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.

story

I spent my early teen years consuming Robin Jones Gunn novels, in which events would happen not to make the novel realistic, but keep the reader's attention. I used to pine for occurrences like the ones in RJG books to happen in my own life. Rereading them as an adult, I would find one of my eyes squinting beneath furrowed eyebrows as I tell the pages, "That would never happen."

This year has proved that opinion very wrong. So many things that have happened in the last 12 months might be considered unbelievable and unrealistic, but I look over my shoulder at them and know that they happened. I have their lessons tucked in my pockets or sprinkled across my heart, some like scars and some merely freckles or pleasantly-colored berry stains. And I know it isn't over. If my story were to end right now, it would look something like this:

"And she graduated single, grateful for all that had come to pass, sad to leave the Kentucky grass she'd walked barefoot in for four years with those she most loved, but hopeful that the Lord would provide for her the way He had so faithfully through the past."

But it doesn't end here. I don't have to end hopeful. Like Abraham who "did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised" (Romans 4:20-21). I know He will provide for me. I know He will give me what I need, even when I don't know I need it. He's done it over the past 12 months. He will continue to do it. Hope does not disappoint (Romans 5:5), because the Lord will fulfill His purpose for me! (Proverbs 13:12)

I think He waits in expectation for certain parts of His plot to be revealed on my journey, like when the author watches a reader get to a certain part in the novel to see his reaction. I know it has not been all sunbeams and yellow butterflies, and will not always be, but I have received so much unexpected goodness out of the unexpected badness that started as unexpected goodness. I'm grateful for the unexpected! I'm grateful for what has been given me that I never could have planned for myself. And it makes me wonder, what if what is unbelievably improbable is the kind of normalcy God wants us to live in? What if "coincidences" are more reality than when life is predictable or even just...believable?

The God I serve is more creative than a cheesy Christian fiction writer. Why shouldn't real life be unrealistic?

my journals remember summer, '07

3/27/07, I have some kind of cyst on my lip that I'm afraid I'll need oral surgery on. :s <-- That's my lip quivering with tears. Pitiful, isn't it.

5/14/07, Tomorrow I have a dentist appointment to get this dumb CYST (cannibalistic yoke of stupid tyranny) off my lip. Oh, I hope they can.

5/15/07, If I were to wish death upon one thing right now, it would be mucoceles, which apparently is what I have on my lip. And after passing the 2-month mark we celebrate our time together by waiting two more months. Two more months with a pea lodged between my gum and lip, because it'll "resolve on its own." Right, and I' am a cow, I love chewing grass, and milking is my FAVORITE time of day, moo.
When the dentist told me to wait 2 more months I almost cried. Maybe I should name it so it'll be easier to bear. Like children. Mucocele, thy name is...Adolf. Because I want it removed from the office of my mouth.

5/16/07, This is me a.) with my new haircut and b.) with Adolf on my lip. My lower lip is being pulled down, you see, so that Adolf is in full view.

6/3/07, Adolf ceased to show for a while after I chewed on him till he was a gaping hole. I had hope he shot himself in the bunker and wouldn't be returning...but alas, he began growing again today. It was pleasant, those few days without him. That's probably how the Jews felt, too.

6/21/07, R.I.P Adolf
March 11 - June 21, 2007
The oral surgeon's words were, "I'm pretty sure it won't come back....." Uh, "pretty sure"? "Yes you have cancer but I'm pretty sure you won't die." Thanks, doc.
I was almost positive he wasn't going to do anything about Adolf today, so when the nurse (?) gave me the glasses and the surgeon fired up his laser, I was surprised. He numbed my lip and I swallowed the bitter-tasting stuff and wondered if my throat would go numb and close up and I'd die. To my knowledge it hasn't.
Then he started cutting into my lip. I felt nothing, but smelled the burning. It was disturbing, knowing they were lasering my lip and it was smoking. A nurse (assistant?) had to stand there with suction so I wouldn't be exfixiated by the scent of my own burning flesh.
Afterward (it only took about 15 min.) Mom took me to the used bookstore downtown and I bought 3 (count 'em: THREE!) Daphne [du Maurier] books for $9. So pleased, despite the gauze puffing out my lower lip and the swollen numbness that made half my lip turn white. (I wondered if the circulation had been cut off and my lip would rot and fall off. To my knowledge it hasn't.)
I regained feeling around 2 and it doesn't hurt very much; only when I move it a lot. It's a black hole and looks a little gross. I prefer not to feel it with my tongue 'cause it grosses me out.