried to talk to me then with no success, it’s really nothing personal. I was the one who slept soundly throughout the night where John had to fiddle with the radiators to just the right turns so they wouldn’t hiss and keep him up. I was the one who could take in so much of the incredible richness this city has to offer visually—through the structures of the buildings to the body language of the people—because I don’t have the auditory input overstimulating or overcoming me.

And in a city full of immigrants and people from everywhere, I’m rarely ever looked at anymore with a crooked head as if the person is trying to figure out what’s wrong with me because of my speech, or previously, my hearing aids in my head. Instead, I’m countlessly asked what country I’m from once people hear me speak, and I do get confused looks when I say I’m from Colorado—so sometimes I say I’m from Sweden for fun. And we all know that people don’t really listen to each other when out and about, so I often just appear zen to others when instead, I just don’t really hear anything. I feel like I fit in here, because there’s not a normal, and it’s beautiful to see all of the ways God has created humankind and made in His image. All of its strengths along with its glaring weaknesses.

God’s grace evident.

I don’t know what this means for the future. I do believe now that if I were to choose to wear hearing aids again, it wouldn’t be a disobedience anymore. And the question runs through my and John’s mind often, especially when thinking about being parents in the hopeful near future. I can’t imagine forgoing the ability to hear our children, but I fear once again of becoming reliant upon hearing aids more than the Lord... and drowning out His wonderful presence and voice in all of these last nine years of relative silence. It’s hard to not think that wearing hearing aids would push aside what I’ve tried (and largely failed in) trusting Him for in His full healing and restoration of my ears.

If I take the long view of this and why I still have hearing aids out to this day, I see what He has made manifest in my life that wouldn’t have happened without sacrificing my grip on them. It has all been worth it. If I take the short view, I would confess before you now that it’s really hard to ask God in full faith and trust to heal me as I did then—because there is pain in trusting and asking for something so specific that you believe He’s put on your heart or given you the desire for and having yet to receive it. My asking has oscillated between being generic, diluted, or ceasing altogether. There’s times and seasons I ask, but it’s with reservation, as if I don’t want allow myself to be hurt again. Or, it’s with a reservation that sits with a trust in Him that He will do as He wills in my life, and even if my hearing is never restored in my lifetime, there is great hope and answer provided by him in the renewing of our bodies after death. If not in this lifetime will I hear with perfect ears, then there, and then, I will. 

God’s grace made evident.

Because, even after a lifetime journey I’ve known, in all of the ways God has made himself evident and manifested in my life, in all of the changes, there are still questions. There are still places of pain. There is still the daily aspect of having to trust Him for both the short and long view of life, and whatever that may mean—in the range from super practical to supernatural.

Nine years ago, when I took out my last hearing aid, this was the cornerstone passage that spoke to me and continued to inspire me: 

“As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. And his disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him. We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” Having said these things, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva. Then he anointed the man’s eyes with the mud and said to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). So he went and washed and came back seeing.” (John 9:1-7)

Maybe one day, unknown in the future, my ears will be opened and I will come back hearing. But for now, I find rest in this truth: I do not have this hearing loss as a condemnation as a result of sin, nor of my parents, but it is that His works might be displayed through me. With that, I wish to offer up my life and this story He’s written to do that very thing. He is the Author.

And His grace is always made evident.

Failure

Over this past year, something I’ve sat with more than anything else is failure. Failure has been the word running through my mind and heart as I live and observe—but not circumstantial failure; rather, relational failure. In all the ways our culture celebrates success and triumphs, we equally despise failure—either avoiding the topic altogether or making it far greater than it deserves. I don’t think it’s as black and white as we make it. Instead, it’s a push and pull as we live in this world relationally with others. It’s a glimpse into the human condition and a mirror on our own lives, and from it, provides much we can learn…

Why does it hurt when people fail us?
         And why do we deeply fear failing others?

I am going to fail you. 
         If I haven’t already (or repeatedly).

You are going to fail me.
         And from it, there’s so much that I can learn.

Shame comes as a byproduct of failure.
         Yet, what about the “failures” that occur because of misplaced expectations?

Expectations of yourself—
         you are not God, you are infallible human

Expectations others have of you—
         you are not God, you are an instrument of Him

Expectations I have of others—
         They are not God, they are infallible humans, instruments from Him

We are called to love Him,
to be made more and more in His likeness,
ever transforming in glory.
          If this is not true in my life, I must ask the hard question of why.

We are not entitled to each other.
We have no rights to each other.
         Look to what can be given rather than expected.

We are called to love others.
We are to be open to receiving the love of others.
         And sometimes that love will include a rebuke.

We are given to one another in this life as part of God’s provision—
provision in that God has seen fit to provide through these people.
         Through them, He makes Himself known and His presence manifest.
         And where it is absent, He is surely gracious to fill with Himself.

There is no place for fear of failure. 
         He calls us to trust Him for our refinement.

And for those failures that are legitimate, hurtful—
         Forgive me for the ways I’ve sinned against you. Forgive them too.

Yet in all of this failure, I beckon you—
         Do not harden your heart or become righteous if others have failed you.
         If you have failed others, do not condemn yourself.

*For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” 
         has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge
         of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

Because we have this treasure in jars of clay, 
         to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.

We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed;
perplexed, but not driven to despair; 
persecuted, but not forsaken;
struck down, but not destroyed;
         always carrying in the body the death of Jesus
         so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies.

So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away
         our inner self is being renewed day by day.*

*2 Corinthians 2:6-10, 16

Learning Lament

I am a strategizer at heart. I thrive when I am able to receive information, synthesize it, and translate it into a plan of action that is geared towards accomplishing a goal of some sort. This trait makes me thrive in different roles of life, but not always as a friend.

I’ve long confused that to be a good friend, I also have to help the friend move towards a better end-goal. This seems obvious for me to do in circumstances that are more tangible.

For example, is a friend stressed out because she’s overloaded her schedule?

Then, let’s sit down and review together what all she’s committed herself to—and through a series of questions, whittle away at commitments until it’s manageable again.

Or, is someone trying to move to a new city?

Well, I know this person there that has this connection to this type of work you want to do—let me connect you.

It’s hard for me to divorce listening from some action on my part. I often think that if a person is sharing with me, then I should utilize my strategic gifts to leave them better off than when they first shared with me. I hope that it’s beneficial most of the time; some of the time though, I know it’s not. Not everything is a strategy conversation. And if people are willing to share their heart with me, I need to be sensitive to listen and hear beyond their words.

The way of Christian fellowship is empathy, which means we must not assume that everyone around us is fine. In our conversations, we must listen for complaints and cries and help them become laments. In our gathered worship, we must acknowledge the hurting and leave room for struggle and silence. In our counsel, we must pray with and over the hurting.*

Lament is not something I do well, and it’s not something I easily step into with others (at least from the inside). It sometimes seems like wasted energy, unconducive, and honestly—tedious. I personally am one to steel myself up and keep on charging through the difficulty, like a soldier marching on. Yet in the mechanical nature that it bears, I do not also tend to my heart or fully hear the heart of others. Feeling something deeply is not something I am incapable of at the least—but when I do, it often derails me. So I keep the depth of emotion of heart at bay and the strategy of my mind in the forefront, because I think at least that way, some type of forward progress is being made. If I’m fully honest, this mindset has long been coupled with a sense of pride and righteousness in it, wondering why others in their respective struggles won’t handle their life this way too. In a sense, I mentally judge and subtlety impose through my questions, “why aren’t you doing it my way? It obviously works and yours isn’t.”

And like it usually plays out, the one who thinks she has everything to teach finds out she has the most to learn. And those I’ve thought I should teach have become my greatest teachers.

This has been my story over the last year.

This is a season in which so many of those close around me have been going through trials and hardship of different degrees and measure. They lament and share their stories, difficulties, and pain with me. In it, I feel stretched, because my strategizing nature doesn’t have any decent answers for what can make it better. My instinct is either to offer an idea of some kind (which is usually not helpful), or to remain silent and just listen. I mentally detach. I resign myself to the fact that I think I have nothing of value to say that would help them out of their situations. And when they continue to share with me over time, the tension grows—with a narrative in my mind of “why are you sharing this yet again? Don’t you realize I have nothing to say that will help you fix this?”

Yet by the grace of God, He has put me in situation after situation, friendship after friendship in this season with no clear answers or easy fixes. With it has brought the much-needed realizations of the realities that:

1. the aim of life is not that everything would be fixed by our own efforts
2. I cannot ultimately fix things, and some things cannot be fixed
3. I miss the heart of their lament

“To lament is to be utterly honest before a God whom our faith tells us we can trust. Anyone can complain, and practically everyone does. Christians can lament. Biblical lament affirms that suffering is real and spiritually significant, but not hopeless. In his mercy, our God has given us a form of language that bends his ear and pulls his heart… It is one thing to lament in the privacy of our own home or mind, but it takes a different kind of courage and faith to lament with and for another. Michael Card comments, “We’re afraid of other people’s pain. Like Job’s friends, we’re afraid when we don’t have answers. Job doesn’t get any answers for his sufferings, but he gets God.” To enter into someone’s suffering, and to lament with them, is to seek God with them.”*

One good friend in particular is not shy about sharing her heart and her struggles. She has been one of the finest tools to refine how I listen and respond—that it’s often not about providing answers, but for the person to feel seen, heard, and ultimately not alone. To share is to demonstrate vulnerability in hopes one would be readily received just as they are in that moment. It sounds a lot more like:

“I hear you,” “I’m sorry that’s hard,” “That must be frustrating,” “what is God revealing to you in this?” and “how can I pray?”

rather than “why don’t you try this?” “well, you see it this way but it’s probably really like this,” “what are you doing to make it better?”

It sounds a lot more like empathy and looks a lot more like seeking God with them in the midst of their circumstances. To be okay with the not knowing, but willing to enter into their pain.

In seeking God with those people around me, it in turn causes me to also seek God more personally—putting aside my foolish pride that I have it all figured out and instead, looking to Him who is infinitely more wise, more discerning, and more loving than I ever could be. That He may be greater, and I become less—in my heart, mind, word, and deeds. To seek God with those around me is to be fully present with them and ultimately bring them before the feet of our loving Father in compassion and prayer—to bring them before Him who knows their every situation and its outcome full well. It is to remind them of Him who will never leave, forsake, or fail them—something I can never personally promise them as a friend.

And it is good that it is so.

“Feasting and laughter and pleasure are not wrong, but trying to insulate your life with these things is not really life. It’s a bubble. You need to enter the pain of the world around you because the fall is your reality—“death is the destiny of every man.” Take this to heart and you will be wise. Pretend that Christianity is safety from sorrow and you will be a fool."*

I still have much to learn.

*From Journey to the Cross: Readings & Devotions for Lent by Kendal Haug and Will Walker

Fluidity vs. Solidarity

Living in a building that was built in 1890, before indoor plumbing was mainstream in every apartment (ours had bathhouses in the basement rather than private tubs), means that water is not always a given, or, consistent. Just this week, a bathroom remodel in the restaurant on the first floor of our building meant that the water was largely turned off for the 35 apartments alongside and above it—between the convenient hours of 6-10 p.m, during which cooking, cleaning, and bathing occur. If you got lucky, you could turn on the water and maybe get a minute’s worth before it ceased again. Our cold returned before our hot did, so dishes were rinsed and put aside, and a shower postponed.

While this was one of the more remarkable times of water being off, it certainly isn’t the only. Many times, I will arrive at home and set out to wash my hands, first turning on the faucet with a second of nothing happening followed by an immediate retreat from the sink—an immense shot of air pressure explodes through the pipes, leading to giant pulses of water crashing into the sink and bespattering my clothes and everything nearby. First for the hot, then for the cold. It’s a calibration process that must occur every time the water is turned off, and there is nothing I can do to control it except to turn it on, step back, and allow it to proceed back to normal before resuming what I set out to do.

Then, there’s our shower, where you have to decide what you want more—water pressure, or hot water. You can’t have both at the same time. That’s followed by our toilet, which is temperamental to say the least. You need to hold the handle down just long enough for the flapper to lift and enough water to fill the bowl—and make sure the handle returns to its normal position lest it lock itself in a constant refilling position where water is in abundance.

The whole thing is sometimes annoying, sometimes comical, usually ordinary (you get used to it), and lately, teachable. I expect the constant presence and persistence of water—when I turn it on, it should be there, and it should perform its function as if it were an element as unchangeable as concrete. I expect of a fluid to possess innate qualities of solidarity of dependency in normal circumstances, and in that, forget its very nature—fluidity.

…

In the two-mile radius surrounding our 125-year-old apartment, there are numerous skyscrapers going up. The amount of concrete and steel needed is insane. On pump days, the concrete trucks line up single file for blocks on end—their revolving drums never ceasing their rotation—waiting for the line to move and their number to be up. When it comes, the concrete is pumped in furiously into pre-determined forms for the building, its workers guiding and shaping and smoothing—frantically yet skillfully—to get it in position to cure for what it is intended to be. Concrete is poured into foundations, columns, skeletons, walls, all of which are needed for the building to take shape. Water, a fluid, mixes with the cementitious material to make concrete, and after it is poured and cast, a curing process occurs. The first few days are critical, and then the concrete gets stronger over time. What began as many elements combines into a new substance to perform a new function, becoming one of consistency—solidarity.

In a place where progress not only marches on but races higher—seen by multiple floors added a week to the frameworks of these massive buildings—I realize the expectations hidden within my heart and mind.

I expect that if I mix fluid entities (people, circumstances, money, relationships) with controllable elements (pursuit, discipline, intention, time), that it will combine together to become something long-lasting and of solidarity. And while that can be—and is—true in some instances, it is not going to be true for everything and everyone.

Water can just be water by itself—it doesn’t have to be mixed with something else to become something else. We know this to be true with our reliance upon it. It can even be inconsistent. It can be surprising by its ability to change, yield to pressure, be consumed, or displaced entirely. In its coldest states, it will not move, and in its hottest, it will boil and fill the air with steam.

This life is full of fluidity. Lately, I’m surprised by this fact as if solidarity is the norm and fluidity did not come first. Concrete is not made without water. Yet, water is not just for concrete. I should expect my friendships to be fluid, circumstances to change, money to flow in and out, and relationships to evolve in different stages. In it still, I should wisely seek the leading of when to pursue, of where to be disciplined, in which to be intentional, and of what time to give.

These are the things of which I can give and what God enables me to do. Then, along the way of life, when these things do mix together to become something of solidarity, I can respond out of gratitude rather than of expectation—knowing that in this instance, God chose to keep the drum turning, the elements churning, His form design filling, and ultimately, the rising of His building.

It is no small feat.

And for that which remains fluid—may it remind me that when it flows, He is a gracious giver; when it freezes, He will warm it again in time; when it boils, He channels it to release what is needed; and when it runs dry, He will still provide.

May what is intended to become solid remind me of His testimonies. And for everything else, may its fluidity remind me of my dependency. 

Afflicted City | Revisited

It's been a month of messiness, with so many themes and lessons; yet as I try to write about it currently, it just amounts to...messiness. I hope the words will translate soon, as God is using the time to teach me much. When I wrote last, I spoke of the need to look to the past in order to gain perspective on the present. In doing so today, the words of a song I wrote a while back came rushing forth with a force. They bear a sense of potency that, at the time, came freely and unhindered. It's been a resounding anthem of sorts in the six years since the words were first penned—reminding me of what is true, worthy, and valuable in my relationship with God. It is good to revisit them once again tonight. 

May 2009 |  God comforted me greatly tonight with Isaiah 54, showing me his love for Jerusalem and how He desired to restore and comfort and bring beauty. In my own "affliction" and difficulty, it is a great comfort to be reminded of his purpose and his unfailing love and covenant of peace. It will never be removed.

Oh afflicted city, once again I find you wandering
far from the love you once knew
if you were to stop and look inside
you would find you know you still do
Love Me more than yourself and your drowning pride
as you fall to your Master and know your sin must die
Yet in your wandering, to My own heart I must be true

I will build you with stones of turquoise
that will match the glimmer I’ve created in your eyes
I will make your foundations of sapphires
to show the range of passions I’ve given you inside
Your battlements will be made of rubies
to remember the blood I shed so you may not die
Your gates will be of precious jewels
to venture into your worth it’s Me you’ll find
And all your walls made of precious stones
within you can run but from Me never hide
You are My labor of compassionate love
Remember it’s Me that brings you light

Oh afflicted city, you’re lashed by storms once again
in the midst of torrential rain
that you pray will one day end
so hear my promise spoken to you
Love Me more than yourself and your selfish fiend
as you fall to your Master and let Me be your friend
And in your storms, to my own heart I will be true

I will build you with stones of turquoise
that will match the glimmer I’ve created in your eyes
I will make your foundations of sapphires
to show the range of passions I’ve given you inside
Your battlements will be made of rubies
to remember the blood I shed so you may not die
Your gates will be of precious jewels
to venture into your worth it’s Me you’ll find
And all your walls made of precious stones
within you can run but from Me never hide
You are My labor of compassionate love
Remember it’s Me that brings you light

Oh afflicted city, comfort you do not easily find
far from the hope you know to be true
Though the mountains will be shaken
and the hills be removed
Love Me more than yourself and your hopeless rest
as you fall to your Master who surely knows best
It’s for your comfort that to My own heart I must be true

I will build you with stones of turquoise
that will match the glimmer I’ve created in your eyes
I will make your foundations of sapphires
to show the range of passions I’ve given you inside
Your battlements will be made of rubies
to remember the blood I shed so you may not die
Your gates will be of precious jewels
to venture into your worth it’s Me you’ll find
And all your walls made of precious stones
within you can run but from Me never hide
You are My labor of compassionate love
Remember it’s Me that brings you light

My love for you will not be shaken
nor My covenant of peace be removed.
You must know that it’s for you
that to My own heart I must be true.

Yield

Lately, it feels like there’s a lot in motion. A lot of things to think through, look ahead to, and attempt to plan for. I know that’s a default setting of myself, however. And as I have struggled to reflect, I realize how seldom I look to the past these days—to memories of things that once were, that did exist, that were moments of themselves full of something worth preserving in the mind and heart.

I often look to what there is yet to learn and to do. It’s as if I look at the horizon as a fixed ending point, and attempt to decipher the mile markers and highway signs between here and there to plan this journey of life. The problem with that, however, is that the horizon is infinite—stretching on forever, unable to be reached for or grasped. My eyes strain ever more forward as if I could just look a little farther, then perhaps I’ll gain some insight or revelation to contribute to what I am doing here and now. It becomes an infinite search for a supplement of wisdom and direction to be added onto what I am doing in the present—hoping it would confirm that I am being sustainable, wise, and guided.

The way ahead changes though. It changes at times that may be foreseen, and at others that catch me completely off guard. Those moments reveal the risk of holding onto a direction or vision that is fixed. Those moments illuminate where my trust and hope resides—in the hoped for details that will be unrealized, or the big picture of a sovereign Lord who has gone before.

I look at life ahead and it feels so long. Yet, I look behind at life that has passed, and it seems so fast. In a moment where I stop striving for the horizon to recall and remember instead, I realize that perhaps the sentiment of what I look for in the present and future has already been given in the past.

A good friend of mine speaks of how when she is in a present moment worth remembering, she attempts to “quilt the moment into her mind.” I love this picture, for quilting requires a diligence and attentiveness to the task at hand—stitch by stitch—slowing down in an air of quietness. Quilts are cherished treasures retained to and passed down, reminders of the diligence of a moment to be preserved. Life is about so much more than just trajectory, and I so often fail to remember this. It is most evident when I am asked to recall a week, months, year, and if all I can remember is blurred because of the sheer momentum (or distraction) persisting throughout, then I have not been a good steward of the moments given—each moment a gift from the Lord, each moment an opportunity to lay down a marker to remember from whence I came. In the blur of focusing on trajectory, I get caught up in the obscurity of what I cannot see, rather than stopping to retain what I can. Sometimes it’s easier to just let life blur and mix altogether. I confess that I often do so and rid moments of their potency, as if I fear the weight it may bear—whatever it may be. It’s easier to drive around the speed bump and keep going, rather than slowing down to go over it and feel it in every part of my being.

…

I look at my husband across the dinner table these days as he processes present career, the diligence and exhaustion, and what changes may lie ahead--whether prompted or not. I look at the face that I have known for nearly 10 years now to see the slight changes on his brow that serve as markers for the years that have passed. I cannot help but recall past times of uncertainty and indecision where we were unsure of what would come next or how it could even happen. In these years, some dreams and hopes of ours were realized. Others, even as gloriously as they may have resided in our hearts at one time, have been quieted as the Lord guided us elsewhere. In looking back, there is peace residing over all the days that have passed. There is overall peace in both the now known and the still unknown. God is gracious, even in the suffering we have tasted a bit of, because He has given us Himself in all of these days and moments past and yet to come.

When I look back, I see and recall the things we have passed, the altars of remembrance laid, the memories abundant, and I also hear the persistent voice of God stating, “I have been with you through all of this. It has been what it is because of Me.”

When I look ahead, I’m either blinded by the light on the horizon or cast in darkness because of the absence of light; in both, I can be frustrated that I cannot make out any details of where I’m supposed to go—missing the wholeness of it entirely. God Himself governs the night and the day (1 that encompasses all the days and details yet to come. I’m looking at Whom I need without realizing it, that He is there all along and will be. He has not hid Himself but revealed Himself graciously through His Son who entered the joys and pains of this human life we live. If there is peace from the past because of His presence through it, so also there should be peace in the future from trusting in Him Who will lead us through it.

As for this moment—it is the one given now, and I can either choose to let it blur or to take it in, to quilt it into my mind that it can one day serve as a remembrance. So, I take my eyes down from the horizon to take in what is around me now. I turn around the bend and there is one sign I can make out—the only one I really need to heed:

Yield.

1: Genesis 1: 14-18. “And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. And let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years, and let them be lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth.” And it was so. And God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars. And God set them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. 

Thaw

to cease, slide
disappear beneath the surface
only returning to whence it came
changing states
solidify, thaw, solidify,
thaw
and to remain
part of this vast mercy once again
not singular or temporary, but
unceasing. 

It is time to return, to
yield again
to what is fixed
to Who is true.
The sun may hide itself for a while—
warmth be forgotten—
but its endurance remains.
Light after darkness
hope after mourning
spring after winter...
once again, all things renewed.
 

Hope Incarnate

These vaulted ceilings—
towered expanse of
history
hope
heaviness, all meant to
draw our eyes upward
to Heaven
to here
to how
within these walls, He is
here to greet those
who sin
who see
who seek, and even those unaware
of their need. There is more of
His strength
His steadfastness
His sorrow
than we could ever hope
to understand its fullness. How are we
so known
so loved
so chosen by the Holy One called
Most High? Until we remember Him
as a babe
as Emmanuel
as flesh dwelling among us—how He inserted himself
into the pain and sorrow we know
all too well
all too much
all too long, and see Him as transcendent and
above, among and yet within
these cathedral walls—
our temperamental hearts
this world we walk can know
Him as Lord and Savior, as hope.

This rose window of patterned glass displays
above the nativity that awaits
the coming King, born as a babe—
Hope incarnate and here to save.

The Search for Concentrated Joy

There’s something about falling asleep on the road and waking up to find yourself in a different state—unfamiliar with your surroundings but attempting to place yourself somewhere, to have reference of something—anything—to connect where you are to who you are in that given moment.

Today I am a traveler, a journeyer. Today I am a daughter, sitting alongside my father as we traverse the great Midwest to the oceans of the east, where my brother awaits his chariot that we are driving. At first read, I make this sound much more poetic than it likely actually is. However, there is something deep inside of me that searches for and wants to wring out any possible significance in most moments. It’s part of why I volunteered to join this drive, because, are there really that many chances to take a road trip with my dad for three days, just the two of us? As I looked to the future (which I cannot predict), my reasoning told me no, so it compelled me to say yes in the here and now. I don’t want to miss the opportunity for significant moments, even if there are many insignificant moments in between. Yet, the saying of yes to one thing also means the saying of no to another, and this sense of gravity between every decision seems to be the push and pull between possibility or remaining steady, of risk or reservation, of exploration or present satisfaction.

I realize this sense of gravity to be true within my own heart as well. A friend from college wrote a year ago that life is full of both joy and sorrow, often simultaneously. Each of those has a force of its own, and by our disposition, we often choose one element to focus on and the other to negate, instead of letting them each be just what they are—for without sorrow, we would not fully understand the weightlessness of joy, and without joy, we would not understand the weight of sorrow. I’m a sober-minded person. This means I often try to place myself in the optimal position in a situation, in reference to what is going on to connect how I should feel and think in that given moment, while remembering the big picture of this life on earth and ultimately eternity that awaits after. Yet, for many reasons over the last couple of years, I’ve had a hard time letting the weightlessness of joy fully seep into my being. I brace myself for the possible sorrow to come in an effort to preserve myself for when it does—and in the process, the opportunities to fully partake in joy seem to wash right by, diluted of their potency because I let the water keep running rather than stepping up to fill and drink.

Lately I’ve known the Lord as God of comfort, God of salvation and sovereignty, but not the God and giver of joy. I feel and know his strength to hold when the things of this world grow weighty, but I have easily forgotten his strength to also be able to make me weightless, to be awash and fully swept up in the weightlessness of joy.

This fact alone makes it interesting that if I could be any animal, it would be a bird. Not a specific one necessarily, but one that you see gliding in the sky with just the subtle flap of the wings to stay afloat, mainly letting the current of the wind carry the flight—feeling it fully and adjusting to the breezes as it comes—and seemingly weightless in every way. There is a trust in the birds that the winds hold, and when the winds cease, that their wings will sustain. One way or another, they will be able to stay in flight. They will remain above, sometimes seemingly disconnected but really, with a perspective many are unable to attain on the ground. They see the whole that is afforded within the reaches of their sight, even though it is still a fraction of a silver of the whole that fully exists.

I don’t know if it’s the process of removing oneself from daily surroundings that exclusively enables the wider perspective like being a bird in flight affords, but for me in this season, it is my reality. To disengage to understand how to reengage—or reengaging in something else entirely different from the normal reality. For though I cannot be a bird, I’ve been able to be on the road. The whole of my life is full of significant moments in a car, journeying, exploring and releasing. In Brooklyn, with the absence of a car, my feet take me deeper into the intricacies of my surroundings. At six miles an hour instead of 80, I go at a slower pace, but there is much more in the six miles in Brooklyn than the 80 in Oklahoma. I am thankful to live in a vibrant city and thankful to observe and attempt to understand the larger dynamics of our world that play out in an international and diverse melting pot. However, I would not be telling you the truth if I said I engaged it well beyond the observing and doing of a daily life there. It feels much—it is much. And with much means it is compiled of moments, people, and circumstances playing out before me that bear so much potency in what they reveal about the human condition and our world. In my sober-mindedness, I see that the successes of mankind often also come at the cost of mankind. I see that often someone’s joy comes at the expense of producing another’s sorrow or weight upon their shoulders. I wonder if we all desperately desire to say, at least to some degree, “to each their own,” because it seems far easier to venture out on our own search for self-sufficiency and autonomity rather than confront the interconnectedness of this world. To engage with the interconnectedness means embracing what it is, while working to make it better. The gospel compels us to do so—and moreso, the gospel enables us to do so. But we focus on our lack within ourselves and delve deeper into autonomity as our way of coping, as if we think the world will only bring us suffering and pain rather than seeing and believing how the Lord can work through it—and through us.

And with the weight of sorrow so heavily upon our shoulders, we may be able to empathize more, but our eyes remain fixed upon where our feet currently reside, rather than looking up at the promise of hope—maybe not given in the present moment, but promised and delivered nonetheless. If we only fix our eyes upon where our feet are, the others who venture into our lives look first at our feet. They see our present circumstances, the weight of them, and may or may not be able to compel us to look up yet again—to look to the author of our hope, the giver of our joy.

I know I need to look up more to see these opportunities of joy, to receive from the fount the full potency of them. A week ago provided a full drink of joy that I had not experienced in some time. My best friend from my childhood, the one I have known since I was 11 years old, got married in an intimate setting 10,500 feet above sea level in the heart of the mountains. She herself is a huge part of the story of my life and a means of God’s grace to me, and her family is as well. To be with them last week—fully known and accepted, with the richness of memories behind and the surety of friendship ahead—was a healing balm to my soul. To look upon her face as she looked into the eyes of her groom, bearing perfect peace and pure joy reminded me yet again that God is good.

Bring what sorrows this world may and will—to fix our eyes upon Him and both the realities and possibilities of what He does and can do in this world lifts my eyes from where I am to what He is instead. To lift my eyes from where I am to look around and see the portion of this journey before me, Him beside me, places myself firmly in His grasp. It gives me reference of the potency of hope that connects me with where I am to who I am in this given moment—this is to know that I am loved, and through Him, able to bear more than I know now not just in the sorrows, but ultimately in His joy. 

Giving, Receiving, and Generosity

Every day, we participate in the transactions of giving and receiving. Most of it is mindless and directly interrelated, as it is part of the fabric of how the world operates. If you are at the grocery store and you want to receive the milk, you must give the money for it. However, there are many other instances when the direct transaction is not a guarantee. If I cook dinner for myself and my husband (giving), it is likely he will do the dishes (receiving), but that is not true in every instance. He may have worked late, in which it’s wise for me to once again give by doing the dishes as well, even though I may not have “received” something.

As you can probably tell from the above, I can sometimes be quite analytical in how I break things down to understand and engage in them. When it comes to giving and receiving, I find that to be true a lot of the time. I love to give, and even in the times when I don’t, God continues to teach me what that means about myself and/or the situation. It may be that my heart is hardened to the situation and needs to be softened to consider what He would have me to do in it. It may be that the need or opportunity is not one that I need to engage myself in at the present time, because I cannot be all things to all people. It may be that I am not viewing it properly, viewing giving as a necessity or a burden that I must do, taking my prompting only from the need rather than what God would have me to do with it. Over most of my life, I find myself engaging these questions more; however, the last year has also brought lessons of the other end—receiving. This year has been one that has involved more receiving than years past. Some of this has been due to my health over the year, with thyroid surgery and other surrounding things. Other ways are simply because of the grace of God desiring to break how I choose to view this.

In my analytical way of viewing this giving and receiving, I have often viewed receiving as an effect or response to my first having given. When it happens in this order, I can generally receive things well in the spirit they were given to me in. I gave; therefore, I can receive. But when I receive things without having given first, such as home-cooked meals and care after surgery; the blessing of Broadway shows, dinners, US Open tickets, and time with family; friends hosting and creating space for me to rest; the gift of my mom flying to the city to be present in recovery despite me not being up for much of anything; the grace of my husband in walking so patiently with me in the ups and downs this year has brought; continued provision and orchestration in my business; and more, I am somewhat flabbergasted at the generosity or gift that I have received. The questions that go through my mind are often 1: what did I do for them previously to generate their response now? and 2: I’m going to really have to respond to them with an equal or better gift of generosity. It continues to be transactional in my mind, which misses the point entirely.

I cannot live my life in such a way as if I set out to achieve or earn merit in order to “deserve” what I receive, or in order to repay it. In receiving, I need to trust in the heart of the giver, that they want to give and don’t feel obligated to, rather than constantly thinking about my position before them. I need to trust that in the same way God teaches me to be generous in my giving, God is working with them as well. We have each been given an allotment in this life by God in order to steward faithfully, and sometimes, radically. We should look to the benefit and blessing of others over ourselves in what we do and give. If we each engage the Lord and others in this process, we will be cultivating a culture of generosity where we give because it’s a natural thing to do. In turn, we receive gracefully because we see it as a portion of grace—undeserved perhaps, but lovingly given.

None of this is a new concept I’m coming up with. Rather, it is one that has been modeled by God the Father Himself by the giving of His one and only Son Jesus, that whomever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. That the giving of His son ultimately in death would afford the gift of forgiveness of our shortcomings and sin, creating reconciliation between us and the Father, and within us, a new heart and mind. Through this love, we are to be transformed by the renewing of our minds, no longer conforming to the patterns of this world, that we may be able to discern what is good, acceptable, and perfect. 

We know this world is often not as it should be—we find ourselves or others broken, discouraged, in pain, separated, and more—but through the generosity of God in His giving, we are able to receive His promise and grace that He will at least bring us through it. At the most, we have the promise of God that He is working to redeem and transform this world into what He designed it to be. And none of this is deserved. I cannot repay Him for what He has done and I did nothing to deserve it; instead, I must gracefully receive it.

Both giving and receiving are elements in play in the much larger, much harder to break down, stage of generosity and grace given freely. It is much more about the heart and what God desires to show and teach us about Himself through it—rather than a simple transactional matter. In these ways that I have received this year, I must turn my thoughts to the grace of God through them and the love of other people I am receiving from, and thank Him for it. Undeserved, yet gracious and radical gifts. May those ways turn me deeper to Him, deeper to the One who enables such generosity in the lives of the people in my own. May they then propel my giving in such a way that I desire to give because I have been loved much and wish to love also, not because it’s “my turn,” “I ought to,” or out of expectation. And may I also not have expectations of the outcome of my own giving, as giving itself needs to be a response of worship of God, leaving up to Him the outcome of it—rather than having expectations that it will be a transaction that performs correctly through the end.

Giving in faith. Receiving in grace. And, generosity as worship. 

Longevity

We were eleven years old when we first met. From a distance, she wasn’t one I envisioned being close with, as she and one of her friends spent time playing imaginary games I could have cared less about. Yet, our paths continued to cross through Girl Scouts, club soccer, and school. And the Lord had plans for that friendship even though I did not know Him at the time. Through it, and the friendship of another, the distinction of what it meant to be a Christian in surrendering my life to Jesus and following after Him was finally made—both through her actions and in her words. We were becoming best friends and then before my eighth grade year, I gave my life to the Lord. Since that day, she has walked faithfully beside me in patience and love, teaching and modeling what it meant to love and follow Him. She folded me into her family where they became as close as my own, and into her life and community of believers who were a refuge I desperately needed. Today, I marvel at how young we were then, yet still able to partly understand the significance of it all.

We grew up together. Countless days and nights were spent upon her bed where we would talk for hours upon hours about what we were thinking and feeling, what our takes were on things that happened (ranging from superficial to deep), and what it would look like when we grew up. We talked about what we envisioned it would look like when we each got married one day. These days and times are graven upon my heart as they were so formative to who I was and who I have become.

When I moved over 1,000 miles away to college, there was an adjustment in our friendship. We no longer had the proximity we had for seven years prior, and so the ebb and flow of our friendship changed. We had to adapt to less talking and more trusting in the fibers of our friendship that had been woven to hold the days to come. She stood beside me on my wedding day, which I couldn’t have imagined anything different. John and I were in Colorado for about 10 months after we got married where she and I were able to resume some of the proximity of our friendship before we moved even further away to New York, where we have now been for 3 years. Yet, when I would return home—even still to this day—we pick up right where we left off, and God has been so good to use and bless our time together.

Three weeks ago, she got engaged to a wonderful man that I do not really know but trust. I received a text message and a picture shortly after it happened, and she made time to Skype with me the next day despite her preparations for leaving for a month of international travel a couple days later. It was a wonderful conversation and I was so blessed by it; yet there was much for me to learn from it.

It’s not what I pictured this time would be. What is happening in reality is different than what we once dreamed about upon her bed in our teens. And I am not there in presence like I was when we were growing up. The reality is that for half of our friendship now, I have lived far away. And in that time, we have both grown and changed and have graciously been provided community around us to fill the presence we were to one another growing up. I should clearly know and recognize this by now, and most days, I do, but on that day and in that conversation, I felt both an overwhelming sense of gratitude for how the Lord has preserved our friendship over the 16 years we have been friends, but also a sense of loss that things aren’t like I pictured they would be—though they are exactly what they should be.

It was a stark reminder that just because things aren’t what we once or presently wish they should be, it doesn’t mean things aren’t currently what they should be. If anything or any relationship in this life is to have longevity, it can’t be forced to remain its own fixed entity for all of time—it has to have the freedom to grow, adapt, and change. If I desire nothing to change and take action upon that, I will either stifle it to its death or will lose it because it cannot be held in that type of bondage. Life is too long and dynamic. The Lord is too great and too sovereign. What can be is greater than what I know now, if I am willing to have clear eyes and heart to see and accept it as the Lord wills and brings it—even if it also brings pain, days of sorrow, and seasons without favor. Nothing is forever except the love and salvation I have in the Lord.

…

I celebrated four years of marriage with John two weeks ago. We have now been together for eight and known each other for nine. At 27 years old now, it’s an entire third of my life with him in it! We have grown up together in so many ways, and I am incredibly grateful for it and him. Yet this lesson is convicting within my marriage as well—if I want the longevity of marriage to thrive, I have to allow us both to grow and change, even if it’s into things I didn’t expect. I have to surrender our marriage and him to the Lord daily and trust that what He can do with it and my husband is greater than what I foolishly try to control and conjure. That my eyes and heart would be opened to more as I let go of what I think things might be.

…

I am a year into full-time freelancing, and about a year into being part of a church plant here in Brooklyn. Both have brought the initial excitement and challenges, and both have brought the joys and trials that stepping into anything new does. It’s easy to wonder about the sustainability of such a thing when you’re a ways into it, but close enough to the beginning to still have the perspective of how it developed. Yet, you’re still close enough to the beginning that seeing what it looks like down the road and how to plan for it now proves a bit tricky. We’re entering the middles. I read this last year and it has stayed with me:

“And middles are often defined by what they are not: the space, the years in between that which is no longer what came before and that which is not yet what will come later…In the middle game, very little is scripted. The middle game is where creativity begins, where tactical daring and subtlety takes over. In the middle game, everything is open.

There are middles in architecture and design too. I learn that churches of the 14th century middle point style were characterized by lots and lots of windows, whole cathedral walls given over to stained glass and tracery, trifoliate windows insistent with light…the middle of the spiritual life may have many windows, and lots of lots of light, but it will also be a season of winnowing.

Middles might be said to be under-theorized. There is an abundance of work on opening and closure, but very little discussion of…what comes in between. This is obviously because the theory of the middle is taken simply to be the theory of the work as a whole. Beginnings and endings are marked points within the work, but the middle is just the work itself with those points lopped off…there is however, perhaps more to be said.” –Don Fowler

Most of life is the middles—the work itself. And because of that, our framework of how we view and approach endings and beginnings will always evolve. What can be is greater than what I know now, if I am willing to have clear eyes and heart to see and accept it as the Lord wills and brings it—and that involves residing and living in the middles, the ambiguious seasons, trusting that as I labor and trust the Lord, He will help me make of it what it should be, even if it requires loss in the process, an abrupt or delayed ending, or the transition to a new beginning.

…

I’m going through another thyroid surgery in less than a week—I had a first five and a half years ago. This has been a year of less than favorable health compared to the couple years prior, and in that, there has been the somber realization that I am guaranteed nothing in this life other than the Lord himself. Am I willing to accept that? What my answer to that question is determines so much of how I will live my life: will I live it in fear of the unknown and potential of declining health, either in the years to come or the inevitability of age? Will I live it in anger or frustration that I have to go through these things? Will I ignore it and push it off to the side and act like that question was never asked so I simply don’t deal with it? Or do I embrace the reality of the answer—that I am guaranteed nothing in this life other than Jesus himself—and let that be more than enough? If I can speak that last answer and live within its meaning, then my heart should be at rest and my joy should be full. Bring what trials this life may, but let it bring more of Jesus in them, and then the blessings that do come—may they be treasured as gifts of His love and reminders of His presence and sovereignty over my life. Nothing is guaranteed. In the years of life the Lord wills for me, its nature of longevity and what that looks like in my life depends on my willingness to allow things to adapt and change.

…

“For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked. For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, for we do not wish to be unclothed by to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, so that which is mortal may be swallowed up by life. Now the one who has fashioned us for this very purpose is God, who has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come. Therefore, we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. We live by faith, not by sight.” –2 Corinthians 5:1-7

...

Nothing is forever except the love, faith, and salvation I have in the Lord. 

Casting Down

The trees sigh every so often, a deep casting down of its branches with the wind, temporarily bowing to the strength greater before arising again in stillness. Firmly rooted, their extremities flutter in response to the freedom around, catching and beading the rain that falls from above. It is just one color here—green—showing the vibrancy of life well nourished as it weathers the storms and relishes the sun.

…

Within the first year of living in Brooklyn, I asked a good couple friend of ours how they built a sustainable life in the city. I had observed them being well invested, having deep community, and creating longevity here (they have since had a child). As I awaited their answer, an expectation grew of wise, sage advice coming my way. They thought for a second and simply responded, “we get out of the city on a regular basis.” I was taken aback by both the simplicity of the answer and how confounding it was to hear from those well invested. I don’t know what answer I expected. It likely was one along the lines of “you dig in deeper, you do more, you invest well,” etc. If I were to share that with them now, I think they would agree to that statement in part, but there has been a growing understanding of the need to retreat and rest to balance out the demands of investing well.

And so today, we find ourselves here in Vermont. The trip was prompted by meeting family to spend time with them, but it also created a space to retreat and rest. To be still while the rain falls and the trees flutter. To remember the need to be firmly rooted in the One who gives life and breath; drinking of the kind of nourishment only He can provide.

I overall don’t rest well in the city and daily life. I value being on top of things so that I do not fall behind and create a growing mound of tasks to catch up on. However, the pace of staying on top of things has both its rewards and pitfalls.  Being on top of things generally ensures that things are planned, food is bought and made, the home has what it needs, my clients have their projects in a timely manner, that I am being intentional at talking and spending time with friends, that I am able to contribute my time and efforts to our church, that I could love my husband well, and more. This is an indefinite daily labor itself. Yet, I recognize a lie that is easily spoken to me in this daily labor—“you should be doing more things”—as if more striving will amount to more. The thing about buying into this lie is that the outcome appears true for a while. More is done, more is accomplished, things look as if there is greater achievement on the outside. But the longer this lie is bought into, the greater price is paid for believing it, because in living in this false truth, I do not do well the things that really do matter. There has to be the time and space to love others well out of the overflow of the heart, not out of a task-based obligation or a rush to fit others in. And to love others well out of the overflow of the heart means that I must take the time to be still—to catch and bead the rain that falls from above—that nourishes my soul.

The men in my life continue to speak truth into this. My husband does daily, reminding me to stop and be still. Our pastor exhorted me not to neglect the one discipline that will give far more than it requires—daily time in the Word and with the Lord. A friend in our community group spoke to the importance of not relying on our logic or feelings to make sense of what we experience in a given day, but instead to turn back to the Word and trust that the Lord can speak through it to our daily circumstances. Over the span of a couple months, I realized that I had been neglecting the Word for a long time because I was resisting both its authority and its relevance to my life; I bought into another lie that if I could just think through things and pray through things, that the Lord will give me something of an Oracle status of being able to suddenly be all wise and knowing about what is going on. It’s just not true.

In the last year of college, my best friend and I came to the conclusion that the more complicated that things and life become, the more simple the answer is—that answer being Jesus. This still proves to be true, and I believe it always will. Yet, to fully embrace the provision that answer brings, it means a full surrender to the One who holds that answer. In the simplicity of that surrender, we do not need to make it more complicated than it needs to be, but rather trust in His infiniteness to be Who He is. Lord over all. Lord in all. Lord through all.

“For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God. For it is written, ‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.’ Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.”
—1 Corinthians 1:20-25

Therefore, today I cast down my branches with the wind, yielding to bow to strength in the One greater as I arise again from stillness. When it is time to return, may this retreat with Him reflect the vibrancy of life well nourished, rather than weary, as it weathers the storms and relishes the sun.

Redefinition

Today was a day in which I imagined it to be one type of day—quiet, simple, restful, and one to catch up a bit in. The husband is off at Men’s retreat for the weekend, and with the exception of a lovely afternoon neighborhood stroll with a friend this afternoon, I have been “alone” for the last 24+ hours. As I sit here, deep in the evening in a quiet apartment, that is the sentiment I took away from today.

Yet, as I really think about it—even the very definitions I applied to today really aren’t true to the fullest sense of those words. It was quieter, yes, but I had two skype calls and walks through crowds of people. It was restful, yes, but it was still a day where I had to put in some time for work. It was simple, yes, but how I chose to be simple today was to stick around my neighborhood—and in doing so, I walked along blocks of history with street fairs and festivals, combining the generations. I walked into neighborhood cathedrals built 150+ years ago, for worship that seems now of another time. I walked beside the waterfront park, another pier of recreation and views added to it, and what seemed to be a melting pot of ethnicies, walks of life, and ages all enjoying a common scene. The swings cradling adults reliving childhood joy, the open air courts with hard-core basketball players and the friendly “adults on kids” pick-up game, the benches lined with couples enthralled in love at dusk; the tables filled with ketchup and hot-dogs and soda with smoke, fire, and laughter pealing the air as the groups clustered.

Was this really a simple day? A quiet one? Even restful? It seems to defy my logic that it was, with all that today brought. But it was—for it was within “my world,” my neighborhood, my home.

Those things here, in their own essence, constantly press against the seams, waiting to be stretched into yet another redefinition, another perception. So little remains the same here. So much changes in life now—whether it comes by the subtle rise of hide tide and then its eventual receeding, or if it grows so rapidly like the new high rise building in development that gains a floor a day, changing how you have always viewed a horizon, and it will no longer be the same.

I’ve always been one to invest. To invest where I am, with whom I am with. I have a high sense of personal responsibility as well as the underlying drive of “this is the right thing to do.” In most seasons, it comes out clearly and obviously, in all areas of my life. These are the seasons where I am committed, fully engaged, and eventually run myself to the ground. And you know what the funny thing is?

I still don’t feel or think that I am doing enough.

I wish I could do more.

To do more than just working (though I forget I am running my own business); to do more than being and making a home and refuge for my husband and myself, to do more than meeting with people and listening, speaking love and truth when and where it is needed; to do more than being part of a church community and the various things it entails; to do more than just having passing conversations with my neighbors; to do more than going to appointments to take care of things; to just do more…

And for me—it’s hardly ever been about other’s perception or expectations of me. It’s because I believe so deeply in these things, or at least the principle of doing them, that it drives my thoughts and actions. In this doing more, I desire the good news of Jesus Christ to go forth, that it would be a natural overflow and output of my own actions. I want Him to be known and for others to know Him. That doing more=more abundance of the gospel. Yet I continue to be humbled in that I physically cannot do more. I’m having to reconcile the truth that He must become greater; I must become less. And in that, in my limitations, that I would seek Him for His abundance of grace and power—for the presence of His Holy Spirit.  For Him to move when and where I cannot.

Because ultimately—it is Him who moves, Him who gives, Him who leads, Him who takes away.

I come back to this passage often; every time I do, I am reminded of His sovereignty and presence, His glory and power, and His intimate love for his people. And when I walk this city, even just my own neighborhood where reality continues to defy logic or the possible amount that one could absorb—this brings me back.

So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription, ‘To the unknown god.  What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, for “ ‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said, for we are indeed his offspring. Being then God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.” —Acts 17:22-31

It says all that I struggle to. It is the truth that I know deep within my heart, and it is the truth I see this world needing. It reminds me that He seeks us, He seeks those who do not yet know Him, and that He has abundant power over the world—He is not a raw image or being sculpted by the wills of our imagination and nature—He is Creator, Savior, Redeemer.

And when all of my definitions for other words that define my days continue to take on new meaning that I adjust to—I am thankful He is constant. When all of my desires and efforts, whether present or absent, continue to fall short of what I hope they would bear—I must remember He does not need me. In this crazy city we live—I trust He has determined this allotted period of time and this boundary of our dwelling place. In this life and breath and everything—may I continue to seek God, know Him, bear His image and be ready to speak, for He is not far from each of us, and He desires us to feel our way toward Him and find Him.

To remember, that in these seasons where I feel incredibly quiet with not much to say, to trust that He holds it all and I can become less as He becomes greater. That is a needed redefinition.

Reverie revisited

Over a year ago, I wrote this poem as a triad juxtaposing self, faith, and the Lord. I revisited it tonight as it continues to minister to my heart, and in doing so, I restructured the triad, taking the lines and combining them so they would have a direct juxtaposition. It is less of a crescendo than the first—this restructuring provides needed, urgently apparent contrast to the three entities of self, faith, and the Lord. 

Oh to hope, to place
Oh to surrender, to have
Oh to praise, to swell with
Trust
Faith
Love
In You who sees, in You
In You who knows, in You
For You who gives, for You
Who holds strongly, faithfully
Who carries gently, tenderly
Who births kindly, wonderfully
Bearing strength
Bearing mercy
Bearing justice
Wisdom, and
Grace, and
Revelation, and
Power beyond our days
Peace beyond ourselves
Compassion beyond our means
The days are finite and weak
We are weary and restless
You are beautiful and holy
We bear lackluster devotion
We lack stillness in quiet
You are meant to be revered in worship

Our efforts to sustain ourselves with
what is needed to replenish ourselves
Our whole selves
And we fail again
To hear You
End in You
And again.
Only You.
Only You. 

We as Interpreters

Over the past several weeks, I have been reading a slew of books in preparation for a new role at our church. This act of reading these powerful books about counseling, change, redemption, mercy, ministry, has rekindled and reminded me of things that I have let fall to the wayside over the last couple of years. Yet, the very act of this reading also reinforced what I have found to be true in my relationship with the Lord over the last couple of years—that I would seek Him, hear Him, and see Him through the things He has put before me to do as well as through the people around me. To agree to this new role was also an agreement and step of faith to commit to more. Commit to more doing in a life that has been full of doing lately; commit to more in what I am doing already through the ways He would choose to open my eyes and work through these feeble hands of mine.

These very books also talked about a common theme—that we are created to be interpreters. We ask questions of ourselves and others in an attempt to understand and make sense of this life. This mode of interpretation is an active one, that as we live, we would question—not just in an attempt of raising questions that may be without answer—but in a search for deeper understanding and meaning. You likely personally have had the experience of sitting across from another in conversation, exchanging questions until one is asked that takes you a bit by surprise. It is insightful and it probes deeper to the core that we all wish to be known well in, and it coerces further interpretation and subsequently, understanding. As I think about what these impactful questions have in common, I would say they are questions that remind us of two things: we are part of a larger narrative, much larger than our daily, monthly, and yearly personal experiences; and in that narrative, there is One who calls deeply to our souls, whether we hear Him or not.

This city provides no shortage of opportunities for interpretation. Simultaneously, the becoming and being of an adult raises many questions as we observe and do. Due to this city being the place that John and I more or less started our married and adult lives together in, it can be hard to separate the two to understand—is this about the city that we see and question, seeking to interpret? Or is this simply about the process of adulthood that is universal, regardless of place? There’s an effort to contextualize—that while we fully understand God is God in every place—we want to understand in greater measure, how is God being God here, in this place, in this life, in my moments? While as much as we are interpreters, we are also created for relationship, and through the grace and mercy of God, we can have this relationship with Him because of Jesus. He steps into our past, present, and future, helping us to interpret while reminding and showing us the larger narrative.

I’ve had a form of writer’s block for a while—probably as a result of excessive "doing." I have been so active in the doing, and in the process, seeking to contextualize and interpret. So, through my daily moments of work, I am reminded of how the Lord provides and the need to risk and trust as He will meet us there. As I cook, I am reminded of His creativity and oversight as on this earth, He has created what we need to be nourished and satisfied. As I serve, I am reminded of how He is a servant, pouring Himself out for the benefit of others. As I listen, I am reminded of my need for grace and the need to extend it, grace that has been given freely to us by the Lord. As I live in community with my husband and others, I am reminded of how we are each fearfully and wonderfully made, yet in need of redemption and sanctification, and the Lord has given us to one another for that very process. As I live in this city and walk its streets, I am reminded of the contrast of both the glory that man can produce and the intense suffering manifested as the result of the individual and our world’s brokenness. Daily, through all of these things, there is the recurrence of gratitude, yet simultaneously, a plea for mercy. The Lord is faithful and He is good; yet this broken world is far from what it should be, and we as believers are to be the very presence of the Lord in His manifestation of mercy and goodness. This is often a lofty calling, as though we are redeemed, we are still in need of the very mercy we seek to pour out.

The list can continue—daily, the Lord is present through circumstances He allows and ordains. Daily, there are opportunities to interpret each, with the aim of seeing how this plays out in the larger narrative of God in creation, mankind in its fall, Jesus in our salvation, and the Holy Spirit in our sanctification—and what that means to each of us personally.

Yet, as I sat still this weekend as a result of a near month-long lingering sickness, I was still enough to hear. The drawback to interpretation is that it is often an active one of probing, not a reactive one of listening. Coupled with a life filled with doing, I limit what I can hear based on what the Lord might speak through what I am already doing, not apart from it. So, I listened.

What I felt Him impressing upon me most then as I sat there with Him is to regard Him for who He is—strong, holy, almighty—and to not forget that. That the awe and reverence for Him, simply because of who He IS would be dominant in my life rather than only reverence created because of how He works in our lives through an intertwined story line. That instead of further understanding of context and moments, that I might know Him more and in further depths. That I would pursue Him and invest in Him—for the sake of only that. To trust that as I seek Him outside of circumstances, the understanding and means needed for those very things will come in His own time and ways, not the result of my active hands attempting to do. He is God apart from all other and any other, always and though He is intertwined within our world. There is a need for me to live within that reverence…of Him and Only Him.

Back in the days where Jesus was new and lovely to me, there was a song that moved me to my core. As I revisit it, I see that it’s because it is pure in its essence—of simply regarding the Lord in His glory. It is more than enough. He alone is more than enough.

I see the Lord
Seated on the throne, exalted
And the train of His robe
Fills the temple with His glory
And the whole earth is filled
And the whole earth is filled
And the whole earth is filled
With his glory.

Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy
Holy is the Lord
Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy
Holy is the Lord.

That needs no interpretation, only reverence—the whole earth is filled with His glory. Holy, holy, holy, holy, is the Lord.

"I write to you, young men..."

© Elise Grinstead 2013 (no filter)

“I am writing to you, little children, because your sins are forgiven for His name’s sake. I am writing to you, fathers, because you know Him who is from the beginning. I am writing to you, young men, because you have overcome the evil one. I write to you, children, because you know the Father. I write to you, Fathers, because you know him who is from the beginning. I write to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God abides in you, and you have overcome the evil one.”

—1 John 2:12-14

To say that the past few months have been filled with the tension of stepping further into adulthood while attempting to bear the responsibilities it brings without it crushing, is somewhat of an understatement. Life has been so incredibly full—and when we look at it honestly, we see that it has been full of God’s providence, blessing, and leading, but we also see that it has been

hard

. Harder than we’ve known before in many ways, and harder than we thought it could be. Days have been more full of summoning up gumption to press on, whether by a frantic pace determined by those other than us, or even if it is at a slow trudge because it’s all we can currently muster. John and I have been more tired than we have previously known, and looking ahead into the future has been daunting. We live in a forward-thinking, fast progressing city where it is so easy to get caught up in what lies before us next that we must enter into and subsequently "conquer" that we easily forget that the same Lord who has brought us to this present through our past is the same Lord who will carry us forth into the future.

In times like this, there often needs to be a returning of sorts to what has sustained in the past, a rereading of things that bear testimony of things done and seen, in order to remember that thus far the Lord has brought me and thus far He will bring me still. I was back in Colorado for a couple of days, and a question by a friend returned me to journals of nine years ago (my senior year of high school, a pivotal one) and a book read from five years ago. I spoke with best friends of 16 years, 8 years, and 2 years. I am back in doing a line-by-line reading of scripture and discussing it intentionally with women. In the midst of all that is new, all that changes and shifts as John and I walk forth, these disciplines and reminders have been so needed.

And as I read the above passage from 1 John tonight in preparation to discuss with those other three women, it provided healing balm to my soul.

The disciple John writes to four different type of people and life stages, the household of God:

1. Beloved children or infants—those who were just born into the heavenly family, the most recent converts to believers of Christ. 
2. Little children—those who walk and speak, can call father by name, but haven’t been in this stage for long or have much experienced, though they are disciples growing up into it. 
3. Young men—those who are growing up into men, whom John calls fathers, and perform the most difficult part of the labor, those who are called upon to fight the battle of the Lord. They are youths in the prime of their lives, declared valiant and overcoming. 
4. Fathers—These are the foundation of spiritual families. They have seen the most whole picture of how God has worked in themselves and others, and have the largest stock of spiritual wisdom and experience. 

In reading through this, how the disciple John addresses the young men reached to the core of my weary being.

“I am writing to you, young men, because you have overcome the evil one…I write to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God abides in you, and you have overcome the evil one.”

That we are strong…

it goes beyond being in the “prime of our life.” I can trust that He has raised me within Him, that I intimately know His name and His command enough to be able to go out and stand firm in what I hold and profess to be true. That even in the times of being utterly overwhelmed, that His strength is made manifest in me. I have not been born into this world and immediately thrust into this position of being a young adult; it has come gradually, and He has developed and equipped me—by His grace, I am strong.

The Word of God abides in us…

Adam Clarke roughly describes this:

“You have not only thoroughly known and digested the Divine truth, but your hearts are molded into it; you know it to be the truth of God from the power and happiness with which it inspires you, and from the constant abiding testimony of the Spirit of truth which lives and witnesses wherever that truth lives and predominates.”

I have walked with Christ for half of my life now, and I see the transformation of my heart over those years. His word, His truth, His gospel. The journal writings of years past reminding me that yes, He has made himself manifest, and yes, there has been a transformation. The truth is thoroughly known as he molds my heart into it, and if I choose to see, everywhere around me there is evidence of the constant abiding testimony of the Spirit of truth. I am truly his disciple.

We have overcome the evil one…

Twice the disciple John writes this—at the beginning and at the end. As I am thrust out into the battles and lessons that come in the prime time of my life, seemingly equipped but feeling so little of wisdom and experience, it is so important for me to remember the ultimate battle has already been won. Jesus has come and overcome the evil one. I now participate in the in between—after His first coming and before his second. The battles are those he places me to fight in—He is by my side in it, for the sake of my refinement, growing of wisdom and experience, and ultimately for the sake of the Gospel to go forth. I may not know how, but He has declared me ready, because He has brought me and raised me to such a point. And this new position of seemingly overwhelming responsibility—yes, there will be smaller and larger battles to fight, but I must remember the

ultimate battle has already been won.

Through Jesus, we have overcome the evil one.

“When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For we now see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, then I shall know fully even as I have been fully known.”

—1 Corinthians 13:11-12

Abide in Me, dear soul. You are strong. My word abides in you, and through me, you have overcome the evil one. Trust that the ultimate battle has already been won. Though much is thrust upon you and is required of you, remember the past, trust that I have brought You thus far and I will be more than sufficient for your present and future. You are growing into wisdom and experience. And when the days seem daunting and the realities of the future stretching, remember that I lead and sustain. Take heart, young man, I have overcome the world, and you are not left alone.

In Process

Picture taken from http://www.sha.org/bottle/body.htm

Last weekend, we talked about glass. Glass, in its hot liquid form, on the edge of a blowpipe after we collected it from the molten in the furnace and kept turning the pipe so it wouldn’t drip. It was rolled into a solid cylinder on a marble table and reheated again in a glory hole before came the first blow. Lips upon pipe, all breath sent down a long steel pole to create a bubble within the solid molten. Then, back to the glory hole to reheat. After, another blow, this time to expand the molten into something resembling a sphere. From there, the process could be repeated—the reheating, the blowing, the marvering and blocking—all while constantly turning the pipe to keep things centered, to make whatever you chose to. Or, for those limited, whatever you could possibly churn out before the glass became too thin, too cool, or too lopsided. 

We remembered our days in that lab, all skin covered and wet socks on our hands. We remembered seeing it done by our professor and the excitement that came from what seemed to be a relatively simple procedural process. He made a vase. He made a glass. He made a flower. He made and made, on and on, beauty again and again displayed effortlessly, as he sought to teach the craft to those willing.

Three years later, I saw the bookcase that once stood in the apartment we called ours. My best friend and I, taking one last college class together, produced a collection that would stand in no other gallery other than our own. I remembered our collection of lopsided bubbles, vases thicker on one side than the other, flowers that could be called somewhat abstract, and a glass that was triumphant just because it made it out in one piece. We participated in a beautiful craft over the course of 10 weeks, but it was much harder and far more humbling than we ever anticipated it to be. We found that when working with glass, you could get two out of the three elements right, but there would always be the third one that would trip us up—whether it would be the temperature of the glass not remaining optimal, air holes or uneven structure within the molten, or forgetting to. Always. Keep. Turning. The. Blowpipe. So from week to week, we would learn and improve slightly, but never get anywhere close to our professor who had been doing it for decades.

In my last two years of high school, I focused on ceramic work, and got into using the potter’s wheel. In that, there were also three main elements—thickness, whether it was centered, and moistness—but the difference between clay and glass is that clay is far more forgiving in its creation process. You can always stop the potter’s wheel to observe it, add more water, and then turn it back on and continue. In glass, the process must keep moving in some forms at all times in the creation of a piece.

I found it fitting that ceramic work came in high school—a time when things are markedly more black and white, easier viewed as “success” or “fail,” and the fact that the learning process was far more forgiving. Again, I found it fitting that glassblowing came at the end of college—a time where my world was to change with marriage, with moving away, with a year of transition, and a time of still being in some form of transition three years later—the process has been much more dynamic, much more involved, and harder and humbling than anticipated at many moments. It’s as if questions are asked constantly. There is always some form of evaluation going on, whether intrinsically or externally. There is always some progression of moving forward, mixed in with others that remain stationary for a while, and like a glassblower with a pipe of molten glass, you’re faced with answering one of many questions that will lead to a different result this time around—do you keep blowing? Do you open it up? Do you add color? Do you warm it up for a while? Do you call it done and move onto the next piece?

I remember my parents often saying when I was growing up and thought I knew almost everything, that when I got older, the world wouldn’t be as black and white and the more that I learned, the more that I knew I had to learn. We have heard words like these generations over generations, yet we each have to reach this realization for ourselves. There are so many things at play in a given time. So, we seek to create to the best of our ability at the present, with hopes that we will grow.

My husband and I look at each other in conversation across the glass dinner table often—so glad and thankful for what God has done, where He has placed us, what we are able to do and be a part of, yet we are often exhausted in it as well. We attempt to physically rest as we can, but moreso, spiritually rest in the One whom we believe to be certain, unchanging. He is an ever patient Father and teacher, yet also one with a passion of love and jealousy as uncontainable as the molten glass in the furnace. I know He is zealous for my affections and my time. And as I’ve been reminded lately in the feeling of being overwhelmed by the prospect of adding more things to do on top of what I am already doing—it’s not about adding more things, it’s about doing more with what He has already placed before me, what He already has me doing. Not that this entry is ultimately about glass—but for final metaphor’s stake, it would be something like registering for a glassblowing class again the following quarter if I were still in college, and laboring in the good days and hard days. I would seek to continue learning and improving in that which was difficult, because that is often the process of ultimately making something beautiful and of worth, regardless of the form it eventually ends up taking.

Awake

© Elise Grinstead 2013

The winter lades us bare…the branches have long forgone their leaves—sheltered their stems of life to preserve itself in the cold that lies ahead. The contrast of night and day are more stark, as one seems to end abruptly in the beginning of another—there is no melting transition in the setting of the sun and the warmth gradually conceding to slightly lower temperatures. The sinful condition seems more inherently recognized in myself, as I too, seem to be laid bare also. I tend to withdraw into more contemplative, solitary states, and sometimes the days feel as a sluggish trudging, one day after another as I await the days of longer light and warmth.

But, I too remember the fields of snow upon which the moonlight casts its glow, the blankets of freshness and provision over all that lies barren. In the presence of its stillness, I remember the purposes of the Father in creating such seasons. In all that can be depravity, in all that can be broken in this life—there is redemption, our sins once crimson covered and made as white as snow. The snow blankets and the moonlight shows what is pure—only that can be fully illuminated to show its beauty—not the shadows of the twisted branches and thirsty ground beneath.

Such pictures and reminders of grace.

I always long for spring. I long for the visual reminders of the hope I know to be true to be manifested—that there is life after death, a regeneration of what is new pushing forth what has been left behind. A pace that is measured, a process awakened by thawing and greater supply of light. That day after day, it may seem slow, yet it is in the perfect time for new life to come forth. I look at the stems, the buds, the breaking ground…I know that it is coming and it will soon be found.

I await. I awake.

That one week I walk under flowering trees, then the next under spring fresh leaves, then thereafter under deep green canopies—a reminder that there is growth in the midst of change. Some things once deemed cast off can once again be brought into what is now known as redeemed. There is indeed the promise of life after death, the revival after brokenness; the flourishing after barrenness.

So come, let us return to the Lord; for he has torn us, that he may heal us; he has struck us down, and he will bind us up….he will revive us…he will raise us up that we may live before him.

Let us know; let us press on to know the Lord; his going out is sure as the dawn; he will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the earth.” Hosea 6:1-3

Such words and reminders of redemption.