August 31, 2014

Tonight I held a Dilly Bar in my right hand and walked barefoot on the green grass of my front yard and felt the sun on my shoulders. I was young again and wild, too.

Dear Cheesus, I'm sorry. (Like Nacho Libre would say)

I guess it all has to come back to Jesus.

All of the excitement and energy and romantic parts of life are fleeting if not rooted, right?

In the last month I have:

1. Been in 7 airports
2. Thrown my body into the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean
3. Trekked through the jungle
4. Floated for hours on my back while I sang sweet songs to Heaven
5. Camped in the back of a van (with the hatch up, what what) in a parking lot before my friend's nuptial celebration
6. Ate a s'more!
7. Slept on a sailboat

That's my view when I looked up from my bed on the sailboat!

8. Faced my fear of tiny, clustered holes (SWEET LAWD, WHY?!)
9. Been so swooooooooned by a boy that I spontaneously (...nervously) broke into Sunday School songs at the sight of him
10. Rested my chin on the skin of good friends, faithful and funny

I've been a part of some good, good moments. And I'm grateful, but I'm also ungrateful.

Only the trained eye can tell how impressive of a dance move I'm in the middle of.

Because I sit here now on my bed in Georgia and those ten events seem far away, and I'm doing countless internet searches for the next "thing". And upon not finding it, I reached into a bag of Ketchup chips and hardly returned.

After the adventure, I'm first: exhausted, second: happy for my own space, third: restless like a pit bull in a dance class, fourth: defeated like a mouse with no cheese.

WHERE IS MY CHEESE?

My cheese is Jesus.

Sadly, I forget this all the time. When I get those impatient hunger pangs (read: What is my life?!) I move swiftly towards the cheap stuff wrapped in thin little plastic sheets or the expensive kinds-wheel shaped and on woodblocks. Nom, nom, gone. But it won't feed the gnawing inside me for purpose and acceptance. The cheese stands alone, guys! No career or accolade or french kiss at the beach can cut it. (Heh.)

There's gold in them hills. Golden apples.

Before I reach for something, I must stand still with palms to the sky and a prayer of remembrance on my tongue. It's a lesson I have to re-learn, probably repeatedly until I die and my finite mind is opened and his wonderful light is poured out on me like a laser beam. (Does anyone else get an 80s visual when I say this?) Until then, we must remind ourselves.

Papa in Heaven,

Help me to not take greatest pleasure in what I can accomplish and appreciate here. You are my greatest pleasure! 

May my gaze be directed upwards, and as it is so, may your glory enhance whatever is here before me.

July 5, 2014

It has to be the small instances that make a trip, a life, measurable. For I don't believe I cured any disease while in Brazil, or put an end to sex trafficking, or even saw the conversion of one person. 

There were no remarkable happenings that lead to victorious chanting (unless you count the final seconds of dozens of soccer games, and why yes, please do count them). 

But there were glimmers of fear and anticipation in a pair of eyeballs belonging to a girl sitting next to me at dinner when I told her not to hide herself. There were waves upon murderous waves that washed up along the imprinted shore, reaching, and took back with them a left-footed sandal and erased all the places our feet had been; God's beauty and power (and mercy) revealed to us perched on a rock just out of the splash zone. There was a song I sang in church meant for one girl who began a new life; the promises of God being poured over her head at her baptism. 

I had no way of knowing the stream of righteousness God lay before me, as I know not now what lays before me. Life is always in the little, in the moment. Not what you can plan, but who you are.

Who you are is small. And what you will do is small. And that is what this world needs desperately.

BRAZIL NEEDS ME (well, no) AND I NEED YOU (but, yes).

Blue Plate Special

All the world is art, if you're willing to see it that way.

This is the crumb-laden plate from yesterday's open face sandwich, but I don't know-the way the sky's light hit it, it felt like a creation. Beautiful in its own right.

I especially like the grains of salt that fell from the crinkle cut chips I ate. 

May we stop and see the art where it is tucked into our lives, begging to be noticed.

Church Over Eggs

About the twelfth day.

We ate breakfast around the kitchen island on high stools and talked about the direction of the organization we work for and low carb diets. It had Jesus written all over it.

Community.

It's what the Kingdom is about - all of us together. We're a package deal.

A most refreshing and holy Sunday service.

How Jesus Used Pinto Beans to Tell Me Something

The seventh day. 

The art of cooking pinto beans has escaped me until this day. I mean, I've witnessed them being cooked countless times and I've mashed them in the frying pan enough to know I like them smooth as butter. But before today I'd never sorted through the pile of beans and known what to do next. 

I had to text my mom. 

It would be four hours of high heat in the crock pot before they would be ready for mashing. 

I should have known this, but I didn't. I've gobbled up pinto beans since I was a little bean myself. But now, as a 23 year old woman in my community house kitchen, I obliged myself to my mother's instructions. 

Lord knows I've been resting - with him, from him. It's been an interesting time. 

I've sat in my nook and sang all kinds of sultry songs to a lover in the sky. I've sat in a corner booth at a neighbourhood restaurant and eaten a burger while imagining I was looking Jesus Christ in the eyes while he sat across the table from me. 

On that very occasion, I told him I wanted to be a vessel. I wanted to do all of this for him. 

"And you thought you would never work for someone else again." 

Ugh. How glaringly wrong of me to assume that once I was done in an office, it would be my show. 

I've slept in and slept through some of our promised meetings. It's caused me grief, but it's never left me feeling like I shouldn't re-schedule. He's been available to me every time, whether planned in advance (burgers) or spontaneous (hallelujah singing in my nook). 

I don't know what I'm doing really, but I know there's something to this meeting. This pausing. 

I was feeling overwhelmed today at the office, wondering why I'm here of all places and how it helps anything, when I decided to pause. I took a walk up the thigh maddening hill to repent. 

"I'm sorry that I'm dissatisfied. I'm so sorry that I get dissatisfied so easily. I will be satisfied in you."

Something simple. A walk up a hill and back again.

I'm still vastly unaware of what is going on and how I can solve myself. It's unimportant, mostly. But that walk up the hill, the moment of acknowledgement and surrender, that's what mattered today. The puzzle will always be there, much to the annoyance of my peevish soul. 

But like pinto beans, worry has surrounded me my whole life but I didn't know what to do with it. But today I stopped - to acknowledge that I could use some help, that I didn't know what I was doing. 

My mom recommended a crock pot, some water and salt. My Heavenly Father recommended some sweet time together. It's pretty much the only answer he has for me these days. 

When you find yourself sunk into more than you know how to get yourself out of, don't scramble. Pause.