consider the ravens

It's almost impossible to answer people when they ask me, "How was your spring break?" If I answer truthfully, "Incredible," they automatically assume I had a blast somewhere on a beach or a big city or something. "I'm so glad you had fun!" they usually say. Oh...that just doesn't cut it.

One of my professors, who knew my state of being before spring break, asked me genuinely, "How was your break?" I answered, "Great. Unexpectedly great."

I learned a lot of things this past week. I learned that the Lord provides often what you don't even realize you need. Two weeks ago I had wanted nothing but to go home. How was I supposed to give to my teammates and the people of Atlanta when I felt I didn't even have enough to keep myself running? But when I voiced this to one of my team leaders, she said some very simple words that completely dictated the results of my week: "The Lord knows what you need."

Wow. Isn't that silly? I seem to only remember all the times I passionately tell the Lord, "I want to serve You," and forget all the times He tells me, "I will be with you."

This week was an incredible time of giving and receiving, being exhausted and being filled. As hard as the Salvation Army floors were, as early & cold as Atlanta mornings often came, as old as peanut butter and jelly sandwiches got, and as emotionally trying, stretching, and draining the days and nights so often were, I was not ready to be done. I don't know where the Lord is taking me, but if it includes as much true, genuine, and unexpected joy as I experienced this past week - even amidst, and often because of, the hardships - I cannot wait to go.

I love these people.

"Your Father knows what you need before you ask Him." - Matthew 6:8

hair, and the people who cut it

I got my hair cut today. It was not exciting. I played with a 4-year-old girl named Kaylee who wanted me to try her can of Minute Maid orange juice. "You'll like it," she said, nodding coercively. (This is the most peer pressure to drink something I've experienced since high school.) I told her I wasn't thirsty, even though an hour beforehand I had just consumed a plate of sweet potato fries and was, in fact, thirsty. We put together a puzzle of the United States, and, try as I might, I could not get her to understand that the Atlantic Ocean did not fit between Texas and Colorado. We looked high and low for Montana until I gave up and told her that Montana had gone on vacation. Then she got up to get something and I realized she'd been sitting on Montana the whole time.

While the hairdresser was dressing my hair, I thought about my past haircuts. My favorite, by far, was done by none other than my roommate's mother, in my laundry room, one night when I told her, "Just do whatever," and her "whatever" turned out better than any selectively styled, celebrity-mock-ups I'd ever attempted in the past. She lives in Virginia, however, and I can't afford a 1oo-dollar haircut in gas money to drive there and back again (a Haircutt's Tale, by Heather Kraussins).

Over the summer I got my hair cut at a salon in Salt Lake City where everyone wears black and looks chic. They played oldies music and my hairdresser and I chatted about Doris Day most of the time. I didn't particularly love the haircut, but not only did my hairdresser message my neck and scalp as she washed my hair, but she gave me hand messages with lemon oil while the conditioner conditioned my hair. You might guess by this description and the salon's wooden flooring, and that even their light looked like it cost more than regular light (and that everyone wore black), that it would've been an establishment for those rich people who live in a canyon and have heated driveways and waterfalls in the middle of their living rooms. In fact, it was $19. I would definitely go there again, if it didn't cost me a round-trip ticket + $19.

oh, for grace to trust you more

My mom often tells me how very "strong willed" I was as a child. I also got 10 times as many spankings as my brothers. (Once I told my oldest brother to "go to hell" while we built a dam in the creek behind our house. He thought it was funny and couldn't wait to tell my mom. (I confessed before he had the chance to revel in tattling and was punished by doing his share of unloading the dishwasher for a week.))

When I was about six years old, I got a dress that I would probably think was hideous now, but that I adored at the time. It had a black satin slip underneath a sheer, long-sleeved cover with red and rust-colored flowers on it. Um, how does that even sound appealing at all? Except for the fact that it swooshed when I walked.

The only problem was, it was a little too big for me. My mom wouldn't let me wear it to church, and I was angry. I remember putting it on and sitting at the little plastic Play Mate table in my room, in the dark, being angry. Brooding. Wishing I had my way. Wanting something I couldn't have. And all because my will wasn't my own, but my mother's. Not fair.

Today I was thinking about the similarities between my childhood relationship with my mother, and my relationship now with my Lord. The difference now is that I choose to surrender my will to replace it with God's, because He knows when the dress is too big for me to wear (so to speak). But I laughed somewhat pitifully at myself today as I realized how often, in my attitude, I sit at my Play Mate table in the dark, being angry because I'm not getting my way. I realized that here I've been praying "I want what You want," all the while hoping that He wants what I want. It doesn't work that way. The followers who tried to mix their own wills with Jesus' were the ones He told to go away and rethink their devotion. The followers who left their everything to follow Him became His disciples.

What would it be like to be completely and wholly surrendered to the Lord, mind, body, and spirit?

"Teach me to do your will, for you are my God; may your good Spirit lead me on level ground." - Psalm 143:10

self-centered love

Shouldn't it be an oxy-moron?

I have read this passage from Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Life Together multiple times over the past few months. But every time I read it I see further just how imperfect my love is, how I love out of my own broken cisterns, and how I love selfishly.

There is...a "merely emotional" love of neighbor. Such love is capable of making the most unheard-of sacrifices. Often it far surpasses the genuine love of Christ in fervent devotion and visible results. It speaks the Christian language with overwhelming and stirring eloquence. But it is what the apostle Paul is speaking of when he says: "If I give all I possess to the poor, and surrender my body to the flames" (1 Cor. 13:3)--in other words, if I combine the utmost deeds of love with the utmost of devotion--"but do not have love (that is, the love of Christ), I would be nothing" (1 Cor. 13:2). Self-centered love loves the other for the sake of itself; spiritual love loves the other for the sake of Christ. That is why self-centered love seeks direct contact with other persons. It loves them, not as free persons, but as those whom it binds to itself. It wants to do everything it can to win and conquer; it puts pressure on the other person. It desires to be irresistible, to dominate. Self-centered love does not think much of truth. It makes the truth relative, since nothing, not even the truth, must come between it and the person loved. Emotional, self-centered love desires other persons, their company. It wants them to return its love, but it does not serve them. On the contrary, it continues to desire even when it seems to be serving....Christ stands between me and others. I do not know in advance what love of others means on the basis of the general idea of love that grows out of my emotional desires. All this may instead be hatred and worst kind of selfishness in the yes of Christ. Only Christ in his Word tells me what love is. Contrary to all my own opinions and convictions, Jesus Christ will tell me what love for my brothers and sisters really looks like. Therefore, spiritual love is bound to the word of Jesus Christ alone. Where Christ tells me to maintain community for the sake of love, I desire to maintain it. Where the truth of Christ orders me to dissolve a community for the sake of love, I will dissolve it, despite all the protests of my self-centered love. Because spiritual love does not desire but rather serves, it loves an enemy as a brother or sister. It originates neither in the brother or sister nor in the enemy, but in Christ and his word. Self-centered, emotional love can never comprehend spiritual love, for spiritual love is from above. It is something completely strange, new, and incomprehensible to all earthly love.

How much I fall short!

Lord, forgive me for my self-centered love, and teach me Your love, which is so contrary to my human nature and the emotional love of this world.

feeding your inner-introvert

Extroverts are like those huge trees in Florida whose roots lay on top of the ground like monstrous wooded Octopus tentacles, sprawling out for human interaction. The sunshine of people's presences and the mist of retirement communities's sprinkler systems is enough to feed and water them. (I actually know nothing about these trees, so I hope no horticulturalists are reading this, disapprovingly clicking their tongues at me. I can't take disapproving tongue-clicks!) Their roots soak up the environment around them like scaly reptiles in the sun. Sssssssssss.

Introverts, however, are more like trees whose roots are buried deep in the soil. They need gulps of flood water to penetrate the soil, or else the heat of the sun scorches their leaves and leaves them wilted and pitiful.

I am an introverted tree who has been trying to water my roots like a gargantuan Floridian tree, and now my leaves are wilting. I love the sun for its chlorophyll and vitamin D, but without water I'm scorching, and the sprinkler systems of the extroverted world are not enough.

I realized last night that loving people does not mean that I can be around them all the time. All the energy I have I would love to spill onto them, but so many things are taking up my energy that I'm drawing on reserves to give to people until I am slowly being depleted. And this leaves me no time to replenish what I've lost, if every spare moment I'm looking for more ways to BE WITH PEOPLE. It's a balance system I have not mastered, and still don't understand. I hope my future occupation is working with people, so that they can have my energy.

Ways to recover and feed my introvertedness in order to rejuvenate and de-stress:

• My favorite part of the day is walking to class down my street in the mornings. The sky is always so early, unmarred, and glassy, like a cold pool without the ripples of the day in it yet. I need to relish this more and spend it in praise to the God who created it.
• Black Beauty. Ultimate relaxing, everything-will-be-all-right movie. What is more serene than watching butterflies land on pink flowers to the music of Danny Elfman?
• Participating in unimportant - yet not unproductive - things, like watching curling. There is something peaceful about that sport, like golf - except they don't yell at each other in golf ("YUP! YUP!"), and curling is a lot more technical (Team USA: "I'd say you gave it a 7-8. It landed on the button." Me: "Ah, yes, a 7-8. Precisely. You conquered that button").
• Reading, and realizing I'm not missing out on the world by reading. I'm reading The Professor's House for my American Novel class, and for some reason I'm really enjoying it. When I got to class today, Dr. Vincent began it with, "This novel is about someone experiencing a crisis." Oh. Well, maybe that's why.
  
• Spend time with the Lord. Be still, He says. Cease striving, and know that I am God. Only in returning to me and resting in me will you be saved. In quietness and confidence is your strength. (Psalm 46:10 NASB & Isaiah 30:15 NLT, respectively.)
  

just from Jesus simply taking

I babysat a 3-year-old boy on Tuesday. He slept most of the time, but at one point he began to cry out. I went into his room and sat on the edge of the bed.
"What's wrong, Cesario?"
He just kept crying. I rubbed his back and asked again, "What is it, buddy?"
Then he stretched out his arms to me and said, "Uppy." I lifted him up and he completely melded into me, without hesitation, his head on my shoulder and his arms on either side of me. He just lay there, and I began to sway. I hummed the only song I could think of: "Nothing But the Blood of Jesus."

As I rocked this little boy in my arms, whom I held so close to my chest, I thought about how completely safe he felt. He was completely dependent on me. Maybe he'd had a bad dream, or maybe he'd just opened his eyes and been afraid of the dark and quiet. Whatever it was, while he was by himself, he was scared. But in my arms, he could rest, because it wasn't up to him. I was there. Cesario trusted me with his entire well-being, which allowed him utter rest.

What would it look like to be like a 3-year-old child in Jesus' arms? What would it be like to trust Him so much, that all fears and worries completely disappear in His presence, and we realize, "He's here. It's okay now"? What would it look like to rest in Jesus? I want to know that complete lack of fear that comes with trusting in the Lord. I want to rest in Him.

"Let the beloved of the LORD rest secure in him, for he shields him all day long, and the one the LORD loves rests between his shoulders." (Deuteronomy 33:12)

I asked Cesario, "Are you ready to lay back down?"
There was a pause before his little brown-haired head shook "no" against my cheek. I didn't expect him to think about it, then say, "Why, yes, I suppose that is sufficient. I'll lay back down now." And, in fact, I preferred he wasn't ready. I wanted him to feel safe forever.

things

I think about quite a few things throughout my day. Never mind that I have 7 classes, meetings, an internship, and global warming to think about. These are a few things that have been on my mind the past few days:

Socks. My parents bought me a bunch of socks in August. The company's called "Wigwam" and has a huge sale every six months in Sheboygan. I wear a pair of these socks, thick orange ones that reach my ankle, when I go to bed, because when my feet are cold I can't fall asleep. I call them my "bed socks." On night I forgot to put on my bed socks, and I wore these brown socks (still Wigwam) with cream-colored argyle on them to bed. The next morning I didn't think about changing them (because they weren't my bed socks!) and I ended up wearing brown socks with my black dress pants. They were a distraction to me all throughout church.
"And Jesus gives us hope...."
My socks don't match.
"...not just for eternity...."
My SOCKS don't MATCH.
"...but also for right here on earth...."
My socks are not matching RIGHT THIS VERY MINUTE!

Tea. I know I should be more refined, and rave about Tazo or some Indian tea with herbs, but my favorite tea is Bigelow's Lemon Lift. I tried Chamomile tea yesterday, and the very smell made me uncomfortable. Not to mention the color is reminiscent of what you find in the snow after a very hydrated dog has passed by. Drinking Lemon Lift is like drinking sunshine that spreads throughout your body and shoots out your fingertips and toetips, like in Beauty and the Beast when the Beast is transformed back into a prince. (And a very unattractive one at that. But looks aren't everything. He was rich, too.)

Jesus/The Lord of the Rings. I think about TLotR a lot. My mother scolded me as we watched the trilogy over break when I kept quoting things before they were said.
"'Do not trust to hope."'
"Do not trust to hope."
"'It has forsaken these lands.'"
"It has forsaken these lands."
"HEATHER!"
Like a good eight-year-old I resorted to silently mouthing the words. Like a good mother she could hear my lips smacking and knew I was trying to get away with it.
My point is, I have these movies memorized, and they come back to me all the time - sometimes applicably. This morning I thought about struggling, and how much I have been struggling the past few months with the same problem. I get so frustrated with myself, because why can't I just be done with it? Like when Frodo's laying on the mountain at the very end, and he tells Sam, "There's nothing, no veil between me and the ring of fire!" (To which my dad starts singing, "I fell into a burning ring of fire..." Kind of a mood ruiner.) And Sam says, "Then let us be rid of it, once and for all!" Sometimes I think, "Let me be RID of IT!" I think about Smeagol's argument with Gollum, and how, when Gollum finally left, Smeagol bounced around shouting, "Smeagol is FREE!" How much I would love to raise my arms in victory and say, "I'm FREE!"
But. The third or fourth time I saw The Return of the King in theaters (I'm telling you, I'm a maniac), just as Frodo is standing on the edge of Mount Doom with the Ring, the woman behind me said in aggravation, "What are you waiting for?" Then Sam shouts at Frodo, "What are you waiting for?" And Frodo, who has been completely taken over by the thing, slips it on his finger, saying, "The Ring is mine."
I have this burden, this sin, this hurt, this desire, whatever it is, in ring-form hanging around my neck. And I want so badly to "cast it into the fiery chasm from whence it came," but I also don't want to let it go. I want to be rid of it, I want to be free, and the audience is shouting, "What are you waiting for?" Why can't I just let go? What hold does it have over me? How can I still be holding onto something so destructive, so oppressive, so hurtful?
Sometimes I wish someone could rip it from me, just take it and throw it away. I often wondered why Elrond didn't just push Isildur in the fire himself when he had the chance. Or Sam could've pushed Frodo in. Or someone could've pushed someone into something JUST TO END IT ALL.
But Frodo had to do it. It was his burden. No one could've done it for him. But you know what I love about that? He had people with him, beside him, for him. In Sam, who carried him up the mountain. In Galadriel, who appeared to him in a vision and offered him a hand to lift himself up. In Aragorn, who fought battles to protect Frodo and enable him to succeed.
And you know what? Frodo did succeed. Gollum had to bite off his finger, and he was almost swallowed by lava, but in the end, he's rid of it. In his own words, "It's done. It's over."

Wow. What does this mean? Did you even read all that? Sometimes analogies make situations really clear and understandable to me...but they don't make dealing with the situation any easier. If anyone had told Frodo, "Hey, bearing the One Ring is kind of like..." I'm not sure he would've said, "Oh, in that case - TOSS - all done. Who's hungry?"

I just want to keep all my fingers.