camping.

Let’s talk about camping.  I went this weekend.  It lit up my soul.  But I came to some realizations about myself and how I’ve changed over the past…while.

Here’s how I used to see myself as a camper:

• Light-packer.  If it’s not absolutely necessary, it doesn’t come with me to the wild.
• Do-it-myself-er.  Thanks for coming everyone, but I’ve got this.  I will find a good spot, eat my Clif Bar for dinner, choose the best hiking trails, and make sure I accomplish everything that needs to happen to allow me to have plenty of stories at the end.
• “Camping is not about rest”-er.  If we’re not doing the hardest hike in the area, then it must mean we’re slackers.  Why would you NOT want to see the parts of this park that not many people (i.e., slackers) get to see because it’s too hard to get there?  Stay up late, soaking up smoke around the fire, and get up early to make sure we don’t miss any of the sunrise.
• Loner.  Neighbors are a nuisance.  End of story.

So I’ve changed a little bit since whenever.  I went to Krause (say the ‘e’–like krauw-zy) Springs, about 30 minutes west of Austin, this weekend with my roommate, Mary, and her brother John.  Here’s what I’ve turned into, for better or worse:

• Cover-all-the-bases-er.  I brought my work out stuff in case I got a chance, some nice clothes in case I couldn’t go home before I needed to look decent, a change of camping clothes, some books, and, yes, I did bring make-up.  Can you even believe it. (For your information, I used everything except the change of camping clothes.)
• Grateful receiver.  I got there after work and Mary and John had set up the tents, strung a hammock between two trees, put out three chairs for us, and packed a rockin’ ice chest, complete with ready-to-go hobo dinners (which Mary had spent the day slicing and seasoning…after she cleaned our apartment to a state of spotless beauty), s’mores fixings, pears, cookies, and chips and salsa.  No, I’m not kidding you.  And they built the fire while I watched.  I did light the match.
• Slacker.  We took one walk down to a magical waterfall.  The rest of the time, we sat around the campfire and flapped our jaws.  Gloriously.  It felt so good.  We just…enjoyed.  I think I missed out on the majority of Krause Springs, but, honestly, I don’t even care.
• Neighbor.  To the most amazing dads-and-sons foursome next to us, who happened to be ISRAELI.  The boys, Itay (pronounced E-tie) and Jonathan, were five, and they were the most precious friends I’ve made in a while.  I sat there in my camp chair while the prowled around “looking for danger” (their words, not mine).  We saw a coon, which I watched from my camp chair while they freaked out, until they saw it “scamper away” (again, a direct quote).  They were so thrilled just to be out, even though Itay admitted he was tired and his “shoulder was the tiredest.”  Poor little guy.

Enchanted Rock is next on our list of places to go.  I’ll probably hike a little more then.  But only if there’s plenty of time afterward to enjoy the fire that someone else builds.

things i love about my life.

Let me preface this by saying that it has been a hard week.  That’s all I’ll say on that.  Or is it?  Can you relate to feeling caught between a rock and hard place who are both crying out for you to make them happy?  And can you relate to feeling that every drop of glamour, excitement, and idealism has drained out of your life?  Can you relate to hating bureaucracy and getting paid to wade through it with no shore in sight…not even a sand bar.

Well, I had a better day.  I sort of got some breakthrough today, even.  And as I was walking to take the trash out after my run, I felt absolutely exhilarated (thank You, Lord, for endorphins).  I started to think about things I love about my life:

• I am never in a hurry anymore.  Want to have coffee with me?  I’ll give you my whole evening.
• I can run without feeling competitive, driven, or guilty (for not going farther/faster).  I just run for fun.
• The glorious people who care for me and I for them.  It means more than I ever thought it could for someone to hear me and take it to heart and tell me their hearts in a way that shows trust.
• Sitting on my couch in the morning with the most incredible Man Who takes care of me and speaks life to my soul and goes with me to my office every day.
• The emails that appear in my inbox every couple of weeks from someone I so love being friends with.
• The gentle rhythms of my days and weeks, like the waves.  If I let them, they get monotonous.  But if I look beyond them, into the deep ways of the Mastermind, they are so beautiful.

banana, maple, peanut butter cupcakes.

that’s what i made tonight with mary, my wonderful (truly delightful) roommate.  you should have the recipe.  the cupcakes were banana maple and the frosting was a thick, peanut butter thing that turned more into caramel than anything.  we used what we had.  and it was amazing!  a delicious splurge on a monday night.

 

 

and i am happy.  laughter is so close to the surface these days.

vineyards in a wilderness.

I’m in the waiting stage.  I’ve tried to jump ahead and push my way through multiple times…

• searching for a place to live
• thinking i found the place to live and practically signing the lease
• wishing i was dating
• running headlong into yet another situation of unavailability (I’m going to learn one day not to like someone who’s in another state, not ready to date, or already dating…I really am)
• wanting things and thinking about it a lot…realignment of my wheels on my car, heels for work, a ticket to LA to see Rachel, a new computer, books about project management…but not having a paycheck yet

 

But the Lord is clearly speaking that He’s allured me into the wilderness and He wants me to just

 

WAIT.

 

No more pushing ahead with my own agenda.  Just wait for His surprises!  He wants me all to Himself right now.  He wants me for His pleasure.  And I want to be His resting place, the one He looks to when His eyes are searching for someone loyal.  I don’t want to be the grumbling girl.  But sometimes I just feel like

• fingerpainting angry colors
• getting in my car and driving fast
• and not caring that I might as well be setting hundred dollar bills on fire.

 

…waiting…

river.

My prayer room today was a river.  I dare you not to sing another song about the river of God until you’ve gone swimming in a river.  There’s something about the current of a river that will wash your soul into a place of peace that is much more than my puny rhetoric.  Try it.

 

I went for a long, hot walk and then just jumped in the Brazos River behind my mom’s house.  Despite all the silt and sticks, it felt clean.  I laid on my back and my Chacos made my feet float and before I knew it, the current had carried me farther than I meant it to.  I stood up, but the river pushed and prodded me, trying to sweep me off my feet again.  I started thrashing my way back to my entry point, but made no progress.  The river was insistent that I go where it wanted me to.  I swam against it with all my might for what seemed like forever, and then I took a break and stood up again.  The water was only up to mid-calf.  I laughed–so did He–and spent the rest of the afternoon stomping upstream and then floating back down over and over.  I could only sit still if I dug in my feet.  And even then, crouched underwater, I would find my arms floating into the current, pulled by the river toward a destination it was sure they would want to go toward, also.

 

I’ll let you draw all the parallels.  For me, they were profound.  I felt like Jesus was flirting with me.  Don’t get weirded out.  If you had heard the fish jump that I heard, and turned and seen nothing there, you would have felt flirted with, too.

 

 

 

radical.

Reading through Paul’s letters to the churches—that Paul who was the least of the apostles but was called as a minister of the Gospel to make known the great grace also given to him—I am struck by the notable absence of direction concerning  things that take up real time. The battlefield is the mind and heart. It isn’t flesh and blood against which we war. There is little to no direction from Paul or any of the other writers of the New Testament about what we are to do. Their instructions are directed toward who we are to be.

All the exhortations and the high calling of our faith, all the promises and every mystery of God and godliness, can be and must be applied to any sector of society and every occupation within which we find ourselves, whether through our pursuit of God-given passions or the necessity and proactivity of our circumstances. A humanistic viewpoint might assert that we all have to spend our wearisome days doing something to keep us fed and clothed and respectable, and so we might as well do something we enjoy. That sounds a lot like Ecclesiastes, too. Find meaning in your work: but to do that you must kick it into gear yourself and get yours, because no one else cares. There isn’t anyone who’s going to promote you unless it’s you.

And then we encounter our Shepherd. We look up and find there’s a Lover inviting us to a banqueting table. Somehow, some way as we try to catch up with the story that seems like it’s many chapters ahead of us (and we’re dyslexic), the Storyteller Himself smiles up at us through an unlikely Word. He meets us at the kitchen sink, in a puddle of our own tears, or in the wishy-washiness of someone else’s heart breaking ours. He says, It’s okay. I’m here. That’s what He always says. I’ve got you now. I always have. With a Voice that sounds surprisingly like home, He calls our hearts and says, I made you. I delight in the way I made you. I don’t want you to be like this other person. Be you. Let Me love you. And love Me as yourself, fully yourself.

For example, I have a strange love of farming. I don’t know what to do with it. But I love it. For me, there is nothing like being outside under the blazing sun planting seeds, pulling weeds, watering by hand with an unruly hose, and pulling gorgeous, organic squash off the vine. There is no literature more delightful to me than landscaping books full of fresh ideas or books about new methods of bringing sustainable agriculture to Africa. I love the smell of a greenhouse.

I could try to convince my heart that this seed of joy must die and be pounded into the ground and I could go get a job as an accountant. And my friends with expensive accounting degrees that inexplicably love numbers and find the order of perfectly balanced books exhilarating could pound their gifts into the ground. They have to try hard not to shake their fingers at a harsh taskmaster that makes them go into the fields and live the simple life. But what is drudgery to them is almost-guilty pleasure to me.

On a more pointed note, I could try to convince myself that the spiritual, pleasing thing to do—the high calling—is to raise support and spend my days in an auditorium, praying ceaselessly and going into the depths of the unsearchable scripture. It seems so indisputable, that I would find favor with God if I gave up all my loves and personality and relationships to seek Him fulltime. I will do it, if He says it. There is an ache in my heart to be the heroine of my life, and if the heroine is an intercessory missionary, then that’s who I want to be. But, somehow, the more I get to know Him, the less I believe all the mantras I’ve heard so long about “giving up my life” to serve God. However all those preachers meant it, I interpreted this circumstantially.

What it means, I’m beginning to be convinced, is my flesh, my sin nature, and all that which is opposed to God. I have loved sin. I have hated what He loves. So have you. And our struggle is to die to that natural inclination and become vivaciously alive to the Spirit of God living inside us, working mightily within us to will and do His good pleasure. In that way, oh, how I want to give up my own ideas of life to serve this beautiful One who became the Servant of all! Then the radical lifestyle of prayer, fasting, giving, and serving becomes a flow, a true river springing from a pure heart. ‘Radical’ ceases to be boxed-in as a synonym for ‘full-time minister,’ whether that means youth pastor, intercessor, worship leader, or missionary. ‘Radical’ is defined by the interior life, the core beliefs of the heart and the communion with God that takes place where no one else has entrance.

rain love.

I woke up this morning to thunder.  I grabbed my phone to see how much of the day I had missed…and was thrilled to find out I’d missed more than usual. 

 I haven’t accomplished anything very interesting today.  [It's my day off.]

• i ate roast beef au jus.
• i ran across a busy street in the rain.
• i laughed at my sister.
• i got bad news about my dog.
• i wasted time looking at random blogs.
• i bought something purple.

Now, I’m at my new favorite coffee shop with my sweet roommate, Carolyn.  She’s reading Rewards of Fasting, which is due in three days.  [I've read two chapters.]  I’m soaking in the aura of high ceilings, exposed brick walls, red hardwood floors, fireplace, random music mix, leather couch, and quiet murmurs of people telling stories about homemade cheese, Rush Limbaugh, and St. Patrick’s Day adventures.  Out my window, little tables and chairs are dripping wet and cars are slushing through shiny streets. 

Thirty more minutes of delicious free time. 

I need to go change shoes.

arrival.

I finished my very last final of my undergraduate career today at 4:49 pm.  I walked out of the Baylor Science Building and felt like a fresh breeze blew through my rib cage.  I laughed, and smiled at unsuspecting victims of sleep deprivation on the sidewalk.  I ran across the street in the face of a red hand on the pedestrian screen…when I should have waited for a green man to signal safety…and a car almost plowed me down.  How ironic would that have been, to finish school after four and a half years, and then get hit by a car. 

 I thought the other day about whether or not it would be possible for me to die right now.  I feel so clearly that God has called me to Kansas City to do the One Thing Internship that I just can’t picture Him letting anything happen to me.  I don’t think I’ve ever felt this fearless and invincible.

emotions.

I’m sitting in my mom’s kitchen; Sarah and Michael and I are out for Sunday lunch.  Mom’s preheating the oven for some cinnamon-sugar shortbread she’s about to bake to have with tea.  We just got back from a walk around the circle out here and it felt so fallish.  One of Mom’s neighbors keeps a couple of horses on a few acres and along the fence, mustang grapevines were loaded with waxy black grapes.  I picked a few and split the skin with my teeth then chewed the slippery flesh and acidic seeds together.  Yum!

I feel quiet in my spirit, like after a long cry.  I’m nodding and smiling at the right moments these days (Sarah commenting on an “acorn squash and honey pie” in the Martha Stewart cookbook she’s looking through), but I just don’t feel like sharing the whole me…I spend so much energy just trying to sort through it all myself, that to communicate it and try to make someone else understand feels too heavy.  Sometimes, someone else says something and the deep part of me reverberates.  That happened last night with an almost-stranger and I felt lighter and chattery.  But I feel like the wilderness of my thoughts and feelings–what am I going to do with my life? how am I supposed to respond to these people, that situation, those emotions? how do I find more of God?–isn’t meant to be explored with a busful of curious tourists.  I have to backpack it, with just enough provisions.