pardon me while I chug a gallon of orange juice

I'm sick. It's the last week of camp, and I'm sick. The doctor today asked me what my symptoms were, and I was expecting her to coddle me and maybe coo a little, or at least put her arm around me and rub my arm. Instead she shoved a swab down my throat to check for strep. I miss my mom.

"Are you congested?"
"Yes."
"All right, let me take a look." Looking. "Yes, it sounds like you're a little stuffy."

Well, yes, I wouldn't have lied.

"Um, yes, a swordfish severed my spine and is stuck between my third and fourth vertebrae."
"Are you lying?"
"Yes. But do you believe that I'm congested?"

On year ago today, I was here:


Dear Utah,
I miss your luscious green hiking trails, blue-faced mountainsides, cool breezes, icy snow-melted water, fields of wildflowers, Presbyterian churches, frozen yogurt shops, symmetrical street numbering system, and best friend:


This afternoon I ventured out of my bed to dinner after a 2-hour nap (my third one of the day). Someone asked me, "Heather, what does this fall bring for you?" I thought that was probably the most adventuresome, expectant, optimistic question I've ever been asked. I like it a lot better than, "What are you doing after this?" What does this fall bring for you? Who knows? I like adventures.

This is me trying to feel optimistic, while feeling very sore-throated, light-headed, homesick, and a little like Huckleberry Finn might've felt when he discovered he was on a boat with a bunch of murderers. I'd rather be with the Widow Douglas, if I had a choice.

I also had a creepy dream the other night that all my campers were sitting in my room waiting to have devotions, and I thought that I had napped through the whole thing. I think it's time for a break now.

there once was love

I've rediscovered some loves. Not of Double Stuf Oreos, which I have consumed 8 of while sitting here at my computer. Not of a clean bathroom, which I daydream about every time I shower in my flipflops and try to roll up my pant legs when I put them on so they don't dip in the puddles of sand on the bathroom floor. Not even of those days when sweat isn't dripping off my face and making my thighs stick together when I walk. I never lost or forgot those loves, so I don't need to rediscover them. Here are some loves I have rediscovered, though, and it's like seeing my husband return from a long trip, having forgotten how handsome he was and how much I missed his smell:

+ Creation. Not true: I have never forgotten how much I love God's creation. But I had forgotten how much I love being completely engulfed and consumed by it morning through night. Last week was Backcountry Camp, and amidst the rivers, woods, rainy nights, and campfires, I found myself being filled with beauty like an empty balloon filled with helium, until all it can do is soar into the sky and pop for lack of a better release. Sometimes I forget not only how much God's love is revealed through His creation, but also that I am His created one, as well. It's so easy to look at a perfectly pure river and not wonder why God delights in His creation, but He delights in us as His creation, too, and our voices give Him even more pleasure than the voices of the perfectly pure river.

+ Writing. To save myself from soaring into the sky and popping, I've rediscovered why I write. After years of creative writing classes and assignments, I was pretty sure I'd lost whatever desire to write I'd had when I entered into college. Both my journal pages and my mind grew blank of creativity. But I realized as I sat on a damp rock beneath a waterfall why I write. I don't write because I should or because I'm required to. I write because I want to capture, I want to preserve, I want to remember. I write because I have to, or else my mind and heart will become so full that I either pop, or I spring several leaks and everything seeps out without any record of it. I'd forgotten what it was like to need writing, like needing food or sleep. Writing is a reaction to me. What would the trees do if they couldn't rustle when the wind blew?

+ Reading. Four literature classes and two history classes last semester had me convinced that I was done reading, unless menus at PF Chang and Olive Garden counted. But all summer I've played ball, I've gone swimming, I've hiked, I've climbed, I've jet-skied and tubed and paint-balled...but I haven't gotten completely lost in a lecture or a chapter so that minutes pass and I forget to stop thinking. I miss this. Thanks to miss Laura's blog, I'm now reading A Separate Peace. I love words, and I'd forgotten this until I was surrounded by a lack of them.

me and Bali in the middle of the Youghiogheny River in Ohiopyle, Pennsylvania.

2 Corinthians 3:17

Tonight as I was jogging (I swallowed two bugs - scratch that: two bugs flew to the back of my mouth and army crawled down my throat fluttering their wings and singing "Just You Wait 'enry 'iggins" from My Fair Lady) fireworks went off all around me. I could see them across Lake Erie lighting up the sky above Cedar Point. I could see them down the street where they are illegal. (My 8-year-old first cousin once removed: "Grandpa Jim's coming tomorrow with fireworks." My 8-year-old first cousin once removed's mom: "Grandpa Jim's going to prison.") I could hear them above and to the side and in every direction...much like the soldiers at Bastogne must've felt in 1944, only with a lot more pressing on their minds than the cramp I was getting in my side, shinsplints, and those two bugs hanging draperies in my stomach.

I distinctly remember my Fourth of July last year as if it were not an entire year ago. I was dog-sitting some pretty wealthy people's Siberian husky (named Tucker, but he was a girl) in a canyon of the Wasatch Mountains in Salt Lake City. I spent the day in my pajamas, watching the History Channel's all-day documentary on the Revolutionary War, eating cream cheese icing right out of the container, and journaling. When it got dark I could see fireworks going off in four different parts of the city from my front window. I don't remember Tucker being involved very much.

A certain sadness hung over me as I jogged around a large loop and watched the fireworks reflect in the water tonight. There was a lot ahead of me a year ago that is now behind me, but that looks a lot different now looking back than I thought it would. Like if you're in a boat and you're about to glide into this incredible clear water with lily pads (which are endangered, and you're not allowed to pluck them, because we need to save the lily pads for our unborn children) that have beautiful yellow and purple blossoms, and you just know they're going to smell beautiful...but once you get there the roots of the lily pads get tangled in the blades of your propeller and your boat breaks down, and you discover you're allergic to the scent of lily pad blossoms, and there are mosquitoes. When you finally make it out and on your way you look back, and the sight of the incredible clear water is now tainted by what you experienced, and you wonder if anything you come across in the future will ever be as clear and beautiful as the few moments before the lily pad blossoms turned into mosquitoes.

I don't know where I'll be next July 4th. I don't know what will happen in a year. I realized, though, as I watched fireworks from Ohio that I could've been watching in Utah a year ago, or Wisconsin two years ago, that I can't put my hope in circumstances anymore. I seem to learn this lesson over and over again. Circumstances change, shift, alter, break, or simply turn out different than you thought they would. But Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever (Hebrews 13:8). Who better to fix our eyes on instead of the uncertainty of "clear" water?

"It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in man. Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord his God, the Maker of heaven and earth, the sea, and everything in them--the Lord, who remains faithful forever" (Psalm 118:8; 146:5-6).

first week of camp

These are a few things I've learned so far:

1.) Asbury cafeteria food is not that bad. ...I'm serious.
2.) When you find a toilet seat without grass, hay, and/or sand on it, give thanks.
3.) Mosquitoes are little satans that need to be destroyed before Jesus' second coming.
4.) I am terribly, terribly out of shape.
5.) 6:15 comes very, very early.
6.) Sometimes 11-year-olds know more about what it looks like to be like Jesus than 21, 51, or 91-year-olds.
7.) When there are huge waves in the lake, do not go tubing if you want to keep your teeth, your nose, and/or your arms.
8.) Going #2 is a luxury that not everyone can afford.
9.) Sonic lemonade slushies with real strawberries and lemons. I have learned these and I am thankful.
10.) When you pray, God hears and answers. Thank you, God.
11.) I'm not kidding about the Asbury cafeteria food.

Week one, almost complete. Chug, chug, chug chug chug....

learning doesn't end with graduation!

Last night Lydia (my soon-to-be Wooster roommate and partner in InterVarsity ministry) and I watched An Education. It was heavy and full of deceit, yet redeeming at the end. I've also been receiving an education...though, I am thankful to God, nothing like the one Jenny received in the movie last night.

One lesson I'm learning, in-process:

- The Asbury community is a rare thing, even among other Christian communities. Unconditional acceptance and love for people just because they're brothers and sisters in Christ is not a given.
- It's not as easy to show unconditional acceptance and love to others when you're not surrounded by it yourself. Suddenly I begin to see that maybe loving others came so easily to me because I was being loved so much by others. It's not so easy to give out love when you're not receiving it.
- The wise words of my friend Ciara: "Even if you aren't getting that love and encouragement from those around you, don't be afraid to give it anyway. It's worth it."
- The wise words of Paul the apostle: "Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you" (Ephesians 4:29-32). Just let it sink in for a moment that hurting others grieves God's Spirit...even if it's something so "small" as words that are not wholesome.
- Back to Ciara: "I think we forget how much power we have over other human beings. It really makes you think about how you treat people yourself. I never want to make anyone feel the way some people have made me feel."

It's so easy to stick with people who make you feel good and love them because they love you. It's even easy to love those who don't love you, as long as you have people who are pouring love into you. But when you aren't being loved by those around you, and those who do love you are very, very far away...do you still love? And how?

- The wise words of Thomas the Domino's Guy: "The Lord is your strength, if you allow yourselves to be vessels."
- Back to Paul: "Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from these things, he will be a vessel for honor, sanctified, useful to the Master, prepared for every good work" (2 Timothy 2:21).
- And to quote Tim Hughes: "Fill us up and send us out."

oh, how He loves us so

Now that the weather's warmer, I've been thinking a lot about last summer. I miss the mountains of Utah. I miss their grandness, their beauty, and most of all, the way I felt God so near while I was surrounded by them. While I pined for the mountains, I realized I was really pining for the Lord.

A couple of days ago as I drove down the street, billowing white clouds sat on a perfectly blue sky. The sun shot beams through the cracks of the clouds all the way to the horizon. It was beautiful. I felt I could be swallowed by the light; I felt completely surrounded. And I felt like God was telling me, "I am near you, no matter where you are."

I love that He hears the cries of our hearts, even when we don't know what we're crying. I love that He provides in the most creative, unexpected ways. He promises and proves His provision over and over again. For example....

"Your unfailing love, O Lord, is as vast as the heavens;
your faithfulness reaches beyond the clouds." - Psalm 36:5

just a day

I'm reading a Donald Miller book, and reading Donald Miller always makes me want to write. Of course, when I write after I read something that makes me want to write, I usually end up writing like whatever it is I've just read. It's like when I listen to Doris Day, I then sing everything like Doris Day.

Today Dad took me for a ride in his blue, '85 convertible. I put my arms up in the air, straight above my head, just because I could. "Isn't this nice?" Dad said. "Just being out in it all?" Then we hit a thick patch of manure-infused Wisconsin air, Dad started coughing, and I laughed.

This afternoon I found myself standing on the deck thinking about absolutely nothing but how the warmth from the deck on my feet met the warmth from the sun on my shoulders somewhere around my middle and made me want to take a nap standing up. I like moments like that.

I like Wisconsin summers. I sometimes start to feel a little sad that I won't be here...until I remember that I like Ohio summers even better. Right now I'm drinking coffee and listening to a tractor across the street. Weeks like this one, frozen in-between times, will be rare from now on. I'm going to cherish this one.